Gary Murr

Well, one certainly couldn't argue with this "logic!" Therefore, tell me who, specifically, and in your words, "changed...the location of the entrance wound on Connally's back, and its horizontal/vertical orientation...to try to make it fit the SBT." Obviously you must know specifics, name, date, just what was changed. I know I can't. You do realize that the only changes made to the anatomical drawings presented to them were made by Connally's physicians from PMH, changes necessary because of transposition/tracing errors [purposeful?] on the part of SS SA Roger Warner. And I can only assume that in truth when you look at these changes, in particular comments by Robert Shaw regarding the steepness of the angle "through' the anatomical representation of Connally's thorax you realize that these changes do little, if anything, to support the emerging SBT. And I must further assume that having read closely the testimony of doctors Shaw and Gregory that you comprehend that they really did not believe in the validity of the SBT, regardless of how Specter presented it to them. Was Dr. Shaw "duped" by Arlen Specter? I doubt it, in fact it appears to me as though he and his colleagues acquitted themselves quite well in the face of the hypothetical rats nest of narratives presented to them. All I was attempting to indicate to you is that errors did occur between deposition/testimony and stenographic notations on the way to the completion of the Commission's final end product. However, in my opinion, and it is only my opinion, it is virtually impossible to "prove" that testimony was made to "disappear" but if you have proof of same and can show me where it occurred with anyone who gave deposition or testimony before any member of the Commission staff I would be grateful. Don't get me wrong for I know that members of the Commission staff, basically lawyers all, did all they could in many instances to sweep the truth of November 22, 1963, as far under the proverbial rug as they could. William Manchester perhaps said it best in his construct of The Death Of A President: "Of course, no one can ever root out the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That is a game lawyers play. There is something touching about their naive assumption that one gets the full story by putting a man under oath. In practice you get very little of it. Anxious not to perjure himself, the witness volunteers as little as possible. The President's Commission on the Assassination was dominated by attorneys. Their record shows it. Their deposition of minor witnesses were remarkably brief."

Sorry, Robert; for some reason what I had highlighted in blue did not "take," but you probably get that!! Oops - fixed that!!

Gary

Robert:

My comments/responses to some of your statements in Post # 302, this thread, below in blue:

"I also believe Shaw stated, in his testimony, that the orientation of this elliptical wound was horizontal, unlike the vertical wound shown in the WC diagram, and that this statement was magically edited from his testimony, as often happens in the course of one sided commissions"

Though potentially possible, in this particular instance I believe it is highly unlikely and in the case of the PMH doctors and their deposition and testimony statements I know this not to be true. I spent a considerable amount of time during one of my visits to NARA examining record file 272.2.3, "Records Relating To Testimony" which contain, among other things, transcripts and stenotyped notes of all testimony and deposition sessions conducted in 1964 by all members of the Commission staff, in essence the raw materials from which the 26 volumes of the WC record was produced. It was as a result of this search that I was able to confirm, again among other things Ii was seeking, what I had always believed to be a transposition error in the March 23, 1964 deposition session of Dr. Charles Gregory. In responding to a Specter question on this date regarding why he, Gregory, felt the missile responsible for the Governor's wrist wound travelled from "back to front" as published at 6H98 the Gregory answer was; "In attending this wound it was evident early that clot had been carried into the wound from the dorsal surface to the bone and into the fracture." I had felt based upon his post op report and his handwritten notes that what Gregory had actually indicated to Specter in March of 1964 was that "cloth" not "clot" had been carried into the radial wound site and my examination of the original transcript/steno notes verified my suspicions. Now this is a minor instance, but one I felt I had to resolve. I can only tell you that in examining these same records for Shaw, Gregory and Shires, I found no examples of changed, omitted or manipulated testimony.

Regarding your four point scenario of "impossibility" of bullet path through the Governor's thorax based upon the positioning of the rear wound entry site on the WC diagrams, I can only add that I do agree with the bulk of your assessments. However, because we do not know the precise position of the Governor at wounding impact we, almost of necessity, are forced to speculate which is fine provided in doing so one buttresses their conclusions with some attempt at evidentiary feasibility, as you do in this thread. It is difficult, in particular in attempting to analyze the relationship of the scapula to the rib cage at the moment of wounding impact. My examination of drawings in medical texts, as well as study of countless hundreds of available X-rays that show the relationship of the rib cage to the scapula, X-rays in turn that do include varioius types of rib fractures, leads me to believe that your statement that the scapula just possibly may "occlude" the passage of the wounding bullet onto the 5th rib, in particular as you have indicated with the Governor turned to his left could be in error. When you examine drawings and X-rays of the scapula/rib cage, as I assume you must have done, do you not feel that the point of initial contact of the wounding bullet that struck Connally, at the lateral mid-point of the 5th rib, actually sits "below" the basal section of the right scapula? Again, ones answer to a question such as this is based in their belief of the Governor's position at wounding impact. I think it is important to remember that in constructing his immediate post-operative report on his repair of this wound site, Robert Shaw as very specific when he indicated that the point of entry was lateral to the right scapula and close to the axilla. As you are aware the axilla is a pyramidal shaped space, that depressed hollow region located under your shoulder joint, medial to your upper arm - most commonly referred to as one's "arm pit." In essence, and as you have clearly indicated, Shaw is agreeing with you, in the sense that he is clearly indicating that the wounding bullet did enter at a point away from the scapula, very near the arm pit, just catching aspects of the latissimus dorsi muscle bundle, which as I recall is a muscle grouping that is vertically transposed/positioned on the rib cage over the serratus anterior muscle groupings. And you are further correct in stating the restrictions/limitations imposed upon the Parkland doctors because of the use of the two-dimensional standard anatomical drawings onto which they originally did approximate the locations of the wound sites, drawings that were in turn re-traced onto "new" diagrams, which in truth were not new, by Roger Warner of the SS. Where we disagree is in your assessment that Dr. Shaw was somehow "duped" by Arlen Specter, for I don't know that this is/was the case. I can tell you from my two exchanges with Dr. Shaw that he was not a big fan of Specter's but that was merely his opinion. FWIW

Gary

James:

Thanks for the uploaded images for Robert et al edification. I will search my files later and see if I can find any others. And Robert Mady, if you have any questions, let me know.

Gary

Gary, do you have photographs of the back of CONNALYS shirt you could post?

Photographs of the Back of CONNALLYS jacket?

thanks in advance.

Yes, Robert, I do and I will either post them or get someone else from this forum to do so for me; I, like Vince Palamara, have difficulty with this. And Bernice, the illustration you posted for Robert's edification is from work done by James Gordon.

Great essay, Larry - thanks for the link; I await the remainder of this paper by Dr. Mantik. I am also pleased to see his contact with John Hunt and recognition of John's inestimable work conducted at NARA II, not only on this subject matter but as I well know so many other areas of importance.

Gary

Thanks for this, Chris; and as you can see the individual questioning Simmons is none other than Commission Counsel, Melvin Eisenberg. As Simmons indicated, and the record shows, Eisenberg "gave" Simmons the distances to use for the three shot scenario under discussion. And it is no accident that Eisenberg is the counsel responsible for the questioning of FBI ballistics/firearms expert, Robert Frazier, on March 31, 1964, the lengthiest of Frazier's multiple sessions before the Commission and members of its staff. As I indicate in my forthcoming work, "Forgotten", Eisenberg and Frazier spent several hours together in Eisenberg's Commission office a week or so prior to the testimony session of March 31st at which time the two spent a great deal of time going over what was to be expected in this same session. When one studies Frazier's handwritten spiral notebook that he used for the pre-testimony session with Eisenberg, and then compares it to the actual testimony session of March 31st, it is basically a sequential match, with, not unexpectedly some items left out, the most important of which was/is just how much more of the true history of the 6.5mm WCC ammunition Frazier knew that he did not reveal. And it is Eisenberg's calculations that are the basis for the sham Commission reconstruction of May 24, 1964, a reconstruction that as you well know involved Shaneyfelt and Frazier, among others.

I hope you continue to post your work on the survey plats et al in this thread, for it is very important. And I, like you, did agree to disagree with Tom Purvis regarding some of his conclusions concerning the shooting scenario.

Gary

Will do, Pat, either later today or at some point tomorrow. Does the weekend date of March 16, 1964 ring a bell?

Gary

The autopsy doctors testified before the commission on March 16, 1964. Humes let it slip that he'd come in the day before to look at the clothing. That was a Sunday. Did Eisenberg write a memo on this?

Not that I am aware of; I am going in a different direction. Again, if I can readily dig it out over the next day or two I will send some materials along to you.

Will do, Pat, either later today or at some point tomorrow. Does the weekend date of March 16, 1964 ring a bell?

Gary

Hi Pat:

Actually Pat, it is someone whom you discuss in your chapter 3, "Looking Through Specter's Eyes" - Commission Counsel, Melvin Eisenberg. If you like, I can send you my reasoning/research behind this contention as it comprises a lengthy portion of one chapter of my Connally work; just let me know.

Gary

Hi Robert:

Again, and with apologies, I will provide you with a more detailed answer later today - work/"real life" does have a tendency to get in the way of things!! One thing I can tell you very quickly is that to my knowledge there exists no known photographic images of any of John Connally's wound sites. More later...

Gary

As promised, a continuation of my initial response to your posting # 294.

While I will agree with the conceptual nuance that the WC, more specifically members of the WC staff, attempted to sell the SBT at any cost, including no real effort to precisely illustrate their interpretation/positioning of just where, physically on the body of John Connally this wound of entrance occurred, they really could have done so - if they wanted to. After all, Specter and members of this same Commission had John Connally in front of them, with his shirt removed, on the afternoon of April 21, 1964. And though they took this occasion to have Dr. Shaw measure, with calipers, the downward, back to front, trajectory of the wounding missile and its path, they did not have Dr. Shaw make or reveal any specific measurements for the position of this wound based upon fixed anatomical landmarks available to the doctor. Their descriptions of the position of the holes in the clothing, as written in the Commission Report, reflect measurements passed along to them from Robert Frazier.[WCR93-94] Curiously enough these clothing measurements taken by Frazier are a close match the position of the point of entry on Connally's back as constructed by members of the HSCA's Forensic Pathology Panel [JFK Exhibit F-377] In essence you are basically "correct" when you indicate that this same positioning, clothing and "body", is representative of a wound site that is lateral to the base of the scapula and between this same anatomical point and the "fold of the armpit," a positioning also drawn/approximated by Dr. Robert Shaw.

"How high or low was the wound" you asked? This is one Frazier measurement that the WC staff left out of their report. On his lab clothing diagrams Frazier positioned the aperture on the back of the suit jacket as being 8", or just over 20 cms below the top of the suit jacket collar, and 7.25", or 18.41 cms to the right of the mid-line of the jacket to the center of the hole. His parallel measurements on the underlying Arrow dress shirt were given, by Frazier as 9" [22.86 cms] from the top of the shirt collar and 7.5" [19.05 cms] to the right of the mid-line of the shirt to the first of two holes present on the back of the shirt. For their part, the Forensic Pathology Panel of the HSCA placed this rear thoracic entry wound as being situated some 18 cms - 7.08" from the top of the spinal column [at T1] and some 20 cms - 7.87" from the middle of this same spinal column. As you can see in comparing the two sets of measurements - the clothing constructed by Robert Frazier vs the "body" measurements of the FPP-HSCA, the measurements are in essence flipped/reversed, with the HSCA actually positioning their "body" wound of entry more toward the "Governor's" right side than that as represented by the clothing measurements of 1964.

I still would agree to disagree with you that members of the FBI lab intentionally positioned the clothing, in particular the shirt, for photography as they did in an effort to help members of the WC staff sell the SBT. Rather, I feel it is much more likely that though developed between January and March of 1964 buy members of the WC staff, the real selling point would become the farcical reconstruction effort of May 24, 1964, in Dealey Plaza. Whether or not the apertures on the clothing are representative of the conclusions of this same reconstruction is definitely open to debate/interpretation.

Gary

Paul:

You are, without any shadow of a doubt, one of the most evidentiary ignorant individuals I have ever come across in my years of interest in the events of November 22, 1963. For you to accuse Larry Hancock of evasiveness is asinine, at best, but, hey, you may just know what you are talking about - after all, you are the master of evasiveness. Why do you not have the intestinal fortitude to even attempt to answer even one of the challenges presented to you by Larry in his post # 599? Is it because you cannot provide any specific evidence to buttress your sycophantic ramblings concerning the events your speculation riddled mind continues to foist off onto the members of this forum? I fail to see where in his immediate response to your meandering mess that Larry specifically disputed any of Jim Garrison's so-called "findings." He did, however politely ask you to "cite specific evidence" that Garrison may have produced. Indeed, Larry asked you no fewer than eight times to either cite or produce documented evidence in support of your/Garrison claims. Did you answer any of these requests? Don't bother answering me, for I know you cannot. Trust me, one of the last individuals you want to cite as "relevant," without specific citations of evidence or documentation to back up your grotesquely illiterate claims, is Jim Garrison. And don't even attempt to admonish me regarding any crap about knowledge I may or may not possess about Jim Garrison; I met the man and spent several hours with him in 1967, indeed had dinner with him? Did you?

Chris;

No apology necessary; actually 26 degrees is the "average" you will arrive at if you take the two April 21, 1964 Shaw caliper measurements - 25 degrees with Connally seated and 27 degrees with Connally standing - and divide by 2 [ i.e. 25+27= 52/2 = 26]; perhaps the source you quoted used this method [Kurtz?]. And in the event anyone misinterpreted my last posting, I do agree that the west end of the TSBD is a potential and viable source of shot.

Gary

Hey Chris:

Though I don't disagree with the Kurtz statement that Robert Shaw measured the downward angle of the bullet that transited Connally's chest possessed a back to front pathway of "25 degrees +/- degrees", for this is taken directly from Shaw's Warren Commission testimony session of April 21, 1964, and I will further agree with Kurtz and others that this same missile did not go through Kennedy's neck prior to contact with Connally, I cannot agree, in turn, that Robert Shaw "determined that Connally must have been struck by a bullet that was fired from an upper window at the west end of the TSBD," for as far as I can ascertain/remember Shaw never pinpointed a precise location for the shooter responsible for Connally's wounding; if I am wrong on this, I hope someone will enlighten me. Now that is not to say that I do not find the concept that a shot, or shots, were fired from the west end of the TSBD untenable, for I do not. As you are undoubtedly aware, I, like you, was one of those fortunate enough to have acquired from Tom Purvis the Robert West survey materials, including the actual "true" sized survey sheets. In that regard, I must tell you that you are the one person who has enabled me to better understand just what transpired with these documents and the WC reconstructions in general. As I indicated to Tom some time ago, I believe I know just which WC counsel was directly responsible for the "mathematics" behind the eventual Commission reconstruction conclusions, and it wasn't Arlen Specter, though there is no doubt that he conspired in conjunction with this fellow lawyer to make sure that the Commission solution "fit" the window of the crime, as it were.

Gary

Hi Robert:

Again, and with apologies, I will provide you with a more detailed answer later today - work/"real life" does have a tendency to get in the way of things!! One thing I can tell you very quickly is that to my knowledge there exists no known photographic images of any of John Connally's wound sites. More later...

Gary

Gary, that is correct, I am still curious if the locations of CONNALLYS wounds could have been altered, particularly the back wound.

The first impression I had of CONNALLYS wound was that the first entry wound was below his right armpit, on his side or almost on his side. Could this have been moved by description and deception to more towards his back to better accommodate a shot from the rear and possibly higher?

Hello Robert:

I apologize for not answering sooner but as explained earlier in this thread I had to wait until I arrived back home this evening so I could access my notes and those of the PMH doctors who treated John Connally. My immediate answer to your query as to whether or not the rear wound of entry "could have been moved by description and deception to more towards his back to better accommodate a shot from the rear and possibly higher..." is no, I don't believe so, but might I ask who or whom you believe may have "moved" this same point of entry?. You also indicated that your first "impression" of this wound site was that it "was below his right armpit, on his side or almost on his side." This is actually fairly close to the description of the point of entry as described by the two physicians best qualified to indicate the point of entry - Dr. Red Duke and Dr. Robert Shaw. Unfortunately, and in answer to your first question from post # 290, this thread, the X-rays cannot of themselves tell us anything "concerning the primary wound of entry"... it simply is not visible on the X-rays, nor would I have expected it to be so. Dr. Shaw twice testified to Arlen Specter regarding this specific point of entry - the first time during his March 23, 1964 deposition session at Parkland Memorial Hospital, at which time he indicated that the point of entry was "in the right posterior shoulder, which is medial to the fold of the axilla"[6H85] A month later during his April 21st testimony session in Washington before members of the WC, he described this "point" of entry as occurring "just medial to the axillary fold or crease of the armpit..."[4H104]. In truth if you look at Dr. Shaw's post operative formal typed report dated November 22, the day of the assassination, he worded this entry point in this manner: "It was found that the wound of entrance was just lateral to the right scapula close to the axilla..."[CE392, WR531] It would appear that the two answer's on record with the Commission are an amalgam of his formal report statement, a copy of which I believe he had access to in his sessions with Specter. Unfortunately Dr. Duke was not called to testify nor deposed by Specter or any other Commission counsel. I went back and dug out the rough post-op handwritten notes constructed by Duke, who was the first individual to see Connally, and the notes of Dr. Shaw. In these notes the rear wound of entry is described in this manner: "46 year old WM ["white male"] Governor or Texas who received a GSW ["gun shot wound"] to the right chest which entered via the tissues in the posterior axillary line laterally and up to the point of the scapula, transversed the tissues in and medially of the right thoracic wall and exited at a point of the 5th rib just lateral to the right medial chest." [phrases in brackets my translations of the doctors abbreviations]. In a sense I agree with part of your assessment/interpretation of this wound of entry, for I have always contended, right or wrong, that when examined closely the missile responsible for the Governor's chest wound almost missed him - striking him at a fairly acute angle, tangentially to his right side and tunneled through and along the lateral medial aspect of his chest wall. Curiously enough during his brief November 9, 1977 deposition session with members of the HSCA, Dr. Shaw was not asked any specific questions regarding the precise point of this same rear wound of entry.

Gary

Hello Robert:

I am on the road at the moment but will answer you later today or this evening. I assume that by "primary wound of entry" you are referring to the wound of entry on John Connally's back?

Gary

Best of Luck..Gary...b

Best of Luck..Gary...b

Thanks, Bernice; nice to hear from you again - and to see you back on this forum.

Gary

Again, Larry - thanks - I will keep in touch.

Robert Mady: Quote: "Gary, how many were taken and are they readily available to be examined?"

Sorry, Robert - wasn't ignoring you on this question of the quantity of Connally X-rays taken and availability thereof.

Approximately three weeks after he deposed doctors Shaw, Gregory and Shires at Parkland Hospital, Arlen Specter sent Shaw and Gregory a letter [dated April 15, 1964] in which he asked each physician if they "would...please arrange to bring with you all X-rays showing Governor Connally's wounds, including wounds of the rib, wrist and thigh." The doctors ended up bringing eight [8] X-rays with them for their April 21, 1964 testimony sessions in Washington. Of these eight X-rays, which were discussed and entered as CE's, only one, CE682, was not taken on November 22, 1963. The remaining seven were either pre-op or post-op exposures from the day of the event. However, an examination of the Governor's complete medical history, in particular the filings of radiologist and Parkland Memorial Hospital administrator, Dr. Jack Reynolds, reveals that between the day of his wounding and his early morning release on December 5, 1963, Connally was involved in nine X-ray sessions, and each session resulted in multiple exposures, AP, PA, lateral, etc. The thoracic wound site was X-rayed on eight different occasions, the distal radius site on three occasions, again with each event resulting in, at minimum, three different exposures. As far as I can ascertain, at least 24 X-ray plates exist of the Governor's wound sites, all taken at PMH over a span of 14 days. In addition, and based upon correspondence I possess between doctors Shaw and Gregory and John Connally, after his release from Parkland Connally's chest was X-rayed on December 18, 1963, by and at the offices of Dr. R. M. Hood, with two exposures, and exercise that was repeated one month later on January 18, 1964, again two exposures with the same doctor. The radial wound site was X-rayed during the first week of January, 1964, in the offices of Dr. Robert A. Dennison, Austin, Texas, and twice more after that, on February 14th at PMH, at which time a new cast was applied to the radius and then a final time on March 16, 1964, again at Parkland, at which time the cast was removed for the final time. As far as acquisition and examination of these X-rays are concerned, not much luck. I have acquired 9 different PMH X-rays but have no idea where the others may be, if they were even preserved. I did manage to track down archival holdings for both doctors Hood and Dennison but was curtly informed that the X-rays were no longer available. Indeed, the one archivist actually indicated to me that these individuals were in essence part of an "old boys club" with no interest in discussing the Connally X-rays.

Gary

Thanks, Larry - as though there wasn't enough pressure after the release of Shadow Warfare and the mention therein of Forgotten! [Large grin!!] Actually I do have a strategy mapped out for this and my other major project and had hoped to get at it near the end of the month. However, some unfortunate medical situation has arisen which may find me going under the knife, as it were; won't know for sure until I see the specialist on Monday.

To Gary (a few posts up):

Assuming Nellie Connally was being truthful about the 'shot off cuff-link' to Larry King when he interviewed her on TV & in her book, 'From Love Field', that Nellie told King she wrote for her grandchildren, then it must have been kept by someone at Parkland (possibly as a souvenir). If you are 100% certain it wasn't shot off the wrist of John Connally there's no need to explore the possibilities of damage it may have caused if it also became a flying missile. Thanks for the info. Very interesting.

I'm saddened by the info you gave about yourself, Robert. Someone told me you were really Elvis (joke). Just kidding

BM

Brad:

In the final volume of my trilogy on the Connally wounding, I spend 180 pages in the next to last chapter examining the attempts of both John and Nellie Connally to control the history of the Governor's wounding. I devote almost 50 pages to a dismantling of the Nellie Connally - Mickey Herskowitz offering, "From Love Field", a compendium that I feel is a nothing more than a haphazard collision of tenuous inventions - at best. And yes, Nellie did repeat her story about the cuff link that was "shot off" to Larry King during her November 22, 1963 appearance with Larry King on his show - her precise words being that the wounding bullet "crushed" her husbands wrist [an untruth] "...and, you know, shot the cuff link off." It is interesting, however, to trace this fantasy, as I do in my writing. In brief, the first mention of the cuff link occurred during the April 21, 1964 testimony session of Nellie Connally before the Warren Commission, at which time she indicated that while waiting outside of Trauma Room # 2 while Parkland personnel first worked on John Connally, "Somebody rushed out, I thought it was a nurse, and handed me one cufflink. I later read that it was a lady doctor."[4H148]. Commission Counsel, Arlen Specter, of course pursed this issue no further even though Nellie had given him a clue/starting point. Where did she read about the "lady doctor?" In an article published in the January 1964 issue of the Texas State Journal of Medicine, an article that was repeated in this same journal on the 40th anniversary of the assassination event. In the article, anesthesiologist, Dr. A. H. Giesecke, Jr., indicated that as he was being briefed by his assistant, Dr. Jackie Hunt, on the Governor's condition [Ms. Hunt had gotten to Connally before Giesecke] she indicated to him that "She recalled having passed a cuff link to Mrs. Connally while the Governor was having a chest tube placed." And it would be 25 years before the matter of the cuff link was to appear, once again, in print.

In 1989 James Reston, Jr. published "The Lone Star - The Life of John Connally." In this writing Reston indicated the following, during his description of the events at Parkland Hospital and Nellie Connally: "After what seemed an eternity, someone rushed out and handed her one of her husband's gold cuff links."[Reston, p. 278] Four years later, in 1993, the same Mickey Herskowitz who aided Nellie Connally with her 2003 writing [From Love Field] helped John Connally construct his memoirs, a work titled, "In History's Shadow," in which one finds the following statement, again surrounding events at Parkland: "A nurse spotted Nellie and handed her one of my gold cuff links. We never found the other one."[p.18] Note that in these three instances, Nellie before the WC, Restons narrative based upon his interviews with the Connally's, and the Herskowitz - John Connally offering of 1993, that there is no mention of a cuff link being "shot off" the Governor's shirt. That bizarre wrinkle came from Nellie Connally. And in truth, John Connally knew that it was not a nurse that handed Nellie the lone surviving cuff link. Why, you might ask? Because as I discovered, and again examine in detail in my writing, the Connally's were allowed to proof read the January, 1964, Texas State Journal of Medicine article before it was published and allowed to make any changes they may have seen fit to any aspects of this same article that referred to the Governor's wounding. Nellie eventually had the surviving cuff link incorporated into a "gold cuff" bracelet, which she claimed she always wore as a reminder of the events of that day in Dallas. However, in 1999 she donated this same bracelet with the cuff link in it to the newly constructed 7700 square foot Houston Visitors Center where it was on display as part of a "rotating...100 Years of History Exhibit."

And finally, why am I so sure that a cuff link was not "shot off" the Governor's shirt? The only shirt cuff struck by a missile was the right sleeve shirt cuff. Unfortunately for Nellie, the point of impact for the missile that struck the cuff occurred some 5 inches away from the cuff link hole.

Gary Murr

Hello Robert:

Actually, Nellie was the individual who sent her husband's suit components to the dry cleaners - the jacket and accompanying dress pants. The shirt, on the other hand, she merely admitted to dipping in cold water, as I recall. Do I "wonder" if the Connally clothing was altered before its return to the Governor's office? A concept that I have considered but I do not believe that was the case. As far as the position of the shirt as photographed by the FBI; as I have explained elsewhere on this forum, the shirt was actually pinned to a cork bulletin board by FBI lab personnel and then photographed, front and back, as it "hung." Though I can proffer no "proof", I do not believe the clothing was thus photographed in an effort to alter one's perspective of the positioning of the rear aperture on the back of the shirt, which is not that easy to see. As one who has been fortunate enough to actually handle all of the Governor's clothing, I can only echo comments made by those lab personnel who did examine and measure all of the clothing "holes"; the shirt, in particular, seemed to be susceptible to tearing, without a great deal of effort. And as I also pointed out in an answer elsewhere, there are buttons missing from the front of the shirt, but I believe that it is quite possible these were inadvertently/accidentally removed in the hurried effort to get the Governor's shirt off to initially examine and contain, in particular, the large wound of exit on the anterior chest.

In closing, I don't believe I have ever offered the opinion that I know "everything" about the wounding of John Connally, but I do feel comfortable in contending that I have probably spent more time studying this particular aspect of the events of November 22, 1963, than other researchers, FWIW. And finally, do I feel the X-rays were altered? The short answer is no, and in return, I will ask you a question; do you know how many X-rays were actually taken of the Governor's wounds, not only at Parkland but during the months of December, 1963 and January and February of 1964, as the Governor recovered? And what did these X-rays show?

Gary

Brad/Robert:

As someone who has spent a considerable amount of time studying, in some detail, the wounding of John Connally, I can assure you that John Connally's right cuff link was not shot off at anytime during his wounding process.

Gary

You are of course correct with all of this, Pat. In addition, in 1978 Shaw indicated to Andrew Purdy, HSCA, that, "The rear entrance wound was not 3 cm as indicated in one of the operative notes. It was a puncture-type wound, as if a bullet had struck the body at a slight declination (i.e. not at a right angle). The wound was actually approximately 1.5 cm. The ragged edges of the wound were surgically cut away, effectively enlarging it to approximately 3 cm." [7HSCA325] I might add that the emphasis on the word "not" was/is in the original document. Equally important, when Shaw drew for HSCA Forensic Panel member, Dr. Charles Petty, the respective sizes of the thoracic wounds of entry and exit to scale, something done during Shaw's November 9, 1977 deposition session with Petty and others, he drew the wound of entrance such that it measured 1.5 cm X 0.8 cm. And you make the important point that those believers of the SBT need the rear entrance wound to be 3 cms in "length" for reasons that you have stated above.

Gary

No problem, Robert; actually I constructed the previous posting to your question basically from memory while at work. The actual "operative report" citation from within the Warren Report is to be found at WR531-532, from within Appendix VIII. This version, as printed in the Commission's report, has extraneous markings found on the original, including the designation of "CR87" that exists on the original in red ink, removed. And I would agree that "disinfo agents," as you are want to call them, more often than not do rely on bluff rather than substance and documented evidence.

Gary