The JFK Assassination: SS Agent comes forward with explanation for the “magic bullet” found on the stretcher.

We revisit the JFK assassination story today because the last secret files from the government are due to be released very soon. Articles in Vanity Fair explore the story of revelations that have occurred in the last couple of years and what could be released soon from still-secret CIA archives.

The first article, published yesterday, discusses the releases and interviews the “reigning expert” on the story. Jefferson Morley covers the possible documents to be un-redacted and the current state of controversy over the whole affair. Naturally, no-one is completely satisfied with the story so far.

The second article, published in September 2023, covers a book recently written by Paul Landis, a Secret Service agent who was protecting Jackie Kennedy at the time. He was in the car behind Kennedy’s, and Landis witnessed the impact of the bullet that hit Kennedy in the skull and made his brain explode.

He was forced to retire from the Service a few months later, after only four years of service. He suffered from severe PTSD, which was not recognized as a diagnosis at that time. For 50 years, he worked quietly as a security guard and kept secret a tiny detail with enormous significance.

Landis finds the magic bullet

In his book, he finally reveals that he found a spent bullet in the Kennedy limousine. It was lying loose on the back of the rear seat where the vehicle’s removable top attached. It appeared to be nearly pristine. He picked it up, wrapped it in his handkerchief, and shortly afterward placed it on Kennedy’s stretcher next to his body.

This bullet is the one that later was mistakenly said to have been found on Connally’s stretcher. It had a secure chain of custody to the FBI lab, where it was observed to have rifling marks consistent with having been fired from Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.

Given that the damage to CE-399 consists of a slight longitudinal twist and compression at its base, that bullet encountered something along its flight path. Whether the intervening objects were Kennedy and Connally as opposed a barrel of water, or a bale of cotton, is the question.https://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/Breakability/Breakability.htm

This basic fact goes with certain other facts: the wounds to Kennedy’s back and neck, and the wounds to Connally’s chest and knee, were in fact aligned and likely occurred from the same bullet. The photograph above of the tiny model limousine shows Kennedy and Connally in the correct position and, knowing that the fatal bullets came from a little above and slightly to the left of them, indicates how plausible that trajectory is.

Clearly, the bullet recovered by Agent Landis was not the bullet that wounded both Kennedy and Connally. The fact that the bullet was not near where it would be expected after becoming an expended round from Oswald’s shooting, and that there was no blood or tissue associated with it less than half an hour after the shooting, both suggest that the bullet was placed there by a person unknown.

How many bullets were found?

Further, the three rounds known to have been fired have been accounted for: one in Kennedy’s skull, of which fragments were recoverded; one through the windshield into the curb and probably shattered; one into Connally’s knee, massively damaged. If this pristine round is included, that makes four when only three were fired.

So if the bullet was undeniably from Oswald’s gun by the rifling and it was not recovered anywhere near expected, and it was nearly pristine, then some “supernatural” or at least “extraordinary” event/s occurred to put it there. Was it recovered from when Oswald was shooting at the firing range– when he made sure that he made eyewitnesses know he was there? That would account for the deformation present–possibly made by a tool extracting it from the target.

The presence of minimal deformation is not surprising in a bullet expended on a target at a range but it is surprising in a bullet that has encountered tissue and bone. Usually a round that wounds and is recovered shows significant deformation. A round that penetrates the skull and explodes the brain is likely to be fragmented, exactly as occurred in this case. There were large fragments found on the back seat mixed with blood, bone, and brains.

From these facts it is possibly to hypothesize that the first shot hit Kennedy low in the neck while he was slouched over (limited by his back brace) and exited his throat at tracheostomy level nearly in the midline. It is probable that this shot hit Connally too. Their positions line up for such a shot in recreations of their exact locations. It is unclear where that bullet wound up, although X-rays suggest that parts of it remained in Connally’s tissues. That bullet’s trajectory indicates that it suffered little damage going through Kennedy’s soft tissues, but encountered major obstacles in Connally.

The second shot may have gone through the windshield and hit a curb in front of the limousine. A fragment from this round hit a pedestrian on the cheek. The third shot hit Kennedy in the occipital bone, fragmented, and blew his brain apart, spraying it all over a state trooper on a motorcycle behind him. His scalp and hair, mostly intact, fell back over the wound and obscured it while he was being transported and treated at the hospital. That is why there was no brain in the materials recovered at autopsy and preserved– no actual mystery there.

There is thus little reason to question the thesis that Oswald fired all three of the shots fired that day, and that he had no direct accomplices. There is reason to suspect that he felt he was acting in the interests or at the direction of some organization, but what that entity would be is unknown. Again, it is unclear what organization would like to feel that they were deliberately engaging the services of an assassin, trained by the Marines, who had already taken a shot a a retired general recently and gotten away with it.

The presence of this “magic bullet” suggests that Oswald was supported by a group who knew he was going to shoot and furthermore had the opportunity to physically place the bullet in the limousine within minutes after the shooting (if not before). This person would almost have to be an insider like another Secret Service agent assigned to the same detail. This narrow window to place the bullet makes the whole theory a little less plausible.

Why kill Kennedy?

There is no shortage of parties who had a motivation to do away with President Kennedy. It could be the CIA, pro-Castro Cubans (in retaliation for failed plots against Castro), the American military, the Russians ( or Soviets, as they were known), or any of a number of other lesser known groups with low ethical standards.

It is clear that the CIA had Oswald under surveillance for months before he shot Kennedy. He was picked up by CIA surveillance of the Russian and Cuban embassies in Mexico City and relayed to headquarters, who as it turned out, already had a file on him. The CIA was watching Oswald in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. It is alleged that his pro-Castro pamphlet distribution on the street and appearances on local talk television were publicized to call attention to him.

Whether the CIA surveilled Oswald closely enough to know anything about his steps seems unlikely. He went to mail-order a rifle, tried to shoot a retired general and missed, then went to a rifle range to sight it in. He obtained a job site overlooking the motorcade route at a spot where it was forced to slow down by a sharp turn. The motorcade route had not been finalized until a week before the assassination, so it is likely that simple opportunity placed a decisive role.

It seems unlikely that they watched him that closely. He did proudly display his new rifle and a newspaper for a photograph taken in his yard. How did he get a job at the Texas Book Depository a few weeks beforehand? Was it a fateful coincidence or did he have help? Maybe he thought it up himself and researched the routes that motorcades take.

There’s a lot here that provokes massive scrutiny and speculation. The subject certainly tried to pull me down a rabbit hole. Feel free to write a movie script based on the “magic bullet.”