Reclaiming History

by Vincent Bugliosi

  Indeed, the very fact that the Warren Commission, by its noncategorical language (“very persuasive evidence”), did not unequivocally rule out the possibility that Kennedy and Connally were struck by separate bullets (in effect, not ruling out the possibility of a conspiracy) is itself extremely powerful evidence that not only didn’t the Commission, or any portion thereof, set out to suppress the truth from the American people, but that its conclusion of no evidence of a conspiracy was not, as conspiracy theorists believe, a predetermined conclusion.

  Although the HSCA, with more sophisticated technology at its disposal fifteen years later, and employing more experts to reach its determination, had little difficulty concluding that Kennedy and Connally were, indeed, struck by the same bullet,28 the almost universal position of the conspiracy community is that the Warren Commission’s single-bullet theory has “no basis in fact”29 and was invented by the Warren Commission out of thin air. Actually, the single-bullet theory was only arrived at by the Warren Commission after a very comprehensive examination of all the evidence, including the Zapruder film. But at the start of the investigation, the FBI at first thought that three separate bullets caused the wounds to Kennedy and Connally. “Three shots rang out. Two bullets struck President Kennedy, and one wounded Governor Connally,” the FBI wrote in its first preliminary report on the assassination on December 9, 1963.30 FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover would later say that this error was based on oral comments made by the autopsy surgeons on the night of the autopsy (and picked up by the two FBI agents in attendance) that the bullet which struck Kennedy in the back had not passed through his body, a conclusion they reached because they couldn’t find the exit wound. Although we’ve seen that the chief autopsy surgeon, Dr. James Humes, found out the following morning where the probable wound of exit was and incorporated this into the final autopsy report, the FBI and the Warren Commission did not get a copy of the autopsy report from the Secret Service until December 23, 1963, two weeks after the first FBI report on the assassination.31

  As I said at the beginning of this chapter, an examination of the Zapruder film to determine the timing and number of shots, and in particular, whether or not the bullet that hit Kennedy also went on to strike Connally, is mostly academic. We can have all the confidence in the world, by an examination of the physical evidence and the utilization of common sense, that it did do so. When you can establish the single-bullet theory by reference to evidence other than the film, you necessarily know that the film itself cannot, by definition, show something else. Therefore, anything in the film that is perceived to contravene the single-bullet theory is either a misinterpretation by the viewer or explainable in some other way. One could say, Wait a minute. Are you saying that even if it’s very clear from the film that Kennedy and Connally were hit by separate bullets, we should ignore this fact? That the film can never count? No, I am not saying that at all. If, indeed, the film showed Kennedy and Connally being hit by separate bullets, then the film evidence would be powerful and persuasive. But since we know Kennedy and Connally were not hit by separate bullets, we know, before we even look at the film, that it cannot show otherwise. That the best that conspiracy theorists can possibly hope for in the film is confusion and ambiguity, not clear, visual evidence that Kennedy and Connally were hit by separate shots.

  Let me give a different example of the point I’m making here. If, indeed, you can prove beyond all doubt that Oswald killed Kennedy, then you thereby know, by definition, that even if someone else confesses to the murder, he is either lying or crazy. An extension of this logic answers the contention made by conspiracy theorists that with every single point they make, the anti-conspiracy theorists claim they have a good answer. How can that be, they ask? The reason it can be is that all of the evidence proves Oswald’s guilt and there is no credible evidence of a conspiracy. If, for the sake of argument, we accept these two propositions as realities, then naturally there necessarily and automatically are answers that satisfactorily explain away all contrary inferences and allegations, irrespective of how many allegations there are. Likewise, again by definition, if we were to accept the opposite proposition, that Oswald is innocent and there is credible evidence of a conspiracy, there could not be satisfactory answers to all adverse allegations.

  So, what evidence is there, unrelated to the Zapruder film, that only three shots, not four (or more), were fired on the day of the assassination, and hence, the single-bullet theory is more than a theory, it’s a reality? I can think of five reasons, based on evidence and logic, that are conclusive and overwhelming:

  1. Perhaps the biggest argument the anti–single-bullet-theory advocates make is that the alignment of Kennedy’s and Connally’s bodies to each other was such that any bullet passing through Kennedy would have had to make a right turn in midair to go on and hit John Connally—thus, the “magic bullet” of conspiracy lore. As conspiracy author Robert Anson puts it, “After CE 399 emerged from the President’s throat, evidently it stopped in midair, made a ninety degree [right] hand turn, traveled on a few inches, stopped again, made a ninety degree [left] hand turn, and then plunged into Governor Connally’s body.”32 But actually, the alignment of Kennedy’s and Connally’s bodies to each other is, all by itself, virtually conclusive evidence in support of the single-bullet theory.

  In a gross and brazen misrepresentation of the facts, sketches in conspiracy books and literature have consistently and falsely placed Connally seated directly in front of Kennedy in the presidential limousine. In fact, Connally’s jump seat not only was situated a half foot inside and to the left of the right door, but also was three inches lower than the backseat33—placing him to the left and below Kennedy’s position on the extreme right side of the limousine’s backseat. (See photo section.)34 The HSCA said, “A photogrammatic analysis of several pairs of pictures taken from the Zapruder movie” and viewed through a “stereoscopic viewer…clearly showed that Kennedy was seated close to the right-hand, inside surface of the car, with his arm resting atop the side of the car and his elbow extending…beyond the body of the car. Connally, on the other hand, was seated well within the car on the jump seat.”35 Moreover, at the moment Kennedy was hit with the bullet to his back, Connally’s body was turned to his right, causing their bodies to be aligned in such a way that a bullet traveling on a downward trajectory, entering the upper right part of the president’s back, passing through soft tissue in a straight line, and exiting his throat (which the Warren Commission and HSCA found), had to go on and hit the governor in the upper right part of his back. As Warren Commission assistant counsel Norman Redlich testified before the HSCA, the bullet that entered the president’s back and emerged through the front of his throat “had nowhere else to go other than to hit Governor Connally.”36 But conspiracy theorists have avoided all this by simply placing Connally directly in front of the president, as the chief proponent of this false alignment, Robert Groden, does in a sketch that appears in a book he wrote with Harrison Livingstone, High Treason. (Note that in addition to Connally being seated directly in front of Kennedy as opposed to Kennedy’s left front, Groden also doesn’t show Connally’s body turned to the right, as it was at the moment he was struck.)37

  I encountered this misrepresentation on the alignment of Kennedy’s and Connally’s bodies to each other at the trial in London. On direct examination, Gerry Spence had Dr. Cyril Wecht testify about a schematic illustration introduced as a defense exhibit and supposedly based on the Zapruder film. It was the Groden sketch.* Wecht testified, “The Zapruder film, which I have seen countless times, shows that the two men were seated in essentially a straight line, the governor directly in front of the president.” (On cross-examination, I introduced an illustration based on a photograph taken by Dealey Plaza spectator Hugh Betzner38 showing Connally not directly in front of Kennedy, as Wecht asserted, but to the president’s left, and his body, as opposed to the president’s, being turned fairly sharply to the right.) Using the Groden sketch, Spence asked W
echt to tell the jury what the bullet that struck Kennedy in the back would have had to do to hit Connally. Answer: “When it [the bullet] exited from the front of the president’s throat, it would have continued in a straight line. There’s simply no way possible for that bullet to have entered Governor Connally’s posterior right axillary area, which is a fancy way for saying behind the right armpit. If it hit him behind the right armpit, it would have had to come out of the president’s neck and in some way veered back to the right and then stopped and turned around and started once again in a path towards the left. Bullets do not react that way, not even in comic books.”39

  On cross-examination I explored what happened to the bullet after it exited Kennedy’s throat.

  “Now, Doctor, if the bullet was coming on a downward path as it entered the presidential limousine, as you say it was, is that correct?”

  Answer: “Yes.”

  Question: “And it missed Governor Connally, is that correct?”

  Answer: “Yes.”

  Question: “Why didn’t it hit the driver of the car or do any damage to the car?”

  Answer: “Mr. Bugliosi, you are conveniently ignoring the fact that Elm Street is on a downward path which progresses in a more downward fashion as it goes away from the Texas [Book Depository] Building; and therefore, as the car is going downward and the bullet is going downward, then the declination, the angle downward of the car more than compensates for the slight downward angle of the bullet.”

  Question: “Oh, but Doctor, please, the degree of declination of Elm Street is 3 degrees,* and certainly the bullet [coming] from the second floor [where Wecht had speculated the assassin was] would have been 3 degrees higher on a horizontal plane than the presidential limousine.”

  Answer: “Not considerably higher.”

  When I asked Wecht once again why that bullet, after entering Kennedy’s body, did not go on to hit anyone inside the presidential limousine or cause any damage to the interior of the limousine, he responded, “What happened?…Where is it? You’re asking me to be responsible for the bullets in this case.”

  Question: “I’m asking you what happened to the…bullet.”†

  Answer: “I can’t tell you where all the bullets are. I didn’t conduct the investigation.”

  After I firmed up that he agreed the bullet passed through soft tissue on a “straight line through the President’s body,” yet he believed it did not hit Governor Connally, I derisively accepted the defense’s notion of the prosecution’s magic bullet by saying, “Doctor, the prosecution has its own magic bullet, and frankly, we’re jealous of it…Now you’ve got your magic bullet, a bullet that is coming on a downward path into the presidential limousine, 2,000 feet a second, passes through President Kennedy’s body…and it misses the driver and it misses the car. It must have zigzagged to the left?”

  Answer: “No. It need not have zigzagged to the left.”

  Question: “Did it broadjump over the car?”

  Answer: “No…It need not have performed any remarkable feats.”

  Question: “But you don’t know what happened to it?”

  Answer: “No, I do not. There is a lot of things I don’t know about what happened to it in this case.”40

  If we’re to believe Dr. Wecht and his fellow conspirators on this matter, after the bullet passed through Kennedy’s body, it apparently vanished without a trace.

  To further illustrate how untenable Dr. Wecht’s position was, I proceeded to underline in the jury’s mind how vulnerable he was in being the only one of nine pathologists on the HSCA medical panel to reject the single-bullet theory. I drew his attention to his testimony before the committee that his conclusion, as opposed to that of the other eight, was so obviously correct that it “is not in the realm of interpretative or speculative or conjectural opinion, but is related to things which I truly believe do not even require the expertise of a forensic pathologist to see and interpret.”41

  Question: “Well, Doctor,” I then asked, “it seems to me that you’re saying that if the other eight pathologists disagreed with you, and they did, is that correct?”

  Answer: “Yes.”

  Question: “It seems to me, Doctor, that by necessary implication they are either hopelessly and utterly incompetent—if you say it’s so obvious anyone can see it, [you] don’t even have to be a doctor—or they deliberately suppressed the truth from the American people.”

  Answer: “That is up to other people to determine.”

  Question: “No, I’m asking, is there any other alternative to these two?”

  Answer: “Yes, there is a third alternative, which would be a hybrid to some extent to the deliberate suppression, sir. To some extent, a subconscious desire not to injure or aggrieve the government [to] whom they look for various research grants and appointments and lectureships at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, and a variety of reasons.”

  When I asked Wecht whether it wasn’t true that these other doctors were “of good reputation and standing?” he responded, “You bring them here, sir, and present them to the jury. I can only present my testimony, show the pictures for his Honor and the jury. You bring the other eight in and let them present their views.” (I did have one in London, Dr. Petty.)

  Raising my voice considerably in irritation and disbelief, I said, “So of the nine pathologists, Dr. Wecht, you’re the only one who had the honor and the integrity and the professional responsibility to tell the truth to the American people. Is that correct, Doctor?”

  Dr. Wecht shouted back, “I’d prefer to put it this way. [I’m the only one] who had the courage to say that the king was nude and had no clothes on. Yes. That’s correct.”42 Wecht had given me the answer that I was hoping to elicit from him in my line of questioning, and I was confident that his final words weren’t helpful to him in the eyes of the jury.

  If, as the conspiracy theorists allege, the bullet that exited the president’s throat did not go on to hit Connally, it would have inevitably gone on to hit the driver or caused some significant penetrating damage to the interior of the car. Yet no such damage was found when the limousine was examined by Secret Service and FBI agents at the White House garage on the evening of the assassination. So to accept the proposition that the bullet that hit Connally didn’t first hit Kennedy, you’d necessarily have to accept the further proposition that once the Kennedy bullet passed through his body, it literally, as I’ve said, vanished into thin air. When Robert Frazier of the Firearms Identification Unit of the FBI was asked by Warren Commission counsel what effect a whole bullet exiting Kennedy’s throat and not hitting Connally “would have had on any…portion of the automobile which it might have struck in the continuation of its flight,” Frazier answered, “In my opinion it would have penetrated any…metal surface and, of course, any upholstery surface.”

  Question: “Was there any evidence in any portion of the car that the automobile was struck by a bullet which exited from the president’s neck under the circumstances which I have just asked you to assume?”

  Answer: “No, sir, there was not.”

  Question: “And had there been any such evidence would your examination of the automobile have uncovered such an indication or such evidence?”

  Answer: “Yes, sir, I feel that it would have.”43

  Since the bullet, after exiting Kennedy’s throat on a downward trajectory, never struck the interior of the car, it must have struck someone in the car. And other than Kennedy, only Connally was hit by a bullet. This simple logic cannot be controverted. And the Warren Commission’s most vocal proponent of the “single-bullet theory,”* Arlen Specter, told Life magazine in a 1966 interview, “Where, if it [the bullet that hit Kennedy in the back and exited his throat] didn’t hit Connally, did that bullet go? This is the single most compelling reason why I concluded that one bullet hit both men.”44 In other words, since we know that the bullet exiting Kennedy’s throat did not go on and hit the interior of the car, or Mrs. Kennedy, or Mrs. Connall
y, or either of the two Secret Service agents in the front seat, the only remaining place it could have possibly gone was into Connally’s body.

  To this very day, Arlen Specter (now a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania) has been the recipient of endless vitriol and condemnation by conspiracy theorists. The story of one of them is instructive. Andrew Purdy, the law student at the University of Virginia who brought conspiracy theorist Robert Groden to speak at his school in 1976, told me, “Groden told us the single-bullet theory was a complete fraud perpetrated by Arlen Specter, and most of us bought what Groden said hook, line, and sinker. I was convinced Specter was a liar and could never pass a polygraph test. In fact, I became the head of a group of around a hundred law students who lobbied Congress, by letters and actually knocking on their doors, to reopen the investigation [of the assassination].” When Congress, by its House Select Committee on Assassinations, did so in 1977, Purdy got a plum assignment as one of the leading assistant counsels to the committee, ready to expose the fraud and get the truth out. “But amazingly and astonishingly,” he said, “when I closely looked at and examined all the evidence, I came around full circle. I am now certain the single-bullet theory is correct. And if I ever see Arlen Specter, I will apologize to him.”45