Read Online Not in Your Lifetime: The Defining Book on the J.F.K. Assassination by Anthony Summers - Free Book Online
Authors: Anthony Summers
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further convinced by new tests on the bulletspecimens. Dr. Vincent Guinn, a chemist and forensic scientist, broke new ground with his “neutron activation” tests—a process in which the specimens were bombarded with neutrons in a nuclear reactor. The results appeared to many to resolve fundamental areas of controversy.
Dr. Guinn was supplied with all the surviving bullet specimens, the several pieces from the car, tiny fragments removed from the wounds of both the President and Governor Connally, and the full-size bullet found on the stretcher at Parkland Hospital. 2 He concluded that these represented only two bullets and that it was “highly probable” that both were of Mannlicher-Carcano manufacture—the ammunition designed for the rifle found in the Book Depository.
Guinn was equally confident about a third conclusion, one that—in conjunction with the ballistics evidence—supported the thesis that the fatal headshot was fired from behind. Guinn’s tests indicated that fragments from the President’s brain matched the three testable fragments found in the car and that they, in turn, came from the same bullet. Since ballistics experts concluded that the fragments in the car were fired by the gun in the Book Depository, it seemed certain that a shot from the Depository did hit the President in the head. The Committee decided this was the fourth shot and that it was fatal.
Over the objections of staffers who felt Guinn’s work was inherently flawed—the fragments had been handled in a slipshod fashion over the years, and some appeared to be missing—the Committee accepted the findings. The fourth shot, it accepted, had not come from the knoll.
Dr. Guinn’s study also influenced what the Committee eventually decided about an issue that went to the very heart of thedebate between the lone assassin theorists and those who believe more than one shooter was involved—and still does. It was an issue that had initially stumped the Warren Commission.
Back in 1964, Warren investigators analyzing the Zapruder film concluded that a lone assassin would not have had time to fire his rifle again between the moment the President was first seen to be hit and the time Governor Connally appeared to react to his wounds. It had seemed, however, that the only alternative was that two gunmen had fired almost simultaneously. 3
The Warren Commission’s staff found a way to dispose of that disquieting notion—eventually producing what became known as the “magic bullet theory.” According to the theory, a single bullet—the one found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital—had coursed right through President Kennedy, inflicting the wounds to his back and throat, and gone on to cause the multiple injuries to Governor Connally’s torso, wrist, and thigh.
That is what the Warren Commission asked the world to believe, and what over the years was to cause more skepticism than anything else about the physical evidence. The most persistent objection arose from the remarkable state of preservation of the bullet found at the hospital. It remained almost intact (see Photo 15). Consider, though, what—according to the Warren theory—the bullet is supposed to have done.
As it theoretically progressed, it purportedly pierced the President in the back; coursed through his upper chest; came out through the front of his neck; went on to strike the Governor in the back; pierced a lung; severed a vein, artery, and nerve; broke the right fifth rib, destroying five inches of the bone; emerged from the Governor’s right chest; plunged on into the back of the Governor’s right forearm; broke a thick bone, the distal end of the radius; came out of the other side of the wrist; and finallyended up in the left thigh. It then supposedly fell out of the thigh, to be recovered on the stretcher at the hospital.
From 1964 on, doctors with long experience of bullet wounds had great difficulty in accepting that a bullet could cause such damage,
Dr. Guinn was supplied with all the surviving bullet specimens, the several pieces from the car, tiny fragments removed from the wounds of both the President and Governor Connally, and the full-size bullet found on the stretcher at Parkland Hospital. 2 He concluded that these represented only two bullets and that it was “highly probable” that both were of Mannlicher-Carcano manufacture—the ammunition designed for the rifle found in the Book Depository.
Guinn was equally confident about a third conclusion, one that—in conjunction with the ballistics evidence—supported the thesis that the fatal headshot was fired from behind. Guinn’s tests indicated that fragments from the President’s brain matched the three testable fragments found in the car and that they, in turn, came from the same bullet. Since ballistics experts concluded that the fragments in the car were fired by the gun in the Book Depository, it seemed certain that a shot from the Depository did hit the President in the head. The Committee decided this was the fourth shot and that it was fatal.
Over the objections of staffers who felt Guinn’s work was inherently flawed—the fragments had been handled in a slipshod fashion over the years, and some appeared to be missing—the Committee accepted the findings. The fourth shot, it accepted, had not come from the knoll.
Dr. Guinn’s study also influenced what the Committee eventually decided about an issue that went to the very heart of thedebate between the lone assassin theorists and those who believe more than one shooter was involved—and still does. It was an issue that had initially stumped the Warren Commission.
Back in 1964, Warren investigators analyzing the Zapruder film concluded that a lone assassin would not have had time to fire his rifle again between the moment the President was first seen to be hit and the time Governor Connally appeared to react to his wounds. It had seemed, however, that the only alternative was that two gunmen had fired almost simultaneously. 3
The Warren Commission’s staff found a way to dispose of that disquieting notion—eventually producing what became known as the “magic bullet theory.” According to the theory, a single bullet—the one found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital—had coursed right through President Kennedy, inflicting the wounds to his back and throat, and gone on to cause the multiple injuries to Governor Connally’s torso, wrist, and thigh.
That is what the Warren Commission asked the world to believe, and what over the years was to cause more skepticism than anything else about the physical evidence. The most persistent objection arose from the remarkable state of preservation of the bullet found at the hospital. It remained almost intact (see Photo 15). Consider, though, what—according to the Warren theory—the bullet is supposed to have done.
As it theoretically progressed, it purportedly pierced the President in the back; coursed through his upper chest; came out through the front of his neck; went on to strike the Governor in the back; pierced a lung; severed a vein, artery, and nerve; broke the right fifth rib, destroying five inches of the bone; emerged from the Governor’s right chest; plunged on into the back of the Governor’s right forearm; broke a thick bone, the distal end of the radius; came out of the other side of the wrist; and finallyended up in the left thigh. It then supposedly fell out of the thigh, to be recovered on the stretcher at the hospital.
From 1964 on, doctors with long experience of bullet wounds had great difficulty in accepting that a bullet could cause such damage,
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