04-12-2010, 02:21 AM
The HSCA and JFK's Skull Wound
By Gary L. Aguilar, MD
March 30, 1995
Parkland witnesses to JFK's skull wound virtually unanimously described a defect in the right rear of JFK's skull. For example, neurosurgery professor, Kemp Clark, MD, closely examined JFK skull and wrote on 11/22/63, "There was a large wound beginning in the right occiput extending into the parietal region....Much of the skull appeared gone at the brief examination...." (Exhibit #392: WC V17:9-10) Dr. Clark's claim of a rearward skull defect was also repeated by Parkland witnesses Drs. Marion Thomas Jenkins, Malcolm Perry, Robert McClelland, Charles Carrico, Ronald Coy Jones, Gene Aiken, Paul Peters, Charles Rufus Baxter, Robert Grossman , Richard Brooks Dulaney, Fouad Bashour, and others. Such a defect is not inconsistent with the autopsy report's description of a parietal-temporal-occipital skull defect. However, a defect in the right rear quadrant seems incongrous with a bullet entering the rear of the skull and supposedly exiting the front, as is alleged to have resulted from Oswald's fatal shot. The autopsy photographs contradict the Parkland witnesses - they show an "anterolateral" defect, that is, a defect on the right side toward the front, with no defect behind the ear. The inconsistencies have raised the question of possible photographic tampering.
Regarding this dilemma, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) wrote, "Critics of the Warren Commission's medical evidence findings have found [sic] on the observations recorded by the Parkland Hospital doctors. They believe it is unlikely that trained medical personnel could be so consistently in error regarding the nature of the wound, even though their recollections were not based on careful examinations of the wounds... In disagreement with the observations of the Parkland doctors are the 26 people present at the autopsy. All of those interviewed who attended the autopsy corroborated the general location of the wounds as depicted in the photographs; none had differing accounts...it appears more probable that the observations of the Parkland doctors are incorrect." (HSCA, Vol. 7:37-39) The statement is supported by reference to "Staff interviews with persons present at the autopsy."
Recently released documents reveal for the first time that the HSCA misrepresented both the Warren Commission statements of the Bethesda witnesses, as well as its own "staff interviews," on the location of JFK's skull defect. Rather than contradicting Parkland witnesses that there was a rear defect in JFK's skull, Bethesda witnesses corroborated them. Bethesda witnesses not only described a rear defect to HSCA, they also drew diagrams that overwhelmingly showed a defect at the rear, or right rear of JFK's skull. By falsely representing the data, including its own, HSCA writers inaccurately portrayed Bethesda witnesses as contesting the observations of Parkland witnesses who in fact they supported. They apparently also sought to quell the controversy regarding the autopsy images which show no defect where Parkland, and now incontestably Bethesda, witnesses saw it. Discouragingly, public access to these inconvenient interviews and diagrams--which were of no national security value whatsoever--were to have been restricted for 50 years.
In preparing its report, the HSCA failed to acknowledge the Warren Commission testimonies of credible Bethesda witnesses who described a rear defect. Secret Service agent Clinton Hill reported a wound on "the right rear portion of the skull." (WC--CE#1024, V18:744) Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman told the Warren Commission's Arlen Specter that JFK's skull defect was "To the left of the (right) ear, sir, and a little high; yes...(Indicating the rear portion of the head) was absent when I saw him." (WC-V2:80-81). After Secret Service agent William Greer manually demonstrated the defect's location to the Commission, Arlen Specter asked, "Upper right side, going toward the rear. And what was the condition of the skull at that point?" Greer replied, "The skull was completely--this part was completely gone." (Warren Comm--V2:127) Moreover, other Bethesda witnesses interviewed by authors David Lifton, Harrison Livingstone and Robert Groden, as well as others, also described a rear defect in the skull much like that given to the Warren Commission and the HSCA by its Bethesda witnesses. (Available by request. Space constraints prevent a complete listing.)
The HSCA's interviews demonstrated a remarkable consistency between the Bethesda witnesses' claims to the Warren Commission, to authors, and to the HSCA - as well as the recollections of Parkland witnesses. James Curtis Jenkins, in a Pathology Ph.D. program at the time of the autopsy, was a laboratory technologist who worked with the autopsy team on JFK. The HSCA's Jim Kelly and Andy Purdy reported that Jenkins "said he saw a head wound in the '...middle temporal region back to the occipital." (HSCA interview with Curtis Jenkins, Jim Kelly and Andy Purdy, 8-29-77. JFK Collection, RG 233, Document #002193, p.4.) Jenkins prepared a diagram for the HSCA that was only recently released. It confirms his verbal description of a defect in the right rear of the skull.
FBI agent James Sibert was interviewed by the HSCA's Jim Kelly and Andy Purdy who reported, "Regarding the head wound, Sibert said it was in the '...Upper back of the head.'" [sic] In an affadavit prepared for the HSCA Sibert claimed, "The head wound was in the upper back of the head", and "...a large head wound in the upper back of the head with a section of the scull [sic] bone missing..." Sibert sketched a drawing of the skull wound and traced a small wound square in the central rear portion of the skull, slightly above the level depicted for the ears but well below the level depicted for the top of the skull. (HSCA REC # 002191.)
Tom Robinson was the mortician who prepared John Kennedy's remains for his coffin. Robinson assisted with the preparations for an open casket funeral so preparation of the skull was especially meticulous. Robinson described the skull wound in a 1/12/77 HSCA interview with Andy Purdy and Jim Conzelman. Purdy asked Robinson: "Approximately where was this wound (the skull wound) located?"
John Ebersole, MD, was the attending radiologist at JFK's autopsy. In HSCA testimony recently released, Ebersole claimed, "The back of the head was missing..." (HSCA interview with Ebersole, 3-11-78, p.3), and when shown the autopsy photograph with the back of the scalp intact, Ebersole commented, "You know, my recollection is more of a gaping occipital wound than this but I can certainly not state that this is the way it looked. Again we are relying on a 15 year old recollection. But had you asked me without seeing these or seeing the pictures, you know, I would have put the wound here rather than more forward." (HSCA interview with Ebersole, 3-11-78, p. 62). Yet Ebersole claimed that "I had the opportunity (to examine the back of JFK's head while positioning the head for X-rays) (HSCA Ebersole interview, 3-11-78, p. 64). Later Ebersole said, "...perhaps about 12:30 (AM) a large fragment of the occipital bone was received from Dallas and at Dr. Finck's request I X-rayed these (sic)..." If an occipital bone fragment did arrive late for the autopsy, the defect must indeed have been posterior. The occipital bone is at the base of the rear of the skull. No diagram from Dr. Ebersole has been released by the HSCA and none may have been prepared by him.
Philip C. Wehle--then Commanding officer of the military District of Washington, D. C.--described the head wound to the HSCA's Andy Purdy on 8-19-77, who reported, "(Wehle) noticed a slight bruise over the right temple of the President but did not see any significant damage to any other part of the head. He noted that the wound was in the back of the head so he would not see it because the President was lying face up; he also said he did not see any damage to the top of the head, but said the President had a lot of hair which could have hidden that...." (HSCA record # 10010042, agency file # 002086, p. 2) The author is unaware of any diagram Wehle might have prepared for the HSCA. If the photographs depicting a skull defect anterolaterally are accurate, it is hard to imagine how such a defect would have been invisible to Wehle with JFK lying face up.
Chester H. Boyers "was stationed at Bethesda naval hospital and was the chief Petty Officer in charge of the Pathology Department in November 1963." (HSCA Telephone contact--Mark Flanagan, 4/25/78, rec #? 13614). Flanagan reported, "In regard to the wounds Boyers recalls an entrance wound in the rear of the head to the right of the external occipital protuberance which exited along the top, right side of the head towards the rear and just above the right eyebrow." (HSCA Telephone contact--Mark Flanagan, 4/25/78, rec #? 13614, p. 2.)
FBI agent Francis X. O'Neill prepared a diagram for the HSCA showing a defect in the right rear quadrant of JFK's skull. The author is unaware of a report of an interview with O'Neill among the files released by the HSCA.
The only statement I found in HSCA interviews that is not frankly incompatible with the photographic images, which only imperfectly suggest an anterolateral defect (personal opinion having seen the original images at the National Acrhives by permission of the JFK family), is that attributed to Captain John Stover, then Commanding Officer of the National Naval Medical School. The HSCA's Mark Flanagan reported, "Stover observed...a wound on the top of the head..." Stover's description is so ambiguous to be of no use to either side of the debate.
Whether over forty witnesses at both Parkland and Bethesda miraculously made the identical error in describing a right-rear defect, rather than an antero-lateral defect, is problematic to say the least. Whatever the truth, the HSCA apparently misrepresented Warren Commission testimony, as well as its own witnesses' descriptions, to give false assurances the question was nonconspiratorially laid to rest. The interviews themselves will now unavoidably heighten the controversy of where JFK's skull defect truly was, and public confidence in the HSCA's work will inevitably suffer. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Author's Note: I sent Andy Purdy and Mark Flanagan, the HSCA interviewers who most likely wrote this section for the HSCA, this material, as well as copies of the very documents with their own signatures affixed to the bottoms. I called and asked them if they could explain the flat contradictions between the summaries and the material upon which the summaries were supposed to have been based. I also asked if they knew who wrote the section in question. Both could not recall who wrote the section, but both promised to write or call me back. As of June 22, 1995, it has been more than two months since I wrote. I've gotten no response whatsoever.
http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.../hsca_med.html
By Gary L. Aguilar, MD
March 30, 1995
Parkland witnesses to JFK's skull wound virtually unanimously described a defect in the right rear of JFK's skull. For example, neurosurgery professor, Kemp Clark, MD, closely examined JFK skull and wrote on 11/22/63, "There was a large wound beginning in the right occiput extending into the parietal region....Much of the skull appeared gone at the brief examination...." (Exhibit #392: WC V17:9-10) Dr. Clark's claim of a rearward skull defect was also repeated by Parkland witnesses Drs. Marion Thomas Jenkins, Malcolm Perry, Robert McClelland, Charles Carrico, Ronald Coy Jones, Gene Aiken, Paul Peters, Charles Rufus Baxter, Robert Grossman , Richard Brooks Dulaney, Fouad Bashour, and others. Such a defect is not inconsistent with the autopsy report's description of a parietal-temporal-occipital skull defect. However, a defect in the right rear quadrant seems incongrous with a bullet entering the rear of the skull and supposedly exiting the front, as is alleged to have resulted from Oswald's fatal shot. The autopsy photographs contradict the Parkland witnesses - they show an "anterolateral" defect, that is, a defect on the right side toward the front, with no defect behind the ear. The inconsistencies have raised the question of possible photographic tampering.
Regarding this dilemma, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) wrote, "Critics of the Warren Commission's medical evidence findings have found [sic] on the observations recorded by the Parkland Hospital doctors. They believe it is unlikely that trained medical personnel could be so consistently in error regarding the nature of the wound, even though their recollections were not based on careful examinations of the wounds... In disagreement with the observations of the Parkland doctors are the 26 people present at the autopsy. All of those interviewed who attended the autopsy corroborated the general location of the wounds as depicted in the photographs; none had differing accounts...it appears more probable that the observations of the Parkland doctors are incorrect." (HSCA, Vol. 7:37-39) The statement is supported by reference to "Staff interviews with persons present at the autopsy."
Recently released documents reveal for the first time that the HSCA misrepresented both the Warren Commission statements of the Bethesda witnesses, as well as its own "staff interviews," on the location of JFK's skull defect. Rather than contradicting Parkland witnesses that there was a rear defect in JFK's skull, Bethesda witnesses corroborated them. Bethesda witnesses not only described a rear defect to HSCA, they also drew diagrams that overwhelmingly showed a defect at the rear, or right rear of JFK's skull. By falsely representing the data, including its own, HSCA writers inaccurately portrayed Bethesda witnesses as contesting the observations of Parkland witnesses who in fact they supported. They apparently also sought to quell the controversy regarding the autopsy images which show no defect where Parkland, and now incontestably Bethesda, witnesses saw it. Discouragingly, public access to these inconvenient interviews and diagrams--which were of no national security value whatsoever--were to have been restricted for 50 years.
In preparing its report, the HSCA failed to acknowledge the Warren Commission testimonies of credible Bethesda witnesses who described a rear defect. Secret Service agent Clinton Hill reported a wound on "the right rear portion of the skull." (WC--CE#1024, V18:744) Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman told the Warren Commission's Arlen Specter that JFK's skull defect was "To the left of the (right) ear, sir, and a little high; yes...(Indicating the rear portion of the head) was absent when I saw him." (WC-V2:80-81). After Secret Service agent William Greer manually demonstrated the defect's location to the Commission, Arlen Specter asked, "Upper right side, going toward the rear. And what was the condition of the skull at that point?" Greer replied, "The skull was completely--this part was completely gone." (Warren Comm--V2:127) Moreover, other Bethesda witnesses interviewed by authors David Lifton, Harrison Livingstone and Robert Groden, as well as others, also described a rear defect in the skull much like that given to the Warren Commission and the HSCA by its Bethesda witnesses. (Available by request. Space constraints prevent a complete listing.)
The HSCA's interviews demonstrated a remarkable consistency between the Bethesda witnesses' claims to the Warren Commission, to authors, and to the HSCA - as well as the recollections of Parkland witnesses. James Curtis Jenkins, in a Pathology Ph.D. program at the time of the autopsy, was a laboratory technologist who worked with the autopsy team on JFK. The HSCA's Jim Kelly and Andy Purdy reported that Jenkins "said he saw a head wound in the '...middle temporal region back to the occipital." (HSCA interview with Curtis Jenkins, Jim Kelly and Andy Purdy, 8-29-77. JFK Collection, RG 233, Document #002193, p.4.) Jenkins prepared a diagram for the HSCA that was only recently released. It confirms his verbal description of a defect in the right rear of the skull.
FBI agent James Sibert was interviewed by the HSCA's Jim Kelly and Andy Purdy who reported, "Regarding the head wound, Sibert said it was in the '...Upper back of the head.'" [sic] In an affadavit prepared for the HSCA Sibert claimed, "The head wound was in the upper back of the head", and "...a large head wound in the upper back of the head with a section of the scull [sic] bone missing..." Sibert sketched a drawing of the skull wound and traced a small wound square in the central rear portion of the skull, slightly above the level depicted for the ears but well below the level depicted for the top of the skull. (HSCA REC # 002191.)
Tom Robinson was the mortician who prepared John Kennedy's remains for his coffin. Robinson assisted with the preparations for an open casket funeral so preparation of the skull was especially meticulous. Robinson described the skull wound in a 1/12/77 HSCA interview with Andy Purdy and Jim Conzelman. Purdy asked Robinson: "Approximately where was this wound (the skull wound) located?"
Robinson: "Directly behind the back of his head."
Purdy: "Approximately between the ears or higher up?"
Robinson: "No, I would say pretty much between them." (HSCA rec # 189-10089-10178, agency file # 000661, p.3. On the day of their interview Purdy and Conzelman signed a diagram prepared and also signed by Robinson. The sketch depicts a defect directly in the central, lower rear portion of the skull. (HSCA doc # 180-10089-10179, agency file # 000662)
Jan Gail Rudnicki was Dr. Boswell's lab assistant on the night of the autopsy. Rudnicki was interviewed by HSCA's Mark Flanagan on 5/2/78. Flanagan reported Rudnicki said the "back-right quadrant of the head was missing." (HSCA rec # 180-10105-10397, agency file number # 014461, p.2.) The author is unaware of any diagram Rudnicki might have prepared.) John Ebersole, MD, was the attending radiologist at JFK's autopsy. In HSCA testimony recently released, Ebersole claimed, "The back of the head was missing..." (HSCA interview with Ebersole, 3-11-78, p.3), and when shown the autopsy photograph with the back of the scalp intact, Ebersole commented, "You know, my recollection is more of a gaping occipital wound than this but I can certainly not state that this is the way it looked. Again we are relying on a 15 year old recollection. But had you asked me without seeing these or seeing the pictures, you know, I would have put the wound here rather than more forward." (HSCA interview with Ebersole, 3-11-78, p. 62). Yet Ebersole claimed that "I had the opportunity (to examine the back of JFK's head while positioning the head for X-rays) (HSCA Ebersole interview, 3-11-78, p. 64). Later Ebersole said, "...perhaps about 12:30 (AM) a large fragment of the occipital bone was received from Dallas and at Dr. Finck's request I X-rayed these (sic)..." If an occipital bone fragment did arrive late for the autopsy, the defect must indeed have been posterior. The occipital bone is at the base of the rear of the skull. No diagram from Dr. Ebersole has been released by the HSCA and none may have been prepared by him.
Philip C. Wehle--then Commanding officer of the military District of Washington, D. C.--described the head wound to the HSCA's Andy Purdy on 8-19-77, who reported, "(Wehle) noticed a slight bruise over the right temple of the President but did not see any significant damage to any other part of the head. He noted that the wound was in the back of the head so he would not see it because the President was lying face up; he also said he did not see any damage to the top of the head, but said the President had a lot of hair which could have hidden that...." (HSCA record # 10010042, agency file # 002086, p. 2) The author is unaware of any diagram Wehle might have prepared for the HSCA. If the photographs depicting a skull defect anterolaterally are accurate, it is hard to imagine how such a defect would have been invisible to Wehle with JFK lying face up.
Chester H. Boyers "was stationed at Bethesda naval hospital and was the chief Petty Officer in charge of the Pathology Department in November 1963." (HSCA Telephone contact--Mark Flanagan, 4/25/78, rec #? 13614). Flanagan reported, "In regard to the wounds Boyers recalls an entrance wound in the rear of the head to the right of the external occipital protuberance which exited along the top, right side of the head towards the rear and just above the right eyebrow." (HSCA Telephone contact--Mark Flanagan, 4/25/78, rec #? 13614, p. 2.)
FBI agent Francis X. O'Neill prepared a diagram for the HSCA showing a defect in the right rear quadrant of JFK's skull. The author is unaware of a report of an interview with O'Neill among the files released by the HSCA.
The only statement I found in HSCA interviews that is not frankly incompatible with the photographic images, which only imperfectly suggest an anterolateral defect (personal opinion having seen the original images at the National Acrhives by permission of the JFK family), is that attributed to Captain John Stover, then Commanding Officer of the National Naval Medical School. The HSCA's Mark Flanagan reported, "Stover observed...a wound on the top of the head..." Stover's description is so ambiguous to be of no use to either side of the debate.
Whether over forty witnesses at both Parkland and Bethesda miraculously made the identical error in describing a right-rear defect, rather than an antero-lateral defect, is problematic to say the least. Whatever the truth, the HSCA apparently misrepresented Warren Commission testimony, as well as its own witnesses' descriptions, to give false assurances the question was nonconspiratorially laid to rest. The interviews themselves will now unavoidably heighten the controversy of where JFK's skull defect truly was, and public confidence in the HSCA's work will inevitably suffer. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Author's Note: I sent Andy Purdy and Mark Flanagan, the HSCA interviewers who most likely wrote this section for the HSCA, this material, as well as copies of the very documents with their own signatures affixed to the bottoms. I called and asked them if they could explain the flat contradictions between the summaries and the material upon which the summaries were supposed to have been based. I also asked if they knew who wrote the section in question. Both could not recall who wrote the section, but both promised to write or call me back. As of June 22, 1995, it has been more than two months since I wrote. I've gotten no response whatsoever.
http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.../hsca_med.html