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Doctors, ARRB staff tell House task force key JFK autopsy materials are missing or inconsistent
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Summary
Medical witnesses and former Assassination Records Review Board staff testified that autopsy photos, x-rays and parts of the medical record are missing from the official collection, and that the medical evidence raises unresolved questions.
Former Parkland Hospital physicians and analysts who worked on the Assassination Records Review Board told the task force that several autopsy materials and pieces of medical evidence related to President John F. Kennedy's death appear to be missing or inconsistent with later official records.
"There was no exit wound," Dr. Don Curtis, an oral and facial surgeon who said he worked in Trauma Room 1 at Parkland Hospital on Nov. 22, 1963, told the task force. "The magic bullet was a product of the Warren Commission that that, doesn't make any sense." Dr. Curtis said he observed two separate and fatal wounds to the president's throat and head and described performing an emergency procedure to obtain vascular access during resuscitation efforts.
Douglas Horne, a former senior analyst for the Assassination Records Review Board, told the committee he found multiple categories of photographs and x‑rays missing from the official archival collection, including alleged skull x‑rays, autopsy photographs taken from both inside and outside the cranium, and color prints described by witnesses as showing an exit defect in the rear of the head. "The remains of President Kennedy's brain following its examination were placed in a stainless steel container in 1963, but the brain is missing today," Horne said in his testimony.
Judge John Tunheim, who chaired the ARRB, told the task force the board operated under a statutory presumption of immediate disclosure and that agencies were required to present records to the board. He said the board issued more than 27,000 rulings and that many agency delays and denials persisted despite the ARRB process.
Witnesses emphasized that the ARRB's mandate was to build the largest possible public record and to use a narrow set of justifications for continued protection (national security, intelligence methods, personal privacy, or protective methods for the president). Members of the task force said they would press the National Archives for increased staffing and pursue any remaining archival materials that were not presented to the review board.
The hearing did not produce new forensic conclusions; several witnesses and members said further forensic review of any recovered autopsy materials and high-resolution scans of the Zapruder film would be needed to address outstanding questions.
