Kennedy assassination: Magic bullet theory versus single-bullet fact

What was the “single-bullet theory”?

It was Arlen Specter’s deductive guess, since proven fact, that one 6.5-millimeter rifle bullet fired by Lee Harvey Oswald on Nov. 22, 1963, caused a non-fatal wound to President John F. Kennedy’s neck, then passed through Texas Gov. John Connally’s chest and right wrist, and finally lodged loosely in Connally’s left thigh.

Four seconds later, Oswald’s next bullet struck Kennedy in the skull, killing him. Connally survived.

The ‘magic bullet.’ In the fiction film “JFK,” the single-bullet explanation was presented as the “magic-bullet theory,” with a diagram distorting the relative positions of Kennedy and Connally, and altering even the initial trajectory of the bullet, to suggest the bullet had to take an impossible zigzag path to pass through both men.

But the actual positions of the two men in the 1961 Lincoln Continental limousine demonstrate that the bullet from Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle easily could have passed through the president’s upper back and neck and the governor’s chest and wrist before stopping at that thigh.

Note that the jump seat Connally sat on was mounted a few inches inboard -- that is, a few inches to Kennedy’s left. The seat was 2.5 inches, or possibly 3 inches, inboard of Kennedy's seat. Connally himself was at least 6 inches inboard of JFK.

At the same time, Kennedy’s seat was 3 inches higher than Connally’s. It’s also possible Connally's legs were angled a little more to the right, putting Connally in a better position to chat with Kennedy.

Wrist deflection. To hit Connally’s thigh, the bullet had to turn slightly downward from his wrist. The bullet hit the thick bone in Connally’s wrist, so a deflection was likely.

(Also note that, before it struck Kennedy, the bullet is calculated to have traveled 189 feet from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. After it passed through Kennedy, it began to tumble before it hit Connally.)

The single-bullet fact has been called a magic-bullet hoax by those who peddle a variety of false and fantastic theories that more than one person fired on Kennedy and Connally at 12:30 p.m. that bright and bloody day in Dealey Plaza, Dallas.

Those theories might be fun, but facts are facts. JFK was murdered by Oswald, a mentally disturbed, attention-hungry fan of Fidel Castro.

Frank Warner

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* In 1964, Arlen Specter was junior counsel to the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The panel was called the Warren Commission because its chairman was Chief Justice Earl Warren.

* * *

Also of historical interest: Notable quotations of Barack Obama.

Comments

[George]

Awesome graphics!

Let me dig out Oliver Stone's email address and send this link to him.

[Frank Warner]

Well, the first graphic is Stone's.

The second image is the property of Free Frank Warner, subject to the Copyright laws of the United States of America, exceptions provided in U.S. Code, Title 17, Section 108. All rights reserved. Reproduction of the image or any part of it is strictly prohibited. Free Frank Warner supplies this image to the public for educational purposes only. If the image is viewed online, it may be studied, but its details must be forgotten. Employees and immediately family members ineligible. No purchase necessary.

[jj mollo]

Good stuff, Frank. It makes sense. Can you do it again in 3-D? LOL

[Frank Warner]

I always say, keep an open mind. But I think most of the conspiracy theorists themselves would be shocked out of their minds if any credible evidence showed up to indicate Oswald was not the lone gunman.

Sorry, no 3-D coming here anytime soon.

[Joseph McBride]

The bullet didn't hit Kennedy in the neck. It hit him in the shoulder.

[Frank Warner]

Sounds like a close call. The Warren Commission said it entered at the base of the back of Kennedy's neck, and came out of the anterior surface -- the front -- of the neck. The autopsy supervisor called it the "low neck."

[Joseph McBride]

Secret Service Agent Clint Hill, who jumped into the car with Kennedy, was in the emergency room with him at Parkland Hospital, and witnessed the autopsy, testified before the Warren Commission, "I saw an opening in the back, about 6 inches below the neckline to the right-hand side of the spinal column." FBI Special Agents James W. Sibert and Francis X. O'Neill Jr., who witnessed the autopsy, wrote in their report, "During the latter stages of this autopsy, Dr. HUMES located an opening which appeared to be a bullet hole which was below the shoulders and two inches to the right of the middle line of the spinal column." These eyewitness accounts are supported by the autopsy photograph showing that area of Kennedy's body. The location of the back wound helps invalidate the single-bullet theory.
So does this observation about the back wound in the Sibert-O'Neill report: "This opening was probed by Dr. HUMES with the finger, at which time it was determined that the trajectory of the missile entering at this point had entered at a downward position of 45 to 60 degrees. Further probing determined that the distance traveled by this missile was a short distance inasmuch as the end of the opening could be felt with the finger."

[jj mollo]

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance ....

Let me ask you this Joseph McBride, what's your theory? Give us the bottom line, no vague unseen conspiracies, what are you really driving at? Just narrow it down to one coherent hypothesis that can be subjected to evidentiary testing.

The null hypothesis is currently owned by Vincent Bugliosi. If you have a different idea, though, you should check it against his book before you stick it out in public.

The trouble with the JFK thing is that way too many very smart people are wasting time and mental energy on an historical black hole. Rededicate yourself to something more interesting ... something worthy of your attention. Life is not an Oliver Stone movie.

[DMik]

How does this stack-up against E Howard Hunt's "death bed" confession about being in Dallas and that there was a conspiracy to kill JFK?

Hunt's own son identified him as one of the "hobos" captured and released by Dallas PD immediately after the assassination.

>Secret Service Agent Clint Hill, who jumped into the car with Kennedy, was in the emergency room with him at Parkland Hospital

There is a video on YouTube from 11/22/63 when the motorcade was leaving the airport. As the car was leaving the tarmac, the SS agents that usually rode on the back of the limo were pulled off of the car. One of the agents is shown raising his arms as if to gesture "Why am I not on the car?"

[Frank Warner]

Run those snippets by Gerald Posner ("Case Closed") and Vincent Bugliosi ("Reclaiming History"). They've gone over thousands of those micro-stories, but none changes the clear fact that Lee Oswald killed Kennedy.

A lot of influential people have had a lot to gain by proving someone else shot Kennedy, or that Oswald did not act alone. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories have long appealed to the masses and they've been great for book sales. Yet the congressional committees and investigative reporters have come up with no alternative even remotely convincing.

Keep in mind that Robert Kennedy was U.S. attorney general after his brother's death. He wondered aloud if someone else might have done it, but with all the FBI investigators and Justice Department lawyers at his disposal, he found evidence that only confirmed that Oswald, the nut-case, acted alone.

[jj mollo]

Death-bed confessions are not all they're cracked up to be. Yes, when a person really knows that they are soon to die, they have nothing to lose by telling the truth. But can they? People don't die undamaged. And that includes their mental capabilities.

[Mike Swanberg]

I am trying to deduce your reasoning for the phrase "since proven fact". Are you saying that you feel that one remote possibility that YOU believe to be true makes this demonstrable fact? Or did you perfect that time machine and go back to '63 and witness the events firsthand?

There is so much wrong with the SBT that it is hard to know where to begin. Perhaps Governor Connally's and his wife's own testimonies? The dubious origin of CE399 and it's extreme unlikelihood that it caused even 1, much less 7, wounds in the president and the governor? Could it be how the Warren Commission backed into the theory with the basis being that Oswald was the lone assassin, and so they didn't bother to look into any other possibilities?

Quoting Posner and Bugliosi only shows your willingness to get onto that "Oswald Did It" bandwagon (however small that bandwagon is these days). They are so irresponsible in their claims that, since they just know Oswald is guilty and the only assassin, anything that leads to a contrary position must somehow be wrong. That's not arriving at a conclusion... that's beginning at one.

[Frank Warner]

There is no "Oswald Did It" bandwagon, which is why Posner and Bugliosi deserve credit for taking on that thankless, uncool position.

It's nearly impossible to prove a negative -- in this case, that there is no evidence that factually contradicts the finding that Oswald acted alone.

The other-gunman (or other-gunmen) conspiracy theories pop up like prairie dogs (or the Whack-a-Mole moles). But Posner and Bugliosi shot down so many of those whacky ideas that the case really is closed.

Most of us would be excited to see one piece of real evidence that shows Oswald didn't kill Kennedy, or Booth didn't kill Lincoln, or Hinckley didn't shoot Reagan. It would be historic.

But at this point, I think, even the conspiracy theorists would be totally shocked to find out that anyone but Oswald shot Kennedy.

[jj mollo]

Well said.

[jj mollo]

Here is a good site discussing the single bullet theory.

If you look at meta-theory, the hypothesis of the single-bullet/ single-assassin, questioned and bedeviled for forty-six years has stood the test of time. Lots of issues have been raised, most resolved. But no single plausible counter-hypothesis has stood the test for very long. People supporting alternatives keep changing their stories. They move the alternate assassin(s) to another department, or another country or behind another bush, depending on which bush or country or department has been cleared of wrongdoing, or which new paranoid fad has slithered into view. They are still searching for the villain, but, in contrast, the Warren Commission conclusions have been only marginally adjusted. Conspiracists otoh focus on details, but ignore or downplay the need for a coherent scenario.

This is how a scientific theory is tested. I say "tested" because it can never be proved. Take the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. Every scientist in the world would love to be the one to refute it. Think of the fame and glory. It would take only one reasonably convincing piece of counter-evolution evidence to upset the whole applecart. Most scientists, however, recognize the odds against and pursue a more productive career path. They recognize that every potshot taken against evolution has eventually been turned around to strengthen the case for evolution.

Personally, I would love to blame Kennedy's assassination on the Mob or the Soviets or especially Cuba. I would be thrilled if someone could pin it on Oliver Stone. Not going to happen.

If you think there is still daylight around any of the conspiracy theories, then you haven't read the serious stuff.

[tom lowry]

The evidence against LHO :

*LHO rents PO BOX (his writing)
*LHO orders rifle/pistol(his writing)
*LHO leaves $/wedding ring(home)
*LHO leaves rifle TSBD(palm print)
*LHO 2 witnesses(in TSBD shooting)
*LHO fiber evidence (shirt/rifle)
*LHO rifling = (CE-399)
*LHO casings(snipers nest)
*LHO shoots Tippit(8 witnesses)
*LHO seen running (from scene)
*LHO bullets link (Tippit/autopsy)
*LHO pulls gun (on police in TT)~
*LHO lie's about MC (to police)

~LHO SAYS: "IT'S ALL OVER NOW"
-----------
The evidence for conspiracy:

*Unknown conspirators use 1)
*Unknown weapons for 2)
*Unknown entitys because of 3)
*Unknown reasons 4)
*Tilt tilt
*Tic toc tic toc

1) Unknown assassins/helpers/218 Total Per Vincent Bugliosi's 'Reclaiming History'
2) Unknown assassins leave no gun-shell casings
3) Unknown major entity's/44 Total Per VB's RH
4) Unknown mostly excuses in books/video's/mutually exclusive/offer different conflicting contradictions/mumbo-jumbo/bs

:-(Paste conspiracys sad face here)-:

"The evidence against LHO looks 10,000 times better when you realise theres no evidence against anyone else"

Prof. Kenneth Rahn

[jj mollo]

Prof. Rahn seems to have summarized the case succinctly. One point I would add is that conspiracies are notoriously leaky. Nobody can keep a secret like this. After all this time, we have not received a single word of confession or credible effort to take credit by a person actually alive at the time. If it was a conspiracy, it had to have been a very small one. I'm going for the single member theory.

[Frank Warner]

JJ and Rahn have it exactly.

Just a note. I recently added the observation that Governor Connally probably had his legs angled to the right.

Think about it. If he was waving to the crowds and turning back occasionally to exchange a few words with the president, he almost certainly had shifted his body toward the right. So that thigh was in exactly the right place to catch the single bullet.

[George]

What became of the Lincoln Continental Limousine that Kennedy was killed in is very interesting.

[Olaf Ifzaren]

The first picture shows a neck wound at the right shoulder, the second picture shows a neck wound at the left shoulder. The neck wound was reported to be in the right shoulder, how is the second picture consistent with the actual findings?

[jj mollo]

Beautiful car. I like the little platforms where the Secret Service guys get to hold on. Maybe I could get a couple of them on my Civic.

[john henry]

prof rahn's summary shows an obvious lack of knowledge. just for example the bullets from the tippit killing cannot be linked to LHO's pistol. the ballistic evidence is based solely on the casings which do not have the markings placed on the casings actually found at the scene. sad how aggressively ignorant the apologists are.

[jj mollo]

John Henry was a steel-drivin' man. According to legend, he never admitted that he was wrong about those worthless steam-drivers.

[George]

John Henry is incorrect with regard to the ballistic evidence. It was indeed difficult to match the four slugs found in Tippit's body to Oswald's gun because he had a gun modified to use .38 Special ammunition (actually .357 caliber) in a .38 caliber barrel. However, one bullet had enough unique characteristics that it was matched to his revolver to the exclusion of all others.

Besides, given the eight witnesses, there is not much sense in nitpicking about the ballistic evidence unless it somehow exonerates Oswald. That is, even if it were true that the slugs could not be matched to Oswald's revolver, unless it could be shown that they could not have come that gun, the evidence still overwhelmingly shows that Oswald was guilty.

The "lack of ballistic evidence" claim is just a myth that wouldn't even support Oswald's innocence if it were true.

Sad how agressively ignorant the conspiracy theorists are.

[jj mollo]

Aggressive ignorance ... interesting phrase.

Let's hear it for passive ignorance! It's not what you don't know that hurts you, bro'; it's what you know that just ain't so!