The First Shot

[Charles Collins]

For what it is worth:

Harry McCormick, the legendary crime reporter for the Dallas Morning News, writes (in his notes written four months after the assassination per his editor’s request):

One of the first persons I ran into was Abraham Zapruder. He was obviously highly agitated, almost weeping.

“I saw it all through my camera,” he half sobbed to himself. I stopped him and without identifying myself I asked him questions. “I got it all on film,” he said. “There were three shots. Two hit the President and the other Gov. Connelly. I know the President is dead for his head seemed to fly to pieces when he was hit the second time.


Looking at the televised interview with Zapruder done only a short while later, he is unsure whether or not there were two or three shots. This is the first time that I have seen a quote of Zapruder that appears to be definite regarding the number of shots. If Harry McCormick had not put those words in quotation marks, I would probably guess that McCormick had used the generally accepted view of that point in time. But it appears that this is a verbatim quote of Abraham Zapruder. And I find that interesting because I was under the impression that Zapruder was always unsure about the number of shots.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

For what it is worth:

Harry McCormick, the legendary crime reporter for the Dallas Morning News, writes (in his notes written four months after the assassination per his editor’s request):

One of the first persons I ran into was Abraham Zapruder. He was obviously highly agitated, almost weeping.

“I saw it all through my camera,” he half sobbed to himself. I stopped him and without identifying myself I asked him questions. “I got it all on film,” he said. “There were three shots. Two hit the President and the other Gov. Connelly. I know the President is dead for his head seemed to fly to pieces when he was hit the second time.


Looking at the televised interview with Zapruder done only a short while later, he is unsure whether or not there were two or three shots. This is the first time that I have seen a quote of Zapruder that appears to be definite regarding the number of shots. If Harry McCormick had not put those words in quotation marks, I would probably guess that McCormick had used the generally accepted view of that point in time. But it appears that this is a verbatim quote of Abraham Zapruder. And I find that interesting because I was under the impression that Zapruder was always unsure about the number of shots.

And we also had Zapruder's secretary, Marilyn Sitzman, who was holding on to his legs as he was on the pedestal or column or whatever it was. She too said she heard only two shots. Here she is in an interview with Josiah Thompson.

Sitzman: ....There was nothing unusual [happening] until the first sound, which I thought was a firecracker, mainly because of the reaction of President Kennedy. He put his hands up to guard his face and leaned to the left, and the motorcade, you know, proceeded down the hill. And the next thing that I remembered correct ... clearly was the shot that hit him directly in front of us, or almost directly in front of us, that hit him on the side of his fa ... [sic]

And this:
Sitzman: And as far as the sound of the shots go, the first one, as I said, sounded like a firecracker, and the second one that I heard sounded the same, because I recall no difference whatsoever in them. And I'm sure that if the second shot would have come from a different place -- and the supposed theory is they would have been much closer to me and on the right side -- I would have heard the sounding of the gun much closer, and I probably had a ringing in my head because the fence was quite close to where we were standing, very close. Ah, it just sounded the same way.

Two shots. As I said earlier, it'll drive you nuts trying to figure out why some heard two shots and others three. I guess some were focusing so much on seeing JFK and the crowds were so loud that they didn't notice it or distinguish it from the background noise.

[Pat Speer]

And we also had Zapruder's secretary, Marilyn Sitzman, who was holding on to his legs as he was on the pedestal or column or whatever it was. She too said she heard only two shots. Here she is in an interview with Josiah Thompson.

Sitzman: ....There was nothing unusual [happening] until the first sound, which I thought was a firecracker, mainly because of the reaction of President Kennedy. He put his hands up to guard his face and leaned to the left, and the motorcade, you know, proceeded down the hill. And the next thing that I remembered correct ... clearly was the shot that hit him directly in front of us, or almost directly in front of us, that hit him on the side of his fa ... [sic]

And this:
Sitzman: And as far as the sound of the shots go, the first one, as I said, sounded like a firecracker, and the second one that I heard sounded the same, because I recall no difference whatsoever in them. And I'm sure that if the second shot would have come from a different place -- and the supposed theory is they would have been much closer to me and on the right side -- I would have heard the sounding of the gun much closer, and I probably had a ringing in my head because the fence was quite close to where we were standing, very close. Ah, it just sounded the same way.

Two shots. As I said earlier, it'll drive you nuts trying to figure out why some heard two shots and others three. I guess some were focusing so much on seeing JFK and the crowds were so loud that they didn't notice it or distinguish it from the background noise.

When one studies the witness statements in total, it's clear some (such as Zapruder) heard the last two shots bang-bang, and realized this meant more than one shooter, and thereby removed this second sound from their recollections, or said they weren't sure about it.

Abraham Zapruder stood on a pedestal in the arcade on the North side of Elm. (11-22-63 notes of Dallas Times Herald reporter Darwin Payne, from his reporter's notebook on display in Dallas' Old Red Museum, as quoted by Jim Schutze in The Dallas Observer, 4-28-11, and as supplemented by Gus Russo in Where Were You, 2013. These notes were purportedly written shortly after the shooting, after Payne arrived in the Plaza, was told Zapruder had filmed the shooting, and tracked Zapruder down at his office in the Dal-Tex Building.) "'I got film,' he said. 'I saw it hit him in head. They were going so fast. He slumped over with the first shot. With the first shot, he bent over and grabbed. Second two shots hit him in head. It opened up. Couldn't be alive. She was beside him. After last shot she crawled over back of car." (11-22-63 notes of an unknown reporter, possibly Darwin Payne, or possibly someone at the paper writing down what Payne had reported over the phone after talking to Zapruder. These notes were found in the files of the Dallas Times Herald, and quoted in Pictures of the Pain, p. 149, published 1998) “Abraham Zapruder…heard 3 shots///after first one Pres slumped over grabed stomac…hit in stomac…two more shots///looked like head opened up and everything came out…blood spattered everywhere…side of his face…looked like blobs out of his temple… forehead… Jackie first reached over to the Pres. And after second shot…she crawled over to back of car…after that she was lying…” (March-May 1964 memo written for the Dallas Morning News by newsman Harry McCormick, in which McCormick's recollections of 11-22-63 were recorded for posterity, as published in JFK Assassination: The Reporters' Notes, 2013) "One of the first persons I ran into was Abraham Zapruder. He was obviously highly agitated, almost weeping. 'I saw it all through my camera,' he half-sobbed to himself. I stopped him and without identifying myself I asked him a question. 'I got it all on film,' he said. 'There were three shots. Two hit the president and the other Gov. Connally. I know the president is dead for his head seemed to fly to pieces when he was hit the second time.'" (11-22-63 interview on WFAA, at approximately 2:10 PM) “as I was shooting, as the President was coming down from Houston Street making his turn, it was about a half-way down there, I heard a shot, and he slumped to the side, like this. Then I heard another shot or two, I couldn't say it was one or two, and I saw his head practically open up, all blood and everything, and I kept on shooting.” (Volunteering, moments later) "As I explained before, it was a sickening scene. At first I thought perhaps it was a...it sounded like somebody making a joke, y'know, a shot and somebody grabbing their stomach." (9:55 PM 11-22-63, memo of SS Agent Max Phillips accompanying a copy of the Zapruder film) “According to Mr. Zapruder, the position of the assassin was behind Mr. Zapruder.”

[Andrew Mason]

Two shots. As I said earlier, it'll drive you nuts trying to figure out why some heard two shots and others three. I guess some were focusing so much on seeing JFK and the crowds were so loud that they didn't notice it or distinguish it from the background noise.

It may have been due to the lack of a distinct separation between the last two shots, which many people recalled as being close together.  Mary Woodward said this in an interview recorded for the pseudo-documentary "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" released 1988:

“One thing I am totally positive about in my own mind is how many shots there were. And there were three shots. The second two shots were immediate. It was almost as if one were an echo of the other. They came so quickly the sound of one did not cease until the second shot. With the second and third shot I did see the president being hit. I literally saw his head explode. ”.   

[There was a clip of this on Youtube but I couldn't find it when I looked today.]

It is possible that with some witnesses who were focused on doing something at the time may have subconsciously regarded the last two shots as one shot. 

I regard Marilyn Sitzman deserving as much credit for the Zapruder film as Zapruder himself.  She was the reason he was there with his camera - at her insistence he ran home an hour before the motorcade arrived at Dealey Plaza and fetched his camera.  She helped him pick out the spot to film and she helped keep him steady the whole time he was filming.  I wonder if she or her estate received any of the $16 million the government paid for it.

Regarding Mary Woodward, it is interesting that she thought, and still thinks, apparently, that the second shot hit JFK.  To my knowledge no one has ever asked her if she is aware that JFK was reacting to the neck wound 5 seconds before the head shot. 

[Charles Collins]

The Connally’s accounts of the three shots differ substantially. The following is from Wikipedia, the numbered references link to their Warren Commission testimonies (if you go to the Wikipedia article).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-bullet_theory

Governor Connally, riding in the middle jump seat of the President's limousine in front of the President, recalled hearing the first shot which he immediately recognized as a rifle shot. He said he immediately feared an assassination attempt and turned to his right to look back to see the President. He looked over his right shoulder but did not catch the President out of the corner of his eye so he said he began to turn back to look to his left when he felt a forceful impact to his back. He stated to the Warren Commission: "I immediately, when I was hit, I said, "Oh, no, no, no." And then I said, "My God, they are going to kill us all." He looked down and saw that his chest was covered with blood and thought he had been fatally shot. Then he heard the third and final shot, which sprayed blood and brain tissue over them.[42]

Nellie Connally said she heard the first shot and saw President Kennedy with his hands at his neck reacting to what she later realized was his neck wound. After the first shot, she heard her husband yell, "Oh, no, no, no" and turn to his right (away from her). Then she heard a second shot, which hit her husband. She saw him recoil away from her and saw that he was hit. She immediately reached over and pulled him toward her into her arms and lay backward. Then she heard the third and final shot. Mrs. Connally said she never looked into the back seat of the car after her husband was shot.[43]


In my opinion, the key is the timing of JBC yelling “Oh, no, no, no.” He is the one who yelled it so I believe that I have to give his testimony more weight (than Mrs. Connally’s testimony) regarding the timing of this yell. He specifically says that he yelled it immediately after he was hit. A look at the Zapruder frames shows him appearing to start yelling this by about Z236 (possibly before that but definitely discernible by then). Z236 is only 7/10 of a second Z223 at a rate of 18.3 frames per second. That is a reasonable time for a reaction to being shot, (first realizing it, and then beginning to yell). And it is understandable that JBC would consider this 7/10 of a second as being immediately.

JBC and his wife rejected the SBT (apparently based on her memory regarding the second shot timing). But it seems clear to me that his testimony is the correct one due to the above and the other persuasive evidence cited by the WC and HSCA investigations.

[Andrew Mason]

The Connally’s accounts of the three shots differ substantially. The following is from Wikipedia, the numbered references link to their Warren Commission testimonies (if you go to the Wikipedia article).

You should consider Gov. Connally's other statements.  He made a statement to Life Magazine in 1966 that he said 'Oh no, no, no' before he was hit in the back by the second shot.  He told the HSCA that he said it just before but then changed his mind and said it was after he was hit:
"When I was hit, or shortly before I was hit-no, I guess it was
after I was hit-I said first, just almost in despair, I said, "no, no,
no," just thinking how tragic it was that we had gone through this
24 hours, it had all been so wonderful and so beautifully executed."

This latter statement is interesting because the governor did not say "no, no, no" because he was hit.  He said it because he feared that a beautiful reception for the President in his state was turning into a tragedy.

In my opinion, the key is the timing of JBC yelling “Oh, no, no, no.” He is the one who yelled it so I believe that I have to give his testimony more weight (than Mrs. Connally’s testimony) regarding the timing of this yell. He specifically says that he yelled it immediately after he was hit.

In the quote you have provide from his WC testimony Gov. Connally said he said it "as I was hit", not after. 

A look at the Zapruder frames shows him appearing to start yelling this by about Z236 (possibly before that but definitely discernible by then). Z236 is only 7/10 of a second Z223 at a rate of 18.3 frames per second. That is a reasonable time for a reaction to being shot, (first realizing it, and then beginning to yell). And it is understandable that JBC would consider this 7/10 of a second as being immediately.

JBC and his wife rejected the SBT (apparently based on her memory regarding the second shot timing). But it seems clear to me that his testimony is the correct one due to the above and the other persuasive evidence cited by the WC and HSCA investigations.

The big problem with this is the significant preponderance of evidence that the last two shots were close together.  Listen to Sam Kinney, for example:

Why would so many witnesses - 47 by my count - think that?  5 seconds seemed like 2 seconds?

[Pat Speer]

Mrs. Woodward passed away 2017. Since you're referring to the Z220s, she noticed the President slump at that moment, which by her reckoning means the second shot. The first shot, she said, did not strike the President.

Now go back to cherry-picking pictures of the President leaning away from the car rail.

I'm sorry, Jerry, I need to disagree with you on this one. Miss Woodward used the word "slump" in relation to the second shot, which leads many to believe she was describing Kennedy's reaction in the 220's. But it's clear she was not. She said the first shot rang out a second or two after the car passed her, and that the last two shots were bang-bang. It's clear then that there was no 5 second gap between shots two and three, and that the "slump" she observed was Kennedy getting knocked down in the car at Z-313.

(11-23-63 newspaper article Witness From the News Describes Assassination written by Woodward for the Dallas Morning News) "As it turned out, we were almost certainly the last faces he noticed in the crowd. After acknowledging our cheers, he faced forward again and suddenly there was a horrible, ear-shattering noise coming from behind us and a little to the right. My first reaction, and also my friends’, was that as a joke, someone had backfired their car. Apparently the driver and occupants of the President’s car had the same impression, because instead of speeding up, the car came almost to a halt. Things are a little hazy from this point, but I don’t believe anyone was hit with the first bullet. The President and Mrs. Kennedy turned and looked around, as if they, too, didn’t believe the noise was really coming from a gun. Then after a moment’s pause there was another shot and I saw the President start slumping in the car. This was followed rapidly by another shot. Mrs. Kennedy stood up in the car, turned half-way around, then fell on top of her husband’s body. Not until this minute did it sink in what actually was happening. We had witnessed the assassination of the President.
 
(12-7-63 FBI report, 24H520)  “She stated she was watching President and Mrs. Kennedy closely, and all of her group cheered loudly as they went by. Just as President and Mrs. Kennedy went by, they turned and waved at them. Just a second or two later, she heard a loud noise. At this point, it appeared to her that President and Mrs. Kennedy probably were about one hundred feet from her. There seemed to be a pause of a few seconds, and then there were two more loud noises which she suddenly realized were shots , and she saw President Kennedy fall over and Mrs. Kennedy jumped up and started crawling over the back of the car.

(March-May 1964 memo written for the Dallas Morning News, published in JFK Assassination: The Reporters' Notes, 2013) "The car proceeded down Elm and when it was about 40 yards from us, we heard the first noise. My immediate reaction was that someone had backfired a car deliberately--a pretty poor excuse for a joke. Ann said no--it was firecrackers. Before we could say anything more, the sound repeated itself twice in rapid succession. I saw the bystanders fall to the ground, saw the President slump, heard Mrs. Kennedy's anguished cry and saw her crawl out of the car and drag the Secret Service man in before the car sped away from view."

(Interview in The Men Who Killed Kennedy, broadcast 1988) “One thing I am totally positive about in my own mind is how many shots there were. And there were three shots. The second two shots were immediate. It was almost as if one were an echo of the other. They came so quickly the sound of one did not cease until the second shot. With the second and third shot I did see the president being hit.  I literally saw his head explode. So, I felt that the shots had come, as I wrote in my article, from behind me and to my right, which would have been the direction of the grassy knoll, and the railroad overpass."

(11-22-92 interview with Walt Brown as presented in Treachery in Dallas, 1995) "I had the distinct pleasure of having dinner with Mary Woodward (now married and living far from Dallas) on November 22, 1992...I asked Mary about the shots, based on what I knew about her deposition, and she seemed to be far more certain over dinner than her elliptically reported words in the FBI report indicated. The cadence she gave for the shot sequence put the last two almost simultaneous.."

(11-21-93 Reporters Remember conference, as quoted in Reporting the Kennedy Assassination). "I yelled and I said 'Please look this way!' And they looked right at us, waved, and at that moment, I heard a very loud noise. And I wasn't sure what it was at that point, and I turned to my friends and asked 'what was that; is some jerk shooting off firecrackers?' And, uh, then I heard the second one, and this time I knew what had happened, because I saw the president's motion, and then the third shot came very, very quickly, on top of the second one. And that time, I saw his head blow open, and I very well knew what had happened by that point."

(11-16-13 article in the Dallas Morning News) "I reported then and still believe without the slightest equivocation that: The first shot missed completely. There was a noticeable time lapse between the first and second shot. The car slowed almost to a stop after the first shot. The second shot hit the target but was possibly not fatal. The third shot pierced the brain and was almost certainly fatal."

(11-22-13 article on Mary Woodward Pillsworth in The Herkimer NY Evening Telegram) (On the shooting itself) “At first we didn’t know what it was, if it was a car backfiring,” she said. “…Then there was the second shot and then the third. Then I saw [Kennedy’s] head just break open.” According to Pillsworth, she’s officially considered the fifth closest witness to the assassination. “We stood around for a few minutes, kind of dazed,” she said of the moments that followed."

(11-7-15 Living History interview with The Sixth Floor Museum) "They turned the corner...I yelled out 'Please look this way' because I wanted to see Jackie Kennedy. And they did look at us and waved...There was one shot. And I have always believed it didn't hit anybody and I think a lot of researchers have shown I am probably right on this. Because I couldn't see anything happen and I couldn't figure out what it was...But then the next two shots came very very rapidly. The sound of one didn't kind of fade away before the second shot came. And that's when--the second shot--I saw really what happened. (When asked if she felt sure the second two shots were almost right on top of each other) "Yes." (When asked her impression of the head wound) "I just remember the head blowing open and that's why I said 'he's not alive--he can't be alive.'" 

[Andrew Mason]

Kennedy is leaning to camera-right and Connally is leaning to camera-left. Almost like they're in front of each other (for a brief instance).

I guess I assume my models are reasonably accurate, though I'm a novice compared to a professional. Where the photo-matches end up is governed by what will be. Given the yahoos in the US, I would be just as happy to disprove the SBT and find a conspiracy. But proving your Theory is coming up dry.

Why would you find a conspiracy?  There was no conspiracy. The SBT is only needed to preserve the single shooter conclusion if JBC was hit by the second shot less than 2.3 seconds after the first. But the shot pattern shows that this was not the case. 

The shot pattern evidence that the shot sequence was 1..........2.......3 is perfectly consistent with Oswald firing all three shots.

In fact, it makes a lot more sense: no shot that missed the entire car at 50 yards; the first aimed shot at reasonably close range as the passed below, followed by a careful re-aim for the second as the car proceeded down the road and the third shot following quickly without the need to re-aim as the car was moving directly away from the shooter.

Also, with 3 shots, 3 hits, there is no need to imagine a shot well before points at which witnesses said the first shot occurred; no need to imagine that witnesses were hallucinating when they said the last two shots were closer together; and no need to contort bodies to make the right to left path through JFK's midline meet JBC on his far right side.

Those 3D figure models weren't actually modeled from Connally's body. The seatback was cushioned and I wouldn't be surprised if it had a bit of give to it. You seem hung up on the jumpseat locations, but it's the positions of the (mostly) head and shoulders we see in the photos that determine where they are in the model. Would be nice if I got the jump-seats perfect but my ruler and I haven't flown down to the Henry Ford.

To the spine I get 27". I must be doing something wrong.

If JBC is turned as he is in z193, his spine has to be farther forward than the back of the jump seat.  He is turned about 60 degrees and his right shoulder is not pressed against the jump seat back, so I would say that is spine must be 6 inches at least in front of the jump seat back surface.  So the question is how far is JFK's throat from the seat back surface of the jump seat.  I measure that to be 27 inches using the scale drawing.