I bought MORTAL ERROR: THE SHOT THAT KILLED JFK by Bonar Menninger after seeing the documentary called "JFK: The Smoking Gun," which is based on this book.
Menninger based his book on the studies, findings and interviews he conducted with a man named Howard Donahue who was a firearms/ballistic expert/gun engineer and was the only one out of 11 rifle shooters that CBS hired to test and fire the Carcano rifle -- the same model that Lee Harvey Oswald used to assassinate President John F. Kennedy -- and hit the moving target with all three shots within the required time. This test was conducted in 1967, I believe, and done at CBS News's cost to compare with the Warren Commission's Report on Kennedy's assassination.
This is how Donahue comes into the picture. After conducting the CBS rifle test back then, Donahue was approached by a small newspaper to write a story about his experience with the rifle and the Warren Commission's findings and it was during this time he began to find inconsistencies and factual errors throughout the report when compared to the evidence. This led him down a road that was an extremely tangled web of conspiracies, inaccuracies, cover-ups, etc., that took decades to unravel.
What Donahue uncovers is really quite shocking; he asserts that although Oswald did shoot at Kennedy, two of the shots hit, and one missed, the third -- and what many would say was the fatal shot -- came from an accidental shooting from a secret service agent who was riding in the follow up car to the President's. Even though most believe that the third and final shot was what killed President Kennedy, Donahue believed, based on the X-Rays and doctors' testimonials, that the second shot that hit both Kennedy and Texas Governor Connally might have actually been the mortal wound that killed him even if the third shot to the back of the head never happened. And he believes that the outside or third shot was accidental, coming from an AR-15 rifle that a secret service agent reached for after the first shots were fired and the gun accidentally discharged when he fell backward as the cars sped up. He arrives at this conclusion not from a preconceived ideal, but following the factual evidence such as the Zapruder film, various photos, X-rays, autopsy reports, and witness testimony (including those that were not used in the Warren Commissions hearings).
I'm not going into too many details here but basically that's Donahue's theory, which he gathered from evidence and conducting his own experiments based on that evidence with ballistics/trajectories, etc., and that's what author Menninger has laid out in this fascinating book.
Not only do you get the actual photos and diagrams that were taken from the time, but you also get the witness testimonies in the appendix, the excerpts from the actual Warren Commission's Report, Donahue's own drawings, etc., etc., and why he believes what he believes. Menninger presents it in a clear and organized fashion, starting from the beginning where Donahue enters the picture and what led him down this road. Donahue also dispels many of the myths surrounding the JFK shooting including the infamous one that Oliver Stone based his movie JFK on (the "magic bullet"), and the real life debacle of Louisiana DA Jim Garrison and his pursuit of Clay Shaw.
I think this book was originally published in 1992 but this is the first time, thanks to the documentary, that I've heard about Donahue's theory. We just passed the 50th Anniversary of The JFK Assassination and I think they re-released this book in e-form recently, and I'm not sure if anything has been revised, but so far this is the most plausible theory that I've heard yet.
I don't think anyone has refuted Donahue's theory. If so, I haven't heard anything yet. In fact, until seeing the documentary, I never even heard of this and it never comes up during the specials about the myths and coverups regarding the assassination.
Menninger paints Donahue as someone with no ax-to-grind and had no vested interest in the outcome of his findings and was only bringing this up time and time again, including to the US House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1976, which was formed at that time to directly address the Kennedy and MLK assassination (among others), after finding contradictions and errors in the Warren Commission's Report, compared with the evidence, so that once and for all his theory could be either disproved or allowed to stand, but he was basically ignored or shuffled away.
Anyway, we'll probably never know what really happened but this argument is one that makes sense. I'm surprised that this isn't one of the more widely known theories out there, but maybe it's just me that hasn't heard of this one before.
In any event, the book is a great read!
I did have some issues with the pictures and other incidental material such as diagrams, testimonies etc., on my Kindle Fire HD. There are links to the corresponding evidence in each chapter, so when you click on them, it takes you to the picture, figure, diagram etc., and sometimes when I zoomed in on the picture and pressed the back button, it would take me back to the original photo, and I'd press back again to get back to the chapter, but the book would close and I'd be at the carousel.
Also, some illustrations were stacked one on top of the other, 90-degrees to the reader, so when you tilt the Kindle to try and see it right side up, the orientation would move, so it would remain at 90-degrees (which can be fixed by disabling the "auto orientation" or "auto rotate" whatever it's called in the settings). These were just small annoyances that I thought I should mention. Other than that the Kindle book is an interesting read, although it does get a little technical at times.
Anyway, I think everyone should read this book because it opens up a lot of questions not just about Kennedy's killing (though it does do that), but about what is moral in regards to what should and should not be revealed to the public.
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Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2013
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Top reviews from other countries
- glesgamanReviewed in the United Kingdom on May 13, 2024
Very credible theory by a ballistics expert
-
U.B.Reviewed in Germany on July 1, 2014
Wenn man wirklich wissen will, wer JFK erschoss. ...
- MrRobotoReviewed in the United Kingdom on April 28, 2024
A must read for those who want to know more about the Kennedy case
