2
1
1
And this does not include whatever lead fragments might be in JFK's body from the passage of that "magic bullet."
That is if CE 399 ever passed through President Kennedy.
The magic performed by this bullet inside of JFK's body is every bit as amazing as that which it is supposed to have performed after it left.
CE 399 supposedly entered the President's body at a 45-60 degree downward angle (affidavit of retired FBI agent Francis X. O'Neill to House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 4), leaving "a 7 x 4 millimeter oval wound." This wound was "Situated on the upper right posterior thorax just above the upper border of the scapula"This wound is measured to be 14 cm. from the tip of the right acromion process and 14 cm. below the tip of the right mastoid process." (Warren Report: Appendix IX; Autopsy Report and Supplemental Report; Clinical Record, Autopsy Protocol.)
We are then told that this "magic bullet" tumbled through JFK's upper torso and lower neck, missing blood vessels, bone and muscle; leaving the other organs in that area of the body untouched, except:
"the apex (supra-clavicular portion) of the right pleural cavity. In this region there is contusion of the parietal pleura and of the extreme apical portion of the right upper lobe of the lung. In both instances the diameter of contusion and ecchymosis at the point of maximal involvement measures 5 cm. Both the visceral and parietal pleura are intact overlying these areas of trauma." (Warren Report: Appendix IX; Autopsy Report and Supplemental Report; Clinical Record, Autopsy Protocol.)
In other words, there is a bruise about two inches across in the area of the upper right lung.
After this fantastic journey through JFK's body, CE 399 then exited the President's body, leaving a wound which could be mistaken by the trauma team at Parkland Memorial Hospital--who were experienced with gunshot wounds--to mistake it for an entrance wound when they performed a tracheotomy. Then CE 399 continued on its merry way, making up for the lack of damage it did to JFK internally, with John Connally's horrific wounds.
A miraculous bullet with a sense of balancing the books.
In order to believe the "magic bullet theory," we have to believe that it not only exercised non-bullet like behavior in striking Governor Connally, but that it exhibited non-bullet like behavior as it tumbled through President Kennedy. This amazing projectile tumbled through more than 300 degrees of arc, missing veins, arteries, vital organs, muscles, and bones, and then exited through JFK's throat, causing only a two inch bruise on the upper right lung.
"The missile path through the fascia and musculature cannot be easily proved." (Warren Report: Appendix IX; Autopsy Report and Supplemental Report; Clinical Record, Autopsy Protocol.)
Wrong adverb: it should be "cannot possibly be proved."
The autopsy at Bethesda never undertook a dissection of JFK's throat or back wounds to see if there was a bullet track from one to the other, which is standard procedure for an autopsy involving a suspected through and through bullet wound. It was simply assumed that the bullet hole in the back exited through the wound in the President's throat. In fact, the only examinations of the back wound were when Dr. Humes stuck his gloved pinkie finger in it, and later Dr. Finck, when he initially examined the wound with a metal probe. Both of these examinations indicated that the back wound was quite shallow, penetrating no more than three or four inches.
The pathologists were able to connect the back and throat wounds with a metal probe, only after the lungs had been removed.
The failure to dissect JFK's back and throat wounds to prove that they were made by the same projectile, turns the Warren Commission findings concerning the "magic bullet," as CE 399 has been called, into nothing but wildest speculation, not what a forensic pathologist or a court of law would call "best evidence."
Any defense attorney worth his salt would object to testimony that the back wound was the entrance wound, while the throat wound was the exit wound of the same bullet, as incompetent. The evidence presented by the trauma team at Parkland, and the failure of the pathologists at Bethesda to dissect the wound tracks, would provide absolutely no legal basis, and only wildest speculation, for such a supposition.
