Caro Francesco,
Le riporto qui sotto le testimonianze relative al primo colpo andato a vuoto e a chi vide (Virgie Rackley Baker, R.B. Skelton, W.G. Lumpkin, Stavis Ellis ecc)l'asfalto colpito da un proiettile. E' chiaro che sul primo colpo di Oswald andato a vuoto possiamo fare solo delle ipotesi: i testimoni che lo videro alla finestra prima dell'attentato lo videro con l'arma. Dobbiamo presumere che, dal suo angolo,Oswald abbia puntato l'arma verso l'auto che passava sotto la finestra. Ora, è chiaro, tutto può essere successo: fretta, errore di mira o quant'altro. Il proiettile potrebbe essersi scamiciato direttamente sull'asfalto, questo non possiamo saperlo. La deviazione del ramo è tuttavia compatibile con un fucile già puntato e l'auto che sparisce per alcuni secondi sotto la chioma della quercia. Dobbiamo presumere questo da un tiratore scelto (anche se non sceltissimo) del Corpo dei Marines, abituato a sparare in poligono militare 500 colpi al giorno. Quello che sappiamo è che il primo colpo fallì il bersaglio (Connally udì il primo colpo, ma non ne fu ferito; fu ferito dal secondo colpo, "come un pugno nella schiena",DI CUI NON UDI' LA DETONAZIONE; infine udì il terzo colpo che fece esplodere il cranio di JFK)e che un poliziotto fece notare a Tague il graffio sulla guancia, di cui non si era accorto, pur avendo sentito un piccolo bruciore sulla pelle come la puntura di un insetto. Quel che è certo, dunque, è che un frammento scamiciato colpì il marciapiede vicino a Tague. Dove, come e perché la scamiciatura sia avvenuta è oggetto di congetture. Io possiedo una foto di Elm Street con una scalfitura, ma è sepolta nei miei archivi. Se la trovo, la pubblicherò sul sito.Cordiali saluti.
Therefore, some of the very best witnesses should be motorcycle officers Billy Joe (B. J.) Martin, James M. Chaney, Stavis (Steve) Ellis, and William G. (Bill) Lumpkin, who were all among the closest eyewitnesses to the President's murder. Yet only one of these men was deposed by the Warren Commission.
Let's see what these witnesses tell us.
Billy Joe Martin:
I was looking at the president when the first shot was fired. It missed. The second shot hit the president in the back, and the third hit him in the head.(12)
Stavis Ellis:
That's when the first shot was fired. I was looking directly at the President, and I saw the concrete burst into a cloud of dust when that bullet hit the curb. . . . Then, while looking back at the President, I heard the second shot. The President became rigid and grabbed his neck.(13)
Ellis had given this information to the House Select Committee the previous year. The Committee reports:
On August 5, 1978, the committee received information from former Dallas policeman Stavis Ellis that Ellis had also seen a missile hit the ground in the area of the motorcade at the time of the assassination. Ellis said he rode on a motorcycle alongside the first car in the motorcade, approximately 100 to 125 feet in front of the car carrying President Kennedy. Ellis said that just as he started down the hill of Elm Street, he looked back toward President Kennedy's car and saw debris come up from the ground at a nearby curb.(14)
Compare this to the testimony of Royce Skelton, who "saw the motorcade come around the corner and I heard something which I thought was fireworks. I saw something hit the pavement at the left rear of the car . . . I heard two more shots."(15)
The House Select Committee notes:
In his Warren Commission testimony on April 8, 1964, Skelton said that he saw smoke rise from the pavement when the bullet hit. . . . Skelton also offered that the smoke he saw rising from the cement when the bullet hit "spread" in a direction away from the depository; he said the "spray" of flying cement went toward the west.(16)
Compare it also to another eyewitness report, that of Mrs. Virgie Rackley Baker, who "reported that at the time she heard the first shot, she looked in the direction of the triple underpass and saw what she presumed to be a bullet bouncing off the pavement."(17)
"As far as I can determine," writes longtime researcher Jim Moore, "no examination of the road surface was undertaken before Elm Street was repaved some months after the assassination."(18)
Returning to the testimony of those closest to the President's limousine, DPD motorcycle officer William G. Lumpkin says:
As the President started down Elm . . . that was the same time the shooting started. . . . The first shot apparently missed the limousine as it hit the curb, not too far from where [some onlookers] were standing. The second and third shots hit the President from the rear.(19)
According to Sheriff James C. Bowles, Officer James Chaney also corroborated this scenario concerning which of the three shots struck which target. Chaney died before Bowles conducted his formal interviews with these officers.(20) However, during one of Mark Lane's appearances before the Warren Commission, Lane stated, "James A. Chaney, who is a Dallas motorcycle policeman, was quoted in the Houston Chronicle on November 24, 1963, as stating that the first shot missed entirely. He said he was 6 feet to the right and front of the President's car, moving about 15 miles an hour, and when the first shot was fired, 'I thought it was a backfire,' he said."(21)
Also, let's hear from Glen Bennett of the Secret Service:
At this point I heard what sounded like a firecracker. I immediately looked . . . towards the President who was seated in the right rear seat of his limousine open convertible. At the moment I looked at the back of the President I heard another firecracker noise and saw the shot hit the President about four inches down from the right shoulder. (Emphasis aded.)(22)
Immediately following the shooting and before John F. Kennedy had even been pronounced dead, eyewitness Mary Woodward, a reporter for the Dallas Morning News, wrote an account of her recollections. She stated that, while her memory was "a little hazy" regarding events once the shooting began, "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 coming from a gun." "Then after a moment's pause there was another shot and I saw the President start slumping in the car."(23)
Two decades later Woodward was interviewed for the documentary film, The Men Who Killed Kennedy. She reiterated her conviction that no one was struck by the first shot. "I have never wavered on that," she said.(24)
Eyewitness T. E. Moore was watching the motorcade from the corner of Elm and Houston. Moore told Larry Sneed, "There was a highway marker sign right in front of the Book Depository, and as the President got around to that, the first shot was fired."(25) "I could see the car when the first shot was fired, which was on this side of the highway marker, a small number sign . . ."(26)
This highway sign is visible in several photographs and films taken that day (see below). It corresponds with the limousine's position at approximately Zapruder frames 133-160.(27)
Highway marker in front of the Book Depository, with inset of
identical sign from Houston Street (Thanks to Jack White for pointing these signs out)
The foregoing testimony is persuasive evidence that the first shot missed the limousine, supporting the photographic evidence and eyewitness testimony of a missed shot circa Zapruder frames 155-157.(28)
But there is no evidence it (or any shot) came from the Dal-Tex Building, as Oliver Stone claims, and no evidence that a missed shot was responsible for the strike near James Tague, down by the Triple Underpass.
Copyright © 2001, 2007 by David Reitzes
Diego Verdegiglio