CLEVELAND: He still remembers the first gunshot. Then came another shot. And another. And the president slumped down. For so many nights afterward, he relived that grisly moment in his dreams. Now, 60 years later, Paul Landis, one of the Secret Service agents just feet away from President John F Kennedy on that fateful day in Dallas, is telling his story in full for the first time. And in at least one key respect, his account differs from the official version.
His memory challenges the theory advanced by the Warren Commission that has been the subject of speculation – that one of the bullets fired at the president’s limousine hit not only Kennedy but Texas governor John Connally, who was riding with him. Landis’ account could encourage those who have suspected there was more than one gunman on November 22, 1963.
As with all things related to the assassination, his account raises questions of its own. Landis remained silent for 60 years. Elements of his account contradict the official statements he filed with authorities after the shooting. But he was there, a firsthand witness. At age 88, he said, all he wants is to tell what he saw. “There’s no goal at this point,” he said in an interview, in advance of his book, “The Final Witness” which will be published on Oct 10. “I just think it had been long enough that I needed to tell my story.”
What it comes down to is a copper-jacketed 6.5 mm projectile. The Warren Commission decided one of the bullets fired that day struck the president from behind, exited from the front of his throat and continued on to hit Connally, somehow managing to injure his back, chest, wrist and thigh. It seemed incredible that a single bullet could do all that, so skeptics called it the “magic bullet” theory.
Investigators came to that conclusion partly because the bullet was found on a stretcher believed to have held Connally at the hospital, so they assumed it had exited his body. But Landis, who was never interviewed by the Warren Commission, said that is not what happened. In fact, he said, he was the one who found the bullet – and he found it not in the hospital near Connally but in the presidential limousine lodged in the back of the seat behind where Kennedy was sitting.
When he spotted the bullet after the motorcade arrived at the hospital, he said he grabbed it to thwart souvenir hunters. Then, he said he entered the hospital and placed it next to Kennedy on the president’s stretcher. At some point, he now guesses, the stretchers must have been pushed together, and the bullet was shaken from one to another.
Landis theorises the bullet struck Kennedy in the back, popping back out before the president’s body was removed from the limousine. Landis has been reluctant to speculate on the larger implications. He always believed Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman. But now? “Now I begin to wonder,” he said.
His memory challenges the theory advanced by the Warren Commission that has been the subject of speculation – that one of the bullets fired at the president’s limousine hit not only Kennedy but Texas governor John Connally, who was riding with him. Landis’ account could encourage those who have suspected there was more than one gunman on November 22, 1963.
As with all things related to the assassination, his account raises questions of its own. Landis remained silent for 60 years. Elements of his account contradict the official statements he filed with authorities after the shooting. But he was there, a firsthand witness. At age 88, he said, all he wants is to tell what he saw. “There’s no goal at this point,” he said in an interview, in advance of his book, “The Final Witness” which will be published on Oct 10. “I just think it had been long enough that I needed to tell my story.”
What it comes down to is a copper-jacketed 6.5 mm projectile. The Warren Commission decided one of the bullets fired that day struck the president from behind, exited from the front of his throat and continued on to hit Connally, somehow managing to injure his back, chest, wrist and thigh. It seemed incredible that a single bullet could do all that, so skeptics called it the “magic bullet” theory.
Investigators came to that conclusion partly because the bullet was found on a stretcher believed to have held Connally at the hospital, so they assumed it had exited his body. But Landis, who was never interviewed by the Warren Commission, said that is not what happened. In fact, he said, he was the one who found the bullet – and he found it not in the hospital near Connally but in the presidential limousine lodged in the back of the seat behind where Kennedy was sitting.
When he spotted the bullet after the motorcade arrived at the hospital, he said he grabbed it to thwart souvenir hunters. Then, he said he entered the hospital and placed it next to Kennedy on the president’s stretcher. At some point, he now guesses, the stretchers must have been pushed together, and the bullet was shaken from one to another.
Landis theorises the bullet struck Kennedy in the back, popping back out before the president’s body was removed from the limousine. Landis has been reluctant to speculate on the larger implications. He always believed Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman. But now? “Now I begin to wonder,” he said.