Crossfire

by Jim Marrs

  In 1977 Dr. Humes appeared before a medical panel gathered by the House Select Committee on Assassination. Because of long-standing questions concerning the possibility that Kennedy suffered from Addison’s disease (which can be detected by studying the adrenal glands), Humes was asked about the glands by committee medical panel member Dr. Charles Petty “because normally we examine adrenals in the general course [of an] autopsy, as we undertake it.” Humes replied:

  Since I don’t think it bore directly on the death of the President, I’d prefer not to discuss it with you, doctor. . . . I’d only comment for you that I have strong personal reasons and certain other obligations that suggest to me that it might not be preferable.

  Certain other obligations? To whom?

  But for all the puzzles and the directions of superiors, Humes had come to some definite conclusions by the end of the autopsy.

  —One bullet entered the rear of Kennedy’s head and exited from the top of his skull.

  —Another bullet entered the president’s back and apparently worked its way out during cardiac massage at Parkland.

  The autopsy, which began at 8:15 p.m. the evening of the assassination, was concerned with only two of Kennedy’s wounds. Humes studied the head wound and found about forty pieces of bullet metal, indicating a bullet had fragmented while passing through the skull area. He concluded that a high-velocity rifle bullet had entered the rear of the skull, fragmented, and then exited through the top of the skull. Death was attributed to the head wound.

  Not so easily explained was a wound in the president’s back. The Dallas doctors said they never saw this wound because they never examined Kennedy’s back. However, the autopsy doctors studied this wound carefully and wrote clear records of it. On the autopsy face sheet diagram marked by Dr. Humes, a wound is depicted in Kennedy’s back between the shoulder blades.

  Kennedy’s death certificate states, “A second wound occurred in the posterior back at about the level of the third thoracic vertebra.” The third thoracic vertebra is located almost midway between the shoulder blades.

  Two FBI agents, Francis X. O’Neill Jr. and James W. Sibert, were ordered to attend the autopsy and make a report. Their report, which the Warren Commission kept classified for several years, said, “During the latter stages of this autopsy, Dr. Humes located an opening which appeared to be a bullet hole which was below the shoulders and two inches to the right of the middle line of the spinal column.”

  This description on the wound’s location was supported by the testimony of Secret Service agents and bullet holes in Kennedy’s clothing. Yet it presented a real problem to the Warren Commission. If the president’s wound was between the shoulder blades, this was lower than the position of the neck wound, making for an upward trajectory—totally inconsistent with shots fired from sixty feet above and behind the president.

  The solution to this dilemma was simple—the Commission simply reported the back wound as located five and a half inches higher than determined by the evidence. They reported, “A bullet had entered the base of the back of [Kennedy’s] neck slightly to the right of the spine. It traveled downward and exited from the front of the neck, crossing a nick in the left lower portion of the knot in the President’s necktie.”

  Later, when questioned about the location of the wound as marked on the autopsy face sheet, Dr. Boswell stated the drawing was a “diagram error.” And Humes was quoted as saying the back wound was higher than the throat wound, although he had marked it well below the neck wound.

  The issue of the autopsy diagram was resolved in 1975 when researcher Harold Weisberg obtained the original autopsy face sheet through a Freedom of Information Act suit.

  Researchers discovered that the original diagram—depicting a wound in the low back—had been marked “verified” by Kennedy’s personal physician, Dr. George Burkley. This verification of the autopsy sheet had been eliminated in copies of the document presented by the Warren Commission to the public. Curiously, Dr. Burkley was never called to testify to the Commission, although he was the only medical authority who rode in the motorcade, viewed Kennedy’s body at Parkland Hospital, and was present at the autopsy. In 1982, Burkley reportedly told author Henry Hurt that he believed Kennedy’s death was the result of a conspiracy. However, Burkley declined to elaborate further.

  This issue became more understandable in 1997 with the release of documents from the Assassination Records Review Board, which discovered Warren Commission documents showing that commission member—and America’s only appointed president—Gerald R. Ford told the authors of the Warren Report to change their wording before issuing the report. The writers correctly had written, “A bullet entered his [Kennedy’s] back at a point slightly below the shoulder to the right of the spine.” Ford “suggested” they change this wording to “a bullet had entered the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine.” Ford’s wording was adopted and the final report stated, “A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of his spine.”

  Ford explained to the Associated Press, “My changes had nothing to do with a conspiracy theory. My changes were only an attempt to be more precise.” However, critics such as Robert Morningstar pointed out this allowed for the single-bullet theory and claimed, “This is the most significant lie in the whole Warren Commission Report.”

  The Sibert-O’Neill FBI report further stated:

  This opening [the back wound] was probed by Dr. Humes with the finger, at which time it was determined that the trajectory of the missile entering at this point had entered at a downward position of 45 to 60 degrees. Further probing determined that the distance traveled by this missile was a short distance inasmuch as the end of the opening could be felt with the finger. Inasmuch as no complete bullet of any size could be located in the brain area and likewise no bullet could be located in the back or any other area of the body as determined by total body X rays and inspection revealing there was no point of exit, the individuals performing the autopsy were at a loss to explain why they could find no bullets.

  Commander J. Thornton Boswell, Humes’s assistant, told author Josiah Thompson that all three doctors probed the back wound with their fingers but could not penetrate past an inch or so. According to Boswell, a thin metal probe also was used but no bullet track could be located.

  After failing to find any bullet, agents Sibert and O’Neill called the FBI laboratory and were informed of the bullet that had been found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital. This information was relayed to Humes and the autopsy doctors and led them to a conclusion expressed in Sibert and O’Neill’s FBI report: “Since external cardiac massage had been performed at Parkland Hospital, it was entirely possible that through such movement the bullet had worked its way back out of the point of entry and fallen on the stretcher.”

  At the end of the autopsy, the military doctors concluded, as recorded in the Sibert-O’Neill report, “The one bullet had entered the President’s back and had worked its way out of the body during external cardiac massage and that a second high-velocity bullet had entered the rear of the skull and had fragmentized prior to exit through the top of the skull.”

  But if the back wound caused problems, they were nothing compared to the problems that arose after Humes learned that the autopsy doctors had completely missed one of the president’s wounds.

  On the day after the autopsy—with the president’s body already prepared for burial and lying in state at the White House—Humes contacted the medical officials in Dallas. He was shocked to learn that they had observed a bullet wound in Kennedy’s throat. The autopsy doctors had noticed an opening in the throat but had assumed it had been made at Parkland to facilitate a tracheal tube.

  Here is one of the most suspicious of the differences recorded in Kennedy’s wounds: Dr. Perry at Parkland described the throat wound as a small hole about three to five millimeters—or about one-fifth of an inch—in diameter that had the appearance of an entrance wound. He reiterat
ed this size in interviews in 1966, 1989, and 1998, although he backed off somewhat from his description of an entrance wound after being ordered to change his testimony by Dallas Secret Service agent Elmer Moore, who explained years later that he was acting “on orders from Washington and Mr. Kelly of the Secret Service Headquarters.”

  Perry said he made a surgical incision laterally across this hole to facilitate a tracheotomy, but did not obliterate the bullet wound. But by the time the autopsy doctors examined Kennedy’s throat, this wound had elongated to almost three inches—such a gash that they didn’t realize it obliterated a wound from the assassination. Furthermore, all of the Dallas doctors said Kennedy had a large blasted hole in the right rear portion of his head—not at all like the gaping wound in the right top portion of his skull as reported by the autopsies.

  These differences in the descriptions of the throat and head wounds suggest only three explanations:

  1.The Dallas medical personnel lied about what they saw.

  2.The autopsy doctors lied about what they saw.

  3.No one lied—thus indicating the wounds were altered between the time they were seen in Dallas and the autopsy.

  The latter explanation is buttressed by the Sibert-O’Neill FBI report of the Bethesda autopsy, which states:

  The President’s body was removed from the casket . . . and placed on the autopsy table, at which time the complete body was wrapped in a sheet and the head area contained an additional wrapping which was saturated with blood. . . . It was also apparent that a tracheotomy had been performed, as well as surgery of the head area, namely, in the top of the skull.

  Surgery in the top of the skull? No such surgery was ever mentioned by the Parkland medical staff.

  This oddity became one of the focal points of an investigation by researcher and author David Lifton, who reached some startling and well-publicized conclusions.

  The Switching of Bodies

  David Lifton, a former NASA computer engineer who researched the assassination for more than fifteen years, was the first person to interview both medical personnel in Dallas and at Bethesda Naval Medical Center. What he discovered shocked him.

  In his best-selling 1980 book, Best Evidence, Lifton reported that there were discrepancies not only in the descriptions of Kennedy’s wounds, but also in reports of how the body was transported.

  It has been well documented how Kennedy’s body was wrapped in a sheet in Dallas and placed in an expensive bronze ceremonial casket for shipment to Washington. Yet Lifton found Bethesda technicians who said they removed Kennedy’s body from a black zippered body bag that was inside a cheap, gray military-style shipping casket, similar to those used to transport bodies back from Vietnam.

  Paul K. O’Connor, who was studying to be a medical technician, was working in Bethesda’s laboratory when Kennedy’s body arrived. He said the body arrived in a “shipping casket . . . kind of slate-type gray and a kind of light pinkish color on the edges.” Asked by Lifton the condition of the body when the casket was opened, O’Connor replied, “He was in a body bag.” O’Connor’s recollection was confirmed by others, including Captain John Stover, Bethesda’s commanding officer.

  Just as startling was an interview with Bethesda X-ray technician Jerrol F. Custer. He said he had already made X-ray photographs of Kennedy’s body, had gone to an upper floor to process them, and was returning to the morgue area of the hospital when he encountered a bloodstained Jacqueline Kennedy, surrounded by news reporters and Secret Service agents, entering Bethesda. Outside in an ambulance was the bronze Dallas casket supposedly containing the president’s body.

  By 1992, not only Custer but also Floyd Riebe, who took autopsy photographs, were disclaiming that evidence in the National Archives. In a news conference called to rebut articles published by the American Medical Association (AMA), Custer stated that X-rays presented by the AMA showed a hole on the right side of Kennedy’s face indicating that portion was destroyed. “There was no damage to his face and no part of his skull was missing on the forward part of his head.” Custer concluded, “These are fake X-rays.” He added that later a Navy admiral threatened him with prison if he spoke out regarding the autopsy.

  After pointing to dozens of autopsy photographs, Riebe announced, “These films are doctored one way or another. . . . [They are] phony and not the photographs we took.” As usual, this bombshell testimony from the technicians who actually took JFK’s X-rays and photographs received scant attention from the national mass media.

  Based on this and much more information gleaned from official reports and witnesses, Lifton concluded that the assassination was the result of a plot “involving the Executive Branch of the Government.” His hypothesis was this:

  Since it was unbelievable that the doctors at both Parkland and Bethesda lied about their observations, the alternative belief was that Kennedy’s body was altered. Lifton discovered a brief time period during the swearing-in ceremonies for Lyndon Johnson aboard Air Force One when everyone gathered forward, leaving Kennedy’s body unattended. It was during this time that he believed JFK’s body was taken from the bronze Dallas casket, placed in a military body bag, and stowed elsewhere in the plane. [Autopsy photos showed several scratches on Kennedy’s back that could be explained by the hasty handling of his body.] At Andrews Air Force Base, Kennedy’s body was taken off the right side of Air Force One and placed in a helicopter, which immediately took off while the news media and officials concentrated on Mrs. Kennedy and the Dallas casket, which were unloaded from the left side of the plane. Either at Walter Reed or Bethesda, someone altered the President’s wounds to conform to the shots-from-behind thesis and then the body was wrapped in a sheet and placed on the Bethesda autopsy table ready for Dr. Humes and the others.

  This theory—incredible as it may seem—is supported by the available evidence. Attempts to discredit either Lifton or his sources have proven unconvincing. Some researchers suspect that alternatively the body may have been flown separately to Washington in a military jet, arriving before the official party.

  In 2009, the chief analyst for military records for the 1990s Assassination Records Review Board published a five-volume set of books based on the most recent interviews and studies of the JFK autopsy. The autopsy was conducted by the military at Bethesda Naval Hospital the night of the assassination and many issues connected to it remain in controversy.

  Douglas P. Horne was meticulous and detailed in his accounts of obfuscation and downright dissembling of autopsy statements and documents. His work, which included the reinterviewing of autopsy observers, technicians, and photographers, provided strong support for Lifton’s thesis.

  There is no doubt that long-standing and serious questions have arisen over the medical evidence. The idea that Kennedy’s body was altered while in the hands of federal officials, along with the knowledge that all assassination evidence was illegally in the hands of the FBI for two full days with no chain of evidence, goes a long way in explaining the puzzles and inconsistencies of the medical evidence.

  Upon learning of the throat wound the day after the autopsy, Humes was forced to revise his autopsy report. The autopsy doctors determined that the back wound was four to seven millimeters in diameter and the Dallas doctors said the throat wound was three to five millimeters in diameter. Since the back wound was larger, this normally would suggest that the neck wound was one of entrance and the back wound one of exit—assuming both holes represented the path of a single bullet.

  However, Humes saw it another way. Testifying to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, Humes said upon learning of the throat wound, “Lights went on, and we said, ah, we have some place for our missile to have gone.”

  After revising his autopsy report, Humes walked to his fireplace and burned autopsy material—alternatively described as original notes, a first draft, or other written notes. This highly questionable activity preceded his final autopsy report, which stated definitively, “One missile entered the
back of the President and exited in the front of the neck.”

  Considering that the wound in Kennedy’s throat was too small to have been caused by a rifle slug and that FBI experts could not find any traces of metal on Kennedy’s shirt or tie and that the Dallas doctors noted bruises on Kennedy’s neck, it has been theorized that the neck wound may have been caused by bone fragments blasted downward at the time of the fatal head shot.

  Author Josiah Thompson wrote, “If we suppose that a bullet (or more likely a bone) fragment was driven downward on a slight left-to-right trajectory through the midbrain, we have a hypothesis that accords with all the known facts surrounding the throat wound.”

  But Humes was not bothered by such theories. He now had a revised idea of how Kennedy died:

  —One bullet entered Kennedy’s back and exited from his throat.

  —Another bullet struck the back of his head and exited from the top of the skull.

  Even Kennedy’s personal physician, Dr. Burkley, had problems accepting these findings, which may explain his belief in a conspiracy as revealed to author Henry Hurt.

  Adding to this confusion is the possibility of yet another bullet being recovered from Kennedy’s body during the autopsy. In the New York Times of November 27, 1963, Dallas doctor Kemp Clark stated one bullet struck Kennedy at the necktie knot, “ranged downward in his chest, and did not exit.” This statement was supported by Dr. Robert Shaw, who told New York Herald-Tribune reporter Martin Steadman on November 27 that a bullet entered the front of Kennedy’s throat, “coursed downward into his lung [and] was removed in the Bethesda Naval Hospital where the autopsy was performed.”

  The idea of a bullet being removed during autopsy gains additional strength in light of two government documents now available. One is a letter of receipt signed by FBI agents Sibert and O’Neill, who monitored the autopsy. The two-line letter, dated November 22, 1963, states, “We hereby acknowledge receipt of a missile removed by Commander James J. Humes, MC, USN on this date.” The other is another letter of receipt, but this time from the Protective Research Section of the Treasury Department, dated November 26, 1963. Among the items it listed as received from Kennedy’s personal physician, Dr. Burkley, is “one receipt from FBI for a missile removed during examination of the body.” FBI agents normally would know the difference between bullet fragments and an intact slug. It is curious that both documents refer to a “missile” rather than fragments or pieces of bullet.