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00:00It's been 25 years and many questions remain.
00:03Can modern scientific tools, computers, photo enhancement and audio testing solve this continuing mystery?
00:10Join Walter Cronkite as he asks, who shot President Kennedy?
00:33Funding for NOVA is provided by the Johnson & Johnson family of companies, supplying health care products worldwide.
00:43And Prime Computer, supplying integrated computer solutions to the world's manufacturing, commercial, technical and scientific marketplaces.
00:54Major funding for NOVA is provided by this station and other public television stations nationwide.
01:03The weather couldn't be better. We have a brilliant sun at this moment. The wind has diminished considerably.
01:09On November 22, 1963, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy made a political visit to Dallas, Texas.
01:16At 46, in the third year of his administration, he and his glamorous wife, Jackie, had captured the imagination and
01:23the heart of the nation.
01:25He is reaching across the fence, shaking hands, shaking hands with many of the people who have come here to
01:32see him.
01:33The gunmetal gray limousine, blue and gray, pulling away now from the fenced area.
01:39The presidential motorcade drove through the streets of Dallas en route to a luncheon speaking engagement at the trademark.
01:46The President and Mrs. Kennedy seated on the back seat.
01:50Governor and Mrs. Connolly on the second seats or jump seats.
01:54And then the official driver and secret service man are in the front seat.
02:02The President's car is now turning off to Elm Street and it will be only a matter of minutes before
02:06he arrives at the trademark.
02:10It appears as though something has happened in the motorcade route.
02:14Something, I repeat, has happened in the motorcade route.
02:16There's numerous people running up the hill alongside Elm Street, there by the Simmons Freeway.
02:22Several police officers are rushing up the hill at this time.
02:26Stand by.
02:27Parkland Hospital, there has been a shooting.
02:29Parkland Hospital has been at night.
02:31Stand by for a severe gunshot wound.
02:34The policeman says, no, you cannot come in here.
02:36You cannot come in here.
02:37We'll let nobody else in.
02:38It was definitely the President's car.
02:40And just now we've received reports here at Parkland that Governor Connolly was shot in the chest.
02:46And the first unconfirmed reports say the President was hit in the head.
02:50Gentlemen, we have a bulletin coming in.
02:52The President of the United States is dead.
02:56Women here in shock.
02:59Some have fainted.
03:00Grown men, secret service men standing by the emergency room.
03:03Tears screaming down the frame.
03:05Stars settle slowly.
03:07In loneliness they lie.
03:10Till the universe explodes as the falling stars raise.
03:15Planets are paralyzed.
03:17It's official.
03:18As of 30 moments ago, the President of the United States is dead.
03:36In the past 25 years, there have been two major federal inquiries into the murder of the President.
03:42One concluded that Kennedy was killed by a lone assassin shooting from the far window of this room.
03:49The other concluded there was an accomplice.
03:51Today, questions are still being asked.
03:58I'm Walter Cronkite.
04:00Which conclusion does the evidence really support?
04:03Are there reasons to believe there was another gunman?
04:06And did someone tamper with what should be the best evidence?
04:10The body of the slain President.
04:12Eyewitness testimony raised these doubts, but cannot resolve them.
04:16Even modern forensic sciences, ballistics, analysis of acoustics, photography, autopsy records,
04:23can only bring us closer to an answer to the question, who shot President Kennedy?
04:33Tenative answers to the question began to form the same afternoon of the murder at this Dallas movie house.
04:39Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested there as a suspect in the killing of a Dallas policeman less than an hour
04:44after the President died.
04:47Before the evening was over, he also was accused of being the rifleman who assassinated Kennedy.
04:53These people have given me a hearing without legal representation or anything.
04:58I didn't shoot anybody, no sir.
05:01He insisted that he was innocent of both murders.
05:08On the morning of November 24th, millions of Americans watched as Kennedy's casket was brought to the Capitol building where
05:14he would lie in state.
05:15For the last time, from the White House to Capitol Hill.
05:19As the procession was underway in Washington, in Dallas the news media crowded into the basement of police headquarters,
05:26waiting for Oswald to be transferred from the city lock-up to the more secure County Jail.
05:36Oswald has been shot!
05:39Oswald has been shot!
05:41Holy mackerel.
05:43The shot has a mass confusion there.
05:46Rolling and fighting.
05:48As he was being, as he was being let out, now he's being let back.
05:53He was thrown to the ground.
05:55The police have the entire area blocked off.
06:00Jack Ruby, a striptease club owner with Mafia ties, killed Oswald.
06:05Suspicions quickly grew that Oswald was killed to conceal his role in a conspiracy.
06:26Exactly ten months after the fateful November 22nd, the seven members of the Warren Commission headed by the Chief Justice
06:32of the Supreme Court come to the White House to give to the President the results of their painstaking investigation
06:38into the determinable
06:39facts of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
06:44People were eager for the truth about the case.
06:47The Warren Commission published 26 volumes filled with evidence gathered for it by the
06:51FBI, which investigated thousands of leads and used the latest scientific tools.
07:01Readers learned that the Commission came to the same conclusion that local police officials had reached within hours after Oswald's
07:07capture.
07:08Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, had murdered President Kennedy and wounded Texas Governor John Connolly.
07:19The case that Oswald was the lone assassin seems strong.
07:23As the motorcade passed, many witnesses heard three shots fired from the sixth floor of this, the Texas School Book
07:30Depository Building.
07:35Oswald worked in the building and was stationed on the sixth floor that day.
07:41Within minutes after the shooting, police found book cartons piled around the window.
07:45They concluded it was the sniper's nest.
07:51The police also found three spent 6.5 millimeter cartridges next to the window.
07:58They also discovered a bolt-action rifle nearby between boxes, and Oswald's palm print was later found on it.
08:08Handwriting experts found that Oswald had purchased the rifle under an assumed name.
08:12He bought it for under $20 from a mail-order house.
08:17Two large bullet fragments were recovered from the limousine.
08:20One whole bullet was found on a hospital stretcher.
08:24The bullet, fragments, and cartridges all were ballistically traced to Oswald's rifle.
08:32The president's body was examined at Bethesda Naval Hospital near Washington, D.C., six hours after his death.
08:38The official autopsy confirmed that Kennedy had been hit twice.
08:43One bullet went through his neck.
08:45Another caused a massive and fatal wound to his head.
08:48The autopsy found both shots came from behind and above, from the direction of the School Book Depository Building.
08:56All of these facts seemed to prove Oswald alone was responsible for the assassination.
09:03But critics were quick to point out weaknesses and contradictions in the evidence.
09:10Many writers claimed it was physically impossible for one man alone to have done all that the Warren Commission said
09:16Oswald had done.
09:19They argued the commission discounted eyewitness and photographic evidence, suggesting there was a second gunman.
09:26New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison conducted a trial in 1968 based on his belief that Oswald was part of
09:34a combined CIA-mafia assassination plot.
09:38Garrison's case collapsed.
09:40Nevertheless, by the mid-1970s, several Warren Commission members and President Johnson said they doubted that Oswald acted alone.
09:48An opinion poll showed that four out of five Americans believed there must have been a second gunman.
09:56All of these factors fueled a new investigation that began in 1977, this one by Congress.
10:03The House Select Committee on Assassinations agreed with the Warren Commission that Oswald killed the president and wounded Governor Connolly.
10:11But they added there was a second gunman who fired and missed.
10:17For the sounds picked up at this microphone of shots fired from here, the first two.
10:23The second gunman conclusion was based in part on acoustic evidence, which remains controversial.
10:29So even though both government investigations agreed about Oswald, the issue of a conspiracy was never laid to rest.
10:38Even today, critics continue to question whether the physical evidence involving the rifle and bullets supports the lone assassin conclusion.
10:48That conclusion is known as the single bullet theory.
10:54This is Dealey Plaza, the scene of the crime.
10:59Nova has had this computer model of Dealey Plaza built to accurate scale to help her investigation.
11:04Here is the school book depository building.
11:08Here, the grassy knoll where a second gunman may have been concealed.
11:13The motorcade route took Kennedy's limousine down Houston Street and then with a sharp left onto Elm Street.
11:22The Warren Commission initially assumed the first bullet wounded the president in the neck.
11:27The second wounded the governor.
11:30And the third struck Kennedy in the head and killed him.
11:33This was partly based on Governor Connolly's eyewitness account.
11:37As soon as he was able, Governor Connolly appeared on nationwide television to give the most lucid accounts so far
11:43of the tragic events.
11:45We had just turned the corner.
11:47We heard a shot.
11:49I turned and looked in the back seat.
11:52The president was slumped.
11:53He had said nothing.
11:56Almost simultaneously.
11:58As I turned, I was hit.
12:02And I knew I'd been hit badly.
12:05If Connolly was correct that he and Kennedy were hit by separate shots, this created a timing problem.
12:11The president was hit again.
12:15Josiah Thompson analyzed this problem in his book, Six Seconds in Dallas, considered one of the most perceptive analyses of
12:21the assassination.
12:27As a private investigator, Thompson has worked on over 100 murder cases.
12:31He helped examine Kennedy's murder for Life magazine.
12:36Some of his arguments are based on FBI test results.
12:40Well, here's the problem.
12:41The mechanical firing time of the rifle, as tested by Frazier of the FBI, by mechanical firing time we mean
12:48just this.
12:50Boom, working the bolt and pulling the trigger again.
12:53The necessary minimum mechanical firing time was 2.3 seconds.
12:57If you add on to that, realistic additions, such as reacquiring the target in the scope, and secondly, zeroing in
13:06the cross hires, to permit accurate shooting,
13:08you're now no longer at 2.3 seconds.
13:11You're up at 3 or 4 seconds between shots on this rifle.
13:15There just, given the Zapruder film, wasn't enough time for this rifle to get off two shots in that time
13:21interval.
13:24Abraham Zapruder was standing here on the grassy knoll when he took the most famous pictures of the assassination with
13:30his 8mm home movie camera.
13:33The camera ran at 18 frames per second, so every frame is a snapshot of the event, an 18th of
13:39a second apart.
13:41After closely analyzing his film, the Warren Commission then decided Oswald's first shot had missed.
13:48And his second shot struck both men.
13:52This was their solution to the timing problem, and it became known as the single-bullet theory.
13:58Josiah Thompson argues that the Zapruder film also shows the theory is wrong.
14:04This is frame 207.
14:06Now between this frame and frame 222, when the car emerges from the sign,
14:11the Warren Commission believes that Kennedy and Connelly were both hit by the single bullet.
14:16At this point, we see no indication of any hit.
14:19This is now frame 222.
14:21Connelly is emerging from behind the sign, looks apparently composed, unhit.
14:26We now have frame 225.
14:29For the first time, we can see that John Kennedy has clearly been hit.
14:33Connelly sitting in front of him, looking to his right.
14:36This is frame 230.
14:38Kennedy's clearly been hit.
14:40His elbows are splayed upwards.
14:42Connelly sitting composed in front of him, holding his Stetson, looking calm.
14:46According to the Warren Commission, Connelly's been hit by a bullet that blew five inches out of his fifth rib
14:52and shattered his wrist at this point.
14:54Moving ahead now to frame 236.
14:57Kennedy is obviously reacting.
14:59Connelly is turning, his mouth open in what may be, oh, no, no, which he said he was saying when
15:04he was hit.
15:04But 237 now, Connelly continuing his turn, and now in the next 18th of a second, enormous changes.
15:12Connelly's shoulder's been driven down, his hair has been displaced, and his cheeks are puffed.
15:16This is frame 238.
15:18In fact, what we are watching is a snapshot taken just before and just after the impact of the bullet,
15:25driving into Connelly's shoulder, compressing his lung, hence puffing his cheeks,
15:29if that's what we're seeing, then it's quite clear Kennedy was hit significantly earlier,
15:35and the single bullet theory is wrong.
15:40But a congressional panel looked at the Zapruder film and concluded that Connelly simply reacted to the shot later than
15:46Kennedy.
15:47The panel was headed by forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Bodden.
15:51In the Zapruder film, there appears to be a delayed reaction in Governor Connelly responding to injury.
16:00However, people often respond in delayed fashion to gunshot wounds.
16:05There isn't an instantaneous response.
16:08Despite his first account of what happened, Governor Connelly later testified that he had not seen Kennedy wounded by the
16:14first shot.
16:16Congress determined that Connelly turned here in response to hearing that first shot.
16:21But the shot missed.
16:22Both men were then wounded by the single bullet three seconds later when they were hidden by the sign.
16:29Three seconds between shots was enough time for a gunman to fire twice.
16:34So, as far as timing is concerned, although it cannot be ruled out that the first bullet struck Kennedy,
16:40and the second, shot by another gunman, hit Connelly,
16:42it is plausible to conclude both men were wounded by a single bullet.
16:50Darrell Tomlinson, a Parkland Hospital employee, reenacts how he found that bullet on a stretcher.
16:58The bullet was ballistically traced to Oswald's rifle.
17:01The Warren Commission concluded that it was the bullet that had wounded both men
17:05and that it had fallen out of Connelly's clothing onto his hospital stretcher.
17:11The bullet was found here in this area.
17:15And not on that stretcher.
17:17That's the stretcher I took off the elevator.
17:20The stretcher he took off the elevator was Connelly's,
17:23so Tomlinson found the bullet on a different stretcher not connected to the case.
17:27This led critics to claim the bullet was planted.
17:30But the commission decided Tomlinson was mistaken.
17:34It was there when I came up.
17:39This is the bullet.
17:41Could it look like this after it went through Kennedy's neck and then struck the governor?
17:46The surgeon who operated on Governor Connelly's chest wounds at Parkland Hospital was Dr. Robert Shaw.
17:53The bullet struck lateral to the shoulder blade,
17:58stripped out approximately 10 centimeters of the fifth rib,
18:02driving fragments of the rib into his chest,
18:04went on and struck the radius bone of his lower arm at this point,
18:12and a small fragment of bullet entered the inner aspect of the lower left thigh.
18:21I have never seen a bullet that had caused as much bony damage
18:28as you found in the case of Governor Connelly remain as a pristine bullet.
18:39At the National Archives in Washington, Dr. Cyril Wecht,
18:42former head of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences,
18:45examined bullets the Warren Commission had test-fired.
18:49To find out if a bullet could break so many bones and remain apparently intact,
18:53the commission used a rifle similar to Oswald's.
18:56And then they got these bullets, all 6.5 millimeter,
19:03and they test-fired, first into cotton wadding.
19:06These two bullets were fired into cotton wadding, striking nothing.
19:11You will note that these bullets both have a minimal degree of protrusion of the lead at the base.
19:18Otherwise, they are intact, which is what you would expect.
19:22The next bullet broke one rib of a goat carcass.
19:26Notice, please, its widening.
19:29This bullet struck one of the two large bones that come down from the elbow to the wrist in a
19:37human cadaver.
19:37They wanted to simulate the fracture of that same bone in Governor Connelly.
19:43Please note the substantial deformity.
19:46This is classical, typical, when a bullet strikes a dense, heavy bone or some other very firm object.
19:53Now, I want you to look at the so-called stretcher bullet.
19:57This bullet is the actual bullet that the Warren Commission claims broke both John Connelly's right fifth rib,
20:07destroying four inches of that bone, pulverizing it, and which caused a comminuted or extensively fragmented fracture
20:15of a dense, heavy bone down near the base of the wrist and emerged in this condition.
20:22You will see that it is near pristine.
20:25As a matter of fact, its nose, the cone, the sides of the bullet are completely intact and unscathed.
20:33It has only minimal protrusion of the lead core at the base in the same fashion that the two bullets
20:39did
20:40that had been fired in the test swatting.
20:41That's from the impact of the firing mechanism.
20:45Some ballistic experts argue that the Warren Commission should have test fired through two bodies instead of just one.
20:51They say the single bullet would have been slowed down by passing through Kennedy's neck before entering Connelly's body,
20:58and a bullet that has slowed down is less likely to be deformed.
21:05The single bullet also was examined to determine if it is chemically identical to the bullet fragments removed from Connelly's
21:11arm.
21:12Critics were convinced they would not match, and thus the single bullet theory would be proven wrong.
21:18Congress asked Dr. Vincent Gwynne to use a technique called neutron activation analysis to find out.
21:24What I did in the analyses was to take very small pieces of each of the samples and put them
21:31in our nuclear reactor,
21:34bombarded them with neutrons, and that made some of the elements present in the bullet lead radioactive.
21:39Then I counted them, each sample, on what's called a gamma-ray spectrometer, which detects the different radioactive elements.
21:50This enables Dr. Gwynne to measure them to learn if a particular sample is chemically identical to a particular bullet.
21:56The fragments that were recovered from Governor Connelly's wrist matched in composition the bullet lead in the so-called stretcher
22:07bullet.
22:07It is possible that other bullets manufactured at the same time would have very similar composition and could also have
22:14been the source of the fragments.
22:16Nevertheless, Dr. Gwynne's results support the single bullet theory, but don't prove it.
22:21And why the bullet is not as misshapen as the test bullets remains an open question.
22:28Dr. Weck urges a new firing test to help settle that issue.
22:36Was it possible for a single bullet fired from the sixth floor of the School Book Depository building
22:41to go through the bodies of both the President and the Governor?
22:46The FBI restaged the shooting for the Warren Commission, which concluded that the angle of trajectory was feasible.
22:53But looking at the wounds, Dr. Shaw disagrees.
22:57I couldn't quite understand why a bullet going through the President's neck, coming from the right and above,
23:05exiting out through his throat, would then zig and zag to strike the Governor,
23:13who was sitting directly in front of the President.
23:17It would seem to me that that bullet would have struck the Governor in the left side of his chest,
23:24rather than the right side of his chest.
23:26It appears initially that Dr. Shaw is correct.
23:30Photographs showed Connolly seated slightly to Kennedy's left,
23:33and the location of their wounds suggests they were hit by two separate bullets,
23:37not by a single bullet fired from the sixth floor.
23:42Looking at the limousine from ground level, the bullet paths also don't line up with the sixth floor.
23:49The path of the bullet through Kennedy's neck goes slightly downward,
23:52and doesn't line up with the wounds through Connolly, which goes sharply downward.
23:57Dr. Botten.
23:59The bullet path through President Kennedy's back and neck indeed was in the anatomic position
24:06at somewhat of an upward angle through the neck, slightly upward.
24:10But this is entirely consistent with a bullet trajectory coming from above downward at a 20, 30 degree angle,
24:18if the President were leaning forward at the time that the bullet struck him in the manner that I'm doing.
24:28Now, as far as Governor Connolly's wound goes, it was going downward,
24:33and it would be entirely consistent with entering, if he were leaning backwards slightly.
24:42So, one way in which a single bullet could readily accommodate the President and Governor Connolly
24:49would be the President leaning slightly downward, and the Governor slightly backwards.
24:55The model suggests that from this point of view,
24:58the angle of trajectory for the bullet path could line up and lead back to the sixth floor window.
25:04What about the argument that the bullet had to zig and zag to strike both men?
25:09But the model shows that if Connolly had moved just slightly more to Kennedy's left,
25:13perhaps when he turned to look over his right shoulder, which is what he said he did,
25:18then the angle of trajectory for the bullet path could also line up.
25:24Additionally, a bullet doesn't always travel in a straight line after it enters a human body,
25:29as this Army Ballistics film demonstrates.
25:32When a rifle bullet is fired into a block of gelatin simulating human flesh,
25:36it can change direction.
25:42So, the gelatin test demonstrates that the bullet could have changed direction
25:46as it went through Kennedy's neck, even without striking bone,
25:50and changed direction again after it entered Connolly's chest.
25:56And the computer model suggests that the bullet passed through both men could line up.
26:03Despite all of the efforts by critics,
26:05the single-bullet theory has yet to be disproven.
26:08But the fact that the single-bullet theory cannot be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt
26:12contributed to the search for another gunman.
26:16And there already was evidence suggesting there was a second gunman
26:20firing from the grassy knoll.
26:24There's numerous people running up the hill alongside Elm Street,
26:29there by the Simmons Freeway.
26:30Several police officers are rushing...
26:33From the moment the president was killed,
26:35many eyewitnesses testified that they believed there was a man with a gun on the grassy knoll.
26:42One eyewitness was Malcolm Summers, who reenacted his experience for NOVA.
26:47After the motor van had passed, I waited about a minute,
26:52and then I came running over across to the NOVA.
26:55When I got here, I was stopped by a person in a suit with an overcoat over his arm,
27:01throwed over his arm, also had a gun under his arm.
27:04It looked like a little machine gun to me, a small machine gun.
27:08Malcolm Summers was one of several eyewitnesses,
27:10including at least one Dallas policeman,
27:12who ran into people claiming to be federal officials and who were never found.
27:18Chief Counsel for the House Assassination Committee, Robert Blakey.
27:22A careful examination of where all of the Secret Service agents were that day,
27:29and their duty assignments indicates that no Secret Service agent was in that area.
27:35Another eyewitness, Skinny Holland, watched from this overpass.
27:39Josiah Thompson interviewed Holland for his book.
27:42He said that he and six or seven of his fellows also saw some puffs of smoke
27:47come out from under the bushes near a stockade fence on the grassy knoll.
27:52This meant so much to them that they ran right over there as soon as the shooting was over.
27:57About 15 feet down from the corner, he found some fresh footprints, some cigarette butts,
28:03indications that somebody had been there.
28:07Memories can fade, but photographs are fixed in time.
28:10This, perhaps, was the most photographed murder in history.
28:14And critics thought they saw a gunman in at least six different Dealey Plaza pictures.
28:21This man appears to shoot directly at the camera,
28:24but photo analysis revealed he was only lights and shadows.
28:29Critics said this open umbrella was a CIA weapon,
28:33which the man holding it used to fire a dart that paralyzed Kennedy in the neck.
28:38But a witness told Congress he was the man with the umbrella,
28:41and he had held it open to make a symbolic political statement.
28:46Committee staff opened this umbrella so we can ascertain there's no dart gun in it.
28:51They're, as far as I'm concerned, they're certainly welcome to.
28:54Maybe you ought to turn that way with it.
29:02Congress hired a group of experts to examine all the photos.
29:06In this one, the limousine is in the foreground,
29:08moments before Kennedy was first wounded.
29:10On the grassy knoll is a shape resembling a black dog.
29:17Photoanalyst Bobby Hunt.
29:18It is a black shape, apparently the head and shoulders of a man.
29:22In the region of the, what we'd call the face,
29:26there was some pink tones, purported to be flesh tones.
29:30And there was also an object which looked like a rifle with a flash suppressor or a nozzle on the
29:35rifle.
29:36But we concluded that this was a human being.
29:41That conclusion was derived from the enhancement and from some color spectrographic analysis we did on the visible flesh tones
29:47of the object.
29:48We did not conclude, however, that that was a rifle.
29:52We simply said it was consistent with a blur induced by the motion of the photograph.
29:58Critics argued this picture showed that same person from another angle right at this point in the photo.
30:04The congressional photo team decided not to enhance it because it was too deteriorated.
30:13At NOVA's request, researchers of Polaroid and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology agreed to look at the photo.
30:22First, Brian Hallstrom scanned the negative of the photo to measure the light intensity, bit by bit, of every part
30:29of the picture.
30:34A computer tape with that information was given to Steve Isabel, who used a number of techniques to increase the
30:41contrast and sharpen the edges of objects seen in the photo.
30:46An outline has been added to suggest what critics claim is the man and the flash of a gun hiding
30:51part of his face.
30:53Hallstrom and Isabel believe this could be a man, but this spot is most likely sunlight filtering through trees.
31:01What I see is an object that could possibly be a person.
31:05Can you see that?
31:07I think that that requires a little bit of imagination, but I believe that you can see something is there
31:12about the right size.
31:15Some people believe there's another suspicious shape in a different part of the photo, behind the fence.
31:22It's in the same place where Skinny Holland and others saw a puff of smoke and fresh footprints.
31:28If that shape was an assassin, this is the view he would have had.
31:33The model shows that his view of the limousine would have been partially blocked by a retaining wall on the
31:39knoll.
31:42Kennedy appears here.
31:44A gunman could have aimed and fired.
31:46The location of the limousine in the model corresponds with frame 313 of the Zabruder film.
31:53In the Zabruder film, it can be seen that Conley is turning, perhaps in reaction to hearing the first shot.
31:59Then both he and Kennedy are hidden behind the sign when they presumably were both wounded by the second shot.
32:12Kennedy is struck in the head and killed at this moment.
32:17Frame 313.
32:19The model does not prove someone struck the president from the knoll.
32:23It does show that it was possible.
32:27The violent motion of Kennedy's head to the left and backwards is another reason many people believe the shot came
32:33from the grassy knoll.
32:35It seemed to be a logical conclusion.
32:38Dr. Wecht.
32:39If you have that kind of force slamming into the rear of somebody's head, then that should drive the individual
32:46forward.
32:48But instead, we have them moving backward and to the left.
32:53That suggests the very distinct possibility of another shot having been fired in synchronized fashion from the right side, the
33:02so-called grassy knoll area.
33:04But a test using 6.5-millimeter bullets firing into human skulls appears to discount this argument.
33:12Dr. John Latimer, a physician and war-encompassion defender, filmed his own test, shooting at a skull filled with white
33:19paint and brain tissue.
33:21Shot from behind, the skull is propelled backward, similar to what happened to Kennedy.
33:30Although not conclusive, the test suggests the fatal shot could have come from behind.
33:35This view also was expressed by the late Nobel physicist, Louis Alvarez.
33:41So, neither the photographic evidence nor the movement of Kennedy's head prove he was struck from the grassy knoll.
33:48But much of the eyewitness testimony has never been explained.
33:52And there were ear witnesses who heard shots from several locations.
33:56Malcolm Summers.
33:58I do think the first shot came from the school book, my story up there.
34:02And then when the second one came, I did not know who all was shooting.
34:07I was thinking it was more than one person shooting.
34:10The first shot sounded just like a little pop.
34:12It sounded like a firecracker from a faraway distance.
34:16The other sounded real close, real close.
34:22Years after the assassination, it was claimed that the sounds of the gunshots that Summers and others heard
34:28had been picked up by a microphone, accidentally stuck open on a police motorcycle,
34:32and recorded on a dictabelt at Dallas Police Headquarters.
34:37Critics argued the dictabelt recorded the sounds of four gunshots,
34:41one more than Oswald could have fired.
34:43Were the sounds the actual shots?
34:49Congress hired acoustic experts to find out.
34:52They set up an elaborate test with microphones placed strategically in Dealey Plaza.
34:57They recorded the sounds of rifle shots from the sixth floor of the school book depository
35:02and from the grassy knoll.
35:05Comparing those shots with the sounds on the dictabelt,
35:08they confirmed that the dictabelt actually had recorded the sounds of four gunshots,
35:16not three.
35:17Then, with a close study of the physical layout of Dealey Plaza,
35:20they calculated the unique echo pattern that would be found
35:23if a shot had been fired from the grassy knoll.
35:29The result was this acoustic fingerprint.
35:32This pattern of 26 distinct echoes matched point for point
35:36the echoes on the police recording.
35:39It led to a dramatic conclusion.
35:41With a probability of 95% or better,
35:45there was indeed a shot fired from the grassy knoll.
35:54Challenges to this acoustic finding came from some unusual sources.
36:02The most important came from Steve Barber,
36:05a rock drummer living in a small town in Ohio.
36:13I didn't have access to the tape recordings themselves
36:17at the point where I was, you know, trying to study them.
36:21And July of 1979,
36:25Gallery Magazine put out this special issue
36:28on the assassination of President Kennedy.
36:30And in it included a paper record
36:34of the recorded gunshot evidence.
36:39And if you overlook the narration,
36:41you can, you know, pretty much hear what they're talking about.
36:45Well, anyway, I just played this thing to death
36:47just trying to hear, you know, the gunshots
36:49and hear for myself what they really said
36:51was 95% evidence of a conspiracy.
37:00Steve Barber alone heard something all the experts missed,
37:04the barely audible sound of Sheriff Decker at headquarters
37:07telling policemen on the scene,
37:09hold everything secure.
37:12The stuck open microphone, which was on Channel 1,
37:15had somehow picked up Sheriff Decker's words from Channel 2,
37:19a phenomenon known as crosstalk.
37:22And back at police headquarters,
37:24the Dick DeBelt recorded what the microphone had picked up.
37:28I found that when Sheriff Decker is speaking,
37:32his voice is coming through the open microphone
37:36during the sound impulses
37:38that the acoustic experts said were gunshots.
37:40But he didn't make his statement
37:42until a minute and a half after the assassination had already occurred,
37:45so those cannot be gunshots simply because of that.
37:50In 1982, the National Academy of Sciences
37:53confirmed the crosstalk Steve Barber discovered
37:56and thus concluded the acoustic evidence of a fourth shot
38:00coming from the grassy knoll was invalid.
38:03You still hear it?
38:03Yeah.
38:05This left Congress with no scientific evidence of conspiracy.
38:09Let's see, F-367.
38:10However, some congressional experts believe the crosstalk
38:13might be due to a recording mix-up on the Dick DeBelt.
38:21And they point out that the Academy did not account
38:24for the acoustic fingerprint of the grassy knoll shot.
38:27Chief Counsel Blakey.
38:29You can reconstruct an acoustical fingerprint
38:32for each of the four shots.
38:35We did it for the shot from the grassy knoll.
38:38If it was to be done for the other three shots,
38:41it would either corroborate what we did
38:43or tend to undermine it.
38:45I would like to see what a fingerprint,
38:49acoustical fingerprint analysis
38:50of the other three shots indicates.
38:55So if there was a grassy knoll gunman,
38:58as eye and ear witnesses testified,
39:00the best scientific analysis available today
39:02of the photographic and acoustic evidence
39:04does not yet prove it.
39:09The one remaining category of doubt
39:11relates to what should be the best evidence,
39:13the body of the slain president.
39:23Controversial evidence about the body of the president
39:25has been the focus of a new critical approach
39:27developed by David Lifton.
39:32His investigation led to a thoroughly researched book
39:35published after Congress re-examined the assassination.
39:39Lifton found new evidence about the autopsy
39:42and new evidence from eyewitnesses whom he filmed.
39:45This led him to a provocative conclusion.
39:49What is very clear is that the president's body
39:51did not make an uninterrupted journey
39:53from Dallas to Bethesda?
39:55It began in a large ceremonial casket.
39:59It was placed in that casket
40:00by Aubrey Reich of the O'Neill Funeral Home.
40:03I helped put President Kennedy's body
40:05in a bronze ceremonial casket
40:08on the neighborhood of the 22nd, 1963
40:10at Parkland Memorial Hospital.
40:12He wrapped the body in sheets.
40:14It was placed in the casket.
40:16The bronze casket was placed on board Air Force One.
40:19This was not the casket from which Kennedy's body
40:23was removed by Bethesda autopsy technician Paul O'Connor.
40:27We opened the pinkish-gray shipping casket.
40:30There was a gray body bag zipped shut.
40:35We unzipped the body bag
40:37and the president's body was lifted out of the body bag.
40:41Reich told Lifton that Kennedy's body
40:43was not in a body bag when it left Dallas.
40:46How could he be so certain?
40:48I remember picking him up.
40:50I was one that had the blood on my shirt
40:53and everything from the body.
40:56If he'd been in a crash bag,
40:57he couldn't have got any blood on him
40:58because it's a sealed bag.
41:01Was the large bronze casket empty
41:03when it was unloaded at Bethesda,
41:05as Lifton argues?
41:08The Secret Service refused to comment for Nova.
41:12But an Air Force officer claims
41:14the body could not have been switched
41:15because the casket was in his view
41:17for all but five minutes
41:19of the journey from Dallas to Bethesda.
41:26But after the body arrived
41:28at Bethesda Naval Hospital for the autopsy,
41:31many problems followed.
41:33The autopsy should have determined
41:35how the gunshots killed Kennedy
41:37and where the bullets entered
41:38and exited his body.
41:40Dr. James Humes,
41:41a Naval Hospital pathologist,
41:43not a forensic expert,
41:44was in charge.
41:45This was his first autopsy
41:46involving gunshot wounds.
41:48It resulted in many irregularities.
41:52He did not examine Kennedy's clothing
41:54to locate and confirm
41:55entry and exit wounds.
41:58He did not dissect the neck wound
42:00to trace the bullet's path
42:01through the body.
42:03He did not locate the wounds
42:05with reference to fixed-body landmarks,
42:07and he apparently made errors
42:09of several inches
42:10in drawings locating the wounds.
42:14He did not properly examine the brain,
42:16which disappeared some years later
42:18and has not been found since.
42:21He didn't realize
42:22there was a bullet wound
42:23in the front of the neck
42:24until he contacted the Dallas doctors
42:26the following day.
42:28By then, the body had been removed
42:30in re-examination was impossible.
42:33And finally, he burned
42:35his original autopsy notes
42:36before they were made public.
42:39Compounding these problems,
42:41the autopsy descriptions
42:42of the wounds
42:42were substantially different
42:44from the way the doctors
42:45in Dallas described them,
42:46as David Lipton explains.
42:48We have two groups of doctors
42:50seeing the body,
42:51which is evidence.
42:52Their observations
42:53are six hours apart.
42:54What did they see
42:55in each area of the body?
42:56In the area of the neck,
42:58President Kennedy suffered
43:00a wound in Dallas,
43:01which was described
43:02as an entry wound.
43:04If Kennedy was shot
43:05from behind,
43:06the wound on the front
43:07of his neck
43:07had to be an exit wound.
43:09But that's not what
43:11Nurse Audrey Bell,
43:12on duty in the emergency room
43:13that day, recalls.
43:15It looked small and round
43:18like an entry wound
43:20instead of larger,
43:23like an exit wound
43:24could often look.
43:28The wound was about
43:29five millimeters
43:30or a quarter inch across,
43:31the size of a pencil,
43:32right at the throat
43:33at the Adam's apple.
43:35That wound,
43:36Dr. Perry made
43:37a tracheotomy through.
43:40Lifton claims he was told
43:41by the Dallas doctor
43:42who made the tracheotomy
43:43that his incision
43:44through the neck wound
43:45was smooth
43:45and less than half
43:46the width described
43:47by Dr. Humes,
43:48the autopsy doctor.
43:51More significantly,
43:52he describes it
43:53as having widely gaping
43:54irregular edges.
43:55So the inconsistency here
43:57is that we have
43:59a widening of a wound,
44:01which in Dallas
44:02was thought to be
44:02a bullet's entry.
44:03At Bethesda,
44:04in the autopsy report,
44:06their conclusion
44:06is that this is
44:07the exit for a bullet,
44:08which entered from behind.
44:12The records on
44:13Kennedy's head wound,
44:14the one that killed him,
44:15also seem to be inconsistent,
44:17both in terms
44:18of size and location.
44:20Six of the Dallas doctors,
44:22including the neurosurgeon
44:23who pronounced Kennedy dead,
44:25said the cerebellum
44:26was visible
44:26through the hole
44:27in the skull.
44:28But according to the autopsy,
44:30the wound was not
44:31at the bottom
44:31and back of his head,
44:32where the cerebellum
44:33is located.
44:35In fact,
44:36in this drawing,
44:36we see only a small
44:37entry wound
44:38at this location.
44:41The drawing,
44:42based on an autopsy photo
44:43of the back
44:43of Kennedy's head,
44:44was made public
44:45by Congress
44:46and seems inconsistent
44:47with this drawing
44:49showing the size
44:50and location
44:50of what critics point out
44:52looks like
44:52a large exit wound.
44:55The drawing was approved
44:56by Dr. McClellan,
44:58one of the attending
44:58physicians in Dallas.
45:00Based on the absence
45:01of any evidence
45:02coming from the Dallas
45:03end of the line
45:04that there were
45:05rear entries on the body,
45:06I conclude that
45:07President Kennedy
45:08was shot from the front.
45:10This document
45:11led Lifton to conclude
45:12the wounds
45:13had been altered.
45:14It's a report
45:15written by two FBI agents
45:17who attended the autopsy.
45:19Their report states
45:21it was apparent
45:21that surgery
45:22of the head area
45:23was done
45:23before the autopsy started.
45:27Had surgery
45:28been done in Dallas?
45:30No.
45:31There was no surgery
45:32done on the president's head.
45:33The president
45:34was only treated
45:34in the trauma room,
45:36in the emergency room.
45:39This autopsy sketch
45:40done in Bethesda
45:41shows the head wound
45:42almost five times larger
45:44than the description
45:45given by a doctor
45:46in the Dallas medical team,
45:47further evidence
45:48to Lifton
45:49of an altered wound.
45:51If the wound
45:52was altered,
45:53Lifton believes
45:54it was to get access
45:55to Kennedy's brain.
45:56The brain had the bullets.
45:58That's the reason
45:59for getting access
45:59to the brain.
46:00The reason for altering
46:01the body
46:02is that the body
46:03is the diagram
46:03of the shooting
46:04and it's the most
46:05important evidence
46:06in the case.
46:07I infer the purpose
46:08of doing it
46:09from the effect it has.
46:10Someone wants
46:11to make it appear
46:12in the evidence
46:13that President Kennedy
46:14was struck twice
46:15from behind
46:15from the direction
46:16of the school book
46:17depository building
46:17and to obliterate
46:19any evidence
46:19of frontal entry.
46:21That's my opinion
46:22about what these facts mean.
46:26The autopsy doctor
46:27refused to be interviewed
46:28by Nova,
46:29but four of the doctors
46:30who treated Kennedy
46:31in Dallas agreed
46:32to come to the National Archives
46:33to examine photos
46:35of the president's body
46:36at the time
46:36of his autopsy.
46:40Perhaps they could
46:41corroborate or disprove
46:43Lifton's explosive claims
46:44of altered wounds.
46:47Would their recollection
46:48of the wounds
46:49match the photos
46:50they would be seen
46:51for the first time?
46:55Let me show you
46:56to my best recollection
46:58what the wound
46:59looked like to me
47:00that day
47:01in trauma room one.
47:04Before each doctor
47:05looked at the photos,
47:06he described the wounds
47:07he had seen
47:08back in 1963.
47:10I could see
47:11the president's
47:12head wound
47:13quite well,
47:14and I was probably
47:16looking into a wound
47:19that was on the lateral
47:21or the side part
47:22of the head
47:22and the back part
47:23of the head.
47:25It would be this portion
47:26of the head
47:27right here.
47:30as I remember
47:32it's like this.
47:34That there was
47:34a big wound,
47:36big deficit
47:37in his skull
47:38and the temporal
47:39parietal area.
47:41Would you come in,
47:42please?
47:43The examination
47:44of the 52 color
47:45and black and white
47:46autopsy photos
47:47by the doctors
47:48for NOVA
47:48was unprecedented.
47:50Special permission
47:51had to be obtained
47:52from the Kennedy family
47:53to arrange this.
47:56Cameras were barred
47:57from the room
47:58in which the doctors
47:59looked at the pictures.
48:02Each took as much time
48:03as he felt necessary
48:04to examine them
48:05from 30 minutes
48:06to a full hour.
48:25I would have to say
48:27honestly
48:28in looking at these photos
48:29they're pretty much
48:30as I remember
48:31President Kennedy
48:32at the time
48:32except for
48:34that little incision
48:36that seems to be
48:37coming down
48:37in the parietal area.
48:39On looking at
48:40the photographs
48:41I could envision
48:42that an incision
48:44might have been made
48:46in order to pull
48:48the scalp back
48:49to expose this bone
48:52to make a photograph
48:54of that area.
48:56Perhaps this explains
48:57the surgery
48:58to the head area
48:59the FBI mentioned.
49:01I don't see evidence
49:02of any alteration
49:03of his wound
49:05in these pictures
49:07from what I saw
49:08in the emergency room.
49:09Nothing that I have seen
49:11would make me think
49:12it had been changed
49:12from what happened
49:13at that day.
49:15The tracheostomy incision
49:17which was shown
49:18on several of the photographs
49:20I examined
49:21looks exactly
49:22the same size
49:23and the same configuration
49:24as it did
49:26when Dr. Perry
49:27and I
49:27did that incision.
49:29I find no discrepancy
49:31between the wounds
49:33as they were shown
49:34very vividly
49:35in these photographs
49:36and what I remember
49:38very vividly.
49:40But do the doctors' assertions
49:42that they saw
49:43no altered wounds
49:44clear up the issue?
49:48The drawing suggests
49:49what many of the photos
49:51examined by the doctors
49:52in NOVA show
49:53a large wound
49:54about this size
49:55and location.
49:56But what about this photo
49:58which shows
49:58what appears to be
49:59only a small entry wound
50:01in the back
50:01of Kennedy's head?
50:03Dr. McClellan speculates.
50:06The pathologist
50:07has taken this loose
50:09piece of scalp
50:10which is hanging back
50:11this way
50:12in most of the pictures
50:13exposing this large wound
50:15and has pulled the scalp
50:17forward
50:18to take a picture.
50:20Naturally
50:21the scalp appears to be
50:23in its normal state
50:25and there doesn't seem
50:27to be any sort
50:28of wound
50:28in the area
50:30where I had drawn
50:31the picture
50:32that showed
50:33this large hole.
50:35But doesn't this large wound
50:37suggest a shot
50:38from the front
50:38as Lifton argues?
50:40This drawing
50:41made for Congress
50:42suggests how
50:43a small rear entry wound
50:45could have created
50:46the large wound.
50:47Finally
50:48if the large wound
50:49was really
50:50in this part
50:50of the head
50:51why did most
50:52of the doctors
50:53note back in 1963
50:54that they had seen
50:55a specific part
50:56of the brain
50:57called the cerebellum?
51:00I did say cerebellum
51:02in my first official report
51:04and the cerebellum
51:05ordinarily
51:06is in a posterior part
51:08and here
51:08I knew very well
51:10that the wound
51:10was more anterior
51:11than that
51:12but there was
51:13a portion of the brain
51:14that looked like
51:15it had a stalk
51:16and it was convoluted
51:17to look like
51:18what I thought
51:20was cerebellum.
51:21I said
51:21that I thought
51:22perhaps
51:23part of the cerebellum
51:24was missing
51:25and that shows
51:26how even
51:27a trained observer
51:28can make an error
51:30in a moment
51:31of urgency.
51:36In fact
51:37the Dallas doctors
51:38were caught up
51:39in an emergency
51:39life-saving effort.
51:41They were not
51:41doing an autopsy
51:42or trying to
51:43describe the wounds.
51:45We simply
51:46were performing
51:47a tracheostomy
51:48and felt that
51:49it was not
51:51an appropriate
51:51thing to do
51:52at the time
51:52to examine
51:53the head wound.
51:54How would you
51:54do that
51:55with the
51:55widow there,
51:56the president
51:57of the United States
51:58who was dead?
51:59What's the
52:00no one thought
52:01about the morbidity
52:03of doing
52:04examination
52:05at that time?
52:06That would have been
52:07a little sacrilegious
52:09I think
52:09under the circumstances.
52:14Their visit
52:15to the National Archives
52:16revealed that
52:17the doctors'
52:18original observations
52:19in Dallas
52:19were done
52:20with haste
52:21and some
52:21imprecision.
52:24It should be noted
52:25that in previous
52:26interviews with
52:26journalists
52:27some of their
52:28comments seemed
52:28to support
52:29Lifton's claims
52:30of altered wounds.
52:32But they made
52:33those comments
52:33before they saw
52:35the color photos
52:36at the National Archives.
52:41With all the
52:42contradictions
52:43and unresolved doubts
52:44will we ever come
52:45to a final
52:46undisputed conclusion.
52:48Josiah Thompson.
52:50In a homicide case
52:52you get a convergence
52:53of the evidence
52:55after a while.
52:56There may be
52:58discrepancies
52:59in detail
52:59but on the whole
53:01things come together.
53:04With this case
53:05it's now
53:0625 years
53:07things haven't
53:09gotten any simpler
53:10they haven't
53:11come together
53:12if anything
53:13they become
53:14more and more
53:15problematical
53:15more and more
53:16mysterious.
53:17That just isn't
53:18the way
53:18a homicide case
53:20develops.
53:25And the night
53:26comes again
53:27to the circle
53:28studded sky
53:31The stars
53:33settle slowly
53:34and loneliness
53:35they lie
53:36It is understandable
53:38that shock
53:39grief and doubt
53:40elevated the tragic
53:41event of November
53:4222nd 1963
53:44to a national
53:45obsession.
53:46But they all
53:48glow brighter
53:49from the brilliance
53:50of the blaze
53:51with the speed
53:53of insanity
53:55than he died.
54:00Relying mainly
54:01on analysis
54:02of physical evidence
54:03NOVA has
54:04explained many
54:04but not all
54:05questions about
54:06the assassination.
54:08The single bullet
54:09theory remains
54:10intact
54:10despite its
54:11implausible aspects.
54:13There's no
54:14irrefutable
54:14photographic
54:15or acoustic
54:16evidence
54:16of a second
54:17gunman.
54:18The president's
54:19body was so
54:20badly handled
54:21it probably
54:21could never be
54:22a source
54:23of verifiable
54:24evidence.
54:27To bring us
54:28closer to the
54:29truth
54:29there could be
54:30a new
54:30rifle test
54:31a new
54:32acoustics test
54:33an examination
54:34of the brain
54:34if it is ever
54:35found
54:36an analysis
54:37for traces
54:37of blood
54:38on the single
54:39bullet.
54:40Much controversy
54:42about the
54:42assassination
54:43has been political
54:44and the ultimate
54:45solution to the
54:46mystery may lie
54:47outside the
54:48domain of
54:49science.
54:50But science
54:51must always set
54:52the standard
54:53of proof
54:53for any
54:54answer to
54:55the question
54:55who shot
54:57President Kennedy?
55:24you
55:56Funding for NOVA is provided by Prime Computer, supplying integrated computer solutions to
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56:10and Johnson family of companies, supplying healthcare products worldwide.
56:17Major funding for NOVA is provided by this station and other public television stations nationwide.
56:26For a transcript of this program, send $5 to NOVA Transcripts, Box 322, Boston, MA 02134.
56:33Please be sure to include the show title.
56:49WUNC-TV, Channel 4, Chapel Hill.
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