From the wounds from Kennedy’s and Connelly’s body and the location of the car, the Commission established that:
‘The bullets were fired from above and behind’.
This places the shooter in the School Book Depository.
It states in the commission:
‘There is no credible evidence that the shots were fired from any other direction’.
Source A suggests without doubt that the murder was carried out by a lone gun man Lee Harvey Oswald, that there were only three bullets fired, that all bullets were fired form the School Book Depository and that nobody else was involved.
The question is do the other sources confirm or contradict this theory? In this question I will be comparing sources B, C and G to source A to try and answer this question.
Source B is an extract from the report of the Senate Select Committee, which was published in 1979. The Committee was assembled because there was still some speculation on Kennedy’s assassination and new evidence had come up which had not previously been considered.
Source B agrees with the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald was involved, stating:
‘Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots at President Kennedy. The second and third bullets struck him…the third shot killing him’.
It also agrees with the commission in regards to where the three bullets came from.
However that is as far as it does confirm source A, because after this it start to contradict the commission.
The new evidence that needed to be considered was:
‘A newly-found tape recording of a motor-cycle policeman’s radio transmission’.
Source B states that according to this scientific acoustic evidence:
‘Four not three, shots were fired….electronic analysis of the tape also suggests that at least one was fired from the grassy Knoll’.
Although it agrees that Lee Harvey Oswald was responsible for three of the bullets, it also suggests there was at least one other gun and person which in-turn suggests that it was infact a conspiracy and not a lone gun man.
We can see fro reading source B that it agrees with source A to the extent of that Oswald was involved and that at least one of the bullets was shot from the Book Depository. However it does suggest the possibility of there being a conspiracy.
I will now consider the content of source C, to see whether or not it contradicts or confirms source A.
Source C contains extracts from the book ‘the Kennedy File’, written about the Kennedy assassination and published in 1983. This source consists of four different eye witness accounts of the assassination.
The first eye witness account came from a woman named Jean Hill, a schoolteacher who was standing near the motorcade at the time of the shooting. She claimed:
‘I heard four to six shots…they weren’t echoes…they were different guns that were being fired’.
This quote contradicts the idea of a lone gun man and backs up the suggestion of more than three shots and a conspiracy.
The next account came from a young soldier called Gordon Arnold, who was standing on the Grassy Knoll. His evidence also suggests a conspiracy theory, claiming:
‘The shot cam form behind me’.
Carolyn Arnold, a woman who worked as a secretary in the book depository, places Oswald in the Book Depository, stating in her account:
‘A quarter of an hour before the assassination I went into the lunchroom…Oswald was sitting in one of the booth seats’. This agrees with the Warren Commission because it makes Oswald a possible suspect.
The last of the eye witness accounts in source C came from a man named Arnold Rowland who testified to the Warren Commission that:
‘He saw two men on the sixth floor of the book depository, one in the far left window holding a rifle and another dark complexioned man at the right hand window fifteen minutes before the assassination’.
This piece of evidence also contradicts the lone gun man theory stated in the Warren Commission and does suggest a conspiracy, however it does not rule out the possibility of Oswald being one of the shooters.
Overall source C contradicts the lone gun man theory and does suggest a conspiracy. It doesn’t dismiss the possibility of Oswald being involved and the possibility of shots being fired from the Depository building.
The last source I am going to consider is source G, a Hollywood movie named ‘JFK’ and directed by a man named Oliver Stone, a director who specialises in movies about 1960’s America.
This film supports the conspiracy theories and an idealised view of President Kennedy.
This film was used to try and convince its audience that the Government were responsible for the assassination of Kennedy. The evidence used to try and convince us is as follows.
It was established soon after the assassination that another man standing by the Triple Underpass was hit in the face with a fragment of something that had been struck by a stray bullet. This contradicts the Warren Commission because it states that there were three bullets; one that narrowly missed its target which was found lodged in the windscreen of the car, the second bullet that was found on Connally’s stretcher and the third which was fatal to Kennedy which struck him in the right-rear portion of his head. None of these bullets could have possibly been the cause of the third man’s injury. This suggests there was another gun, which again suggests a conspiracy.
This film seeks to discredit the “magic bullet theory”, pointing out the fact that seven serious wounds could not possibly be caused by two bullets; it would mean one would strike Kennedy in the head and the other made six separate wounds all by itself. According to the film; not only could one bullet not cause all the wounds suffered, but the bullet was found practically unmarked after supposedly travelling through thick skin, muscle and hard bone.
The film also suggests that the Government played a part in the murder of Kennedy; stating how evidence went missing before they could properly investigated. For example the presidential limousine was washed and rebuilt straight after the assassination and it couldn’t be properly examined. This was also the case with Connally’s clothes which were washed within days of the assassination and when the Senate Select Committee went to examine Kennedy’s brain, not only it had gone missing but so had any records of the examination that had been performed on it.
Another incident that incriminated the American Government according to the film was that only Government pathologists were allowed to examine the body and the head of that autopsy went on record stating that he was not allowed to properly examine the body, making him unable to determine exactly what happened.
Looking at these sources we can see that sources B and C do agree with source A; the Warren Commission to the extent of the fact that at least one bullet was fired from the Book Depository and that Lee Harvey Oswald was involved in the shooting. However it does suggest that there were in fact more bullets and therefore another gun, constituting a conspiracy.
Source G on the other hand disagrees completely with source A, insinuating that the Government were involved in the assassination and suggesting that Lee Harvey Oswald was not actually involved and was framed.