Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. KennedyUnited States. Warren Commission
History
Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
United States. Warren Commission
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 -- Assassination; Oswald, Lee Harvey
would be strong evidence that the first shot did not miss.[C3-344]
If the first shot did not miss, there must be an explanation for
Governor Connally’s recollection that he was not hit by it. There was,
conceivably, a delayed reaction between the time the bullet struck him
and the time he realized that he was hit, despite the fact that the
bullet struck a glancing blow to a rib and penetrated his wrist bone.
The Governor did not even know that he had been struck in the wrist or
in the thigh until he regained consciousness in the hospital the next
day. Moreover, he testified that he did not hear what he thought was
the second shot, although he did hear a subsequent shot which coincided
with the shattering of the President’s head.[C3-345] One possibility,
therefore, would be a sequence in which the Governor heard the first
shot, did not immediately feel the penetration of the bullet, then
felt the delayed reaction of the impact on his back, later heard the
shot which shattered the President’s head, and then lost consciousness
without hearing a third shot which might have occurred later.
[Illustration: COMMISSION EXHIBIT NO. 900
PHOTOGRAPH BY AP PHOTOGRAPHER
PHOTOGRAPH FROM RE-ENACTMENT]
[Illustration: COMMISSION EXHIBIT NO. 901
PHOTOGRAPH FROM ZAPRUDER FILM
PHOTOGRAPH FROM RE-ENACTMENT
PHOTOGRAPH THROUGH RIFLE SCOPE
FRAME 255]
The Second Shot
The possibility that the second shot missed is consistent with the
elapsed time between the two shots that hit their mark. From the timing
evidenced by the Zapruder films, there was an interval of from 4.8 to
5.6 seconds between the shot which struck President Kennedy’s neck
(between frames 210 to 225) and the shot which struck his head at frame
313.[C3-346] Since a minimum of 2.3 seconds must elapse between shots,
a bullet could have been fired from the rifle and missed during this
interval.[C3-347] This possibility was buttressed by the testimony of
witnesses who claimed that the shots were evenly spaced, since a second
shot occurring within an interval of approximately 5 seconds would have
to be almost exactly midway in this period. If Altgens’ recollection
is correct that he snapped his picture at the same moment as he heard
a shot, then it is possible that he heard a second shot which missed,
since a shot fired 2.3 seconds before he took his picture at frame 255
could have hit the President at about frame 213.
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