Dealey Plaza: A Scenario by Dave Reitzes

At 12:00 noon on November 22, 1963, Texas School Book Depository worker
Eddie Piper met Lee Harvey Oswald on the first floor of the Book
Depository. Oswald told him he was on his way to eat lunch (1). Between
12:15 and 12:25 pm, Mrs. Carolyn Arnold, who worked at the Depository and
knew Oswald, saw him near the first floor lunchroom. Mrs. Arnold was not
called to testify before the Warren Commission (2).

When asked by the Dallas Police where he was at 12:30 that day, Oswald
told them he was eating his lunch in the first floor lunchroom (3). He
accurately named a number of co-workers who'd passed through the room on
their way to view the motorcade, which was due in Dealey Plaza at 12:20
or 12:25 (4). The President was scheduled to arrive at the nearby Trade
Mart at 12:30 (5).


The Men on the Sixth Floor

At 12:15 pm, Arnold and Barbara Rowland, two teenage newlyweds, were
standing across the street from the Texas School Book Depository awaiting
the motorcade. He was certain of the time because "12:15" was displayed
on the large Hertz sign on top of the Book Depository. He nudged his wife
and asked her if she wanted to see a Secret Service agent. He pointed to
the westernmost (far left) window on the sixth floor of the Book
Depository, where a dark-haired man in an open-necked, plain white shirt
was staring at the street; the man was holding a rifle with a large
telescopic sight. Barbara Rowland turned to look but was distracted; by
the time she looked back the man was gone (6).

The man with the rifle was standing at "port arms" or "parade rest," with
the rifle held at a forty-five degree angle pointed downward across his
body. He appeared "tall and slender in build in proportion with his
width," maybe 140 or 150 lbs. Rowland noted his somewhat dark complexion,
and said he could have been either Caucasian or "light Latin," possibly
in his thirties. He had dark hair, closely cut, and wore a very
light-colored shirt with an open collar, and a white T-shirt underneath.
He stood a short distance back from the window. The rifle appeared to be
a "fairly high-powered rifle," possibly a ".30 size six rifle" (7).

Rowland noted that the man seemed to have a partner, an elderly black man
who was standing in the easternmost (far right) window (the alleged
"Oswald" window); the second man did not have a rifle. At one point he
noticed the men "walking back and forth." Later Arnold Rowland would be
shown photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald; he wouldn't be able to identify
him as either one of the men he saw (8).

The Warren Commission was quite surprised at Rowland's revelation of two
men on the sixth floor, as his FBI report mentioned only the first man;
and the Commission apparently didn't care for surprises. Rowland insisted
that he'd told the interviewing agents about the second man, and they'd
told him, in effect, to forget it (9). The Commission went to great
lengths to discredit the witness, even calling his wife to testify, so
she could answer questions about whether her husband ever exaggerated his
grades or accomplishments (10).

Some have speculated that Rowland might have seen Harold Norman and
"Junior" Jarman, two black TSBD employees who were preparing to watch the
motorcade from the easternmost fifth floor window. (They would be joined
by a third black man, Bonnie Ray Williams, at about 12:20.) Carefully
study of Rowland's testimony proves otherwise. In addition to the man in
the west window with the rifle and the man in the east sixth floor
window, Rowland also notes that when the shooting started, "at that time
he noticed there were several people hanging out of windows" (11).

A photograph taken by Tom Dillard (12) shows Norman and Jarman in the
fifth floor window just after the shots were fired, and Bonnie Ray
Williams was one window over to the west (left). These are undoubtedly
the "several people hanging out of windows" Rowland noted, directly below
the window with Rowland's second man (13). In his FBI report of November
22, 1963, Rowland specified that he was talking about the "window of the
second floor from the top" (14). This is the sixth floor.

The Warren Commission, in dismissing Rowland's statements, disregarded
Deputy Sheriff Roger D. Craig's testimony that specifically affirmed
Rowland's: "I talked to a young couple and the boy said he saw two men on
the . . . sixth floor of the Book Depository building over there; one of
them had a rifle with the [a] telescopic sight on it -- but he thought
they were Secret Service agents on guard and didn't report it. This was
about . . . he said, 15 minutes before the motorcade ever arrived" (15).
Craig said he remembered the boy's name was Arnold Rowland, and that his
wife had not seen either man, but her husband had tried to point the
Secret Service agent out to her. Craig added that the Rowlands reported
these sightings to him before he heard any announcements or broadcasts
placing a gunman in the Book Depository (16).

John Powell was an inmate on the sixth floor of the Dallas County Jail in
Dealey Plaza, across the street to the southwest of the Book Depository,
at 12:30 pm on November 22, 1963. He and a number of other sixth floor
inmates watched two men in the southeast sixth floor TSBD window, one of
whom fired a rifle at President Kennedy. Powell could see the men clearly
enough to notice them "fooling with the scope" on the rifle; one had a
darker complexion than the other. Until the shooting began, Powell was
under the impression that the men were security guards. Powell's story
was available to the Warren Commission, as was his statement that a
number of other inmates could confirm it. Neither Powell nor anyone else
from the Dallas County Jail was called to testify before the Warren
Commission (17).

In an FBI interview of December 5, 1963, Mrs. Ruby Henderson said that at
the time of the motorcade, she was standing on the east side of Elm
Street "just north of Houston Street." A man named Jerry Belknap had
apparently had an epileptic seizure in front of the Book Depository
building and was taken away by an ambulance; this occurred around 12:15
to 12:20. Immediately following this incident, Mrs. Henderson looked up
at the Book Depository and noticed two men in one of the eastern windows
on an upper floor. One of them had a dark complexion, and she guessed
that he was either a Mexican or a black man; he was wearing a white
shirt. The other man was taller and wore a darker shirt. She didn't
notice anyone else in any windows (18). Mrs. Henderson was not called as
a witness before the Warren Commission.

Mrs. Carolyn Walther also told the FBI she saw two men on the sixth floor
of the Book Depository immediately after the ambulance had left with the
epileptic. She was standing on the east side of Houston Street about
fifty or sixty feet south of Elm. A man with blond or light brown hair
and a white shirt was holding a rifle, the barrel pointing downward. He
was looking straight down at Houston Street. The man had light brown or
blond hair and wore a white shirt. Mrs. Walther said the rifle had a
short barrel, and she thought it may have been a machine gun. A second
man wearing a brown suit coat could be seen in the same window, but his
face was concealed by the window ledge. Just as she noticed these men,
the first cars of the motorcade were rounding the corner of Main and
Houston (19). Walther was not called as a witness by the Warren
Commission.

The photograph taken by Tom Dillard around fifteen seconds after the
shooting captured the upper part of the Book Depository's south side.
Photographic researcher Robert Groden has made a series of enlargements
of a number of the building's windows in this picture. He has identified
two men on the sixth floor. One can be indistinctly seen in the
westernmost window (among the farthest windows from the camera); he
appears to be a heavy-set white male with a receding hairline (20). At
the right edge of the easternmost window, from which Oswald is supposed
to have fled immediately following the shooting, we can make out the form
of a man still in the so-called "sniper's nest." His face is not visible
(21).

Ronald B. Fischer and Robert E. Edwards were standing across the street
from the Book Depository. About a minute before the shots, just as the
first cars in the motorcade were rounding the corner of Main and Houston
Streets, Edwards nudged Fischer and pointed out a man in the easternmost
sixth floor window of the building. The man had brown hair, wore a
light-colored shirt with an open neck, and possibly short sleeves (22).
He was staring as if transfixed down Elm Street towards the slope known
as the "grassy knoll" (23). The men remembered him because he was the
only person in sight who seemed uneasy (24).

When the shots began, neither man looked back at the window. Fischer
thought the shots came from the west, in the area of the grassy knoll
(25). Edwards had no idea where the shots came from (26). When shown a
photograph of Oswald, Fischer said he could be the man he saw, but he
wasn't sure (27). Edwards apparently was never asked.

15-year-old Amos Euins saw a man on the sixth floor of the Book
Depository, in the easternmost window, where Oswald is alleged to have
been. He saw the man fire the last shot, and saw him withdraw the rifle.
The rifle had no telescopic sight. Immediately following the
assassination, Euins told an FBI agent and then later a reporter, James
Robert Underwood, that the gunman was a black man with a pronounced bald
spot (28). Euins was standing with an unidentified policeman ("he was
kind of an old policeman") when he heard another witness, a man wearing a
construction worker's helmet, tell the officer he had "seen a man run out
the back." The fleeing man "had some kind of bald spot on his head" (29).
This second witness has never been identified, and the two officers who
spoke with Euins after the assassination, Inspector J. Herbert Sawyer and
Sergeant D. V. Harkness, were never questioned about it.

Robert Hill Jackson was a photographer riding in the motorcade a few cars
behind the President. He heard the shots, and looked up at the Book
Depository roughly three seconds after the last shot. He saw a rifle
being drawn slowly into the window; he couldn't see the person holding it
(30).

Howard Brennan was a construction worker sitting across from the Dallas
County Records office, just around the corner of the Texas School Book
Depository. As the shots were being fired, Brennan said he looked up and
saw a man fitting Oswald's general description, wearing a light-colored
shirt, taking aim for the final shot. At a police line-up he could not
identify Oswald. Before the Warren Commission, he said the man was
Oswald, and said he could have told the police that, but feared possible
retribution against himself or his family (31). He caused the Commission
a bit of heartache, as he was the only witness to place Lee Harvey Oswald
in the southeast sixth floor window with a rifle.

The Commission eventually decided that Brennan's identification of Oswald
could not be relied upon as probative evidence. Wesley J. Liebeler would
later say that the Warren Report's conclusion that it was Oswald at the
window is supported by "the least direct evidence of all, because there
isn't any eyewitness" (32).

James Richard Worrell, Jr., a senior in high school who'd skipped class
to see the President, was standing at the foot of the Book Depository
when he heard the first shot. Looking directly up he saw a few inches of
a rifle sticking out of the sixth floor window, and he saw the rifle
fire. Panicking, he ran around the corner, then stopped to get his
breath. About two minutes later he saw a white man, about 5'10", with
dark hair, wearing a sports coat, run from the back door of the Book
Depository and walk briskly south on Houston Street. He did not see the
man's face (33).

Richard Randolph Carr, a steelworker watching the motorcade from the
seventh floor of the courthouse across the street from the Book
Depository, saw a heavy-set man wearing a hat, a tan sport coat, and
horn-rimmed glasses looking out of a window on an upper floor of the Book
Depository. This is the same man Carolyn Walther saw wearing a brown
sport jacket on the sixth floor of the TSBD. Soon after the
assassination, Carr saw the man hurrying south from the Book Depository
on Houston Street, then east on Commerce, where he got into a Nash
Rambler station wagon with a luggage rack on top and Texas license
plates, parked on the corner of Commerce and Record. A dark-complected
man was waiting for him in the driver's seat of the Rambler. The man in
the brown sports jacket got in the passenger side, and the Rambler headed
north on Houston (34). The FBI interviewed Carr on January 4, 1964. The
Warren Commission did not call him as a witness nor mention him in any of
their published evidence.

Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig was standing on the south side of Elm Street
seeking out witnesses when he heard a sharp whistle from behind him. He
turned to see a white male with dark hair wearing a light-colored,
short-sleeved shirt, run down the incline from behind the Texas School
Book Depository to Elm Street, where a light-colored Nash Rambler station
wagon with a luggage rack on top, driven by a dark-complected man wearing
a white windbreaker-type jacket, had pulled up. Deputy Sheriff Craig
would later identify the man running toward the station wagon as Lee
Harvey Oswald. As this man was the only person who seemed to be in a
hurry to leave the scene, Craig tried to cross the street and hold him,
but traffic was too heavy. The man got into the station wagon, which then
sped off through the triple underpass in the direction of Oak Cliff.
Roger Craig testified before the Warren Commission. When later shown a
copy of his transcript, he noted fourteen instances where he believed
he'd been misquoted. None of his corrections were made, and unlike other
witnesses who signed affidavits noting corrections, Craig's affidavit was
not published in the Warren Commission Hearings volumes. One of the
changes he noted was the alteration of his description of a Nash Rambler
to simply a "station wagon" (35).

Mrs. Helen Forrest was standing among a group of people on the incline
between the TSBD and the area known as the grassy knoll. She saw a man
run down the incline from the rear of the Book Depository and enter a
Nash Rambler station wagon. She later told historian Michael L. Kurtz,
"If it wasn't Oswald, it was his identical twin" (36). Another witness,
James Pennington, saw the exact same thing (37). Due to the mysterious
circumstances perceived to surround the deaths of a number of witnesses,
Pennington told his story only with great reluctance (38).

Marvin C. Robinson had been driving south on Houston at about 12:30 pm,
and had to wait for several minutes at Houston and Elm until the
motorcade had passed. An employee of his at the Garland, Texas, Ling
Temco Vought (LTV) plant, Roy Cooper, was following him in his own car to
Robinson's home in Oak Cliff. Robinson had just made a right turn and was
driving his Cadillac west on Elm Street when a light-colored Nash Rambler
station wagon pulled out in front of him and abruptly stopped in front of
the Texas School Book Depository; Robinson had to slam on his brakes to
avoid hitting it. A young man came down the grassy incline and got into
the vehicle, which sped away under the triple underpass in the direction
of Oak Cliff. Robinson was interviewed by the FBI on November 23, 1963.
He said he would be unable to identify the man he saw. He was not called
to testify before the Warren Commission, is not mentioned in the Warren
Report, and his statement was not published in the Warren Commission
Hearings volumes (39).

Roy Cooper of Euless, Texas, had just turned right on Elm Street and was
driving west directly behind the Cadillac belonging to his supervisor,
Marvin Robinson's. He saw a light-colored Nash Rambler station wagon
which "pulled our real fast in front of the Cadillac driven by his boss,
and his employer had to stop abruptly and nearly hit this Nash Rambler."
He observed a white man between the ages of 20 and 30 come down the
grassy incline, wave at the station wagon, then get in when it pulled up.
He was interviewed by the Dallas FBI on November 23, 1963. "Cooper could
not see who was driving the Nash Rambler and could not furnish any
further description of the man who jumped in the car. They drove off at a
rather fast rate of speed and went down toward the overpass toward Oak
Cliff. . . . He believed that Robinson could give further information
about the Rambler station wagon, also the driver and the rider" (40). Roy
Cooper was not called as a witness by the Warren Commission or the House
Select Committee on Assassinations; his FBI report was classified until
at least 1992. It was discovered at the National Archives II building in
College Park, Maryland by researcher Chris Courtwright in 1996 (41).

A photograph taken by Jim Murray from south of Elm Street shows a man in
a light-colored button or zip-up shirt or jacket headed toward a Nash
Rambler station wagon with a luggage rack in front of the Texas School
Book Depository. Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig, also in the photo, is
pictured looking at either the man or the station wagon. The Hertz sign
on top of the Book Depository shows the time as 12:40 pm. When the photo
is greatly enlarged, the man appears to be young, quite thin, and has
very short, dark hair. The enlargement is far too indistinct to allow any
firm conclusions as to how closely the man resembles Lee Harvey Oswald
(42).

	
Oswald's Alibi

At 12:30 pm, while shots were being fired at the motorcade, Oswald was
finishing his lunch on the first floor, in a lunch room located at the
northwest corner of the building; which is the rear left viewed from Elm
Street. Oswald stepped into the stairway and walked up one flight to the
second floor recreation room, where he purchased a Coke from a vending
machine. He had just turned to walk farther into the room when a police
officer burst into the room and called out to him (43).

Officer Marrion L. Baker was riding one of the motorcade's escort
motorcycles that day. He had just rounded the corner of Main Street onto
Houston and was facing the Book Depository. When the first shot rang out,
his attention was captured by a flock of pigeons which suddenly departed
en masse from the roof of the Depository. His immediate thought was that
a gunman was on the roof of the building. He revved up his motorcycle,
and within ten seconds had parked it in front of the Depository, and was
running towards the rear entrance. As he entered the building he was
joined by Roy S. Truly, the Depository superintendent. He asked Truly if
there was an elevator to the roof. Truly quickly led him to the
elevators, but they were both idle on an upper floor. They took off up
the stairs with Truly leading the way (44). As he reached the third
floor, Truly realized that Baker was no longer with him. He ran down a
flight and found Baker with his gun drawn and pointed at the stomach of
Lee Harvey Oswald, who was holding a bottle of Coke, and staring with
little expression at Baker. "Does this man work here?" Baker asked. Truly
confirmed that he did, and Baker turned and continued up the stairs with
Truly behind him. Approximately one minute had passed since the shots
were fired (45).

The Warren Commission contended that in the time it took Truly and Baker
to reach the second floor, Oswald had withdrawn his rifle from the sixth
floor window; wiped it clean of all fingerprints, including the stock,
barrel, trigger and trigger housing; squeezed out from behind the shield
of cartons he'd allegedly stacked to hide himself from view; run along
the south wall of the building, weaving through the stacks of boxes that
were in great disarray due to work being done laying a new floor that
day; run north along the west wall of the building to the northwest
stairway; carefully concealed the rifle behind several closely stacked
piles of cartons, and tucked into a space underneath two stacks where it
wouldn't be found until about 1:30 pm; then bolted down five flights of
stairs -- where employees Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles were
descending from the fourth to the first floor at the same time, though
neither saw Oswald (46) -- and entered the second floor lunchroom, where
he either bought a Coke or had one waiting for him. All this occurred in
about a minute -- the Warren Commission said about a minute and a
quarter; the HSCA said as little as 42 seconds (47).

How did Oswald appear after this mad dash, when confronted by a policeman
with his pistol drawn?


Mr. TRULY. He didn't seem to be excited or overly afraid or anything. He
might have been a bit startled, like I might have been if somebody
confronted me. But I cannot recall any change in expression of any kind
on his face (48).

Mr. BAKER. I hollered at him . . . and said, 'Come here.' He turned and
walked straight back to me.

Representative BOGGS. Were you suspicious of this man?

Mr. BAKER. No, sir; I wasn't (49).

Representative BOGGS. When you saw him, was he out of breath, did he
appear to have been running or what?

Mr. BAKER. It didn't appear that to me. He appeared normal, you know.

Representative BOGGS. Was he calm and collected?

Mr. BAKER. Yes, sir. He never did say a word or nothing. In fact, he
didn't change his expression one bit (50).


Lee Harvey Oswald did not fire a gun at President Kennedy. Oswald was on
the first floor in the rear of the building, about to walk up to the
second floor and buy a Coke. When Officer Baker withdrew from the second
floor recreation room and ran upstairs, Oswald was a three-second dash
away from the rear exit. He didn't make this dash. He turned around and
walked calmly across the second floor towards the front of the building
(51).

At this exact same time, at least one person was still on the sixth floor
of the Book Depository. Lillian Mooneyham, clerk of the 95th District
Court, told the FBI that "about four and a half to five minutes following
the shots fired by the assassin . . . she looked up towards the sixth
floor of the TSBD and observed the figure of a man standing in the sixth
floor window behind some cardboard boxes. This man appeared to Mrs.
Mooneyham to be looking out the window, however, the man was not close up
to the window but was standing slightly back from it, so that Mrs.
Mooneyham could not make out his features." The Warren Commission buried
the report and did not call Mrs. Mooneyham as a witness (52). Had they
done so, they might have had to acknowledge that SOMEBODY was still
standing in the so-called "Oswald" window even while Oswald was
encountering Officer Marrion Baker and TSBD Superintendent Roy S. Truly
on the second floor.

The House Select Committee, however, acknowledged the issue for reasons
more persuasive than Mrs. Mooneyham's report. After immediately after the
shots were fired, photographer Tom Dillard took a high quality snapshot
of the upper south face of the TSBD building. Approximately thirty
seconds after the shots were fired, a military intelligence named James
Powell snapped an almost identical photograph of the building. (What was
a military intelligence agent in plain clothes doing in Dealey Plaza? Ask
HSCA Chief Counsel Robert Blakey -- he's the one who sealed Powell's
top-secret testimony for fifty years.) By comparing the configuration of
cartons stacked in the window in these photographs to that of others
taken over the next few minutes, the HSCA's photographic panel was forced
to admit that in the two minutes or so following the shots, someone was
rearranging boxes on the sixth floor. Two separate motion pictures taken
in the minutes following the gunfire by Charles Bronson (not the actor!)
and Robert Hughes caught several seconds of distant footage of the sixth
floor of the TSBD. The House Committee's photographic consultant, Robert
Groden, believed the films showed one or perhaps two moving figures on
the sixth floor. The Committee acknowledged that the possibility of human
movement existed in the extremely enlarged, poor quality films but could
not be proven or disproven. The HSCA concluded the movement was a random
artifact of sunlight, shadows, or the film itself; one photographic panel
member, Robert Selzer, dissented, insisting that more tests should be
done (53).

How did the Committee explain Oswald's presence at the end of Officer
Baker's gun on the second floor at the exact same time someone was
putting the finishing touches on the so-called sixth floor "sniper's
nest?" They didn't explain it at all. Any inquiries may be addressed to
G. Robert Blakey, Notre Dame University.

At approximately 12:33 pm, Mrs. Robert Reid had just returned to her desk
on the second floor of the Book Depository. Lee Harvey Oswald walked by
her on his way from the lunch room (54).


Mr. BELIN. Was there anything else you noticed about him? . . . Anything
about his face?

Mrs. REID. No; just calm (55).

Mr. DULLES. Was he moving fast?

Mrs. REID. No; because he was moving at a very slow pace. I never did see
him moving fast at any time (56).

On his way out of the building, Oswald was stopped by reporter Robert
MacNeil, later of the MacNeil-Lehrer Report, who had been photographed a
minute or two before atop the grassy knoll with dozens of others. Now he
was looking for a telephone. Oswald pointed him towards one, and MacNeil
departed from his brief brush with destiny (57). The Warren Commission
decided that Oswald probably left the building at 12:33 pm. Based on the
sightings by Mrs. Reid and Robert MacNeil, it was probably around 12:35
pm. He strolled out the front door, and walked east on Elm, catching an
Oak Cliff-bound bus at around 12:40. The bus was traveling west, and
drove past the Texas School Book Depository on its way to the triple
underpass. His old landlady Mary Bledsoe happened to be on the bus, and
avoided talking to him (58).


Commission


REP. BOGGS. There's nothing in [the FBI's report on the assassination]
about Governor Connally.

CHAIRMAN. No.

SEN. COOPER. And whether or not they found any bullets in him.

MR. MC CLOY. This bullet business leaves me confused.

CHAIRMAN. It's totally inconclusive.

SEN. RUSSELL. They couldn't find where one bullet came out that struck
the President and yet they found a bullet in the stretcher.

MR. MC CLOY. I think you ought to have the autopsy document.

CHAIRMAN. By all means we ought to have the medical reports. We ought
tohave them as part of this document here because they might play a very
important part in it.

MR. MC CLOY. I understand there are two. I may be wrong about this, but
there's a report in Dallas by the surgeons who ttended him there, and
then there was a rather thorough autopsy up at Walter Reed.

REP. FORD. Bethesda.

CHAIRMAN. Yes. So if there is no objection we'll settle for whatever
medical reports there are from the several agencies.

-- Warren Commission Executive Session Transcript of December 16, 1963
(59)



How did the Warren Commission (and the House Select Committee on
Assassinations after it) find Lee Harvey Oswald guilty of the
assassination of President Kennedy? The Warren Report is, of course,
widely available; but for those unfamiliar with its contents, we will
provide a brief summary. A rifle found on the sixth floor of the Texas
School Book Depository was traced to Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago;
it had purchased by mail by an "A. J. Hidell." Oswald allegedly had an
"Alek James Hidell" ID card on his person at the time of his arrest; and
the order form received by Klein's was verified for the Commission as
being in Oswald's handwriting. Furthermore, one bullet (Commission
Exhibit  399) found on a stretcher at Parkland Memorial Hospital the
afternoon of November 22 was ballistically matched to the 6.5 caliber
Mannlicher-Carcano identified as Oswald's, to the exclusion of all other
guns. The Dallas Police declared that there were three spent shells found
near the inside of the southeast sixth floor window where Oswald was
supposed to have fired. Furthermore, study of a home movie taken by
bystander Abraham Zapruder indicated that the span of the three shots
could have been only about six to eight seconds, depending on which
bullets hit which target. The FBI found that it took, at the very
minimum, 2.3 seconds to fire one shot and work the bolt to chamber the
next round; therefore, the Commission was already pressing its luck when
it surmised Oswald could have gotten off three shots in that time span.

The FBI had concluded that Oswald had hit Kennedy with his first bullet,
Connally with the second, and Kennedy (fatally) with the third (60). The
FBI feigned ignorance of two problems: They didn't seem to be aware that
Kennedy had a bullet wound to the front of his neck, and they didn't seem
to be aware that their own agents had interviewed a bystander named James
Tague who'd been standing by the triple underpass -- about 200 feet from
the limousine -- when a bullet or large fragment struck the ground near
him and sent a piece of metal or gravel to strike him on the cheek, where
it drew blood. The Warren Commission acknowledged that this bullet almost
certainly couldn't have been a ricochet from the limousine, some 200 feet
away. (The Report had originally acknowledged it was impossible for this
bullet to have come from the limousine, but had to change the statement
when several of the Commissioners expressed serious doubts that a single
bullet, CE 399, could account for all the non-fatal wounds.)

The Warren Commission examined the Zapruder frames for the very first
time on December 16, 1963. Having only the FBI report to go on, they were
still of the belief that the neck wound came from the front. Here are
their comments:


Mr. MC CLOY. Now, here he's reaching up for his throat.

Rep. BOGGS. But he's looking straight ahead, reaching up for his throat,
that's very significant, I think.

CHAIRMAN. There's another sequence which they did not include and it
shows the burst of blood and things from his head, blown out, they did
not put it inbecause they thought it was too gruesome, and that's the
head shot, which apparently came from the rear. They've got that and you
can blow it up and stop it and do everything, and we can have it whenever
we want it.

Mr. MC CLOY. You see this sign here, someone suggested that this sign has
now been removed. Why I don't know. But from that sign you can get a
pretty good idea where the angle was. That tree gives you a good notion
of where the first bullet hit. Here's the place from which he shot. Now
this thing down here, I don't know what that means, it looks as if that
it where he was shot, but the tree is here, that's the only tree that I
can see.

Rep. FORD. Is it this tree here?

Mr. MC CLOY. That's so small that I can't believe it's that tree. This
tree is a fairly big tree.

Rep. FORD. You're right.

Mr. MC CLOY. Moreover, do you see here, in this perforated wall thing
here, now that must be over here, it's not the same as that, because
that's two and this one here must be along in here.

Rep. FORD. But that person must have taken the shot over here some place?

Mr. MC CLOY. Still I don't see how he could have been hit in the front
from here.

Rep. BOGGS. That's the big question, yes.

Mr. MC CLOY. I inquired about this and they said that nobody was
permitted on the overpass.

Rep. BOGGS. Who says they weren't?

Mr. MC CLOY. Well, they may have been there.

Rep. BOGGS. And nobody was supposed to be in that building.

Mr. MC CLOY. I think we ought to take a look at the grounds and somebody
ought to do it and get the picture of this angle to see if it is humanly
possible for him to have been hit in the front from a shot fired from
that window [in the Texas School Book Depository. Maybe it is (61).


Based on an apparent lack of other bullets recovered from the President's
body or the limousine or elsewhere, the Commission concluded that CE 399
had inflicted all of the non-fatal wounds upon President Kennedy and
Governor John B. Connally. There were seven non-fatal wounds to account
for. The Commission said that one bullet struck Kennedy in the upper back
or neck area; exited through the front of his neck; struck Connally in
the back; transited his torso, shattering several inches of rib; exited
his chest; struck Connally's wrist, shattering the radius; exited the
other side of his wrist; entered his left thigh; and someone made its way
out again, to be found wedged under the mattress on an unidentified
stretcher at Parkland Memorial Hospital, in nearly pristine condition
(i.e., unmutilated by contact with skin, bone, etc.) with no blood or
tissue on its surface.

This "single bullet theory" was necessary when the Commission recognized
that a) Oswald could not have fired more than three shots in the allotted
time span, which happened to coincide with the three spent shells found
in the Book Depository; b) one shot missed the limousine altogether,
striking the road near James Tague, where the bullet mark was
photographed by a newsman in Dealey Plaza, as well as a shot of Tague's
bleeding cheek; and c) that one bullet caused President Kennedy's fatal
head wound, which was known to have been inflicted some seconds after the
other known wounds. That left one bullet, one bullet which had to have
caused all the other wounds, or else Oswald couldn't possibly have been
the lone assassin -- and the Commission would have to conclude that a
conspiracy killed President Kennedy.

A startling, new fact has emerged recently, from where it had been buried
deep inside the National Archives for thirty-five years: Newly discovered
documents prove that the Dallas Police did not find three spent shells in
the Texas School Book Depository; they found TWO, along with one LIVE
(unfired) round.

These documents include:

1) A Dallas Police Department report dated November 22, 1963, signed by
Lt. Carl Day, the DPD's identifications expert, noting that evidence is
being turned over to the jurisdiction of the FBI. It states that the
listed items were found in the Texas School Book Depository between 1:30
and 2:15 pm that day. The items are the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, serial
number C2766 (allegedly traced later to Oswald), and, an exact quote: "2
Spent Hulls from 6th floor window."  Lt. Day's signature is followed by
that of Officer R. L Studebaker, who witnessed the transfer of the
evidence from Lt. Day to FBI Agent Vince Drain, who "took possession of
all evidence."

2) A copy of the receipt of these items by the FBI: "1 6.5 Rifle # C2766"
and "2 Spent hulls found at [illegible] School Book Depository."

3) A handwritten receipt for these additional items from the DPD: "2
[photographic] negatives + 4 prints of each of two 6.5 hulls + 1 "live"
round of 6.5 ammunition from rifle found on 6th floor of Texas school
[sic] Book Depository, Dallas on 11-22-63."

4) The original FBI evidence sheet for all items in their possession
purportedly belonging to Lee Harvey Oswald, which lists "Live round 6.5"
and "6.5 spent rounds (2)." This report was originally introduced into
evidence as Commission Exhibit 2003, and published on page 260 of the
Warren Commission's twenty-fourth volume of evidence, but -- as J. Gary
Shaw and Larry Harris noted in their 1976 book, Cover-Up -- the published
version's "6.5 spent rounds (2)" has the two altered to a three that
appears to be handwritten. These and the following items are reproduced
in full in Noel Twyman's 1997 book Bloody Treason (62).

5) Commission Exhibits 510 and 512, two police photographs of the three
spent shells as they were allegedly found near the sixth floor window.
Noel Twyman points out that in CE 510, one of the three hulls appears to
be a live round; while the same hull in CE 512 (63) has been
conspicuously blacked out, with a crude forgery of a shell drawn or
scratched onto the negative (64).
 
6) The original FBI evidence envelope, signed by Special Agent J. Doyle
Williams, which once contained the above-mentioned negatives and
photographs of the spent shells from the Book Depository: "2 negatives
and 4 prints of each," listing, "two 6.5 bullet hulls + 1 "live" round of
6.5 ammunition from rifle found on 6th floor of Texas Book Depository
[sic], Dallas on 11-22-63" (65).

7) And the frosting on the cake, discovered in the National Archives
recently by researcher Anna-Marie Kuhns-Walko, one of the actual DPD
photographs depicting (you guessed it) two spent shells and one live
round (66).

Subsequently a third spent shell was added to the evidence. Whoever it
was who ordered this third shell planted was also powerful enough to
ensure not a single Dallas policeman, Sheriff's deputy or official would
reveal to the Warren Commission that their signed, dated records of
evidence had been altered and replaced, and that a third spent shell had
been introduced as being from the Book Depository.


Crossfire

What really happened in Dealey Plaza? The author offers a scenario based
on the available evidence. Keep in mind that while most spectators heard
three or four shots, sophisticated rifle silencers had been in use in the
military and intelligence services for over fifteen years, and had become
available to the public in the early part of 1963. Some of the close
ranges in Dealey Plaza were suitable for handguns as well (67). This,
then, is a probable scenario for Dealey Plaza.

The President's limousine was preceded by numerous Dallas policemen on
motorcycles; a pilot car about a quarter mile ahead; and a lead car
driven by Chief of Police Jesse Curry, and occupied by Dallas County
Sheriff Bill Decker and Secret Service Agents Forrest Sorrels and Winston
G. Lawson. The motorcade came west down Main Street, made a right going
north on Houston, and almost immediately had to make an awkward
120-degree left turn on Elm Street heading west again; the car very
nearly ran up on the sidewalk, and numerous spectators had to step back
to avoid being hit.

The first shot was fired only seconds after President Kennedy's limousine
turned the corner of Elm and Houston. This first shot missed; some have
speculated it was only intended as a "decoy" shot, to draw attention from
the real shooters. Its effects are evident at about frame 160 of the
Abraham Zapruder home movie, which shows a number of actions occurring in
response to a shot: the President stops waving and his head jerks to his
right; a little girl, Rosemary Willis, running on the grass alongside the
limousine comes to a sudden halt and looks quizzically across the street;
and Zapruder's camera jiggles as the photographer hears the shot. At this
time -- and until the limousine reached the point where we see it in
frame 210, the view of the limousine from the southeast sixth floor of
the Texas School Book Depository was obstructed by a tree, as the Warren
Commission acknowledged (68).

The next shot came from an undetermined point in front of the limousine,
striking President Kennedy in the front of his neck. This bullet did not
exit; we do not know what happened to it. This occurs just about
simultaneously with Abraham Zapruder's view of the limousine becoming
obstructed by a highway sign. Researchers disagree whether Kennedy was
struck before passing behind the sign or when he is lost from view;
Abraham Zapruder told the Warren Commission he saw Kennedy react to this
shot before passing behind the sign. Until the President is temporarily
lost to our view at frame 210, he is not visible to any gunman in the
southeast sixth floor "Oswald" window. Every single medical witness at
Parkland Memorial Hospital who saw this wound on the front of the
President's neck believed it to be a wound of entrance -- i.e., from the
front (69).

The President reacted immediately, his elbows jerking into the air as his
hands sprang to his throat; within seconds he had mercifully passed out.
The bullet was never recovered, but the wound of entrance was remarkably
small a neat round puncture wound about three millimeters in diameter.
This size suggests a weapon of unusually small caliber, even for a
handgun handguns are far from out of the question; the short distances in
Dealey Plaza hardly required a rifle or, as some have speculated, a dart
or flechette (70).
 
Another shot struck President Kennedy in the back, a little below the
right shoulder. It penetrated only about an inch, and did not exit. We do
not know what happened to it. The FBI's original report on the
assassination, based on the reports of Agents Sibert and O'Neill, who had
attended the autopsy, stated very plainly that the three autopsy
pathologists found that this wound penetrated only about the length of
one joint of a finger, and they didn't know where the bullet went. It did
not exit, and it was not in the body (71)

Another shot struck Governor John B. Connally in the back and exited his
chest. It is possible, though far from certain, that this same bullet
penetrated the Governor's wrist. A small fragment, not a full bullet,
then ricocheted, lodging in the Governor's left thigh, where it remained
until the Governor's death, and in fact where it remains it his coffin.

The Zapruder film seems to indicate that Connally's right hand was still
holding on to his Stetson hat -- an impossibility with a shattered radius
for some frames after he clearly was reacting to his chest wound. Many
researchers feel his wrist (and possibly thigh) were struck by a shot
that came about a second after the President appears to be fatally shot
at frame 313; something appears to propel Connally downward into his
wife's lap at this time, but it is not certain this this reflects a
second bullet strike. Without the bullets to examine, we cannot determine
with certainly how many bullets struck Connally (72).

The most likely point of origin of the bullets that struck Connally is
the southwest window of the Texas School Book Depository; a high vantage
point would be required for the steep trajectory (ruling out the sixth
floor southeast "Oswald" window), as a lower shot would have struck
Kennedy, not Connally. Other possible points are the roofs of any of the
four buildings behind the limousine: the TSBD, the Dal-Tex Building, the
Dallas County Records Office, or even possibly the Criminal Courts
Building at Main and Houston.

Striking Connally was a serious mistake that very nearly made the case
for a lone assassin untenable. Interestingly, the morning of November 22,
President Kennedy and Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson quite literally
got in a shouting match in Kennedy's hotel room over which Texas
dignitary would be sitting in the President's limousine. Tthe
Vice-President wanted Kennedy to ride with the upstart Texas populist,
Senator Ralph Yarborough, rather than LBJ's then-protege, Governor
Connally (73). After the assassination, and Johnson's ascent to the
presidency, Connally and LBJ underwent a permanent falling out,
precipitating Connally's unexpected defection to the Republican party.

As the limousine passed the front steps of the Texas School Book
Depository, five witnesses saw a bullet strike the pavement on Elm Street
near the left front of the car; it kicked up a cloud of dust and bits of
concrete in the direction of the car (74).

Royce Skelton was a railroad worker watching the motorcade from atop the
triple underpass; he saw a bullet miss the limousine and strike the
pavement (75).

Mr. SKELTON. . . . I saw a bullet, or I guess it was a bullet -- I take
for granted it was -- hit in the left front of the President's car on the
cement, and when it did, the smoke carried with it -- away from the
building. . . . on the pavement -- you know, pavement when it is hit with
a hard object, it will scatter -- it will spread (76).

Dallas policeman Starvis Ellis was riding a motorcycle about 100 feet in
front of the President's limousine. When the shooting began, Ellis turned
turned the limousine and saw debris fly up, presumably from this same
bullet strike (77). Mrs. Virginia Baker also saw it; she believed the
shots came from in front of the car by the triple underpass (78). Warren
Commission defenders Gerald Posner and Jim Moore believe this was not a
bullet at all, but possibly a skull fragment of the President's (79).
That would have to be one high velocity skull fragment.

"In August of 1978, the HSCA received a phone call from Charles Rodgers
of Lake Dallas, Texas, who was present in Dealey Plaza during the
assassination with a friend, Mike Nally. Nally's uncle, who was a
motorcycle policeman in the motorcade, told his nephew Mike that when the
shots were fired he heard a clanging noise on the fender of his
motorcycle. When he looked down he saw a .45 caliber slug roll off into
the street. The policeman was unable to stop and investigate since he was
part of the motorcade that began to speed toward the hospital. Rodgers
said that Mike Nally told him that his uncle had instructed them not to
mention the story about .45 caliber slug. The HSCA was unable to locate
Mike Nally or even identify the name of Nally's uncle" (80).

One shot missed and struck the curb of Main Street near spectator James
Tague; a fragment of either the bullet or asphalt nicked Tague's cheek
and drew blood. Tague saw the bullet hit the curb, and the fresh mark was
photographed several times by Tom Dillard. Tague believed firmly that the
shot was the second or possibly third fired, but not the first (81). If
this was the first shot, Tague was roughly 300 feet away, the length of a
football field, from the limousine at that point in time (82). The likely
source of origin is a low floor, probably the second, of the Dal-Tex
Building, across the street to the southeast of the Book Depository. It
would take a shot only the slightest bit high of the mark to line up the
Dal-Tex street-side second floor window with the "Tague" bullet strike at
the triple underpass.

One shot missed the limousine and struck a spot in the grass just south
of Elm Street, about 350 feet from the Book Depository. Officer J. W.
Foster was standing on top of the triple underpass, and had a clear view
of Elm; he saw the bullet strike the turf. He reported this to a
superior, and was instructed to guard the area (83). Journalists and
bystanders were kept away from the area. This could be the first shot
that missed, although, again, it would have to have been a truly terrible
shot to have missed the limousine by such a distance.

Wayne and Edna Hartman were near Dealey Plaza when the shots rang out.
They ran through the Plaza and encountered a policeman on the grassy
knoll. Edna Hartman later recalled to Jim Marrs, "He pointed to some
bushes near the railroad tracks on the north side of the street and said
that's where the shots came from. . . . Then I noticed these two parallel
marks on the ground that looked like mounds made by a mole. I asked,
'What are these, mole hills?' and the policeman said, 'Oh no, ma'am,
that's where the bullets struck the ground'" (84). Photographer Hugh
Betzner noticed "police officers and some men in plain clothes . . .
digging around in the dirt as if they were looking for a bullet" (85).

Photographers Jim Murray and Bill Allen took a famous sequence of
pictures showing Deputy Sheriff E. R. "Buddy" Walthers (in civilian
clothes) and watching a blond-haired man he believed to be an FBI agent
point at the dug-out spot on the ground just off Elm Street, bend over,
scoop something up from the turf, then put the item in his pocket. Police
Chief Jesse Curry said the man was FBI, but he didn't know his name; some
have identified him as FBI Special Agent Robert Barrett, who will be
mentioned again in the context of suspicious handling of evidence. The
photographs have been widely published in newspapers, magazines, and
assassination-related books, sometimes using two or three shots to depict
the sequence of events. Murray also photographed the hole that was left
in the turf after the scene had been cleared; this photograph ran in the
following day's Fort Worth Star-Telegram, captioned, "One of the rifle
bullets fired by the murderer of President Kennedy lies in the grass
across Elm Street . . ." The Dallas Times-Herald reported in reference to
the hole in the grass, "Dallas Police Lt. J. C. Day of the crime lab
estimated the distance from the sixth-floor window . . . to the spot
where one of the bullets was recovered at 100 yards."

Richard Randolph Carr, the man who saw a gunman leave the Book Depository
and get into a Nash Rambler station wagon, testified at the 1969 trial of
Clay Shaw that he heard four shots fired, the last three of which he
believed came from behind the wooden stockade fence on the grassy knoll.
He saw a bullet strike the turf opposite the knoll where it "knocked a
bunch of grass up." Judging from the mark on the grass, Carr said the
bullet had been traveling in a southeast direction from the knoll toward
the Criminal Courts building at Elm and Houston (86).

Richard Dudman wrote in the December 21, 1963, New Republic: "On the say
the President was shot I happened to learn of a possible fifth [bullet].
A group of police officers were examining the area at the side of the
street where the President was hit, and a police inspector told me they
had just found another bullet in the grass." It's a pity Mr. Dudman
didn't take the officer's name.

The man who picked the item up was never officially identified; the
Warren Commission took Buddy Walthers' word that whatever the thing was
that struck the grass with enough force to attract the attention of a
police officer some distance away and a handful of spectators, it wasn't
a bullet or bullet fragment.

There was another bullet strike only about three to five feet from this
one, but it wasn't noticed right away. A Dealey Plaza witness named John
Martin discovered it about two and a half hours after the shooting, and
quickly informed a policeman, "you better get your boss down here to
check this thing out, because that will show you where the bullet came
from" (87). The mark very clearly does not point back to the Texas School
Book Depository; it appears to have struck from the direction of the
County Records Building, where a 30.06 bullet shell was found later (88).

Jim Murray was again on hand, and took a number of photographs of police
officers examining the spot, including identifications officer Lt. Carl
Day, who spent some time at this spot with his crime lab kit; it is
obviously later in the day as the crowd has dispersed. The photos can be
found in Richard Trask's Pictures of the Pain. Because of the close
proximity of the strikes, it is possible that a bullet struck the manhole
and bounced into the grass, but given the high visibility of the shot
that struck the grass and the reasonably deep gouge in the turf, it's
hard to believe this was a bouncing fragment. Even if it was, the
fragment was never entered into the record.

Another bullet struck the sidewalk along the north side of Elm Street. It
apparently was first discovered a day or two later by Dallas resident
Eugene Aldredge. It was a gash about four inches long and a quarter of an
inch deep. Aldredge didn't report it to anyone, assuming it had not gone
unnoticed by the authorities. At least one photograph of it was taken; it
is pictured in several books, including Groden's The Killing of the
President, 40. After the Warren Report came out, Aldredge was shocked not
to see the missed bullet mentioned, and notified the FBI (89). The FBI
located it and wrote up a report describing it as approximately four
inches long, a half inch wide, and a "dug out" appearance. Less than a
week later, Aldredge brought a friend to see it, and found it had been
filled in. Dallas Morning News reporter Carl Freund also identified the
mark as a bullet strike. The FBI dismissed its importance as evidence
because it clearly did not point to the TSBD "Oswald" window, therefore
couldn't be relevant to the assassination. Groden notes that the gash
lines up with the southwest sixth floor TSBD window; Harrison Livingstone
notes it also lines up with the south storm drain of the triple underpass
(90).

There are numerous reports of other missed shots; some bullets have even
been found in Dealey Plaza, literally years after the assassination. In
1975, a maintenance man named Morgan found a 30.06 shell on the roof of
the County Records Building, which is about half a block south of the
Book Depository. The casing has an odd crimp in its neck, suggesting it
may have been fired from a sabot, a device used to fire a smaller caliber
bullet out of a large caliber weapon. This is useful for criminals, as
the caliber, type, and brand of the recovered bullet cannot be linked
with their gun. The shell had been hidden underneath a lip of roofing
tar, and was greatly deteriorated from exposure to moisture; it had
obviously been there a while (91).

A fired but intact bullet was found on the top of the Massey Roofing Co.
building on Elm Street, about eight blocks from the TSBD, by Richard
Haythorne in 1967. No official study was made until the HSCA pronounced
it a jacketed, soft-point .30 caliber bullet consistent with
Remington-Peters ammunition; it had not been fired from the 6.5 caliber
Mannlicher-Carcano (92).

In 1974, Dallas resident Richard Lester swept Dealey Plaza with a metal
detector, and discovered a fragment -- the base portion of a bullet --
500 yards southwest of the TSBD and 61 paces east of the triple
underpass. Later he turned it over to the FBI, and it was studied by the
House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978. They found that the
fragment was from a 6.5 mm bullet, but that it had not been fired from
the alleged "Oswald" Mannlicher-Carcano: its rifling pattern was
different (93). A whole, unfired .45 caliber bullet was found in 1976 by
Hal Luster by the concrete retaining wall on the knoll (94).

In the summer of 1966, an intact bullet was found lodged in the roof of a
building at 1615 Stemmons Freeway by William Barbee. The building was
about a quarter mile away from the Texas School Book Depository -- within
rifle rangle -- in the direction that Oswald had allegedly fired. The FBI
identified the bullet as a .30 caliber full metal jacketed military
bullet; its rifling pattern of four grooves, right hand twist is
consistent with ammunition of US manufacture. This is the type of bullet
the CIA used with their silenced M-1 .30 caliber carbine rifles;
civilians were not allowed to purchase them until the middle of 1963, and
full metal jacketed bullets are illegal for use in hunting (95).

Two spent Remington .222 bullet casings were found in Dealey Plaza by
John Rademacher, about eighty feet apart, one on each end of the concrete
pergola that stands midway between the Texas School Book Depository and
the triple underpass. One was just to the east, while the other was just
west of it, between the pergola and the wooden stockade fence on the
grassy knoll. One of the casings has strange indentations which appear to
be teeth marks on it; a Houston orththodontist examined the shell and
said that it could be teeth marks from a person or animal, but he could
not be certain (96).

Carol Hewett also notes two other puzzling bits of data: "The HSCA makes
passing reference to the 'Walder' bullet that was also submitted for
testing; the author could find no other mention of this particular item
of evidence" (97). Hewett also references "the report from a top FBI
administrator, Alan Belmont, to Clyde Tolson, Hoover's second in command,
in which Belmont on the night of November 22nd advises that a bullet has
been found lodged behind the President's ear (98): "I told [Dallas bureau
chief Gordon] Shanklin FBI has one of the bullets, the other is stuck
behind his ear," consistent with the Sibert-O'Neill evidence envelope
that was supposed to contain a "missile," not a fragment or fragments
(99).

Photographs exist which appear to show bullet strikes in the limousine's
front windshield and on a strip of chrome on the dashboard. Several
newsmen attested that an apparent bullet hole was visible on the
windshield, and the Secret Service kept anyone from coming too close.
These may just have been from ricocheting fragments, as the Warren
Commission, but one would feel more comfortable if Lyndon B. Johnson
hadn't ordered the limousine stripped and rebuilt the weekend of the
assassination, so that we could see for ourselves -- particularly when
the photographs seem to clearly depict bullet strikes.


Controversy has always raged over the question of how many shots struck
John F. Kennedy in the head. At least one shot was fired from the front
of the limousine. It entered the President's right temple at the hairline
and exploded out the right rear of his head. Apparently (if the Zapruder
film can be trusted) the shot sent Kennedy's head "back and to the left,"
as the famous words from Oliver Stone's JFK put it.

If this actions represents the President being forced backward by the
momentum of the bullet impact (as many believe, but which of course can
never be proven or disproved) then the bullet was not fired from the
famous "grassy knoll," where most people believe it originated. In fact,
Elm Street runs perpendicular to the stockade fence on the knoll, and the
limousine was nearly alongside the point where some believed a shot was
fired. A shot from this location would have entered the right side of
Kennedy's head and exited from the left, throwing Kennedy directly into
Jacqueline, and possibly wounding her as well.

DPD Officer Bobby Hargis was riding on the motorcycle to the left rear of
the limousine, several feet behind the car. (Procedure dictated that the
car should have been flanked by motorcycles directly to the left and
right of the President's seat, but Kennedy stubbornly refused to let
anyone get in the way of the spectators who turned out to greet him.)
Hargis cannot be seen in the Zapruder film when projected; he is only
visible when slides made from the original are viewed. These original
frames contain approximately twenty percent more information on the left
of the picture in the area of the sprocket holes; these images are not
projected. In these frames, Hargis can be clearly seen behind the car on
the left. This is important because when the shot struck the President
from the front right, Hargis -- behind and to the left -- was splattered
with a large amount of the blood, bone and brain matter that blasted out
of the President's head toward the rear. Hargis himself was struck with
such force that for a moment he actually believed he had been shot (100).

It is nearly impossible that the shot came from the triple underpass,
which was in clear view of all spectators and which held a number of
workers from the nearby rail yard, none of whom believed a shot came from
the underpass. The most likely firing positions for this shot, as author
Harrison Livingstone and Dallas reporter Earl Golz have pointed out, are
the two storm drains located at the north and sound ends of the triple
underpass, which connect with the north and south knolls. (There are two
"grassy knolls"; the famous one is the northern edge of Dealey Plaza.)

If the films by Abraham Zapruder and Orville Nix, a spectator filming
from south of Elm Street, can be trusted, then the President was struck
almost simultaneously by two shots -- one from behind and one in front.
Between frames 312 and 313 of the Zapruder film, Kennedy's head is thrust
forward several inches by an apparent bullet strike, then frame 313
contains the famous graphic head shot from the front. The Nix film
depicts the exact same phenomenon, indicating two shots. Many
eyewitnesses recalled two shot fired simultaneously or very nearly so.
The autopsy report did not note a frontal skull entry, but it noted a
rear skull entry. It is difficult to determine when the autopsy report
can be trusted. Many believe that the autopsists were ordered to
"overlook" the front entry. Based on the available evidence, it is
possible that the President was struck twice in the head, which would
also account for the tremendous damage inflicted, which seems much too
extensive for one bullet. The consensus among researchers is that the
two-shot hypothesis is valid if not probable (101).

It would appear that at least four gunmen were firing from four separate
locations. Possible locations include the many windows and the roof of
the Texas School Book Depository, the Dal-Tex Building, the Dallas County
Records Building, from behind the stockade fence on the grassy knoll, the
north and south storm drains alonside the overpass, the two manholes
alongside Elm Street, and still others.

If this reconstruction is reasonably accurate, how did the autopsy
pathologists come to such a different conclusion?

The autopsy pathologists projected that the President's front neck wound
was a wound of exit based on the fact that Kennedy had obviously been
struck in the back, and they could not figure out where that bullet
exited. Therefore, they speculated that it must have exited at the only
other non-fatal wound -- the front throat wound (102). The plotters had
to ensure that all unwanted bullets disappeared from the record, and they
had to have the power to keep all the witnesses quiet. That's no small
amount of power.

Is there any evidence that there were once more bullets or fragments than
are now in the record?

Researcher Anna-Marie Kuhns-Walko turned up some interesting items at the
National Archives in 1996: several photographs labeled as being of a
bullet "removed from President Kennedy's body." It is not one of the tiny
fragments that have been part of the record for thirty-five years. No
other information is available: no photographer listed; no indication of
when it was recovered; or what part of the body it came from; or if it
was recovered at Parkland, Bethesda, or elsewhere. Just several photos of
a bullet "removed from President Kennedy's body" that no one's ever seen
before.

Anna-Marie also discovered an empty envelope, originally marked, "Shell
7.5 found in Dealey Plaza 11/22/63. This would be an expended cartridge
found somewhere in Dealey Plaza, presumably not far from where it was
fired; and regardless of where in Dealey Plaza it was found (which the
envelope doesn't state), it's a 7.5 caliber, not a 6.5 caliber like the
Mannlicher-Carcano. No one outside a very select circle, apparently, ever
heard of this item before. Why is the envelope empty? Written right after
the previously quoted description: "DETERMINED OF NO VALUE AND
DESTROYED."
	
Also "determined of no value and destroyed were the notes kept by
Drs. Humes, Boswell and Finck during the course of the autopsy. Boswell
says he didn't keep any; Finck says that between the end of the autopsy
and the time he was ready to head home, his notes simply vanished; and
Humes told the Warren Commission that he burned his in the fireplace of
his home recreation room because he didn't want the blood-stained pages
ever to become ghoulish "collector's items."

Pioneering researcher Harold Weisberg scrutinized the Warren Commission's
files, then sued repeatedly to get more released. He paid particular
attention to the autopsy records and what was missing from them. He came
to the conclusion that it was not merely notes that Humes had destroyed,
but the entire first draft of his autopsy report, which he revised early
in the afternoon of November 24, 1963 -- just after the death of Lee
Harvey Oswald, when it was clear there would be no trial for the
assassination of President Kennedy, and that his autopsy report would not
have to face the adversary procedure of law. In 1997, when subpoenaed by
the Assassination Records Review Board, Humes faced his first intensive
cross-examination concerning the autopsy record in 35 years. He admitted
to burning not only his notes but the preliminary draft of the autopsy
report as well.

Did any other autopsy records find their way into the memory hole the
week of the assassination? Why, yes. The record -- while contradictory --
shows that several dozen photographs and X-rays were taken of President
Kennedy before and during the autopsy. All but about ten have vanished,
and the ones we have now do not show the wounds that the many medical
professionals at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas and Bethesda Naval
Hospital in Maryland remember. What happened to all the others?

Secret Service Agent James Fox had been retired for some time when he
happened to meet Mark Crouch, a former radio broadcaster who'd opened an
electronics store that Fox frequented. After several conversations, Fox
learned that Crouch was interested in the Kennedy assassination; Crouch
didn't realize that Fox appears in the Warren Report as the agent who
performed a number of duties with regard to the autopsy photographs for
Secret Service Protective Research Division chief Robert I. Bouck. Fox
told him that he had his own set of Kennedy autopsy photographs, and
later allowed Crouch to see them. It was the first time anyone outside of
the federal government had ever viewed them; it was a black and white set
of all but one of the photographs now in evidence. Fox said that about a
week after the assassination, Bouck had given the negatives to Fox and
instructed him to make a set of prints. According to Fox, Bouck also said
he could make a set for himself, and that they'd be valuable one day.
(Bouck would later deny giving Fox permission to make copies.) (103)

Later, James Fox would confide to Crouch that there was more to the
story: that about a week after the assassination, he watched as Robert
Bouck removed the autopsy photographs and negatives from his office safe,
dropped them in his metal garbage can, struck a match, and torched the
whole lot. Fox referred to this as the "burn party." Fox said that it was
the very next day that Bouck presented him with the NEW set and told him
to make copies. Bouck, of course, denied the entire story to the HSCA,
and the Committee wasn't terribly interested in investigating further
(104).

In 1998, photographer Robert Knudson testified to the Assassination
Records Review Board that he had been present in the morgue during the
autopsy of President Kennedy, and had exposed several rolls of film of
the procedure. He saw some of the photographs after they were developed,
and he told the ARRB that the photographs currently in evidence are not
the ones he took, and do not depict the same wounds he saw both in the
morgue that night and on the film he developed. (Knudson -- like
literally dozens of other eyewitnesses -- is not listed in the official
record of those present at the autopsy; others, however, recall him being
there.) Like virtually every single other eyewitness, Knudson was
particularly disturbed by the posterior photographs, which show an intact
back of the head where the witnesses say there should be a tremendous
wound of exit. The autopsy pathologists were vague about the placement of
the large gaping wound in their report, however they testified that it
was on the top of the head, not the back. The HSCA report concluded that
the doctors were off a bit, placing the exit wound at the top of the
head, but in front of the President's ear, not directly above it as the
Warren Commission concluded.

Yet another off-the-record series of photographs from the autopsy is
missing, and the circumstances are even more unusual. Lt. Commander
William Bruce Pitzer was in the morgue that evening, and filmed at least
part of the procedure with a motion picture camera. His good friend
Dennis David, who was Officer of the Day the night of the autopsy, helped
Pitzer edit the film about a week later. David remembers that Pitzer had
a number of color slides and black and white photographs as well, but
isn't certain if they had been taken separately, or were merely enlarged
frames of the motion picture film. The record is absolutely silent about
the film; the only person besides Pitzer known to have seen it is Dennis
David.

On Sunday, October 29, 1966, Lt. Cmdr. William Bruce Pitzer was found
dead at Bethesda Naval Hospital, in civilian clothes, a bullet wound
having entered his right temple and exited through the left; a pistol was
found nearby. The death was judged a suicide, and the autopsy report was
ordered sealed; even his widow was not allowed to obtain it until almost
thirty years later, and even then she had to sue for it. Mrs. Pitzer and
her family have never believed that Bruce Pitzer committed suicide. The
autopsy report indicates that Pitzer had three head wounds, two of which
appear to be entrance wounds at close range. The obvious implication is
that he was murdered, yet the state of Maryland refuses to reopen the
case. Dennis David believes that Pitzer's death is related to the autopsy
film he possessed (105).

Coincidentally, the very day following Pitzer's death was the day the
government announced that -- in response to numerous complaints in the
press about the Warren Commission's decision not to consult the autopsy
X-rays and photographs in the pursuance of their investigation -- the
three autopsy pathologists would be shown the photographs and X-rays for
the very first time -- in private -- and confirm that the photos were
authentic. This they could not be expected to do in good faith, as they
had never viewed them, and would be only assuming that the photos
represented that which they purported to represent. Nevertheless, the
three doctors did just that. Secretly, Attorney General Ramsey Clark also
convened a panel of pathologists to confirm that the photos and X-rays
supported the autopsy report and the Warren Commission's findings. The
Clark Panel, as it was called, reported that the photos and X-rays did
indeed support the Warren Commission -- just in time to discredit the
Garrison investigation. Researcher Harold Weisberg, in his book
Post-Mortem, was the first to study the Clark Panel's report, and observe
that the wounds indicated in the report CONTRADICTED the original autopsy
report, showing the head wound of entrance, the head wound of exit, and
the back wound of entrance in DIFFERENT LOCATIONS than the official
autopsy report placed them -- the same locations the HSCA would
eventually conclude were authentic. It CONTRADICTED the autopsy report,
and further INVALIDATED the single bullet theory (106).

A memorable passage in the HSCA Hearings occurs when autopsy pathologists
Doctors Humes and Boswell are questioned by the HSCA's Forensic Pathology
Panel, including Chairman Michael M. Baden, MD, the (then) chief medical
examiner of New York City; John I. Coe, MD, chief medical examiner of
Hennepin County, Minnesota; Joseph H. Davis, MD, chief medical examiner
of Dade County, Miami, Florida; George S. Loquvam, MD, director of the
Institute of Forensic Sciences, Oakland, California; and Charles S.
Petty, MD, chief medical examiner, Dallas County, Texas. This PRIVATE
hearing, one of several, took place on September 16, 1977, in preparation
for the Committee's PUBLIC hearing, which would be televised the next
day. We join the panel as it tries to reconcile the apparent wound
photographed on the TOP of the President's head in some of the
photographs and X-rays with the apparent wound photographed at the lower
right REAR of the President's head in at least one of the exact same
photographs. The LOWER wound is the one that appears in the official
autopsy report, and it is this LOWER wound that Humes, Boswell, and Finck
(who is not present at this hearing) maintain was the actual entrance
wound. The X-rays prove this false. Here is the pertinent exchange.


Dr. PETTY. Can I go back to another interpretation which is very
important to this committee? I don't really mean to belabor the point,
but we need to be certain, as certain as we can be -- and I'm showing you
now photograph No. 15, and here, to put it in the record, is the
posterior hairline or margin of the hair of the late President, and
there, near the midline, and just a centimeter or two above the hairline,
is an area that you refer to as the inshoot wound.

Dr. HUMES. Yes, sir.

Dr. PETTY. Also, on this same photograph is a ruler, and approximately 2
centimeters or so down the ruler and just to the right of it is a second
apparent area of defect, and this has been enlarged and is shown to you
in an enlargement, I guess No. 16, which shows you, right opposite the 1
centimeter mark on the ruler, this defect, or what appears to be a defect
[the apparent entry wound]. I don't see the connection with the lacerated
margin of the scalp anywhere.

Dr. BADEN. And No. 15 shows an enlargement of the lower area that's
suggestive of an inshoot to you.

Dr. PETTY. And what we're trying to do is to satisfy ourselves that the
bullet actually came in near the margin of the hair and not near the tip
of the ruler as is shown in photograph No. 16.

Dr. HUMES. . . . Dr. Boswell offered the interpretation that it might be
an extension of a scalp wound. I don't share his opinion about that. I
don't know what that is. Number one, I can assure you that as we
reflected the scalp to get to this point, there was no defect
corresponding to this [alleged entry wound in the top of the head] in the
skull at any point. I don't know what that [the alleged entry wound in
the photograph] is. It could be to me clotted blood. I don't, I just
don't know what it is, but it certainly was not any wound of entrance.

Dr. DAVIS. . . . I think perhaps what we can consider is the problem of
the tangential striking bullet which enters the head, tunnels . . .
strikes the bone tangentially, fragments, and then one part of a fragment
can skip out through the scalp again, which may explain this wound we see
here in enlargement No. 16. . . . I think all of us who have done a fair
number of investigations like this are well aware that a bullet can split
into fragments and one fragment can be deflected downward, another
fragment can be deflected inward and slightly upward, and even a third
fragment can go straight. There's all sorts of things can happen with
bullets when they strike in this manner. I think I can see radiopaque
trails [in the X-rays] which could reconcile the testimony and opinion of
Dr. Humes that this material, this brain material, represents the loss of
brain from the entrance site; and also it reconciles with his statement
and also with Dr. Boswell's statement that there was tunneling. . . . So
I'm advancing that as an investigative hypothesis for investigative
opinion, for discussion at this time, to see if we can arrive at a
consensus.

Dr. HUMES. I would like to comment further, from our point of view, that
these enlargements which you have shown us now of these other photographs
is the first time I have seen these enlargements; I have not seen them
before.

Dr. DAVIS. These were just made up 2 or 3 days ago. Two days ago.

Dr. PETTY. May I make a comment on what you just said, Dr. Davis. The
problem, as I see it, is that this may be in fact a tunneling situation,
with the bullet scooting along the skull here or somewhere, and not
entering the skull down below. Is that what you're saying now?

Dr. DAVIS. What I'm saying -- what I'm inferring: in the absence of
photographs and specific measurements, we could only conjecture as to how
long the tunneling is, but I would envision this as a tunneling first and
then entry into the skull.

Mr. LOQUVAM. Gentlemen, may I say something?

Dr. DAVIS. Yes.

Dr. LOQUVAM. I don't think this discussion belongs in this record.

Dr. PETTY. All right.

Dr. HUMES. I agree.

Dr. LOQUVAM. We have no business recording this. This is for us to decide
between ourselves; I don't think this belongs in this record.

Dr. PETTY. Well, we have to say something about our feeling as to why
we're so interested in that one particular area.

Dr. HUMES. Could I make a comment that I think would be helpful to you,
and you can throw out anything I say or whatever? But I feel obligated to
make a certain interjection at this point, having heard this theory which
I hadn't heard from the committee because I didn't pay that much
attention quite frankly. Our attention was obviously directed to what we
understood and thought to be clearly a wound of entrance [in the lower
right rear of the head at the hairline]. If such a fragment were to have
detached itself from the main mass of the missile, it would have to be a
relatively small fragment because the size of the defect in the skull
which approximated this point was almost identical with the size of the
defect in the skin. Do you follow that line of reasoning?

Dr. PETTY. Yes, that makes sense. I mean, I've seen the same thing.

Dr. DAVIS. I've seen the same thing -- bothers me a bit -- part of that
casing comes off.

Dr. COE. The reason we are so interested in this, Dr. Humes, is because
other pathologists have interpreted the --

Dr. LOQUVAM. I don't think this belongs in the damn record.

Dr. HUMES. Well, it probably doesn't.

Dr. LOQUVAM. You guys are nuts. You guys are nuts writing this stuff. It
doesn't belong in that damn record.

Dr. BADEN. I think the only purpose of its being in the record is to
explain to Dr. Humes what --

Dr. LOQUVAM. Why not turn off the record and explain to him and then go
back and talk again.

Dr. BADEN. Well, our problem is not to get our opinions, but to get his
opinions.

Dr. LOQUVAM. All right then, keep our opinions off. Here's Charles
[Petty] and Joe [Davis] talking like mad in the damn record, and it
doesn't belong in it. Sorry.

Dr. BADEN. Dr. Humes, realizing our concerns, if there is anything that
you or Dr. Boswell can say that can help clarify any further the entrance
wound and track of the bullet in the head we would be most appreciative.

Dr. HUMES. I think we're at a distinct disadvantage because, as I said,
when we cataloged the photographs and numbered them, and spent half a day
or day to do it, I'll confess to possibly even overlooking the area to
which you gentlemen, and apparently someone else, has directed attention.
I would not attempt to make an interpretation of what it represents
because I can't at this point. . . . Whether this "defect" is a "defect,"
in my mind, I'm not sure. I'm not sure it's not some clotted blood that's
lying on the scalp.

Dr. BADEN. What we're trying to do is to have your best opinions and
recollections to deal with.

Dr. HUMES. Right.

Dr. BADEN. . . . George, is there anything further you'd like to add?

Dr. LOQUVAM. No, I've said my piece (107).



NOTES:

1. 6 H 383, 19 H 499. 
2. CD 5.41. 
3. WR 600, 613. 
4. WR 605, CE 491. 
5. WR 3. 
6. 2 H 169-72. 
7. Ibid. 
8. Ibid. 
9. 2 H 183. 
10. WR 251. 
11. 2 H 167-68; HSCA Staff Report on Dealey Plaza Witnesses. 
12. Dillard Exhibit C. 
13. See also Commission Exhibit 485, a photograph of the three men
    reenacting their locations at the time. 
14. CE 357. 
15. WR 251. 
16. 6 H 263-64; HSCA Staff Report on Dealey Plaza Witnesses. 
17. *Dallas Morning News,* November 26, 1978. 
18. HSCA Staff Report on Dealey Plaza Witnesses. 
19. 24 H 522. 
20. Robert Groden, *The Killing of a President,*208-9. 
21. Groden, 158, 207. 
22. 6 H 194, 203-4. 
23. 6 H 193. 
24. 6 H 193, 204. 
25. 6 H 195. 
26. 6 H 205. 
27. 6 H 197, 199. 
28. 6 H 167, 170.
29. 2 H 205-6. 
30. 2 H 159. 
31. 3 H 144-5, 148. 
32. Public discussion of September 30, 1966; cited in Sylvia Meagher, 
    *Accessories after the Fact,* 13. 
33. WR 253. 
34. CD 285; HSCA Vol. XII. 
35. 6 H 266. Over the next few years, Roger Craig -- the Sheriff's Office 
    1960 Officer of the Year -- found himself hounded out of the 
    Sheriff's Office and Dallas; several attempts were made on his life. 
    He had such a difficult time providing for his family that, this 
    author is sad to report, Craig later began to embellish upon his 
    original testimony, presumably for the slight bit of added income 
   that may have been generated. As virtually all of his
   original 1963 statements have been corroborated by other witnesses and
   evidence, his testimony from this period is undoubtedly credible. On May
   15, 1975, Roger Craig committed suicide by shooting himself with a rifle.
   He was 39. 
36. Michael L. Kurtz, *Crime of the Century,* 132. 
37. Kurtz, 189. 
38. Author's interview with Dr. Michael L. Kurtz, October 5, 1998.
39. CD 5.70; 12 HSCA 18. 
40. FBI report by Special Agent Earle Haley. 
41. John Kelin, "Yet Another Eyewitness," Fair Play #17, available on-line
    at:
&&&
gopher://freenet.a
kron.oh.us/h0/SIGS/JFK/FP/fp.back_issues/.17th_Issue/rambler_witness.html

42. Robert Groden, *The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald,* 245. 
43. WR 149-52. 
44. 3 H 250-52; Ibid. 
45. 3 H 224-25; Ibid. 
46. 6 H 392. 
47. HSCA *Final Report.* 
48. 3 H 224-25. 
49. 3 H 250-51. 
50. 3 H 252. 
51. 3 H 74; Meagher, 72. 
52. FBI report of January 10, 1964; 24 H 531, cited in Marrs, 52-53. 
53. 25 H 873; CD 205, 158; 6 HSCA 109, 115, 121, 309, *Final Report,* 7; 
    cited in Summers, *Conspiracy,* paperback ed., 45, and Marrs, 
    *Crossfire,* 53. 
54. 3 H 278. 
55. Ibid. 
56. 3 H 279. 
57. Robert MacNeil, *The Way We Were: 1963, The Year Kennedy Was Shot.* 
58. WR 161. 
59. The full transcript is posted on-line:
    Here
60. FBI Summary Report, CD 1; see research appendices. 61. See citation #59. 
62. Twyman, evidence sheets 112-13. 
63. 17 H 221. 64. 17 H 223; Twyman 114-5. 
65. Twyman, 116. 
66. Twyman, 111. 
67. Shortly after writing this, the author came across an interesting 
    passage in Jim Hougan's *Spooks: The Haunting of America -- The Private 
    Use of Secret Agents,* discussing legendary weapons designer Mitch 
    WerBell. WerBell, an intelligence asset who went into business for 
    himself, may be best known for his 1969 invention, the Ingram M-11, 
    the "machine pistol" that weighs less than four pounds, is only slightly 
    larger than a silenced handgun,fires 850 rounds a minute -- fourteen 
    .380 caliber bullets a second -- sold for under $100, and makes 
    little more noise than an air conditioning unit (Hougan, 36). Hougan 
    describes in detail one of the more esoteric advantages of such an item: 
   "As it happens, there are not one but two sounds made by a weapon's 
    firing. The first is that of the powder exploding; the second is the 
    sonic boom that results when a high-velocity shell exceeds the sound 
    barrier. WerBell's suppressor . . . virtually eliminated the 
    first noise. The second sound could also be prevented: all
    that was necessary was for the shooter to lower the velocity of his
    bullet by using less powder than usual . . . . (Soldiers in Vietnam,
    however, found that the sonic boom had its own utility: because the
    bullet moved faster than the speed of sound, those being ambushed heard
   the shot only as it moved away from them. As a consequence their first
   reaction was to retreat into the direction from which the shots had
   actually come -- WALKING BACKWARD INTO THE SAME AMBUSH [emphasis in
   original])" (Hougan, 35-6). Then in a footnote, Hougan adds this
   afterthought: "It's curious that no one seems to have mentioned this
   characteristic in connection with the John F. Kennedy assassination, in
   which both the number and direction of shots fired are still debated. If
   a silencer was used in combination with another, unsilenced rifle,
   witnesses located in different parts of the caravan and Dealey Plaza
   would have heard the shots coming from different directions. Unanimity
   would have been impossible on the subject of the gunfire's origin"
   (Hougan, 36 fn.). 
68. HSCA Vol. VI. 
69. WR, 90-91, 519; CE 392; Dr. Ronald Jones Exhibit 1; 6 H 5-6, 12-14, 
    22, 33, 35, 37-38, 42, 48, 51, 55-56, 65, 67, 71, 143; *New York 
    Times,* November 27, 1963; *L'Express,*
    February 20, 1964; Parkland Hospital press conference, November 22, 1963;
    *St. Louis Post-Dispatch,* December 1, 1963; NBC television log, November
    22, 1963, 2:40 pm. 
70. Ibid. 
71. CD 7 (Sibert-O'Neill Report); 2 H 93, 361, 367. 
72. 2 H 374, 376; 4 H 109, 127-28. 
73. William Manchester, *Death of a President, 113.* 
74. Michael Griffith, "Extra Bullets and Missed Shots in Dealey Plaza"; 
    Weisberg, *Whitewash,* 187-89; Gerald Posner, *Case Closed,* 324; Jim 
    Moore, *Conspiracy of One,* 198. Griffith's article is available 
    on-line at:
&&&
75. 6 H 238. 
76. Ibid. &&&
77. John S. Craig, "The Guns of Dealey Plaza,"available on-line at:
gopher://freenet.
akron.oh.us/h0/SIGS/JFK/FP/fp.back_issues/.11th_Issue/guns_dp.html


78. 7 H 508-10. 
79. Posner, 324; Moore, 198. 
80. Craig, see citation #77.
81. 7 H 553, 555-56. 
82. WR 105, 116. 83. Shaw and Harris, *Cover-Up,* 72-75; Marrs, 315. 
84. Marrs, 315-6. 
85. 19 H 467-68; Marrs, 24. 
86. Clay Shaw trial transcript; HSCA Conspiracy Witness Report; Craig, see
    citation #77. 
87. Griffith, Ibid.; Richard Trask, *Pictures of the Pain,* 573. 
88. Ibid. 
89. Griffith, Ibid.; Weisberg, *Never Again,* 383-90. 
90. Griffith, Ibid.; Harrison E. Livingstone, *High Treason 2.* 
91. Marrs, 317. 
92. 7 HSCA 357; Carol Hewett, "Silencers, Sniper Rifles & the CIA,"
    *PROBE,* Vol. 3, No. 1, November-December 1995; Craig, "The Guns of
    Dealey Plaza." Hewett's article is available on-line at:
    
93. Associated Press, January 5, 1978; 7 HSCA 395; Marrs, 317; Hewett,Ibid. 
94. *Dallas Morning News,* December 23, 1978; Marrs, 604. 
95. Hewett, Ibid., citing FBI Doc. #62-109060-5898. 
96. In 1994, James E. Files, a prisoner serving a life sentence at Joliet 
    State Pen.(Illinois) for murdering a policeman,"confessed" to the killing 
    of JFK. Files claims to be a former employee of Chicago mobster Charles
    Nicoletti, and that at Nicoletti's request, he fired at JFK from behind
    the stockade fence on the grassy knoll. He says he fired the fatal head
    shot, a .222 caliber bullet from a Remington XP-100 single-shot pistol
    while others shot from behind. He claims he retrieved the spent shell,
    bit it "as a sort of calling card," and left it atop the stockade fence.
    However, two .222 Remington shells -- not one -- were found by John
    Rademacher, the closest one some twenty feet from where Files says he
    fired, the other about sixty feet away. There is quite a bit more to
    Files' story, including having received a guided tour of Dealey Plaza by
    Lee Harvey Oswald, meeting with Jack Ruby a few hours before the
    assassination, seeing future Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis watching the
    motorcade, and other controversial items. 
97. Hewett, Ibid., citing 7 HSCA 157. 
98. Hewett, Ibid., citing FBI Doc. #62-109060-1431. 
99. Hewett, Ibid. 
100. In 1993, a Dallas resident named Mike Robinson provided a
     shocking detail that had never been noted before anywhere in the news
     media or official records. Robinson, who was fourteen at the time, had
     been allowed into police headquarters with a friend of his whose father
     was a Dallas policeman. Robinson told researcher Walt Brown that he 
     had a memory of Bobby Hargis he would never forget. Hargis had made 
     it all the way back to DPD headquarters, caked with the President's 
     blood and tissue, before the full realization of what had happened 
     struck him. At that moment, Robinson saw Hargis hurl himself 
    repeatedly into a wall until restrained by fellow officers. Despite 
    what we have heard over the years about the rightward-leaning 
    attitudes of the Dallas police, at least one DPD officer was 
    literally overcome with grief that day (Walt Brown, *Treachery in 
    Dallas*). 
101. In recent years a team of Washington/Baltimore-area researchers has 
     postulated a third head shot, also from the front, based on intensive 
     scrutiny of the Zapruder film.
     The hypothesis was published in Harrison Livingstone's *Killing 
     Kennedy,*and to date has not received a great deal of exposure. 
102. WR 87-92; 2 H 16, 93, 127, 361; 3 H 380. 
103. Harrison E. Livingstone, *Killing the Truth,* 277-8. 
104. Ibid. 
105. Harrison E. Livingstone, *High Treason 2*; Allan R. J. Eaglesham, 
     "Interpretations of New Information in the Pitzer Case," *JFK/Deep 
     Politics Quarterly,* April 1998. 
106. See Harold Weisberg, *Post-Mortem.* 
107. 7 HSCA 254-6.