Originally published September 11, 2023 2:00 pm PDT
Former Secret Service agent Paul Landis, now 88, has come forward after six decades to challenge a central claim of the Warren Commission’s findings on the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Landis, who was mere feet away from the president during the assassination in Dallas, has cast fresh doubt on the accepted “magic bullet” theory, according to a report from The Epoch Times.
In 1963, Landis was responsible for guarding Jackie Kennedy, the former first lady, during that fateful day in Dallas.
He recalled the harrowing scene to the New York Times, noting that he distinctly remembered hearing multiple shots ring out.
Following the attack, he discovered a bullet in almost pristine condition on the back seat of the presidential limousine.
“It was a piece of evidence that I realized right away [was] very important,” Landis shared.
Given the chaos of the scene, he expressed, “Paul, you’ve got to make a decision”—and he secured the bullet himself.
The Warren Commission’s official findings have long contended that one “magic bullet” injured both President Kennedy and then-Texas Governor John Connally Jr. However, Landis has now revealed that the bullet he discovered, which many believed to have originated from the president’s stretcher, was in fact placed there by him, having been picked up from the limousine.
He was of the opinion that the bullet did not penetrate deeply into Kennedy’s back, suggesting it might have “popped back out.”
Explaining his long silence on the matter, Landis remarked, “I didn’t want to talk about it.”
He continued, “I was afraid. I started to think, did I do something wrong? There was a fear that I might have done something wrong and I shouldn’t talk about it.”
His departure from the Secret Service followed a few months after the assassination.
The revelation by Landis opens up new avenues of questions about the Warren Commission’s conclusions.
Historian James Robenalt, who has collaborated with Landis on an upcoming memoir, commented on the implications of this new account: “If the bullet we know as the magic or pristine bullet stopped in President Kennedy’s back, it means that the central thesis of the Warren Report, the single-bullet theory, is wrong.”
Writing separately for Vanity Fair, Robenalt further mused that the trajectory of the “magic bullet” brings up the possibility of an additional shot.
He noted, “The FBI recreation suggests that Oswald would not have had enough time to get off two separate shots so quickly as to hit Connally after wounding the president in the back.”
Oswald is officially believed to have used a bolt-action Carcano Model 38 infantry carbine for the assassination, Epoch Times emphasized.
Closing on a poignant note, Landis reflected on his decision to finally come forward: “there’s no goal at this point. I just think it had been long enough that I needed to tell my story.”
