From: cortez@milton.u.washington.edu (Tom Warner)
Subject: Re: Lattimer, Questions six and seven
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 06:54:33 GMT

schuck@fraser.sfu.ca (Bruce Jonathan Schuck) writes:

>grant_jo@ripple.enet.dec.com (Joel Grant) writes:


>>Moving along now to Lattimer's questions six and seven:  

>>"Was there actually definite evidence of a bullet track running
>>through and through the President's body at the level of the
>>lower neck?"              
>>			 and

>>"If so, which direction was the bullet going through the track?"

>>I think this question is more interesting than the previous questions,
>>though we are still not into Lattimer's actual original tests.
>>Lattimer did spend quite a bit of time examining the original autopsy
>>materials at the National Archives, on three separate occasions.
>>Thus, he was working with the complete and original material.

>>In a nutshell, Lattimer's answer to the questions is yes, there is
>>definite evidence of a bullet track running through and through
>>the President's body at the level of the lower neck, and it
>>was moving in a posterior/anterior direction.

>I guess the key question, which Lattimer didn't answer at all, is how
>do you tell that a bullet track [if one was actually found, which I
>doubt] goes from back to front as opposed to front to back

Exactly. Except for the obvious -- that JFK was hit once in the back --
Lattimer doesn't actually have any evidence of a bullet moving from
back to forward through the lower neck/upper torso.
E
>>A. Bullet Hole in Back of Suit Collar and Shirt.  The coat and
>>shirt were probably humped up on the back of the President's
>>neck when the first bullet struck him.

>I don't think shirts *hump*. Shirts are tucked into pants, and they
>certainly don't ride up and *hump*. There is no evidence that the
>the jacket bunched up either. It's just a guess by Lattimer. [He does
>that a lot]

The reason Lattimer wants the shirt to have "humped" is to be able
to say the trajectory angle was something it couldn't have been.
I agree with Bruce that the shirt was probably tight against Kennedy's
back, but I still have doubts about using the shirt to to make a definite
placement. Shirts do fold, slide, get put on kind of crooked, whatever.

>>  The FBI found a punched-in
>>round hole in the back of the coat consistent with a 6.5 mm
>>bullet, with the broken cloth fibers bent inward, indicating
>>this was a wound of entry.  The cloth fibers of the shirt
>>were bent inward in the same manner.  Traces of copper from a bullet
>>such as Oswald used were found on the margins of this hole in
>>the coat by the FBI, also indicating that it was a wound of
>>entrance.

Of course it was a wound of entry.

>>B. Bullet Hole in Back.  The bullet hole in Kennedy's upper back,
>>about two inches below the crease of his neck, and about two inches
>>to the right of the midline. 

>The bullet hole in the shirt was 5.75 inches down from the top of
>the collar and 1.125 inches to the right of the midline. What's sad
>is that Humes failed to locate the wound using fixed body points.

	"Situated on the upper right posterior thorax just above the upper
border of the scapula there is a 7 x 4 millimater oval wound. This wound is
measured to be 14 cm. from the tip of the right mastoid process and 14 cm.
below the tip of the right mastoid process."
	-- Humes, Boswell and Finck, autopsy report (in the WCR)

	I thought one of the autopsy surgeons placed the wound at the third
thoracic (sp?) vertebrae but I can't find that.

	I don't know how to measure "14 cm. from ... and 14 cm. below
the tip of the right mastoid process." Anyone else?

	Looking at the autopsy photograph of the back, the entry wound appears
quite high on the back (certainly not 5 1/2" below the shirt collar line, where
the hole in the shirt is). I measure it, using the scale of the ruler seen in
the photo, as about three inches below the point where the skin of the neck
folds when the head tilts backward, and only about 2 inches below the level
of the shoulder..
	If you have the photo, (I don't think the HSCA tracing is very good
for this) you can see that Kennedy is being lifted by his shoulders from
where he lay on his back, by a person standing to his front and left.
At the same time, the person holding a ruler to Kennedy's back is doing this
by applying pressure at two points, both of them below the wound. All of
this would push/pull the skin of his back somewhat upward toward his neck,
and also lower the point at which the skin folds on the back of the neck.
The skin of Kennedy's neck isn't just folding as his head tilts back, it's
bunching up quite a bit (I don't know about y'all, but the skin of my
neck won't do this unless the skin of my back is being pulled up forcefully).

	I'm not saying there's enough skin distortion to account for 3 1/2"
but I think it could be part of the reason for the discrepancies between
the photo and the eyewitness accounts and shirt hole. Or maybe the photo
is just a hoax.

>>C. Halo around Bullet Hole.  The bullet hole had around it a
>>faint but definite halo, or circumferential bruise, typical
>>of a wound of entry froma high-speed bullet.

>Interestingly enough, the halo was non-circular. It was bigger on
>the bottom of the circle. That means the bullet entered from below
>the horizontal.

Bizarre. From street level? Where'd you find this?
How conclusive is this kind of evidence?

>>E & F.  Pleura and Lung Bruised.  The autopsy report described a
>>5 cm bruise on the dome of the right pleura and also on the upper tip of 
>>the right lung, but no perforation of either, compatible with the 
>>passage of a high-speed bullet close above this point.

Note that Lattimer doesn't even try to say that these can be used as
evidence of which way the supposed traversing bullet was going.

"Compatible with the passage of a high-speed bullet?" Perhaps, but how
many other kinds of trauma are these bruises "compatible" with?
Bruising the lung without perforating the pleura doesn't sound very much
like the result of a tangential bullet passage to me. I wouldn't be
surprised if the jokers didn't bruise this stuff themselves while desperately
trying to figure out where the bullet went.

>>G. Air in Tissues.  There were tiny traces of air, visible in the X-rays,
>>in the tissues along the bullet track, near the hole in the trachea.

>Air? Since when can you X-Ray air?

Perhaps you can, when it's inside tissue, I don't know. But notice
that Lattimer again does not even try to say that this air shows
anything about which way the bullet that damaged the trachea was
heading.

>>H. Hole in Trachea.  There was a ragged hole in the right side of the 
>>trachea, seen by the surgeons at Parkland.

>The interpretation of the Parkland Doctors was that since the hole
>in the throat was clean and circular, a ragged hole in the trachea
>was caused by a bullet coming in pushing skin and blood ahead of it.
>If the throat wound had been ragged instead of clean, that would
>have been evidence of a bullet exit wound. Such was not the case.

Exactly. It's kind of funny to see Lattimer bring up what the Doctors
at Parkland saw when it was the Parkland doctors -- the only doctors
that saw the throat wound before it was virtually obliterated by the
thracheostomy -- who all immediately and unanimously concluded that
the wound was a wound of entry.

>>I. Tracheostomy.  There was a gaping 6.5 cm transverse tracheostomy
>>incision low on the neck where the Dallas surgeons had enlarged the 
>>bullet hole in order to insert a tracheostomy tube.  [reference here
>>to fig. 80, p. 201, part of the "stare of death" autopsy Dox
>>drawing]

>A tracheotomy tube flange is no more than 2 inches wide. The incision
>was no more than 1.5 inches and was clean and sharp when JFK left
>Parkland. It is *not* common to make tracheotomy incisions larger than
>the flange that is going to hold the tracheotomy tube.

>Why did the wound grow to almost three inches and become gaping and
>ragged at Bethesda unless someone had gone fishing for bullets?

1) Just because it isn't common to make a wider incision than necessary
	doesn't mean that in a panic situation it didn't happen
2) At Parkland, Kennedy was lying on a level surface, and so thin slits
	extending from either side of the tracheostomy would not have been
	very visible
3) In the autopsy photos taken at Bethesda, Kennedy's head is leaning back,
	pulling the throat wound open and maximizing its visibility
4) Along the way from the operating table in Dallas to the autopsy table in
Baltimore, Kennedy was picked up, put in a coffin, his head wrapped more than
once, jostled around who knows how much on the ride to the airport and from
the airport to the naval hospital, picked up out of the coffin, his head
wrappings taken off, lifted for photos of his back -- I think the sum
total of this could very well have enlarged the wound some.

All in all, I'd have to say the perceived difference in size of the tracheostomy
incision is pretty shaky evidence of someone having "dug for bullets."
I think the combined effect of all the investigations that have been done
is to pretty much rule out the possibility of anyone mucking with Kennedy's
body between Parkland and Bethesda unless it was right in front of Jackie
and the whole Kennedy entourage.

On the other hand, I can't explain what happened to the bullet/fragment
that entered Kennedy's throat either.

>>J. Hole in Front of Shirt.  There were 1 cm vertical slits in both sides
>>of the overlapping portion of the shirt immediately below the collar 
>>band and touching it just below the collar button. 

>The slit on the right side of the shirt was below the collar band,
>and the slit on the left side overlapped the band. They don't match
>up. They were probably caused by the nurses and doctor who cut off
>JFK's shirt

> [reference
>>here to Fig. 84, p. 206, photo of JFK's actual collar as well as
>>a test shirt into which Lattimer had fired 6.5 mm ammo]

>As I remember Lattimer, the exit holes in Lattimers tests were also
>punched out circles, not slits. There is no reason to think a bullet
>travelling around 1900 feet per second is going to make slits in
>a shirt when it leaves and make punched out circular holes when it
>enters a shirt or jacket. The slits were not caused by a bullet.

>>K. Nick in Necktie.  There was a nick or crease through only the
>>outer layer of fabric of the lower left side of the knot, compatible
>>with the passage of a spinning 6.5 mm bullet at high speed.  A
>>bloodstain extended downward from this nick."

>Thats curious because the slits Lattimer claims were caused by an
>exitting bullet are on the *right* side of the shirt. How did the
>nick get on the left side of the tie? The obvious answer is that it
>was caused by a scalpel when the tie was cut off.

>>This is the essence of the bullet track found by Dr. Lattimer.

Yup. And it doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

>>Let me add about the bruised to the pleura and lung, that Dr.
>>Humes, during the autopsy, compared the lividity of these 
>>bruises to the lividity of known surgical incisions such as
>>the cutdowns, the chest incisions, and the tracheostomy.  He
>>reasoned that if the pleura and lung had been bruised by the
>>passage of the bullet that entered JFK's upper back, they would
>>appear different than incisions made at a time when JFK's body
>>was all but empty of blood.

>>Dr. Humes found that in fact the bruises to the pleura and
>>lung were different in lividity, indicating probable passage
>>of a bullet moving along a posterior/anterior path.

What you're saying is that Dr. Humes looked at the bruises to
the pleura and lung and decided they looked older than either
the incisions he made or the incisions made at Parkland. Right?

Where does Dr. Humes say this, exactly? And why isn't it in
the autopsy report?

Also, your slipping in of an assertion that the lividity of bruises
to the pleura and lung can by any stretch "indicate probable
passage of a bullet moving along a posterior/anterior path"
is totally typical Joel Grant bullshit. The lividity of bruises has
absolutely nothing to do with direction of travel and not
even Lattimer would have claimed that it does.

>In my opinion, the evidence points to a bullet entering the back *and*
>a bullet entering the throat.

I agree, or possibly a fragment entering the throat (The doctors remembered
it being quite small, some said "a few millimeters.")

Tom Warner

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