Kennedy And The Magic Bullet Theory

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29th, 1917 and 43 years later he became America’s youngest President. During his short time as Chief Executive Officer, Kennedy’s can-do attitude invigorated the nation. He proposed the ambitious New Frontier policies which included expanding the space program, creating new Civil Rights legislation, improving education and enhancing the tax system (“Kennedy, John Fitzgerald” 1). Although his time as President was unusually short, Kennedy dealt with enough crises to fill 2 terms, specifically the Cold War. The focus of his administration was “to control the spread of communism and maintain a balance of power between the two nuclear giants, the United States and the Soviet Union” (Hunt 47). A major aspect
The “single bullet theory”, humorously named “the magic bullet”, is one of the most questioned aspects of the report. It suggested that the second shot passed through Kennedy’s throat before lodging itself in Governor Connally, who was sitting in front of the President. If the bullet were to take the path described by the Warren Report it would have passed through Kennedy’s throat before it “entered Connally’s back below the shoulder blade, traveled along one of his ribs and fractured it, exited his chest, entered the top of his wrist and fractured the radial bones and then exited again and finally lodged in the muscle beneath the skin of his left thigh” (Hunt 92). In order to create the wounds described the bullet would have had to take a near 90 degree turn down when it exited Connally’s chest to hit his wrist and then a near 90 degree left turn to go from his right wrist to his left thigh. The thought that a bullet could make not one but two 90 degree turns is ridiculous and easily refuted by physics. Even Connally thought that he was hit by a different bullet than the President was. He believed, “Beyond any question, and I’ll never change my opinion, the first bullet did not hit me. The second bullet hit me. The third bullet did not hit me” (Simkin 3). All these facts support the conspiracy theorists claims that one bullet could not have struck both Kennedy and Connally. Of the three shots fired one missed, one hit Kennedy in the throat and one hit Connally. That still leaves the death shot unaccounted for though. Several witnesses and other conspiracy theorists believe the fourth shot originated from the grassy knoll. The Zapruder film distinctly shows the President’s head jerking backward and to left as though he was shot from the front. Yet