The Dallas Surgeon Who Said Kennedy Was Shot From the Front, Then Took It Back
A week after saying the president was shot from the front, the Parkland doctor faced warnings about his medical license and pressure from the Secret Service.
Who Killed JFK? · ForensicsDr. Malcolm Perry, a trauma surgeon at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, spent the early afternoon of Nov. 22, 1963, working feverishly to keep President John F. Kennedy alive.
After Kennedy was pronounced dead, Perry walked out to meet the press. Asked where the entrance wound was, Perry answered plainly: "There was an entrance wound in the neck." Asked which way the bullet had been traveling, he said: "It appeared to be coming at him." Asked to confirm that meant a shot striking the front of the neck, he said yes, that is correct.
It was a clear statement, and it pointed to a shooter in front of the president, not behind him in the Texas School Book Depository where Lee Harvey Oswald was said to have fired. But that is not how Perry's story ends.
A week after the assassination, Martin Stedman, a journalist who covered the Kennedy case for decades, visited Perry at his home in Dallas with colleagues and asked what he really believed. Perry told them it was absolutely an entry wound. He said he had received several calls from the doctors conducting the autopsy in Bethesda, Maryland, who warned him that if he did not change his account, he would probably lose his medical license.
When Perry later testified before the Warren Commission, the panel investigating the assassination, he offered a long paragraph of assumptions and finally conceded the throat wound could have come from a shot from the rear. It was a reversal from the man who had three times said the shot had come from ahead.
Years later came an explanation for the pressure. In the 1970s, Elmer Moore, a Secret Service agent based in Dallas, confessed that he had badgered Perry into stating flatly that the neck wound was not an entry wound. Dick Russell, who recounted Moore's account, said Moore told him he was acting under orders from Washington and the Secret Service. Moore said he regretted it, adding that they all did everything they were told or they would get their heads cut off.
Questions people ask
Why does it matter whether the throat wound was an entrance wound or an exit wound?
An entrance wound is where a bullet goes into the body, and an exit wound is where it comes out. Doctors often tell them apart because entrance wounds tend to be smaller and neater, while exit wounds are usually larger and more torn. The difference matters because it shows which direction the bullet was traveling.
What was the Warren Commission?
The Warren Commission was the panel appointed by President Lyndon Johnson to investigate Kennedy's assassination, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren. In 1964, it concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, firing from behind the motorcade. Its finding that all shots came from the rear is why Perry's front-shot account was so explosive.
What happened to Dr. Perry after the assassination?
Perry continued to practice medicine in Texas and later became a respected surgeon and teacher. He rarely spoke publicly about the assassination in later years. He died in 2009 at age 80.