The First Shot

[Charles Collins]

Huh. Aynesworth's original account of his actions on the day of the shooting, found in the book you recently purchased, claims he saw Kennedy's head jerk with the second shot. He reports this in an eyewitness account--not in an account of the shooting as told by numerous witnesses. If you read through the book, furthermore, you'll find that the notes collected by his paper were all supposed to be personal accounts of the day of the shooting, and not news stories comprising the recollections of others.  Now, this was written before the publication of the Warren Report, and the gradual belief the last shot was the head shot. So it's understandable if Aynesworth backed away from his initial impression--lord knows many other witnesses did as much.

Now, could Aynesworth have even seen Kennedy at the time of the head shot? Good question. Probably not. The possibility exists, then, that he just added the bit about seeing Kennedy's head jerk to impress his boss--Aynesworth was at that time a young ambitions reporter and he may very well have noticed how those closest to the action (or claiming to be closest to the action, a la Dan Rather) received a boost in credibility, and stature, within the journalistic community. (See Barbie Zelizer's Covering the Body).

Now, as to my personal feelings regarding Aynesworth's credibility... When I created my witness database, many if not most CTs were of the mind-set Aynesworth was not even in Dealey Plaza at the time of the shooting--I mean, where were his notes, his interviews, etc, and why hasn't he ID'ed himself in a photo, etc... But, from reading his many statements over the years, I've come to believe he was just where he said he was (at least some of the time), mid-block on the east side of Houston and Elm.

So why do I think as much? Aynesworth is a dyed-in-the-wool Oswald did-it guy. And yet he has been consistent in claiming the last two shots were bunched together. If he'd made up his story, it seems he would have changed it to fit the nonsensical 160-224-313 scenario pushed by most LNs these days. But he hasn't. So I tend to believe it is his genuine impression the last two shots were bunched together.

In any event, upon re-reading Aynesworth's account, I noticed something I should have included on my website--that Aynesworth placed himself in the vicinity of a large black woman wearing a pink dress. Such a woman should be easy to spot in the crowd along Houston. I took a quick look and was unable to find her. Maybe someone with an interest in supporting Aynesworth's credibility could find her, and then find him nearby.

In any event, upon re-reading Aynesworth's account, I noticed something I should have included on my website--that Aynesworth placed himself in the vicinity of a large black woman wearing a pink dress. Such a woman should be easy to spot in the crowd along Houston. I took a quick look and was unable to find her. Maybe someone with an interest in supporting Aynesworth's credibility could find her, and then find him nearby.

I would certainly like to hear Hugh Aynesworth explain the discrepancies. But like I said earlier, I don’t want to be the one to confront him with this. He is still around as far as I know. And he isn’t hard to look up. If you want to use this account as “evidence” and that he is describing what he himself saw, then perhaps you might want to be the one to contact Aynesworth and have him confirm or deny your claim.

In the meantime I remembered a description in Howard Brennan’s book “Witness to History” which was written around 1987 that has a certain amount of similarity to what Hugh Aynesworth wrote in the account in question in 1964. From page 13 in Howard Brennan’s book:

Just then a woman close to me screamed in full realization of what was happening. She uttered something like, “Oh, my God!” But even as she did my eyes darted back to that solitary figure who was changing history.

Yes, I know it is not exactly the same description that Aynesworth wrote in 1964. But the use of the word darted when describing eye movements is interesting. How many witnesses have used that word in their accounts? I don’t recall any others off the top of my head. And if Aynesworth was doing what he claims he was doing immediately after the shooting (taking notes of his interviews) and he heard Brennan use that word, he might have jotted it down in his notes. If so, and if Aynesworth was using his notes when writing the account as requested by his editor, he might have decided to use that word in the account.

Yep, it is a stretch, and only my conjecture. And I could be completely wrong and it could only be a coincidence. But there is a certain similarity that I find interesting.

[John Tonkovich]

What do we see in the Willis photo that proves it was taken simultaneously with the first shot?

I see some things that suggest it was taken well after the first shot:

• Mrs. Kennedy and the Connallys are looking to their right; all said they turned their heads in reaction to hearing the first shot; the Connallys beginning in the Z160s and Mrs. Kennedy in the Z170s. Willis05 was taken at Z202. Willis himself stated:
  
      "Mrs. Kennedy was likewise smiling and facing more to my side of
       the street. When the first shot was fired, her head seemed to just
       snap in that direction ... she turned to the right toward him."
  
• Agent John Ready is looking off to his right; he also said he did this in response to the first shot.
  
• Agent Bennett (between the Betzner and Willis photos) moves his head from his right to his left:
  
      "I immediately looked from the right/crowd/physical area/and
       looked towards the President who was seated in the right
       rear seat of his limousine open convertible."

My timing of the Willis photo is that it was taken about 2.4 seconds after the first shots and 1.14 seconds before the second shot. If it happened that way, the Willis photo was "simultaneous" with the first two shots, but not a particular shot. Willis was sort of telling the truth, Ted Cruz-style.

My point being, Willis "was" in Dealey Plaza. There's proof.
I could give a rat's a$$ about Z202 vs Z204.
Aynesworth "was" somewhere. Dealey Plaza? No proof.

Don't muddle the issue.
We're back to Gerry Ford again. Regardless of what Ted Kennedy said years later, there was still a quid pro quo.

[Pat Speer]

On a second look through the photos, Charles, I think I found the woman described by Aynesworth. She's right by the entrance to the jail, which is to say, near the south end of the County Records Building along Houston. She is most easily observed in the Betzner photo of the JFK limo on Houston.



To be clear, I don't have a particular grievance against Aynesworth. When I first started researching this case (about 18 years ago), I was confounded by all the cherry-picking and misinformation caused by cherry-picking. So I decided to create a database per se, in which I compared the statements made by witnesses over the years. I started off with the assassination witnesses, but eventually included sections where I compare the statements of the Parkland witnesses as well. And the bottom line is this--most every witness making more than one or two statements over the years contradicted themselves on one point or another.

But that's not to say that witnesses are unreliable. When there is a consistent pattern within the witness statements--such as the earliest and closest witnesses saying the last two shots were bunched together--which is in direct opposition to the cognitive psychology maxim time slows down during traumatic events--one can bet the farm the last two loud sounds heard by the bulk of the witnesses were bunched together.

As far as the possibility of a shot at 190, it's not just the blur analysis and eyewitness evidence that places the first shot at this time, but the photo analysis. One of the most overlooked facts about the case is that the HSCA photography panel concluded a shot rang out before Kennedy went behind the sign...and that they came to this conclusion before the acoustics panel came to their conclusion a shot at Z-190 was probable.

Dave Powers said Kennedy jerked off the side of the car when hit. Kennedy's head and arm movements as he heads behind the sign suggest he was hit at this time. His movements at this time certainly don't look natural. And the failure of Dale Myers etc to acknowledge this and to insist he continued calmly waving at this time is perplexing, to say the least.

[John Tonkovich]

On a second look through the photos, Charles, I think I found the woman described by Aynesworth. She's right by the entrance to the jail, which is to say, at the south end of the County Records Building along Houston. She is most easily observed in the Betzner photo of the JFK limo on Houston.

To be clear, I don't have a particular grievance against Aynesworth. When I first started researching this case (about 18 years ago), I was confounded by all the cherry-picking and misinformation caused by cherry-picking. So I decided to create a database per se, in which I compared the statements made by witnesses over the years. I started off with the assassination witnesses, but eventually included sections where I compare the statements of the Parkland witnesses as well. And the bottom line is this--most every witness making more than one or two statements over the years contradicted themselves on one point or another.

But that's not to say that witnesses are unreliable. When there is a consistent pattern within the witness statements--such as the earliest and closest witnesses saying the last two shots were bunched together--which is in direct opposition to the cognitive psychology maxim time slows down during traumatic events--one can bet the farm the last two loud sounds heard by the bulk of the witnesses were bunched together.

As far as the possibility of a shot at 190, it's not just the blur analysis and eyewitness evidence that places the first shot at this time, but the photo analysis. One of the most overlooked facts about the case is that the HSCA photography panel concluded a shot rang out before Kennedy went behind the sign...and that they came to this conclusion before the acoustics panel came to their conclusion a shot at Z-190 was probable. Here's why...





Kennedy's head and arm movements as he heads behind the sign suggest he was hit at this time. They certainly don't look natural. And the failure of Dale Myers etc to acknowledge this and to insist he continued calmly waving at this time is perplexing, to say the least.

Thanks Mr Speer.
SS and FBI both suggested Z207 as first hit. Within days of the assassination.

[Pat Speer]

Thanks Mr Speer.
SS and FBI both suggested Z207 as first hit. Within days of the assassination.

If you haven't looked at Chapter 2b at patspeer.com, you should probably give it a look.

Purvis and I used to hash it out on the Ed Forum. He had it in his head that the SS and FBI were on the up and up, and that the WC came along and dismantled their work.

But Purvis had NEVER bothered to read the FBI and SS memos and reports on this stuff. It turns out that the FBI and SS both claimed the head shot occurred way past Kennedy's position at Z-313, and that Eisenberg and Specter caught them in this charade, and tried to straighten things out, so that their single-assassin solution wouldn't collapse under even the slightest analysis. This is all demonstrated on my website.

In essence, I believe the SS and FBI were concerned the shots were fired too closely together, and that they deliberately moved the head shot (which they believed was the last shot) further down the road so as to give the assassin (whom they believed to be Oswald) more time to fire the shots. They fudged their work. And got caught.

FWIW, when confronted with the FBI internal memos proving the FBI assumed the last shot was the head shot, Purvis claimed they'd all been faked by Specter et al, to cover their tracks. These were the FBI's internal memos, from the FBI's files, which had never been provided the Warren Commission.

I lost respect for Purvis at that point.

We'd been colleagues, of sorts, in that we were at one point the only two researchers pushing there was a shot after the head shot. But I couldn't go along with his claim Specter and Eisenberg and Belin et al were the bad guys in this whole fiasco, and that the SS and FBI were innocent. At the time I wondered if anti-semitism had clouded his thinking, but later came to believe his military background had led him to favor what he interpreted as hard-working men of action over sycophantic lawyer-types. And I can't say I disagree with him in that bias...

[James Hackerott]

On a second look through the photos, Charles, I think I found the woman described by Aynesworth. She's right by the entrance to the jail, which is to say, near the south end of the County Records Building along Houston. She is most easily observed in the Betzner photo of the JFK limo on Houston.

I looked for a large black woman wearing a pink dress in Bell, Hughes and Nix color films. Only the Bell video, from “The Lost “Bullet”, gives a clear enough view of, possibly, such a woman. I stabilized Bell's Houston Street clip, centering on a woman that seems to wear a very faint pinkish dress. She is near where Don Roberdeau shows Aynesworth on the sidewalk towards the SW corner of the DCRB.  After stabilization, 9 frames were combined with stacking software. Stacking (frame addition) improves the signal-to-noise ratio with the aim of strongly increasing the image saturation. The result on my laptop appears pinkish, while on a TV appears a little more orange.

edit: Upon plotting the camera locations of Bell and Betzner both of us are discussing the same woman.

[Walt Cakebread]

I looked for a large black woman wearing a pink dress in Bell, Hughes and Nix color films. Only the Bell video, from “The Lost “Bullet”, gives a clear enough view of, possibly, such a woman. I stabilized Bell's Houston Street clip, centering on a woman that seems to wear a very faint pinkish dress. She is near where Don Roberdeau shows Aynesworth on the sidewalk towards the SW corner of the DCRB.  After stabilization, 9 frames were combined with stacking software. Stacking (frame addition) improves the signal-to-noise ratio with the aim of strongly increasing the image saturation. The result on my laptop appears pinkish, while on a TV appears a little more orange.

Ok, that's all well and good...... I'll not disagree with you.....  BUT?..... Where is Aynesworth?  He doesn't appear to be in the vicinity.