Does Connally's wrist wound disprove the SBT?

[Charles Collins]

John B. Connally was a handsome, smooth-talking charismatic politician who got ahead by projecting oodles and gobs of self-confidence.

I suspect that he wasn't nearly as sure about what had happened during the 10.2 seconds it took Oswald to fire all three shots as he pretended to be.

I think he made a lot of stuff up based on his foggy recollections and those of his wife.

To use AI terminology, he "hallucinated."

Kinda like GROK on steroids.

You hit the nail on the head. People have tried to rely too heavily on JBC’s account. It is understandable for the fellow politicians to give JBC the benefit of the doubt because that’s what politicians often do for each other. Here’s some snippets from JBC’s book “In History’s Shadow” beginning on page 12:

”The first shot struck the President in the neck. His hands flew to his throat, a reflex. I turned, and felt the blow against my back. My body was aligned in such a way that the bullet passed through my chest, shattered my right wrist, and lodged in my thigh.”
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”I was still conscious when the third shot blew off part of John Kennedy’d head. It is no longer possible to say with certitude how much of the race to Parkland Memorial Hospital I remember, and how much I have been told by Nellie, or picked up from watching the news films or reading the official reports.”
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”The federal agents, who had been assigned to their own car (called “the Queen Mary”), jumped out and headed for the front entrance even as some in the crowd were still waving to the President.
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”Twice during the race to the hospital, Nellie admitted, she had thought I was dead. I was in and out of consciousness. I came to just when the car jolted to a stop at the emergency entrance to Parkland Memorial. How strangely the mind works. I knew I was badly wounded and I thought fatally so. I knew the President was dead. Yet it made sense to me that the hospital orderlies would want to get him out of the car before they could think of treating me.
The back door was beside the jump seat I was in, and I realized I might be blocking the way. Arms snaked across Nellie to reach the President. Subconsciously, I suppose, I struggled to raise myself from Nellie’s lap to give them room. I half stood, then collapsed and passed out again.”
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”They wheeled me into Trauma Room 2, and Dr. Duke probed the hole in my chest. Another doctor examined my wrist. They spotted more blood on my trousers, and someone fumbled with the belt and tried to wriggle them down my legs. I cried out sharply, “Cut them off!” When I spoke, peopled jumped back as if a coffin lid had moved. I hadn’t been given a sedative because it hadn’t occurred to them I would be conscious - if I was alive.
I don’t know which, but fear or stubbornness kept waking me. I heard someone say, “Let’s turn him over and see if he was hit somewhere else.” With that, I spoke up again. I said, “no, I was only hit once.”
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”I knew many, many years ago that I would never be able to give people what they wanted or needed about that day. I have felt rage and grief and helplessness, as tens of millions of Americans did. What else I can share I have shared with Nellie because the lasting, bitter emotion of that day is numbness. Many of my memories are secondhand. I am missing the most historic minutes of my life. There are blank spaces in an unbearable scene; perhaps I could not have borne the scene otherwise. … This was what I missed, what I would put together from the accounts of those who survived that day in Dallas. … I had no sense of what was happening around me, or in Trauma Room 1, but I knew all I needed to know. Later, little by little, Nellie and others filled in the parts that were missing.”
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”Everything I saw, heard, and felt is consistent with what was visible in the frame-by frame analysis of the film taken by Abraham Zapruder, a Dallas merchant who became an accidental historian:  The first shot passed through the neck of John F. Kennedy, I saw him clutch his throat. The second shot was the one that struck me; of this I have no doubt. Nellie had pulled me to her when the third bullet blew across the car a spray of the President’s brain.”


In the last snippet above I underlined an important distinction. JBC stated he had no doubt about only one aspect of that shooting sequence (the second shot struck him). JBC does not indicate that he has no doubt about the other aspects he outlined in that snippet. JBC has stated elsewhere that he could have been mistaken about the single bullet theory being wrong. If I find where I read that I will post it, I am still looking for it. With these things in mind, I think that the early missed shot is not disproved by JBC’s account.

[Royell Storing]

  You got it BACKWARD. An alleged "early missed shot" has to be PROVEN. This is why the SBT is a THEORY. Neither has been PROVEN.

[Tom Graves]

  You got it BACKWARD. An alleged "early missed shot" has to be PROVEN. This is why the SBT is a THEORY. Neither has been PROVEN.

Dear Sonderführer Storing,

Unless one believes that oodles and gobs of Deep State bad guys were involved in the planning, the "patsy-ing," the planting of evidence, the shooting, the GETTING AWAY, the altering of every single photo and film, and the all-important (and evidently ongoing!!!) cover up, an early missed shot and the SBT are the only logical explanations for what the witnesses heard, what the witnesses saw, what the photographers caught on film, what the police found on the 6th floor of the TSBD, the nature of the damage to the limousine, and the nature of the wounds that the doctors at Parkland and Bethesda dealt with.

D'oh

-- Tom

[Royell Storing]

Dear Sonderführer Storing,

Unless one believes that oodles and gobs of Deep State bad guys were involved in the planning, the "patsy-ing," the planting of evidence, the shooting, the GETTING AWAY, and the all-important (and evidently ongoing!!!) cover up, an early missed shot and the SBT are the only logical explanations for what the witnesses heard, what the witnesses saw, what the photographers caught on film, what the police found on the 6th floor of the TSBD, the nature of the damage to the limousine, and the nature of the wounds that the doctors at Parkland and Bethesda dealt with.

D'oh

-- Tom

   "Logical Explanations" don't feed the bulldog.  The sudden appearance of the "getaway" car outside of the TSBD Proves a Conspiracy.

[Tom Graves]

"Logical explanations" don't feed the bulldog.  The sudden appearance of the "getaway" car outside of the TSBD proves a conspiracy.

LOL!

Good one!

[Andrew Mason]

…
an early missed shot and the SBT are the only logical explanations for what the witnesses heard, what the witnesses saw, what the photographers caught on film, what the police found on the 6th floor of the TSBD, the nature of the damage to the limousine, and the nature of the wounds that the doctors at Parkland and Bethesda dealt with.

How does an early missed shot or the SBT - neither of which are supported by witnesses, film, things found on the 6th floor, damage to the limo, or the wounds -  explain such evidence?

[Andrew Mason]

You hit the nail on the head. People have tried to rely too heavily on JBC’s account. It is understandable for the fellow politicians to give JBC the benefit of the doubt because that’s what politicians often do for each other.

It is one thing to not rely on JBC's account alone.  That's a reasonable thing to do.  But that doesn't mean that you then assume that it was wrong.

Let's look at some of what he said:

• He said that they had progressed 150-200 feet down Elm St. from the turn when the first shot sounded.   
  
• He said he turned around to his right to check on JFK after the first shot, which he did not feel but heard, and could not see him despite being very interested because he feared an assassination was unfolding. 
  
• He then felt, but did not hear, a second shot that struck him in the back and exited his chest and which he immediately thought was a fatal wound.
  
• JBC accepted Nellie Connally's recollection that JFK reacted to the first shot before the second shot. 
  
• He then heard and observed the effects of the third shot.
  

How does all this fit with other evidence?:

• First of all, estimates of distance are just that: estimates.  150-200 feet indicates a level of uncertainty of ±50 feet so he is, in effect saying 175 feet ±50 feet. So he is saying it appeared to him to be more than 125 feet and less than 225 feet. There is also some uncertainty as to exactly where he was measuring from, but let's assume it was from the red line here which is in line with the west side of Houston St.:
     
  My measurement from that line to the middle of the President's limo is 136 feet and the limo is in between the lamp post and the Thornton Freeway sign.  This also happens to be where the Secret Service video puts JFK when he is first completely clear of the oak tree when viewed from the SN:
  
  And then we have Mary Woodward who said that the first shot occurred as the President's limo just passed by her, or Gloria Calvery and Karen Westbrook who said that the President's car was "almost directly in front of where I was standing" when the first shot sounded".  Woodward was standing just west of the lamp post and Calvery and Westbrook were just west of Woodward, midway between the two lamp posts.  This also fits with occupants of the VP car who said that they had just completed the turn onto Elm and were heading to the triple overpass (it is still turning when last seen at z180). This also fits with occupants of the VP security car who said that their car had almost completed the turn and along side the TSBD when the first shot sounded. It is almost in that position when last seen in z190. It also fits with photographers Robert Croft and Hugh Betzner who put it a bit after z161 and just after z186 - and Linda Willis who said that JFK was between her and the Stemmons sign when the first shot sounded (which puts it between about z195-z203). 
  
• He said he turned around to his right to check on JFK after the first shot, which he did not feel but heard, and could not see him despite being very interested because he feared an assassination was unfolding. 
       We do not see JBC making any attempt to turn to look rearward prior to his turn that began at z228 or so and continued to about z278.  This fits with the observations of about 20 witnesses who said that JFK reacted immediately to the first shot by moving left/assuming a blank stare/bringing his hands to his chest/neck.  No one said he continued to smile and wave after the first shot.
• He makes no attempt to get down until about z278 when he begins to fall back onto Nellie.  His description of events does not fit with him being hit at z223 which was 3 seconds before falling back onto his wife.  On the other hand, we have the evidence of both Nellie and JBC who, in looking at frames of the zfilm picked z230-ish as the point at which they thought he looked like he had been shot. Nellie was not cross-examined on this about her recollection that she looked back at JFK before the second shot and saw him with his hands to his neck before the second shot.  She said she did not look back after the second shot.  She is turned facing rearward until about z270.
• While JBC accepted Nellie Connally's recollection that JFK reacted to the first shot before the second shot, she was only one of at least 20 other witnesses who recalled JFK reacting to the first shot. They are: T.E. Moore; Nellie Connally; David Powers; Gayle Newman; William Newman; John Chism; Faye Chism; James Altgens; Abraham Zapruder; Clint Hill; Linda Willis; George Hickey; Sam Kinney; Paul Landis; Cecil Ault; Harold Norman; Malcolm Summers; Mary Moorman; Jean Newman; Charles Brehm; Pierce Allman;
  
• While there is some suggestion that there was a shot after the head shot, the vast preponderance of evidence is that this was the third and last shot.
  

In the last snippet above I underlined an important distinction. JBC stated he had no doubt about only one aspect of that shooting sequence (the second shot struck him). JBC does not indicate that he has no doubt about the other aspects he outlined in that snippet. JBC has stated elsewhere that he could have been mistaken about the single bullet theory being wrong. If I find where I read that I will post it, I am still looking for it. With these things in mind, I think that the early missed shot is not disproved by JBC’s account.

There was a clip from an interview done a few years afterward in which he stated that it is possible that JFK was not hit on the first shot but that the best witness, Nellie Connally, disagreed with it and he agreed with her.

[Royell Storing]

It is one thing to not rely on JBC's account alone.  That's a reasonable thing to do.  But that doesn't mean that you then assume that it was wrong.

Let's look at some of what he said:

• He said that they had progressed 150-200 feet down Elm St. from the turn when the first shot sounded.   
  
• He said he turned around to his right to check on JFK after the first shot, which he did not feel but heard, and could not see him despite being very interested because he feared an assassination was unfolding. 
  
• He then felt, but did not hear, a second shot that struck him in the back and exited his chest and which he immediately thought was a fatal wound.
  
• JBC accepted Nellie Connally's recollection that JFK reacted to the first shot before the second shot. 
  
• He then heard and observed the effects of the third shot.
  

How does all this fit with other evidence?:

• First of all, estimates of distance are just that: estimates.  150-200 feet indicates a level of uncertainty of ±50 feet so he is, in effect saying 175 feet ±50 feet. So he is saying it appeared to him to be more than 125 feet and less than 225 feet. There is also some uncertainty as to exactly where he was measuring from, but let's assume it was from the red line here which is in line with the west side of Houston St.:
     
  My measurement from that line to the middle of the President's limo is 136 feet and the limo is in between the lamp post and the Thornton Freeway sign.  This also happens to be where the Secret Service video puts JFK when he is first completely clear of the oak tree when viewed from the SN:
  
  And then we have Mary Woodward who said that the first shot occurred as the President's limo just passed by her, or Gloria Calvery and Karen Westbrook who said that the President's car was "almost directly in front of where I was standing" when the first shot sounded".  Woodward was standing just west of the lamp post and Calvery and Westbrook were just west of Woodward, midway between the two lamp posts.  This also fits with occupants of the VP car who said that they had just completed the turn onto Elm and were heading to the triple overpass (it is still turning when last seen at z180). This also fits with occupants of the VP security car who said that their car had almost completed the turn and along side the TSBD when the first shot sounded. It is almost in that position when last seen in z190. It also fits with photographers Robert Croft and Hugh Betzner who put it a bit after z161 and just after z186 - and Linda Willis who said that JFK was between her and the Stemmons sign when the first shot sounded (which puts it between about z195-z203). 
  
• He said he turned around to his right to check on JFK after the first shot, which he did not feel but heard, and could not see him despite being very interested because he feared an assassination was unfolding. 
       We do not see JBC making any attempt to turn to look rearward prior to his turn that began at z228 or so and continued to about z278.  This fits with the observations of about 20 witnesses who said that JFK reacted immediately to the first shot by moving left/assuming a blank stare/bringing his hands to his chest/neck.  No one said he continued to smile and wave after the first shot.
• He makes no attempt to get down until about z278 when he begins to fall back onto Nellie.  His description of events does not fit with him being hit at z223 which was 3 seconds before falling back onto his wife.  On the other hand, we have the evidence of both Nellie and JBC who, in looking at frames of the zfilm picked z230-ish as the point at which they thought he looked like he had been shot. Nellie was not cross-examined on this about her recollection that she looked back at JFK before the second shot and saw him with his hands to his neck before the second shot.  She said she did not look back after the second shot.  She is turned facing rearward until about z270.
• While JBC accepted Nellie Connally's recollection that JFK reacted to the first shot before the second shot, she was only one of at least 20 other witnesses who recalled JFK reacting to the first shot. They are: T.E. Moore; Nellie Connally; David Powers; Gayle Newman; William Newman; John Chism; Faye Chism; James Altgens; Abraham Zapruder; Clint Hill; Linda Willis; George Hickey; Sam Kinney; Paul Landis; Cecil Ault; Harold Norman; Malcolm Summers; Mary Moorman; Jean Newman; Charles Brehm; Pierce Allman;
  
• While there is some suggestion that there was a shot after the head shot, the vast preponderance of evidence is that this was the third and last shot.
  

There was a clip from an interview done a few years afterward in which he stated that it is possible that JFK was not hit on the first shot but that the best witness, Nellie Connally, disagreed with it and he agreed with her.

     If you are going to steadfastly rely on Gov Connally's recollections, you have to accept the entirety of what he said. The SBT relies on Connally being seated inboard of JFK's seated position in the back seat. How, if Connally is allegedly sitting "inboard" of JFK, can Connally turn to his (R) and, "...not see him"? The "...not see him" fits only if JFK is seated Directly Behind Gov. Connally.