Mr. DULLES. Why would it--would this operating have anything to do with
the bullet being on the stretcher unless the President's body remained
on the stretcher after he was taken into the hospital; is that possible?
Commander HUMES. It is quite possible, sir.
Mr. DULLES. Otherwise it seems to me the bullet would have to have been
ejected from the body before he was taken or put on the bed in the
hospital.
Commander HUMES. Right, sir. I, of course, was not there. I don't know
how he was handled in the hospital, in what conveyance. I do know he
was on his back during the period of his stay in the hospital; Doctor
Perry told me that.
Mr. DULLES. Yes; and wasn't turned over.
Commander HUMES. That is right.
Mr. DULLES. So he might have been on the stretcher the whole time, is
that your view?
The CHAIRMAN. He said he had no view. He wasn't there, he doesn't know
anything about it.
Mr. DULLES. Yes. I wonder if there is other evidence of this.
Mr. SPECTER. There has been other evidence, Mr. Dulles. If I may say
at this point, we shall produce later, subject to sequential proof,
evidence that the stretcher on which this bullet was found was the
stretcher of Governor Connally. We have a sequence of events on the
transmission of that stretcher which ties that down reasonably closely,
so that on the night of the autopsy itself, as the information I have
been developing indicates, the thought preliminarily was that was from
President Kennedy's stretcher, and that is what led to the hypothesis
which we have been exploring about, but which has since been rejected.
But at any rate the evidence will show that it was from Governor
Connally's stretcher that the bullet was found.
Mr. DULLES. So this bullet is still missing?
Mr. SPECTER. That is the subject of some theories I am about to get
into. That is an elusive subject, but Dr. Humes has some views on it,
and we might just as well go into those now.
Mr. McCLOY. Before he gets into that, may I ask a question?
The CHAIRMAN. Surely, go right ahead.
Mr. McCLOY. Quite apart from the President's clothing, now directing
your attention to the flight of the bullet, quite apart from the
evidence given by the President's clothing, you, I believe, indicated
that the flight of the bullet was from the back, from above and behind.
It took roughly the line which is shown on your Exhibit 385.
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
Mr. McCLOY. I am not clear what induced you to come to that conclusion
if you couldn't find the actual exit wound by reason of the tracheotomy.
Commander HUMES. The report which we have submitted, sir, represents
our thinking within the 24-48 hours of the death of the President, all
facts taken into account of the situation.
The wound in the anterior portion of the lower neck is physically lower
than the point of entrance posteriorly, sir.
Mr. McCLOY. That is what I wanted to bring out.
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
Mr. McCLOY. May I ask this: In spite of the incision made by the
tracheotomy, was there any evidence left of the exit aperture?
Commander HUMES. Unfortunately not that we could ascertain, sir.
Mr. McCLOY. I see.
Mr. DULLES. There is no evidence in the coat or the shirt of an exit
through the coat or shirt.
Commander HUMES. There is no exit through the coat, sir. But these two,
in the shirt, of course--excuse me, sir--there is. The entrance by our
calculations----
Mr. DULLES. The entrance I know.
Commander HUMES. Posteriorly.
Mr. DULLES. What about the exit?
Commander HUMES. The exit wounds are just below.
Mr. DULLES. But there was no coat to exit through.
Commander HUMES. No; anteriorly the coat was quite open.
Senator COOPER. May I ask a question?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir, Senator.
Senator COOPER. Assuming that we draw a straight line from Point "C"
which you have described as a possible point of entry of the missile,
to Point "D" where you saw an incision of the tracheotomy----
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
Senator COOPER. What would be the relation of the bruise at the apex of
the pleural sac to such a line?
Commander HUMES. It would be exactly in line with such a line, sir,
exactly.
Senator COOPER. What was the character of the bruise that you saw there?
Commander HUMES. The bruise here, photographs are far superior to my
humble verbal description, but if I let my hand in cup shaped fashion
represent the apical parietal pleura, it was an area approximately 5
cm. in greatest diameter of purplish blue discoloration of the parietal
pleura. Corresponding exactly with it, with the lung sitting below it,
was a roughly pyramid-shaped bruise with its base toward the surface of
the upper portion of the lung, and the apex down into the lung tissue,
and the whole thing measured about 5 cm., which is a little--2 inches
in extent, sir.
Senator COOPER. What would be the--can you describe the covering around
the apex of the pleural sac, the nature of its protection. My point is
to get your opinion as to whether some other factor, some factor other
than the missile could have caused this bruise which you saw.
Commander HUMES. A couple of ways we might do this, sir. One with
regard to temporal, it was quite fresh. When examined under the
microscope, the lung in this area had recent hemorrhaging in it. The
red blood cells were well-preserved, as they would be if it happened
quite recently before death, as was the red blood cells where they had
gotten out into the lung tissue near there.
The discoloration was essentially of the same character as the
discoloration in the muscles adjacent thereto, which would roughly
again place it temporally in approximately the same time since bruises
change color as time goes by, and these appeared quite fresh.
This is with regard to time--I don't know whether that is the right
parameter in which you wished to study it, Senator.
Senator COOPER. My question really went to this point: Considering the
location of the bruise at the apex of the pleural sac----
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
Senator COOPER. And of the tissue or muscles around it, was there any
other factor which you could think of that might have caused that
bruise other than the passage of a missile?
Commander HUMES. It was so well localized that I truthfully, sir, can't
think of any other way.
Senator COOPER. That is all.
Mr. McCLOY. May I ask you one question which, perhaps, the answer is
quite obvious. If, contrary to the evidence that we have here, that
anterior wound was the wound of entry, the shot must have come from
below the President to have followed that path.
Commander HUMES. That course, that is correct, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Humes, can you compare the angles of declination on
385, point "C" to "D", with 388 "A" to "B"?
Commander HUMES. You will note, and again I must apologize for the
schematic nature of these diagrams drawn to a certain extent from
memory and to a certain extent from the written record, it would appear
that the angle of declination is somewhat sharper in the head wound,
388, than it is in 385.
The reason for this, we feel, by the pattern of the entrance wound at
388 "A" causes us to feel that the President's head was bent forward,
and we feel this accounts for the difference in the angle, plus
undoubtedly the wounds were not received absolutely simultaneously, so
that the vehicle in which the President was traveling moved during this
period of time, which would account for a difference in the line of
flight, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Aside from the slight differences which are notable by
observing those two exhibits, are they roughly comparable to the angle
of decline?
Commander HUMES. I believe them to be roughly comparable, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Could you state for the record an approximation of the
angle of decline?
Commander HUMES. Mathematics is not my forte. Approximately 45 degrees
from the horizontal.
Mr. SPECTER. Would you elaborate somewhat, Doctor Humes, on why the
angle would change by virtue of a tilting of the head of the President
since the basis of the computation of angle is with respect to the
ground?
Commander HUMES. I find the question a little difficult of answering
right off, forgive me, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. I will try to rephrase it. Stated more simply, why would
the tilting of the President's head affect the angle of the decline?
You stated that was----
Commander HUMES. The angle that I am making an observation most
about is the angle made that we envisioned having been made by the
impingement of the bullet in its flight at the point of entry. This
angle we see by the difference of the measurement of the two wounds.
Therefore, this is--we have several angles we are talking about here,
unfortunately, this is--the angle of which we speak in this location,
"A" to "B", and it is difficult.
I have to retract. Since we feel from their physical configurations,
wounds 385 "C" and 388 "A" are entrance wounds, if there wasn't some
significant change in the angulation of the President's head with
respect to the line of flight from these missiles, the physical
measurements of 385 "C" and this 388 "A" should be similar. They
aren't, in fact, dissimilar in that there is a greater angulation in
388 "A". Therefore, there has to be either a change in the position
of the vehicle in which the President is riding with respect to the
horizontal or a change in the situation of the President's head. I
believe that the exhibits submitted earlier, the photograph----
Mr. SPECTER. I believe the ones were given to you so far--excuse me,
you are right, 389.
Commander HUMES. 389, in fact at this point shows the President's head
in a slightly inclined forward position, and I am not enough aware of
the geography of the ground over which the vehicle was traveling to
know how much that would affect it.
Mr. SPECTER. If you were to be told that there was a distance traversed
of approximately 150 feet from the time of Point "C" on 385 to Point
"A" on 388, and you would assume the additional factor that there was
a slight angle of decline on the street as well, would those factors,
assuming them to be true, help in the explanation of the differences in
the angles?
Commander HUMES. I think that they would make the figure as depicted in
388 quite understandably different from 385.
Mr. DULLES. Was it possible, in view of the condition of the brain to
point with absolute accuracy to the point of exit there? I can see
that the point of exit in 385 can be clearly determined. Is it equally
possible to determine the point of exit in 388?
Commander HUMES. No, sir; it was not, other than through this large
defect because when----
Mr. DULLES. Therefore, that angle might be somewhat different.
Commander HUMES. Might be somewhat different, sir. I think we made
reference to that somewhat earlier. The fragments were so difficult to
replace in their precise anatomic location----
Mr. DULLES. That is what I thought, but I wasn't sure.
Commander HUMES. That is correct.
Mr. McCLOY. I would like to ask a question in regard to 385 similar to
that I asked as to 388. In your opinion, was the 385 wound lethal?
Commander HUMES. No, sir.
Mr. DULLES. With the wound in 385, would it have affected the
President's power of speech?
Commander HUMES. It could have, sir. The wound caused a defect in his
trachea which would most usually have caused at least some defect in
the proper phonation, sir.
(Discussion off the record.)
The CHAIRMAN. On the record.
Mr. SPECTER. In response to Mr. Dulles' question a moment ago, Doctor
Humes, you commented that they did not turn him over at Parkland. Will
you state for the record what the source of your information is on that?
Commander HUMES. Yes. This is a result of a personal telephone
conversation between myself and Dr. Malcolm Perry early in the morning
of Saturday, November 23.
Mr. SPECTER. At that time did Doctor Perry tell you specifically,
Doctor Humes, that the Parkland doctors had not observed the wound in
the President's back?
Commander HUMES. He told me that the President was on his back from the
time he was brought into the hospital until the time he left it, and
that at no time was he turned from his back by the doctors.
Mr. SPECTER. And at the time of your conversation with Doctor Perry did
you tell Doctor Perry anything of your observations or conclusions?
Commander HUMES. No, sir; I did not.
(A short recess was taken.)
The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, the Commission will be in order. We will
continue with the examination.
Mr. SPECTER. Doctor Humes, as to points of entry on the body of the
late President, how many were there in total?
Commander HUMES. Two, sir, as depicted in 385-C and 388-A.
Mr. SPECTER. And to points of exit, how many were there?
Commander HUMES. Two, sir, as depicted in 385-D and the vicinity
of 388-B. I make the latter remark as was developed earlier, in
that the size of the large defect in the skull was so great and the
fragmentation was so complex that it was impossible to accurately
pinpoint the exit of the missile in the head wound.
Mr. SPECTER. Now as to that last factor, would the X-rays be of
material assistance to you in pinpointing the specific locale of the
exit?
Commander HUMES. I do not believe so, sir. The only path that the
X-rays show in any detail are of the minor fragments which passed from
point A to point B.
Mr. SPECTER. Now that you have finished your major descriptions of
the wounds, can you be any more specific in telling us in what way
the availability of the x-rays would assist in further specifying the
nature of the wounds?
Commander HUMES. I do not believe, sir, that the availability of the
X-rays would materially assist the Commission.
Mr. SPECTER. How about the same question as to the pictures?
Commander HUMES. The pictures would show more accurately and in more
detail the character of the wounds as depicted particularly in 385 and
386 and in 388-A. They would also perhaps give the Commissioners a
better--better is not the best term, but a more graphic picture of the
massive defect in 388.