Pat Speer

I've seen it spelled both ways, but it's spelled Gray in Bowles' book, so I'll go with that. Thanks.

Thanks, Steve. Lumpkin was in part the inspiration behind my recent interest in Grey. In re-reading the quotes I attribute to Lumpkin on my website, I realized that my conclusion he was erratic was based in large part on my assumption Lumpkin was Officer B in Bowles' book. But what if this was Grey? I don't have Bowles' book handy. (It was published as an appendix to First Day Evidence.) Is there anything in Bowles' book to suggest Officer B was Lumpkin, and not Grey? Was Grey even alive in the 80's? P.S. I just re-read Officer B's statements and it's clear he's Lumpkin, as he was photographed by Mary Moorman.

Thanks, Gary. In looking for anything on Grey, I did find a Jim Murray photo of him on the right of the shooting, talking with Jim Chaney. But that's about it.

In looking back through my website I suddenly realized something about Willis 6: there is an unidentified man getting into a station wagon. At the time I'd added the photo I had probably assumed this person was either Julian Read, Connally's Press Secretary (who is listed as an occupant of the vehicle in Todd Wayne Vaughan's book) or Lem Johns, who had jumped from LBJ's back-up car and looked around and then jumped back into a car in the motorcade. But from reading Read's subsequent statements, I realized that he was actually riding in the press bus. And Johns? Well, it appears he jumped into one of the Camera cars, presumably Camera Car #1. So who the heck was riding in the back seat of the station wagon holding Gen.s McHugh and Clifton? And, if no one, well, then, who jumped into the station wagon while it was across from the knoll? Any ideas?

When you watch the film you see the head jerk. So the headshot is on the film. Now, whether you match that frame up with 313 or 314 whatever, it really doesn't matter. The fact is that Hickey is not standing up at the time of the head shot.

In reviewing my materials on the lead car, I realized that I have no quotes whatsoever from Leon E. Grey, one of the three motorcyclists out in front of the lead car, along with Stavis Ellis and William Lumpkin. Does anyone know anything about him? Was he ever interviewed? While he was pretty far away, and probably didn't see anything, I find it surprising that I can find no quotes from him. Any help appreciated.

Is or is not the head shot visible in Bronson?

I am fairly certain that any reference on my website to the Malcolm Blunt Archives is a reference to the materials Malcolm provided Bart so he could put them online. IOW, if you're looking for the original of something I mention as coming from the Malcolm Blunt Archives, you can probably find it on the Dealey Plaza UK website, where Malcolm's materials can be accessed. P.S. I'm sorry if that sounded vague. Perhaps some backstory is needed. There is not now, nor has there ever been, a Malcolm Blunt Archives, as an Archives is normally understood. That is, there was no place you could go and talk to a librarian and have her retrieve something, or whatever. What there was was dozens of boxes filled with papers that Malcolm had collected over the years from his many trips to the archives, plus some boxes of videotapes he'd collected and so on. At a certain point he realized he needed to do something with this stuff before he got too old and it all ended up in the trash. So, if memory serves, he donated his materials to the Assassination Archives and Research Center, which in turn hired Bart, for a nominal fee, to scan and place it online. Now I could be wrong. Perhaps he gave it to Dealey Plaza UK and they asked the AARC to chip in or something. But the bottom line is that Malcolm's papers were made available to us all through a group effort. And that is to be commended. This brings up another point. While much is made of the government's concealing records, and the likes of CBS and NBC hoarding their materials, one rarely hears any appreciation expressed for those who have devoted their time and money to sharing materials. For example, Rex Bradford. I'd bet half the people on this website have no idea who he is, and yet he is the creator of both the History Matters and Mary Ferrell Foundation websites, and has overseen the scanning and uploading of millions of pages of records. Or what about Oliver Curme, who gave Mary Ferrell a cool million for her collection and then turned around and hired Rex to put it up online? I mean, how many people even know his name? Or what about the people at Hood College, such as Clay Ogilvie, who scanned Harold Weisberg's archives and put them online? None of these people had to do these things. And yet they did. Because they thought it was the right thing to do, IMO.

Here are the quotes I've collected from the passengers of the lead car. From chapter 6 at patspeer.com: Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry drove the small white lead car in the motorcade. (11-24-63 article by Donald Jansen in the New York Times) "The chief was riding in a car 40 feet ahead of the limousine carrying Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy and Gov. and Mrs. John B. Connally Jr. of Texas. The Motorcade was on its way to the Trade Mart where the President was to have spoken at a lunch. Chief Curry said he could tell from the sound of the three shots that they had come from the book company building, near downtown Dallas." (undated report found in a 12-18-63 report of the Secret Service, CD3 p 55) "As I recall, we were about half-way between Houston and the Triple Underpass when I heard a sharp crack. Someone said: 'Is that a firecracker?' After this remark, I remember hearing two other sharp reports. All of these reports were fairly close together. There was perhaps a longer pause between the first and second reports than between the second and third. At this time I glanced into my rear view mirror and could see a commotion in the President's car which I believe was about 100 feet behind our car at this time." (4-22-64 testimony before the Warren Commission, 4H150-202) “I was riding in a Presidential parade and approximately a hundred feet, I guess, ahead of the President’s car, and when we heard this first report, I couldn’t tell where it was coming from...We were just approaching an underpass…from the report I couldn’t tell whether it was coming from the railroad yard or whether it was coming from behind...we heard this report…we were perhaps a couple of hundred feet or so (down Elm)…(when asked how far ahead of the Presidential vehicle he was) “to the best of my knowledge it would have been 100, 125 feet” (when asked where the President’s car was at the time of the first shot) “I would say it was approximately halfway between Houston Street and the underpass, which would be, I would say probably 125- 150 feet west of Houston Street…(when asked how far it had gone by the time of the second shot) “perhaps 25 or 30 feet further along” (and the third shot) “A few feet further, perhaps 15-20 feet further” (when asked the duration of the shots) “perhaps 5 or 6 seconds…I heard three shots. I will never forget it.” (9-25-64 interview with William Manchester, as represented in The Death of a President, 1967) (On the first shot) "Curry was under the impression that someone had fired a railroad torpedo." (8-18-69 interview with Johnson Library) "The Secret Service man had a radio but it didn't seem to be working too well at the time. He had been talking to some of the agents in the cars behind him, but it was a little portable machine. When I heard the shots and looked back in the rear view mirror I could see commotion in the President's car. About that time a motorcycle also pulled over, and I asked him what had happened, if someone had been hurt, and he said yes. I told him, "Take us to Parkland Hospital." (Curry's description of the shots in his book, JFK Assassination File, published 1969) "About half-way between Houston and the triple-underpass I heard a sharp crack. Someone in the car said, 'Is that a firecracker?' Two other sharp reports came almost directly after the first. All of the reports were fairly close together, but perhaps there was a longer pause between the first and second than between the second and third. The President's car was only about 100 feet behind our car at that moment. I glanced into my rear view mirror and could see the commotion in the President's car. Everyone was confused." (9-5-75 FBI report) “Lt. Jack Revill of Dallas Police Department told SA Brown that he had recently been contacted by former Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry who told him he still has the impression that two men were involved in the shooting of President Kennedy.” (2-6-77 UPI article found in the Valley News) "Reflecting on the fateful day which changed his life, Curry says, "The first shot sounded like a firecracker or a railroad torpedo. When the second and third shots came, I was sure it was rifle fire." Winston Lawson (11-23-63 report, 17H628-629) “It was about the time our car was arriving at this bridge that I heard the first shot. I believe I heard two more sharp reports and looking back saw people scurrying away from the route, as though they were taking cover. Almost immediately the President’s car leaped ahead.” (12-1-63 statement, 17H630-634) “As the lead car was passing under this bridge I heard the first loud, sharp report and in rapid succession two more sounds like gunfire. I could see persons to the left of the motorcade vehicles running away.” (4-23-64 testimony before the Warren Commission, 4H317-358) (when asked how far ahead they were of the limousine) “I think it was a little further ahead than it had been in the motorcade…I heard this very loud report…my first impression was firecracker or bomb or something like that…I can recall spinning around and looking back, and seeing people over on the grassy median kind of area running around and dropping down….I am positive that it came from the rear, and then I spun that way to see what had occurred back there…Then I heard two more sharp reports, the second two were closer together than the first. There was one report, and a pause, then two more reports closer together, two and three were closer together than one and two.” (1-31-78 interview with HSCA investigator, file #180-10074-10396) "As they neared the Triple Overpass, Lawson heard the first shot, which to Lawson sounded like a "firecracker" or "cherry bomb." This was followed by a total of two more shots." (9-5-03 interview with the Sixth Floor Museum) "I believe I was just about to go under the--pretty close to it anyway--the underpass to go out on the Stemmons Freeway sometime a little bit later, and I heard a shot, (makes sound) like that, and then I heard another one (makes sound). And the third one was a little closer to the second one than the first one was to the second one...I thought 'shots'...I thought immediately that it had come from over my right hand shoulder." (11-22-03 article in the Dallas Morning News) “And then came the first shot. Like most witnesses, Win Lawson recalls two more, though puzzled by the quicker pace between the second and third.” (Interview in the Discovery Channel program The Kennedy Detail, first broadcast 12-2-10) (While purportedly discussing the last two shots) "I heard a bang (he then waits about two seconds) bang." (Later in the program, when discussing the number of shots fired) "There were three. They were exactly like that. The third one came closer to the second one than the second one was to the first one. Bang (he waits about three seconds) Bang..Bang (This last bang now comes about a second after the second bang.) They were from back of me over my right shoulder. Nothing went bang in front of me. Nothing went bang from the side of me--the front side of me. That shot came from the school book depository, back over my right hand shoulder." Dallas County Sheriff Bill Decker rode in the back seat of the lead car. (11-22-63 article in the Dallas Times-Herald) "Sheriff Decker said he and Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry were riding in the lead car in the parade about one and a half lengths in front of the President's car. The Sheriff said he heard two shots and 'may have seen one of the bullets hit the concrete and bounce.' He said he did not see the other bullet. 'It all happened so fast, I'm just not sure what happened,' Sheriff Decker said." (Undated 1963-1964 statement included with Decker Exhibit 5323, 19H458) “I distinctly remember hearing 2 shots. As I heard the first retort, I looked back over my shoulder and saw what appeared to be a spray of water come out of the rear seat of the President’s car. At this same moment, Mr. Lawson said, “Let’s get out of here and get to the nearest hospital.” When I heard the shots I noted motorcycle officers coming off their cycles and running up the embankment on Dealey Plaza.” (Undated report found in a 12-18-63 Secret Service report, CD3 p56) "I was in the lead car with Chief of Police Jesse Curry...SA Lawson made the statement that were just about on time...At about the time of that conversation there were two shots that I heard. There were three shots fired but I do not remember hearing one of them." Forrest Sorrels (11-28-63 statement, 21H548) “When we were at a point approximately three fourths of the distance between the Houston and Elm Street intersections and the first underpass, I heard what sounded like a rifle shot and said “What’s that?”, as I turned to my right to look back in the direction of the terrace and the Texas School Book Depository. When I heard two more shots, I said “let’s get out of here”. I looked towards the top of the terrace to my right as the sound of the shots seemed to come from that direction. I noted that the President’s car had excelerated its speed and was fast closing the gap between us.” (5-7-64 testimony before the Warren Commission, 7H332-360) “I looked back to see how close the President’s car was in making the turn…we were probably, oh, I would say, several car lengths ahead of it...so they called on the radio to the Trade Mart that we were about five minutes away. And it seemed like almost instantly after that the first shot was heard…I just said “What’s that?” And turned around to look up on this terrace part there, because the sound sounded like it came from the back and up in that direction…Within about 3 seconds, there were two more similar reports. And I said “Let’s get out of here” and looked back all the way back to where the President’s car was, and I noticed some confusion, movement there, and the car just seemed to lurch forward.” (8-26-64 and 9-24-64 interviews with William Manchester, as represented in The Death of a President, 1967) (On the first shot) "Most of the hunters in the motorcade--Sorrels, Connally, Yarborough, Gonzalez, Albert Thomas--instinctively identified it as rifle fire." (Notes of an HSCA investigator on a 3-15-78 interview with Sorrels, as found in the Malcolm Blunt Archives) "Shots sounded like gunfire. Didn't sound like came from bldg but from North slope of Elm. Heard 3 shots all tog"

I'm still trying to understand your conclusions. The Hickey did it argument is built upon the cowlick entrance (which your argument involving the x-rays suggests did not exist) and the explosion from the top of the head (which your argument involving the x-rays suggests failed to occur). So why would you--who does not support the SBT, and who does not support the head wound trajectories presented by Donahue--embrace the Hickey did it argument? Call me curious.

That's bizarre. This is happened before. I have added an image to a post, and double checked it minutes later and saw that it was there. And then noticed hours later that it it was no longer accessible. In any event, I gave it another go.

You are correct in that no way in heck did the limo stop on the on-ramp. My understanding of the story was that the limo raced past Curry and he wasn't sure what happened. And that Chaney caught up to him on the on-ramp and told him for a fact that the President was shot, and that Chaney, along with Jackson and I believe Martin then raced on up ahead and led the limo to Parkland. To my understanding this exchange between Chaney and Curry took but a few seconds. (I don't think they even stopped.) But if you have exact quotes from Mack claiming the limo came to a dead stop, and exact quotes from Curry claiming they stopped before they even reached the underpass, now that would be interesting. (I'm not sure this would even make sense seeing as Curry was already past the grassy knoll when the shots rang out and but a few seconds from the railroad bridge." The thought occurs that some witnesses used words like "plaza" and people assumed this meant east of the railroad bridge, while they may have meant east of the freeway. This kind of imprecision is evident all throughout this case. Such as when people say "occipital" or "firecracker."

From Patspeer.com, Chapter 6:

The seat was that short. I'm fairly certain that if you look at the Croft photo taken at 160 or so you can see that Nellie Connally's armpit was above the seat, as well as her husband's.

FWIW, I am fairly certain it's been shown that Chaney caught up with the lead car on the Stemmons Freeway on-ramp. He most certainly did not catch up before the lead car reached the overpass.

Important context in bold.

Dr. Jones does not believe the photos were faked. He isn't even a conspiracy theorist. From Chapter 18c: Dr. Ronald Jones, as Peters, has claimed many times over the years that the wound was on the back of Kennedy's head. In the photo in Groden's book, however, he points to a wound location slightly to the side of the wound on the "McClelland" drawing. In 1992, even stranger, he described the wound as a "side wound." In 1997, in a letter to researcher Francois Carlier, Jones tried to explain his confusion; he insisted that although he observed a wound on the "posterior aspect of the skull," he was "unable to observe the exact extent or dimensions of this wound" because of his "position at the table on the left side of the President below his arm" while the President was lying "flat on his back." When interviewed by the ARRB in 1998, for what's worse, he offered more excuses, insisting "it was difficult to see down through the hair," and admitting "All my view was from the President's left side." He then clarified this position to researcher Vincent Palamara, first admitting that he really didn't have "a clear view of the back side of the head wound. President Kennedy had very thick dark hair that covered the injured area" and then offering "In my opinion it was in the occipital area in the back of the head." He had thereby confirmed that he'd failed to see the large hole missing scalp and bone depicted in the "McClelland"drawing. From Chapter 18d: When Dr. Ronald Jones testified on 3-24-64 he said Kennedy had "a large wound in the right posterior side of the head" and then further described "There was a large defect in the back side of the head as the President lay on the cart with what appeared to be some brain hanging out of this wound with multiple pieces of skull noted next with the brain and with a tremendous amount of clot and blood." He later discussed "what appeared to be an exit wound in the posterior portion of the skull." . As discussed, Jones would later defer to the accuracy of the autopsy photos, and tell the ARRB that "it was difficult to see down through the hair." He then clarified his position to researcher Vincent Palamara, first admitting that he really didn't have "a clear view of the back side of the head wound. President Kennedy had very thick dark hair that covered the injured area" and then offering "In my opinion it was in the occipital area in the back of the head." And should that not make his position clear, one should view this 9-24-13 interview of McClelland and Jones, in which Jones counters Dr. McClelland's claim the head shot came from the front, and cites the studies of Dr. John Lattimer as evidence the shot actually came from behind. He also pushes that the back wound was an entrance for a bullet exiting the throat. Dr. Jones is not a "back-of-the-head witness," nor is he a conspiracy theorist.

Hogwash. You can insult me all day long if it makes you feel better. But it doesn't change the fact that you are flat-out wrong when you claim they "mostly" placed it behind the ear. And you know this. We've been through this before. Here are the 18 witnesses presented in Groden's book in support of his claim there was a gaping hole on the occipital bone. How many of them point to a location at or below the ear? 5. And 2 of those were pointing to the rear-most part of a giant defect that they saw at Bethesda, undoubtedly after the brain was removed. That means that but 3 of the 16 witnesses presented by Groden to the head wound actually support the accuracy of the McClelland drawing. And one of these was Riebe, who deferred to the authenticity of the autopsy photos once shown the originals, and who took a set of photos that are consistent with the originals. And who were the other two? Crenshaw and Bell. Both of whom have credibility issues. But that's fine. Let's pretend they are credible. That's still but 2 of 16. 2 of 16 is not "mostly."

I think Mantik was humoring you. He has written numerous articles and books on the x-rays, and his conclusions run counter to your conclusions. He claims, for example, that the OD readings on the lateral x-ray prove there was a hole in the occipital bone. Well, think about it. In your theory, this hole would be on the front of the head, and not on the occipital bone. And his OD readings would be pointless. So, no, I don't buy for a second that he supports your conclusions. I'm sorry if that sounds rude. But I have been in this world for 20 years now. I have been to and spoken at numerous conventions, and have met most of those considered to be prominent researchers. And they just don't toss aside their research because someone sends them an email proposing a new theory. It doesn't even matter if you're right. That's just not how it works. Now, if you really want to continue on this trail, you're gonna need to show how the un-enhanced x-ray could be flipped around, whereby the white patch is now at the front, and then overlay this onto the pre-mortem x-ray in a way that makes sense. I mean, that is what what you're saying, right? That the un-enhanced x-ray has been reversed and then superimposed onto the pre-mortem x-ray to create the enhanced x-ray. I have spent a lot of time with these images and I don't see how this could be. But if you created some visual aids, maybe your ideas would become clearer to myself and others. Regards.

A defect is not necessarily a hole. It can be a hole, but it can also be a fracture or a malformation. Beyond that, I'm not sure what to say. If you really believe that the unenhanced x-ray has the face on left side, you've got your work cut out for you. A number of radiologists have viewed these x-rays and have never noticed such a thing. Heck, even Dr. Mantik acknowledges that the skull sutures on the x-rays match up with the skull sutures on JFK's pre-mortem x-rays.

Not really. The presumption is that the unenhanced x-ray shows the the face in the lower left corner, which is absurd. It is clearly the back of the head. Another presumption is that the skull in the unenhanced x-ray does not match up with the skull in the enhanced x-ray, which is not true. If one matches it up by the skull fractures, one will find that they do in fact match, but that the enhanced x-ray has been cropped and provides more detail, due to the enhancement.

My impression of the witness statements is that they placed the wound around the location of the word parietal on the image you've posted. My observation--for which I have been vilified, and harassed--is that those claiming the witnesses suggest the occipital bone was blown out of the skull--are being deceptive. It's clear the vast majority of witnesses placed the wound higher than that. And it's also clear the depictions of the wound in the McClelland drawing et al do not depict the bone flap observed and noted by Perry and Baxter. So why not admit as much? I mean, if one is to admit the witnesses placed the wound high on the back of the head, and then conclude based upon the initial claims of some that they saw cerebellum, that these witnesses placed the wound too high, then that would be an honest presentation of the evidence. Possibly incorrect, but honest. But we'e been told by writer after writer that the Parkland witnesses claimed the occipital bone was blown out of the skull, and that their recollections prove there was a hole over the occipital bone--no bone flap or anything, just a hole. And that's just not true.

Well, it was a flap. While laying on his back the flap would have been mostly closed. Perhaps that's why Perry, one of the few Parkland witnesses to actually inspect the wounds, mentioned the flap, while it went mostly unmentioned by others. Dr. Baxter, who was present during Perry's inspection, so to speak, did mention the flap. Here is my take on Baxter. From Chapter 18d: Baxter’s statement is undoubtedly intriguing. If “the rt temporal and occipital bones were missing”, as Baxter claimed, there would be a huge hole on the side and back of Kennedy’s head. Perhaps then, he meant only that parts of the temporal and occipital bones were missing. Baxter's testimony is even more intriguing. When he testified for the Warren Commission, (at a time when no one but no one was talking about the body being altered between Parkland and Bethesda), he testified that he observed a "temporal parietal plate of bone laid outward to the side," and that "the right side of his head had been blown off." He was also asked to read his earlier report into the record. While doing so, however, he read the line "the rt temporal and occipital bones were missing" as the "temporal and parietal bones were missing." This, in effect, moved the wound from the side and back of the skull, to the side and top of the skull. While some might claim he was pressured into doing so by Warren Commission Counsel Arlen Specter, who took his testimony, this is a bit of a stretch seeing as none of the other doctors recalled receiving any similar pressure regarding their own descriptions of the head wound. The probability, then, is that Baxter was inconsistent in his recollections, and "correcting" his earlier statement on his own. If this is so, moreover, he would continue on this winding course from that point onward. In 1992, he is reported to have told writer Gerald Posner that "The wound was on the right side, not the back," and to have told a writer for the Journal of the American Medical Association that he defers to the findings of the autopsy report. Now that would seem to have settled the matter. But he didn't stop there. He also told Tom Jarriel on the news program 20/20 that it was impossible to tell the direction of the bullet from what he observed. And this wasn't the last time he tried to wash his hands of the matter, only to muddy the water. Baxter responded to a letter from single-assassin theorist Francois Carlier in 1997 and once again confused. In response to Carlier's questions about the wounds he wrote "head--occiput--1 x 1/2 cm--skull detached." Well, this makes no sense. A 1 x 1/2 cm hole is a very small hole. It seems likely then that when Baxter wrote "occiput--1 x 1/2 cm" he was describing the supposed entrance wound on the back of the head--a wound unobserved at Parkland. And that when he wrote "skull detached" he was describing the much larger wound found elsewhere on the skull. Adding to this probability--that Baxter was trying to defend the official story--is his response to the follow-up questions. When asked his opinion on where the shots came from he wrote "from the rear." When then asked his response to Dr. Crenshaw's book claiming an exit wound was on the back of the head, and that the doctors were pressured to lie about it, he wrote "fabricated!!" He then confirmed this position by praising single-assassin theorist Gerald Posner's book Case Closed and insisting David Lifton's theory the wounds were altered was "Bull!" He then pulled back a bit. In 1998, while sitting with some of his fellow Parkland witnesses, he told the ARRB that "None of us at that time, I don't think, were in any position to view the head injury. And, in fact, I never saw anything above the scalpline, forehead line, that I could comment on.” My current suspicion is that there were two large flaps, actually. One on the top of the back of the head, that opened up a bit when JFK was on his back. And one by the ear that closed up when he was on his back. As a result of these flaps, those viewing the body at Parkland would perceive the wound as more posterior than those viewing the body at Bethesda. Now, does that explain the Parkland/Bethesda controversy? Not entirely. After Lifton popped up with his body alteration theory, some sought to shoot it down by claiming the wound observed at Parkland was the same as the wound observed at Bethesda, and that the Parkland witnesses were simply mistaken. And others countered that by saying no no no, the wound observed at Parkland was yes indeed the same as the wound observed at Parkland, but the Parkland doctors were correct, and the autopsy photos were fakes and the autopsists were lying about what they saw. And found support for this with some of the statements of the Bethesda witnesses, who described a giant wound including the back of the head. What they missed, however, was that these witnesses were almost certainly describing the wound as observed after the scalp was peeled back and skull fell to the table, and even after the brain was removed. Now, it's funny. JFK researchers are a fickle group, and alliances appear where one would not expect. But on this point, David Lifton and I were in agreement. We agreed that the wound descriptions differed between Parkland and Bethesda. He thought this was because the wound was altered. I thought this was because the body was viewed under different conditions. Will this ever be resolved? It's doubtful.

The word "occipital" is routinely used by doctors to describe the rear part of the head. It does not relate specifically to the occipital bone. So, in stating the wound was parietal-occipital, Perry was stating that the wound was on the top-back of the head. This is not the occipital bone blow-out depicted in the McClelland drawing, or by Mantik and his devotees. The fact that Perry mentioned a flap is further evidence for the authenticity of the photos over the drawings and depictions of researchers, as the drawings do not depict such a flap. So, no, it is not I who has been misrepresenting Perry's statements to support what I want to believe., I WANTED to believe the books and articles of men like Lifton, Groden, and Mantik, etc. But their work just doesn't stand the test of time, and thorough research. IMHO. From chapter 18d: Perry simply describes the large head wound as posterior. Within a few days of the shooting, Dr. Perry was the source for an article by Jimmy Breslin in the New York Herald-Tribune which was not so vague, claiming "The occipito-parietal, which is a part of the back of the head, had a huge flap." This flap, of course, is readily apparent on the autopsy photos but is nowhere to be seen on the "McClelland" drawing purported to represent the wound as seen by Perry. When testifying before the Warren Commission's attorneys on 3-25-64, for that matter, Perry would further describe the wound as being both in the "right posterior parietal area of the head exposing lacerated brain" and as a "large avulsive injury of the right occipitoparietal area." On 3-31-64, when testifying before the Commission itself, he would again describe the wound as "a large avulsive wound of the right parietal occipital area, in which both scalp and portions of skull were absent" with "severe laceration of underlying brain tissue." The wound described was, no surprise, higher on the skull than the wound depicted in the "McClelland" drawing. While Dr. Perry told the HSCA's Andy Purdy in 1978 that "some cerebellum" was seen, moreover, he either changed his mind about this or was referring to what someone else claimed to see, as he was reported to have told Gerald Posner in 1992 that he'd never actually seen cerebellum. In support that he'd actually told Posner such a thing, an article in the 4-5-92 Ft. Worth Star-Telegram had Perry rejecting Dr. Charles Crenshaw's assertion Kennedy was shot from the front, and claiming "There were no wounds at the front of the head at all." It also had Perry claiming that most of the doctors who'd seen Kennedy at Parkland failed to talk much about the shooting not because they'd been silenced, but because it was "a painful experience most of us don't want to relive." This, in turn, led to a 5-27-92 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, in which Dr. Perry further denounced Dr. Crenshaw and his belief Kennedy was shot from the front. This time he went a bit further, however. To counter Crenshaw's claim that his fellow Parkland physicians, including Perry, had participated in a "conspiracy of silence" about Kennedy's wounds, in order to save their careers, Perry responded by saying that, if Dr. Crenshaw had truly felt Kennedy's wounds were evidence of a conspiracy, and had kept his silence for 29 years, then that was "despicable." In 1997, in a letter to single-assassin theorist Francois Carlier, moreover, Perry made his rejection of the conspiracy theorist claim Kennedy's head wound was on the back of the head at Parkland, but on the top of the head at Bethesda, crystal freaking clear. When asked by Carlier if he was familiar with David Lifton's theory the body was kidnapped and altered, Perry responded "I didn't know this--what a joke!" When then asked what he thought of Lifton's theory, he responded "Don't know or care what he says. He wasn't there." And it's not as if Perry was just telling Carlier what he wanted to hear. In 1998, when conspiracy theorist Vincent Palamara similarly pushed Perry for clarification on Kennedy's wounds, Perry wrote him back and insisted he'd made "only a cursory examination of the head" and that both his findings and those of his colleague Dr. Clark were "consistent with those described by Dr. Humes et al during the autopsy." Yes, it's more than clear. Perry, as Carrico, felt the wounds he saw at Parkland were consistent with the wounds observed at Bethesda. He was not a conspiracy theorist. And conspiracy theorists should stop pretending he was.

When Columnist Jimmy Breslin interviewed Malcolm Perry on the day after the assassination, Perry told him that the head wound had a huge flap. While he said this was occipto-parietal, his description and placement are nevertheless far more supportive of the wound in the autopsy photos than the wound in the so-called McClelland drawing. ‘A Death in Emergency Room One’ New York Herald Tribune, Nov. 24, 1963 By Jimmy Breslin ... Then Malcolm Perry stepped up to the aluminum hospital cart and took charge of the hopeless job of trying to keep the 35th president of the United States from death. And now, the enormousness came over him. Here is the most important man in the world, Perry thought. The chest was not moving. And there was no apparent heartbeat inside. The wound in the throat was small and neat. Blood was running out of it. It was running out too fast. The occipitoparietal, which is a part of the back of the head, had a huge flap. The damage a .25-caliber bullet does as it comes out of a person’s body is unbelievable. Bleeding from the head wound covered the floor. ...