Autopsy of John F. Kennedy

The House Select Committee on Assassinations—which concluded that there likely was a conspiracy and that there had been an assassin in front of the president on the grassy knoll—also agreed with the Warren Commission.

The 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated on November 22, 1963, while driving in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.

[3] The Secret Service was concerned about the possibility of a larger plot and urged the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, to leave Dallas and return to the White House.

[5] Dallas County medical examiner Earl Rose was at Parkland when he learned that President Kennedy had been pronounced dead.

[6] Rose was reported to have stood in a hospital doorway, backed by a Dallas policeman, in an attempt to prevent anybody from removing the coffin.

[6][7] The presidential aides engaged in an explicit argument with Dallas officials until,[8][note 1] according to Robert Caro's The Years of Lyndon Johnson, they "literally shoved [Rose] and the policeman aside to get out of the building".

Kennedy's personal physician, Rear Admiral George Burkley pushed for Bethesda Naval Hospital.

[11][12] She chose Secret Service Agent William Greer—who she felt sorry for as he faulted himself for not saving the president—to drive Kennedy's casket to Bethesda.

[11] As the body was transported from Andrews Air Force Base to Bethesda, crowds of mourners lined the roads.

Boswell called the decision to conduct the autopsy at Bethesda "stupid" and argued that it should instead be held at the specialized Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) just five miles away.

[15][note 2] At 7:35 pm EST on November 22, Humes and Boswell removed Kennedy's body from his bronze casket and began the autopsy.

Humes and Boswell then contacted wound ballistics expert Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Finck of AFIP for assistance.

The three identified an entry point in Kennedy's back but were unable to find the corresponding exit wound or the bullet upon initial probing.

Admiral Calvin Galloway—the commanding officer of the US Naval Medical Center—overruled Burkley and ordered the doctors to carry out an entire autopsy.

[33] After completing the autopsy after midnight, Humes informed the waiting FBI agents that Kennedy had been hit by two bullets from behind, to the back and to the head.

In 1968, U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark appointed a panel of four medical experts to examine photographs and X-rays from the autopsy.

The committee's forensic pathology panel included nine members, eight of whom were chief medical examiners in major local jurisdictions in the United States.

Considering the numerous issues that had arisen over the years with respect to autopsy X-rays and photographs, the committee believed that authentication was a crucial step in the investigation.

The morphological analysis dealt with the consistency of physical features, particularly those that could be considered distinctive, such as the shape of the nose and patterns of facial lines (i.e. once unique characteristics were identified, posterior and anterior autopsy photographs were compared to verify that they depicted the same person).

While the examination of the autopsy X-rays and photographs was mainly based on its analysis, the forensic pathology panel also had access to all relevant witness testimony.

Therefore, the committee determined that the rearward movement of the President's head would not have been fundamentally inconsistent with a bullet striking from the rear.

These included: The HSCA's major medical-forensic conclusion was that "President Kennedy was struck by two rifle shots fired from behind him.

[56] The Board partially credited public concern about conclusions in the 1991 Oliver Stone movie JFK for passage of the legislation that developed the ARRB.

The Board noted that the movie had "popularized a version of President Kennedy's assassination that featured U.S. government agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the military as conspirators.

All of our deposition transcripts, as well as our written reports of numerous interviews we conducted with medical witnesses, are now a part of that same collection of records open to the public.

[60] The Board also found that, conflicting with the photographic images showing no such defect, a number of witnesses, including at both the Autopsy and Parkland hospital, saw a large wound in the back of the president's head.

During the 1969 trial of Clay Shaw for conspiring to assassinate Kennedy, pathologist Finck testified that when Humes asked "Who is in charge here?"

It was met with critical praise, made The New York Times Best Seller list, and was selected for the Book of the Month Club.

[67] In it, Lifton argues that Kennedy's body was tampered and altered to support the appearance of a single shooter before it arrived at Bethesda.

[68] Lifton's strongest piece of evidence, according to Bugliosi, is a November 26, 1963 FBI memo that describes Kennedy's body as having had "surgery of the head area, namely in the top of the skull" before the autopsy.

The former president's autopsy was conducted at Bethesda Naval Hospital (pictured 1977) near Washington, D.C. . It is now known as the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
The President's limousine brought his body to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. It is pictured parked in the ambulance entrance.
General Godfrey McHugh ordered Kennedy's body to be illegally transported to Walter Reed Army Medical Center , before the choice of hospital was given to Jacqueline Kennedy .
The missing bullet—found on a used stretcher at Parkland Memorial Hospital —became the subject of the Warren Commission 's single-bullet theory , often derided as the "magic-bullet theory" by conspiracy theorists.
The panel organized by Attorney General Ramsey Clark (pictured with President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968) found that two bullets struck Kennedy from behind.
A meeting of the House Select Committee on Assassinations
In 1966, President Kennedy's brain disappeared from the National Archives . Some have suggested that his brother, Robert F. Kennedy , may have destroyed it.