The First Shot
Although the HSCA concluded that the first shot was fired around Zapruder frame 160,65 and there is overwhelming evidence to support this, the Warren Commission did not conclude that a shot was fired around frame 160, though it did not rule it out either.66 As everyone who has studied the assassination knows, from the sniper’s perch at the southeasternmost window on the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building, there is an oak tree that obscured the sniper’s view of the presidential limousine on Elm Street starting at frame 166 and continuing on to frame 210. The exception is an eighteenth-of-a-second interval at Z186.67 The Warren Commission acknowledged that the first shot may have been fired before the oak tree when it said, “If the first shot missed, the assassin perhaps missed in an effort to fire a hurried shot before the president passed under the oak tree.”68 But the Commission also cited the fact that some eyewitnesses believed that the first shot the assassin fired hit the president, and it may have been around Z210. Indeed, the Commission seemed confident that Kennedy didn’t manifest any reaction to being shot until around Zapruder frame 225. So if a shot were fired around Z160, it must have missed, and the Commission showed its slight preference for the position that no shot was fired around Z160 when it said, “The greatest cause for doubt” that a shot was fired before the oak tree(i.e., before Z166) “is the improbability that the same marksman who twice hit a moving target would be so inaccurate on the first and closest of his shots as to miss completely, not only the target but the large automobile.”69
However, there can hardly be any serious doubt, despite the Commission’s reservation, that the first shot was fired around Z160 and missed the limousine. First of all, many witnesses said the first shot was fired just after the limousine had completed its turn from Houston onto Elm, which would be before the oak tree at frame 166. A sampling: Governor John Connally testified before the Warren Commission, “We had just made the turn…when I heard…this noise which I immediately took to be a rifle shot. I instinctively turned to my right because the sound appeared to come from over my right shoulder…at an elevation. The only thought that crossed my mind was that this is an assassination attempt.”70 Vice President Lyndon Johnson’s wife said, “We were rounding a curve…and suddenly there was a shot…from the right, above my shoulder, from a building.”71 Secret Service agent Paul E. Landis, on the right running board of the car immediately following the president’s car: “The president’s car and the follow-up car had just completed their turns and were both straightening out. At this moment I heard what sounded like the report of a high-powered rifle from behind, over my right shoulder.”72 Barbara Rowland, standing with her husband on the west side of Houston Street midway between Elm and Main Streets, testified that “as they turned the corner we heard a shot.”73 Presidential aide Kenneth O’Donnell, in the Secret Service car right behind the presidential limousine, testified that the president’s car was “just about [through] turning [and had started] to step up the speed a little bit” when the first shot rang out “from the right rear.” He said that “the agents [in his car] all turned to the rear.”74 Geneva Hine, watching from a window on the second floor of the Book Depository Building, testified the presidential limousine had just “turned the corner” when she heard the shot.75 Many other witnesses gave essentially the same testimony.
Second, although the indication is that the Warren Commission never focused too much on the earliest frames (Z133–170) of the president’s limousine on Elm Street, taken as the car was straightening out after its turn,* the HSCA, with a larger staff of scientific experts, did closely examine this section of the Zapruder film. The committee concluded that “the first shot…occurred at approximately frame 160,” noting, among other things, that this was “consistent with the testimony of Governor Connally, who stated that he heard the first shot and began to turn in response to it. His reactions, as shown in Z162–167, reflect the start of a rapid head movement from left to right.”76*
As we just saw, the Warren Commission testimony of many witnesses strongly supports the conclusion that the first shot was fired as the president’s limousine was completing its turn onto Elm Street. One other witness, Bonnie Ray Williams, pinpointed the moment further. Viewing the motorcade from a fifth-floor window immediately below the sniper’s nest window, Williams testified, “After the president’s car had passed my window, the last thing I remember seeing him do…was he pushed his hand up like this. I assumed he was brushing his hair back. And then the thing that happened then was a loud shot.”77 We can see Kennedy brushing his hair back (just as Williams describes) between Z133 and Z143. One second later (Z162), Governor Connally begins to react.† Clearly, then, the first shot is fired between Z143 and Z160, just before the limousine passes under the branches of the oak tree shading Elm Street.
Many have questioned how Oswald could possibly have missed the president on the first shot, when Kennedy was closest to him, especially since his next two shots were hits. As the Warren Commission put it, “The greatest cause for doubt that the first shot missed is the improbability that the same marksman who twice hit a moving target would be so inaccurate on the first and closest of his shots as to miss completely, not only the target, but the large automobile.”78 The reason typically given for Oswald missing Kennedy and the car on his first shot is that it was the first shot he was firing at the president of the United States that day, and like any actor first walking on stage (only multiplied a hundredfold) his nervousness affected his shooting. While this may be true, it is pure conjecture and thus entitled to little, if any, weight. What is not conjecture is that he fired around frame 160, and since the oak tree started to obscure his vision of Kennedy at the time of frame 166, only one-third of a second away, he necessarily would have felt very hurried and hence rushed the shot.79
But there is perhaps an even better reason why Oswald missed this first shot. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, it was actually the most difficult shot he fired that day. I’ve been up to the southeasternmost window on the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building, holding an imaginary rifle in my hand, and at shots two and three the movement of the president would be on almost a straight line from the barrel of the rifle. Monty Lutz, the head of the Firearms Unit of the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory and a member of the HSCA’s firearms panel, testified for me at the London trial. Here is an excerpt of my direct examination of Lutz:
Question: “I take it you have been to the Book Depository Building in Dallas?”
Answer: “Right.”
Question: “And from the southeasternmost window on the sixth floor you observed…cars going down Elm Street, is that correct?”
Answer: “Yes.”
Question: [Directing his attention to a diagram of Elm] “Looking at the alignment on Elm Street vis-à-vis a sniper’s position at the sixth-floor window, would the presidential limousine proceeding in a southwesterly direction down Elm Street be proceeding on almost a straight line from the barrel of the rifle?”
Answer: “Yes, it would.”
Question: “This would obviously make it easier for the firer?”
Answer: “Yes, it would.”
Question: “You’re aware that there is an approximate 3-degree slope on Elm Street going down [from the Depository Building]?”
Answer: “Yes.”
Question: “Would this fact in any way make it easier for a sniper in that sixth-floor window to hit a moving target proceeding away from him?”
Answer: “Yes, it would.”
Question: “Why is that?”
Answer: “It would require less movement, or less elevation of the rifle barrel to compensate for the target as it’s moving away from him.”
Question: “Assuming a sniper at the sixth-floor window with the presidential limousine proceeding at a very slow speed, about eleven and a half miles per hour, and with the limousine being almost on a straight line with the barrel of the rifle, coupled with the 3-degree downward slope on Elm—I do
n’t want to put words in your mouth, you answer the question—would the president be almost a stationary target?”
Answer: “Yes, he would.”80
However, between Z143 and Z160 (the time during which the first shot was fired), the president was not a stationary target proceeding on a straight line away from the barrel that Lutz had described. He wasn’t far enough away from Oswald to be such a target, and he was moving from Oswald’s left to his right—that is, he was a moving target.
In my preparation for the trial, Lutz pointed out to me an additional reason why the first shot was the most difficult one for Oswald. The windowsill, and the three boxes stacked next to it, could only be used to stabilize the rifle when the limousine was farther down Elm Street and the barrel could rest on top of them. The steeper angle at the time of the first shot prevented Oswald’s rifle from having the stability it needed. What would that angle be? Though it could not look to the Zapruder film for help, the Warren Commission was able to determine the first point on Elm Street in which a person in the sniper’s nest window could have gotten a shot at the back of the president after the car rounded the corner from Houston onto Elm, and the angle from the window to the car at that point was 40.10 degrees.81 Compare this steep and insecure angle with the 17.43-degree downward angle for the shot that entered the president’s upper back, and the 15.21-degree angle for the subsequent shot to the head.82* But apparently, Oswald couldn’t resist a target so temptingly close.
As we know, the bullet fired by Oswald around Z160, which missed both Kennedy and the presidential limousine, has never been found. What happened to it? We know that if it was fired between Z143 and Z160, it would not have hit any significant twig or branch of the oak tree (from the sniper’s nest only a few leaves and branchlets are visible, at the edges of the tree, around frame 160),83 as some have theorized, since the bullet would have been fired before the limousine disappeared under the branches. And since there’s no evidence the bullet hit the car, the only other possibility is that the bullet hit the pavement or earth and ricocheted elsewhere. Mrs. Donald Baker, a bookkeeper at the Book Depository, was standing in front of the building watching the motorcade. She testified before the Warren Commission that after the limousine drove by (she told the FBI on November 24, 1963, it was “immediately” after the car drove past her)84 and neared “the first sign,”† she “heard a noise and I thought it was firecrackers, because I saw a shot or something hit the pavement…It looked just like you could see the sparks from it.” She told the Commission that the bullet struck the pavement in the middle of the lane that was to the left of the limousine, though she wasn’t sure.
Question: “Where was the thing that you saw hit the street in relation to the president’s car?”
Answer: “I thought it was, well, behind it.”
Question: “You saw this thing hit the street before you heard the second shot, is that correct?”
Answer: “Yes, sir, yes.”
Question: “Are you absolutely sure of that?”
Answer: “I hope I am. I know I am.”85
The probability is that a fragment of the bullet that hit the pavement went on to strike the south curb on Main Street at the base of the Triple Underpass, propelling a bit of the concrete (or a bullet fragment) into the right cheek of James Tague, a motorcade spectator who was standing on the narrow concrete strip or island between Commerce and Main at the east edge of the Triple Underpass. Tague was twelve to fifteen feet west of where the bullet hit the curb and over five hundred feet from the Book Depository Building.86
Assassination researcher Dan Curtis points out that the Tague curb shot does not perfectly line up with any of the three shots from the Texas School Book Depository Building; that is, a line drawn from the sniper’s nest to the point on Elm where the limousine was believed to be at the time of the first shot (Z160), if extended, would not hit the concrete curb near where Tague was. Likewise with the second and third shots, though they are closer to an alignment.87 So Curtis concludes that one of the three shots (he assumes the first, being satisfied that the second and third shots came from the Book Depository Building) must have been fired from a different source, namely, a second-floor window of the Dal-Tex Building where a shot could be hypothesized to line up with the curb shot.88 Of course, Curtis’s analysis presupposes that the first shot was not deflected in any way after striking one or more objects, a presupposition that cannot be made.
The Second Shot
To this day, the most controversial segment of the Zapruder film by far is the period corresponding to the second shot (which various assassination researchers put anywhere between Z190 and Z240), which was the first shot that hit the president and, according to the Warren Commission’s single-bullet theory, Governor Connally. Part of the reason why questions still linger about this second shot is the fact that during this crucial segment Zapruder’s view of Kennedy and Connally is momentarily blocked* by a traffic sign—the Stemmons Freeway sign—located on the north side of Elm Street. Although the interruption lasts only approximately one second, the sign, along with the subjective nature of film interpretation (as discussed earlier), has led many down a road mired in frustration as they try to pinpoint the exact moment that both men were hit. Consequently, every attempt to explain what the Zapruder film shows (including the efforts of two separate government investigations) usually results in slightly different conclusions. Because an analysis of this area of the Zapruder film is very complex, I’ll be taking some time to examine the key issues. In my defense, readers should know that the thicket I will try to navigate them through is not avoidable.
The first official investigative body to take a crack at determining the precise moment of the second shot based on the Zapruder film was, of course, the Warren Commission. In 1964, Lyndal Shaneyfelt, the FBI’s photographic expert, testified to the Commission that right up to around Z205, when Zapruder’s view of the president is blocked by the freeway sign, “it is obvious he [Kennedy] is smiling, you can actually see a happy expression on his face…and his hand is in a wave.”89 Shaneyfelt said that as the president fully emerges from behind the Stemmons Freeway sign at Z225, “his right hand that was waving [just a little over a second earlier, in the frames before Z205]…has been brought down as though it were reaching for his lapel or throat…His left hand is…rather high, as though it were coming up, and he is beginning to go into a hunched position.”90 Shaneyfelt testified that frame 225 is the first frame on the Zapruder film that reveals the president responding to a severe external stimulus, though the reaction, he said, is “barely discernible” at frame 225, but “clearly apparent in 226.”91
Because of photographs taken by the FBI during its on-site reenactment on May 24, 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that it was “probable that the president was not shot before Z210,” since with the exception of the fleeting instant at Z186 when the president appeared in an opening among the leaves of the oak tree,† Z210 was the first time (from the moment the limousine disappeared under the oak tree at Z166) that an assassin at the sixth-floor window would have had a clear shot at the president* “It is unlikely,” the Commission said, “that the assassin would deliberately have shot at [Kennedy] with a view obstructed by the oak tree when he was about to have a clear opportunity.” Consequently, the Commission concluded that “the President was not hit until at least frame 210 and that he was probably hit by frame 225.”92 This conclusion, of course, was only the first of many opinions as to when the president was first hit by the bullets fired in Dealey Plaza.
Unlike the Warren Commission, which saw no reaction in Kennedy until after he emerged from the Stemmons Freeway sign, the 1978 House Select Committee on Assassinations, in this necessarily imprecise and subjective endeavor, concluded that Kennedy was first struck by a bullet at Z190 and exhibited signs of being hit before he disappeared behind the Stemmons sign. The HSCA’s photographic panel concluded that “at approximately frame 200 [ten frames, or just over a half second after
being hit] Kennedy’s movements suddenly freeze; his right hand abruptly stops† in the midst of a waving motion and his head moves rapidly from [his] 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 Z207 he is evidencing some kind of reaction to severe, external stimulus. By the time he re-emerges from behind the sign at Z225, the President makes a clutching motion with his hands toward his neck, indicating clearly that he’s been shot.”93
The very awkward and unusual position of Kennedy’s arms during the sequence Z226–236 (see photo section) is perhaps the most persuasive evidence that Kennedy has been hit by Z225. Both elbows eventually become flexed and raised to a point above the shoulders, his right and left forearms are pulled inward, and his hands become clenched—the right in front of his mouth, the left just below his chin. Oddly, though both the Warren Commission and the HSCA concluded that Kennedy’s movements at Z225–226 indicate he had been shot, each failed to comment on the very unusual position of his hands and arms, describing them as if they were in a completely pedestrian position. The Warren Commission said that at Z226 the president had raised “his hands to his throat,”94 while the HSCA said the president “leans forward and clutches his throat.”95 In fact, the president’s hands are not “clutching” or even touching his throat.
Could the bullet’s passage close to the president’s spine96 have caused enough trauma to the nerves in that area to result in Kennedy’s odd raised-elbow posture? The answer seems to be yes, and, if true, it likely would have caused an instantaneous reaction. The HSCA’s forensic pathology panel noted that as a bullet passes through tissue, considerable radial motion is imparted to the surrounding area, creating a large temporary cavity. The panel agreed that this kind of tissue disruption “might have produced fractures of the transverse processes of one or several of the lower cervical and/or upper thoracic vertebrae in President Kennedy’s neck, as indicated by the post-mortem X-rays.” The muscles attached to this vertebra would have received a “tremendous shock, even if several inches distant from such a missile.”97 In addition to the muscle masses present, the neck region contains nerve bundles that control both arm muscles. These nerves would also be affected by any tissue disruption. The resulting effect would be immediate—like flipping a light switch. Dr. Baden testified, “If a nerve is injured, this would produce a quicker response than if a nerve weren’t injured. That is why, if the bullet injured the president’s spinal nerves in the neck area, which is rich with nerves, a reflex, rapid reaction might ensue.”98
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