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The
Date: November 22, 1963
The Time: 12:30 PM
President
John F. Kennedy was shot to death during a midday
motorcade in Dallas, Tex. It was a tragedy that
shook the nation and the world.
The presidential party had arrived at Love Field
under a clearing sky. Kennedy took time to shake
hands with the spectators gathered at the airport
to greet him; the crowd seemed amiable and receptive
to the President, who was apprehensive about this
visit to Texas.
The Secret Service had been lining up the automobiles
for the upcoming parade through the streets of
the city. Each car was tagged with a small square
of paper bearing a number which indicated the
planned position of that particular car in the
motorcade. Kennedy was to ride in the open 1961
Lincoln Continental limousine marked with the
number "7." But the limousine was placed
2d in line, due apparently to a mix-up.
When the parade started, the Lincoln (sans bubble-top
because of Kennedy's own request to leave it off
if the weather was nice) was preceded by a 1963
Ford sedan bearing Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry
and other local officials. Directly behind the
presidential limousine was the Secret Service's
follow-up car a 1959 Cadillac. Although the press
vehicle (usually directly in front of the President's
car to facilitate photographing the President)
was numbered "6," it was lined up last
(14th) in the motorcade. For this reason the photographers
in that vehicle were unable to photograph any
footage of the assassination that was about to
occur--footage that would have been of great evidential
value.
The parade proceeded from Love Field through the
central part of Dallas. The entourage was approaching
the end of its ride to the World Trade Center,
where Kennedy was to speak that day.
As the 8,000-lb. presidential vehicle lumbered
off of Houston Street, making a left turn onto
Elm Street, it nearly had to stop completely in
negotiating the turn. The motorcade was now in
Dealy Plaza.
Mr. Abraham Zapruder was stationed on Elm Street,
perched atop a block of granite some 72' from
the middle of the street. He was holding his 8-millimeter
Bell & Howell movie camera which was set on
"telephoto" to film the President as
he rode by. This film became the single most important
piece of evidence in the case of the assassination
of President Kennedy, as Zapruder was the only
one of several photographers to capture the incident
from an angle clearly showing Kennedy. He had
test-shot a few frames of his secretary in his
office. She was now bracing him so that he would
not fall from his vantage point on the piece of
stone.
First Zapruder filmed 2 motorcycles as they rolled
down the street to clear the way for the President's
parade. He knew that Kennedy's car would approach
him at any moment. From the instant the driver
of Kennedy's car, Will Greer, slowed to make the
turn into Elm Street, until it disappeared beneath
an overpass at the end of the street, Zapruder
filmed the car.
Zapruder film was purchased immediately after
the assassination for a large amount of money
by Life magazine,but was never released in its
full form by that corporation. In 1975, Life returned
the film to the Zapruder family. The only copies
that exist officially were made for the Secret
Service and the FBI. These 2 government copies
are locked in the National Archives until the
year 2039 by virtue of Johnson's Executive Order
11130. However, in 1967 New Orleans District Attorney
Jim Garrison accused a Mr. Clay Shaw of being
a part of a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy
and the FBI copy was supoenaed as evidence for
the ensuing trial. At that time, Garrison obtained
the film, copied it, and thus became the source
of the film for the many researchers and investigators
who now have copies. The film is of even more
importance when it is studied in the context of
the official report regarding the assassination,
the Report of the President's Commission on the
Assassination of President Kennedy, also called
the Warren Commission because its chairman was
Chief Justice Earl Warren of the U.S. Supreme
Court.
Zapruder's camera was running as the President's
limousine approached him. Kennedy can be seen
waving to the crowd with his right hand. Then
he briefly disappears from camera view, as his
vehicle moves farther down the street behind a
freeway1 sign when he emerges from behind the
sign in the Zapruder film, his hands arc rising,
fists clenched, in front of his neck, his elbows
pointing to the other side of the street. At this
moment, he has already been shot once. The 1st
bullet entered the President's back approximately
5½" below his collar line.
Another shot is now fired, and the Warren Commission
has contended that this 2d bullet went wild, striking
the curb near a spectator named James T. Tague.
That bullet sprayed Tague's foot and cheek with
chips of concrete from the curb and with fragments
of lead.
The Warren Commission also stated that a 3rd bullet
was fired, striking Kennedy in the head and killing
him. The majority of witnesses agreed that the
last shot fired hit Kennedy in the head, although
there was much dispute as to the direction from
which that bullet came.
It has been the position of the commission that
one man, Lee Harvey Oswald, was stationed at the
eastern most window on the 6th floor of the Texas
School Book Depository Building, which is located
on Elm Street. It has also been the official government
opinion that Oswald acted alone in murdering John
F. Kennedy and that there was no conspiracy of
any kind behind the crime. A rifle was found on
the 6th floor of the building. This 6.5-mm bolt-action,
c1ip fed, 1938 Mannlicher-Carcano belonged to
Oswald. Keeping in mind the Warren Commission's
hypothesis that the 2nd shot went astray near
Tague, and that the last bullet was the fatal
shot striking the head, only one bullet is left
as the cause of all other gunshot damage. Only
3 shots at most could have been fired using this
rifle in the 5.6 seconds that elapsed from the
last possible moment that Kennedy could have received
the 1st wound (when he emerges, hit, from behind
the sign in the Zapruder film), to the easily
recognizable moment of the last fatal shot to
the head (Kennedy reacts violently in the film
at the moment of impact).
Sitting directly in front of the President in
the Lincoln limousine was Gov. John B. Connally
of Texas. He was sitting in one jump seat and
his wife, Nellie, was in the jump seat next to
him, directly in front of Mrs. Kennedy. Governor
Connally was hit in the back, the bullet exiting
from the right side of his chest, transiting his
right wrist, and lodging in his left thigh. If
the Commission is right about the number of bullets,
the same bullet that struck Connally must have
struck Kennedy 1st. That is to say, the bullet
that hit Kennedy in the back would have had to
exit from his body and gone on to strike Connally.
If Oswald was firing from the 6th floor of the
building, the angle of trajectory would be 17
degrees, 43 minutes, 30 seconds, in a downward
direction. That bullet entered Kennedy's back,
5½" from his collar line--yet the
only wound on the President's body, in addition
the wound in his head and the entry wound his
back, was a small slit in his throat. The Warren
Commission theorized that this slit was caused
by the exit of the bullet that entered Kennedy's
back and continued on to hit Governor Conally.
But since this bullet struck no bone in the President's
body which might have deflected it's angle of
trajectory but exited in an upward direction,
it seems very apparent that the single bullet
theory of the Warren Commission is a geometric
impossibility.
This fact, coupled with the time element involved,
suggests there was more than one gunman in Dealey
Plaza that fateful day. The time lapse was determined
by a frame-by-frame analysis of the Zapruder film.
When Kennedy emerged from behind the sign in the
film, he had already been shot. This is frame
#225. When he disappeared in the film, at frame
#207, he was waving to the crowd naturally. He
could not have been hit at any time prior to moving
behind the the sign. John Connally testified that
he heard the shot that hit Kennedy, turned around
and looked over his right shoulder, and was then
hit by a subsequent bullet. His testimony is substantiated
by the Zapruder film, which shows him looking
over his shoulder and then, before he can look
over the other shoulder (as he claimed he was
attempting to do), his is shot at a point no sooner
than frame #235. Zapruder's camera operated at
18.3 frames per second. The 10 frames between
the latest point Kennedy could have been hit (frame
#225) and the earliest point Connally is struck
(frame #235), represents a time value of .546488
seconds—just over a half second. A bullet
fired from the Oswald weapon and passing through
the neck of John Kennedy, as the Warren Commission
claimed that this one did, would move at a speed
of 1.772' to 1.779' per second according to the
Warren Report and the FBI expert's testimony.
Since it is impossible that a bullet virtually
waited in midair for that half second, simple
mathematics casts substantial doubt on the Commission's
conclusion that one bullet caused all 7 wounds
in Kennedy and Connally.
Special Agent Robert A. Frazier of the FBI testified
as a firearms expert be fore the Warren Commission.
He stated that the bolt action of the ancient
Italian rifle took at least 2.3 seconds according
to tests run by expert riflemen. Therefore, it
is impossible that the weapon was fired twice
within the half-second time slot. This means there
is no possibility that Kennedy was hit by an earlier
Oswald bullet at the moment of his disappearance
behind the freeway sign and that a later shot
hit Connally, because the time lapse between frames
#207 9Kennedy's disappearance) and #235 Connally's
reaction) is only 1.5 seconds and 2.3 seconds
would have been needed to fire 2 shots.
After the 1st shot, the President was leaning
forward slightly, his wife aware that he'd been
the victim of a bullet. She had moved closer to
him and was looking at his face when a bullet
struck the President in the head, exploding in
a pink-red glow of blood, brain matter and skull
fragments. Terrified, Mrs. Kennedy then climbed
from the seat of the limousine onto the trunk
but was stopped there by Secret Service Agent
Clinton J. Hill. Hill pushed Mrs. Kennedy back
into the seat and shielded her body with his own
as the Lincoln roared off.
None of this escaped the watchful eye of Zapruder's
camera, making the Zapruder film an invaluable
piece of hard evidence worthy of note in the event
of conflicting conclusions by member of the Warren
Commission.
It is a Newtonian law of motion that when an object
is struck by a missile, that object will move
in the same direction as that taken by the missile.
This means that if Kennedy were hit by a gunman
(presumably Oswald) situated in a window 280·
behind him, his head would move forward from he
impact of the bullet. The Zapruder film clearly
depicts the President's head snapping BACKWARD
with great violence. Applying the scientific laws
governing the situation there can be no doubt
that Kennedy is reacting to a bullet fired from
a position in front of the limousine. This is
strong evidence that the lone assassin theory
of the Commission is fallacious.
It is interesting to note that a certain area
in front of the limousine at the time the fatal
shot was fired was an excellent vantage point
for a gunman. It is referred to by Dallas residents
as the grassy knoll. At the top of this knoll,
there is a wooden fence. There is a very small
space between the top of that fence and the lowest
foliage on the trees whic line the inside of this
fence. The knoll provides a spot where a gunman
would be hidden from sight.
Two police officers who flanked the presidential
limousine on motorcycles, Billy Martin and Robert
Hargis, were so sure that the fatal shot had come
from the knoll that they went directly up the
embankment and peered over the fence. They saw
a police officer there and, thinking the area
covered; the pair left to orders on what to do
next. Minutes later pictures were taken of an
officer—or a man dressed as an officer leaving
the grassy area. His uniform was unlike those
worn by the Dallas Police Force. His weaponry
and specifics also differed sharply from those
officers in Dealey Plaza that day, indicating
that this man was not an officer at all. This
has yet to be fully investigated.
Witness Richard Carr was one of the closest observers
of the fatal shot. Carr indicated that the shot
came over his right shoulder or from the grassy
knoll area. His testimony at the Clay Shaw proceeding
in 1969 included the following exchange:
Q: As a result of the conversations with the FBI,
what did you do?
A: I done as I was instructed, I shut my mouth.
Q: Were you called to testify before the Warren
Commission?
A: No, sir.
It seems that the investigatory work in this case
not only failed to meet the generally accepted
standards for the gathering of truth, but it also
served to stifle a full disclosure. These points
of evidence seem to emphasize grave inconsistencies
in the official government account of the events
of November 22, 1963. If, in fact, there was more
than one gunman shooting at the President, as
the evidence seems to indicate, there is a question
as to why the plentiful clues were ignored by
the Warren Commission. One member of the Commission
wrote an article for Life magazine and also book
which supported the conclusions of the Warren
Report-the lone-assassin Single-bullet theory.
This man is today the President of the U.S., Gerald
R. Ford.
In determining the motives of the assassin and
those of the Warren Commission which failed to
deal with the available evidence in depth, an
obligation that it had to the American people--we
are faced with problems. If we begin by suspecting
that someone had a possible interest in having
the President dead in 1963, we will find ourselves
dealing with far too many people. And obviously
no person or group of persons will ever admit
an antipathy for the man in the face of a major
investigation: de mortuis nil nisi bonum (of the
dead say nothing but good). Yet investigation
must come about if the facts of this case are
ever to be made public. And the American people
have the right to a full disclosure of this situation
in which it is possible that someone murdered
a President of the U.S. and got away with it.
From
THE PEOPLES ALMANAC
by David Wallechinsky and Irving
Wallace
Published by Doubleday and
Company 1975
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