Dr. JENKINS
Volume VI
TESTIMONY OF DR. MARION
THOMAS JENKINS
The
testimony of Dr. Marion Thomas Jenkins was taken at 5:30 p.m., on March 25,
1964, at
Mr.
SPECTER. May the record show that Dr. M. T. Jenkins has appeared in response to
a letter request in connection with the inquiry of the President's Commission on
the Assassination of President Kennedy, to testify concerning his observations
and medical treatment performed by him on President Kennedy, and with this
preliminary statement of purpose, would you stand up, please, Dr. Jenkins, and
raise your right hand.
Do
you solemnly swear the testimony you 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. JENKINS. I do.
Mr. SPECTER. Would you state your full name for the record, please?
Dr. JENKINS. Marion Thomas Jenkins.
Mr. SPECTER. What is your profession, please?
Dr. JENKINS. I'm a physician.
Mr. SPECTER. Are you licensed by the State of
Dr. JENKINS. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. And what is your specialty, Dr. Jenkins?
Dr. JENKINS. Anesthesiology.
Mr. SPECTER. Will you outline your educational background for me, please?
Dr. JENKINS. I am a graduate of the
Mr. SPECTER. Yes, what Boards are you certified?
Dr.
JENKINS. I am a Diplomate of the American Board of Anesthesiology and also
fellow of the
Mr. SPECTER. And what year were you certified by the American Board?
Dr. JENKINS. 1952.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you have occasion to assist in the treatment of
President Kennedy on November 22, 1963?
Dr. JENKINS. Yes.
Mr.
SPECTER. And will you relate briefly the circumstances surrounding your being
called into that case?
Dr.
JENKINS. Well, I was in the dining room with other members of the hospital staff
when we heard the Chief of Surgery, Dr. Tom Shires, being paged
"Stat." This is a rather
unusual call, for the Chief of any service to be called "Stat" as this
is the emergency call.
Mr. SPECTER. What does that mean, "Stat"?
Dr.
JENKINS. "Stat" means emergency, that's just a code word that has been
used for years in medical terms. He
was paged twice this way, and one of the
45
Page 46
surgical residents, Dr.
Ronald Jones, answered the phone, thinking some thing bad must be up and that he
would call the Chief of Surgery. I
was sitting near the telephone and Dr. Jones immediately came back by with very
anguished look and the color was drained from his face-- I'm sure I had that
impression, and he said, "The President has been shot and is on his way to
the hospital." At the same time we heard the sirens of the ambulance as
they turned into the driveway from Harry Hines into the hospital drive, and it
was obvious that this was the car coming in because the ambulance sirens usually
stop in the street, but these came on clear to the building.
Mr. SPECTER. That's
Dr. JENKINS. Yes; I ran up the stairs to the Anesthesia Department,
that's on the second floor-one floor above the dining room, where I was, and
notified two members of the Department, the first two I saw, my Chief Associate,
Dr. A. H. Giesecke, Jr., and Dr. Jackie Hunt, that the President had been shot
and was being brought to the emergency room and for them to bring all the
resuscitative equipment we have including an anesthesia machine.
The emergency room is set up well, but we are used to working with our
own equipment and I asked them to bring it down and I ran down the back stairs,
two flights down, and I arrived in the emergency room just after or right behind
him, being wheeled in, I guess.
Mr. SPECTER At about what time did you arrive at the emergency room
Dr. JENKINS. Oh, this was around 12:30-12:35 to 12:40.
I shouldn't be indefinite about this--in our own specialty practice, we
watch the clock closely and there are many things we have to keep up with, but I
didn't get that time exactly, I'll admit.
Mr.
SPECTER Who was present at the time of your arrival in the emergency room, if
anyone?
Dr. JENKINS. The hallway was loaded with people.
Mr. SPECTER. What medical personnel were in attendance?
Dr.
JENKINS. Including Mrs. Kennedy, I recognized, and Secret Service men,
I didn't know whether to block the way or get out of it, as it turned
out. Dr. James Carrico and Dr. Dulany-Dick Dulany, I guess you have his name,
and several nurses were in the room.
Mr. SPECTER. Could you identify the nurses?
Dr.
JENKINS. Well, not really. I could
identify them only having later looked around and identified from my own record
that I have, the names of all who were there later.
Now, whether they are the same ones when I first went there, I don't
know. I have all the names in my
report, it seemed to me
Mr. SPECTER. Could you now identify all of the nurses from your later
observations of them?
Dr. JENKINS. Well, I can identify who was in there at the close of the
procedure, that is, the doctors, as well as those who were helping.
Mr. SPECTER. Fine, would you do that for us, please?
Dr. JENKINS. These included a Mrs. or Miss Patricia Hutton and Miss Diana
Bowron, B-o-w-r-o-n (spelling), and a Miss Henchliffe--I don't know her first
name, but I do know it is Henchliffe.
Mr. SPECTER Margaret?
Dr.
JENKINS. Margaret---certainly. Those
three--there were probably some student nurses too, whom I didn't recognize.
Shall I continue?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes, please. Have you now covered all the people you
recollect as being in the room?
Dr.
JENKINS. Well, as I came into the room, I saw only the, actually--you know, in
the haste of the coming of the President, two doctors whom I recognized, and
there were other people and I have identified all I remember
Mr.
SPECTER What did you observe as to the President's condition when you arrived in
the emergency room?
Dr.
JENKINS. Well, I was aware of what he was in an agonal state.
This is not a too unfamiliar state that we see in the Service, as much
trauma as we see, that is, he had the agonal respiratory gasp made up of jerking
movements of the mylohyoid group of muscles.
These are referred to sometimes as chin jerk, tracheal tug or agonal
muscles of respiration. He had this
46
Page 47
characteristic of
respiration. His eyes were opened
and somewhat exophthalmic and color was greatly suffused, cyanotic---a purplish
cyanosis.
Still,
we have patients in the state, as far as cyanosis and agonal type respiration,
who are resuscitatable. Of course,
you don't step at this time and think, "Well, this is a hopeless
circumstance,"--because one in this state can often be resusciated--this
represents the activities prior to one's demise sometimes, and if it can be
stepped, such as the patient is oxygenated again and circulation reinstituted,
he can be saved.
Dr. Carrico had just introduced an endotracheal tube, I'm very proud of
him for this because it's not as easy as it sounds. At times and under the
circumstances--it was harder--he had. just completed a 3-month rotation on the
anesthesiology service, and I thought this represented good background training
for a smart individual, and he told me he had a cuff on the endotracheal tube
and he introduced it below the wound.
The
reason I said this, of course, this is a reflex--there is a tube, the
endotracheal tube, if it is pushed down a little too far it can go into the
right main stem of the bronchus impairing respiration from both lungs, or both
chest.
There
was in the room an intermittent positive pressure breathing apparatus, which can
be used to respire for a patient. As I connected this up, however, Dr. Carrico
and I connected it up to give oxygen by artificial respiration, Dr. Giesecke and
Dr. Hunt arrived on the scene with the anesthesia machine and I connected it up
instead with something I am more familiar with--not for anesthesia, I must
insist on that--it was for the oxygenation, the ability to control ventilation
with 100 percent oxygen.
As I
came in there, other people came in also. This is my recollection. Now, by this
time I was in familiar surroundings, despite the anguish of the circumstance.
Despite the unusual circumstance, in terms of the distinguished personage
who was the patient, I think the people who had gathered or who had congregated
were so accustomed to doing resuscitative procedures of this nature that they
knew where to fit into the resuscitation team without having a preconceived or
predirected plan, because, as obviously--some people were doing things not
necessarily in their specialty, but there was the opening and there was the
necessity for this being done.
There were three others who came in as I did who recognized at once the
neck wound, in fact, where the wound was, would indicate that we would have
serious pulmonary problems unless a tracheotomy tube was put in.
This is one way of avoiding pushing air out through a fractured trachea
and down into each chest cavity, which would cause a pneumothorax or a collapse
of the lungs. These were doctors
Malcolm Perry, Charley Baxter, and Robert McClelland, who with Dr. Carrico's
help, I believe, started the tracheotomy.
About
this time Drs. Kemp Clark and Paul Peters came in, and Dr. Peters because of the
appearance of the right chest, the obvious physical characteristics of a
pneumothorax, put in a closed chest drainage
chest tube. Because I felt no
peripheral pulse and was not aware of any pulse, I reported this to Dr. Clark
and he started closed chest cardiac massage.
There
were other people--one which started an I.V. in a cutdown in the right leg and
one a cutdown in the left arm. Two
of my department connected up the cardioscope, in which we had electrical
silence on the cardioscope as Dr. Clark started closed chest massage.
That's the sequence of events as I reconstructed them that day and
dictated them on my report, which you have here, I think.
Mr.
SPECTER Speaking of your report, Dr. Jenkins, permit me to show you a group of
papers heretofore identified as Commission Exhibit No. 392 which has also been
identified by Mr. Price, the hospital Administrator, as being photostatic copies
of original reports in his possession and controlled as Custodian of Records,
and I show you what purports to be a report from you to Mr. Price, dated
November 22, 1963, and ask you if in fact this 2-page report was submitted by
you to Mr. Price?
Dr. JENKINS. Yes; it was.
Mr.
SPECTER. Now, going back to the wound which you observed in the neck, did you
see that wound before the tracheotomy was performed?
47
Page 48
Dr. JENKINS. Yes; I did, because I was just connecting up the
endotracheal tube to the machine at the time and that's when Dr. Carrico said
there was a wound in the neck and I looked at it.
Mr. SPECTER Would you describe that wound as specifically as you can?
Dr.
JENKINS. Well, I'm afraid my description of it would not be as accurate, of
course, as that of the surgeons who were doing the tracheotomy, because my look
was a quick look before connecting up the endotracheal tube to the apparatus to
help in ventilation and respiration for the patient, and I was aware later in
the day, as I should have put it in the report, that I thought this was a wound
of exit because it was not a clean wound, and by "clean" clearly
demarcated, round, punctate wound which is the usual wound of an entrance wound,
made by a missile and at some speed. Of course, entrance wounds with a lobbing
type missile, can make a jagged wound also, but I was of the impression and I
recognized I had the impression it was an exit wound. However, my mental
appreciation for a wound--for the wound in the neck, I believe, was sort of--was
overshadowed by recognition of the wound in the scalp and skull plate.
Mr.
SPECTER. Have you now described the wound in the neck as specifically as you can
at this moment?
Dr. JENKINS. I believe so.
Mr.
SPECTER. Now, will you now describe the wound which you observed in the head?
Dr. JENKINS. Almost by the time I was--had the time to pay more attention
to the wound in the head, all of these other activities were under way.
I was busy connecting up an apparatus to respire for the patient,
exerting manual pressure on the breathing bag or anesthesia apparatus, trying to
feel for a pulse in the neck, and then reaching up and feeling for one in the
temporal area, seeing about connecting the cardioscope or directing its being
connected, and then turned attention to the wound in the head.
Now,
Dr. Clark had begun closed chest cardiac massage at this time and I was aware of
the magnitude of the wound, because with each compression of the chest, there
was a great rush of blood from the skull wound.
Part of the brain was herniated; I really think part of the cerebellum,
as I recognized it, was herniated from the wound; there was part of the brain
tissue, broken fragments of the brain tissue on the drapes of the cart on which
the President lay.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you observe any wounds immediately below the massive
loss of skull which you have described?
Dr. JENKINS. On the right side?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes, sir.
Dr.
JENKINS. No---I don't know whether this is right or not, but I thought there was
a wound on the left temporal area, right in the hairline and right above the
zygomatic process.
Mr. SPECTER. The autopsy report discloses no such development, Dr.
Jenkins.
Dr. JENKINS. Well, I was feeling for---I was palpating here for a pulse
to see whether the closed chest cardiac massage was effective or not and this
probably was some blood that had come from the other point and so I thought
there was a wound there also.
Mr.
SPECTER. At approximately what time was President Kennedy pronounced dead?
Dr.
JENKINS. Well, this was pronounced, we know the exact time as 1300, according to
my watch, at least, at the time.
Mr. SPECTER. And what, in your opinion, was the cause of death?
Dr. JENKINS. Cerebral injury--brain injury.
Mr. SPECTER. Was President Kennedy ever turned over during the course of
this treatment at
Dr. JENKINS. No.
Mr. SPECTER Why was he not turned over, Dr. Jenkins?
Dr.
JENKINS. Oh, I think this was beyond our prerogative completely.
I think as we pronounced the President dead, those in attendance who were
there just sort of melted away, well, I guess "melted" is the wrong
word, but we felt like we were intruders and left.
I'm sure that this was considerably beyond our prerogative, and the facts
were we knew he had a fatal wound, and I think my
48
Page 49
own personal feeling
was that this was--would have been meddlesome on anybody's part after death to
have done any further search.
Mr.
SPECTER. Was any examination of his back made before death, to your knowledge?
Dr. JENKINS. No, no; I'm sure there wasn't.
Mr.
SPECTER. Did he remain on the stretcher cart at all times while he was being
cared for?
Dr. JENKINS. Yes, sir. Can I say something that isn't in the report here,
or not?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes; let's go
off the record a minute.
(Discussion off the record between Counsel Specter and the witness, Dr.
Jenkins.)
Mr.
SPECTER. May the record show that we are back on the record and Dr. Jenkins has
made an interesting observation about the time of the declaration of death, and
I will ask you, Dr. Jenkins, for you to repeat for the record what you have just
said off the record.
Dr.
JENKINS. As the resuscitative maneuvers were begun, such as "chest cardiac
massage," there was with each compression of the sternum, a gush of blood
from the skull wound, which indicated there was massive vascular damage in the
skull and the brain, as well as brain tissue damage, and we recognized by this
time that the patient was beyond the point of resuscitation, that he was in fact
dead, and this was substantiated by getting a silent electrical pattern on the
electrocardiogram, the cardioscope that was connected up.
However,
for a period of minutes, but I can't now define exactly, since I didn't put this
in a report, after we knew he was dead, we continued attempted resuscitative
maneuvers.
When
we saw the two priests who arrived in the corridor outside the emergency room
where this was taking place, I went to the door and asked one of those after
turning over my ventilation, my respiration job to another one of my
department-and asked him what is the proper time to declare one dead.
That is, I am not a Catholic and I was not sure of the time for the last
rites. As I remember now, he said,
"The time that the soul leaves the body--is not at exactly the time that
medical testimony might say that death was declared." There would be a
period of time and so if we wished to declare him dead at that time they would
still have the final rites.
Mr.
SPECTER Did they then have the final rites after the time he was declared dead
medically?
Dr.
JENKINS. Well, just a minute now--I suspect that was hazy to me that day--I'm
not sure, it's still hazy. This was
a very personal---on the part of the very anguished occasion, and Mrs. Kennedy
had come back into the room and most of the people were beginning to leave
because they felt like this was such a grief stricken and private affair that
they should not be there. It was
real intrusion even after they put forth such efforts at resuscitation and I'm
not sure now whether the priests came in while I was still doing the
resuscitative procedure, respiration at least, and while Dr. Clark was still
doing the other. My memory is that
we had stopped. I was still present,
however, and that's the reason I'm not clear, because I hadn't left the room and
I was still there as the rites were performed and a prayer was said.
Mr.
SPECTER. Dr. Jenkins, would your observation of the wound and your
characterization of it as an exit hole be consistent with a set of facts which I
will ask you to assume for purposes of giving me your view or opinion.
Assume,
first of all, if you will, that President Kennedy had a wound on the upper right
posterior thorax just above the upper border of the scapula, measuring 14 cm.
from the tip of the right acromion process and 14 cm. below the tip of the right
mastoid process, and that the missile was a 6.5 mm. jacketed bullet fired from a
weapon having a muzzle velocity of approximately 2,000 feet per second and
approximately 160 to 250 feet from the President, and that after entering the
President's body at the point indicated, the missile traveled between two strap
muscles and through a fascia plane without violating the pleura cavity, and then
struck the right side of the trachea and exited through
49
Page 50
the throat, would the
throat wound which you observed be consistent with such a wound inflicted in the
manner I have just described?
Dr. JENKINS. As far as I know, it wouldn't be inconsistent with it, Mr.
Specter.
Mr. SPECTER What has your experience been with gunshot wounds, that is,
to what extent have you had experience with such wounds?
Dr.
JENKINS. Well, having been Chief of the Anesthesia Service here for this 16
years, we have a rather large trauma emergency service, and so I see gunshot
wounds many times a week. I'm afraid
I couldn't hazard a guess at the moment as to how many we see a year, and I'm
afraid probably if I knew, I would not like to admit to this number, but I do go
further in saying that my main interest is not in the tracks of the wounds.
My main interest is what physiological changes that they have caused to
the patient that I am to anesthetize or a member of the department is to
anesthetize, what has happened to the cardiovascular system, respiratory, and
neurological, and so I am aware of the wounds of entrance and exit only by a
peripheral part of my knowledge and activities during the time.
Mr. SPECTER. Have you ever had any formal training in ballistics or in
exit wounds or entrance wounds--bullet wounds?
Dr. JENKINS. No, I have not.
Mr.
SPECTER. Have you talked to any representative of the Federal Government at any
time prior to today?
Mr.
JENKINS. Oh, there was a man whose name I don't remember now, who showed what
looked like the proper credentials from the FBI, who came to ask only whether
the report I had submitted to Mr. Price for the hospital record or for Mr.
Price's record constituted all the reports I had. That's the only time and that
was the extent of our conversation, I think.
Mr. SPECTER. And is that the only written record you have of your
participation in the treatment of the President?
Dr. JENKINS. Oh, I submitted one to the Dean of the
Mr. SPECTER. Yes, I would like to see it.
Dr. JENKINS. It is
essentially the same report--however---can I ask you something off of the record
here?
Mr. SPECTER. Sure.
(Discussion between Counsel Specter and the witness, Dr. Jenkins, off the
record.)
Mr. SPECTER. The record will show that we have been off the record on a
couple of matters which I am going to now put on the record, but I will ask the
court reporter to identify this as Dr. Jenkins' Exhibit No. 36.
(Instrument referred to marked by the Reporter as Dr. Jenkins' Exhibit
No. 36, for identification.)
Mr. SPECTER. I will ask you, Dr. Jenkins, for the record to identify this
as a report which you submitted to Dean Gill.
Dr. JENKINS. Yes, it is.
Mr. SPECTER. And is this in conjunction with the report you submitted to
Mr. Price--do these reports constitute all the writings you have on your
participation in the treatment of President Kennedy?
Dr. JENKINS. Yes; that's right.
Mr. SPECTER. One of the comments we were just discussing off the
record---I would like to put on the record, Dr. Jenkins, is the question as to
whether or not the wound in the neck would have been fatal in your opinion,
absent the head wound. What would
your view of that be?
Mr. JENKINS. Well, from my knowledge of the wound in the neck, this would
not have been fatal, except for one thing, and that is--you have not told me
whether the wound with its point of entrance and point of exit had contacted the
vertebral column in its course?
Mr. SPECTER. It did not.
Dr. JENKINS. In that case I would not expect this wound to have been
fatal.
Mr. SPECTER. What is your view, Dr. Jenkins, as to whether the wounds
which you observed were caused by one or two bullets?
50
Page 51
Dr. JENKINS. I felt quite sure at the time that there must have been two
bullets--two missiles.
Mr. SPECTER. And, Dr. Jenkins, what was your reason for that?
Dr.
JENKINS. Because the wound with the exploded area of the scalp, as I interpreted
it being exploded, I would interpret it being a wound of exit, and the
appearance of the wound in the neck, and I also thought it was a wound of exit.
Mr.
SPECTER. Have you ever changed any of your original opinions in connection with
the wounds received by President Kennedy ?
Dr.
JENKINS. I guess so. The first day I
had thought because of his pneumothorax, that his wound must have gone--that the
one bullet must have traversed his pleura, must have gotten into his lung
cavity, his chest cavity, I mean, and from what you say now, I know it did not
go that way. I thought it did.
Mr. SPECTER. Aside from that opinion, now, have any of your other
opinions about the nature of his wounds or the sources of the wounds been
changed in any way ?
Dr.
JENKINS. No; one other. I asked you
a little bit ago if there was a wound in the left temporal area, right above the
zygomatic bone in the hairline because there was blood there and I thought there
might have been a wound there (indicating).
Mr. SPECTER. Indicating the left temporal area?
Dr. JENKINS. Yes; the left temporal, which could have been a point of
entrance and exit here (indicating), but you have answered that for me. This was
my only other question about it.
Mr. SPECTER. So, that those two points are the only ones on which your
opinions have been changed since the views you originally formulated?
Dr. JENKINS. Yes, I think so.
Mr. SPECTER. On the President's injuries?
Dr. JENKINS. Yes, I think so.
Mr.
SPECTER. Is the conversation you had with that Secret Service Agent the only
time you were interviewed by anyone from the Federal Government prior to today
about this subject?
Dr. JENKINS. As far as I remember--I don't believe so.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, you say that was the only time you were interviewed?
Dr.
JENKINS. Yes, as far as I remember--I have had no formal interviews. I have been
asked--there have been some people calling on the phone.
As you know, there were many calls from various sources all over the
country after that, wanting to know whether we had done this method of treatment
or some other method and what principles we followed.
Mr. SPECTER. But the only one you can identify as being from the Federal
Government is the one you have already related from the Secret Service?
Dr. JENKINS. Yes.
Mr.
SPECTER. And did you and I have a very brief conversation before the deposition
started today, when you gave me some of your views which you expounded and
expanded upon during the course of the deposition on the record?
Dr. JENKINS. Yes.
Mr.
SPECTER. And is there anything which you think of to add that you believe would
be of some assistance or any assistance to the President's Commission in its
inquiry?
Dr. JENKINS. I believe not, Mr. Specter.
Mr. SPECTER. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Jenkins.
Dr. JENKINS. All right.
Ronald Coy Jones
Page 51
TESTIMONY OF DR. RONALD
COY JONES
The
testimony of Dr. Ronald Coy Jones was taken at 10:20 a.m., on March 24, 1964, at
51
Contact Information tomnln@cox.net
Page Visited
Times