ME:
Journalist Mary Woodward, who was an acquaintance of JFK, wrote an article that was published on 11/23/63 in the Dallas Morning News newspaper. It included the following passage:
I don’t believe anyone was hit with the first bullet. The President and Mrs. Kennedy turned and looked around, as if they, too, didn’t believe the noise was really coming from a gun. Then after a moment’s pause there was another shot and I saw the President start slumping in the car. This was followed rapidly by another shot. Mrs. Kennedy stood up in the car, turned half-way around, and fell on top of her husband’s body. Not until this minute did it sink in what actually was happening. We had witnessed the assassination of the President.
Her reporting is important because, IIRC, she and Governor Connally were the only two witnesses who characterized the early "backfire" / "firecracker" sound as a shot that missed.
I'm convinced that Oswald's first, missing-everything, shot was fired at "Z-124," half-a-second before Zapruder resumed filming at Z-133, that the shot that caused JFK to "slump" was fired by Oswald at approximately Z-224, and that his third and final fatal head shot was fired at Z-313. I therefore believe that there was about a 5.5 second interval between the first shot and the second shot, and that there was about a 4.9 second interval between the second and third shots.
Question: Since Woodward was evidently watching JFK closely after the second shot (as suggested by the fact that she noticed that he "slumped"), is it fair to say that she may have mischaracterized the interval between the second third shots ("rapidly") as being much shorter than it actually was because she experienced a kind of “temporal compression” from watching her acquaintance, JFK, so closely during the "unbelievable" / "surreal" (my words) event?
Perplexity AI:
Woodward’s contemporaneous article is valuable because it distinguishes a “moment’s pause” between the first and second reports, followed by a third report “rapidly” after the second. But these are qualitative perceptions, not measured elapsed times. Her wording should not be treated as stopwatch evidence.
After the second shot, Woodward was not merely listening for shots: she was watching Kennedy appear to slump and trying to understand an extraordinary and frightening event. A multi-second interval can be remembered or described as a single rapidly unfolding episode when it contains a chain of emotionally salient events.
Your proposed intervals—approximately 5.5 seconds from the first report to the second and approximately 4.9 seconds from the second to the third—are objectively close. Woodward’s contrast between “after a moment’s pause” and “rapidly” may therefore reflect the structure and perceived importance of the events rather than a reliable numerical contrast between the two intervals.
Her statement is best used as a qualitative account of perceived sequence.
ME:
If I'm correct that the shooting lasted 10.2 seconds altogether and that the interval between the second and third shots was about 4.9 seconds, do you think her saying, "this was followed rapidly by another shot" was appropriate / accurate?
Perplexity AI:
If the second-to-third interval was actually about 4.9 seconds, “followed rapidly” would not be accurate as a literal measurement of elapsed shot-to-shot time. In ordinary usage, that wording suggests a relatively prompt succession, not an interval approaching five seconds.
Her contrast is significant:
• First to second: “after a moment’s pause.”
• Second to third: “followed rapidly.”
On your proposed chronology, the first interval is about 5.5 seconds and the second is about 4.9 seconds. That is only about 0.6 seconds’ difference. The language creates a sharper subjective contrast than the clock would support.
The most economical explanation is retrospective event compression, together with unequal attentional salience. After the first report, there was uncertainty: a backfire, firecrackers, or something else. After the second report, Woodward saw Kennedy begin to slump, recognized a crisis, and then saw the event culminate in the fatal shot. Memory could organize that entire sequence as one rapid unit.
Thus, if your timing is correct, Woodward accurately retained the broad three-report structure and a perceived pause after the first report but qualitatively compressed the interval between the later reports.
ME:
I suppose she could argue that the third shot rapidly followed JFK's slumping, not the second shot per se.
But still . . .
Perplexity AI:
Yes—that is the strongest charitable reading of her sentence.
Her wording was:
“Then after a moment’s pause there was another shot and I saw the President start slumping in the car. This was followed rapidly by another shot.”
The word “This” may refer not only to the auditory report, but to Kennedy’s visible slumping or to the integrated event of the shot plus Woodward seeing him start to slump. She was narrating a visual experience, not supplying measured inter-shot timing.
That said, the sentence still presents the second shot, Kennedy’s visible decline, and the third shot as a quickly unfolding sequence. It does not naturally describe a plainly recognized shot followed by an obvious five-second wait and then another shot. The reading reduces the tension with a 4.9-second interval, but does not wholly eliminate it.
ME:
It seems that JFK, whose transverse process was damaged / traumatized by the bullet, was paralyzed by the shot and that he therefore slowly "slumped" / leaned towards Jackie. Maybe it took Wooward a second or two to realize that he was doing that.
Perplexity AI:
That is plausible as a perceptual proposition, but “paralyzed” is stronger than the evidence securely establishes. The narrower point is sufficient: after the nonfatal shot, Kennedy appeared to become fixed in posture and then gradually lean or slump toward Mrs. Kennedy.
If the shot occurred at about Z-224, Woodward may not have recognized the significance of Kennedy’s reaction immediately. She could have heard the report, watched his posture change over the next seconds, and only then registered that he was beginning to collapse. If she noticed the slump at a point closer to Z-313, the final shot could have followed her observed recognition of that change quickly even though the shot-to-shot interval was about 4.9 seconds.
ME:
Let's not argue about it, shall we?
For whatever reason, JFK appeared "frozen" and slowly "slumping" / "leaning."
Perplexity AI:
Agreed. Whatever the physiological mechanism, the observable point is narrower and sufficient: after the nonfatal shot, Kennedy appeared to become fixed in posture and then gradually lean/slump toward Mrs. Kennedy.
That makes it quite possible that Woodward’s attention was drawn not to the exact instant of the second report, but to the evolving visual realization—he is not merely reacting; he is collapsing. If the third shot followed soon after that recognition point, “This was followed rapidly by another shot” can be read as a description of the visible sequence, not a calibrated statement that the two preceding gun reports were separated by only a very short interval.
ME:
So?
Perplexity AI:
So, yes: on your assumed timeline, Woodward’s wording can still be appropriate if “this” refers to Kennedy’s visibly recognized gradual slumping—not strictly to the second gunshot.
Her likely experiential sequence was:
• A shot occurs.
• Kennedy appears frozen, then begins visibly leaning/slumping.
• Woodward realizes that he has been struck and is collapsing.
• The final shot follows soon afterward.
Thus “This was followed rapidly by another shot” need not mean that the second report was followed by the third report in less than a few seconds. It can mean that, once she saw and registered Kennedy’s collapse, another shot came quickly.
It remains an interpretation, not a provable reading of a single ambiguous word. But it is linguistically natural and can remove the apparent contradiction between her prose and an approximately 4.9-second second-to-third-shot interval.
ME:
What do you mean by "pronoun" in this context?
Perplexity AI:
I meant the word “This” in Woodward’s sentence:
“Then after a moment’s pause there was another shot and I saw the President start slumping in the car. This was followed rapidly by another shot.”
“This” is the word whose reference is uncertain in context. It could point back to:
• The second shot.
• Kennedy’s starting to slump.
• The combined occurrence: the shot and Woodward’s observation of Kennedy beginning to slump.
My point was that the grammar does not compel the first reading. The sentence therefore does not necessarily assert that the third gun report followed the second gun report rapidly; it may instead describe the final shot as rapidly following her perception of Kennedy’s visible decline.
ME:
I know what pronouns are, thanks.
Perplexity AI:
Fair enough—I overexplained.
I only meant that “This” is the ambiguous word in her sentence. It may point back to Kennedy’s visible slumping, rather than solely to the second shot.
ME:
JFK assassination conspiracy theorists like to interpret what she said about the "rapid" interval between the second and third shots to mean that the interval was so short as to preclude Oswald's having fired two shots in such close succession with his bolt-action rifle.
Perplexity AI:
That argument overreads Woodward’s prose.
It works only if one first converts “rapidly” into a precise claim that the last two shots were separated by less than the minimum time needed to operate the bolt, reacquire the target, and fire again. Woodward gave no numerical interval and did not say that the reports were simultaneous or nearly simultaneous.
The frequently cited benchmark in official testing was roughly 2.3 seconds as a minimum for firing, cycling the Mannlicher-Carcano’s bolt, aiming, and firing again. If a witness reliably established a one-second interval, that would be relevant. But “rapidly” does not establish any interval below that benchmark.
To use Woodward as proof of an impossibly fast bolt cycle requires several assumptions: that “This” means only the second shot; that “rapidly” means less than 2.3 seconds; that a traumatized observer could reliably estimate that difference; and that she noticed Kennedy’s slumping at the exact instant of the shot. Her article does not establish any of those propositions.
On your assumed chronology, the approximately 4.9-second interval is well above the mechanical minimum. Woodward’s account is useful qualitative sequence evidence, but weak evidence for precise shot spacing or for an inference of a second gunman.
TO BE CONTINUED
