The testimony of Dr. Charles Francis Gregory was taken at 2:30 p.m.,
on March 23, 1964, at Parkland Memorial Hospital, Dallas, Tex., by Mr.
Arlen Specter, assistant counsel of the President's Commission.
Mr. SPECTER. May the record show that at the start of this session that
I have here at the moment Dr. Charles Gregory, who has appeared here in
response to a letter of request from the President's Commission on the
Assassination of President Kennedy.
May I say to you, Dr. Gregory, that the purpose of the Commission is
to investigate all facets relating to the assassination, including the
wounding of President Kennedy, and the wounding of Governor Connally,
and we have asked you to appear here for the purpose of testifying
concerning your treatment of Governor Connally. Our rules specify that
we make a brief statement of the purpose of the Commission, and the
purpose of our calling on you.
Now, will you stand up and raise your right hand?
Do you solemnly swear the testimony you will give before the
President's Commission in this deposition proceeding will be the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Dr. GREGORY. I do.
Mr. SPECTER. Will you state your full name for the record, please?
Dr. GREGORY. Dr. Charles Francis Gregory.
Mr. SPECTER. And what is your profession, sir?
Dr. GREGORY. I am a physician and surgeon.
Mr. SPECTER. Will you outline your educational background, please?
Dr. GREGORY. Yes; I received a bachelor of science degree from Indiana
University in 1941, and a doctor of medicine in 1944. I have completed
5 years of post-graduate training in orthopedic surgery at the Indiana
University Medical Center in 1951. I remained there excepting for an
interlude with the U.S. Navy in 1953 and 1954, until 1956. In 1956 I
assumed my present position, which is that of professor of orthopedic
surgery and chairman of the division of orthopedic surgery at the
Southwestern Medical School, University of Texas.
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Gregory, are you certified by the American Board?
Dr. GREGORY. I am certified by the American Board of Orthopedic
Surgery; yes, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. And what year were you so certified?
Dr. GREGORY. In 1953. I am now a member of the American Board of
Orthopedic Surgery, as a matter of fact.
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Gregory, what experience, if any, have you had in the
treatment of gunshot wounds?
Dr. GREGORY. My experience with the treatment of gunshot wounds began
with my training in orthopedic surgery, but its greatest impetus
occurred in 1953 and 1954 in the Korean theatre of operations with the
U.S. Navy. Since that time here at the Parkland Hospital in Dallas our
service has attended a considerable number of such injuries, plus my
experience is continuing.
Mr. SPECTER. Could you approximate the total number of gunshot wounds
you have had experience with?
Dr. GREGORY. I have had personal experience with, I suppose, in
approximately 500 such missile wounds.
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Gregory, back on November 22, 1963, did you have
occasion to treat Governor Connally?
Dr. GREGORY. I did.
Mr. SPECTER. Will you relate briefly the circumstances surrounding your
call to treat the Governor?
Dr. GREGORY. I had been seeing patients in the health service at the
medical school building on the morning of November 22 and was there
when word was received that the President had been shot. I did not then
know that the Governor had also been injured. I came to the emergency
room of Parkland Hospital and upon gaining entrance to it, inquired
as to whether or not Mr. Kennedy's wounds were of a nature that would
require my assistance.
I was advised that they were not. I then took a number of persons from
the emergency room area with me away from it in order to reduce the
confusion, and I went to the orthopedic ward on the fifth floor west of
Parkland Hospital. After attending some of the patients on that ward,
I was preparing to leave the hospital and went by the operating room
area to see whether or not I could be of any other assistance, and
was apprised then that a page was out for me. At that time Dr. Shaw
advised me that Governor Connally had been wounded and that among his
wounds were those to the right forearm and the left thigh. He had asked
that I stay and attend those wounds after he had completed care of the
Governor's chest wound.
Mr. SPECTER. At approximately what time did you have that conversation
with Dr. Shaw?
Dr. GREGORY. To the best of my knowledge, that conversation must have
been about between 1 and 1:15 in the afternoon of November 22.
Mr. SPECTER. And that conversation was with Dr. Shaw?
Dr. GREGORY. Dr. Robert Shaw.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, what part did Dr. Robert Shaw have in the treatment
of Governor Connally in a general way?
Dr. GREGORY. Well, Dr. Robert Shaw attended the most serious wound that
the Governor sustained, which was one to his right chest, and it was
his operation which took precedence over all others.
Mr. SPECTER. And, was that operation completed before your operation
commenced?
Dr. GREGORY. Yes; Dr. Shaw's operation had been completed before we
even arranged the Governor's right arm and left thigh for definitive
care.
Mr. SPECTER. At approximately what time did your operation of Governor
Connally begin?
Dr. GREGORY. My operation on Governor Connally began about 4 o'clock
p.m. on Friday, November 22.
Mr. SPECTER. And approximately how long did it last?
Dr. GREGORY. The better part of an hour--I should judge--45 to 50
minutes.
Mr. SPECTER. Who, if anyone, assisted you in that operation?
Dr. GREGORY. I was assisted by the junior orthopedic resident, Dr.
William Osborne, and the orthopedic intern, Dr. John Parker.
Mr. SPECTER. What was Governor Connally's condition when you first saw
him with respect to his chest wounds, first, if you will, please tell
us?
Dr. GREGORY. I did not see Governor Connally myself until he had been
taken into the operating room and had had an endotracheal tube placed
in his larynx and had been anesthetized. Having accomplished this, the
very precarious mechanics of respiration had been corrected and his
general status at that time was quite satisfactory.
Mr. SPECTER. What observations did you have with respect to his wound
in the chest?
Dr. GREGORY. I had none, really, for the business of prepping and
draping was underway at that time, and I did not intrude other than to
observe very casually, and I don't remember any details of it.
Now, I did see in the course of the operation the wound in his chest,
the wound of entry, and its posterior surface and the wound of exit on
the anterior surface.
Mr. SPECTER. What did the wound of entry look like, Doctor?
Dr. GREGORY. It appeared to me that the wound of entry was sort of
a linear wound, perhaps three-quarters of an inch in length with a
rounded central portion. Whereas, the wound of exit was rather larger
than this, perhaps an inch and a half across.
Mr. SPECTER. And at approximately what part of the body was the wound
that you described as the wound of entry?
Dr. GREGORY. In view of the drapes that were on the Governor at the
time, I will have to speculate, but as I recall best, it was in an area
probably 2 inches below and medial to the right nipple.
Mr. SPECTER. Is that the wound of entry or exit?
Dr. GREGORY. That's the wound of exit.
Mr. SPECTER. How about the wound of entry?
Dr. GREGORY. The wound of entry was too obscure for me to identify,
since it was just in general over the posterior aspect of his chest.
Mr. SPECTER. What did you observe with respect to the wound of his
wrist?
Dr. GREGORY. I didn't see the wound of his wrist until after the chest
operation had been completed, because his arm was covered by the
operation drapes, the surgical drapes for the chest procedure.
Mr. SPECTER. And when you did have an opportunity to observe the wound
of the wrist, what did you then see?
Dr. GREGORY. I observed the wound on the dorsal aspect of his wrist,
which was about 2 cm. in length, ragged, somewhat irregular, and lay
about an inch and a half or 2 inches above the wrist joint. It was a
little to the radial side of the wrist area.
There was a second wound in the wrist on the volar surface, about a
centimeter and a half proximal to the distal flexion crease and this
wound was a transverse laceration no more than a centimeter in length
and did not gape.
Mr. SPECTER. When you say on the dorsal aspect, what is that?
Dr. GREGORY. In lay terms, that's equivalent to the back of the hand.
Mr. SPECTER. And the volar is equivalent to what?
Dr. GREGORY. The palm surface of the hand.
Mr. SPECTER. What conclusion, if any, did you reach as to which was the
wound of entry and exit on the wrist?
Dr. GREGORY. Based on certain findings in the wound at the time the
debridement was carried out----
Mr. SPECTER. Will you define debridement before you proceed with that?
Dr. GREGORY. Yes; debridement is a surgical term used to designate
that procedure in attending a wound which removes by sharp excision
all nonvital tissue in the area together with any identifiable foreign
objects.
In attending this wound, it was evident early that clot had been
carried into the wound from the dorsal surface to the bone and into the
fracture. This would imply that an irregular missile had passed through
the wrist from the dorsal to the volar aspect.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, were there any characteristics in the volar aspect
which would indicate that it was a wound of exit?
Dr. GREGORY. No; there were none, really. It was my assumption that the
missile had expended much of its remaining energy in passing through
the radius bone, which it did before it could emerge through the soft
tissues.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you observe any foreign objects identifiable as bits
of fragments or portions of a bullet missile?
Dr. GREGORY. A preliminary X-ray had indicated that there were metallic
fragments or at least metallic fragments which cast metallic shadows
in the soft tissues around the wounded forearm. Two or three of these
were identified and were recovered and were observed to be metallic
in consistency. These were turned over to appropriate authorities for
further disposition.
Mr. SPECTER. Approximately how large were those fragments, Dr. Gregory?
Dr. GREGORY. I would judge that they were first--flat, rather thin, and
that their greatest dimension would probably not exceed one-eighth of
an inch. They were very small.
Mr. SPECTER. Would you have sufficient experience with gunshot wounds
to comment as to whether a 6.5-mm. bullet could have passed through the
Governor's wrist in the way you have described, leaving the fragments
which you have described and still have virtually all the bullet
missile intact, or having 158 grains of a bullet at that time?
Dr. GREGORY. Well, I am not an expert on ballistics, but one cannot
escape certain ballistic implications in this business.
I would say, first of all, that how much of the missile remains intact
as a mass depends to some extent on how hard the metal is. Obviously,
if it is very soft, as lead, it may lose more fragments and therefore
more weight and volume than it might if it is made of a harder material
or is jacketed in some way.
Now, the energy in the missile is a product, not so much of its mass as
it is of its velocity, for by doubling the velocity, you can increase
the kinetic energy in the force it transmits, fourfold, since the
formula for determining energy in these cases is a matter of mass times
velocity squared, rather than just linear functional velocity. So, some
knowledge of how much of the cartridge force might have been behind the
missile would be useful here too.
Mr. SPECTER. For the purpose of this consideration, I am interested
to know the the metal which you found in the wrist was of sufficient
size so that the bullet which passed through the wrist could not have
emerged virtually completely intact or with 158 grains intact, or
whether the portions of the metallic fragments were so small that that
would be consistent with having virtually the entire 6.5-mm. bullet
emerge.
Dr. GREGORY. Well, considering the small volume of metal as seen by
X-ray, and the very small dimensions of the metal which was recovered,
I think several such fragments could have been flaked off of a total
missile mass without reducing its volume greatly.
Now, just how much, depends of course upon what the original missile
weighed. In other words, on the basis of the metal left behind in
Governor Connally's body, as far as I could tell, the missile that
struck it could be virtually intact, insofar as mass was concerned, but
probably was distorted.
Mr. SPECTER. Would you have any idea at all as to what the fragments
which you observed in the Governor's wrist might weigh, Doctor?
Dr. GREGORY. No, not really, but it would have been very small--very
small.
Mr. SPECTER. What treatment or action did you take with respect to
treating the Governor's wrist for him, Dr. Gregory?
Dr. GREGORY. Upon completing the debridement, we were then faced with a
decision as to whether we should suture his wound in the conventional
manner or not, and we chose not to, leaving the wound open in deference
to potential infection that might be produced by retained fragments
of clothing. Having decided upon that course of action, the fractured
radius bone was then manipulated into a reduced position and the entire
limb was encased in a plaster-paris cast.
Mr. SPECTER. Did that complete your operative procedure?
Dr. GREGORY. That completed my operative procedure for that day for
Governor Connally--yes.
Mr. SPECTER. What other wounds, if any, did you notice on the Governor
at that time?
Dr. GREGORY. In addition to the chest wound and the wound just
described in his right forearm there was a wound in the medical aspect
of his left thigh. This was almost round and did not seem to have
disturbed the tissues badly, but did definitely penetrate and pass
through the skin and to the fascia beneath. I could not tell from the
superficial inspection whether it had passed through the fascia. An
X-ray was made of his thigh at that time and there was not present in
his thigh any missile of sufficient magnitude, in my opinion, to have
produced the wound observed on his medial aspect. Repeat X-rays failed
to reveal any such missile and an additional examination failed to
reveal any wound of exit.
Mr. SPECTER. What did the X-rays reveal with respect to the presence of
a missile?
Dr. GREGORY. In the thigh there was a very small shadow, perhaps 1 mm.
by 2 mm. in dimension, lying close to the medial aspect of the femur,
that is, the thigh bone, but was in my opinion much too small to have
accounted for the dimensions of the wound on the medial aspect of his
thigh or a wound of that character.
Mr. SPECTER. What were the dimensions of the wound on the medial aspect
of his thigh.
Dr. GREGORY. I would say that that wound was about a centimeter in
diameter, much larger than the identifiable fragment of metal in the
thigh. I might add that this prompted some speculation on our part, my
part, which was voiced to someone that some search ought to be made in
the Governor's clothing or perhaps in the auto or some place, wherever
he may have been, for the missile which had produced this much damage
but which was not resident in him.
Mr. SPECTER. Approximately what type of a missile would it have taken
to produce a wound which you have described on his thigh?
Dr. GREGORY. Well, it would take a fragment of metal of approximately
the same diameter--a centimeter, and in general--round.
Mr. SPECTER. Would that correspond with the measurement of a 6.5-mm.
missile?
Dr. GREGORY. I will have to guess--I don't know what dimension--of a
6.5-mm.--yes, a 6.5-mm. would be .65 cm., approximately, yes, that
could have very well have occurred from such a missile, yes, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Gregory. I now show you two typewritten pages which
are a portion of a document identified as Commission Exhibit No. 392,
which in its total aspect constitutes all of the medical records from
Parkland Hospital on President Kennedy and Governor Connally and the
two pages to which I direct your attention relate an operation on
Governor Connally, where you are listed as the surgeon, and I ask
you if you will take a minute and look those over and tell us whether
or not that is your report on the operation which you have just been
describing.
Dr. GREGORY. (Examining instrument referred to.) Yes, this appears to
be the essence of the report which I dictated at the conclusion of my
operation on Governor Connally.
Mr. SPECTER. And are the facts contained in this report the same as
those to which you have testified here today?
Dr. GREGORY. I think they are--I hope so.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, will you describe in a general way what treatment you
have given Governor Connally following the time when you completed this
report on November 22, 1963?
Dr. GREGORY. The Governor remained in Parkland Hospital for some 2
weeks after his admission. On the 5th day after the operation, in the
Governor's hospital room, the wound on the dorsal surface of his wrist
was closed by wire sutures and this was carried out in the room. On
the 10th day, I believe it was, the 10th day from injury, the Governor
was taken back to the operating room and there under a light general
anesthesia, his wounds were dressed and inspected, and a new plaster of
paris cast was applied at that time.
The Governor was then permitted up and about with his arm in a sling,
and shortly thereafter returned to the Governor's Mansion in Austin.
I visited Governor Connally in the Governor's Mansion in Austin about
1 week after his discharge from the hospital, simply for check-up
examination and I found things to be in a satisfactory state.
I saw the Governor again about 1 month after his discharge, in
the office of Dr. Robert A. Dennison in Austin, Tex., and another
examination this time, including an X-ray, was made, and again
the condition of his right forearm and of the fractured bone were
considered to be satisfactory.
Now, I've got to think of the next date--off of the record or on as you
wish--
Mr. SPECTER. All right, we will go off of the record, Doctor, while you
are thinking that through.
Dr. GREGORY. All right.
(Discussion between Counsel Specter and the Witness Gregory off the
record.)
Mr. SPECTER. All right, Dr. Gregory.
Dr. GREGORY. I'll say on or about February 14, the Governor came to
Dallas and on that occasion we removed his cast, obtained an X-ray,
found his fracture to be healing satisfactorily, and so we applied a
new cast. The Governor wore that cast until 1 week ago, when he again
came to Dallas. The cast was removed, and X-ray revealed satisfactory
healing of his fracture, and the cast, as a continuous form of
treatment, was discontinued.
At the present time the Governor is on a regiment of exercises, and he
wears a demountable splint, whenever it looks as though the electorate
may be over enthusiastic by shaking his hand.
Mr. SPECTER. Do you anticipate any future cast for Governor Connally?
Dr. GREGORY. I anticipate probably an uneventful, though slow, recovery
of normal function in his right arm and wrist and hand.
I think he will have some permanent impairment, but I think he will
have a very minimal amount of disability, and I do not at this time
anticipate any need for any further surgical intervention. That
will have to become manifest by the appearance of some other as yet
unanticipated symptom.
I would like to add that on each of the examination interviews here in
Dallas, the Governor was also checked over by Dr. Robert Shaw, from the
point of view of recovery from his chest wound.
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Gregory, I now show you a series of diagrams which are
a part of reports bearing Commission No. 326 and may the record show
these differ from Commission Exhibit numbers, reflecting the number
assigned to reports.
I am going to ask the Court Reporter to mark this particular copy as
Dr. Gregory's Exhibit No. 1.
(Instrument marked by the Reporter as Dr. Gregory's Exhibit No. 1, for
identification.)
Mr. SPECTER. I am going to ask you, pointing first to Diagram No. 1,
whether or not this accurately depicts the wounds of Governor Connally?
Dr. GREGORY. This one does not.
Mr. SPECTER. In what respect?
Dr. GREGORY. In the respect that the wound of entry is shown to exist
on the volar surface of the forearm, whereas, it was on the dorsal
surface of the forearm in my view--in my opinion--and the reverse holds
for the wound of exit.
Mr. SPECTER. Will you take my pen and correct those as they should be,
Doctor Gregory?