Single bullet theory

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.

The theory, generally credited to Warren Commission staffer Arlen Specter (now a US Senator) posits that a single bullet, known as "Warren Commission Exhibit 399" (also known as "CE399") caused all of the non-fatal wounds in both President John F. Kennedy and Governor John Connally. It is an important theory because there was not enough time for one shooter to fire twice in the apparently very brief time between the injuries of the two men. The 1979 House Select Committee on Assassinations Report agreed with the theory, but differed on the time frame.

Contents

1 Theorized path of the bullet CE399 2 Criticisms 3 Related topics 4 External links

Theorized path of the bullet CE399

The U.S. National Archives stored, "Western Case Cartridge Company" manufactured, fully-metal-jacketed to military specifications, 6.5 millimeter, nearly whole bullet was first theorized by the Warren Commission to have:

• After an initial rifle exit muzzle velocity of 1850 to 2000 feet per second (560 to 610 m/s), the bullet ballistically arced very slightly while traveling 189 ft (58 m) in a downward net angle of 25 degrees (allowing for the 3 degrees downward of Elm Street) then entered President Kennedy's rear suit coat at about 1700 feet per second (518 m/s),

• passed through President Kennedy's suit coat back, just to the right of his spine, and 5.375 inches (137 mm) below his collar line, shedding metal fragments (one of President Kennedy’s secret service body guards only 15’ away later documented in writing on November 22, 1963 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 inches [152 mm] down from the right shoulder"),

• impacted then entered President Kennedy 2 inches [50 mm] 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 a red-brown to black area of skin surrounding the wound, forming what is called an abrasion collar. This abrasion collar was caused by the bullet's scraping the margins of the skin on penetration and is characteristic of a gunshot wound of entrance. This abrasion collar was photographically documented to be larger at the lower margin half of the wound, which is strong evidence that the bullet's long-axis orientation at the instant of penetration was slightly upward in relation to the plane of the skin immediately surrounding the wound,

• The bullet's passage near the spine slightly fractured the president's sixth cervical vertebrae, C-6. (there is debate whether the C-6 spinal vertebrae seen in the x-rays was fractured directly when the bullet struck the vertebrae, or, whether the pressure cavity wave the bullet caused during its passage fractured the spinal vertebrae),

• passed through his neck shedding metal fragments on an anatomically slightly upward path documented by the House Select Committee on Assassinations to be 11-degrees anatomically upward, and anatomically 9-degrees from right to left,

• 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. (http://www.geocities.com/jfkinfo3/reports/presscon.htm) Within nineteen hours of his press conference statement, Doctor Perry also described via telephone to Doctor Humes, one of the three U.S. Navy Bethesda Hospital military autopsist, that the neck front wound was originally only "3 to 5 millimeters" in circular width before doctor Perry attended to the front throat wound (Humes documented Perry's "3 to 5 millimeters" wound size by writing it down during the phone conversation),

• passed through his shirt, shedding metal fragments,

• nicked President Kennedy's tie-knot on its upper left side, (no metal fragment deposited) Upon clearing the tie-knot the bullet had slowed to about 1500 feet per second (457 m/s) and then it started to tumble,

• traveled the 25.5 inches (650 mm) between President Kennedy and Governor Connally, tumbling almost 90 degrees off its original neck wound bullet flight axis,

• 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 in) of Connally's fifth right rib bone as it smashed through his chest interior at a documented 10-degree anatomically 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 (127 mm) to the right of the suit coat right lapel, and even with the lowest point of the right lapel,

• now slowed to 900 feet per second (274 m/s), the bullet 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)

• broke 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,

• now slowed to 400 feet per second (122 m/s), the bullet entered the front side of his left thigh creating a documented 10-millimeter nearly round wound,

• buried itself two inches (50 mm) into Connally's left thigh muscles, and while burrowing into Connally’s thigh the Warren Commission “single bullet” threw off and embedded an 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 (51 mm) 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 ft (28 m) away from emergency trauma room #2 where Connally was first examined at Parkland Hospital next to a stretcher used for a little boy, Ronnie Fuller, wedged between the frame and the cloth material of a 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 % of its original average weight.

After this "single bullet" theorized 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 testing). 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.

CE399 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 (127 mm) 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] (http://roswell.fortunecity.com/angelic/96/pcissu5.htm) 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.

Related topics

• John F. Kennedy assassination
• Zapruder film
• Conspiracy theory
• List of alleged conspiracy theories

External links

• Kennedy Assassination Home Page: The Single Bullet Theory (http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/sbt.htm)
• photos, pictures and diagrams critical of the single bullet theory (http://ourworld.cs.com/mikegriffith1/sbtproblems.htm)
• computer aided drawings supporting the single bullet theory (http://www.jfkfiles.com/jfk/html/concl1.htm)
• The Warren Commission "single bullet theory" (http://home.earthlink.net/~jkelin1/vs_impossible.html)
• Single Bullet Theory (http://www.whoshotjfk.co.uk/SBT/)
• New Documented Information on CE399 and its Provenance (April, 2005) (http://historymatters.com/essays/frameup/EvenMoreMagical/EvenMoreMagical.htm)