The Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President Kennedy, is responsible for one of the most grotesque examples of how something that should never even have been believed, became accepted history, and those who doubted it, have been labeled “conspiracy theorists”. It is a prime example of how academics and historians choose the easiest way out, rather than dig and proclaim the truth. The Commission had taken it for granted that the murder weapon was a Mannlicher-Carcano; this weapon took a minimum of 2.3 seconds in between shots fired. If the Zapruder film – named after the man who filmed the assassination in Dealy Plaza – showed Connally was hit within 2.3 seconds, say 1.9 seconds, after Kennedy was first shot, it meant that someone other than the presumed assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, had fired one of those shots. And the Zapruder film showed just that: Connally was shot before 2.3 seconds had been timed after Kennedy was shot, at frame 210. Connally was shot around frame 232-8, but the Commission moved it up to frame 225 or 226, extending Kennedy’s ‘hit-zone’ between frame 210 and frame 225, when he re-emerges in view of Zapruder’s film. Kennedy was shot around frame 190, which meant there was at least 2.3 seconds between the shots, but the Commission could not use frame 190 because it was impossible that Oswald fired a shot then, obstructed as his view was by a Texas Oak.
If the Commission wanted to show Oswald was the lone gunman, it had to show Kennedy’s initial wound and Connally’s back wound were caused by one single bullet. The Dallas doctors’ testimony, testifying the throat wound was an entrance-wound, made this impossible, however. Hurries’ altered autopsy report, however, did allow for such a scenario – the report being altered to allow specifically for this scenario to occur. Diagramming the path of this bullet, it had to change course in midair, but that was the least of the Commission’s worries: there was the pristine condition of the bullet, CE399. Originally described as having fallen off Kennedy’s stretcher, even though it was not found on Kennedy’s stretcher, this bullet had already been forced, by Humes’ alterations to the autopsy report, to go through Kennedy’s body, exiting through Kennedy’s throat. The Commission now forced that bullet to pass through Connally’s back, chest, wrist and thigh as well ... ending up on Connally’s stretcher, in pristine condition.
Evidence can withstand some alteration, but CE399, though pristine, was unable to withstand so much alteration, first at the hands of Humes, now by the Commission’s hand, especially assistant counsel Arlen Specter and member Gerald Ford.
CE399’s original weight was believed to be 168 grams. When ‘found’, it weighted 158 grains, a loss of .75 to 1.5 percent. According to the FBI, the bullet weighed 160-1 grains, dropping to 158.6 grains. And here is where the Single Bullet Theory, as Specter’s possible solution to the dilemma came to be known, ended its relationship with reality, though it didn’t stop the Commission in its ‘findings’, i.e. inventions. Dr. Charles Gregory stated that X-rays from Connally’s wrist before and even after the operation showed more fragments than that are missing grains from CE399. Plus, there is also a large bullet fragment in Connally’s chest, which was not taken out during that operation: Connally’s body contains more grains of CE399 than there are grains missing from CE399, which forces anyone who doesn’t want to contradict reality that CE399 is NOT the bullet that caused Connally’s injuries; it also causes serious doubt about the rest of the Single Bullet Theory, should it not have lost all credibility when confronted with this evidence.
It was Specter who had to create the theory, very much against his own will, and he commented on ‘his’ theory: “I don’t think the people are going to believe this – this year, next year or a hundred years from now. This thing will be challenged today, tomorrow and forever.” The maker understood his creation was ridiculous. Because it was.
Alas, in the aftermath of the Warren Commission, History and those who shape it accepted blindly the conclusions of the Warren Commission and history books have since quite straightforwardly labeled Oswald the lone assassin of President Kennedy, a theory which relies heavily on the Single Bullet Theory. Those who doubt this theory are labeled “conspiracy theorists”, but it is clear that its inventor, Specter, never meant his theory to be believed.
Sadly, there was no true analysis of his or the Commission’s findings by the rows of academic historians, who blindly accepted it. It was left to maverick researchers and journalists to point out the obvious problems. They are the ones whom the halls of academia consider to be the weird ones, even going as far as commissioning documents that “try to explain” why people desire to see a conspiracy where academics “know” there isn’t one. The answers they get are so warped, for the obvious answer is simply that there is a conspiracy. Full stop. But that is not something they want to see. But what weird universe the halls of academia are, when truth is ridiculed, and total lies accepted as historical fact!
