ARRB Medical Testimony

When the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) was created in the 1990s, its purpose was not to reinvestigate the Kennedy assassination, but rather to declassify the innumerable documents and materials tightly held by the U.S. Government.

However, there were so many puzzles in the JFK medical evidence paperwork that the ARRB decided to conduct a series of interviews in an attempt to "clarify the federal record on the medical and ballistics evidence." The resulting interviews, while rarely reported in mainstream news sources, contained astounding revelations and allegations, among them:

• Saundra Kay Spencer, who developed JFK autopsy photos on the weekend after the assassination, was shown the complete set of official autopsy photos. She testified that they were not the ones she developed (listen to excerpt - excerpt transcript).

• Autopsy photographer John Stringer disputed the authenticity of the photos of JFK's brain, leading a senior ARRB staffer to theorize that there had been a deception involving two brain exams of different specimens (listen to excerpt - excerpt transcript).

• FBI agent and autopsy witness Frank O'Neill was shown autopsy photos of the back of JFK's head, and said "This looks like it's been doctored." He was one of several witnesses who told the ARRB that there had been a large rear head wound. He also disputed the photos of the brain, saying "it appears to be too much" (listen to excerpt - excerpt transcript).

• Lead autopsy prosector James Humes told the ARRB that he had destroyed both original notes AND the first draft of the autopsy report.

• Autopsy doctor J. Thorton Boswell said the Justice Department had sent him to New Orleans in an attempt to undo damage caused by Pierre Finck at the trial of Clay Shaw.

• Other in-person interviews and phone contacts with other witnesses generated similarly disturbing tales. Leonard Saslaw told the ARRB that autopsy doctor Pierre Finck complained that his notes had disappeared. Navy corpsman Dennis David said he had handled bullet fragments removed from Kennedy during the autopsy which were far larger than those in evidence now.

The items listed above are the tip of a large and unresolved iceberg. These stunning interviews have been met by Warren Commission defenders largely with silence rather than rebuttal.