JFK Assassination Forum
JFK Assassination Discussion & Debate => JFK Assassination Discussion & Debate => Topic started by: Jake Maxwell on September 12, 2023, 07:34:19 PM
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Paul Landis, an 88-year-old former Secret Service agent, was just a few feet away from when President Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. At the time, he was assigned to protect Jackie Kennedy, the former first lady.
Mr. Landis, in a recent interview with the New York Times, cast doubt on the government-backed Warren Commission's finding that a "magic bullet" struck and exited the president before it struck then-Texas Gov. John Connally Jr., a theory that has been the subject of criticism for decades and has helped fuel a range alternative theories about the former president's assassination. Officially, the U.S. government and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has maintained that a lone gunman—Lee Harvey Oswald—was the sole perpetrator.....
In the interview with the paper, published on Sept. 9, Mr. Landis recalled hearing multiple gunshots at Dealy Plaza in Dallas as he went behind President Kennedy's limousine, seeing the president moving forward after being shot in the head. After the assassination, Mr. Landis recalled picking up what he called a near-perfect-condition bullet from the back seat of President Kennedy's limousine, near where the president had been sitting.
The former agent then transported the bullet to the hospital where President Kennedy was taken and put on a stretcher to be examined. The reason why he took it is because he believed someone might pocket the bullet, which he did not describe in detail, as a keepsake....
Explaining why he hasn't spoken out for 60 years, the former agent said, “I didn’t want to talk about it." He left the Secret Service months after the assassination. “I was afraid. I started to think, did I do something wrong? There was a fear that I might have done something wrong and I shouldn’t talk about it," he said.
Historian James Robenalt, who helped work on Mr. Landis's forthcoming memoir, said his eyewitness account raised the possibility of there being more than one gunman.
“If the bullet we know as the magic or pristine bullet stopped in President Kennedy’s back, it means that the central thesis of the Warren Report, the single-bullet theory, is wrong," he told the NY Times....
“The FBI recreation suggests that Oswald would not have had enough time to get off two separate shots so quickly as to hit Connally after wounding the president in the back," he wrote. Mr. Oswald, according to officials, had used a bolt-action Carcano Model 38 infantry carbine.
Referring to his memoir, meanwhile, Mr. Landis said that "there’s no goal at this point. I just think it had been long enough that I needed to tell my story."
[From The Epoch Times]
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Only a fool would believe what Paul Landis claims he found in the SS-100-X. He found nothing of the sort. He has a book to sell, and since he did nothing remarkable that day--not even attempting to save the life of President Kennedy--he pulls a stunt like this to try to sell his book.
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Only a fool would believe what Paul Landis claims he found in the SS-100-X. He found nothing of the sort. He has a book to sell, and since he did nothing remarkable that day--not even attempting to save the life of President Kennedy--he pulls a stunt like this to try to sell his book.
Landis did a 6th Floor Museum interview as recently as 2016. He said this about his acts at Parkland:
"....and there was a little delay there because we had to [get] Governor Connally out. I was not aware that he had been shot at that time, and Mrs. Connally, and then the President, and then finally Clint walked through with Mrs. Kennedy and I had stepped into the limo also and I saw there was a bloody cigarette lighter on the seat and a bouquet of roses and her hat. And I picked up her hat and the lighter and we left the limo, and I followed them to the hospital."
Not a thing about a bullet, a bullet fragment or anything related to a bullet.
The full interview is here: https://emuseum.jfk.org/objects/47223/paul-landis-oral-history
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Only a fool would believe what Paul Landis claims he found in the SS-100-X. He found nothing of the sort. He has a book to sell, and since he did nothing remarkable that day--not even attempting to save the life of President Kennedy--he pulls a stunt like this to try to sell his book.
It is conceivable that he found CE399 and recalled placing it on a stretcher. But it is not conceivable that the bullet he claims he found was a bullet other than CE399. His description fits CE399 but the wounds, including Tague's, and car damage do not permit two bullets looking like CE399. If a separate bullet struck JBC in the back it would have been moving too fast to show no nose damage and come out looking anything like CE399.
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Landis did a 6th Floor Museum interview as recently as 2016. He said this about his acts at Parkland:
"....and there was a little delay there because we had to [get] Governor Connally out. I was not aware that he had been shot at that time, and Mrs. Connally, and then the President, and then finally Clint walked through with Mrs. Kennedy and I had stepped into the limo also and I saw there was a bloody cigarette lighter on the seat and a bouquet of roses and her hat. And I picked up her hat and the lighter and we left the limo, and I followed them to the hospital."
Not a thing about a bullet, a bullet fragment or anything related to a bullet.
The full interview is here: https://emuseum.jfk.org/objects/47223/paul-landis-oral-history
Thanks for the link to the Landis interview. That is one of the best ones I have seen. It answers my question about whether or not Landis ever entered trauma room one. He said he did but left after a doctor asked for people who were not needed for medical reasons to leave the room. Stephen Fagin is a very good interviewer. Thanks to him and the Sixth Floor Museum for all that they do.
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Thanks for the link to the Landis interview. That is one of the best ones I have seen. It answers my question about whether or not Landis ever entered trauma room one. He said he did but left after a doctor asked for people who were not needed for medical reasons to leave the room. Stephen Fagin is a very good interviewer. Thanks to him and the Sixth Floor Museum for all that they do.
Given the behavior of the other agents - FBI, DPD and SS - it's not entirely inconceivable that he would put the bullet back on the stretcher. But "not entirely" covers a lot of ground. However, if we combine this supposed act with the 60 years of him, in several interviews where he details what he did, not mentioning it, it's essentially for me a worthless claim.
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Given the behavior of the other agents - FBI, DPD and SS - it's not entirely inconceivable that he would put the bullet back on the stretcher. But "not entirely" covers a lot of ground. However, if we combine this supposed act with the 60 years of him, in several interviews where he details what he did, not mentioning it, it's essentially for me a worthless claim.
Landis first mentioned finding a "bullet fragment" on the rear seat of the limo to the AP in 1983, 40 years ago:
"Landis said that when he got to the Kennedy limousine outside the hospital, the president had already been taken inside, but he helped Mrs. Kennedy out. He said there was a bullet fragment on the top of the back seat that he picked up and gave to somebody."
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...in 2014, after reading Josiah “Tink” Thompson’s 1967 book, Six Seconds in Dallas, and seeing for the first time the “official” explanation that a whole bullet had been found on Connally’s stretcher, he realized that, no, that was actually the bullet he had found in Kennedy’s limousine, and that he shouldn’t remain silent any longer.
https://whowhatwhy.org/culture/newest-jfk-twist-agents-explosive-story-conflicts-with-forgotten-earlier-one/
The guy who helped him write his memoir says Landis was misquoted the previous times that his account of a "bullet fragment" was mentioned.
I expect that a Secret Service agent should know the difference between a bullet and a bullet fragment. So if he wasn't misquoted, that's a problem.
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Given the behavior of the other agents - FBI, DPD and SS - it's not entirely inconceivable that he would put the bullet back on the stretcher. But "not entirely" covers a lot of ground. However, if we combine this supposed act with the 60 years of him, in several interviews where he details what he did, not mentioning it, it's essentially for me a worthless claim.
Even if someone could somehow begin to believe his claim (I cannot), the physics (ballistics, etc) of how it ended up on top of the back seat of the limo would need to be explained. Along with an explanation as to how the bullet got flattened on one side near the base…
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Landis first mentioned finding a "bullet fragment" on the rear seat of the limo to the AP in 1983, 40 years ago:
"Landis said that when he got to the Kennedy limousine outside the hospital, the president had already been taken inside, but he helped Mrs. Kennedy out. He said there was a bullet fragment on the top of the back seat that he picked up and gave to somebody."
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...in 2014, after reading Josiah “Tink” Thompson’s 1967 book, Six Seconds in Dallas, and seeing for the first time the “official” explanation that a whole bullet had been found on Connally’s stretcher, he realized that, no, that was actually the bullet he had found in Kennedy’s limousine, and that he shouldn’t remain silent any longer.
https://whowhatwhy.org/culture/newest-jfk-twist-agents-explosive-story-conflicts-with-forgotten-earlier-one/
The guy who helped him write his memoir says Landis was misquoted the previous times that his account of a "bullet fragment" was mentioned.
I expect that a Secret Service agent should know the difference between a bullet and a bullet fragment. So if he wasn't misquoted, that's a problem.
Dropping a bullet on a stretcher is also not consistent with giving it to somebody.
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I believe Landis is supposed to be on CNN later today. Jake Trapper?
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Yeah. He could be protecting someone else. Who knows? There’s an earlier claim that SS agent Sam Kinney (now deceased) was the person who placed the bullet on a stretcher at Parkland.
Given that the mainstream media is giving him so much attention, I suspect that maybe this whole thing is intended to prepare the public for eventual acknowledgement that there was a conspiracy?
It’s really unusual to see so many mainstream news outlets give so much uncritical air time to a JFK assassination conspiracy story. Not sure what to make of it.
Landis said on CNN that he didn't drop the bullet on the stretcher but some type of table in the exam room. For what that's worth. That would make more sense to me than dropping it on the stretcher of the dying president. He was adamant about hearing only three shots. He doesn't seem to be insane or completely senile (as in Joe Biden senile). The fact that he made no mention of the bullet six decades ago, however, is damning. I don't buy that he wouldn't mention it because he was under stress. He wrote a report. Lots of WWII veterans swore they landed on the beach on D-day but it ain't so.
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Joe Biden is way more coherent than “Richard Smith” ever was.
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Landis said on CNN that he didn't drop the bullet on the stretcher but some type of table in the exam room. For what that's worth. That would make more sense to me than dropping it on the stretcher of the dying president.
But Landis was merely following CNN host Jake Tapper's leading question regarding the "exam table". But Tapper didn't know what he was talking about there, because we know from various Parkland witnesses and doctors that JFK was never moved to any kind of "exam table" in Trauma Room No. 1 at all. Kennedy remained on his stretcher the entire time he was in the emergency room, right up until he was placed in the casket. This is confirmed by Parkland's Dr. Robert McClelland:
Mr. SPECTER - Was he on the stretcher at all times?
Dr. McCLELLAND - Yes.
Mr. SPECTER - In the trauma room No. 1 you described, is there any table onto which he could be placed from the stretcher?
Dr. McCLELLAND - No; generally we do not move patients from the stretcher until they are ready to go into the operating room and then they are moved onto the operating table.
Mr. SPECTER - Well, in fact, was he left on the stretcher all during the course of these procedures until he was pronounced dead?
Dr. McCLELLAND - That's right.
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Here's the CNN video with Landis:
SHORT VERSION (https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2023/09/13/paul-landis-jfk-secret-service-assassination-bullet-lead-intv-contd-vpx.cnn)
LONG VERSION (https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2023/09/13/the-lead-paul-landis-jake-tapper-live.cnn)
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But Landis was merely following CNN host Jake Tapper's leading question regarding the "exam table".
I noticed the same thing. I'm not a fan of the way Tapper conducts interviews generally.
There were two Parkland nurses who claimed they saw a bullet on JFK's stretcher. Phyllis Hall said the bullet was closer to JFK's head on the stretcher, which conflicts with Landis' claim that he placed it near Kennedy's feet. She also says she never saw the bullet again. Which is consistent with Tomlinson and OP Wright who cast doubt that CE399 was the bullet they found.
Phyllis Hall -
'On the cart, halfway between the earlobe and the shoulder, there was a bullet laying almost perpendicular there, but I have not seen a picture of that bullet ever,' she told The Telegraph almost 10 years ago.
Separately, she told the Sunday Mirror: 'I could see a bullet lodged between his ear and his shoulder. It was pointed at its tip and showed no signs of damage. I remember looking at it – there was no blunting of the bullet or scarring around the shell from where it had been fired.
'I'd had a great deal of experience working with gunshot wounds but I had never seen anything like this before.
'It was about one-and-a-half inches long – nothing like the bullets that were later produced.
'It was taken away but never have I seen it presented in evidence or heard what happened to it. It remains a mystery.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12509921/JFK-assassination-nurse-Phyllis-Hall-Paul-Landis.html
The other nurse who saw a bullet was Sharon Tuohy -
Landis' memory may be a little fuzzy after almost 60 years but I don't think he's lying.
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He is on Jessie Waters tonight. I wonder which version he will tell. I don't think he is lying or insane. Just an old guy who can't remember what happened. That doesn't preclude someone from becoming president these days. So making a few bucks from a book is no big deal.
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His good buddy Clint Hill has been a media gadfly in recent years, pumping out a few books and doing the lecture circuit. I think Landis saw that and wanted to join the gravy train. But because he wasn't as heroic as Clint that day, he had to manufacture something "big" as a hook.