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On November 22, 1963, shots rang out in Dealey Plaza that would change our country forever. As our 35 th president was killed, a country began mourning the death of one of its great visionaries, a man who believed in peace and racial equality, a man unlike any leader before him. The assassination of John F. Kennedy was one of the most tragic events in our nations history, but as horrific as the shooting itself were the lies which were told to the American people in the aftermath.
The Warren Commissions investigation concluded that a lone assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, shot the president without an accomplice. Stretching their imaginations to far reaches, this government-sponsored commission disregarded an amazing amount of evidence and inconsistencies. What should have been one of the most thorough investigations ever conducted was unbelievably flawed, leading many to believe there could have been a conspiracy, and yet to this day, the Kennedy case is considered closed by the majority of Americans. To understand why such a conspiracy is believable, one only needs to read through the pages of the Warren Report, the testimonies of various witnesses at Dealey Plaza on the day of his assassination and the investigation of his death in the aftermath. One of the most unfortunate and inexcusable errors in the federal investigation of the Kennedy assassination was the flawed autopsy that was performed. Because the doctors did not do a thorough examination, historians have been withheld from gathering sufficient evidence, indicating the possibility of a second or third gunman.
Dr. Helper explains: The tragic, tragic thing is that a relatively simple case was horribly botched from the very beginning, and then the errors were compounded at almost every step of the way (Hurt, 35). An hour after the shooting, the Secret Service and the Dallas County medical examiner, Dr. Earl Rose, had a conflict of who should perform the autopsy of the presidents body. Dr. Rose insisted he do it, citing that it was against Texas law to remove the body from the state without an autopsy.
However, Kenneth ODonnell, special assistant to the president, disregarded his orders, and held him and Judge Ward up against the wall at gunpoint while they removed the body. Later that evening at Bethesda Naval Hospital, three army doctors performed the official autopsy on President Kennedy. Amazingly, during the reporting of the Kennedy assassination case in 1978 by the Congress assassination committee, it was determined that the three doctors, had insufficient training and experience to evaluate a death from gunshot wounds. (Summers, 42 - 44). The chairman of the committees medical panel, Dr. Michael Baden, went on to say that the autopsy was deficient in the qualifications of the pathologists the failure to inspect the clothing the inadequate documentation of the injuries, lack of proper preservation of evidence, and the incompleteness of the autopsy. (Summers, 45). During this incredibly botched autopsy there remains much confusion over where the wounds actually were, and which wounds were exit wounds and which were entry wounds.
This medical evidence is essential for figuring out where the shots were fired from, and how many shots hit the president. While the assassinations committee officially stated that these errors were due to the pressure in which the doctors were forced to perform the autopsy, Dr. Pierre Finck, the second doctor performing the autopsy, remembers a different story. Had Texas law been observed and the autopsy conducted in Dallas, the country might have been spared the enduring confusion spawned by the events at Bethesda Hospital. (Hurt, 36). Finck testified under oath that an Army General instructed him not examine the bullet wounds closely, and that the brain was not to be looked at closely at that time. Finck was in a situation where he was forced to take orders, something that would not have happened at a Dallas autopsy.
The chief went so far as to burn his notes at the order of a general, and by 1966 almost all pictures, sketches and notes had disappeared (JFK). As bizarre as the autopsy itself, was the fact that the sketches drawn up and declared accurate by the Warren Commission, supposedly marked the bullet hole in the presidents back four inches lower than all the pathologists remember seeing it. In addition, a CIA liaisons, Regis Blahut, fingerprints were found in a vault where some autopsy photos had been tampered with (Summers, 45). While the true motive of Blahut will never be known, his crime reinforces the idea that the Central and Army Intelligence Agencies have sought to cover up the evidence regarding the presidents assassination.
Doctors in Dallas would have done an extremely thorough investigation, possibly uncovering the information that the wounds in Kennedys body made the Oswald theory impossible. The autopsy is one of the greatest pieces of evidence suggesting that there was a conspiracy. Even if one disregards the errors in the autopsy as innocent mistakes caused by a chaotic situation, there still remains evidence pointing towards a conspiracy. Acoustics Studies of the Zapruder Film, as well as the testimonies of over fifty witnesses have shown that there were four or more shots fired at the president, with at least one or more coming from the grassy knoll. The Zapruder Film was taken by a parade onlooker Abraham Zapruder, who shot eighteen apocalyptic seconds of film chronicling the assassination from start to finish. It shows that when president reacts to the first shot, clutching his throat, Governor Connally who is clearly not wounded turning around to his right.
Later Kennedy is then visibly hit with the second shot, and his body goes stiff. An interlude of three to four seconds pass before the next shot is fired. In this time, Jackie Kennedy turns to her husband, and as the third shot is fired, he is propelled forward and to the left. The forth and fatal headshot thrusts president Kennedy backward and to the left as his brain explodes.
Backward and to the left. The motion of his head is significant because it indicates the shot came from the right of the president, the grassy knoll. It is obvious that the three previous shots had come from behind the limousine, for both Kennedy and Connolly are hurled forward; indicating that the shots came from the Book depository (JFK). The Zapruder film, obvious evidence that the shots had come from the front right, was purchased by Life magazine for a quarter of a million dollars, and not shown to the American public for over a decade.
Had it been revealed, the American public would have seen that it was obvious that the president fatal headshot had come from the front right, the grassy knoll. When it was finally released in 1975, most Americans had already come to accept the Warren Commissions conclusion as fact, but even so, it, among other evidence prompted the reporting of the Kennedy case by the Congress Assassination Committee. Ironically, every member of the Warren Commission saw the Zapruder film, and yet there is not one mention of the presidents head and torso being propelled backward. Although two still frames of the headshot are printed in the Warren Commission, they are in reverse order (making it look as though the president is being propelled forward).
J. Edgar Hoover explained this as a printing error, but it seems as though the unmistakable truth was being held from the American public (Summers, 63). The Warren commission also chose to disregard over fifty witnesses who said they heard shots come from the grassy knoll, others who saw suspicious men hanging around in the rail yard behind the grassy knoll, as well as witnesses who saw smoke from behind the fence. As in the autopsy, the government only published information that fit their theory of a single gunman, going to the extremes when they had to explain how one almost perfect bullet, could have caused so many wounds in both President Kennedy and Governor Connally (Summers 55 - 61). The single bullet theory, later dubbed the magic bullet theory is one of the most problematic areas of the Warren Commissions case. Midway through the Warren Commissions investigation they realized that they had a serious dilemma: the Zapruder Film showed that the time frame in the shooting allowed only a second in between when the president reacted to the wounds in his neck and back, and when Governor Connally froze, apparently hit and wounded in his torso, wrist and thigh.
Since a lone gunman would not have had the time to fire twice, the Warren Commission was left with two choices. They could admit that there must have been a second shooter and thus a conspiracy, or they could conclude that one bullet must have passed through both Kennedy and Connally. But even with the extremely vague autopsy, they chose the latter (Summers, 66). To accept this magic bullet theory they had to establish that the bullet entered, took a U-turn, zigzagged right and suspended itself in mid-air for over a second (JFK). As if this was not preposterous enough, the Warren Commission also claimed that they had the actual bullet, which was suspiciously found in the hospital hours later in near pristine condition. This magic bullet had passed through multiple layers of skin, hit bones and muscles and was in much better condition they any of the hundreds of slugs fired in tests which had only penetrated through skin once.
Even three out of the seven members of the Warren Commission found the single bullet theory impossible to believe, in essence saying that there must have been a second gunman (Summers, 67). The four others who did believe the magic bullet theory cited that experts in Washington had proved it to them with theoretical physics. But as Jim Garrison said, theoretical physics can also prove that an elephant can hang off a cliff with his tail tied to a flower. (JFK). One must use common sense when looking at the evidence in the actual shooting, because too often the government has tried to confuse us with riddles (JFK). There is even some evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald may not have pulled the trigger in the book depository, and that there were possibly two men in the window. Only fifteen minutes before the shooting, Oswald was seen eating lunch in the cafeteria and it is believed that he was still down there five to ten minutes before the shooting (Hurt, 91).
At the same time he was spotted in the lunchroom by three witnesses (12: 15 pm. ), spectators supposedly saw two snipers in the 6 th floor window, thinking they were secret service agents. Howard Brennan, a witness who was standing 120 feet from the Book Depository, claimed he was facing the snipers perch when the shots sounded, therefore making him the closest eyewitness that the authorities could find (Hurt, 88). While he stated that he saw only one man in the window of the...
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Research essay sample on Lee Harvey Oswald Single Bullet Theory
