Dr. Perry. No, sir; I did not.
Mr. McCloy. Did you get the doctor's experience with regard to gunshot wounds?
Mr. Specter. Yes, sir; I did.
Mr. McCloy. You said something to the effect that, of knowing the President had an adrenalin insufficiency, is that something you could observe?
Dr. Perry. This is common medical knowledge, sir, that he had had in the past necessarily taken adrenalin steroids to support this insufficiency. Dr. Carrico, at this moment of great stress, recalled this, and requested this be given to him at that time, this is extremely important because people who have adrenalin insufficiency are unable to mobilize this hormone at the time of any great stress and it may be fatal without support from exogenous drugs.
Mr. McCloy. In other words, you had a general medical history of the President before he was—common knowledge.
Dr. Perry. No more so than anyone else, sir, except this would have stuck with us, sir, since they were already in that line.
Mr. McCloy. Did you discuss with any of the other doctors present, and you named quite a number of them, as to whether this was an exit wound or an entrance wound?
Dr. Perry. Yes, sir; we did at the time. But our discussion was necessarily limited by the fact that none of us knew, someone asked me now—you must remember that actually the only people who saw this wound for sure were Dr. Carrico and myself, and some of the other doctors were quoted as saying something about the wound which actually they never said at all because they never saw it, because on their arrival I had already made the incision through the wound, and despite what the press releases may have said neither Dr. Carrico nor myself could say whether it was an entrance or an exit wound from the nature of the wound itself and Dr. McClelland was quoted, for example, as saying he thought it was an exit wound, but that was not what he said at all because he didn't even see it.
Mr. McCloy. And it is a fact, is it not, that you did not see what we now are supposed to believe was the entrance wound?