. >> reporter: doctors ronald jones and robert mcclellan were young surgeons in 1963.riday, november 22nd, was a day that began like any other, then just after lunchtime -- >> i heard a little tap on the conference room door. the president's been shot and they are bringing him to the emergency room, and they need doctors right away. >> men in business suits parted for the doctors. >> i saw mrs. kennedy sitting in a chair outside of trauma room one. and i realized it was just what they said it was. >> reporter: president kennedy lay on a gurney arms spread, eyes open, and covered in blood. >> i got an iv going in his left upper arm. >> the back half of the right side of his brain was gone, and as i stood there the lower part of the brain fell out through the hole on the cart. so this was obviously a fatal wound. >> reporter: dr. jones was asked to deliver the news. >> a secret serviceman came up, and said i need to call jay edward hoover and i need to tell them the condition of the president. and i realized the whole world was going to find out that kennedy was dead. >>

ronald jones and robert mcclellan were young surgeons at dallas parkland memorial hospital.r 22, 1960 that he was a day that began like any other. just after lunch time. >> i heard a little top on the conference room door, the president has been shot and they're bringing him to the emergency room and they need doctors right away. >> men in business suits parted the way for the doctors. >> i saw mrs. kennedy sitting on a folding chair outside trauma room one and saw then i was horrified to realize that it was just what they had said it was, that the president had been shot. >> president kennedy lay on a gurney, arms spread, eyes open and covered in blood. >> i couldn't get any sterile gloves, opened the tray and bare handedly did can outdown and got an i.v. going in his left upper arm. >> dr. mcclellan was the first to see the head wound. >> the back half of the right side of his brain was gone. as i stood there, the cerebellum, lower part of the brain fell out through the hole on to the cart. this was obviously a fatal wound, nothing could be done about that. >> dr. jones wa

mcclellan to washington, d.c., and puts him in command of the forces there. he had had some success in west virginia against robert e. lee, who had become well known later on. as soon as mcclellan is brought to washington, d.c., he writes this extensive plan on how to fight the war and immediately gives it to lincoln. and this is the most far-reaching, strategic plan that an american general ever authored up to this point. now, this plan is critical, because it becomes the foundation stone for mcclellan's thinking for the rest of the war, or at least the time he's involved in the war, about how the war should be fought. he comes back to this over and over, and i'll talk about that here in a moment. okay, what is the plan, august of 1861? well, essentially, think about a map of the confederacy here, and mcclellan's plan boils down to attacking the confederacy from a various number of points at the same time. one, first thing you want to do, or part of the plan -- it's a multiprong campaign. clear missouri with the troops that were there. he wanted to send a force down the mississippi river, reinforcing it with troo