Not in Your Lifetime: The Defining Book on the J.F.K. Assassination by Anthony Summers Read Free Book Online

barrier, and finally the impact on the target. On the other hand, say the experts, those listening in the immediate target area probably receive the least distorted impression of gunfire.
    Oddly, and inexcusably, the first inquiry produced no statement of any kind from the two police outriders traveling to the right rear of the President. Twelve people in the target area did go on record. All but one of the five surviving in the car itself, and two other outriders, spoke of three shots. Their predicament, however, was hardly conducive to rational recall. Mrs. Kennedy understandably said she was “very confused.” Governor Connally was himself severely injured during the shooting, and Mrs. Connally was preoccupied trying to help him. The two outriders to the President’s left rear were shocked by being spattered with the President’s blood and brain matter.
    The two Secret Service agents in the car, one of them the driver, had to make vital decisions. Both, however, did have interesting comments on the shots. Agent Kellerman said later that the last sound he recalled was “like a double bang— bang! bang! … like a plane going through the sound barrier.” Agent Greer, the driver, also said the last shot cracked out “just right behind” its predecessor. This could conceivably mean the two agents heard a single bullet breaking the sound barrier, or that theyheard two shots very close together indeed—far closer together than one man could achieve with a bolt-operated rifle. Agent Kellerman thought that, based on what he heard and the wounds he observed later at the autopsy, “there have got to be more than three shots.”
    In spite of being himself shot in the hail of gunfire, Governor Connally—an experienced hunter—remembered that because of the “rapidity” of the shots, “the thought immediately passed through my mind that there were two or three people involved, or more, in this; or that someone was shooting with an automatic rifle.”
    As for the bystanders nearest to the off side of the President’s car, one, Mary Moorman, made estimates ranging from two to four shots. Like those in the car, she was first preoccupied, and then in such a panic, that she was distracted. (She was taking a photograph as the limousine approached, then threw herself to the ground, shrieking, “Get down! They’re shooting!”) Near her, Charles Brehm thought he heard three shots.
    Gayle Newman, standing on the curb on the near side of the President’s car, thought there could have been four shots. Then there was Maurice Orr, who also stood on the nearside pavement and was one of those closest to the President. Orr, questioned a few minutes after the tragedy, thought there could have been as many as five shots.
    The Warren Report favored the silent testimony of the three cartridges lying near the sixth-floor window, combined with its reading of the autopsy details and the Zapruder film. It said there had been three shots, one of which missed, all fired from behind and above Kennedy.
    Then, in 1978, came the acoustic study of the Dictabelt that appeared to cast real doubt on the Warren lone-gunman finding andsuggested—as summarized by the Assassinations Committee’s Robert Blakey—that there had been “four shots … The first, second, and fourth came from the Depository; the third came from the grassy knoll.” Four shots, including one from the raised ground to the right front of the President, posited at least two assassins.
    The acoustics study of the Dictabelt appeared to provide a time frame for the shooting. Taking zero as the time of the first shot, the second would have been fired 1.66 seconds later, the third at 7.49 seconds, and the fourth at 8.31 seconds (allowing for an error of about 5% in the Dictabelt’s running speed). The brevity of the pause between the first and second shots, both fired from the rear, raised questions as to whether one lone gunman could possibly have fired both. That issue will be