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00:06Tonight on NOVA, a president dies in Dallas, and the world asks, who did it?
00:17It's been 25 years, and many questions remain.
00:21Can modern scientific tools, computers, photo enhancement, and audio testing solve this
00:26continuing mystery?
00:27Join Walter Cronkite as he asks, who shot President Kennedy?
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01:10Major funding for NOVA is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by the financial
01:16support of viewers like you.
01:21The weather couldn't be better.
01:23We have a brilliant sun at this moment.
01:26The wind has diminished considerably.
01:27On November 22nd, 1963, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy made a political visit to Dallas, Texas.
01:34At 46 in the third year of his administration, he and his glamorous wife, Jackie, had captured
01:40the imagination and the heart of the nation.
01:43He is reaching across the fence, shaking hands, shaking hands with many of the people who have
01:49come here to see him.
01:51The gunmetal gray limousine, blue and gray, pulling away now from the fenced area.
01:57The presidential motorcade drove through the streets of Dallas en route to a luncheon speaking
02:02engagement at the trademark.
02:04The President and Mrs. Kennedy seated on the back seat, Governor and Mrs. Connolly on the
02:10second seats or jump seats, and then the official driver and secret serviceman are in the front
02:17seat.
02:19The President's car is now turning off to Elm Street, and it will be only a matter of minutes
02:24before he arrives at the trademark.
02:28It appears as though something has happened in the motorcade route.
02:32Something, I repeat, has happened in the motorcade route.
02:34There's numerous people running up the hill alongside Elm Street, there by the Simmons Freeway.
02:40Several police officers are rushing up the hill at this time.
02:44Standby.
02:45Parkland Hospital.
02:46There has been a shooting.
02:47Parkland Hospital has been at night.
02:49Standby for a severe gunshot wound.
02:51The policeman says, no, you cannot come in here.
02:53You cannot come in here.
02:54We'll let nobody else in.
02:56It was definitely the President's car.
02:58And just now, we've received reports here at Parkland that Governor Connolly was shot
03:03in the chest, and the first unconfirmed reports say the President was hit in the head.
03:08Just a moment, we have a bulletin coming in.
03:09The President of the United States is dead.
03:13We're in police,ن الد.
03:14We're in police,women here.
03:17And bees in
03:17but Join us,we've got a trillion heart attack, we've got the gates, the sweat inside.
03:22It's been a pin.
03:23Down in the sky,un that drauf in the sky.
03:23The stars head low slowly,in loneliness they light,
03:28Till the Universe explodes,as the falling stars race.
03:35It's official. As of 30 moments ago, the President of the United States is dead.
03:41With the speed of insanity, then he died.
03:54In the past 25 years, there have been two major federal inquiries into the murder of the President.
04:00One concluded that Kennedy was killed by a lone assassin shooting from the far window of this room.
04:07The other concluded there was an accomplice. Today, questions are still being asked.
04:16I'm Walter Cronkite. Which conclusion does the evidence really support?
04:21Are there reasons to believe there was another gunman?
04:24And did someone tamper with what should be the best evidence, the body of the slain President?
04:30Eyewitness testimony raised these doubts, but cannot resolve them.
04:35Even modern forensic sciences, ballistics, analysis of acoustics, photography, autopsy records,
04:41can only bring us closer to an answer to the question, who shot President Kennedy?
04:51Tentative answers to the question began to form the same afternoon of the murder at this Dallas movie house.
04:56Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested there as a suspect in the killing of a Dallas policeman less than an hour
05:02after the President died.
05:05Before the evening was over, he also was accused of being the rifleman who assassinated Kennedy.
05:11People have given me a hearing without legal representation or anything.
05:16I didn't shoot anybody, not to.
05:19He insisted that he was innocent of both murders.
05:25On the morning of November 24th, millions of Americans watched as Kennedy's casket was brought to the Capitol building where
05:32he would lie in state.
05:37As the procession was underway in Washington, in Dallas, the news media crowded into the basement of police headquarters,
05:44waiting for Oswald to be transferred from the city lock-up to the more secure County Jail.
05:54Oswald has been shot!
05:57Oswald has been shot!
05:59The shot has a mass confusion there, rolling and fighting.
06:07As he was being let out, now he's being let back.
06:10He was thrown to the ground.
06:13The police have the entire area blocked off.
06:18Jack Ruby, a striptease club owner with mafia ties, killed Oswald.
06:23Suspicions quickly grew that Oswald was killed to conceal his role in a conspiracy.
06:32The police have been shot.
06:35The police have been shot.
06:44Exactly ten months after the fateful November 22nd, the seven members of the Warren Commission, headed by the Chief Justice
06:50of the Supreme Court,
06:51come to the White House to give to the President the results of their painstaking investigation into the determinable facts
06:57of the assassination of a man.
06:59President John F. Kennedy.
07:02People were eager for the truth about the case.
07:05The Warren Commission published 26 volumes filled with evidence gathered for it by the FBI,
07:10which investigated thousands of leads and used the latest scientific tools.
07:18Readers learned that the commission came to the same conclusion that local police officials had reached within hours after Oswald's
07:25capture.
07:26Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, had murdered President Kennedy and wounded Texas Governor John Connolly.
07:37The case that Oswald was a lone assassin seems strong.
07:41As the motorcade passed, many witnesses heard three shots fired from the sixth floor of this, the Texas School Book
07:48Depository Building.
07:53Oswald worked in the building and was stationed on the sixth floor that day.
07:59Within minutes after the shooting, police found book cartons piled around the window.
08:03They concluded it was the sniper's nest.
08:09The police also found three spent 6.5-millimeter cartridges next to the window.
08:16They also discovered a bolt-action rifle nearby between boxes.
08:22And Oswald's palm print was later found on it.
08:26Handwriting experts found that Oswald had purchased the rifle under an assumed name.
08:30He bought it for under $20 from a mail-order house.
08:35Two large bullet fragments were recovered from the limousine.
08:38One whole bullet was found on a hospital stretcher.
08:42The bullet, fragments, and cartridges all were ballistically traced to Oswald's rifle.
08:50The president's body was examined at Bethesda Naval Hospital near Washington, D.C. six hours after his death.
08:56The official autopsy confirmed that Kennedy had been hit twice.
09:00One bullet went through his neck.
09:03Another caused a massive and fatal wound to his head.
09:06The autopsy found both shots came from behind and above, from the direction of the school book depository building.
09:13All of these facts seemed to prove Oswald alone was responsible for the assassination.
09:21But critics were quick to point out weaknesses and contradictions in the evidence.
09:28Many writers claimed it was physically impossible for one man alone to have done all that the Warren Commission said
09:34Oswald had done.
09:36They argued the commission discounted eyewitness and photographic evidence, suggesting there was a second gunman.
09:44New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison conducted a trial in 1968 based on his belief that Oswald was part of
09:52a combined CIA-mafia assassination plot.
09:55Garrison's case collapsed.
09:58Nevertheless, by the mid-1970s, several Warren Commission members and President Johnson said they doubted that Oswald acted alone.
10:06An opinion poll showed that four out of five Americans believed there must have been a second gunman.
10:14All of these factors fueled a new investigation that began in 1977, this one by Congress.
10:21The House Select Committee on Assassinations agreed with the Warren Commission that Oswald killed the president and wounded Governor Connolly.
10:29But they added there was a second gunman who fired and missed.
10:34For the sounds picked up at this microphone of shots fired from here, the first two.
10:41The second gunman conclusion was based in part on acoustic evidence, which remains controversial.
10:47So even though both government investigations agreed about Oswald, the issue of a conspiracy was never laid to rest.
10:56Even today, critics continue to question whether the physical evidence involving the rifle and bullets supports the lone assassin conclusion.
11:06That conclusion is known as the single-bullet theory.
11:12This is Dealey Plaza, the scene of the crime.
11:17Nova's had this computer model of Dealey Plaza built to accurate scale to help her investigation.
11:23Here is the school book depository building.
11:25Here, the grassy knoll where a second gunman may have been concealed.
11:30The motorcade route took Kennedy's limousine down Houston Street and then, with a sharp left, on to Elm Street.
11:40The Warren Commission initially assumed the first bullet wounded the president in the neck.
11:45The second wounded the governor.
11:48And the third struck Kennedy in the head and killed him.
11:51This was partly based on Governor Connolly's eyewitness account.
11:55As soon as he was able, Governor Connolly appeared on nationwide television to give the most lucid accounts so far
12:01of the tragic events.
12:02He had just turned the corner. We heard a shot. I turned to look in the backseat. The president was
12:10slumped. He had said nothing. Almost simultaneously.
12:16As I turned, I was hit. And I knew I'd been hit badly.
12:23If Connolly was correct that he and Kennedy were hit by separate shots, this created a timing problem.
12:33Josiah Thompson analyzed this problem in his book, Six Seconds in Dallas, considered one of the most perceptive analyses of
12:39the assassination.
12:44As a private investigator, Thompson has worked on over 100 murder cases.
12:49He helped examine Kennedy's murder for Life magazine.
12:53Some of his arguments are based on FBI test results.
12:57Well, here's the problem. The mechanical firing time of the rifle, as tested by Frazier of the FBI, by mechanical
13:05firing time we mean just this.
13:07Boom, working the bolt and pulling the trigger again.
13:11The necessary minimum mechanical firing time was 2.3 seconds.
13:14If you add on to that realistic additions, such as reacquiring the target in the scope, and secondly, zeroing in
13:24the cross hires to permit accurate shooting,
13:26you're now no longer at 2.3 seconds. You're up at 3 or 4 seconds between shots on this rifle.
13:32They're just, given the Zapruder film, wasn't enough time for this rifle to get off two shots in that time
13:39interval.
13:42Abraham Zapruder was standing here on the grassy knoll when he took the most famous pictures of the assassination with
13:48his 8mm home movie camera.
13:51The camera ran at 18 frames per second, so every frame is a snapshot of the event, an 18th of
13:57a second apart.
13:59After closely analyzing his film, the Warren Commission then decided Oswald's first shot had missed.
14:06And his second shot struck both men.
14:10This was their solution to the timing problem, and it became known as the single bullet theory.
14:16Josiah Thompson argues that the Zapruder film also shows the theory is wrong.
14:21This is frame 207. Now between this frame and frame 222, when the car emerges from the sign,
14:29the Warren Commission believes that Kennedy and Connolly were both hit by the single bullet.
14:33At this point, we see no indication of any hit.
14:37This is now frame 222. Connolly is emerging from behind the sign, looks apparently composed, unhit.
14:44We now have frame 225. For the first time, we can see that John Kennedy has clearly been hit.
14:51Connolly's sitting in front of him, looking to his right.
14:54This is frame 230. Kennedy's clearly been hit.
14:58His elbows are splayed upwards.
14:59Connolly's sitting composed in front of him, holding his Stetson, looking calm.
15:04According to the Warren Commission, Connolly's been hit by a bullet that blew five inches out of his fifth rib
15:09and shattered his wrist at this point.
15:11Moving ahead now to frame 236, Kennedy is obviously reacting.
15:17Connolly is turning, his mouth open in what may be, oh, no, no, which he said he was saying when
15:22he was hit.
15:222.37 now. Connolly continuing his turn, and now in the next 18th of a second, enormous changes.
15:30Connolly's shoulder's been driven down, his hair has been displaced, and his cheeks are puffed.
15:34This is frame 238.
15:35In fact, what we are watching is a snapshot taken just before and just after the impact of the bullet,
15:43driving into Connolly's shoulder, compressing his lung, hence puffing his cheeks.
15:47If that's what we're seeing, then it's quite clear Kennedy was hit significantly earlier,
15:52and the single bullet theory is wrong.
15:58But a congressional panel looked at the Zapruder film and concluded that Connolly simply reacted to the shot later than
16:04Kennedy.
16:05The panel was headed by forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Bodden.
16:09In the Zapruder film, there appears to be a delayed reaction in Governor Connolly responding to injury.
16:18However, people often respond in delayed fashion to gunshot wounds.
16:23There isn't an instantaneous response.
16:26Despite his first account of what happened, Governor Connolly later testified that he had not seen Kennedy wounded by the
16:32first shot.
16:33Congress determined that Connolly turned here in response to hearing that first shot.
16:39But the shot missed.
16:40Both men were then wounded by the single bullet three seconds later when they were hidden by the sign.
16:46Three seconds between shots was enough time for a gunman to fire twice.
16:52So, as far as timing is concerned, although it cannot be ruled out that the first bullet struck Kennedy and
16:57the second, shot by another gunman, hit Connolly,
17:00it is plausible to conclude both men were wounded by a single bullet.
17:08Daryl Tomlinson, a Parkland Hospital employee, re-enacts how he found that bullet on a stretcher.
17:16The bullet was ballistically traced to Oswald's rifle.
17:19The Warren Commission concluded that it was the bullet that had wounded both men and that it had fallen out
17:24of Connolly's clothing onto his hospital stretcher.
17:29The bullet was found here in this area, and not on that stretcher.
17:35That's the stretcher I took off the elevator.
17:38The stretcher he took off the elevator was Connolly's, so Tomlinson found the bullet on a different stretcher not connected
17:44to the case.
17:45This led critics to claim the bullet was planted, but the commission decided Tomlinson was mistaken.
17:51It was there when I came up.
17:57This is the bullet.
17:58Could it look like this after it went through Kennedy's neck and then struck the governor?
18:04The surgeon who operated on Governor Connolly's chest wounds at Parkland Hospital was Dr. Robert Shaw.
18:10The bullet struck lateral to the shoulder blade, stripped out approximately 10 centimeters of the fifth rib, driving fragments of
18:21the rib into his chest,
18:22went on and struck the radius bone of his lower arm at this point,
18:30and a small fragment of bullet entered the inner aspect of the lower left thigh.
18:39I have never seen a bullet that had caused as much bony damage as you found in the case of
18:49Governor Connolly remain as a pristine bullet.
18:56At the National Archives in Washington, Dr. Cyril Wecht, former head of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences,
19:03examined bullets the Warren Commission had test-fired.
19:07To find out if a bullet could break so many bones and remain apparently intact,
19:11the commission used a rifle similar to Oswald's.
19:14And then they got these bullets, all 6.5 millimeter, and they test-fired, first into cotton wadding.
19:24These two bullets were fired into cotton wadding, striking nothing.
19:28You will note that these bullets both have a minimal degree of protrusion of the lead at the base.
19:36Otherwise, they are intact, which is what you would expect.
19:39The next bullet broke one rib of a goat carcass.
19:43Notice, please, its widening.
19:46This bullet struck one of the two large bones that come down from the elbow to the wrist in a
19:54human cadaver.
19:55They wanted to simulate the fracture of that same bone in Governor Connolly.
20:00Please note the substantial deformity.
20:03This is classical, typical, when a bullet strikes a dense, heavy bone or some other very firm object.
20:11Now, I want you to look at the so-called stretcher bullet.
20:15This bullet is the actual bullet that the Warren Commission claims broke both John Connolly's right fifth rib,
20:25destroying four inches of that bone, pulverizing it, and which caused a comminuted or extensively fragmented fracture
20:33of a dense, heavy bone down near the base of the wrist and emerged in this condition.
20:40You will see that it is near pristine.
20:43As a matter of fact, its nose, the cone, the sides of the bullet are completely intact and unscathed.
20:50It has only minimal protrusion of the lead core at the base in the same fashion that the two bullets
20:57did
20:57that had been fired in the test swatting.
20:59That's from the impact of the firing mechanism.
21:03Some ballistic experts argue that the Warren Commission should have test fired through two bodies instead of just one.
21:09They say the single bullet would have been slowed down by passing through Kennedy's neck before entering Connolly's body,
21:15and a bullet that has slowed down is less likely to be deformed.
21:22The single bullet also was examined to determine if it is chemically identical to the bullet fragments removed from Connolly's
21:29arm.
21:30Critics were convinced they would not match, and thus the single bullet theory would be proven wrong.
21:35Congress asked Dr. Vincent Gwynne to use a technique called neutron activation analysis to find out.
21:41What I did in the analyses was to take very small pieces of each of the samples and put them
21:49in our nuclear reactor,
21:52bombarded them with neutrons, and that made some of the elements present in the bullet lead radioactive.
21:57Then I counted them, each sample, on what's called a gamma-ray spectrometer, which detects the different radioactive elements.
22:07This enables Dr. Gwynne to measure them to learn if a particular sample is chemically identical to a particular bullet.
22:14The fragments that were recovered from Governor Connolly's wrist matched in composition the bullet lead in the so-called stretcher
22:24bullet.
22:25It is possible that other bullets manufactured at the same time would have very similar composition
22:31and could also have been the source of the fragments.
22:33Nevertheless, Dr. Gwynne's results support the single-bullet theory, but don't prove it.
22:40And why the bullet is not as misshapen as the test bullets remains an open question.
22:45Dr. Weck urges a new firing test to help settle that issue.
22:53Was it possible for a single bullet fired from the sixth floor of the School Book Depository Building
22:59to go through the bodies of both the President and the Governor?
23:03The FBI restaged the shooting for the Warren Commission, which concluded that the angle of trajectory was feasible.
23:11But looking at the wounds, Dr. Shaw disagrees.
23:15I couldn't quite understand why a bullet going through the President's neck, coming from the right and above,
23:23exiting out through his throat, would then zig and zag to strike the Governor,
23:31who was sitting directly in front of the President.
23:35It would seem to me that that bullet would have struck the Governor in the left side of his chest,
23:41rather than the right side of his chest.
23:44It appears initially that Dr. Shaw is correct.
23:48Photographs showed Connolly seated slightly to Kennedy's left,
23:51and the location of their wounds suggests they were hit by two separate bullets,
23:55not by a single bullet fired from the sixth floor.
24:00Looking at the limousine from ground level, the bullet paths also don't line up with the sixth floor.
24:07The path of the bullet through Kennedy's neck goes slightly downward,
24:10and doesn't line up with the wounds through Connolly, which goes sharply downward.
24:15Dr. Botten.
24:17The bullet path through President Kennedy's back and neck indeed was in the anatomic position
24:23at somewhat of an upward angle through the neck, slightly upward.
24:27But this is entirely consistent with a bullet trajectory coming from above downward at a 20, 30 degree angle,
24:36if the President were leaning forward at the time that the bullet struck him in the manner that I'm doing.
24:45Now, as far as Governor Connolly's wound goes, it was going downward,
24:51and it would be entirely consistent with entering, if he were leaning backwards slightly.
25:00So, one way in which a single bullet could readily accommodate the President and Governor Connolly
25:07would be the President leaning slightly downward, and the Governor slightly backwards.
25:13The model suggests that from this point of view, the angle of trajectory for the bullet path
25:18could line up and lead back to the sixth floor window.
25:22What about the argument that the bullet had to zig and zag to strike both men?
25:27But the model shows that if Connolly had moved just slightly more to Kennedy's left,
25:31perhaps when he turned to look over his right shoulder, which is what he said he did,
25:36then the angle of trajectory for the bullet path could also line up.
25:41Additionally, a bullet doesn't always travel in a straight line after it enters a human body,
25:47as this Army Ballistics film demonstrates.
25:49When a rifle bullet is fired into a block of gelatin simulating human flesh,
25:54it can change direction.
26:00So, the gelatin test demonstrates that the bullet could have changed direction
26:04as it went through Kennedy's neck, even without striking bone,
26:08and changed direction again after it entered Connolly's chest.
26:13And the computer model suggests that the bullet passed through both men could line up.
26:21Despite all of the efforts by critics, the single-bullet theory has yet to be disproven.
26:26But the fact that the single-bullet theory cannot be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt
26:30contributed to the search for another gunman.
26:34And there already was evidence suggesting there was a second gunman firing from the grassy knoll.
26:42There's numerous people running up the hill alongside Elm Street,
26:46there by the Simmons Freeway, several police officers are rushing...
26:51From the moment the president was killed,
26:53many eyewitnesses testified that they believed there was a man with a gun on the grassy knoll.
26:59One eyewitness was Malcolm Summers, who reenacted his experience for Nova.
27:05After the motor van had passed, I waited about a minute,
27:10and then I came running over across to the knoll.
27:13When I got here, I was stopped by a person in a suit with an overcoat over his arm,
27:18throwed over his arm, also had a gun under his arm.
27:21It looked like a little machine gun to me, a small machine gun.
27:26Malcolm Summers was one of several eyewitnesses,
27:28including at least one Dallas policeman,
27:30who ran into people claiming to be federal officials and who were never found.
27:36Chief Counsel for the House Assassination Committee, Robert Blakey.
27:40A careful examination of where all of the Secret Service agents were that day
27:47and their duty assignments indicates that no Secret Service agent was in that area.
27:52Another eyewitness, Skinny Holland, watched from this overpass.
27:57Josiah Thompson interviewed Holland for his book.
27:59He said that he and six or seven of his fellows also saw some puffs of smoke
28:05come out from under the bushes near a stockade fence on the grassy knoll.
28:10This meant so much to them that they ran right over there as soon as the shooting was over.
28:15About 15 feet down from the corner, he found some fresh footprints, some cigarette butts,
28:21indications that somebody had been there.
28:24Memories can fade, but photographs are fixed in time.
28:28This, perhaps, was the most photographed murder in history.
28:32And critics thought they saw a gunman in at least six different Dealey Plaza pictures.
28:38This man appears to shoot directly at the camera,
28:42but photo analysis revealed he was only lights and shadows.
28:47Critics said this open umbrella was a CIA weapon,
28:50which the man holding it used to fire a dart that paralyzed Kennedy in the neck.
28:56But a witness told Congress he was the man with the umbrella,
28:59and he had held it open to make a symbolic political statement.
29:04Committee staff opened this umbrella so we can ascertain there's no dart gun in it.
29:09They're, as far as I'm concerned, they're certainly welcome to.
29:12Maybe you ought to turn that way with it.
29:20Congress hired a group of experts to examine all the photos.
29:23In this one, the limousine is in the foreground,
29:26moments before Kennedy was first wounded.
29:28On the grassy knoll is a shape resembling a black dog.
29:34Photoanalyst Bobby Hunt.
29:36It is a black shape, apparently the head and shoulders of a man.
29:40In the region of the, what we'd call the face,
29:43there was some pink tones, purported to be flesh tones.
29:47And there was also an object which looked like a rifle with a flash suppressor or a nozzle on the
29:53rifle.
29:54But we concluded that this was a human being.
29:58That conclusion was derived from the enhancement and from some color spectrographic analysis
30:03we did on the visible flesh tones of the object.
30:06We did not conclude, however, that that was a rifle.
30:09We simply said it was consistent with a blur induced by the motion of the photograph.
30:15Critics argued this picture showed that same person from another angle,
30:19right at this point in the photo.
30:22The congressional photo team decided not to enhance it because it was too deteriorated.
30:31At NOVA's request, researchers of Polaroid and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology agreed to look at the photo.
30:40First, Brian Hallstrom scanned the negative of the photo to measure the light intensity,
30:45bit by bit, of every part of the picture.
30:52A computer tape with that information was given to Steve Isabel,
30:56who used a number of techniques to increase the contrast
30:59and sharpen the edges of objects seen in the photo.
31:03An outline has been added to suggest what critics claim is the man
31:07and the flash of a gun hiding part of his face.
31:11Hallstrom and Isabel believe this could be a man,
31:13but this spot is most likely sunlight filtering through trees.
31:19What I see is an object that could possibly be a person.
31:23Can you see that?
31:25I think that that requires a little bit of imagination,
31:27but I believe that you can see something is there about the right size.
31:33Some people believe there's another suspicious shape
31:35in a different part of the photo, behind the fence.
31:40It's in the same place where Skinny Holland and others
31:42saw a puff of smoke and fresh footprints.
31:46If that shape was an assassin, this is the view he would have had.
31:51The model shows that his view of the limousine
31:53would have been partially blocked by a retaining wall on the knoll.
32:00Kennedy appears here.
32:01A gunman could have aimed and fired.
32:03The location of the limousine in the model
32:06corresponds with frame 313 of the Zapruder film.
32:10In the Zapruder film, it can be seen that Conley is turning,
32:13perhaps in reaction to hearing the first shot.
32:16Then both he and Kennedy are hidden behind the sign
32:19when they presumably were both wounded by the second shot.
32:30Kennedy is struck in the head and killed at this moment.
32:37The model does not prove someone struck the president from the knoll.
32:40It does show that it was possible.
32:45The violent motion of Kennedy's head to the left and backwards
32:48is another reason many people believe the shot came from the grassy knoll.
32:53It seemed to be a logical conclusion.
32:56Dr. Wecht.
32:56If you have that kind of force slamming into the rear of somebody's head,
33:02then that should drive the individual forward.
33:05But instead, we have them moving backward and to the left.
33:11That suggests the very distinct possibility of another shot
33:16having been fired in synchronized fashion from the right side,
33:19the so-called grassy knoll area.
33:21But a test using 6.5-millimeter bullets firing into human skulls
33:27appears to discount this argument.
33:29Dr. John Latimer, a physician and war-encompassion defender,
33:33filmed his own test,
33:34shooting at a skull filled with white paint and brain tissue.
33:39Shot from behind, the skull is propelled backward,
33:42similar to what happened to Kennedy.
33:48Although not conclusive,
33:49the test suggests the fatal shot could have come from behind.
33:53This view also was expressed by the late Nobel physicist Louis Alvarez.
33:59So, neither the photographic evidence
34:01nor the movement of Kennedy's head
34:02prove he was struck from the grassy knoll.
34:06But much of the eyewitness testimony has never been explained,
34:09and there were ear-witnesses who heard shots from several locations.
34:14Malcolm Summers.
34:16I do think the first shot came from the school book repository up there,
34:20and then when the second one came,
34:21I did not know who all was shooting.
34:24I was thinking it was more than one person shooting.
34:27The first shot sounded just like a little pop.
34:30It sounded like a firecracker from a faraway distance.
34:33The other sounded real close, real close.
34:40Years after the assassination,
34:42it was claimed that the sounds of the gunshots
34:44that Summers and others heard
34:45had been picked up by a microphone,
34:48accidentally stuck open on a police motorcycle,
34:50and recorded on a dictabelt at Dallas Police Headquarters.
34:54Critics argued the dictabelt recorded the sounds of four gunshots,
34:59one more than Oswald could have fired.
35:01Were the sounds the actual shots?
35:07Congress hired acoustic experts to find out.
35:10They set up an elaborate test.
35:12With microphones placed strategically in Dealey Plaza,
35:15they recorded the sounds of rifle shots
35:17from the sixth floor of the school book depository
35:19and from the grassy knoll.
35:23Comparing those shots with the sounds on the dictabelt,
35:26they confirmed that the dictabelt
35:27actually had recorded the sounds of four gunshots,
35:33not three.
35:35Then, with a close study of the physical layout of Dealey Plaza,
35:38they calculated the unique echo pattern
35:40that would be found if a shot had been fired
35:42from the grassy knoll.
35:47The result was this acoustic fingerprint.
35:49This pattern of 26 distinct echoes matched point for point
35:54the echoes on the police recording.
35:57It led to a dramatic conclusion.
35:59With a probability of 95% or better,
36:03there was indeed a shot fired from the grassy knoll.
36:11Challenges to this acoustic finding
36:13came from some unusual sources.
36:19The most important came from Steve Barber,
36:22a rock drummer living in a small town in Ohio.
36:31I didn't have access to the tape recordings themselves
36:34at the point where I was, you know,
36:37trying to study them.
36:39And July of 1979,
36:42Gallery Magazine put out this special issue
36:46on the assassination of President Kennedy.
36:48And in it included a paper record
36:51of the recorded gunshot evidence.
36:56And if you overlook the narration,
36:59you can, you know,
37:00pretty much hear what they're talking about.
37:03Well, anyway, I just played this thing to death
37:05just trying to hear, you know,
37:06the gunshots and hear for myself
37:08what they really said
37:09was 95% evidence of a conspiracy.
37:18Steve Barber alone heard something
37:20all the experts missed,
37:22the barely audible sound
37:23of Sheriff Decker at headquarters
37:25telling policemen on the scene,
37:27hold everything secure.
37:30The stuck-open microphone,
37:31which was on Channel 1,
37:33had somehow picked up Sheriff Decker's words
37:35from Channel 2,
37:37a phenomenon known as cross-talk.
37:40And back at police headquarters,
37:42the Dicta Belt recorded
37:43what the microphone had picked up.
37:46I found that when Sheriff Decker is speaking,
37:50his voice is coming through
37:52the open microphone
37:53during the sound impulses
37:55that the acoustic experts said
37:57were gunshots.
37:58But he didn't make his statement
38:00until a minute and a half
38:01after the assassination
38:02had already occurred,
38:03so those cannot be gunshots
38:05simply because of that.
38:08In 1982,
38:10the National Academy of Sciences
38:11confirmed the cross-talk
38:13Steve Barber discovered
38:14and thus concluded
38:15the acoustic evidence
38:16of a fourth shot
38:17coming from the grassy knoll
38:19was invalid.
38:21You still hear it?
38:21Yeah.
38:23This left Congress
38:24with no scientific evidence
38:26of conspiracy.
38:27Let's see, F-367.
38:28However, some congressional experts
38:30believe the cross-talk
38:31might be due to a recording mix-up
38:33on the Dicta Belt.
38:39And they point out
38:40that the Academy
38:41did not account
38:42for the acoustic fingerprint
38:43of the grassy knoll shot.
38:45Chief Counsel Blakey.
38:47You can reconstruct
38:49an acoustical fingerprint
38:50for each of the four shots.
38:52We did it for the shot
38:54from the grassy knoll.
38:56If it was to be done
38:58for the other three shots,
38:59it would either corroborate
39:00what we did
39:01or tend to undermine it.
39:03I would like to see
39:04what a fingerprint,
39:06acoustical fingerprint analysis
39:08of the other three shots indicates.
39:13So, if there was
39:14a grassy knoll gunman
39:16as eye and ear witnesses testified,
39:18the best scientific analysis
39:19available today
39:20of the photographic
39:21and acoustic evidence
39:22does not yet prove it.
39:26The one remaining category
39:28of doubt
39:29relates to what should be
39:30the best evidence,
39:31the body of the slain president.
39:40Controversial evidence
39:41about the body
39:42of the president
39:43has been the focus
39:44of a new, critical approach
39:45developed by David Lifton.
39:49His investigation
39:51led to a thoroughly researched book
39:52published after Congress
39:54re-examined the assassination.
39:57Lifton found new evidence
39:58about the autopsy
39:59and new evidence
40:00from eyewitnesses
40:01whom he filmed.
40:02This led him
40:03to a provocative conclusion.
40:07What is very clear
40:07is that the president's body
40:09did not make
40:09an uninterrupted journey
40:11from Dallas to Bethesda.
40:13It began
40:14in a large ceremonial casket.
40:16It was placed
40:17in that casket
40:18by Aubrey Reich
40:19of the O'Neill Funeral Home.
40:20I helped put
40:21President Kennedy's body
40:23in a bronze
40:24ceremonial casket
40:25on November 22nd, 1963
40:28at Parkham Memorial Hospital.
40:30He wrapped the body
40:31in sheets.
40:32It was placed
40:33in the casket.
40:34The bronze casket
40:35was placed
40:36on board Air Force One.
40:38This was not the casket
40:39from which Kennedy's body
40:40was removed
40:41by Bethesda
40:42autopsy technician
40:43Paul O'Connor.
40:45We opened
40:45the pinkish-gray
40:47shipping casket
40:48and there was
40:48a gray body bag
40:51zipped shut.
40:53We unzipped the body bag
40:55and the president's body
40:56was lifted out
40:58of the body bag.
40:59Reich told Lifton
41:00that Kennedy's body
41:01was not in a body bag
41:02when it left Dallas.
41:04How could he be so certain?
41:06I remember picking him up.
41:08I was the one
41:09that had the blood
41:11on my shirt
41:11and everything
41:11from the body.
41:13If he'd been
41:14in a crash bag,
41:15he couldn't have
41:15got any blood on him
41:16because it's a sealed bag.
41:19Was the large bronze
41:20casket empty
41:21when it was unloaded
41:22at Bethesda,
41:23as Lifton argues?
41:26The Secret Service
41:27refused to comment
41:28for Nova.
41:29But an Air Force officer
41:31claims the body
41:32could not have been switched
41:33because the casket
41:34was in his view
41:35for all but five minutes
41:36of the journey
41:37from Dallas to Bethesda.
41:44But after the body
41:45arrived at Bethesda
41:46Naval Hospital
41:47for the autopsy,
41:48many problems followed.
41:51The autopsy
41:52should have determined
41:53how the gunshots
41:54killed Kennedy
41:54and where the bullets
41:55entered and exited
41:56his body.
41:57Dr. James Humes,
41:59a Naval Hospital
41:59pathologist,
42:00not a forensic expert,
42:02was in charge.
42:03This was his first autopsy
42:04involving gunshot wounds.
42:06It resulted
42:07in many irregularities.
42:10He did not examine
42:11Kennedy's clothing
42:12to locate and confirm
42:13entry and exit wounds.
42:15He did not dissect
42:17the neck wound
42:17to trace the bullet's
42:18path through the body.
42:21He did not locate
42:22the wounds with reference
42:23to fixed body landmarks.
42:25And he apparently
42:26made errors of several
42:27inches in drawings
42:29locating the wounds.
42:31He did not properly
42:33examine the brain,
42:34which disappeared
42:35some years later
42:36and has not been found since.
42:39He didn't realize
42:40there was a bullet wound
42:41in the front of the neck
42:42until he contacted
42:43the Dallas doctors
42:44the following day.
42:46By then,
42:47the body had been removed
42:48and re-examination
42:49was impossible.
42:51And finally,
42:52he burned
42:52his original autopsy notes
42:54before they were
42:55made public.
42:57Compounding these problems,
42:58the autopsy descriptions
42:59of the wounds
43:00were substantially different
43:01from the way
43:02the doctors in Dallas
43:03described them,
43:04as David Lipton explains.
43:06We have two groups
43:07of doctors
43:08seeing the body,
43:09which is evidence.
43:10Their observations
43:10are six hours apart.
43:12What did they see
43:13in each area of the body?
43:14In the area of the neck,
43:16President Kennedy
43:17suffered a wound
43:18in Dallas,
43:19which was described
43:20as an entry wound.
43:21If Kennedy was shot
43:23from behind,
43:23the wound on the front
43:24of his neck
43:25had to be an exit wound.
43:27But that's not
43:28what Nurse Audrey Bell,
43:29on duty in the emergency
43:30room that day,
43:32recalls.
43:33It looked small
43:34and round.
43:36like an entry wound
43:37instead of larger,
43:41like an exit wound
43:42could often look.
43:45The wound was about
43:47five millimeters
43:47or a quarter inch
43:48across,
43:49the size of a pencil,
43:50right at the throat,
43:51at the Adam's apple.
43:53That wound,
43:54Dr. Perry made
43:54a tracheotomy through.
43:57Lifton claims
43:58he was told
43:59by the Dallas doctor
44:00who made the tracheotomy
44:01that his incision
44:02through the neck wound
44:02was smooth
44:03and less than
44:04half the width
44:04described by Dr. Humes,
44:06the autopsy doctor.
44:08More significantly,
44:10he describes it
44:10as having widely
44:11gaping irregular edges.
44:13So the inconsistency
44:15here is
44:15that we have
44:16a widening
44:17of a wound,
44:18which in Dallas
44:19was thought to be
44:20a bullet's entry.
44:21At Bethesda,
44:22in the autopsy report,
44:23their conclusion
44:24is that this is
44:24the exit for a bullet,
44:26which entered
44:27from behind.
44:30The records
44:31on Kennedy's head wound,
44:32the one that killed him,
44:33also seem to be
44:34inconsistent,
44:35both in terms
44:35of size and location.
44:38Six of the Dallas doctors,
44:40including the neurosurgeon
44:41who pronounced
44:41Kennedy dead,
44:42said the cerebellum
44:43was visible
44:44through the hole
44:45in the skull.
44:46But according
44:46to the autopsy,
44:47the wound was not
44:48at the bottom
44:49and back of his head,
44:50where the cerebellum
44:51is located.
44:53In fact,
44:53in this drawing,
44:54we see only a small
44:55entry wound
44:56at this location.
44:58The drawing,
44:59based on an autopsy photo
45:01of the back
45:01of Kennedy's head,
45:02was made public
45:03by Congress
45:04and seems inconsistent
45:05with this drawing
45:06showing the size
45:07and location
45:08of what critics point out
45:09looks like
45:10a large exit wound.
45:12The drawing
45:13was approved
45:14by Dr. McClellan,
45:15one of the attending
45:16physicians in Dallas.
45:18Based on the absence
45:19of any evidence
45:20coming from the Dallas
45:21end of the line
45:22that there were
45:22rear entries on the body,
45:24I conclude
45:24that President Kennedy
45:25was shot from
45:26the front.
45:28This document
45:29led Lifton
45:29to conclude
45:30the wounds
45:31had been altered.
45:32It's a report
45:33written by two
45:34FBI agents
45:35who attended
45:35the autopsy.
45:37Their report
45:38states it was apparent
45:39that surgery
45:40of the head area
45:41was done
45:41before the autopsy
45:42started.
45:45Had surgery
45:46been done
45:46in Dallas?
45:48No.
45:48There was no surgery
45:49done on the
45:50president's head.
45:51The president
45:51was only treated
45:52in the trauma room,
45:53in the emergency room.
45:56This autopsy sketch
45:58done in Bethesda
45:59shows the head wound
46:00almost five times
46:01larger than the
46:02description given
46:03by a doctor
46:03in the Dallas
46:04medical team,
46:05further evidence
46:06to Lifton
46:06of an altered wound.
46:09If the wound
46:10was altered,
46:11Lifton believes
46:11it was to get
46:12access to
46:13Kennedy's brain.
46:14The brain
46:15had the bullets.
46:16That's the reason
46:16for getting access
46:17to the brain.
46:18The reason for
46:19altering the body
46:19is that the body
46:20is the diagram
46:21of the shooting,
46:22and it's the most
46:23important evidence
46:23in the case.
46:25I infer the purpose
46:26of doing it
46:27from the effect
46:27it has.
46:28Someone wants
46:28to make it appear
46:29in the evidence
46:30that President
46:31Kennedy was struck
46:32twice from behind
46:33from the direction
46:34of the school book
46:34depository building
46:35and to obliterate
46:37any evidence
46:37of frontal entry.
46:38That's my opinion
46:39about what
46:40these facts mean.
46:43The autopsy doctor
46:45refused to be
46:45interviewed by Nova,
46:47but four of the
46:47doctors who treated
46:48Kennedy in Dallas
46:49agreed to come
46:50to the National Archives
46:51to examine photos
46:52of the President's
46:53body at the time
46:54of his autopsy.
46:58Perhaps they could
46:59corroborate or disprove
47:00Lipton's explosive
47:01claims of altered
47:03wounds.
47:05Would their recollection
47:06of the wounds
47:07match the photos
47:08they would be seeing
47:08for the first time?
47:13Let me show you
47:14to my best recollection
47:16what the wound
47:17looked like to me
47:18that day in
47:19Toronto Room 1.
47:22Before each doctor
47:23looked at the photos,
47:24he described the wounds
47:25he had seen
47:26back in 1963.
47:28I could see
47:29the President's
47:30head wound
47:31quite well,
47:32and I was probably
47:34looking into a wound
47:36that was on the
47:38lateral or the side
47:39part of the head
47:40and the back
47:41part of the head.
47:43It would be this portion
47:44of the head
47:45right here.
47:48as I remember
47:49it's like this.
47:51That there was
47:52a big wound,
47:53big deficit
47:54in his skull
47:55and the temporal
47:57parietal area.
47:59Would you come in
47:59to me?
48:00The examination
48:02of the 52 color
48:03and black and white
48:04autopsy photos
48:05by the doctors
48:05for NOVA
48:06was unprecedented.
48:08Special permission
48:08had to be obtained
48:09from the Kennedy family
48:10to arrange this.
48:14cameras were barred
48:15from the room
48:16in which the doctors
48:16looked at the pictures.
48:20Each took as much time
48:21as he felt necessary
48:22to examine them
48:23from 30 minutes
48:24to a full hour.
48:43I would have to say
48:44honestly
48:45in looking at
48:46these photos
48:47they're pretty much
48:48as I remember
48:49President Kennedy
48:49at the time
48:50except for
48:52that little
48:52incision
48:53that seems
48:54to be coming down
48:55in the parietal area.
48:57On looking
48:57at the photographs
48:58I could envision
49:00that an incision
49:02might have been made
49:03in order to pull
49:05the scalp back
49:07to expose this bone
49:09to make a photograph
49:11of that area.
49:13Perhaps this explains
49:15the surgery
49:15to the head area
49:16the FBI mentioned.
49:18I don't see evidence
49:20of any alteration
49:21of his wound
49:23in these pictures.
49:25from what I saw
49:26in the emergency room.
49:27Nothing that I have seen
49:28would make me think
49:29it had been changed
49:30from what happened
49:31at that day.
49:33The tracheostomy incision
49:34which was shown
49:36on several of the photographs
49:38I examined
49:38looks exactly
49:40the same size
49:41and the same configuration
49:42as it did
49:43when Dr. Perry
49:44and I did that incision.
49:47I find no discrepancy
49:49between the wounds
49:51as they're shown
49:52very vividly
49:53in these photographs
49:54and what I remember
49:56very vividly.
49:58But do the doctors' assertions
50:00that they saw
50:01no altered wounds
50:02clear up the issue?
50:06The drawing suggests
50:07what many of the photos
50:08examined by the doctors
50:09in NOVA show
50:10a large wound
50:11about this size
50:13and location.
50:14But what about
50:15this photo
50:15which shows
50:16what appears
50:16to be only
50:17a small entry wound
50:18in the back
50:19of Kennedy's head?
50:21Dr. McClellan speculates.
50:24The pathologist
50:25has taken
50:25this loose
50:26piece of scalp
50:28which is hanging
50:28back this way
50:29in most of the pictures
50:30exposing this large wound
50:33and has pulled
50:34and has pulled
50:34the scalp forward
50:36to take a picture.
50:38Naturally,
50:39the scalp appears
50:40to be in its normal state
50:42and there doesn't seem
50:44to be any sort of wound
50:46in the area
50:47where I had drawn
50:49the picture
50:49that showed
50:51this large hole.
50:53But doesn't
50:54this large wound
50:55suggest a shot
50:55from the front
50:56as Lifton argues?
50:58This drawing
50:59made for Congress
51:00suggests how
51:01a small rear entry wound
51:02could have created
51:04the large wound.
51:05Finally,
51:06if the large wound
51:07was really
51:07in this part
51:08of the head,
51:09why did most
51:10of the doctors
51:10note back in 1963
51:12that they had seen
51:13a specific part
51:14of the brain
51:15called the cerebellum?
51:18I did say cerebellum
51:20in my first official report
51:21and the cerebellum
51:22ordinarily
51:23is in a posterior part
51:25and here I knew
51:27very well
51:27that the wound
51:28was more anterior
51:29than that
51:30but there was
51:30a portion
51:31of the brain
51:32that looked like
51:32it had a stalk
51:33and it was convoluted
51:35to look like
51:36what I thought
51:37was cerebellum.
51:38I said that
51:39I thought perhaps
51:40part of the cerebellum
51:42was missing
51:42and that shows
51:44how even
51:44a trained observer
51:46can make an error
51:47in a moment
51:49of urgency.
51:54In fact,
51:55the Dallas doctors
51:56were caught up
51:56in an emergency
51:57life-saving effort.
51:58They were not
51:59doing an autopsy
52:00or trying to
52:01describe the wounds.
52:03We simply
52:04were performing
52:05the tracheostomy
52:06and felt that
52:07it was not
52:08an appropriate thing
52:09to do at the time
52:10to examine the head wound.
52:11How would you do that
52:12with the widow there,
52:14the president
52:14of the United States
52:15who was dead,
52:17what's the,
52:17no one thought
52:19about the morbidity
52:20of doing examination
52:22at that time.
52:24That would have been
52:25a little sacrilegious,
52:26I think,
52:27under the circumstances.
52:32Their visit
52:33to the National Archives
52:34revealed that
52:35the doctors'
52:35original observations
52:36in Dallas
52:37were done with haste
52:38and some imprecision.
52:41It should be noted
52:43that in previous interviews
52:44with journalists,
52:45some of their comments
52:46seemed to support
52:47Lipton's claims
52:47of altered wounds.
52:49But they made
52:50those comments
52:51before they saw
52:52the color photos
52:53at the National Archives.
52:59With all the contradictions
53:00and unresolved doubts,
53:02will we ever come
53:03to a final,
53:04undisputed conclusion?
53:06Josiah Thompson.
53:08In a homicide case,
53:10you get a convergence
53:11of the evidence
53:12after a while.
53:13There may be
53:16discrepancies
53:16in detail,
53:17but on the whole,
53:19things come together.
53:22With this case,
53:23it's now 25 years.
53:25Things haven't gotten
53:27any simpler.
53:28They haven't come together.
53:30If anything,
53:31they become more
53:32and more problematical,
53:33more and more mysterious.
53:34That just isn't the way
53:36a homicide case develops.
53:42And the night comes again
53:45to the circle-studded sky.
53:51It is understandable
53:56that shock, grief,
53:57and doubt
53:58elevated the tragic event
53:59of November 22, 1963
54:02to a national obsession.
54:04But they all glow brighter
54:07from the brilliance
54:08of the blaze
54:09with the speed
54:10of insanity.
54:13Then he died.
54:17Relying mainly on analysis
54:19of physical evidence,
54:21Nova has explained many,
54:22but not all,
54:23questions about the assassination.
54:25The single bullet theory
54:27remains intact
54:28despite its implausible aspects.
54:31There's no irrefutable
54:32photographic
54:33or acoustic evidence
54:34of a second gunman.
54:36The president's body
54:37was so badly handled,
54:38it probably could never be
54:40a source of verifiable evidence.
54:44To bring us closer
54:46to the truth,
54:47there could be
54:47a new rifle test,
54:49a new acoustics test,
54:50an examination of the brain
54:52if it is ever found,
54:53an analysis for traces of blood
54:56on the single bullet.
54:58Much controversy
54:59about the assassination
55:00has been political,
55:02and the ultimate solution
55:03to the mystery
55:04may lie outside
55:05the domain of science.
55:08But science must always
55:10set the standard of proof
55:11for any answer
55:12to the question,
55:13who shot President Kennedy?
56:03is in a veryben
56:08of science,
56:09is to try to escape
56:10It's a great idea
56:10that Gachi
56:10and the last thing
56:10has been put
56:10for any answer
56:10I'm going to see
56:11if you want
56:11that in the last thing
56:11how he can do
56:11on the next thing
56:11and leave
56:20Funding for NOVA is provided by Lockheed,
56:24a bold new force in systems engineering, management, and technology services for defense, space...
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