TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARD

In re:

PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT

Deposition of DR. JAMES JOSEPH HUMES

Pages 1 thru 242 College Park, Maryland

February 13, 1996

MILLER REPORTING COMPANY, INC.
507 C Street. N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002
(202) 546-6666

BEFORE THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARD

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In Re: PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY

College Park, Maryland Tuesday, February 13, 1996

The deposition of DR. JAMES JOSEPH HUMES, called for examination by counsel for the Board in the above-entitled matter, pursuant to notice, at 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, Maryland, convened at 10:12 a.m., before Robert H. Haines, a notary public in and for the State of Maryland, when were present on behalf of the parties:

APPEARANCES:

JEREMY GUNN, ESQ., General Counsel Assassination Records Review Board 600 E Street, N.W.
2nd Floor Washington, D.C. 20530

DAVID G. MARWELL, Executive Director
DOUGLAS P. HORNE, Senior Analyst
TIMOTHY A. WRAY, Chief Analyst for Military Records
DENNIS QUINN

C 0 N T E N T S

EXAMINATION BY COUNSEL FOR:

WITNESS ARRB

Dr. James J. Humes

P R 0 C E E D I N G S

MR. GUNN: We are assembled for the deposition of Dr. James Joseph Humes to be conducted by the Assassination Records Review Board, which is an independent agency of the Federal Government. We are located now in the National Archives Annex in College Park, Maryland. My name is Jeremy Gunn. I am the general counsel of the Review Board.
    Seated next to me is Douglas Horne, who works with me on medical evidence in the case. The next person seated next to Mr. Horne is Dennis Quinn, who also has worked with medical evidence in this case. The person at the end of the table is Dr. David Marwell, who is the Executive Director of the Assassination Records Review Board. Also in the room is Colonel Tim Wray.
    During the course of the deposition today, some people from the National Archives will presumably be coming in the room, and I will introduce them at the time.
    Approximately three years ago, Drs. Humes, J Boswell, and Pierre Finck agreed to be interviewed in depth by the Journal of the American Medical Association regarding their autopsy of President John F. Kennedy. The Assassination Records Review Board applauds the willingness of the doctors to speak out publicly about the autopsy of President Kennedy and to help dispel the appearance of secrecy that has surrounded the assassination and the autopsy. In that same spirit, the Review Board will now be conducting the deposition of Dr. Humes under oath.
    In the conclusion of the JAMA article that 1 mentioned, it quoted the distinguished Dallas Medical Examiner Dr. Earl Rose. Incidentally, had the autopsy been performed in Dallas, it would have been performed by Dr. Rose. In the JAMA article, Dr. Rose said, "If we have learned anything in the 29 years since the President was shot, it is that silence and concealment breed theories of conspiracy and the only answer is to open up the records, without self-serving rules of secrecy, and let the American people judge for themselves." Dr. Humes, we appreciate your having gone on the record in the JAMA article that I mentioned, and we appreciate your being here today. It's our understanding that you drove here from Florida, which is a long trip, and we appreciate the effort that you've made.
    At this point, I would like to ask the reporter to swear the witness.

Whereupon, DR. JAMES JOSEPH HUMES was called as a witness and, having been first duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows:

EXAMINATION BY COUNSEL FOR THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARD BY MR. GUNN:

Q. Dr. Humes, I'd like to show you two documents and ask you whether you have seen them before. I will note for the record that they are designated as MD 100 and MD 101, the MD standing for medical document.
A. Yes, I've seen them both.

Q. MD 100 is a cover letter and a notice of subpoena to Dr. Humes. MD 101 is a letter to Dr. Humes rearranging the date and specifying the place of the deposition. Have you seen those two documents before, Dr. Humes?
A. Yes, I have.

Q. Is it your understanding that you're appearing here today pursuant to your having received these documents?
A. That's correct.

Q. Dr. Humes, in Exhibit 101, 1 mentioned to you—and I believe also by phone—that you had the right to have an attorney here today if you wish. Was it your understanding that you did have the opportunity to have an attorney?
A. Yes. I couldn't imagine what I would do with an attorney, but I understood it clearly.

Q. If you wish, you will be given the opportunity to see a copy of the-transcript that is being prepared today. You will be able to review the transcript to see if there are any errors. There will be a tape recording made of the deposition, and there will also be a new document created to record any of the errors that you may have identified in the transcript.
A. I would welcome that.

Q. I'm going to attempt to ask clear questions. Whenever I do that, sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don't. If there's any time that I'm asking a question that you don't understand, please ask me to either rephrase it or state it again. You also may wish to have the court reporter read back the same question again, but you shouldn't hesitate if there is anything that is unclear.
    During the deposition, we're going to be working with a numbered exhibit list which is going to be given to the reporter to be included as part of the record. We are not going to be referring to all documents in the order in which the numbers are designated, but a person would be able to identify the document by making reference to the exhibit list.
    Dr. Humes, I'd like to ask you to oblige us with one further request. We would appreciate your not disclosing to anyone the content of the discussions that we are having today until the Assassination Records Review Board has been able to conclude its work on the medical aspect of the case. It's my best estimate that that would be completed probably within this calendar year. Is that agreeable to you?
A. Yes, sure.

Q. It's our understanding that you have testified on the record three times before government commissions. Is that correct?
A. Yes, I guess so: the Warren Commission and twice in the Congress.

Q. Did you have an opportunity to review the transcripts of those statements before they were published?
A. I'm not sure, to tell you the truth. I don't remember.

Q. Did you ever have an opportunity to review the statements at all?
A. It seems to me that in one—well, certainly nothing from the Warren Commission. In one or another of the House, I may have seen my portion of the testimony. But I'm not absolutely certain about that, but I think I did.

Q. Do you recall whether in your reading the testimony that you just made reference to that you identified any mistakes, transcriptions, or errors in the words that were attributed to you?
A. I really can't recall. It was a long time ago.

Q. As I mentioned to you shortly before we went on the record, we will be asking questions to help clarify some of the issues that are in the record related to the assassination and to the autopsy of the President. Certainly at the end of the deposition, and before, if you think that that would be appropriate, you should feel free to explain any area that you think has not been—any questions or explain any statements that you have that you think would help clarify the record. Dr. Humes, did you bring any records with you today pursuant to the subpoena that was marked as Exhibit 100 to this deposition?
A. Yes, I did.

Q. Could you tell me briefly what it is that you brought to the deposition?
A. I brought a videotape of an interview that 1 granted to a local television station in Jacksonville in 1988 on the 25th anniversary of the assassination. I brought the tape and the cover letter from the producer who sent it to me. I brought a brief CV of my own to maybe assist the committee. I brought a copy of a reprint of the Journal of the American Medical Association article of May 1992, which records the interview that Dr. Boswell and I gave to personnel from the Journal. 1 brought a letter to me from Congressman Louis Stokes, who was the chairman of the House Select Committee. It's dated in October of 1978, and he's just thanking me for appearing there and trying to help them in their work.
    I brought a letter from Carl Eardley, an Acting Assistant Attorney General, dated May 1967, prior to my agreeing to appear on a CBS interview program with Mr. Dan Rather, saying that the Justice Department had no objection to my doing that.
    I brought a list of—a copy of our—Dr. Boswell, Dr. Finck and I—our review of all the various photographs that are present in the Archives that we reviewed on November 1, 1966, the details of various photographs numbered and identified by that.

Q. If I can ask you one question about that document.
A. Yes.

Q. on the document that you brought, are there original handwritten notes in blue ink?
A. Yes.

Q. And does the document contain the actual signatures of the three doctors whom you mentioned?
A. Yes, it does. I brought, for interest, a newspaper recording of the demise of Dr. John Ebersole, who was the radiologist on duty at Bethesda the night the President was killed, and he was very helpful to us in our work.
    I brought a copy of a newspaper clipping describing the demise of Dr. George Burkley, who was the President's physician at that time. I brought two receipts signed by Dr. Burkley. The first is dated November 24th when he acknowledges the receipt of the original and six copies of the autopsy report which we had prepared, one having been retained in the office of the commanding officer of the Naval Medical Center. And then on the 25th of November, I delivered that final copy to Dr. Burkley, and he signed acknowledging the receipt of that.

Q. With regard to the two receipts that you mentioned, would it be fair to say that those documents are themselves photocopies?
A. That's correct.

Q. So neither of those is an original.
A. Right.

Q. Did you bring any other documents with you today?
A. I brought two letters from Dr. Judd Pearson dated in 1967, in July and October, in which he describes the interest of a number of people in the Congress, mentioning specifically Senator Russell, who had served on the Warren Commission, stating that they were concerned about some of the problems the Warren Commission perceived and the various things related to it and wondering if we could get together and discuss what some of those problems were and what action might be taken to avoid them in the future.
    And in a similar vein, a letter from then District Attorney of Philadelphia, Mr. Arlen Specter, basically on the same point of view, in which Senator Specter described some of the things that he thought had been problems and that steps should be taken to try and avoid those kinds of problems should we have such a future tragic occurrence.

Q. Now, I understand from a statement that you made prior to the deposition that you have concern that you are worried about release of this particular letter without Senator Specter having had the opportunity to examine it first.
A. Yes, I do have some concern about that.

Q. And that reason is based simply on issues related to privacy and—
A. Right.

Q. —confidentiality of communication?
A. The letter was addressed to me. it doesn't say don't do anything with it, but this is long before this Commission was established, and so 1 just feel it would be appropriate if, before it's officially entered in the record, to get the acquiescence of Senator Specter.

Q. We'll be happy to send a letter to Senator Specter requesting his permission—
A. Thank you.

Q. —to release that record. What we will do is take the copies of the documents that you brought here today, plus the videotape. We'll arrange to have copies made and then return them to you, if that's acceptable.
A. That's fine.

Q. Thank you very much. Are there any other kinds of records that you have in your possession, custody, or control that relate to the assassination of President Kennedy?
A. Well, I have a number of letters from private citizens, who are generically known as "assassination buffs" around the country, who express all kinds of points of view, and I receive them frequently, usually two or three times a month, sometimes two in a week. I never answer any of them. I don't understand what keeps these people going. I did bring one such letter, but I really don't think it's mundane to what you're doing. I guess this will go along for time immemorial while I'm still this side of the grass.

Q. Would it be fair to say or to recapitulate what you say that, although you have received these letters from the public, you have not engaged in any correspondence with those people?
A. Absolutely.

Q. Dr. Humes, other than with your family, have you discussed the subject matter of the deposition today with any other people?
A. Oh, I've told people I'm coming, my golfing partners that I'm going to be missing this week and I was coming to give a deposition, and they all expressed dismay. That's all I can say about that. I said nothing about what I—I had no idea what you were going to ask me, so I couldn't very hardly tell them what was going to transpire. So it's no secret that I'm here, if that's what—

Q. Sure.
A. I was not instructed to remain silent about this affair, particularly when I understand you're trying to get it all ultimately out in the open.

Q. Would it be fair to say, then, that you have not spoken with any officials of the United States Government other than the Assassination Records Review Board regarding the subject of the deposition?
A. Absolutely.

Q. Dr. Humes, I would like to show you some records, many or all of which you may have seen before, and I would just like to ask you if you can identify them for the record.
A. Okay.

Q. Or I will read a description, and you tell me whether that's accurate. The first document is MD 3, which on its face appears to be the autopsy protocol, signed by Drs. Humes, Boswell, and Finck.
A. Yes, that's what it is.

Q. I'd like to show you the next document, which is identified as Exhibit No. 2, and ask you if you can recognize what that document is.
A. Yes, this is my longhand notes from which the previous document was put together. I did this by myself over the weekend after the assassination, and then on Sunday morning, we three met in the office of the commanding officer of the Naval Medical Center, Admiral Galloway, and made certain editorial changes that we mutually agreed were preferable. Somebody had to do the writeup, and since I was the senior person responsible, I did it. And we revised it by mutual consent.

Q. The next document is marked Exhibit 1. Would you identify that document?
A. Yes. This is a form which we used in the morgue routinely, more or less, to make certain notations about the findings at the autopsy. There's a place for the weights of certain organs and so forth and sketched diagrams of a human body on which certain notes have been made. These notes were made almost exclusively by Dr. Boswell.

Q. Would it be fair to say that Exhibit No. 1 is the autopsy face sheet for President Kennedy?
A. This?

Q. Yes.
A. No. It's not the face sheet. It's just an aide-memoire that we use routinely. It never appears like that in an autopsy report, no.

Q. Is there any other name that this document would go by other than face sheet that you're aware of?
A. I never heard it called a face sheet, to tell you the truth. I never heard it referred to in that way. I can't tell you, no.

Q. And Exhibit No. 1 is two pages long; is that correct?
A. This is the second page?

Q. Yes.
A. Yes, well, this—the first page that you showed me was a schematic portrayal of the human body and certain other information—was a routine that we used day to day. The second page is not a pre-prepared form. This is a sketch made by, I presume, Dr. Boswell, because I didn't make it—I presume by Dr. Boswell—showing schematically the head injuries to the President.

Q. I'd like to show you Exhibit 4, which appears to be the Supplementary Report of Autopsy, No. A63-272, of President John F. Kennedy. Do you recognize that document?
A. Yes.

Q. Is that, in fact, a supplementary report—
A. That's the supplementary report, right.

Q. And that's your signature at the bottom of that page?
A. That's correct. I haven't seen it for about 40 years, but outside of that ...

Q. I'd like to show you Exhibit No. 11, which appears to be your testimony before the Warren Commission on Monday, March 16, 1964. Do you recognize that document as being—
A. Yes, I do. I don't think I ever saw it before, incidentally, but I recognize what it is, certainly.

Q. The next document is MD 20, which appears to be the transcript of the medical panel meeting in which you were interviewed with Dr. Boswell from the House Select Committee on Assassinations on September 16, 1977. Have you seen that document previously?
A. No. I have not. I recall that experience with some misgivings as to what people thought they saw or didn't see in photographs and drawings and whatever. It was somewhat confusing. But I never saw the document, no.

Q. The next document appears to be the testimony that you provided to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. It is marked Exhibit 21. Have you seen that document previously?
A. No. If I have, I totally forget it. But 1 doubt very seriously I ever saw it.

Q. The next document, marked Exhibit 14, appears to be a review of autopsy materials with a handwritten date of 1/26/67. 1 assume you have seen that document previously.
A. Yes, I have seen this paper. I don't know if I ever saw that last page.

Q. The last page is a National Archives reference page.
A. Yes.

Q. You would not have—
A. Yes, I've seen that document.

Q. And the final document I'd like to show you at this point is an article from the Journal of the American Medical Association on May 27, 1992. I assume that you have seen this.
A. That's the same article that I brought along today.

Q. Dr. Humes, for the most part, I am not going to ask questions about your background or education, but there is one question that I had that I did want to ask about, and that is, in the document marked Exhibit 22, on page 2795, it reports that you "performed several autopsies on military personnel killed by gunshot wounds.”
A. Yes.

Q. Is that statement correct?
A. That's correct.

Q. When did—
A. Usually they're accidents or homicides or whatever.

Q. When did you conduct the autopsies for gunshot wounds?
A. Well, ones that stand out in my mind, two were-in Tripler Army Hospital in Hawaii. The truth of it, I can't recall, specifically recall where else. In San Diego, we did 800 autopsies a year. It's really kind of hard for me to specifically recall the details of many of those. I never held myself forth as an expert in gunshot wounds. That's why I called Pierre Finck, who was an expert.

Q. Had you had experience with gunshot wounds prior to 1963?
A. Yes.

Q. And those were, as best you recall now, at Tripler Hospital in Hawaii?
A. Yes.

Q. And in San Diego?
A. Possibly San Diego.

Q. Dr. Humes, did you at any time receive any orders instructing you not to talk about the autopsy or restricting what you could say about the autopsy?
A. Yes.

Q. Could you tell me about the orders that you received? How many were there, I guess to begin with?
A. Oh, I don't know. They were all verbal. 1 never had a written order of any kind in this regard. When I was summoned to the Naval Medical Center—and, truthfully, I didn't know why I was being summoned there on the evening of the President's death—I met with the Surgeon General of the Navy, Admiral Kenny, and the commanding officer of the Naval Medical Center, Admiral Galloway. And Admiral Kenny basically gave me my marching orders, informing me that the President's body was being brought there, that I was to be responsible for determining the cause of his death, that I should keep the number of people that were going to work with me or assist me to the minimum that I might require. He was giving no restriction as to who these people might be other than to—you know, let's not have the whole country in the morgue; keep it to as many people as you think you really need to make a reasonable examination. And then I guess it was more like a tacit understanding that I was not going to have public disclosure of this. I never received any such written order from anybody that I can recall. In fact, I know I didn't. It didn't seem to me to be an appropriate thing to discuss in the public anyway, period.

Q. Did any officer instruct you orally not to say anything about the autopsy?
A. I really can't recall such, no. Just common sense, I think, pertained more than anything else.

Q. If Dr. Finck were on the record as saying that he received instructions from the Surgeon General not to say anything about the autopsy, would you have any reason to question the accuracy of such an observation?
A. Well, certainly the Navy Surgeon General never told him that, unless it happened after the autopsy, you know, sometime. I have no knowledge of that. Pierre was working in a totally different institution from me, and I can't say whether—was he talking about the Army Surgeon General or the Navy Surgeon General?

Q. Navy Surgeon General.
A. I doubt that very seriously. I don't think he even met the Navy Surgeon General that night. I don't know. I mean, I can't account for all of Pierre's movements or people he talked to. 1 have no way of knowing that.

Q. Do you know of any orders having been issued to anyone who participated in the autopsy regarding discussion of the autopsy?
A. Not really.

Q. When you say not really, does that mean not at all, or could there have been some instance that you're thinking of?
A. Yes, there could be, and I'd hate to talk about people who are deceased, you know. Admiral Burkley had certain personal concerns about just one aspect of the autopsy, and I understood his concerns, and I abided by them. They had nothing to do with the assassination of the President. Zero.

Q. Was the concern about the President's adrenals?
A. Yes.

Q. Other than with respect to the President's adrenals, was there any other concern that you heard expressed by Admiral Burkley at any time regarding the autopsy?
A. Absolutely not.

Q. Did you ever tell any person that you would not speak about the autopsy? For example, did you promise—
A. That's a rather broad question. I don't—I can't recall any such.

Q. For example, did you tell Admiral Burkley, even if he didn't give an order directly or indirectly—
A. No, no. We had no discussion about it at all. He had more things to worry about than that.

Q. Is there any promise, agreement, or understanding that would affect your ability to talk freely and fully about the autopsy today?
A. In this milieu, no. The one disturbing thing that I would not like to see widely publicized any more today than I would in 1963 were the photographs that we made, which were very, very repulsive. It caused me problems because we didn't have the photographs at the Warren Commission. We didn't have the X-rays, even. And that did cause us problems. But I agreed with the reason for not doing it, because as you already know, I'm sure, some of those photographs somehow or other have gotten into the hands of people that I don't think should have ever had them in the first place. That's my only reservation about any aspect of it.

Q. Were you ever told, directly or indirectly, that the Kennedy family did not want people to speak about the autopsy?
A. No, other than the photographs. I was told that the members of the Kennedy family objected to the photographs being made. I had no— personally, I had no personal contact with any member of the Kennedy family, either that night or before or since.

Q. In your testimony to the House Select Committee on Assassinations—and I can show you a document, if you wish—you were quoted as having said, "I have strong personal reasons and certain other-obligations that suggest to me that it might not be preferable." And that was referring to the adrenal glands. When you said "certain other obligations," could you explain to me what you meant by that?
A. My conversation with Admiral Burkley, strictly. And the nature of that conversation I don't think I should discuss with you people.

Q. Just so it's clear here, that discussion pertains solely to the question of the adrenal glands?
A. Precisely.

Q. As you no doubt know, there have been allegations made about who was in control of the autopsy. I'd like to ask some questions about that. As best I understand, you're quite firm on the record that you were the person in charge of the autopsy; is that correct?
A. Regrettably, yes. There's no doubt about it, as a matter of fact, unfortunately.

Q. One of the problems that exists in the record is statements from other people who were participating in the autopsy who said that others were in charge or others were giving orders. So I'd like to find out what your response would be to the quotations that I'm going to show you—
A. Go right ahead.

Q. The first one I'd like to make reference to is in Exhibit 26, and I can show you this, if you wish. This is in the report from the House Select Committee on Assassinations, dated August 17, 1977, by Andy Purdy, where he conducted an interview with Dr. Boswell. And I'm now going to quote from Mr. Purdy's words: "He"—and that's referring to Dr. Boswell—"indicated that Dr. Burkley was basically supervising everything that went on in the autopsy room and that the commanding officer was also responding to Burkley's wishes." That's on page 2 of—
A. Well, I think that's a misinterpretation by J of what was going on. You see, Mrs. Kennedy and the Attorney General were upstairs in the hospital. She had stated she wasn't going to leave there until she could accompany the President's body to the White House. And Admiral Burkley was anxious that that period be shortened to as much— you know, as much as possible. And he did from time to time suggest—but as far as telling me what to do or how to do it, absolutely, irrevocably no. He's not a pathologist, to start with. He wouldn't presume to do such a thing. You'll have to talk to J about this. George Burkley, his main concern was let's get it over with as fast as we could, and we had big problems, and we couldn't get it over with as fast as he would have liked it to have been completed. That's my reaction to that.

Q. Let me show you a second document, Exhibit No. 19.
A. Part of the reason why we avoided talking about this thing, because every time you say something, somebody misinterprets what you say.

Q. Document 19 is a memo written by Andy Purdy, who was on the House Select Committee staff, and 71d like to show you from page 13 of the document where it's referring to statements made by Mr. Stringer. First, do you know who Mr. Stringer—
A. Yes, John Stringer was the chief of our Medical Photography Department, a very excellent performer. He had won several awards for various photographs in competitions and so forth, and he was responsible, under my direction, for taking the pictures.

Q. Could you look at the second full paragraph of that page 13? And I'll ask you one specific question from it.
A. Go ahead.

Q. The last sentence of that paragraph says, "He"—this is referring to Mr. Stringer—,"believed the President's physician (Admiral Burkley) was at the center of these discussions," the discussions relating to not doing the complete autopsy.
A. That's a misinterpretation, too. I don't know where he got that idea.

Q. Were there discussions with Admiral Burkley about doing something less than a complete autopsy?
A. With regard to the adrenal glands, yes.

Q. With respect to anything else?
A. Absolutely not.

Q. For example, with respect to the neck, did Admiral Burkley say anything about—
A. No.

Q. —the full autopsy?
A. No. Admiral Burkley's role has really been greatly accentuated here, as far as I can see. I'd like to blame him for everything if anything's wrong, but I can't. Part of my problem is I've never seen most of these documents. It's hard for me to discuss too much about them when I've never seen them.

Q. I'd like to show you a document marked Exhibit 67, and I caution you about the staple. Don't puncture your finger. Document 67 is an oral interview with Admiral George Burkley conducted on October 17, 1967.
A. Yes.

Q. And I'd like to draw your attention to the bottom of page 16 and the top of page 17, if you could read that to yourself. You can read any other portion you wish, but that's where I will be asking you the question. I'll just state for the record this is an oral history from the John F. Kennedy Library of George G. Burkley conducted by William McHugh.
A. Well, his memory is a little foggy here. I ordered every X-ray that was taken. He didn't have a thing to do with the ordering of X-rays. I X-rayed the President's body from head to toe for the simple reason that missiles do very funny things occasionally in the human body. And George Burkley had absolutely nothing to do with it, period.

Q. Would you say that—
A. He says he supervised the autopsy. He was in the room. As far as supervising the autopsy, he didn't. Nobody supervised. I'm, unfortunately, responsible for it. Maybe he thought he was supervising it. If that made him feel better, that's okay with me, too. But I could not have put up with that. You know, just—it was not in my nature to be that retiring. I'm afraid I haven't changed a great deal. I never saw this document before, of course.

Q. Did you ever receive any orders or instructions about limiting the scope of the examination of the brain?
A. Never.

Q. Did you receive any instructions or orders regarding limitations on dissection of the organs of the neck?
A. No.

Q. During the course of the autopsy—
A. Let me interrupt there. May I?

Q. Sure.
A. My problem is, very simply stated, we had an entrance wound high in the posterior back above the scapula. We didn't know where the exit wound was at that point. I'd be the first one to admit it. We knew in general in the past that we should have been more prescient than we were, I must confess, because when we removed the breast plate and examined the thoracic cavity, we saw a contusion on the upper lobe of the lung. There was no defect in the pleura anyplace. So it's obvious that the missile had gone over that top of the lung.
    Of course, the more I thought about it, the more I realized it had to go out from the neck. It was the only place it could go, after it was not found anywhere in the X-rays. So early the next morning, I called Parkland Hospital and talked with Malcolm Perry, I guess it was. And he said, oh, yeah, there was a wound right in the middle of the neck by the tie, and we used that for the tracheotomy. Well, they obliterated, literally obliterated—when we went back to the photographs, we thought we might have seen some indication of the edge of that wound in the gaping skin where the—but it wouldn't make a great deal of sense to go slashing open the neck. What would we learn? Nothing, you know. So I didn't—I don't know if anybody said don't do this or don't do that. I wouldn't have done it no matter what anybody said. That was not important. I mean, that's—

Q. Do you know what the standard autopsy protocol is for gunshot wounds and autopsy of the neck?
A. Well, no. I haven't seen that in—what you say, standard, I mean, many times if you have a track of a missile, it's helpful to take a long probe and put it in the position. It can tell you a lot of things. If you know where the point of entrance and the point of exit are, it's duck soup. But for me to start probing around in this man's neck, all I would make was false passages. There wouldn't be any track that I could put a probe through or anything of that nature. it just doesn't work that way.

Q. Was any probe used at all to track the path—
A. I don't recall that there was. There might have been some abortive efforts superficially in the back of the neck, but no. And if there's a standard protocol, I don't know where you'd find it, to tell you the truth.

Q. Dr. Humes, did you request at any time during the autopsy to see the clothing which President Kennedy had been wearing at the time of the assassination?
A. No, I didn't. I should have, probably, but didn't.

Q. Do you know where the clothing was during the—
A. No, I don't. I did see the clothing ultimately in the Archives, but I didn't know where it was.

Q. Other than from Dr. Burkley, did you receive or understand any requests for the autopsy to be expedited?
A. No.

Q. So Burkley was the only source of—
A. Right.

Q. Other than for the adrenals and for the autopsy photographs, was it ever conveyed to you any requests or preferences of the Kennedy family for anything to do with the autopsy?
A. No, not at all—well, with one exception: with the brain. And I don't have the date, and I don't—if I had a receipt, which I wish I had, I don't have now. Sometime in the next several days -and I can't tell you when it was—George Burkley came to see me and said that Robert Kennedy wished to inter the President's brain with the body. And that was the desire of the family, and Robert Kennedy was the spokesperson. So he asked me would I give him the brain, which I promptly handed it to him in a pail. And then the mystery really begins, because what happened after that, I don't know.

Q. Did you give Dr. Burkley the brain prior to the time President Kennedy was interred on November—
A. No, no, no, no, no. No. It was afterwards.

Q. Approximately when?
A. I couldn't tell you. I can't remember. I would say it was within 10 days, probably. But I just don't know. I can't remember. It seemed like a logical request, as far as I was concerned. You know, I didn't have any mystery as to what happened to the man.

Q. There are statements on record, which I can show to you, if you wish, that suggest that Dr. Finck believed that there were restrictions on the scope of the autopsy with respect to the neck. Does that help refresh any recollection—
A. No, not with—I don't know where Pierre got that information, but he—as far as I'm concerned, I don't understand that. Pierre had a terrible time, incidentally, getting into the place because the Marines were not about to let this Army guy come in that night.

Q. Did anyone ever suggest to you, directly or indirectly, that there should not be a sectioning of the brain?
A. No. Absolutely not.

Q. Dr. Humes, are you aware of any rules, regulations, or manuals that would have governed performance of military autopsies as of 1963?
A. Not really. We had a manual, an autopsy manual that was a guide that we used to train residents. It wasn't something we frequently referred to, to tell you the truth, because you changed your technique and what you did depending on the nature of the problem.

Q. Let me show you—
A. At least I did.

Q. Let me show you a document that's marked as Exhibit 7 and ask you if this is the autopsy manual you were referring to. I'll state for the record that Exhibit 7 appears on its face to be an autopsy manual produced by the Department of the Army Technical— excuse me, Departments of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, dated July 1960.
A. I never saw this specific—I never saw this specific document ever. I presume it was circulated primarily in Army circles. I don't know. If it was in our department, I never saw it.

Q. When you received training—let me try that question again. Did you take any courses in forensic pathology prior to the time of the autopsy?
A. The only specific course I took was a one- week course at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in November of 1953. 1 remember it because it was held at the AFIP in the old building downtown at 7th and Independence where the Hirshhorn Museum is now. And I remember it vividly because the course was very well done. A number of nationwide experts were there. Ford from Boston was the medical examiner of the State of Massachusetts, and several others I could conjure up if it was anybody's interest. But the reason I remember it so vividly, it was over at noon on Friday. I was stationed at the Philadelphia Naval Hospital, and I was going to drive back to Philadelphia. But I decided to go by Bethesda and visit some of my friends, some of my former trainees and one thing or another. So I went out there, and we got embroiled in conversation, and around 5 o'clock, somebody said, Jim, you'd better get started because it's snowing. November the 10th, 1953.
    So I look out the window, and there's about a foot of snow. I had just come back from Panama, and somebody in Panama had advised you disconnect the heater in your car while you're in Panama. I can't recall what the rationale behind that was. But I had—it was now fall, and I had not reconnected the heater. So I start up old Route I to Philadelphia in this car. It was a Plymouth coupe. And, of course, the snow is immediately blocking my vision. I had to stop about every five miles or ten miles between Washington and Baltimore to get the snow off the windshield. By the time I got to Baltimore, the city was deserted. There was snow all over the place, and nobody was moving. I pulled up in front of the Lord Baltimore Hotel. I said, Do you have any rooms? The guy said, We got rooms like they're going out of style. So I stayed—I said, well, I'm going to stay right here. I called my wife in Philadelphia. She said, Hey, if you want to spend an extra night down there, don't give me this snow business. I said, Ann, it's snowing like mad. So, anyhow, she was joshing with me, but it was not snowing in Wilmington or Philadelphia or any place. So I started out the next morning, and you never saw such a trip, because I spent—I heard the whole Notre Dame-Penn football game in one spot in Havre de Grace. Never moved. By the time I got to Wilmington, there was no snow. So if you ask me do I remember that course, I'll never forget it. It was a good course, too, by the way.

Q. Did they have any kinds of written manuals, documentation, regulations that you used for reference or for instruction in that course?
A. Not really. There were some handouts that were provided by—the AFIP runs a number of courses. I was involved in them later on myself. And the instructor would provide whatever he thought would be helpful to the people taking the course. I don't recall. There was no particular for instance, that manual might have been good to have, but it was not a part of the documents of the course.

Q. Did the Naval Medical Hospital have any rules or regulations at the time that you were there that would govern conduct of autopsies?
A. Well, I was responsible for them if there were, and I can't recall that there were, you know. I've trained young doctors to do autopsies all my life, and I didn't often use manuals.

Q. Were there any manuals or references at all that you used during the actual course of the autopsy of President Kennedy?
A. No. No.

Q. Dr. Humes, I'd like to go through the events as they occurred, as best you can recollect them, on November 26th, starting from—
A. 26th?

Q. Excuse me. November 22nd, starting in the afternoon. The first question I'd have for you would be whether you heard from anyone prior to the time the autopsy began about the nature of the wounds that President Kennedy had suffered.
A. Not at all.

Q. Are you familiar with the name of Robert Livingston, Dr. Robert Livingston?
A. Is this him? No, that's Harry Livingstone. No, I'm not.

Q. I'd like to show you a transcript of some testimony that he offered in the case of Crenshaw v. Sutherland?
A. May I ask who is Dr. Livingston?

Q. Yes.
A. Not the guy in the jungle.

Q. According to "Who's Who in America," Robert Livingston is a neuroscientist who received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Stanford University, and he was a resident at Stanford Hospital in San Francisco. In 1963, he was the chief of the Neurobiology Lab at the National Institute of Mental Health.
A. Okay.

Q. Does that help refresh your recollection of who Dr. Livingston is?
A. I don't know him from Adam, personally. I never heard of him before this minute, but I don't doubt his qualifications or whatever.

Q. I'd like you to take a moment, if you would, and read the deposition from page 23, line 1, to page 26, line 16. You should also feel free to read any other part of the deposition that you'd like.
A. Now, where?

Q. Page 23, line 1. This is in microscript.
A. Page 22—okay. I see it now. Okay.

[Pause.]

BY MR. GUNN:

Q. For the record, the exhibit number is No. 24.
A. Well, this is ridiculous. I was at home at this time. He never talked to me, period. Absolutely never did talk to me. I don't need to read any further, to tell you the truth. I mean, I don't know what he's talking about. I was at home helping my wife prepare for a social event that night, and our first knowledge of the death of the President was when our children came home from school on the school bus, came in running, yelling, all screaming, of course, "The President was shot." And I couldn't even remember where the President was, to tell you the truth, at that time. But I never talked to this person.

Q. Could you complete through page 26, line 16, please?
A. I get confused. It stops and goes over to another ...

Q. 24, 25, 26.
A. It doesn't follow, sir. It doesn't follow.

Q. 23.
A. I see.

Q. 24.
A. Well, this doesn't follow this. It makes no sense. It's a nonsense. I don't mean it frivolously.

Q. At this point it says—there is an objection, calls for speculation, then there's some colloquy, and it's back to—
A. What? All I see is the word "speculation"—oh, somebody objects—

Q. "Objection, calls for speculation."
A. Oh, okay.

Q. The passage between the two pages.
A. Okay. I didn't understand that. This is fantasy. Pure fantasy. I don't know where this guy was or where he's coming from. He was concerned about the autopsy, he called me and talked to me about it? He never talked to me. I mean, I'll read it, but I don't know what good it's going to do you. Never happened. That's all I can tell you. If I did, I mean, I developed amnesia of some kind or other. But a long conversation like this at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, absolutely, categorically did not occur.

Q. Just so the record is clear here, you are saying that—would it be fair to say that you're saying that Dr. Livingston never called you on the 22^nd—
A. To my recollection, he never called me. The only person, outside of the people right there on the scene, I spoke to was Bruce Smith. Bruce Smith, a very dear friend, close friend of mine, was the Deputy Director-Navy at the AFIP at that time. He called and offered the services of the AFIP, anybody I needed, which was very logical. I had been stationed at the AFIP. You know, it was home to me. It was a very cordial conversation. "Bruce," I said, "Thanks a lot. Let me see what the problem is, and if I need any help, I'll call you back." When I saw what the problem was, I needed a ballistics person. And I called Bruce back. I said, "Who do you have that's in ballistics?" He said, well, Colonel Finck just got back from Panama, where held been unscrambling some who-shot-whom between the Americans and the Panamanians, one of the typical—which was familiar to me because I served for a couple years in Panama during a revolution. So I was very familiar with that. I said, "Well, that sounds great." I welcomed the assistance of Dr. Finck. That is absolutely the only person that I spoke t( outside of that building that day. Now, whether he talked to somebody else, I can't—it could be. He could have talked to J or he could have talked to any number of people in our department. We had a big department, you know, but I did not speak with him.

Q. When on November 22nd is the first time that you came into contact with officials from either the FBI or the Secret Service?
A. Well, contact, I never really had any dialogue with any of them. Some of them were present in the morgue when the President's body was brought there. I was not introduced to any of them. I didn't need to know any of them. I had to occasionally tell them to keep their conversation down. There was a lot of conversation going on. But I never personally was—can I recall, being specifically introduced to any of them, which I didn't need to be introduced to them, because I knew who they were and they ...

Q. Prior to the arrival of President Kennedy's body, did you see any Secret Service or FBI officials?
A. No. I had one interesting encounter in that regard. When I found out what the problem was, I went downstairs and got into a scrub suit which I was going to wear to conduct the autopsy. And it was a brand-new morgue. We had just moved into it a couple of months before. And it had a loading dock outside, and that's where they were going to bring the President's body. So I walked outside to see what was going on. A lot of people—oh, I saw a guy with a speed graphic camera in the building and didn't feel like running after him myself. So I went out to this loading dock, and several people were milling around. And I said, "Who's in charge here?" And some general said, "I am." Well, it turns out he was in charge of the military district of Washington. That was his role. And I said, "General, sorry to bother you, but there's some clown in there running around with a speed graphic camera." Well, he dispatched somebody to corral this guy . That's the only other person that I had any conversation with at all. He responded very quickly when I asked who was in charge. He left no doubt in my mind. But he was in charge of the loading dock. He was not in charge of anything else. I never saw him again in my life.

Q. When is the first time you had a conversation with anyone outside of people in the autopsy room regarding the nature of the President's wounds?
A. The next morning when I called Malcolm Perry.

Q. Approximately—
A. I'm pretty sure that's who I spoke to, I know it is.

Q. Approximately what time did you speak to Dr. Perry?
A. I think 8 or 9 o'clock on Saturday morning.

Q. Were you aware of any telephone calls being made from the autopsy room during the time of the autopsy?
A. Well, you see, that's possible. Certainly not by me, but we had a large defect in the side of—in the right side of the President's skull, and there was dialogue back and forth between somebody -I didn't know whether the FBI or Secret Service- that fragments of bone had been picked up on the street. And there was conversation back and forth between—I guess they were Secret Service people. I had no idea, to tell you the truth. And they were going to be sent to us, which was fine because we needed to close the defect if we could. It didn't turn out to be enough to totally close the defect. We did other things to accomplish that. But your specific question, if these phone conversations were going on, I was not directing them, I was not involved in them, and really it wasn't my problem.

Q. Was there a telephone in the autopsy room?
A. Yes.

Q. Do you recall whether anyone was stationed at the telephone during the course—
A. No, no. If there was, I didn't have anything to do with it.

Q. Did you make any attempts to call anyone in Dallas prior to the completion of the autopsy?
A. No.

Q. Were you aware of any other kinds of communications, in addition to telephone calls, between Bethesda Hospital and Dallas regarding wounds of the body?
A. No.

Q. In addition to the call that you had with Dr. Perry, did you speak with any other person who had been in Dallas on the day of the assassination regarding the nature of the President's wounds?
A. Contemporaneously at that time?

Q. Thank you. Let me try the question again. Prior to the time that you had completed the autopsy protocol, did you speak with any other doctor—
A. No.

Q. —or law enforcement official about the nature of the wounds on President Kennedy's body?
A. I did not.

Q. Dr. Perry is the only one, then, prior to the completion—
A. Right.

Q. —of the autopsy protocol?
A. Yes.

Q. Did you see any written materials prior to the time that you completed the autopsy protocol that discussed or described events in Dallas?
A. No.

Q. In the autopsy protocol, there is reference to information that happened in Dallas. Do you recall how you came to have that information?
A. I'd have to know—

Q. I'll show you the autopsy protocol.
A. Yes. I can't recall.

Q. Just start with the first two paragraphs of the autopsy protocol.

MR. GUNN: Dr. Humes is now examining Exhibit 3.

[Pause.]

THE WITNESS: Yes, this makes reference to the local newspapers, which is the source, plus I may have had the television on sometime on Saturday. I'm not sure. I was busy doing a lot of things. I can't tell you for sure. I had no personal knowledge. I had to get it secondhand, whatever it was. It was not my job. It was not my responsibility in the first place.

BY MR. GUNN:

Q. At the beginning of the second paragraph, it makes reference to the President fell forward. Do you recall now where you obtained that information? Again, the beginning of the first paragraph—the first sentence of the second paragraph on page 2?
A. I presume from this Washington Post article. I'd have to look at it and see. I had no other source of information that I can recall.

Q. So, for example, did an FBI or Secret Service agent tell you that—
A. No, absolutely. I had no dialogue with them at all. Zero. Maybe it would have been helpful. It may have been harmful. I have no idea. But I did not have dialogue with those people.

Q. Could you describe in a general way what the autopsy room looked like? You mentioned a few minutes ago that it was new. Could you just describe the room?
A. Well, it's about the size of the room in which we're seated, which looks to me like it's 30 by 25 or something of that nature. We had a permanently fixed autopsy table in the center of the room. We had a viewing stand, a two-place viewing stand, along one wall. I think it had two steps. It would accommodate maybe 20 or 30 people, because we used to have conferences in there. Routinely, at the end of a week, we would retain the organs from the autopsies of the week. In fact, not only did we review them there, but there was a closed-circuit television. They went to Andrews Air Force Base, NIH, and it was a closed- circuit instruction program. That platform, a two- step platform, was for observers. And in an adjacent area, we had a refrigerated storage place with either four or sixj -I forget the number—places for retention of bodies. And we had a shower and restroom adjacent.

Q. Was there any kind of gallery in the room other than the two steps that you—
A. That's what I'm speaking of. It might have three steps. I couldn't—you know, I don't recall how many steps it had. We used to get a fairly decent number of people. Maybe it had three steps.

Q. Was there any closed-circuit broadcasting
A. No.

Q. —during the night of the autopsy?
A. No, absolutely not. I wish there was, retrospectively.

Q. Had you ever performed an autopsy in that room before?
A. Yes. But let me correct that to some extent. The residents did most of the autopsies, and we rotated the supervision of that activity. It varies. That's the way the residents learned their trade, you know. But, yes, we had—I don't know how many autopsies we've had in that room. it would be easy to find out from the record, of course.

Q. Approximately how many people were in the autopsy room at the time President Kennedy was—
A. Geez, that's a good question. That's one of my—I should have thrown them all out. That was one of my biggest problems. There were, I guess—there was an Air Force aide, the Naval aide, an Army aide to the President. They were the most shook-up people you ever saw in your life. And I guess it was around people there off and on, maybe 20.

Q. During the autopsy, was the room quiet and hushed or noisy and bustling? How would you describe the scene?
A. It varied. We were there for a long time. We were there from about 6:00 or 6:30 in the evening until 5 o'clock the next morning. It was very hushed around 5 o'clock in the morning. But in the early evening, it was—I mean, we had X-ray technicians coming in and photographers and photographers' assistants there, the kind of thing that you would expect under any circumstances, plus these other people, the Secret Service and the FBI, who wouldn't normally be present. But I had to concentrate on what I was doing. I mean, I really couldn't get too worried about these other people, as long as they didn't get in my way, which they didn't.

Q. In the JAMA article, if they quoted you correctly, you said that the scene in the autopsy room was somewhat like trying to do delicate neurosurgery in a three-ring circus.
A. At times it was. Not always, but at times when there was a lot of people around. You had to stage stuff. I mean, you couldn't be taking X-rays of the whole body and photographs simultaneously. You know, somebody had to decide who was going to do what when, and I had to do that. George Burkley sure as hell didn't, you know.

Q. Did anyone make suggestions to you other than Drs. Boswell and Finck, regarding any procedures—
A. No.

Q. —during the autopsy?
A. No.

Q. None whatsoever?
A. None. I don't know who it would have been or who would have the ...

Q. Was your commanding officer there?
A. I had a separate commanding officer, and he was there, it seems to me, part of the time. John Stover was his name. Everybody called him Smoky Stover. At that time, we had a separate command called the Naval Medical School. The Naval Hospital did not have any laboratories. The Naval Medical School had laboratories, and we provided the laboratory service to the hospital. So the guy that was really my commanding officer by rules and regulations was John Stover. But he had—we had a very cordial, pleasant relationship, but he never commanded me to do anything in my life, period. He was off in a different area. We conducted training courses for technologists and technicians and occupational thera—all kind of training courses, and that was his main role, to run the training aspects of the, quote-unquote, medical school. At one time, when my uncle was a Navy doctor, every new doctor coming into the Navy first was assigned to this Naval Medical School for, I think, six or nine months, and they taught some tropical medicine and they taught shipboard sanitation—you know, the kind of things that you'd need to know in the Navy. But if Smoky was there- and I think he was for part of the time—we had no dialogue at all. He would never have presumed to tell me anything, I don't believe. He was a general practitioner, is what he was. He was a field—he spent a lot of time in the Marine Corps. He was a field medical officer, and a very good one, very much respected.

Q. Who was Captain Stover's commanding officer?
A. Admiral Galloway.

Q. Was he present at the autopsy?
A. I don't think so. I don't think Cal came down there at all. I mean, I can't swear that he was or wasn't there. But if he was, he played no role in it whatever. Really, other than more than look in the room, I don't think Admiral Galloway was there at all.

Q. Was the Surgeon General of the Navy present—
A. No.

Q. —during the autopsy? That's Rear Admiral Kenny?
A. Kenny.

Q. And he was not present at all in the autopsy room?
A. I can't recall that he was. You know, he might have, again, looked in, stuck hi s head in the door or something. But I don't recall him being in the room. If he was, it was very fleetingly.

Q. Previously, you made reference to the President's Air Force aide. Was that reference to General McHugh?
A. I didn't know who they were, to tell you the truth. Still don't know who they were. And they didn't stay long. They came about the time the body was delivered, and they didn't—I mean, I didn't concentrate on what these people were doing. It really didn't interest me. I was empathetic with-their concern, but as far as otherwise, I didn't have anything to do with them, or they with me.

Q. Previously, you made reference to the commanding general for the military district of Washington.
A. Yes.

Q. Was that General Wehle?
A. You got me. You know, he told me, he said he was in charge, and I heard later that that was his role. I said to somebody else, "Who's that guy?" And that's what they said; he's the CO of the military district of Washington. I never saw him before or since, didn't know who he was then.

Q. Was he present at all during the autopsy?
A. No, he was not. or if he was, I didn't know he was there. Let's put it that way. I don't think he was at all.

Q. Would you have recognized Joint Chiefs of Staff as of 1963?
A. No.

Q. For example, Curtis LeMay, would you have recognized him?
A. Oh, I'd recognize him if he was there, but he was not.

Q. Did you ever hear any speculation about whether any members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were present at the autopsy?
A. No, never heard, but if they were, it was unknown to me totally. I doubt very seriously that they were. You asked me, would I recognize them? Sure, you know, from newspapers and television, one thing or another. I probably knew them all by sight. But they weren't there.

MR. GUNN: Let's take a short break, a couple minutes to get a drink of water.

[Recess.]

MR. GUNN: We're back on the record following the first recess.

BY MR. GUNN:

Q. Dr. Humes, when did you first see the body of President Kennedy?
A. I didn't look at my watch, if I even had a watch on, but I would guess it was 6:45 or 7 o'clock, something like that, approximately.

Q. Was the body in the casket when you first saw it?
A. Yes, it was in a casket.

Q. Could you describe the casket in just very general terms?
A. Yes. It was a wooden casket with long handles on both sides like you usually see for the use of pallbearers and so forth. one of the handles was broken. I forget which side it was on. But it was a handsome—the standard of those things. It was a good-looking casket.

Q. Where did you first see the casket?
A. As the people—I think they were sailors that were—it was a Navy ambulance, a Navy ambulance crew who had picked up the body at the airport, and they brought it into the morgue and promptly left.

Q. Do you remember what color the ambulance was?
A. No—oh, gray. I saw it on television later. And all our ambulances were gray in those days.

Q. Were you with the casket from the time it was unloaded from the gray ambulance until you opened the lid of the casket?
A. I didn't go out on the loading dock. I was there from the time it came through the door of the morgue until the President left the next morning.

Q. How many rooms or hallways are there between the loading dock and the morgue where you first saw—
A. Just a very brief hallway. I guess maybe 15, 20 feet, something like that. No rooms.

Q. And was the casket opened in the morgue?
A. Yes.

Q. Who else was in the room when the casket was opened?
A. Oh, I can't tell you that. Dr. Boswell and I removed the body from the casket, and I—I don't know who. There were some enlisted helpers, technicians from our department there, and I don't know who else was there. I can't tell you. I was too intent on what I was doing and too, to tell you the truth, a little bit shook by the whole IS procedure, initially at least. It was disturbing to have a deceased President there in your arms, you know. It's not an unemotional experience. But 1 was not worrying about who was around or whatever. It was the least of my worries.

Q. Who else in addition to Dr. Boswell, if anyone, helped you remove the body from the casket?
A. I don't recall that anyone did, but I don't gainsay the possibility that one of the enlisted men may have helped. But nobody else.

Q. How was the President's body wrapped?
A. It was wrapped in white sheets and the head was—head wound, massive head wound, was covered with gauze sponges and gauze dressing.

Q. Was there any plastic or rubber sheeting at all near the President's head?
A. No. Well, I'm not sure what finally tied down the gauze bandage over the skull wound. it might have been plastic or something, but, you know, I don't know. Adhesive tape or God knows what. It was easily removed. It wasn't tight at all.

Q. Was there any plastic sheeting or rubber sheeting of any kind that you saw in the casket—
A. No.

Q. —with the exception of possibly with the head?
A. No.

Q. From the time that you first saw the body of President Kennedy, were you in the same room with the body until it left Bethesda?
A. One hundred percent of the time.

Q. Other than the trip down the hallway, did the body ever leave the morgue room?
A. No.

Q. Were you involved with the process of unwrapping the body?
A. Yes. Yes.

Q. During that, did any skull fragments fall out from the wrapping?
A. Not that I recall.

Q. Did any bullets or bullet fragments fall out from the wrapping?
A. No.

Q. Could you describe how the President's head looked at the very first time that you saw it after it had been unwrapped?
A. Well, the most obvious thing was a large defect in the right parietal area. The measurements are in the autopsy protocol, and the hair was matted in that area and bloody and so forth. And there was a suggestion like a contusion in the right frontal area over the right eyebrow. The skin was a little bit discolored in that area, but it wasn't very remarkable. The most striking thing was this large defect. His face was, for all intents and purposes, normal. Normal as anybody can be in death, I guess. It was not significantly injured in any way.

Q. Were any portions of the brain extruding from any wounds in the head?
A. Well, the wound was so big that—I don't know what you mean by extruding. It wasn't really- -it was just a gaping hole and the brain was right there. It wasn't really being extruded, no.

Q. So you could see it, but it was not as if it were coming out—
A. No.

Q. —sort of just seeing inside a hole—
A. It was a big hole, yeah.

Q. Did you notice any surgical incisions anywhere on the body of President Kennedy when you first saw him?
A. Yeah, there was a gaping defect that was obviously a tracheotomy incision in the anterior neck, and there were a couple of small—you never heard much about this, either. A couple of small incised wounds on the chest, and I forget—I wrote down, wherever I wrote it down, that it looked to me like somebody was going to think of putting in a chest tube. But they never did, because all they did was go through the skin. They obviously—I imagine they decided the President was deceased before they were going to pursue it. But somebody started, apparently, to insert chest tubes, which would not be an unreasonable thing to do. They were, you know, maybe two centimeters long, something like that, and between the ribs, low in the anterior chest. I'm sure I described them in the protocol someplace.

Q. Were there any cutdowns on any of the—
A. I think there was in one of the ankles. There was a cutdown wound. I forget whether it was the right or left ankle now, to tell you the truth. If I had to guess, I'd say it was right, but I'm not sure.

Q. Did you see any other surgical incisions or incisions that you thought might have been surgically performed?
A. No.

Q. Anything in the head area at all?
A. No.

Q. Did you see any sutures?
A. No—well, there might have been of the cutdown on the ankle. There may have been some black silk sutures there. I'm not absolutely certain, but I think there might have been.

Q. Anywhere else that you remember a suture?
A. No.

Q. I'd like to show you the document that's been marked Exhibit 1, which is the first page of the diagram, and the second page is the drawing of the skull.
A. Yes.

Q. I'd like to ask you some questions about this. First, was this document, Exhibit 1, in your possession at any point during which you were writing the autopsy protocol?
A. Probably. Probably was. Over the weekend, yeah.

Q. I'd like to draw your attention to a few items on the first page of this document. Right next to the marking for brain, there's no entry of weight there. Do you see that on the document?
A. Yes, I see that it's blank, yeah.

Q. Why is there no weight for the brain there?
A. I don't know. I don't really—can't really recall why.

Q. Was the fresh brain weighed?
A. I don't recall. I don't recall. It's as simple as that.

Q. Would it be standard practice for a gunshot wound in the head to have the brain weighed?
A. Yeah, we weigh it with gunshot wound or no. Normally we weigh the brain when we remove it. I can't recall why—I don't know, one, whether it was weighed or not, or, two, why it doesn't show here. I have no explanation for that.

Q. The same would be true also for the thymus. Do you see that?
A. Yes, well, the thymus in an adult, you can't find—99 percent of the time it's not there. It involutes after the age of about 12, and so this—for 99 percent of adult autopsies, you'd never find the thymus.

Q. Okay. For the thyroid over on the right column.
A. Yeah.

Q. There's no weight there. Do you know—
A. It probably wasn't removed. I don't know. Let me go back for one minute. I was told find out what killed the man. My focus was on his wounds. I didn't approach this like it was a medical death due to some disease or whatever. I was focusing primarily and almost exclusively on the wounds. So I don't know. I don't know if I weighed the thyroid or not.

Q. Did you consider the autopsy to be a medical-legal autopsy?
A. Yes. Oh, sure.

Q. And there was a gunshot wound to the neck, wasn't there?
A. Well, you'd better clarify that. There was a big gaping tracheotomy wound in the anterior neck. I learned later that there had been a gunshot wound in that location, but I didn't know it. That was 99 percent of my problem. There was a bullet wound in the back above the scapula, like I mentioned earlier, and there was a wound of entrance in the back of the skull and a wound of exit in the skull. Those were the wounds.

Q. Could you look at the diagram on the right side?
A. Yeah.

Q. Please, do you see in the head there is a circle with an arrow pointing up and to the left?
A. Yes.

Q. Do you know what the arrow pointing up and to the left signifies?
A. I have no idea.

Q. On the face sheet right next to the head, it appears as if the words "ragged slanting" are there. Do you see those words?
A. Yeah.

Q. Does that look correct to you, those words?
A. No, I don't think it was very ragged at all. It was oval, oblong, and I don't recall particularly ragged. Maybe the edges were a little bit serrated, but I don't think I would have used the term “ragged.”

Q. Do you know what slanting means in that context?
A. Well, I guess because it was oblong, it might have been interpreted as slanting; whereas, if it had entered at 90 degrees to the surface, it wouldn't have been quite as slanting. Do you know what I mean?

Q. Yes.
A. It would indicate to me that the wound- the missile did not hit at a 90-degree angle with the surface.

Q. So it would be an oblong wound?
A. Exactly.

Q. That's the sense of what you—
A. Right. That's how I would interpret slanting. I think these are J's comments. I didn't—I don't think I've written anything on this piece of paper.

Q. Okay. Do you see on the diagram—it's actually true both for the left and the right diagram—that there are two lines dividing what roughly is at the neck?
A. Yeah. I assume that those are standard lines—they're on the form before anything else is put on it, yes.

Q. And what do those two lines signify?
A. I don't know. I don't know who dreamed this up, to tell you the truth. They don't signify anything to me. In case you don't know where the head and the torso join, I guess it would help to show you. But, really, it's not very helpful. Those lines are not helpful.

Q. Okay. Down in the bottom left-hand corner, do you see the handwriting?
A. Yeah. Verified, George Burkley. That was interesting that he verified it. I don't know why he did that, who asked him to, or whether he volunteered and he did. I have no idea.

Q. You don't recollect having seen Dr. Burkley sign this—
A. No I do not.

Q. —at all?
A. I do not. I guess there's the cutdown, now that you tell me about it. It was, I guess, drawn. It was on the left.

Q. Could you turn to the second page, please?
A. Sure.

Q. I'd like you to help see if you can explain to me what some of these things mean, and I understand that you did not do this drawing yourself. First, there is a line right in the middle of the skull that says “10” with an arrow going in either direction. Do you have any idea what that means?
A. I would think it's the width of the defect that's portrayed—as you look at it, it's on your left—the right side of the skull. I know, but this is the same 10 as in there, and he puts arrows back and forth that it was 10 centimeters wide.

Q. Okay. And do you see right below that—
A. Now, let me tell you. That couldn't be too precise because it was not a nice, clean whatever. It might have been 10 centimeters at on point and 12 at another, or God knows what, you know.

Q. Okay.
A. I was relying, through all of this, on my photographs and my X-rays. I wasn't really worried about these notes that J was making. It didn't—I didn't tell him not to make them, and I didn't tell him to make them. I didn't tell him anything. I'm not displeased that he made them. That's fine. But I was relying upon the photographs and the X- rays to tell the story. I wish I had had a video camera. Now, of course, I wish a lot of things. But—

Q. Were you anticipating at the time you were performing the autopsy that you would have the photographs and X-rays available for your inspection at the time you were writing the autopsy report?
A. No, I never expected to have them when I was writing the autopsy—he wanted the autopsy report in, what, 36 to 48 hours. No, I didn't anticipate I'd have them at that time.

Q. When did he—he being Dr. Burkley, I assume—when you said he wanted them in 36 to 48 hours?
A. Autopsy report.

Q. Yes.
A. Before he left the morgue. Before he left the morgue that night, he said he would like to have the report, if we could, by 6:00 p.m. on Sunday night.

Q. And that was Dr. Burkley?
A. That was Dr. Burkley.

Q. Right below the middle of the skull, there is the number 17 with, again, arrows pointing, at least on the paper, up and down. Do you see that?
A. Yeah. I would presume that this is the antero-posterior maximum measurement of this defect. Okay?

Q. Okay.
A. So it was 17 centimeters, fore and aft, if you will, and 10 wide. I got some slightly different measurement, I think, in my written report, but ball park, you know.

Q. Right below the 17 and the arrow, there's the word, it looks as if it's "missing." Do you see that?
A. That much bone is missing. That was a big defect, you see.

Q. Now, when this 10 by 17 centimeters of IS bone is missing, does that mean that it was present nowhere in the autopsy room during the autopsy?
A. Not until later when part of it was brought to me, which I described, I believe, in the written report.

Q. So would it—
A. The pieces that were brought to me, it was either two or three, I think three: one pretty sizable one and two smaller ones. Again, I'm talking off the top of my head. When they were repositioned to where they should have been, there was still a defect. We didn't have sufficient bone to totally close the defect.

Q. So then from the first time that you saw the President's head without the pieces of skull fragment that came in later, the approximate measurements of the missing scalp would be roughly 10 centimeters to 17 centimeters?
A. By 17, right.

Q. In the autopsy protocol, you referred to the amount as being 10 centimeters by 13 centimeters, and let me show you the protocol.
A. I'm not going to debate it. I mean, it would depend on how you were measuring it, because it wasn't a—like this room is 25 by 35. It's got walls and extreme—this was irregular, so you could make any kind of measurement you want, smaller than that—you couldn't make it any bigger than we made it, but you could make it smaller if you measured it more anteriorally or more posteriorally, whatever.

Q. Sure.

[Pause.]

BY MR. GUNN:

Q. Let me first show you page 3 of the autopsy protocol.
A. Right.

Q. The first paragraph. In that paragraph it refers to 13 centimeters as being the greatest diameter. The question for you would be whether any pieces of the skull fragments were put back into place in order to reach the measurement of 13 centimeters.
A. I can't—I have no explanation for that. I don't know whether J's note is right or my measurement is right. I don't know.

Q. In this—
A. Certainly I'm talking about—when I say the wounds, I'm talking about the wounds before anything was done to them, in other words, primarily before anything happened.

Q. When you say before anything was done to them, that means before any skull pieces were—
A. Yeah, before anything was put back—

Q. —put back in or taken out?
A. Exactly.

Q. So it would be your understanding that the centimeters in the numbered paragraph I would refer to the skull as first seen after being removed from the casket?
A. That's correct.

Q. Could you help me with some of the other descriptions on the second page of Exhibit I? And, again, I understand that these were not written by you. Can you read the writing over on the right side of the document, the first word of which appears to be "Falx"?
A. "Falx"—I don't know whether that's "bone" or what. Looks like “parasagittal.” I can't— don't know what that is.

Q. Let me try what I read it and tell me whether that makes sense to you or whether something else—"Falx bone from sagittal sinus from the coronal suture back."
A. It could be. You'd better get J to tell you what this is.

Q. "Falx loose from sagittal sinus," is that —
A. That's more likely. Yeah, the falx cerebri, you know, it's one of the membranes, and it was detached as part of the wound. I think that makes more sense, yes.

Q. So "falx loose," does that describe what you saw during the autopsy?
A. Yeah, I suppose so. I'm not going to debate it now. It's kind of incidental to the whole affair, as far as I'm concerned, but 

Q. So would it be fair to say, then, that the falx was loose from the coronal suture back—
A. Right.

Q. Okay.
A. Coronal suture is the one that goes across the middle, the top of the head.

Q. On the diagram, over on the left side of the skull, there is 10 with not an arrow but a dash on either side of that. Do you have any recollection of what that would mean?
A. I think it's the same 10 that's present with the arrows on either side of it, but your guess is as good as mine, to tell you the truth.

Q. Up at the top of the skull, there is a 3 cm, I assume 3 centimeters. Do you see that?
A. Yes.

Q. Do you have any knowledge about what that would mean?
A. I certainly don't.