"He has never subscribed to the conspiracy theories and stresses that he is not promoting one now. At age 88, he said, all he wants is to tell what he saw and what he did. He will leave it to everyone else to draw conclusions...."
The Warren Commission decided that one of the bullets fired that day struck the president from behind, exited from the front of his throat and continued on to hit Mr. Connally, somehow managing to injure his back, chest, wrist and thigh. It seemed incredible that a single bullet could do all that, so skeptics called it the magic bullet theory.
Investigators came to that conclusion partly because the bullet was found on a stretcher believed to have held Mr. Connally at Parkland Memorial Hospital, so they assumed it had exited his body during efforts to save his life.
But Mr. Landis, who was never interviewed by the Warren Commission, said... he was the one who found the bullet — and he found it not in the hospital near Mr. Connally but in the presidential limousine lodged in the back of the seat behind where Kennedy was sitting.
When he spotted the bullet after the motorcade arrived at the hospital, he said he grabbed it to thwart souvenir hunters. Then, for reasons that still seem fuzzy even to him, he said he entered the hospital and placed it next to Kennedy on the president’s stretcher, assuming it could somehow help doctors figure out what happened.
At some point, he now guesses, the stretchers must have been pushed together and the bullet was shaken from one to another. “There was nobody there to secure the scene, and that was a big, big bother to me,” Mr. Landis said. “All the agents that were there were focused on the president.” A crowd was gathering. “This was all going on so quickly. And I was just afraid that — it was a piece of evidence, that I realized right away. Very important. And I didn’t want it to disappear or get lost. So it was, ‘Paul, you’ve got to make a decision,’ and I grabbed it.’”...
It was not until 2014 that he realized that the official account of the bullet differed from his memory, he said... “I didn’t want to talk about it,” Mr. Landis said. “I was afraid. I started to think, did I do something wrong? There was a fear that I might have done something wrong and I shouldn’t talk about it.”...
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73 comments:
Wouldn’t speaking to every secret service agent at the scene that day be a necessary part of an investigation?
The curse of Arlen Specter continues to haunt the nation.
We'll never know.
Our government runs a separate operation. We're just here to create jobs and send them money.
Fake.
Memory progression and other evolving witnesses motivate establishiment of a statute of limitation.
Remember when LBJ had that car washed and fully repaired, chop chop, right after taking office? In an honest country, that car would be in storage somewhere in its post assassination condition, to this day. But of course, it was not. Large amounts of evidence was destroyed. And "son of a bich" as Joe Biden would say, we marched straight into Viet Nam full bore. But Viet Nam was all Nixon's fault, I forget. You know, the guy who ended the war, and who opened up relations with China, and who was taken out by the FBI.
Then who became President? Why a guy from the Warren Commission whitewash. A guy who knew a lot of things, and told us nothing but lies.
Paul Landis, just feet away from JFK at the moment the bullet hit the President, was never interviewed by the Warren Commission.
It's somewhat comforting to know that the lies, cover-ups, and corruption we see in our government today, have been with us for decades, if not longer. Yet the country survives.
Am I the only one who thinks that his story sounds a little fishy? Does anyone believe that the bullet he supposedly found in the car had penetrated Kennedy but popped back out into the seat? Or that it was shaken from JFK's gurney onto Connolly's gurney?
I don't believe the Warren Commission but I'm having trouble squeezing plausibility out of this guys story as well.
Interesting…but we should treat his memory of events sixty years ago in the same way that we’d treat memories from any other 88-year-old about events sixty years ago - with a heavy dose of skepticism. Our memory is very fallible; it’s been shown that we self-edit our memories all the time, and the more we revisit them, the more we edit them. Traumatic memories maybe worst if all. Elizabeth Loftus is one on the leading researchers on this topic; her books on memory are very interesting and well-researched.
I am guessing this NYT story will be believed by commentators here while the Bpok Review NYT article will be dismissed as fake news.
I enjoy how the hostess manages to play people posting here like a cheap fiddle, despite their claims to sophistication.
Good job, mate. Withholding pertinent information when it would have been helpful.
Paycheck and pension first.
Truth not even on the horizon.
A surgeon I know found a bullet in the clothing of Robert Kennedy as he was taken into surgery for his head wound. He picked it up and gave it to the SS agents outside the OR, asking "Anybody want this ?"
We haven't lived in a "democracy" since JFK was taken out by our own government.
They were pissed he wouldn't invade Cuba during the missile crises. "We're not pulling out of Viet Nam Jack. We're just getting started!"
The US Gov't killed him. No doubt. Makes you sick to think the among of American soldiers, and people around the world that died as victims of the American war machine as a result.
It's much the same reason they HATE Trump and his supporters. We are not a "government of the people, by the people, and for the people". That's make believe.
This "memory" is even more improbable than the explanation offered by the Warren Report. Mr. Landis's story has a Grand Canyon-scale hole in it, specifically, the lack of a 6.5mm hole in the limousine. How could a rifle bullet, fired from any direction, get "lodged in the back of the seat behind where Kennedy was sitting" without leaving a hole in either the bodywork or the upholstery? The stretched and armored 1961 Lincoln Continental, leased from the Ford Motor Company by the Secret Service was flown back to Washington aboard the C-130 that brough it to Dallas shortly after JFK's body was returned to Washington aboard Air Force One. Afterward, it was taken from Andrews AFB to the White House garage where Bethesda Naval Hospital staffers searched it for medical forenic evidence -- blood, tissue, brain matter, etc. In no document ever seen by the public has a bullet hole in the car itself been reported.
The limousine still exists, by the way. It remains the property of Ford, and it is currenty on display in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Mr. Landis should go there and show us the hole.
If this guy was a Secret Service agent feet away from Kennedy when he was shot, how is it that the Warren Commission never interviewed him?
I have always believed someone collected that bullet and placed it on the stretcher for some reason- I just never knew from where it had been collected, and it has always been odd that no one ever came forward to admit it was they that placed it there.
I agree with The Onion headline that reads: "KENNEDY SLAIN BY CIA, MAFIA, CASTRO, LBJ, TEAMSTERS, FREEMASONS President Shot 129 Times From 43 Different Angles"
Why the recent interest in the JFK assassination?
I was in 5th grade when informed that the POTUS had been shot. A few days later, I watched on live TV as Lee Harvey Oswald was executed by Jack Ruby.
It all seemed so very very convenient, but the Warren Commission assured us that there was no government or agency conspiracy to kill JFK.
Do people really think that the government would be so monstrous as to kill a POTUS and then cover it up?
SO! This man ADMITS, that he was a part of a HORRIBLE CONSPIRACY! and PERSONALLY MURDERED JFK!
oh wait.. Never mind
At some point, he now guesses, the stretchers must have been pushed together and the bullet was shaken from one to another.
Sounds like an alternative "magic bullet theory." But it's rather shocking that he wasn't interviewed by the Warren Commission.
"There’s a party going on behind the grassy knoll"
Was the FBI involved in the investigation? That is really the only question that needs asking. If so then there WAS some covering up going on. If not, maybe not.
Sounds like bullshit
The new story actually sounds very reasonable, although new memories coming up six decades after an event that has been so widely discussed in the intervening time should be treated sceptically.
I think the real lesson is that the "magic bullet" conspiracy theorists were *too* willing to believe the official story instead of accepting that in a chaotic situation people might do something that seems reasonable at the time but simply not tell anyone or make a paper trail.
Finally, a point for humility: the actual primary sources for an event might not be as obsessed with the historical record as later researchers. For conspiracy theorists, the magic bullet has been a major area of obsession for decades. For the secret service guy, it was something he did in five minutes and never thought about again, because that was the day the president was shot right next to him.
I would like to read RFK, Jr.’s reaction to this. Then I’d like to hear President Biden’s reaction.
Our trustworthy "We Can't Figure Out Who Brought The Cocaine Into the White House Secret Service" and our trustworthy "Russia Collusion FBI" now are altering their story about the Magic Bullet.
Only now, at age 88, is this Straight Shooter™ telling what he knows and what he did. Up until now he's been witholding evidence - committing obstruction of justice.
Why, the Magic Bullet wasn't found on Kennedy's stretcher after all. It was found in the car. It was then placed on Connolly's stretcher, where it Magically jumped over to Kennedy's stretcher when the need arose.
He found this bullet "lodged in the back of a seat." F^ck does that mean? Lodged? How do you "lodge" a pristine bullet that allegedly broke a man's wrist bones but was somehow never deformed in the least, in a fabric seat?
The entire Warren fiction is fabricated to cover up for the coup that occurred with the murder of the President of the United States by the real rulers of the United States - The Central Intelligence Agency. And they've been covering it up ever since, with one fake President after the next being installed up to and including the present Fake President, Joe 81MillionLOL Biden, protoge of Barack "I Swear I Wasn't Born In Kenya and I'll Produce a Birth Certificate It Takes Two Years To Produce To Prove It" Obama.
The United States is a joke of a country, run by a cabal of criminals very quickly devolving into actual gun-grabbing Nazis and its time we put them out.
Why won’t Biden (or Trump) release all files pertains to the JFK asassination?
He comes forward now?
The article feels like a "warning shot" directed at Trump and RFK Jr.
1. This guy is really old and no longer concerned about keeping his secret. If there’s no record of his contemporary recollection that speaks poorly of the investigation.
2. It does seem implausible that the bullet was lodged behind Kennedy or if it’s indeed not deformed was lodged behind Connelly’s seat. Nor could an intact bullet have performed the Magic trick that the Warren Report described.
Summary: this raises more questions than it answers.
that seems implausible as the direction of the bullet wasn't down,
Secret Service agent feet from the President not interviewed by anyone? Secret Service agent doesn’t turn over evidence in a prescribed manner but instead places it on a stretcher assuming someone will figure out where it came from? Secret Service agent doesn’t insist that someone listen to his vital information for the investigation? Sounds rather ridiculous.
A British documentary team did a thorough report 20 some years ago that was once on YouTube but is now disappeared. They found evidence of 7 shots by 5 shooters. The CIA wet work team made sure our popular President was slaughtered from several angles in a few seconds. Then the coverup was near perfection. But the Zapruder film that was bought and was hidden for years got released minus a few frames.
Shocking as that was, the big deal for my generation has alway been the CIA blackmailing him forced the co-conspirator LBJ into cranking up a full war in South Viet Nam in the summer of 65. We were soldiers once and young.
They don't have to explain anything. They just have to keep muddying the waters.
The people who believe that the government carried out an assassination conspiracy with such precision that they fired bullets from someplace else at precisely the same moment that Oswald fired from the book depository, covered up all evidence of their involvement, and kept everyone involved in the operation completely silent for the rest of their lives, tend to be people who also think the government is hopelessly incompetent. I'm not sure how to square that circle.
My own thinking is simply that the CIA and FBI knew that Oswald was plotting something big but dropped the ball on keeping him under surveillance. The agencies are still insisting on keeping portions of the record sealed so that this screw-up will not be revealed.
The theory that there were multiple gunmen unloading shots on the limo is pretty bonkers. Although the supposed conspirators could have believed it would increase their chances of success to have multiple shooters instead of just one person firing from the sixth floor of the TSBD, they hardly could have planned it so precisely and minutely so that, if the extra shooters actually hit Kennedy, it could still be made to APPEAR that all of the shots came from Oswald's gun. If any of the shots from the grassy knoll had hit anyone in the car in the face, or if it had shot out a headlight or something, it would have been immediately obvious there was more than one shooter. There's no way anyone could have planned it so that LHO would end up looking like the only shooter. If it had been a priority to make LHO appear to be the sole assassin, then the Mafia or the CIA, whoever people imagine were behind this, wouldn't have had multiple gunmen unloading bullets from different directions. At least have the "extra" shooters all firing from the SAME direction!
Voice over a loudspeaker: Now hear this. In honor of Secret Service agent Paul Landis emeritus, I Lem the misspeller, by the authority granted me by my X, solemnly declare that from this day forward, no one, including trans, cis and bi persons, within the confines of the internet, also once called "a series of tubes", shall use the words "brake his/her silence" unless the silence has been held for no less than 60 years. That is all.
Mark Lane in his Book "Rush to Judgment" had an explanation for this bullet. It was a misfire from Oswald's gun in the book depository building. It hit Kennedy in the back just below his left shoulder blade. It was the first bullet to hit Kennedy and caused him to raise both arms up. As a miss fire it did not penetrate deeply into Kennedy and fell out during the handling of Kennedy's body at Parkland Hospital. The kill shot came the grassy knoll while Connelly's wounds came from a third shorter on top of a building directly behind the motorcade. Four shots in all, one missed entirely, a second hit Kennedy in the back, a third hit Connelly and the fourth shot hit Kennedy from the front in the head just above his right ear creating a blood splatter that covered the back of the limo and the Secret Service agent who was jogging along to the back left of the limo. Lane was accused of being a conspiracy theorist.
I have an alternative theory for why this story is emerging now.
I am waiting for the FBI/DOJ/NSA/CIA to leak new "insider information" showing a much younger Donald Trump was the russian asset that fired the "real" bullet that killed JFK.
Trump would be convicted in 15 minutes in any New Soviet Democratical controlled Star Chamber "trial".
As for this 88-year-old's blockbuster revelation (sarc.), I don't see how it changes anything that he supposedly found the bullet in the car then placed it on what he understood was JFK's stretcher, only for investigators to decide/assume that it was on Connolly's stretcher. Granted, it didn't just jump from one stretcher to another; but someone else could have moved it again, right? Or maybe there was a mistake or miscommunication about which stretcher was which when they were trying to figure out where the bullet had actually come from. Obviously, as this guy himself indicates, neither the limo nor the hospital was exactly locked down in the couple of hours following the shooting. (I'd recommend the film "Parkland" for what seems to be a realistic representation of that setting.)
Concerning the bullet "lodged" behind the seat, I assumed the gentleman meant "lodged" in the sense that loose change can get lodged in a seat cushion. No tears or damage involved.
The fact (if it is a fact) that the Warren Commission didn't interview him doesn't shock me. The fact that the Commission itself didn't interview him doesn't rule out the possibility that he spoke with the police, the FBI, or his own superiors at the Secret Service, and none of them concluded that he had anything of special interest to add to what they already knew. And, it appears they were right, except this guy failed to mention for 60 years that he had some possible light to shed on where the so-called magic bullet first appeared post-assassination. But if that's ALL he had to offer, I don't think it was a major omission for the Chief Justice et all not to have personally sat down with him.
I await Bill Bagpipe Barr's commentary.
They never interviewed the agent?
JFC!!!
We live in a clown country governed my clown morons (I'm being charitable here) and it appears this has always been so.
'Interesting…but we should treat his memory of events sixty years ago in the same way that we’d treat memories from any other 88-year-old about events sixty years ago - with a heavy dose of skepticism.'
Corn pop anyone?
If you read the contemporaneous article currently up at Vanity Fair, you will realize that this new elevation undermines the Warren Report’s basic conclusions. The bullet was not lodged in the upholstery—it was found lying on top of the seat where the upholstery met the metal. It apparently got there when it fell out of a shallow wound on the President’s back which was penetrated by a defective bullet which matched Oswald’s rifle. Agent Landis found it lying there after JFK was lifted from the car. Instead of leaving it there, he took it and placed it on the President’s stretcher. The Warren commission neede it to be found on Connlly’s stretcher.
I am with Ice Nine on this story. The story sounds absurd. (The book "Case Closed" makes a pretty good case for why the "magic bullet" was not really magical at all.) I also do not buy all the pontificating certainty about how this was a CIA coup, etc. Kennedy was a supreme Cold Warrior who went along with all kinds of hairbrained CIA games, the Bay of Pigs stupidity being one. More importantly, he got us deep into Vietnam, being the first to send a substantial number of soldiers into combat there (yes, I know, the were called "advisors." Please!), and all the claims that he planned to get us back out are based on wishful speculation and little more. His little coup gone awry against Diem just a month before his own assassination does not suggest to me anything other than the kind of reckless Cold Warrior adventurism as he enjoyed in his bimbo infested White House (Stormy Daniels times 100 or more). The Vietnam War was our worst mistake of the entire Cold War era and I hold him as co-equally responsible with LBJ. I suppose it's possible the Cubans did him in via their contacts with the little commie FAIR PLAY FOR CUBA creep who worked in the book depository that day. Otherwise, I do not know. This is not to let the deep state off the hook, and they may well have had something to do with it. I just don't think it much matters now. He was a deeply flawed human being and a third-rate president. That does matter.
Yeah, let's go back and look at the limo...
The White House authorized the Lincoln Continental to be fixed and modified in December 1963. Per The Henry Ford Museum, it was sent to Hess & Eisenhardt in Cincinnati, Ohio, where it was rebuilt. It was then transported to Ford Motor Company's garage in Dearborn, Michigan where more features were added. The overhaul of the Lincoln Continental included new black paint, reinforced structural parts, additional communication technology, a non-removable top, and armoring of the passenger compartments. In total, the project reportedly cost $500,000 to complete (about $4.6 million in today's money).
Read More: https://www.grunge.com/827864/what-happened-to-the-car-jfk-was-assassinated-in/
Not to worry, the FBI, CIA, and the Warren Commission examined it carefully and documented everything that they wanted us to know,
WTF is (Lefty) Mark babbling about?
By my rough count at 3:30pm ET on Sunday, comments are running 60-40 against this story being credible.
Wait… what kind of silence discards “conspiracy theories”?
If you are silent about something, and your silence includes silence about the conspiracy theories about that something you’re silent about, does that mean your silence is imbued with a higher status of silence?
It's a HiFi Silence.
Remember when the FBI hassled Billie Holiday for singing that song "Strange Fruit," maybe getting her back hooked on heroin? That's what the biopic says, but who really knows, but there is little doubt that the FBI harassed her for singing that song.
Remember what the FBI did to MLK?
It's impossible to imagine J Edgar Hoover putting himself in the position of kingmaker, though. That's just crazy! That man was a ramrod straight protector of truth, justice, and the American way! Anybody who questions the FBI and the CIA and the Warren Commission is addlepated! I have that on the best authority.
Nope, not buying it.
Too much time has elapsed. Memory is meaningless without corroboration.
So our national interest in getting to the bottom of the JFK Assassination is directed by the seasoned government eyewitness nicely into a fresh new culdesac, full of intriguing possibilities and fascinating new theories, all leading nowhere. Got it.
So, this Secret Service professional, feet away from JFK's exploding brain, didn't INSIST on getting his story into the record? That's just another bad smell from that day, that won't go away.
I stumbled on a book once at a local used book store that purported to be the confession of the Secret Service agent in the following (IIRC) car who accidentally shot the Prez. This would have been probably in the late '80s, around the 25th anniversary?
I should have bought the damn thing.
It used to be weird for new testimonies to emerge decades later, but it is more common in this new “progressive” era.
Besides a question regarding the absence of a bullethole in the Lincoln, let's ask Mr. Landis about how he came to be rummaging around inside the Lincoln's trunk because that would be the only way he could view or feel with his hands the backside of the rear seat unless he took the time to rip it out from the front. (Unless you're Super-Dooper Man, one needs the help of a friendly crane or frontend loader to remove that rear seat without loosening the bolts from inside the trunk first.)
Then there's a time factor that must be resolved. Immediately after Kennedy's head exploded, the Presidential limousine sped away from the motorcade route toward Parkland General Hospital. Was Landis in the car with Jack, Jackie, and Johnny conducting his search? (Pardon me, Mizz Kennedy. Could you and your hubby scooch over a bit? I wanna search the car for clues.)
Upon arrival, both the President and the Governor were placed on gurneys and wheeled into the emergency facility. Granted John Connally was conscious and speaking, therefore triage and politics dictated prioritizing the President of the United States over the Governor of the State of Texas, nevertheless, Parkland's admissions staff didn't ask Connally to fill out a questionnaire; he was taken into a treatment room very shortly after Mr. Kennedy was similarly served. With those facts established, let us consider how long Landis must have taken to crawl into the Lincoln's trunk, move everything that might have hindered or obstructed his examination of the rear seat's back surfaces, and then actually find and extract the spent bullet he claims to have found therein.
How much time? A minute? Two? Twenty? Let's assume he didn't wear a blue leotard and a red cape with an S on it, so it's more than a minute, but let us be generous and assume Mr. Landis was enjoying the biggest adrenaline rush since the Incredible Hulk ripped the bejeezus out of the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters building and grant him five minutes. So, five minutes after John Connally has been taken inside the hospital Landius finds The Magic Bullet. Tah-dah! Now he must run, not walk, inside the hospital and discretely place The Magic Bullet beside Connally's forearm such that no one sees him do it. Is that in the least bit probable? Did those Parkland surgeons allow Connally to suffer without attention for five minutes while they discussed the merits of the Longhorn's defensive line? Or were they waiting for Landis to finish his investigation and deliver The Magic Bullet? (The Conspiracy deepens and expands, as it always does.)
in the presidential limousine lodged in the back of the seat behind where Kennedy was sitting
So while they were speeding to the hospital, he spent his time digging out the bullet? Because he would have had to dig it out if it was "lodged" in the back of the seat. And no one noticed him doing this?
No doubt people are using this to say that Kennedy was shot from the front (which people who do not know fundamental physics have previously said). But if you go to Dealey Plaza and stand in any place where the shot could have come from the front of the car, the angles are all wrong. The only angle that works is to go stand in the middle of the street, where the vehicle would have been.
I am guessing this NYT story will be believed by commentators here .....
Do you ever pause and think before you shove your foot into your mouth?
Conceivably, a spent bullet could have hit Connelly and bounced backward into the back seat.
According to this guy, who spent a lot of time with him, the bullet was not "lodged" into the seat, but found it "resting on top" of it.
Landis saw and did something that he has kept secret for six decades, he says now. He claims he spotted a bullet resting on the top of the back of the seat. He says he picked it up, put it in his pocket, and brought it into the hospital. Then, upon entering Trauma Room No. 1 (at that stage, he was the only nonmedical person in the room besides Mrs. Kennedy, and both stayed for only a short period), he insists, he placed the bullet on a white cotton blanket on the president’s stretcher.
Then there is this:
The sad fact is that Landis—though required to provide his version of events to the Secret Service (and, in a second report, to what would become the Warren Commission)—never sat for an interview before the FBI and never testified before the commission itself. He left the Secret Service months after the assassination and before the panel had finished its work and issued its report.
So he was riding on the running board at the time, and was never questioned. I am sure that this was an innocent, and likely the only oversight, in an exhaustive and sincere attempt to get at the truth.
He also claims that he never read about the assassination, or all of the theories, due to PSTD, until the past few years. A lot of us of a certain age have fathers who never talked about "the war," and never showed much interest in the written history of it.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/09/new-jfk-assassination-revelation-upend-lone-gunman
Did he fill out a report afterwards? Is that report available? If so, is what he is saying now different? If so, why?
Perhaps the commission, having his eyewitness report, didn't think there was anything else they needed to ask him about?
I haven't read the article so maybe those questions are answered in it, but I think that is the first round of questions all should keep in mind.
Of course, this is all bunk. His letter of testimony available to the Warren Commission says he picked up three things from the seat of the car: A purse, hat and a cigarette lighter. That is what he said. What he claims now is completely BULL.
see: Warren Commission, Volume XVIII: CE 1024
@Quaestor
Wasn't the car open-topped? Bullet hits Kennedy, bullet lodges in seat. That's not impossible, particularly if the seat has an armored plate in the back. There would be a hole in the seat upholstery, and the bullet would leave a big splat on the plate. If the bullet survived intact after that, I suppose it could be recovered. It wouldn't penetrate the car body in this case.
Bullets do funny things.
That doesn't mean this account should be believed, and it's correct to be skeptical. There should be a hole in the seat back that should have been noticed. The bullet should have left a dent, and that should have been noticed. In short, this should be easily confirmed.
Dogma opined: "I assumed the gentleman meant "lodged" in the sense that loose change can get lodged in a seat cushion. No tears or damage involved.
The thing about loose change that gets "lodged" in your sofa is that it's not readily seen. It doesn't just sit on top, waiting for someone to notice it, like brain matter splattered over a bonnet that can be scooped up by a grieving widow. You have to DIG in between the seat cushions to discover it, and then you only feel it ... you never see it until you pull it out.
So this guy is not only committing obstruction of justice by only speaking up now, he's lying even now.
It's all BULLSH|T bro. The CIA is lying. The FBI is lying. The Judges are lying. The Senators are lying. The Warren Commission is lying. Everybody is lying because the truth would get THEM killed. By us.
That's why there has been a 60-year coverup of this murder by the CIA. It's why there is an ongoing coverup into the theft of the 2020 election of Joe Biden. And it's why the next election will see Donald Trump murdered in much the same way.
It's them or us. And they have voted to eliminate us.
Stephen Hunter, The Third Bullet. Fiction but provocative
I don't know what this story means, even if it's as clear a memory as my 90 year old mother had of hearing that WWII had just ended when she was 16, or if it is a false memory, which Dali claimed burned the brightest. But I know that the official story of the assassination stinks to high heaven, and taking notes, and then totally refitting the car, destroying all physical evidence, within a couple weeks of the event, supports the strong inference of a cover-up right there,
I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he was in shock during these events, and that he avoided reading about the assassination for decades, and never realized that this bullet was such a big deal.
Even if he submitted a written report, as an eyewitness, he should have been asked questions based on other things that the investigators may have discovered. To assume a written report is a complete brain dump of all relevant facts is kind of simple-minded. The more likely explanation for not talking to him was to avoid introducing any more testimony that would have to be covered with an even more complicated lie.
Y’all need to read the Vanity Fair link that Tim posted above before knee-jerk dismissing this new info. The line gunman theory is seriously challenged because this is a “fourth bullet” which was specifically ruled out by the Warren Commission.
My Lord!
First aliens, and not the Kennedy assassination?
It really is 1975 all over again!
An assassination at a technological transitional time period.
The evidence lies in witness recollection (like this story shows), some police audio tape, and largely one 8mm movie camera (Zapruder's).
If the murder had happened twenty years earlier, there probably would have been only witness evidence. There were fewer personal camera's in the 1940's and probably no recordings of police motorcycle radio calls. It would be difficult to impossible to speculate on all the various scenario's of the event.
If the murder had happened twenty years later, in the 80's, there would have been multiple video (along with the associated audio) evidence from many VHS camcorders (today there would be literally hundreds of cell phone video to exam). A much clearer image would have emerged on what occurred.
This happened at a point in history where there is just enough evidence to draw some speculation, but not enough to make determinative conclusions.
Some things are to forever remain uncertain.
Just another old, gassy a-hole.
Kennedy was no cold warrior. His commencement speech at American University has been dubbed by historians of the era as 'The Peace Speech'. The speech called for nuclear disarmament and announced negotiations over a test ban treaty. Kennedy hated the CIA. He felt that they had lied to him and had set him up for failure over the Bay of Pigs. He felt the same thing about the Cuban Missile crisis that they were giving him bad intelligence, which they were. You can watch the speech here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fkKnfk4k40
There is a prescient segment in the speech that is relevant to the current war in the Ukraine and the incompetence of the current administration's policy there:
Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy--or of a collective death-wish for the world.
NotWhoIUsedToBe writes, "Bullets do funny things."
Yes they do, but they're only funny, let's say mysterious, to people without advanced degrees in forenic ballistics, like Dr. Lucien Haag and his son, Dr. Michael Haag, who have done extensive tests with a Model 38 Carcano infantry carbine essentially identical with the rifle discovered by the Dallas police hidden on the sixth floor of the School Book Depository building, firing essentially identical Italian-made 6.5x52mm military FMJ ammunition. I'm not qualified like these men are, but I have dug .45 ACP FMJ slugs out of a used Kevlar police vest. Bullets that strike protective armour that fail to shatter have a distinctive appearance, like little metal mushrooms.
The bullet recovered from Connally's gurney, disregard how it got there, has two nicknames give it by the conspiracy mongers. It's either the Magic Bullet™️ or the Pristine Bullet©️ depend on what cockamamie narrative is being hawked. Having read some of the public writings on the matter by Haag et fils, I can assure anyone it is neither. The bullet is a bit squashed on one side and it is messing a small but measurable quantity of lead filler, that missing mass being approximately equal to lead fragment extracted surgically from John Connally's torso and right wrist. It does not in any manner resemble a bullet halted by ballistic armor.
However, everything I have bothered to write so far is immaterial. The fundamental and unanswered question raised by the Landis tale concerns time. TIME.
Let's assume there's an armor plate behind the rear seat, as you speculate. (No description of the 1961 Lincoln Continental modified by Ford to SS specifications that I've seen mentions such a protective barrier, but let that slide. And let's pretend the slight distortion of the Pristine Bullet©️ is entirely consistent with "splatting" on the armor plate, (which it's not, but let that slide as well) all that these assumptions do is complicate the fundamental time issue to an absurd degree. How is that armor plate secured to the limo's frame, by bolts or welds? Doesn't matter. Paul Landis did not have the time to remove it, assuming he had the wrench or the cutting torch, which he didn't. So how does he find the bullet? If he can't get past the armor he must go through the upholstery with a very sharp knife or shears. Then he's need to pull out the padding an maneuver around the springs to find the slug. But by his own admission he didn't do this. He says he found it "lodged in the back of the seat". There are only three ways to do that:
1) Remove the rear passenger seat. That means removing bolts accessible only from the trunk. Or one could physically rip the seat from its moorings with an asist from a superhero or some power equipment.
2) Rip out the upholstery, padding, and springs.
3) Crawl into the trunk, pull away the trunk linings to expose the back of the seat, and explore that area by hand, which is the Landis tale in a nutshell.
However, there's no evidence he did any of those things and direct evidence he did not. But again, a fact-resistant person can concoct an infinite number of absurd explanations as to how he did that without anyone noticing the Secret Service dude frantically rummaging around in the limousine's trunk. But, if there's an armor plate in the mix, then the five minutes I very unrealistically allowed him expands to hours. There's no non-supernatural explanation of how Paul Landis did that search in the time available. (Read my entire 9/10/23, 3:40 PM comment again.)
Quaestor,
While I am very doubtful Landis' account is truthful, I think you make a mistake taking "lodged in the back of seat" too literally. People are rarely precise with their language, and I would assume Landis' meant sticking out of the back seat given how he described collecting it without doing all the cutting etc. that you wrote would be required. Someone needed to question Landis with these thoughts in mind.
For me, two of the tells that I'm talking to somebody who's either ignorant or a conspiracist are associated with Oswald's shooting.
First, they start the clock and have Oswald work the bolt for his first shot, then the second, then the third. That's so dumb it can't be serious. They hope to fool the unwary. In fact, the clock starts with the first shot and requires only two actions to get the next two rounds off.
Secondly, how difficult a shot it is. I toured the site a couple of years ago. I was also Infantry long ago. Any trainee could have made that shot with iron sights. Oswald had a scope. He is reputed to have fired it on a range, or, it being Texas, just out in the country someplace. It's unlikely the scope was significantly off or he'd either have fixed it or allowed for it.
Other factors may or may not support conspiracy theories, but when you start with those two, forget it.
I often think that death bed confessions are created by starving writers.
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