(4 of 6)
Because of the confusion and horror that followed the shooting, no one was quite sure whether there were three or four shots fired at the limousine; the commission held that the "preponderance of the evidence" indicated three, but there was still no real certainty as to which bullets caused which wounds. As reconstructed from a tourist's color movie film of the assassination, the sequence of events went like this: the President was hit once, as was graphically portrayed when his hands clutched his throat. An instant later, Governor Connally, seated on a jump seat in front of Kennedy, began to turn, and slowly slumped back against his wife. Then the President's head jerked; a ghastly pink spray flashed around his head, then disappeared as he fell toward Jackie on his left. The first shot was not fatal; the second was. The time between the two bullets' impact was between 4.8 and 5.6 seconds, said the commission. Connally, too, had been badly hurt: a bullet slammed into his back, tore across a rib and out his chest, shattered his right wrist and entered his left thigh.
The Impact of Exhibit 399
Since tests proved that it took at least 2.3 seconds to operate the bolt action on Oswald's rifle, Oswald obviously could not have fired three times—hitting Kennedy twice and Connally once—in 5.6 seconds or less. The critics therefore claim that the timing and the wounds suggest another gunman. To solve this puzzle, the commission concluded that one bullet hit Kennedy in the head and shattered, another probably missed the limousine entirely (it was never found), and a third struck Kennedy from the back and passed through his neck, then continued on to wound Connally.
A bullet from Oswald's rifle was found on a stretcher at the hospital where Kennedy and Connally were taken; the commission decided that it had fallen out of Connally's superficial thigh wound onto his stretcher. The bullet offered sufficient grounds to make the single-bullet theory suspect. Experts reported that a 6.5-mm. slug such as Oswald used would normally weigh 160 or 161 grains when fired. Doctors had found roughly three grains of metal in Connally's wrist and thigh. But the spent bullet (labeled Exhibit 399) weighed a hefty 158.6 grains when examined—more than it should have, considering the amount of metal left in Connally's body. The nose of the spent bullet was not blunted, and several medical men testified that it could not have done so much damage to Connally and emerged in such good shape.
Nonetheless, ballistic-wound experts testified that it was "probable" that Exhibit 399 had hit both men. One reason: the wound in Connally's back was oddly large, suggesting that the bullet had begun to wobble and slow down before it struck—presumably because it had just passed through the President's neck. Also, the injury in Connally's wrist was such, said the doctor who treated him, that Exhibit 399 had apparently begun to tumble end over end when it emerged from his chest and that it crashed blunt-end first into his wrist. There was some damage on the bullet's flat end.