Sir,
—In his rather superficial discussion of the JFK assassination in the last issue (HI 11.4, Winter 2003), Mel Ayton matches the wilder speculations of the conspiracy theorists with some of his own. Among these is his unqualified assertion of the most fantastic of the conclusions of the Warren Report—the so-called ‘single bullet theory’. According to this supernatural formulation, a single round strikes the President in the head, describes a zigzag course through his body, exits, and then—in defiance of the laws of physics—performs a near-180-degree turn to penetrate the wrist of Governor Connolly, to exit and fall to the floor of their vehicle in an almost pristine condition. This might be better termed the ‘magic bullet’ theory.
Given his evident faith in voodoo, it is not surprising that Ayton also neglects to remind his readers of Earl Warren’s public statement upon the presentation of the several thousand pages of his Commission’s report to the American people: ‘The real truth’, the jurist assured us, ‘won’t come out in our lifetime’.
—Yours etc.,
MARTIN COMACK
Somerville
Minnesota
The reader is obviously unaware of Dale Myers’s state-of-the-art computer simulation of the events in Dealey Plaza, which was featured in the November 2003 ABC Special on the fortieth anniversary of JFK’s assassination. Myers spent ten years developing his programme and his work is supported by just about every leading forensic scientist and ballistics expert. Further work on the subject has been done by a panel of experts, led by top forensic scientist Dr Vincent Dimaio, in the mid-1990s, using laser-weapon technology. The results were virtually identical to Myers’s work. I have examined the limousine, which is housed in Greenfield Ford Car Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. In 1989 I discovered that the plan of the limousine used by conspiracy theorists was wrong. Connolly had not been seated directly in front of JFK but six inches to the side, thus aligning him with the path of the so-called ‘magic bullet’. The single bullet theory is not actually a theory, it has now been established as ‘fact’ by the National Academy of Sciences and leading forensic experts in the United States. Please refer to p.72 of my The JFK Assassination—dispelling the myths. As to the reader’s comments about Earl Warren and the sinister interpretation of his remarks that the truth would not be revealed in ‘our generation’—Warren had been referring to Oswald’s stay in the Soviet Union and the information gleaned through intelligence agencies and intelligence operatives (electronic and human) about the activities of Soviet leaders in the weeks after JFK’s death. These intelligence sources convinced the US intelligence community that the Soviet Union had not been involved in the assassination. Earl Warren likely knew about the CIA plots to overthrow or murder Fidel Castro. Warren also knew about Soviet defector Yuri Nosenko, who had had access to the KGB’s ‘Oswald file’.
—Yours etc.,
MEL AYTON