And then there's Kellerman. While McLaren accepts that Kellerman, riding in the front seat of Kennedy's limo, heard Kennedy yell out "My God, I'm hit" and deduces from this that Kennedy was not hit in the throat by the first shot, this is just silly. No one else in the limousine heard Kennedy make such a remark. Governor Connally, after being hit by a shot he did not hear, but which came after he (and quite clearly Kellerman, who said the last shots came in in a flurry) had heard but one shot, yelled out, "My God, they're going to kill us all." Kellerman, no coincidence, failed to remember Connally making such a statement.

But as silly as McLaren's claims are about the first shot, they positively pale compared to what he pulls out next...

The Second Shot Miss

You see, McLaren, as Donahue before him, believes the second shot was a shot hitting both Kennedy and Connally, and accounting for all their non-fatal wounds. Yep, that's right. The program was yet another in what is by now a long line of programs "investigating" the Kennedy assassination and reappraising the Warren Commission's conclusions to both buy and sell what has got to be the weakest of the Warren Commission's conclusions: the single-bullet theory. 

It does this through stealth, which is a nice way of saying that the program pushes what its creators ought to know is not true. When discussing the single-bullet theory, they re-enact Donahue's amazement at discovering Kennedy and Connally were really in alignment to receive their wounds from one bullet, once one takes into account their "actual" location in the limousine. Well, this conceals that Connally's "actual" location in the limousine, as "discovered" by Donahue in the 1960's, came courtesy Secret Service agent Thomas Kelley's testimony before the Warren Commission that Connally's seat was 6 inches inboard of the right door of the limousine. Kelley was wrong and quite possibly lying. The schematics for the limo published by the HSCA in 1978 proved it was but 2 1/2 inches inboard of the door.

And that's not the only problem with the single-bullet theory as pushed by Donahue. The trajectory through Kennedy's neck, as presented by the Warren Commission and accepted by Donahue in the 1960's, ran from the base of his neck out through his throat, when the actual trajectory, as concluded by the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel in 1978, and supported by the tracing of an autopsy photo published by the committee, ran from a location on Kennedy's back at the level of his first rib, and somehow made it around or over this rib, while exiting at a location on Kennedy's throat at the level of his first rib.

That this more recent update of the theory was not just problematic for Donahue's, and McLaren's conclusions, but fatal, was demonstrated, moreover, by the animation the program presents to support the theory. This shows the bullet hitting Kennedy at the base of his neck, where they ought to have known it didn't hit, an inch or so below his collar, where they ought to have known it didn't hit. I mean, McLaren supposedly studied this case for four years. How could he not know the holes on Kennedy's shirt and jacket were more than 4 inches below the base of his collar?

So, yeah, chalk up yet another score for the animators. In the past two decades or so, they have made millions off the selling of the single-bullet theory, without once using the location of Kennedy's wounds as concluded by the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel. (If you have a problem with this, please show me where I'm wrong.)

Re-inspecting Number 2

I re-watched the program in 2018, and noticed a whole different set of problems with the program's propping up of the single-bullet theory. For one, the animation had Kennedy get hit as he was passing the first large sign along Elm before the freeway. This would be fine, except for one thing; they had this sign as the Stemmons Freeway sign, which was the second sign along Elm, not the first. The first was the Thornton Freeway sign. That's a pretty big oops.

They then showed the bullet enter Kennedy at the base of the back of his neck. This entrance was not as close to the collar as I remembered it. But there were other problems I hadn't noticed before. To compensate for the fact this bullet entered too low on Kennedy's back to exit his throat and proceed downwards into Connally's armpit, the animators had the bullet trajectory curve slightly upwards within Kennedy's neck. 

Of course, this took the bullet off its trajectory towards Connally's armpit, so they then had the bullet curve back downwards upon exit from Kennedy's throat. 

Of course this would lead the bullet through the fingers of Kennedy's right hand. So they have the bullet start to curve downwards as it leaves Kennedy's neck. And then finish its curve downwards after getting past Kennedy's hands. And no, I'm not joking. It's fairly impressive how they have the bullet just barely dodge Kennedy's hands. 

They then had the bullet plow through Connally's right side and embed itself 2 inches deep in his leg. That a bullet embedded itself in Connally's leg is, of course, a canard, and a dead giveaway that the person claiming as much has not actually studied the statements of Connally's doctors, who said he'd received a surface wound to his thigh that required no stitches. 

In any event, this is what they showed their audience at this time in the program. 

They then stop and reveal that Mclaren's hero Howard Donahue had problems with the single-bullet theory until he realized Connally was sitting on a jump seat significantly lower and inboard of Kennedy's seat. They even steal a scam from, well, just about every other show with scam animation (scamination?) and give the audience an overhead view of the limo as the jump seats are slid six inches in from the door...which is a lie because the seats were only 2 1/2 inches in from the door. 

They then reveal Donahue's other revelation--that Connally was turned to his right when hit. When this is taken account, they claim, everything aligns.

And the trajectory, you guessed it, points back to the sniper's nest.

But this was all sleight-of-hand. Sliding Connally over a few inches in the car, and dropping him down a few inches, does nothing to solve the problem previously revealed...that for the single-bullet theory to work the bullet has to curve upwards upon impact with Kennedy's back, and then curve back downwards upon exit from his neck...on its sad descent to Connally's armpit. 

The Third Shot Miss

This brings us, finally, to the third shot presented in the program. Here, in order to sell what is incredibly far-fetched, McLaren makes quite a stretch.

He takes two pieces of evidence: that some witnesses saw Hickey with an AR-15 rifle, and that some witnesses thought they smelled gunpowder at ground level, and pretends this is evidence Hickey fired the shot that killed Kennedy.

He avoids (or hides, let's be honest) much to pull off this trick.

First, there's the eyewitnesses. McLaren cites witness after witness as support for Donahue's theory, when an honest presentation of the witness statements would have, at the very least, called Donahue's theory into question.

• He cites S.M. Holland's initial statement that "After the first shot the secret service man raised up in the seat with a machine gun and then dropped back down in the seat" as evidence Hickey shot Kennedy. He fails to tell his viewers that Holland also claimed to see "a puff of smoke come from the trees" after this first shot, and no other puff of smoke. That's right. The smoke observed by Holland and others while standing atop the railroad bridge came from behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll. So how can McLaren cite them as support a rifle was fired in the middle of the plaza? He can't. So he doesn't. He claims ten witnesses "at ground level" smelled gunpowder, but never lists them. 
  
• He cites Jean Hill's statements as evidence a member of the Secret Service fired a weapon. He fails to tell his viewers that Hill thought the first shot hit Kennedy in the head, and that she thought some or all of the shots she heard after he was hit in the head may have been fired by the Secret Service in retaliation.
• He wonders whether Hugh Betzner's recollection he saw "a flash of pink" wasn't a reference to the muzzle blast from Hickey's rifle. He fails to read the whole sentence in Betzner's statement. It reads like this: "Then I saw a flash of pink like someone standing up and then sitting back down in the car." McLaren's cherry-picking of Betzner's words avoids the obvious: that the flash of pink which Betzner observed, while standing 200 feet or so back behind the limousine at the moment of the head shot, was the pink-suited Mrs. Kennedy climbing out onto the back of the limousine, and then crawling back to her seat.
• He also wonders about the statement of Mrs. John Chism, in which she said "the two men in the front of the car stood up, and then when the second shot was fired, they all fell down and the car took off just like that." Strangely, he wonders whether she meant to say that it was two men in the back of the follow-up car that fell down. He even complains that the Warren Commission never questioned her to find out if she was really talking about the follow-up car. He says "We'll never know." Uhh, yes we will know. And do. There's no basis whatsoever to "wonder" if someone describing activity in the front of one car was really describing activity in the back of another car, particularly when no one else noticed this activity in the back of this second car. Mrs. Chism is alive, by the way, and would almost certainly have talked to McLaren should he have tracked her down. But he didn't even try.
  
• There's no evidence, in fact, that McLaren tried to talk to even one witness in his supposed four year investigation of the shooting. He could have talked to Bill and Gayle Newman, who witnessed the shooting from 20 feet or so behind and to the right of Kennedy, and were about the same distance to the right of Hickey. The sound of a shot from Hickey's position would have come straight to their left ears. And yet they thought this shot came from behind.
  
• He could also have talked to Dave Powers, or at least to people who knew Powers, who passed away between the time McLaren first took an interest in the case and the advent of his four year investigation. Powers was a good friend of Kennedy's. He was sitting less than two feet from the muzzle of the AR-15 at the time Donahue claimed it was fired. Powers was consulted for the book Mortal Error, the book on Donahue's research McLaren found so inspiring. In the book, Powers is quoted as follows: “Someone a foot away from me or two feet away from me couldn’t fire a gun without me hearing it.” This, no surprise, is never mentioned by Colin McLaren in JFK: The Smoking Gun.

And then, of course, there's the ultimate witness: the Bronson film. This film shows Hickey and the members of the back-up car at the time of the fatal head shot. The film was taken from across the plaza, and lacks clear detail. And yet, no sudden movement on Hickey's part is noted in the film. More clearly, he appears to be sitting down. An honest presentation of Donahue's theory would have shown the film, and studied the film. But no, this is a program not just examining Donahue's belief Hickey shot Kennedy, but pushing it. The film is never mentioned.

The Whole Program Miss

In sum, then, the program was deceptive and embarrassing--the information in it was often outdated, and just as often biased. Beyond that the Bronson film strongly suggests Hickey didn't fire the fatal shot and that Howard Donahue's theory was wrong, Donahue's theories were built on long-discredited information regarding the back wound, and more recently called into question information about the head wound. His Hickey did it theory is reliant upon the bullet entering Kennedy's cowlick, 4 inches higher than where the entrance wound was measured at autopsy. He relied upon the word of Dr. Russell Fisher to come to this conclusion. Well, that was part of the problem. As Fisher would later admit, he was hired by the Justice Department to re-examine the medical evidence and see if there was a way to refute some of the "junk" in the conspiracy books--including that the trajectory for the head wound made little sense. This led him to find a new location for the bullet entrance--a location where those actually seeing Kennedy's body swore there was no entrance wound.

Now, for several years, Fisher's "find" had some support in the medical community, but that day has long-since passed. Of those viewing the original autopsy materials since late 1993--Dr. David Mantik, Dr. Gary Aguilar, Dr. Douglas Ubelaker, Dr. John Fitzpatrick, Dr. Robert Kirschner, Dr. James Humes, Dr. J. Thornton Boswell, Dr. Pierre Finck, Dr. Chad Zimmerman, Larry Sturdivan, and Dr. Peter Cummings--only one has supported Fisher's finding the entrance wound was in the cowlick, where Donahue's theory needs it to be. 

While trying to impress the government, Fisher made a bad call--that can now be revealed as a politically-influenced bad call. Howard Donahue's reputation was but collateral damage.

And now we can add Colin McLaren to the list of Fisher's victims... 

Shall we tell him?

Post Script: 

On December 10, 2013, I received a nice friendly email from Colin McLaren. Here it is:

PatSpeer.com