DR.
HUMES VOLUME II
TESTIMONY
OF COMDR. JAMES J. HUMES
The CHAIRMAN. The Commission will be in order.
Commander Humes, will you please step up. You know, Commander, what we
have met for today to take your testimony concerning the autopsy and anything
else you might know concerning the assassination of the President.
Would you raise your right hand, please?
Do you solemnly swear the testimony you give before this Commission will
be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Commander HUMES. I do.
The CHAIRMAN. Will you be seated? You may proceed.
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Humes, will you state your full name for the record,
please?
Commander HUMES. James Joseph Humes.
Mr. SPECTER. And what is your profession or occupation, please?
Commander HUMES. I am a physician and employed by the Medical Department
of the
Mr. SPECTER. What is your rank in the Navy?
Commander HUMES. Commander, Medical Corps.
Mr. SPECTER. Where did you receive your education, Commander Humes,
please.
Commander HUMES. I had my undergraduate training at
I received my internship and my postgraduate training in my special field
of interest in Pathology in various Naval hospitals, and at the Armed Forces
Institute of Pathology at Walter Reed in Washington, D.C.
Mr. SPECTER. What do your current duties involve?
Commander HUMES. My current title is Director of Laboratories of the
Mr. SPECTER. Have you been certified by the American Board of Pathology?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; both in anatomic pathology and in clinical
pathology in 1955.
Mr. SPECTER. What specific experience have you had, if any, with respect
to gunshot wounds?
Commander HUMES. My type of practice, which fortunately has been in
peacetime endeavor to a great extent, has been more extensive in the field of
natural disease than violence. However, on several occasions in various places
where I have been employed, I have had to deal with violent death, accidents,
suicides, and so forth. Also I have had training at the Armed Forces Institute
of Pathology, I have completed a course in forensic pathology there as part of
my training in the overall field of pathology.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you have occasion to participate in the autopsy of the
late John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; I did.
Mr. SPECTER. What was your specific function in connection with that
autopsy?
Commander HUMES. As the senior pathologist assigned to the Naval Medical
Center, I was called to the Center by my superiors and informed that the
President's body would be brought to our laboratories for an examination, and I
was charged with the responsibility of conducting and supervising this
examination; told to also call upon anyone whom I wished as assistant in this
matter, that I deemed necessary to be present.
Mr. SPECTER. Who did assist you, if anyone, in the course of the autopsy?
Commander HUMES. My first assistant was Commander J. Thornton Boswell,
whose position is Chief of Pathology at the Naval Medical School, and my other
assistant was Lt. Col. Pierre Finck, who is in the wound ballistics section of
the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.
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When I ascertained the nature of the President's wounds, having had the
facilities of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology offered to me by General
Blumberg, the commanding officer of that institution, I felt it advisable and
would be of help to me to have the services of an expert in the field of wound
ballistics and for that reason I requested Colonel Finck to appear.
Mr. SPECTER. Tell us who else in a general way was present at the time
the autopsy was conducted in addition to you three doctors, please?
Commander HUMES. This, I must preface by saying it will be somewhat
incomplete. My particular interest was on the examination of the President and
not of the security measures of the other people who were present.
However, the Surgeon General of the Navy was present at one time or
another. Admiral Galloway, the Commanding Officer of the National Naval Medical
Center; my own commanding officer, Captain John H. Stover of the Naval Medical
School, Dr. John Ebersole, one of the radiologists assigned to the Naval
Hospital, Bethesda, who assisted with X-ray examinations which were made. These
are the chief names, sir; that I can recall.
Mr. SPECTER. What time did the autopsy start approximately?
Commander HUMES. The president's body was received at 25 minutes before
8, and the autopsy began at approximately 8 p.m. on that evening. You must
include the fact that certain X-rays and other examinations were made before the
actual beginning of the routine type autopsy examination.
Mr. SPECTER. Precisely what X-rays or photographs were taken before the
dissection started?
Commander HUMES. Some of these X-rays were taken before and some during
the examination which, also maintains for the photographs, which were made as
the need became apparent to make such.
However, before the postmortem examination was begun, anterior, posterior
and lateral X-rays of the head, and of the torso were made, and identification
type photographs, I recall having been made of the full face of the late
President. A photograph showing the massive head wound with the large defect
that was associated with it. To my recollection all of these were made before
the proceedings began.
Several others, approximately 15 to 20 in number, were made in total
before we finished the proceedings.
Mr. SPECTER. Now were those X-rays or photographs or both when you
referred to the total number?
Commander HUMES. By the number I would say they are in number 15 to 20.
There probably was ten or 12 X- ray films exposed in addition.
Mr. SPECTER. What time did this autopsy end?
Commander HUMES. At approximately 11 p.m.
Mr. SPECTER. What wounds did you observe on the late President, if any?
Commander HUMES. The wounds which we observed on the President were
excuse me, at this point might I use the charts which I have prepared? Would
that be appropriate?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes; would you like to start with the neck wound?
Commander HUMES. All right, sir.
I might preface my remarks by stating that the President's body was
received in our morgue in a closed casket. We opened the casket, Dr. Boswell and
I, and the President's body was unclothed in the casket, was wrapped in a sheet
labeled by the Parkland Hospital, but he was unclothed once the sheet was
removed from his body so we do not have at that time any clothing.
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Humes, before you identify what that represents let me
place Commission Exhibit No. 385 on it so it may be identified.
(The drawing was marked Commission Exhibit No. 385 for identification.)
Commander HUMES. When appraised of the necessity for our appearance
before this Commission, we did not know whether or not the photographs which we
had made would be available to the Commission. So to assist in making our
testimony more understandable to the Commission members, we decided to have made
drawings, schematic drawings, of the situation as we saw it, as we recorded it
and as we recall it. These drawings were made under my supervision and that of
Dr. Boswell by Mr. Rydberg, whose initials are H. A.
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He
is a hospital corpsman, second class, and a medical illustrator in our command
at
Mr. SPECTER. Did you provide him with the basic information from which
these drawings were made?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Distances, that sort of thing?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir. We had made certain physical measurements of
the wounds, and of their position on the body of the late President, and we
provided these and supervised directly Mr. Rydberg in making these drawings.
Mr. SPECTER. Have you checked the drawings subsequent to their
preparation to verify their accuracy?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. And proportion?
Commander HUMES. I must state these drawings are in part schematic. The
artist had but a brief period of some 2 days to prepare these. He had no
photographs from which to work, and had to work under our description, verbal
description, of what we had observed.
Mr. SPECTER. Would it be helpful to the artist, in redefining the
drawings if that should become necessary, to have available to him the
photographs or X-rays of the President?
Commander HUMES. If it were necessary to have them absolutely true to
scale. I think it would be virtually impossible for him to do this without the
photographs.
Mr. SPECTER. And what is the reason for the necessity for having the
photographs?
Commander HUMES. I think that it is most difficult to transmit into
physical measurements the--by word the exact
situation as it was seen to the naked eye. The photographs were there is no
problem of scale there because the wounds, if they are changed in size or
changed in size and proportion to the structures of the body and so forth, when
we attempt to give a description of these findings, it is the bony prominences,
I cannot, which we used as points of references, I cannot, transmit completely
to the illustrator where they were situated.
Mr. SPECTER. Is the taking of photographs and X-rays routine or is this
something out of the ordinary?
Commander HUMES. No, sir; this is quite routine in cases of this sort of
violent death in our training. In the field of forensic pathology we have found
that the photographs and X-rays are of most value, the X-rays particularly in
finding missiles which have a way of going in different directions sometimes,
and particularly as documentary evidence these are considered invaluable in the
field of forensic pathology.
Mr. SPECTER. Will you now proceed to show us what Commission Exhibit 385
depicts, please?
Commander HUMES. Actually, I think, sir, at this time the view from the
posterior
aspect would also be of value to the Commission. This is--
Mr. SPECTER. Doctor, I hand you the second exhibit which is marked
Commission Exhibit No. 386.
(Commission Exhibit No. 386 was marked for identification.)
Commander HUMES. I believe at this point I would like to have, if you
have my gross autopsy description because I will give the dimensions of these
wounds at this time.
Mr. SPECTER. We will use the Commission Exhibit No. 387 and I will ask
you first of all, for the record, to identify what this document is, Dr. Humes.
(The document referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 387 for
identification.)
Commander HUMES. This document is a copy of the gross autopsy report
which was prepared by myself, Dr. Boswell, and Dr. Finck, and completed within
approximately 48 hours after the assassination of the President.
Mr. SPECTER. Does that report bear your signature at its end?
Commander HUMES. It bears my signature on the first or covering page as
well as on my last page, sir.
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Mr. SPECTER. Will you now proceed to tell us what you observed with
respect to the wound which is marked as appearing in the upper back or lower
neck?
Mr. McCLOY. Have you identified that?
Mr. SPECTER. The one on the side is 385 and the one of the rear view is
386. And that one is 387. For purposes of our record. if you will, put them in
as 385 and 386 for our printed record. You might want to put them in chalk above
them so you will see the one on the left is 385 and on the right is 386.
Commander HUMES. These exhibits again are schematic representations of
what we observed at the time of examining the body of the late President.
Exhibit 385 shows in the low neck an oval wound which excuse me, I wish
to get the measurements correct. This wound was situated just above the upper
border of the scapula, and measured 7 by 4 milimeters, with its long axis
roughly parallel to the long axis of vertical column.
We
saw--I would rather not discuss the situation of the anterior neck at this time
or would you prefer it?
Mr. SPECTER. How would you prefer to do it, Dr. Humes?
Commander HUMES. I would prefer to discuss the wounds, two wounds, we saw
posteriorly and the wound, other wound, of the skull before going to that.
Mr. SPECTER. That is fine, Dr. Humes, do it any way you find convenient.
I will give you the other drawing and you can do them both together. Let the
third drawing be marked as Commission Exhibit No. 388.
(The drawing referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 388 for
identification.)
Commander HUMES. The wound in the low neck of which I had previously
begun to speak is now posteriorly--is now depicted in 385, in 386 and in 388.
The second wound was found in the right posterior portion of the scalp.
This wound was situated approximately 2.5 centimeters to the right, and slightly
above the external occiptal protuberance which is a bony prominence situated in
the posterior portion of everyone's skull. This wound was then 2 1/2 centimeters
to the right and slightly above that point.
The third obvious wound at the time of the examination was a huge defect
over the right side of the skull. This defect involved both the scalp and the
underlying skull, and from the brain substance was protruding.
This wound measured approximately 13 centimeters in greatest diameter. It
was difficult to measure accurately because radiating at various points from the
large defect were multiple crisscrossing fractures of the skull which extended
in several directions.
I have noted in my report that a detailed description of the lines of
these fractures and of the types of fragments that were thus made were very
difficult of verbal description, and it was precisely for this reason that the
photographs were made so one might appreciate more clearly how much damage had
been done to the skull.
Mr. SPECTER. Were the photographs made available then, Dr. Humes, when
Exhibit 388 was prepared?
Commander HUMES. No, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. All right.
Commander HUMES. The photographs, to go back a moment the photographs and
the X-rays were exposed in the morgue, of the Naval Medical Center on this
night, and they were not developed, neither the X-rays or the photographs. They
were submitted to the, and here, if I make a mistake I am not certain, to either
the Federal Bureau of Investigation or to the Secret Service, I am not sure of
those.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you submit those yourself immediately after they were
taken, Dr. Humes?
Commander
Humes. Again, one of the senior people present, I believe my own Commanding
Officer, Captain Stover, took care of tuning this material over to these
authorities, and receiving a receipt for this information, for this material. It
was--I supervised the positioning of the body for various of these examinations
but as far as beyond that, I did not consider that my responsibility.
These, then, were the three wounds which were quite obvious at the time
of the examination.
I could expand further on the general appearances of these wounds or I
could
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turn
to the anterior. portion of the body and describe various other wounds which
were present.
Mr. SPECTER. You were focussing on 388 before I last asked a question,
Dr. Humes. Why don't you describe in general terms the nature of the wound which
was present at the top of the head of the late President?
Commander HUMES. With your permission, sir, and Mr. Chief Justice, I
think I might describe those two wounds together, and describe the defects in
the scalp and in the skull in each instance.
Mr. SPECTER. That would be fine.
Commander HUMES. Would that be appropriate?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes.
Commander HUMES. Turning now to Commission Exhibit 388, where we have
depicted in the posterior right portion of the skull a wound which we have
labeled "in" or a wound of entrance and a large roughly 13 cm.
diameter defect in the right lateral vertex of the skull. I would go into some
further detail in describing these wounds.
The scalp, I mentioned previously, there was a defect in the scalp and
some scalp tissue was not available. However, the scalp was intact completely
past this defect. In other words, this wound in the right posterior region was
in a portion of scalp which had remained intact.
So, we could see that it was the measurement which I gave before, I
believe 15 by 6 millimeters.
When one reflected the scalp away from the skull in this region, there
was a corresponding defect through both tables of the skull in this area.
Mr. SPECTER. Will you describe what you mean by beth tables, Dr. Humes?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
The skull is composed of two layers of bone. We will put the scalp in in
dotted lines.
The two solid lines will represent the two layers of the skull bone, and
in between these two layers is loose somewhat irregular bone.
When we reflected the scalp, there was a through and through defect
corresponding with the wound in the scalp.
This wound had to us the characteristics of a wound of entrance for the
following reason: The defect in the outer table was oval in outline, quite
similar to the defect in the skin.
Mr. SPECTER. You are referring there, Doctor, to the wound on the lower
part of the neck?
Commander HUMES. No, sir; I am speaking here of the wound in the occiput.
The wound on the inner table, however, was larger and had what in the field of
wound ballistics is described as a shelving or a coning effect. To make an
analogy to which the members of the Commission are probably most familiar, when
a missile strikes a pane of glass, a typical example, a B-B fired by a child's
air rifle, when this strikes a pane of glass there will be a small, usually
round to oval defect on the side of the glass from whence the missile came and a
boiled-out or coned-out surface on the opposite side of the glass from whence
the missile came.
(At this point, Mr. Dulles entered the hearing room.)
Commander HUMES. Experience has shown and my associates and Colonel Finck,
in particular, whose special field of interest is wound ballistics can give
additional testimony about this scientifically observed fact.
This wound then had the characteristics of wound of entrance from this
direction through the two tables of the skull.
Mr. SPECTER. When you say "this direction," will you specify
that direction in relationship to the skull?
Commander HUMES. At that point I mean only from without the skull to
within.
Mr. SPECTER. Fine, proceed.
Commander HUMES. Having ascertained to our satisfaction and incidentally
photographs illustrating this phenomenon from both the external surface of the
skull and from the internal surface were prepared, we concluded that the large
defect to the upper right side of the skull, in fact, would represent a wound of
exit.
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A careful examination of the margins of the large bone defect at that
point, however, failed to disclose a portion of the skull bearing again a wound
of--a point of impact on the skull of this fragment of the missile, remembering,
of course, that this area was devoid of any scalp or skull at this present time.
We did not have the bone.
In further evaluating this head wound, I will refer back to the X-rays
which we had previously prepared. These had disclosed to us multiple minute
fragments of radio opaque material traversing a line from the wound in the
occiput to just above the right eye, with a rather sizable fragment visible by
X-ray just above the right eye. These tiny fragments that were seen dispersed
through the substance of the brain in between Were, in fact, just that extremely
minute, less than 1 mm. in size for the most part.
(At this point, Senator Cooper entered the hearing room.)
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Humes, this would be a good juncture to produce two
photographs.
May it please the Commission, Mr. Chief Justice Warren, I have identified
as Commission Exhibits 389 and 390 which will at a later time be identified as
being two frames from the motion picture camera operated by one Abraham Zapruder,
being the amateur photographer who was on the scene, which I think would assist
in evaluating the angle of the President's head corresponding to that exhibit
designated as 388.
I will hand those to you, Dr. Humes, and ask you if you would state for
the record the relative position of the President's head in 389 which is a frame
about one-sixteenth of a second before the point of impact shown in Exhibit 390.
(The frames referred to were marked Commission Exhibits Nos. 389 and 3.90
for identification.)
Commander HUMES. It will be noted in Exhibit 389 that the President's
head is bent considerably forward and perhaps somewhat to the left in this frame
of the photograph 389.
Mr. SPECTER. Is that in approximately the same position as the angle of
the head depicted in Commission Exhibit No. 388?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; it is.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. Chief Justice, at this time I would like to move for
admission in evidence of Exhibits 385 through 390.
The CHAIRMAN. They may be admitted under those numbers.
(Commission Exhibits Nos. 385, 386, 387, 388, 389, and 390, previously
marked for identification, were received in evidence.)
Mr. SPECTER. Will you proceed now, Dr. Humes, to continue in your
description of the head wound?
Commander HUMES. Head wound--a careful inspection of this large defect in
the scalp and skull was made seeking for fragments of missile before any actual
detection was begun. The brain was greatly lacerated and torn, and in this area
of the large defect we did not encounter any of these minute particles.
I might say at this time that the X-ray pictures which were made would
have a tendency to magnify these minute fragments somewhat in size and we were
not too surprised in not being able to find the tiny fragments depicted in the
X-ray.
Mr. SPECTER. Approximately how many fragments were observed, Dr. Humes,
on the X-ray?
Commander HUMES. I would have to refer to them again, but I would say
between 30 or 40 tiny dustlike particle fragments of radio opaque material, with
the exception of this one I previously mentioned which was seen to be above and
very slightly behind the right orbit.
Mr. DULLES. Were these all fragments that were injected into the skull by
the bullet?
Commander HUMES. Our interpretation is, sir, that the missile struck the
right occipital region, penetrated through the two tables of the skull, making
the characteristic coning on the inner table which I have previously referred
to. That one portion of the missile and judging by the size of the defect thus
produced, the major portion of the missile, made its exit through this large
defect.
A second portion of the missile or multiple second portions were
deflected, and
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traversed
a distance as enumerated by this interrupted line, with the major portion of
that fragment coming to lodge in the position indicated.
Perhaps some of these minor fragments were dislodged from the major one
it traversed this course.
To better examine the situation with regard to the skull, at this time,
Boswell and I extended the lacerations of the scalp which were at the margins of
this wound, down in the direction of both of the President's ears. At that
point, we had even a better appreciation of the extensive damage which had been
done to the skill by this injury.
We had to do virtually no work with a saw to remove these Portions of the
skull, they came apart in our hands very easily, and we attempted to further
examine the brain, and seek specifically this fragment which was the one we felt
to be of a size which would permit us to recover it.
Mr. SPECTER. When you refer to this fragment, and you are pointing there,
are you referring to the fragment depicted right above the President's right
eye?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; above and somewhat behind the President's eye.
Mr. SPECTER. Will you proceed, then, to tell us what you did then?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir. We directed carefully in this region and in
fact located this small fragment, which was in a defect in the brain tissue in
just precisely this location.
Mr. SPECTER. How large was that fragment, Dr. Humes?
Commander HUMES. I refer to my notes for the measurements of that
fragment.
I find in going back to my report, sir, that we found, in fact, two small
fragments in this approximate location. The larger of these measured 7 by 2 mm.,
the smaller 3 by 1 mm.
To make my presentation of this wound of the skull more logical to the
Commission, I would like to go forward in time that evening to at a later hour.
I apologize--time and what happened exactly at what moment escapes me at this
time.
I mentioned previously that there was a large bony defect. Some time
later on that evening or very early the next morning while we were all still
engaged in continuing our examination, I was presented with three portions of
bone which had been brought to Washington from Dallas by the agents of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation.
These were--
Mr. SPECTER. Might that have been by a Secret Service agent?
Commander HUMES. It could be, sir; these things.
Mr. SPECTER. At any rate, someone presented thee three pieces of bone to
you?
Commander HUMES. Someone presented these three pieces of bone to me, I do
not recall specifically their statement as to where they had been recover. It
seems to me they felt it had been recovered either in the street or in the
automobile, I don't recall specifically.
We were most interested in these fragments of bone, and found that the
three pieces could be roughly put together to account for a portion of this
defect.
Mr. SPECTER. How much remained unaccounted for, Dr. Humes?
Commander HUMES. I would estimate that approximately one-quarter of that
defect was unaccounted for by adding these three fragments together and seeing
what was left.
This is somewhat difficult, because as back to when we were actually
looking for the fragments of metal, as we moved the scalp about, fragments of
various sizes would fall to the table, and so forth, so it was difficult to put
that exact figure into words.
However, the thing which we considered of importance about these three
fragments of bone was that at the margins of one of them which was roughly
pyramidal in shape, there was a portion of the circumference of what we
interpreted as a missile wound. We thus interpreted it this because there was,
the size was, sufficiently large for us, for it to have the curve of the skull
still evident. At the point of this defect, and I will draw both tables of the
bone in this defect, at the area which we interpreted as the margin of a missile
wound, there was a shelving of the margin.
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This would, to us, mean that a missile had made this wound from within
the skull to the exterior. To confirm that this was a missile wound, X-rays were
made of that fragment of bone, which showed radio-opaque material consistent and
similar in character to the particles seen within the skull to be deposited in
the margins of this defect, in this portion of the bone.
Mr. SPECTER. Then what conclusion did you reach as to what caused that
hole reconstructed from the three portions of the late President's scalp?
Commander HUMES. We reached the conclusion a missile entered the
left--the right posterior inferior portion-----
Mr. SPECTER. Doctor, perhaps it would be helpful if you would refer to
that as letter "A" and the exit as letter "B", so that the
record is clear on those two points and perhaps it will be helpful to your
description as well. And would you mark them as well, with a pencil?
Commander HUMES. That is not entry for the second.
Mr. SPECTER. Exit for the second?
Commander HUMES. I will label 388 with the letter "A" to
indicate our opinion as to the wound of entrance into the skull.
I will label as Point "B" the area of exit of a portion of the
missile that entered posteriorly, I say a portion because a small fragment was
seen in the position previously noted which was recovered.
However, we concluded that a very significant portion, perhaps the
largest portion, made its exit and accounted for this very large defect for the
multiple fractures of the skull and for the loss of brain and scalp tissue at
this point.
Mr. SPECTER. Will you describe at this juncture the damage which was
inflicted upon the brain, please?
Commander HUMES. May I refer at this point to the gross description of
the brain prepared separately?
Mr. SPECTER. Certainly, Dr. Humes, if you prefer to do it in that order.
Commander HUMES. I believe you have that. It is the second portion of the
report.
Mr. SPECTER. Yes, sir. I can make that available to you here.
Commander HUMES. While that is being provided, when we reflected the
scalp away from the badly damaged skull, and removed some of these loosened
portions of skull bone, we were able to see this large defect in the right
cerebral hemisphere. It corresponded roughly in size with the greatest diameter
of the defect in the scalp measuring some 13 cm.
Mr. SPECTER. May the record now show I am handing to you, Dr. Humes, an
exhibit marked Commission Exhibit 391, and will you identify what that is,
please, Doctor?
Commander HUMES. Exhibit 391 is listed as a supplementary report on the
autopsy of the late President Kennedy, and was prepared some days after the
examination.
This delay necessitated by, primarily, our desire to have the brain
better fixed with formaldehyde before we proceeded further with the examination
of the brain which is a standard means of approach to study of the brain.
The brain in its fresh state does not lend itself well to examination.
From my notes of the examination, at the time of the post-mortem
examination, we noted that clearly visible in the large skull defect and exuding
from it was lacerated brain tissue which, on close inspection proved to
represent the major portion of the right cerebral hemisphere.
We also noted at this point that the flocculus cerebri was extensively
lacerated and that the superior sagittal sinus which is a venous blood
containing channel in the top of the meninges was also lacerated.
To continue to answer your question with regard to the damage of the
brain, following the formal infixation, Dr. Boswell, Dr. Finck and I convened to
examine the brain in this state.
We also prepared photographs of the brain from several aspects to depict
the extent of these injuries.
We found that the right cerebral hemisphere was markedly disrupted. There
was a longitudinal laceration of the right hemisphere which was parasagittal in
position. By the saggital plane, as you may know, is a plane in the midline
which would divide the brain into right and left halves.
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This laceration was parasagittal. It was situated approximately 2.5 cm.
to the right of the midline, and extended from the tip of occipital lobe, which
is the posterior portion of the brain, to the tip of the frontal lobe which is
the most anterior portion of the brain, and it extended from the top down to the
substance of the brain a distance of approximately 5 or 6 cm.
The base of the laceration was situated approximately 4.5 cm. below the
vertex in the white matter. By the vertex we mean--the highest point on the
skull is referred to as the vertex.
The area in which the greatest loss of brain substance was particularly
in the parietal lobe, which is the major portion of the right cerebral
hemisphere.
The margins of this laceration at all points were jagged and irregular,
with additional lacerations extending in varying directions and for varying
distances from the main laceration.
In addition, there was a laceration of the corpus callosum which is a
body of fibers which connects the two hemispheres of the brain to each other,
which extended from the posterior to the anterior portion of this structure,
that is the corpus callosum. Exposed in this laceration were portions of the
ventricular system in which the spinal fluid normally is disposed within the
brain.
When
viewed from above the left cerebral hemisphere was intact. There was engorgement
of blood vessels in the meninges covering the brain. We note that the gyri and
sulci, which are the convolutions of the brain over the left hemisphere were of
normal size and distribution.
Those on the right were too fragmented and distorted for satisfactory
description.
When the brain was turned over and viewed from its basular or inferior
aspect, there was found a longitudinal laceration of the mid-brain through the
floor of the third ventricle, just behind the optic chiasma and the mammillary
bodies.
This laceration partially communicates with an oblique 1.5 cm. tear
through the left cerebral peduncle. This is a portion of the brain which
connects the higher centers of the brain with the spinal cord which is more
concerned with reflex actions.
There were irregular superficial lacerations over the basular or inferior
aspects of the left temporal and frontal lobes. We interpret that these later
contusions were brought about when the disruptive force of the injury pushed
that portion of the brain against the relative intact skull.
This has been described as contre-coup injury in that location.
This, then, I believe, Mr. Specter, are the major points with regard to
the President's head wound.
Mr. SPECTER. Do you have an opinion, Dr. Humes, as to whether there were
dumdum bullets used specifically on this would which struck point "A"
of the head, on 388?
Commander HUMES. I believe these were not dumdum bullets, Mr. Specter. A
dumdum bullet is a term that has been used to describe various missiles which
have a common characteristic of fragmenting extensively upon striking.
Mr. SPECTER. Would you characterize the resultant effect on this bullet
as not extensive fragmenting?
Commander HUMES. Yes. Had. this wound on point "A" on Exhibit
388 been inflicted by dumdum bullet. I would anticipate that it would not have
anything near the regular contour and outline which it had. I also would
anticipate that the skull would have been much more extensively disrupted, and
not have, as was evident in this case, a defect which quite closely corresponded
to the overlying skin defect because that type of a missile would
fragment on contact and be much more disruptive at this point.
Mr. SPECTER. At this point would you state for the record the size and
approximate dimension of the major wound on the top of the head which you have
marked wound "B"?
Commander HUMES. This was so large, that localization of it in a
descriptive way is somewhat difficult.
However, we have mentioned that its major--its greatest dimension was
approximately 13 cm. The reason it was difficult to measure is that various
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fracture
lines extend out from it in a quite irregular fashion, but it was approximately
13 cm.
Mr. McCLOY. This red that is marked on 388 on the base of the skull, is
that seepage or what?
Commander HUMES. No, sir; that is to depict the musculature at the base
of the neck.
Mr. McCLOY. I see.
Commander HUMES. That is not taken to depict the blood, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. On the reconstruction of the three portions of the scalp
which you described-----
Commander HUMES. Skull, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Skull, which enabled you to reconstruct a point of exit of
the bullet, will you state at this point of the record that size of opening or
exit path of the bullet?
Commander HUMES. As I mentioned previously, at one angle of this largest
pyramidal shaped fragments of bone which came as a separate specimen, we had the
portion of the perimeter of a roughly what we would judge to have been a roughly
circular wound of exit. Judging from that portion of the perimeter which was
available to us, we would have judged the diameter of that wound to be between
2.5 and 3 cm.
Mr. SPECTER. Doctor Humes, have you now described the major
characteristics and features of the wounds to the late President's head?
Commander HUMES. I believe that I have, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. All right. Will you now turn your attention, please to the
wound which is noted on 385 and 386 being at the--
Mr. McCLOY. Before we leave that, could I ask a question?
When you talk about dumdum bullets, do you include the ordinary type of
soft nose sporting bullets, maybe this is something that Colonel Finck would be
more expert on, but was that, was the bullet, could it possibly have been a
sporting type of hunting bullet that has a soft nose but is still somewhat firm?
Commander HUMES. From the characteristics of this wound, Mr. McCloy,
would believe that it must have had a very firm head rather than a soft head.
Mr. McCLOY. Steel jacketed, would you say, copper jacketed bullet?
Commander HUMES. I believe more likely a jacketed bullet because of the
regular outline which was present.
Mr. McCLOY. All right.
Mr. DULLES. Could I ask a question?
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Dulles.
Mr. DULLES. Believing that we know the type of bullet that was usable in
this gun, would this be the type of wound that might result from that kind of a
bullet?
Commander HUMES. I believe so, sir.
Mr. DULLES. If my question is clear--
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; it is.
Mr. DULLES. We think we know what the bullet is. we may be wrong but we
think we know what it was, is this wound consistent with that type of bullet?
Commander HUMES. Quite consistent, sir.
Mr. McCLOY. There is no evidence of any keyholing of the bullet before it
hit, before the point of impact?
Commander HUMES. I don't exactly follow your question.
Mr. McCLOY. Was the bullet moving in a direct line or had it begun to
tumble?
Commander HUMES. To tumble?
That is a difficult question to answer. I have the opinion, however, that
it was more likely moving in a direct line. You will note that the wound in the
posterior portion of the occiput on Exhibit 388 is somewhat longer than the
other missile wound which we have not yet discussed in the low neck. We believe
that rather than due to a tumbling effect, this is explainable on the fact that
this missile struck the skin and skull at a more tangential angle than did the
other missile, and, therefore, produced a more elongated defect, sir.
Senator COOPER. May I ask a question there? Perhaps you have done this,
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but
if not, how would you explain the difference of the courses of the fragments
which you traced and described as, I think, being discovered behind the right
eye?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
Senator COOPER. And the course of the fragment which was believed caused
the large defect?
Commander HUMES. Caused the large defect?
Senator COOPER. How do you explain.
Commander HUMES. The discrepancy?
Senator COOPER. The difference in the courses.
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
As this missile penetrated the scalp, it then came upon a very firm
substance, the hard skull, and I believe that this track depicted by the dotted
lines on Exhibit 388 was a portion of that missile which was dislodged as it
made its defect in the skull. And that--that another portion, and, as I say,
presumably, by the size of the defect, a more major portion made its exit
through the right lateral side of the skull.
Mr. McCLOY. Is this piece of pyramidal bone that was brought in to you
subsequently as I understand it--
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
Mr. McCLOY. Was that part of the outer table or the inner table?
Commander HUMES. It was both tables, sir.
Mr. McCLOY. Both tables?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; had it only been one it might have been
difficult to ascertain whether it was.
Mr. McCLOY. Shelving or not?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; in or out, but it encompassed both tables,
sir.
Mr. DULLES. Is the angle of declination that you--one sees there from in
and out approximately the angle you think at which the bullet was traveling at
the time of impact and exit?
Commander HUMES. That is our impression, sir.
Mr. DULLES. So then the shot would have been fired from some point above
the head of the person hit?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Humes, would you elaborate a bit on the differences in
the paths, specifically why the bullet went in one direction in part and in part
in the second direction, terminating with the fragment right over the right eye?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
I will make a drawing of the posterior portion of the skull showing again
this beveling which we observed at the inner table of the skull.
Our impression is that as this projectile impinged upon the skull in this
fashion, a small portion of it was dislodged due to the energy expended in that
collision, if you will, and that it went off at an angle, and left the track
which is labeled 388, which is labeled on Exhibit 388 from "A", point
"A" to the point where the fragment was found behind the eye.
Why a fragment takes any particular direction like that is something
which is difficult of scientific explanation. Those of us who have seen missiles
strike bones, be it the skull or a bone in the extremity, have long since
learned that portions of these missiles may go off in various directions and the
precise physical laws governing them are not clearly understood.
Mr. SPECTER. Would the angle be accentuated in any way if you were to
assume the President was in a moving automobile going in a slight downhill
direction?
Commander HUMES. There are many variables under these circumstances. The
most--the crucial point, I believe to be the relative position of the
President's head in relation to the flight of the missile.
Now, this would be influenced by how far his head was bent, by the
situation with regard to the level of the seat in the vehicle, off of the
horizontal, and so forth.
Mr. SPECTER. How about a decline in the path of the road itself?
Commander HUMES. I think that that would have a tendency to accentuate
this angle, yes, sir.
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Mr. SPECTER. Mr. Chief Justice, I would like to move for the admission in
evidence now of Exhibit 391, which is the exhibit on the brain report.
The CHAIRMAN. It may be admitted.
(The document heretofore marked for identification as Commission Exhibit
No. 391 was received in evidence.)
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Humes, would you now move over to the wound which
appears on the lower part of the neck and upper part of the back?
Mr. DULLES. Could I ask one more question before we get to that, I am
sorry.
Mr. SPECTER. Certainly.
Mr. DULLES. Could one say as to what portion of the bullet was found in
all these fragments, I mean arrive at an estimate, was it a tenth of the bullet,
was it, how much was it, assuming the type of bullet that we believe was used in
this particular rifle.
Commander HUMES. Sir, I have not had the opportunity to personally
examine the type of bullet which is believed to have been represented by this
injury.
However, I would estimate if I understand you correctly the total amount
that was present in the President's skull and brain?
Mr. DULLES. Yes.
Commander HUMES. Including the fragment?
Mr. DULLES. Including all the fragments.
Commander HUMES. Including all these minute particles. I would say there
was something less than one-tenth of the total volume of the missile.
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Humes, do you make that calculation on the assumption
that the bullets used here were 6.5 ram. Mannlicher-Carcano rifle bullet
weighing 158.6 grams?
Commander HUMES. Yes, I do; sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Had I brought that particular fact to your attention prior
to the time you started testifying here today?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir. One point I intended to make clear these
fragments which I recovered from this position were turned over to the Secret
Service.
I presume that they have made physical measurements including the weight
of them, and could give a much more intelligent estimate of the proportion than
I. I would say, however, that we did not deliver these minute fragments because
they were so small as to be essentially unrecoverable.
So, obviously they were of a very small portion of the major missile.
Mr. DULLES. These minute fragments were part of the bullet, emanations
from the bullet?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
Mr. DULLES. They were not from the head?
Commander HUMES. No, sir, they were small, dust, of the size of dust
particles. however-
Mr. DULLES. Is the posture of the head of that figure there, the
inclination of it, roughly the inclination that you think the President's head
had at the time from the other photographs?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir. From the photographs and based on the physical
examination of this wound, yes, sir.
Mr. DULLES. That is all I have.
Mr. McCLOY. Perhaps this was something that Colonel Finck could testify
to exactly, but, he would be quite competent. Is there anything to indicate that
this was, might have been a larger than a 6.5 or smaller than a 6.5?
Commander HUMES. The size of the defect in the scalp, caused by a
projectile could vary from missile to missile because of elastic recoil and so
forth of the tissues.
However, the size of the defect in the underlying bone is certainly not
likely to get smaller than that of the missile which perforated it, and in this
case, the smallest diameter of this was approximately 6 to 7 mm., so I would
feel that that would be the absolute upper limit of the size of this missile,
sir.
Mr. McCLOY. Seven would be the absolute upper limit?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; and, of course, just a little tilt could make
it a little larger, you see.
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Mr. DULLES. I have one other question, if I may.
Is the incidence of clean entry as indicated there, and then great
fragmentation on exit, is that a normal consequence of this type of would?
Commander HUMES. Sir, we feel that there are two potential explanations
for this.
One, having traversed the skull in entrance in the occiput as depicted on
388, the missile begins to tumble, and in that fashion it presents a greater
proportion of its surface to the brain substance and to the skull as it makes
its egress.
The other and somewhat more difficult to measure and perhaps Colonel
Finck will be able to testify in greater detail on this, is that a high velocity
missile has tremendous kinetic energy, and this energy is expanded against the
structures which it strikes, and so that much of this defect could be of the
nature of blast, as this kinetic energy is dissipated by traversing the skull.
Is that the sense of the question, sir?
Mr. DULLES. Yes.
Senator COOPER. I will ask a question, and perhaps this isn't in your
field. But assuming that the shot which struck President Kennedy at point A was
fired by a gun from the window of the Texas School Book Depository, and which
has been testified to, and assuming that you could locate the position of the
President at the time he was struck by a bullet, you could then, could you not,
establish the degree of the missile?
Commander HUMES. The degree of angle?
Senator COOPER. The angle, yes, the degree of angle of the missile from
the building.
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; there is one difficulty, and that is the
defect of exit was so broad that one has to rely more on the inclination of the
entrance than they do connecting in this instance entrance and exit because so
much of the skull was carried away in this fashion.
Senator COOPER. That was my second question.
My first question was would it be possible physically to establish the
degree of angle of the trajectory of the bullet?
Commander HUMES. Within limited accuracy, sir.
Senator COOPER. Within limited accuracy.
That being true then my second question was whether the point of entry of
the bullet, point A, and the, what you call the exit--
Commander HUMES. Exit.
Senator COOPER. Did you establish them so exactly that they could be
related to the degree of angle of the trajectory of the bullet?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; to our satisfaction we did ascertain that
fact.
Mr. DULLES. Just one other question.
Am I correct in assuming from what you have said that this wound is
entirely inconsistent with a wound that might have been administered if the shot
were fired from in front or the side of the President: it had to be fired from
behind the President?
Commander HUMES. Scientifically, sir, it is impossible for it to have
been fired from other than behind. Or to have exited from other than behind.
Mr. McCLOY. This is so obvious that I rather hesitate to ask it. There is
no question in your mind that it was a lethal bullet?
Commander HUMES. The President, sir, could not possibly have survived the
effect of that injury no matter what would have been done for him.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Specter.
Mr. SPECTER. What conclusions did you reach then as to the trajectory or
point of origin of the bullet, Dr. Humes, based on 388?
Commander HUMES. We reached the conclusion that this missile was fired
toward the President from a point above and behind him, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, on one detail on your report, Dr. Humes, on page 4, on
the third line down, you note that there is a lacerated wound measuring 15 by 6
cm. which on the smaller size is, of course, less than 6.5 mm.?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. What would be the explanation for that variation?
Commander HUMES. This is in the scalp, sir, and I believe that this is
explainable on the elastic recoil of the tissues of the skin, sir. It is not
infrequent
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in
missile wounds of this type that the measured wound is slightly smaller than the
caliber of the missile that traversed it.
Mr. SPECTER. Would you proceed, now then to the other major wound of
entry which you have already noted and described?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Its point of origin, where it hit the President.
Commander HUMES. I--our previously submitted report, which is Commission
No. 387, identified a wound in the low posterior neck of the President.
The size of this wound was 4 by 7 mm., with the long axis being in
accordance with the long axis of the body, 44 mm. wide, in other words, 7 mm.
long.
We attempted to locate such wounds in soft tissue by making reference to
bony structures which do not move and are, therefore, good reference points for
this type of investigation.
We then ascertained, we chose the two bony points of reference we chose
to locate this wound, where the mastoid process, which is just behind the ear,
the top of the mastoid process, and the acromion which is the tip of the
shoulder joint. We ascertained physical measurement at the time of autopsy that
this wound was 14 cm. from the tip of the mastoid process and 14 cm. from the
acromion was its central point--
Mr. SPECTER. That is the right acromion?
Commander HUMES. The tip of the right acromion, yes, sir, and that is why
we have depicted it in figure 385 in this location.
This wound appeared physically quite similar to the wound which we have
described before in 388 "A," with the exception that its long axis was
shorter than the long axis of the wound described above. When the tissues
beneath this wound were inspected, there was a defect corresponding with the
skin defect in the fascia overlying the musculature of the low neck and upper
back.
I mentioned previously that X-rays were made of the entire body of the
late President. Of course, and here I must say that as I describe something to
you, I might have done it before or after in the description but for the sake of
understanding, we examined carefully the bony structures in this vicinity well
as the X-rays, to see if there was any evidence of fracture or of deposition of
metallic fragments in the depths of this wound, and we saw no such evidence,
that is no fracture of the bones of the shoulder girdle, or of the vertical
column, and no metallic fragments were detectable by X-ray examination.
Attempts to probe in the vicinity of this wound were unsuccessful without
fear of making a false passage.
Mr. SPECTER. What do you mean by that, Doctor?
Commander HUMES. Well, the defect in the fascia was quite similar, which
is the first firm tissue over the muscle beneath the skin, was quite similar to
this. We were unable, however, to take probes and have them satisfactorily fall
through any definite path at this point.
Now, to explain the situation in the President's neck, I think it will be
necessary for me to refer back to Exhibit 385, I believe the number is correct.
Mr. SPECTER. Yes; please do, that is 385.
Commander HUMES. Now, as the President's body was viewed from anteriorly
in the autopsy room, and saying nothing for the moment about the missile, there
was a recent surgical defect in the low anterior neck, which measured some 7 or
8 cm. in length or let's say a recent wound was present in this area.
This wound was through the skin, through the subcutaneous tissues and
into--
Mr. SPECTER. To digress chronologically--
Commander HUMES. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you have occasion to discuss that wound on the front
side of the President with Dr. Malcolm Perry of Parkland Hospital in Dallas?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; I did. I had the impression from seeing the
wound that it represented a surgical tracheotomy wound, a wound frequently made
by surgeons when people are in respiratory distress to give them a free airway.
To ascertain that point, I called on the telephone Dr. Malcolm Perry and
discussed with him the situation of the President's neck when he first examined
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the
President, and asked him had he in fact done a tracheotomy which was somewhat
redundant because I was somewhat certain he had.
He said, yes; he had done a tracheotomy and that as the point to perform
his tracheotomy he used a wound which he had interpreted as a missile wound in
the low neck, as the point through which to make the tracheotomy incision.
Mr. SPECTER. When did you have that conversation with him, Dr. Humes?
Commander HUMES. I had that conversation early on Saturday morning, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. On Saturday morning, November 23d?
Commander HUMES. That is correct, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. And have you had occasion since to examine the report of
Parkland Hospital which I made available to you?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; I have.
Mr. SPECTER. May it please the Commission, I would like to note this as
Commission Exhibit No. 392, and subject to later technical proof, to have it
admitted into evidence at this time for the purpose of having the doctor comment
about it.
The CHAIRMAN. It may be so marked.
(The document referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 392, for
identification.)
Mr. SPECTER. What did your examination of the Parkland Hospital records
disclose with respect to this wound on the front side of the President's body?
Commander HUMES. The examination of this record from Parkland Hospital
revealed that Doctor Perry had observed this wound as had other physicians in
attendance upon the President, and actually before a tracheotomy, was performed
surgically, an endotracheal tube was placed through the President's mouth and
down his larynx and into his trachea which is the first step in giving
satisfactory airway to a person injured in such fashion and unconscious.
The President was unconscious and it is most difficult to pass such a
tube when the person is unconscious.
The person who performed that procedure, that is instilled the
endotrachea tube noted that there was a wound of the trachea below the larynx,
which corresponded in essence with the wound of the skin which they had observed
from the exterior.
Mr. SPECTER. How is that wound described, while you are mentioning the
wound?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. I think you will find that on the first page of the summary
sheet, Dr. Humes.
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir. Thank you. This report was written by
doctor--or the activities of Dr. James Carrico, Doctor Carrico in inserting the
endotracheal tube noted a ragged wound of trachea immediately below the larynx.
The report, as I recall it, and I have not studied it in minute detail,
would indicate to me that Doctor Perry realizing from Doctor Carrico's
observation that there was a wound of the trachea would quite logically use the
wound which he had observed as a point to enter the trachea since the trachea
was almost damaged, that would be a logical place in which to put his incision.
In speaking of that wound in the neck, Doctor Perry told me that before
he enlarged it to make the tracheotomy wound it was a "few millimeters in
diameter."
Of course by the time we saw it, as my associates and as you have heard,
it was considerably larger and no longer at all obvious as a missile wound.
The report states, and Doctor Perry told me in telephone conversation
that there was bubbling of air and blood in the vicinity of this wound when he
made the tracheotomy. This caused him to believe that perhaps there had been a
violation of one of the one or other of the pleural cavities by a missile. He,
therefore, asked one of his associates, and the record is to me somewhat
confused as to which of his associates, he asked one of his associates to put in
a chest tube. This is a maneuver which is, was quite logical under the
circumstances, and which would, if a tube that were placed through all layers of
the wall of the chest, and the chest cavity had been violated one could remove
air that had gotten in there and greatly assist respiration.
So when we examined the President in addition to the large wound which
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we
found in conversation with Doctor Perry was the tracheotomy wound, there were
two smaller wounds on the upper anterior chest.
Mr. DULLES. These are apparently exit wounds?
Commander HUMES. Sir, these were knife wounds, these were incised wounds
on either side of the chest, and I will give them in somewhat greater detail.
These wounds were bilateral, they were situated on the anterior chest
wall in the nipple line, and each were 2 cm. long in the transverse axis. The
one on the right was situated 11 cm. above the nipple the one on the left was
situated 11 cm. on the nipple, and the one on the right was 8 cm. above the
nipple. Their intention was to incise through the President's chest to place
tubes into his chest.
We examined those wounds very carefully, and found that they, however,
did not enter the chest cavity. They only went through the skin. I presume that
as they were performing that procedure it was obvious that the President had
died, and they didn't pursue this.
To complete the examination of the area of the neck and the chest, I will
do that together, we made the customary incision which we use in a routine
postmortem examination which is a Y-shaped incision from the shoulders over the
lower portion of the breastbone and over to the opposite shoulder and reflected
the skin and tissues from the anterior portion of the chest.
We examined in the region of this incised surgical wound which was the
tracheotomy wound and we saw that there was some bruising of the muscles of the
neck in the depths of this wound as well as laceration or defect in the trachea.
At this point, of course, I am unable to say how much of the defect in
the trachea was made by the knife of the surgeon, and how much of the defect was
made by the missile wound. That would have to be ascertained from the surgeon
who actually did the tracheotomy.
There was, however, some ecchymosis or contusion, of the muscles of the
right anterior neck inferiorly, without, however, any disruption of the muscles
or any significant tearing of the muscles.
The muscles in this area of the body run roughly, as you see as he
depicted them here. We have removed some of them for a point I will make in a
moment, but it is our opinion that the missile traversed the neck and slid
between these muscles and other vital structures with a course in the neck such
as the carotid artery, the jugular vein and other structures because there was
no massive hemmorhage or other massive injury in this portion of the neck.
In attempting to relate findings within the President's body to this
wound which we had observed low in his neck, we then opened his chest cavity,
and we very carefully examined the lining of his chest cavity and both of his
lungs. We found that there was, in fact. no defect in the pleural lining of the
President's chest.
It was completely intact.
However, over the apex of the right pleural cavity, and the pleura now
has two layers. It has a parietal or a layer which lines the chest cavity and it
has a visceral layer which is intimately in association with the lung.
As depicted in figure 385, in the apex of the right pleural cavity there
was a bruise or contusion or eccmymosis of the parietal pleura as well as a
bruise of the upper portion, the most apical portion of the right lung.
It, therefore, was our opinion that the missile while not penetrating
physically the pleural cavity, as it passed that point bruised either the
missile itself, or the force of its passage through the tissues, bruised both
the parietal and the visceral pleura.
The area of discoloration on the apical portion of the right upper lung
measured five centimeters in greatest diameter, and was wedge shaped in
configuration, with its base toward the top of the chest and its apex down
towards the substance of the lung.
Once again Kodachrome photographs were made of this area in the interior
of the President's chest.
Mr. SPECTER. Would you mark the point on Exhibit 385, the one on the rear
of the President as point "C" and the one on the front of the
President as point "D" so we can discuss those, Dr. Humes?
Now, what conclusion did you reach, if any, as to whether point
"C" was the point of entry or exit?
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Commander HUMES. We reached the conclusion that point "C" was a
Point of entry.
Mr. SPECTER. What characteristics of that wound led you to that
conclusion?
Commander HUMES. The characteristics here were basically similar to the
characteristics above, lacking one very valuable clue or piece of evidence
rather than clue, because it is more truly a piece of evidence in the skull. The
skull as I mentioned before had the bone with the characteristic defect made as
a missile traverses bone.
This missile, to the best of our ability to ascertain, struck no bone
protuberances, no bony prominences, no bones as it traversed the President's
body. But it was a sharply delineated wound. It was quite regular in its
outline. It measured, as I mentioned, 7 by 4 mm. Its margins were similar in all
respects when viewed with the naked eye to the wound in the skull, which we feel
incontrovertibly was a wound of entrance.
The defect in the fascia which is that layer of connective tissue over
the muscle just beneath the wound corresponded virtually exactly to the defect
in the skin.
And for these reasons we felt that this was a wound of entrance.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you search the body to determine if there was any bullet
inside the body?
Commander HUMES. Before the arrival of Colonel Finck we had made X-rays
of the head, neck and torso of the President, and the upper portions of his
major extremities, or both his upper and lower extremities. At Colonel Finck's
suggestion, we then completed the X-ray examination by X-raying the President's
body in toto, and those X-rays are available.
Mr. SPECTER. What did those X-rays disclose with respect to the possible
presence of a missile in the President's body?
Commander HUMES. They showed no evidence of a missile in the President's
body at any point. And these were examined by ourselves and by the radiologist,
who assisted us in this endeavor.
Mr. SPECTER. What conclusion, if any, did you reach as to whether point
"D" on 385 was the point of entrance or exit?
Commander HUMES. We concluded that this missile depicted in 385
"C" which entered the President's body traversed the President's body
and made its exit through the wound observed by the physicians at Parkland
Hospital and later extended as a tracheotomy wound.
Mr. SPECTER. Does the description "ragged wound" which is found
in the Parkland report shed any light in and of itself as to whether point
"D" is an exit or entry wound?
Commander HUMES. I believe, sir, that that statement goes on, ragged
wound in the trachea. I don't believe that refers to the skin. And you might say
that it is a ragged wound is more likely to be a wound of exit.
However, the trachea has little cartilaginous rings which have a
tendency, which would be disrupted by this, and most wounds of the trachea
unless very cleverly incised would perhaps appear slightly ragged.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, what was the angle, if any, that you observed on the
path of the bullet, as you outlined it?
Commander HUMES. The angle which we observed in measuring, in comparing
the point of entrance, our point of entrance labeled "C" on 385 and
"D" point of exit is one that the point of exit is below the point of
entrance compared with the vertical.
Mr. SPECTER. Have you had an opportunity to examine the clothing which
has been identified for you as being that worn by the President on the day of
the assassination?
Commander HUMES. Yes; yesterday, just shortly before the Commission
hearing today was begun, Mr. Chief Justice, we had opportunity for the first
time to examine the clothing worn by the late President.
In private conversation among ourselves before this opportunity, we
predicted we would find defects in the clothing corresponding with the defects
which were found, of course, on the body of the late President.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. Chief Justice, may it please the Commission, I would
like to have identified for the record three articles on which I have placed
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Commission
Exhibits Nos. 393 being the coat worn by the President, 394 being the shirt, and
395 being the President's tie, and at this time move for their admission into
evidence.
The CHAIRMAN. It may be admitted.
(The articles of clothing referred to were marked Commission Exhibits
Nos. 393, 394 and 395 for identification, and received in evidence.)
Mr. SPECTER. Taking 393 at the start, Doctor Humes, will you describe for
the record what hole, if any, is observable in the back of that garment which
would be at or about the spot you have described as being the point of entry on
the President's back or lower neck.
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir. This exhibit is a grey suit coat stated to
have been worn by the President on the day of his death. Situated to the right
of the midline high in the back portion of the coat is a defect, one margin of
which is semicircular.
Situated above it just below the collar is an additional defect. It is
our opinion that the lower of these defects corresponds essentially with the
point of entrance of the missile at Point C on Exhibit 385.
Mr. SPECTER. Would it be accurate to state that the hole which you have
identified as being the point of entry is approximately 6 inches below the top
of the collar, and 2 inches to the right of the middle seam of the coat?
Commander HUMES. That is approximately correct, sir. This defect, I might
say, continues on through the material.
Attached to this garment is the memorandum which states that one half of
the area around the hole which was presented had been removed by experts, I
believe, at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and also that a control area
was taken from under the collar, so it is my interpretation that this defect at
the top of this garment is the control area taken by the Bureau, and that the
reason the lower defect is not more circle or oval in outline is because a
portion of that defect has been removed apparently for physical examinations.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, does the one which you have described as the entry of
the bullet go all the way through?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; it goes through both layers.
Mr. SPECTER. How about the upper one of the collar you have described,
does that go all the way through?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; it goes all the way through. It is not--wait a
minute, excuse me it is not so clearly a puncture wound as the one below.
Mr. SPECTER. Does the upper one go all the way through in the same
course?
Commander HUMES. No.
Mr. SPECTER. Through the inner side as it went through the outer side?
Commander HUMES. No, in an irregular fashion.
Mr. SPECTER. Will you take Commission Exhibit 394 and describe what that
is. first of all, please?
Commander HUMES. This is the shirt, blood-stained shirt, purportedly worn
by the President on the day of his assassination. When viewed from behind at a
point which corresponds essentially with the point of defect on the jacket, one
sees an irregularly oval defect.
When viewed anteriorly, with the top button buttoned, two additional
defects are seen. Of course, with the shirt buttoned, the fly front of the shirt
causes two layers of cloth to be present in this location, and that there is a
defect in the inner layer of cloth and a corresponding defect in the outer layer
of the cloth.
Mr. SPECTER. Is there any observable indication from the fibers on the
front side of the shirt to indicate in which direction a missile might have
passed through those two tears?
Commander HUMES. From an examination of these defects at this point, it
would appear that the missile traversed these two layers from within to the
exterior.
Mr. SPECTER. Would it be accurate to state that the hole in the back of
the shirt is approximately 6 inches below the top of the collar and 2 inches to
the right of the middle seam of the shirt?
Commander HUMES. That is approximately correct, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, how, if at all, do the holes in the shirt and coat
conform
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to
the wound of entrance which you described as point "C" on Commission
Exhibit 385?
Commander HUMES. We believe that they conform quite well. When
viewing--first of all, the wounds or the defects in 393 and 394 coincide
virtually exactly with one another.
They give the appearance when viewed separately and not as part of the
clothing of a clothed person as being perhaps, somewhat lower on the Exhibits
393 and 394 than we have depicted them in Exhibit No. 385. We believe there are
two reasons for this.
385 is a schematic representation, and the photographs would be more
accurate as to the precise location, but more particularly the way in which
these defects would conform with such a defect on the torso would depend on the
girth of the shoulders and configuration of the base of the neck of the
individual, and the relative position of the shirt and coat to the tissues of
the body at the time of the impact of the missile.
Mr. SPECTER. As to the muscular status of the President, what was it?
Commander HUMES. The President was extremely well-developed, an extremely
well-developed, muscular young man with a very well-developed set of muscles in
his thoraco and shoulder girdle.
Mr. SPECTER. What effect would that have on the positioning of the shirt
and coat with respect to the position of the neck in and about the seam?
Commander HUMES. I believe this would have a tendency to push the
portions of the coat which show the defects here somewhat higher on the back of
the President than on a man of less muscular development.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. Chief Justice, may it please the Commission, I would
like to mark for identification Exhibit 396, which later proof will show is a
picture of President Kennedy shortly before the first bullet struck him, and ask
the doctor to take a look at that.
Will you describe, Doctor Humes, the position of President Kennedy's
right hand in that picture?
Commander HUMES. Yes. This exhibit, Commission Exhibit No. 396, allegedly
taken just prior to the wounding of the late President, shows him with his hand
raised, his elbow bent, apparently in saluting the crowd. I believe that this
action--
Mr. SPECTER. Which hand was that?
Commander HUMES. This was his right hand, sir. I believe that this action
would further accentuate the elevation of the coat and the shirt with respect to
the back of the President.
Mr. SPECTER. Now. Doctor Humes, will you take Commission Exhibit No.
395--
Mr. McCLOY. Before you go, may I ask a question? In your examination of
the shirt, I just want to get it in the record, from your examination of the
shirt. there is no defect in the collar of the shirt which coincides with the
defect in the back of the President's coat, am I correct?
Commander HUMES. You are correct, sir. There is no such defect.
Mr. SPECTER. As to Commission Exhibit 395, Dr. Humes, will you identify
what that is, please?
Commander HUMES. We had an opportunity to examine this exhibit before the
Commission met today, sir. This is Commission Exhibit No. 395, and is the neck
tie purportedly worn, purportedly to have been worn, by the late President on
the day of his assassination.
Mr. SPECTER. What defect. if any, is noted on the tie which would
correspond with the path of a missile apparently passing through the folds of
the shirt which you have already described?
Commander HUMES. This tie is one of those this tie is still in its
knotted state, as we examine it at this time. The portion of the tie around the
neck has been severed apparently with scissors or other sharp instrument
accounting for the loop about the neck.
The tie is tied in four-in-hand fashion but somewhat askew from the way a
person would normally tie a four-in-hand and knot.
Situated on the left anterior aspect of this knotted portion of the tie
at a point approximately corresponding with the defects noted previously in the
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two
layers of the shirt is a superficial tear of the outer layer only of the fabric
of this tie which, I believe, could have been caused by a glancing blow to this
portion of the tie by a missile.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. Chief Justice, I move at this time for the admission
into evidence of Exhibits 393 through Exhibit 396, the three articles of
clothing and the photograph which we have just used.
The CHAIRMAN. They may be admitted.
(Exhibits Nos. 393 through 3.96 were received in evidence and may be
found in the Commission files.)
Mr. McCLOY. Commander, did you say left or right?
Commander HUMES. No, sir. In fact, the way this bow is tied now it would
appear to be on the left of this tie, but it is kind of twisted out of shape.
Mr. McCLOY. Yes. It is twisted. It is not too clear.
`
Commander HUMES. It is not too clear, it is not clear how that might have
been in position with the shirt, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, Doctor Humes, at one point in your examination of the
President, did you make an effort to probe the point of entry with your finger?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; I did.
Mr. SPECTER. And at or about that time when you were trying to ascertain,
as you previously testified, whether there was any missile in the body of the
President, did someone from the Secret Service call your attention to the fact
that a bullet had been found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; they did.
Mr. SPECTER. And in that posture of your examination, having just learned
of the presence of a bullet on a stretcher, did that call to your mind any
tentative explanatory theory of the point of entry or exit of the bullet which
you have described as entering at Point "C" on Exhibit 385?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir. We were able to ascertain with absolute
certainty that the bullet had passed by the apical portion of the right lung
producing the injury which we mentioned.
I did not at that point have the information from Doctor Perry about the
wound in the anterior neck, and while that was a possible explanation for the
point of exit, we also had to consider the possibility that the missile in some
rather inexplicable fashion had been stopped in its path through the President's
body and, in fact, then had fallen from the body onto the stretcher.
Mr. SPECTER. And what theory did you think possible, at that juncture, to
explain the passing of the bullet back out the point of entry; or had you been
provided with the fact that external heart massage had been performed on the
President?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; we had, and we considered the possibility that
some of the physical maneuvering performed by the doctors might have in some way
caused this event to take place.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, have you since discounted that possibility, Doctor
Humes?
Commander HUMES. Yes; in essence we have. When examining the wounds in
the base of the President's neck anteriorly, the region of the tracheotomy
performed at Parkland Hospital, we noted and we noted in our record, some
contusion and bruising of the muscles of the neck of the President. We noted
that at the time of the postmortem examination.
Now, we also made note of the types of wounds which I mentioned to you
before in this testimony on the chest which were going to be used by the doctors
there to place chest tubes. They also made other wounds. one on the left arm,
and a wound on the ankle of the President with the idea of administering
intravenous. blood and other fluids in hope of replacing the blood which the
President had lost from his extensive wounds.
Those wounds showed no evidence of bruising or contusion or physical
violence, which made us reach the conclusion that they were performed during the
agonal moments of the late president, and when the circulation was, in essence,
very seriously embarrassed, if not nonfunctional. So that these wounds, the
wound of the chest and the wound of the arm and of the ankle were performed
about the same time as the tracheotomy wound because only a very few moments of
time elapsed when all this was going on.
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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.
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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-- here 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.
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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
their 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--
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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?
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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-my 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?
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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 those 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.
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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.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. Chief Justice, I have now marked another photograph as
the next exhibit number, Commission Exhibit 398. May I say to the Commission
that this is a photograph which, subject to later proof, will show it to be
taken immediately after the President was struck by the first bullet.
The CHAIRMAN. It may be marked.
(The photograph was marked Commission Exhibit No. 398 for
identification.)
May I move for its admission into evidence at this time for this purpose?
The CHAIRMAN. It may be admitted.
(The photograph, previously marked Commission Exhibit No. 398 for
identification, was received in evidence.)
Looking at Commission Exhibit 398, Doctor Humes, with that as a
background, have you had an opportunity to review the medical reports on
Governor Connally at Parkland Hospital in Commission Exhibit 392?
Commander HUMES. I have.
Mr. SPECTER. Have you noted the wounds which he sustained on his right
wrist, that is, Governor Connally's right wrist?
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir; I have noted the report of it in these
records.
Mr. SPECTER. What does the report show as to those wounds on the right
wrist?
Commander HUMES. The report shows a wound of entrance on the dorsal
aspect of the right wrist. Let's get the precise point here. The wound of entry
is described as on the dorsal aspect of the right wrist above the junction of
the distal fourth of the radius and the shaft. It was approximately two
centimeters in length and rather oblique, with the loss of tissue, and some
considerable contusions at the margins. There was a wound of exit along the
volar surface of the wrist about two centimeters above the flexion crease of the
wrist in the midline.
Mr. SPECTER. Doctor Humes, I show you a bullet which we have marked as
Commission Exhibit No. 399, and may I say now that, subject to later proof, this
is the missile which has been taken from the stretcher which the evidence now
indicates was the stretcher occupied by Governor Connally. I move for its
admission into evidence at this time.
The CHAIRMAN. It may be admitted.
(The article, previously marked Commission Exhibit No. 399 for
identification, was received in evidence.)
Mr. SPECTER. We have been asked by the FBI that the missile not be
handled by anybody because it is undergoing further ballistic tests, and it now
appears, may the record show, in a plastic case in a cotton background.
Now looking at that bullet, Exhibit 399, Doctor Humes, could that bullet
have gone through or been any part of the fragment passing through President
Kennedy's head in Exhibit No. 388?
Commander HUMES. I do not believe so, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. And could that missile have made the wound on Governor
Connally's right wrist?
Commander HUMES. I think that that is most unlikely. May I expand on
those two answers?
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Mr. SPECTER. Yes, please do.
Commander HUMES. The X-rays made of the wound in the head of the late
President showed fragmentations of the missile. Some fragments we recovered and
turned over, as has been previously noted. Also we have X-rays of the fragment
of skull which was in the region of our opinion exit wound showing metallic
fragments.
Also going to Exhibit 392, the report from Parkland Hospital, the
following sentence referring to the examination of the wound of the wrist is
found:
"Small bits of metal were encountered at various levels throughout
the wound, and these were, wherever they were identified and could be picked up,
picked up and submitted to the pathology department for identification and
examination."
The reason I believe it most unlikely that this missile could have
inflicted either of these wounds is that this missile is basically intact; its
jacket appears to me to be in tact, and I do not understand how it could
possibly have left fragments in either of these locations.
Mr. SPECTER. What wounds did Governor Connally sustain in his chest area,
based upon the records of Parkland Hospital, which you have examined, Doctor
Humes?
Commander HUMES. Governor Connally received in his chest a wound of
entrance just--this is again from 392--just lateral to the right scapula close
to the axilla which had passed through the lattisimus dorsi muscle, shattered
approximately ten centimeters of a lateral and anterior portion of the right
fifth rib, and emerged below the right nipple anterially."
These were the wounds of the chest of Governor Connally.
Mr. SPECTER. Now assuming that there were only three missiles fired, and
bearing in mind the positions of President Kennedy and Governor Connally from
the photograph marked Commission Exhibit 398, do you have an opinion as to the
source of the missiles which inflicted the wound on President Kennedy marked
385-C to D, and the wound in Governor Connally's chest which you have just
referred to?
Commander HUMES. Yes. I would preface this statement by the following: As
I testified earlier in the afternoon, as much as we could ascertain from our
X-rays and physical examinations, this missile struck no bony structures in
traversing the body of the late President. Therefore, I believe it was moving at
its exit from the President's body at only very slightly less than that
velocity, so it was still traveling at great speed.
I believe in looking at Exhibit 398, which purports to be at
approximately the time the President was struck, I see that Governor Connally is
sitting directly in front of the late President, and suggest the possibility
that this missile, having traversed the low neck of the late President, in fact
traversed the chest of Governor Connally.
Mr. SPECTER. How much of the velocity, if any, or would there be an
appreciable diminution of the velocity of the projectile on passing through the
portions of President Kennedy's body which you have described?
Commander HUMES. I would have to defer to my associate, Colonel Finck,
for an opinion about this.
Mr. SPECTER. Fine. As to any damage to the rib which you described
Governor Connally sustained, would that impact or trauma be consistent with the
markings which are shown on Exhibit 399?
Commander HUMES. I think it quite possible. Here I think if this point
were to be explored further, a most valuable piece of evidence would be an X-ray
of the chest of Governor Connally, because I believe that this missile could
have struck the rib a glancing blow.
The rib is a rather rigid structure, and the missile would not have to
strike it directly to cause the fracture that was described, and the fracture is
not very clearly described to me, and if an X-ray, for instance, showed no
metallic fragments in the chest of the Governor, I would think it quite likely
that this was the missile that had traversed his chest, because I doubt if this
missile would have left behind it any metallic fragments from its physical
appearance at this time.
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Mr. SPECTER. Could that missile have traversed Governor Connally's chest
without having him know it immediately or instantaneously?
Commander HUMES. I believe so. I have heard reports, and have been told
by my professional associates of any number of instances where people received
penetrating wounds in various portions of the body and have only the sensation
of a slight discomfort or slight slap or some other minor difficulty from such a
missile wound. I am sure he would be aware that something happened to him, but
that he was shot, I am not certain.
Representative FORD. Would that have been the potential reaction of the
President when first hit, as shown in 385?
Commander HUMES. It could very easily be one of some type of an injury--I
mean the awareness that he had been struck by a missile, I don't know, but
people have been drilled through with a missile and didn't know it.
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Humes, under your opinion which you have just given us,
what effect, if any, would that have on whether this bullet, 399, could have
been the one to lodge in Governor Connally's thigh?
Commander HUMES. I think that extremely unlikely. The reports, again
Exhibit 392 from Parkland, tell of an entrance wound on the lower midthigh of
the Governor, and X-rays taken there are described as showing metallic fragments
in the bone, which apparently by this report were not removed and are still
present in Governor Connally's thigh. I can't conceive of where they came from
this missile.
Representative FORD. The missile identified as Exhibit 399.
Commander HUMES. 399, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Doctor Humes, would you have an opinion as to whether the
wounds on Governor Connally's wrist and thigh were caused by the same bullet?
Commander HUMES. In reading the description of the fragmentation that was
found, fragments were found in the wrist, one fragment was found imbedded in his
femur, I would feel it was definitely within the realm of possibility that the
same missile could have produced both of those injuries.
Mr. SPECTER. Those are all my questions, Mr. Chief Justice.
The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other questions? If not, thank you very much,
Commander. You have been very helpful to us, indeed.
Commander HUMES. Thank you very much, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.
Mr. SPECTER. Commander Boswell.
Mr. McCLOY. May I ask one more question?
The CHAIRMAN. Of course you may.
Mr. McCLOY. Earlier in the afternoon we had taken out of cellophane bags
here the clothing of the President.
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
Mr. McCLOY. And amongst them was the shirt.
Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
Mr. McCLOY. From your examination of the wounds, of the defects, I guess
you would call it in the shirt Commander HUMES. Yes, sir.
Mr. McCLOY. Would you from examining the tissues of that shirt have any
conclusions as to how that wound, how that missile passed through the shirt? Was
it from the rear to the front, or from the front to the rear?
Commander HUMES. As I examined that exhibit today, sir, the threads are
fragmented and distorted in such a fashion which would indicate to me that the
missile passed through the shirt from the rear to the front.
dr. humes to arrb
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