Peter Landis was riding in the back seat of President Kennedy's car before his assassination. Photo: AP Photo/James W. " ;Ike" Altgens, file
The Secret Service agent who was just feet from JFK when he was assassinated claims to have found the «magic bullet,» but it got lost in a curious tampering that raises questions about the second shooter.< /p>
Paul Landis, who was standing on the running board of a car behind the president, also said he heard two additional shots during the attack in Dallas in 1963.
Mr. Landis, who never testified to the commission about the assassination, said, that he took a bullet from the back seat of JFK's car and placed it on the president's stretcher so investigators could study it.
But somehow the bullet ended up on Texas Governor John Connally's stretcher, bolstering the theory about the “magic bullet”, according to which it passed through Kennedy and hit Connally.
The government's Warren Commission initially concluded that the bullet passed through the President's throat before striking Mr. Connally's shoulder, ribs, wrist and thigh.
Part of the official findings was that the single bullet became caused the wound to Mr. Kennedy's neck, and all of the injuries sustained by Mr. Connally have long been considered vital to the conclusion that killer Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
Paul Landis resigned from the CIA shortly after the assassination of JFK
Mr. Landis resigned from the Secret Service six months after the shooting, was traumatized and refused to participate in the investigation or any reporting about the shooting.
To Landis , now 88, has written a memoir that contradicts many of the official conclusions about what remains one of the world's most enduring mysteries.
Mr. Landis was tasked with protecting First Lady Jackie Kennedy, and he recalls having to duck to avoid being brained.
Speaking of the bullet, he told the New York Times that he believed , she was passed from one stretcher to another as they were pushed together.
«There was no one there to secure the scene and that really, really bothered me,» Mr Landis said. “All the agents who were there were focused on the president.
“Everything happened so quickly. And I was just afraid of it — it was evidence that I immediately understood. Very important. And I didn’t want it to disappear or get lost. So it was, «Paul, you have to make a decision,» and I grabbed it.»
Mr. Landis leads President Kennedy and First Lady Jackie Kennedy through the crowd at Dallas Airport in 1963. Photo: Bettmann
Mr. Landis, whose memoir «The Last Witness» will be published next month, believes the bullet did not have enough speed to pass through Kennedy, let alone continue its incredible trajectory.
He said that was why she was found in the back seat and that the wounds Mr. Connally suffered were caused by another bullet.
Until recently, Mr. Landis always accepted that Oswald, whom Jack Ruby himself was the only shooter in a Dallas police station.
Now he is less convinced, he told the New York Times.
“At this point I start to doubt myself,” he said. “Now I'm starting to wonder. That's all he's willing to do.»
The Warren Commission concluded that Oswald fired three bullets from a Carcano M91/38 bolt-action rifle in 8.3 seconds.
p>However, Italian experts in 2007 found that the weapon was unable to fire three bullets in less than 19 seconds.
Jackie Kennedy stands next to the ambulance containing her husband's body after his assassination. Photo: Bettmann
Assumptions that a single culprit was responsible for the murder have been challenged repeatedly over the past six decades by a variety of conspiracy theories suggesting the murder was orchestrated by, among others, the Mafia, the Vatican and Fidel Castro.
The president's nephew, current presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose father Bobby Kennedy was also assassinated, said the CIA was responsible for his uncle's assassination.
Conspiracy theorists claimed that the CIA and anti-communists orchestrated assassination to prevent the US withdrawal from Vietnam.
However, files released by the US Government in 2017 revealed that a detailed examination of official CIA records in 1975 revealed nothing that could link Oswald to any official agency.
President Joe Biden has ordered the release of the remaining records related to the killing and 2,672 files. were published by the National Archives between April and June this year.
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