Book of the Month: Trauma Room One

Our Book of the Month for November provides first-hand accounts of one of the worst moments in American history: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Trauma Room One: The JFK Medical Coverup Exposed provides detailed accounts of what was witnessed in Parkland Memorial Hospital after John F. Kennedy arrived with gunshot wounds.  The book also features a compelling Foreword by director Oliver Stone.

Trauma Room One provides an eyewitness account by Dr. Charles Crenshaw, who provides compelling scientific evidence that official reports of the assassination do not match up with the physical evidence of the case. One of the many compelling claims that Crenshaw makes is that J.F.K.'s injuries were consistent with gunshots from the front, rather than the back. Many of Crenshaw's findings refute those of The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy (also known as the "Warren Commission"), which determined that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy.

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) called JFK: Conspiracy of Silence, published in 1992 as a prior edition to Trauma Room One "a fabrication," but Crenshaw prevailed in a defamation suit against the Journal. Today the Warren Commission remains widely criticized for its investigative  methods, and a later investigation was undertaken in 1992 by the Assassination Records Review Board. The Board's complete findings are available here.

It is suggested that this investigation was a direct result of the release of Oliver Stone's controversial film J.F.K., which agreed with Crenshaw that Kennedy's injuries were inconsistent with the Commission's findings. Indeed, this much is noted in the Board's final report, which notes that:

"Stone suggested at the end of JFK that Americans could not trust official public conclusions when those conclusions had been made in secret. Congress passed legislation--the JFK Act--that released the secret records that prior investigations gathered and created."

Trauma Room One remains a significant historical document that continues to raise questions about Kennedy's assassination and the possibility of a conspiracy. Whether one agrees with the Warren Commission or Crenshaw's first-hand account, Trauma Room One remains a significant work, shining a light on one of the most tragic days in American history and causing debates over political transparency, government activities, and even the Presidency itself.

Trauma Room One is available in paperback and hardcover, as well as in various digital formats.