The late arrival at Parkland Hospital of Admiral George G. Burkley, the President’s personal physician, prevented Kennedy from receiving emergency steroids. That neglect assured that Kennedy would die even if his wounds had been less severe. Official and authoritative lies about these facts may appear to be for the purpose of protecting Burkley’s career and reputation. They may appear to be white lies, since Burkley’s presence turned out to be inconsequential. Instead, the lies hide a crucial part of the conspiracy—Kennedy’s certain death was not left to chance.
Dr. James A. Nicholas, who performed Kennedy’s back surgery in 1954, said Kennedy went into shock several times after the operation, “which is why we slept with him for five days and five nights. Adrenal insufficiency is characterized by shock and death...We had to give him steroids to pull him out of shock.”1
Dr. Burkley knew the medical necessity. The stress of any iliness or infection, even a mild one, and especially surgery, to a patient with an adrenal deficiency will cause acute adrenal failure and death without steroids.2 Even if the headshot had missed and Kennedy’s wounds were not fatal, he would have died anyway.
Dr. Paul Peters, one of the doctors who treated President Kennedy at Parkland Hospital, was interviewed by Gerald Posner, allegedly, in March 1992 and “quoted” in Posner’s book, Case Closed (Posner is a known fabricator and plagiarist). Dr. Peters allegedly told Posner that while another doctor (Ron Jones) did the cutdowns on Kennedy’s ankle (one of the initial emergency procedures for replacing lost fluids), “some admiral” behind him said, “Get him some steroids.”3
Posner, in a footnote, states categorically that this admiral was George Burkley, the President’s personal physician. That would make sense, if true, because Burkley should have been the only person present who knew about Kennedy’s secret adrenal deficiency and that it created the life-or-death urgency of an immediate infusion of cortical hormones to treat Kennedy’s shock.
The problem is that this timely instruction could not have come from Burkley. Dr. Burkley arrived near the end of the emergency procedures, not the beginning. Proof that the official story is false regarding Kennedy receiving steroids from Burkley within the first few minutes requires establishing the chronology at Parkland Hospital and placing Burkley’s arrival within it.
Burkley’s late arrival at Parkland Hospital is documented on film and corroborated by other photographs and testimonies. Ignoring this evidence has left the false impression that everything necessary was done to save Kennedy’s life. The truth is seen by studying the evidence of several arrivals at Parkland Hospital of persons in the motorcade.
William Manchester, in his book Death of a President, states: “On the plane word had been passed that since the flight was so brief no new plans would be issued for the Dallas motorcade; it would be identical to the motorcade in Fort Worth. lf a passenger had ridden in the ninth car there, say, he would be in the ninth car here. It didn’t work. The vehicles were unfamiliar, and there was an undignified scramble for seats. Ted Clifton and Godfrey McHugh found an empty station wagon and jumped in.” The whereabouts of this station wagon become important because they explain how General Chester V. “Ted” Clifton arrived at Parkland early enough to start the clock on these events.4
In an oral history interview for the JFK Library, October 17, 1967, Burkley gave a different reason for his position at the rear of the Dallas motorcade instead of in front — the Secret Service put him there. His claim of “probably” an early arrival at Parkland, however, was wrong.
BURKLEY: We might mention something about the assassination here which will clear the record, I think, to a great degree. When we were in Fort Worth, Mrs. Lincoln [Evelyn N. Lincoln] and I were in the second car in the motorcade. When we arrived in Dallas the President got off one end of the plane. Mrs. Lincoln and I got off the other end of the plane, and when we got to the bottom of the stairs the motorcade was already in motion and I complained to the Secret Service that I should be either in the follow-up car or the lead car.
McHUGH: Who did you speak to at that time?
BURKLEY: Members of the Secret Service. And they said it couldn’t be arranged, that the politicians had gotten in that group of cars, that every one wanted to be in those cars, and also the motorcade was in action. We, therefore, were put in a so-called VIP vehicle. When the assassination occurred, I got to the scene by securing a car through one of the Secret Service, Andy Berger, and an escort of a policeman. I was there probably within three to five minutes of the time the President arrived. I went immediately in to see the President, and went to the table on which he was being treated, and immediately saw for all intents and purposes life did not exist, or could not be sustained. I talked to the doctors who were busily engaged in doing what was indicated and would have been indicated had there been any hope of salvation of the President. I gave them some hydrocortisone, to put in the intravenous which was being given, and also told them his blood type. There was no need for anything in my estimation, but they were correct in doing all possible procedures.5
The Atkins and Wiegman films of Clifton’s arrival in the station wagon start the clock on this chronology. Figure number one, showing the earliest position of parked vehicles, is based on Wiegman’s film. A crucial frame from Atkins’ film is on page 58 of Robert Groden’s book, The Killing of a President. It shows Clifton walking past the limousine as he enters the hospital. The top is off of the limousine.
By the time Burkley arrived, enough time had passed for several vehicles in the parking area to change positions and for the top to be put on the limousine. These vehicles, including Burkley’s, were in the same position when the Kennedy/Johnson staff secretaries arrived moments later. The film of the secretaries’ arrival stops the clock on the chronology.
Assistant Press Secretary Malcolm Kiduff remembers being in the press pool car, a convertible sedan sixth in line behind the lead unmarked police car, the presidential limousine, the President’s Secret Service follow-up car (called Halfback), LBJ’s car, and his Secret Service follow-up car (called Varsity).6 Kilduff’s place in the motorcade is easily visible in the films since the press photographers were eighth in line shooting forward. Dallas Mayor Earle Cabell, in his Warren Commission testimony, said, “We were separated from the President’s car by the car in which the Vice President and Senator Yarborough were riding, and by a station wagon holding, I think, certain members of the press and possibly some Secret Service, and I believe one other car of Secret Service so there were either two or three intervening cars between our place and the presidential car.”7 (emphasis added)
Cabell then described what his car did after the shots were fired. They went to the hospital following closely behind Johnson’s car. Cabell described witnessing upon his arrival at the emergency entrance, the removal of Kennedy from the limousine. He helped steady the carriage Connally was put on. Connally was removed from the car first.8
Mrs. Cabell, in her Warren Commission testimony, corroborates her husband, adding that he told her to stay in the car. She said Roberts got out of the car, but she stayed, as did the driver, “for quite some time.” She left the car only twice to “find a ladies’ room.” Mrs. Cabell was in the car when LBJ left the hospital but was inside the hospital when Kennedy’s casket was wheeled out.9
Chronological problems with the official story arise from NBC cameraman Dave Wiegman, Jr.’s film, and Navy cameraman Thomas M. Atkins’ film shot in Dealey Plaza, en route to, and outside Parkland’s emergency entrance. In his unedited film, unscreened at the time of its first broadcast, Wiegman leaves the photographers’ car in Dealey Plaza, hops into a car farther back, and follows the motorcade’s remnants to Parkland Hospital. As he turns his camera off and on, he shows a line of cars exit Stemmons Freeway at the Wycliff exit and approach the Trade Mart. He then cuts to a station wagon he is following on Harry Hines Blvd., intermittently showing Parkland.10
David Wiegman's film of the Texas Trip; to Parkland Hospital, 7:42-7:50; Clifton arrival, 7:51-7:58; secretaries arrival, 8:13-8:44
Upon arriving at the circular drive in front of the emergency entrance, Wiegman films the station wagon’s door opening and then cuts to General Clifton walking up the drive and pausing to talk to Kilduff and another man before entering the hospital, passing the presidential limousine and a small group of hospital employees gathered outside. The limousine’s top is not yet on, and there is no sign of any attempt to put it on. The crowd of hospital personnel along the wall outside the bay steadily grew over the next hour, extending along the wall inside the bay. When Clifton arrived, no one was standing along the inner wall, and only a handful were standing against the outer wall.11 (See Figure 1)
Details of this scene steadily change in a way that establishes an unmistakable chronology. The original scene shows Halfback parked at an angle behind the limousine, which is in ambulance bay number two. A solitary police motorcycle is parked next to Halfback against and perpendicular to the driveway’s curb and is facing the ambulance bays. A white sedan is parked farther down this curb and parallel to it. Johnson’s car, a gray convertible with its right rear door open, is parked directly behind Halfback. A white car behind Johnson’s is probably Varsity.12
A still photograph of Dearie Cabell sitting in her car without her driver shows everything as described above but with the Cabell car parked behind Varsity (a white hardtop, license P2 0060); a newly arrived motorcycle parked on the sidewalk parallel to the Cabell car; a newly arrived motorcycle parked next to the one near Halfback; a slightly larger crowd of hospital personnel outside bay one’s outer wall and a small crowd along its inner wall.13 (See Figure 2.)
Film of the arrival of the Kennedy/Johnson staff secretaries (Pam Turnure, Mary Gallagher, Evelyn Lincoln, and Liz Carpenter) shows still later changes. Pieces of the limousine’s top have now been removed from its trunk and laid out in preparation for assembly. A much larger crowd is now gathered along bay one’s outer wall with a slightly larger crowd along the inner wall. Halfback has been moved farther down the drive; Johnson’s car is gone; and a white sedan that brought Dr. Burkley is parked facing in the opposite direction of Halfback between Halfback and the two motorcycles against the curb. All else is as described earlier.14 (See Figure 4.)
Thomas M. Atkins film, PBS NOVA, "Who Shot President Kennedy?" 1988, Clifton arrival, 2:35-2:38; Burkley arrival, 2:42-2:49
Another view of this scene reveals the discrepancy with the official story of Burkley’s arrival. The Atkins film of the arrival of Dr. Burkley shows everything as it was upon the arrival of the secretaries. And at least the rear portion of the top is now on the limousine.
This means that Burkley, who was reportedly the person who informed the emergency team of Kennedy’s need for hydrocortisone at the outset of their attempts to save him, arrived much later.15 (See Figure 3)
In fact, Burkley, who was reportedly with the secretaries on the VIP bus at the back of the motorcade, arrived at Parkland just before them. Supposedly, based on his interviews with Burkley and the secretaries, Manchester described the VIP bus proceeding on to the Trade Mart where its occupants, upon leaving the bus, first learned what had happened. According to Manchester, Burkley did not have to be told. He “sensed that something terrible had happened” and, “With his chief pharmacist’s mate in tow...flagged Agent Andy Berger, who was about to leave in a police cruiser. The physician had just tossed his black bag on the floorboard when Chuck Roberts of Newsweek ran up. ‘Let me go with you,’ Chuck begged. Burkley, usually gentle, slammed the door in his face; the cruiser skirred into Harry Hines Boulevard and dropped the doctor outside Parkland’s emergency entrance minutes after the President’s disappearance within.” The terms “police cruiser” and “minutes after” are vague. Burkley arrived in a plain white four-door sedan many minutes after efforts began to save Kennedy, if not after they ended entirely.16
The secretaries, who were now with Jack Valenti, had to hear what had happened, get confirmation from a police officer, find an off-duty deputy sheriff parked nearby in his own car, and wait for Valenti and the deputy to transfer “tools, toys, and a stack of dry cleaning from the rear seat to the car’s trunk.” All of this occurring after a slow bus ride from Dealey Plaza to the Trade Mart while the presidential limousine sped to Parkland, only three miles away, at eighty miles per hour.17
The drive from the Trade Mart to Parkland is no more than five minutes. They are about a mile apart. What is more strange is that Mary Gallagher, in her autobiography, corroborates Manchester but only up to the point where they get confirmation from the police officer. According to Gallagher, the officer then “sped us all the way, siren blaring.”18 She and Valenti made this trip together.
Burkley may have just beaten the secretaries to Parkland, but he certainly was not there soon enough to allow the emergency staff to begin intravenous “hydrocortisone administered in the first few minutes.”19
A UPI reporter put the time of Burkley’s arrival at 12:53 p.m. This is about the time that Kennedy’s death was obvious to everyone in Emergency Room One.20
Burkley was near the back of the motorcade with the secretaries, which supports the evidence that he arrived as late as they did. If Burkley took three 100 mg vials of Solu-Cortef from his bag and gave them to Dr. Carrico, as Dr. Crenshaw says,21 then, given time for Burkley to get to the trauma room and assess the situation, this happened at 12:54 p.m., at the moment the emergency staff was ending treatment in realization of Kennedy’s death, which was declared at 12:55 p.m.22
By placing Dr. Burkley at the rear of the motorcade instead of in his customary position in the car ahead of or behind the presidential limousine, the conspirators assured that Kennedy would die even if his wounds had been, for most patients, non-fatal. Kennedy’s certain death was not left to chance.
(Revised and amended from original, print-only publication, titled, “A Parkland Hospital Chronology: The Late Arrival of Dr. George G. Burkley,” in Jerry Rose’s journal, The Fourth Decade, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 27-30, Nov. 1993, and No. 2, Jan. 1994, pp. 12-13.)
ENDNOTES:
Harrison Livingstone, High Treason 2, New York: Carroll & k Graf, 1992, p. 65.
Jeffrey R.M. Kunz, MD, ed., The AMA Family Medical Guide, New York: Random House, 1982, p. 524.
Gerald Posner, Case Closed, (NY: Random House, 1993), pp. 289-90.
William Manchester, The Death of a President, (NY: Harper & Row, 1967), p. 134. According to Todd Wayne Vaughan, author of Presidential Motorcade Schematic Listing, this was Mary Ferrell’s personal car, which she loaned to her husband’s employer, Eagle Lincoln-Mercury Dallas, for use in the motorcade.
George G. Burkley Oral History Interview, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, October 17, 1967. Accessed March 20, 2023. https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKOH/Burkley%2C%20George%20G/JFKOH-GGB-01/JFKOH-GGB-01
Manchester, Death of a President, p. 134.
Warren Commission Hearings and Evidence. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964, v. VII, p. 478, hearafter cited as 7H 478.
7H 478-480.
7H 488-489.
Film footage from Arts & Entertainment Network, “JFK: As it Happened,” November 22, 1988, 360 min. (Secretaries arrival, 2:46:23 - 2:47:09, Pam Turnure was misidentified as "Mrs. Kennedy" by WBAP-TV.)
The film was taken by David Wiegman, Jr., an NBC photographer in Camera Car #1, which was tenth in the motorcade. Wiegman jumped out of the car at Elm Street and ran up the knoll to film the Newmans. He then re-entered the car, which had stopped at the base of the knoll. It then rejoined the motorcade between cars fifteen and sixteen. By the time this car approached Parkland Hospital, however, Mary Ferrell's station wagon, bearing Clifton, was in front of it, as seen in Wiegman’s film.
“JFK: As it Happened.” According to Todd Wayne Vaughan’s book, Presidential Motorcade Schematic Listing , the station wagon in which General Clifton arrived at Parkland was the sixteenth car in the motorcade—behind Congressman’s Car #3 and in front of Press Bus #1. Vaughan said it is probable that General Clifton learned of the shooting while in Dealey Plaza from Governor Connally’s aide, Bill Stintson, who left this car momentarily and spoke to Secret Service Special Agent Lem Johns. With this knowledge, the car’s driver could have gone straight to Parkland Hospital, bypassing the Trade Mart, which would explain why Clifton arrived earlier than most of the motorcade passengers—including Dr. Burkley. Burkley, as Vaughan deduced, was not in a bus near the end of the motorcade as popularly reported, but in the twentieth car with Evelyn Lincoln. The other staff secretaries who arrived at Parkland with Lincoln, just after Burkley, were in the twenty-fourth vehicle, the Official Party Bus. Robert Groden reported that General Clifton was inadvertently left at Love Field with the “Bagman” who carried the apparatus that allowed the President to launch a nuclear attack. (Robert J. Groden, The Killing of a President, Viking Studio Books, 1993, p. 6). If this is true, Clifton’s early arrival at Parkland in Mary Ferrell’s station wagon becomes stranger.
“JFK: As it Happened.”
Photograph reproduced in an 80-page tabloid magazine supplement to The Dallas Moming News, Nov. 20, 1983, “Nov. 22 Twenty Years Later,” p. 19.
“JFK: As it Happened.”
Film footage from PBS, Nova, “Who Shot President Kennedy?” 1988, 60 min.
Manchester, Death of a President, pp. 174-175; Film footage from PBS, Nova, “Who Shot President Kennedy?”
Manchester, Death of a President, pp. 174-175.
Mary Gallagher, My Life with Jacqueline Kennedy, (NY: McKay, 1969), pp. 322-323.
Parkland Medical Staff, “Three Patients at Parkiand,” Texas State Journal of Medicine, Jan. 1964, p. 61.
David Lifton, Best Evidence, (NY: MacMillan, 1980), p. 375; CE 392, Warren Commission Report (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964) p. 526, 528, hearafter cited as WR 526, 528; 6H 41, 49, 62.
Crenshaw with Hansen and Shaw, JFK Conspiracy of Silence, New York: Signet, p. 82; High Treason 2. pp. 110-111.
Lifton, Best Evidence, p. 375; CE 392, WR 526, line 24, 528, line 9; 6H 41, 49, 62.