Features: The Warren Commission, The Truth, and Arlen Specter: Part 2


The Commission, of course. had a problem. If the FBI was correct, then Kennedy and Connally were hit by separate bullets and since the time interval was too short for both to have been fired from Oswald’s rifle, the whole direction of its investigation would have had to change.

The direction did not change. This despite the fact that there was even more evidence which weighed heavily in favor of the FBI report.

The Warren Commission Report says the entrance wound caused by the bullet which came out Kennedy’s throat was "approximately 5.5 inches" below the back of the right ear. Yet photographs of the President’s jacket and shirt, which were part of that FBI supplemental report of January 13th, make it difficult to believe that is the truth.

These photographs were not part of the Warren Commission Report and were left out of the 26 volumes of supporting evidence. Although a description of Kennedy’s Clothing was in the Report, the discrepancy between the location of the bullet holes in them and the reported location of the wounds was never discussed or explained.

And there was a very obvious discrepancy: The hole in the back of the jacket was 5 3/8 inches below the top of the collar and 1 3/4 inches to the right of the center back seam of the coat. Traces of copper were found in the margins of the hole and the cloth fibers were pushed inward. "Although the precise size of the bullet, could not be determined from the hole, it was consistent with having been made by a 6.5-millimeter bullet." said the Report.

The shirt worn by the President also contained a hole in the back about 5 3/4 inches below the top of the collar and 1 1/8 inches to the right of the middle. It, too, had the characteristics of a bullet entrance hole.

Both these holes are in locations that seem obviously inconsistent with the wound described in the Commission’s autopsy report — placed below
the back of the right ear — and illustrated in exhibit 385, which Dr, Humes had prepared.

"Well," said Specter, when asked about this in his City Hall office last month, "that difference is accounted for because the President was waving his arm." He got up from his desk and attempted to have his explanation demonstrated. "’Wave your arm a few times," he said, "wave at the crowd. Well, see if the bullet goes in here, the jacket gets hunched up. If you take this point right here and then you strip the coat down, it comes out at a lower point. Well, not too much lower on your example, but the jacket rides up."