Medical Analysis of The JFK Assassination :: John F. Kennedy American History Essays

Medical Analysis of The JFK Assassination Dr. Charles Crenshaws book Conspiracy of Silence caused a venial sensation when it was released in 1992, even attracting the attention of the New York Times. Coauthored by Jens Hansen and Gary Shaw, it told several conspiratorial stories about the assassination, and especially about the role of Dr. Crenshaw, then a nonmigratory physician at Parkland Hospital, in the care of John Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald.It has since been reprinted as Trauma Room One.Among the interesting things that Crenshaw claims areThe back of Kennedys peak was pursy out, clearly implying a shot from the Grassy Knoll in front of Kennedy.A small wound in Kennedys throat was an entrance wound, proving a shot from the front, and not from the Snipers Nest behind Kennedy.Parkland doctors, knowing there was a conspiracy, have feared to speak out.The Presidents body was altered between Parkland Hospital and the atomic number 61 at Bethesda.And the most sensational Lyn don Johnson called the operating room were Oswald was being treated and demanded a confession be extracted from the accused assassin.Conspiracy authors, wanting to push the mood of a shot from the Grassy Knoll, have lapped up Crenshaws account. For example, Gary Aguilar quotes Crenshaw as followsHe, with co-authors, Jens Hansen and Gary Shaw, recently published a book, Conspiracy of Silence (Crenshaw, CA, Hansen, J, Shaw, G. Conspiracy of Silence. 1992, New York, Signet). Crenshaw has claimed two in his book and in public interviews that the Presidents head wound was posterior on the right side. In Conspiracy of Silence he wrote, I walked to the Presidents head to get a closer look. His entire right cerebral hemisphere appeared to be gone. It looked like a crateran empty cavity. Conspiracy writer Gary Aguilar accepts Crenshaws account. His strain on supposed back of the head witnesses is useful and interesting although many of his assessments of the testimony are to be treated s keptically. How does Crenshaw know such things? According to the book, he had a central role in treating Kennedy. Yet when the New York Times called up Crenshaw in reponse to his book, he backed away from the books claims as to how central he was, saying that Hansen and Shaw took poetic license on this issue. Crenshaw admitted . . .that the role he played in Kennedys case was minor. See the Times of May 26, 1992.It hardly inspires confidence in the book when Crenshaw says things like this.