Explaining the Shooting of Governor John Connally

Shown on FreeRepublic for the first time. | October 25, 2006 | Bill Charleston

[smoketree]

Just out of curiousity do you think about what you post??
You are so far out of the information on this thread that you have become the nut.
For example, the incline of the street would DECREASE the angle of the bullet path. How did that major fact escape you?

[Tares]

...I explained the 25 degree down angle that was required for one bullet to account for all of John Connally's wounds. This impossible down angle...

As you know, the wound to his left leg was a bullet fragment, not a bullet.

No, you don't know. Please show evidence that a fragment caused the wound in Gov. Connally's thigh. A description of the wound size and the size and trajectory of the fragment that caused it would be a good start.

No one can explain the mass deficit for the fragment in Connally's left leg from CE399...

False.

Conspiracy authors often challenge the Single Bullet Theory by claiming that the fragments left in the body of John Connally contained too much mass to have come from Commission Exhibit 399, and still leave the bullet as intact as it is.

This claim was debunked 30 years ago.

Link to debunking of claim.

Of course, FBI agent O'Neal's comments in his notes and in his interview on FOX a couple of years ago said that Dr. Hummes said during the autopsy, NO POINT OF EXIT.

And, of course, there is a simple explanation for why Dr. Humes was not able to find a point of exit:

Conspiracy books place great emphasis on the fact that the autopsists were unable to probe the wound in Kennedy’s back more than a inch or so into the body. They believe that this proves that the bullet didn’t penetrate more then an inch or so. Forensic pathologists don’t accept this idea. The following is a quote from the Forensic Pathology Panel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations:

(430) The panel believes that the difficulty which Drs. Humes, Finck, and Boswell experienced in trying to place a soft probe through the bullet pathway in President Kennedy’s neck probably resulted from their failure or inability to manipulate this portion of the body into the same position it was in when the missile penetrated. Rigor mortis may have hindered this manipulation. Such placement would have enabled reconstruction of the relationships of the neck and shoulder when the missile struck. It is customary, however, to dissect missile tracks to determine damage and pathway. Probing a track blindly may produce false tracks and misinformation.

Source

AS I pointed out before, either all of these UNRELIABLE witnesses got it wrong and embarrassed themselves...

FBI agent O'Neal was not unreliable. There is no reason to doubt his testimony about what Dr. Humes said. Dr. Humes's testimony about not being able to probe the wound very deeply is also not unreliable. No one claims Dr. Humes is lying or unreliable when he described what happened at the autopsy. There is a simple explanation for why he was not able to fully explore the wound, as described above. The only people embarrassing themselves are those who spin elaborate conspiracy theories postulating massive forgery of evidence when simple explanations are readily available.

You haven't answered whether you believe the photos below are forgeries or not:

[Shooter 2.5]

[smoketree]

Are you having some kind of tantrum?
Perhaps you should take a nap.
I can understand if you are less than 5 years old but I don't think your parents would allow you this much internet time.
You make no sense.

[Shooter 2.5]

Ok, DECLINE of the street. Happy now?

[smoketree]

That's a start.
Now acknowledge that if the doctors at Parkland said "no exit wound" for the back wound it could not have continued on to Conally.
Also that both Conally's said John was hit AFTER Kennedy was hit which means at least four shots.
The doctors also called the neck wound an entrance wound.
Oh and take back what you falsely attributed to my saying.
Now we're geting somewhere.

[Shooter 2.5]

The President's Neck Wounds
During the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital another bullet wound was observed near the base of the back of President Kennedy's neck slightly to the right of his spine which provides further enlightenment as to the source of the shots. The hole was located approximately 5 1/2 inches (14 centimeters) from the tip of the right shoulder joint and approximately the same distance below the tip of the right mastoid process, the bony point immediately behind the ear. The wound was approximately one-fourth by one-seventh of an inch (7 by 4 millimeters), had clean edges, was sharply delineated, and had margins similar in all respects to those of the entry wound in the skull. Commanders Humes and Boswell agreed with Colonel Finck's testimony that this hole.
...is a wound of entrance... The basis for that conclusion is that this wound was relatively small with clean edges. It was not a jagged wound, and that is what we see in wound of entrance at a long range.

The autopsy examination further disclosed that, after entering the President, the bullet passed between two large muscles, produced a contusion on the upper part of the pleural cavity (without penetrating that cavity), bruised the top portion of the right lung and ripped the windpipe (trachea) in its path through the President's neck. The examining surgeons concluded that the wounds were caused by the bullet rather than the tracheotomy performed at Parkland Hospital. The nature of the bruises indicated that the President's heart and lungs were functioning when the bruises were caused, whereas there was very little circulation in the President's body when incisions on the President's chest were made to insert tubes during the tracheotomy. No bone was struck by the bullet which passed through the President's body. By projecting from a point of entry on the rear of the neck and proceeding at a slight downward angle through the bruised interior portions, the doctors concluded that the bullet exited from the front portion of the President's neck that had been cut away by the tracheotomy.

Concluding that a bullet passed through the President's neck, the doctors at Bethesda Naval Hospital rejected a theory that the bullet lodged in the large muscles in the back of his neck and fell out through the point of entry when external heart massage was applied at Parkland Hospital. In the earlier stages of the autopsy, the surgeons were unable to find a path into any large muscle in the back of the neck. At that time they did not know that there had been a bullet hole in the front of the President's neck when he arrived at Parkland Hospital because the tracheotomy incision had completely eliminated that evidence. While the autopsy was being performed, surgeons learned that a whole bullet had been found at Parkland Hospital on a stretcher which, at that time, was thought to be the stretcher occupied by the President. This led to speculation that the bullet might have penetrated a short distance into the back of the neck and then dropped out onto the stretcher as a result of the external heart massage.

Further exploration during the autopsy disproved that theory. The surgeons determined that the bullet had passed between two large strap muscles and bruised them without leaving any channel, since the bullet merely passed between them. Commander Humes, who believed that a tracheotomy had been performed from his observations at the autopsy, talked by telephone with Dr. Perry early on the morning of November 23, and learned that his assumption was correct and that Dr. Perry had used the missile wound in the neck as the point to make the incision. This confirmed the Bethesda surgeons' conclusion that the bullet had exited from the front part of the neck.

The findings of the doctors who conducted the autopsy were consistent with the observations of the doctors who treated the President at Parkland Hospital. Dr. Charles S. Carrico, a resident surgeon at Parkland, noted a small wound approximately one-fourth of an inch in diameter (5 to 8 millimeters) in the lower third of the neck below the Adam's apple. Dr. Malcolm O. Perry, who performed the tracheotomy, described the wound as approximately one-fifth of an inch in diameter (5 millimeters) and exuding blood which partially hid edges that were "neither cleancut, that is, punched out, nor were they very ragged." Dr. Carrico testified as follows:

Q.: Based on your observations on the neck wound alone did you have a sufficient basis to form an opinion as to whether it was entrance or an exit wound?
A.: No, sir; we did not. Not having completely evaluated all the wounds, traced out the course of the bullets, this wound would have been compatible with either entrance or exit wound depending upon the size, the velocity, the tissue structure and so forth.

The same response was made by Dr. Perry to a similar query:

Q.: Based on the appearance of the neck wound alone, could it have been either an entrance or an exit wound ?
A.: It could have been either.

Then each doctor was asked to take into account the other known facts, such as the autopsy findings, the approximate distance the bullet traveled and tested muzzle velocity of the assassination weapon. With these additional factors, the doctors commented on the wound on the front of the President's neck as follows:

Dr. CARRICO. With those facts and the fact as I understand it no other bullet was found this would be, this was, I believe, was an exit wound.
Dr. PERRY. A full jacketed bullet without deformation passing through skin would leave a similar wound for an exit and entrance wound and with the facts which yon have made available and with these assumptions, I believe that it was an exit wound.

Other doctors at Parkland Hospital who observed the wound prior to the tracheotomy agreed with the observations of Drs. Perry and Carrico. The bullet wound in the neck could be seen for only a short time, since Dr. Perry eliminated evidence of it when he performed the tracheotomy. He selected that spot since it was the point where such an operation was customarily performed, and it was one of the safest and easiest spots from which to reach the trachea. In addition, there was possibly an underlying wound to the muscles in the neck, the carotid artery or the jugular vein, and Dr. Perry concluded that the incision, therefore, had to be low in order to maintain respiration.

Considerable confusion has arisen because of comments attributed to Dr. Perry concerning the nature of the neck wound. Immediately after the assassination, many people reached erroneous conclusions about the source of the shots because of Dr. Perry's observations to the press. On the afternoon of November 22, a press conference was organized at Parkland Hospital by members of the White House press staff and a hospital administrator. Newsmen with microphones and cameras were crowded into a room to hear statements by Drs. Perry and William Kemp Clark, chief neurosurgeon at Parkland, who had attended to President Kennedy's head injury. Dr. Perry described the situation as "bedlam." The confusion was compounded by the fact that some questions were only partially answered before other questions were asked.

At the news conference, Dr. Perry answered a series of hypothetical questions and stated to the press that a variety of possibilities could account for the President's wounds. He stated that a single bullet could have caused the President's wounds by entering through the throat, striking the spine, and being deflected upward with the point of exit being through the head. This would have accounted for the two wounds he observed, the hole in the front of the neck and the large opening in the skull. At that time, Dr. Perry did not know about either the wound on the back of the President's neck or the small bullet-hole wound in the back of the head. As described in chapter II, the President was lying on his back during his entire time at Parkland. The small hole in the head was also hidden from view by the large quantity of blood which covered the President's head. Dr. Perry said his answers at the press conference were intended to convey his theory about what could have happened, based on his limited knowledge at the time, rather than his professional opinion about what did happen. Commenting on his answers at the press conference, Dr. Perry testified before the Commission:

I expressed it [his answers] as a matter of speculation that this was conceivable. But, again, Dr. Clark [who also answered questions at the conference] and I emphasized that we had no way of knowing.

Dr. Perry's recollection of his comments is corroborated by some of the news stories after the press conference. The New York Herald Tribune on November 23, 1963, reported as follows:

Dr. Malcolm Perry, 34, attendant surgeon at Parkland Hospital who attended the President, said he saw two woundsone below the Adam's apple, the other at the back of the head. He said he did not know if two bullets were involved. It is possible, he said, that the neck wound was the entrance and the other the exit of the missile.

According to this report, Dr. Perry stated merely that it was "possible" that the neck wound was a wound of entrance. This conforms with his testimony before the Commission, where he stated that by themselves the characteristics of the neck wound were consistent with being either a point of entry or exit.
Wound ballistics tests.Experiments performed by the Army Wound Ballistics experts at Edgewood Arsenal, Md. (discussed in app. X, p. 582) showed that under simulated conditions entry and exit wounds are very similar in appearance. After reviewing the path of the bullet through the President's neck, as disclosed in the autopsy report, the experts simulated the neck by using comparable material with a thickness of approximately 5 1/2 inches (13 1/2 to 14 1/2 centimeters), which was the distance traversed by the bullet. Animal skin was placed on each side, and Western Cartridge Co. 6.5 bullets were fired from the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle from a distance of 180 feet. The animal skin on the entry side showed holes which were regular and round. On the exit side two holes were only slightly elongated, indicating that the bullet had become only a little unstable at the point of exit. A third exit hole was round, although not quite as regular as the entry holes. The exit holes, especially the one most nearly round, appeared similar to the descriptions given by Drs. Perry and Carrico of the hole in the front of the President's neck.

The autopsy disclosed that the bullet which entered the back of the President's neck hit no bony structure and proceeded in a slightly downward angle. The markings on the President's clothing indicate that the bullet moved in a slight right to left lateral direction as it passed through the President's body. After the examining doctors expressed the thought that a bullet would have lost very little velocity in passing through the soft tissue of the neck, wound ballistics experts conducted tests to measure the exit velocity of the bullet. The tests were the same as those used to create entry and exit holes, supplemented by the use of break-type screens which measured the velocity of bullets. The entrance velocity of the bullet fired from the rifle averaged 1,904 feet per second after it traveled 180 feet. The exit velocity averaged 1,772 to 1,798 feet per second, depending upon the substance through which the bullet passed. A photograph of the path of the bullet traveling through the simulated neck showed that it proceeded in a straight line and was stable.

Examination of clothing.The clothing worn by President Kennedy on November 22 had holes and tears which showed that a missile entered the back of his clothing in the vicinity of his lower neck and exited through the front of his shirt immediately behind his tie, nicking the knot of his tie in its forward flight. Although the caliber of the bullet could not be determined and some of the clothing items precluded a positive determination that some tears were made by a bullet, all the defects could have been caused by a 6.5-millimeter bullet entering the back of the President's lower neck and exiting in the area of the knot of his tie.

An examination of the suit jacket worn by the President by FBI Agent Frazier revealed a roughly circular hole approximately one-fourth of an inch in diameter on the rear of the coat, 5 3/8 inches below the top of the collar and 1 3/4 inches to the right of the center back seam of the coat. The hole was visible on the upper rear of the coat slightly to the right of center. Traces of copper were found in the margins of the hole and the cloth fibers around the margins were pushed inward. Those characteristics established that the hole was caused by an entering bullet. Although the precise size of the bullet could not be determined from the hole, it was consistent with having been made by a 6.5- millimeter bullet.

The shirt worn by the President contained a hole on the back side 5 3/4 inches below the top of the collar and 1 1/8 inches to the right of the middle of the back of the shirt. The hole on the rear of the shirt was approximately circular in shape and about one-fourth of an inch in diameter, with the fibers pressed inward. These factors established it as a bullet entrance hole. The relative position of the hole in the back of the suit jacket to the hole in the back of the shirt indicated that both were caused by the same penetrating missile.

On the front of the shirt, examination revealed a hole seven-eighths of an inch below the collar button and a similar opening seven-eighths of an inch below the buttonhole. These two holes fell into alignment on overlapping positions when the shirt was buttoned. Each hole was a vertical, ragged slit approximately one-half of an inch in height, with the cloth fibers protruding outward. Although the characteristics of the slit established that the missile had exited to the front, the irregular nature of the slit precluded a positive determination that it was a bullet hole. However, the hole could have been caused by a round bullet although the characteristics were not sufficiently clear to enable the examining expert to render a conclusive opinion.

When the President's clothing was removed at Parkland Hospital, his tie was cut off by severing the loop immediately to the wearer's left of the knot, leaving the knot in its original condition. The tie had a nick on the left side of the The nick was elongated horizontally, indicating that the tear was made by some object moving horizontally, but the fibers were not affected in a manner which would shed light on the direction or the nature of the missile.

[Ditter]

So...... if you aren't related to the Johnson family who is paying you to keep up this pathetic charade?

[Shooter 2.5]

....that's when the shots occurred. I heard what I thought was a rifle shot. I immediately reacted. By turning to look over my right shoulder 'cause that's where the sound came from. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary and was in the process of looking over my left shoulder when I felt a blow in the middle of my back as if someone had hit me with a doubled up fist about like that[demonstrates a punch]. The blow was of such force it bent me over and I immediately saw I was covered with blood and I knew I was hit and I said, "oh, my God, they're going to kill us all.
And I heard another shot that was a loud shot almost like that and immediately I saw blood and brain tissue all over the back of the limousine.
John Connelly

The first shot, he didn't see anything out of the ordinary. The second shot, he was hit. The third shot hit the President in the head.

[Ditter]

Come on back, we're waiting to hear who pays you. Someone has to be paying you to spout the Warren Commission lies 40+ years after JFK was murdered. Enough time has passed they are almost all dead, the important ones any way. You can tell your freeper friends all about it.;9)

[BILL_C]

You haven't answered whether you believe the photos below are forgeries or not:

<"Dr. Mantik discusses forgery of Autopsy Photos and another witness who saw original autopsy photos that were altered.">

Almost any reasonable person who has looked at the JFK murder has reached the conclusion that we are being lied to by the U. S. government. What few seem willing to discuss is WHY?

The obvious answer is Lyndon B. Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover in the biggest coverup and lie in history. No one else had the power and surely no one had any better motives than those two listed above.

The photo showing the back of JKF's head is most definitely a forgery. I believe the information in the video clip is accurate.

The photo of the shirt is most likely not forged as "they" had to come up with an explanation of how the shirt (and jacket) were bunched up toward JFK's neck. The bullet hole in the shirt looks to be WAY TOO LOW to allow a neck exit and then a 25 degree down angle through John Connally.

The cartoon from Dale Meyers' work that you showed in your post is another effort to show something that just didn't happen. JFK's shoulders are shown elevated in an extreme manner to raise the bullet hole in the back of his shirt above the exit wound in his neck. Meyers does this because he believes the single bullet "theory" and he has made the appropriate "changes" in his cartoon video to make it appear obvious.

With the amount of back pain that JFK fought while he was President, I don't believe it's reasonable that he had his shoulders in the position shown in the animation.

I realize I have more to respond to.....

[BILL_C]

And, of course, there is a simple explanation for why Dr. Humes was not able to find a point of exit:

> (430) The panel believes that the difficulty which Drs. Humes, Finck, and Boswell experienced in trying to place a soft probe through the bullet pathway in President Kennedy’s neck probably resulted from their failure or inability to manipulate this portion of the body into the same position it was in when the missile penetrated. Rigor mortis may have hindered this manipulation. Such placement would have enabled reconstruction of the relationships of the neck and shoulder when the missile struck. It is customary, however, to dissect missile tracks to determine damage and pathway. Probing a track blindly may produce false tracks and misinformation.

REPLY:

Sorry I haven't replied but just got back home from a trip.

You'll notice that the words spoken at the autopsy was "No point of exit." Pretty clear, but we have a panel who says they BELIEVE and may have and probably ......

The defense of the single bullet theory has always been that "this is possible" and that there are no better explanations......

That was before the simple explanation was added in this post that John Connally was shot in the back 0.7 seconds AFTER the fatal head shot to JFK's head at Z=313. As you'll recall, this is entirely consistent with:

(1) John Connally's statements about how he was shot in the back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3-lZNR_yAc

(2) Roy Kellerman's testimony in the Warren Commission hearings where he argued with Spectecter about how many shots there had to be to cause that many wounds. Kellerman said he only heard three, but when you look at the last three shots, he said there was 3-5 seconds pause and then there was flurry of shots, he defined the shots as BANG-BANG, like a jet breaking a sound barrier. When you look at the Zapruder film, you see Connally's head snap downward VIOLENTLY and Connally is slamed forward just like he described in the clip above.

(3)When you compare the above descriptions with the shot spacing, it is EXACTLY consistent with the spacing you see in the Dallas Police Radio acoustic analysis by D.B. Thomas and others.

= Connally at Z=324

= Connally at Z=326

At 18.2 frames/second, those two frames are about 0.1 seconds apart. IF you do the math, you'll find that a movement of 1 inch in one frame change about one mph. As you can see, Connally's head moved DOWNWARD several inches in between those frames. IF you look at the Z film, you'll see that Connally's head was not moving DOWN until Z=325 which is when the bullet fired from the TSBD hits him in the back. I say it's simple and OBVIOUS.

The Warren Commission explained the movement of Connally at this time as Nellie Connally pulling John over into her lap. I've heard it explained by one of the Warren Commission "fools" that this action by Nellie probably saved John's life. Anyone who has any grasp of physics knows that statement is about as silly as JFK's head snapping back and to the left as it does after Z=313. You see, with the scenario of John Connally shot in the back 0.7 seconds AFTER JFK's fatal head shot, you don't have to argue such silliness as it's obvious to the most casual observer that there was at least two shooters.

[BILL_C]

Former President George H. W. Bush seems to be worried that the conclusions of the Warren Report may unravel soon. WMR has written in detail about the Bush connection to the assassins of President John F. Kennedy. Apparently, Poppy Bush decided it was important to use the Gerald R. Ford state funeral to "clear the air" (or Bush's own conscience) about the JFK assassination. This is what the elder Bush had to say at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC during his eulogy of President Ford:

"After a deluded gunman assassinated President Kennedy, our nation turned to Gerald Ford and a select handful of others to make sense of that madness. And the conspiracy theorists can say what they will, but the Warren Commission report will always have the final definitive say on this tragic matter. Why? Because Jerry Ford put his name on it and Jerry Ford’s word was always good."

http://rebellenation.blogspot.com/2007/01/warren-commission-and-conspiracy.html

[BritSniper.303]

Please feel free to read ‘this Files thing’, after all it’s a democracy.. right? But I and others have seriously looked into his story, as ever changing, poorly conceived as it is. Files’ story relies on the ‘found’(in 1987 by John Rademacher) .222 casings at the ‘grssy knoll’ site. (For those not in the know, Files claims to be the hitman who took the headshot, bit into the casing, before discarding them. The FACT is that the casings Files’ relies on were made AFTER DEC’1970..! This can be verified by the markings on the ends, the short dash, between the R and the P (looks more like a dot) should be the usual pre 1970 (factory moved from Conn. to Arkansas)long dash. So ‘sorry’ to all those fooled by Files’ story and a certain dutch guy’s lucrative DVD and book sales..

[BILL_C]

HBO, Playtone plan JFK miniseries
Hanks, Paxton set to produce ‘History’
By MICHAEL FLEMING

HBO is near a deal with Playtone that will turn Vincent Bugliosi’s 1,632-page book “Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy” into a miniseries.

Ten-parter will debunk long-held conspiracy theories and establish that assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

HBO is wrapping up a deal to finance and air the mini, which will depict Oswald’s journey to becoming an assassin and his subsequent murder on live TV by Jack Ruby.

Playtone’s Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman will exec produce along with their “Big Love” star Bill Paxton.

The network will make a companion documentary special, with Bugliosi addressing myriad conspiracy theories, including those involving the Mafia, the KGB or Fidel Castro in JFK’s assassination.

Project was hatched after Hanks, Paxton and Goetzman had a conversation about the shooting. They decided to look at Bugliosi’s book, published last month by W.W. Norton, as the basis for a possible project.

“I totally believed there was a conspiracy, but after you read the book, you are almost embarrassed that you ever believed it,” Goetzman said. “To think that guys who grew up in the ‘60s would make a miniseries supporting the idea that Oswald acted alone is something I certainly wouldn’t have predicted. But time and evidence can change the way we view things.”

Bugliosi, who prosecuted Charles Manson and wrote the book “Helter Skelter,” was moved to write “Reclaiming History” after prosecuting a mock trial of Oswald for a British TV special. He walked away feeling the Warren Commission got it right and then spent the next two decades gathering evidence to prove it.

“Many more people will see the miniseries than will read the book,” Bugliosi told Daily Variety. “With the integrity that Tom, Gary and Bill bring, I think that we will finally be able to make a substantial dent in the 75% of people in this country who still believe the conspiracy theorists.”
More than one option

* (Co) Daily Variety
Filmography, Year, Role
* (Co) Daily Variety

Project comes along as Playtone nears a wrap on the seven-part HBO miniseries “John Adams” and preps for an Aug. 27 production start in Melbourne on “The Pacific,” the 10-part WWII mini for HBO that Hanks and Goetzman are exec producing with Steven Spielberg. The Playtone-produced series “Big Love” begins its second season on HBO this Monday.

Playtone is in the early stages of developing as a series the Jeffrey Eugenides’ “Middlesex,” the novel about a 41-year-old hermaphrodite that just became the latest choice of the Oprah Book Club.

Bugliosi’s deal was made by PMA Literary’s Peter Miller.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117966398.html?categoryid=1236&cs=1

[editor-surveyor]

The least troubling path would be to just believe that these guys are simpletons.

I can't go that limp. There has to be a motivation to such an ill-conceived program.

Of course there are foolish conspiracy theories, but one of them is correct, or our government went on a rampage of illogic that has lasted almost half a century.

After much study, I have to accept the monetary/banking 'conspiracy theory,' because it answers all the questions regarding the assassination, in addition to a great number of other ones.

I believe that if Ron Paul were to beat all the odds and get the Republican nomination, we would have an almost instantaneous answer to the JFK question.

"Almost any reasonable person who has looked at the JFK murder has reached the conclusion that we are being lied to by the U. S. government. What few seem willing to discuss is WHY?"

Those that are willing to discuss it openly seem to have an unexplainable level of misery and misfortune occur in their lives.

[Churchillspirit]

Bump for later reading.

[BILL_C]

The network (HBO) will make a companion documentary special, with Bugliosi addressing myriad conspiracy theories, including those involving the Mafia, the KGB or Fidel Castro in JFK's assassination...

[BILL_C]

NOTE TO UPDATE