Reclaiming History (113 page)

The First Shot

Although the HSCA concluded that the first shot was fired around Zapruder frame 160,
⁶⁵
and there is overwhelming evidence to support this, the Warren Commission did not conclude that a shot was fired around frame 160, though it did not rule it out either.
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As everyone who has studied the assassination knows, from the sniper’s perch at the southeasternmost window on the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building, there is an oak tree that obscured the sniper’s view of the presidential limousine on Elm Street starting at frame 166 and continuing on to frame 210. The exception is an eighteenth-of-a-second interval at Z186.
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The Warren Commission acknowledged that the first shot may have been fired before the oak tree when it said, “If the first shot missed, the assassin perhaps missed in an effort to fire a hurried shot before the president passed under the oak tree.”
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But the Commission also cited the fact that some eyewitnesses believed that the first shot the assassin fired hit the president, and it may have been around Z210. Indeed, the Commission seemed confident that Kennedy didn’t manifest any reaction to being shot until around Zapruder frame 225. So if a shot were fired around Z160, it must have missed, and the Commission showed its slight preference for the position that no shot was fired around Z160 when it said, “The greatest cause for doubt” that a shot was fired before the oak tree(i.e., before Z166) “is the improbability that the same marksman who twice hit a moving target would be so inaccurate on the first and closest of his shots as to miss completely, not only the target but the large automobile.”
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However, there can hardly be any serious doubt, despite the Commission’s reservation, that the first shot
was
fired around Z160 and missed the limousine. First of all, many witnesses said the first shot was fired just after the limousine had completed its turn from Houston onto Elm, which would be
before
the oak tree at frame 166. A sampling: Governor John Connally testified before the Warren Commission, “We had
just made the turn
…when I heard…this noise which I immediately took to be a rifle shot. I instinctively turned to my right because the sound appeared to come from over my right shoulder…at an elevation. The only thought that crossed my mind was that this is an assassination attempt.”
⁷⁰
Vice President Lyndon Johnson’s wife said, “We were rounding a curve…and suddenly there was a shot…from the right, above my shoulder, from a building.”
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Secret Service agent Paul E. Landis, on the right running board of the car immediately following the president’s car: “The president’s car and the follow-up car
had just completed their turns
and were both straightening out. At this moment I heard what sounded like the report of a high-powered rifle from behind, over my right shoulder.”
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Barbara Rowland, standing with her husband on the west side of Houston Street midway between Elm and Main Streets, testified that “
as they turned the corner
we heard a shot.”
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Presidential aide Kenneth O’Donnell, in the Secret Service car right behind the presidential limousine, testified that the president’s car was “just about [through] turning [and had started] to step up the speed a little bit” when the first shot rang out “from the right rear.” He said that “the agents [in his car] all turned to the rear.”
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Geneva Hine, watching from a window on the second floor of the Book Depository Building, testified the presidential limousine had just “turned the corner” when she heard the shot.
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Many other witnesses gave essentially the same testimony.

Second, although the indication is that the Warren Commission never focused too much on the earliest frames (Z133–170) of the president’s limousine on Elm Street, taken as the car was straightening out after its turn,
*
the HSCA, with a larger staff of scientific experts, did closely examine this section of the Zapruder film. The committee concluded that “the first shot…occurred at approximately frame 160,” noting, among other things, that this was “consistent with the testimony of Governor Connally, who stated that he heard the first shot and began to turn in response to it. His reactions, as shown in Z162–167, reflect the start of a rapid head movement from left to right.”
⁷⁶
*

As we just saw, the Warren Commission testimony of many witnesses strongly supports the conclusion that the first shot was fired as the president’s limousine was completing its turn onto Elm Street. One other witness, Bonnie Ray Williams, pinpointed the moment further. Viewing the motorcade from a fifth-floor window immediately below the sniper’s nest window, Williams testified, “After the president’s car had passed my window,
the last thing I remember seeing him do
…was he pushed his hand up like this. I assumed he was brushing his hair back. And
then
the thing that happened then was a loud shot.”
⁷⁷
We can see Kennedy brushing his hair back (just as Williams describes) between Z133 and Z143. One second later (Z162), Governor Connally begins to react.
†
Clearly, then, the first shot is fired between Z143 and Z160, just
before
the limousine passes under the branches of the oak tree shading Elm Street.

Many have questioned how Oswald could possibly have missed the president on the first shot, when Kennedy was closest to him, especially since his next two shots were hits. As the Warren Commission put it, “The greatest cause for doubt that the first shot missed is the improbability that the same marksman who twice hit a moving target would be so inaccurate on the first and closest of his shots as to miss completely, not only the target, but the large automobile.”
⁷⁸
The reason typically given for Oswald missing Kennedy and the car on his first shot is that it was the first shot he was firing at the president of the United States that day, and like any actor first walking on stage (only multiplied a hundredfold) his nervousness affected his shooting. While this may be true, it is pure conjecture and thus entitled to little, if any, weight. What is not conjecture is that he fired around frame 160, and since the oak tree started to obscure his vision of Kennedy at the time of frame 166, only one-third of a second away, he
necessarily
would have felt very hurried and hence rushed the shot.
⁷⁹

But there is perhaps an even better reason why Oswald missed this first shot. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, it was actually the most difficult shot he fired that day. I’ve been up to the southeasternmost window on the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building, holding an imaginary rifle in my hand, and
at shots two and three
the movement of the president would be on almost a straight line from the barrel of the rifle. Monty Lutz, the head of the Firearms Unit of the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory and a member of the HSCA’s firearms panel, testified for me at the London trial. Here is an excerpt of my direct examination of Lutz:

Question: “I take it you have been to the Book Depository Building in Dallas?”

Answer: “Right.”

Question: “And from the southeasternmost window on the sixth floor you observed…cars going down Elm Street, is that correct?”

Answer: “Yes.”

Question: [Directing his attention to a diagram of Elm] “Looking at the alignment on Elm Street vis-à-vis a sniper’s position at the sixth-floor window, would the presidential limousine proceeding in a southwesterly direction down Elm Street be proceeding on
almost a straight line from the barrel of the rifle
?”

Answer: “
Yes, it would
.”

Question: “This would obviously make it easier for the firer?”

Answer: “Yes, it would.”

Question: “You’re aware that there is an approximate 3-degree slope on Elm Street going down [from the Depository Building]?”

Answer: “Yes.”

Question: “Would this fact in any way make it easier for a sniper in that sixth-floor window to hit a moving target proceeding away from him?”

Answer: “Yes, it would.”

Question: “Why is that?”

Answer: “It would require less movement, or less elevation of the rifle barrel to compensate for the target as it’s moving away from him.”

Question: “Assuming a sniper at the sixth-floor window with the presidential limousine proceeding at a very slow speed, about eleven and a half miles per hour, and with the limousine being almost on a straight line with the barrel of the rifle, coupled with the 3-degree downward slope on Elm—I don’t want to put words in your mouth, you answer the question—would the president be almost a stationary target?”

Answer: “Yes, he would.”
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However, between Z143 and Z160 (the time during which the first shot was fired), the president was not a stationary target proceeding on a straight line away from the barrel that Lutz had described. He wasn’t far enough away from Oswald to be such a target, and he was moving from Oswald’s left to his right—that is, he was a
moving
target.

In my preparation for the trial, Lutz pointed out to me an additional reason why the first shot was the most difficult one for Oswald. The windowsill, and the three boxes stacked next to it, could only be used to stabilize the rifle when the limousine was farther down Elm Street and the barrel could rest on top of them. The steeper angle at the time of the first shot prevented Oswald’s rifle from having the stability it needed. What would that angle be? Though it could not look to the Zapruder film for help, the Warren Commission was able to determine the first point on Elm Street in which a person in the sniper’s nest window could have gotten a shot at the back of the president after the car rounded the corner from Houston onto Elm, and the angle from the window to the car at that point was 40.10 degrees.
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Compare this steep and insecure angle with the 17.43-degree downward angle for the shot that entered the president’s upper back, and the 15.21-degree angle for the subsequent shot to the head.
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*
But apparently, Oswald couldn’t resist a target so temptingly close.

As we know, the bullet fired by Oswald around Z160, which missed both Kennedy and the presidential limousine, has never been found. What happened to it? We know that if it was fired between Z143 and Z160, it would not have hit any significant twig or branch of the oak tree (from the sniper’s nest only a few leaves and branchlets are visible, at the edges of the tree, around frame 160),
⁸³
as some have theorized, since the bullet would have been fired
before
the limousine disappeared under the branches. And since there’s no evidence the bullet hit the car, the only other possibility is that the bullet hit the pavement or earth and ricocheted elsewhere. Mrs. Donald Baker, a bookkeeper at the Book Depository, was standing in front of the building watching the motorcade. She testified before the Warren Commission that after the limousine drove by (she told the FBI on November 24, 1963, it was “immediately” after the car drove past her)
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and neared “the first sign,”
†
she “heard a noise and I thought it was firecrackers, because I saw a shot or something hit the pavement…It looked just like you could see the sparks from it.” She told the Commission that the bullet struck the pavement in the middle of the lane that was to the left of the limousine, though she wasn’t sure.

Question: “Where was the thing that you saw hit the street in relation to the president’s car?”

Answer: “I thought it was, well,
behind
it.”

Question: “You saw this thing hit the street
before
you heard the second shot, is that correct?”

Answer: “Yes, sir, yes.”

Question: “Are you absolutely sure of that?”

Answer: “I hope I am. I know I am.”
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The probability is that a fragment of the bullet that hit the pavement went on to strike the south curb on Main Street at the base of the Triple Underpass, propelling a bit of the concrete (or a bullet fragment) into the right cheek of James Tague, a motorcade spectator who was standing on the narrow concrete strip or island between Commerce and Main at the east edge of the Triple Underpass. Tague was twelve to fifteen feet west of where the bullet hit the curb and over five hundred feet from the Book Depository Building.
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Assassination researcher Dan Curtis points out that the Tague curb shot does not perfectly line up with any of the three shots from the Texas School Book Depository Building; that is, a line drawn from the sniper’s nest to the point on Elm where the limousine was believed to be at the time of the first shot (Z160), if extended, would not hit the concrete curb near where Tague was. Likewise with the second and third shots, though they are closer to an alignment.
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So Curtis concludes that one of the three shots (he assumes the first, being satisfied that the second and third shots came from the Book Depository Building) must have been fired from a different source, namely, a second-floor window of the Dal-Tex Building where a shot could be hypothesized to line up with the curb shot.
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Of course, Curtis’s analysis presupposes that the first shot was not deflected in any way after striking one or more objects, a presupposition that cannot be made.

The Second Shot

To this day, the most controversial segment of the Zapruder film by far is the period corresponding to the second shot (which various assassination researchers put anywhere between Z190 and Z240), which was the first shot that hit the president and, according to the Warren Commission’s single-bullet theory, Governor Connally. Part of the reason why questions still linger about this second shot is the fact that
during
this crucial segment Zapruder’s view of Kennedy and Connally is momentarily blocked
*
by a traffic sign—the Stemmons Freeway sign—located on the north side of Elm Street. Although the interruption lasts only approximately one second, the sign, along with the subjective nature of film interpretation (as discussed earlier), has led many down a road mired in frustration as they try to pinpoint the exact moment that both men were hit. Consequently, every attempt to explain what the Zapruder film shows (including the efforts of two separate government investigations) usually results in slightly different conclusions. Because an analysis of this area of the Zapruder film is very complex, I’ll be taking some time to examine the key issues. In my defense, readers should know that the thicket I will try to navigate them through is not avoidable.