chapter V
, p. 235.)
The rifle is 40.2 inches long and weighs 8 pounds.[C3-132] The minimum length broken down is 34.8 inches, the length of the wooden stock.[C3-133] (See Commission Exhibit No. 1304, p. 132.) Attached to the weapon is an inexpensive four-power telescopic sight, stamped “Optics Ordnance Inc./Hollywood California,” and “Made in Japan.”[C3-134] The weapon also bears a sling consisting of two leather straps. The sling is not a standard rifle sling but appears to be a musical instrument strap or a sling from a carrying case or camera bag.[C3-135]
[Illustration: COMMISSION EXHIBIT NO. 1303]
[Illustration: COMMISSION EXHIBITS NOS. 541(2) AND 541(3)
Photograph of markings on C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.]
Expert Testimony
Four experts in the field of firearms identification analyzed the nearly whole bullet, the two largest fragments and the three cartridge cases to determine whether they had been fired from the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found on the sixth floor of the Depository. Two of these experts testified before the Commission. One was Robert A. Frazier, a special agent of the FBI assigned to the FBI Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Frazier has worked generally in the field of firearms identification for 23 years, examining firearms of various types for the purpose of identifying the caliber and other characteristics of the weapons and making comparisons of bullets and cartridge cases for the purpose of determining whether or not they were fired in a particular weapon.[C3-136] He estimated that he has made “in the neighborhood of 50,000 to 60,000” firearms comparisons and has testified in court on about 400 occasions.[C3-137] The second witness who testified on this subject was Joseph D. Nicol, superintendent of the bureau of criminal identification and investigation for the State of Illinois. Nicol also has had long and substantial experience since 1941 in firearms identification, and estimated that he has made thousands of bullet and cartridge case examinations.[C3-138]
In examining the bullet fragments and cartridge cases, these experts applied the general principles accepted in the field of firearms identification, which are discussed in more detail in appendix X at pages 547-553. In brief, a determination that a particular bullet or cartridge case has been fired in a particular weapon is based upon a comparison of the bullet or case under examination with one or more bullets or cases known to have been fired in that weapon. When a bullet is fired in any given weapon, it is engraved with the characteristics of the weapon. In addition to the rifling characteristics of the barrel which are common to all weapons of a given make and model, every weapon bears distinctive microscopic markings on its barrel, firing pin and bolt face.[C3-139] These markings arise initially during manufacture, since the action of the manufacturing tools differs microscopically from weapon to weapon and since, in addition, the tools change microscopically while being used. As a weapon is used further distinctive markings are introduced. Under microscopic examination a qualified expert may be able to determine whether the markings on a bullet known to have been fired in a particular weapon and the markings on a suspect bullet are the same and, therefore, whether both bullets were fired in the same weapon to the exclusion of all other weapons. Similarly, firearms identification experts are able to compare the markings left upon the base of cartridge cases and thereby determine whether both cartridges were fired by the same weapon to the exclusion of all other weapons. According to Frazier, such an identification “is made on the presence of sufficient individual microscopic characteristics so that a very definite pattern is formed and visualized on the two surfaces.”[C3-140] Under some circumstances, as where the bullet or cartridge case is seriously mutilated, there are not sufficient individual characteristics to enable the expert to make a firm identification.[C3-141]
After making independent examinations, both Frazier and Nicol positively identified the nearly whole bullet from the stretcher and the two larger bullet fragments found in the Presidential limousine as having been fired in the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found in the Depository to the exclusion of all other weapons.[C3-142] Each of the two bullet fragments had sufficient unmutilated area to provide the basis for an identification.[C3-143] However, it was not possible to determine whether the two bullet fragments were from the same bullet or from two different bullets.[C3-144] With regard to the other bullet fragments discovered in the limousine and in the course of treating President Kennedy and Governor Connally, however, expert examination could demonstrate only that the fragments were “similar in metallic composition” to each other, to the two larger fragments and to the nearly whole bullet.[C3-145] After examination of the three cartridge cases found on the sixth floor of the Depository, Frazier and Nicol concluded that they had been fired in the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle to the exclusion of all other weapons.[C3-146] Two other experts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who made independent examinations of the nearly whole bullet, bullet fragments and cartridge cases, reached the identical conclusions.[C3-147]
THE BULLET WOUNDS
In considering the question of the source of the shots fired at President Kennedy and Governor Connally, the Commission has also evaluated the expert medical testimony of the doctors who observed the wounds during the emergency treatment at Parkland Hospital and during the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital. It paid particular attention to any wound characteristics which would be of assistance in identifying a wound as the entrance or exit point of a missile. Additional information regarding the source and nature of the injuries was obtained by expert examination of the clothes worn by the two men,
## particularly those worn by President Kennedy, and from the results of
special wound ballistics tests conducted at the Commission’s request, using the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle with ammunition of the same type as that used and found on November 22, 1963.
The President’s Head Wounds
The detailed autopsy of President Kennedy performed on the night of November 22 at the Bethesda Naval Hospital led the three examining pathologists to conclude that the smaller hole in the rear of the President’s skull was the point of entry and that the large opening on the right side of his head was the wound of exit.[C3-148] The smaller hole on the back of the President’s head measured one-fourth of an inch by five-eighths of an inch (6 by 15 millimeters).[C3-149] The dimensions of that wound were consistent with having been caused by a 6.5-millimeter bullet fired from behind and above which struck at a tangent or an angle causing a 15-millimeter cut. The cut reflected a larger dimension of entry than the bullet’s diameter of 6.5 millimeters, since the missile, in effect, sliced along the skull for a fractional distance until it entered.[C3-150] The dimension of 6 millimeters, somewhat smaller than the diameter of a 6.5-millimeter bullet, was caused by the elastic recoil of the skull which shrinks the size of an opening after a missile passes through it.[C3-151]
Lt. Col. Pierre A. Finck, Chief of the Wound Ballistics Pathology Branch of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, who has had extensive experience with bullet wounds, illustrated the characteristics which led to his conclusions about the head wound by a chart prepared by him. This chart, based on Colonel Finck’s studies of more than 400 cases, depicted the effect of a perforating missile wound on the human skull.[C3-152] When a bullet enters the skull (cranial vault) at one point and exits at another, it causes a beveling or cratering effect where the diameter of the hole is smaller on the impact side than on the exit side. Based on his observations of that beveling effect on the President’s skull, Colonel Finck testified: “President Kennedy was, in my opinion, shot from the rear. The bullet entered in the back of the head and went out on the right side of his skull * * * he was shot from above and behind.”[C3-153]
Comdr. James J. Humes, senior pathologist and director of laboratories at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, who acted as chief autopsy surgeon, concurred in Colonel Finck’s analysis. He compared the beveling or coning effect to that caused by a BB shot which strikes a pane of glass, causing a round or oval defect on the side of the glass where the missile strikes and a belled-out or coned-out surface on the opposite side of the glass.[C3-154] Referring to the bullet hole on the back of President Kennedy’s head, Commander Humes testified: “The wound on the inner table, however, was larger and had what in the field of wound ballistics is described as a shelving or coning effect.”[C3-155] After studying the other hole in the President’s skull, Commander Humes stated: “* * * we concluded that the large defect to the upper right side of the skull, in fact, would represent a wound of exit.”[C3-156] Those characteristics led Commander Humes and Comdr. J. Thornton Boswell, chief of pathology at Bethesda Naval Hospital, who assisted in the autopsy, to conclude that the bullet penetrated the rear of the President’s head and exited through a large wound on the right side of his head.[C3-157]
Ballistics experiments (discussed more fully in app. X, pp. 585-586) showed that the rifle and bullets identified above were capable of producing the President’s head wound. The Wound Ballistics Branch of the U.S. Army laboratories at Edgewood Arsenal, Md., conducted an extensive series of experiments to test the effect of Western Cartridge Co. 6.5-millimeter bullets, the type found on Governor Connally’s stretcher and in the Presidential limousine, fired from the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found in the Depository. The Edgewood Arsenal tests were performed under the immediate supervision of Alfred G. Olivier, a doctor who had spent 7 years in wounds ballistics research for the U.S. Army.[C3-158]
One series of tests, performed on reconstructed inert human skulls, demonstrated that the President’s head wound could have been caused by the rifle and bullets fired by the assassin from the sixth-floor window. The results of this series were illustrated by the findings on one skull which was struck at a point closely approximating the wound of entry on President Kennedy’s head. That bullet blew out the right side of the reconstructed skull in a manner very similar to the head wound of the President.[C3-159] As a result of these tests, Dr. Olivier concluded that a Western Cartridge Co. 6.5 bullet fired from the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle at a distance of 90 yards would make the same type of wound as that found on the President’s head. Referring to the series of tests, Dr. Olivier testified:
It disclosed that the type of head wounds that the President received could be done by this type of bullet. This surprised me very much, because this type of stable bullet I didn’t think would cause a massive head wound, I thought it would go through making a small entrance and exit, but the bones of the skull are enough to deform the end of this bullet causing it to expend a lot of energy and blowing out the side of the skull or blowing out fragments of the skull.[C3-160]
After examining the fragments of the bullet which struck the reconstructed skull, Dr. Olivier stated that--
the recovered fragments were very similar to the ones recovered on the front seat and on the floor of the car.
This, to me, indicates that those fragments did come from the bullet that wounded the President in the head.[C3-161]
The President’s Neck Wounds
During the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital another bullet wound was observed near the base of the back of President Kennedy’s neck slightly to the right of his spine which provides further enlightenment as to the source of the shots. The hole was located approximately 5½ inches (14 centimeters) from the tip of the right shoulder joint and approximately the same distance below the tip of the right mastoid process, the bony point immediately behind the ear.[C3-162] The wound was approximately one-fourth by one-seventh of an inch (7 by 4 millimeters), had clean edges, was sharply delineated, and had margins similar in all respects to those of the entry wound in the skull.[C3-163] Commanders Humes and Boswell agreed with Colonel Finck’s testimony that this hole--
* * * is a wound of entrance. * * * The basis for that conclusion is that this wound was relatively small with clean edges. It was not a jagged wound, and that is what we see in wound of entrance at a long range.[C3-164]
The autopsy examination further disclosed that, after entering the President, the bullet passed between two large muscles, produced a contusion on the upper part of the pleural cavity (without penetrating that cavity), bruised the top portion of the right lung and ripped the windpipe (trachea) in its path through the President’s neck.[C3-165] The examining surgeons concluded that the wounds were caused by the bullet rather than the tracheotomy performed at Parkland Hospital. The nature of the bruises indicated that the President’s heart and lungs were functioning when the bruises were caused, whereas there was very little circulation in the President’s body when incisions on the President’s chest were made to insert tubes during the tracheotomy.[C3-166] No bone was struck by the bullet which passed through the President’s body.[C3-167] By projecting from a point of entry on the rear of the neck and proceeding at a slight downward angle through the bruised interior portions, the doctors concluded that the bullet exited from the front portion of the President’s neck that had been cut away by the tracheotomy.[C3-168]
Concluding that a bullet passed through the President’s neck, the doctors at Bethesda Naval Hospital rejected a theory that the bullet lodged in the large muscles in the back of his neck and fell out through the point of entry when external heart massage was applied at Parkland Hospital. In the earlier stages of the autopsy, the surgeons were unable to find a path into any large muscle in the back of the neck. At that time they did not know that there had been a bullet hole in the front of the President’s neck when he arrived at Parkland Hospital because the tracheotomy incision had completely eliminated that evidence.[C3-169] While the autopsy was being performed, surgeons learned that a whole bullet had been found at Parkland Hospital on a stretcher which, at that time, was thought to be the stretcher occupied by the President. This led to speculation that the bullet might have penetrated a short distance into the back of the neck and then dropped out onto the stretcher as a result of the external heart massage.[C3-170]
Further exploration during the autopsy disproved that theory. The surgeons determined that the bullet had passed between two large strap muscles and bruised them without leaving any channel, since the bullet merely passed between them.[C3-171] Commander Humes, who believed that a tracheotomy had been performed from his observations at the autopsy, talked by telephone with Dr. Perry early on the morning of November 23, and learned that his assumption was correct and that Dr. Perry had used the missile wound in the neck as the point to make the incision.[C3-172] This confirmed the Bethesda surgeons’ conclusion that the bullet had exited from the front part of the neck.
The findings of the doctors who conducted the autopsy were consistent with the observations of the doctors who treated the President at Parkland Hospital. Dr. Charles S. Carrico, a resident surgeon at Parkland, noted a small wound approximately one-fourth of an inch in diameter (5 to 8 millimeters) in the lower third of the neck below the Adam’s apple.[C3-173] Dr. Malcolm O. Perry, who performed the tracheotomy, described the wound as approximately one-fifth of an inch in diameter (5 millimeters) and exuding blood which partially hid edges that were “neither cleancut, that is, punched out, nor were they very ragged.”[C3-174] Dr. Carrico testified as follows:
Q. Based on your observations on the neck wound alone did you have a sufficient basis to form an opinion as to whether it was an entrance or an exit wound?
A. No, sir; we did not. Not having completely evaluated all the wounds, traced out the course of the bullets, this wound would have been compatible with either entrance or exit wound depending upon the size, the velocity, the tissue structure and so forth.[C3-175]
The same response was made by Dr. Perry to a similar query:
Q. Based on the appearance of the neck wound alone, could it have been either an entrance or an exit wound?
A. It could have been either.[C3-176]
Then each doctor was asked to take into account the other known facts, such as the autopsy findings, the approximate distance the bullet traveled and tested muzzle velocity of the assassination weapon. With these additional factors, the doctors commented on the wound on the front of the President’s neck as follows:
Dr. CARRICO. With those facts and the fact as I understand it no other bullet was found this would be, this was, I believe, was an exit wound.[C3-177]
Dr. PERRY. A full jacketed bullet without deformation passing through skin would leave a similar wound for an exit and entrance wound and with the facts which you have made available and with these assumptions, I believe that it was an exit wound.[C3-178]
Other doctors at Parkland Hospital who observed the wound prior to the tracheotomy agreed with the observations of Drs. Perry and Carrico.[C3-179] The bullet wound in the neck could be seen for only a short time, since Dr. Perry eliminated evidence of it when he performed the tracheotomy. He selected that spot since it was the point where such an operation was customarily performed, and it was one of the safest and easiest spots from which to reach the trachea. In addition, there was possibly an underlying wound to the muscles in the neck, the carotid artery or the jugular vein, and Dr. Perry concluded that the incision, therefore, had to be low in order to maintain respiration.[C3-180]
Considerable confusion has arisen because of comments attributed to Dr. Perry concerning the nature of the neck wound. Immediately after the assassination, many people reached erroneous conclusions about the source of the shots because of Dr. Perry’s observations to the press. On the afternoon of November 22, a press conference was organized at Parkland Hospital by members of the White House press staff and a hospital administrator. Newsmen with microphones and cameras were crowded into a room to hear statements by Drs. Perry and William Kemp Clark, chief neurosurgeon at Parkland, who had attended to President Kennedy’s head injury. Dr. Perry described the situation as “bedlam.”[C3-181] The confusion was compounded by the fact that some questions were only partially answered before other questions were asked.[C3-182]
At the news conference, Dr. Perry answered a series of hypothetical questions and stated to the press that a variety of possibilities could account for the President’s wounds. He stated that a single bullet could have caused the President’s wounds by entering through the throat, striking the spine, and being deflected upward with the point of exit being through the head.[C3-183] This would have accounted for the two wounds he observed, the hole in the front of the neck and the large opening in the skull. At that time, Dr. Perry did not know about either the wound on the back of the President’s neck or the small bullet-hole wound in the back of the head. As described in