I wrote last year an article on the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald. I described in detail how the silenced rifles were used. All the shots that didn’t miss their victims are shown by the Zapruder film. It’s one-hundred percent certain that silenced rifles were used in the assassination of the president on 11/22/63, together with regular rifles.
In the film, we see the governor’s body being shaken by an impact right after the traffic sign, by what we think is a bullet shot. However, he described being hit on the back just as we see in the film, more than two seconds after this moment, so we need to understand why his body was shaken like that right after the traffic sign. Listening to Connally’s testimony before the House Select Committee (1978), it seemed to me that he had confused memories of when he was shot. It was perhaps just a momentary confusion, but it made me decide I should not postpone any longer finding out why his body was shaken in that way (in the 227-244 frames range).
The Final Pandemic: An...
Best Price: $49.21
Buy New $24.99
(as of 12:01 UTC - Details)
I looked at these frames, and I noticed that in frame 225 his right hand was down, but that in frame 226 his right fist suddenly surfaced. He had heard the first shot and was reacting to it. He was hit on the wrist in that second (frame 227). Only a silenced shot could have caused this wound, a shot whose effect is seen in frame 227. It’s how I learned not only why his body was shaken in that way, but that he had been hit on his wrist by a silenced shot.
I identified later the precise moment of the first rifle shot, and it may be another contribution of that article; I think so. What led me to identify the precise moment of the first shot, a shot we can also notice in the Zapruder film (all the shots that struck both men are visible in the film), was reading Jacqueline Kennedy’s Warren Commission testimony. She described a headshot before the final headshot seen in frame 313.
As I read her description of a headshot effect occurring several seconds prior to the moment all know as the last shot fired against the president, I thought that, indeed, the first shot must have been aimed at the head and not the upper back and, due to what she described, I looked for it in the Zapruder film. It did not take long to notice exactly when the president was hit by the first rifle shot on the head. It happened right before he disappeared behind the traffic sign.
I refer the reader to the aforesaid article for a more detailed description of her testimony and the first rifle shot. The correct identification of the moment the first shot was fired is very important because it then facilitates the understanding of how the silenced weapons were used. The governor was hit on his wrist slightly less than two seconds after the president was first hit (and we know that the last two loud shots came only about a second apart).
The second loud shot hit the governor in the back (close to the right armpit) and his left thigh. The third and last loud shot proves by itself that Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy, because it was an explosive bullet which certainly the first bullet wasn’t. The effects of both were as different as anyone can tell. President Johnson and Senator Yarborough also described the rifle sounds as sounding like small bombs and explosions. We know the last rifle shot was like that.
We don’t know exactly how many silenced shots were fired, just like we don’t know exactly how many shooters there were but, from what we see happened right after the traffic sign, we know that there were no less than two or three silenced shots, so no less than two silenced rifle shooters; I think that three silenced shots struck them: I see the president being hit twice by the assassins then, and the governor hit on his wrist almost simultaneously and in-between the two times I see the president being hit by silenced shots. All shots right after the traffic sign were silenced shots.
It is clear that the silenced rifle shooters had the order to shoot at the sound of the first loud shot to fire under its cover and not be detected. They were detected thanks to the Zapruder film. We can and should be sure that none of the assassins in Dealey Plaza knew their crime was being filmed by Abraham Zapruder. It’s important to know this not just to understand, but also to judge all.
Kennedy was struck by the first rifle shot at frame 199 in the video below. His right hand did not move much from the height in which it was when he was struck by the first rifle shot. We had lost him then. He emerges from the sign with the same lost expression. The silent shots happened in frames 224-245, and the last two loud shots in frames 294-313.
Zapruder film link: Assassinat de John F. Kennedy – YouTube
Considering that it took sixty years for someone to finally notice the use of silenced rifles in the president’s assassination, I must briefly mention how the common error could have happened. The government placed the moment of the first shot fired at President Kennedy after the traffic sign in the Zapruder film. Those who opposed its explanations did the same thing. However, the first rifle shot was fired right before that traffic sign. The second and third loud shots were fired in quick succession several seconds later and, in the relatively long pause between the first and the second loud shot, the silenced rifle shots were fired.
The silenced shots should be clearly noticed once this error is corrected, eventually, but I did not reach the correct understanding of the Zapruder film by correcting for this factor; I only realized that silenced rifles had also been used when I noticed that the Texas governor was hit by a bullet on his wrist seconds before being hit again on his back; the latter could have been a fatal shot if not for good luck and good medical treatment.
I hope you see later (rather than now) how the governor was first hit only on his wrist by looking at frames 226 and 227 in the film. These two frames made me realize silenced rifles had been used in the assassination. Subsequently, I detected the correct moment in which the first loud shot happened only from paying close attention to the testimony of Jacqueline Kennedy. There are a few others who have known when the first shot actually happened, namely witnesses in Dealey Plaza on that day, and a few who learned it from them – I only know of one, the head of the TSBD building museum in a YouTube video with a witness who also knew – but they did not contradict the government and apparently accepted its conclusions. (The true “unthinkable” has been that silenced rifles were also used.)
Once the truth is stated, or even suspected, and we look at the video for it, the truth is instantly apprehended, isn’t it, especially if the film is seen in slow motion (at the slowest speed of 2.5).
Let us also be more understanding of government errors by contemplating how the error regarding when the first loud shot happened was also made by those who opposed the Warren Commission findings, who went on to make their own errors and misjudgments.
Once you approach the Zapruder film with the knowledge of the silenced weapons used, the film is yours or as “faithful” as any film is. It is the film that gives this information. The facts of how the crime happened become only clearer with time and more analysis. Regarding Oswald’s case, I think last year’s LRC article also made contributions.
In that first article, I erred in identifying the first loud rifle shot as the first silenced shot. For a correct understanding of the film, there has to be enough time between the first rifle shot and the reaction of governor Connally to that shot, and there are slightly less than two seconds between the first rifle shot – correctly located – and the time he noticed it, as seen on the Zapruder film.
Furthermore, witness Phillip Willis took a picture of the president when the first loud shot was fired. He told the Warren Commision that he took the picture “at the very instant that the shot was fired” and that is was “so instantaneous, in fact, that the crowd hadn’t had time to react.” This well-known picture was taken from behind and to the left of the presidential limousine and it shows the president waving at the crowd on his right and right before the traffic sign (I estimate it is frame 198 from the photographer’s side).
Phillip Willis was asked by Wesley J. Liebeler (assistant councel of the President’s Commission) if he was certain he had heard the shot when he took the picture, and he replied “I am positive.” He was also asked if he recognized it as a high-powered rifle. Willis replied: “Absolutely, I, having been in WWII, and being a deer hunter hobbyist, I would recognize a high-powered rifle immediately.”
Discourses Concerning ...
Best Price: $17.07
Buy New $25.97
(as of 11:36 UTC - Details)
Besides my mistake about the first loud shot being the first silenced shot (from not correcting enough the common error of when the first loud shot happened), I also tied too much the shot to the wrist of Connally with the President, saying that it had hit both, which is possible but not necessarily so, and I corrected this overemphasis through an editorial note at the end of that article. I later became sure that the shot that hit the governor’s wrist was a separate shot, so I believe now that there was definitely more than one silenced rifle shooter.
There’s no reason why there would be fewer silenced rifle shooters than regular rifle shooters. There were for sure two regular rifle shooters, and it is just as likely that there were three regular shooters as that there were two. Each of the three loud shots could have been fired by a separate shooter.
With frame 226, we see the position of the wrist of Connally when he was hit there by the bullet. I concluded – after the article was published – that it came from his right rear, a separate silenced shot which hit only his wrist. Experts on ballistics should be able to glean a lot of information from the position of his hand in frame 226.
The authorities were not able to understand how President Kennedy’s assassination happened. They should study my article from last year, improve on it, and they should then acquire a growing number of facts about that terrorist attack, which is what it was in my judgment. Finally, they need to achieve justice in whatever way it is due.
About the fact this film was understood only 60 years after the crime, and 48 years after the release of the film, it was time for someone or anyone to figure it out.
