Dr. SHAW. That would almost clear that thing up.
Mr. SPECTER. Yes; it would be very informational in our analysis of the
situation.
Dr. SHAW. I doubt if there is a hole in both sides of the sleeve--the
sleeve wouldn't be quite that long, I don't think.
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Shaw, my next question involves whether you have ever
had a conversation with Governor Connally about the sequence of events
of the day he was shot?
Dr. SHAW. Yes, we have talked on more than one occasion about this.
The Governor admits that certain aspects of the whole incident are a
bit hazy. He remembers hearing a shot. He recognized it as a rifle
shot and turned to the right to see whether President Kennedy had been
injured. He recognized that the President had been injured, but almost
immediately, he stated, that he felt a severe shock to his right chest.
He immediately experienced some difficulty in breathing, and as he
stated to me, he thought that he had received a mortal wound.
Mr. SPECTER. Did he tell you why he thought the wound was mortal?
Dr. SHAW. He just knew that he was badly hit, as he expressed it.
Mr. SPECTER. Did he comment on whether or not he heard a second shot
before he felt this wound in his chest?
Dr. SHAW. He says that he did not hear a second shot, but did hear--no,
wait a minute, I shouldn't say that. He heard only two shots so that he
doesn't know which shot other than the first one he did not hear. He
only remembers hearing two shots, his wife says distinctly she heard
three.
Mr. SPECTER. Mrs. Connally said she heard three?
Dr. SHAW. Mrs. Connally distinctly remembered three shots.
Mr. SPECTER. And, Governor Connally said he heard two shots?
Dr. SHAW. Two shots.
Mr. SPECTER. Would that not be consistent with a situation where he was
hit by the second shot and lost consciousness?
Dr. SHAW. Yes; the shock of the wounding might have prevented him from
hearing the rifle report.
Mr. SPECTER. Would you have expected him to hear a third shot after he
was wounded by a second shot?
Dr. SHAW. He didn't lose consciousness at that time, although he said
he did lose consciousness during a part of the trip from the point of
wounding to the hospital.
Mr. SPECTER. Did Governor Connally tell you whether or not he heard
President Kennedy say anything?
Dr. SHAW. He said that all he heard was the President say, "Oh," that's
the only thing he told me.
Mr. SPECTER. Did Mrs. Connally state whether or not she heard the
President say anything?
Dr. SHAW. My memory isn't good for that. I don't remember what Mrs.
Connally told me on that.
Mr. SPECTER. Are you continuing to treat Governor Connally at the
present time?
Dr. SHAW. Yes, although the treatment of the chest is practically at an
end, because the chest has reached a satisfactory state of healing.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you continue to treat the Governor all during his stay
at Parkland Hospital?
Dr. SHAW. Yes, I attended him several times daily.
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Shaw, would you think it consistent with the facts
that you know as to Governor Connally's wounds that he could have been
struck by the same bullet which passed through President Kennedy,
assuming that a missile with the muzzle velocity of 2,000 feet per
second, a 6.5-millimeter bullet, passed through President Kennedy at a
distance of 160 to 250 feet from the rifle, passing through President
Kennedy's body, entering on his back and striking only soft tissue and
exiting on his neck; could that missile have also gone through Governor
Connally's chest in your opinion?
Dr. SHAW. Yes, taking your description of the first wound sustained by
the President, which I, myself, did not observe, and considering the
position of the two men in the limousine, I think it would be perfectly
possible for the first bullet to have passed through the soft tissues
of the neck of President Kennedy and produced the wounds that we found
on Governor Connally.
Mr. SPECTER. Could that bullet then have produced all the wounds that
you found on Governor Connally?
Dr. SHAW. Yes, I would still be postulating that Governor Connally was
struck by one missile.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, as you sit here at the moment on your postulation
that Governor Connally was struck by one missile, is that in a way
which is depicted by diagram No. 5 on the exhibit heretofore marked as
"Dr. Gregory's Exhibit No. 1?"
Dr. SHAW. Yes; I feel that the line of trajectory as marked on this
diagram is accurate as it could be placed from my memory of this wound.
Mr. SPECTER. And, on that trajectory, how do you postulate the bullet
then passed through the wrist from dorsal to volar or from volar to
dorsal?
Dr. SHAW. My postulation would be from volar to dorsal.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, then, going back to diagram No. 1, Dr. Shaw, there is
one factor that we did not call your attention to or have you testify
about, and that is--the marking that the exit is on the volar side and
the entry is on the dorsal side as it was remarked by Dr. Gregory, that
would then be inconsistent of your view of the situation, would it not?
Dr. SHAW. Yes, it would be.
Mr. SPECTER. And similarly on diagram No. 3, where the exit is marked
on the volar, and the entry is marked on the dorsal, that would also be
inconsistent with your view of the situation?
Dr. SHAW. Yes--he has the wound on the back being quite a bit larger
than the wound on the front here, doesn't he?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes, the wound as it appears here on the diagram is larger.
Dr. SHAW. That wasn't my memory.
Mr. SPECTER. But I don't think that that is necessarily as to scale in
this situation. Would it be possible from your knowledge of the facts
here, Dr. Shaw, that President Kennedy might have been struck by the
bullet passing through him, hitting nothing but soft tissues, and that
bullet could have passed through Governor Connally's chest and a second
bullet might have struck Governor Connally's wrist?
Dr. SHAW. Yes; this is a perfectly tenable theory.
Mr. SPECTER. And, then, the damage to Governor Connally's thigh might
have come from either of the bullets which passed through the chest or
a second bullet which struck the wrist?
Dr. SHAW. That is true--as far as the wounds are concerned, this
theory, I feel, is tenable. It doesn't conform to the description of
the sequence of the events as described by Mrs. Connally.
Mr. SPECTER. In what respect Dr. Shaw?
Dr. SHAW. Well she feels that the Governor was only struck by one
bullet.
Mr. SPECTER. Why does she feel that way; do you know, sir?
Dr. SHAW. As soon as he was struck she pushed him to the bottom of
the car and got on top of him and it would mean that there would be a
period of--well if there were 5-1/2 seconds between the three shots,
there would be a couple seconds there that would have given her time
to get him down into the car, and as she describes the sequence, it is
hard to see how he could have been struck by a second bullet.
Mr. SPECTER. If she pushed him down immediately after he was shot on
the first occasion?
Dr. SHAW. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. But if her reaction was not that fast so that he was
struck twice, of course then there would be a different situation,
depending entirely on how fast she reacted.
Dr. SHAW. I think if he had been struck first in the wrist and not
struck in the chest, he would have known that. He only remembers the
hard blow to the back of his chest and doesn't remember being struck in
the wrist at all.
Mr. SPECTER. Might he not have been struck in the chest first and
struck by a subsequent shot in the wrist?
Dr. SHAW. Yes; but that's hard to postulate if he was down in the
bottom of the car.
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Shaw, have you been interviewed by any representatives
of the Federal Government prior to today?
Dr. SHAW. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. And who talked to you about this case?
Dr. SHAW. I don't have his name. I perhaps could find it. It was a
member of the Secret Service.
Mr. SPECTER. On how many occasions were you talked to by a Secret
Service man?
Dr. SHAW. Once.
Mr. SPECTER. And what did you tell him?
Dr. SHAW. I told him approximately the same that has been told in this
transcript.
Mr. SPECTER. And prior to the time we started to go on the record with
the court reporter taking this down verbatim, did you and I have a
discussion about the purpose of the deposition and the questions that I
would ask you?
Dr. SHAW. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. And were the answers which you provided me at that time
the same as those which you have testified to on the record here this
afternoon?
Dr. SHAW. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. Do you have any other written record of the operation on
Governor Connally other than that which has been identified here in
Commission Exhibit No. 392?
Dr. SHAW. No; this is a copy of the operative record that went on to
the chart of Governor Connally which is in the possession of the record
room of Parkland Hospital.
Mr. SPECTER. Do you have anything else which you could tell us which
you think might be helpful to the Commission in any way, Dr. Shaw?
Dr. SHAW. No; I believe that we have covered all of the points that
are germane to this incident. Anything else that I would have would
actually be hearsay.
Mr. SPECTER. Thank you very much, sir, for appearing.
Dr. SHAW. All right, you are welcome.
Mr. SPECTER. Off the record.
(Discussion between Counsel Specter and the witness, Dr. Shaw, off the
record.)
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Shaw, permit me to ask you one or two more questions.
Did you find any bullets in Governor Connally's body?
Dr. SHAW. No.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you find any fragments of bullets in his chest?
Dr. SHAW. No; only fragments of shattered rib.
Mr. SPECTER. And did you find, or do you know whether any fragment was
found in his wrist or the quantity of fragments in his wrist?
Dr. SHAW. It is my understanding that only foreign material from the
suit of Governor Connally was found in the wrist, although in the X-ray
of the wrist there appeared to be some minute metallic fragments in the
wrist.
Mr. SPECTER. As to the wound on the back of Governor Connally, was
there any indication that the bullet was tumbling prior to the time it
struck him?
Dr. SHAW. I would only have to say that I'm not a ballistics expert,
but the wound on his chest was not a single puncture wound, it was long
enough so that there might have been some tumbling.
Mr. SPECTER. You mean the wound on his back?
Dr. SHAW. The wound on his back--yes, it was long enough so that there
might have been some tumbling. In other words, it was not a spherical
puncture wound.
Mr. SPECTER. So it might have had some tumbling involved, or it might
not have?
Dr. SHAW. Yes; I don't know whether the clothes would have occasioned
this or not.
Mr. SPECTER. My question would be that perhaps some tumbling might have
been involved as a result of decrease in velocity as the bullet passed
through President Kennedy, whether there was any indication from the
surface of the wound which would indicate tumbling.
Dr. SHAW. The wound entrance was an elliptical wound. In other words,
it had a long diameter and a short diameter. It didn't have the
appearance of a wound caused by a high velocity bullet that had not
struck anything else; in other words, a puncture wound.
Now, you have to also take into consideration, however, whether the
bullet enters at a right angle or at a tangent. If it enters at a
tangent there will be some length to the wound of entrance.
Mr. SPECTER. So, would you say in net that there could have been some
tumbling occasioned by having it pass through another body or perhaps
the oblique character of entry might have been occasioned by the angle
of entry.
Dr. SHAW. Yes; either would have explained a wound of entry.
Mr. SPECTER. Fine, thank you very much, Doctor.
Dr. SHAW. Thank you.