Importance of Bullet Entry Level To Theory
The importance of how low or high the bullet struck the President in the back is a matter of possible geometry. The Sibert/O'Neill FBI autopsy report original made by two FBI agents (Special Agents James W. Sibert and Francis X. O'Neill) present at the autopsy preserves genuine confusion amongst medical doctors present during the autopsy, caused by apparent lack of an exit wound, which was cleared up later in the official report after new and more complete information became available (the exit had been hidden by a tracheotomy incision). This report does note that the doctor (Commander Humes) at the time said that he was unable to locate an "outlet" for the wound in Kennedy's shoulder (not his back).
At the time of the autopsy, toward the end of the procedure, initial probing of the shoulder wound suggested the bullet entered the base of Kennedy's neck at a 45 to 60 degree angle. However, this angle is precluded by geometry since the shooter, to obtain such a steep angle, would have to be standing on the back of the limousine or from a higher position at the Texas School Book Depository (indeed, much higher than the roof of this seven-story structure). The bullet is believed to have been fired from the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository and traveled horizontally ~200 feet at ~16 degree angle . The street sloped at 3° 9' away from the Depository, making a total angle of about 19 degrees. However, a bullet entering the President's back at the location shown in the preceding autopsy photograph about 1.5 inches below the collar line, passing over the top of the right lung, and exiting at the throat tracheostomy incision wound in the President, as theorized in the Single Bullet Theory of the Warren Report, could have caused all of the damage to Kennedy and John Connally.
The weight of bullet CE399 was reported in the Warren Commission Report as 158.6 grains (10.28 grams). It was found that the weight of a single, unfired bullet ranged from 159.8 to 161.5 grains with an average weight of 160.844 grains. The lead fragments retrieved from Connally's wounds in the wrist (there were no fragments in the chest) weighed about 2 grains (130 milligrams).
The oval entrance wound observed on Connally's back and chest is consistent either with the bullet yawing or tumbling on exiting Kennedy's throat (bullets often lose stability when striking a solid object) and entering Connally at an oblique angle or with Connally being turned at an angle to the bullet's direction when hit. The bullet entered just at the edge of the scapula and followed the fifth rib, shattering the last 10 cm of the rib before exiting on the right side of his chest just below the right nipple. According to the theory, the bullet then went through the Governor's jacket cuff about .5 cm from the end, the shirt's French cuff about 1.5 cm from the end, struck and shattered his radius leaving many dark fibres and small fragments of metal in the wound, and exited on the palm side of his wrist above the cuff. (There was a hole about .5 cm from the end of the jacket sleeve and a hole through the back of the doubled French cuff but no exit hole on the palm side.
According to the theory, the bullet emerged from the palm side of the wrist and entered the left thigh. This bullet is thought to be CE 399 which was recovered from Governor Connally's stretcher later at Parkland Hospital. CE 399 was ballistically matched to the rifle found in the Texas Schoolbook Depository, to the exclusion of all other rifles.
Read more about this topic: Single Bullet Theory
Famous quotes containing the words importance, bullet, entry, level and/or theory:
“The awareness of the all-surpassing importance of social groups is now general property in America.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“It’s not the bullet with my name on it that worries me. It’s the one that says “To whom it may concern.””
—Anonymous Belfast Resident. quoted in Guardian (London, Oct. 16, 1991)
“When women can support themselves, have entry to all the trades and professions, with a house of their own over their heads and a bank account, they will own their bodies and be dictators in the social realm.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“... when you do get a job everybody says, “Well, they wanted a black woman,” which necessarily puts you on a level where you have to prove yourself above being a woman and being black.... Now, I would say, in certain situations, it helped me simply because I was mildly attractive, not because I was black or a woman. That gets you more mileage than anything else.... God help you if you’re not an attractive woman.”
—Theresa Brown (b. 1957)
“In the theory of gender I began from zero. There is no masculine power or privilege I did not covet. But slowly, step by step, decade by decade, I was forced to acknowledge that even a woman of abnormal will cannot escape her hormonal identity.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)