Posted on 11/16/2023 6:07:01 AM PST by Red Badger
Now 88 years old, former Secret Service agent Paul Landis is breaking his silence regarding what he witnessed on the day US President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Telling his version of events in the book, The Final Witness: A Kennedy Secret Service Agent Breaks His Silence After Sixty Years, Landis’ account could change the way the public has long understood the events of that infamous day.
While the official report states Lee Harvey Oswald was the only shooter that day, Landis’ account might suggest otherwise.
An eyewitness to John F. Kennedy’s assassination
Paul Landis first joined the Secret Service in 1959, and, by ’63, had been assigned to protect First Lady Jackie Kennedy and her children. Accompanying the family to Dallas, Texas, Landis was one of the agents walking behind the presidential limousine on November 22, 1963.
After hearing the first shot, Landis spun around to locate where it had come from, but didn’t spot anything. When he turned back, he watched fellow agent Clint Hill run toward the limousine. Landis then witnessed JFK get shot in the head. He was so close that he had to duck down to avoid being splattered with the president’s brain tissue.
The limousine rushed both Kennedy and wounded Texas Gov. John Connally to Parkland Memorial Hospital, with several agents following. Once the two men were removed from the vehicle, Landis noticed two bullet fragments in a pool of blood, but left them alone.
However, there was another bullet, still intact, that he found in the seam of the leather cushioning that has to potential to change how we understand the infamous assassination.
Confusion around the bullet
This bullet is the same one that’s the foundation of the single-bullet theory in the Warren Commission’s report. Doctors deduced that the round must have struck JFK from behind, exiting his throat before continuing toward John Connally. It entered the governor’s right shoulder, struck his rib and exited under his right nipple, before continuing through his right wrist and into his left thigh. The near-pristine condition the bullet was in has led many to regard it as a “magic” bullet.
The round was found on Connally’s stretcher and, as such, the Warren Commission stated it “eliminated President Kennedy’s stretcher as a source of the bullet,” as the president’s body was only moved from the stretcher upon it being placed in a coffin. However, Landis claims he was the one to find the bullet in the limousine, placing it in his pocket to prevent souvenir hunters from taking it.
Speaking with The New York Times, the former Secret Service agent says:
“There was nobody there to secure the scene, and that was a big, big bother to me. All the agents that were there were focused on the president. This was all going on so quickly. And I was just afraid that – it was a piece of evidence, that I realized right away. Very important. And I didn’t want it to disappear or get lost. So it was, ‘Paul, you’ve got to make a decision,’ and I grabbed it.”
Once Landis arrived at the hospital, he planned to hand over the round to a supervisor, but in the mass confusion placed it on Kennedy’s stretcher. In doing so, he’d hoped it would help the doctors determine exactly what had happened. He believes the bullet must’ve bounced from JFK’s stretcher onto Connally’s when they were pushed together, leading to the single-bullet theory.
Paul Landis’ account could debunk the single-bullet theory
Paul Landis thinks the bullet he found must have struck JFK in the back and was unable to penetrate deeply, causing it to pop out and fall back in the seat. If this account is true, then the single-bullet theory may be debunked after all.
James Robenalt, a Cleveland lawyer and historical author who worked with Landis, tells The New York Times:
“If what he says is true, which I tend to believe, it is likely to reopen the question of a second shooter, if not even more. If the bullet we know as the magic or pristine bullet stopped in President Kennedy’s back, it means that the central thesis of the Warren Report, the single-bullet theory, is wrong.”
Film footage of the assassination shows JFK and John Connally physically reacting to the shooting, but their reactions are about a second apart. Investigators have estimated that it would’ve taken Lee Harvey Oswald 2.3 seconds to reload and fire a second time.
“The FBI recreation suggests that Oswald would not have had enough time to get off two separate shots so quickly as to hit Connally after wounding the president in the back,” Robenault explains in an article in Vanity Fair. As such, it’s believed that, had there been a second shooter, their shot hit likely Connally from “above and to the rear.”
Why is Paul Landis speaking out now?
Being an eyewitness to the assassination, Paul Landis has been haunted by what he saw that fateful day. “The president’s head exploding – I could not shake that vision,” he tells The New York Times. “Whatever I was doing, that’s all I was thinking about.”
After about six more months of trying to work, Landis called it quits and left the Secret Service. The Warren Commission never reached out to him, which was a surprise. He says he thought the agency was simply protecting their own, and after everything that had happened, he didn’t want to talk about it.
However, after reading Six Seconds in Dallas: A Micro-study of the Kennedy Assassination in 2014, he realized his memories of the event didn’t align with the account presented by the Warren Commission.
Speaking about the many theories surrounding JFK’s death, Landis says, “I just paid no attention to that. I just removed myself. I just felt I had been there. I had seen it, and I knew what I saw and what I did. And that’s all.”
However, this brought up mixed feelings. “I didn’t want to talk about it,” he explains. “I was afraid. I started to think, did I do something wrong? There was a fear that I might have done something wrong and I shouldn’t talk about it.” Even Clint Hill discouraged him from coming forward, suggesting how there could be “many ramifications.”
However, while it may have taken a few years, Landis still feels his account needs to be shared. “There’s no goal at this point,” he explains. “I just think it had been long enough that I needed to tell my story.”
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Samantha Franco is a Freelance Content Writer who received her Bachelor of Arts degree in history from the University of Guelph, and her Master of Arts degree in history from the University of Western Ontario. Her research focused on Victorian, medical, and epidemiological history with a focus on childhood diseases. Stepping away from her academic career, Samantha previously worked as a Heritage Researcher and now writes content for multiple sites covering an array of historical topics.
In her spare time, Samantha enjoys reading, knitting, and hanging out with her dog, Chowder!
linkedin.com/in/samantha-v-franco
Mark Lane’s Rush to Judgement has to be the most successful commie propaganda effort in our lifetimes.
The American Left was eager to shift blame for Kennedy’s murder away from their side and one of their own and Mark Lane’s book did it. It ignited a conspiracy industry that thrives to this day, this latest “revelation” being more of the same.
Lane worked for the National Lawyers Guild which had been outed as communist party front group years before. No red flag there, nope.
Malcolm Wallace’s fingerprints were found on the Sixth Floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Malcolm had long been LBJ’s personal hitman and mysteriously died in 1971 when his car “ran off the road into a tree” while on a rural highway in Texas.
I thought Ted’s dad was on the grassy knoll?
It is so hard to know what to do with the statements/testimony of this former Secret Service agent. But it has been impossible to reconcile all the known details of that day in November of 1963 with the conclusions of the Warren Commission.
The things that are clear are that there was a cover-up, and it involved some very powerful and dangerous people.
Memphis shooter’s manifesto,
******************************
you mean the Nashville shooter....?
An 88 year old witness who admits he tampered with the crime scene?
I have trouble believing a Secret Service agent would silently place the magic bullet on an empty stretcher and never mention that fact for 60 years.
Also, hard to believe that he would deliberately put his own finger prints and pocket fibers on a bloody or stickey bullet.
Until ALL the people concerned are passed away, we will not know ALL the details.
Caroline Kennedy is 65, and could live to be over 100 like her grandmother Rose did, so it may be a long time................
Very..........................
I would add Joe. But he ain’t running the show...........
the trannie- thought it waS Memphis?
Yup—Malcolm was definitely one of the assassins.
One of the most fascinating claims is that the kill shot from the grassy knoll came from a man rewarded by LBJ for his services....
His name was Jack Valenti.
Valenti’s claims as to where he was during the assassination changed several times during his lifetime. He was at the scene for sure—but he kept claiming he was in different cars in the motorcade but nobody seems to remember him in any of those vehicles.
LBJ’s people also had a penchant for making up claims about the assassination that were attributed to dead people who couldn’t contravene them. Thus, JFK insisted that there be no bubble top protective covering on the limo. JFK didn’t want Secret Service on the running boards of the limo. Jack Ruby said he killed Oswald to protect Jackie from returning to Dallas for the trial. And a whole slew of witnesses died strange deaths within the two year period after the assassination which made no sense under the actuarial tables.
My Dan Rather knowledge is linked to his credibility as a journalist his competency as an anchor.
Dan was quick to the trigger it was said too quick for Uncle Walter Cronkite himself to find acceptable.
Dan had a short fuse it was surprising he lasted 20 plus years in the anchor chair being a pain in the *ss to his managers.
But it was the changing nature of CBS ownership and entertainment oriented priorities of the owners that delayed Dan’s departure.
Indeed.
More on Valenti—he totally freaked out when the Oliver Stone movie on the assassination was released:
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/02/movies/valenti-calls-jfk-hoax-and-smear.html
When they play the “Nanzi” card you know they have plenty to hide....he took this very personally.
Any thoughts?
Showed what one motivated Marine and his rifle can do.
(massive lies he tells every time he opens his Satan-inspired , Hell-bound mouth)
It’s SOP for Democrats ESPECIALLY since the advent of Manchurian Candidate Barack Hussein Obama.
How ANYONE believes ANYTHING they say is beyond me.
Unless there has already been a beginning of the Strong Delusion.
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