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

dealt with later, along with the question as to whether more than one assassin fired from the rear.
    A fractional pause between the third shot, from the knoll, and the fourth, from the rear—acoustics study or no acoustics study—could explain a great deal. With less than a second between them, the two shots could have sounded like one to those who believed only three were fired altogether. It would also make sense of the comments of two of those in the target area and best placed to hear the gunfire. It would explain Governor Connally’s impression that someone was shooting with an automatic rifle, Agent Greer’s observation that the last shot was “just right behind” its predecessor, and Agent Kellerman’s recall of a “double bang”—like the sound barrier being broken. Kellerman may have been right in his belief that there were more than three shots.
    The acoustics work suggested that all but the third shot originated “in the vicinity of the sixth-floor southeast corner window of theTexas School Book Depository.” The experts wondered though, whether further tests might indicate that some of the shooting had come from the Daltex Building next door.
    The most refined study was reserved for the third shot, because the Committee was acutely aware of the need to resolve whether there had really been a sniper on the knoll. The acoustics study concluded that the third shot was “fired from a point along the east-west line of the wooden stockade fence on the grassy knoll, about eight feet west of the corner of the fence” (see Photos 5, 6). Professor Weiss and his colleagues suggested it was certain the shot had come from behind the fence—allowing for a margin of error of five feet in either direction. A mass of evidence seemed, at last, to fall into place.
    Onetime Congressman, later President, Gerald Ford served on the Warren Commission and wrote afterward, “There is no evidence of a second man, of other shots, or other guns.” That was not so, even in 1964.
    Of the 178 witnesses whose statements were available to the Warren Commission, 49 believed the shots came from the Texas School Book Depository, 78 had no opinion, and 30 came up with answers that do not mesh with the rest of the evidence; 21, though, believed the shots had come from the grassy knoll. Another sample of the statements suggests 61 witnesses believed that at least some of the gunfire originated in front of the motorcade. A number of others said as much in statements to newspapers or private researchers. 1 Few of these witnesses were called to testify.
    Here are the opinions of the fifteen people in the immediate target area, where the experts say sound impressions are least distorted. Of those in the car, Mrs. Kennedy had no opinion on where the shots came from. Governor Connally—injured before thefatal shot—thought he heard shooting behind him. His wife said on one occasion that she believed all shots came from the rear, on another, “I had no thought of whether they were high or low or where. They just came from the right.” Agent Greer, the driver, said the shots “sounded like they were behind me.” Agent Kellerman said only that his main impression was of sound to the right—perhaps to the rear. Two police outriders to the left rear of the car, the two splattered with blood and brain, had no idea where the shooting originated. Those at the eye of the storm were hardly well placed for rational recall.
    The two policemen to the President’s right rear, very close to him, were excellently placed. One of them, Officer James Chaney, closest to the President, thought some of the shooting came from “back over my right shoulder.” He also said, however, that “when the second shot came, I looked back in time to see the President struck in the face by the second bullet.”
    Kennedy’s close aide, Kenneth O’Donnell, was traveling in the car immediately behind the presidential limousine. He testified that he thought, “in