- 5/28/2025
At a House Oversight Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) questioned former members of government assassinations review boards as well as Dr. Don Curtis, who attempted to save JFK in Dallas, about questions pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00recognize myself for probably more than five minutes. So my first question goes to Judge Tenheim.
00:06Why did you tell President Biden that the CIA had deliberately misled your board about the Joe Nides file?
00:14I did that because the CIA misled us. I mean, we had asked, I mean, we were picking up names all along and people were telling us about other
00:23people to ask about. And we've been after the Joe Nides file for a while, and what we got was something very small.
00:30It looked like just a personnel file, you know, what he got paid and, you know, when he separated and that sort of thing.
00:37And the staff looked at it and thought it wasn't significant and sent it back.
00:42In retrospect, we shouldn't have done that. We should have asked for more.
00:46But they were told that that, the staff was told that was all they had on Joe Nides, which is clearly incorrect.
00:54So that's why I said that we had been
00:58deliberately misled by the CIA as to the nature of the Joe Nides files that were there.
01:06And I think those files likely are still there and can be released and should be released.
01:12Yeah, I'd like to actually know for the public that's tuning in that we have been in talks with Director Radcliffe,
01:17and although he's been supportive, there has, in my opinion, been an orchestrated effort previously to hide this information.
01:24And so they're, while actively searching for it, also having issues locating it.
01:28So we are trying on our end, but you are correct, sir, in the observation.
01:32And I thank you for being here today to testify to that. My next question is actually for Dr. Curtis.
01:38Was there anyone specifically on the Warren Commission that made the attempted effort or that you felt you
01:45you were being pressured to either be silenced on what you saw and or bullied and or threatened into not speaking the truth?
01:54I was never pressured to be silent, but I did have action with Dr., with Arlen Specter that was
02:05not good. What happened, sir? He
02:09did a deposition for me and had not told me about it ahead of time.
02:19The nurse leaned in the operating room that morning and said, the Warren Commission is in town.
02:24If you have time, go down and talk to them. So I finished my cases and went down and talked to
02:30Arlen Specter. He was friendly and nice and was very well groomed in a beautiful suit, shiny shoes.
02:41And I had my hair all messed up in a scrub suit, dirty shoes. So it was definitely top down.
02:49And he was friendly and nice and then started asking me biographical questions
02:54that made it obvious to me that he knew the answers to the question before you ask it.
02:59And so that made me wonder, why on earth does he know that all that about me?
03:04Then he said, what did you see about the exit wound? Well, there wasn't one. Really? No, there wasn't one.
03:14And then so he asked me three or four more times about the exit wound. And the last time he asked
03:20me is, Dr. Curtis, every other doctor has suggested and testified that there was an exit wound.
03:30And you didn't see it? No, I didn't. And so during this, the visit I had with him was maybe about
03:3920 or 30 minutes. And during that time, he made me feel that I had a reason for being in the
03:49trauma room to be sure the president died. Now, I had a wife and two babies at home that were
03:55completely dependent on me. If I lost my residency, it would be terribly a big problem for me.
04:04So he gave me he said, OK, now, let's wait here for a little bit before we do your deposition.
04:14I said, deposition? He said, yes, your deposition today. And I said, well, I didn't know that. He
04:21said, well, I sent you a letter, which I didn't get. He said, do you want a lawyer? And I said,
04:28do I need a lawyer? He said, fella, you're the only one in this room that knows if you need a
04:33lawyer. Do you want me to get you one? I said, no, I don't think so. But he asked me over and over
04:39again about the exit wound. Then we got in on it. Then he got the committee together and nobody
04:50that I'd ever seen before sitting behind the table and put me on a high stool uncomfortably.
04:55And I remember my kept my foot kept slipping off that bottle run and then started asking me
05:02questions. Never did bring up the exit wound. Never did say a thing about it till at the last.
05:11He said, Dr. Curtis, did you see anything that was like a puncture or opening in the trachea
05:21and or the throat? And I said, no, he said. But then I thought, well, the blood was right over
05:28that. So I couldn't have seen it. So I said, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there. Thank you for
05:33Dr. Curtis. That's what he wanted. Would it be fair to say that other doctors that you worked
05:39with that were in the room that day that were responding to President Kennedy's wounds had the
05:46same observations as you? Yes or no. There were only two of us that thought of the throat before
05:54the tracheostomy was done. Okay. And is that the answer? Whatever you would like to share
06:02with Congress, sir. So I saw it and I don't. There was no exit wounds. That's what our inspector
06:10wanted was an exit wound because the magic bullet had to exit the throat to go in to get over Conley,
06:18which couldn't have happened. The magic bullet would have had to make three
06:23finite degree turns to do what it did. It was coming down from the window, would have had to
06:30turn right angle to be horizontal through the neck, would have had to turn right again to go
06:38over to where Governor Conley was, would have to turn right again to go into Governor Conley.
06:45Yes, sir. I can speak for myself. I do not believe in the magic bullet theory.
06:51I do not, sir. My next question is for Mr. Douglas Horn. To your knowledge, did even the
06:57Dallas Police Department or the FBI subject Lee Harvey Oswald to a paraffin test to determine
07:02whether he had fired the gun on November 22nd, 1963? I'm going from memory, but I believe the
07:11FBI did, and he tested negative for firing a rifle. The paraffin test on his face shows he
07:18did not fire a bolt-action rifle, especially not a lousy rifle like the Manley Kerr Carcano,
07:24which was an 1894 design or something. What is the status of the record interview
07:30that the author William Manchester conducted with Jacqueline Kennedy?
07:35Well, my understanding is that, first of all, the Kennedy family liked William Manchester
07:43initially because he had written a campaign book in 1960 about the campaign. So they said,
07:48okay, why don't you write the book about the death of Jack, about the death of President Kennedy?
07:54When the book was reviewed by Jacqueline and Robert F. Kennedy, apparently Robert F. Kennedy
08:00had many objections, and so the Kennedy family sued Mr. Manchester when the books were in galley
08:09form, and they required that he take out certain portions of the text. So the lawsuit, what the
08:18lawsuit did was it said the portions of the text that you removed will be sequestered until 2067,
08:27and the interviews you did with Jacqueline Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy will be sequestered,
08:34withheld until 2067. So that was the result of that lawsuit, and so what we read today when we
08:41read Manchester's book is a sanitized or redacted version of his book, and we won't know what was
08:51removed until 2067. That's just very unfortunate, and I know Chairman Thunheim really made an
08:59effort to get Caroline Kennedy to agree to lift that court seal, and she didn't want to.
09:08Also, to your knowledge, which autopsy photos are missing?
09:11Okay, I'd be glad to answer that question. I have a list here, and it's reasonably succinct,
09:18so bear with me. Well, you have me and Garcia here, so I think we're at your disposal.
09:28Here we go. I mentioned eight sets that I know with confidence from studying the evidence as
09:35an analyst are missing. First, an overhead wide shot of JFK's body taken from a step ladder,
09:42taken by John Stringer, the Navy photographer. He testified an oath to that.
09:47Second, a large bruise atop the right lung taken from inside the interior of the chest
09:53after the lungs were removed. So this is a large blood clot up above where the apical portion of
10:01the lung was, and that's been testified to by both Dr. Humes and Stringer that they took those
10:07photographs, so they're not in the record. Third, an entrance wound in the lower right of the skull
10:13with the scalp reflected taken from outside the skull. And next, that same entrance wound in the
10:20lower right of the skull with the photo taken from inside the cranium after the brain was removed. So
10:26what's at issue with these two photos being missing is they would have determined definitively where
10:32was the entrance wound in the back of the head. Would that have been one of the Harper fragments?
10:36No. Separate? No, separate issue. Okay.
10:40The condition of the back of the head, here's another missing photo. The condition of the back
10:44of the head after embalming and reconstruction was completed, which still showed an exit defect
10:50that could not be closed. The witness that claims that was Sondra Spencer, a Navy photographer's
10:56mate who our general counsel, Jeremy Gunn, considered our most reliable medical witness.
11:02So what she did was she developed color negatives and then prints of the president's
11:11body, postmortem photographs, but she said when we deposed her, she said,
11:17oh, these pictures in the archives are horrible. We see open body cavities and a lot of blood
11:22and the president looks really bad. She said the photographs that I developed,
11:27uh, he had been cleaned up, uh, the head had been reconstructed, but there was still a hole
11:33in the back of his head even after the head was reconstructed. So you have witness testimony that
11:37the archives photos do not reflect what? Yes. Yes. She testified under oath to that fact.
11:43Another missing photograph is, uh, a series, is that, uh, Robert Knudson was a White House
11:51social photographer. He was involved with developing photography the weekend after the
11:57assassination by the president's military physician, Dr. Berkeley. So Knudson testified
12:04to the HSCA that, uh, I developed a black and white film pack, negatives, black and white
12:11negatives showing numerous probes in the president's body. And of course, probes are important because
12:18they determine bullet tracks, where do bullets go in, where do they come out, if they come out.
12:23And, uh, he remembered developing them and holding them up to the light in the dark room after they
12:28were developed. And he remembered seeing probes in the body in this black and white film pack.
12:35And in the official autopsy collection, there was no black and white film pack used, uh,
12:40in photographs of the body. They're, they're, uh, they're four by five inch duplex film. They're
12:47not black and white film packs. And there are no photographs of probes in the body, uh, in the
12:52official collection. And, uh, one of the people we interviewed was Dr. Carni, who was a resident at
12:57Bethesda. And when we told him, Jeremy Gunn and I, when we told him that there were no photographs
13:03of probes in the body in the official autopsy photo collection, he became visibly agitated and,
13:11and his face turned bright pink. And he said, I, I came in and out of the morgue many times as the
13:17resident on duty that night, but I saw flashbulbs going off when there were probes in the body.
13:22And you're telling me there's no photos in the collection. We said, that's right.
13:26So, uh, two more that are missing. And that concludes my answer. Uh,
13:34black and white prints were seen by numerous people showing a large exit defect in the rear
13:40of JFK's head. So Mr. Knutson, the White House photographer, Navy Chief Knutson, showed such
13:47photos to another White House photographer, Joe O'Donnell, the week after the president died.
13:53Black and white prints showing a big exit wound in the back of the head. Uh, there are no such photos
14:00in the collection, but Joe O'Donnell said there were. And another witness that saw those photos
14:05was Navy Corpsman Dennis David. Uh, and he was shown those photographs by the Bethesda Naval
14:11Hospital audio visual department head, uh, Lieutenant Commander Pitzer. Uh, the last
14:17type of photo that's missing, uh, black and white prints of an entry wound high in the forehead up
14:22here, not in the temple, but high in the forehead above the right eye. Black and white prints
14:28showing that were shown by Mr. Knutson, by Chief Knutson to Mr. O'Donnell. They were also
14:36seen by Dennis David when Lieutenant Commander Pitzer showed him autopsy photographs. And
14:42there, a third witness surfaced in the year 2010, Quentin Schwinn, who lives in Cleveland.
14:50And he, during a federal job interview, believe it or not, during a federal job interview with
14:55an intelligence agency, when he was at the Rochester Institute of Technology, majoring in
15:00photography, he was shown a color positive transparency showing an entry wound high in
15:06the forehead of JFK. So that's my kind of lengthy answer on which photographs am I confident are
15:13missing. Uh, thank you very much. And then real quickly, because my last question, line of
15:18question is for Mr. Bolden. Um, what is the evidence that you refer to about an interruption of chain
15:23of custody of President Kennedy's body prior to the start of the autopsy shortly after 8pm?
15:27Right. Because of this venue and this format, I'll have to give you a streamlined answer. I'm
15:33sure everyone will appreciate that. We, we know for a fact that the motorcade from Andrews Air
15:41Force Base with a bronze Dallas casket in it arrived in front of Bethesda at 6.55pm. Remember
15:50that time. That's, uh, documented by the Secret Service report of Agent Clint Hill and by newspaper
15:59reporters. But the review board obtained an extremely important document written by a Marine
16:07Corps non-commissioned officer, Sergeant Boysion of the United States Marine Corps. He led a team
16:13of Marines from the Marine barracks in Washington, D.C. to provide physical security at the autopsy.
16:20This was not the honor guard in dressed uniforms. This was, these were Marines from the Marine
16:25barracks to provide physical security. He wrote a report of what happened that night and he wrote
16:32in his report dated November 26th, 1963. He wrote that, and he's only talking about what happened
16:40with the president because that was his job was to guard the president's body during the autopsy.
16:44He wrote that the casket arrived at 1835 hours. 1835 hours. That's 6.35pm, 20 minutes before
16:55the motorcade from Andrews arrived. And there is a considerable amount of evidence, a wide range of
17:03evidence that the president's body really arrived by helicopter before the motorcade from Andrews.
17:09That's the broken chain of custody. And the issue here, it's a very important issue,
17:17the issue here is if Sergeant Boysion's report is correct, and he authenticated that to the review
17:24board staff, he authenticated that to me with a written letter and with a telephone interview,
17:29if his report is correct, then what was happening with the president's body between 6.35pm
17:35and 8 o'clock when the autopsy of records started? That's almost an hour and a half.
17:40And the simple answer, the streamlined answer appears to be that many metal fragments were
17:46removed from President Kennedy's body before the autopsy of record began. We have witnesses for
17:52this. Those would be the bullet fragments, correct? Yes. Tom Robinson of Galler's Funeral Home saw a
17:57vial full of ten tiny fragments which he saw picked out of President Kennedy's brain. They
18:01were never placed in the record. Dennis David, HM1 Corpsman Dennis David, typed a receipt for a
18:08federal agent of four large bullet fragments. He thought it would be mass larger than one bullet
18:14and less mass than two bullets, somewhere between one and two bullets, four large fragments. He
18:20typed the receipt. He was allowed to handle the fragments by the federal agent. We wouldn't do
18:26that today. And the agent took the receipt, the typewriter ribbon, and the fragments and they
18:33were never introduced in the record. So we also have two witnesses to make a long story short. We
18:38have two witnesses to surgery on the cranium to get this evidence out. And Dr. Humes, the chief
18:50pathologist, said under oath to the Warren Commission that I never, to Arlen Spector, I correct
18:58myself, Dr. Humes said under oath that I never had to perform a craniotomy. I never had to saw the
19:05skull open to get the brain out. And when Dr. Fink arrived late for the autopsy, he was the outsider,
19:10the Army guy, arrived at 830, Humes told Dr. Fink no sawing of the skull was necessary. So the end
19:20of my response here is that we have two witnesses, x-ray technician Ed Reed, under oath to the
19:25review board, and Tom Robinson to both the House committee and to the review board. Tom Robinson
19:33told the same account to both the HSCA and to us that he saw Dr. Humes saw the skull open. So I
19:42think bullet fragments were removed from the president's body before the autopsy of record
19:48began. And that's why we should have no confidence whatsoever in the autopsy.
19:54Thank you very much. My next question is for you, Mr. Bolden. Mr. Bolden, can you hear me?
20:04Okay, sir, thank you for sticking with us so long. I know it's been kind of long,
20:08but if you can real quick, what did you observe
20:11about the Secret Service investigation of President Kennedy's assassination?
20:18It's the cover-up of a crime. Now, the Secret Service initiated so many cover-ups. Number one,
20:30the number of bullet fragments that were found in the car. Harry Gaglin, on November the 26th,
20:40looked at the car, the assassination automobile, and he found two carcasses,
20:52and he also observed a bullet hole in the windshield.
21:05And he was told not to let the FBI know about any of this, and to get the car to
21:15a mission somewhere where they could put a new windshield in and clean the car up.
21:26Now, the biggest thing that I was talking about was the violations of constitutional rights that
21:35followed, especially in my case, simply because I wouldn't be quiet. I was afraid
21:44I was arrested. I would be attempted to declare me insane, and I was put in Springfield, Missouri,
21:55forced to take drugs, 9,000 drugs. Now, that stems from the fact that on the 18th of November 1964,
22:09yeah, 1964, I was called to Washington, D.C., and
22:19they told me they were going to give me another name, change my identity, and that
22:29I would become another individual. And that, in fact, they had had me,
22:35and I think that they were setting me up for an assassination attempt. I think that that's what
22:41was going on, because when they sent me to the penitentiary, they made it clear that it was a case
22:51of my being so agitated about the assassination that I would keep quiet.
23:00And so, they gave me two trials. They had two convicts that I had arrested,
23:11and they put me on trial twice in one month, and that was November. They kidnapped me
23:21out of Washington, D.C., violated my constitutional rights,
23:26denied me an attorney, simply because they said I was not a player. I was not a team player.
23:39I wouldn't keep my mouth shut. And so, when they did that to me, they sent me to Springfield
23:48and put me in a camp there, where I was fled by one of the inmates,
23:55and they used that as an excuse that on July the 7th, 1967, two guards came to the camp
24:08and got me and took me to what they called two bodies, and they undressed me, got me naked,
24:15threw me in a cell, and the next thing I know, they were forced to medicate me.
24:24The guard came by. He said, look, we have medication. I said, I haven't been before
24:32in court. No court has said that I was insane. You're supposed to take me to the court,
24:41but they didn't do that. They forced me to take these drugs. One of them knocked me out.
24:48I fell on the floor, hit his back. He had to go into the hospital. That was that.
24:58And this is how they treated me. No, I was kidnapped out of Washington, D.C.,
25:05brought to Chicago, denied an attorney by the United States Attorney. It would be head-to-head.
25:14I was then not given any food all that night, which was May 18th, 1964. They didn't let me
25:24eat anything, because they kept talking about I was not a team player and I didn't keep my mouth
25:32shut. And this is how that they controlled the cover-up. Agents became afraid and didn't want
25:45to talk. And there were so many cover-ups. The chief rather put out a memo that said,
25:55any agent that gave that information, other than the information that he was provided,
26:04would be searched severely. Well, when they found out that I was going to the War Information,
26:13who was investigating the case, upon President Johnson, I had to go testify to the War
26:26Information about what the Secret Service was doing and the type of protection that President
26:33Kennedy was receiving. And so they robbed me from Washington, D.C., denied military,
26:42every constitutional right was violated, and forced me to take medical drugs,
26:56stripped me naked, and lured me to such prisons. Now, here I was in the Secret Service. They
27:08they locked me up with people whom I could put in jail for possession. I was threatened by these
27:17people. And it really affected me, and my wife, who I now love the most, who stuck with me throughout
27:29this ordeal. And to anybody who's listening, if you have a good wife, like God was, keep her.
27:41Keep her, because that's the scripture said. The devil's hand is not easily broken.
27:50And you're talking about people like my dear wife who passed away in 2005.
27:55So, I just want people to know that the Constitutional Rights, when I was on trial,
28:09in July the 12th, the jury was debating whether or not we were learning. The judge called the jury
28:21forth, and told the jury, in my opinion, Bowman is guilty of all counts and indictments for three
28:31times. That jury did not find me guilty. So, the judge set another trial for two weeks'
28:40waiting. For two weeks now, a second trial. And they asked for another judge. The judge himself,
28:50in violation of the federal procedure, heard the motion himself. And the law said that if a
29:00complainant filed a motion for a trial, saying to the judge that the charges of the complainant
29:12against cannot make, cannot make the decision as to the president's actions. So, here I am now,
29:22and it took me 90 years. 90 years waiting to look into this. It broke my heart.
29:32Because America is supposed to be the leader. The Constitutional Rights are supposed to be
29:40the leader in the democracy. Yes, I fell for America's system. But I'm glad I did.
29:55And I'm going to do it again. Because the American people need to know the truth.
29:59And the truth will set you free.
30:03Well, thank you, Mr. Bolden. And again, thank you for your testimony.
30:07Can I say something?
30:07Yes.
30:08Sure. I'm Tyler Nixon. I'm counsel for Mr. Bolden. And I can just give a minute
30:15of clarification here. Mr. Bolden was, in fact, prosecuted on what,
30:22in my, I've dealt in this case very deeply. This was one of the most ravenous,
30:28I mean, you want to talk about weaponization of the judicial system and the justice system.
30:33This man was railroaded. He had a judge, as he said, who told the jury that he believed
30:39that he was guilty. He set a new trial. And the two accusing witnesses were two men that he had
30:45arrested previously as counterfeiters. And the main witness who purportedly, you know,
30:52out of the goodness of his heart, went to the head of the Secret Service, Maurice Martindale,
30:57to report the supposed solicitation of a bribe, which was the accusation,
31:01admitted in his trial, about two months before he murdered himself in Mr. Bolden's trial.
31:08Yes, Mr. Nixon, we actually would be happy to collect all the information off record. But just
31:13due to process, as you're not a state witness, we just have to be careful about, yeah. But we,
31:19I will say, at least I speak for myself, I do not believe that Mr. Bolden was actually
31:25a guilty of a crime. I do believe that he was falsely, if you will, framed. And so on behalf
31:32of the U.S. government, we'd like to apologize to him and his family, because obviously that's not
31:37how we are supposed to treat people in this country. And so you have our sympathy and as
31:43well as our apology for the treatment of that. But we will be happy to follow up on that, because
31:47as stated, we would like to collect and make sure that this does not happen to future individuals.
31:53And that requires changing of laws and also putting protections in place. But I would like
31:57to thank all of you. We've gone way over our time today, but the fact that you all traveled in
32:02and were willing to come testify, especially you, Dr. Curtis, Mr. Bolden, Judge Tenhine,
32:08Mr. Hardaway, Mr. Horn, and Ms. Koh, thank you so much for coming here today. If you do have any
32:14other information you would like to submit to the task force, we will happily accept that and we
32:19will be following up on some of these suggestions that you have all made today. And with that,
32:23without objection, all members will have five legislative days in which to submit materials
32:28and additional written questions for the witnesses, which will be forwarded to the
32:32witnesses for their responses as well. If you'd like to submit anything else to the record, we'd
32:35be happily accepting of that. If there are no further business without objection, the task
32:39force stands adjourned.
Recommended
1:15
1:23
2:32
8:00
0:46