Representative Boggs.

Dr. PERRY. There is no way to tell, sir, for sure. As you may recall, passage of a high velocity missile, the damage it does, is dependent on two factors, actually, one being deformation of the missile, increase in its relative caliber, and the other the expending of the energy of that missile in the object it strikes.
For example, the energy used to carry the missile beyond the object that it struck is obviously not going to cause much of an injury. If there is a missile of relatively high velocity, although I consider this a medium velocity weapon, that the missile for entrance or exit had the bullet not been deformed would not be substantially different, had it not been deformed nor particularly slowed in its velocity.

Representative Boggs.

By that, you mean it would be difficult to determine the point of exit and the point of entrance under those circumstances?
Dr. PERRY. Yes, sir; unless one were able to ascertain the trajectory. If you could, for example, make check points between what the missile might have struck, then you could ascertain trajectory. But with a relatively high velocity missile, this also is difficult due to the amount of blast injury which occurs in enclosed tissues, similar to those I am sure you have seen to those discussed, so blast injury can be an area remote from the exact passage of the missile itself.

Representative Boggs.

Of course, your main concern was to try to save the President's life and not
Dr. PERRY. Yes, sir; it actually never occurred to me until all the questions. began to come, and I was ill-prepared to meet them, but it never occurred to me that, to investigate, because I was busy, and I have done these types of things many times.
It just never occurred to me to look into it until afterwards.

Representative Ford.

Any questions, Dean Storey?

Mr. Storey.

No, thank you, sir.

Representative Ford.

Mr. Murray?

Mr. Murray.

No.

Mr. Dulles.

I have one more question I would like to ask.

Did you know anything about the spent bullet that was found on, I don't know what you call it-the litter?
Dr. PERRY. On the carriage?

Mr. Dulles.

On the carriage.
Dr. PERRY. My first knowledge of that was one of the newspaper publications had said there was a bullet found there. I don't know now whether it was or was not. I didn't find it.

Mr. Specter.

May I say, Mr. Dulles, on that subject, I took several depositions on that subject in the Dallas Hospital and I think we have a reasonably conclusive answer on that question; and, in fact, it came from the stretcher of Governor Connally.
Dr. PERRY. They were quoted as having removed a bullet from Governor Connally's leg, the press quoted that, but a bullet was not removed from Governor Connally's leg.

Mr. Specter.

There was no bullet removed from Governor Connally's leg, but there was a wound there, but there was a very small fragment embedded in the femur, as the deposition of Drs. Shaw, Shires, and Gregory will show. But the bullet was found on a stretcher and the question arose as to whose stretcher it was, and we have traced the two stretchers in a way so as to exclude the possibility of its being the stretcher on which President Kennedy was carried, and we have traced the path of Governor Connally's stretcher and have narrowed it to two stretchers. And the bullet came off of one of the two stretchers, so that, through the circumstances of the facts, it is reasonably conclusive that it came from the stretcher of Governor Connally.

Representative Ford.

How long did it take you to go from where you were when the page came to get down to trauma room No. 1?
Dr. PERRY. A matter of no more than a minute or so, Congressman Ford. It is down one flight of stairs and the door is almost immediately adjacent to the dining room where we would go and we did not wait on the elevator. We went down the stairs.