The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
On November 22, 1963, an open limousine carrying President John F. Kennedy, his wife Jacqueline and Governor Connally of Texas and his wife drove down Elm Street in Dallas seconds post twelve thirty. Anthony Summers, in Conspiracy (1989), asserts that “several shots rang out in rapid succession.” Jerry Kroth, in Conspiracy in Camelot: The Complete History of the Assassination of John F. Kennedy (2003), sustains that “although many witnesses heard fewer than or more than three shots, the majority of the witnesses in Dealey Plaza heard three.”
The Warren Commission
On November 29, 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered an investigation of President Kennedy’s assassination, known as the Warren Commission because its chairman was Chief Justice Earl Warren. The Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, available at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, determined that sole gunman, Harvey Lee Oswald, assassinated President Kennedy from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. The weapon used was a bolt-action Mannlitcher-Carcano Italian rifle.
Witnesses saw a rifle being shot from the said sixth floor where three used cartridge cases were found. In addition, the bullet found on Governor Connally's stretcher at Parkland Memorial Hospital and the two bullet fragments found in the front seat of the limousine matched the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found on the sixth floor of the Book Depository building. These and other findings excluded the possible use of other weapons in the assassination of President Kennedy; therefore, the possibility of the existence of other assassins. As a result, the Magic Bullet theory emerged among the astonishment of American citizens and the world at this tragedy.
The Magic Bullet theory
The Magic Bullet theory is further supported by the fact that the Warren Commission also concluded that “there is very persuasive evidence from the experts to indicate that the same bullet which pierced the President's throat also caused Governor Connally's wounds.” For many people, scholars and conspiracy theorist this conclusion is rather implausible.
According to the Warren Commission, the magic bullet would have entered the back of President Kennedy’s neck and went out through his throat. Then, the bullet traveled and hit the right side of Governor Conally’s back and “traveled downward through the right side of his chest, exiting below his right nipple.” The magic bullet “then passed through his right wrist and entered his left thigh where it caused a superficial wound.”
Sources:
- Kroth, Jerry. Conspiracy in Camelot: The Complete History of the Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. New York: Algora Publishing, 2003.
- Summers, Anthony. Conspiracy. Canada: MW Books, 1989.
- The Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1964. 1 volume, 888 pages. In U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
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