My story does not begin with politics, power, or conspiracy. It begins with hunger.

I had left my office briefly to grab something to eat before heading into surgery. To do that, I had to pass by the emergency room—a routine path I had walked countless times before. But that day, routine collapsed into chaos in a matter of seconds. As I approached the emergency entrance, a policeman burst through the door, grabbed my shoulder with urgency, and asked a question that would change everything: “Are you a doctor?”

When I answered yes, he did not hesitate. He seized my arm and pulled me inside, straight toward the trauma room.

Inside, the scene was surreal. There were only three people present. One was the President of the United States, lying motionless on a gurney. Another was Dr. James Carico, working alone under crushing pressure. The third was a single nurse. The reason for this shocking understaffing soon became clear: Governor Connally had arrived moments earlier in critical condition, pulling nearly the entire emergency staff away. Dr. Carico had been left to manage the President by himself.

When I entered, Dr. Carico had just placed an endotracheal tube. I stepped in to help, holding the tube steady so he could connect it to the Bird respirator, a machine both of us knew well. We had used it many times. Normally, it regulated breathing at a controlled rhythm—ten to fifteen cycles per minute. But something was terribly wrong.

The machine began firing rapidly, delivering between one hundred and one hundred twenty-five cycles per minute. It rattled violently, defying everything we knew about its operation. The question hung in the air: was the machine malfunctioning, or was the airway blocked? The tube appeared properly placed. Yet the President was not ventilating.

In medicine, moments like this are measured in heartbeats, not minutes. Dr. Carico and I exchanged a look that needed no words. Finally, I asked him what he wanted to do. His decision was already made.

“We need to do a tracheostomy.”

I moved instinctively to remove the President’s shirt, knowing it would obstruct access. The nurse was already ahead of me, scissors flashing with practiced precision. As we worked, Dr. Malcolm Perry entered the room. Senior in rank and authority, he assumed responsibility for the procedure. There was no debate, no ceremony—only action.

While Dr. Perry performed the tracheostomy, Dr. Carico turned to me again. “Don,” he said calmly, “go ahead and do a cutdown on the left leg.”

A cutdown is a small but vital procedure. Trauma patients often die not from the wound itself, but from blood loss. Without volume, the heart has nothing to pump. The goal is speed—access a vein quickly to restore circulation. I made an incision over the shin, dissected down to the saphenous vein, inserted the catheter, secured it, and connected the pressurized IV bag. Fluid flowed in, forced by urgency and hope.

Then everything stopped.

A cardiac monitor revealed what our instincts already feared: the President’s heart was no longer functioning. External cardiac massage began immediately, performed by Dr. Kemp Clark, the chief of neurosurgery. When he was relieved, he returned to the head of the gurney, lifted it gently—and then stopped.

What he said next froze the room.

“This wound is not compatible with life.”

Silence followed. Not the chaotic silence of panic, but a heavy, absolute stillness. No one spoke. No one moved. Time itself seemed to hesitate.

Then Dr. Clark did something unusual. By that point, the chiefs of every surgical service had arrived, standing against the wall in their white coats, summoned by the emergency call. Dr. Clark addressed them deliberately. He told them he needed to explain the wound to each of them individually, so they could later speak accurately about what they had seen.

He described a large defect—three to four inches—in the posterior cranium. He also described a bullet wound at the right temple. According to his explanation, the bullet entered through the temple, traveled into the cranial vault, created immense internal pressure, and ultimately blew out the back of the skull when it exited.

Every physician in that room understood exactly what that meant.

Yet none of them were ever called to testify before the Warren Commission.

Afterward, I found myself unable to leave. Mrs. Kennedy stood to my right, blocking my path. Eventually, as people filtered out, I stepped closer to the head wound. I could not see it clearly—it rested against a pillow—but I knew precisely where it was.

I then walked into the adjacent X-ray waiting room. It was large and eerily calm. In the center stood Lyndon B. Johnson, already giving instructions, already assuming command. The government was reorganizing itself in real time. What struck me most was not his authority, but his fearlessness. There were no visible Secret Service agents, no obvious weapons. In that moment, we had no idea whether this was an isolated attack or something far larger.

And yet, he stood there unshaken.

That realization disturbed me deeply. If this had been a coup, he would have been next.

Later, we were told—quietly but firmly—that residents and interns were not to discuss what had happened. And so we didn’t. Dr. Carico and I shared many lunches over the years, often just the two of us. We never spoke about that day.

But one truth remains unavoidable: the “magic bullet” theory was a creation of the Warren Commission. What we saw in that trauma room does not align with it. The wounds told their own story—one that was witnessed, understood, and then set aside.

History remembers conclusions. But truth often lives in moments like that one: unrecorded, unresolved, and impossible to forget.