The JFK 100
The Third Shot
The view from a lower floor of the Dal-Tex Building
The view from a lower floor of the Dal-Tex Building
Here New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) describes the third shot, originating in the Dal-Tex Building behind the limousine.
There is no evidence for a shot at this point. The annotated screenplay gives no source for the claim, but it may have come from consultant Robert Groden, who writes in his 1993 book, The Killing of a President, that in Zapruder frame 232, "The President is hit from behind. The gunshot most likely came from a near horizontal position [such as the second floor of the Dal-Tex Building], rather than higher up."(2) Groden cites no evidence for these claims.JIM (VOICE OVER) Frame 232, the third shot -- the President has been hit in the back, drawing him downward and forward.(1)
Moreover, as noted in The JFK 100: The First Shot, not a single eyewitness reported any shots coming from the Dal-Tex Building.
As shown in The JFK 100: The Single Bullet Theory, solid evidence fixes the instant of the President's back wound between frames 223 and 224 of the Zapruder film.
Costner's monologue continues:
The JFK 100: The Single Bullet Theory presents incontrovertible photographic evidence that Governor John B. Connally, like the President, was wounded between frames 223 and 224 of the Zapruder film.JIM Connally, you will notice, shows no signs at all of being hit. He is visibly holding his Stetson which is impossible if his wrist has been shattered.(3)
Mrs. Connally would later recall that the Governor still "had the hat in his hand" well after he had been wounded. Researcher John McAdams adds, "A close analysis of the Z-film indicates that Connally was holding onto his hat after the head shot."
Hawaii Senator Daniel K. Inouye's 1967 book, Journey to Washington, contains a passage that lends perspective to Oliver Stone's claim of what is or is not possible for the human body:
Oliver Stone's third shot is nothing but speculation.At last I was close enough to pull the pin on my last grenade. And as I drew my arm back, all in a flash of light and dark I saw him, that faceless German, like a strip of motion picture film running through a projector that's gone berserk. One instant he was standing waist-high in the bunker, and the next he was aiming a rifle grenade at my face from a range of 10 yards.And even as I cocked my arm to throw, he fired and his rifle grenade smashed into my right elbow and exploded and all but tore my arm off. I looked at it, stunned and unbelieving. It dangled there by a few bloody shreds of tissue, my grenade still clenched in a fist that suddenly didn't belong to me anymore . . ."
NOTES:1. Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film (New York: Applause, 1992), p. 164. All quotations are from the shooting script and may vary slightly from the finished motion picture.
2. Robert J. Groden, The Killing of a President (New York: Viking Studio Books, 1993), p. 29.
3. Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film (New York: Applause, 1992), p. 164. All quotations are from the shooting script and may vary slightly from the finished motion picture.