In a new book, former Secret Service agent Paul Landis, largely silent for 60 years, says he found a bullet in Kennedy’s limo. A sometime presidential historian explains why that’s so significant, if true.

“If true” is doing a lot of work here.

Ok I will go read the article lol

Edit:

Landis saw and did something that he has kept secret for six decades, he says now. He claims he spotted a bullet resting on the top of the back of the seat. He says he picked it up, put it in his pocket, and brought it into the hospital. Then, upon entering Trauma Room No. 1 (at that stage, he was the only nonmedical person in the room besides Mrs. Kennedy, and both stayed for only a short period), he insists, he placed the bullet on a white cotton blanket on the president’s stretcher.

He wasn’t interviewed by the Warren Commission. I guess they didn’t think to interview anyone who left the secret service shortly after the assassination?

Landis didn’t make reference to the bullet in either of the two reports he submitted, hastily written in the turbulent days following the assassination.

So that’s a few things that are each a bit tough to believe if you ask me.

Then the author goes on to reference the single bullet theory and uses the term “magic bullet”.

This is the reference to the supposedly zig zaggy path the bullet was said to have taken going through John Connally then the president.

Thing is, from what I recall, subsequent modern (like 1990s?) reconstructions factoring in the correct positions and orientations of the two passengers, the path of the single bullet being straight yet causing all the wounds makes sense. See wikipedia and this pic from the article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sbt2.jpg

I’m not a huge follower of the topic and I know it is a complex topic… so maybe I’m missing a bunch of stuff.

The author then states

One key point to raise here concerns a fundamental underpinning of the Warren Commission report: the supposition that the retrieved intact bullet had been discovered on Governor Connally’s stretcher, not on Kennedy’s.

He goes on to talk about a fellow, Tomlinson, recalling finding a bullet on one of two stretchers; he found what was presumed to be Connelly’s stretcher with no bullet and another bloodied stretcher with medical stuff left over on it (Kennedy’s?) and discovered a bullet when he moved it out of the way. That never made it into the WC report. So that bit at least is worth considering.

The author also talks about some of the controversy of the single bullet theory based on the reaction timing of Kennedy and Connally in the Zapruder film as well as the minimum time between shots for the bolt action carcano used and such.

This requires believing that the shot causing the wound on Kennedy’s back was embedded only shallowly and came out upon being hit a second time.

Knowing a little about rifle and pistol ballistics and effects of penetration, this seems implausible.

In terms of power of various firearm rounds from most to least you have those used in battle rifles like the Carcano, more modern military rifles like the M4 and AK-47, modern military handguns like the M9 or Makarov, and old pocket pistols.

It takes a very slow round carrying very little energy to penetrate only shallowly. Very unlikely a battle rifle round. Example might be the .32 S&W with only 93 lb ft of energy at the muzzle. Compare that to the 6.5 Carcano with 1200+ lb ft…at two hundred yards.

For any rifle round to slow down so much that it would barely penetrate I don’t see how it could also follow the required trajectory.

The bullet would have to hit something and not deviate much, or the round would have to be undercharged. Both are unlikely. Though the author claims (with no evidence) that WWII rifle rounds were “notoriously undercharged”. Huh?

So that’s another couple thing that’s rather difficult to to believe.

There were (according the WC) three shots, by the way. One missed the vehicle entirely. The first shot injured the president and Connelly, according to the commission and the other shot hit Kennedy in the head.

And also, the guy went through a really traumatic experience, didn’t sleep for 4 straight days, and developed ptsd. Now that he is 88 I cannot help but look at his recollection 60 years later with a bit of skepticism. Human memory is fallible according to scientific consensus. It may change slightly every time a memory is recalled in one study I saw. Witnesses are unreliable. Could a recollection of finding a bullet somehow be entirely wrong, though? No clue.

But at least the theory of him having a totally wrong recollection is one mildly implausible thing instead of a handful of implausible things.