The autopsy of John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was performed at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. The autopsy began at about 8p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on November 22, 1963—the day of Kennedy's assassination—and ended in the early morning of November 23, 1963. The choice of autopsy hospital in the Washington, D.C. area was made by his widow, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, who chose the Bethesda inasmuch as President Kennedy had been a naval officer during World War II.
The autopsy was conducted by two physicians, Commander James Humes and Commander J. Thornton Boswell. They were assisted by ballistics wound expert Pierre Finck of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Although Kennedy's personal physician, Rear Admiral George Burkley pushed for an expedited autopsy simply to find the bullet, the commanding officer of the medical center—Admiral Calvin Galloway—intervened to order a complete autopsy.
The autopsy found that Kennedy was hit by two bullets. One entered his upper back and exited below his neck, albeit obscured by a tracheotomy. The other bullet struck Kennedy in the back of his head and exited the front of his skull in a large exit wound. The trajectory of the latter bullet was marked by bullet fragments throughout his brain. The former bullet was not found during the autopsy, but was discovered at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. It later became the subject of the Warren Commission's single-bullet theory, often derided as the "magic-bullet theory" by conspiracy theorists.
In 1968, U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark organized a medical panel to examine the autopsy's photographs and X-rays. The panel concurred with the Warren Commission's conclusion that Kennedy was killed by two shots from behind. The House Select Committee on Assassinations—which concluded that there likely was a conspiracy and that there had been an assassin in front of the president on the grassy knoll—also agreed with the Warren Commission. Nevertheless, due to procedural errors, discrepancies, and the 1966 disappearance of Kennedy's brain, the autopsy has become the subject of numerous conspiracy theories.
Background
The 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, was shot and fatally wounded on November 22, 1963, while riding in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.Bugliosi (2007), pp. xi, xxii, xlii. The limousine rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1:00 P.M., after more than twenty minutes' treatment.Bugliosi (2007), p. xi. Physicians at Parkland Hospital reported the president as having a heartbeat, that stopped ten minutes after arrival.JFK's Injury Would Still Be Fatal Today, abcnews.go.com; accessed November 19, 2025. The Secret Service was concerned about the possibility of a larger plot and urged the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, to leave Dallas and return to the White House. Johnson refused to do so without any proof of Kennedy's death.Boyd (2015), pp. 59, 62.
Johnson returned to Air Force One about 1:30p.m., and shortly thereafter he received telephone calls from two advisors, McGeorge Bundy and Walter Jenkins, who recommended his immediate return to Washington, D.C. He replied that he would not leave Dallas without the president's wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, and that she would not leave without Kennedy's body. According to Esquire, Johnson did "not want to be remembered as an abandoner of beautiful widows".
The Dallas County medical examiner, Earl Rose, was at Parkland when he learned that President Kennedy had been pronounced dead. Rose entered the trauma room where Kennedy's body lay and was confronted by a Secret Service agent, Roy Kellerman, and Kennedy's personal physician, George Burkley, who said that there was no time to perform an autopsy because Jacqueline Kennedy would not leave Dallas without her husband's body, which was to be delivered promptly to the airport.
At the time of President Kennedy's assassination, the murder of a president was not under federal jurisdiction. Accordingly, Rose insisted that Texas law required him to perform a post mortem examination. A heated exchange ensued as he argued with Kennedy's aides. Kennedy's body was placed in a coffin and, accompanied by Jacqueline, rolled down the corridor on a gurney. Rose was reported to have stood in a hospital doorway, backed by a Dallas policeman, in an attempt to prevent removal of the body. The presidential aides argued with Dallas officials until,Bugliosi (2007), pp. 110. according to Robert Caro's The Years of Lyndon Johnson, they "literally shoved [Rose] and the policeman aside to get out of the building". Rose later stated that he had not fought back, because he considered it unwise to increase tension.
Autopsy Site selection
Kennedy's aides disagreed as to where the autopsy should be conducted. Kennedy's personal physician, Rear Admiral George Burkley pushed for Bethesda Naval Hospital. However, Major General Ted Clifton instructed Surgeon General Leonard D. Heaton that it would be conducted at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.Bugliosi (2007), pp. 137-138. General Godfrey McHugh ordered an ambulance to transport Kennedy's body to Walter Reed. When informed that it was illegal to do so in D.C. without a coroner's permission, McHugh offered to pay the fine.
Burkley then consulted with Jacqueline, who was initially reluctant to have an autopsy. She selected Bethesda Naval Hospital, her husband having been a naval officer during World War II.Warren Report (2004) , p. 18. She chose Secret Service Agent William Greer—whom she felt sorry for as he faulted himself for not saving the president—to drive Kennedy's casket to Bethesda.Bugliosi (2007), p. 138. As the body was transported from Andrews Air Force Base to Bethesda, crowds of mourners lined the roads.Bugliosi (2007), pp. 145-146.
Navy Surgeon General Edward C. Kenney ordered two naval medical doctors, Commander James Humes and Commander J. Thornton Boswell, to conduct the autopsy.Bugliosi (2007), pp. 139-140. Humes was selected as lead surgeon. Boswell called the decision to conduct the autopsy at Bethesda "stupid" and argued that it should instead be held at the specialized Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) just five miles away. Although both had conducted autopsies, neither were trained or certified in forensic pathology.Bugliosi (2007), p. 140.
Post-mortem at Bethesda At 7:35 p.m. EST on November 22, Humes and Boswell removed Kennedy's body from his bronze casket and began the autopsy.Bugliosi (2007), p. 149. Forty people, including military officers, were in attendance.Bugliosi (2007), pp. 149-150. Admiral Burkley urged the doctors to expedite the autopsy: "all we need is the bullet". Drs. Humes and Boswell, however, argued for a thorough and complete autopsy but temporarily submitted.Bugliosi (2007), p. 150. Medical personnel took photographs—both black and white and color—and X-rays of his head.
The X-rays revealed around 40 small bullet fragments along the bullet's trajectory through Kennedy's head, with two large enough to be of interest to investigators. Drs. Humes and Boswell then contacted wound ballistics expert Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Finck of AFIP for assistance.Bugliosi (2007), p. 152. However, they grew tired of waiting and removed the two fragments.Bugliosi (2007), pp. 156-157. They also extracted Kennedy's entire brain and placed it into formaldehyde for later study. Finck arrived soon thereafter and examined the head wound with Boswell and Humes.Bugliosi (2007), p. 157.
Kennedy's body was then turned onto its side to examine the other wound. The three identified an entry point in Kennedy's back but were unable to find the corresponding exit wound or the bullet upon initial probing. Finck argued for a complete radiological survey of the body, and Humes suggested they conduct a complete autopsy. This angered Burkley, who argued that Jacqueline only wanted a limited autopsy. Admiral Calvin Galloway—the commanding officer of the US Naval Medical Center—overruled Burkley and ordered the doctors to carry out an entire autopsy.Bugliosi (2007), p. 162. After further examination and the full-body X-rays, no bullet or major fragment was recovered from Kennedy's body.Bugliosi (2007), pp. 157, 170. The physicians were puzzled, and observers suggested various hypotheses—the projectile was a soft-point bullet, made of plastic or ice—until an FBI agent informed the physicians that a bullet had just been found at Parkland.Bugliosi (2007), p. 171.
After midnight, three skull fragments discovered by the Secret Service were brought to the pathologists.Bugliosi (2007), p. 180. They noted the largest fragment had what appeared to be an exit wound, confirmed when X-rays found metal fragments.Bugliosi (2007), pp. 180-181. After completing the autopsy after midnight, Humes informed the waiting FBI agents that Kennedy had been hit by two bullets from behind, to the back and to the head. He concluded that the latter bullet had been fatal, and that the former had "worked its way out of the body during cardiac massage at Parkland".Bugliosi (2007), p. 181.
Death certificates Burkley signed a death certificate on November 23 and noted that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the skull. He described the fatal head wound as something "shattering in type causing a fragmentation of the skull and evulsion of three particles of the skull at time of the impact, with resulting maceration of the right hemisphere of the brain." He also noted "a second wound occurred in the posterior back at about the level of the third thoracic vertebra". A second certificate of death, signed on December 6 by Theron Ward, a Justice of the Peace in Dallas County, stated that Kennedy died "as a result of two gunshot wounds (1) near the center of the body and just above the right shoulder, and (2) 1 inch to the right center of the back of the head."
Official findings The gunshot wound in the back
The Bethesda autopsy physicians attempted to probe the bullet hole in the base of Kennedy's neck above the scapula, but failed as it had passed through neck strap muscle. They did not perform a full dissection or persist in tracking, as throughout the autopsy they were unaware of the exit wound at the front of the throat. Emergency room physicians had obscured it while performing the tracheotomy. At Bethesda, the autopsy report of the president, Warren Exhibit CE 387, described the back wound as being oval-shaped, , and located "above the upper border of the scapula" (shoulder blade) at a location from the tip of the right acromion process, and below the right mastoid process (the bony prominence behind the ear). The concluding page of the Bethesda autopsy report states that "[t]he other missile [the bullet to the back] entered the right superior posterior thorax above the scapula, and traversed the soft tissues of the supra-scapular and the supra-clavicular portions of the base of the right side of the neck." The report also said that there was contusion (i.e., a bruise) of the apex (top tip) of the right lung in the region where it rises above the clavicle, and noted that although the apex of the right lung and the parietal pleural membrane over it had been bruised, they were not penetrated. This indicated passage of a missile close to them, but above them. The report pointed out that the thoracic cavity was not penetrated. This bullet produced contusions both of the right apical parietal pleura and of the apical portion of the right upper lobe of the lung. The bullet contused the strap muscles of the right side of the neck, damaged the trachea, and exited through the anterior surface of the neck.