The Landis Bullet

I recently obtained a copy of Landis's book. I am posting an excerpt from it where he mentions the bullet he says he found.

I heard ATSAIC Roberts and ASAIC Kellerman discussing assignments. It was imperative now to protect Vice President
Johnson, even though he had his own security team. Roberts was sending SA Ready and the rest of his shift to cover Vice President and Mrs. Johnson. I knew these instructions did not include me. My place was with the First Lady. Without hesitation, I continued to run around the rear of the follow-up car and raced to the president’s limo. Clint had already slid off the trunk of SS-100-X and had gone around to the right side of the limo to assist with the removal of President Kennedy’s body.

When I reached the car, Mrs. Kennedy was seated sideways with her back toward me and the left rear door. She was holding what was left of the president’s head in her lap, bending over trying to cover it. I reached over the side of the closed door, took her gently by the shoulders in an attempt to help her up. I said, “Come on, Mrs. Kennedy, let me help you.”

She wouldn’t budge. I couldn’t see her face, but I heard her say firmly, “No, I want to stay with him.” I let go. Realizing that I needed to do something different to get the First Lady to safety, I grabbed the door handle and yanked the door open.
Just then, Clint arrived and took over. He had come around from behind me and stepped inside the large backseat area ahead of me, past Mrs. Kennedy, closer to the president’s body. The situation was fluid-others were trying to remove the body.

I stepped into the limo behind Clint. I was scanning everything insight. The first thing I noticed was a small splintered crack in the front windshield. It was located to the left of the rearview mirror on the driver’s side. I immediately assumed that it had been made by a ricocheting bullet fragment. How on earth could a bullet fragment have flown up there without hitting someone? I wondered.

Looking up, I saw SA Win Lawson. He was running along the walkway coming toward us, pushing a gurney. He was followed by another person dressed in hospital garb who was also pushing a gurney. Two gurneys, why two gurneys?

To Be Continued

My thoughts were cut short. I looked at Governor Connally. Seated directly in front of the president, he was slumped to the side.He must have turned at some point. His white shirt had bright red bloodstains. Good God, had he had been hit too, or was he just splattered with the president’s blood? I then realized that he had also been shot, probably by the second bullet, and his body was blocking the right rear door of the limo.

SA Lawson arrived with his gurney, and other agents quickly started to move Governor Connally onto it. Once that task was completed, Mrs. Connally stood up and exited the limo, following the governor’s gurney as they raced toward the emergency entrance.With Governor Connally out of the way, the pathway was clear enough for agents to get to the president. While all of this was happening, Mrs. Kennedy continued to cradle her husband’s head. The president’s body wasn’t going anywhere until Mrs. Kennedy released him. Clint kept urging her to let go, while I scanned the inside of the car and the surrounding
outside area.

The entire scene was crazy and awful. Pieces of pink flesh, gray brain matter, and blood were splattered everywhere. They clung to the backseats and all over the right rear door panel. It was a mess, an ugly, bloody mess. Continuing my surveillance, I looked back toward the follow-up car. It was now empty, and there were no agents in sight.

I returned my attention to the presidential limo. Looking down at the seat beside Mrs. Kennedy, I saw two brass bullet fragments sitting in a pool of bright red blood. I could hardly believe it. They glistened like two gold nuggets in their blood-red surroundings. I bent over, picked up the largest of the two pieces, and examined it. It was about the size of the end of my little finger. It looked like a small mushroom that had been squashed. I quickly replaced it exactly
where I had found it.

About then, even though only seconds had passed, Clint finally convinced Mrs. Kennedy to let go of the president’s head. When she released it, someone said, “Cover up his head.” Thinking quickly and without hesitating, Clint removed his suit coat and covered the president’s head and upper torso. None of us wanted anyone to see the president in this condition. Then Clint, ASAIC Kellerman, and SA Lawson were finally able to remove the president’s lifeless body from the backseat area of the limo and place it onto a gurney.

To Be Continued

Dave Powers, the president’s special assistant and longtime friend, was leaning over the president as they removed his body and kept repeating over and over, “Oh no! Mr. President! Mr. President, oh no!”
When Mrs. Kennedy finally stood up, I looked again at the seat and saw a bullet on top of the tufted black leather cushioning behind where she had been sitting. It was resting in a seam where the tufted leather padding ended against the car’s metal body. It wasn’t a bullet fragment like the other two pieces. It was a completely intact bullet. It had been hidden behind Mrs. Kennedy all the time she was seated. No wonder I hadn’t seen it sooner.

I picked it up and quickly examined it. It was approximately two inches long and in almost perfect condition. It was not distorted in any way and had rifle striations running lengthwise along the sides. Man, oh man, oh man, I thought. What should I do? Seconds were ticking away, things were moving fast, and I had to make a quick decision. All sorts of thoughts and what-ifs were running through my mind. Three shots . . . bullet fragments . . . and now a completely intact bullet. This was IMPORTANT EVIDENCE.

My mind was spinning, processing thoughts and information, while I continued to scan the area looking for other special agents.The vice president’s limo had yet to arrive, so there were no agents from his detail in sight. In fact, there were no other agents in sight anywhere to the rear, to my right, or to the front. Where are they? Where the hell is SA Greer? He was driving the president’s limo. He should be here. The follow-up car was empty too. Where the hell is Special Agent Sam Kinney? He was driving it. Jeez, oh man! Where the hell is everyone? Where did all the agents go? Who is going to secure the car AND THE CRIME SCENE? Everyone seemed to be crowded around the president’s body. No one was paying attention to anything else.

My immediate concern was the bullet. It would be visible to anyone happening to walk by. What about photographers? Or worse yet, What about a souvenir hunter? Thoughts continued to race through my mind.

To Be Continued

People were starting to mill around and beginning to merge toward the car. I had to do something, and I had to do it fast. I was afraid this nearly perfectly intact bullet would disappear. I did not want that to happen. Clint was occupied helping Mrs. Kennedy out of the limo. She was already halfway out of the car, and I had to stay with Clint and her. Damn it, damn it, Paul, decision time.

All this time I had been holding the bullet in my hand, but instead of reaching down and replacing the bullet where I had found it, like I had done with the bullet fragment, I slipped it into my right suit coat pocket. All of this had taken place in a fraction of seconds. I would give the bullet to ASAIC Kellerman, I thought, and explain my actions later, when there was time. Everything was happening quickly, and as I rushed to keep up with Clint and Mrs. Kennedy, I noticed Mrs. Kennedy had left her clutch purse and her pink Oleg Cassini pillbox hat on the backseat.

Obviously, these items were the last thing on her mind, so I picked up both of them to take with us. There was also a Zippo cigarette lighter lying on the seat. It had a shiny chrome finish that was now stained with the president’s blood. It was resting against the backseat cushion, so I picked it up too. I turned it over in my hand and saw the presidential seal on the opposite side. Knowing that Mrs. Kennedy had an occasional smoke, I assumed that the lighter
had slipped out of her purse. Well, Mrs. Kennedy doesn’t need to see this reminder, I thought, and I slipped the lighter into the same pocket that held the bullet. I would give the lighter to Provi, her personal assistant, once we returned to the White House. (Author’s note: It was almost fifty years later when I learned from Clint that the Zippo was actually his lighter and that it must have slipped out of his suit jacket when he covered the president’s head. Duh, I thought. I should have known. He also told me that Provi had since sold the lighter on eBay.)

The bouquet of roses that had been presented to Mrs. Kennedy upon her arrival at Love Field also lay in disarray on the backseat.They can stay, I thought. Today, black-and-white photos of the flowers exist that were taken at the time, but they are staged photos.In them the bouquet is intact. That wasn’t the case when I last saw them as we were leaving the limo. The bouquet was scattered when we arrived at Parkland.

Stepping out of the limo with purse and hat in hand, the bullet and lighter secure in my suit coat pocket, I followed Mrs. Kennedy. I moved to her left side, and everyone headed toward the emergency room entrance. Mrs. Kennedy was now on my right, next to the gurney that was carrying the lifeless body of her husband. Only minutes had passed since the shooting.

To Be Continued

The cortege of people consisting of Secret Service agents, hospital staff, and I don’t know who else burst through the emergency entrance doors like a runaway train. I mean, we were really flying. The entrance lobby was utter confusion, created mostly by the way we blasted through the entrance, and probably by Governor Connally’s entrance prior to ours. People were scattering everywhere to get out of our way, most of them hospital staff who were rushing in to see what all the commotion was about.

I think it was sometime immediately after our entrance that I handed Mrs. Kennedy her purse and hat, but I don’t recall exactly because of all the chaos and confusion. It was really hectic, and I was running and yelling, “Out of the way! Get out of the way!” I spotted a group of gawkers who were ahead of us, standing in what appeared to be a hallway entrance. A nurse was now running along beside me, and I grabbed a corner of her uniform sleeve to get her
attention and asked her to please disperse the small group and help us clear the area. A flurry of blue, green, and white faceless hospital uniforms moved. A pathway cleared and we were able to get through.

I had no idea where we were headed, but by God, I did know that the way we were moving, nothing was going to get in our way to stop us. I just followed the gurney and made sure I stayed close to Mrs. Kennedy. We angled to the right as we crossed through the entrance lobby and headed down a short corridor to a doorway on the left with the number 1 on it. The doorway was on the left side of the corridor, so in order to pass through, the gurney had to be
pivoted ninety degrees. Even then, it was a tight fit, with no room to spare along the sides for people to get through. Once the gurney was turned, everyone in our initial group, plus those extras who had joined us, tried to jam their way through the doorway all at once.

Mrs. Kennedy had to drop back behind the gurney in order to enter the room, and I stepped up behind her to prevent her from being jostled by the now rude and unruly collection of people. Once she was inside the room, Mrs. Kennedy stepped to her left and stood beside the entrance door while people continued to push and shove their way past her. As I entered-or, more to the point, was pushed into-the trauma room, the president’s lifeless body was already being lifted off the gurney and placed onto a white cotton blanket that covered the surface of a stainless-steel examination table in the middle of the room. All sorts of medical apparatuses were at the end of the table where they had placed the president’s head. The gurney which had carried the president’s body into the room was then pushed aside and up against a beige tiled wall by the doorway inside the room, partially blocking the doorway. I’m guessing the trauma room was maybe twenty by twenty feet square.

The gurney, located where it was, took up precious space inside the room; it also made it more difficult for people to enter or exit. Only no one was exiting! People continued pushing, shoving, and shouting, trying to get into a space that was already cramped. What is wrong with all these people? I wondered. Have they no respect?

To Be Continued

By now, I had been pushed up against the examination table and was tightly wedged against it, trapped right next to the president’s feet. I turned my head to check on Mrs. Kennedy. She was still standing safely beside the doorway, having avoided all the pushing and shoving, but her face was expressionless. She appeared to be removed, unaware of the chaos happening in front of her. At least she wasn’t trapped and being jostled by the rude crowd; I was
relieved to see that she was safe in that respect. I glanced around looking for Clint but did not see him.

We were all packed together in the room, shoulder to shoulder, like sardines in a can. Everyone’s attention was focused on the president’s head, which doctors were already examining. It seemed like everyone in the room was craning their necks trying to see the president’s head wound. Not me; I had seen enough outside when we were in the limo. I knew that if I looked now, I would probably pass out. Even the thought of it made me feel faint. I had to look
down and away. I didn’t dare pass out. What kind of person or agent would I be if I allowed that to happen? I had to hang in there, no matter what. I was feeling claustrophobic. Where the hell was Clint, anyway?

In order to keep from passing out or fainting, I focused in on the president’s shoes. His feet were right by my side as he lay on the examination table. His shoes were black, and I wondered what brand, style, and size he wore. From the way the president’s body had been placed, his left pant leg was pulled up above his black socks, and I even thought of reaching over to pull the pant leg down to cover the skin that was showing. All these mundane thoughts
were going through my mind while people continued to push and shove.

Just then another person was trying to push his way into the room, loudly announcing, “I am a doctor. I am a doctor. Please, please let me through. I need to get through.” More pushing and shoving ensued as people tried to make room, but there was no place to go. Jesus, what is wrong with these people? Then the doctor who was already at the head of the examination table called out, “PLEASE, PLEASE, EVERYONE, PLEASE, WE NEED ROOM TO WORK!”

Everything was happening so rapidly that there was hardly time to think. Only seconds had passed, and I was fumbling with the bullet in my pocket while I was concentrating on the president’s shoes. For whatever reason, my thoughts shifted. This is where the bullet belongs, with the president’s body. This bullet is important evidence. A doctor will find it, and it might be helpful during the autopsy.

People were starting to leave the room. I had to make another split-second decision. Just do it, Paul. Just do it. If you are going to do anything, you’ve got to do it now, before the opportunity slips away. I removed the bullet from my pocket, and reaching out over the examination table, I carefully placed it on the white cotton blanket next to the president’s left shoe. When I let go, the bullet started rolling toward the edge of the table. Holy shit, I thought, as my heart jumped and started racing. I quickly reached back and stopped it from rolling just before it fell into a little trough that ran around the edge of the table. If it had fallen into that trough, or, worse yet, onto the floor, I knew that I would not have had the time or ability to retrieve it.

To Be Continued

When the president’s body had been placed on the examination table, it had made a small wrinkle in the cotton blanket by the president’s feet. Because of this, I was able to reposition the bullet to prevent it from rolling again. With all the confusion going on in the room, no one had even noticed what I had done. Whew, that was close, I thought. The last thing I wanted was for that bullet to get lost. I felt relief. I was certain at the time that I had made the correct
decision. I had saved an important piece of evidence, and I had placed it where it belonged, with the president’s body. It would be found and prove to be helpful. I felt like a heavy burden had been lifted from my shoulders.

I turned, looking for Mrs. Kennedy. All those people who previously couldn’t wait to enter Trauma Room #1 were now pushing and shoving trying to make a hasty exit. Only now, the empty gurney by the entrance was making exiting more difficult. I was finally able to move, and I stepped to the side and stood between Mrs. Kennedy and the doorway until most of the people left the room.

When Mrs. Kennedy was ready to leave, I was at her side. Our time in Trauma Room #1 had been brief, probably no more than a minute, but for me it felt like an eternity. As we were leaving the trauma room, Mrs. Kennedy stopped and hesitated in the doorway. I continued around and past her and was asking someone to find a chair for her when, at the same time, someone else was already arriving with a chair. Clearly other people had the same thought.

Mrs. Kennedy came out and the door closed. Now weary looking, she sat down on the chair that had been provided. Several people were still milling around the area, and with the help of a nurse, I was able to clear most of them away. I finally spotted Clint. He had been running along beside the right side of the gurney while we raced through the emergency room lobby, but I had lost track of him when we entered the trauma room.I’m guessing that he had either been blocked out by the crowd or left the trauma room before I had a chance to see him. Either way, he and ASAIC Kellerman were talking to each other in a hallway located to my left. Clint was wearing a suit coat jacket. It never dawned on me that his own jacket was still in Trauma Room #1, covered in
blood. Where had this one come from?

I headed over to talk to them when the trauma door flew open and someone rushed out asking if anyone knew the president’s blood type. Kellerman and Clint simultaneously reached for their wallets, but Kellerman beat Clint to the draw and came up with the information first. “O. Rh positive” was his reply. That was something I never knew, and realized I’d better learn Mrs. Kennedy’s blood type,just in case.

Clint was busy doing everything possible to assist ASAIC Kellerman. The two of them had access to a vacant doctor’s office near the trauma room. The office had a telephone, and they already had an open line connected directly to the White House switchboard. Clint moved into the office, and I followed him. I only had a brief moment to tell him where I would be before returning to Mrs. Kennedy’s side.

Then a different person came out of Trauma Room #1 and said that the president was still breathing. Mrs. Kennedy stood up and asked, “Do you mean he still may be alive?” but she sat down again when no one answered. I was already resigned to the fact that the president had probably died the instant the third shot hit him in the head. If it had been anyone other than the president’s life on the line, they probably would have declared him dead on arrival when we first got to the hospital.

Then Vice President Johnson was whisked by, bent over and shielded by several detail agents. They were really moving, and I had no idea where they were taking him. They all disappeared down the same hallway where Kellerman and Clint had been standing. I returned my focus to Mrs. Kennedy. Several people were still hanging around, so I commandeered a doctor to help clear the area. After that, I grabbed an empty chair and took a two o’clock position
about ten or fifteen feet in front of Mrs. Kennedy. This gave her some private space, plus my position also provided a better observation point for the emergency room and the surroundings.

Glancing at Mrs. Kennedy, I thought she looked quite regal, sitting on her chair, back straight and hands folded in her lap, but her face was expressionless. There were no tears in her eyes, just a blank and distant look, like she wasn’t even there. What thoughts had to be going through her mind, I wondered.
I knew nothing about shock or how to recognize its symptoms, but if I were to guess, I would say that Mrs. Kennedy had to be in shock.

At the time, I was not concerned about any outside harm coming to Mrs. Kennedy. I knew that she was relatively safe where we were inside Parkland Memorial Hospital. I just wanted to keep people from crowding around and bothering her and allow her some space. My main concern was me. I was fighting my own battle. I couldn’t get the head shot that I had witnessed out of my mind. It kept repeating itself over and over like a looping newsreel clip. I struggled to keep from falling apart and passing out. Several times I nearly broke down.

Come on, Paul, I kept urging myself. Be strong. Hang in there. Don’t break down now. Don’t be an embarrassment. Think about Mrs. Kennedy and her safety. You have a job to do. Somehow, all these thoughts managed to help me hang in there. Mrs. Kennedy reentered the trauma room a couple of times, but
only for a brief moment each time. At one point, she stood up and walked across the emergency room to a curtained area and stood by a table staring at the wall. I approached her and asked if there was anything I could do. She just shook her head no, so I retreated, leaving her to her thoughts. Vice President Johnson’s wife, Lady Bird, appeared at one point and talked to Mrs. Kennedy while she was sitting by the trauma room door.

It was confusing and there was a lot going on, and a lot of the details I just don’t remember. I don’t recall the priests arriving to administer the last rites; however, I do remember the big discussion that followed. I had returned to the hallway, and everyone was expressing a different opinion as to what time to declare as the “official time of death.” There were logistics that had to be considered, both political and religious. The time of the priests’ arrival, the reading of the last rites, what to tell the press, what to tell the public-all sorts of details had to be put into proper sequence. It had to appear that there had been a valid attempt to save the president, but without success. The official time of death was finally agreed upon-1:00 PM central standard time. If they had asked me, I would have replied, “12:30 PM, in Dealey Plaza.”

Also, at that time, no one knew who was behind the assassination, and it was decided that the best thing to do was to get Vice President Johnson back to Washington and the White House as soon as possible. That was fine with the vice president, but he was determined to have Mrs. Kennedy return to Washington with him. However, Mrs. Kennedy was equally as determined not to return to Washington or even leave the hospital without her husband’s body.
The Dallas County medical examiner, who had arrived on the scene earlier, intervened, telling everyone that they were not allowed to leave the hospital with the president’s body until an autopsy had been performed. At the time this was a state law in Texas. There had been no autopsy performed, only a desperate attempt to save the president’s life.

According to Clint, in his book Mrs. Kennedy and Me, at some point after we arrived at Parkland, Ken O’Donnell, the president’s friend and chief adviser, had instructed him to order a casket. Clint called a local establishment-O’Neal’s Funeral Home. Subsequently, an all-bronze casket was delivered and taken directly into Trauma Room #1.

So while the president’s body was being prepared for removal, an argument ensued in the hallway outside of the trauma room entrance. Texas authorities wanted the president’s body to remain in Texas. He was the victim of a homicide, and there had to be an autopsy. White House staff and Secret Service personnel were equally insistent in their argument: This was the body of a president of the United States, and thus an exception to the Texas rule. The
autopsy would be performed in Washington at Bethesda Naval Hospital.Clint and I stood by listening as the discussion became heated.

Tempers were starting to flare, and I thought that a major altercation was going to escalate into something worse. The trauma room door opened, and a casket on top of a gurney appeared in the doorway. Secret Service agents who were in the area immediately stepped to its side and took command.
I don’t remember any concessions being made or how the argument was finally settled, or if it actually was. All I remember is that Mrs. Kennedy had rejoined the group, and I followed Clint and the casket alongside Mrs. Kennedy as we headed down the hallway to an emergency room exit, different from the one we had used when we first arrived. Texas state law be damned, the president’s body was returning to Washington with us.

The white Cadillac hearse that had earlier delivered the empty casket from O’Neal’s Funeral Home was outside and waiting, and the same casket, now containing the body of the president, was placed inside the rear compartment. The president’s physician, Admiral George Burkley, who accompanied the president on all his trips, Mrs. Kennedy, and Clint wedged themselves into the rear compartment with the casket. ATSAIC Stout and ASAIC Kellerman
climbed into the front seat beside SA Andy Berger, who was sitting behind the steering wheel. I jumped into an official car being driven by SA Greer. We were directly behind the ambulance, and at 2:04 PM central standard time, we departed Parkland Memorial Hospital for the ten-minute ride to Love Field.

About a half an hour earlier, at 1:35 PM, agents had whisked Vice President and Mrs. Johnson away from Parkland Memorial Hospital in two unmarked cars. They took them to Love Field, where they waited on board AF 26000 for Mrs. Kennedy’s arrival. When we arrived, SA Berger parked the hearse near the boarding ramp located at the rear of the plane. While agents carried the heavy bronze casket up the ramp, I stood at the bottom with Mrs. Kennedy,
and the two of us watched as the agents struggled, trying to fit the casket through the airplane door. Once the casket was finally on board, Mrs. Kennedy climbed the steps and I followed.

When I reached the top, I headed directly to the passenger area located in the front section of the aircraft. ASAIC Kellerman was standing in the first row of seats on the right. His back was against the bulkhead that separated the cockpit and steward’s area from the rest of the plane. An air force steward was in the aisle behind him,  filling empty glasses with ice at a service station. Kellerman beckoned me to come forward. I slid into the second row of seats
facing him and collapsed in the seat next to the window. As soon as my rear end hit the cushion, I turned my face toward the window and began to cry.

At first, I was embarrassed, breaking down in front of everyone, but I couldn’t help it. The sobs came and the tears flowed. Some tough guy you are, I thought, but I didn’t care. I had come so close to breaking down earlier that I was just thankful that I had been able to hold my emotions together until now. I stared out the window, lost in thoughts about Mrs. Kennedy and her now fatherless children, Caroline and John Jr., and I wondered what the future held for them.

All the time, visions of President Kennedy’s head exploding replayed over and over, again and again. I just couldn’t shake them. I became aware of someone in the seat next to me and turned to  see SA Bennett. How ironic, I thought. Here we are, seated side by side, just like on our way to the hospital. Only this time, he wasn’t holding his Colt .38 Special, he was holding a pen. He was writing notes regarding the events of the past few hours into his pocketsized
memorandum book, the one each of us carried to keep track of our daily activities. He’s doing what I should be doing. He’s doing what any good agent should be doing. I turned away and continued to look out the window for the next half hour, completely oblivious to what else was happening elsewhere on the plane. I can write my notes later.

I was aware that we were still sitting on the ground, but I was not aware of the reason. We were waiting for a federal judge to arrive and swear in Vice President Johnson as our next president. When the judge arrived, I was still looking out the airplane window, deep in my own sorrow and thoughts.
ASAIC Kellerman gently shook me by the shoulder to get my attention. He said, “C’mon, Paul, you’ve got to witness this. Vice President Johnson is going to be sworn in as president. This is history in the making.”

I couldn’t have cared less. I’d already witnessed enough firsthand history that day. I continued staring out the window. Kellerman persisted, and I eventually got out of my seat, and we walked toward the rear of the plane to the bulkhead. SA Lem Johns and ASAIC Kellerman filled the bulkhead doorway in front of me, forcing me to peek around them to witness the event. At 2:38 PM, in a solemn ceremony, federal judge Sarah T. Hughes administered the
presidential oath of office to Lyndon B. Johnson, making him the thirty-sixth president of the United States.

Judge Hughes left the plane, and I returned to my window seat and began to cry again. At 2:47 PM, we were airborne.I vaguely remember ASAIC Kellerman bringing me a prepared scotch and soda. Whether he spoke to me or tried to encourage me in some other way to come out of my funk, I don’t remember. I took the drink, so I must have drunk it, but I simply don’t remember anything else about the flight back to Washington, DC.

Weren’t any of the motorcycle escorts present that could have been ordered to protect the crime scene? I thought they were only moments behind the limo. Wasn’t Curry in the car that guided the limo to Parkland?

Ironically, the crime scene was ruined by the secret service when they mopped up the interior.

The tissue debris on the right rear door panel that Landis observed doesn’t support a shot from the right front causing tissue to be expelled to the left and rear. It IS consistent with a tangential head wound along the right side of the skull which is shown in the Z-film and mentioned by Dr. Perry in the Parkland press conference.

Thanks for the excerpts, Vinny.

Welcome Lanceman.

Two more excerpts. Bolding mine.

That Sunday, preparations were also being made for the funeral procession that would take President Kennedy’s body from the White House to lie in state in the Capitol Building’s Rotunda. I was standing outside with SA Foster, SA Wells, and SA Meredith in front of the North Portico when someone came out of the White House shouting “Oswald’s been shot.” I knew there was a small black-and-white TV set in the head usher’s office that was tuned to a live network
broadcast originating from Dallas; I had seen it earlier on my way to join the others who were waiting outside. Now I ran up the steps of the North Portico and into the usher’s office and watched a rerun of Oswald being shot.

I went back outside and shared what I had seen, and the four of us continued to wait. I was secretly glad that someone had shot the creep. If I’d had the chance, I probably would have done the same, not even thinking of the consequences or how it would have affected the investigation.

I have lived most of my life with a tunnel-vision view of the events of November 22, 1963. We, the agents who were there, wrote reports, but we did not talk about our experiences with one another. Only in recent years did I learn that my roommate Special Agent Dick Johnsen had been given the recovered bullet I found by the director of security for Parkland Hospital. In the aftermath of events, one gurney (presumed to be Connally’s) was taken from an elevator and another was already in the elevator lobby when the bullet was discovered by a hospital employee, Darrell Tomlinson. When Tomlinson moved the gurney already in the lobby against the wall, the bullet emerged from under the mat. Tomlinson gave the bullet to the security director, who gave it to Dick. 

Dick mentions this in his report to the Warren Commission, but at the time we never spoke about the events of November 22, and I didn’t read his report until I began writing this book. Over the past twenty years, I have been contacted on more than one occasion as anniversaries of the assassination approached, or about the Warren Commission’s work, but I had little interest in talking about the events of November 22 from my own perspective.

In 2007 Jerry Blaine contacted me regarding a book he intended to write called The Kennedy Detail. I had no interest in participating and forgot about it. A couple of years later Jerry contacted me again. He brought me up to date and told me that Clint Hill was editing his book for accuracy. Last chance. I trusted Clint, and I agreed to participate. Jerry’s coauthor, Lisa McCubbin, contacted me, and we did telephone interviews.

After the publication of Jerry and Lisa’s book in 2010, the Discovery Channel produced a documentary about The Kennedy Detail. I participated and openly shared my painful inner feelings. That’s when I discovered, for the first time, that I was not alone. Clint then collaborated with Lisa McCubbin himself on two books, Mrs. Kennedy and Me (2012) and Five Days in November (2013). I attended presentations for both that they made at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. (The museum houses the Kennedy limo and the follow-up car in its collection.) During Clint’s presentation for Five Days, he mentioned something about a “missing bullet.” My ears perked up, but I didn’t say anything. I knew nothing about a missing bullet.

By 2013, I was beginning to speak more openly about my Secret Service career, and about President Kennedy’s assassination. Little circumstantial things were happening. It’s as if there was gold dust in the air, and sudden opportunities began to present themselves-opportunities that might have seemed coincidental if it weren’t for the fact that the whole world had opened up. More information was coming out, and more people were interested in revisiting the events of November 22, 1963.

Art Greenberg, a friend from Bally’s gym, worked for WAKR, one of the talk radio stations near my home in northeast Ohio. He asked me if I would do a radio interview as the fiftieth anniversary of JFK’s assassination approached. I agreed. On November 22, 2013, I did an unrehearsed phone interview on WKAR. It was with someone I didn’t know and couldn’t see, and I felt uncomfortable while doing it. One of the people who heard the interview was Lew Merletti.

During the presidency of Bill Clinton, Merletti was the nineteenth director of the United States Secret Service. After retiring from the service in 1999, Merletti accepted a position as senior vice president with the Cleveland Browns-in charge of security, naturally. At the time of my radio interview, Merletti lived in Beachwood, Ohio, just a few miles from my house. He and an attorney friend, Jim Kersey,were having lunch together that day, and Lew was telling Jim about
my interview, which he’d heard while driving to work that morning.

Lew told me later that he turned to Jim and said, “I’ve been in Cleveland all these years and here’s this guy who lives here, too,and we’ve never met. I’ve got to talk to him.” A moment later the world proved even smaller when Kersey replied, “I know him-he bought a house in Chesterland, Ohio, from my sister. I’ll see if I can get his number.”

Merletti called me and we got together. We exchanged war stories and became friends.It was later, in March 2014, when I started to read the book Chief
Lee from the Shaker Heights Police Department had given me, Six Seconds in Dallas. As events recounted in the introduction to this book illustrate, I had not realized until that moment, reading that book, that there was an error in the Warren Commission report.

Though I had not read the Warren Commission report, I knew that there had been a lot of criticisms, and Six Seconds in Dallas author Josiah Thompson was doing his own “micro-study” of the evidence. I was reading along, thinking that his account was fairly accurate to what I saw and remembered, when I came to page 146.

Thompson was describing a “Super Bullet” that, according to the commission, was found on Governor Connally’s stretcher and had caused his wounds. This is where my heart skipped a beat, and I first realized that the Warren Commission’s report was wrong: The “Super Bullet” hadn’t been on Governor Connally’s stretcher in Trauma Room #2. I recognized it as the bullet I had found in the limo and placed next to President Kennedy’s feet in Trauma Room #1.
The day after I started reading Six Seconds in Dallas, I began to make notes. Because the information was sensitive to me and because I wasn’t ready to share it yet, I opened a safe deposit box at a local bank and placed my notes and records inside.

When I finally decided to share my information with Lew Merletti,I knew everything I said would be held in confidence. Merletti’s response to my revelation was immediate, and he encouraged me to tell my story to Ken Gormley, dean of the School of Law at Duquesne University (now the thirteenth president of the university) and the author of The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr. Gormley had interviewed Merletti during the Monica Lewinsky scandal that led to President Clinton’s impeachment. Merletti trusted Gormley. I repeated my story to Gormley, and he agreed with Merletti: “You have a story here that needs to be told.”

This is the story I kept buried-even from myself-for more than fifty years. For five decades I couldn’t bring myself to review the events of November 22, 1963, in detail. Everyone but me seemed to have read the Warren Commission report. I just accepted that whatever conclusions the commission had drawn had to be accurate and true.

In this book I have shared what I saw, what I did, and only what I know to be factual about that fateful November weekend. As soon as I completed writing my story and typed “The End,” tears started rolling down my cheeks for no apparent reason. I just sat staring at my computer as the tears flowed uncontrollably, dripping off of my chin for the next ten minutes. I just couldn’t stop crying. It was as if the safety valve on a pressure cooker had finally burst open, releasing all the suppressed feelings and emotions that I had kept buried for so long.
This is my story.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/jfk-secret-service-agent-paul-landis-makes-a-big-splash-in-2023-ahead-of-the-60th-anniversary-of-the-kennedy-assassination-but-how-credible-is-he