The Head Wounds Revisited

[Daniel Gallup]

It seems to me that the main reason the Dallas doctors didn't see a larger wound was because they didn't reflect the scalp. It seems reasonable to accept Dr. Aguilar's explanation that Jackie cradling the President's head pressed the hair and scalp in place so that only the blow out in the rear was apparent to the Dallas doctors. If we take the Newman's literally then the shots that came directly behind them would have come from the pergola to the left of Zapruder's pedestal. They would have struck at a right angle and most likely exited from the left side of the head. Why would it have been necessary to conceal the fact that there were multiple shooters? As long as Oswald was shown to be one of them and he was connected to Castro, wouldn't it have been supposed that the others were too? This would seem to me only to increase the suspicion of a team of Castro agents being responsible. The LN scenario wasn't the initial aim of the plan, the false flag Castro operation was.

Gordon, correct me if I am wrong, but I see three flaws in Dr. Aguilar's explanation. First Humes reports that the area "chiefly parietal but extending somewhat into the occipital" was devoid of scalp and bone. The Dallas doctors missed this wound completely. Second, let us suppose that a great quantity if skull and brain matter was lost to this area, but the scalp remained somewhat intact and Jackie did her part of keep that part of the head as close to natural as possible. That a man of Kemp Clark's credentials would then not be able to discern the loss of bone and brain in that area of the skull (I assume we are talking about the area Boswell marked "missing') is utterly incomprehensible to me. Third, it is precisely this area where Humes uttered before the FBI and everyone else in attendance that surgery had been done to the top of the skull. With all due respect to Dr. Augilar, I believe he is grasping at straws, and missing the far clearer picture of fraud in the evidence.

I think Humes' description is somewhat ambiguous, and it's at odds with the autopsy photos we have seen, which do not show substantial scalp or bone missing from the parietal or occipital region. Is there any doubt he has been loess than truthful in both his report and testimony? As some one who has witnessed scalp reflected at an autopsy I am not surprised that bone could be missing once it was reflected, but not obvious to an observer viewing before it had been reflected. Unless Dr. Clark made a careful examination of the head palpitating it with his hands, I doubt he would have detected this, given the presidents thick head of hair. Is there any report he made such an examination? As to the surgery to the top of the head remark, had it been done by Humes himself it makes little sense that he would announce this to everyone present. What other witnesses reported seeing this?

In reply, for Humes to be at odds with the autopsy photos is not necessarily any criticism of Humes. The autopsy photos themselves are suspect, esp. the back of the head photo, which conceals, rather than reveals, the Parkland wound. I have read, and I wish I could remember where, that Clark did do a bit of manual examination of the parietal area and lifted slightly a bone plate. If anyone remembers reading of this, I would like to have my memory refreshed on the source. My point is that the bone was not missing from that area, which I believe was the parietal area. As to Humes' statement that there was surgery done to the head area, namely, at the top of the skull, this was his utterance recorded by the FBI and provided strong evidence for David Lifton's thesis of body alteration. Horne thinks this "surgery" was done by Humes himself but I have strong doubts about that. By the time Humes gets the body, I believe the head had already been brutally broken up and probably the brain removed. This is why Paul O'Connor recalled on the opening of the cheap shipping casket that Kennedy had no brains left when he was pulled from the body bag. A lot of this depends on the veracity of O'Connor, but I trust his word over that of the autopsy doctors, even though his testimony is not without its problems. Meanwhile, I shall look for the citation regarding Clark and whatever manipulations he did do of the skull. Addition: I found the citation I was looking for. It's from Dr. Grossman's ARRB testimony, which contradicts the other Parkland witnesses to the rear head wound but accords precisely with the autopsy description. Grossman said Clark detected a 6 cm bony plate in the parietal region that could be lifted slightly, and testified Clark actually did lift the plate slightly. Yet Grossman clearly defers to Clark in all matters pertaining to the head wound, a curious concession. It's as if Grossman wants to affirm the Rydberg drawing but at the same time disown it.