Nellie Connally Disputes Warren Commission

NewsMax.com ^ | 11/25/03 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

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.'"

[geopyg]

I don't disagree with the Kennedy neck shot and the head shot coming from the rear. But Connally's intentional movement as he swings to the right to see the President, and Mrs. Connally's statement that Connally was hit after the Kennedy Neck shot, and the alignment of his wrist in front of his chest as he faces the grassy knoll, and THEN his falling back into Mrs. Connally's lap leads me to surmise that a shot from the grassy knoll got Connally in the wrist and chest. But - where did the bullet go? Did someone say some witnesses noticed grass and dirt fly up in the grass in the area between the two roads? could this be it?

[#3Fan]

There is clearly something that looks like what you describe in the later photos that was not there in the earlier ones. I'd like to hear an explanation for this now...

Witnesses at Parkland said the president's right eye was hanging out of the socket. It could be something related to that or Life may have altered the frame out of respect for the president, or perhaps due to fake autopsy photos showing the presidents right eye looking fine the conspirators altered it. The tape has been spliced so they didn't mind altering it.

[DustyMoment]

Thanks for the link, texasbluebell. Given the circumstances at the time and my belief that the WC was part of a massive cover-up, I tend to place more weight on the initial reports from the ER docs at Parkland.

I think that Dr. Perry has begun to doubt what he saw as the result of so much controversy, so many years and so many conflicting stories. By the same token, considering that I don't believe that Oswald acted alone and that other assassins were stationed in front of the motorcade (I mean, let's be frank; if you hired Oswald to commit an assassination, wouldn't you want some insurance? The guy wasn't too bright) then I have to consider that the throat/neck wound was an entrance wound.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Many of the depositions and interviews are available on the web. I have read many of them and continue to do so. So far none have proven ANYTHING except that the interviewers seemed to waste a tremendous amount of time on irrelevencies and steer clear of areas that could be too embarrassing to the Official Lie. Some contrary statements are even included such as those of Officer Baker and Roy Truly wrt Oswald's whereabouts immediately following the shots.

I have read dozens of books about this, some are interesting and raise valid questions, some are nonsense and irrelevent to the issues but one of the most deceptive is the Posner. It does not stand much scrutiny. I have read the summary of the Report published after the entire document was released.

Still haven't answered the question I posed as to how a rifle which broken down has a 34" component smuggled into the TBD in a package no more than 22" long? It is not necessary to read the entire 26 volumes to wonder about this.

I doubt that YOU have read all 26 volumes either. But that has not caused me to attempt to dismiss your concerns with supporting the Report. Nor have I insinuated that you are a professional apologist or Shooter 2.5 either.

[#3Fan]

People who believe Oswald did the three shots have had to account for every inch for the trajectories.

Then how can the magic bullet have struck Kennedy's back at a 45 degree downward angle and then go out higher at the throat and then strike Connaly at a 39 degree downward angle?

[aristeides]

I suspect that the number of people still alive who have read all 26 volumes of the Warren Commission Report can be counted on the fingers of two hands. I think the point of the report was to drown readers in so much minutiae that nobody could get through it all, still less think about it all. (By the way, I possess and have read the single-volume summary that the government issued at the same time as the 26 volumes. Even that is a very dreary read.)

[AndrewC]

- or perhaps the bullet through Kennedy's neck hitting him, but not severe enough for him to really know what had happened to him - or for him to woory about (the thigh wound?).

Nellie Connally, the expert witness - she was there, relates exactly what the film shows. She knows that her husband was hit on the final turn to his right. He then fell back into her arms. No one here mentions that although his wrist was hit and his thigh was hit, it was the gaping, golf-ball sized hole in his chest that threatened his life. It was a sucking chest wound. Something that cannot be ignored. As he falls back into his wifes arms you can see he "knows" he has a big hole in his chest. This wound was described by his wife on a radio interview here last week.

This does not look like someone who has had a sucking chest wound for nearly three seconds.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Sorry it was testified to immediately afterwards by several people not a couple of years later.

A musket would have been about as useful as the PoS Carcano claimed to have been used, a garbage gun if ever there was one.

I have seen no REAL evidence that Oswald was the killer only hypothetical statements and insinuations which do not bear scrutiny. Certainly nothing which would stand up in a court of law.

1) No evidence that the rifle claimed to have been found was the rifle claimed to have been ordered by Oswald;
2) No evidence that he ever picked up the rifle at the P.O., it was sent to a name not authorized to receive mail at that box;
3) No evidence that Oswald ever fired a rifle that day;
4) No evidence that Oswald ever bought ammunition OR had ammunition for the rifle;
5) No evidence that Oswald ever PRACTICED with the rifle;
6) No evidence that ANYONE ever duplicated this shooting with THAT rifle or that it could have done the deed with no chance to properly sight it in after re-assembly on the 22d;
7) No evidence that Oswald had ANY motive to do this;
8) No credible explanation of the Oswald "doubles" seen when it could not have been him. These "doubles" were ALWAYS acting in ways that would incriminate him or imply him capable of doing the deed;
9) No credible explanation as to why JFK's brains/skull were not blown all over the inside of the car from a shot from the back;
10) No explanation as to why the autopsy's were not conducted by competent forensic pathologists rather than paper pushing bureaucrats or how the "autopsy photos" showed the face unaffected by a shot from the rear.
11) No explanation as to why Hoover routinely suppressed information from his own informants about the plans for the assassination. Information which informations heard DIRECTLY from the lips of two of the most powerful Mafia dons. He was charged to deliver information on such threats to the Secret Service but relegated them to his "personal files."

That is just for starters. These are reasonable questions which would have to be answered in a fair trial though not in a smear job or kangeroo court. You want to take a crack at them or do you just prefer to attack the questioners?

[Peace will be here soon]

Which study are you referencing?

[justshutupandtakeit]

Don't have them handy at any rate there was plenty of lead left in Connelly which could not be weighed.

I didn't refer to a "crack" in the windshield but a bullet hole which cannot be duplicated by a hammer blow.

[Shooter 2.5]

I would like you to think about something for a second.

The Jacketed bullet that hit Kennedy in the back, 5 1/2 from his Mastoid Process[bone behind your ear lobe] one inch to the right of his spine, would have entered Connelly's back with the force of a .357 Magnum.

Think about that.

[justshutupandtakeit]

That was not what witnesses of a bullet hole saw. NOr is it a picture of the entire windshield. I have no reason to doubt that there was a crack or that it could have been caused by a fragment.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Marina has made statements since 1978 which do not support the Report. I just saw one last week (taped when?) and she was certain that Lee did NOT shoot JFK. He liked JFK.

[_Jim]

WOW ... you're not living on the same PLANET as I am; maybe you're just in a parallel time where things worked out differently ...

[justshutupandtakeit]

That is my contention as well. And it is a horribly boring read (probably that is deliberate too.)

[justshutupandtakeit]

I haven't referenced any particular study.

[justshutupandtakeit]

What the hell are you talking about? Can't handle the questions or you are just reduced to snide remarks?

[Shooter 2.5]

Do you notice they never once say, "Here's a picture of something and I disagree with it? It's always some silly statement that we have to prove wrong.

[tracer]

As they say, "Ya hadda be there".......

[_Jim]

From the looks of it, you're batting 1000 in the 'conspiracy promulgation' department. You're also proving out to be 'certifiable' ("certifiably insane" in my book). I'm surprised you can function in normal society, actually work a computer and heck, even tie your shoes given the GROSS abuse of factual evidence available to every free man who wants to access it.

From:

The Unofficial JFK Assassination FAQ #19
Copyright (c) 1997 by John Locke



- - - - - - -

8. COMMON CONSPIRACY BOOK DECEPTIONS

The circumstances surrounding the JFK assassination have always
seemed suspicious--a former defector to the Soviet Union is charged
with the crime before he, himself, is quickly murdered. However suspi-
cious a crime seems, though, however many rumors are swirling about,
a sober accounting of the event can only follow a thorough understand-
ing of the evidence. Unfortunately, this caution has rarely been ob-
served by the public in regards to the assassination. Before virtually
anything was known about the assassination, many people became con-
vinced that a conspiracy of some sort was behind it. Thus, disappoint-
ment greeted the WC's conclusion--ten months following the
assassination--that LHO, acting alone, was guilty.

Before the WR was released, authors were already exploiting the cli-
mate of suspicion with books arguing that a conspiracy had existed.
Whatever effect the report had on dampening those suspicions was
soon overwhelmed by a new wave of books denouncing the report. The
myth of conspiracy became firmly planted in the public mind. Over
three decades later, and after the publication of hundreds of conspiracy
books, a number of them bestsellers, the JFK assassination remains a
topic of intense curiosity.

The only catch is that the central conclusion of the WC--that LHO
alone committed the crime--remains unchallenged by responsible,
competent scholarship. The countless conspiracy books which strenu-
ously argue to the contrary constitute one of the largest bodies of fraud-
ulent work ever created. That is not to say that they don't make for
compelling reading. They often do. They have much more to offer in
the way of intrigue and excitement than the mundane conclusion that a
loser stuck a gun out the window and shot the president.

Since the WC had irrefutable physical evidence on its side, and since
their theory is the only conceivable one that fits that evidence, the ap-
proach of the conspiracy authors has been to pretend the WC perpetrat-
ed a lie of monstrous proportions. They have attacked the WC on
virtually every front to promote wholesale disbelief that a single indi-
vidual could have committed the crime. They present no clear affirma-
tive proof of conspiracy, relying instead on an inverse conclusion: if
one individual could not have done it, then more than one must have.
They leave the who, what, when, where, and why to the reader's willing
imagination and exhort others--the government--to get the complete
"truth" out.

Rather than rebutting specific charges, which is done elsewhere
throughout the FAQ, this section lists a number of the dizzying array of
deceptive techniques used in conspiracy books. These techniques are
unacceptable because they violate the fundamental methodologies of
responsible research which all competent scholars and journalists fol-
low. That approach, in short, requires examining all relevant evidence,
weighing it carefully, forming conclusions where possible, and only
then speculating on what can't be determined from the facts. The reader
is not discouraged from examining conspiracy books for whatever in-
terest they may yield, but is instead encouraged to be aware of the tech-
niques used and to hold all authors to the highest standards of research
before putting any faith in their work.


MORE: Do a search on John Locke, JFK and FAQ