Who Really Killed Kennedy?: 50 Years Later: Stunning New Revelations About the JFK Assassination (6 page)

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 opening 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 physical 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.
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What seems clear is that prior to the Bethesda autopsy, the evidence strongly suggested there were multiple shooters and that some of the shooters were positioned in front of the motorcade along the grassy knoll. What happened at the Bethesda autopsy that the medical evidence changed?

Claw Shaw was a New Orleans businessman who was the only person brought to trial in connection with the JFK assassination. He was acquitted, but during the trial US Army physician, Lt. Col. Pierre A. Finck, a participant in the JFK autopsy at Bethesda, admitted that military brass present in the Bethesda autopsy room interfered with the doctors conducting the autopsy. He claimed military brass actually stopped the doctors from performing procedures they felt were necessary to determine the exact type and nature of wounds JFK suffered. Alvin Oser, one of the chief prosecutors working on the trial under the direction of District Attorney Jim Garrison, cross-examined Finck. The cross-examination was particularly important because Dr. Finck had testified to the Warren Commission that he was confident that the bullet which hit JFK’s back had passed through his neck and continued on to injure Connally, even though he believed a bullet doing this much damage would have fragmented or deformed. Finck told the Warren Commission he was completely
confident that JFK’s wounds were exit wounds, consistent with JFK being shot from behind.
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Yet, when pressed by Alvin Oser’s aggressive questioning in the Clay Shaw trial, Finck was forced to admit reluctantly that the military brass had interfered with the autopsy:

Mr. Oser
: How many other military personnel were present at the autopsy in the autopsy room?

Dr. Finck
: The autopsy room was quite crowded. It is a small autopsy room, and when you are called in circumstances like that to look at the wound of the President of the United States who is dead, you don’t look around too much to ask people for their names and take notes on who they are and how many there are. I did not do so. The room was crowded with military and civilian personnel and federal agents, Secret Service agents, FBI agents, for part of the autopsy, but I cannot give you a precise breakdown as regards the attendance of the people in that autopsy room at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

Mr. Oser
: Colonel, did you feel that you had to take orders from this Army General that was there directing the autopsy?

Dr. Finck
: No, because there were others, there were Admirals.

Mr. Oser
: There were Admirals?

Dr. Finck
: Oh, yes, there were Admirals, and when you are a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army you just follow orders, and at the end of the autopsy we were specifically told – as I recall it, it was by Admiral Kenney, the Surgeon General of the Navy – this is subject to verification – we were specifically told not to discuss the case.

Mr. Oser
: You were told not to discuss the case?

Dr. Finck
: – to discuss the case without coordination with the Attorney General.
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The next sequence is lengthy, but crucial to understanding the apparent political intervention that prevented the autopsy physicians from producing a complete or reliable examination of his wounds:

Mr. Oser
: Doctor, speaking of the wound to the throat area of the president as you described it, after this bullet passed through the president’s throat in the manner in which you described it, would the president have been able to talk?

Dr. Finck
: I don’t know.

Mr. Oser
: Do you have an opinion?

Dr. Finck
: There are many factors influencing the ability to talk or not after a shot.

Mr. Oser
: Did you have an occasion to dissect the track of that particular bullet in the victim as it lay on the autopsy table?

Dr. Finck
: I did not dissect the track in the neck.

Mr. Oser
: Why.

Dr. Finck
: This leads us into a disclosure of medical records.

Mr. Oser
: Your Honor, I would like an answer from the Colonel and I would ask the Court so to direct.

The Court
: That is correct, you should answer, Doctor.

Dr. Finck
: We didn’t remove the organs of the neck.

Mr. Oser
: Why not, doctor?

Dr. Finck
: For the reason that we were told to examine the head wounds and that the –

Mr. Oser
: Are you saying someone told you not to dissect the track?

The Court
: Let him finish his answer.

Dr. Finck
: I was told that the family wanted an examination of the head, as I recall, the head and the chest, but the prosecutors in this autopsy didn’t remove the organs of the neck, to my recollection.

Mr. Oser
: You have said they did not. I want to know why didn’t you as an autopsy pathologist attempt to ascertain the track through the body which you had on the autopsy table in trying to ascertain the cause or causes of death? Why?

Dr. Finck
: I had the cause of death.

Mr. Oser
: Why did you not trace the track of the wound?

Dr. Finck
: As I recall I didn’t remove these organs from the neck.

Mr. Oser
: I didn’t hear you.

Dr. Finck
: I examined the wounds but I didn’t remove the organs of the neck.

Mr. Oser
: You said you didn’t do this; I am asking you why you didn’t do this as a pathologist?

Dr. Finck
: From what I recall I looked at the trachea, there was a tracheotomy wound the best I can remember, but I didn’t dissect or remove these organs.

Mr. Oser
: Your Honor, I would ask Your Honor to direct the witness to answer my question.

Mr. Oser (continued)
: I will ask you the question one more time: Why did you not dissect the track of the bullet wound that you have described today and you saw at the time of the autopsy at the time you examined the body. Why? I ask you to answer that question.

Dr. Finck
: As I recall I was told not to, but I don’t remember by whom.

Mr. Oser
: You were told not to but you don’t remember by whom?

Dr. Finck
: Right.

Mr. Oser
: Could it have been one of the Admirals or one of the Generals in the room?

Dr. Finck
: I don’t recall.

Mr. Oser
: Do you have any particular reason why you cannot recall at this time?

Dr. Finck
: Because we were told to examine the head and the chest cavity, and that doesn’t include removal of the organs of the neck.

Mr. Oser
: You are one of three autopsy specialists and pathologists at the time, and you saw what you describe as an entrance wound in the neck area of the President of the United States who had just been assassinated, and you were only interested in the other wound but not interested in the track through his neck, is that what you are telling me?

Dr. Finck
: I was interested in the track and I had observed the conditions of bruising between the point of entry in the back of the neck and the point of exit at the front of the neck, which is entirely compatible with the bullet path.

Mr. Oser
: But you were told not to go into the area of the neck, is that your testimony?

Dr. Finck
: From what I recall, yes, but I don’t remember by whom.
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Finck was perhaps the most highly qualified forensic pathologist to attend the JFK autopsy in Bethesda. If he had been allowed to dissect the back and neck wounds to his satisfaction, it is highly likely Finck would have concluded the neck wound was an entry wound and the back wound was an unconnected entry wound, and he likely would have rejected the lone-gun hypothesis. Had Finck been allowed to complete his work, his conclusions would have been devastating to any attempt to frame Lee Harvey Oswald as the sole assassin. Military brass at the autopsy intervened to stop his work most likely because politics dictated they do so. And Dr. Finck acquiesced to Arlen Specter’s hypothetical questions that all the wounds seen in JFK’s body could have been caused by shots from the rear because politics dictated him to do so. As a junior military officer Finck did not feel he had the authority to countermand orders.

Three decades later, in 1996, the Assassination Records Review Board asked Dr. J. Thornton Boswell, another of the pathologists attending the JFK autopsy, who was in charge of the autopsy. Dr. Boswell testified that upon entering the autopsy room he thought Dr. Hume was in charge. He
said that he changed his mind however after Dr. Finck’s testimony at the Clay Shaw trial in New Orleans in 1969. Boswell explained to the review board [Mr. Eardley from the Justice Department] was really upset. He says, ‘J., we got to get somebody in New Orleans quick. [Finck] is testifying, and he’s really lousing everything up.’” Boswell explained to the Assassinations Records Review Board that the Department of Justice (DOJ) put him on an airplane that day and flew him to New Orleans. The DOJ officials in New Orleans showed Boswell a transcript of Finck’s testimony and Boswell spent all night reviewing the testimony. “And when they asked Pierre [Finck] in court who supervised and ran the autopsy, he says, ‘Some Army General.’” This was an answer the Justice Department obviously felt could not be allowed to stand on the record without a rebuttal.
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That politics controlled the JFK autopsy is devastating to the reliability of the Warren Commission Final Report that relied upon the autopsy findings to pin all the blame on Oswald acting alone. If Oswald was to be framed as the lone-gun assassin, the hypothetical possibility counsel Arlen Specter continually posed to medical witnesses that a path from the back wound to the neck wound could have been established if only it had been examined, had to remain open.

Now, to return to the autopsy, a message from Dallas also changed the course of the examination being undertaken by the physicians in the autopsy room at Bethesda Naval Hospital. While the autopsy was yet in progress on the night of the assassination, Dr. Humes at Bethesda received information that a bullet had been found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital. That information arrived with the delivery of a portion of JFK’s skull that apparently had also been delivered from Dallas.

Silbert and O’Neill continued their report:

On the basis of the latter two developments, Dr. Humes stated that the pattern was clear that 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 fragmented prior to exit through the top of the skull.
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What is clear from Silbert and O’Neill’s report is that Dr. Humes had no idea Arlen Specter would later expect him to declare the back wound as an entrance wound and the throat wound as an exit wound. At the autopsy on the night of November 22, 1963, news that a bullet had been found at Parkland Hospital was “a godsend” that “reduced the high stress level taking its toll” on the doctors “who were frantically searching for a missile in Kennedy’s body,” noted assassination researcher Jerry McKnight. “The discovery of the Parkland Hospital bullet not only reduced the confusion and circus-like atmosphere in the Bethesda morgue, it provided a ready excuse for not dissecting the president’s back wound to lay open the track of the bullet in JFK’s body. Humes now felt safe concluding the back entrance wound had been so superficial that the bullet just fell out, without having transited through JFK’s body.”
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The problem is there was no chain of evidence to link CE399 to JFK’s back wound. There is no proof the stretcher on which CE399 was found was a stretcher ever used to hold JFK’s body.

Specter would also later argue that the pristine “magic bullet,” identified by the Warren Commission as CE399, did fall out nearly unscathed, but only after it exited JFK’s throat and passed through Connally’s chest, fractured his right wrist, and punctured his thigh, leaving a small fragment in Connally’s thigh bone.

Sylvia Meagher pointed out that Humes at the autopsy did not even realize the throat wound involved a bullet wound, thinking the throat wound was a tracheotomy and nothing more. Meagher wrote:

Clearly, the observers at the autopsy took away the impression that the bullet in the back had penetrated only a short distance, without exiting from the body, and that the surgeons believed that the missile had worked its way out of the body during external cardiac massage. Everything suggests that their impression was correct, and that Dr. Humes did not come to believe the bullet had passed through and exited from the body until at least the next day, when he learned from Dr. Perry at Parkland Hospital that the President had arrived there with a bullet wound at the Adam’s apple which had been obliterated during the tracheotomy.
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