If the driver had sped up and “changed course” (veered left) after the first shot, it would’ve done more to alter history.
Was the agent (who looked more like he was trying to tell Mrs. Kennedy ‘get back in the car’) going to climb over rows of seats to block the next bullet?
He was assigned to guard Jackie Kennedy, not the President.
Strange but true:
At least two dozen - four dozen, of the witnesses to the assassination thought at least one gunshot came from in front of the presidential motorcade, a claim rejected by the Warren Commission and most U.S. news organizations...
Review the eyewitness accounts, especially those of people with crime scene training.
http://jfkfacts.org/21-jfk-cops-who-heard-a-grassy-knoll-shot/#more-6381
I remember it like it was yesterday, I was in the 5th grade when it happened. And Jackie it is said was actually reaching for a piece of the President’s skull when she climbed on the back of the car. Imagine had he lived and we been spared the disaster of Johnson.
Yes but to be fair, the driver would need to know the direction of threat in order to take the instantaneously correct evasive action between the first and second shot.
Given the location of Oswald, I agree with you that an immediate zig, or zag following the first shot would have changed the target from essentially stationary to moving and thereby presenting far more difficult followup shots.
However, zig-zag is not always the correct response.
The driver would have needed to know the direction of attack in order to take the correct evasive action.
Not much time elapsed between the first and followup shots. In an urban environment, open air convertible, with motorcade noise and crowd noise, by the time the driver realized an attack was underway, it was over as far as JFK was concerned.
Was the agent (who looked more like he was trying to tell Mrs. Kennedy ‘get back in the car’) going to climb over rows of seats to block the next bullet?
My guess is no. I may be totally wrong but my thinking is the agent wasn't wearing any kind of body armor and was primarily trying to change the target profile from essentially stationary to moving unpredictably.
Taking a bullet in the process was secondary to the primary need for creating sudden, unpredictable target movement and concealment as more agents pile on and around. The agent would know his body might stop a handgun bullet but would be of no use against a rifle bullet and might even cause what would have been a near miss to deflect as it passed through his body into a target kill shot.