JFK: What The Doctors Saw

- President's car is now turning onto Elm Street,

and it will be only a matter of minutes

before he arrives at the Trade Mart.

It--it a--it appears as though

something has happened in the motorcade route.

Something, I repeat, has happened

in the motorcade route.

- This is Walter Cronkite in our newsroom,

and there has been an attempt,

as perhaps you know now, on the life of President Kennedy.

It was the first time

that the public had seen a murder on television.

- We heard Kennedy had been shot

and he was being brought to the emergency room

at Parkland Hospital.

- Within minutes of seeing President Kennedy,

doctors at Parkland concluded

that the neck wound was an entrance wound

and the head wound was an exit wound.

- My president had been assassinated and was dead.

- My goodness, you've just taken care of the president,

and he's dead.

Did that really happen,

or was this a nightmare?

My God.

- Parkland Hospital doctors were quoted

as saying they thought at least one bullet entered

Mr. Kennedy's neck from the front.

The Parkland doctors were

a serious problem for the U.S. government

because they had provided evidence

that there was a shooter somewhere in the front,

and that ran totally contrary to the official narrative

of a lone shooter from above and behind.

All this mattered,

because Oswald had to have had an accomplice.

The government narrative is

that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone...

- Killing President Kennedy, case closed.

- And as we know, it was not case closed

at that particular point.

Who was behind all of this?

- Certain people in our government tampered

with critical evidence in order to make sure

the American people would not know the truth

about who murdered the president.

- Documents are withheld by the FBI, the CIA.

Intelligence agencies did all the wrong things

if they were looking for conspiracy.

- A lot of people just decided to keep their mouths shut,

including the Parkland doctors.

I didn't want to be a target

for those who had killed our president.

So I didn't tell anybody for over 30 years

that I was present in Trauma Room 1.

- Because so many people did die

who had been involved in the assassination.

And he said, you must never, ever say that

that was an entrance wound again

if you know what's good for you.

- What actually happened in Trauma Room 1 never came out,

never became public.

I was there.

I know what I saw.

- I was there. I remember it in detail.

It's etched in my memory forever.

What's more likely,

Parkland doctors telling the truth

or the autopsy telling the truth?

- The Parkland doctors told the truth.

These doctors are about as trustworthy as you can get.

- This country has not been told the truth

about the JFK assassination.

- Will people feel that they have

a better understanding of what actually happened?

Absolutely.

- Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

This is Bob Walker speaking from Dallas Love Field,

where a large crowd is gathered now to await

the arrival of President and Mrs. John Fitzgerald Kennedy

from Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth.

We were aware

that the president was coming to Dallas.

It had been well publicized.

- Police were circling the field all morning long

from the early morning hours,

and a huge contingent of police are on hand.

Next big jet approaching, and this one should contain

the president and Mrs. Kennedy.

Here comes Jack!

He was like a rock star.

He was handsome and rich.

He had a pretty wife.

I liked him.

I thought he was really cool.

Right into us now.

And the crowd below is cheering.

There's Mrs. Kennedy

and the President of the United States.

And I can see his suntan all the way from here.

Crowd waving, as you can see.

People standing up all over everything available

to get a glimpse of the president and his wife.

Oh, I idolized him.

I was a Democrat, of course.

- And he's broken away from his plan

and gone right up to the fence to shake hands with people.

Boy, this is something.

It makes the eggshells even thinner

for the Secret Service, whose job it is

to guard the man.

- I was very excited that the president

and Jacqueline Kennedy were coming to Dallas.

And I was sorry that I was on call at Parkland

because I wanted to go down and see the parade.

And back they go to the car.

The Governor Connally standing in the car beaming.

Now the motorcade will very shortly start to move out

for downtown Dallas, where thousands should already

be on the street right now waiting for a view

of the president and his wife.

- The route of the location of the parade

had been published in the paper two or three days before.

So everyone knew the route.

And that's the reason that there were so many thousands

of people standing on the streets.

- There was some discussion as to whether

it was really good for him to come to Dallas.

- And here is the President of the United States.

And what a crowd.

What a tremendous welcome he's getting now.

We can--and there's Jackie.

She's getting just as big a welcome.

There is Lyndon Johnson

and Lady Bird passing by in the second car.

And the crowd is absolutely going wild.

This is a friendly crowd in downtown Dallas.

- So my wife and children, with everybody else, went out,

and when the little motorcade coming by,

they saw this crowd of people, and they slowed down,

and Kennedy waved at them.

- President's car is now turning onto Elm Street,

and it will be only a matter of minutes

before he arrives at the Trade Mart.

I was on Stemmons Freeway earlier,

and even the freeway was jam-packed with spectators.

- Yes, we were all aware that he was coming to Dallas.

I think the whole city was excited about it

one way or another.

Certainly, a lot of the people were very excited

and made great preparation for him to come.

- And thousands and thousands of people who were

crowding the streets here are following the motorcade

even further down Main Street towards Stemmons Freeway.

A wonderful welcome having been given

to the president here in downtown Dallas.

It--it a--

- The first time that I suspected

that some major event had occurred

was when the operator was paging

through the loudspeaker system, "The president's been shot,

and they're bringing him to the emergency room."

- They've called from the emergency room,

said that they're bringing President Kennedy in.

He'd been shot.

- There was a bunch of other top-notch people

that were being paged.

- The nurse ran in and said, "The president has been shot."

I ran downstairs as fast as I could

and went into Trauma Room number 1.

- We heard Kennedy had been shot

and he was being brought to the emergency room

at Parkland Hospital.

When I heard that, ran down three flights of stairs

into the main corridor.

- And that's when you get this tremendous rush

of adrenaline in your body.

- And I thought, oh, it's gonna be like John Wayne.

He'll be sitting on the gurney,

and he'll be like, you know, oh, it's only a flesh wound.

You know, I had no idea.

- The first reports say that President Kennedy has been

seriously wounded by this shooting.

- Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

You'll excuse the fact that I'm out of breath,

but about 10 or 15 minutes ago,

a tragic thing, from all indications at this point,

has happened in the city of Dallas.

Let me quote to you this.

"President Kennedy and Governor John Connally have

"been cut down by assassins' bullets in Downtown Dallas.