JAHS Chapter 27

A look at more recent versions of the theory, and the misrepresentations used to support them

For reasons beyond my grasp, the first image in each chapter sometimes fails to appear. If there's nothing up above, don't despair; you can still see the image here

As Simple As 1-2-3

While many believe the HSCA identified frame 190 of the Zapruder film as the first moment of impact based on a faulty understanding of a dictabelt recording, few realize that the HSCA's photographic panel studied the Zapruder film, and shared this conclusion.

A spokesman for the panel, Calvin S. McCamy, a former chairman of the American Society of Photogrammetry, testified before the committee on 9-12-78. His words make it more than clear the panel believed Kennedy turned to the left in reaction to a shot before Kennedy went behind the sign around frame 210 of the Zapruder film. When describing the film as Kennedy went behind the sign, he testified: "There is considerable blurring at this point. The President's arm is up in a waving position. His head is still toward the right. At this point there is considerable blur, and by here, it appears as though his head is beginning to turn quite rapidly to the left. His head is now to the left. That is only one-eighteenth of a second from one frame to the next. He continues to look toward the left. One barely sees his right ear toward the camera. It is quite clear he is here now looking directly at his wife. He and his wife can be seen looking at one another in this sequence. He now goes behind the sign, and only a fraction of a second later we see his hands moving upward. He has a gasping expression. His hands are in a classic position of a person who has been startled. He now begins to raise his arms into what I would call a defensive position. He may be clutching at the throat wound."

The Panel's report was published in Volume 6 of the HSCA's 12 volumes. It reads, in part:

(61) The Zapruder film was studied with care at each of the Panel's conferences..At the final conference, which took place in July 1978, the film was closely scrutinized by 20 photographic scientists who were either members of the Panel or contractors responsible for much of the committee's laboratory work (i.e. photographic enhancement, restoration, etc.).

(64) By a vote of 12 to 5, the Panel determined that President Kennedy first showed a reaction to some severe external stimulus by Zapruder frame 207, as he is seen going behind a sign that obstructed Zapruder's view.

(65) By a vote of 11 to 3, the Panel determined that Governor Connally first showed a reaction to some severe external stimulus by Zapruder frame 224, virtually immediately after he is seen emerging from behind the sign that obstructed Zapruder's view.

(70) At approximately Zapruder frame 200 , Kennedy's movements suddenly freeze; his right hand abruptly stops in the midst of a waving motion and his head moves rapidly from right to his left in the direction of his wife. Based on these movements, it appears that by the time the President goes behind the sign at frame 207 he is evidencing some kind of reaction to a severe external stimulus.

The acknowledgment by the panel that Connally showed no reaction to a bullet purportedly striking himself and Kennedy until at least a second after Kennedy was, of course, a problem. But the committee found its way around this. The Final Assassinations Report noted: "In its report, the committee's photographic evidence panel suggested that Governor Connally reacted to his wounds approximately one second after President Kennedy. This interval might have been even less, but a

sign obstructing Zapruder's field of view made it impossible to study the Governor immediately after the President first appeared to be reacting to having been shot."

Yep, you got it--the committee considered the sign an obstacle to observing CONNALLY'S reaction to the shot, and not Kennedy's reaction, which they thought was readily apparent.

The reaction of many single-assassin theorists, raised on the belief Kennedy was hit while behind the sign in the Zapruder film was, in time, also apparent: they ignored the panel's report, as if it had never been published.

When one studies the Zapruder film, however, one can see that the photographic panel was almost certainly correct: Kennedy DOES appear to be hit before he heads behind the sign. In a paper delivered to the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in February 1971, and published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences in October 1971, Physicist Don Olson and Criminalist Ralph Turner pre-cursed the HSCA photography panel and observed that "Beginning as early as frame 194, the President's body seems to undergo a motion forward and to the left. This motion, which can be visually approximated to be on the order of six or seven inches, seems to begin in frame 194 and continues through about frame 200. The President seems to move away from the seat back and tilt to to the left, away from the window ledge...On the interval 194-200 the President's body is seen to narrow somewhat to the view, indicating that he not only leans to the left front, but also is rotated to the left. The rotation of the shoulders begins as early as frame 195. His head comes around at 200-202. By frame 204 the President is facing almost directly forward."

During this visible jerk by Kennedy to his left, his wife turns to look in his direction (as demonstrated by comparing frames 188 and 206 on the slide up above). They then go behind the sign. When he emerges he has clearly been hit. When one reads the testimony of Abraham Zapruder and the statements of his secretary Marilyn Sitzman, who stood beside him, one finds, moreover, that both of them believed they saw him hit. Neither of them mentioned his appearing to be hit as he came out from behind the sign. When one recalls that Hugh Betzner stated he heard the first shot just after he took a photograph (shown to be taken at 186), and that Phil Willis said he heard the shot and it startled him into taking a photograph (shown to be taken at 202) and that the Willis photo shows Kennedy already starting to lean over, furthermore, it seems clear Kennedy was first hit in the back around frame 190, and that he began responding to this injury before he went behind the sign.

It seems clear Kennedy was reacting to something before he went behind the sign. He stopped waving, his right arm jumped forward (pulling his shirt sleeve out of his jacket), and his head jerked to the left.

Now check out FBI photography expert Lyndal Shaneyfelt's 6-12-64 testimony before the Warren Commission:

Mr. SPECTER. In viewing the films on the frames preceding 210, what was President Kennedy doing?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. He is waving to the crowd, and in some frames it is obvious that he is smiling, you can actually see a happy expression on his face and his hand----

Mr. DULLES. Which way is he turning, to the left or to the right?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. He is looking toward the crowd to his right during most of that area, he is looking slightly to his right. His arm is up on the side of the car and his hand is in a wave, in approximately this position and he appears to be smiling.

Mr. SPECTER. What is the latest frame count where, to your eye, it appears that he is showing no reaction to any possible shot?

Mr. SHANEYFELT. Approximately--I would like to explain a little bit, that at frames in the vicinity of 200 to 210 he is obviously still waving, and there is no marked change. In the area from approximately 200 to 205 he is still, his hand is still in a waving position, he is still turned slightly toward the crowd, and there has been no change in his position that would signify anything occurring unusual. I see nothing in the frames to arouse my suspicion about his movements, up through in the areas from 200 on and as he disappears behind the signboard, there is no change. Now, 205 is the last frame, 205 and 206 are the last frames where we see any of his, where we see the cuff of his coat showing above the signboard indicating his hand is still up generally in a wave. From there on the frames are too blurry as his head disappears you can't really see any expression on his face. You can't see any change. It is all consistent as he moves in behind the signboard.

Wow. Shaneyfelt was either blind as a bat or blowing smoke. We can suspect the latter. He has, after all, indirectly acknowledged that Kennedy turned his head in this sequence by saying Kennedy was "looking slightly to his right" over "most" of this sequence of film. Well, having noticed that Kennedy turned his head, how could he have failed to notice Kennedy's sudden jerk to his left, which just so happened to correspond to the description of Kennedy's reaction to the first shot according to, among others, Kennedy's professional buddy Dave Powers, who was intently studying Kennedy's movements from the follow-up car?

And, sadly, we can't dump this all on Shaneyfelt. Take a gander at who was taking his testimony. That's right, our old buddy Arlen Specter--who pressured Secret Service Inspector Thomas Kelley into pretending the drawings showing a wound at the base of the neck were the basis for a chalk mark well down on the back of the JFK's stand-in during the May 24, 1964 re-enactment.

Well, here he is again, prodding a witness into grossly distorting the evidence. And not just here, and not just prodding witnesses into distorting the evidence.

He told lie after lie himself. When Governor Connally broke ranks in 1966 and told Life Magazine that after studying the Zapruder film he believed Kennedy was hit by frame 224 but that he himself wasn't hit till frame 234, Life Magazine allowed Specter a response. Well, there, in the 11-25-66 issue of Life, Specter lied through his teeth (and continued to lie till his death) by claiming that a bullet strike on Kennedy at frame 166 or so could be ruled out "because Kennedy was still waving at the crowd more than two seconds later in frame 206."

Nope. Not falling for it. Shaneyfelt and Specter watched the Zapruder film dozens if not hundreds of times. And they studied the slides. They knew full well that Kennedy suddenly stopped waving and jerked his head to the left after Z-190.

The Simultaneous Head-Snaps

Yet another argument supporting that Kennedy was first hit around frame 190 of the Zapruder film comes from reading the Secret Service reports of George Hickey, one of the President's body-guards, who was riding in the back seat of the car behind the President on 11-22-63.

In his 11-22-63 report (18H765) Hickey states "As 100-X made the turn and proceeded a short distance, I heard what seemed to me that a firecracker exploded to the right and rear. I stood partially up and turned to the rear to see if I could observe anything. Nothing was observed and I turned around and looked at the President’s car." His 11-30-63 report (18H761-764) clarifies a few things: "After a very short distance I heard a loud report which sounded like a firecracker…I stood up and looked to my right and rear in an attempt to identify it. Nothing caught my attention except people shouting and cheering. A disturbance in 679X caused me to look forward to the President’s car."

Hickey's statements are most informative regarding the timing of the first shot. While he is looking to his left at frame 193 of the film, he turns his head rapidly to his right just afterward. His rapid turn to the right, in fact, almost mirrors Kennedy's head jerk to the left, as an apparent response to this first shot. While Hickey disappears from the Zapruder film shortly thereafter, one can't reasonably argue that he stopped his turn partway and then began another turn or that he turned to his right in response to something other than the first shot. The Altgens photo, after all, shows him turned all the way around to his right less than 3 seconds later.

So why do so many latch onto Governor Connally's statements about turning to his right after the first shot, and use that to conjure up a first shot-miss around frame 160 not described in the statements of any of the witnesses, when there are witnesses like Hickey whose statements, when taken in conjunction with the Zapruder film, confirm the statements and testimony of the vast majority of the witnesses--that the first shot hit? Hickey certainly never said anything to contradict himself. Not true for the Governor. Heck, even single-assassin theorist Godfather Vincent Bugliosi has problems accepting Connally's statements. On page 381 of Reclaiming History, he writes: "The only thing that rings true to me about the governor's reflections on what was happening around the time he was hit is not when he tries to be precise, but when he said things like this in his 1978 testimony before the HSCA: 'When I was hit, or shortly before I was hit--no, I guess it was after I was hit...' All of his hesitation and confusion is more in keeping with what I would expect from a witness who had sustained the kind of injuries Connally did."

I think we all know the answer. People reject Hickey's statements but swear by Connally's because Connally's statements fit in with what they want to believe. The HSCA believed a first shot missed around frame 160 because it matched the timing of the sounds on the dicta-belt. Single-bullet theory devotees believe a first shot missed around frame 160 because it gives Oswald more time to fire his weapon, and makes his purported feat more palatable. (The thought occurs that "feat" and "palatable" should not be used in the same sentence, lest one confuse others into thinking one's put one's foot in one's mouth.)

The acceptance of Hickey's statements, furthermore, would bring grave doubt to the single-assassin conclusion. Here's the next few lines of his 11-30-63 report (18H761-764): "Perhaps 2 or 3 seconds elapsed from the time I looked to the rear and then looked at the President. He was slumped forward and to his left, and was straightening up to an almost erect sitting position as I turned and looked. At the moment he was almost sitting erect I heard two reports which I thought were shots and that appeared to me completely different in sound from the first report and were in such rapid succession that there seemed to be practically no time element between them." By his having heard only one shot before he turned back around to look at the President--which would have to be after frame 255, as the Altgens photo taken at that time showed him to be looking straight back behind him--and by his having heard two shots in rapid succession after he turned back around, Hickey not only supported the HSCA's conclusion that, if there was a shot striking Kennedy and Connally that was heard by anyone, it would be the shot fired around frame 190, but that the last two shots were fired too close together to have been fired by Oswald alone. This makes his statements as good as poison to those certain in their beliefs that Oswald was the sole assassin. Bugliosi, despite his doubts about Connally, never once discusses Hickey's statements in regards to the timing of the shots in his over-2500 page monster of a book, Reclaiming History.

But there's no honest reason to reject Hickey's statements.

Zapruder Frames 223-226

Subsequent to the HSCA, better versions of the Zapruder film became available to the public. This led to the wholesale rejection of the HSCA's single-bullet theory.

Few ever subscribed to their version of the theory anyhow. Single-assassin theorists, not quite comfortable with the HSCA's proposition that Connally showed no reaction until almost two seconds after Kennedy had been hit, began working backwards, looking for the precise moment that Connally was hit, so they could see if it looked like Kennedy was also hit at this time. Now, they could have cited a 1976 study of the film conducted for CBS News by the Itek Corporation; this study had come to the conclusion that Connally had been hit by frame 224. And they could also have consulted the 1979 report of the HSCA Photographic Panel, which had also held that Connally was hit by frame 224. And they could also have consulted with Dr. Cyril Wecht, who, in opposition to the many conspiracy theorists claiming that Connally was not hit until frame 234 or afterward, had been claiming since at least 1975 that Connally first showed a reaction to being hit between frames 223 and 224.

But acknowledging any of these studies would have meant acknowledging that men such as Wecht could be right sometimes, and capable of noticing things overlooked by the Warren Commission. So, the single-assassin theorist community and mainstream media withheld its judgment on the precise time Connally was wounded until 1993, when Case Closed, a book largely devoted to tearing down conspiracy theorists and supporting the Warren Commission, warmly embraced a study of the Zapruder film performed by a legal services company, Failure Analysis. This study, prepared for a mock trial of Oswald in 1992, had concluded that Connally first showed signs of being hit at...frame 224, after his lapel started moving in the previous frame.

Be prepared for a shock: I think they're right.

On the digitized version of the film, a reaction by Connally at frame 224 seems obvious…his hair lifts up, his shoulder turns rapidly to its right, his lapel is pulled forward… And Kennedy’s behavior confirms that he, too, has suffered an injury.

Of course, as we've seen, there's reason to believe Kennedy was hit before this frame as well.

When one looks closely at Zapruder frames 223-226, one can see that Kennedy’s hands were coming down in 224 and 225, and only started heading towards his throat in 226. This further supports the possibility he was hit before 224 and was beginning to respond only to suffer a second wound to his throat at the same time Connally was hit.

Since this second shot came less than 2 seconds after the shot striking Kennedy around Z-190, moreover, and since FBI's tests showed it would take a minimum of 2.8 seconds for someone using Oswald’s bolt-action rifle to eject a spent shell and re-aim. my acceptance that Connally is hit at frame 224 forces me to conclude that one of these shots was fired by someone other than Oswald.. While the HSCA, relying upon the controversial analysis of a police dictabelt, concluded that Oswald had fired his rifle at both 160 and 190, their own ballistics tests indicated he could only have done this by point-shooting, that is, just aiming the rifle in a general direction without using the sight. (One might presume they believed that Oswald felt there just wasn’t enough time to actually aim.) That the HSCA held nonetheless that Oswald not only attempted his second shot without aiming, but hit Kennedy and Connally with the so-called “magic” bullet on this shot, is indicative that perhaps the HSCA was jealous of the Warren Commission’s Single-Bullet Theory and was trying to one-up them by designing a bullet that was even more magical.

But that's just silly.

Not Waving, Being Shot

Equally silly is that Dr. Lattimer and his devotees, in an attempt to preserve the single-bullet theory, have tried to pretend that the HSCA Photographic Panel was full of beans and that there are no signs of Kennedy's being hit before frame 224 of the Zapruder film. While looking to Connally's movements to tell them the moment of a first shot miss circa frame 160, they willfully ignore Kennedy's far more significant movements between frames 190 and 210. Somehow they perceive the frantic movements apparent as he heads behind the sign as his calmly waving to the crowd. Heck, even the Warren Commission knew this wasn't true.

To refresh, a 4-22-64 memo written by Warren Commission counsel Melvin Eisenberg revealed:

• A screening was held of the Zapruder film and of slides prepared by LIFE from the film. Each slide corresponded with a separate frame of film, beginning with frame 171. The consensus of the meeting was as follows:

• (a) The President had been definitely hit by frames 224-225,when he emerges from behind a sign with his hands clutching his throat.

• (b) The reaction shown in frames 224-225 may have started at an earlier point - possibly as early as frame 199 (when there appears to be some jerkiness in his movement) or, with a higher degree of possibility, at frames 204-206 (where his right elbow appears to be raised to an artificially high position).

So, how do Lattimer and his #1 devotee, Gerald Posner, the author of Case Closed, deal with this memo? They are, after all, defenders of the Warren Commission. They can't just ignore that the commission lawyers charged with studying the Zapruder film saw evidence suggesting that Kennedy was hit before the frame number eventually chosen as the moment of the first shot's impact.

Wanna bet? In Case Closed, Posner presents "The latest enhancements show that before the President disappeared behind the sign at frame 200, he was waving to the crowd with his right hand. Even when the car and his body are obscured by the road sign, the top of his right hand can be seen waving."

The "jerkiness" and "artificially high position" of Kennedy's right elbow had thereby been flushed down the memory hole. Here it is again.

The image at left is the image presented by Thorburn to show the appearance of a man after he'd received an injury to his 6th cervical vertebra, and the image in the middle is the image presented by Thorburn to show the appearance of a man after he'd received an injury to his 7th cervical vertebra. Neither of these resemble the appearance of Kennedy in the image at right. Sure, Kennedy's elbows lifted and his hands went toward his throat, but that's not what is shown in the Thorburn article, is it? The hands of the man injured at C6 (at left) are nowhere near his throat, and the elbows of the man injured at C7 (M) are down by his side.

Now, should one think that--no matter what Lattimer called it, and no matter what nerves were involved--Lattimer was onto something when he pushed that the passage of the bullet by the nerves in Kennedy's neck caused his arms to fly up as a reflex, one should consider that this has been disputed as well. And not by a conspiracy theorist such as myself, but by a recognized expert on such things... Yes, an article by Julie Dunn on the website of Kenneth Rahn reports that on December 13, 1994 she contacted famed neuropathologist Dr. Jan Leestma and asked him about Lattimer's "Thorburn" theory. Leestma reportedly said "it seems to me a reaction as such would just never occur. I don't care if the sixth cervical segment was severed or just touched, the nerves in that area would not go into an immediate neurological reaction with arms flying up, they would fall limp." He even explained "when you physically shock any nerve, the last thing it does is fire. It classically becomes electrically silent. Whether the spinal cord is directly hit or grazed, the nerve cords extending beyond the actual spine would be affected and fall silent."

Still another argument against Lattimer’s “Thorburn theory", and one all my own, comes from the presumption that the immediate paralysis described by Lattimer would also cause Kennedy to lose control of his bodily functions. If this is so, then it would seem significant that Kennedy’s x-rays, as interpreted by all three x-ray professionals present at his autopsy, Dr. John Ebersole, Jerrol Custer, and Edward Reed, revealed a significant amount of fecal matter in his colon. That’s right; I’m using fecal matter to combat fecal matter.

And I'm not afraid to sling it... Is it just a coincidence that Gerald Posner, the primary spreader of Lattimer's manure, was in 2010 exposed as one, let's say, lacking in ethics, after it became clear he'd been routinely plagiarizing the works of others in his columns for the Daily Beast? I suspect not.

I also suspect he wasn't the only prosecutor-turned-writer to try and "lawyer" his readers into believing something he knows is most unclear. In the first section of Vincent Bugliosi's 2007 single-assassin theorist manifesto, Reclaiming History, he describes a first shot miss, and then a second shot 4.9 seconds before the head shot, at roughly frame 224 of the Zapruder film. He claims this second shot is the one that hit Kennedy and Connally. Later, while discussing in the photo section the position of the limo at the time of this second shot he claims, first, that it was "somewhere around frame 210" and then, on the next page, that it was "within a split second of frame 210." Nowhere in the book is it acknowledged that one of the expert witnesses used by Bugliosi in his prosecution of Oswald in a 1986 mock trial was Cecil Kirk, from the HSCA Photographic Panel, and that Bugliosi had Kirk testify that a comparison of frames 195 and 199 of the Zapruder film indicated that Kennedy was shot by this time. (When looking at the second frame, Kirk testified "Now you see that the President's arm is super-extended. We interpreted this to be a stimulus." When asked by Bugliosi if this was a response to his being hit the first time, Kirk testified "That's correct.") No, instead of acknowledging that he had previously introduced evidence into a court of law that Kennedy was reacting to a shot before frame 199 of the Zapruder film, Bugliosi, in Reclaiming History, presents frame 204 of the film with the misleading caption "Kennedy, now past most of the spectators on his right, begins to lower his right arm."

What had been a reaction to a stimulus was now just a relaxing of the arm. Evidently, Mr. Kirk and his testimony had fallen down Bugliosi's memory hole.

And no, Bugliosi wasn't even the worst of those hungrily wrapping their arms around Posner and his desperate and dishonest shooting scenario. Bugliosi's sin was one of omission. Dan Rather and CBS told an outright lie.

You see, one of the chief attractions of Posner's scenario was that the first shot was at Z-160. This gave Oswald more time to fire the shots... This, according to Rather, in his 1993 CBS special Who Killed JFK: The Final Chapter?, made Oswald's purported feat far more likely.

The problem was that Rather tried to correlate this to the tests performed for CBS in 1967. These tests proved physicist Luis Alvarez's theory holding that people holding a movie camera like Zapruder's would jiggle their cameras when shots were fired, and that one could use the blurs in Zapruder's film to come to a conclusion as to when the shots were fired in Dealey Plaza.

After showing the already 26 year-old blur tests in the 1993 special, Rather enthused: "The first blur happens precisely when Posner says Oswald got off the first shot, supporting the theory that Oswald had more time to get off three shots, not the far more difficult 5 1/2 seconds estimated by the Warren Commission."

Uggh... Holy big fat cow, Batman! Rather was lying through his teeth. The three blurs discussed by CBS in its 1967 special came at frames 190, 227, and 318. The blur at 190, according to the 1967 special, corresponds to a shot fired around Z-186, not Z-160, when Posner claimed the first shot was fired. This proposed shot, moreover, closely corresponded to the HSCA's jiggle analysis and proposed shot at Z-190--the shot Posner had chosen to pretend never happened.

And here was Rather, using evidence for a shot at Z-190 as evidence for a shot at Z-160, without telling his viewers about his little switcheroo.

It's enough to make one paranoid, I tell ya.

But let's try to be fair. It seems possible Rather's recollection was that the 1967 tests suggested a shot was fired before the Warren Commission said the first shot was fired, and that he'd correctly understood Posner to have come to this same conclusion, but incorrectly assumed Posner had picked the identical frame. The 1993 special, after all, never identified the frame for Posner's first shot, nor the frame for Alvarez's first blur.

Yeah, maybe. This is one instance where Rather's well-documented sloppiness plays to his advantage.

In 1967, let's reflect, CBS hired Charles Wyckoff to study the Z-film frames and develop the theory shots were fired at Z-186, Z-222/Z-223, and Z-313. Wyckoff's conclusions, to be clear, didn't directly align with Alvarez's own "best guess" the shots were fired around Z-177, Z-217, and Z-313. But the takeaway was the same.

Here's Alvarez in the '67 special, when explaining what he took from his jiggle analysis: "Well, to me, it means that there were indeed three shots fired, as the Commission said; that the one that apparently didn't hit anyone in the car was fired before the one that hit the President, and not between the two shots that obviously hit the President."

He claimed his analysis suggested a first shot miss--that gave Oswald more time--and made the single-assassin conclusion more credible. Well, this was exactly what Posner was claiming of his own analysis. The fact that the Alvarez and Posner scenarios were mutually exclusive--where one has the shot at Z-177 or later and the other at Z-160 or earlier--was below Rather's radar. Presumably.

Where's Nellie?

When one looks at Warren Commission Exhibit 895, a photograph purporting to represent the trajectory from the sniper’s nest at frame 225, roughly 1/10th of a second after the point single-assassin theorists now claim Kennedy was hit, one finds yet another reason to doubt the new and "improved" version of the single-bullet theory.

Since the bullet found on the stretcher in Parkland Hospital, the “magic” bullet, was largely undamaged, the single-bullet theory entails that the bullet struck no bones on its way through Kennedy. Fine. Put that in your crock pot.

Now add in that the bullets used in Oswald’s rifle were among the most stable ever tested. Well, this more than suggests there would have been little deviation along the bullet's path while it sliced through the President. And yet...the target on Kennedy’s neck in the Warren Commission’s own re-enactment aligns not with Connally’s right armpit, where he was actually struck, but inches below and to the side of this location, in the middle of his back!

While one might assume from this that the bullet was deflected slightly upon exit from Kennedy's neck--perhaps even by the knot in Kennedy’s tie--moreover, this would then necessitate the bullet's being deflected both to the left and downwards once again when it struck Connally’s rib. Hmmm... Perhaps this problem in alignment is why the FBI, under the direction of the Warren Commission’s Arlen Specter, failed to measure the right/left angle from the sniper’s nest into the limousine during the May 24, 1964 re-enactment in Dallas. They measured the angle of descent from the sniper’s nest into the limousine to the minute, but made no measurements whatsoever of the cross-angle.

Since Exhibit 895 demonstrates that Connally would have to have been sprawled across his seat for his wounds to align with Kennedy’s, moreover, we are forced to look at the Zapruder film once again, and see if we can conclusively determine Connally's position at frame 224.

It occurred to me that one could do this by establishing the relative positions of the limousine's occupants, and projecting them onto the scale drawing of the limousine provided by the Warren Commission and HSCA, to see what made sense. Since the limousine was moving roughly a foot per frame and since the Connallys were sitting roughly two feet in front of the Kennedys, the Connallys in frames 223 and 224 occupied the same relative space as the Kennedys in frames 225 and 226. As demonstrated on the Z-223-226 slide, when one compares these frames, it becomes readily apparent that John and Nellie Connally were roughly 90% as far apart as John and Jackie Kennedy.

From this we can establish Connally’s actual position. If one places Connally far enough over in his seat to receive a wound in his right armpit from a bullet exiting Kennedy’s neck in a straight line from the sniper’s nest at 224, and places Jackie Kennedy far enough over so that she’s in line with Connally a la the Zapruder film, a placement of Nellie Connally 90% as far from her husband as Jackie Kennedy was from the President pushes Nellie off her seat and up against the side of the car. I refuse to believe the first lady of Texas was draping her face over the side of the limousine and lapping up wind like a dog.That she seems far too close to her door is an indication, clearly, that everyone, save the President, should be shifted back to their right. If one shifts Connally just a few inches to his right, however, the single-bullet theory trajectory, via rear-projection from Connally’s wounds, pivots onto the roof of the Dal-Tex Building. If one simply shifts Kennedy all the way to his right, so that he is draped across the side of the car, as has been done in most current re-enactments and simulations, on the other hand, it takes care of Nellie and places her more towards the center of her seat, but opens up a whole series of other problems.

For when one looks closely at the Zapruder sequence from 223-226 one can see that Kennedy’s right arm was inside the car and did not even leave a shadow along the side of the car. This would appear to place him several inches inwards from the position used in a 1998 laser re-enactment. If one compares Kennedy's position in frame 225 against that of Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman, the passenger in the front seat, moreover, it seems clear that both men are roughly the same distance from the side of the car. And yet, in order for Kellerman to be in line with Nellie’s position in the Zapruder film (and have her be 90% as far from her husband as Mrs. Kennedy was from her husband) Kellerman would have to have been twice as far away from the side of the limousine as Kennedy.

Once again, the proper positioning of the passengers in the limousine and Kennedy and Connally in particular pivots a backwards trajectory through Connally and Kennedy’s wounds from the Texas School Book Depository across the street to the Dal-Tex. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Kennedy and Connally’s wounds only align if the shot originated from the Dal-Tex Building.

Artwohl Analysis

The photos discussed by Von Pein and Bugliosi are the same ones discussed in the "Hunchback Analysis" slide of the last chapter. In the 1990's Dr. Robert Artwohl resurrected the incorrect assessment of these photos first pushed in the 1967 so-called "Military Review" and then later adopted by the Church Panel. Since that time, his comparison has been a mainstay on the much-visited JFK website of Marquette University professor John McAdams, confusing people by the thousands.

On the surface, his comparison almost makes sense. He uses the ruler in the back wound photo to measure the distance from Kennedy’s neck line to his back wound and comes up with 5.6 cm. He then uses the length of Kennedy’s ear in the lateral photo as a ruler, and plots out where this 5.6 cm down Kennedy’s back would be on the lateral photo. This establishes his entrance. It’s then just a simple matter of drawing a line between the back wound and the throat wound and measuring the angle. Not surprisingly, Artwohl came up with the exact angle the HSCA told us leads back to the sniper’s nest.

He makes a number of mistakes. First of all, he uses 8 cm as the length of Kennedy’s ear, which seems way too large. (Mine is only 6.8 cm and I have big ears.) Using a long distance photo of Kennedy for comparison I determined his ears were really more like 6.2 cm. (Should you doubt me, consider that, if this 8 cm measurement was real, Kennedy’s throat wound was at a vertical level 2.5 inches below his Adam’s Apple. Measure this on your own body and not along the throat itself--which runs at an angle--and see if this seems possible.) Second of all, even though the ruler in the back wound photo is clearly pressed against Kennedy’s back he measures this distance down Kennedy’s back at the angle of his neck and not the angle of his back. When one makes these corrections, one finds that the angle from the back wound to the throat wound was really more like 14 degrees, the white trajectory in the slide up above.

But there are other factors as well. When one realizes that Kennedy’s head in the back wound photo is turned slightly to his right, one should realize that this lowers his neck line by approximately one centimeter in comparison to the neck line in the lateral view. This means the 5.6 cm measurement leading to the back wound in the lateral photo should start a centimeter lower on Kennedy’s neck. This drops the angle from the back wound to the throat wound down to 10 degrees, which is represented by the tan trajectory. Finally, one should take into account that Kennedy’s body in the back wound photo appears to be laying on its left side with its right shoulder rolled forwards. According to my calculations (or, more precisely, my girlfriend’s repeated measurements on my body), this would raise the back wound an inch or more in comparison to the throat wound, and drop the angle down to zero, as shown by the blue line.

But one need not rely on my words to see Artwohl is mistaken. Consider Artwohl's own. At the April '93 conference on the medical evidence in Chicago, Dr. Artwohl pointed out the "hump" on Kennedy's back where he claims the bullet entered, and said "The hump here really represents about the level of T-1." No, not really. I mean, he really said that. But that's not really what it represents.

And that's not the only time Artwohl has put his woeful grasp of anatomy on display. On the website of Professor John McAdams, in an attempt to demonstrate the failings of Dr. Cyril Wecht, he presents a few old online posts from Artwohl to Wecht, in which Artwohl unsuccessfully asks Wecht for clarification on a few key points. On one of these posts, dated 10-18-94, Artwohl writes that "the autopsy photographs clearly show that the bullet wound is 5.5 cm (about 2 inches) below the inferiornuchal crease (the lowest wrinkle in the back of JFK's neck). The inferior nuchal crease overlies the cervical spine at about the level of C4 or C5. Thus two inches below that would fall at the level at around the level of C7, or at the base of the neck." Artwohl is thereby claiming the back wound was around C7. Well, one look at the left lateral view of Kennedy with Artwohl's trajectory drawn in demonstrates beyond any argument that his proposed entrance location, which he says is at C7, is far closer to the "inferiornuchal crease" than it is to the level of the throat wound. This means that, in Artwohl's analysis, the throat wound was more than 2 vertical inches below the level of C7.

He's dead wrong. Kennedy's throat wound was indisputably near the level of C7/T-1. Two inches above this--where Artwohl places the back wound--would be around C5, not C7. Artwohl's analysis is nonsense.

Coat Check

Should one still be confused by Dr. Artwohl’s presentation, one should take a look at a comparison of the entrance locations in dispute with the undisputed entrance of the bullet on Kennedy’s clothing, 5 3/8 inches below the top of his collar. Even if one uses Artwohl’s 8 cm measurement of Kennedy’s ear in one’s analysis, it seems highly unlikely a bullet could enter so low on Kennedy’s clothing yet as high on his back as Artwohl and Lattimer contend.

A look at this comparison, moreover, casts further doubt on the integrity of Warren Commission counsel Arlen Specter and Wesley Liebeler (who pushed that the hole on Kennedy's clothes overlay a wound at the base of his neck), as well as those who repeated their nonsense.

It should be admitted, of course, that the back wound location they were defending was the back wound location pushed in the Rydberg drawings. Well, this location is roughly where it is in the Artwohl analysis, above. Both depictions smell, and are essentially lies.

I mean, just look at the photo below.

This is Kennedy's shirt. The arrow (added by researcher Vince Palamara) points out the entrance hole on the back of the shirt. To its left one can see the slit purported to represent an exit. Now, take a deep breath. The Warren Commission, along with many of its defenders, including Robert Artwohl and John McAdams, etc, expect us to believe that this picture, in which the entrance and exit are at roughly the same level, is deceptive, and that the entrance hole at the time of the shooting was really inches above the level of the exit by the collar.

Now, ask yourself, is this likely? Does it really make sense that Kennedy's stylish shirt would be so loose-fitting that a hole on its back four inches below the bottom of the collar would nevertheless be inches above the collar at the front? No way, right?

Andy yet, a June, 1967 article by Sid Moody and Bernard Gavzer for the Associated Press, and published nationwide, defended that the back wound location pushed by the Commission was consistent with the holes on the clothes. In dismissing the claim of Commission critics holding that the jacket holes were too low to support the single-bullet theory, they asserted “Seeing the holes through the eyes of Lane, Epstein, and Weisberg, it might seem that the bullet which made them could not have hit the president in the base of the neck. But put a jacket and shirt on any grown man with reasonably well-developed shoulders, measure 5 3/8 inches below the top of the collar and a bit to the right of the seam, have him raise his right arm slightly (as the president’s was) and mark the spot with a pencil point or chalk. Where does this touch the body? The base of the neck.”

Oh really? The slight lift of Kennedy’s right arm would lift the blue star in the comparison above to the level of the tan line? I don’t think so. Evidently, Moody and Gavzer weren’t in the mind to double-check their “facts” that day…

Coat Double Check

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't double check our facts. The undisputed entrance on the clothing is also slightly lower than the back wound seen on the autopsy photos. This means that either there was some bunching of Kennedy’s clothing on November 22, 1963, or that Kennedy’s autopsy photos and the bullet holes visible on his clothing are in disagreement. If there was some bunching, of course, one should determine whether or not there was enough bunching to support the single bullet theory.

When one combs the internet for photos from the November 22, 1963 motorcade, one discovers that the jacket Kennedy was wearing in Dallas did undoubtedly “bunch” up whenever he lifted his arm. Virtually every photograph displays significant ‘bunching.” But was this bunching significant enough to support the single bullet theory? Could the bunching have lifted Kennedy’s jacket high enough so that a bullet descending from 20 degrees or more above him could enter 5 3/8” below the top of his collar and still exit from his throat? Without deflection?

In researcher John Hunt’s online article “The Case for a Bunched Jacket,” available on the website of John McAdams, he argues that the amount of bunching shown in the Croft photo is indeed significant and suggests that the bullet entrance was high enough on Kennedy’s body to support the single-bullet theory. I respectfully disagree. The straight line of “bunched jacket” sticking out at the back of Kennedy in Hunt’s version of the Croft photo is in my considered opinion Kennedy’s right shoulder pad seen at an angle. Clearly the line of the back seat in the photo runs parallel to a line connecting his left shoulder with the purported bunching of the jacket. While Hunt is quite correct in that there is bunching visible in most every photo of the motorcade, it would appear then that this bunching involved too little material to lift the clothing in line with the Warren Commission or Artwohl entrance, and nowhere near the amount of material needed to lift it in line with the Lattimer entrance.

That the holes in the clothing and the hole in the back are consistent, moreover, also seems apparent. The back wound was determined to be 14 cm below the bottom tip of the right mastoid process. This is at the approximate level of the bottom of the ear. The hole on the shirt was determined to be 5.75 inches below the top of the collar, or 14.6 cm. Well, this means that for the holes to be consistent, the top of the shirt collar would have to be a bit above the bottom tip of the mastoid at the time of the shooting, correct? And this seems a bit off. But wait, the shirt did not stretch flat like a ruler from the back wound to the mastoid. It was at a bit of an angle on the upper back, and was perhaps even bunched up a bit. For the measurements of the hole on the shirt to be consistent with the measurements provided for the back wound, then, the collar of the shirt would have to have been just below the bottom tip of the mastoid at the time of the shooting. Well, LOOK at the Croft photo! The shirt collar is right below the bottom tip of the ear, precisely where one would expect it to have been!

The holes on the clothing thereby support the accuracy of the back wound photo, and they, in unison, destroy the argument the bullet descended within the body.

The only way around this, it seems clear, is to push that far more clothing is bunched up on the back of Kennedy than is shown in the photographs, and that this clothing, unseen to the naked eye, ACTUALLY bunched up along the back of Kennedy's head. Well, no one has gone on to propose this...

Reality Check

Well, at least no one remotely reasonable. As if to advertise his lunacy, Dr. John Lattimer actually proposed Kennedy's jacket was bunched up at the back of his head, and that 5 3/8 inches of Kennedy's clothing (the measured distance to the bullet entrance on the clothing) had been lifted above the level of his chin!

Complete nonsense. Utter hoo-ha. And certifiably certifiable...

Let's review. In the September 1973 Forensic Science Gazette Lattimer specified that "the bullet holes in the clothing were about 13 or 14 centimeters below the upper edge of the collar, whereas the bullet hole in the back of the body, in this general location, was only about half this distance down from the expected location of the top of the collar." He then related that "The bullet hole in the President's upper back, near the base of his neck, was about two inches below the prominent crease across the base of the back of his neck."

Now let's do the math. Two inches is basically 5 centimeters. Since the expected location of the collar was, according to Lattimer, as little as 6 1/2 cm above this location, it follows that the expected location of the top of the collar would be as little as 1 1/2 cm above the neck crease. So far, so good. That is, if you're willing to accept that the expected location of Kennedy's collar was 6 1/2 to 7 cm above the level of his back wound (which Lattimer elsewhere places at the level of his chin) and that twice this amount of clothing was bunched up at the back of JFK's head!

Now let's factor in that Lattimer accepted the autopsists' conclusion the back wound was 14 cm below the bottom tip of the mastoid process, the bottom of the skull. This means that, in Lattimer's analysis, the "expected location of the top of the collar" was as much as 7 1/2 cm (three inches!) below the base of the skull!

That's right, in Lattimer World, the "expected location" of Kennedy's collar was both 7 to 7 1/2 cm below the base of his skull and 6 1/2 to 7 cm or more above the level of the back wound (which Lattimer elsewhere describes as being at the level of his chin). Amazingly, and perhaps inadvertently, Lattimer had proposed that Kennedy's chin was 14 cm below the base of his skull, and that the expected location of Kennedy's collar lay half-way in between.

Now, measure this out on yourself real quick and see if it makes any sense.

It doesn't. Not one iota. Perhaps this helps explain why Lattimer claimed Kennedy was a hunch-back. The man was desperate for something, anything, that could help him explain the problematic measurements. Having Kennedy's back stick straight out would allow the back wound to be 14 cm away from the base of his skull, while still being at the level of his chin. This is insanity in its purest form, or a deliberate fraud, take your pick.

And Artwohl's theory wasn't much better. When one looks at profile pictures of Kennedy on 11-22, and realizes one can establish the level of the entrance on the clothing by using the 1 1/4 width of his collar as a ruler (which I've done on the slide above at the suggestion of Cliff Varnell), one can see quite easily that there was just no freakin' way that enough clothing bunched up on the back of Kennedy's neck to bring the entrance on his clothing in line with Artwohl's make-believe entrance at the base of Kennedy's neck.

Still, some folks are slower than others. In December, 2009, single-bullet theorist David Von Pein revealed that despite everything demonstrated on the slides above, he, in keeping with his hero Vincent Bugliosi, still felt the Croft photo demonstrated that Kennedy's jacket was bunched up enough to lift the bullet entrance on the clothes up to the level of the entrance location proposed by Robert Artwohl on Kennedy's back.

End of the LineAnd so I dedicate the slide above to Von Pein and his quite "Vince-ible" hero Vince.

After matching up the AP photo of Kennedy on 11-22 with the Croft photo taken just seconds before he was shot, and using the width of Kennedy's collar to measure the distance down his back on the AP photo, I was able to establish the length of a straight line stretching to the entrance on the clothes. I then broke this line into two parts, and placed them along the outside of Kennedy's jacket profile in the Croft photo. This proved, once and for all, that EVEN IF the "bunching of clothing" visible in the Croft photo was not his right shoulder seen at an angle, but clothing directly in back of Kennedy's head bunched straight out, the amount of material involved was still insufficient to lift the hole on the clothes to Artwohl's proposed entrance location. I mean, let's get real. It's not even close.

But will this end of the line put an end to the lyin'?

Nope. Afraid not. Although single-bullet theorists are trapped--either they believe the back wound was where the HSCA Panel said it was, and that Kennedy was leaning further forward than shown on the films, or that the back wound was higher than proposed by the HSCA, with more "bunched' clothing than shown in the films--they refuse to recognize the futility of their dilemma, and accept that, on this issue at least, their theory is at odds with the evidence.

In fact, as time goes by, it becomes more and more clear that most of the reasons offered to support the single bullet theory have been at odds with the evidence. On December 24, 1991, as a response to the movie JFK, HSCA Assistant Deputy Chief Counsel Kenneth Klein published an article in the L.A. Times defending the single-bullet theory. He offered four reasons to believe it. First he claimed that Connally's back wound was ovoid, and that this indicated the bullet striking him had first struck Kennedy, Well, as we've discussed, this wasn't exactly true. Connally's doctor, for one, was convinced the bullet struck nothing before hitting Connally. Klein then noted the trajectory analysis of Thomas Canning, which was purported to show that the bullets striking Kennedy and Connally all came from the sniper's nest. Well, as we shall see, Canning not only moved the wounds so that the bullet trajectories would point back to the sniper's nest, he actually re-imagined the positions of Kennedy, so that, in the findings of his committee, Kennedy was leaning further forward when shot in the back than when shot in the head at frame 313 of the Zapruder film. This was the height of lunacy, and marked him as a high priest of voodoo science. Klein then cited the ballistics evidence, and noted that "it was determined that the bullet found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital had been fired from the rifle recovered from the depository." Well, maybe so, but not by his committee. The HSCA's ballistics experts claimed the assassination rifle had been fired too many times, and that bullets fired down its barrel no longer matched the stretcher bullet. Klein then referenced the findings of Vincent Guinn, and specifically his claim that the bullet fragment found in Connally's wrist came from the stretcher bullet. Well, as we've seen, the scientific community has since rejected Guinn's conclusions, and Klein's boss Robert Blakey has taken to calling Guinn's methodology "junk science".

The single-bullet theory trajectory just plain ole doesn't work.

But you don't have to trust me on this. You can measure this yourself.