7Hickey’s Rifle, But Possibly Not Oswald’s, Could Have Created JFK’s Head Wound
Oswald used a 6.5 x 52mm Carcano M91/38 rifle with full metal jacket ammunition. This is standard military ammunition, designed for penetration, but not massive wound cavitation. The Hague Convention outlawed the use of hollow-point or expanding ammunition in warfare, although it remains used for hunting, and by police and civilians for self-defense. Because the bullet will “mushroom” or expand as it strikes any moderately hard surface, hollow-point bullets generally cause much more severe wounds inside the target than a full metal jacket can.
In his study of the assassination, Howard Donahue argued that the explosive second impact seen in the Zapruder film could not have been caused by Oswald’s full metal jacket bullets. However, the hollow-point bullets from Hickey’s AR-15, behind and to the left of the President, could have. Donahuealso claimed that a bullet fragment seen in X-rays of Kennedy’s skull was unlikely to have come from Oswald’s rifle, since full metal jacket bullets generally do not have fragments shear off on impact. Instead, Donahue suggested that Kennedy’s death might actually have been a terrible accident. According to his theory, Oswald’s first bullet hit the President, causing severe but nonfatal wounds. In the aftermath of the shooting, Hickey seized the AR-15 but, inexperienced with the weapon and jolted by the car’s sudden halt, accidentally discharged the rifle, causing Kennedy’s fatal head wound. The shorter distance between Hickey and Kennedy meant that the bullet would have struck the President at a much higher velocity than a bullet from Oswald’s Carcano, making up for the AR-15′s lighter bullet weight.
6Eyewitness Jean Hill Saw Men In The Motorcade Return Fire
Jean Hill is easily identifiable in the Zapruder Film as a woman in a body-length red suit, standing just off Elm Street as Kennedy’s limousine passes. The vehicle then briefly vanishes behind a road sign. Just as Kennedy emerges, he is shot in the upper back and raises his arms to his throat, then leans left into Jackie. Texas Governor John Connally jolts slightly at being struck by the same bullet and turns to the left to see Kennedy. Here, the vehicle passes Jean Hill and a woman in a dark dress, Mary Moorman, standing to her left. Almost immediately after the film pans them out, Kennedy is struck in the head.
According to Hill’s written testimony: “Just as the President looked up toward us two shots rang out and I saw the President grab his chest and fall forward across Jackies [sic] lap and she fell across his back and said ‘My God he has been shot.’ There was an instant pause between the first two shots and the motorcade seemingly halted for an instant and three or four more shots rang out and the motorcade sped away. I thought I saw some men in plain clothes shooting back but everything was such a blur and Mary was pulling on my leg saying ‘Get down thery [sic] are shooting.’”
It has been argued that the returned fire Hill thought she saw could have been George Hickey accidentally discharging his rifle.
5The Secret Service Detail Were Rumored To Have Been Drinking The Night Before
The night before the assassination, several of the Secret Service personnel guarding the President went out to a Fort Worth nightclub called the Cellar Coffee House. The club did not have a license to serve alcohol and the agents apparently consumed nothing stronger than fruit drinks, some with “non-alcoholic rum flavoring.” Nine Secret Service agents also attended a Fort Worth Press Club reception which did serve drinks. However, according to later testimony, none of the agents consumed more than one mixed drink or three beers.
The columnist Drew Pearson later claimed that at least one of the Secret Service agents had been visibly inebriated at the Press Club reception. In his syndicated column, Pearson alleged that the agents had been drinking until 3:00 AM at the Press Club before heading on to the Cellar Coffee House, which he characterized as a “beatnik joint.” This was strongly denied by the Secret Service and by Calvin Sutton, an editor at the Morning Star-Telegram and the host of the reception. Sutton did admit to keeping the Press Club open several hours later than the scheduled 12:00 PM closing time. At 2:00 AM, as the last guests were leaving, a party of four Secret Service agents entered. Sutton asked his bartender to serve them one drink each, after which they left. Sutton insisted that he was not aware of any agent having more than one or two drinks in total, although he acknowledged he could not necessarily tell Secret Service personnel apart from other White House staffers attending the reception. Several other witnesses also testified that they did not see any agent who appeared noticeably intoxicated.
Pearson’s article has occasionally been used to argue that some Secret Service agents may have been hungover on the day of the assassination, and that this may have impaired their judgement. However, while Pearson’s claims cannot conclusively be ruled out, they have proven impossible to corroborate and seem relatively unlikely. As with many details of the assassination, we may never know for sure.
4The Mysterious Autopsy
After the shooting, Kennedy was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. According to Texas state law, the President’s body was not allowed to be taken from the hospital until after an autopsy had been entirely performed. However, the Secret Service chose to ignore this, taking the body straight to the airport and securing it on board Air Force One. According to Charles Crenshaw, a doctor at Parkland, this led to a heated confrontation between Secret Service agents and Dallas Chief of Forensic Pathology Earl Rose, during which the agents displayed their guns menacingly. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anthony Summers has claimed that the sidearms were actually drawn and Dr. Rose and others forced against a wall while the body was taken away, although Crenshaw does not mention this.
The body was flown to Maryland’s Bethesda Naval Hospital, where an autopsy was finally carried out. Secret Service agents Roy Kellerman, William Greer, and John O’Leary were all present during the autopsy. According to proponents of the accident theory, the Secret Service might have been desperately trying to hide something, and it might have been the trajectory of the bullet through the head. An autopsy performed in Texas, not under their auspices, could easily have determined whether the bullet struck from right to left or left to right, and whether it came from an elevation of 16 degrees or the same elevation.
Why would the Secret Service, of all organizations, refuse to let the Parkland Memorial Hospital’s professional surgeons perform the autopsy? What is the difference between an autopsy performed by expert professionals in Dallas, and one performed by expert professionals elsewhere?
3Kennedy’s Wounds
A fact much beloved by conspiracy theorists is that the entrance wound to the back of Kennedy’s head measured six millimeters wide—significantly less than the width of Oswald’s 6.5mm Carcano bullets, which were actually 6.8 millimeters across. How can a bullet make a hole smaller than itself? According to the Warren Commission: “The dimension of 6 millimeters, somewhat smaller than the diameter of a 6.5-millimeter bullet, was caused by the elastic recoil of the skull, which shrinks the size of an opening after a missile passes through it.”
This is actually quite plausible, since the scalp itself, containing fluid, will indent slightly as the bullet strikes it. If it is pressed against a hard, unyielding object like bone, then the entrance wound can appear to have a smaller diameter than the bullet, because the skin will bend inward around the entrance. Furthermore, the skull itself does have elasticity on the order of15–25 gigapascals of pressure. This measurement indicates the extent to which a human skull will deform before shattering. Pressure of 10 GPa would deform a skull, but probably not break it.
When a bullet penetrates it at high speed, thus exerting more pressure, the skull usually shatters into fragments. The inside will be blasted into the brain, while the scalp may hold the outside of the skull intact. The Warren Commission’s explanation for the size of the wound is perfectly reasonable, however it is worth noting that the wound would have been measured from the exterior of the scalp. There is no information on whether the interior of Kennedy’s skull was measured.
Hickey’s rifle was an AR-15 in 5.56mm NATO caliber. The 5.56mm bullet is actually 5.7 millimeters in diameter, and could very easily have caused a wound only slightly wider than itself in a human head. This does not prove that Hickey was the shooter, but does not disprove the theory any more than it proves Oswald was the shooter.
2Multiple Witnesses Smelled Gunpowder At Street Level
At least seven witnesses testified that they smelled gunpowder at street level immediately after the shooting.
Billy Martin was a Dallas police officer who was driving his motorcycle just behind the Presidential limousine’s left rear fender at the time of the shooting. He is on record as stating: “You could smell the gunpowder . . .you knew he wasn’t far away. When you’re that close, you can smell the powder burning . . .you could smell the gunpowder . . .right there in the street.”
Senator Ralph Yarborough, riding with Vice President Johnson in the second convertible, claimed to be able to: “smell the gunpowder from the assassin’s murder weapon.”
Elizabeth Cabell testified that she was riding in the third or fourth car behind the President’s limousine when the shooting occurred. She had this to say: “It was in just a fleeting second that I jerked my head up and I saw something in that window, and I turned around to say to Earle, ‘Earle, it is a shot,’ and before I got the words out, just as I got the words out, he said, “Oh, no; it must have been a . . .’ [then] the second two shots rang out. After that, there is a certain amount of confusion in my mind. I was acutely aware of the odor of gunpowder.”
Tom Dillard was a press photographer riding well behind the Presidential limousine. At the time of the shooting, Dillard’s vehicle was still approaching the Texas School Book Depository Building, facing Oswald’s sniper position. He stated: “I very definitely smelled gunpowder when the car moved up at the corner.”
Virgie Rackley was a bystander close to the street in front of the Depository Building who, after the second shot, smelled gunsmoke.
Earle Brown was a police officer stationed on top of the overpass under which the motorcade passed after the shooting. At the time of the shooting, Brown was looking north toward Dealey Plaza and the Depository Building. Inhis testimony he stated: “I heard these shots and then I smelled this gunpowder . . .It come on it would be maybe a couple minutes later so—at least it smelled like it to me.” Officer Joe Smith also reported, “a distinctive smell of gun smoke cordite,’ as he rode along Elm Street.
According to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), measurements taken at Love Field , 8.5 kilometers (5.3 mi) by road from Dealey Plaza, found that the wind on the day of the assassination was blowing at around 24–32 kilometers per hour (15–20 mph) from the west-northwest.
1Oswald’s Position And The Path Of The Headshot
The Warren Commission estimated the distances from Oswald’s firing position in the Book Depository to Kennedy’s seat in the limousine as 53 meters (175 ft), 75 meters (240 ft), and 80 meters (265 feet) for each of the three shots heard. The last shot is generally accepted as the headshot, but the HSCA gives the placement of Kennedy’s head entrance wound as 10 centimeters (3.9 in) above the external occipital protuberance and 1.8 cm (0.7 in) to the right of the midline. The exit wound was found to be 11 cm (4.3 in) in front of the entrance wound, 1 cm (0.4 in) below it, and 5.6 cm (2.2 in) right of midline, near the right temple. Given his position from the 6th floor corner window of the Texas School Book Depository, this casts some doubt on Oswald firing the headshot. A computer rendering of a line drawn through the two head wounds and extending behind the target intersects the Dal-Tex Building, behind the Depository.
This does not necessarily prove or disprove anything, since the position of the President’s head is very difficult to determine. But it does allow the possibility that Hickey’s rifle was the source of the shot. Oswald’s rifle might also have been the source. A gunman on the famous grassy knoll does seem unlikely, since the wound in the rear of Kennedy’s head would have been larger and less neat if it were the exit wound.
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