Dr. Olivier. You couldn't say exactly at all. My feeling is that it would be more probable that it passed through the President first. At least I think it is important to establish line of flight to try to determine it.
Mr. Specter. Aside from the lines of flight, based on the factors which were known to you from the medical point of view and from the tests which you conducted, what would be the reason for the feeling which you just expressed?
Dr. Olivier. Because I believe you would need that, I mean to account for the damage to the wrist. I don't think you would have gotten a low enough velocity upon reaching the wrist unless you had gone through the President's body first.
Mr. Specter. The President's body as well as the Governor's body?
Dr. Olivier. As well as the Governor's.
Mr. Specter. Does the nature of the wound which was inflicted on Governor Connally's thigh shed any light on this subject?
Dr. Olivier. This, to my mind, at least, merely indicates the bullet at this time was about spent. In talking with doctor, I believe it was Gregory, I don't think he did the operation on the thigh but at least he saw the wound, and he said it was about the size of an eraser on a lead pencil. This could be accounted for—and there was also this small fragment of bullet in this thigh wound—this, to me, indicates that this was a spent bullet that had gone through the wrist as the Governor was sitting there, went through the wrist into his thigh, just partly imbedded and then fell out and I believe this was the bullet that was found on the stretcher.
Mr. Specter. Would you have any opinion as to the velocity of that bullet at the time it struck the Governor's thigh?
Dr. Olivier. No. We didn't do any work to simulate this, but it would have been at a very low velocity just to have gone in that far and drop out again.
Mr. Specter. Dr. Olivier, in the regular course of your work for the U.S. Army, do you have occasion to perform tests on reconstructed human skulls to determine the effects of bullets on skulls?