Book Update 1: After accessing a different video of nurse Phyllis Hall,
who said that the (pointed) bullet she saw was "between JFK's ear and shoulder" (a statement I previously questioned), I learned that she actually clarified that statement to mean that she saw this bullet on the gurney, which makes more sense. This clarification also caused me to re-think and revise a theory I originally put forth in Micro-Studies 2 (see "Book Update 2" below)
Book Update 2: I need to "walk back" my theory of "when and where" of the "pre-autopsy surgery to the head" took place. In Micro-Studies 2, I hypothesized that it actually took place at Parkland Hospital, before the body was transported to Washington, D.C. My reason for thinking that was the bullet seen by Nurse Hall, and found later on the stretcher by Darrell Tomlinson. I think now that the bullet fell out from the head during the CPR and what-not, when a chunk of JFK's brain fell out of the back of the head blow-out onto the stretcher. I also think the idea that the stretcher bullet came "from the back" was an explanation originally offered to account for Tomlinson's "stretcher bullet," and later modified to have come "from Connally" in order reduce the four rifle shots (3 from the TSBD, plus the AR-15 accident) down to three. Humes' pre-autopsy actions were presumably to search for the AR-15 bullet that was originally lodged "behind the (right) ear" (per the Belmont memo), and which must have been seen "behind the ear" by one of the Secret Service men before Kennedy was placed on the emergency room gurney. I am removing this section ("Pre-Autopsy to the Head: When and Where") from the Micro-Studies 2 books being sold through Amazon and apologize for presenting this theory prematurely.
Book Update 3: When I was revising/updating my book The JFK Cut-N-Paste Assassination in the spring/early summer, I somehow missed about a page of information that I thought I was moving to Chapter Eight ("Acoustical Analysis"). It was in versions published before the beginning of summer, but somehow in trying to remove redundancy, I removed this information altogether. I didn't discover the problem until I started working on a presentation for my local library and realized the page was missing. I've fixed it, but a few copies (paperback and Kindle) were sold with the missing information. See "Book Updates --> Acoustical Analysis" for the missing information. My apologies for any inconvenience I caused with this inadvertent "edit." Again, my apologies.
Otherwise, this website is primarily dedicated to supporting the Donahue theory of the explosive head shot in the Kennedy assassination, and debunking the unfounded criticisms related to that theory.
I continue to refine and revise details of my theory, but I have decided to do that via "Micro-Studies" books. I have completed my second and third books, Micro-Studies of an Assassination and Micro-Studies 2. Both are available as a Kindle download for $2.99, or as a paperback (more expensive due to printing costs). Both formats available through Amazon), and I am currently working on Micro-Studies 2, which reconciles apparently conflicting witness statements, looks at the "other" Zapruder film, and takes a fresh look at some of the medical evidence. (You can examine part of that here, in the section "Lateral X-Rays.")
who said that the (pointed) bullet she saw was "between JFK's ear and shoulder" (a statement I previously questioned), I learned that she actually clarified that statement to mean that she saw this bullet on the gurney, which makes more sense. This clarification also caused me to re-think and revise a theory I originally put forth in Micro-Studies 2 (see "Book Update 2" below)
Book Update 2: I need to "walk back" my theory of "when and where" of the "pre-autopsy surgery to the head" took place. In Micro-Studies 2, I hypothesized that it actually took place at Parkland Hospital, before the body was transported to Washington, D.C. My reason for thinking that was the bullet seen by Nurse Hall, and found later on the stretcher by Darrell Tomlinson. I think now that the bullet fell out from the head during the CPR and what-not, when a chunk of JFK's brain fell out of the back of the head blow-out onto the stretcher. I also think the idea that the stretcher bullet came "from the back" was an explanation originally offered to account for Tomlinson's "stretcher bullet," and later modified to have come "from Connally" in order reduce the four rifle shots (3 from the TSBD, plus the AR-15 accident) down to three. Humes' pre-autopsy actions were presumably to search for the AR-15 bullet that was originally lodged "behind the (right) ear" (per the Belmont memo), and which must have been seen "behind the ear" by one of the Secret Service men before Kennedy was placed on the emergency room gurney. I am removing this section ("Pre-Autopsy to the Head: When and Where") from the Micro-Studies 2 books being sold through Amazon and apologize for presenting this theory prematurely.
Book Update 3: When I was revising/updating my book The JFK Cut-N-Paste Assassination in the spring/early summer, I somehow missed about a page of information that I thought I was moving to Chapter Eight ("Acoustical Analysis"). It was in versions published before the beginning of summer, but somehow in trying to remove redundancy, I removed this information altogether. I didn't discover the problem until I started working on a presentation for my local library and realized the page was missing. I've fixed it, but a few copies (paperback and Kindle) were sold with the missing information. See "Book Updates --> Acoustical Analysis" for the missing information. My apologies for any inconvenience I caused with this inadvertent "edit." Again, my apologies.
Otherwise, this website is primarily dedicated to supporting the Donahue theory of the explosive head shot in the Kennedy assassination, and debunking the unfounded criticisms related to that theory.
I continue to refine and revise details of my theory, but I have decided to do that via "Micro-Studies" books. I have completed my second and third books, Micro-Studies of an Assassination and Micro-Studies 2. Both are available as a Kindle download for $2.99, or as a paperback (more expensive due to printing costs). Both formats available through Amazon), and I am currently working on Micro-Studies 2, which reconciles apparently conflicting witness statements, looks at the "other" Zapruder film, and takes a fresh look at some of the medical evidence. (You can examine part of that here, in the section "Lateral X-Rays.")
The remainder of this website is primarily dedicated to supporting the Donahue theory of the accidental firing of the Secret Service AR-15 as the explosive head shot. I provide source support for some of the information presented by Bonar Menninger in Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK and by Colin McLaren in JFK: The Smoking Gun. I also provide additional observations and evidence in support of the Donahue theory and address the so-called "rebuttals" to the theory.Conspiracy theorists are quick to point out the fallacies and weaknesses of the Warren Report. They point out the sloppiness of the police work and the inconsistencies of the evidence. They point out Oswald’s “involvement” with the FBI and the assassination of Oswald himself. They point out timelines and puffs of smoke “from the grassy knoll.” They point all these things out as evidence of a conspiracy to kill JFK.
They’re right, and they’re wrong. There was a conspiracy, but not one of premeditated murder. It was a conspiracy after the fact, to cover up what really happened in the death of the 35th president of the United States. And all the evidence points to a theory that was first proposed by the late ballistics expert Howard Donahue. This theory was first published in 1977 in a two-part article by Ralph Reppert, then later written up in a book entitled Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK by Bonar Menninger, and recently supported by the work of a highly respected retired Australian detective named Colin McLaren, in a Reelz Channel documentary entitled JFK: The Smoking Gun and in McLaren’s book by the same name.
Donahue's theory, in a nutshell, is that the explosive head shot was accidentally fired by a Secret Service agent named George Hickey, whose finger unintentionally squeezed the trigger of the Secret Service AR-15 rifle when he fell over. There are parts of Donahue's theory that I disagree with (e.g., his support for the Single Bullet Theory and his belief in a first-shot miss), but I think he was absolutely correct about the explosive head shot. I attribute those parts of his theory that I consider as errors to Donahue's acceptance of the Zapruder film, which I believe to be altered--not just to "sanitize" the head shot, but to hide the first shot. I describe evidence of the alteration and the reason for it in my book.
A YouTube video entitled "Truth on JFK: The Case Against George Hickey" found at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebvDHPk05FQ provides video of some of the witness accounts of shots with the last two close together ("bang...bang,bang") and outlines the Donahue theory. It resolves the conflict in what the three-shot witnesses heard (i.e., some heard three shots evenly spaced while others heard the last two close together). Although I disagree with the first shot being a "miss," this video got me to take a close look at various witness statements leading to the development of my own theory. The video is well worth watching.
Bonar Menninger, in his book Mortal Error, shows the process by which Donahue developed all the parts of his theory. It also illustrates why the third and fatal head shot could not have come from the Texas School Book Depository, but from a location almost horizontal and slightly to the left of the President. The book describes the characteristics of Oswald’s “full-metal jacket” rounds designed to pass through a body, versus the frangible Secret Service AR-15 rounds designed to explode after entering the target. Donahue’s theory explains why certain medical evidence (edge scrapings and tissue samples, x-rays, and the brain itself) mysteriously disappeared from the assassination evidence. It points out the discrepancy between the size of the entrance wound to the back of Kennedy’s head and the size of round that Oswald used (6.0mm wound vs. Oswald’s 6.5mm round and the AR-15 5.5mm round) and the fact that entrance wounds are usually larger than the caliber of bullet that causes them. It even describes how the theory can be conclusively proved or disproved—with a “neutron activation analysis” test that was done in 1963, the results of which were suppressed. However, the all-important “edge scrapings” and jacket fragments from the brain have mysteriously disappeared, and even though another neutron activation analysis was later conducted in the 1970’s for the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), the expert who performed the tests testified that it was not done on the same fragments that the FBI analyzed--all facts that Mortal Error describes.
Unlike the conspiracy theories that were spawned by wild conjecture, Donahue’s theories are based in actual evidence. And given the weird behavior of government agencies like the Secret Service, and the Warren Commission, the notion that Hickey accidentally fired the fatal head shot makes sense. During the height of the Cold War, it would be understandable to keep the embarrassing accidental death under wraps, hence the “gag orders” in the name of “National Security.”
The “mortal error” theory is, as Donahue’s daughter describes in the Reelz documentary, “not sexy.” It does, however, make the most sense in light of all the evidence. It fits the ballistic analysis, acoustic testimony, surviving medical evidence, eyewitness accounts, bullet characteristics, and so on. It explains why there was a cover-up, why gag orders were issued, why x-rays were falsified, why the Warren Commission so mis-handled the investigation, and why there was such an extensive cover-up.
Colin McLaren’s book JFK: The Smoking Gun (upon which the Reelz Channel documentary was based) picks up where the Menninger book leaves off. McLaren explains the culture in which “conspiracy theories” took hold. He paints a convincing picture of Oswald as a nobody who wanted to become a somebody, and logically explains Oswald’s motives and the FBI’s pre-assassination interest in him. He describes the “plume of smoke” characteristic of the Secret Service AR-15 rifle from that era. More importantly, McLaren delves more fully witness testimony, scouring not only what was reported by the Warren Commission, but also newspaper articles and statements made to the Dallas police immediately after the shooting. McLaren’s witness statements include those from Secret Service agents, from autopsy personnel, from FBI experts, and especially from bystanders and members of the motorcade. These statements include more than 20 accounts of people who either saw a puff of smoke and/or smelled gunpowder at street-level. The “JFK: The Smoking Gun” documentary and website (http://www.jfkthesmokinggun.com/) contain reenactments of some of these depositions, using actors to recite the actual account excerpts. (Warning: this website does not work on all browsers, especially older ones, due to the high-end memory requirements to front-load all the video.)
In his book, McLaren also describes the time discrepancy between the three shots, with the last two described by witnesses as being “close together” and “almost simultaneous," which meant that they could not both have come from Oswald's bolt-action rifle. McLaren also delves into the investigation of the Assassination Records Review Board, which finally excused witnesses, especially autopsy staff, from their oaths of non-disclosure, and points out how all the medical people involved in the JFK autopsy were coerced by threats of court-martial and/or imprisonment into signing “gag orders.” The X-ray technician even testified, under oath, how he was originally ordered to falsify an X-ray to show a large full metal jacket fragment taped to a piece of Kennedy’s skull. All in the interest of “national security.” Like many conspiracy theorists, McLaren points out how the Warren Commission was a “Commission of Omission” in the way it selected witnesses and evidence, and side-lined witnesses to ensure their predetermined “lone gunman” outcome.
McLaren’s book also studied the reports of the Assassination Records Review Board, which finished its work at the end of September, in 1998, six years after Menninger’s book was first published. Donahue, who passed away in 1999, had devoted 25 years of his life to investigating the Kennedy assassination before deciding he was done. McLaren took up the baton and examined not only Donahue’s evidence, but evidence that emerged from the Assassination Record’s Review Board as well as contemporaneous newspaper articles and police statements.
My own book, The JFK Cut-N-Paste Assassination, then picks up where Menninger and McLaren leave off. I give additional evidence supporting Donahue's theory of the explosive head shot, address Donahue's critics (who don't really disprove the theory at all), and present a first-shot theory that explains alteration to the Zapruder film as well as other film and photographic evidence. Information specific to supporting Donahue's conclusion of the explosive head shot is presented also on this website.
In short, the evidence pointing towards an accidental discharge of the Secret Service AR-15 rifle—put into use for the first time that day and handled by a new agent who was trained by the Secret Service only as a driver and who was pressed into sniper duty because other agents were overworked and probably hungover—is overwhelming. Considering the Cold War time frame, it is easy to see why certain officials would want to cover up the embarrassment of having the President of the United States accidentally shot by his own bodyguard. But the truth deserves to come out, and it is long past time for it to do so.
Most of all, given Donahue’s logic, the disappearance and alteration of evidence, the predisposition of the Warren Commission and the HSCA to adopt the “lone shooter” theory, the many indications of a cover-up, and the ability of the cover-up to extend across so many branches of our government, Donahue's theory of the explosive head shot makes sense. It explains so much of what was otherwise unexplainable that I have to believe it.
It just makes sense.