Part 52

Assume first of all that the President was struck by a 6.5-mm. copper-jacketed bullet fired from a gun having a muzzle velocity of approximately 2,000 feet per second, with the weapon being approximately 160 to 250 feet from the President, with the bullet striking him at an angle of declination of approximately 45 degrees, striking the President on the upper right posterior thorax just above the upper border of the scapula, being 14 cm. from the tip of the right acromion process and 14 cm. below the tip of the right mastoid process, passing through the President's body striking no bones, traversing the neck and sliding between the large muscles in the posterior portion of the President's body through a fascia channel without violating the pleural cavity but bruising the apex of the right pleural cavity, and bruising the most apical portion of the right lung inflicting a hematoma to the right side of the larynx, which you have just described, and striking the trachea causing the injury which you described, and then exiting from the hole that you have described in the midline of the neck.

Now, assuming those facts to be true, would the hole which you observed in the neck of the President be consistent with an exit wound under those circumstances?

Dr. PERRY. Certainly would be consistent with an exit wound.

Mr. SPECTER. Now, assuming one additional fact that there was no bullet found in the body of the President, and assuming the facts which I have just set forth to be true, do you have an opinion as to whether the wound which you observed in the President's neck was an entrance or an exit wound?

Dr. PERRY. A full jacketed bullet without deformation passing through skin would leave a similar wound for an exit and entrance wound and with the facts which you have made available and with these assumptions, I believe that it was an exit wound.

Mr. SPECTER. Do you have sufficient facts available to you to render an opinion as to the cause of the injury which you observed in the President's head?

Dr. PERRY. No, sir.

Mr. SPECTER. Have you had an opportunity to examine the autopsy report?

Dr. PERRY. I have.

Mr. SPECTER. And are the facts set forth in the autopsy report consistent with your observations and views or are they inconsistent in any way with your findings and opinions?

Dr. PERRY. They are quite consistent and I noted initially that they explained very nicely the circumstances as we observed them at the time.

Mr. SPECTER. Could you elaborate on that last answer, Dr. Perry?

Dr. PERRY. Yes. There was some considerable speculation, as you will recall, as to whether there were one or two bullets and as to from whence they came. Dr. Clark and I were queried extensively in respect to this and in addition Dr. Carrico could not determine whether there were one or two bullets from our initial examination.

I say that because we did what was necessary in the emergency procedure, and abandoned any efforts of examination at the termination. I did not ascertain the trajectory of any of the missiles. As a result I did not know whether there was evidence for 1 or 2 or even 3 bullets entering and at the particular time it was of no importance.

Mr. SPECTER. But based on the additional factors provided in the autopsy report, do you have an opinion at this time as to the number of bullets there were?

Dr. PERRY. The wounds as described from the autopsy report and coupled with the wounds I have observed it would appear there were two missiles that struck the President.

Mr. SPECTER. And based on the additional factors which I have provided to you by way of hypothetical assumption, and the factors present in the autopsy report from your examination of that report, what does the source of the bullets seem to have been to you?

Dr. PERRY. That I could not say. I can only determine their pathway, on the basis of these reports within the President's body.

As to their ultimate source not knowing any of the circumstances surrounding it, I would not have any speculation.

Mr. SPECTER. From what direction would the bullets have come based on all of those factors?

Dr. PERRY. The bullets would have come from behind the President based on these factors.

Mr. SPECTER. And from the level, from below or above the President?

Dr. PERRY. Not having examined any of the wounds with the exception of the anterior neck wounds, I could not say. This wound, as I noted was about 5 mm., and roughly circular in shape. There is no way for me to determine.

Mr. SPECTER. Based upon a point of entrance in the body of the President which I described to you as being 14 cm. from the right acromion process and 14 cm. below the tip of the right mastoid process and coupling that with your observation of the neck wound, would that provide a sufficient basis for you to form an opinion as to the path of the bullet, as to whether it was level, up or down?

Dr. PERRY. Yes, it would.

In view of the fact there was an injury to the right lateral portion of the trachea and a wound in the neck if one were to extend a line roughly between these two, it would be going slightly superiorly, that is cephalad toward the head, from anterior to posterior, which would indicate that the missile entered from slightly above and behind.

Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Perry, have you been a part of or participated in any press conferences?

Dr. PERRY. Yes, sir; I have

Mr. SPECTER. And by whom, if anyone, were the press conferences arranged?

Dr. PERRY. The initial press conference, to the best of my knowledge, was arranged by Mr. Hawkes who was identified to me as being of the White House Press, and Mr. Steve Landregan of the hospital administration there at Parkland, and Dr. Kemp Clark.

They called me, I was in the operating suite at the time to assist with the care of the Governor, and they called and asked me if it would be possible for me to come down to a press conference.

Mr. SPECTER. At about what time did that call come to you, Doctor?

Dr. PERRY. I am not real sure about that but probably around 2 o'clock.

Mr. SPECTER. What action, if any, did you take in response to that call?

Dr. PERRY. I put in a page for Dr. Baxter and Dr. McClelland since they were also involved, and went down to the emergency room where I met Mr. Hawkes and Dr. Clark. And from there we went up to classrooms one and two which had been combined into a large press room, and was packed with gentlemen and ladies of the press.

Mr. SPECTER. In what building was that located?

Dr. PERRY. This was in Parkland Hospital, in the classroom section.

Mr. SPECTER. Are you able to identify which news media were present at that time?

Dr. PERRY. No, sir; there were numerous people in the room. I would estimate maybe a hundred.

Mr. SPECTER. What doctors spoke at that press conference?

Dr. PERRY. Dr. Clark and I answered the questions.

Mr. SPECTER. Who spoke first as between you and Dr. Clark?

Dr. PERRY. I did.

Mr. SPECTER. Would you state as specifically as you can the questions which were asked of you at that time and the answers which you gave?

Dr. PERRY. Mr. Specter, I would preface this by saying that, as you know, I have been interviewed on numerous occasions subsequent to that time, and I cannot recall with accuracy the questions that were asked. They, in general, were similar to the questions that were asked here. The press were given essentially the same, but in no detail such as have been given here. I was asked, for example, what I felt caused the President's death, the nature of the wound, from whence they came, what measures were taken for resuscitation, who were the people in attendance, at what time was it determined that he was beyond our help.

Mr. SPECTER. What responses did you give to questions relating to the source of the bullets, if such questions were asked?

Dr. PERRY. I could not. I pointed out that both Dr. Clark and I had no way of knowing from whence the bullets came.

Mr. SPECTER. Were you asked how many bullets there were?

Dr. PERRY. We were, and our reply was it was impossible with the knowledge we had at hand to ascertain if there were 1 or 2 bullets, or more. We were given, similarly, to the discussion here today, hypothetical situations. "Is it possible that such could have been the case, or such and such?" If it was possible that there was one bullet. To this, I replied in the affirmative, it was possible and conceivable that it was only one bullet, but I did not know.

Mr. SPECTER. What would the trajectory, or conceivable course of one bullet have been, Dr. Perry, to account for the injuries which you observed in the President, as you stated it?

Dr. PERRY. Since I observed only two wounds in my cursory examination, it would have necessitated the missile striking probably a bony structure and being deviated in its course in order to account for these two wounds.

Mr. SPECTER. What bony structure was it conceivably?

Dr. PERRY. It required striking the spine.

Mr. SPECTER. Did you express a professional opinion that that did, in fact, happen or it was a matter of speculation that it could have happened?

Dr. PERRY. I expressed it as a matter of speculation that this was conceivable. But, again, Dr. Clark and I emphasized that we had no way of knowing.

Mr. SPECTER. Have you now recounted as specifically as you can recollect what occurred at that first press conference or is it practical for you to give any further detail to the contents of that press conference?

Dr. PERRY. I do not recall any specific details any further than that.

Representative FORD. Mr. Specter--was there ever a recording kept of the questions and answers at that interview, Dr. Perry?

Dr. PERRY. This was one of the things I was mad about, Mr. Ford. There were microphones, and cameras, and the whole bit, as you know, and during the course of it a lot of these hypothetical situations and questions that were asked to us would often be asked by someone on this side and recorded by some one on this, and I don't know who was recorded and whether they were broadcasting it directly. There were tape recorders there and there were television cameras with their microphones. I know there were recordings made but who made them I don't know and, of course, portions of it would be given to this group and questions answered here and, as a result, considerable questions were not answered in their entirety and even some of them that were asked, I am sure were misunderstood. It was bedlam.

Representative FORD. I was thinking, was there an official recording either made by the hospital officials or by the White House people or by any government agency?

Dr. PERRY. Not to my knowledge.

Representative FORD. A true recording of everything that was said, the questions asked, and the answers given?

Dr. PERRY. Not to my knowledge.

Mr. DULLES. Was there any reasonably good account in any of the press of this interview?

Dr. PERRY. No, sir.

Representative FORD. May I ask----

Dr. PERRY. I have failed to see one that was asked.

Representative FORD. In other words, you subsequently read or heard what was allegedly said by you and by Dr. Clark and Dr. Carrico. Were those reportings by the news media accurate or inaccurate as to what you and others said?

Dr. PERRY. In general, they were inaccurate. There were some that were fairly close, but I, as you will probably surmise, was pretty full after both Friday and Sunday, and after the interviews again, following the operation of which I was a member on Sunday, I left town, and I did not read a lot of them, but of those which I saw I found none that portrayed it exactly as it happened. Nor did I find any that reported our statements exactly as they were given. They were frequently taken out of context. They were frequently mixed up as to who said what or identification as to which person was who.

Representative FORD. This interview took place on Sunday, the 24th, did you say?

Dr. PERRY. No, there were several interviews, Mr. Ford. We had one in the afternoon, Friday afternoon, and then I spent almost the entire day Saturday in the administrative suite at the hospital answering questions to people of the press, and some medical people of the American Medical Association. And then, of course, Sunday, following the operation on Oswald, I again attended the press conference since I was the first in attendance with him. And, subsequently, there was another conference on Monday conducted by the American Medical Association, and a couple of more interviews with some people whom I don't even recall.

Representative FORD. Would you say that these errors that were reported were because of a lack of technical knowledge as to what you as a physician were saying, or others were saying?

Dr. PERRY. Certainly that could be it in part, but it was not all. Certainly a part of it was lack of attention. A question would be asked and you would incompletely answer it and another question would be asked and they had gotten what they wanted without really understanding, and they would go on and it would go out of context. For example, on the speculation on the ultimate source of bullets, I obviously knew less about it than most people because I was in the hospital at the time and didn't know the circumstances surrounding it until it was over. I was much too busy and yet I was quoted as saying that the bullet, there was probably one bullet, which struck and deviated upward which came from the front, and what I had replied was to a question, was it conceivable that this could have happened, and I said yes, it is conceivable.

I have subsequently learned that to use a straight affirmative word like "yes" is not good relations; that one should say it is conceivable and not give a straight yes or no answer.

"It is conceivable" was dropped and the "yes" was used, and this was happening over and over again. Of course, Dr. Shires, for example, who was the professor and chairman of the department was identified in one press release as chief resident.

Mr. DULLES. As what? I didn't get it.

Dr. PERRY. As chief resident. And myself, as his being my superior, whereas Dr. Ronald Jones was chief resident of course, nothing could be further from the truth in identifying Dr. Shires as chief resident. I was identified as a resident surgeon in the Dallas paper. And I am not impressed with the accuracy of the press reports.

Mr. McCLOY. I don't know whether you have covered this very well. Let me ask you about the wound, the wound that you examined in the President's neck.

You said that it would have been tolerable. Would his speech have been impaired?

Dr. PERRY. No, sir; I don't think so. The injury was below the larynx, and certainly barring the advent of any complication would have healed without any difficulty.

Mr. McCLOY. He would have had a relatively normal life?

Dr. PERRY. Yes, sir.

Mr. McCLOY. Did you, any other time, or other than the press conference or any other period, say that you thought this was an exit wound?

Dr. PERRY. No, sir; I did not.

Mr. McCLOY. When the President was brought, when you first saw the President, was he fully clothed, or did you cut the clothing away?

Dr. PERRY. Not at the time I saw him. Dr. Carrico and the nurses were all in attendance, they had removed his coat and his shirt, which is standard procedure, while we were proceeding about the examination, for them to do so.

Mr. McCLOY. But you didn't actually remove his shirt?

Dr. PERRY. No, sir; I did not.

Mr. McCLOY. Did you get the doctor's experience with regard to gunshot wounds?

Mr. SPECTER. Yes, sir; I did.

Mr. McCLOY. You said something to the effect that, of knowing the President had an adrenalin insufficiency, is that something you could observe?

Dr. PERRY. This is common medical knowledge, sir, that he had had in the past necessarily taken adrenalin steroids to support this insufficiency. Dr. Carrico, at this moment of great stress, recalled this, and requested this be given to him at that time, this is extremely important because people who have adrenalin insufficiency are unable to mobilize this hormone at the time of any great stress and it may be fatal without support from exogenous drugs.

Mr. McCLOY. In other words, you had a general medical history of the President before he was--common knowledge.

Dr. PERRY. No more so than anyone else, sir, except this would have stuck with us, sir, since they were already in that line.

Mr. McCLOY. Did you discuss with any of the other doctors present, and you named quite a number of them, as to whether this was an exit wound or an entrance wound?

Dr. PERRY. Yes, sir; we did at the time. But our discussion was necessarily limited by the fact that none of us knew, someone asked me now--you must remember that actually the only people who saw this wound for sure were Dr. Carrico and myself, and some of the other doctors were quoted as saying something about the wound which actually they never said at all because they never saw it, because on their arrival I had already made the incision through the wound, and despite what the press releases may have said neither Dr. Carrico nor myself could say whether it was an entrance or an exit wound from the nature of the wound itself and Dr. McClelland was quoted, for example, as saying he thought it was an exit wound, but that was not what he said at all because he didn't even see it.

Mr. McCLOY. And it is a fact, is it not, that you did not see what we now are supposed to believe was the entrance wound?

Dr. PERRY. No, sir; we did not examine him. At that time, we attended to the matters of expediency that were life-saving and the securing of an adequate airway and the stanching of massive hemorrhage are really the two medical emergencies; most everything else can wait, but those must be attended to in a matter of minutes and consequently to termination of treatment I had no morbid curiosity, my work was done, and actually I was rather anxious to leave.

Mr. McCLOY. That is all.

Mr. SPECTER. Yes.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. DULLES. I suggest, Mr. Specter, if you feel it is feasible, you send to the doctor the accounts of his press conference or conferences.

And possibly, if you are willing, sir, you could send us a letter, send to the Commission a letter, pointing out the various points in these press conferences where you are inaccurately quoted, so we can have that as a matter of record.

Is that feasible?

Dr. PERRY. That is, sir.

Would you prefer that each clipping be edited individually or a general statement?

Mr. DULLES. Well, I think it would be better to have each clipping dealt with separately. Obviously, if you have answered one point in one clipping it won't be necessary to answer that point if it is repeated in another clipping.

Dr. PERRY. Yes, sir.

Mr. DULLES. Just deal with the new points.

Dr. PERRY. I can and will do this.

Representative FORD. This would be where Dr. Perry is quoted himself, or Dr. Carrico, or anyone else, they would only pass judgment on the quotes concerning themselves.

Mr. DULLES. That would be correct.

Dr. PERRY. Yes, because some of the other circumstances in some of the press releases which have come to my attention have not been entirely accurate either, regarding sequence of events, and although I would not have knowledge about those you would not want those added necessarily, just any statement alluded to have been made by me.

Mr. DULLES. I think that would be better.

Don't you think so, Mr. Chairman?

Representative FORD. I think it would be the proper procedure.

Is this a monumental job, Mr. Specter?

Mr. SPECTER. No, I think it is one which can be managed, Congressman Ford. I might say we have done that with some of the clippings.

There was an article, as the deposition records will show when you have an opportunity to review them, they have not been transcribed, as to an article which appeared in La Expres, statements were attributed to Dr. McClelland----

Mr. DULLES. Which paper?

Mr. SPECTER. A French paper, La Expres. And I questioned the doctors quoted therein and developed for the record what was true and what was false on the statements attributed to them, so we have undertaken that in some circles but not as extensively as you suggest as to Dr. Perry, because we have been trying diligently to get the tape records of the television interviews, and we were unsuccessful. I discussed this with Dr. Perry in Dallas last Wednesday, and he expressed an interest in seeing them, and I told him we would make them available to him prior to his appearance, before deposition or before the Commission, except our efforts at CBS and NBC, ABC and everywhere including New York, Dallas and other cities were to no avail.

The problem is they have not yet cataloged all of the footage which they have, and I have been advised by the Secret Service, by Agent John Howlett, that they have an excess of 200 hours of transcripts among all of the events and they just have not cataloged them and could not make them available.

Mr. DULLES. Do you intend to catalog them?

Mr. SPECTER. Yes, they do, Mr. Dulles. They intend to do that eventually in their normal process, and the Secret Service is trying to expedite the news media to give us those, and it was our thought as to the film clips, which would be the most direct or the recordings which would be the most direct, to make comparisons between the reports in the news media and what Dr. Perry said at that time, and the facts which we have from the doctors through our depositions and transcript today.

Representative FORD. Can you give us any time estimate when this catalog and comparison might be made?

Mr. SPECTER. Only that they are working on it right now, have been for some time, but it may be a matter of a couple of weeks until they can turn it over.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. McCLOY. Mr. Chairman, I have some doubt as to the present propriety of making, of having the doctor make, comments in respect to a particular group of newspaper articles. There have been comments, as we all know, around the world, of great variety and great extent, and it would be practically impossible, I suppose, to check all of the accounts and in failing to check one would not wish to have it suggested that others, the accuracy of others was being endorsed.

I would suggest that the staff make an examination of the files that we have of the comments, together with such tape recordings as may have been taken of the actual press conferences, and after that examination is made we can then determine, perhaps a little more effectively, what might be done to clarify this situation so that it would conform to the actual statements that the doctor has made.

Mr. DULLES. Well, Mr. McCloy, it is quite satisfactory with me and I agree with you we cannot run down all of the rumors in all of the press and it is quite satisfactory with me to wait and see whether we have adequate information to deal with this situation when we get in the complete tapes of the various television, radio and other appearances, so that we have a pretty complete record of what these two witnesses and others have said on the points we have been discussing here today.

So I quite agree we will await this presentation to the doctors until we have had a further chance to review this situation.

What I wanted to be sure was that when we are through with this we do have in our files and records adequate information to deal with a great many of the false rumors that have been spread on the basis of false interpretation of these appearances before television, radio, and so forth and so on.

Representative FORD. Is that all, Mr. Dulles, and Mr. McCloy?

Mr. DULLES. Yes.

Mr. McCLOY. May I ask at this point, did you examine Governor Connally, too?

Dr. PERRY. I was in the operating room briefly to see about his leg.

Mr. McCLOY. You haven't come to that point in your interrogation.

Mr. SPECTER. I did not.