From john.mcadams@marquette.edu Fri Dec 19 09:40:31 2003 Newsgroups: alt.assassination.jfk Subject: Aguilar's "Back of the Head" Witnesses - 5 (Revised) From: john.mcadams@marquette.edu (John McAdams) Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 15:40:31 GMT Gary Aguilar claims to have examined the testimony of 46 witnesses to Kennedy's head wound, at both Parkland and Bethesda, and found that 44 of the 46 described the head wound as contradicting the photos and x-rays of the autopsy as they exist in the National Archives. So does Gary have 44 "back of the head" witnesses? And are his 46 witnesses selected so as to avoid witnesses who placed the wound at the top of the head, or the side of the head? Let's take one example: The following quotes from Aguilar are taken from: http://www.assassinationweb.com/ag6.htm ---------------------------- 11) ROBERT GROSSMAN, MD had just joined the staff of Parkland at the time of the assassination as an Instructor in Neurosurgery. He never testified to the Warren Commission or the HSCA. Authors Groden and Livingston, however, claim, "He (Grossman) said that he saw two large holes in the head, as he told the (Boston) Globe, and he described a large hole squarely in the occiput, far too large for a bullet entry wound...". (Emphasis added) (HT-I Groden and Livingston, p. 51)-& also "Duffy JP, Ricci VL, "The Assassination of John F. Kennedy--A Complete Book of Facts, p. 207-208.) ------------------------------ Aguilar, quite unwisely, relies on Groden and Livingstone to report what Grossman told THE BOSTON GLOBE. When we actually *look* at the article in the GLOBE (June 21, 1981), a rather different pictures emerges. The article, authored by Ben Bradee, describes Grossman as being "supportive of the official [Dox] tracing." The article goes on to explain that Grossman: ---------------------------------------------- . . . was working next to the senior neurosurgeon present, Dr. Kemp Clark, at Kennedy's head. Grossman told The Globe that he observed two separate wounds: a large defect in the parietal area above the right ear, and a second wound, about one-and-a-quarter inches in diameter, located squarely in the occiput. Grossman, the only physician to report seeing to such distinct wounds, was never called to testify before the Warren Commission or the House Assassinations Committee. -------------------------------------------- So while Groden and Livingstone admit that Grossman remembered seeing two wounds, the "large defect in the parietal area above the right ear" is tossed down the Memory Hole. The wound that Grossman remembered in the occiput has become, in Groden and Livingstone's retelling, the "large" wound. By the way, Grossman offers an important observation about descriptions of the wound as "occipital." --------------------------------------------- But speaking of the occipital question, Grossman, a neurosurgeon, suggested that part of the confusion surrounding the location of the head wound could be the result of the imprecision with which the term "occipital" is used. While the occiput refers specifically to a bone in the lower back of section of the head, Grossman said many doctors loosely use the term to refer to "the back fifth of the head . . . There is the ambiguity about what constitutes the occipital and parietal area . . . It's very imprecise." -------------------------------------------- Grossman's actual testimony to the BOSTON GLOBE gives an impression radically different from the highly selective account of that testimony give by Groden and Livingstone. Aguilar should have been more careful and gotten the unfiltered and undistorted testimony of Grossman. More about Grossman's testimony can be found by examining the original interview tapes. When the BOSTON GLOBE decided to run a feature article on the issue of JFK's head wound in 1981, journalist Ben Bradlee, Jr. (and Nils Bruzelius, apparently his research assistant) interviewed several of the Parkland Hospital witnesses. Tapes from these interviews can be found at the JFK Library in Boston (accession number MR-81-60). Grossman was interviewed on 3/5/81. He and Kemp Clark went into the ER together. "There were quite a few people there." He estimated seven or eight doctors were already there. The tracheotomy had already been done when they entered the ER, but the head had not been examined. According to Grossman: A: "I don't think, at that moment, anybody had an idea that there was a head wound, at that point, or if they did I don't think they understood the magnitude of the head wound. Well, Dr. Clark who at the point was the most senior person there . . . then picked his head up and we looked at the head." He couldn't remember how Dr. Clark picked up the head. A: "Then it was clear to me that the right parietal bone had been lifted up by a bullet which had exited. That's the only thing that will do that, that the right parietal bone was elevated." When asked to draw a picture of the wound, Grossman said: A: "I can't be terribly specific about it, but I recall that there was a plate of bone lifted up somewhere about this area, that it was hinged up . . . ." Q: "How would you characterize that region of the head? Is it occipital-parietal?" [some discussion of bone locations] A: "Now the problem comes that a lot of people call everything back here the occipital area. OK? This is strictly speaking the occipital bone [apparently indicating], but frankly this little bump here is called the parietal boss, also sometimes called Kean's Point [?], and what happens is that people tend to call anything back here the occipital region." Q: "Roughly the back forth or fifth of the head . . . ?" A: "Yea, the back fifth of the head . . . ." Grossman then goes on to describe an entrance wound in addition to the exit wound he has already described. A: "The entrance wound was in occipital bone." Q: "Did you see that yourself?" A: "Yea, I saw that myself . . . I'm pretty certain of that . . . I'm pretty certain there was an entrance wound here because I'm pretty sure I saw cerebellum." The interviewers then point out that he has drawn the "entrance wound" quite large, so how did he know the "exit wound" was in fact an exit? He explained: ". . . something had come from the inside and pushed it out." Asked if perhaps there was one rather large wound, he insists that in fact there are two separate wounds. He is then shown the Dox tracing. Q: "How does that photograph square with your recollection of what you saw?" Grossman at this point discusses a bone flap visible in the drawing, and then says the drawing is consistent with what he saw. The interviewers press him on how it could be consistent if no large wound is seen in occipital bone, and he says "I could have been wrong." He says Kemp Clark may have a better idea. He explains that he didn't spend much time looking at it, since it was clearly not a "survivable situation." He is shown the McClelland drawing and asked how it compares to what he saw. A: "I think this is too low . . it's in the wrong place." He is then shown the Lattimer drawing. He responds: A: "I think that's pretty reasonable compared to what I saw there." The interviewers then allow Grossman to draw the rear "entrance wound" again, and he draws it higher. He also apparently drew it much smaller, since the original "entrance wound" was described as "nearly as large" at the parietal exit wound, but the "entrance wound" as described in the BOSTON GLOBE article was much smaller. Interestingly, his drawing of the rear entrance wound higher and smaller seemed to persist to the ARRB. His drawing for them is on the Lancer web site. http://www.jfklancer.com/pub/md/MD185-3.JPG http://www.jfklancer.com/pub/md/MD185-2.JPG COMMENTARY To call Grossman a "back of the head" witness is absurd. He did clearly describe a fairly large wound in the back of the head. But he also described a larger wound in parietal bone above the ear. If (as conspiracists believe) there was really only one large defect in Kennedy's head, it's entirely arbitrary to accept the convenient occipital wound, and ignore the larger parietal wound. If he had to be mistaken about a wound, it could just as easily be the occipital wound. And it was the parietal wound that he remembers as a wound of exit. His warning that the terms "occipital" is really quite imprecise is one that needs to be taken seriously. Grossman is a witness who changed his testimony under coaching -- although the interviewers apparently had no nefarious motive. After viewing the Dox drawing, he appears to have made the wound smaller and higher up -- and therefore more like what the Dox drawing shows. He also seemed to back off his earlier "cerebellum" statement. He's certainly not the first medical witness to be "coached" or manipulated, and also not the last. One final point about Grossman that readers will want to keep in mind: David Lifton makes the case that Grossman may never have been in the ER -- or at least may never have been as close to Kennedy and had as clear a view of the wound as he claims. See: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/grossman.htm .John The Kennedy Assassination Home Page http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm