John F. Kennedy Assassination and General Robert Kennedy Essay

Submitted By randlebrooks
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Pages: 14

if it contradicted their conclusion. They had been under immense pressure to reach a verdict and, had no doubt been influenced by public opinion. In fact, three days after the assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson received a memo saying; "The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin, and that he did not have confederates." By the 1970's, many Americans were alarmed that the Warren Commission had been so single minded and did not make any attempt to investigate other possible theories and promising leads. It was also brought to light that none of the commission members had any investigative experiences and completely relied on Hoover and the FBI for their evidence. However, the Commissions biggest mistake was in disregarding key eyewitnesses whose testimonies they considered to be incompatible, inconsistent, or were contrary to their lone psychotic assassin theory. Nobody on the commission heard any of the witness' testimonies as they appeared before the counsel. Credible testimonies from literally dozens of witnesses such as these were ignored. This indicated that their report was based on appallingly selective reading of evidence, and reflected the effort that was put into determining its accuracy. Supposedly such eyewitness testimonies remained inconclusive to the Warren Commission at the time, as they just didn't make sense. Similarly, Kennedy's autopsy reports also contained many discrepancies. Two autopsies were carried out on Kennedy. It was hoped at the time that they would reveal the angles at which the bullets had entered Kennedy's body, hopefully pointing to where the gunman or gunmen were situated. The autopsies actually created even more confusion, as they were completely contradictory. The first autopsy was conducted in Parkland Hospital in Dallas, although the official one was conducted in Bethesda Naval Hospital, Washington DC. When the two examinations were compared, alarming differences showed up. The main difference was that the exit and entry wounds were said to be different. In Dallas, doctors claimed that the bullet entered Kennedy's body at the front of the neck, about bow-tie height. When Kennedy was brought into Parkland Hospital, Dr Malcolm Perry said that when he was about to perform the tracheotomy, he noticed a hole of about 5mm just below Kennedy's Adams apple, presumably where the bullet had entered. Contrary to this, the Washington autopsy reports show that the bullet exited from the neck. Their report confirmed the 'single bullet theory' addressed by the Warren Commission whose conclusion was highly dependent on this theory. This theory was that a bullet had entered Kennedy's right shoulder blade, bruised the strap muscles of the right side of the neck, damaging the windpipe and making its exit through the front of the neck, it had entered Governor Connelly's back, who had been seated in front of Kennedy, went through his chest taking out part of his fifth rib and collapsing his lung. The bullet then went into his right wrist and then buried itself in his left thigh. Although there is medical evidence to support this theory, some believe that the bullets path and velocity could not have been possible. Even Governor Connelly believed that the bullet that wounded Kennedy wasn't the same one responsible for his wounds.
An FBI supplementary report states that the bullet that entered Kennedy's back had penetrated to less than a finger length. If this is true, how can the bullet have exited from the front of his neck? There are of course other facts that warp this theory such as the fact that the bullet was mysteriously found on a hospital stretcher in pristine condition, yet the bullet should have been out of shape and showing signs of severe impact, considering that it had gone through two major bones and had torn out a great deal of muscle. This led some theorists to believe that the FBI or CIA planted the bullet on the stretcher so that they could pin the assassination on