The Head Wounds Revisited

[Albert Rossi]

For Donald Rebentisch, a petty officer who was stationed at Bethesda on the night of the autopsy, there was no big secret. Rebentisch was studying dental and medical equipment repair at the hospital at the time. According to Rebentisch, two ambulances carrying two caskets were employed one of them empty and one with the body of Kennedy in a deliberate charade to slip the President's body into Bethesda Naval Hospital. Rebentisch says his commanding officers told him the secrecy was planned to avoid the media and other onlookers. The empty casket was brought in the front door while the casket carrying Kennedy's body was driven in a 1958 Chevrolet hearse to the back of the hospital where medical officials were to perform an autopsy:

Apart from the issue of a casket "brought in the front door" (certainly not what Sibert & O'Neill state), the problem with Rebentisch's version, as I see it, then becomes when the casket with JFK's body was put into the black hearse, Chevrolet or Cadillac or whatever. We have the film of the transfer from Air Force One to the Navy ambulance. Either that casket was already empty, or somewhere along the line it got switched from Jackie & RFK's ambulance to the hearse (which I don't know we have any evidence for). I don't think Rebentisch's statements help clear up exactly how this supposed security measure was effected.