Mr. Specter. What was the medium of your conversation?
Dr. Perry. Over the telephone.
Mr. Specter. Did he identify himself to you as Dr. Humes of Bethesda?
Dr. Perry. He did.
Mr. Specter. Would you state as specifically as you can recollect the conversation that you first had with him?
Dr. Perry. He advised me that he could not discuss with me the findings of necropsy, that he had a few questions he would like to clarify. The initial phone call was in relation to my doing a tracheotomy. Since I had made the incision directly through the wound in the neck, it made it difficult for them to ascertain the exact nature of this wound. Of course, that did not occur to me at the time. I did what appeared to me to be medically expedient. And when I informed him that there was a wound there and I suspected an underlying wound of the trachea and even perhaps of the great vessels he advised me that he thought this action was correct and he said he could not relate to me any of the other findings.
Mr. Specter. Would you relate to me in lay language what necropsy is?
Dr. Perry. Autopsy, postmortem examination.
Mr. Specter. What was the content of the second conversation which you had with Comdr. Humes, please?
Dr. Perry. The second conversation was in regard to the placement of the chest tubes for drainage of the chest cavity. And I related to him, as I have to you, the indications that prompted me to advise that this be done at that time.