Mr. Specter. And what facts did you have available either to you or to the other doctors whom you talked this over with, with respect to the nature of the wound, source of the wounds, and that sort of thing?
Dr. McClelland. Immediately we had essentially no facts. We knew nothing of the number of bullets that had supposedly been fired. We knew nothing of the site from which the bullet had been fired, essentially none of the circumstances in the first few minutes, say, 20 or 30 minutes after the President was brought in, so that our initial impressions were based upon extremely incomplete information.
Mr. Specter. What were your initial impressions?
Dr. McClelland. The initial impression that we had was that perhaps the wound in the neck, the anterior part of the neck, was an entrance wound and that it had perhaps taken a trajectory off the anterior vertebral body and again into the skull itself, exiting out the back, to produce the massive injury in the head. However, this required some straining of the imagination to imagine that this would happen, and it was much easier to explain the apparent trajectory by means of two bullets, which we later found out apparently had been fired, than by just one then, on which basis we were originally taking to explain it.
Mr. Specter. Through the use of the pronoun "we" in your last answer, to whom do you mean by "we"?
Dr. McClelland. Essentially all of the doctors that have previously been mentioned here.
Mr. Specter. Did you observe the condition of the back of the President's head?
Dr. McClelland. Well, partially; not, of course, as I say, we did not lift his head up since it was so greatly damaged. We attempted to avoid moving him any more than it was absolutely necessary, but I could see, of course, all the extent of the wound.
Mr. Specter. You saw a large opening which you have already described?
Dr. McClelland. I saw the large opening which I have described.