Impossible: The Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald (34 page)

With the information provided by these latter two paragraphs, the shot sequence (read in conjunction with the Zapruder film which reveals three separate hits) is clearly established: Shot 1 strikes President Kennedy, entering his back, but only penetrating to a distance of less than a finger length; some time later, Shot 2 strikes Governor Connally (the bullet which struck President Kennedy in the back not exiting Kennedy’s body), and still later, Shot 3 strikes President Kennedy in the head. Three separate shots, three separate hits.

This sequence of events was anticipated in a telephone conversation recorded at 1:40 pm between President Lyndon Johnson and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover on November 29, 1963:
4

Over the next few weeks, media reports transmitted this information to the public at large.
The New York Times
started it off by indirectly confirming the three shots, three-hit scenario on December 18th, 1963, stating that the first bullet which hit President Kennedy did not pass through his body:
5

This finding was echoed by the
Times
the next day:
6

Five days after this article appeared, both the FBI and the Warren Commission received a copy of the official autopsy report on December 23, 1963 (
Accessories After The Fact
, p. 148). On January 4, 1964, the
Journal of the American Medical Association
(possibly utilizing this information) specifically verified the three shots, three-hit scenario transmitted by Director Hoover to President Johnson:
7

As if to remove all possible doubt,
The New York Times
summarized and confirmed the foregoing (with far more than enough time to analyze the existing medical evidence), on January 19, 1964, nearly
2 months
after the assassination!
8

So, let’s sum this all up. According to FBI (through reports directly to the President and to the Warren Commission), and media sources as reputable as
The New York Times
and the
Journal of the American Medical Association
(based on the medical evidence gathered from the autopsy report and other sources), Shot 1 hit President Kennedy, Shot 2 hit President Connally, and Shot 3 hit President Kennedy. Once again, three shots, three hits. All of this evidence entirely consistent with an edited version of our element, “Exactly three shots were fired from . . . Lee Harvey Oswald’s rifle.”

How surprising then, to come across this shocking headline on page 111 of the
Warren Report
:

Uh oh!! What have we here? According to the element, only
three
shots were fired. And the conclusions provided by the FBI and media
were
consistent with that element. So what is this? A shot that
missed
?

If in fact there
was
a shot that missed, that is an
extra
shot. And since 3 + 1 = 4, that means that
four
shots were fired, not
three
!

Also, what it means is that if we are 100% confident in the judgments of the FBI provided to the Warren Commission and to President Johnson, and 100% confident in the judgments of the Warren Commission as provided in their
Report vis a vis
this headline, then we can be 100% confident that the element “Exactly three shots were fired from . . . Lee Harvey Oswald’s rifle.” is
false
, resulting in this modified confidence level regarding the element:

If the above were truly the case, this would be a pretty short chapter. As it turns out, however, the Warren Report fudged on their headline just a few lines later, saying that it was only
probable
that there was a shot that missed (and therefore only
likely
that the element three bullets were fired was false, not
certain
). The Warren Report actually rejected the conclusions of the FBI based on their claimed analysis of the evidence, rejecting the “
three
shots, three hits” scenario in favor of a “
two
shots, three hits” scenario which has subsequently been referred to as the
single bullet theory
.

With only two shots doing all the damage (according to the official version), that meant that one of the shots missed purely from a logical perspective, though the Commission could not identify which shot. As the Commission summarized (WR 111):
9

Astute readers will note two transformations in the evidentiary findings here, with the FBI telling us that the President was shot in the
back
with a bullet that did
not
pass through his body, and the Commission completely ignoring this information and manufacturing a new reality, “reporting” that the President was shot in the
neck
with a bullet that
did
pass through his body
,
one of the many seismic changes in the factual landscape necessitated by the political desire (as we will shortly see) to promulgate a
lone assassin
theory.

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