Mary Woodward said there were 3 shots and the 1st shot missed everything

[Tom Graves]

"This was followed rapidly by another shot."

Why did you delete the word "rapidly" from the edited version?

Because the "another shot" occurred about five seconds later when JFK's head was blown off in Z-313.

[Lance Payette]

I care absolutely nothing about this topic, but now I'm totally confused. Mary's article does sound as though she and her coworkers were sitting on the grassy knoll and that the shots came from behind them and a little to the right, which sounds like the fence area. This was a 23-year-old reporter writing about an event she had just witnessed. In "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" she doesn't state where she was or where the shots seemed to come from. She waffles about "did the first shot miss, as I thought it did" and suggests the limo could have moved more quickly if there had been a missed first shot. In the 2015 Sixth Floor Museum interview, it's clear that she and her coworkers were standing on Elm, nowhere near the grassy knoll, and she tap dances around the issue as to why her article said the shots came from behind and to her right. In a piece written after Mary's death in 2017, huffy Milicent Cranor suggested Mary was a lying bimbo who tried to get with the LN narrative by blaming her confusion on a hearing problem at a conference as early as 1993 (a problem she emphasizes in the 2015 interview as well): https://whowhatwhy.org/hidden-power/low-quality-disinformation-kennedy-assassination/.

I can understand any earwitness thinking the shots came from the Triple Underpass when they actually came from the TSBD because Bowers described exactly that phenomenon and I have experienced it myself. What I cannot understand is Mary writing on the very day of the JFKA that she and her friends "decided to cross Elm and wait there on the grassy slope just east of the Triple Underpass [with their lunches], since there weren’t very many people there and we could get a better view" when in fact they were standing on Elm between the Thornton sign and the Stemmons sign. That seems to be an astounding state of confusion for a reporter. In fact, she says in the 2015 interview that she "noticed" the grassy knoll and commented on the lack of security in that area. She says she was "under the influence of a tranquilizer" when she wrote the article - but good Lord, you didn't know the difference between sitting with your lunch on the grassy knoll and standing on Elm between the signs???

[Tom Graves]

Dear Stormtrooper Storing,

You asked, "Where, exactly, is Mary Woodward supposed [sic] to have been standing on the north side of Elm Street?"

Answer: Blond-haired Mary Woodward is circled in this Z-150 frame.

https://www.jfk.org/wp-content/uploads/Mary-Woodward-circled.jpg

Standing to the left of her is her journalism colleague, Aurelia Alonzo, and to the right of her are, from left to right, her colleagues Ann Donaldson and Maggie Brown.

In this frame, JFK has reacted to Oswald's early missing-everything shot by quickly turning his head to his left. In a few frames he will turn his head back to his right and resume looking at the spectators. Woodward, who had met JFK several times before he became president, wrote in her 11/23/63 article that they clapped and cheered to get his attention. At around Z-175, he begins to raise his arm to wave to Woodward and her colleagues. Jackie is already looking to her left in Z-150 but will turn farther to her left by Z-161 (when she is "captured" by Robert Croft), and by Z-175 will begin turning her head far to her right to smile and wave -- according to Woodward -- to Woodward and Co.) 

(Not to open a can of worms, but to the immediate right of Maggie Brown is Gloria Calvery's tallish colleague, light-colored-headscarf-wearing Karen Westbrook, who totally screwed up her interview with smilin'-and-noddin' Stephen Fagin at the Sixth Floor Museum. Westbrook mistakenly thought Calvery (the big-tall gal wearing the black blouse and the black headscarf) was the strawberry-blond gal standing "near" the Stemmons Freeway sign in the Zapruder film, and that she, Westbrook, was standing to the immediate right of her and wearing the blue headscarf. In reality, the three gals standing "by" the Stemmons sign were three colleagues at South West Publishing in the TSBD -- self-described American Indian Stella Mae Jacob, Gloria Jeanne Holt, and blue-headscarf-wearing Sharon Simmons.)

-- Tom

Bumped for Stormtrooper Storing and FPR, et al.

[Lance Payette]

We know where she was standing  That is made completely clear in the 2015 interview. The issue is why she wrote on the day of the JFKA that she was sitting and eating lunch on the thinly populated grassy knoll. And not only made that absurd error but compounded it by describing the shots as coming from behind and to her right. Her hearing problem tap dance doesn't explain how she got her location and circumstances so completely wrong. And this was a reporter for a major newspaper, no less.

[Tom Graves]

We know where she was standing. That is made completely clear in the 2015 interview. The issue is why she wrote on the day of the JFKA that she was sitting and eating lunch on the thinly populated grassy knoll. And not only made that absurd error but compounded it by describing the shots as coming from behind and to her right. Her hearing problem tap dance doesn't explain how she got her location and circumstances so completely wrong. And this was a reporter for a major newspaper, no less.

Dear FPR,

Based on a close viewing of the Zapruder film, Woodward was wrong in her 11/23/63 article when she said "the limo came to a near stop after the early backfire-like first shot (at "Z-124"?) that missed everything." (paraphrased)

As you know, the limo came to a near stop after the Z-222-ish second shot.

And she was wrong when she said JFK and Jackie waved to her and her colleagues before said early backfire-like first shot that missed everything.

JFK waved to Westbrook and Co. between Z-175 and Z-190, i.e., after the early, backfire-like, missing-everything first shot.

Confirmation that Woodward's memory was correct when she wrote that both JFK and Jackie waved to her and her colleagues can be found by viewing the Zapruder film closely.

JFK waved to her and her colleagues between Z-175 and Z-190, and although Jackie's body and most of her head are blocked from our view in Z-180, we can discern that she's no longer looking far to her left at Robert Croft, but has turned her head towards Woodward and Co., so we can reasonably assume that she's waving to them, too.

Another mistake Woodward made was saying, in so many words, that the third-and-final shot occurred "rapidly" after the second (Z-222-ish) shot, when in fact it occurred about five seconds after it.

Bottom-line: If a reporter for a major newspaper like Mary Woodward can make so many critical mistakes just a few hours after the assassination, how can we trust any eyewitness / earwitness to that tragic event?

At least she got the early, missing-everything, first shot right, the fact that JFK and Jackie turned their heads in response to it, and that JFK and Jackie waved to her and her three colleagues.

-- Tom

[John Corbett]

We know where she was standing  That is made completely clear in the 2015 interview. The issue is why she wrote on the day of the JFKA that she was sitting and eating lunch on the thinly populated grassy knoll. And not only made that absurd error but compounded it by describing the shots as coming from behind and to her right. Her hearing problem tap dance doesn't explain how she got her location and circumstances so completely wrong. And this was a reporter for a major newspaper, no less.

I don't think this is at all confusing. She probably did eat her lunch somewhere on the GK and then moved up to the curb when she saw the motorcade was approaching. I don't know that for a fact but it seems a reasonable explanation.