Dr Malcolm Perry's early account of the president's injuries were that
the small wound near Kennedy's Adam's apple
could have been an entrance wound,
suggesting a shot from the grassy knoll
instead of the sniper's nest on the sixth floor
of the Texas School Book Depository.

JFK DALLAS DOCTOR PERRY DIES

"Malcolm rarely spoke of the assassination.
He never wanted to talk about it....
I think he had a bad experience with the press right after,
that may have colored his lack of willingness to talk....
Whenever the subject threatened to come up,
he'd raise an eyebrow and that would be that."

To Orwell Today,
re: PATRIOT SWINDAL JFK AF-1 PILOT

I believe Mr. Swindal was interviewed by David S. Lifton for his book, "Best Evidence" regarding Lifton's allegation that the Kennedy body was tampered with while aboard 26000.

You seem to have a fairly comprehensive page devoted to U.S.A.F. Col. James Swindal, former pilot of S.A.M. 26000. I am unsure of the precise nature of your interest in Col. Swindal, but I seem to recall that David Lifton interviewed him, as well as other members of the Air Force One crew assigned to the Dallas mission. The content of those interviews, however, may or may not address the issue(s) in which you are interested. (I read Lifton's book fifteen years ago, and simply do not, at this late date, recall what matters were discussed with Col. Swindal.)

Some, if not all, of the Lifton interviews may be available under the ARRB files at the National Archives, as I know Mr. Lifton was involved in the ARRB records gathering process. Of the assassination researchers with whom I am acquainted, I believe Mr. Lifton is the only one who interviewed the Air Force One crew.

With best wishes,
Brad J. Parker
Author, "First On the Scene: Dallas Parkland Hospital Doctors and the Assassination of President John Kennedy."

Greetings Brad,

The nature of my interest in Colonel Swindal is that he was JFK's pilot on Air Force One (aka SAM 26000) and in that line of duty he was exemplary on both a personal and a professional level, before and after the death of his President. I thought that would be clear to anyone reading my PATRIOT SWINDAL JFK AF-1 PILOT article.

Regarding David Lifton's 1980 book BEST EVIDENCE I've looked in my copy and there is no evidence of him having interviewed Colonel Swindal - just fleeting third-person name-dropping on page 642 and mention of him having pointed out the starboard doors on page 677.

Your statement that Lifton was the only researcher to interview the crew of Air Force One is outrageous, considering that Swindal - the top crew member - has been interviewed extensively over the years and his account of everything he saw and did on the day of the assassination has been reported in Manchester's 1967 book DEATH OF A PRESIDENT and Bishop's 1968 book THE DAY KENNEDY WAS SHOT (to name only two).

Perhaps you didn't read the links on my Swindal article, or you'd know that I consider the premise of Lifton's book - that JFK's body was tampered with while lying in its coffin on Air Force One - a ludicrous absurdity. See JFK CHANGED-IN-COFFIN CON & JFK COFFIN, MARRS & CURRY

I notice, under your name, that you're the author of a book about the Dallas Parkland Hospital Doctors and yet, surprisingly, you don't mention the death today (when I received your email) of Dr Malcolm Perry, the first on the scene at Dallas Parkland Hospital that day JFK was shot, and who gave everything he had to save JFK's life, to no avail.

From reading the obituary articles it's obvious that Dr Perry was intimidated into changing his opinion on the origin of the fatal shots, and to his dying day wouldn't even talk about it with colleagues. Instead, whenever the subject came up, he'd merely "raise an eyebrow" and that would be the end of the conversation.

I think - without using words - Dr Perry said it all. We, the people, should be able to add two plus two and get four - as Orwell implored in "1984".

All the best,
Jackie Jura

Dallas doctor Malcolm Perry, who worked on JFK and Oswald, dies at 80
by Scott Farwell, Dallas Morning News, Dec 8, 2009

Drs. Malcolm O. Perry and Robert McClelland began their friendship in July 1958 at Parkland Memorial Hospital, where they slept on bunk beds and spent hours with their hands in patients – one clamping off arteries while the other stitched up holes. It was a time of exhaustion and adrenaline. And it was a time of history. Drs. Perry and McClelland were two of the four doctors who struggled to save a mortally wounded President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963. Saturday in Tyler, Dr. Perry died at age 80 after a two-year battle with lung cancer.

Dr. McClelland said his friend, a surgeon and professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center, rarely spoke of the assassination, except in his official government testimony. Even so, Dr. Perry's early account of the president's injuries gave rise to conspiracy theories that persist today – that the small wound near Kennedy's Adam's apple could have been an entrance wound, suggesting a shot from the grassy knoll instead of the sniper's nest on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Dr. Perry later told the Warren Commission that he believed the bullet hole was an exit wound, supporting the single-gunman and magic-bullet theories that were the foundation of the government's investigation. "Malcolm never wanted to talk about it," said Dr. McClelland, who helped Dr. Perry insert a breathing tube in the president's trachea that November afternoon. "I think he had a bad experience with the press right after, and I think that may have colored his lack of willingness to talk."...

Dr. Perry was eating lunch in Parkland's main dining room on Nov. 22, 1963, when an emergency page came over the hospital's speaker system. When he picked up the phone, the operator told him the president had been shot. By the time the 34-year-old physician arrived in the emergency room, Kennedy was already there. He was joined by Drs. Charles J. Carrico, Charles Baxter and McClelland, who – after Dr. Perry's passing – is the only surviving member of the historic surgical team. "Of course, it was an extremely intense experience," Dr. McClelland said. "It sounds a bit callow, but you can't respond emotionally in those situations. You go into professional mode. If you let your emotions sweep you away, I don't think you can do your work like you should."

Minutes later, after the president was declared dead, the wide-eyed doctors gathered around a coffeepot at a nearby nurse's station. Secret Service agents handed them note pads and asked each of the physicians to write his impressions of the president's injuries. Years later, those notes became key evidence for the Warren Commission's investigation of the assassination. "We just kind of sat there, and I can't even remember what we said," Dr. McClelland said. "It was just kind of an astonished looking at one another – 'Were we really just involved in that? Is this a nightmare? What just happened?'"

The mind-numbing weekend continued to play out two days later when Dr. Perry and Dr. McClelland rushed into an emergency room to find the body of Lee Harvey Oswald after he was shot by nightclub owner Jack Ruby. The young doctors took turns massaging the Marine-trained rifleman's heart while Dr. Tom Shires tried to stop the bleeding. Dr. McClelland said Oswald, unlike President Kennedy, had a slim chance of survival. Doctors were able to stop bleeding from major arteries deep in the body – the aorta and vena cava – and were searching for other wounds when his heart gave up. "Oswald had had so much damage to his heart from the severe shock that he arrested, and even with open chest massage we couldn't get his heart started again," Dr. McClelland said. "It was possible that he could have been salvaged, but not so with the president."

Dr. McClelland said he and others dealt with Oswald's death in a more dispassionate way. "He was the assassin rather than the president, so there wasn't quite the sadness," he said. "There was a fair amount of general horror over that weekend." In time, Dr. McClelland said, the public interest faded and the men continued with their careers....

Dallas surgeon operated on JFK after he was shot, then Oswald
Washington Post, Dec 10, 2009

Malcolm O. Perry II, 80, who attended to President John F. Kennedy at Parkland Memorial Hospital after he was shot in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, died Dec. 5 in Tyler, Tex. He had lung cancer. Dr. Perry was an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, the teaching hospital for Parkland, and a vascular surgeon on the Parkland staff when he became the first staff surgeon to treat Kennedy.

In an extensive interview by the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination, Dr. Perry recalled taking the case over from the senior resident and checking the president's vital signs. He found no vital signs but noted a convulsive effort to breathe. He performed a tracheotomy on the president while other staff doctors and surgeons gathered to help. Dr. Perry and another surgeon performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Kennedy until no brain activity was detected on the trauma room instruments. At 1 p.m., Dr. Kemp Clark, the UT Southwestern neurosurgery chairman, declared Kennedy dead of a catastrophic head wound.

Dr. Robert McClelland was the last surgeon to attend to Kennedy in Trauma Room 1. McClelland, a longtime friend and colleague of Dr. Perry's, remembered that the shock of the situation faded quickly when they entered the trauma room. "At Parkland, we're accustomed, all of us are, to treating many different cases," McClelland told the Associated Press on Monday. "Of course, it's the president," he said. Was it hard to put that aside? "No, not really. Everything was so rapidly happening that we were called on the peak of the moment." Dr. Perry told the commission that the neck wound Kennedy suffered from the sniper's first rifle shot probably would not have been fatal. However, he testified that neither he nor Clark could tell from where the bullets came. The vascular surgeon also was one of the doctors to operate on presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, who was shot by Jack Ruby two days after Kennedy's death.

After a long career, Dr. Perry retired in 2000 as professor emeritus of surgery at UT Southwestern. But McClelland, now 80, said that after the assassination, his friend never mentioned their role in the case and that they never discussed it, even between themselves. "No, we didn't, for reasons he kept to himself," he said. "Immediately after, he had a bad experience with interviews that hurt him deeply. Whenever the subject threatened to come up, he'd raise an eyebrow and that would be that."...


Dallas surgeon operated on JFK after he was shot, then Oswald. Washington Post, Dec 10, 2009

Dallas doctor Malcolm Perry, who worked on JFK and Oswald, dies at 80, Dallas Morning News, Dec 8, 2009

THE JFK UMBRELLA MAN (...Some believe that the umbrella he was holding was in fact a DART PROJECTORY SYSTEM and that as JFK's car approached, TUM released a poison "flechette" that entered JFK's throat just above his shirt collar. This poison dart almost instantly paralyzed JFK and caused his body to stiffen and his head to remain stable, thus making him a "sitting duck" for a sniper hidden elsewhere in the Grassy Knoll....)

JFK ASSASSINATION PUZZLE PIECES

Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events ~

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