Part 55

So, therefore, we reached the conclusion that the damage to these muscles on the anterior neck just below this wound were received at approximately the same time that the wound here on the top of the pleural cavity was, while the President still lived and while his heart and lungs were operating in such a fashion to permit him to have a bruise in the vicinity, because that he did have in these strap muscles in the neck, but he didn't have in the areas of the other incisions that were made at Parkland Hospital. So we feel that, had this missile not made its path in that fashion, the wound made by Doctor Perry in the neck would not have been able to produce, wouldn't have been able to produce, these contusions of the musculature of the neck.

Mr. DULLES. Could I ask a question about the missile, I am a little bit--the bullet, I am a little bit--confused. It was found on the stretcher. Did the President's body remain on the stretcher while it was in the hospital?

Commander HUMES. Of that point I have no knowledge. The only----

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.

Mr. SPECTER. Going back for a moment, Doctor Humes----

The CHAIRMAN. Before we get off that, may I ask you this, Commander: If we had the pictures here and you could look them over again and restate your opinion, would it cause you to change any of the testimony you have given here?

Commander HUMES. To the best of my recollection, Mr. Chief Justice, it would not.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. McCloy.

Mr. McCLOY. May I ask this question?

The CHAIRMAN. Go right ahead.

Mr. McCLOY. Do you have any knowledge as to whether or not any photographs were taken in Dallas?

Commander HUMES. I have none, sir, no knowledge.

Mr. McCLOY. No knowledge that any were taken?

Representative FORD. May I ask what size are the pictures to which you refer?

Commander HUMES. We exposed both black and white and color negatives, Congressman. They were exposed in the morgue during the examination. They were not developed. The kodachrome negatives when developed would be 405. They were in film carriers or cassettes, as were the black and white. Of course they could be magnified.

Representative FORD. Have those been examined by personnel at Bethesda?

Commander HUMES. No, sir. We exposed these negatives; we turned them over. Here I must ask the counsel again for advice--to the Secret Service.

Mr. SPECTER. Yes; it was the Secret Service.

Commander HUMES. They were turned over to the Secret Service in their cassettes unexposed, and I have not seen any of them since. This is the photographs. The X-rays were developed in our X-ray department on the spot that evening, because we had to see those right then as part of our examination, but the photographs were made for the record and for other purposes.

Representative FORD. But they had never been actually developed for viewing.

Commander HUMES. I do not know, sir.

Mr. SPECTER. Doctor Humes, back to the angles for just a moment.

Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.

Mr. SPECTER. Hypothesize or assume, if you will, that other evidence will show that the wound inflicted on Commission Exhibit 385 at point C occurred while the President was riding in the rear seat of his automobile approximately 100 feet from a point of origin in a six-floor building nearby, and assume further that the wound inflicted in 388 at point A occurred when the President was approximately 250 feet away from the same point.

With those assumptions in mind, there would be somewhat different angles of declination going from C to D on 385 and from A to B on 388.

Commander HUMES. I would expect there would.

Mr. SPECTER. You have already testified earlier today that you were unable to pinpoint with precision angle A to B on 388 because of the reconstruction of the scalp.

Now my question to you, in that elongated fashion, is from what you know and what you have described, are the angles, as you have expressed them to be in your opinion, consistent with a situation where the two wounds were inflicted at the angles and at the distances just described to you?

Commander HUMES. I believe they are consistent. I would state that the path outlined on 388-A to B is to a certain extent conjectural for the reasons given before.

Mr. SPECTER. Now, Doctor Humes, I hand you a group of documents which have been marked as Commission Exhibit No. 397 and ask you if you can identify what they are?

Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; these are various notes in long-hand, or copies rather, of various notes in long-hand made by myself, in part, during the performance of the examination of the late President, and in part after the examination when I was preparing to have a typewritten report made.

Mr. SPECTER. Are there also included there some notes that you made while you talked to Doctor Perry on the telephone?

Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; there are.

Mr. SPECTER. Are there any notes which you made at any time which are not included in this group of notes?

Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; there are.

Mr. SPECTER. And what do those consist of?

Commander HUMES. In privacy of my own home, early in the morning of Sunday, November 24th, I made a draft of this report which I later revised, and of which this represents the revision. That draft I personally burned in the fireplace of my recreation room.

Mr. SPECTER. May the record show that the Exhibit No. 397 is the identical document which has been previously identified as Commission No. 371 for our internal purposes.

Is the first sheet then in that group the notes you made when you talked to Doctor Perry?

Commander HUMES. That is correct, sir.

Mr. SPECTER. And do the next 15 sheets represent the rough draft which was later copied into the autopsy report which has been heretofore identified with an exhibit number?

Commander HUMES. That is correct, sir.

Mr. SPECTER. And what do the next two sheets represent?

Commander HUMES. The next two sheets are the notes actually made in the room in which the examination was taking place. I notice now that the handwriting in some instances is not my own, and it is either that of Commander Boswell or Colonel Finck.

Mr. SPECTER. And was that writing made at the same time that the autopsy report was undertaken; that is, did you review all of the markings on those papers and note them to be present when you completed the autopsy report?

Commander HUMES. Yes, sir. From the time of the completion of this examination until the submission of the written report following its preparation, all of the papers pertinent to this case were in my personal custody.

Mr. SPECTER. Have you now described all of the documents which were present in that 397, Exhibit No. 397?

Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; with the exception of the certification to the fact that I, in fact, detailed them in my custody, and a certification that I had destroyed certain preliminary draft notes.

Mr. SPECTER. And these represent all the notes except those you have already described which you destroyed?

Commander HUMES. That is correct, sir.

Mr. SPECTER. Now, just one point on the notes themselves. Page 14 of your rough draft, Doctor Humes, as to the point of origin, the notes show that there was a revision between your first draft and your final report.

Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.

Mr. SPECTER. Will you first of all read into the record the final conclusion reflected in your final report.

Commander HUMES. I would rather read it from the final report. The final report reads:

"The projectiles were fired from a point behind and somewhat above the level of the deceased."

Mr. SPECTER. And what did the first draft of that sentence as shown on page 14 of your rough draft state?

Commander HUMES. It stated as follows:

"The projectiles were fired from a point behind and somewhat above a horizontal line to the vertical position of the body at the moment of impact."

Mr. SPECTER. Now would you state the reason for making that modification between draft and final report, please?

Commander HUMES. This examination, as I have indicated, was performed by myself with my two associates. The notes which we have just admitted as an exhibit are in my own hand and are my opinion, was my opinion at that time, as to the best way to present the facts which we had gleaned during this period.

Before submitting it to the typist, I went over this with great care with my two associates. One or the other of them raised the point that perhaps this sentence would state more than what was absolutely fact based upon our observations, pointing out that we did not know precisely at that time in what position the body of the President was when the missiles struck, and that therefore we should be somewhat less specific and somewhat more circumspect than the way we stated it. When I considered this suggestion, I agreed that it would be better to change it as noted, and accordingly, I did so.

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. Chief Justice, I move now for the admission into evidence of Exhibit No. 397.

The CHAIRMAN. It may be admitted.

(The documents, previously marked Exhibit No. 397 for identification, were received in evidence.)

Mr. McCLOY. May I ask one question about the notes? The notes that you made contemporaneously with your examination, you said you put those down and then you put some in later. How much later were the notes, within the best of your recollection of the final notes made, not the final report, but the final notes that you made in your own handwriting?

Commander HUMES. The examination was concluded approximately at 11 o'clock on the night of November 22. The final changes in the notes prior to the typing of the report were made, and I will have to give you the time because whatever time Mr. Oswald was shot, that is about when I finished. I was working in an office, and someone had a television on and came in and told me that Mr. Oswald had been shot, and that was around noon on Sunday, November 24th.