What the Doctors Saw -- Evidence of Image Alteration
This month, National Geographic came out with a documentary available on the Paramount + Channel (which requires a subscription) entitled JFK: What the Doctors Saw. This documentary features interviews from 2013 (described as "never before shown") and archival clips describing what the Parkland Hospital doctors saw when JFK was brought to Parkland Hospital.
What they saw does not align with the extant autopsy images, specifically the autopsy photographs and X-rays.
My main critique of the program is that it does not emphasize strongly enough that the autopsy images were altered. The Parkland doctors theorized that the body was altered, although other commentary clips suggested that it was the images that were altered. This was mainly done in the last half of the program, although brief mentions occurred in the first half. They should have included clips from Dr. David Mantik, describing evidence of forgery in the autopsy X-rays (as well as the stereoscopic viewing problem of the photographs), but that was noticeably missing.
My other criticism is that they should have shown the Charles Crenshaw 20/20 clip indicating the forehead wound that he saw, or Dr. Robert McClelland's speculation that the forehead wound existed, even though the other doctors didn't personally see it. (These clips do appear in my documentary, in Part 6: "The Kill Shot.") Instead, the documentary shows, without the doctors' commentary, a drawing indicating this entrance wound, although it seems to place the location slightly farther to the right than Crenshaw and my other witnesses, by perhaps about an inch, though still in the same approximate location.
Otherwise, it is an excellent documentary, and I highly recommend it.
Here are some specific points within the documentary that one should pay particular attention to (starting at about 01:15:56):
Robert K. Tanenbaum, Deputy Chief Counsel for the HSCA: “The Warren Commission started with a conclusion: that Oswald did it, and he did it alone. And they then worked to confirm that, and they disregarded substantial evidence to the contrary. Certain people in our government tampered with critical evidence in order to make sure the American people would not know the truth about who murdered the President. And that’s about as bad as it gets.”
Doug Horne, Chief Analyst for Military Records for the Assassination Records Review Board: “I’m talking about photographs that don’t look correct, that look like they must have been altered."
Matt Crumpton, Esq., Investigative Journalist Creator of Solving JFK Podcast. “The photographs and X-Rays that we see are not consistent with what the Parkland doctors and many other people who were there at Bethesda say.”
Dr. Joe Goldstritch: “When I saw the autopsy pictures, my first response was that I wanted to tell everybody was that didn’t reflect what actually transpired.”
Dr. Malcolm Perry (historical footage): “I noted a wound when I came into the room which was at the right posterior portion of the head.”
Nurse Audrey Bell (historical footage): (indicating) “There was a massive wound at the back of his head.’
Autopsy photographer Floyd Reibe (footage source unknown--Vanity Fair interview?): “The two pictures that I’ve seen that you showed me that are supposedly from the Archives are not what I saw that night, and I don’t know where those pictures came from.” (Holding a picture showing an intact back of head and indicating) “It had a big hole in it. This whole area was gone.”
Autopsy X-ray technician Jerrol Custer (footage source unknown--Vanity Fair interview?): (holding up a picture and indicating) This part of the head was gone. There was no scalp there."
(Denise's Note: In the December, 1994 issue of Vanity Fair, Reibe and Custer denounced the X-rays and pictures as “fake” and “phony” and “not the images we took.”)
Robert K. Tannenbaum: “How could all these people, including the doctors at Parkland, conclude that the back of the head was missing, and then we go to Bethesda, and it’s patched up. What happened?”
What happened is that the photographs and X-rays were altered to patch up the back of the head, where the doctors and autopsy participant saw a blow-out hole, as well as to create a front of the head blow-out, where the doctors and autopsy participants saw none.
The only doctor who described anything more forward than the back of the head was Dr. Kenneth Salyer, who described scalp lacerations in the temporal/parietal area (his WC testimony said “gaping scalp wound”), which would be consistent with the scalp ripping as skull fragment/s were ejected from the back of the head as they created the back of the head blow-out hole. But he did not describe a hole in the skull bone, just tears in the scalp, which is reflected in one of the autopsy drawings.
But note what Salyer, who reiterates the scalp lacerations in the What the Doctors Saw documentary, says about the autopsy pictures, and then the disagreements between those who saw only the autopsy images, and those who actually saw the body (starting about 01:17:45):
Dr. Kenneth Salyer: “When I saw the autopsy pictures, I thought somebody had tampered with the whole thing, and it made me very suspicious, because it didn’t look anything like what I saw there. And they had also completely sewed up the temporal/parietal side of his head., and it was closed, and I said how can they do—why would they do that?”
Dr. Michael Baden (Chief of HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel, who never personally saw the body): “The cerebellum was not protruding. We examined photographs of the cerebellum, and it was intact.”
Dr. Robert McClelland: “Maybe the left lobe of the cerebellum was, but the right lobe had fallen out. I saw that.”
Baden, who wasn’t there, then says that McClelland is wrong. Baden was basing his opinion on forged photographs and X-rays.
The documentary presents elsewhere an audio clip of Saundra Kay Spencer’s testimony (I present text excerpts in my own documentary) that there was “no correspondence” between the autopsy photos she processed in 1963 and the extant photos. I also point out the HSSCA testimony of the family of Robert Knudsen (audio clips in my documentary), who told the HSCA that “hair” had been “drawn in” to the autopsy photos. Then there’s Dr. Mantik’s observations in his books and various online articles, that the back of the head photos fail stereoscopic viewing, indicating photographic alteration.
Regarding the cerebellum, Doug Horne describes elsewhere (though not in this Nat Geo documentary) two separate brain exams: the real one, and then the fake one done a few days later done for Dr. Finck’s benefit, which is where Baden's photographs of the intact cerebellum came from. Elsewhere in this Nat Geo documentary, Horne describes the “surgery to the brain” when a replacement brain, with the brain stem cut, not lacerated, had been substituted for the actual JFK brain. Horne is not making this up. He provides witnesses to the two separate brain exams.
In What the Doctors Saw, note how the doctors responded when people who were not at Parkland Hospital or at the autopsy say that the Parkland doctors were wrong about what they saw (Starting about 01:18:30):
Andrew Purdy (HSCA Counsel) “When you think of the body as being face up, and you think particularly in Dallas, the amount of blood that was involved there, people couldn’t distinguish where things were. It must have been a terrible, tragic sight that was very hard for people to recollect exactly where what was, when that wasn’t their purpose. Their purpose was to save the President’s life, and these recollections afterwards are faulty.”
The Parkland Doctors: (General laughter)
Dr. Kenneth Salyer: “Who is that last guy? Who is that guy”
Dr. Ronald Jones: (laughing) “Is he a neurologist surgeon?”
Dr. Kenneth Salyer: “The wound was not that bloody, actually.” (One of the doctors agrees by saying “No.”) "It had already bled out significantly at the time of the injury.”
Dr. Ronald Jones: "(Purdy) wasn’t there.” (Another doctor echos “He wasn’t there.”) “So he’s not capable of rendering an opinion."
Salyer adds, “He’s just going by autopsy X-ray, most likely. That’s a whole different perspective."
McClelland says, “Those X-rays I’ve seen are wrong."
Dr. Joe Goldstrich: “I was both on the right side and on the left side in the course of the treatment, and I didn’t see any of the facial damage or any area in the forehead, and damage of the forehead area. It wasn’t there.” (He indicates with a “5 claw" hand shape the front of the head blow-out of the autopsy pictures, albeit on his left side. Meaning, he didn’t see the right side blow-out shown in the “leaked” autopsy photos.)
In a separate video, a clip of which I present in my documentary, Dr. McClelland says he didn’t see the small forehead hole like Crenshaw described in 60 minutes, but believed it to have existed, hypothesizing that Kennedy's hair had covered it up.
Dr. Robert McClelland: “That’s what’s inconsistent with the pictures. The X-ray pictures, which show orbital destruction, that would show up externally.”
Dr. Kenneth Salyer: “But obviously, this has been tampered with, because they’ve replaced the scalp that was wide open when I saw the wound.I mean, they’ve done that at the autopsy. That’s the work in Washington."
(Salyer apparently believes the body was altered rather than the photographs.)
Dr. Robert McClelland: “I have seen this massive hole in the back of the President’s head. But then, in one of the pictures, as I recall, it looked to me like they were putting a flap of scalp over this hole and covering it. In fact, I thought I could see the finger and thumb of whoever was pulling the flap, and I thought it was pulled up to cover this hole. Someone told me, ‘Oh, no, that wasn’t a flap. That’s just the way it looked.’ I said, (scoffs) ’No, it didn’t.' ”
McClelland was trying to account for the difference between what he saw and the autopsy picture by speculating (as the only explanation he could think of) that scalp and been pulled up to cover the hole, and someone (who? Probably Arlen Specter, given Dr. Ronald Jones' next remarks) was trying to get him to change his mind. The thought of image alteration was, quite naturally, the last thing he would think of. However, in this case, image alteration provides the best explanation for the discrepancy between what he saw at Parkland on 11/22/63, and what was in the purported autopsy photographs. Doug Horne rightly describes how the doctors were never officially asked if the autopsy photographs agreed with what they saw at the hospital. This was a deliberate, intentional omission.
Then, after the commentary by Doug Horne, Dr. Ronald Jones talks about pressure from Arlen Specter not to say anything about the frontal shot (starting about 01:25:27):
Dr. Ronald Jones: “Arlan Specter came to Parkland, and he said, ‘We have people who will testify that they saw the President shot from the front from the railroad track. We don’t believe they have credible testimony, but we don’t want you to say anything about that.’"
Again, I give witnesses (and contemporaneous Dan Rather news account) in Part 6 of my own documentary showing that the shot came from the TSBD, when the limousine was at the end of the turn onto Elm Street. Just as the autopsy images were altered, the Zapruder film was also altered to hide this first shot. "The railroad track" Arlen Specter mentions was either the Grassy Knoll/Picket Fence area, or the Triple Underpass. No one, as far as I've been able to see, put a shot from the Triple Underpass, and the only support for the "Grassy Knoll" shot is the "flash of light" and "puff of smoke" that the AR-15 was able to produce from the road in front of the Grassy Knoll.
Otherwise, the Nat Geo documentary shows the Parkland doctors speculating about what was causing the differences between their recollections and what the autopsy photographs show. They suggest that the scalp was pulled up to cover the hole that they saw, or that the scalp was "stitched together" where they had seen it lacerated at Parkland. They never say that the photos and X-rays had been altered, although there is some implication to that effect, and others do come out and say that the photographs and X-rays were altered. The most notable individuals who say that, notable because they were actually there at the autopsy and took the original images, are photographer Floyd Reibe (who took some of the autopsy photographs) and X-ray technician Jerrol Custer (who took the X-rays), who say in this documentary, "I don't know where you got those pictures came from," and "this part (of the head) was gone." In their Vanity Fair interviews, they come right out and call the publicly available autopsy photographs and X-rays "fake" and "phony" and "not the (images) we took."
That's how the documentary should have ended, with the emphasis on image alteration, with the implied conclusion of image alteration made more explicit.
Perhaps the best thing that was said in the documentary (buried in the middle) should have been moved to the end, or repeated at the end, when Robert K. Tanenbaum, Deputy Chief Counsel for the HSCA said, "Certain people in our government tampered with critical evidence in order to make sure the American people would not know the truth about who murdered the President. And that’s about as bad as it gets.”
Update:
I found a contemporaneous newspaper article that mentioned the back of the head blow-out repeatedly!
Excerpts from the November 23 Dallas Times Herald (p. 7) (found at https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/the-dallas-times-herald-final-edition-november-23-1963/678201?item=678209) says this (underlining added):
Doctors Had No Chance By BOB FENLEY, Staff Writer
Dr. Kemp Clark— Like the young surgeon who ministered to President Abraham Lincoln nearly 100 years ago— didn't have a chance to save his President. John F. Kennedy's wound was mortal— Dr. Clark and Dr. Malcolm Perry and the half-dozen other physicians crowded into Emergency Operating Room No. 1 at Parkland Hospital could determine this almost immediately. In the back of the President's head was a gaping hole in some respects similar to the head wound Lincoln suffered in the Ford Theater. Another bullet hole was in President Kennedy's neck just below the adams apple. It was 23-year-old Charles Leale, assistant surgeon of the U.S. Volunteers, who first reached Lincoln and pronounced the wound mortal.
NO CHANCE Was there any possibility of saving Mr. Kennedy's life? "No sir,” the tall, 38-year-old Dr. Clark replied. Dr. Clark, chief of neurosurgery at Parkland Hospital, confined his attention to the rear head wound and Dr. Perry to the neck wound only moments after the dying President was brought into the hospital with seriously-wounded Gov. John Connally. As the word of the arrivals spread through the hospital, patients, nurses and interns stared in disbelief. On Harry Hines Boulevard in front of Parkland, cars stacked up in a massive traffic jam. It was approximately 20 minutes after noon when the President's limousine bearing the two wounded leaders arrived at the usually busy emergency enhance of the hospital. When Dr. Clark first looked at the stricken President, he saw “a large gaping wound in the back of the head. There was loss of tissue.” He indicated that he knew at that instant there was no hope.
...
TO PRESIDENT Neck Wounds Bring Death Wounds in the lower front portion of the neck and the right rear side of the head ended the life of President John F. Kennedy, say doctors at Parkland Hospital. Whether there were one or two wounds was not decided. The front neck hole was described as an entrance wound. The wound at the back of the head, while the principal one, was either an exit or tangential enhance wound. A doctor admitted that it was possible there was only one wound. Dr. Kemp 'Clark, 38, chief of neurosurgery and Dr. Malcolm Perry, 34, described the President's wounds. Dr. Clark, asked how long the President lived in the hospital, replied, "I would guess 40 minutes but I was too busy to look at my watch.” Dr. Clark said the President’s principal wound was on the right rear-side of his head. "As to the exact time of death we elected to make it— we pronounced it at 1300. I was busy with the head wound.” Dr. Perry was busy with the wound in the President's neck. “It was a midline in the lower portion of his neck in front." Asked if it was just below the Adam's apple, he said, “Yes. Below the Adam's apple. “There were two wounds. Whether they were directly related I do not know. It was an entrance wound in the neck.” The doctors were asked whether one bullet could have made both wounds or whether there were two bullets. Dr. Clark replied, "The head wound could have been either an exit or a tangential entrance wound.” The neurosurgeon described the back of the head wound as: “A large gaping wound with considerable loss of tissue.” Dr. Perry added, “It Is conceivable it was one wound, but there was no way for me to tell. It did however appear to be the entrance wound at the front of the throat.” “There was considerable bleeding. ...
I found a contemporaneous newspaper article that mentioned the back of the head blow-out repeatedly!
Excerpts from the November 23 Dallas Times Herald (p. 7) (found at https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/the-dallas-times-herald-final-edition-november-23-1963/678201?item=678209) says this (underlining added):
Doctors Had No Chance By BOB FENLEY, Staff Writer
Dr. Kemp Clark— Like the young surgeon who ministered to President Abraham Lincoln nearly 100 years ago— didn't have a chance to save his President. John F. Kennedy's wound was mortal— Dr. Clark and Dr. Malcolm Perry and the half-dozen other physicians crowded into Emergency Operating Room No. 1 at Parkland Hospital could determine this almost immediately. In the back of the President's head was a gaping hole in some respects similar to the head wound Lincoln suffered in the Ford Theater. Another bullet hole was in President Kennedy's neck just below the adams apple. It was 23-year-old Charles Leale, assistant surgeon of the U.S. Volunteers, who first reached Lincoln and pronounced the wound mortal.
NO CHANCE Was there any possibility of saving Mr. Kennedy's life? "No sir,” the tall, 38-year-old Dr. Clark replied. Dr. Clark, chief of neurosurgery at Parkland Hospital, confined his attention to the rear head wound and Dr. Perry to the neck wound only moments after the dying President was brought into the hospital with seriously-wounded Gov. John Connally. As the word of the arrivals spread through the hospital, patients, nurses and interns stared in disbelief. On Harry Hines Boulevard in front of Parkland, cars stacked up in a massive traffic jam. It was approximately 20 minutes after noon when the President's limousine bearing the two wounded leaders arrived at the usually busy emergency enhance of the hospital. When Dr. Clark first looked at the stricken President, he saw “a large gaping wound in the back of the head. There was loss of tissue.” He indicated that he knew at that instant there was no hope.
...
TO PRESIDENT Neck Wounds Bring Death Wounds in the lower front portion of the neck and the right rear side of the head ended the life of President John F. Kennedy, say doctors at Parkland Hospital. Whether there were one or two wounds was not decided. The front neck hole was described as an entrance wound. The wound at the back of the head, while the principal one, was either an exit or tangential enhance wound. A doctor admitted that it was possible there was only one wound. Dr. Kemp 'Clark, 38, chief of neurosurgery and Dr. Malcolm Perry, 34, described the President's wounds. Dr. Clark, asked how long the President lived in the hospital, replied, "I would guess 40 minutes but I was too busy to look at my watch.” Dr. Clark said the President’s principal wound was on the right rear-side of his head. "As to the exact time of death we elected to make it— we pronounced it at 1300. I was busy with the head wound.” Dr. Perry was busy with the wound in the President's neck. “It was a midline in the lower portion of his neck in front." Asked if it was just below the Adam's apple, he said, “Yes. Below the Adam's apple. “There were two wounds. Whether they were directly related I do not know. It was an entrance wound in the neck.” The doctors were asked whether one bullet could have made both wounds or whether there were two bullets. Dr. Clark replied, "The head wound could have been either an exit or a tangential entrance wound.” The neurosurgeon described the back of the head wound as: “A large gaping wound with considerable loss of tissue.” Dr. Perry added, “It Is conceivable it was one wound, but there was no way for me to tell. It did however appear to be the entrance wound at the front of the throat.” “There was considerable bleeding. ...
There are other things of interest in this article, particularly its mention of the "bullet slug" in Governor Connally's leg, which I point out in my new article "Multiple Stretcher Bullets, AKA 'The Connally Bullet, Revisited.'"