From: John McAdams <john.mcadams@marquette.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.assassination.jfk
Subject: Bogus Claim:  Livingston Informed Humes About Small Wound in Neck
Date: Fri, 27 May 2016 21:53:06 -0500

It's a standard claim of conspiracy books:  that Captain Humes, at the
time of the autopsy, knew about a small wound in Kennedy's neck (which
conspiracists insist must have been an entrance wound) because Dr.
Robert Livingston called him on the afternoon of the assassination and
told him of it.

This would mean that Humes lied when he claimed that, during the
Bethesda autopsy, he did not know of the small neck wound that had
been obscured by a tracheotomy performed in the Parkland ER.

Humes said he learned of the small wound on the morning after the
autopsy (November 23) when he phoned Dr. Perry in Dallas.

There is one huge problem with this conspiracy claim.

First, it may be true that Livingston called Humes and told him
about reports of a small wound.  From a letter Livingston wrote to
David Lifton:

<Quote on>

I told him [Humes] that the reason for my making such an importuning
call was to stress that the Parkland Hospital physicians' examination
of President Kennedy revealed what they reported to be a small wound
in the neck. . . . I was confident that the small wound of that sort
had to be a wound of entrance. . . . 

ASSASSINATION SCIENCE, p. 170

<End Quote>

Unfortunately, conspiracy accounts usually leave out (or ignore) the
next paragraph of the letter.

<Quote on>

I stressed to Dr. Humes how important it was that the autopsy
pathologists carefully examine the President's neck to characterize
that particular wound and to distinguish it from the neighboring
tracheotomy wound.

IBID.

<End quote>

That's right.  Livingston mentioned *two* neck wounds, one the
tracheotomy wound (which would have been obvious to Humes at the
autopsy) and *another* small wound, which simply did not exist at the
time of the autopsy, since the tracheotomy had obscured it.

So even *if* Humes was paying much attention to Livingston (and his
life was doubtless absurdly hectic at that time), he would have been
expecting *two* neck wounds.

And if he was at all sophisticated about early news reports, he would
not have put much stock in what Livingston told him.  While he would
have viewed Livingston as sober and honest, Livingston was merely
reporting what the media was saying. 

Media errors were absurdly common in reporting the assassination:

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2013/05/jfk-assassination-media-errors.html

So if Humes ever took Livingston seriously, he would have ceased to do
so when he saw Kennedy's body, with only one wound (the gash of a
tracheotomy) in the neck.

.John
-----------------------
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm