Warren Commission (06 of 26): Hearings Vol. VI (of 15)United States. Warren Commission
History
Warren Commission (06 of 26): Hearings Vol. VI (of 15)
United States. Warren Commission
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 -- Assassination; Oswald, Lee Harvey
Dr. GREGORY. No; there were none, really. It was my assumption that the
missile had expended much of its remaining energy in passing through
the radius bone, which it did before it could emerge through the soft
tissues.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you observe any foreign objects identifiable as bits
of fragments or portions of a bullet missile?
Dr. GREGORY. A preliminary X-ray had indicated that there were metallic
fragments or at least metallic fragments which cast metallic shadows
in the soft tissues around the wounded forearm. Two or three of these
were identified and were recovered and were observed to be metallic
in consistency. These were turned over to appropriate authorities for
further disposition.
Mr. SPECTER. Approximately how large were those fragments, Dr. Gregory?
Dr. GREGORY. I would judge that they were first--flat, rather thin, and
that their greatest dimension would probably not exceed one-eighth of
an inch. They were very small.
Mr. SPECTER. Would you have sufficient experience with gunshot wounds
to comment as to whether a 6.5-mm. bullet could have passed through the
Governor's wrist in the way you have described, leaving the fragments
which you have described and still have virtually all the bullet
missile intact, or having 158 grains of a bullet at that time?
Dr. GREGORY. Well, I am not an expert on ballistics, but one cannot
escape certain ballistic implications in this business.
I would say, first of all, that how much of the missile remains intact
as a mass depends to some extent on how hard the metal is. Obviously,
if it is very soft, as lead, it may lose more fragments and therefore
more weight and volume than it might if it is made of a harder material
or is jacketed in some way.
Now, the energy in the missile is a product, not so much of its mass as
it is of its velocity, for by doubling the velocity, you can increase
the kinetic energy in the force it transmits, fourfold, since the
formula for determining energy in these cases is a matter of mass times
velocity squared, rather than just linear functional velocity. So, some
knowledge of how much of the cartridge force might have been behind the
missile would be useful here too.
Mr. SPECTER. For the purpose of this consideration, I am interested
to know the the metal which you found in the wrist was of sufficient
size so that the bullet which passed through the wrist could not have
emerged virtually completely intact or with 158 grains intact, or
whether the portions of the metallic fragments were so small that that
would be consistent with having virtually the entire 6.5-mm. bullet
emerge.
Dr. GREGORY. Well, considering the small volume of metal as seen by
X-ray, and the very small dimensions of the metal which was recovered,
I think several such fragments could have been flaked off of a total
missile mass without reducing its volume greatly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account