First, regarding Jerry Organ's reply about McClelland's NOVA comments, rather than waste time answering Organ's repeated lies, evasions, and false denials, I just invite you to go watch the segment for yourselves, and you will see that McClelland said exactly what I quoted him as saying, and that he did in fact put his hand over the right-rear part of his head both times.
You will also see that the NOVA narrator did in fact say that McClelland approved the drawing of the back of the head that they showed next to a back-of-head autopsy photo rendition and by itself, i.e., the drawing that McClelland himself had drawn years earlier that shows a right-rear wound. You will hear the narrator say, "The drawing was approved by Dr. McClelland" (46:21 to 46:25 in the documentary). Pull up the documentary on YouTube, fast-forward to 46:21, and you will hear the narrator say these words.
I'm evasive? Here's what Griffith was responding to:
"I (along with everyone else) missed the part where it was
stated the drawing was "approved for NOVA".
"Approved for NOVA" is what Griffith placed on his screen capture. And, of course, he could find no claim made by NOVA or Dr. McClelland. In isolation, it doesn't matter much, just an illustration of Griffith's playing loose with the facts.
In fact, a few minutes later, the narrator makes the rather amazing statement that the McClelland drawing shows the wound that the doctors "and NOVA" saw in some of the autopsy photos! I quote:
"The drawing suggests" doesn't sound too definitive. And all the Parkland doctors, prior to viewing, have their hands much higher up towards the top of the head than the wound location depicted in the drawing.
The narrator then goes on to note the contradiction between McClelland's drawing and the artist rendition of a back-of-the-head autopsy photo that shows no damage to the occiput and no damage to the right-rear parietal area.
The sequence that ends with Dr. McClelland saying:
"There doesn't seem to be any sort of wound in the area
where I had drawn the picture that showed this large hole."
Earlier in the program, McClelland said the autopsy photos accurately showed what he had seen in 1963.
I might add that when McClelland testified before the WC and the ARRB, he said that the large head wound was in the right-rear part of the head, and he said the same thing at every recorded public appearance whenever he talked about the wound's location.
That's your answer to this ...
Mr. SPECTER. Did you observe the condition of the back of the
President's head ?
Dr. McCLELLAND. Well, partially; not, of course, as I say, we did
not lift his head up since it was so greatly damaged. We
attempted to avoid moving him any more than it was absolutely
necessary, but I could see, of course, all the extent of the wound.
McClelland seems to say he could not see the very rear of the President's head.
"That there was not only a horrible gaping wound but that it was
a cavity that extended down into the head. And as I stood there
holding the retractor, I was looking down into it all the time. I was
no more than eighteen inches away from the wound all the time,
standing just above it, which was ten to fifteen minutes at least."
-- Robert McClelland, 1991
How can McClelland be "looking down" into a gaping wound at the back of the head if he's "standing just above it" such that he could see it "extended down into the head"? The President's head would have to be turned so that the back of the head was upright.
"He was in terrible shape; the right side of his brain had been
blown out."
-- Robert McClelland, 1993
As for the Clint Hill video clip in Organ's post, which was filmed many years after the fact,
Wow. But it's OK to to believe outlandish tales from particular witnesses who appeared before the ARRB, who made few if any notes or took any photographs, many years after the event, after they had been influenced by conspiracy advocates? Even the ARRB made note of the problem:
"Finally, a significant problem that is well known to trial lawyers, judges,
and psychologists, is the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. Witnesses
frequently, and inaccurately, believe that they have a vivid recollection of
events. Psychologists and scholars have long-since demonstrated the
serious unreliability of people's recollections of what they hear and see.
One illustration of this was an interview statement made by one of the
treating physicians at Parkland. He explained that he was in Trauma
Room Number 1 with the President. He recounted how he observed the
First Lady wearing a white dress. Of course, she was wearing a pink suit,
a fact known to most Americans. The inaccuracy of his recollection
probably says little about the quality of the doctor's memory, but it is
revealing of how the memory works and how cautious one must be when
attempting to evaluate eyewitness testimony.
The deposition transcripts and other medical evidence that were released
by the Review Board should be evaluated cautiously by the public. Often
the witnesses contradict not only each other, but sometimes themselves.
For events that transpired almost 35 years ago, all persons are likely to
have failures of memory. It would be more prudent to weigh all of the
evidence, with due concern for human error, rather than take single
statements as "proof" for one theory or another."
I will simply note that Hill's description of the wound in the video is very different from the description he gave in his official report and in his WC testimony. I'll take his original report and WC testimony over his decades-later change of story. I could also show you a video clip made a few years earlier than the one Organ shows in which Hill said the head blew off "the back" of JFK's head. Hill's official report and WC testimony say nothing about any damage to the top or side of the head, not one word.
Official report:
"As I lay over the top of the back seat I noticed a portion of the President's
head on the right rear side was missing and he was bleeding profusely.
...
I observed another wound on the right rear portion of the skull."
Testimony:
"The right rear portion of his head was missing.
...
the one large gaping wound in the right rear portion of the head"
Hill uses the term "right rear" in the clip:
 | | Not a valid vimeo URL
On the day of the assassination, Abraham Zapruder
demonstrated something similar to Clint Hill's clip. |
Before moving on to the main subject of this post, let it be noted that autopsy photo F8 shows a large occipital wound, that OD scans of the autopsy skull x-rays prove that a substantial amount of occipital bone was blown away, and that new research on the Harper fragment has firmly established that it is occipital bone.
Are others allowed to disagree?
Now to the main subject of this post: the 11/22/63 medical report of Parkland Hospital’s neurosurgeon, Dr. Kemp Clark. It should be noted that his report says the same thing about the large head wound that he said in a press conference earlier that day.
At 3:30 PM, three hours after the assassination, Dr. Clark and Dr. Malcolm Perry held a telephonic press conference for local reporters who had been unable to attend the official press conference. One of the local reporters on the line was Connie Kritzberg of the Dallas Times-Herald. The next day, 11/23/, her article on the teleconference was published. She reported that Dr. Clark said the large head wound was in “the right-rear side of the head” and added that the throat wound was described as “an entrance wound”:
A few months later, Dr. Clark told the Warren Commission (WC) that he had “examined” the wound “in the back of the President’s head,” that it was in the “right posterior part” of the head, and that cerebellar and cerebral brain tissue was exposed in the wound:
So the hospital’s neurosurgeon “examined” the large head wound and reported that it was in the “right posterior” part of the head, and also noted that he could see cerebellar tissue in the wound. Any first-year medical student knows that cerebellar tissue looks very different than other brain tissue, and that cerebellar tissue is located only in the back of the head.
Well the Parkland doctors who went to the National Archives thought they were mistaken about seeing cerebellum.
Dr. Robert Grossman, a neurosurgeon, was with Dr. Clark when they both examined the President's head. Grossman told the "Boston Globe" in 1981:
"Then it was clear to me that the right parietal bone had been
lifted up by a bullet which had exited. That's the only thing
that will do that, that the right parietal bone was elevated."
When shown the McClelland drawing, Grossman says:
"I think this is too low ... it's in the wrong place."
Grossman's markings for the Globe:
 Exit Wound | |  Entry Wound (Only Parkland doctor to claim this) | |
There is a Parkland witness whom I have not yet mentioned: Al (Aubrey) Rike. Rike worked for O'Neal's Funeral Home and helped load JFK's body into the casket at Parkland Hospital after the head and body had been wrapped in sheets. He reported that while he had his hand on the back of JFK's head ("had my hand behind his head"), he could feel the edges of a wound and could feel brain tissue in the wound. I quote from his recorded interview with David Lifton:
So we have yet another witness who handled the wound and who noted that it was in the back of the head.
Not a valid vimeo URL
It looks to me like Aubrey Rike thought the neck wound was behind the neck collar (that's where his finger first goes to). And that he felt a wound that was well outside the occipital bone area, above the ear level and somewhat on the right side.
