Jim DiEugenio - the autopsy.

[Glenn Viklund]

Jim,

I just listened to the debate between yourself and John McAdams (posted by DVP). Interesting debate, no doubt. I'm impressed with the detailed knowledge that people like yourself and John McAdams have on various events related to the JFK case. Conclusions and interpretations aside; those differences were not surprising, of course.

Arguably, very few people would disagree that the autopsy was not done according to standard procedure. But there is something that has bugged me for a long time, and not only related to the autopsy. All of us who were old enough remember where we were when we got to know that president Kennedy had been assassinated. I do, I was nine years old at the time and still have at least some fuzzy memories of my mom telling me about this awful event that took place over in the US.

One of the Parkland doctors said something like "All of us who were in that emergency room was so shocked by what had happened that we did not do things the way we usually perform them, I took no notes of our doings and we did not do that and this, etc" [my words, but I believe this is reasonably correct].

Now, when listening to debates, reading articles or see someone live talk about the events of November 22nd, 1963, mostly all debaters, no matter what side you happen to be on, are in my view neglecting the element of shock. We all know how shocked all Americans were, in fact the whole world was.

I don't know if the number mentioned in the debate you had with McAdams is correct - that 75 errors were made during the autopsy.

The thing is this: Why should we expect that even professionals, like the autopists, the DPD and others just like most others, including civilians, had not been so strongly affected by the assassination that this can explain some of their unexplainable actions? And, once the shock had lightened up somewhat, that this could be the reason for some of their actions/statements when they'd realized that they screwed up on that day?

In my view, this is a grossly neglected variable in the JFK case.

What's your opinion about this, Jim?

Edited August 3, 2010 by Glenn Viklund

[David Josephs]

Excuse my jumping in... I am sure Jim will get to you in time yet I had an observation.

IMO there is a HUGE difference between the shock "and procedures" in the ER in Dallas and at Bethesda's autopsy.

There were no military brass at Parkland watching over the doctors as they proceeded to see a frontal throat wound and a large right rear blow-out. No one wathcing over Hill as he looks down into JFK's head, or Jackie for that matter.

Nothing could be done to assist JFK at Parkland - shock or no shock they performed the duties they were expected to perform fairly well.

The same cannot be said of the Bethesda "autopists" (if they can be called that). Their shock had to be at the manner in which they were ordered to do things that evening, what was readily apparent to them and what they were ultimately ordered to put into the official record. That is the same shock and repulsion that we feel today.

DJ

[Glenn Viklund]

I don't know where you got that quote about Parkland. I don't recall seeing it.

To my knowledge, the Parkland doctors did what they could to try and revive Kennedy. Even though they knew it was just about beyond doing. The head shot wound was devastating. And the amount of brain damage is never going to be known. For the simple fact that-as Horne's book shows--the pictures of the Kennedy brain are not actually Kennedy's brain.

The quote may refer to the autopsy the Dallas doctors should have done. If that would have happened, things would probably be different.

Now, at Bethesda, I think you have a different situation. Yes, the shock of being called to do this autopsy would have been considerable. And the whole nation was traumatized at the time. And maybe that had an influence. I don't know. I have never seen it mentioned in any testimony.

The book I was referring to was by Charles Wilber. Wilber was a pathologist who went over the Kennedy autopsy in detail. He is the one who came up with that number.

There may have been little things missing that you could chalk up to 'shock'. But in my view, you can't do that with the two big things: not weighing the brain that night, and not dissecting the back wound. The head shot was the cause of death and you don't weigh the brain?

I watched one of the doctors in an interview somewhere a couple of years ago, he was in his early thirties at the time of the assassination, I believe.

Edited August 3, 2010 by Glenn Viklund

[Glenn Viklund]

That is interesting if you have the quote right.

Does anyone else recall that show?

I'd like to see it.

"I've never seen it in any testimony"

Don't you think that's quite reasonable? Who would admit - among various groups of professionals - that they in fact screwed up because of this? I would think that, as matters progressed, this would not be something you would like to see in your CV?

And yes, of course there must be more people who have seen this statement from the Parkland doctor?

Edited August 3, 2010 by Glenn Viklund

[David Josephs]

Part of

Dallas doctor Malcolm Perry, who worked on JFK and Oswald, dies at 80

by Scott Farwell, Dallas Morning News, Dec 8, 2009

Dr. Robert McClelland was the last surgeon to attend to Kennedy in Trauma Room 1. McClelland, a longtime friend and colleague of Dr. Perry's, remembered that the shock of the situation faded quickly when they entered the trauma room. "At Parkland, we're accustomed, all of us are, to treating many different cases," McClelland told the Associated Press on Monday. "Of course, it's the president," he said. Was it hard to put that aside? "No, not really. Everything was so rapidly happening that we were called on the peak of the moment."

So a bit of a contradiction here....

Sorry, but this is the real SHOCK from the Parkland doctors from that day:

Mr. SPECTER - Based on the appearance of the neck wound alone, could it have been either an entrance or an exit wound?

Dr. PERRY - It could have been either.

Mr. SPECTER - Permit me to supply some additional facts, Dr. Perry, which I shall ask you to assume as being true for purposes of having you express an opinion.

Assume first of all that the President was struck by a 6.5 mm. copper-jacketed bullet fired from a gun having a muzzle velocity of approximately 2,000 feet per second, with the weapon being approximately 160 to 250 feet from the President, with the bullet striking him at an angle of declination of approximately 45 degrees, striking the President on the upper right posterior thorax just above the upper border of the scapula, being 14 cm. from the tip of the right acromion process and 14 cm. below the tip of the right mastoid process, passing through the President's body striking no bones, traversing the neck and sliding between the large muscles in the posterior portion of the President's body through a fascia channel without violating the pleural cavity but bruising the apex of the right pleural cavity, and bruising the most apical portion of the right lung inflicting a hematoma to the right side of the larynx, which you have just described, and striking the trachea causing the injury which you described, and then exiting from the hole that you have described in the midline of the neck.

Now, assuming those facts to be true, would the hole which you observed in the neck of the President be consistent with an exit wound under those circumstances?

Dr. PERRY - Certainly would be consistent with an exit wound.

[Michael Hogan]

Part of

Mr. SPECTER - Permit me to supply some additional facts, Dr. Perry, which I shall ask you to assume as being true for purposes of having you express an opinion.

Assume first of all that the President was struck by a 6.5 mm. copper-jacketed bullet fired from a gun having a muzzle velocity of approximately 2,000 feet per second, with the weapon being approximately 160 to 250 feet from the President, with the bullet striking him at an angle of declination of approximately 45 degrees, striking the President on the upper right posterior thorax just above the upper border of the scapula, being 14 cm. from the tip of the right acromion process and 14 cm. below the tip of the right mastoid process, passing through the President's body striking no bones, traversing the neck and sliding between the large muscles in the posterior portion of the President's body through a fascia channel without violating the pleural cavity but bruising the apex of the right pleural cavity, and bruising the most apical portion of the right lung inflicting a hematoma to the right side of the larynx, which you have just described, and striking the trachea causing the injury which you described, and then exiting from the hole that you have described in the midline of the neck.

Now, assuming those facts to be true, would the hole which you observed in the neck of the President be consistent with an exit wound under those circumstances?

Dr. PERRY - Certainly would be consistent with an exit wound.

The funniest part of this is not the length of the question, although that is funny. At the Duquesne Conference, Specter said that he never posed a leading question to a witness. Yet the day before Gary Aguilar had posted this question on the screen for everyone to see. Mark Lane reminded everyone of that when Specter denied it and said, "If I ever did something like that in court, I'd be under the jail."

As more and more comes out about the medical evidence, Specter looks worse and worse.

To her everlasting credit, Sylvia Meagher exposed Specter's fraudulent behavior in 1967 when all she had

to go on was testimony and statements that appeared in the 26 volumes. Her book remains a masterpiece.

Of course she had help. In her acknowledgements she credited Menachem Arnoni, William Crehand, Marjorie (Maggie) Field,

Ray Marcus, Robert Ockene, Vincent Salandria, Leo Sauvage, and of course Harold Weisberg. She thanked numerous others.

If the estimable Sylvia Meagher were alive today and wanted to debate some of these WC apologists, they wouldn't last ten minutes.