Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

by United States. Warren Commission

The Subsequent Bullet That Hit

After a bullet penetrated President Kennedy’s neck, a subsequent shot entered the back of his head and exited through the upper right portion of his skull. The Zapruder, Nix and Muchmore films show the instant in the sequence when that bullet struck. (See Commission Exhibit No. 902, [p. 108].) That impact was evident from the explosion of the President’s brain tissues from the right side of his head. The immediately preceding frame from the Zapruder film shows the President slumped to his left, clutching at his throat, with his chin close to his chest and his head tilted forward at an angle.[C3-325] Based upon information provided by the doctors who conducted the autopsy, an artist’s drawing depicted the path of the bullet through the President’s head, with his head being in the same approximate position.[C3-326]

By using the Zapruder, Nix and Muchmore motion pictures, the President’s location at the time the bullet penetrated his head was fixed with reasonable precision. A careful analysis of the Nix and Muchmore films led to fixing the exact location of these cameramen. The point of impact of the bullet on the President’s head was apparent in all of the movies. At that point in the Nix film a straight line was plotted from the camera position to a fixed point in the background and the President’s location along this line was marked on a plat map.[C3-327] A similar process was followed with the Muchmore film. The President’s location on the plat map was identical to that determined from the Nix film.[C3-328] The President’s location, established through the Nix and Muchmore films, was confirmed by comparing his position on the Zapruder film. This location had hitherto only been approximated, since there were no landmarks in the background of the Zapruder frame for alinement purposes other than a portion of a painted line on the curb.[C3-329] Through these procedures, it was determined that President Kennedy was shot in the head when he was 230.8 feet from a point on the west curbline on Houston Street where it intersected with Elm Street.[C3-330] The President was 265.3 feet from the rifle in the sixth-floor window and at that position the approximate angle of declination was 15°21’.[C3-331]

NUMBER OF SHOTS

The consensus among the witnesses at the scene was that three shots were fired.[C3-332] However, some heard only two shots,[C3-333] while others testified that they heard four and perhaps as many as five or six shots.[C3-334] The difficulty of accurate perception of the sound of gunshots required careful scrutiny of all of this testimony regarding the number of shots. The firing of a bullet causes a number of noises: the muzzle blast, caused by the smashing of the hot gases which propel the bullet into the relatively stable air at the gun’s muzzle; the noise of the bullet, caused by the shock wave built up ahead of the bullet’s nose as it travels through the air; and the noise caused by the impact of the bullet on its target.[C3-335] Each noise can be quite sharp and may be perceived as a separate shot. The tall buildings in the area might have further distorted the sound.

The physical and other evidence examined by the Commission compels the conclusion that at least two shots were fired. As discussed previously, the nearly whole bullet discovered at Parkland Hospital and the two larger fragments found in the Presidential automobile, which were identified as coming from the assassination rifle, came from at least two separate bullets and possibly from three.[C3-336] The most convincing evidence relating to the number of shots was provided by the presence on the sixth floor of three spent cartridges which were demonstrated to have been fired by the same rifle that fired the bullets which caused the wounds. It is possible that the assassin carried an empty shell in the rifle and fired only two shots, with the witnesses hearing multiple noises made by the same shot. Soon after the three empty cartridges were found, officials at the scene decided that three shots were fired, and that conclusion was widely circulated by the press. The eyewitness testimony may be subconsciously colored by the extensive publicity given the conclusion that three shots were fired. Nevertheless, the preponderance of the evidence, in particular the three spent cartridges, led the Commission to conclude that there were three shots fired.

THE SHOT THAT MISSED

From the initial findings that (a) one shot passed through the President’s neck and then most probably passed through the Governor’s body, (b) a subsequent shot penetrated the President’s head, (c) no other shot struck any part of the automobile, and (d) three shots were fired, it follows that one shot probably missed the car and its occupants. The evidence is inconclusive as to whether it was the first, second, or third shot which missed.

The First Shot

If the first shot missed, the assassin perhaps missed in an effort to fire a hurried shot before the President passed under the oak tree, or possibly he fired as the President passed under the tree and the tree obstructed his view. The bullet might have struck a portion of the tree and been completely deflected. On the other hand, the greatest cause for doubt that the first shot missed is the improbability that the same marksman who twice hit a moving target would be so inaccurate on the first and closest of his shots as to miss completely, not only the target, but the large automobile.