These are apparently exit wounds?
Commander HUMES. Sir, these were knife wounds, these were incised wounds on either side of the chest, and I will give them in somewhat greater detail.
These wounds were bilateral, they were situated on the anterior chest wall in the nipple line, and each were 2 cm. long in the transverse axis. The one on the right was situated 11 cm. above the nipple the one on the left was situated 11 cm. on the nipple, and the one on the right was 8 cm. above the nipple. Their intention was to incise through the President's chest to place tubes into his chest.
We examined those wounds very carefully, and found that they, however, did not enter the chest cavity. They only went through the skin. I presume that as they were performing that procedure it was obvious that the President had died, and they didn't pursue this.
To complete the examination of the area of the neck and the chest, I will do that together, we made the customary incision which we use in a routine postmortem examination which is a Y-shaped incision from the shoulders over the lower portion of the breastbone and over to the opposite shoulder and reflected the skin and tissues from the anterior portion of the chest.
We examined in the region of this incised surgical wound which was the tracheotomy wound and we saw that there was some bruising of the muscles of the neck in the depths of this wound as well as laceration or defect in the trachea.
At this point, of course, I am unable to say how much of the defect in the trachea was made by the knife of the surgeon, and how much of the defect was made by the missile wound. That would have to be ascertained from the surgeon who actually did the tracheotomy.
There was, however, some ecchymosis or contusion, of the muscles of the right anterior neck inferiorly, without, however, any disruption of the muscles or any significant tearing of the muscles.
The muscles in this area of the body run roughly, as you see as he depicted them here. We have removed some of them for a point I will make in a moment, but it is our opinion that the missile traversed the neck and slid between these muscles and other vital structures with a course in the neck such as the carotid artery, the jugular vein and other structures because there was no massive hemmorhage or other massive injury in this portion of the neck.
In attempting to relate findings within the President's body to this wound which we had observed low in his neck, we then opened his chest cavity, and we very carefully examined the lining of his chest cavity and both of his lungs. We found that there was, in fact. no defect in the pleural lining of the President's chest.
It was completely intact.
However, over the apex of the right pleural cavity, and the pleura now has two layers. It has a parietal or a layer which lines the chest cavity and it has a visceral layer which is intimately in association with the lung.
As depicted in figure 385, in the apex of the right pleural cavity there was a bruise or contusion or eccmymosis of the parietal pleura as well as a bruise of the upper portion, the most apical portion of the right lung.
It, therefore, was our opinion that the missile while not penetrating physically the pleural cavity, as it passed that point bruised either the missile itself, or the force of its passage through the tissues, bruised both the parietal and the visceral pleura.
The area of discoloration on the apical portion of the right upper lung measured five centimeters in greatest diameter, and was wedge shaped in configuration, with its base toward the top of the chest and its apex down towards the substance of the lung.
Once again Kodachrome photographs were made of this area in the interior of the President's chest.

Mr. Specter.

Would you mark the point on Exhibit 385, the one on the rear of the President as point "C" and the one on the front of the President as point "D" so we can discuss those, Dr. Humes?
Now, what conclusion did you reach, if any, as to whether point "C" was the point of entry or exit?

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