"JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on Supposed Extra Bullet, Part Two

You can read Part One here.

Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, misleads viewers by intimating that that there was a through-and-through hole in the windshield. The film also misleads by claiming that flares of light are evidence of a shot from the front. Here is an excerpt from a transcript: (27:49 of episode 3)

Whoopi Goldberg: The reports of this extra bullet substantiate some researchers' claim that there was a fourth shot hitting the limo at Zapruder frame 328.

Frame 328 of the Zapruder Film.

Dr. Randy Robertson: The bullet itself is important, but what's more important is, when it struck, and where it came from. And previously at 313, when the bullet went forward through JFK's head, a small fragment had cracked the windshield, from the inner surface. Later, the final shot, was at 328 was when it struck. Both times there were flares of reflected light as the glass was deformed from the impacts of one of a fragment and two of the whole bullet. And these two events occurred in 0.9 seconds. So, therefore they couldn't have been shot from the same rifle.

Screen shot from JFK: Destiny Betrayed showing first light flare.

Screen shot from Destiny Betrayed showing second light flare.

Whoopi Goldberg: The Warren Commission's contention is that only three shots were fired, and that one of them had missed its target completely. So how does one account for the extensive damage to the limousine?

Dr. David Mantik: There is a lot of damage in the car. The chrome strip, which went around the windshield, was dented from the inside, which suggests a projectile from the rear. Six witnesses reported a through-and-through hole in the windshield.

Whoopi Goldberg: After the Secret Service tried to scrub down the interior at Parkland Hospital, the Presidential limo was then flown to Washington. The interior was completely cleaned up within 36 hours, and the windshield was replaced within 48 to 72 hours. The car was then shipped first to the Ford factory in Michigan, and then to Cincinnati, where it was extensively rebuilt by a car restoration company.

First, let's discuss the issue of the flares at frames 314 and 329 of the Zapruder Film. Dr. Gary Aguilar, Dr. Doug DeSalles and Bill Simpich debunk the notion of the flares here.

They note that the supposed first flare, at Zapruder frame 314, is "restricted to the frame of the vent window, the chrome strip along its leading edge that covers the windshield support, and other chrome objects near it."

You can see the flare in frame 309 of the Zapruder film, well before the head shot.

Frame 309 of the Zapruder film. You can see the so-called flare on the right side of the frame.

Robertson believes that the supposed bullet found in the limousine by Chiefs Mills and Martinell hit the windshield at frame 328:

A whole bullet directly struck the windshield frame at 328 bending its tip in the process and falling back into the limo where it was later recovered during the initial limo inspection.

Josiah Thompson believes that the flare substantiates his theory of a shot from the rear at frame Z-327 - Z-328, but concedes another possibility: (Last Second in Dallas, page 234)

It is difficult to know what to make of this flare. It endures for only a very short interval. Is it an indisputable sign that the windshield was struck from the rear by a fragment at this time? No. It is possible that the car's angle to the sun changed as it proceeded and this caused the flare.

So, Robertson believes the flare in Frame 329 is the result of a shot from behind hitting the windshield, and Thompson believes the flare is the result (if not a coincidental artifact) of a shot from the rear hitting Kennedy.

I believe the flare is nothing more than a reflection from the sun. Conspiracy theorists are reading way too much into the flares. Here are frames 325-330 of the Zapruder film and you can see "the progressive movement of the reflected sunlight on the curve of the windshield." (“'Your Lying Eyes' – Josiah Thompson’s Lonely Labyrinth" by Louis Girdler, page 78)

Zapruder Frame 325

Zapruder Frame 326

Zapruder Film Frame 327

Zapruder Film Frame 328

Zapruder Film Frame 329

Zapruder Film Frame 330

Now on to the supposed through-and-through bullet hole in the windshield.

The presidential limousine arrived in Washington D.C. at 8:00 PM. It was driven to the White House garage and arrived at 9:00 PM. At 1:00 AM, a team of five FBI agents arrived at the garage and examined the limousine.

You can read more about the handing of the limousine here.

About 10 PM, Chiefs Mills and Martinell were sent to examine the car for bone and bullet fragments:

A team of FBI agents then thoroughly examined the car at 1:00 AM. Robert Frazier described what happened:

Warren Commission Exhibit 350 shows the crack in the windshield. The photo was taken by FBI agent Robert Frazier on November 23rd:

Warren Commission Exhibit 349 shows a small dent on the chrome strip on top of the windshield:

Warren Commission Exhibit 351 shows the crack in the windshield:

Robert Frazier was asked about the windshield:

The windshield was removed from the limousine. Here is a memo written by F. Vaughn Ferguson of the Ford Motor Company:

Ferguson wrote that "Examination of the windshield disclosed no perforation, but substantial cracks radiating a couple of inches from the center of the windshield at a point directly beneath the mirror."

In March 1964, the windshield was further examined at FBI headquarters:

The HSCA also examined the windshield:

Here is Figure 5 from the HSCA volumes:

The evidence is clear that there was no through-and-through bullet hole in the presidential limousine. So, what about the six witnesses who said they saw a hole?

Douglas Horne wrote about the six witnesses on his blog.

Four of the witnesses, Dallas motorcycle policemen Stavis Ellis and H. R. Freeman, reporter Richard Dudman, and medical student Evalea Glanges, all supposedly saw the bullet hole while the limousine was at Parkland.

Richard Dudman was a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Horne quotes him from The New Republic:

A few of us noticed the hole in the windshield when the limousine was standing at the emergency entrance after the President had been carried inside. I could not approach close enough to see on which side was the cup-shaped spot that indicates a bullet had pierced the glass from the opposite side.

Note that he couldn't get that close.

Here is what he wrote in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of December 1, 1963:

Here he says "This correspondent and one other man saw the hole, which resembled a bullet hole ..."

Robert Branson's column from the December 15, 1963 issue of the Battle Creek Enquirer, mentions the other reporter:

Other reporters did not get that close either.

And Richard Dudman walked back the claim in an article in the November 22, 1988 edition of the Bangor Daily News:

Another one of Horne's witnesses is George Whitaker who was a senior manager at Ford Motor Company. He was interviewed in 1993 and said that on November 25th "he discovered the JFK limousine -- a unique, one-of-a-kind item that he unequivocally identified -- in the Rouge Plant's B building." He then noticed a bullet hole. The only problem is that the car was still in Washington. It was not driven to the Rouge Plant until December 20, 1963.

The last witness on Douglas Horne's list is Secret Service agent Charles Taylor, Jr., who wrote a report on November 27, 1963:

The report says "In addition, of particular note was the small hole just left of center in the windshield from which appears to be bullets fragments were removed." Taylor is clearly referring to the defect in the windshield in which metal scrapings were taken.

His allegation was investigated by the Church Committee in 1975. After quoting Taylor's report, this staff report noted:

The Committee staff interviewed Taylor:

Here is his affidavit:

By the way, had there been a through-and-through bullet hole in the windshield, it would have looked more like this:

It is relevant that the windshield is still in existence.

Douglas Horne notes that "the windshield at the National Archives today exhibits long cracks -- not a through-and-through bullet hole -- and is damaged on the outside."

Horne is forgetting that there were some cracks added to the windshield during its subsequent handling.

Horne concluded that the Archives windshield was not in the limousine on November 22nd: "It simply cannot be." Rather, "the windshield evidence was twice switched-out -- substituted -- by the U.S. government."

Yes, we now have the multiple windshield theory. To Douglas Horne, this is all part and parcel of a series of altered evidence:

The pattern is the same, and the pattern is one of lying, and intentionally covering up the truth, by destroying some evidence, and substituting altered evidence in its place. All of this substitution of evidence---tampering with wounds prior to the commencement of the autopsy through clandestine post mortem surgery; the alteration of some of the key autopsy photographs and x-rays (and the destruction of others); and the alteration of the Zapruder film---was intended to suppress evidence of shots from the front (i.e., proof of conspiracy), so the government could more easily promote its lone assassin cover story.

Why on earth did Oliver Stone leave out the multiple windshield theory and the alteration of the Zapruder film from JFK: Destiny Betrayed?

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