JFK Assassination Documents to be released this year

[FrankO]

The right lapel movement is often quoted, although I have yet to see a copy of the film that is clear enough to show it. Looking at the footage of the presidential limo as it turned into Houston St from Main St, it can be seen that the flags on the car indicate a strong wind from the NNW. I think it would have been the wind lifting the lapel rather than a bullet as indicated by this photo of Connally's coat.

I see the shoulder movements as part of the turning process.

Hi George,

Thanks for your reply and the photo.

If by your first sentence you mean that what we see in frame 224 isn’t clearly discernible as a lapel, then I agree. But other than that, it’s very clear that in frame 223 we see his tie and part of his shirt and in frame 224 it’s blocked from view by something that has the same colour as his jacket and very likely is the right lapel of his jacket. What else should it be?

Of course, it may just have been a gust of wind that moved it, but I find it somewhat of a coincidence that it’s precisely in frame 224 that we see it. Furthermore, there’s also the quick lowering of his right shoulder. Within 0.27 seconds he moves it down, as if he’s been poked in the right side.

Taking these things together with the fact that he keeps his right hand holding the hat at shoulder level until at least 279, it seems that he was either hit close to frame 224 or by 2 different shots at some hard to determine later frame. Other than some possible facial expressions, there’s no clear reaction from Connally beyond frame 224 to anything that suggests a bullet strike, but he also has such expressions in frames 224, 225 and 226.

Seeing that, after frame 290, Connally is leaning back onto his wife’s lap, it seems very unlikely to me that any of his wounds could have been caused by a shot after that frame.

Again, I’m not necessarily talking about the single bullet theory, I’m only talking about what is to be seen in the Zapruder film, which is not that it confirms that Connally wasn’t hit before frame 230, which is not that it completely corresponds with Mrs. Connally’s statements nor that the governor doesn’t react before frame 240 or so, as some will have it. He clearly does react, starting at frame 224, at least with his facial expression. Whether anybody wants to see that as a reaction to being hit or not, is another matter. The Zapruder film is the most direct evidence we have to base anything on and that’s the only thing I’m willing to concentrate on.

Nell Connally said that when her husband was hit he reared up like a horse. There is certainly no indication of this in the frames around the 230s. I would estimate that he was hit around frame 295 as he is turning back to the left, but it is difficult to see as the film is showing only the neck and head. I agree that one shot through the abdomen would be unlikely to also hit the back of the wrist, but I see a violent movement around frame 326 that could account for a second shot/wound.

I think the rearing up or recoiling/crumpling is happening after frame 266/267 or so, when he starts leaning back onto his wife’s lap while keeping his eyes almost at the president, and then turning his head to his left by frame 290, so that he’s almost facing Zapruder’s camera. I don’t see anything violent happening at around frame 326. What I see is that the Connally’s start to react to the head shot at frame 316. Mrs. Connally first puts her husband’s head on her lap in front of her and then she ducks towards her husband’s seat. And that whole thing lasts until about frame 346.

The whole single bullet theory falls at the first hurdle. Hume said the back wound did not transit the body. Boswell sketched the back wound at 5 1/2 inches below the shoulder line and Burkley signed off on this location. SS agents Bennett and Hill observed the wound 4" and 6" respectively below the shoulder line. Sibert and O'Neill said the back wound was shallow and considerably below the throat wound. Sibert was quoted as saying about the single-bullet theory and Arlen Specter, "What a liar. I feel he got his orders from above - how far above I don't know." The holes in the coat and shirt indicate about 5 1/2" below the shoulder line. At the Clay Shaw trial in 1969, Pierre Finck said, "The back wound's depth was the first fraction of an inch." Gerald Ford moved the wound from the back to the neck as a "clarification" of the SBT.

I’m not willing to go into this too deep, as that would become a day job, which I don’t think it’s worth, but what I am going to say is what Fiver already wrote. I.e. that Humes felt the wound and, before knowing about the throat wound and contusion on the upper lobe of the lung, he thought the bullet had not exited the body and that after finding the bruising of the strap muscles and the top of the right lung and finding out about the bullet wound in the throat, they concluded it had passed through the president and had exited at the front, knicking the tie knot. I’m fine with that.

Regrettably, we are still at odds with our observations and opinions, but there it is.

There it is, indeed, George.

All the best,
Frank

[Fiver]

SS agents Bennett and Hill observed the wound 4" and 6" respectively below the shoulder line

Hill put the wound 6 inches below the neck line, not the shoulder line

Representative BOGGS. Did you see any other wound other than the head wound?
Mr. HILL. Yes, sir; I saw an opening in the back, about 6 inches below the neckline to the right-hand side of the spinal column.

[Fiver]

Boswell sketched the back wound at 5 1/2 inches below the shoulder line and Burkley signed off on this location.

The sketches were done by Harold Rydberg at the direction of Boswell and Hume. They were working without photographs or x-rays. Thy botched how to locate the wounds, as noted by the HSCA.

The measures essential to a thorough medicolegal autopsy that the pathologists failed to take are

4) Recording precisely the locations of the wounds according to anatomical landmarks routinely used in forensic pathology. The medical panel of the committee stated that the reference points used to document the location of the wound in the upper back--the mastoid process and the acromion--are movable points and should not have been used.

I'd be cautious about assuming the Rydberg sketches were precise.

[FISHY1118]

Thanks Mrs Connally for exposing the warren commission lie.

A separate bullet hit John Connally.

[Fiver]

Nell Connally said that when her husband was hit he reared up like a horse.

That is not an accurate description of what Mrs Connally said.

Mrs. CONNALLY. Then very soon there was the second shot that hit John. As the first shot was hit, and I turned to look at the same time, I recall John saying, "Oh, no, no, no." Then there was a second shot, and it hit John, and as he recoiled to the right, just crumpled like a wounded animal to the right, he said, "My God, they are going to kill us all."

"crumpled" seems the exact opposite of "reared up".