Back of Head Wound AGAIN!

[Larry Hancock]

Pat, that was a pretty strong statement so just to be clear:

"Dr. McClelland saw the wound depicted in the autopsy photos. He will never admit this, of course. But I'm convinced that will be the verdict of history."

It sounds as if you are stating that Dr. McClelland is consciously and intentionally telling an untruth...repeatedly. Or did I misunderstand you?

[Ron Ecker]

"Dr. JENKINS. I do not 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.

Dr. Robert N McClelland attended JFK in Parkland Memorial Hospital. He testified to the Warren Commission and they reproduced his admission note for JFK written at 16:45 22/11/63 regarding the treatment the President received. McClelland wrote, "The cause of death was due to massive head and brain injury from a gunshot wound of the left temple"

Dr. Stewart

Dr. David Stewart was in attendance in Parkland Memorial Hospital when the President and Governor Connally were brought in for emergency treatment. He spent most of his time with Governor Connally. He was interviewed on KNEW television by John Dolan in 1967.

"Dolan said he was particularly concerned with the statement about the shot that killed the President coming from the front'. Stewart said, " Yes, sir. This was the finding of all the physicians who were in attendance. There was a small wound in the left front of the President's head and there was a quite massive wound of exit at the right backside of the head and it was felt by all of the physicians at the time to be a wound of entry which went in the front".

Ah so! These statements clearly indicate a wound (of entry) in the left temple area, with a corresponding large exit wound in the right rear of the head. Assuming such a shot, and given the position of JFK's head in the instant prior to the head shot in the Z film (a simultaneous shot from the right front, it would seem), where would the shot to the left temple area have to have come from? The building housing Holmes's office?

[Pat Speer]

Pat, that was a pretty strong statement so just to be clear:

"Dr. McClelland saw the wound depicted in the autopsy photos. He will never admit this, of course. But I'm convinced that will be the verdict of history."

It sounds as if you are stating that Dr. McClelland is consciously and intentionally telling an untruth...repeatedly. Or did I misunderstand you?

You're correct, Larry in that I should be clear about this. Dr. McClelland is a very nice man. (I've seen him speak a few times, and I even shook his hand at the 2009 Lancer conference.) But he has been confused about what he saw since the get-go, as demonstrated by his initial report.

My contention is that his memory is just not reliable. People desperately want to believe he saw a blow-out wound low on the back of the head, and claim he says that's what he saw. It's almost like a religion, no, scratch that, it is a religion. But that's not what he said he saw in his initial report, nor in his December 63 statements to Richard Dudman, in which he assured Dudman--who thought one of the shots came from the front--that the president's body gave no indication whatsoever that a shot had come from the front. He then testified in keeping with Clark and Carrico, and described a wound primarily on the back of the head.

Now one might assume from this, that he had either lied to Dudman, or that Dudman had lied, but that in any event he'd decided to tell the truth to the Warren Commission. And that he firmly believed the fatal shot had come from the front.

But when he was asked about the Warren Commission later by Weisberg, he said nice things about Specter, said not so nice things about the research community, and said he stood by the Warren Report.

Then he saw the Zapruder film. And came to believe a shot had indeed come from the front. By his own admission, it was then and only then that he became a CT. And it was then and only then that he started telling people he'd created or helped create the drawing Thompson had created from his testimony that Thompson insists was made without McClelland's knowledge or participation.

Now, this is where it gets weird for me. McClelland has been given many opportunities to say the autopsy photos are fake, but has refused to do so, and has said instead that sagging scalp was pulled up to conceal the wound he remembers. And McClelland has told the ARRB that the so-called McClelland drawing was inaccurate, and that the actual wound extended up on top of the head. And McClelland has continued to insist there was nothing about the wound he saw that suggested the shot had come from the front.

And, perhaps more tellingly, he has continued to insist that he never changed his impressions or lied about Kennedy's wounds, as a result of outside pressure.

So he is not the living breathing proof for the government cover-up of the head wounds people desperately want to believe he is. He just isn't. He is, instead, someone who witnessed something about which he was confused, who then spent 50 years trying to make sense of it. What he originally saw...is open to question. But anyone building a case on McClelland's Warren Commission testimony is building a castle upon sand.

Edited October 13, 2015 by Pat Speer

[Ray Mitcham]

Dr. McCLELLAND (WC Testimony) - As I took the position at the head of the table that I have already described, to help out with the tracheotomy, I was in such a position that I could very closely examine the head wound, and I noted that the right posterior portion of the skull had been extremely blasted. It had been shattered, apparently, by the force of the shot so that the parietal bone was protruded up through the scalp and seemed to be fractured almost along its right posterior half, as well as some of the occipital bone being fractured in its lateral haft, and this sprung open the bones that I mentioned in such a way that you could actually look down into the skull cavity itself and see that probably a third or so, at least, of the brain tissue, posterior cerebral tissue and some of the cerebellar tissue had been blasted out. There was a large amount of bleeding which was occurring mainly from the large venous channels in the skull which had been blasted open.

ARRB Testimony

DR. McCLELLAND: And I think as testimony that this wound looked like everybody else has described it here. It was a very large wound and I would agree that it was at least seven or eight centimeters in diameter and was mostly really in the occipital part of the skull. And as I was looking at it, a fairly large portion of the cerebellum fell out of the skull, There was already some brain there, but during the tracheostomy more fell out and that was clearly cerebellum. I mean, there was no doubt about it, and I was that far from it (indicating).

MR. GUNN: When you say "that far," you're putting your hands about twelve

inches apart.

DR. McCLELLAND: Twelve to 18 inches.

[Pat Speer]

"Dr. JENKINS. I do not 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.

Dr. Robert N McClelland attended JFK in Parkland Memorial Hospital. He testified to the Warren Commission and they reproduced his admission note for JFK written at 16:45 22/11/63 regarding the treatment the President received. McClelland wrote, "The cause of death was due to massive head and brain injury from a gunshot wound of the left temple"

Dr. Stewart

Dr. David Stewart was in attendance in Parkland Memorial Hospital when the President and Governor Connally were brought in for emergency treatment. He spent most of his time with Governor Connally. He was interviewed on KNEW television by John Dolan in 1967.

"Dolan said he was particularly concerned with the statement about the shot that killed the President coming from the front'. Stewart said, " Yes, sir. This was the finding of all the physicians who were in attendance. There was a small wound in the left front of the President's head and there was a quite massive wound of exit at the right backside of the head and it was felt by all of the physicians at the time to be a wound of entry which went in the front".

Ah so! These statements clearly indicate a wound (of entry) in the left temple area, with a corresponding large exit wound in the right rear of the head. Assuming such a shot, and given the position of JFK's head in the instant prior to the head shot in the Z film (a simultaneous shot from the right front, it would seem), where would the shot to the left temple area have to have come from? The building housing Holmes's office?

Stewart was not intimately involved in the President's treatment. He was almost certainly being fed this info by CTs intrigued by Jenkins' testimony. Notice that he says "it was felt by all the physicians". Find one. Several of the physicians thought the shot came from the front, but they thought this because they believed the throat wound was an entrance, and connected this wound in their minds with the large hole on the head they presumed was an exit.

[Jon G. Tidd]

JFK's skull was shattered. Think about it.

No one here knows how it was shattered.

Think about it. Why don't we know how it was shattered?

That is a key question.

[Robert Prudhomme]

Dr. McCLELLAND (WC Testimony) - As I took the position at the head of the table that I have already described, to help out with the tracheotomy, I was in such a position that I could very closely examine the head wound, and I noted that the right posterior portion of the skull had been extremely blasted. It had been shattered, apparently, by the force of the shot so that the parietal bone was protruded up through the scalp and seemed to be fractured almost along its right posterior half, as well as some of the occipital bone being fractured in its lateral haft, and this sprung open the bones that I mentioned in such a way that you could actually look down into the skull cavity itself and see that probably a third or so, at least, of the brain tissue, posterior cerebral tissue and some of the cerebellar tissue had been blasted out. There was a large amount of bleeding which was occurring mainly from the large venous channels in the skull which had been blasted open.

ARRB Testimony

DR. McCLELLAND: And I think as testimony that this wound looked like everybody else has described it here. It was a very large wound and I would agree that it was at least seven or eight centimeters in diameter and was mostly really in the occipital part of the skull. And as I was looking at it, a fairly large portion of the cerebellum fell out of the skull, There was already some brain there, but during the tracheostomy more fell out and that was clearly cerebellum. I mean, there was no doubt about it, and I was that far from it (indicating).

MR. GUNN: When you say "that far," you're putting your hands about twelve

inches apart.

DR. McCLELLAND: Twelve to 18 inches.

Boy, McClelland sure sounds confused, eh, Pat?

If all else fails, they're either "confused" or just good ol' "mis-remembering".

[Pat Speer]

Dr. McCLELLAND (WC Testimony) - As I took the position at the head of the table that I have already described, to help out with the tracheotomy, I was in such a position that I could very closely examine the head wound, and I noted that the right posterior portion of the skull had been extremely blasted. It had been shattered, apparently, by the force of the shot so that the parietal bone was protruded up through the scalp and seemed to be fractured almost along its right posterior half, as well as some of the occipital bone being fractured in its lateral haft, and this sprung open the bones that I mentioned in such a way that you could actually look down into the skull cavity itself and see that probably a third or so, at least, of the brain tissue, posterior cerebral tissue and some of the cerebellar tissue had been blasted out. There was a large amount of bleeding which was occurring mainly from the large venous channels in the skull which had been blasted open.

ARRB Testimony

DR. McCLELLAND: And I think as testimony that this wound looked like everybody else has described it here. It was a very large wound and I would agree that it was at least seven or eight centimeters in diameter and was mostly really in the occipital part of the skull. And as I was looking at it, a fairly large portion of the cerebellum fell out of the skull, There was already some brain there, but during the tracheostomy more fell out and that was clearly cerebellum. I mean, there was no doubt about it, and I was that far from it (indicating).

MR. GUNN: When you say "that far," you're putting your hands about twelve

inches apart.

DR. McCLELLAND: Twelve to 18 inches.

Boy, McClelland sure sounds confused, eh, Pat?

If all else fails, they're either "confused" or just good ol' "mis-remembering".

Do I really have to explain this? These are two statements picked out because they are relatively consistent. Watch every interview of McClelland you can find on youtube. Read his ARRB testimony. Watch his conference appearances. Then go back and read what you can of his position before he found religion in the 70's. The man is anything but consistent. Heck, he's changed his story about the "McClelland drawing" so many times it will make your head spin.

Prior to his viewing the Zapruder film, McClelland was not only a supporter of the Warren Commission, but someone who actively discouraged people (such as journalist Richard Dudman and author Harold Weisberg) from believing the fatal shot came from the front. Wrap your mind around that. Now, most who reach this point come up with something about him being scared to tell the truth. But, guess what? He's been asked about this. And has adamantly denied that he was ever scared to tell the truth, or that he and his colleagues were encouraged to lie about what they saw. So, no, McClelland is not a stand-in for Dr. Crenshaw. He adamantly defends the integrity of Carrico, Jenkins, Perry, Baxter, etc--who many CTs believe were cowards and liars. He also insists the tracheotomy incision in the autopsy photos is the tracheotomy incision he saw at Parkland.

He is not the droid you've been looking for. LOL

[Robert Prudhomme]

Dr. McCLELLAND (WC Testimony) - As I took the position at the head of the table that I have already described, to help out with the tracheotomy, I was in such a position that I could very closely examine the head wound, and I noted that the right posterior portion of the skull had been extremely blasted. It had been shattered, apparently, by the force of the shot so that the parietal bone was protruded up through the scalp and seemed to be fractured almost along its right posterior half, as well as some of the occipital bone being fractured in its lateral haft, and this sprung open the bones that I mentioned in such a way that you could actually look down into the skull cavity itself and see that probably a third or so, at least, of the brain tissue, posterior cerebral tissue and some of the cerebellar tissue had been blasted out. There was a large amount of bleeding which was occurring mainly from the large venous channels in the skull which had been blasted open.

ARRB Testimony

DR. McCLELLAND: And I think as testimony that this wound looked like everybody else has described it here. It was a very large wound and I would agree that it was at least seven or eight centimeters in diameter and was mostly really in the occipital part of the skull. And as I was looking at it, a fairly large portion of the cerebellum fell out of the skull, There was already some brain there, but during the tracheostomy more fell out and that was clearly cerebellum. I mean, there was no doubt about it, and I was that far from it (indicating).

MR. GUNN: When you say "that far," you're putting your hands about twelve

inches apart.

DR. McCLELLAND: Twelve to 18 inches.

Boy, McClelland sure sounds confused, eh, Pat?

If all else fails, they're either "confused" or just good ol' "mis-remembering".

Do I really have to explain this? These are two statements picked out because they are relatively consistent. Watch every interview of McClelland you can find on youtube. Read his ARRB testimony. Watch his conference appearances. Then go back and read what you can of his position before he found religion in the 70's. The man is anything but consistent. Heck, he's changed his story about the "McClelland drawing" so many times it will make your head spin.

Prior to his viewing the Zapruder film, McClelland was not only a supporter of the Warren Commission, but someone who actively discouraged people (such as journalist Richard Dudman and author Harold Weisberg) from believing the fatal shot came from the front. Wrap your mind around that. Now, most who reach this point come up with something about him being scared to tell the truth. But, guess what? He's been asked about this. And has adamantly denied that he was ever scared to tell the truth, or that he and his colleagues were encouraged to lie about what they saw. So, no, McClelland is not a stand-in for Dr. Crenshaw. He adamantly defends the integrity of Carrico, Jenkins, Perry, Baxter, etc--who many CTs believe were cowards and liars. He also insists the tracheotomy incision in the autopsy photos is the tracheotomy incision he saw at Parkland.

He is not the droid you've been looking for. LOL

You bet, Pat. Just keep on shooting the messenger, and ignore the message.