The Full Specter

I. The Single Bullet Conclusion?

After graduating from Yale Law School in 1956 and joining the Philadelphia firm of Barnes, Dechert, Price, Myers and Rhoads, Specter became active in politics — as a Democrat. Then, in 1959, at the age of 29, he left Dechert to join the district attorney's office, where he later won a high-profile case against a powerful local union, Teamsters 107. His success brought him to the attention of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. In 1964, after John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Specter was asked to join the commission investigating the shooting.

Arlen Specter, from his book Passion for Truth: On New Year's Eve in 1963, I was at my desk in the Philadelphia district attorney's office, trying to concoct an excuse for arriving home late. ... At about 5:30 p.m., the telephone rang. It was my law school classmate Howard Willens, Robert Kennedy's deputy at the Department of Justice. Howard asked if I was interested in joining the staff of a commission, to be chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren, that would investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Craig Snyder: I don't think the man has ever been in a public forum — even if the stated topic was hydroelectric dams — where he wasn't asked, "Aren't you the guy who came up with the Magic Bullet Theory?"

William T. Coleman Jr., former Secretary of Transportation, member of the Warren Commission: Arlen was actually appointed as a junior counsel, but it turned out that he was involved in finding out just who Oswald was, and whether Oswald had done it. And because the bullet hit two different people, it was hard to say that there wasn't a second guy involved. He was the one to demonstrate to the Chief Justice that there was only one bullet; it went through both of them.

Michael Smerconish: He calls it the Single Bullet Conclusion. Not Theory. Conclusion.

Arlen Specter, from his book: It all boiled down to one key fact: When the bullet exited the president's neck, the limousine was in such a position that the bullet had to strike the car's interior or someone in it. Our exhaustive examination of the limousine had shown that no bullet had struck the car's interior. Then there was Connally, sitting right in the line of fire, directly in front of Kennedy. ... Could the president's neck wound and all of the governor's wounds have been caused by a single bullet? ... That's where the facts led.

Edward Jay Epstein, author of Inquest, about the Warren Commission, from his diary: I had no doubts of his competency. He had operated on the Warren Commission under enormous time pressure. He had realized, even though others had not, that if Connally had been hit by a third bullet, as he claimed and the FBI also concluded, there would not have been enough time for Oswald to have fired three bullets according to the Zapruder film. His Single Bullet Theory provided a Deus Ex Machina.

Mark Klugheit: People saw that silly Oliver Stone movie and thought that what Kevin Costner said was what the evidence said, which it isn't. But that certainly put it in people's minds.

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