© Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, Inc. 2005
Interview of Former Special Agent of the FBI
James W. Sibert (1951 – 1972)
Interviewed by Jack O’Flaherty
On June 30, 2005
Edited for spelling, repetitions, etc. by Sandra Robinette on October 21, 2005. Corrections from
Mr. Sibert made by Sandra Robinette on November 8, 2005.Additional corrections from Mr.
Sibert and Mr. O’Flaherty entered by Sandra Robinette on December 13, 2005.
Jack O’Flaherty:
This is retired Special Agent of the FBI, Jack O’Flaherty.
I’m at the residence of James Sibert in Fort Myers, Florida,
and Jim has been kind enough to take the time to be
interviewed today in connection with the Oral History
program being conducted by the Society of Former Special
Agents of the FBI.
At this time, Jim will read, for the recording, a waiver
which is essentially signed by the both of us. Would you
please do that, Jim?
James Sibert:
We, the undersigned convey the rights to the intellectual
content of our interview on this date to the Society of
Former Special Agents of the FBI. This transfer is an
exchange for the Society’s efforts to preserve the historical legacy
of the FBI and its members. We understand that
portions of this interview may be deleted for security
purposes. Unless otherwise restricted, we agree that
acceptable sections can be published on the World Wide
Web and the recordings transferred to an established repository
for preservation and research.
O’Flaherty:
Thank you, Jim.
Jim and I will sign this form and return it along with the
tape recording and with the brief information requested.
And I would also like to state at this point in time that this
recording started at 2:25 p.m. on Thursday, June 30, 2005.
Jim, to start off on the interview, would you be kind
enough to provide a background, a brief background, of
your personal history before coming into the Bureau,
military background, and then the date that you entered into
the FBI.
James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 2
Sibert:
I guess you could say that I have mini-backgrounds, and
that’s M I N I, not M A N Y. I had three backgrounds
really.
I mean when I got out of college in 1940, I went into the
Army Air Corps. England was at war then. That was
before we had entered World War II. I was in the Air
Force for five-and-a-third years, was a combat commander
of a B 24 Squadron, a pilot and held the rank of Major.
I might say that I flew 302 combat hours while I was a pilot in
World War II. And was discharged in 1945, at which time I
decided I would go back to my original plan and go to graduate
school and secure some graduate degrees, and teach and coach in
physical education.
The way it ended up, I got my Masters and Doctorate degree and
completed all my doctoral course work at IU, Indiana University in
Bloomington, Indiana. I went back to my old original alma mater,
Anderson College, where I got my BA degree in 1940. I was in a
career for about three-and-a-half years as Director of the Physical
Education Department. I got to thinking, well I’ve been in the Air
Force for five-and-a-third years and I chucked that to one side. At
that time, they were taking Agents in the Bureau because we were
doing a lot of work on the Atomic Energy Commission project.
I entered the FBI on duty on April 2, 1951, for Agent
Training and that was my start with the Bureau for
21 years. It ended up I was the Senior Resident Agent (SRA) of
the Hyattsville Resident Agency, which is a part of the
Baltimore, Maryland Division.
O ‘Flaherty:
Thank you, Jim.
At this point in time, as Jim mentioned, he was the Senior
Resident Agent at the Hyattsville RA. The main
objective for the interview today is Jim’s unique position of being
the SRA at that office for the FBI at the time that John F. Kennedy
was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, and the circumstances
surrounding that event.
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James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 3
O’Flaherty:
Jim and another agent were responsible for being the
Agents from the FBI to witness that autopsy and report on
the results. So with that as the lead in, Jim, maybe you
could take it from here.
Sibert:
I remember that date very well because this was the day the
Inspectors were in the Baltimore Division. This
particular day, on November 22, 1963, they were scheduled
to come down to the Hyattsville Resident Agency and
inspect the RA. Also, after that, they were to go over to
Silver Spring and inspect the RA there.
We had the inspection, and we were eating lunch with the two
inspectors before they started on their trip on over to Silver Spring.
We turned on the standard broadcast in our Resident Agency
Office, and heard the announcement that the President had been
shot in Dallas.
I immediately called on the radio and got a hold of the two
inspectors in their Bureau car, and told them we had heard
this message in the event they wanted to call Headquarters or to
that effect.
Immediately after that, we called Andrews Air Force Base,
which was in the jurisdiction of the Hyattsville Resident
Agency. Andrews is the home base of Air Force One and
all the Presidential flight unit. We told them what
news we had heard and asked them if they had any idea
what time Air Force One would be returning to Andrews
Air Force Base. We didn’t know whether the body
would be on it or not, but we were trying to get background
information.
Lt. Colonel Robert T. Best, who was the Director of Law
Enforcement and Security there with OSI, told us that, yes, Air
Force One would be returning with the President’s body and that it
was due to arrive around 5:30 p.m. Later on, we found out it was
to be around 6:00 p.m. So with that information, I called Mr.
Edwin R. Tully, who was my SAC in Baltimore Headquarters.
I informed him but he already knew what was going on in Dallas.
I told Tully that we had received no information from the Bureau,
but we were going on out to Andrews Air Force Base since the
plane was supposed to arrive at around 6:00 p.m.
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James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 4
Sibert:
I added that if he wanted to reach us or the Bureau, we could be
contacted through the OSI and Colonel Best and they would get in
touch with us.
The plane came in at 6:00 p.m. It was on its final approach when
we received a message relayed through the Hyattsville Resident
Agency from Baltimore, stating that the Bureau wanted Agent
Frank O’Neill and I, to get in the motorcade that was out there and
proceed with the motorcade to Bethesda and witness the autopsy,
obtain any bullets that would be removed from the body, and handcarry those over to the FBI laboratory to preserve the chain of
evidence.
So, immediately after that we contacted James Rowley, the
Director of the Secret Service, a job comparable to Mr. Hoover’s
with the FBI, told him what our instructions were, and he put us in
the third car of the motorcade. The Metropolitan Police
Department Motorcycle Squads were out there clearing out
Suitland Parkway, which runs under overpasses. When we got into
Washington, they cleared every intersection with a motorcycle,
which then played leapfrog, go up and clear one up ahead. That
motorcade never stopped once from the time it left Andrews Air
Force Base until it stopped at the National Navy Medical Center at
Bethesda, Maryland, where the autopsy was going to be
performed.
O ‘Flaherty:
Okay.
Sibert:
When we got there, we got a hold of Special Agent in Charge Roy
Kellerman and Special Agent William Greer of the Secret Service.
They were driving the ambulance containing the body. We
told them what our instructions were. Kellerman said
that he’d already been informed by Rowley that we would be
there and that we were going to witness the autopsy.
I might add here that…this is important. The FBI had no
jurisdiction to take over this investigation. In fact, it may sound
funny, but there was no federal agency designated by any federal
statute on the books that had the authority to conduct the
investigation of the assassination, or attempted assassination of a
President of The United States. This law was passed in 1965.
We’re talking about 1963 now.
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James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 5
O ‘Flaherty:
Right. Jim, is it correct though, that the basis for jurisdiction was
the assault on a federal officer?
Sibert:
No. There never… The Bureau never even mentioned jurisdiction
or anything. And we knew that we were in a position where we
couldn’t make any suggestions during the autopsy or ask too many
questions, because it would look like we’d be controlling it there,
trying to steer the investigation and take charge.
O ‘Flaherty:
Right.
Sibert:
So we were just there in an observatory capacity, and to obtain
any evidence in the form of ballistics to take over to the
laboratory, the FBI lab.
O ‘Flaherty:
All right. Thanks for that comment about the jurisdiction.
That is helpful. So please proceed, Jim.
Sibert:
They cleared out the autopsy room. First, I might mention that
before they cleared it out, the casket was in an anteroom and was
opened. There were no body bags involved in this at all as has
been reported in some reports. The body was wrapped in two
wrappings of sheets. The first one was around the head area that
was blood-soaked. And the second was around the entire body.
No clothing was in the casket that arrived at Bethesda. The
clothing was sent over to the FBI laboratory.
As I say, they cleared the room out so they could do
Radiological work, take x-rays and photographs. And after
they had accomplished these two phases of that investigation, they
invited us back in, and the official autopsy started. The incision
was made about 8:15 p.m. Preparations for the autopsy had been
ongoing since we had arrived.
O ‘Flaherty:
That’s 8:15 o’clock the night of November 22…
Sibert:
Right
O ‘Flaherty:
1963.
Sibert:
Commander James Joseph Humes and Commander J. Thornton
Boswell were the two autopsy surgeons, both assigned to the Naval
Medical Center there at Bethesda. Humes was the Chief
Pathologist.
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James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 6
Sibert:
When Humes, who was the Chief Pathologist, was going to do this,
you know, he looked at the body. He said that he could see that a
tracheotomy had been made in the anterior part of the neck. And
he said, “Apparent surgery in the head area.” The reason he
said this, there was a piece about the size of a three-by-five card
that was missing entirely from the skull.
Later on during the autopsy, that piece from the skull which was
found in the limousine at Dallas was flown to Washington, D.C.
During the autopsy, when they raised the President up off of the
autopsy table, they noticed a bullet wound in the back. Humes
measured this and it was measured in centimeters. The wound was
in the upper part of the back and to the right of the spinal column.
O ‘Flaherty:
Okay. Please continue, Jim. Thank you.
Sibert:
I might say here that while Commander Humes was making these
measurements of this wound in the back, Commander Boswell was
making the entries on the face sheet, which has outlines of the
body. He placed this bullet wound and mentioned it and listed it as
being seven-times-four millimeters, that was the size of this
wound. It was located 14 centimeters below the tip of the right
mastoid process, which would make it, of course, in the upper part
of the back but not in the neck area. They decided that they would
probe this wound and they had a chrome probe.
Also, I should mention here that during this autopsy, Lt. Col.
Pierre Fink from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at Walter
Reed Hospital, had come over to assist these two Navy
pathologists. And, of course, they dealt in a lot of pathology work
over there, and one of the supervisors had sent Fink over to help.
When they probed this back wound with the chrome probe, it
would only go in a short distance. Using a rubber gloved finger,
Commander Humes probed the wound and said, “There’s no exit.”
So this posed a problem.
Sibert:
They were thinking more x-rays. I said, “Well, let me go and call
over at the Bureau Headquarters and I’ll find out if there’s any
kind of a bullet that can fragmentize that they wouldn’t pick up…
or the x-rays wouldn’t see.” I think they’d already x-rayed part of
the back.
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James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 7
Sibert:
So I went in and called Agent Charles L. Killian over in the FBI
Firearms Lab and asked him about this. Killian said, “Well I guess
you heard about the bullet that they found on the stretcher over in
Dallas at the Parkland Hospital?”
And I said, “No, what’s the deal?” He said, “Well. They don’t
know which stretcher it was on, whether it was Connelly’s or
Kennedy’s, but they found this and they’re flying it into the
laboratory.” I said, “Well is there anything else?” He said, “No,
that’s all the information we have at the present time.”
So I went back and told Commander Humes what I’d heard…
what had been relayed to me about this bullet over there. I might
mention here that there had been no contact up to this point, or
even later on during the autopsy, between the Bethesda doctors and
the Parkland doctors about what had been done at either location.
In my way of thinking, this was the time for them to call Parkland
and find out what they had done over there on this tracheotomy
and the part of the head missing and also what they had thought
over there and what they could add to it. But no call was made.
Humes said, “Well, it was clear.” He said that this bullet wound in
the back had probably worked its way out through cardiac
manipulation done over at Parkland. Of course, they had no
verification that such manipulation had even been done over there.
He said that it was clear that that was the bullet that had worked its
way out and was on the stretcher and that death was due to this
massive wound in the head and it was probably a separate bullet
wound in the head.
O ‘Flaherty:
That would have been a separate…
Sibert:
Separate wound. Right.
O ‘Flaherty:
Separate wound.
Sibert:
They removed a couple of fragments, metal fragments.
I might say that they developed the radiology work on the x-rays.
and, on the brain, it showed just like the milky way, minute metal
particles. They were able to remove two of those particles which
they put in a glass jar.
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James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 8
O ‘Flaherty:
Excuse me, Jim. In witnessing this autopsy, you and the other
agent, Francis O’Neill, you were actually in a position that you
were witnessing all the work that the doctors were doing?
Sibert:
Yes. All the time, one of us or both of us were in the autopsy
room. There was nothing that went on where at least one of us was
present and when I went out to make the phone call, O’Neill was in
there, in the autopsy room. Later on, they had a break, but we
were there at all times and we were close. That was something we
were asked, “How close were you to the autopsy, itself?”
We were right there around the autopsy table where we could see
everything, and measurements being taken and all.
O ‘Flaherty:
Very good.
You’re mentioning this is interesting and that’s part of the
documentation, the diagram that you’re providing to us in
connection with this interview. We appreciate that.
I guess the mystery was they could not find any exit wound for that
bullet.
Sibert:
They said it was an entry wound from the rear on the back, but
there was no exit wound. Because, as I say, when they probed it,
they said, “There’s no exit.”
O ‘Flaherty:
Okay. Thank you.
Sibert:
And that’s when we furnished them the information about the
bullet over at Parkland that was found on a stretcher. And they
said that that was probably what happened. That during cardiac
manipulation over at Dallas, this bullet had worked its way out of
this entrance wound in the back.
O ‘Flaherty:
Yeah.
Sibert:
And then this big wound in the head was the source of and cause of
death.
O ‘Flaherty:
Right.
Sibert:
Head wound.
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James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 9
O ‘Flaherty:
Thanks for clarifying that. The bullet that they’re finding on the
stretcher, that was actually a bullet that was completely intact?
Sibert:
That’s referred to in the Single Bullet Theory as the magic bullet
because it was in almost pristine condition when it was
examined, when they flew it into the lab. Now, of course,
I’ll get into this single bullet theory later on.
O ‘Flaherty:
Sure.
Sibert:
But, that was the consensus when we left there that night.
As I said I’m going to refer to this.
O ‘Flaherty:
Sure. Please do.
Sibert:
I might say here that during the autopsy, an inspection of the area
of the brain, there were, I said a while ago, there were two
fragments of metal that were removed by Dr. Humes. Namely, one
of them measuring 7.2 millimeters, which was removed from the
right side of the brain and an additional fragment of metal
measuring one by three millimeters that was removed from this
area, both of which were placed in a glass jar by Dr. Humes. The
jar had a black top on it.
O’Neill and I put our initials and the date on this so we could
identify it later on. We later took this over to the laboratory for
examination.
There was no large bullet of any kind there at Bethesda during this
autopsy that was found. As I say, we hand-carried the jar with the
fragments over to the laboratory and turned it over to Agent Bob
Frazier.
Our cars were back out at Andrews Air Force Base. We had to get
a Bureau clerk to drive us out to Andrews from Bureau
headquarters in D.C. I got in at 4:30 in the morning and my phone
started ringing at 6:00 a.m. I sent a teletype that night from
Baltimore to the Bureau and Dallas. I called it in and gave it to the
night clerk at Baltimore so he could also read it to the SAC telling
him what happened during the autopsy.
Sibert:
What happened after that? Now this was the autopsy as far as we
were concerned that was done on Friday night, November 22,
1963.
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James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 10
O ‘Flaherty:
At Bethesda Hospital.
Sibert:
At Bethesda.
O ‘Flaherty:
In Bethesda, Maryland. Apparently, I may have previously said
Hyattsville.
Sibert:
It wasn’t until much later, several weeks, when I was on leave
visiting my sister in Georgia, and my sister answered the phone,
and she said, “Jim, it’s for you.” It was David F. Lifton, who
wrote the book, Best Evidence, and he identified himself, and said,
“I have in front of me your FD 302 about the autopsy at Bethesda.
It doesn’t agree with the official autopsy report.”
I said, “Official autopsy report.” I said, “I don’t know what
you’re talking about.”
He told me that it didn’t agree. I said, “Well now, you
say you’re Lifton and I don’t know who you are.” I said,
“You say you’ve got the FD 302?”
And he said, “Yeah.” I said, “All right. What are the names down
at the bottom part of it?”
And he said, “Well, your name and O’Neill’s.”
I said, “Well, now look down. Look at those initials. Is
there any other initials in there?”
He said, “DFL.”
I said, “I know that that’s the chief steno.” I said, “You have the
FD 302 and I wouldn’t have any further comment.”
He said, “Well, here’s what you say.” I said, “Go ahead and read
it.” He read it to me. And I said, “Well if that’s what it says,
that’s what happened that night. That’s the record and I stand by
it.”
And he said, “Who could I call to find out about this other?”
I said, “You can call the Bureau.” I gave him the address
and everything. That was when I found out a change that had been
made.
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James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 11
Sibert:
Now I point out here that I never heard anything. If
the autopsy doctors there at Bethesda had called me
Saturday morning and said, “Look, we’ve called Parkland today
and we found they made a tracheotomy over a bullet wound that
appeared to be an entrance wound in the neck.” I would have
dictated what they did that night, but it would have been in the
form of a memo. It wouldn’t have gone out into a summary report
to Dallas, the Office of Origin. We would have had the two
reports as they were given Friday night and what they changed due
to that conversation on Saturday morning.
So what they ended up with was a single bullet theory.
O ‘Flaherty:
When he said that your 302 does not comport with the results of
the autopsy, the official autopsy reports, in what regard,
specifically, again, Jim, was he saying about the autopsy report?
Sibert:
He mentioned that we said that there was surgery in the head area.
Well that, of course, was what the doctor first thought it was. As I
say, this piece of skull was brought in that was probably what he
took to be surgery to the head.
O ‘Flaherty:
Right.
Sibert:
The autopsy was his observation, his statement. But our wording
was what Humes had said, “Cause of death was this severe head
wound.” And that the other wound in the back had been worked
out by cardiac manipulation, fallen on the stretcher, and that was it.
That was their conclusion that night were because they knew
nothing about this bullet wound in the neck over which the
tracheotomy had been made.
O ‘Flaherty:
Tracheotomy, and that information was only provided when the
surgeon in Bethesda was in contact with the surgeon in Parkland.
Sibert:
Saturday morning.
O ‘Flaherty:
Saturday morning.
Sibert:
Saturday morning, when the body was in the custody of the
funeral home.
O ‘Flaherty:
That’s November 23 then. Is that correct?
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James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 12
Sibert:
Twenty third, right.
O ‘Flaherty:
Twenty third. And the body of JFK, John F. Kennedy, the
President, is in the possession of the funeral home at that
point in time.
Sibert:
As I say, if they would have said, “Look, we’ve had a
change on this autopsy report. We got additional
information.” We would have dictated what they said Friday night
just in a file copy memo. Then we would have waited for
their other report to be submitted, but we never saw that at all and
we were never informed of the changes.
O ‘Flaherty:
Okay.
Sibert:
Left in the dark.
O ‘Flaherty:
So just to clarify then, what happened after the doctor at
Bethesda received that information from his fellow doctor
in Parkland, he went ahead then and modified the
results of the autopsy report. You did not have privy to that
modification.
Sibert:
They worked until 5:00 o’clock Saturday morning. The
three doctors: Humes, Boswell and Fink and the people
from the Gawler Funeral Home worked on reconstructing the skull
with the piece of the skull that was flown in from Dallas.
O ‘Flaherty:
Yeah.
Sibert:
Then they called after this, after 5:00 a.m. sometime, probably
about 7:00 a.m., maybe, they called Parkland. This is the first
contact between Parkland and Bethesda. That’s when the doctor
over at Parkland said, “I guess you should know where I made this
tracheotomy was over what appeared to be a bullet entrance
wound.”
O ‘Flaherty:
In your opinion, Jim, what’s the significance, historically?
What would be the difference from the historical standpoint on
treating it, from what your FD 302 reflected based on your
presence and your information, as opposed to the additional
information that later added. Was it the fact that what was thought
to be damage due to the tracheotomy was now indicated to be an
exit wound?
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James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 13
Sibert:
Well, what this does is, when you get notification that this
was a bullet wound where they performed the tracheotomy… cut
through that over at Parkland, you’ve got another bullet to
contend with and account for, and was not taken into
consideration, since the three pathologists at Bethesda, were not
aware of the bullet wound in the anterior neck on Friday night.
Our report dealt with two bullets, but only one fatal, the head
wound. The back wound was not a wound that would
contribute to death or anything. Whereas you changed this
to the single-bullet theory with the wound being moved
up gradually to the base of the neck in the back where it
would enter from the rear at a downward angle in the base
of the neck and come out in the anterior wound. This
wouldn’t be an entrance wound; it would be an exit wound.
Then they have this same bullet hitting Connelly and…
in the back, in the arm, in the radius and some of it ending
up in his thigh. This is the single-bullet theory …
which has nothing to do with the death of the President.
O ‘Flaherty:
Right
Sibert:
That’s the bullet wound in the head where it was blown out.
O ‘Flaherty:
Yeah. And as I recall in the report of the Warren Commission, at
the building where Oswald was located and fired the rifle from,
that on the floor inside of that window, were three spent shells. So
that’s where the presumption was that there was a third round that
was fired.
Sibert:
There have been a lot of theories on this. One of them said that
they thought there was a misfire. Not a misfire, but a miss. And
you remember that a curb was struck by a bullet.
O ‘Flaherty:
Yes.
Sibert:
And one fellow… That piece of the curb splintered into his
cheek and everything. So that would be, if you had two
bullets, one in the back and one in the head and then the
one that was a miss, that would be three bullets. But there
has been conjecture that maybe there was more than that.
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James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 14
Sibert:
And there was a motorcycle that belonged to the Dallas
Police Department that the key was left open on the radio,
and there was some noise on that. A noise sounded like a bullet
wound off of the tapes but there was a question they thought too
that it could have been backfire from a car or a motorcycle. So no
one, I don’t think has an accurate answer. It hasn’t been decided
yet.
O ‘Flaherty:
Right.
The report of The Warren Commission, though, reveals the
modification that was provided on the autopsy based on the
conversation of the surgeon in Bethesda with the surgeon in
Parkland?
Sibert:
Right.
O’Neill and I didn’t go before the Warren Commission. We were
never called. We were interviewed by Arlen Specter, from
Pennsylvania, who was a counsel for the Warren Commission.
We were notified through the Baltimore Office that we would be
interviewed, given a date, and it would be in Specter’s office in
Washington, D.C.
We went down there and Specter interviewed O’Neill and I for, oh,
probably 30 minutes or so. We weren’t able to take notes on this,
but when we came out, I told Frank, I said, “Frank, the first place
we’re going to stop is Bureau Headquarters. While it’s still fresh
in our memory, we’re going to dictate a memo as to what questions
we can recall Specter asking us and what our responses were.”
Which we did.
Sibert:
Later on I had to testify before two Congressional Committees.
One was a House Select Committee on Assassinations. This was
in 1977. The members of that Committee came down from Tampa
by plane and interviewed me at a motel over here in Fort Myers. I
never was called for additional information.
I was called from Bureau Headquarters right after this happened
and our FD 302s were completed. We were asked, “Was this your
wording or Dr. Humes?” Of course, we assured them that
anything… measurements and all … was Humes, not ours.
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James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 15
Sibert:
I might say here too, that this House Select Committee
on Assassinations ended up with the conclusion that it was
probably a conspiracy but no one would be able to prove it.
This was in their report. And this was also mentioned at
the Assassination Records Review Board. The Review
Board made it quite clear when I went up there for a four-hour
deposition that they were not going to arrive at any conclusions.
They were going to gather all the information they could get from
witnesses, any kind of notes, communications and things of that
type. They would obtain all this and it would all go on the internet,
which it did, with everything.
When I went up there for that deposition in 1997, before the
Assassination Records Review Board, I was asked about the
interview we had given at the Bureau, and the memorandum that
we had given them about the questions Specter has asked us. The
person that asked us these questions, interrogated us, was Attorney
Jerry T. Gunn on the Assassination Records Review Board. He
asked me, “Now isn’t it true that, after you were interviewed by
Specter, that you dictated this memo over at the Bureau?” He said,
“Did you ever see this after it was typed up?” I said, “No. It was a
Bureau memorandum that would go in their Headquarters file but I
never saw the thing to proofread or anything.” He said, “Well,
take a look at this.” And he handed me a five-page memorandum
all typed up. I said, “This is it.” I said, “It’s in question-andanswer form. O’Neill and I both saw this and we were both given
copies there on separate dates when deposed.
When we were interviewed, Specter asked us, “Did you make any
notes?” We said, “Oh, many notes.” He said, “Do you have them
now?” We said, “No.” He said, “Well, where are they?” And we
said they were destroyed.
Under Bureau policy back in those days, you dictated
within five days, and you checked your dictation typed up
when it came back from the steno pool, and made any
corrections for the steno to correct. When it came back and
it compared with your notes, you initialed the top copy for
the file copy, and destroyed your notes.
15
James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 16
Sibert:
Gunn said, “Now, did you ever see what Specter said when he
gave the interview, what your responses were?” I said, “No.”
Gunn then gave me a one-and-a-half page paper that was not in
question-and-answer form.
O ‘Flaherty:
That’s a letter from Senator Specter?
Sibert:
A memorandum from Arlen Specter to Mr. J. Lee Rankin,
who was on the Warren Commission. He was sort of the
secretary and General Counsel and kept all the notes made by
the seven members and everything.
O ‘Flaherty:
And the date of that memorandum?
Sibert:
The date of this memorandum is March 12, 1964. So, at
that time, he already had possession of our report that Baltimore
sent to Dallas… the summary report where we had our entire FD
302.
It stated in this memorandum and this is something I’ve never been
able to be at peace with. It said, “SA Sibert advised that he made
no notes during the autopsy. SA O’Neill stated he made only a
few notes which he destroyed after his report was dictated.”
Specter also asked us about the time we’d spent in the Bureau. I
told him I was approaching 13 years and O’Neill was
approximately ten years of service in the Bureau.
He said, “I interviewed Special Agent Francis X. O’Neill
and James W. Sibert in my office on March 12, 1964, from
approximately 10:00 a.m. to 10:45 a.m.” So 45 minutes
that he said that he interviewed us.
O ‘Flaherty:
And you’re stating that you did take notes?
Sibert:
He said that I never made any notes. He must have thought I was a
genius. I mean I had names of people that attended, their ranks,
times, decisions and measurements, everything like that. It would
be impossible to remember all that kind of stuff for the FD 302s
without notes.
O ‘Flaherty:
You did take notes, and so that’s completely erroneous?
Sibert:
That is a joke!
16
James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 17
O ‘Flaherty:
So that’s an erroneous statement then on the part of…
Sibert:
That’s right. Yeah. Yeah, that’s a false statement.
O ‘Flaherty:
Yes.
O ‘Flaherty:
The notes that you took, they were also destroyed after you
compared your notes with the 302 which was pretty much the
procedure at this time.
Sibert:
This 302. We sent it back for corrections because this
was a giant FD 302.
O ‘Flaherty:
Correct.
Sibert:
O’Neill had a bunch of notes that were contained in his Agent’s
notebook. And I had a bunch. And we were sitting right there
together and dictated this FD302 from our notebooks.
O ‘Flaherty:
Right.
Sibert:
Now, I might say this on this single-bullet theory.
O ‘Flaherty:
Please go ahead.
Sibert:
So you had no other autopsy. Because there was no autopsy done
at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. There were two autopsy reports
(interviewee’s emphasis) resulting from the autopsy conducted at
Bethesda. The first Report dealt with conclusions reached on
Friday night, and included in our FD302.
Sibert:
The Official Autopsy Report, including the Single Bullet Theory,
(interviewee’s emphasis) resulted from changes made after the first
phone conversation between Dr. Humes and Doctors at Parkland
Hospital on Saturday morning. Sibert and O’Neill were not
advised of these changes made by Humes.
I might mention here too, that Texas has a law that, if there
is a murder committed in Texas, the autopsy has to be done
in Texas. And you had the Circuit Judge there talking with
Kellerman, who was the Secret Service Agent in Charge,
and he said, “You can’t remove this body and take it back
to Washington or Bethesda because of Texas law.”
17
James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 18
Sibert:
Kellerman said, “Well, we’re taking it.” There was some strong
discussion there. And, finally Dr. Earl Rose who was the
county medical examiner.
O ‘Flaherty:
Coroner?
Sibert:
Yeah. County Coroner is what I was trying to recall.
He would have done the autopsy there if they would have
kept the body there in Texas, because he had done the
autopsy on Oswald. He did the autopsy on Ruby. He did
the autopsy on Tippet, the officer that was gunned down.
O ‘Flaherty:
Yes.
Sibert:
And Dr. Rose would have done the autopsy on the President. I
mean had it been done there. So when you had this… You had
this change in… They moved the back wound up to the neck..
Even Burkley, Kellerman… Admiral George W. Burkley was the
President’s personal physician. Kellerman and Greer, the two
Secret Service Agents, O’Neill and myself… All said that when
that face sheet, the face sheet was where the bullet wound had been
and it was verified by Burkley. When they come out with this
about it being the base of the neck, where the bullet wound was, all
of us agreed, later on, that it was much lower than that.
O ‘Flaherty:
Lower than the neck?
Sibert:
Yes.
O ‘Flaherty:
For the record, for this interview, Jim, why don’t you go
through and, maybe, just identify the documentation
that you’ve been kind enough to make copies of.
Sibert:
I want to make one thing clear too.
O ‘Flaherty:
Please do.
18
James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 19
Sibert:
In 1999, when this Assassination Records Review Board went
around to different people, I didn’t have my notes because they
were destroyed, but I had some other material that I had obtained
from magazines. The Journal of the American Medical
Association had some interviews in there with Dr. Humes but the
Review Board already had them.
The Review Board member told O’Neill and I that they went to J.
Lee Rankin’s son because J. Lee Rankin had died. They went to
Rankin’s son and they said, “Would you, by any chance, have
anything, memorabilia or other material that your dad gave you,
something you could keep?”
He said, “I might do better than that. I might be able to
do you better than that.” And he went upstairs and came out with a
trunk-like affair which contained 40,000 notes, all of which were
made by the seven members of the Warren Commission and all
their discussion on this. And when they reviewed all of these -they had a chance to review them – they noted that the final report
that went out as the Warren Commission, not the FBI report, stated
that this bullet wound was in the base of the neck.
They noticed in comparing all the notes, Russell’s and all
the others, that Ford had changed this, Gerald Ford. I might say
that Ford, Gerald Ford is the only living member of the Warren
Commission now, of those members. So they called him out at
Colorado and he admitted he changed it.
I have here a copy of the Associated Press article which appeared
in the Fort Myers News Press on July 3, 1997. The article states:
“Thirty-three years ago Gerald R. Ford took pen in hand and
changed ever so slightly the Warren Commission’s key sentence of
the place where a bullet entered John F. Kennedy’s body when he
was killed in Dallas.”
O ‘Flaherty:
Does it state where the change was made from?
Sibert:
I will read that right here.
O ‘Flaherty:
Sure.
19
James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 20
Sibert:
This Associated Press article said, “The staff of the
Commission…” Now this means the Warren Commission staff.
“… had written, quote, a bullet had entered his back at a point
slightly above the shoulder and to the right of the spine.
Ford suggested changing that to read, “A bullet had entered
the back of his neck at a point slightly to the right of the
spine.”
The final report said, quote, “A bullet had entered the base
of the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine.”
I say that was the Warren Commission Report which has been
changed. So, for that reason, they asked me, you witnessed the
autopsy, what do you think happened? I always say this. I don’t
for one minute say that I believe there was a conspiracy, or there
was not a conspiracy. But, when it comes to the single-bullet
theory or the magic bullet theory, I won’t buy it.
I stood right there as close as I am to you here, a couple of
feet, and looked right into that back wound and I read the
reports on the holes in the clothing they mentioned. Then I
have all this other information, where it is moved gradually
upward as later stated by Ford in the official report.”
O ‘Flaherty:
By that single-bullet theory, or, as you say, the magic bullet
theory, you mean what? A contention that…
Sibert:
This isn’t a bullet that has anything to do with the death of the
President.
O ‘Flaherty:
That was?
Sibert:
That was the massive skull wound.
O ‘Flaherty:
Right.
Sibert:
But the single-bullet theory is to account for Connelly being hit
and all this, you know.
O ‘Flaherty:
I see.
Sibert:
That it doesn’t enter the President’s back, per the Warren Report,
but now to the base of the neck.
20
James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 21
O ‘Flaherty:
Neck.
Sibert:
So that it can come out the anterior neck through this hole
where the trachea incision was made.
O ‘Flaherty:
And then went on to…
Sibert:
It goes over and it can’t keep a straight line either if it hits
Kennedy and it hits him and wounds him…
O ‘Flaherty:
You mean…
Sibert:
Then it fell out on a stretcher in a pristine condition.
O ‘Flaherty:
Yeah. Wounds the Governor of Texas, Connelly.
Sibert:
Yeah.
O ‘Flaherty:
Yeah.
Sibert:
Now they claim that in this single-bullet theory that this
bullet, when it entered the base of the neck, that it didn’t hit
any bone, but there was probing done to prove it had no exit
at the autopsy. I know we were there until it was concluded.
O ‘Flaherty:
But there was nothing done to determine if there were any
shattered bones in there.
Sibert:
No. No. No. Going down through the… Trying to trace
that bullet down through the neck…
O ‘Flaherty:
Right, right.
Sibert:
… coming out.
O ‘Flaherty:
That’s interesting. You’re going to provide that newspaper article?
Sibert:
I’ve got some other questions that would come up here, and
I think that it would be pertinent to touch on here.
O ‘Flaherty:
Sure. Please do.
Sibert:
I’ll list those.
21
James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 22
O ‘Flaherty:
Yes. And the ARRB…
Sibert:
That’s Assassination Records Review Board.
O ‘Flaherty:
Right. They have an archive now at what location?
Sibert:
They have an Archives II, which is at College Park, Maryland.
This is the extension of the old Archives that is down on
Pennsylvania Avenue. It still is.
O ‘Flaherty:
Archives II.
Sibert:
Anything from the Civil War on is out at Archives II.
O ‘Flaherty:
Is that the Roman numeral two that they use, or just the
number two?
Sibert:
Yes, Roman numeral.
O ‘Flaherty:
Roman numeral. Okay. Thank you.
Sibert:
That’s on the College Park… The University of Maryland
campus is that location at College Park. That’s where I
gave the deposition there.
O ‘Flaherty:
Right. And you were saying the Archives there, they’re all
public records at this compound?
Sibert:
This is all at the Archives. You can look up any of this also on the
Internet.
O ‘Flaherty:
So what we have is the report from you on the FD 302 autopsy?
Sibert:
All right. I’ll mention if you want a list of these now.
O ‘Flaherty:
Sure. Just recite them for the purpose of the recording.
That would be helpful, Jim.
(The following material is included as addenda.)
Sibert:
The first one is the five-page FD 302 which was dictated by
O’Neill and myself. And that covers our viewing of the
autopsy at Bethesda Navy Medical Center on 22 November
1963.
22
James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 23
O ‘Flaherty:
Okay.
Sibert:
The second thing that I have is a face sheet. It says “autopsy” on
it. And this is a form that was available there, that they use at the
Navy Medical Center.
And, as I say, Boswell made the entries on this.
O ‘Flaherty:
Was Boswell one of the doctors?
Sibert:
He was one of the two Navy doctors at the autopsy, and he
was with the Chief Pathologist, Humes.
O ‘Flaherty:
Is that the Boswell that made the entries that you’re
referring to now on that face sheet?
Sibert:
He made these notations, drawings and measurements and
everything.
O ‘Flaherty:
Okay.
Sibert:
In fact, if you notice here, it even shows the old scar on the
back that he got in a PT Boat accident. Here it is. The
scar.
O ‘Flaherty:
Oh, that is interesting. Yes. Okay.
Sibert:
Okay. We’ve got that.
And the other thing is the interview of O’Neill and I by Arlen
Specter. That was at his office on March 12, 1964. He wasn’t
Senator, at that time. He was later a Senator for Pennsylvania.
O ‘Flaherty:
So he was not a Senator at that time. His position was
essentially what then?
Sibert:
He had been a prosecutor over in Pennsylvania.
O ‘Flaherty:
So he was associated with the Warren Commission?
Sibert:
He was on the Warren Commission as one of their
counsels.
O ‘Flaherty:
I see.
23
James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 24
Sibert:
He was really the one that was given credit for coming up
with the single-bullet theory and that was a memorandum that
O’Neill and I dictated afterwards.
O ‘Flaherty:
Yes.
Sibert:
It’s captioned, “Assassination of President John F. Kennedy,
11/22/63, Dallas, Texas.” That was the Assassination Records
Review Board copy furnished to me.
O ‘Flaherty:
Right. You were at the interview with them. Okay.
Sibert:
Then the next thing I have was furnished to me by the
Assassination Records Review Board. All of these were given to
me when I was up there for the deposition.
This is a memorandum from Arlen Specter to Mr. J. Lee
Rankin. He was the secretary, more or less, and the General
Counsel there on the Warren Commission.
O ‘Flaherty:
Right.
Sibert:
He kept all the notes and everything relating to the Commission.
O ‘Flaherty:
Right
Sibert:
The last thing here, I’ve given you is a copy of the Associated
Press article. It appeared in the Fort Myers News Press.
O ‘Flaherty:
And the date of that?
Sibert:
On July 3, 1997.
O ‘Flaherty:
Okay.
Sibert:
And that was the report of Ford admitting that he had changed a
portion of the Warren Commission findings. He stated that his
changes had nothing to do with a conspiracy theory but were
changes only to attempt to be more precise.
O ‘Flaherty:
Okay. I appreciate all that. And I know that Brian
Hollstein and the entire team at the Oral History program
appreciates this documentation, Jim. Thank you.
24
James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 25
Sibert:
You know on the question as to why was the autopsy done at
Bethesda? That’s one of the questions. The reason was that you
had the Attorney General, who was the President’s brother; you
had Burkley, who was a retired Admiral, the President’s personal
physician; and, you had Jackie Kennedy, the President’s wife. I
think their idea was to get him back to Washington, and to
Bethesda which was a U.S. Naval hospital.
Even Dr. Humes, when he was interviewed by The Journal of the
American Medical Association editor, when notified that he was
going to be doing the autopsy, said, “Why in the world aren’t they
doing it at Walter Reed at the Armed Forces Institute of
Pathology.” He said, “They were much more up-to-date on that.”
But, of course, the decision had been made.
Now, why should it have been conducted at Dallas? As I
say, you had Dr. Rose there, this County Coroner that was
well respected in autopsy circles among pathologists. The
clothing would have been there for the doctors. The
Presidential limousine would have been there with all the
nicks and bullet marks and cracked windshield.
O ‘Flaherty:
Right, for further examination?
Sibert:
Furthermore, Dr. Rose at Parkland would have been aware of the
bullet wound in the neck. And the doctors were all there and the
nurses were all there to help with any questions. They lost all that
when they moved the body to Bethesda.
Dallas police were available on the scene. They had conducted the
investigation regarding Tippit and others. The entire investigation
would have coordinated through Dallas because later on President
Johnson put the FBI in charge of this whole investigation and
Dallas was the Office of Origin. But this wasn’t that night when
decisions had to be made. Wounds of Governor Connelly and JFK
could have been considered as related to the shooting. You had
both of them right there, and doctors and nurses who attended both
of them.
And another thing…I don’t know whether you thought of this or
not. But ignoring the Texas law, requiring autopsies be done there,
probably caused some ill feelings between Parkland doctors and
the Bethesda doctors. Because he was just more or less kidnapped
out of the Dallas hospital there.
25
James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 26
O ‘Flaherty:
Parkland.
Sibert:
And put on Air Force One with President Johnson and was
flown to Washington, D.C.
I don’t think there was any animosity but, maybe, I don’t know
why Bethesda didn’t call Parkland Hospital. Bethesda is a Navy
hospital as compared with Parkland, civilian. Maybe at Bethesda,
they hesitated to call over there because of that, and thought well,
we’ll do it our way. So those are some of the reasons.
O ‘Flaherty:
So you feel the emotions were running high on the
President’s side, the family side, and everyone to remove
this back to D.C.
Sibert:
Yes. That’s right. I think the decisions made were influenced by
family and Admiral Burkley.
In fact I learned later, and this was through a source I had
with Secret Service, that they didn’t even decide on
Bethesda until they were in the traffic pattern in the Washington,
D.C. area. And they finally decided that they’d go into Bethesda.
O ‘Flaherty:
Do you know, Jim, to what extent there was an autopsy conducted
at Parkland? Like was it half way through, or there was…
Sibert:
There was none done there.
O ‘Flaherty:
None done.
Sibert:
In fact…
O ‘Flaherty:
Just that tracheotomy and other efforts to sustain life.
Sibert:
Right. And he wasn’t even turned over on the stretcher.
I’ve reviewed the reports of the treatment medically and the
examination that was done at Parkland.
O ‘Flaherty:
At Parkland, Dallas.
26
James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 27
Sibert:
They didn’t know. Now get this. Parkland didn’t know
about the wound in the back when he left there and when
Bethesda gets the body, they didn’t know about the bullet
wound in the anterior neck.
Sibert:
Now isn’t this pathetic for the President of the United
States?
Sibert:
What do we learn out of this? We’ve got a law now, as of 1965.
So, if this would have happened now, the FBI would be
responsible because the FBI would have exclusive jurisdiction and
it would be a federal law. Then, I would have been free to say,
“Don’t you think you should call Parkland. Let’s call Parkland and
find out.” But, if I had done it back then, all it would have taken
was a call by some high-ranking official there, an admiral or a
general, saying ‘tell Mr. Hoover you’ve got an agent over here
trying to run the autopsy.’ And I’d have been on my way to Butte,
Montana.
O ‘Flaherty:
You think, in fairness, Jim, I guess to the doctors at Parkland, not
discovering that wound in the back, maybe, maybe that was due to
the decision to rush and get Kennedy out of there?
Sibert:
It definitely was.
O ‘Flaherty:
Yeah.
Sibert:
They were told, “No autopsy here.” This is what Kellerman and
the others told them. We’re going back to Washington with him.
We’ll do it there.
O ‘Flaherty:
Yeah.
Sibert:
Sure that was it. They inserted a tube, a tracheotomy, you know.
They did everything they could. But that massive…
O ‘Flaherty:
Head wound?
Sibert:
Head wound. The doctors they knew that it was just a question of
when to administer Last Rites.
O ‘Flaherty:
Jim, this has been an excellent time with you for this interview and
the information. Anything else before we conclude?
27
James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 28
O ‘Flaherty:
You know I think of what a distinguished military career you had
and a Bureau career… You’ve got a lot to be proud of in your life.
You’ve done an awful lot.
Sibert:
Maybe a lot of it is being at the wrong place at the wrong
time.
O ‘Flaherty:
That’s what you call experience.
So go ahead, Jim. If there’s anything else in connection with it
that you can think of, well please go right ahead. And if not, we’ll
conclude.
I’ll say while you’re reviewing your material, that Jim gave me a
very nice photograph of himself taken a few years ago, Jim. Right.
Sibert:
There’s a background.
O ‘Flaherty:
And then the background information on Jim Sibert. And
this will all be provided in the package I’ll be returning to
the Oral History program team.
We’ll complete this waiver and I’ll enclose that. If that’s
it?
Sibert:
I think that’s it.
O ‘Flaherty:
It’s 3:40 p.m. on Thursday, June 30, 2005. We
started at 2:20 p.m.
Sibert:
Do you realize how many years it’s been since this…
we’re talking about this incident?
O ‘Flaherty:
That is remarkable, isn’t it. 1963. That’s right.
Sibert:
Forty-two years.
I wish I had kept track of all the correspondence that I
received in this in the last 42 years.
O ‘Flaherty:
Yeah.
28
James W. Sibert
June 30, 2005
Page 29
Sibert:
Letters and authors who have come down here. I’ve participated in
about three different seminars and the Gala Films out of Canada
came down for an interview.
O ‘Flaherty:
You mentioned that before, Jim. If for the recording, if you would
just mention it again.
Gala Films out of Canada.
Sibert:
Films out of Toronto.
O ‘Flaherty:
Toronto, Canada.
Sibert:
Oh what’s the word I’m trying to say? Documentary film on JFK.
O ‘Flaherty:
Right. Do you know if they have produced it?
Sibert:
I talked with O’Neill. He said that they’re still working on it.
O ‘Flaherty:
Still working on it.
Sibert:
I don’t know. But I had to sign a release there for it to be
worldwide.
O ‘Flaherty:
And they interviewed you when? What year was that that they
came down and interviewed you?
Sibert:
I would have to look it up. It’s about two years ago.
O ‘Flaherty:
Two years ago. That’s interesting. Okay. Well then we’ll
conclude at this time, Jim, and thanks again.
Sibert:
All right. I’m glad to have been of any assistance.
O ‘Flaherty:
Right. It’s been my pleasure seeing you again and being
the interviewer on this.
Sibert:
The Assassination Records Review Board put it all on the internet.
O ‘Flaherty:
That’s right. Well, there’s so much available now to the
public.
Thank you, Jim. That’s it. We’re signing off now.
29