A former Secret Service agent who was with President John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated in Dallas nearly 60 years ago has raised new questions about the popular “magic bullet” theory and the possibility that multiple shooters were involved.
Paul Landis, now 88 years old, was a young agent assigned to protect first lady Jackie Kennedy during the president’s motorcade through the city in 1963.
He remembers hearing gunshots in Dealy Plaza as he walked from the president in 1963, he told The New York Times. He then heard two additional shots and saw Kennedy slide into the back of an open limousine.
Landis said he had to duck to avoid being splattered by the brain.
From there, Landis’ account diverges from the government’s official findings: In the ensuing chaos, he claims he picked up a bullet lodged in the back seat of the car Kennedy was in and placed it on the president’s hospital stretcher for investigators. .
Paul Landis, 88, was just feet from President Kennedy when he was assassinated.Westlake Porter Public Library
The 6.5 mm bullet, which was long thought to be found on Texas Gov. John Connally’s stretcher after it fell from his thigh wound.
Dubbed the “magic bullet,” The Warren Commission concluded that the shot, fired by gunman Lee Harvey Oswald, had gone through Kennedy’s throat from behind, then hit Connally’s right shoulder, then somehow also injured the back, chest, wrist and thigh.
The report found that one of the shots missed the motorcade, the other was a “magic bullet,” and that the last shot took Kennedy’s life in the head.
Landis placed the bullet on Kennedy’s stretcher at the hospital, but now believes at one point the bullet flew from the president’s stretcher to the governor’s stretcher as they were pushed together, he told The Times.
The Warren Commission rejected the bullet coming from the president’s stretcher.
President John F. Kennedy, First Lady Jaqueline Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally moments before gunshots rang out on November 22, 1963.REUTERS
“There was nobody there to secure the scene, and that was a big problem that bothered me,” Landis said. “All the agents that are there are focused on the president.”
“This all happened so quickly,” he continued, “And I’m just afraid that – it’s evidence, which I realized immediately. Very important. And I don’t want it to be lost or lost. So, ‘Paul, you have to make a decision ,’ and I took it.’”
Landis, who was never interviewed by the Warren Commission, believed that the bullet hit Kennedy but was undercharged and did not penetrate deep into the president’s body and appeared before he was removed from the vehicle.
He told The Times he always believed that Oswald was the lone gunman, but six decades later, he questions that conclusion.
“At this point, I started doubting myself,” he said. “Now I’m starting to wonder.”
The Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman in the assassination of JFK.AP
The bullet, which was found completely intact, was positively matched to Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano through ballistic analysis, the Warren Commission said in its report.
The aging ex-agent made the shocking revelation in his upcoming book “The Final Witness,” to be published by Chicago Review Press on Oct. 10.
James Robenalt, an Ohio-based attorney and author of several history books, has diligently researched the assassination and helped Landis think through his memories of that day. He believes Landis’ book will raise new questions about Kennedy’s death.
“If what he’s saying is true, which I’m inclined to believe, it might reopen the question of a second shooter, if not more,” Robenalt told The Times. “If the bullet we know as the magic bullet or the pure bullet stops behind President Kennedy, it means that the main thesis of the Warren Report, the single bullet theory, is wrong.”
Which, he added, could mean that Connally was shot by a separate bullet and not by Oswald, who he believed could not reload fast enough.
Speculation of multiple shooters has been a popular theory since the immediate aftermath of the Kennedy assassination.
“Other people will have to fully analyze the evidence to see where it’s going now,” Robenalt told Vanity Fair.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
