Given a choice between the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Md., and the Army’s Walter Reed Hospital, Mrs. Kennedy chose the hospital in Bethesda for the autopsy because the President had served in the Navy.[C2-272] Mrs. Kennedy and the Attorney General, with three Secret Service agents, accompanied President Kennedy’s body on the 45-minute automobile trip from Andrews AFB to the Hospital.[C2-273] On the 17th floor of the Hospital, Mrs. Kennedy and the Attorney General joined other members of the Kennedy family to await the conclusion of the autopsy.[C2-274] Mrs. Kennedy was guarded by Secret Service agents in quarters assigned to her in the naval hospital.[C2-275] The Secret Service established a communication system with the White House and screened all telephone calls and visitors.[C2-276] The hospital received the President’s body for autopsy at approximately 7:35 p.m.[C2-277] X-rays and photographs were taken preliminarily and the pathological examination began at about 8 p.m.[C2-278] The autopsy report noted that President Kennedy was 46 years of age, 72½ inches tall, weighed 170 pounds, had blue eyes and reddish-brown hair. The body was muscular and well developed with no gross skeletal abnormalities except for those caused by the gunshot wounds. Under “Pathological Diagnosis” the cause of death was set forth as “Gunshot wound, head.”[C2-279] (See app. IX.) The autopsy examination revealed two wounds in the President’s head. One wound, approximately one-fourth of an inch by five-eighths of an inch (6 by 15 millimeters), was located about an inch (2.5 centimeters) to the right and slightly above the large bony protrusion (external occipital protuberance) which juts out at the center of the lower part of the back of the skull. The second head wound measured approximately 5 inches (13 centimeters) in its greatest diameter, but it was difficult to measure accurately because multiple crisscross fractures radiated from the large defect.[C2-280] During the autopsy examination, Federal agents brought the surgeons three pieces of bone recovered from Elm Street and the Presidential automobile. When put together, these fragments accounted for approximately three-quarters of the missing portion of the skull.[C2-281] The surgeons observed, through X-ray analysis, 30 or 40 tiny dustlike fragments of metal running in a line from the wound in the rear of the President’s head toward the front part of the skull, with a sizable metal fragment lying just above the right eye.[C2-282] From this head wound two small irregularly shaped fragments of metal were recovered and turned over to the FBI.[C2-283]