Witness to JFK assassination casts doubt on ‘magic bullet’ concept

A former Secret Service agent who was metres away from John F Kennedy when the previous president was assassinated in Dallas in 1963 has spoken out to solid contemporary on the official findings.

Paul Landis, 88, who had been assigned to guard first woman Jackie Kennedy, challenged the Warren Fee’s findings {that a} “magic bullet” had struck and exited the president earlier than hitting then-Texas governor John Connally Jr.

Mr Landis informed the New York Occasions he recalled listening to a number of pictures ring out in Dealy Plaza as he walked simply behind the president’s limousine, and noticed the president stoop ahead after being struck within the head.

He informed the Occasions he was so shut that he needed to duck right down to keep away from being coated within the president’s mind tissue.

Mr Landis mentioned that within the chaotic moments after the assassination, he picked up a near-pristine bullet from the again seat of the limo, simply behind the place Kennedy had been sitting.

In accordance with the retired agent, he took the bullet to the hospital the place Kennedy could be declared useless and positioned it on the president’s stretcher in order that it might be examined.

The bullet was lengthy believed to have been discovered on Connally’s stretcher. Investigators claimed it handed by Kennedy’s throat, after which by some means hit the previous governor’s proper shoulder earlier than inflicting wounds to his again, chest, wrist and thigh.

It turned often called the “single bullet” or “magic bullet” concept, and was relied on by the Warren Fee as proof that Lee Harvey Oswald had carried out the assassination alone.

Mr Landis informed the Occasions he believes the bullet could have fallen from the president’s stretcher onto Connally’s after they had been side-by-side within the hospital.

“There was no person there to safe the scene, and that was a giant, large trouble to me,” Mr Landis informed the Occasions. “All of the brokers that had been there have been centered on the president.”

The Warren Fee dismissed the likelihood that the bullet got here from Kennedy’s stretcher.

Mr Landis mentioned he instantly realised the importance of the bullet, and had needed to protect it for forensic evaluation. He theorised that the bullet had popped out from a shallow wound within the president’s again, because of its pristine situation.

Mr Landis was not interviewed by the Warren Fee, and has by no means disclosed his account earlier than. His written statements instantly after the assassination failed to say the invention of the bullet.

Mr Landis, who spoke to the Occasions forward of the discharge of his memoir The Remaining Witness subsequent month, mentioned he now questioned whether or not the one shooter concept was correct after lengthy believing Oswald acted alone.

“At this level, I’m starting to doubt myself,” he mentioned. “Now I start to marvel.” 

The intact bullet was matched to Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle by ballistics testing.

If correct, Mr Landis’ claims imply that the bullet couldn’t have triggered Connally’s accidents, which have lengthy been a supply of doubt for eager observers of the assassination.

Historian James Robenalt, who labored on Mr Landis’s memoir, mentioned the previous agent’s account raised the prospect of there being multiple shooter.

“If the bullet we all know because the magic or pristine bullet stopped in President Kennedy’s again, it signifies that the central thesis of the Warren Report, the single-bullet concept, is fallacious.”

Movie shot on the day confirmed Kennedy and Connally bodily react to being shot roughly one second aside.

Investigators estimated it could have taken Oswald 2.3 seconds to reload the bolt motion rifle, goal and hearth once more.

In an essay for Self-importance Honest, Mr Robenalt wrote that if the “pristine” bullet didn’t journey by each males, then Connally might need been hit by a separate shot from “above and to the rear”.

“The FBI recreation means that Oswald wouldn’t have had sufficient time to get off two separate pictures so shortly as to hit Connally after wounding the president within the again.”

Mr Landis, who was simply 28 on the time of the assassination, mentioned he was traumatised by witnessing the killing and left the Secret Service quickly afterwards.

He claimed he had been unaware that the findings of the Warren Fee differed markedly from his account till studying the ebook Six Seconds In Dallas in 2014.

“There’s no purpose at this level. I simply assume it had been lengthy sufficient that I wanted to inform my story,” Mr Landis informed the Occasions.