It was not until the HSCA used audio analysis to suggest an early missed first shot that anyone seriously considered that the first shot missed. If you can find any serious publication prior to the HSCA report in which it was seriously proposed that the first shot missed I will stand corrected.
This snip from the WCR seems to me to be the WC seriously considering whether or not the first shot missed:
The First Shot
If the first shot missed, the assassin perhaps missed in an effort to fire a hurried shot before the President passed under the oak tree, or possibly he fired as the President passed under the tree and the tree obstructed his view. The bullet might have struck a portion of the tree and been completely deflected. On the other hand, the greatest cause for doubt that the first shot missed is the improbability that the same marksman who twice hit a moving target would be so inaccurate on the first and closest of his shots as to miss completely, not only the target, but the large automobile.
Some support for the contention that the first shot missed is found in the statement of Secret Service Agent Glen A. Bennett, stationed in the right rear seat of the President's follow-up car, who heard a sound like a firecracker as the motorcade proceeded down Elm Street. At that moment, Agent Bennett stated:
... I looked at the back of the President. I heard another firecracker noise and saw that shot hit the President about four inches down from the right shoulder. A second shot followed immediately and hit the right rear high of the President's head.337
Substantial weight may be given Bennett's observations. Although his formal statement was dated November 23, 1963, his notes indicate that he recorded what he saw and heard at 5:30 p.m., November 1963, on the airplane en route back to Washington, prior to the autopsy, when it was not yet known that the President had been hit in the back.338 It is possible, of course, that Bennett did not observe the hole in the President's back, which might have been there immediately after the first noise.
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Governor Connally's testimony supports the view that the first shot missed, because he stated that he heard a shot, turned slightly to his right, and, as he started to turn back toward his left, was struck by the second bullet.339 He never saw the President during the shooting sequence, and it is entirely possible that he heard the missed shot and that both men were struck by the second bullet.
This illustrates what I said earlier. The WC gave pro and con arguments for each of the three shots being the one that missed. They gave no indication they favored any one scenario over the others. They simply laid out the case for and against each scenario and left it to the reader to decide which they thought was more likely to be the correct one. Reading all the arguments the WC laid out and combining it with what we have learned jin the last several decades leaves me with no doubt that the first shot missed and the second was the single bullet.
