It is true that I phrase certain types of claims, especially those regarding witness testimony, with less than absolute certainty however in the example you gave I do agree I went to far in being hedgy It would have been better to have said it without the maybe Thus it should have read
It still lends credibility that the event happened
I have little doubt if I wrote in terms of a greater level of certainty that would be worthy of criticism as well
No it is not stated in the third person It does not state another person told him these facts
Here's the quote again:
"The most curious discovery of all took place when they rolled me off the stretcher, and onto the examining table. A metal object fell to the floor, with a click no louder than a wedding band. The nurse picked it up and slipped it into her pocket. It was the bullet from my body, the one that passed through my back, chest and wrist and worked itself loose from my thigh.?
How is it not stated in the third person active? The only time "me" or "I'" appears is as part of an adverbial phrase of a sentence who's subject is "discovery." Compare that to all the times he says things like "I see...", "I felt...", "I heard..." etc.
With that out of the way, you are correct if you meant that Connally didn't
specifically say that someone else told him the bullet falling story. But that's not important. He also didn't say that someone told him about the SS agents jumping from the Queen Mary and heading right for the TSBD, but we know that he didn't see that himself. The important thing is, you can compare his earlier testimony to the different passages in the book. What he'd previously testified to is stated in the first person, while the things that are completely wrong, like the aforementioned SS assault on the TSBD front door, are stated in third person.
