Dr. Robert McClelland Had The Best Close Up View Of JFK's Head Wound Than Any Other Doctor.

[Joe Bauer]

Start at the 13 minute mark of the interview video I am posting and hear Parkland surgery doctor Robert McClelland describe "in detail" the wound in the back of JFK's head and how much of JFK's brain matter was truly missing.

The man was just "18 inches" from JFK's skull in his position at the top of the table upon which JFK was laying. And he remained there for what 15, 20 or even 30 minutes?

What other Dr. or other witnesses to see JFK's head that close up within minutes of it's obliteration can one suggest to have had a better view of it, it's wound and brain matter loss including watching brain matter fall out of it right onto the cart/table underneath than Dr. McClelland?

McClelland's fellow surgeon Dr. Jones was right there just a couple of feet away from McClelland at JFK's side in Trauma Room 1 that day and in this interview he doesn't contradict one thing Dr. McClelland describes.

Bethesda Dr. Commander Humes said he didn't know why he nor anyone else failed to weigh JFK's brain upon his removal of it in his autopsy procedure. A procedure so standard in autopsies of criminal action head wound victims it is ludicrous that such an arrogantly confident man like Humes or even assisting Dr. Boswell could have missed this top priority criminal case evidence procedure just by forgetfulness.

Imo it suggest they purposely avoided weighing JFK's brain because it was too significantly blown out.

"The damn thing just fell out into my hands!"

Assisting Bethesda medical corpsman James Jenkins quoted a startled Humes as saying upon removing JFK's brain.

Dr. McClelland's description of the JFK back of the head wound and how much of JFK's brain was honestly missing (including more oozing out during JFK's ER treatment and even the chunk Jackie Kennedy held in her hand to give to another doctor there with McClelland) matches what Bethesda Navy Corpsman Paul O'Conner ( a trained brain removal technician ) described in sworn testimony.

That "for all essential purposes most of JFK's brain was gone!"

1:02:33

NOW PLAYING

 

 

Parkland Trauma Room One Reunion

SixthFloorMuseum

 

 

 

Edited September 28, 2023 by Joe Bauer

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, Joe Bauer said:

Start at the 14 minute mark of the interview video I am posting and hear Parkland surgery doctor Robert MacLelland describe "in detail" the wound in the back of JFK's head and how much of JFK's brain matter was truly missing.

The man was just "18 inches" from JFK's skull in his position at the top of the table upon which JFK was laying. And he remained there for what 15, 20 or even 30 minutes?

What other Dr. or other witnesses to see JFK's head up that close within minutes of it's obliteration can one suggest to have had a better view of it, it's wound and brain matter loss including watching brain matter fall out of it right onto the table underneath.

McClelland's fellow surgeon Dr. Jones was right there just a couple of feet away from McLelland at JFK's side and in this interview he doesn't contradict one thing Dr. McClelland describe.

Bethesda DR. Commander Humes said he didn't know why he nor anyone else didn't weigh JFK's brain upon his removal of it in his autopsy procedure. A procedure so standard in autopsies of criminal action head wound victims it is ludicrous that such an arrogantly confident man like Humes could have missed this top priority criminal case evidence procedure just by forgetfulness.

And assisting expert bullet wound pathologist Pierre Fink and Dr. Boswell missed the procedure as well?

Dr. Mclelland's description of the JFK back of the head wound and how much of JFK's brain was honestly missing (including more oozing out during JFK's ER treatment and even the chunk Jackie Kennedy held in her hand to give to another doctor there with McClelland) matches what Bethesda Navy Corpsman Paul O'Conner ( a trained brain removal technitian ) described in sworn testimony.

That for all essential purposes most of JFK's brain was gone!

1:02:33

NOW PLAYING

 

 

Parkland Trauma Room One Reunion

SixthFloorMuseum

 

 

 

Yes, he had a good view...and wrote a report on what he saw...within hours of the shooting...which said the wound was"of the left temple". A week or two later, he was interviewed by a journalist who'd suspected a shot came through the windshield, and told that journalist there was nothing about JFK's head wound to make him think the shot came from the front. A few weeks after that, a Texas Medical Journal published his initial report. but it now read "of the right temple." 

McClelland never said anything about a blow out wound on the back of the head before reading the reports of his fellow doctors, and testifying before Warren Commission counsel Arlen Specter. This was 4 months after the assassination. 

And no, he wasn't frightened into silence or some such thing. I asked him about this personally, and he said he'd never been pressured into changing his views. Within Weisberg's Archives, finally, there is a memo on a conversation with McClelland 1969-1970, in which McClelland had nothing but nice things to say about Arlen Specter, but was heavily critical of Jim Garrison, and Jim Garrison's investigation, which he'd considered a waste of taxpayers' money. 

He is not what people think he is. 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by Pat Speer

[Michael Crane]

The only thing that I can add is,that it was Boswell who was responsible for weighing the brain.

On this occasion,instead of Jenkins doing the work on the organs & Boswell writing down weights & measurements,it was the complete opposite.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Michael Crane

[Michael Crane]

 

[Joe Bauer]

Pat, I respectfully disagree.

In this interview, seated right next to Dr. McClelland, is another Parkland hospital surgeon Dr. Jones.

He was just feet from Dr. McClelland during JFK's emergency medical treatment.

He is listening to Dr. McClelland's commentary including McClelland's very detailed description of JFK's "back of the head" wound and how much of JFK's brain was missing and more brain matter still oozing out onto "the cart" upon which JFK was laying.

McClelland's details were so specific, he even mentioned watching part of JFK's "cerebellum" falling out of that wound!

Never once did Dr. Jones even look like he was in anyway uncomfortable with or disagreeing with what his fellow hands-on JFK treatment Parkland ER doctor was describing. 

I think McClelland easily could have misremembered certain details in his decades of many interviews as any person would, especially into their older age.

But the "core" of his descriptive remembrance sharing does not shift as far as you express it does imo.

I would assume that every doctor present in Trauma Room 1 while JFK was being attended to that day has had misremembrances over their lifetimes and even made occasional contradictory statements regards everything from entrance wounds, brain damage/loss, vital sign activity, Jackie Kennedy's actions, you name it. Especially if they chose to be interviewed many times about what they witnessed. Many of those doctors never allowed themselves to be interviewed at all. Malcolm Perry for one, correct?

Almost every doctor attending to JFK in Trauma Room 1 the afternoon of 11,22,1963 was in their youthful 30's mental acuity prime on that day.

And they were hands-on witnessing the most shocking and memorable event of their lives and the rest of their lives.

10's of thousands of men who were engaged in hand-to-hand combat situations in war such as WW II, Korea and Viet Nam and who are interviewed 40, 50 even 60 years later often say they can remember every detail they witnessed in the bloodiest heat of battle they were a part of even that many years past.

The human brain, when experiencing a life and death first-hand trauma goes into hyper-energized adrenaline rush mode.

Memory sensors included.

Any doctor or other witness to JFK's head and head wound as close up as McClelland was to them and who claims something different than what McClelland states has the exact same liabilities of long ago experience memory loss and misremembering as him.

If one wants to impugn the veracity of highly trained and experienced professionals talking about something they directly witnessed ( lifetime shocking ) in their specific field of work from 60 years past, I am sure they can find misstatements or contradictories with all of them to a certain but not always a significant story changing degree.

I simply feel that McClelland's main core sharing of what he saw up close regards JFK's head and head wound in Trauma Room 1 on 11,22,1963 was consistent and as believable as any other JFK attending doctor's sharing of what they witnessed that day.

The bullet entry and exit stuff is so subjective and speculative due to many factors such as the shattering of JFK's skull into so many pieces, some of which were even blown off and away. 

Bullet hole ID into a shattered skull like JFK's was too difficult to determine definitively. Like looking at a puzzle with missing pieces?

Too many JFK treating witnesses got trapped when asked to "speculate" about bullet entry and exit locations showing up on skull bone pieces.

Their conclusions on that specific subject were obviously contradictory.

Same with asking witnesses whether they believed there was just one gunman, whether they believed the Warren Commission findings, how they felt about Jim Garrison and his investigation etc.

Those questions and their answers to them are not at all relevant to their hands-on / right there JFK injury observation sharings and the veracity of such imo.

In the end, I believe McClelland's personal observation memory sharings of his Trauma Room 1 JFK treating experience on 11,22,1963 as much as any other doctor in that room that day and even more so Navy Commander Humes's regarding his work on JFK at Bethesda.

 

 

Edited September 27, 2023 by Joe Bauer

[Joe Bauer]

1 hour ago, Michael Crane said:

The only thing that I can add is,that it was Boswell who was responsible for weighing the brain.

On this occasion,instead of Jenkins doing the work on the organs & Boswell writing down weights & measurements,it was the complete opposite.

Can you elaborate on this a little more MC?

I'm wondering what your point is regards JFK's brain weight not being taken and recorded as standard procedure would require.

And who was most responsible for that significantly important negligence?

Sounds like Humes was over his head in certain aspects of the autopsy. He had what, only "2" bullet wound autopsies in his career up until his being called to autopsy JFK? In Hawaii he claimed?

He felt he needed the help of two other more experienced pathologists to assist him? 

Seemed even Humes's two assisting navy medical corpsmen knew more about skull cutting brain removal procedure that he did.

Too bad the hugely more experienced pathologist Dr. Earl Rose in Dallas didn't tackle the autopsy of JFK. I would guess he wouldn't have felt he needed two other pathologists to help him in that task.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Joe Bauer

[Joe Bauer]

43 minutes ago, Michael Crane said:

 

MC...the McClelland comments scribbled to the right of his JFK head wound sketch are clearly qualified as "guesses" by McClelland!

He isn't stating with any certainty the bullet entry location.

He clearly uses the word "probably" and also states honestly that "I did not see this" in regards to any clearly seen bullet entry ID.

He shouldn't have even wrote this on the paper. Even he admits his view on the entry wound location is a speculation versus medical examination proven fact.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Joe Bauer

[Pat Speer]

23 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

MC...the McClelland comments scribbled to the right of his JFK head wound sketch are clearly qualified as "guesses" by McClelland!

He isn't stating with any certainty the bullet entry location.

He clearly uses the word "probably" and also states honestly that "I did not see this" in regards to any clearly seen bullet entry ID.

He shouldn't have even wrote this on the paper. Even he admits his view on the entry wound location is a speculation versus medical examination proven fact.

McClelland made (and sold?) a bunch of these drawings. And he failed to specify on many of them that he did not see the back wound, and only guessed there'd been a wound on the front of the head. 

McClelland, by his own admission, failed to suspect a frontal headshot on November 22, and only did so after viewing the Zapruder film in the 70's. He is erratic, at best. On his latter-day drawings, for example, he placed the head wound on the far back of the head. It's clear he was giving people what they want, or outright fibbing, you choose. Compare the placement of the wound in these drawings to where he placed the wound in the 80's. It's at least four inches lower, right?. Now, is it a coincidence that the more time McClelland spent with conspiracy theorists, the lower the wound became in his recollection? We can suspect not. 

Edited September 26, 2023 by Pat Speer

[Pat Speer]

57 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

Pat, I respectfully disagree.

In this interview, seated right next to Dr. McClelland, is another Parkland hospital surgeon Dr. Jones.

He was just feet from Dr. McClelland during JFK's emergency medical treatment.

He is listening to Dr. McClelland's commentary including McClelland's very detailed description of JFK's "back of the head" wound and how much of JFK"s brain was missing and more brain matter still oozing out onto "the cart" upon which JFK was laying.

McClelland's details were so specific, he even mentioned watching part of JFK's "cerebellum" falling out of that wound!

Never once did Dr. Jones even look like he was in anyway uncomfortable with or disagreeing with what his fellow hands-on JFK treatment Parkland ER doctor was describing. 

I think McClelland easily could have misremembered certain details in his decades of many interviews as any person would, especially into their older age.

But the "core" of his descriptive remembrance sharing does not shift as far as you express it does imo.

Every doctor treating JFK in that ER has had misremembrances over their lifetimes and even made occasional contradictory statements regards everything from entrance wounds, brain damage/loss, vital sign activity, Jackie Kennedy's actions, you name it.

Almost every doctor attending to JFK in Trauma Room 1 the afternoon of 11.22,1963 was in their youthful 30's mental acuity prime on that day.

And they were hands-on witnessing the most shocking and memorable event of their lives and the rest of their lives.

10's of thousands of men who were engaged in hand-to-hand combat situations in war such as WW II, Korea and Viet Nam and who are interviewed 40, 50 even 60 years later often say they can remember every detail they witnessed in the bloodiest heat of battle they were a part of even that many years past.

The human brain, when experiencing a life and death experience first-hand goes into hyper-energized adrenaline rush mode.

Memory sensors included.

Any doctor or other witness to JFK's head and head wound as close up as McClelland was to them and who claims something different than what McClelland states has the exact same liabilities of long ago experience memory loss and misremembering as him.

If one wants to impugn the veracity of highly trained and experienced professionals talking about something they directly witnessed ( lifetime shocking ) in their specific field of work from 60 years past, I am sure they can find misstatements or contradictories with all of them.

I simply feel that McClelland's main core sharing of what he saw up close regards JFK's head and head wound in Trauma Room 1 on 11,22,1963 was consistent and as believable as any other JFK attending doctor's sharing of what they witnessed that day.

The bullet entry and exit stuff is so subjective and speculative due to many factors such as the shattering of JFK's skull into so many pieces, some of which were even blown off and away. 

Bullet hole ID into a shattered skull like JFK's was too difficult to determine definitively. Like looking at a puzzle with missing pieces?

Any JFK treating witnesses got trapped when asked to "speculate" about bullet entry and exit locations showing up on skull bone pieces.

Their conclusions on that specific subject were all over the map.

Same with asking witnesses whether they believed there was just one gunman, whether they believed the Warren Commission findings, how they felt about Jim Garrison and his investigation etc.

Those questions are not as relevant to their hands-on / right there observation sharings and the veracity of such imo.

In the end, I believe McClelland's personal observation memory sharings of his Trauma Room JFK treating experience on 11,22,1963 as much as any other doctor in that room that day and even more so that Navy Commander Humes's regarding his work on JFK at Bethesda.

 

 

They perform autopsies for a reason. Emergency room doctors frequently miss the cause of death, and their memories of specific wound locations etc are notoriously unreliable. (If they were intended to be relied upon, they would have had a nurse there taking notes.) In McClelland's case, he is particularly and spectacularly unreliable. He can say whatever feels good...NOW. But his official report on Kennedy's death claims the fatal head wound was "of the left temple." 

[Michael Crane]

2 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Can you elaborate on this a little more MC?

I'm wondering what your point is regards JFK's brain weight not being taken and recorded as standard procedure would require.

And who was most responsible for that significantly important negligence?

Sounds like Humes was over his head in certain aspects of the autopsy. He had what, only "2" bullet wound autopsies in his career up until his being called to autopsy JFK? In Hawaii he claimed?

He felt he needed the help of two other more experienced pathologists to assist him? 

Seemed even Humes's two assisting navy medical corpsmen knew more about skull cutting brain removal procedure that he did.

Too bad the hugely more experienced pathologist Dr. Earl Rose in Dallas didn't tackle the autopsy of JFK. I would guess he wouldn't have felt he needed two other pathologists to help him in that task.

I'll try,

In your 1st post you said...

"Bethesda DR. Commander Humes said he didn't know why he nor anyone else didn't weigh JFK's brain upon his removal of it in his autopsy procedure. A procedure so standard in autopsies of criminal action head wound victims it is ludicrous that such an arrogantly confident man like Humes could have missed this top priority criminal case evidence procedure just by forgetfulness."

Although from the sound of things,Humes was in charge of the autopsy,but he did not have a part in dissecting & weighing the organs.Jenkins makes it sound like Humes was working more on the head with Finck.

Jenkins clearly states that SOP were not done on JFK.Boswell didn't measure the weight of the brain before he handed it over to Jenkins to finish it up.

In other words...Humes only had a part in removing the brain before he gave it to Boswell.From there...it was in Boswell's court? That's the way I take it.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Michael Crane

[Micah Mileto]

On 9/26/2023 at 2:20 AM, Pat Speer said:

 

C'mon, the "left temple" information is hot sh*t if you give it a chance.

 

On 8/27/1998, the Assassination Records Review Board held a group interview with Parkland Ronald Jones, Robert McClelland, Malcolm Perry, Paul Peters, and Charles Baxter. According to the transcript, after Dr. Jones specified that he was standing on the left side of Kennedy’s body, Jones said that he “...did see the very small wound which I thought was an entrance wound to the head. That was pretty clear”. The audio recording does sound like it basically matches the transcript in most places, although the version on the internet may be lacking in sound quality. The word “head” was not the clearest word in the sentence. Dr. McClelland commented “Dr. Jenkins, when I came in the room, told me as I walked by to come up to the head of the table and he said, Bob, there's a wound in the left temple there. And so I went to the table and I thought, you know, knowing nothing else about any of the circumstances, that's like that” - McClelland pointed to his left temple and continued, “-- came out the back. And there was a lot of blood on the left temple. There was blood everywhere, but there was a lot of blood on the left temple, so I didn't question that. And in fact, in something else -- Pepper testified somewhere else, he denied that he said that to me in the Warren Commission. And I told him -- I said Pepper, don't you remember? No, I never said that, Bob, and I never said the cerebellum fell out. Well, yes, you did, too, but I didn't argue with him. But the upshot of it is what that led to was Mr. Garrison's case in New Orleans, and he put together a scenario where he thought someone -- because of what I had said about the left temple bullet -- was in the storm sewer on the left side of the car and fired this bullet that killed the President, another gunman. He didn't say that Oswald was not there. He just said there was another gunman. And so he never contact -- Garrison never contacted me until it was essentially time to have the case in court”, “...And so I got a call one morning and it was from his office -- one of the people in Garrison's office, and he wanted to know if I would come to New Orleans and testify. And I said, Well, you know, it's odd that none of you had talked to me before this. I've been hearing something about it on television and whatnot. And they said, Well, we assumed that you still believed that the course of the bullet was as you said in your written testimony right after, and I said no. And his voice went up about three octaves and he said, What? And I said no, and I explained to him that I had learned other things about the circumstances at the time and that Jenkins had told me I didn't see any wound here. I was just stating what I had been told and that I wrote that down in my written statement right after the assassination. And so that was -- kind of took the wind out of the sails in that particular prosecution”. Jones then told a story about a Parkland employee named Dr. Lito Porto - “I have two comments relating to this, what's just been said and my comment. The afternoon of the assassination we were up in the OR and Lito Puerto -- I think it's L-i-t-o, Puerto, P-u-e-r-t-o -- was in the OR -”… “-- and he said he was -- that he referred to the President -- because he had been down there and he said, I put my -- he was shot in the leg. I said, he was shot in the left temple. He said, I put my finger in the hole, and I think that was part of –” - Although the transcript quotes Jones as relaying from Dr. Porto “he was shot in the leg”, in the audio posted online, it sounds like Jones may have not actually said the word “leg”, but instead paused after beginning to say “left”. In the group interview, McClelland then said “I never heard that. That's news to me”, and Jones continued: “And so -- in fact, I told Mr. Haron the other day -- I gave him Lito Puerto's name and his telephone number. I said you know if you're going to have the group down here, why don't you get Puerto down here to clarify that comment, if indeed that were the case or it's not the case But I think that was part of where some of that came from...”. When McClelland asked Jones “When did Lito say he did that?”, Jones said “It was that afternoon”... “It was my -- it was that afternoon, and I believe we were upstairs, but he had mentioned that he had put his finger into the -- and he was sort of known as the guy that went down and put his fingers in missile -or bullet –”... “-- wounds, and that was his comment at the time” (Transcript [text] [audio]).

 

I tried sending Dr. Jones a letter about this, but obviously he didn't reply.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Micah Mileto