Secret Service Agent Paul Landis and the Magic Bullet

Former Secret Service agent Paul Landis has placed proponents of the lone-nut theory of the JFK assassination in an awkward position. That’s because Landis has just come forward with a personal account of that day in Dallas when Kennedy was shot that, if true, puts the quietus to what has gone down in history as the “magic-bullet” theory, which is the core principle of the lone-nut theory of the assassination.

I would assume that my readers are familiar with the magic-bullet theory. I would ask them to bear with me here. In case there are readers of my blog who are not familiar with that theory, I wish to set forth its basics.

The official narrative of the assassination, which is set forth by the Warren Commission, is that a lone-nut former communist Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald, who just happened to be at the right place at the right time, just decided, with no apparent motive, that he was going to assassinate President Kennedy.

The official narrative holds that this lone-nut former communist Marine fired three shots at the president, two of which hit Kennedy and one of which missed him entirely and instead hit a bystander. 

It was also determined that Oswald could not have fired more than three shots at the president in the pertinent time span. A fourth shot would necessarily have meant that there was another person also shooting at the president. 

However, there was a problem. That problem was that Texas Governor John Connally, who was seated in front of the president, also got shot. That, of course, would mean a fourth shot, which would automatically mean an additional shooter. 

So, that’s where the magic-bullet theory comes into play. The Warren Commission determined that one of the three bullets entered the back of Kennedy’s neck, exited the front of his neck, entered Connally’s back, broke some of Connally’s ribs, exited his chest, entered his wrist and broke wrist bones, exited his wrist, and lodged in Connally’s thigh. According to the official narrative, the bullet was later found on Connally’s gurney in Parkland Hospital, where it supposedly had fallen out of his thigh.

So, what’s magical about that bullet? It ended up in a pristine, never-been shot condition! Why is that unusual? Because when a bullet hits bone, it mangles. But not this bullet. After breaking ribs and wrist bone, it ended up in a pristine, never-been shot condition. 

But that’s not all. After supposedly going through Kennedy’s neck and Connolly’s chest and wrist and lodging in Connally’s thigh, get this: the bullet had no flesh or blood on it. That’s another reason why it’s called the magic bullet.

It’s probably worth pointing out that Connally was certain that he and Kennedy had been hit by separate shots, which, of course, would mean four shots: two that hit Kennedy, one that hit the bystander, and the one that hit Connally. That would, of course, automatically mean more than one shooter in Dealey Plaza. 

So, what does former Secret Service agent Landis have to do with all this? 

Landis was in the follow-up car that was immediately behind the president’s vehicle. His vehicle followed the president’s vehicle to Parkland Hospital. 

Landis has just come forward and declared that after arriving at Parkland, he retrieved the magic bullet from the back seat where Kennedy was situated. He says that he then carried the bullet into the hospital and placed it on the stretcher into which Kennedy had been placed.

Thus, Landis’s story, if true, obviously puts the quietus on the magic-bullet theory. That’s because the bullet would have had to go from Connally’s thigh, rise upward, and then travelled backward and landed in the back seat in which Kennedy was situated. That would obviously convert what was a magic bullet into a super-magic bullet. (For more on the Landis story, see this article in the New York Times, this story in Vanity Fair, and this story by the BBC.

What’s amusing about this phenomenon is that it places the lone-nut theorists in a very awkward position. They are now placed in the discomforting position of calling a former Secret Service agent a liar. The lone-nut theorists are accustomed to questioning the veracity of private individuals whose statements and testimonies challenge the official narrative. They are not accustomed to calling former Secret Service agents liars. But if they are going to continue hewing to the official narrative, they have no choice — they have to call this former Secret Service agent a no-good, rotten liar. 

What do I personally make of Landis’s revelation? 

Long ago, I decided not to put stock in uncorroborated personal accounts relating to the Kennedy assassination. That includes Landis’s personal account, which is uncorroborated. 

Nonetheless, I concluded a long time ago that the magic-bullet theory was bogus. That’s because I consider it impossible, or at least highly improbable, for a bullet to go through two individuals, break bones, and come out in a pristine, never-been-fired condition and without a bit of flesh or blood on it. I’ve long been convinced that the magic-bullet theory was clearly concocted for those Americans who will believe whatever government officials tell them, in large part to avoid confronting the fact that their government engages in dark-side conduct. Thus, while Landis’s story corroborates the conclusion I reached long ago, I don’t need his story to confirm what I already concluded a long time ago. 

As I detailed in my book An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story and in the final part 21 of my recent video series “The JFK Assassination: Sixty Years Later,” a brilliant (in a negative sense) part of the national-security establishment’s assassination of President Kennedy was to frame a supposed communist who was supposedly firing from the rear. That’s because no one would be likely to come to the support of a supposed communist at the height of the Cold War.

The ingenious (again, in a negative sense) part of the plot involved having shots from the front. That’s what enabled them to get the investigation into the assassination shut down immediately after Oswald was himself assassinated. I detail how that ingenious part of the plot played out in An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story and in part 21 of my recent series.

What matters to me most, however, about the Kennedy assassination is the evidence that establishes beyond a reasonable doubt two things: (1) the fraudulent autopsy that was carried out by the military on the very evening of the assassination and (2) the fraudulent copy of the Zapruder film that the CIA produced on the Sunday following the Friday assassination. That evidence of fraud in those two events are detailed in my two books The Kennedy Autopsy and An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story.

Why do the fraudulent autopsy and the fraudulent film establish beyond a reasonable doubt the criminal culpability on the part of the national-security establishment in the Kennedy assassination? The reason is that there is no innocent explanation for a fraudulent autopsy or a fraudulent film. They both necessarily equate to criminal cover-up of the assassination itself. And the only entity that the military and the CIA would be covering up for would necessarily be themselves. 

Therefore, while the Paul Landis story, if true, confirms  the bogus nature of the official lone-nut theory of the assassination, it continues to be the fraudulent autopsy and the fraudulent film that establish beyond a reasonable doubt the criminal culpability of the national-security establishment in President Kennedy’s assassination.