Single-bullet theory
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The single bullet theory (also known as the magic bullet theory by the majority of critics and conspiracy theorists) is the crucial element of the Warren Commission theory that only one assassin shot during the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Findings of Warren Commission
According to the Warren Commission, only three shots were fired, based in part on ear witness testimony, and three empty shells found in the “sniper's nest" of the "lone gunman" in the Texas School Book Depository (and one live bullet still chambered in the rifle), and eyewitness testimony (even though several eyewitnesses told the Warren Commission that a second and third person -one of them also armed- was seen on the sixth floor before the assassination). According to the Warren Commission, one bullet hit President Kennedy in the neck and went on to also wound Governor Connally, one bullet completely missed hitting any limousine occupant (and completely missed the limousine) then struck somewhere outside of the limousine, and only one bullet struck President Kennedy in the head. As documented in the Zapruder film, when President Kennedy's head was struck, it moved slightly forward one to two inches, then, after a 0.11 second pause, the president's head, upper torso, and right arm all then violently snapped simultaneously upwards, then, backwards (towards the depository) and leftwards (away from the grassy knoll).
Rather than introduce more than three fired bullets, the Commission was persuaded by only a four to three majority of the single bullet theory advocated by Arlen Specter (and altered at the last minute by Warren Commissioner-and-future-President Gerald R. Ford) that the same bullet that non-fatally wounded President Kennedy twice, also caused Governor Connally's five bones-breaking-wounds.
The U.S. National Archives stored, 1940 "Western Case Cartridge" manufactured, fully-metal-jacketed, 6.5 millimeter, nearly pristine bullet has been written by the Warren Commission report to have:
- passed through President Kennedy's suit coat back, just to the right of his spine, and 5.375 inches below his collar line, shedding metal fragments (one of President Kennedy’s secret service body guards only 15’ away later documented in writing on 11-22-63 that during the assassination, while looking directly at the president, the agent saw a bullet hole be created in the president’s suit coat back "about 6" down from the right shoulder"),
- passed through President Kennedy's shirt back, just to the right of his spine, and 5.750 inches below his collar line, shedding metal fragments,
- impacted then entered President Kennedy just to the right of his spine, creating a wound documented size of 4 millimeters by 7 millimeters in the rear of his upper back with abrasion collar characteristics which indicate that the bullet entrance path was slightly upward relative to the plane of the skin immediately surrounding the wound,
- passed through his neck on an anatomically slightly upward path, (there is debate whether a spinal vertebrae seen in the x-rays was fractured directly when the bullet struck the vertebrae, or, whether the pressure cavity the bullet caused during its passage fractured the spinal vertebrae) shedding metal fragments,
- exited President Kennedy's throat, just on the centerline bottom edge of the President's adam's apple. Within three hours of the assassination, this neck frontal wound was described in an afternoon press conference by the Parkland trauma room #1 emergency physician, Doctor Malcolm Perry, after he attended to the frontal throat wound, as being an "entrance wound". Doctor Perry stated the neck frontal wound was an "entrance" wound three times during his press conference. Within nineteen hours of his press conference statement, doctor Perry also described via telephone to one of the three U.S. Navy Bethesda Hospital autopsist that the neck front wound was originally only "3 to 5 millimeters" (which the Bethesda hospital military autopsist documented) in circular width before doctor Perry attended to the front wound),
- passed through his shirt, shedding metal fragments,
- nicked President Kennedy's tie-knot on its upper left side, (no metal fragment deposited)
- passed through Governor Connally's suit coat and shirt just below and behind his right armpit, shedding metal fragments,
- impacted then entered Connally's back just below and behind his right armpit creating a documented 8 millimeters by 15 millimeters elliptical wound, indicating that bullet was fired from an acute angle to the entrance wound point, or, the bullet had turned sideways before creating the elliptical wound,
- completely destroyed 127 millimeters (5") of a Connally right ribcage bone as it smashed through his chest interior at a 10 degree downward angle, (post-operative x-rays document that some of the metal fragments are still buried with him)
- exited slightly below his right nipple, creating a 50 millimeter, sucking-air, blowout chest wound,
- passed through Connally's shirt and suit coat front, seen in commission photos five inches to the right of the suit coat right lapel, and even with the lowest point of the right lapel,
- entered through Connally's right upper (outside) wrist, (but did not first pass through his suit coat nor shirt wrist area) (in 2003 Nellie Connally described in her book “From Love Field” that Connally's right hand, French cuff shirt cuff, solid-gold “Mexican peso” cufflink was struck with a bullet and the cufflink was completely shot off during the attack. Connally’s cufflink is not found -nor was ever entered- into the assassination evidence)
- splintered his right radius wrist bone at its widest point, depositing metal fragments, (post-operative x-rays document that some of the metal fragments are still buried with him)
- exited the palm (inner) side of Connally's wrist,
- entered the front side of his left thigh creating a documented 10 millimeter round wound,
- buried itself two inches into Connally's left thigh muscles, and while burrowing into Connally’s thigh the Warren Commission “single bullet” threw off and embedded a x-rays documented 1.5 millimeter by 2 millimeter bullet fragment into Connally's left thigh bone (it is still buried with him after the family refused to extract the fragment in 1993 after Connally died)
- then, at Parkland Hospital, this bullet reversed itself two inches backing out of Connally's left front thigh wound and falling off his thigh,
- landed on a stretcher that Connally supposedly had laid upon
- was discovered on a stretcher located 91' away from emergency trauma room #2 where Connally was first examined at Parkland Hospital, wedged between the frame and the cloth material of the stretcher which, according to the man who found this bullet, was not the same stretcher that Connally had ever laid upon.
All four persons who first handled and saw this bullet on the day of the assassination refused to identify CE399 as the more-pointed-nose bullet they stated that they each observed or touched at Parkland Hospital.
Of the bullet that he remembered impacting his back Connally has stated, "...the most curious discovery of all took place when they rolled me off the stretcher and onto the examining table. A metal object fell to the floor, with a click no louder than a wedding band. The nurse picked it up and slipped it into her pocket. It was the bullet from my body, the one that passed through my back, chest, and wrist, and worked itself loose from my thigh."
The Warren Commission's "single bullet," according to all documentation:
- there were no thread striations (fine lines etched onto a copper encased bullet tip and/or bullet side casing by clothing threads when the bullet first penetrates clothing threads),
- there was no blood,
- there was no human matter,
- there were no pieces of clothing found on this bullet,
- this bullet had lost only 1.5 percent of its original average weight.
After this Warren Commission "single bullet" trajectory, causing seven wounds while breaking two major body bones and depositing lead fragments along the way, the bullet appears nearly pristine. Its tip was still perfectly round (a small slice was later removed for analysis). Its body is very slightly flattened and very slightly curved on only one of six rotated views side. It has visible rifling barrel grooves. (upon FBI examination and documentation on 11-23-63 there were 6 rifling grooves. The bullet in evidence today has only 4 rifling grooves) Only a very small amount of lead was missing from the open bottom of the still intact copper jacket.
Several of the exact same type 6.5-millimeter test bullets were test-fired by the Warren Commission investigators. The only test bullet that most matched the slight side flattening and nearly pristine, still rounded impact tip of CE399 was a bullet that had only been fired into a long tube containing a thick layer of cotton.
The Warren Commission labeled this bullet "Commission Exhibit 399," also known as "CE399". It is stored out of the public's view in the National Archives and Records Administration, though numerous pictures of the bullet are available on the NARA website.
Ballistics experts performed test shots through animal flesh and bones with cloth covering. According to these tests some, but not all, of the Governor's wounds could be explained by a single bullet. Under the assumption of an adjusted relative position of President Kennedy and Governor Connally within the car, some, but not all, of the Warren Commission ballistics experts considered it possible that the same bullet that passed through the president's neck may have caused all of the governor's wounds. The Warren Commission wrote that it was persuaded that the President's neck wound and all of the governor's wounds were caused by a single bullet.
Criticisms
Critics claim that a bullet that passed through several layers of clothing and flesh, destroyed a five inch section of a rib, broke a wrist radius bone, and shed metal fragments (some of which are buried with Connally) could not be in such nearly pristine shape, especially given that the, supposedly, same type "headshot" bullet, according to the Warren Commission, completely broke apart after passing through only two layers of less-dense skull bone.
Critics also point out that the only known examination of Kennedy's back wound, the first wound attributed to the nearly pristine bullet, is from the Bethesda pathologists, who noted a steep forty-five to sixty degree downward angle and no exit. Taking into consideration the 3-degree decline of Elm Street at the time of the Warren Commission's single bullet, the "Oswald window" was only about twenty degrees above Kennedy at the time. [1] However, skeptics concede that the Bethesda examiners record may be in error because the examiners were harried and harassed during the examination by Robert F. Kennedy and President Kennedy‘s personal physician, U.S. Navy Rear Admiral George Burkley. One Parkland Hospital doctor stated at least three times on the day of the assassination that the wound on the front of the President's throat was an "entry" point, who, according to critics, later changed his mind that it was an "exit" wound after being harried and harassed by FBI agents a documented several times in the weeks following the assassination.
If the premise of the single bullet theory is incorrect, another shot would have had to have been fired so close in time (less than 2.3 seconds rifle re-cycling time the commission documented in tests) that the Warren Commission should not have concluded that Oswald was the sole shooter.
This would have determined that the Kennedy assassination was officially still unsolved at the conclusion of the Warren Commission investigation.