You're barking up the wrong tree Tom, Mason is a dyed in the wool LNer, and IIRC his only deviation from the official story is that he believes that Oswald took three shots and hit his target twice and the missed shot hit Connally.
The evidence leaves no room for doubt that Oswald fired all three shots. And it is highly improbable on the evidence we have that anyone else was involved.
The "official" story from the WC regarding the shots was not entirely clear. While the WC left open whether a shot missed and, if so, which shot missed, initially most observers who agreed with the SBT thought that the second shot had missed. This was based on the evidence that JFK reacted to the first shot as well as the spacing of the shots recalled most ear-witnesses.
So, you would be correct if, in referring to my "deviation" from the official story, you meant that the shot which the WC thought likely missed was the second shot, did not miss but struck Connally directly in the right armpit. But I also deviate in the WC conclusion that JBC was hit by only one bullet. In my review of the evidence, the second shot struck exited and struck the right radius and fragmented (a fragment striking the windshield frame and another going over it and striking the curb near James Tague). In my deviant deviation from the official story, I suggest that the first shot, which passed through JFK, struck JBC in the left thigh.
The following extract is from the Warren Commission Report.
"Although it is not necessary to any essential findings of the Commission to determine just which shot hit Governor Connally, there is very persuasive evidence from the experts to indicate that the same bullet which pierced the President's throat also caused Governor Connally's wounds. However, Governor Connally's testimony and certain other factors have given rise to some difference of opinion as to this probability but there is no question in the mind of any member of the Commission that all the shots which caused the President's and Governor Connally's wounds were fired from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository."
https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-1
As a background to this, Bugliosi, in his chapter on the SBT wrote:
- "The Commission staff 's hypothesis didn't exactly receive a warm welcome from all of
the Warren Commission members. At the Commission's last meeting on September 18,
1964, and with its report scheduled to reach President Johnson's desk in just six days, the
majority of Chief Justice Earl Warren, Representative Gerald Ford, Allen Dulles, and
John McCloy sided with the staff 's single-bullet theory, but Representative Hale Boggs
and Senators Richard Russell and John Cooper thought it improbable. Boggs told author
Edward Jay Epstein that he had "strong doubts" about the theory and felt the question
was never resolved. Cooper claimed that "there was no evidence to show both men were
hit by the same bullet." Russell was the most adamant and wanted his opposition to the
single-bullet theory to be acknowledged in a footnote at the bottom of the page in the
Commission's report."
