JFK: What the Doctors Saw

I've watched countless documentaries on the JFK assassination but this one stands unique among them all.

I've never really chosen between the single shooter and second shooter theories because I've always felt that each argument was plausible. I've also never considered the Parkland doctors or how they assessed Kennedy when he arrived at the hospital. This has made me believe that there were two shooters and it has made me wonder why the handling of the body seems so shady.

If you have an interest in President Kennedy's assassination, you should check this out. It's mindful, well-made and will have you asking why the government made the decision to handle certain things the way they did. It's worth the watch.

First, I don't actually dispute this film's core contention -- even if it's not stated outright -- that Kennedy's body should have remained at Parkland Hospital, where a proper, complete autopsy could have been performed. Instead we got what could charitably be called an inept autopsy, at worst a deliberately manipulated one. It is not the fault of the Parkland doctors that JFK's body was removed (illegally confiscated would be a better word) by the Secret Service. But it is the fault of the creators of this film that they fail to differentiate legitimate avenues of inquiry from rank speculation.

I supposed after 60 years there are plenty of people who have no idea who Kennedy was, and who are fascinated by the b-roll background that makes up at least one-third of this film. But for someone like me who has lived with this stuff since he was a kid, much of this material felt redundant and unnecessary.

Still, with so many witnesses entering their golden years, it's good that they're getting on film at all.

I have always been intrigued by events of 11/22/63 and even though I was only less than a month from my sixth birthday, I can remember walking into our family kitchen and telling my mother that the president had been shot.

A perfect companion to the documentary is David Lifton's massive book, "Best Evidence," which provides in-depth details as to the strange happenings involving the body of JFK and the cursory autopsy done by military doctors in Washington, D. C. rather than in Dallas.

Eight emergency room physicians who were present when Kennedy was brought in all agreed that the wound to the throat was an entrance wound were astounded with the conclusions of the Warren Report. As Lifton's book speculated, the wounds were altered in order to verify the conclusion that Oswald was the lone gunmen.

The Zapruder clip is shown and it is quite obvious that Kennedy was shot from the front.

The film is a very good one and should be of interest to anyone seeking the truth.

One thing that I always disagree about concerning the assassination is that I've stood on the grassy knoll behind the fence and "lined up the shot". I am a hunter and avid shooter and know how bullets react. If a shot had been fired from behind the fence, and struck Kennedy where the "X" is marked on the street, it would have exited Kennedy and struck Jackie or blown out the LEFT-REAR of Kennedy's head. So the shot HAD to have come either from the front OR from the back. They always go through proving the shot from behind but not from the fence. This has always bothered me whenever I see documentaries on the subject.

I have always dismissed those who believed that there was a second shooter in JFKs assasination. I thought that they were just a bunch of conspiracy theorists who were trying to get some TV coverage. Most of them were easy to dismiss and basically odd balls as far as I was concerned. I was 13 when it happened and I remember everything vividly. I saw Lee Harvey Oswald get shot on live TV. Maybe I was just naive but I never thought that it happened any differently than the way the government said that it happened but now I do. The Parkland doctors are nothing but totally professional and believable. And so was the Autopsy Corpsman in Bethesda. Watch it yourself. You will believe it too. The evidence is all on their side.