Explaining the Shooting of Governor John Connally

It’s fall, the temperature is falling, the leaves are turning and with November here, we have some repeats to watch on the cable networks.

The History Channel will show one of their favorites, ABC’s documentary “Beyond Conspiracy” featuring Peter Jennings and a computer animation which shows a bullet that hit President Kennedy’s back four inches below his collar but then the bullet allegedly exited his neck after nicking the upper part of the knot of his tie, and then it goes down at approximately a 25 degree down angle to hit Governor Connally in his back. It’s amazing what computers can show.

We’ll also most likely see the Discovery Channel’s explanation of the assassination in “Beyond the Magic Bullet.” This show also features Dale Meyers’ computer animation, the same one used in “Beyond Conspiracy.” The show goes beyond the previous documentary as the producers go to Australia to get an expert shooter to attempt to duplicate the magic bullet, the shot that hit both JFK and Governor Connally. The shots they fire are aimed at figures composed of material which act like human muscle and bone when a bullet is fired into them.

For over 40 years we’ve heard and seen documentaries which talk about strange details in the JFK assassination investigation and reports. We first had the Warren Commission appointed by President Johnson with the main purpose to show that a lone gunman fired three shots at the limousine and wounded JFK, Governor Connally and a bystander too. We then had the House Subcommittee on Assassinations investigation in 1978 which investigated additional evidence in part because the Zapruder film was first shown to the American public on night TV in 1975. One of the newer pieces of evidence was the finding that the Dallas Police radio channel recorded a stuck open microphone during the time of the assassination and may have actually recorded the actual gunshots.

In 1991 the movie “JFK” again ignited the public’s curiosity about the assassination with “back and to the right” along with witnesses saying they saw another gunman. The government again responded and gave us the Records Review Act which released even more information about the murder. In 1997, the Zapruder film was digitized and now we can see even more details in the film. And in 2001, a statistical analysis was published concerning the Dallas Police recording with the finding there were five shots captured by the recording. A gunshot and it’s reflections off objects is like a fingerprint in that it’s fairly unique and dependent on where the shooter is and where the microphone is that captured the sounds, and the objects such as buildings that the sounds reflect off of.

Although we’ve heard about “discrepancies” for years in documentaries such as the “Men Who Killed Kennedy,” we’ve also had some documentaries disappear from the airways as the History Channel found them not to be accurate such as the “Guilty Men”, a documentary that fingered Vice-President Johnson and other cronies in a Texas murder ring.

The story in my opinion will not die as so many of the “facts” don’t seem to fit reality. We need to see something that makes sense.

Last year I met with one of the best known critics of the Warren Commission. I showed Dr. Cyril Wecht that one assumption made in the killing had led virtually everyone to make incorrect conclusions in the case. That assumption is that all of Governor Connally’s wounds were caused by one bullet when in fact Governor Connally was wounded by two separate shots which were both fired from the Texas School Book Depository. Dr. Wecht’s questions and observations led me to do more research which I’m still working on.

But what I want to show you today is when Governor Connally was wounded, something that has never been shown correctly on any of the documentaries or in any of the books that I’ve reviewed. You see, experts such as Dr. Wecht have been arguing about what did not happen. Instead, let’s show you what actually did happen.

To briefly familiarize you with the Zapruder Film frame numbers, Z frame number 313 will be called Z313. The following are a few major frame numbers for familiarization.

Z=160 Some theorize the first shot from the Texas School Book Depository, we see Gov. Connally’s head movement to the right shortly afterwards

Z=220 We first see President Kennedy emerge from behind the sign, clutching his throat and obviously wounded

Z=220 to Z=324 Governor Connally turns to look over his shoulder toward what he thinks are gunshots

With the film speed of 18.3 frames/second, things happened quickly, too quick for 1960’s technology and the lack of accurate information they had to extract the truth. What we can see now in individual frames captured and edited was not possible even a few years ago when everything was analogue. And of course, nobody looked at Governor Connally closely after JFK's head shot at Z=313. Most everyone was sure all the serious action was over.

To those of you who remember the basic scenarios of the Warren Commission and the other numerous theories, the descriptions shown above concerning Connally’s wounds are new. And as I’ll show you, it isn’t a theory, it’s the only times Governor Connally could have been wounded in the eight seconds from the first shot until the last was fired.

With literally thousands of books and hour after hour of documentaries on what must surely be the most investigated murder in history, at this time let’s concentrate on Governor Connally’s wounds. Once you understand the only way possible that Governor Connally could have been wounded based on the facts we have, then not only can we understand how both men were wounded, it will once and for all reveal how the Guilty Men pulled this off.

The first question concerns the last shot shown above at Z=325. The Warren Commission concluded the last shot was the fatal head shot at Z=313 but was faced with testimony such as one of the best witnesses, Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman who sat in the Limo directly in front of Governor Connally. During his Warren Commission testimony, Kellerman spoke of the ending of the shooting as a “flurry” of shots. When pressed for how many, he said two. He described the spacing of the last two shots as bang-bang. When Arlen Specter pressed him again, he said it was like an airplane breaking the sound barrier (the front of the plane breaks the sound barrier before the rear of the plane, hence you hear bang-bang also).

When Arlen Specter asked the spacing between the first shot and the flurry of shots, Kellerman said three to five seconds.

When we look at the Zapruder film, we see at Z=325 the collapse forward and downward movement of Connally’s head. Looking at the sequence in real time, we see Connally driven quickly forward with his head snapping forward when he is shot. Further confirmation is given when you look at the analysis of the Dallas Police Recording. The difference between the Z=313 shot and the last shot is 0.7 seconds or approximately 12 frames.

We now have a credible witness, a recording, and the best motion picture of the assassination showing agreement that a shot was fired at Z=325.

But listen to a recent explanation of the Zapruder film factoring in the Dallas Police Recording. The reasons for Dr. Thomas' confusion and his trying to cling to the Warren Commission's are easily explained, but I'll leave that for later. Listen to the description of the last shot, "fired almost simultaneously" but they didn't even look to see what it might have done.

A Warren Commission supporter will tell you that Governor Connally could not have been shot after Kennedy was shot because his leg wound does not line up with the shot trajectory through his body and through his right wrist. And, of course, there were only three bullets fired from the TSBD.

The hole in their argument is that Connally was indeed wounded earlier by a bullet fragment which entered Governor Connally’s leg. And note the importance of the fact to this investigation that it was a bullet fragment, not an intact bullet. That Connally was hit by a bullet fragment to his left leg is well documented but many of today’s documentaries incorrectly describe that the left leg wound was caused by an intact bullet which then fell out of his leg later at the hospital.

Three bullet fragments were found under Nellie Connally’s seat (CE840), who sat directly to the left of Governor Connally. It’s therefore credible that the bullet fragment that John Connally’s left leg is from the CE840 shot.

To test this “theory” against the Warren Commission’s, I took some of the better known observations in the JFK assassination list and compared the Z=325 scenario against the Warren Commission scenario. This is a quick way to see how facts fit against both theories.

(1) If seriously wounded at approximately Z=220, this turn would be incredible for a man wounded so seriously.

(2) Connally’s right wrist is allegedly broken by the shot at Z=220, it’s not reasonable to believe he could hold his hat for over 5 seconds

(3) Both Nellie and John Connally were actually very sure he was not wounded by the same bullet that first struck JFK. At a showing of the Zapruder film, John Connally guessed that he was wounded closer to Z=238. If the Dallas Police recording is valid, there is no shot fired at that time. Roy Kellerman’s testimony also stated that it was 3-5 seconds before the last two shots after the first.

(4) The Single Bullet supporters such as Dr. Latimer use this as support that the bullet which hit Gov. Connally in the back struck something else first. Experimental shots show that a bullet passing through tissue like JFK’s upper body tends to roll over; hence the wider scar that was left in Gov. Connally’s back. This is not proof, however, that the bullet struck something else before it entered John Connally’s back.

(5) FBI agent O’Neal described the autopsy discovery of the bullet wound to Kennedy’s back and then said no point of exit was discovered by probing with both the doctor’s finger and instruments.

The above table indicates based on some of the information commonly discussed concerning the assassination that the Z=325 scenario has merit. When you look at the location of the shot to JFK’s back (four inches below the collar) and the fact that after exiting his neck, the bullet next has to be traveling at a 25 degree down angle; this is probably the major reason the single bullet theory has been so disbelieved.

Is that enough of an introduction? I’ll tell you later the rest of the story as for this to be credible, there had to be at least six shots with three different shooters according to one of the doctors involved in the Warren Commission investigation. But as I’ve shown so far, Governor Connally’s left leg wound was caused by a bullet which fragmented and hit both JFK and Governor Connally.

That reduces to five shots and three different shooters, three shots from the TSBD and two shots from the front of the limo, fired by two different shooters. And funny thing is, there were witnesses who saw them!

To give you a hint about the rest of the story, in Tip O’Neal’s book, “The Man of the House” he discusses a conversation with JFK aid Kenny O’Donnell who said he was quite sure there were two shot fired from the front. O’Donnell also tells why he did not tell the Warren Commission what he saw and heard when he testified.

The cover-up and the misinformation supplied by the government is as interesting as the shooting analysis itself. You see, for the government to get the investigation this wrong with testimony so clear, there had to be some interesting arm twisting going on. Arlen Specter, do you even today have a clue what you did? And Gerald Ford, the lone surviving member of the Warren Commission, you have to know something, don’t you? Or did both of you keep your heads buried in the sand as you were manipulated by the Guilty Men? The truth is buried in a Conspiracy of Silence, just like Dr. Crenshaw said in the first book I read on the subject.

And how could the major news media keep getting this so wrong? "We" will deal with you later.

If you check Tip O’Neal’s book, “The Man of the House”, you’ll see that he talks about Kenny O’Donnell’s description in the book of two shots that were fired from the front. Since O’Donnell was in one of the cars behind JFK’s, he had a unique position and describes later to Tip O’Neal why he did not tell what he saw correctly to the Warren Commission.

Now let’s look at the individual frames and see Connelly’s head snap downward immediately after the bullet hits him in the back. I drew a white line through the back of his head in each frame to make the rapid movement of his head clearer. This is the first time to my knowledge that this head movement has been documented. With 18.2 frames per second, it would be virtually impossible for Connally’s head to collapse without an external force.

Now that you see in just a couple of frames how Governor Connally's head rolled down as he was ducking forward from the Z=313 shot that hit JFK in the head, listen to his description of how he was thrown forward as he was shot in the back.

As you listen to Connally's description, the part about how he was hit in the back and thrown forward by the force of the bullet agrees with the Z=325 shot to Connally's back scenario very well, but then Govenor Connally goes on to describe how he then hears the fatal shot to JFK's head.

One of the reasons that this issue has been so confusing for so long is that many of the witnesses only got parts of what they said correct. Governor Connally, for example, did not see the head shot to President Kennedy as he was looking forward as he was turning to look over his left shoulder but he clearly says in his interview clip that JFK was shot after his back wound was received. Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman says he heard one shot followed by 3-5 seconds then two shots, bang-bang. Kellerman argues with Specter later trying to reason there had to be more shots than three but Kellerman never says he heard more than three. The shots Kellerman identifies are number 3, 4 and 5. Shot 3 fragments and hits both JFK and wounds Connally in the left leg with a bullet fragment, shot 4 is the fatal head shot at Z=313, and shot 5 is the shot to Connally's back at Z=325.

And later when other details are explained, the actual killers will be exposed. No investigation could get this so wrong without some serious arm twisting.

you agree that Gov. Connally holding his hat immediately after Pres. Kennedy was shot in the back is irrelevant in determining when Gov. Connally was shot in the wrist?

Not irrelevant, it's just doesn't PROVE anything ABSOLUTELY.

When solving an unsolvable problem, if you look at various observations like Connally holding his hat AFTER the theorized magic bullet hit Connally in the back and then broke his wrist, I would find it UNUSUAL that he continued to hold his hat. I have several replies today suggesting I READ XYZ but I'm quite sure XYZ did NOT cover the Z=325 shot to Connally's back scenario. I'm quite sure this is the first time someone has put these facts together so no one has EVER compared this sceanrio to the single bullet theory.

As I tried to say before, each of the items in the table, and Connally holding his hat in his right hand is just one, is something that is well known and has been explained away by numerous books and investigations.

The point of that table is to point out that there are several observations that indicate the single bullet scenario is hard to believe (at least for some of us).

The point about Occum's razor is that IF you have two events, one which is really complicated like the single bullet theory is, and you contrast it with something simple like Connally is wounded by a bullet fragement and for 5 seconds he turns in his seat like a wounded man PROBABLY couldn't do, then we see him KNOCKED forward at Z=325, it should go without saying that many things indicate that the Z=325 shot to the back is a lot more probable, because most of the problems found with the single bullet theory are consistent with the Z=325 shot to the back.

Earlier in the the thread, someone posted some pictures from Dale Meyer's animations. For him to get the bullet which struck four inches below JFK's collar (in the back) and then exit his neck, all the while going down, is, to me, not credible although it is NOT sufficient to disprove the single bullet theory. The Warren Commission did NOT show the autopsy photos to the Commission because even those guys would have had a serious problem putting their names on the bottom line.

"No one has shamed anyone into the truth in the last 43 years, why do you think your going to do that now?"

Well, FREEREPUBLIC contribluted to Dan Rather being put out on the street, so don't underestimate the power of people finally figuring out the bottom line. Rather, as you may know, got his start with the JFK assassination.

So, I think it's safe to say that the best I can hope for with this post is to start a snowball rolling down the hill which MIGHT end up with a lot of mass in the end. That is the only way we'll get to the bottom of it, first MORE people writing networks and telling them we know the truth.

In 1975, the Zapruder Film was first shown on TV, and it was released because of the Garrison investigation in New Orleans. The Fallout from that resulted in the 1978 House Subcommittee on Assassinations which liberated a little more information.

In 1991, The movie JFK stirred them up again. It did NOT have the bottom line here is the way it happened scenario in it, what it did was present irregularities like I did in the table I presented. For example, it's strange for someone to get shot in the back 4 inches below the collar and then have the bullet exit the throat going down, when the bullet was fired DOWN from a building. It's STRANGE that the Z=313 shot knocks Kennedy "back and to the left" even though people to this day buy that silliness.

In response to the movie JFK, we have the RECORDS REVIEW ACT which released a lot, but not all.

Lots of new information came out in the 90's, for example, did you know Congressman Richard Nixon had Jack Rubinstein (sp?) on his staff in the late 1940's (I think 1997). I'm not trying to go on to other stuff, I'm trying to focus on the way Connally was shot. That proves conspiracy.

Connally holding his hat immediately after Pres. Kennedy was shot in the back is irrelevant in determining when Gov. Connally was shot in the wrist?

You did not answer the question I asked

YES, YES YES I agree

BUT (and as Jim Quinn in Pittsburgh says, everything after BUT is BS)

If Connally was holding his hat at the hospital it's different than when we see him holding his hat out in front of his body about Z=230. After he is shot in the back at Z=325, he falls forward and then he's pulled over to his left into her lap by her. He's probably laying on the hat all the way to the hospital.

Should I remove the hat in Connally's hand from my table? :-)

You can't convince me so easily on the shot to JFK's back being obviously lower than the exit point in his neck. The investigators have all assumed that since the alternative to the magic bullet is so unbelievable, that impossible facts like that simply must be wrong. I would assign a factor of 1 to that observation, which means it didn't happen, and it couldn't happen.

When an investigator gets frustrated and accepts any BS, the result is, well, BS. That is, of course, unless the guy in charge of the investigation is trying to pull a fast one.

Remember the whole purpose of comparing observations and looking how they fit with your possible scenarios is to get a feeling which one is more likely. I'm not looking to convince someone with a 3 page paper and some video clips that literally thousands of authors and millions of people got it wrong and an engineer who likes history saw something they didn't.

The question to you: Do you think it's POSSIBLE that John Connally was wounded in the back with a shot at Z=325?

Nellie: I never will. I pulled him down in my lap because I didn't want him to hurt him anymore. I didn't want him to shoot at him anymore. And while I had him in my lap there was another shot. And my reaction to that was matter all over the car, blew up, we were in front of the Kennedys, it blew up all over us. Third shot.
TM: And you're covering your husband at this time.
Nellie: And he also, he has... he has... his hat in his hand. He always had that hat somewhere. He had the hat in his hand when I pulled him over and crouched him down and he was holding that hat up against him. He closed up that wound that would've killed him before we got to the hospital. -Source

______________________________

One of the many presentations I made was to an ex-Army Officer from Viet Nam days. His point was that people can do extraordinary things when shot, he'd seen it so he even ruled out the turn Connally made after the Z=230 recovery (from what I said was a minor wound to his left leg) all the way to Z=325 when Connally is shot in the back. -BILL_C, post 270

Should I remove the hat in Connally's hand from my table?

Yes.

You can't convince me so easily on the shot to JFK's back being obviously lower than the exit point in his neck.

The question to you: Do you think it's POSSIBLE that John Connally was wounded in the back with a shot at Z=325?

Yes. Anything is POSSIBLE. Do you think it's POSSIBLE that the single bullet theory is true?

"... By the way, I'm still waiting for those dozens of Carcanos you mentioned for literally pennies. Like I said, time and place, when and where? I'll break open my piggy bank.

You said it. I never see an M91/38 that hasn't been sporterized for under $400 these days. Check this amazing coincidence out:

Here's an interesting Gunbroker.com auction of someone selling a detailed firing replica of Oswald's 'Carcano for a $950 starting bid.

Notice the offset telescope mount:

Seller says the following:

"Up for auction here is an eerily accurate reproduction of the John F. Kennedy Mannlicher Carcano in 6.5mm carcano. Everything has been accurately duplicated. The scope and scope mount are identical to the Oswald rifle. The power of the scope is the same. The scope was expertly restored recently and is extremely clear. There is a slight flaw in the glass that is not visible through the scope only upon external inspection. The off set of the scope mount in the exact mount Oswald has lets you see why this may have been the perfect rifles for the job. The scope natural acts as a scout rifle scope allowing for quick acquisition and tracking with both open eyes. The sling is also an exact duplication. Only possible comment is that the trigger needs to be smoothed out as it has a small chip in the bottom of it. If you are a Kennedy aficionado or conspiracy theorist you should have this rifle. We accept all major credit cards. Bid now, you may never see a duplicate this well done ever again."

That is a museum-quality M91/38 Mannlicher-Carcano. Certainly the nicest I've seen, not even counting the work put into making it a replica of 'C2766'. Good luck finding Western ammunition for it, though. Last time I checked, Norma 6.5 Carcano was $1 a round.

That's a tempting auction. I was never able to find an Ordnance Optics 4x18 telescope or a period US Navy binoculars case strap to use as a sling.

I bet the new owner auctions it every November. :D

"... Although the rifle was found right side up it wasn't found at the sniper's nest. It was jammed between boxes and not near enough to the pathway to be placed there. I think Oswald threw it there. It's only a sheet metal mount. I think the Point of Aim was moved when thrown."

I agree.

After the shooting, Oswald skipped across the room with the 'Carcano and leaned over the top of a cubical stack of boxes higher than his shoulders. He raised the rifle up and over, and dropped it down (presumably butt-first) into a narrow gap in the center of the stacked boxes. I'm sure he went looking for a place to quickly ditch the rifle the morning of the assassination, and may have even created the gap himself by wrangling the box stacks around like he did at the shooter's window to provide cover for himself.

Dropping the rifle like that could certainly have knocked the zero. I'd almost expect it to.

I've seen film footage of US Secret Service men climbing on top of a box stack lifting the rifle out by the muzzle. Testimony in the Warren Commission's report says that several US Secret Service men started climbing atop the boxes filling the room in searching the 6th floor of the TSBD. One agent walking atop them on his hands and knees said that he got to a gap between the boxes, looked straight down, and saw the rifle's muzzle aiming right at his face.

... Then they brought the 'Carcano outside, someone said to a newsman they found a 'Mauser', and that's how THAT part of the conspiracy misinformation was born.

That 'Carcano auction on Gunbroker sure is tempting, ain't it? I had to close the webpage because it was saying 'KG9.... Oh, KG9... I want to live with youuuu...'.

Guns talk to me.

The question to you: Do you think it's POSSIBLE that John Connally was wounded in the back with a shot at Z=325?

Yes. Anything is POSSIBLE. Do you think it's POSSIBLE that the single bullet theory is true?

Tares, excellent post and thank you for the time you took to do that! Yes, I've considered that the single bullet theory is possible but I don't believe it is valid now.

As far as what is possible, I was taught a long time ago to consider everything that is possible. That's obvious, but it's a mistake often made and that allows wrong answers to sometimes be picked when the correct scenario is not even considered. My table was an attempt to compare the two scenarios, and this was done here for the first time ever that I'm aware of. The movements of Connally at Z=325 have been considered before but they were ruled out as a possible shot time because: Connally's left leg does NOT line up with the trajectory from his back, out his chest, and then to his right wrist. Everyone agrees that one bullet is responsible for those wounds to John Connally, but for the first time, I'm saying where his leg is located is irrelevant because Connally's left leg was wounded approximately 5 seconds earler at about Z=222.

Let's assume for purposes of discussion there are two possible theories and that we will NOT BE biased from reading XYZ, or shows or....:

1) a. Three shots,

___b.Lone Gunman,

___c.Government Investigations are correct

2) a.Five shots,

___b. multiple gunman,

___c.Government Investigations are wrong

I would like for us to evaluate each of those theories against agreed upon observations. The first one I'd like to examine in detail is the entry point on JFK's back and the exit point on his neck.

I see that you included one of Dale Meyer's drawings from his animation on the entry point to his back to the exit point on his neck. I'd like you to do a similar experiment to what I've done. Take and measure 4 inches below the top of your collar slightly to the right of your spinal chord and mark that point (maybe someone else can hold their finger there, but a piece of tape defines the point better). Now you hold your finger to your neck. Get a laser level and have someone off to your right side connect the points. Of course, the angle from the back is going up.

Since according to Dale Meyers who animated Kennedy, the correction needed is for you to raise your right arm and simulate placing it on the side of the car which will force your back compared to your neck in front. I still get an up angle even with an extreme movement of my arm upward. Kennedy had a back problem, so it PROBABLY wasn't too extreme.

If you do this and even if you get a negative (down) angle, it's hard to imagine that it could approach being a 25 degree angle. That's the angle the House Subcommittee on Assassinations used in 1978 for the bullet through Connally to give him all his wounds with one shot and as I previously mentioned, is the basis of Dr. Wecht dissenting from the single bullet theory.

You may not agree with me on my observations, but if you do those things and see how hard it would be to get a down angle through JFK much less a 25 degree down angle, it supplies information that makes one scenario or another more credible.

After I did that, I concluded that it made the Z=325 shot to Connally's back scenario more credible than the single bullet shot as Connally needed to be hit in the back at Z=325 and the bullet would then hit his right wrist as it can be seen his arm is in the correct position at that time. In fact, I believe it's impossible to get a 25 degree down angle through JFK with the entry point and exit defined so well. I have on my laptop, which I don't have access to now, the drawing the Warren Commission members used to define the entry and exit point on Kennedy which made it more plausible the bullet had a down angle. The data we have now (throat wound and the back wound plus the shirt and jacket showing the bullet hole) tend to say the shot to Connally's back occurred at Z=325 rather than earlier.

DO you agree with my observations or would you like to consider some other item first?

P> Tuesday Nov. 25, 2003; 12:57 a.m. EST
Nellie Connally Disputes Warren Commission

For all the coverage generated by the 40th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination this past weekend, the media managed to miss the only genuine news to emerge from the commemoration.

Nellie Connally, wife of former Texas Gov. John Connally and the only person still alive who rode in the presidential death limousine, publicly disputed for the first time the Warren Commission's "magic bullet" theory, a scenario absolutely essential to its finding that Lee Harvey Oswald was Kennedy's lone assassin.

A year after the assassination the Commission concluded that Kennedy and Gov. Connally were both wounded by the first shot fired by Oswald from the Texas School Book Depository. A second shot missed completely. A third shot slammed into Kennedy's head and splattered his brains throughout the car.

But Mrs. Connally told CNN's Larry King that Kennedy and her husband couldn't have been struck by the same bullet, because she watched her husband react over a period of two seconds after the first shot struck the president.

"John [Connally] sitting right in front of him knew it was a shot," the former Texas first lady said. "He's a hunter and a shooter, you know. . . ."

Mrs. Connally continued:

"So he turned quick to his right and he couldn't see [Kennedy] because he was directly in front of him. And he said, 'No, no, no' and turned to his left. . . . Now this is a second or two. Then, as he whirled back, the second shot hit John . . ."

When pressed about the single bullet theory adopted by the Warren Commission, Mrs. Connally told King, "Do you think a bullet that went through the president's neck can hang there in air between the two seats while John turned to the right, turned to the left and came back?

"That's what I asked the Warren Commission," she explained. "I said, 'I don't believe a bullet could do that. That bullet -- the same bullet did not hit both of them.'"
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2003/11/25/12446.shtml

"... Could you please tell me what "evidence" I use that isn't healthy? And what basic facts do I ignore?

Alright, you asked for it. Brace yourself:

1. Five shots in Dealey Plaza.

-- Ridiculous. Zero credible evidence of this. None.

2. "FBI agent at the autopsy who said there was no point of exit for the bullet found by probing with an instrument and his finger. That totally rules out the magic bullet... The reason it is so hard to understand is that the bullet hitting JFK's back had NO point of exit [...] the bullet to his neck was, by the hospital staff, believed to be an entrance wound. "

-- The FBI agent was not a medical examiner. The skin of Kennedy's back, just like yours and mine, moves on top of the musculature laying underneath. This is why a bullet hole in the upper dermis won't necessarily stay aligned with the tunnel created by the path of the bullet through the underlaying muscular tissue particularly after the corpse is laying in a supine position on an autopsy table. The misconception of this, coupled with an FBI man's casual and unprofessional examination of the entrance wound at Parkland Hospital, does not 'totally rule out' the so-called 'magic bullet'.

No medical personnel at Parkland Hospital ever once turned JFK over to search for a wound and none of them had any idea from what direction he was hit. That wasn't their concern. The doctors were not even aware of Kennedy's massive head wound for several minutes, as the blood and gore in JFK's thick mop of hair was keeping his skull in place. Dr. Charles Carrico inserted a breathing tube down the President's throat connected to an automatic respirator, but it didn't improve his vital signs. Dr. Malcolm Perry started a tracheotomy by incising the exit wound on Kennedy's in order to place the endotracheal tube in place. That's why the wound in the autopsy photograph in this thread appears to be an ovular incision. The idea that Kennedy was shot from the front in the base of his throat emerged in the media's hasty desire to gather details at Parkland Hospital.

Unfounded media reports are not forensic science.

3. "The Autopsy photos were NOT shown to the Warren Commission and the excuse is that was out of respect to the Kennedy Family.

-- Indeed, and that's no 'excuse'. Moreover, the medical drawings were created by a highly professional medical illustrator and are so good they're sometimes confused as the original autospy photographs made public years later.

4. "EXTRAORDINARY things must have happened for the SINGLE BULLET THEORY to be true..."

-- No. You create a false dilemma by ignoring the ballistics and trajectory data of the so-called 'Magic Bullet'. By refusing to understand how a bullet strike at the base of Kennedy's neck can exit downward just over the top of his breastbone and still strike Gov. Connally, you presume multiple shots when one bullet explains it neatly with perfectly reasonable trajectorial evidence. That's what conspiracists have been doing with countless elements of the Kennedy Assassination for decades: Ignore one credible component and invent a new and exciting theory that fits in the hole they've carved out.

5. "... witnesses said they heard TWO SHOTS at the end of the shooting, AND the Dallas Police Recording sad the SAME THING!"

-- Nonsense. More 'False Dilemma' conjecture. Dictabelt 10 doesn't 'say' a thing. There are no gunshots on the tape because the segment was recorded minutes after the shooting. In fact, the 'impulses' that conspiracists point to as 'gunshots' were periods of silence. Dr. Norman Ramsey of the National Academy of Sciences issued a report in 1982 which determined that there was no compelling evidence for gunshots on the Dictabelt recording and that the suspect signals were recorded about a minute after the shooting happened.

6. "... Even if you discount the Dallas Police Recording and Dr. D. B. Thomas' Paper on "ECHO CORRELATION...." you still have several indications that John Connally was shot at Z=325."

Your timing data for Gov. Connolly's reaction to being shot are still based upon Dr. D.B. Thomas' mistaken (negligently or deliberately) synchronization based upon the Zapruder film and your own misguided belief based upon the impeached Dictabelt 10 data. What's you're doing here is saying 'Even if you ignore the first thing I said, let me say the same thing another way and present it again as supporting evidence'.

7. "... Explain why numerous people from the secret service man who first saw Kennedy's head in the limo to the Parkland Memorial staff to the Autopsy in Washington said the back of his head was blown out?"

-- Because they were incorrect? See point #2. I address this again because of your glaring disregard for photographic evidence available in this thread. You've seen the autopsy photographs of the back of Kennedy's head. Where is it blown out? Reporters also said that Oswald's 'Carcano was a 'Mauser'. Doesn't make it correct and true, does it? Who swore to the Warren Commission that they saw the back of Kennedy's head blown out? You're relying on someone's unrecorded pedestrian testimonial as to what some witness might have said in the ensuing panic at Parkland Hospital as forensic evidence of a conspiracy.

And finally:

8. "... Lyndon Johnson was about to go to jail for various crimes including murder. WIth JFK's death, he became President instead... The only piece of real physical evidence that was in his book was a fingerprint found on a box in the shooters nest [...] The fingerprint was linked to a convicted killer named Mac Wallace [...] a killer with ties to LBJ."

What. In. The. Hell.

Sir, I've largely been avoiding responding to you directly in this thread because you are a stark raving loonbat.

No further comment follows.

Brace yourself:

I don't believe you told me anything I haven't seen. Let me cut a quote out of an article that I saw on-line with lots of thoughts that LBJ had JFK killed and then of course Hoover supplied the BS and ignored the witnesses where necessary. Don't call the author of the article a "stark raving loonbat" like you called me.

President Lyndon B. Johnson, organized the Commission to quell hysteria over a possible conspiracy and allay suspicions that Johnson had anything to do with the killing.

In his review of Rush to Judgment, Mark Lane’s highly successful book attacking the Warren Commission, Norman Mailer gushed, “If one-tenth of [the facts in Lane’s book] should prove to be significant, then the work of the Warren Commission will be judged by history to be a scandal worse than the Teapot Dome.”

But still to this day people stubbornly refuse to believe there wasn’t a conspiracy. An ABC poll conducted this year found that seven out of ten Americans believe Kennedy’s death was the result of a plot, and 68 percent believe there was some sort of official cover-up of the facts. These numbers have risen since 1967, when only 31 percent of Americans saw a conspiracy.

http://www.americanheritage.com/people/articles/web/20050927-warren-commission-kennedy-jfk-lyndon-johnson-lee-harvey-oswald-jack-ruby-john-connally-assassination-conspiracy.shtml

Why We Still Don’t Believe the Warren Commission

(NATIONAL ARCHIVES)

The Warren Commission released the official government report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in late September 1964—after an investigation of unprecedented scale, using the full resources of the Federal Government. The transcripts of all the testimony the Commission took weighed 54 pounds, and the supporting documentation swelled to thousands of pages. But the resulting report failed to gain the confidence of the American people, who persisted in believing that the November 22, 1963, murder of President Kennedy was part of a vast conspiracy. Why?

Kennedy’s successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, organized the Commission to quell hysteria over a possible conspiracy and allay suspicions that Johnson had anything to do with the killing. The Commission was formed, in its own words, in “recognition of the rights of people everywhere to full and truthful knowledge.” Piloted by Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren, it spent nearly a year in pursuit of that truth.

The report concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald, and Oswald alone, had shot Kennedy, from the sixth-floor of the Texas Book Depository. It further found that Jack Ruby, who killed Oswald as he was being led from the Dallas Police Department, had also acted alone. And it announced that there was “no evidence that either Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby was part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign, to assassinate President Kennedy.”

The conclusion boggled the mind. Could a lone loser with a rifle just wander into a building a kill the President of the United States?

A cottage industry of anti-Warren Commission books sprang up almost immediately, and well-respected journalists (and some not so well-respected) started punching holes in the report. The Commission was accused of shoddy and cursory investigation, not following-up leads, and ignoring key evidence. The British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, in the London Sunday Times, called the report “slovenly.” He added that “the Commission, for whatever reasons, simply has not done its work … it has not established the facts; behind a smoke screen of irrelevant material it has accepted impermissible axioms, constructed invalid arguments and failed to asked elementary and essential questions.”

Trevor-Roper claimed the Commission had quashed dissenting opinions so it could rush its findings out as quickly as possible. The panel did work under intense political pressure to publish fast, and this could explain why it never fully investigated the possibility of a second gunman. When the famed Zapruder film of the shooting was analyzed, ballistic experts found that two shots could not have been fired as fast as Kennedy and Governor John B. Connally of Texas had been hit. Arlen Specter, then a young lawyer working with the Commission, proposed the much-maligned magic-bullet theory, that one bullet hit both men in a complex trajectory. People were skeptical that the pristine bullet found on Connally’s stretcher in the hospital could have done so much damage. (However, it was a military type shell with a metal jacket surrounding it, so it could arguably have withstood the impact.)

The autopsy proved to be another thorn in the Commission’s side. Rather than being autopsied in Texas, Kennedy, at his wife’s request, had been taken to the National Naval Medical Center, in Bethesda, Maryland, where he was autopsied by two doctors who did not specialize in forensics. When these doctors were brought to testify before the Commission, they did so without the benefit of their autopsy photographs, so their testimony could only be, as one reported, “to the best of my recollection.” The Commission instead relied on artist’s renderings that were taken “to a certain extent from memory and to a certain extent from the written record.” No photographs were included in the final report.

Harold Weisberg, the author of Whitewash, maintained that the Commission tried to persuade the doctors to change their statements by questioning them with maddening hypotheticals. In his review of Rush to Judgment, Mark Lane’s highly successful book attacking the Warren Commission, Norman Mailer gushed, “If one-tenth of [the facts in Lane’s book] should prove to be significant, then the work of the Warren Commission will be judged by history to be a scandal worse than the Teapot Dome.”

Charles Roberts, a respected Newsweek White House correspondent, was more skeptical. He claimed that if you read “17,815 pages, scraps of testimony and evidence—‘facts’—can be extracted to prove that almost anyone in Dallas that black Friday had a hand—or didn’t—in the Kennedy assassination.” Roberts claimed that the anti-Warren Commission books, with their own omissions and errors, led to a “worldwide seepage of confidence in the integrity of the U.S. government.” Lane and Weisberg were guilty, Roberts concluded, of the same crimes they accused the Commission of—selective reliance on the facts, shoddy reporting, refusing to follow-up on leads, and confusing their readers with a dizzying array of footnotes, appendixes, and technical jargon.

A flurry of anti-conspiracy books responded that the Commission had gotten the story right. These included Roberts’s own 1967 The Truth About the Assassination and Gerald Posner’s 1993 best-seller, Case Closed. In 2003, the fortieth anniversary of the assassination, ABC News conducted an exhaustive investigation of its own, using a computer-generated reconstruction of the crime. It too concluded that Oswald was the lone gunman. This had also been the finding of a CBS investigation ten years earlier.

But still to this day people stubbornly refuse to believe there wasn’t a conspiracy. An ABC poll conducted this year found that seven out of ten Americans believe Kennedy’s death was the result of a plot, and 68 percent believe there was some sort of official cover-up of the facts. These numbers have risen since 1967, when only 31 percent of Americans saw a conspiracy.

The Warren Commission Report was meant to put suspicions to rest about the Kennedy assassination. In that role it definitely failed. But could it have done otherwise? Only an impossibly flawless report could have comforted a nation that had just seen its leader gunned down. After all, the Commission was asking us to believe the unfathomable: that just one guy—someone not that different from you or me—was capable of bringing down a dynasty. A conspiracy would be almost less frightening.

—Elizabeth D. Hoover is a former editor at American Heritage magazine.

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Observation	Warren Commission Three Shots	Z=325 Shot to Connally’s back

Connally turns in his seat and looks back at JFK Z=230 to Z=324	No (1)	Yes
Connally holds hat in his hand until at least Z=325	No	Yes
Nellie and John Connally both said John Was shot after JFK’s first wound (3)	No	Yes
Connally falls forward as he describes in later Interviews when he is shot	No	Yes
Three shots were fired from the TSBD	Yes	Yes
Several Witnesses saw shooter(s) at the Grassy Knoll	No	Yes
Agrees with Dallas Police Recording	No	Yes
Kellerman Described “flurry of shots”	No	Yes
JFK and Connally both react to Z=222 shot	Yes	Yes
Connally bullet left wide scar to his back like the bullet was tumbling	Yes (4)	No
Bullet to JFK’s back did not have a point of exit (5).	No	Yes