The revelations of a former secret agent who was present on the day of Kennedy’s assassination reopen the controversy over the case

Six decades later, new details continue to emerge about one of the most scrutinized events in American history: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

Paul Landis, an 88-year-old former Secret Service agent who saw the president’s death up close, says in a forthcoming memoir that he took a bullet from the car after Kennedy was shot and put it in the car has left behind. stretcher of the president in hospital.

It may seem like a minor detail in a case that has been under scrutiny since the 1960s, but for people who have spent years studying every piece of evidence, Landis’s account is an unexpected and important development.

Conspiracies about how many shooters were involved, who was ultimately responsible and how many bullets actually hit the president have abounded in the decades since the assassination.

The idea that the true facts of the case differ from the official version is the original conspiracy theory of modern America, and some historians believe the assassination led to a decline in American confidence in their government.

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Depending on how you look at it, Landis’ story changes nothing or everything.

Your book The last witness (The Final Witness) will surely add more spark to the never-ending national obsession with this murder.

“This is really the most important news about the assassination since 1963,” said James Robenalt, a historian and Kennedy expert who worked with Landis and prepared him for his public revelations.

New details in an old suitcase

The most important facts of Kennedy’s assassination are now generally known.

On November 22, 1963, a convertible carrying President Kennedy, First Lady Jackie Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally Jr. drove by. and his wife by Dealey Plaza in Dallas. when a series of shots rang out.

Kennedy was shot in the head and neck, and Connally in the back. Authorities took both to nearby Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Kennedy was pronounced dead. The governor survived.

The Warren Commission report, the result of a government investigation into the assassination, identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the sole assailant.

ballistic evidence helped confirm this conclusion. Oswald was shot dead while in police custody shortly after Kennedy’s assassination.

The report also concluded that a single bullet passed through Kennedy and Connally, hitting both in different places, which helped explain how a single gunman carried out the attack. The discovery became known as the ‘single bullet theory’ or ‘magic bullet theory’.

The commission was based in part on the fact that a bullet was later found on Connally’s stretcher at the hospital.

At the time, no one knew where it came from. But the committee ultimately concluded that the bullet had been dislodged as doctors rushed to treat Connally.

Some skeptics of the official report have long focused on that one bullet, finding it difficult to believe that it could have caused as many injuries as to two separate men.

Landis’ story has been a bombshell, not only because it provides new first-hand testimony, but also because, according to some opinions, complicates the single bullet theory.

What Paul Landis remembers

On the day of the murder, Landis, then 28 years old, was He was assigned to protect Jackie Kennedy.

When the attack began, he was just a few feet away from President Kennedy and witnessed the terrible shot to his head.

Then absolute chaos ensued. What Landis did next he didn’t tell anyone other than a few confidants for decades.

In an interview with the New York TimesLandis said that after the motorcade arrived at the hospital, he saw a bullet in Kennedy’s car, behind where the president had been sitting.

He picked it up and put it in his pocket. Shortly thereafter, according to his recollection, he found himself in the emergency room with President Kennedy and placed the bullet on the president’s stretcher so that the evidence would travel with the body.

“There was no one to protect the place, and that really bothered me,” Landis told the newspaper New York Times.

“This all happened very quickly. And I was afraid that that might be evidence, which I immediately realized,” he continued. “Very important. And I didn’t want it to disappear or be lost.”

Apparently Landis never provided this proof and the Warren Commission never interviewed him. He never mentioned this in any official report.

“He had not slept at all and was still asked to continue working, and he was suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder,” Robenalt told the BBC.

“He forgot the bullet,” says Robenalt, who interviewed Landis extensively about his memories and recently wrote an article for Vanity honest analyzing the revelation.

“I was completely absorbed in the enormous things that were happening.”

For years, avoided reading about the murder or conspiracy theories which he generated until he decided he was ready to tell his story to the world.

The mysterious bullet

Those who have read Landis’ account have drawn different conclusions, and the story raises as many questions as it supposedly answers.

Robenalt told the BBC he believes this story undermines the ‘one bullet’ theory.

Landis now believes the bullet he found in the car was the one that landed on Connally’s stretcher.

He believes the bullet lodged superficially in Kennedy’s back and fell into the car.

If he’s right, Robenalt says, Connelly and Kennedy may not have been hit by the same bullet.

In fact, he believes this could revive skepticism about whether Oswald acted alone.

If it had not been a bullet that caused the wounds of both men, Robenalt asks in his extensive article in Vanity fairCould Oswald have fired both shots in such quick succession with the rifle he was using?

However, different people are They are skeptical of Landis’ story, including a colleague who was also directly involved that day.

Clint Hill, the officer who jumped into the back of Kennedy’s car to protect the president, doesn’t believe Landis’ story.

“When you look at all the evidence, the statements and the things that happened, they don’t match up,” Hill told NBC News. “I don’t think it makes sense for him to try to put the bullet in the president’s stretcher.”

According to Gerald Posner, investigative journalist and author of “Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK,” Landis’ story actually supports the “single bullet” theory.

Posner says that “his account must be taken seriously,” but he also has doubts about the accuracy of Landis’s memories after nearly six decades.

For example, Posner pointed to interviews with people who were in the emergency room with Kennedy at Parkland Hospital. No one mentioned Landis’ presence there, he said.

And the fact that Landis never reported the incident to authorities raises questions about his behavior that day, Posner says.

“That said, he could say things that aren’t true, but the underlying fact that ‘I saw a bullet, I grabbed it, put it in my pocket and left it in the hospital before I left’, that may or may not are true,” says Posner.

Whether or not Landis opens a new mystery or simply confirms an existing fact is almost immaterial.

After all, this is Kennedy’s assassination, and its revelation will ensure it years of debate and dissection of one of the greatest national traumas in the United States.

“Are they going to solve it in such a way that everyone is 100% satisfied? No,” says Posner. “It’s a case that will never be closed for most people.” (JO)