Part 1368 of my "JFK Assassination Arguments" series includes a variety of my posts and comments covering the period of September 1—30, 2023. To read the entire forum discussion from which my own comments have been extracted, click on the "Full Discussion" logo at the bottom of each individual segment.
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DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
"There is nothing new to be unveiled concerning the way John F. Kennedy died on November 22, 1963. JFK was shot by a lone loser named Lee Harvey Oswald. And that lone loser who hated America and its "representatives" just happened to own a cheap mail-order rifle and he also just happened to work in a building that overlooked the very last portion of President Kennedy's motorcade route through Dallas. The combination of things I just mentioned above was a lethal combination. And it's also, whether you want to believe it or not, a combination of circumstances brought about by nothing except pure garden-variety coincidence and happenstance."
-- David Von Pein; January 2008
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"A 5-year-old child could have solved the Tippit murder. Given the evidence, there's no human way for Lee Harvey Oswald to be innocent of killing Officer J.D. Tippit.
The only thing that conspiracy theorists can cling to in the Tippit murder case is their own silly imaginations -- such as when they pretend that all of the evidence against LHO was faked or manipulated by the evil DPD, which is a theory that's so ridiculous that another 5-year-old could see that it's nothing but pure desperation on the part of the conspiracists in their feeble attempts to exonerate a murderer named Oswald.
There's not a single conspiracy theorist in the world who can logically (and believably) answer the following question:
Why on Earth would the Dallas Police Department have had any desire whatsoever to want to frame and railroad an innocent Lee Harvey Oswald for the murder of one of their FELLOW OFFICERS AND FRIENDS, all the while not caring at all that they were allowing the real killer or killers of Officer Tippit to get off scot-free?
Conspiracy theorists have their imaginations and crazy assertions. Reasonable people, however, have the hard evidence. Lee Harvey Oswald murdered J.D. Tippit. And Oswald murdered John F. Kennedy too."
-- David V.P.; December 2009
GIL JESUS SAID:
They didn't give a shit about getting the right guy, they just wanted to get a conviction. Whoever they arrested was the right guy. Why is that so hard for you to understand?
BUD SAID:
So they were okay with Tippit's murderer getting away with his murder?
Good thing the guy they just randomly grabbed had so much incriminating evidence against him, eh?
Rest, Gil.
I can't understand how such a poor thinker as yourself reached adulthood.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
How is it even possible for a person who has focused so much of his life on the JFK and Tippit murder cases (namely someone named Gilbert J. Jesus) to utter the nonsense he just uttered above (i.e., "They didn't give a shit about getting the right guy")?
Do you, Gil, think that the DPD just randomly chose Oswald to arrest for Tippit's murder on Nov. 22? And they were perfectly fine with their decision to charge an innocent person with the Tippit killing while giving the true murderers a free pass?
And do you truly believe the DPD had no REAL & VALID EVIDENCE against Oswald in either the Kennedy or Tippit cases?
(I think Gil needs a new hobby.)
DAVID VON PEIN, QUOTING JOHN McADAMS, SAID:
"Conspiracists fail to outline the scenario that would be necessary for the bag to have actually been as short as Frazier and Randle describe it. It would require that the "phony bag" be forged in absolutely record time, in exactly the right length, and carried from the Depository even before the Dallas cops in the Depository knew that Frazier was saying that Oswald had carried a bag in to work! And somehow they got Oswald's prints on it. You've got to admire the foresight of those cops. They really lucked out when Frazier said that Oswald had carried a bag just like that into work that morning." -- John McAdams; July 2000
Stumps like Ben Holmes can't figure out the easiest of the easy things connected with the JFK and Tippit murders --- such as:
.... Oswald carrying his own rifle to work in a homemade paper bag on 11/22/63.
.... Oswald shooting and killing Officer Tippit on 10th Street.
.... Oswald purchasing his mail-order rifle from Klein's in March '63.
But if you're a Super Stump (like Ben Holmes), none of the above facts are to be considered "facts" at all --- even though all 3 things above ARE, indeed, proven and provable FACTS, without a shred of a doubt.
LNers rely on the evidence.
CT Stumps throw all the evidence in the toilet and pretend it was all faked.
In other words, LNers live in the real world.
CT Stumps reside in a Fantasy Land where everybody was out to frame a total stranger named Oswald.
This is the finest post I've ever read at this board. Sky Throne, a/k/a The Toilet, wins the prize:
[Quoting the anonymous conspiracy fantasist going by the username "Sky Throne"....]
"It's difficult to say exactly who murdered JFK. The throat shot from the overpass was not a fatal wound. Connally then shot him with poison. Greer shot at frame 304 of the Zapruder film, but that was not a head shot; presumably it did hit JFK somewhere. Then Jackie did something that probably was not a shot, but which did push JFK up in his seat. Then the guy behind the fence, perhaps Oswald, fired what should have been a fatal head shot, if he was not already dead. Then Greer did the same. Technically, Connally might deserve the kill credit, since his poison shot would presumably mean certain death. But, if JFK was still alive when "Oswald" fired, then maybe LHO gets the kill. Greer's final shot seems to be too late for the kill, but what's the harm in making sure? And the guy on the overpass who fired two more shots was just wasting bullets, and I don't see why the Ruling Murderers would want to waste bullets. Being capitalist pigs, they are cheap bastards and would probably rather have saved those bullets for two Vietnamese commies."
[End Kook Quote.]
Funny thing, but Sky Throne is actually CLOSER to the truth than Gil or Ben, both of whom believe Oswald was a TOTALLY innocent patsy. At least Sky Throne has Oswald shooting at the motorcade!
Keep 'em coming Sky Throne! You're On the Trail of the Assassins!
JOHN CORBETT SAID:
No sane adult could believe the nonsense the Toilet Seat [aka "Sky Throne"] just posted. One of two things has to be true about him. One is that he is completely insane and has no concept of reality. The other is that he is just playing games and just wants to draw attention to himself for some equally crazy reason. Either way, he's nuts.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
The mega-kook named "Sky Throne" seems to believe just about everything uttered by another Super Mega-Kook---a certain Mr. Lifton---in this video series.
Or maybe, like John suggested, the mega-kook calling himself "Sky Throne" is just playing silly games.
He [DVP] cannot make his own path through the evidence; he needs somebody else to do it for him.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Well, that ranks as certainly one of the dumbest things ever uttered by The Throne here at the acj asylum. Because the "path through the evidence" couldn't possibly be any clearer and plain and definitive. It all points to Oswald. And I certainly don't need the help of Vince B., or Gerald P., or anybody else to know that basic fact.
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
The mega-kook called "Sky Throne" actually seems to be proud of his "Connally shot him with poison" post. He's re-posting it again and again. (I love it.)
Normally when somebody embarrasses themselves THAT much in public, they don't want further attention focused on their idiocy. But not our kook named Throne. He's basking in his crackpottery by re-posting his fantasy again---and yet again!
I, myself, find it nearly impossible to believe former Secret Service agent Paul Landis' story (which Landis evidently tells in his new 2023 book, "The Final Witness") about finding a bullet "resting on the top of the back of the seat" of the Presidential limousine (which is a quote from this 9/9/2023 Vanity Fair article written by James Robenalt).
How on Earth could a whole bullet have managed to have been located in that odd position on 11/22/63? "Resting on the top of the back of the seat"? Without Clint Hill ever noticing it or disturbing it, even though Hill was clinging to the back of the car all the way to Parkland? Highly doubtful.
And even more importantly, why wouldn't Agent Landis have told someone else in authority (anyone else!) that he had picked up a bullet and moved it to President Kennedy's stretcher?
It makes no sense whatsoever for Landis to have remained totally silent about finding (and moving) such a bullet in the limo on November 22.
Did Mr. Landis think that the details about where and how the bullet was first found weren't important details at all, and therefore he felt he didn't even need to tell the Chief of the Secret Service or the FBI or anybody in Trauma Room No. 1 at Parkland about his discovery at all?
Such a mindset and behavior for a Secret Service agent is utterly ridiculous—and most certainly unbelievable.
Plus....
If Mr. Landis' bullet story is to be believed, we would then have to believe that the bullet he placed on JFK's stretcher was either never noticed by anyone else in the very busy Trauma Room No. 1, or the bullet was deliberately deep-sixed and disposed of, or the bullet was moved to yet another stretcher in the hospital (Governor Connally's).
Each of the above choices, in my opinion, also resides in the category marked "unbelievable".
A 4th choice would be: The bullet was accidentally lost (after, of course, it was never noticed by a single living soul in Trauma Room No. 1). Yet another unbelievable option.
Addendum....
Below is a portion of what Special Agent Paul Landis said in this extremely detailed Secret Service report that he wrote on November 30, 1963. Here's what Landis said he found "on the back seat" of the Presidential limo at Parkland:
"By this time someone was lifting the President's body out of the right side of the car. Agent Hill helped Mrs. Kennedy out of the car, and I followed. Mrs. Kennedy's purse and hat and a cigarette lighter were on the back seat. I picked these three items up as I walked through the car and followed Mrs. Kennedy into the hospital."
Paul Landis, following his new "revelation", really doesn't have much of a choice but to have doubts about Oswald acting alone. Because if what Landis theorizes is true (i.e., the back-wound bullet to Kennedy ended up on the top of the back seat after JFK was thrown to the rear at the time of the head shot), then that would almost certainly have to mean that a second assassin shot Kennedy in the throat with a frontal shot.
(Unless Mr. Landis wants to theorize that it wasn't a BULLET at all that caused JFK's throat wound, but instead it was a fragment from the head shot that did the throat damage, with that damage giving the false appearance of a bullet hole to Dr. Perry.) ~shrug~
But with each additional theory comes even more questions and problems. Such as:
If a single bullet didn't wound both JFK and Connally....and if the bullet that Landis allegedly found was, indeed, CE399 (which I think Landis says he believes is the case)....then what the heck happened to the bullet (or bullets) that hit Governor Connally?!
With the Single-Bullet Theory in place, of course, we don't need to ask the question I just posed above. There are no "missing bullets" with the SBT. But with the LBT (Landis Bullet Theory) in the mix of possible scenarios now, this question will always be hanging out there, never to be satifactorily answered by any conspiracy theorist:
Where did the bullet go that struck John Connally and ended up making a shallow wound in his left thigh?
CTers can, of course, always resort to the theory that has a fragment from the JFK head shot creating the superficial wound in Connally's leg. But that still won't answer the question of: What happened to the bullet that hit Connally?
For conspiracy advocates, it always seems to be:
So many wounds .... So few bullets.
DAVID VON PEIN LATER SAID:
Another rather incredible claim that ex-Secret Service agent Paul Landis is now making (via the Vanity Fair article) is his claim that he saw two "bullet fragments" lying on the back seat as well.
Of course, as we all know, there were no bullet fragments recovered from the BACK seat. The two large bullet fragments (CE567 & CE569) were found in the FRONT seat of the limousine after the car was flown back to Washington.
Some people (mostly CTers) can always claim, of course, that Agent Landis really did see a couple of bullet fragments lying on the back seat on Nov. 22, but the Bucket Brigade (clean-up crew) scooped those fragments up when they (allegedly) washed out the back of the limo at Parkland.
Bottom Line regarding Mr. Paul Landis (IMO):
It's absolutely ridiculous and wholly unbelievable to think that a member of the United States Secret Service, right after discovering and moving a piece of very important evidence connected directly to the shooting of a U.S. President, wouldn't have mentioned to anyone on the very day it happened the fact that he found a whole bullet right there in the same car where JFK was murdered.
Landis' explanation for why he never uttered a word to anyone else about his bullet discovery (via the Vanity Fair article) is this:
"The special agent simply never gave the bullet a second thought, he says. He had left it where someone would find it."
The above reasoning which has Landis just assuming that somebody in the Parkland Hospital emergency room would notice the bullet after he placed it on JFK's stretcher is, in my opinion, just not a believable excuse at all for not saying a word to anyone about his discovery, especially since Landis also readily admits in that same Vanity Fair article that "he believed it was crucial evidence and needed for the autopsy".
So, Agent Landis supposedly finds a bullet, doesn't maintain possession of it, but then decides to not tell another living soul in the hospital about his discovery after he leaves that bullet lying on President Kennedy's stretcher?! That's just laughable and idiotic. And, of course, not the slightest bit believable.
Landis also says (again via the Vanity Fair article) that in later years he thought of his bullet discovery as merely "a minor detail".
That's a fairly large "minor detail", if you ask me.
And nobody can possibly use the fact that Mr. Landis, in later years, suffered from PTSD, which is, indeed, unfortunate for him. But any PTSD that was suffered by Mr. Landis certainly can't explain his lack of communicating with someone (anyone!) the fact he had found (and moved) a bullet on November 22, 1963.
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
Here's one more reason to doubt Paul Landis' new revelation:
Landis seems to think that the bullet he says he found on the back of the Presidential limousine, which he does seem to believe was, indeed, Warren Commission Exhibit No. 399, somehow rolled off of Kennedy's stretcher and onto John Connally's stretcher at some point prior to the time when Darrell Tomlinson found the bullet on a stretcher in the corridor of Parkland Hospital.
But the timing of such a speculative "bullet-hopping" event just doesn't line up at all, as explained by author Vincent Bugliosi in the book excerpt pictured below.
But Landis isn't talking about a WHOLE bullet there, Pat. He's talking only about a "fragment". Big difference.
And now Landis is saying he saw a whole bullet PLUS two different fragments lying on the back seat.
So that's three bullet items he's now claiming to have seen.
Yeah, right.
DAVID VON PEIN LATER SAID:
While performing an online newspaper search for "Paul Landis, Secret Service" on the morning of September 11, 2023, I came across the 1983 newspaper article seen below, which contains an interesting passage that totally contradicts Landis' new 2023 claims. The '83 article says:
"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."
So, in 1983, Mr. Landis was saying it was merely a "bullet fragment" that he picked up in the limo, which he "gave to somebody". But now, forty years later in 2023, it's a whole bullet (not just a fragment) which he didn't give to anyone but which he himself carried into the hospital and placed on JFK's stretcher.
Looks like Mr. Landis' credibility issues just got a lot worse.
I disagree very strongly with Mr. Griffith above. Mr. Landis' total silence about finding a bullet in the limo is most certainly not"perfectly understandable" to me at all. In fact, it's totally mystifying to me as to why on Earth he didn't TELL SOMEONE about the bullet IMMEDIATELY after putting it on JFK's stretcher (if, in fact, that's what he did).
And the reason for why his total silence is not believable (or "understandable") is because at the time Landis did what he said he did with that bullet, he had absolutely no knowledge or information about any of the details concerning the assassination. He had no idea who Oswald was at that time and he had no idea if a conspiracy might be involved. He knew nothing at that point. And yet he tells NOBODY about finding (and moving!) an important piece of evidence like a bullet?!
Such dead silence by a member of the U.S. Secret Service (or anyone in law enforcement) in such a situation is completely beyond belief, not to mention totally irresponsible on Landis' part.
And, in my opinion, even if it had been days or weeks or months later that he had somehow come across a piece of new evidence connected with JFK's death, it still would not be at all "perfectly understandable" that he would just keep completely silent about coming into contact with such a piece of potentially vital evidence in the case of a murdered President.
But that still doesn't explain why Landis would remain totally silent on DAY ONE (11/22/63) and not say a word to anybody at Parkland after he (supposedly) dropped that bullet on Kennedy's stretcher.
At the time of his "discovery", Landis didn't know there would be a "Magic Bullet" controversy in the future. Therefore, your explanation above doesn't hold any water.
In 2012, I asked former Secret Service agent Gerald Blaine some of these same questions via e-mail. Here's an excerpt from one of the e-mails I received from Mr. Blaine:
"In 1963 the Secret Service or any federal agent who found evidence marked it so that there was a clean trail."
I've archived my 2012 discussions with Mr. Blaine at my webpage HERE.
So, that brings up another thing to add to this discussion about Mr. Landis and his bullet "discovery"....
Why didn't Landis put his mark on the bullet that he says he handled on 11/22/63?
Has anyone ever seen any "PL" or "PEL" (for Paul E. Landis Jr.) initials on Bullet CE399? I haven't.
That would really be a bombshell discovery if somebody could find Landis' initials on that bullet.
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
I wonder where the "Landis Bullet" is located in relation to the sprawled-out Clint Hill in this rare photo below?
DAVID VON PEIN LATER SAID:
Fred Litwin, in this article on his website, posted a quote from The Columbus Dispatch newspaper dated November 20, 1988, which confirms something that is also found in this November 1983 newspaper article that I posted online two days ago:
The 1988 paper (seen in the pictures below), like the 1983 Associated Press newspaper article that I previously posted, says that Mr. Landis "picked up" a bullet "fragment" (not a whole bullet) and "handed" that fragment "to somebody".
So we now have two different newspaper accounts in the 1980s, five years apart, of Paul Landis saying to two different reporters that he had picked up only a "fragment" of a bullet, and that he had given that fragment "to somebody" (vs. Landis himself carrying any type of bullet or fragment into the hospital).
Also note that in the 1988 article seen below, the reporter/interviewer has placed quotation marks around these key words:
"I distinctly remember there was a bullet fragment on the seat which I picked up and handed to somebody."
So the reporter in 1988 is representing those words as having been directly spoken by Paul Landis. It's not being represented as merely something coming from the interviewer's memory of what Landis said, because there are quotation marks around that entire sentence.
The fact that we now have access to two different newspaper articles featuring interviews with Paul Landis that include the exact same information, with those articles and interviews being conducted some five years apart, virtually guarantees that Mr. Landis was not "misquoted" in either article concerning those two key "fragment" and "gave it to somebody" issues.
And Landis is, indeed, now saying that he was misquoted in at least one publication concerning those two important elements of his story. But the notion that two different interviewers (one in 1983 and another in 1988) both made the same mistakes and misquoted Landis in the exact same manner when it comes to both of those bullet-related issues does not seem to me to be a very credible or believable argument for Mr. Landis to be making.
Click these two images for a slightly larger view:
FWIW....
Here's what I think happened....
Paul Landis really did see and pick up a bullet fragment (not a whole bullet) off of the back seat of the Presidential limousine at Parkland Hospital on November 22, 1963. He then might very well have given that fragment to someone else nearby, with that person never being identified.
And, it would seem, that particular bullet fragment which Mr. Landis handled never came to light as evidence either. But we must keep in mind that a lot of tiny fragments from the fatal head shot that were probably scattered all over the car and in Dealey Plaza were never introduced as official evidence either. After all, more than half of the bullet that struck President Kennedy in the head was never found or recovered at all.
But now, in 2023, for some unknown reason, that bullet fragment (which he gave to someone else at Parkland on 11/22/63) has now been embellished by Mr. Landis and has morphed into a whole bullet (the CE399 "stretcher bullet" or so-called "magic bullet"), with Landis embellishing things further by also now saying he took that whole bullet into the hospital himself and placed it on JFK's stretcher in the emergency room.
So, in my opinion, Mr. Landis' current story probably does contain a layer of truth in it, which is very common among witnesses who have, shall we say, enhanced or added things to their assassination stories over the years (with Jean Hill, Roger Craig, and Buell Wesley Frazier coming to mind as three such examples).
I think Paul Landis probably did see (and perhaps also pick up) a small bullet fragment in the limousine. That's the "layer of truth" that exists in his account. And the two newspaper articles from the 1980s cited above tend to confirm that "layer of truth". But the remainder of Landis' current 2023 story just simply cannot be believed, in my opinion.
My thanks to Fred Litwin for tracking down and providing me with the above screen captures from the 1988 newspaper article.
It's highly doubtful that the 1983 interview with Landis was "incorrectly reported", as Sandy Larsen speculated above. In fact, it's almost impossible to believe such a thing happened (unless you want to believe the very same TWO mistakes/assumptions about the "bullet fragment" and "gave to somebody" occurred in both 1983 and again in 1988), because in November 1988, five years after his '83 interview, a different reporter quoted Landis saying this:
"I distinctly remember there was a bullet fragment on the seat which I picked up and handed to somebody."
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
BTW / FWIW....
Here's another 1983 newspaper (pictured below) featuring the same article about Paul Landis that I've already linked to previously, except that in this 11/22/83 paper from Greenfield, Ohio, the author of the article is also shown ("Tim Curran, Associated Press Writer").
Vince, I really haven't the slightest idea what Landis' motive might be.
Mr. Landis certainly gives the appearance of being a very forthright and truthful person. And I certainly don't relish the notion of calling him an outright teller of deliberate falsehoods. But the fact remains: He changed his story significantly over these last 40 years. I don't think there can be any question about that fact after you take a look at the two newspaper clippings I have posted above.
Perhaps his advanced age has taken its toll on his memory and his ability to be able to recall things clearly and correctly. But when we've got TWO different interviews from the 1980s (when Mr. Landis was a much younger man) which are verifying BOTH of the key elements of his "bullet" story --- i.e., it was a bullet "fragment" he saw/handled and "gave to somebody" --- then it seems pretty clear what the truth really is when it comes to Mr. Landis' 11/22/63 involvement with any type of "bullets" or "fragments" in the limo.
Mr. Landis, IMO, needs to be confronted with BOTH of the above newspaper articles at the same time, which each say the very same thing concerning the matter of the "bullet fragment".
I'd be interested to know if Landis thinks he was misquoted in both of those articles, five years apart.
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
I suppose that Paul Landis could, if he wanted to, now start saying that he did indeed retrieve a bullet "fragment" from the limo and "gave it to somebody", but he ALSO saw and picked up a "whole bullet" on the back seat and took it into the hospital. And the reason he never told a single soul about the "whole bullet" ON THE DAY OF THE ASSASSINATION was because.....well.....uh.....um.....[fill in your own choice of reasons here, because I can't think of a single good one myself].
But I think that even that opportunity may have passed Mr. Landis by, because I read a few days back that Landis has, indeed, claimed he was "misquoted" in one of the earlier newspaper articles.
So he now needs to have BOTH the '83 and the '88 articles shoved before his eyes at the same time while a live microphone awaits his response.
But in addition to the 1983 and 1988 interviews, there's also this book excerpt supplied by Vince Palamara from the 2010 book that Landis was a part of ("The Kennedy Detail"), in which Landis seems to be confirming the part about finding only a FRAGMENT, with that fragment being located "in the back where the top would be secured".
So there are TWO things there (in the 2010 book) that perfectly match what Landis was saying in 1983 -- "fragment" and the "top" of the back seat (vs. just the "back seat").
But now, in 2023, that "fragment" found on the TOP of the back seat has been changed by Mr. Landis into a WHOLE BULLET that he found on the TOP of the back seat.
So the location of the found bullet item has remained the same in Landis' accounts from 1983 to 2023, but the size of that item has grown quite a bit indeed.
I can't believe he [Paul Landis] would confirm finding the bullet fragments in his original report but omit reference to finding an entire bullet.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
But Landis doesn't confirm any such finding of even bullet FRAGMENTS in his two reports from Nov. '63. He doesn't say a word about finding ANY type of "bullet" item(s) here.
MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:
Are we to believe none of these things happened, simply because it wasn't mentioned in a report?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
And, therefore, I guess we're supposed to believe that when Paul Landis wrote his very lengthy report on 11/30/63, this was his state of mind:
I'd better mention in my written report these three rather unimportant things that I saw and took into the hospital with me (the hat, the purse, and the cigarette lighter), but I don't think I really need to mention anything about this WHOLE BULLET that I also took into Parkland Hospital and placed at the foot of President Kennedy's stretcher.
Yeah, why don't we all just go ahead and believe that was truly Paul E. Landis' state of mind on November 30, 1963.
JON BANKS SAID:
If you didn’t follow the proper procedures for discovering evidence and creating a chain of custody, would you mention the evidence in your report?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Yes, I would. I'd like to think I'm honest enough to do that. And I would have also included in my report the REASON for why I moved the piece of evidence in the first place.
Sandy, in your last post above, when you said [prior to editing that post] "he [Paul Landis] found a whole bullet on top of the seat (where one's butt sits)", did you mean for that sentence to appear in red (as "speculative")?
Because if not, then you've got it wrong, because Landis is definitely NOT saying he found the whole bullet on the back seat itself (i.e., where a passenger actually sits). He's claiming the whole bullet he found was up on TOP of the back seat "where the cushioning meets the trunk of the car" (direct quote from Landis in his recent September 12, 2023, NBC interview, seen below).
In some of Mr. Landis' recent spate of interviews, he has definitely implied that it's his opinion that the whole bullet he allegedly found in the limo was, indeed, Bullet CE399. He says as much in this interview from four days ago (Sept. 14th, 2023) [which is no longer available to view]. In that interview, at the 4:50 mark, Landis says that the whole bullet found by Darrell Tomlinson is "my bullet; that's the bullet I found".
So, based on those remarks, Mr. Landis certainly seems to be of the opinion that the whole bullet he (allegedly) found was CE399.
You're not even close to being correct in your last post, Mr. Griffith. A single "fragment" being found by Paul Landis in the back of the limousine doesn't do the Lone Gunman scenario a bit of harm. As I said before, over HALF of the head-shot bullet was never recovered at all. So why would it be surprising to have some small fragments from the head shot left in the limo where President Kennedy was located?
It's certainly not a matter of there being too many head-shot fragments seen and/or recovered (despite what Michael Griffith said in a prior post), because not even close to the entire head-shot bullet was ever seen or recovered.
The best that conspiracy theorists can possibly do regarding this matter of "fragments" being found in the BACK SEAT of the limo is to gripe about the fact that whoever did see and/or pick up any such small head-shot fragments didn't bother to place those fragments into the official record of the JFK case (for some unknown reason).
You really believe that these two fragments taken from JFK's head (CE843), which weighed 1.8 grains, plus the fragments seen in this X-ray plus these three small fragments recovered from under Nellie Connally's seat in the limo (which were said by Robert Frazier to weigh a total of 2.3 grains) plus the 65.6 grains of total weight that exists in the two large front-seat bullet fragments (21.0 grains for one of the fragments and 44.6 grains for the other, per Robert Frazier's Warren Commission testimony)....you want to believe that all of those fragments, when added together, weighed more than approximately 160 grains (which is the average weight of a Carcano bullet)?
Let's add them up.....
1.8 + 2.3 + 65.6 = 69.7 grains.
Weight of Oswald's unfired bullet = Approx. 160 grains (but some people have said it's as high as 161).
Unaccounted for weight = 90.3 grains (which would include the fragments left in JFK's skull, which were never weighed, of course).
But even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that those bullet fragments that were left in JFK's head weighed a total of 90 grains (which is, of course, a ridiculously high weight estimate for such tiny little fragments), that would still leave 0.3 grains unaccounted for (or 1.3 grains if you want to go with a pre-fired bullet weight of 161 instead of 160).
I guess perhaps you want to theorize that the one "Paul Landis" bullet fragment (which I have acknowledged) was a really, really big one, is that it? We'll never know the weight of any Landis Fragment, of course, since the person that Landis said he gave that fragment to apparently did a disappearing act and never placed the fragment into evidence. But you can always guess as to the weight. But you'd better guess pretty high, because that's the only way you're ever going to get the total weight of the head-shot bullet to exceed 160 grains.
MAX HOLLAND SAID (VIA AN E-MAIL DISCUSSION):
David,
By your count, how many versions/iterations are there of the Landis recollection?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
As of the time I'm writing this post on September 26, 2023, I think there are five versions of Paul Landis' "bullet" story, with versions 2 and 3 being virtually identical. I'll outline those versions and variations below:
Version #1: November 1963. In this earliest version, via two separate Secret Service reports (one of which is extremely long and detailed), Landis doesn't say a word about seeing or finding any type of "bullet" or "bullet fragment":
Version #2: November 1983. In this version, which appeared in at least two Ohio newspapers, Landis tells Associated Press writer Tim Curran that "there was a bullet fragment on the top of the back seat" which Landis said he "picked up and gave to somebody":
Version #3: November 1988. This version is nearly identical to Version 2, with the only difference being that Mr. Landis, in 1988, doesn't specifically say he found the fragment "on top" of the back seat. In his 1988 interview, he merely says he found a fragment "on the seat".
But another key difference in this 1988 article is the fact that the reporter/writer has placed quotation marks around the key words being spoken by Mr. Landis, indicating that these words (shown below) are not just a mere paraphrasing on the part of the author of the article, but instead represent a direct and verbatim quote coming from the mouth of Paul E. Landis Jr.:
"I distinctly remember there was a bullet fragment on the seat which I picked up and handed to somebody."
Version #4: 2010 (in the book "The Kennedy Detail"). In this version, like the 1983 and 1988 newspaper accounts, Landis says he saw a bullet "fragment" in the back portion of JFK's limousine. But in this 2010 version, unlike the earlier articles from the 1980s, Mr. Landis doesn't say anything about giving the fragment to another person. Instead, he says he placed the fragment "on the seat".
Here's the complete excerpt concerning Landis and the "bullet fragment" as it appears on Page 225 of the 2010 book "The Kennedy Detail" (with thanks going to Vincent Palamara for providing the screen capture linked below):
"When Agent Paul Landis helped Mrs. Kennedy out of the car he saw a bullet fragment in the back where the top would be secured. He picked it up and put it on the seat, thinking that if the car were moved, it might be blown off."
Version #5: Landis' current version, which first surfaced publicly in September 2023, which has Landis now saying he saw and picked up a whole bullet off of the top portion of the back seat of the Presidential limousine on 11/22/63, with Mr. Landis, unlike all previous statements he has ever made concerning the discovery of any type of "bullet" material, now claiming to have put that whole bullet in his pocket and then carrying it himself into Parkland Hospital where he then placed the whole bullet at the foot of the stretcher being occupied by John F. Kennedy in Trauma Room #1.
Mr. Landis is now, in 2023, clearly not a person who believes in the Single-Bullet Theory. And as such, I can't help but wonder why the blurb pictured below still occupies space on Landis' book page at Amazon.com?
Landis has stated in some of his interviews this month [September 2023] that he thinks Lee Oswald WAS, indeed, the sole assassin in Dallas. But, as all of us here at The Education Forum know, if the SBT goes down the tubes, then it's almost impossible (barring some kind of miracle) for there to have been only one shooter in Dealey Plaza.
Which means that Mr. Landis is simply not very well-informed when it comes to certain things relating to the assassination (e.g., the timing of the gunshots and analysis of the Zapruder Film).
Or....
Perhaps Mr. Landis has another "bombshell" waiting for us when his book is released on October 10th, 2023, and perhaps he's going to tell us how (in his opinion) Lee Harvey Oswald was able to assassinate JFK all by himself but WITHOUT the Single-Bullet Theory being a part of the equation.
Because without some sort of explanation to logically and reasonably explain to his readers how the Lone Assassin scenario is still valid (even without the SBT), then this blurb below doesn't make much sense at all....
I just noticed that James Robenalt has a Wikipedia page, and on that Wiki page we find this (FWIW):
"Robenalt helped former Secret Service agent Paul Landis "process his memories" of the JFK Assassination, enabling Landis to write his memoir The Final Witness (2023)."
The source used for the above quote is Peter Baker's recent [September 2023] New York Times article.
The term "process his memories" is quite interesting, isn't it?
