Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (79 page)

His hypothesis is this:

Since Lifton disbelieved that the doctors at both Parkland and Bethesda
lied about their observations, the alternative belief was that Kennedy's
body was altered. Lifton discovered a brief time period during the
swearing-in ceremonies for Lyndon Johnson aboard Air Force One when everyone gathered forward, leaving Kennedy's body unattended.
It was during this time that his body was taken from the bronze Dallas
casket, placed in a military body bag, and stowed elsewhere in the plane
[Autopsy photos showed several scratches on Kennedy's back that could
be explained by the hasty handling of his body]. At Andrews Air Force
Base, Kennedy's body was taken off the right side of Air Force One and
placed in a helicopter, which immediately took off while the news
media and officials concentrated on Mrs. Kennedy and the Dallas
casket, which were unloaded from the left side of the plane. Either at
Walter Reed or Bethesda, someone altered the President's wounds to
conform to the shots-from-behind thesis and then the body was wrapped
in a sheet and placed on the Bethesda autopsy table ready for Dr.
Humes and the others.

Lifton's theory-incredible as it may seem-is supported by the available evidence. Further, attempts to discredit either Lifton or his sources
have proven unconvincing.

There is no doubt that long-standing and serious questions have arisen
over the medical evidence. Lifton's theory that Kennedy's body was
altered while in the hands of federal officials goes a long way in explaining
the puzzles and inconsistencies of the medical evidence.

Upon learning of the throat wound the day after the autopsy, Humes was
forced to revise his autopsy report.

The autopsy doctors determined that the back wound was 4 to 7 millimeters in diameter and the Dallas doctors said the throat wound was 3 to 5
millimeters in diameter. Since the back wound was larger, this would
normally suggest that the neck wound was one of entrance and the back
wound one of exit-assuming both holes represented the path of a single
bullet.

However, Humes saw it another way. Testifying to the House Select
Committee on Assassinations, Humes said upon learning of the throat
wound: ". . . lights went on, and we said, ah, we have some place for our
missile to have gone."

After revising his autopsy report, Humes walked to his fireplace and
burned autopsy material-alternatively described as original notes, a first
draft, or other written notes. This highly-questionable practice preceded
his final autopsy report, which stated definitely: "One missile entered the
back of the President and exited in the front of the neck."

Considering that the wound in Kennedy's throat was too small to have
been caused by a rifle slug and that FBI experts could not find any traces of
metal on Kennedy's shirt or tie and that the Dallas doctors noted bruises on
Kennedy's neck, it has been theorized that the neck wound may have been
caused by bone fragments blasted downward at the time of the fatal head shot.

Author Josiah Thompson wrote:

If we suppose that a bullet (or more likely a bone) fragment was driven
downward on a slight left-to-right trajectory through the midbrain, we
have a hypothesis that accords with all the known facts surrounding the
throat wound.

But Humes was not bothered by such theories. He now had a revised
idea of how Kennedy died:

-One bullet entered Kennedy's back and exited from his throat.

-Another bullet struck the back of his head and exited from the top of
the skull.

Even Kennedy's personal physician, Dr. Burkley, had problems accepting these findings, which may explain his belief in a conspiracy as
revealed to author Henry Hurt.

Adding to this confusion is the possibility of yet another bullet being
recovered from Kennedy's body during the autopsy. In The New York
Times of November 27, 1963, Dallas doctor Kemp Clark stated one bullet
struck Kennedy at the necktie knot "ranged downward in his chest, and did
not exit." This statement was supported by Dr. Robert Shaw, who told
New York Herald-Tribune reporter Martin Steadman on November 27 that
a bullet entered the front of Kennedy's throat "coursed downward into his
lung [and] was removed in the Bethesda Naval Hospital where the autopsy
was performed. "

The idea of a bullet being removed during autopsy gains additional
strength in light of two government documents now available. One is a
letter of receipt signed by FBI agents Sibert and O'Neill, who monitored
the autopsy. The two-line letter, dated November 22, 1963, states: "We
hereby acknowledge receipt of a missile removed by Commander James J.
Humes, MC, USN on this date." The other is another letter of receipt, but
this time from the Protective Research Section of the Treasury Department, dated November 26, 1963. Among the items it listed as received
from Kennedy's personal physician, Dr. Burkley, is "One receipt from
FBI for a missile removed during examination of the body." FBI agents
normally would know the difference between bullet fragments and an
intact slug. It is curious that both documents refer to a "missile" rather
than fragments or pieces of bullet.

All of this suggests yet another bullet was discovered but kept secret,
since another bullet would have destroyed the lone-assassin theory, which
already was being strained to the limit.

Further evidence that more than two bullets struck President Kennedy
came in 1968 when then Attorney General Ramsey Clark gathered a panel
of physicians headed by Dr. Russell Fisher, a Maryland medical examiner,
to study the JFK autopsy photographs and X-rays.

In addition to noting that the rear head wound had changed both size and shape from its description by the autopists, the Clark panel found at the
base of Kennedy's skull "... a large metallic [bullet] fragment which
... is round and measures 6.5 mm in diameter."

This could be construed as strong evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald,
since he reportedly used a 6.5 mm rifle. However, recall that the official
version states that one bullet-the "Magic Bullet"-traversed the President's neck, penetrated Connally, and was found intact at Parkland Hospital.

Since officially no large fragments had been noted by the autopsy
doctors and no such fragments could have come from the whole bullet
found at Parkland, it seems probable that either more than two shots struck
Kennedy in the head area or that the autopsy materials viewed by the Clark
panel were somehow faked.

Furthermore, yet another bullet base, about 6.5 mm in diameter, was
said to be found in the front seat of the presidential limousine. All this
goes far to prove that more than two bullets struck Kennedy.

A Navy officer who might have been able to clarify some of the
questions about the President's autopsy is unavailable. He died under
strange circumstances.

Over the years, as attempts have been made to clarify and substantiate
the medical evidence, the wounds seem to take on a life of their own.

The head wound as seen by the Dallas doctors, consisted of a large
blasted-out area in the right rear of the skull. Both medical and nonmedical
persons in Dallas gave consistent descriptions of this wound.

Secret Service Agent Clint Hill told the Warren Commission:

The right rear portion of his head was missing.

Dr. Charles J. Carrico noted a large hole:

.. . in the posterior skull, the occipital region. There was an absence of
the calvarium or skull in this area .. .

Dr. Malcolm Perry:

I noted a large avulsive wound of the right parietal occipital area, [The
occipital is the large bone on the back of a human skull.] in which both
scalp and portions of skull were absent .. .

Dr. William Kemp Clark:

I then examined the wound in the back of the President's head. This was
a large, gaping wound in the right posterior part, with cerebral and
cerebellar tissue being damaged and exposed. [The cerebellum controls
muscle coordination and is located at the low rear portion of the head
behind the occipital bone.]

Dr. Robert McClelland:

I noted that the right posterior portion of the skull had been
extremely blasted.

Yet the autopsy doctors saw a head wound that stretched from the upper
side of the rear to the right front of Kennedy's head.

The autopsy doctors said a small entrance wound was located in the
back of the skull at about the hairline, while the House Select Committee
on Assassinations' medical panel placed the entrance wound four inches
higher, near the top of the head.

Neither the Warren Commission nor the House Committee spoke of a
hole blasted out of the right rear portion of the President's head. The
House Committee even produced a drawing reportedly made from an
autopsy photograph that depicts the rear of Kennedy's head. It is entirely
intact except for what appears to be a small hole-the entrance woundnear the top.

Humes had problems with this drawing, stating he had never seen the
small hole before. He suggested it might be dried blood. But he was
certain that he had seen no entrance wound in that location.

Robert Groden, a researcher and photographic consultant to the House
Select Committee on Assassinations, had a simple explanation for the
mystery surrounding the autopsy photographs-after careful study, he
decided several, if not all, were forgeries. After discovering evidence of
retouching, Gordon wrote:

The vital autopsy photos of the back of the President's head were altered
immediately after the autopsy in order to cover up the fact that the
President received two bullets in the head, one from the rear and one
from the front, and this second shot blew out the back of his head, as
Jackie Kennedy testified to the Warren Commission.

Contemporary autopsy drawings and reports placed the location of the
back wound in the middle of the back, between the shoulder blades-this
description is corroborated by the bullet holes in Kennedy's clothing-yet
the Warren Commission placed the back wound on the right shoulder near
the base of the neck.

X-rays and other autopsy materials such as photographs, tissue samples,
and blood smears-including Kennedy's brain, which was removed and
preserved-could have provided definitive proof of the location of the
wounds. However, much of this material is missing from the National
Archives. (The House Select Committee on Assassinations hinted that the
brain may have been taken by Robert Kennedy to prevent future public
display, however, this has not been proven and Kennedy is not alive to
comment.)

It also should be noted that the Warren Commission-the group officially charged with finding the truth of Kennedy's assassination-apparently
never was allowed to view for themselves the President's autopsy photographs and X-rays. Commission attorney Arlen Specter, in an October 10,
1968, interview in U.S. News & World Report stated:

The complete set of pictures taken at the autopsy was not made available to me or to the Commission. I was shown one picture of the back
of a body which was represented to be the back of the President,
although it was not authenticated. It showed a hole in the position
identified in the autopsy report. To the best of my knowledge, the
Commission did not see any photographs or X-rays. . . . The photographs and X-rays would, in the thinking of the Commission, not have
been crucial, because they would have served only to corroborate what
the autopsy surgeons had testified to under oath as opposed to adding
any new facts for the Commission.

But they are crucial-if not in truthfully understanding Kennedy's wounds,
then in understanding the manipulations surrounding the medical evidence.
As Groden later told his author:

The key to understanding who killed Kennedy lies with the autopsy
photographs. These photographs may tell us more about the assassination than all of the official investigations. Perhaps the single most
important question in the investigation was never asked: Why were the
autopsy photographs and X-rays never officially shown to the numerous
doctors and nurses in Dallas who treated President Kennedy'? Had this
question been pursued, the true nature of the conspiracy would then
have been exposed, because the crucial pictures allegedly of the back of
the President's head are forged! That forgery is one of the keys to the
conspiracy. Who would have had that kind of access to the evidence in
order to alter it? Who had the capability to alter it?

The medical evidence in the JFK assassination, which should be the
basis for truthful determination of how many bullets struck Kennedy and
from which direction, is hopelessly flawed. Some of it is still missing and
other material has come under serious question as to its authenticity.

Kennedy was given an incompetent autopsy, with military and civilian
authorities directing the three inexperienced and intimidated military doctors.

The late Dr. Milton Helpern, who as chief medical examiner for New
York City supervised sixty thousand autopsies, once described Kennedy's
autopsy thusly: