Let’s bring together some of the evidence that (1) the back wound was shallow and had no exit point, and (2) that the autopsy doctors knew about the throat wound during the autopsy.
BACK WOUND HAD NO EXIT POINT
-- Dr. Robert Karnei was a resident surgeon at Bethesda Naval Hospital in 1963 and witnessed the autopsy. In a 1991 recorded interview, Karnei said the autopsy doctors positioned the body in multiple ways to facilitate the probing of the back wound, and that “the men” who saw the probing commented that they could see the end of the finger and then the end of the probe “from inside the empty chest”! He added that the pathologists worked “all night long with the probes” to find the bullet’s path through the body:
They did have the body--trying to sit it up and trying to get that probe to go. . . .
Q: Why didn't they turn the body over?
A: Well, they did. They tried every which way to go ahead, and try to move it around. . . .
Q: But this was after the Y incision?
A: Yes. The men described being able to see the end of the finger and the probe from inside the empty chest.
They were working all night long with probes trying to make out where that bullet was going on the back there. (p. 10)
In his 3/10/97 ARRB interview, Karnei said that by around midnight
the autopsy doctors "had not found a bullet track through the body, nor had they found an exit wound for the entry in the shoulder" (p. 001476).
In his 8/27/77 HSCA interview, Karnei said that he recalled the autopsy doctors "
putting the probe in and taking pictures" (p. 5). Karnei was not the only witness who saw pictures taken of the probing, but those pictures were never included in the official collection of the autopsy materials. I think we all know why.
Karnei also told the HSCA that he saw "the chest cavity opened and watched the removal of the organs," and that after this he saw Finck "working with a probe and arranging for photographs" (p. 6). This is another reference that indicates photos were taken of the probing.
-- Dr. Robert Canada was the commanding officer of the treatment hospital at Bethesda Naval Hospital in 1963, and he witnessed the autopsy. In a 1968 interview with Dr. Michael Kurtz, Canada said that the back wound was at around T3, that the bullet “did not exit,” and that its wound tract ended in the chest near the stomach ((Kurtz,
The JFK Assassination Debates: Lone Gunman versus Conspiracy, University Press of Kansas, 2006, p. 91; see also
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/altered-history-exposing-deciet-and-deception-in-the-jfk-assassination-medical-evidence-part-1/, segment on Dr. Canada begins at 1:08:20). Dr. Canada asked Dr. Kurtz not to reveal his account until 25 years after he died, so Kurtz did not write about it until 2006.
-- James Jenkins, a medical technician who assisted Dr. Boswell during the autopsy, stated in his 8/29/1977 HSCA interview that Dr. James Humes, the chief autopsy pathologist, found that the bullet tract had not "penetrated into the chest" and that Humes had been able to "reach the end of the wound." Jenkins specified that the back wound "was very shallow" and that "it didn't enter the peritoneal cavity [the chest cavity]. He noted that there was quite a “controversy” because the doctors “couldn’t prove the bullet came into the chest cavity” even though they probed the back wound “extensively” (pp. 5, 7, 10-11, 13).
Jenkins added that at around the time of the probing "they repeatedly took x-rays of the area” (p. 8 ). For obvious reasons, those x-rays were not included in the official collection of the autopsy materials.
In a 1979 filmed interview, Jenkins said the following:
Commander Humes put his finger in it, and, you know, said that ... he could probe the bottom of it with his finger. . . . I remember looking inside the chest cavity and I could see the probe . . . through the pleura. You could actually see where it was making an indentation. . . . It was pushing the skin up. . . . There was no entry into the chest cavity.
-- In his 7/16/96 ARRB interview, autopsy photographer John Stringer said that the back wound was probed and that the probe did not come out of the neck:
Q: Was the probe put into the neck, or did it come of the neck?
A: It was put into the back part.
Q: The back of the body. And then did the probe come out the neck?
A: No. (p. 73)
-- FBI Special Agent Francis O'Neill, who was in the autopsy room during the entire autopsy, revealed in his 9/12/97 ARRB interview that at the end of the autopsy, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that the bullet that was found in Dallas had fallen out of the back wound:
There was not the slightest doubt when we left there that the bullet found on the stretcher in Dallas was the bullet which worked its way out through external cardiac massage. And the doctor said, since the body had not been turned over in Dallas, “External cardiac massage was conducted on the president, and the bullet worked its way out."
There was not the slightest doubt, not a scintilla of doubt whatsoever, that this is what occurred. In fact, during the latter part of it and when the examination was completed, the doctor says, "Well, that explains it.” Because Jim [Sibert] had gone out, called the laboratory, learned about the bullet, came back in.
Because I was closer to the President’s body than I am to you, and you’re only about a foot and a half away or two feet away. And viewing them with the surgical probe and with their fingers, there was absolutely no point of exit and they couldn’t go any further. And that presented a problem, one heck of a problem. And that’s why Jim went out and called. . . .
Q: You previously made reference to attempts to probe that wound. Did you ever see any kind of metal object used to probe that wound?
A: Yes. They used a metal probe, in addition to their fingers. . . . In the back, they probed it to a point where they could not probe any further. In other words, it did not go any further. (pp. 30-31)
O'Neill stated in his 11/8/78 HSCA affidavit that "Humes and Boswell couldn't locate an outlet for the bullet that entered the back." That's when Sibert left to call the FBI lab to see if "any extra bullets existed." He added, "I know for a fact that when the autopsy was complete, there was no doubt in anyone's mind in attendance at the autopsy that the bullet found on the stretcher in Dallas came out of JFK's body," i.e., out of the back wound (p. 000573).
O’Neill also offered this gem of an observation: "I do not see how the bullet that entered below the shoulder could have come out the front of the throat" (p. 000575).
-- FBI Special Agent James Sibert, who was at the autopsy with O’Neill, echoed O’Neill in his 9/11/97 ARRB interview. Sibert said he called Killion to see if any bullets had been found because the autopsy doctors said the back wound had no exit point:
Q: Can you tell me, was the phone call made to Mr. Killion before or after the body was unloaded from the casket?
A: Oh, that was after the body was removed; it was on the autopsy table, and the autopsy was in progress. Because the reason I made that call was that the pathologists said, "There’s no exit to this back wound,” and probed it with rubber glove and a chrome probe. (p. 59)
Sibert explained more about the probing and the fact that the autopsy doctors--"Finck, in particular"--said they could feel the end of the back wound:
But when they raised him up, then they found this back wound. And that’s when they started probing with the rubber glove and the finger, and also with the chrome probe.
And that’s just before, of course, I made this call, because they were at a loss to explain what had happened to this bullet. They couldn’t find any bullet.
And they said, "There's no exit.” Finck, in particular, said, "There's no exit.” And they said that you could feel it with the end of the finger. I mean, the depth of this wound. (p. 111)
-- Dr. John Ebersole, the radiologist at the autopsy, stated in his 3/11/78 testimony to the HSCA’s medical panel that the autopsy doctors determined that the back wound had no exit point:
Further probing determined that the distance traveled by this missile was a short distance inasmuch as the end of the opening could be felt with the finger, inasmuch as a complete bullet of any size could be located in the brain area and likewise no bullet could be located in the back or any other areas. An inspection revealed there was no point of exit. The individuals performing the autopsy were at a loss to explain why they could find no bullets. (p. 57)
-- In discussing the probing of the back wound, autopsy doctor J. Thornton Boswell admitted in his 2/26/96 ARRB interview that after they "opened the chest" they could see that "the bullet had not pierced through into the lung cavity but had caused hemorrhage just outside the pleura”:
We probed this hole which was in his neck with all sorts of probes and everything, and it was such a small hole, basically, and the muscles were so big and strong and had closed the hole and you couldn't get a finger or a probe through it.
But when we opened the chest and we got at—the lung extends up under the clavicle and high just beneath the neck here, and the bullet had not pierced through into the lung cavity but had caused hemorrhage just outside the pleura. (pp. 75-76)
In a somewhat confusing mix of describing and theorizing, Dr. Boswell then switched from describing the probing to speculating about a
hypothetical path from the back wound that would have resulted in a probe coming out of the throat wound, saying that “if you put a probe in this and got it back through like this, that would come out right at the base of the neck” (p. 76). When I first read this, I thought Boswell was saying they had actually gotten the probe to come out of the neck, which would prove the doctors were aware of the throat wound during the autopsy.
In any event, we know from multiple other sources, including Boswell’s own HSCA interview, that the doctors did know about the throat wound during the autopsy.
AUTOPSY DOCTORS KNEW ABOUT THROAT WOUND DURING THE AUTOPSY
-- In his 8/17/77 HSCA interview, Boswell said that when the autopsy doctors saw the body, they assumed the throat wound ("anterior neck wound") was an exit wound, and he added that they were not certain that a tracheotomy had been done and only thought it was a possibility. Moreover, Boswell dropped the bombshell that
he saw part of the perimeter of a bullet wound in the throat! I quote from the interview summary written by HSCA staffer Andy Purdy, who conducted the interview:
Dr. Boswell said that the autopsy doctors assumed that the anterior neck wound was a wound of exit, saying the hole is not that big and that it was "far bigger than a wound of entry." He said the doctors didn't explicitly discuss the possibility of a tracheotomy having been performed but said it was assumed this was a possibility. . . . Dr. Boswell said he remembered seeing part of the perimeter of a bullet wound in the anterior neck. ( p. 8 )
In his HSCA interview, Boswell also indicated that he and the other pathologists discussed the back wound and the throat wound with Secret Service agents during the autopsy. Note that Boswell usually referred to the back wound as a "neck wound." And he said that a federal agent was on the phone "most of the time" during the autopsy:
DR. BOSWELL indicated that "we had gotten ourselves in dutch [in trouble] with the neck and throat wounds with regard to the Secret Service." DR. BOSWELL indicated that one of the agents (he wasn't sure if FBI or Secret Service) was on the phone most of the time. (He seemed to be implying they were on the phone that was in the main autopsy room.) (p. 4) (the parenthetical statement is Purdy’s)
The federal agent who was on the phone "most of the time" during the autopsy may have been the person, or one of the persons, who repeatedly called Dr. Perry that night to try to persuade him to change his description of the throat wound from an entrance wound to an exit wound.
Nurse Audrey Bell, the Supervising Nurse of Operations and Recovery at Parkland Hospital, revealed in 1997 that Dr. Perry complained to her on the morning after the autopsy that he had gotten almost no sleep the night before because unnamed persons at Bethesda Naval Hospital had been pressuring him on the telephone all night long to change his opinion about the throat wound.
-- Dr. George Burkley, JFK's personal physician, knew about the throat wound because he was in the ER at Parkland Hospital helping the Parkland doctors treat JFK. He supplied the Parkland doctors with hydrocortisone because of JFK's adrenal condition: "Burkley produced three 100-mg vials of Solu-Cortef from his bag, murmuring, 'Either intravenously or intramuscularly'" (William Manchester,
The Death of a President, Harper & Row, New York: 1967, p. 184). Burkley arrived in the ER before Dr. Malcolm Perry arrived, and Dr. Perry was the one who did the tracheotomy over the throat wound, so Burkley surely saw the throat wound, just as did the other doctors and nurses who were in the room before Dr. Perry arrived. Burkley also would have seen Dr. Perry do the tracheotomy. And, of course, Burkley was at the autopsy and spoke with the autopsy doctors several times that night.
-- Dr. Perry and other Parkland doctors held a televised press conference barely an hour after JFK died,
about six hours before the autopsy began, and Dr. Perry repeatedly mentioned JFK’s throat wound during the press conference and stated three times that the throat wound was an entrance wound.
