CLEVELAND — He nonetheless remembers the primary gunshot. For an prompt, standing on the operating board of the motorcade automotive, he entertained the useless hope that possibly it was only a firecracker or a blown tire. However he knew weapons, and he knew higher. Then got here one other shot. And one other. And the president slumped down.
For thus many nights afterward, he relived that grisly second in his desires. Now, 60 years later, Paul Landis, one of many Secret Service brokers simply ft away from President John F. Kennedy on that fateful day in Dallas, is telling his story in full for the primary time. And in no less than one key respect, his account differs from the official model in a means that will change the understanding of what occurred in Dealey Plaza.
Landis has spent a lot of the intervening years fleeing historical past, attempting to neglect that unforgettable second etched within the consciousness of a grieving nation. The reminiscence of the explosion of violence and the determined race to the hospital and the devastating flight residence and the wrenching funeral with John F. Kennedy Jr. saluting his fallen father — it was all an excessive amount of, too torturous, a lot in order that Landis left the service and Washington behind.
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Till lastly, after the nightmares had handed ultimately, he might give it some thought once more. And he might examine it. And he realized that what he learn was not fairly proper, not as he remembered it. Because it seems, if his recollections are right, the much-discussed “magic bullet” could not have been so magic in any case.
His reminiscence challenges the idea superior by the Warren Fee that has been the topic of a lot hypothesis and debate over time — that one of many bullets fired on the president’s limousine hit not solely Kennedy however Gov. John Connally Jr. of Texas, who was driving with him, in a number of locations.
Landis’ account, included in a forthcoming memoir, would rewrite the narrative of one in all trendy American historical past’s most earth-shattering days in an vital means. It could not imply any greater than that. However it might additionally encourage those that have lengthy suspected that there was a couple of gunman in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, including new grist to one of many nation’s enduring mysteries.
As with all issues associated to the assassination, in fact, his account raises questions of its personal. Landis remained silent for 60 years, which has fueled doubts even for his former Secret Service companion, and recollections are difficult even for these sincerely sure of their recollections. A pair components of his account contradict the official statements he filed with authorities instantly after the capturing, and among the implications of his model can’t be simply reconciled to the prevailing report.
However he was there, a firsthand witness, and it’s uncommon for brand new testimony to emerge six a long time after the actual fact. He has by no means subscribed to the conspiracy theories and stresses that he’s not selling one now. At age 88, he mentioned, all he needs is to inform what he noticed and what he did. He’ll go away it to everybody else to attract conclusions.
“There’s no objective at this level,” he mentioned in an interview final month in Cleveland, the primary time he has talked about this with a reporter upfront of his ebook, “The Ultimate Witness,” which shall be printed by Chicago Overview Press on Oct. 10. “I simply suppose it had been lengthy sufficient that I wanted to inform my story.”
What it comes right down to is a copper-jacketed 6.5 mm projectile. The Warren Fee determined that one of many bullets fired that day struck the president from behind, exited from the entrance of his throat and continued on to hit Connally, in some way managing to injure his again, chest, wrist and thigh. It appeared unimaginable {that a} single bullet might do all that, so skeptics known as it the magic bullet concept.
Investigators got here to that conclusion partly as a result of the bullet was discovered on a stretcher believed to have held Connally at Parkland Memorial Hospital, in order that they assumed it had exited his physique throughout efforts to save lots of his life. However Landis, who was by no means interviewed by the Warren Fee, mentioned that’s not what occurred.
In reality, he mentioned, he was the one who discovered the bullet — and he discovered it not within the hospital close to Connally however within the presidential limousine lodged behind the seat behind the place Kennedy was sitting.
When he noticed the bullet after the motorcade arrived on the hospital, he mentioned he grabbed it to thwart memento hunters. Then, for causes that also appear fuzzy even to him, he mentioned he entered the hospital and positioned it subsequent to Kennedy on the president’s stretcher, assuming it might in some way assist medical doctors work out what occurred. Sooner or later, he now guesses, the stretchers should have been pushed collectively, and the bullet was shaken from one to a different.
“There was no one there to safe the scene, and that was an enormous, massive trouble to me,” Landis mentioned. “All of the brokers that have been there have been centered on the president.” A crowd was gathering. “This was all happening so rapidly. And I used to be simply afraid that — it was a bit of proof, that I noticed immediately. Crucial. And I didn’t need it to vanish or get misplaced. So it was, ‘Paul, you’ve obtained to decide,’ and I grabbed it.’”
Landis theorizes that the bullet struck Kennedy within the again however for some cause was undercharged and didn’t penetrate deeply, subsequently popping again out earlier than the president’s physique was faraway from the limousine.
Landis has been reluctant to take a position on the bigger implications. He at all times believed that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman.
However now? “At this level, I’m starting to doubt myself,” he mentioned. “Now I start to marvel.” That’s so far as he’s prepared to go.
A local of Ohio and son of a school sports activities coach, Landis doesn’t come throughout as a swaggering safety agent. He needed to stretch to fulfill the 5-foot-8 peak requirement when he joined the service and will now not accomplish that. “I’m too little now,” he mentioned, to make it in right this moment’s company. He’s quiet and unassuming, wearing a coat and tie for an interview, his grey hair neatly trimmed. He has a bit bother listening to and speaks softly, however his thoughts is evident and his recollections regular.
In recent times, he confided his story with a number of key figures, together with Lewis Merletti, a former director of the Secret Service. James Robenalt, a Cleveland lawyer and creator of a number of books of historical past, has deeply researched the assassination and helped Landis course of his recollections.
“If what he says is true, which I are likely to imagine, it’s more likely to reopen the query of a second shooter, if not much more,” Robenalt mentioned. “If the bullet we all know because the magic or pristine bullet stopped in President Kennedy’s again, it implies that the central thesis of the Warren Report, the single-bullet concept, is fallacious.” And if Connally was hit by a separate bullet, he added, then it appeared potential it was not from Oswald, who he argued couldn’t have reloaded that quick.
Merletti, who has been pleasant with Landis for a decade, was unsure what to consider his account. “I don’t know if that story’s true or not, however I do know that the brokers that have been there that day, they have been tormented for years by what occurred,” he mentioned in an interview.
Merletti referred Landis to Ken Gormley, the president of Duquesne College and a distinguished presidential historian, who helped him discover an agent for his ebook. In an interview, Gormley mentioned he was not shocked {that a} traumatized agent would come ahead all these years later, evaluating it to a dying declaration in authorized circumstances.
“It’s quite common as individuals get to the top of their lives,” Gormley mentioned. “They wish to make peace with issues. They wish to get on the desk issues they’ve been holding again, particularly if it’s a bit of historical past and so they need the report corrected. This doesn’t appear like a play by somebody attempting to get consideration for himself or cash. I don’t learn it that means in any respect. I feel he firmly believes this. Whether or not it matches collectively, I don’t know. However individuals can ultimately determine that out.”
Landis’ account varies in a few respects from two written statements he filed within the week after the capturing. Apart from not mentioning discovering the bullet, he reported listening to solely two pictures. “I don’t recall listening to a 3rd shot,” he wrote. Likewise, he didn’t point out going into the trauma room the place Kennedy was taken, writing that he “remained outdoors by the door” when the primary girl went in.
Gerald Posner, creator of “Case Closed,” a 1993 ebook that concluded that Oswald certainly killed Kennedy on his personal, mentioned he was doubtful. Whereas he didn’t query Landis’ sincerity, Posner mentioned the story didn’t add up.
“Individuals’s recollections usually don’t enhance over time, and it’s a flashing warning signal to me, about skepticism I’ve over his story, that on some crucial particulars of the assassination, together with the variety of pictures, his reminiscence has gotten higher as an alternative of worse,” he mentioned.
“Even assuming that he’s precisely describing what occurred with the bullet,” Posner added, “it’d imply nothing greater than we now know that the bullet that got here out of Gov. Connally did so within the limousine, not on a stretcher in Parkland the place it was discovered.”
Landis mentioned the reviews he filed after the assassination included errors; he was in shock and had barely slept for 5 days, as he centered on serving to the primary girl by the ordeal, he mentioned, and never paying sufficient consideration to what he submitted. He didn’t suppose to say the bullet, he mentioned.
It was not till 2014 that he realized that the official account of the bullet differed from his reminiscence, he mentioned, however he didn’t come ahead then out of a sense that he had made a mistake in placing it on the stretcher with out telling anybody in that pre-“CSI,” secure-the-crime-scene period.
“I didn’t wish to speak about it,” Landis mentioned. “I used to be afraid. I began to suppose, did I do one thing fallacious? There was a concern that I might need executed one thing fallacious and I shouldn’t speak about it.”
Certainly, his companion, Clint Hill, the legendary Secret Service agent who clambered onto the again of the dashing limousine in a futile effort to save lots of Kennedy, discouraged Landis from talking out. “Many ramifications,” Hill warned in a 2014 electronic mail that Landis saved and shared final month.
Hill, who has set out his personal account of what occurred in a number of books and interviews, solid doubt on Landis’ model Friday. “I imagine it raises considerations when the story he’s telling now, 60 years after the actual fact, is totally different than the statements he wrote within the days following the tragedy” and instructed in subsequent years, Hill mentioned in an electronic mail. “In my thoughts, there are severe inconsistencies in his numerous statements/tales.”
Landis’ rendezvous with historical past started within the small city of Worthington, Ohio, north of Columbus. After school and a stint within the Ohio Air Nationwide Guard, he was working in a clothes retailer when a household pal described his job within the Secret Service. Intrigued, Landis joined in 1959 within the Cincinnati workplace, the place he chased thieves who swiped Social Safety checks out of mailboxes.
A 12 months later, he was despatched to Washington, the place he joined the protecting element for President Dwight Eisenhower’s grandchildren.
After Kennedy was elected, Landis, code named Debut due to his youth, was assigned to protect the brand new president’s kids and later the primary girl, Jacqueline Kennedy, alongside Hill. As a result of the primary girl accompanied her husband to Dallas that fall day in 1963, Landis, then 28, was a part of the motorcade, driving the rear of the suitable operating board on the black Cadillac convertible, code named Halfback, simply ft behind the presidential limousine.
On the first shot, Landis turned to look over his proper shoulder within the course of the sound however noticed nothing. Then he turned to the limousine and noticed Kennedy elevating his arms, evidently hit. All of a sudden, Landis seen that Hill had leapt off their follow-up automotive and was sprinting towards the limousine. Landis thought of doing the identical however didn’t have an angle.
He mentioned he heard a second shot that sounded louder and at last the deadly third shot that hit Kennedy within the head. Landis needed to duck to keep away from being splattered by flesh and mind matter. He knew immediately that the president was useless. Hill, now on the again of the limousine, turned again and confirmed it with a thumbs-down.
As soon as they reached the hospital, Hill and Landis coaxed the distraught first girl to let go of her husband so he may very well be taken inside. After they exited the automotive, Landis seen two bullet fragments in a pool of brilliant pink blood. He fingered one in all them however put it again.
That’s when he mentioned he seen the intact bullet within the seam of the tufted darkish leather-based cushioning. He mentioned he slipped it into his coat pocket and headed into the hospital, the place he deliberate to offer it to a supervisor however within the confusion instinctively put it on Kennedy’s stretcher as an alternative.
The hospital’s senior engineer later discovered it when he was transferring Connally’s stretcher, by then empty, and bumped it in opposition to one other stretcher within the corridor, ensuing within the bullet falling out.
The Warren Fee report mentioned that it “eradicated President Kennedy’s stretcher as a supply of the bullet” as a result of the president remained on his stretcher whereas medical doctors tried to save lots of his life and was not eliminated till his physique was positioned in a coffin.
Investigators decided that the bullet, designated Fee Exhibit 399, was fired by the identical C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle discovered within the sixth flooring of the Texas Faculty Guide Depository. They concluded that the bullet handed by Kennedy, then entered Connally’s proper shoulder, struck his rib, exited beneath his proper nipple and continued by his proper wrist and into his left thigh.
Medical doctors concurred that the one bullet might have prompted all of the harm. However the bullet was described as almost pristine and had misplaced just one or two grains of its authentic 160 or 161 grains in weight, inflicting skeptics to doubt that it might have executed all that the fee mentioned it had. Nonetheless, ballistic specialists utilizing trendy forensic methods concluded on the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination that the single-bullet concept was completely believable.
Landis mentioned he was shocked that the Warren Fee by no means interviewed him however assumed that his supervisors have been defending the brokers, who had been out late the evening earlier than socializing (Landis till 5 a.m., though he insisted they weren’t drunk). “No person actually requested me,” he mentioned.
Night time after evening, these seconds of violence in Dallas saved replaying in his head, his personal private Zapruder movie on an infinite loop. “The president’s head exploding — I couldn’t shake that imaginative and prescient,” he mentioned. “No matter I used to be doing, that’s all I used to be eager about.”
Many photos of these days of mourning present Landis at Jacqueline Kennedy’s aspect as she endured the rituals of a presidential farewell. With Landis and Hill nonetheless defending her, the previous first girl was in fixed movement within the months afterward.
“She’d be within the again seat sobbing, and also you’d wish to say one thing, however it wasn’t actually our place to say something,” Landis recalled.
After six months, he couldn’t take it anymore and left the Secret Service. Haunted, he moved to Cape Cod in Massachusetts, then New York, then Ohio close to Cleveland. For many years, he made a residing in actual property and machine merchandise and home portray, something so long as it had nothing to do with defending presidents.
He was usually conscious of the conspiracy theories, but by no means learn a ebook about them — or the Warren Fee report, for that matter. “I simply paid no consideration to that,” he mentioned. “I simply eliminated myself. I simply felt I had been there. I had seen it, and I knew what I noticed and what I did. And that’s all.”
He did a couple of interviews in 2010 and thereafter however by no means talked about discovering the bullet. Then, in 2014, a neighborhood police chief he knew gave him a duplicate of “Six Seconds in Dallas,” a 1967 ebook by Josiah Thompson arguing that there have been a number of shooters. Landis learn it and believed the official account of the bullet was fallacious.
That led to conversations with Merletti and Gormley and ultimately, after a few years, to his ebook.
It was not straightforward. As he completed the manuscript, he stared on the laptop display, broke down and cried uncontrollably. “I didn’t understand that I had so many suppressed feelings and emotions,” he mentioned. “I simply couldn’t cease. And that was simply an enormous emotional reduction.”
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