Earl Rose obit

Medical examiner at Dallas hospital after JFK assassination dies in Iowa

 

He was not on the list.

Dr. Earl Rose, the medical examiner in Dallas when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, has died at age 85.

Rose's wife, Marilyn, said he died Tuesday at Oaknoll retirement community in Iowa City. She says he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and then developed dementia.

The Des Moines Register first reported Rose's death.

Kennedy was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital after he was shot on Nov. 22, 1963. Rose insisted that an autopsy should be performed and stood in a doorway to block Kennedy's aides as they removed his coffin.

The Roses moved from Dallas to Iowa City in 1968, where he was a forensic pathologist and University of Iowa professor.

His wife says a memorial service will be held June 11 in Iowa City.

Dr. Earl Rose, now of Iowa City, believes many conspiracy theories surrounding the death of John F. Kennedy might not have taken root if he had been able to do his job.

As Dallas County's medical examiner, Rose was in the middle of a swirl of confusion, panic and grief after President Kennedy was shot 40 years ago today.

Minutes after Kennedy died at Parkland Medical Center, an emergency room debate began about what to do with the body. Rose and other Texas officials saw the shooting as a state crime, subject to an autopsy by Rose's office.

The Secret Service and the first lady disagreed, and Kennedy's body was flown to the Bethesda Naval Hospital, where the autopsy by pathologists James Humes and Thornton Boswell helped fuel the intrigue surrounding the assassination.

Nearly 40 years later, Rose still believes he and his staff should have done the autopsy.

"We had the routine in place to do it. ... It was important for the chain of evidence to remain intact," said Rose, 77. "That didn't happen when the body was taken to Bethesda."

Rose moved his wife and six children to Iowa in 1968 after he accepted a job at the University of Iowa College of Medicine. He has seldom spoken publicly about his role in an event that shaped a generation and continues to fascinate Americans.

He still believes he could have helped erase the lingering theories about Kennedy's death.

"Truth is the best weapon you have against any conspiracy theories or lies," he said.

In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. It found that Oswald likely had fired three shots, one of which struck Texas Gov. John Connally after striking Kennedy.

Prominent Des Moines attorney David Belin served as counsel to the Warren Commission, insisting until his death - and in two books - that the evidence showed Oswald had acted alone.

But critics have long questioned the autopsy, the propriety of giving military and FBI officials access to the lab, and whether the federal investigators were pressured to reach certain conclusions.

Rose said the secrecy of the work done by Humes and Boswell fanned speculation. And he said while both had various pathology certifications and background, neither was experienced in forensic pathology.

"It's been pretty well-recognized that the autopsy was incomplete," Rose said. "Many experts in the field at the time said it was a botched job."

In a May 1992 interview in the Journal of American Medical Association, Humes and Boswell admitted the president's body was moved illegally and that confusion could have been minimized had the exam been done in Texas.

Still, they stood by their work.

Rose, who grew up in South Dakota and attended medical school at the University of Nebraska, has endured his share of criticism for arguing with federal officials in the emergency room.

Years later, author William Manchester, in his book, "Death of a President," depicted Rose as an unreasonable, petty state bureaucrat with a gripe.

Rose's son, Forrest, who lives in Columbia, Mo., said his father got hate mail after that.

"I think he's been vindicated," Forrest Rose said, " ... especially if you look back at what's happened in the last 40 years."