The dimensions of that wound were consistent with having been caused by a 6.5 millimeter bullet fired from behind and above which struck at a tangent or an angle causing a 15-millimeter cut. The cut reflected a larger dimension of entry than the bullet’s diameter of 6.5 millimeters, since the missile, in effect, sliced along the skull for a fractional distance until it entered. The dimension of 6 millimeters, somewhat smaller than the diameter of a 6.5 millimeter bullet, was caused by the elastic recoil of the skull which shrinks the size of an opening after a missile passes through it.
I’m quoting a quote since I don’t have a copy of the Warren Commission.
Correct. And the Author points out that a German medical journal showed that handgun wounds to fresh cadaver skulls would produce such a result. However, these were low powered weapons.
He also quotes a pathologist that says an entry wound will always be slightly larger than the bullet. So the $64k question is what does a high power bullet due to a human skull? The Warren report did experiments with the Carcano on test skulls. Unfortunately, the author had to take measurements of photographs so you couldn’t reliably use his numbers because you don’t know the precise size of the skulls used.
Feh. It turns out the whole thing is just a dumb misunderstanding by the Warren Report, transformed into evidence of conspiracy by a bunch of idiots who never bothered to read the testimony it was based on. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
You see, the Warren Commission excerpt you cite on the 6mm wound and the “elastic recoil” (at footnotes 149-151) was based on the testimony of Commander James J. Humes, “senior pathologist and director of laboratories at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, who acted as chief autopsy surgeon.”
Cmdr. Humes did not claim that the entry wound in the skull was 6mm. Nor did he claim that the skull would undergo “elastic recoil.” What he said was that the wound in the scalp was 6mm, and that skin often exhibits elastic recoil. (True fact–google away, my friend.)
Here’s what he testified:
Note that I misinterpreted the autopsy report earlier. The 4mm x 7mm entry wound was the one that hit the president in the neck, not the skull:
I’m confused, he misinterpreted the word “skull” for the word “neck”?
If you look at the WC’s example of a Carcano round shot through a skull you will see what I’m talking about in reference to fragmentation. The slower/heavier jacketed Carcano splits and the molten lead starts to fragment. You end up with a jacket that is intact and a substantial amount of lead that is intact. Where did these pieces go? Where are the cranial tissue samples? It would be so easy to disprove different bullet if the jacket residue could be verified.
Also, the 1968 follow-up report (ordered by AT Ramsey Clark) described a fragment of bullet (6.5mm) embedded on the outside of the skull near the entrance wound. The Carcano would have had to shear off to do this. It is more likely that this fragment was the result of a ricochet.
According to SS Agent Kellerman, the President cried out “My God! I’m hit!” after the first shot. That had to be before the kennedy/Connally shot because Kennedy was already toast from the neck wound. That means he was hit by fragments of the 1st shot.
I’ve focused on the 3rd shot because it is what I think is relevant to the discussion. However, the author addresses the entire event, from start to finish. If you accept his findings that the head-shot was a different angle than reported by the Warren Commission the book lines up well.
And I ask you again, how would you (as a lawyer) advise a publisher who wanted to name a person as a shooter?
I’d advise him to pay his liability insurance premium.
[sub]Typical conspiratorial claptrap. Claim ‘A’ is proven to be a load of horseshit, so move on to claims ‘B’ through ‘G’ without acknowledging the previous falsehoods. At all costs, focus on trivialities rather than the overwhelming weight of the evidence. Feh, I say again.[/sub]
Hey, if you can’t pound on the fact, pound on the law. If you can’t pound on the law, pound on the facts. If you can’t pound on the law or the facts, pound on the table.
Let’s see, when LHO mustered out of the USMC he had recently qualified 'marksman" though for the majority of the time he had qualified as “sharpshooter”–apparently he had not had recent range time to brush up. As Posner quoted the USMC General in charge of marksmanship, LOH would have been an excellent shot compared to the great majority of Americans.
LOH practiced with his Cacarno, extensive time dry-firing and working the bolt. At a New Orleans rifle range he was notorious for dead centering other shooter’s targets as well as his own.
The class of 6.5 mm cartridges have an excellent reputation for inherent accuracy-and the Cacarno is not a “piece of junk” -it’s a darn good mauser derivitive. The scope was junk, but perfectly adequete for the range, angle , and motion of target. Round up the spout (chamber), first shot fired, NOW the clock starts. With a practiced hand (which LHO was) no problem to make time goal.
LHO was also firing from seated position-his favorite–and apparently braced as well–plenty of loose books were spilled on the scene.
The magic bullet-not so pristine, from another angle you can see it’s bent as a banana.
What I don’t get is the automatic connection between the idea of a conspiracy and the discounting of Oswald as the shooter (at least the only one). I see no reason to dismiss that, at least out of hand. But Jack Ruby shot him for something. It seems to me that’s where the conspiracy angle plays in, that it appears Oswald wasn’t a nut just offing the president in a vacuum. Which to me makes the question of other shooters sort of tangential.
Jack Ruby was more than a little bit of a nut himself–a cop groupie, he was well known at the Dallas police department, so his drifting in was hardly noticed–an If Ruby had been on scene one minute later he would have totaly missed being able to off LHO. Ruby had a reputation for sudden, violent assaults on other people, a history of being a screw up, a guy who liked to brag about his barely-there mob connections (not someone the mob would choose to wack somebody)
I’m not sure of what you’re confused about. Cmdr. Humes, testifying to the WC, was clarifying that the 6 mm hole was in the scalp, which is skin, and can be smaller than the missile because skin can stretch and have elastic recoil (the hole is made while the skin is stretched, so when it relaxes the hole is smaller). The skull (bone) hole was larger, at least as large as the bullet. Minty green mentioned that earlier he had misread a neck hole measurement, thinking it referred to the head.
Let’s think about this. The first shot didn’t hit Kennedy, or the car, or another occupant of it. But it fragmented and one tiny piece happened to hit Kennedy without hitting any of the other people around. Seems far-fetched, maybe not completely impossible. The alternative is to believe that Kellerman may be mistaken in his memory. One of these I’d give a probability of about 99.99%, the other 0.01%. But I can’t see that it matters in either case.