A former Secret Service agent who was an eyewitness to the assassination of John F. Kennedy has decided to break his long-held silence, raising questions about the possibility of a second shooter.
Paul Landis, who was just behind the president when he was shot in 1963, now claims that he heard two additional gunshots during the attack.
Landis has also said that he discovered what became known as the “magic bullet,” though it was subsequently misplaced.
Following the assassination, this bullet was ultimately found on the stretcher of Texas Governor John Connally.
This discovery fuelled the controversial “magic bullet” theory, suggesting that the bullet had passed through President Kennedy before striking Governor Connally.
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The government’s initial investigation into the assassination had originally concluded that President Kennedy was shot with a single bullet that passed through his throat before inflicting a series of injuries on Governor Connally.
This conclusion formed a crucial part of the presumption that the killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, had acted alone.
Now, at the age of 88, Landis has authored a memoir in which he questions the official findings of the investigation.
Following Kennedy’s death, he resigned from his job and refused to participate in the investigation.
In an interview with the New York Times, Landis said he believed the bullet had been transferred from one stretcher to another when they were pushed together, emphasising the lack of security at the scene.
He said: “There was nobody there to secure the scene, and that was a big, big bother to me.
“All the agents that were there were focused on the president.
“This was all going on so quickly. And I was just afraid that — it was a piece of evidence, that I realised right away.
“Very important. And I didn’t want it to disappear or get lost. So it was, ‘Paul, you’ve got to make a decision,’ and I grabbed it’.”
In his upcoming memoir, The Final Witness, Landis contends that the bullet lacked the necessary velocity to penetrate Kennedy’s body, casting doubt on the theory that Oswald acted alone.
He continued: At this point, I’m beginning to doubt myself. Now I begin to wonder. That is as far as he is willing to go.”
Landis also suggested the bullet may have been misidentified after it was handed over to the Secret Service.
James Robenalt, an attorney and historian who collaborated with the former agent on a forthcoming book scheduled for release in October, believes that Landis’s account could potentially reopen the debate about the existence of a second shooter.
He asserted that if Mr. Landis’s claims are valid, it could challenge the central thesis of the Warren Report, particularly the single-bullet theory.
He told the Times: “If what he says is true, which I tend to believe, it is likely to reopen the question of a second shooter, if not even more. If the bullet we know as the magic or pristine bullet stopped in President Kennedy’s back, it means that the central thesis of the Warren Report, the single-bullet theory, is wrong.”
In an essay in Vanity Fair, he added: “First, if the ‘pristine’ bullet did not travel through both Kennedy and Connally, somehow ending up on Connally’s stretcher, then it stands to reason that Connally might have actually been hit by a separate bullet, coming from above and to the rear.
“The FBI recreation suggests that Oswald would not have had enough time to get off two separate shots so quickly as to hit Connally after wounding the president in the back.”
This scenario contradicts the FBI recreation, which suggested that Oswald could not have fired two separate shots quickly enough to hit Connally after wounding the President in the back.
Previously, the difference in the timing of the physical reactions of the two men who were shot was attributed to varying reaction times.
However, Landis’s new claims suggest the possibility of another bullet fired from the front, implying the presence of another shooter.
