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
Assume, if you will, that President Kennedy was shot on the upper right
posterior thorax just above the upper border of the scapula at a point
14 cm. from the tip of the right acromion process and 14 cm. below a
tip of the right mastoid process, assume further that that wound of
entry was caused by a 6.5-mm. missile shot out of a rifle having a
muzzle velocity of approximately 2,000 feet per second, being located
160 to 250 feet away from President Kennedy, that the bullet entered on
the point that I described on the President's back, passed between two
strap muscles on the posterior aspect of the President's body and moved
through the fascial channel without violating the pleura cavity, and
exited in the midline lower third anterior portion of the President's
neck, would the hole which Dr. Perry described to you on the front side
of the President's neck be consistent with the hole which such a bullet
might make in such a trajectory through the President's body?
Dr. McCLELLAND. Yes; I think so.
Mr. SPECTER. And what would your reasoning be for thinking that that
would be a possible hole of exit on those factors as I have outlined
them to you?
Dr. McCLELLAND. Well, I think my reasoning would be basically that the
missile was traveling mainly through soft tissue, rather than exploding
from a bony chamber and that by the time it reached the neck that it
had already lost, because of the distance from which it was fired, even
though the muzzle velocity was as you stated--would have already lost
a good deal of its initial velocity and kinetic strength and therefore
would have perhaps made, particularly, if it were a fragment of the
bullet as bullets do sometimes fragment, could have made a small hole
like this in exiting. It certainly could have done that.
Mr. SPECTER. What would have happened then to the other portion of the
bullet if it had fragmented?
Dr. McCLELLAND. It might have been left along, or portions of it along
the missile track--sometimes will be left scattered up and down this.
Other fragments will maybe scatter in the wound and sometimes there
will be multiple fragments and sometimes maybe only a small fragment
out of the main bullet, sometimes a bullet will split in half--this is
extremely difficult for me to say just what would happen in a case like
that.
Mr. SPECTER. Well, assuming this situation--that the bullet did not
fragment, because the autopsy report shows no fragmentation, that is,
it cannot show the absence of fragmentation, but we do know that there
were no bullets left in the body at any point, so that no fragment is
left in.
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