THE ENTRANCE HOLE IN THE WINDSHIELD: The WITNESSES

FRONT SHOT EVIDENCE #1

 

THE ENTRANCE BULLET HOLE IN THE FRONT WINDSHIELD OF JFK’S LIMOUSINE

 

As President Kennedy died in Trauma Room One, the Presidential limousine is reportedly partially cleaned as it was parked at Parkland Hospital’s emergency entrance.  The bubble-top was put on.  (There is no record of any evidence found at this time.  The car will eventually be driven to Love Field and placed aboard a plane by Secret Service Agent Kinney.)

 

As the limousine is parked at the hospital, five people there examine what is later to be described as a bullet hole in the front windshield of the car. 

 

1)      Dallas Police Officer H. R. Freeman will note: “I was right beside it.  I could have touched it.  It was a bullet hole.  You could tell what it was.” 

 

2)      Dallas Police Officer Stavis Ellis remarks, “You could put a pencil through it.”  A Secret Service agent tries to persuade Ellis that what he is seeing is a “fragment” and not a hole.  Mr. Ellis is adamant: “It wasn’t a damn fragment.  It was a hole.”

 

3)      Dr. Evalea Glanges, a second year medical student at Southwestern, also sees the bullet hole in the windshield.  When she calls attention to it, the limousine is quickly driven away.  She will further describe the bullet hole as an entrance hole through the front of the windshield.

 

4)      St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Richard Dudman wrote an article published in The New Republic on December 21, 1963, in which he stated: “A few of us noted the hole in the windshield when the limousine was standing at the emergency entrance after the President had been carried inside. I could not approach close enough to see which side was the cup-shaped spot which indicates a bullet had pierced the glass from the opposite side.”

 

5)      Secret Service agent Charles Taylor, Jr., who wrote a report on November 27, 1963 in which he detailed his activities providing security for the limousine immediately after the car’s return to Washington following the assassination. The JFK limousine and the Secret Service follow-up car known as the “Queen Mary” arrived at Andrews AFB aboard a C-130 propeller-driven cargo plane at about 8:00 PM on November 22, 1963. Agent Taylor rode in the Presidential limousine as it was driven from Andrews AFB to the White House garage at 22nd and M Streets, N.W. In his report about what he witnessed inside the White House garage during the vehicle’s inspection, he wrote: “In addition, of particular note was the small hole just left of center in the windshield from which what appeared to be bullet fragments were removed.”

 

At 8:00 P.M. on November 22, 1963, SS-100-X and SS-679-X arrived at Andrews Air Force Base on Air Force Cargo Plane No. 612373 (C-130-E), which plane was assigned to the 78th Air Transport Squadron from Charleston Air Force Base and piloted by Captain Thomason.  The plane was taxied to a point just off of Runway 1028, approximately 100 yards from the Control Tower [sic] at Andrews AFB, and a security cordon was placed around the aircraft while these vehicles were being unloaded.

     On the plane accompanying these vehicles were Special Agents Kinney and Hickey.

     The Presidential vehicles were driven under escort to the White House Garage at 22nd and M Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C., arriving at approximately 9:00 P.M.  SS-100-X was driven by SA

Kinney, accompanied by SA Taylor, and SS-679-x was driven by SA Hickey, accompanied by Special Agents Keiser and Brett.

     On arrival, SS-100-X was backed into the designated parking bin and SS-679-X was parked a few feet away.  A plastic cover was placed over SS-100-X and it was secured.  The follow-up car,

SS-679-X, was locked and secured.  Special Agents Keiser, Brett, and the reporting Special Agent effected security, assisted by White House Policemen Snyder and Rubenstal.

     At 10:10 P.M., Deputy Chief Paterni, ASAIC Boring, and representatives from Dr. Burkley's office at the White House, William Martinell and Thomas Mills, inspected SS-100-X.

     At 12:01 A.M., November 23, 1963, the security detail was relieved by Special Agents Paraschos and Kennedy and White House Policeman J. W. Edwards.

     At 1:00 A.M., as per arrangements by Deputy Chief Paterni, a team of FBI Agents examined the Presidential limousine.  This team was comprised of Orrin H. Bartlett, Charles L. Killian, Cortlandt Cunningham, Robert A. Frazier, and Walter E. Thomas [the typed name originally entered here has been scratched out & is not readable, and the name "Thomas" has been inserted in longhand].

     Mr. Orin Bartlett drove the Presidential vehicle out of the bin.  The team of FBI Agents, assisted by the Secret Service Agents on duty, removed the leatherette convertible top and the plexi-glass bubbletop; also the molding strips that secure the floor matting, and the rear seat.  What appeared to be bullet fragments were removed from the windshield and the floor rug in the rear of the car.

 

 

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     “The two blankets on the left and right rear doors were removed, inspected, and returned to the vehicle.  The trunk of the vehicle was opened and the contents examined, and nothing was removed.  A meticulous examination was made of the back seat to the car and the floor rug, and no evidence was found.  In addition, of particular note was the small hole just to the left of center in the windshield from which what appeared to be bullet fragments were removed.  The team of agents also noted that the chrome molding strip above the windshield, inside the car, just right of center, was dented.  The FBI Agents stated that this dent was made by the bullet fragment which was found imbedded in the front cushion.”

 

SECRET SERVICE AGENT CHARLES E. TAYLOR JR. ORIGINAL STATEMENTS CONCERNING WINDSHIELD OF THE LIMOUSINE.    

FRONT SHOT EVIDENCE #2

 

 

ATTORNEY DOUGLAS WELDON’S MONUMENTAL DISCOVERY

 

THE DEFINITIVE PIECE OF EVIDENCE OF A BULLET HOLE FOUND IN THE FRONT WINDSHIELD OF THE JFK LIMOUSINE IN DEALE PLAZA

 

The definitive researcher and expert concerning George Whitaker Sr.’s statements and recollections was Attorney Douglas Weldon.  His tireless and laudable work on proving the front shot through the windshield is beyond adequate recognition here.

 

Mr. GEORGE WHITAKER Sr., a "Ford Motor Car Company" Rouge plant windshields worker, gave a confidential interview to Attorney Douglas Weldon concerning Mr. Whitaker’s identification of a bullet hole in the windshield, Mr. Whitaker’s identification of that bullet hole being a front shot through the windshield, Mr. Whitaker’s role at the Ford Rogue Plant in removing and destroying the original windshield and Mr. Whitaker’s tremendous reluctance and fear of disclosure concerning the bullet hole and the windshield.

 

In Murder in Dealey Plaza (2000) edited by Jim Fetzer, Part II The Kennedy Limousine: Dallas 1963 by Douglas Weldon, J.D. (pp 129-158) is a fascinating section with the Ford Motor Company 40-year veteran involved in the making of the new laminated windshield in B building.

His statement (page 143):

It was a good clean bullet hole, right straight through, from the front. And you can tell, when the bullet hits the windshield, like when you hit a rock or anything, what happens? The back chips out and the front may just have a pinhole in it. . . .This had a clean round hole in the front and fragmented in the back. . . .

 

In his presentation at The Carlson School of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, JFK Assassination Forum held on May 14-16, 1999 organized by Dr. James Fetzer, Attorney Douglas Weldon presented his audio interview with Mr. George Whitaker.

 

LET ME BE QUITE SPECIFIC, THERE IS NOT A PIECE OF EVIDENCE MORE IMPORTANT TO IDENTIFYING THE FRONT BULLET HOLE IN THE PRESIDENTIAL LIMOUSINE THAN THIS INTERVIEW OF GEORGE WHITAKER Sr..  HIS VERACITY IS UNDENIABLE.  WITH GREAT TREPIDATION, MR. WHITAKER DISCLOSES TO DOUGLAS WELDON THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT DOCUMENTED SOURCE TO ABSOLUTELY DISPELLING THE SINGLE BULLET THEORY MYTH AND TO VERIFY THE CONSPIRACY OF ASSASSINS THAT KILLED PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY.

Also, and just as important, in the episode, "The Smoking Gun" / The Men Who Killed Kennedy series, the documentary focuses on significant facts and evidence pertaining to the assassination and cover-up that were hidden from the public and completely ignored in The Warren Commission's official report.  Douglas Weldon presents George Whitaker Sr.’s interview and life story concerning the front bullet hole that Mr. Whittaker found in the JFK Limosuine windshield.  The presentation is riveting, and George Whitaker is profoundly honest in his testimony.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAW-bxxZfcM

 

The Men Who Killed Kennedy, The History Channel DVD Series by Nigel Turner.

 

   Mr. George Whitaker, Sr., a senior manager at the Ford Motor Company's Rouge Plant in Detroit, Michigan, told attorney (and professor of criminal justice) Doug Weldon in August of 1993, in a tape recorded conversation, that after reporting to work on Monday, November 25th, he discovered the JFK limousine – a unique, one-of-a-kind item that he unequivocally identified – in the Rouge Plant's B building, with the interior stripped out and in the process of being replaced, and with the windshield removed. He was then contacted by one of the Vice Presidents of the division for which he worked, and directed to report to the glass plant lab, immediately. After knocking on the locked door (which he found most unusual), he was let in by two of his subordinates and discovered that they were in possession of the windshield that had been removed from the JFK limousine. They had been told to use it as a template, and to make a new windshield identical to it in shape – and to then get the new windshield back to the B building for installation in the Presidential limousine that was quickly being rebuilt. Whitaker told Weldon (quoting from the audiotape of the 1993 interview): "And the windshield had a bullet hole in it, coming from the outside through...it was a good, clean bullet hole, right straight through, from the front. And you can tell, when the bullet hits the windshield, like when you hit a rock or something, what happens? The back chips out and the front may just have a pinhole in it...this had a clean round hole in the front and fragmentation coming out the back." Whitaker told Weldon that he eventually became superintendent of his division and was placed in charge of five plant divisions. He also told Weldon that the original windshield, with the bullet hole in it, had been broken up and scrapped – as ordered – after the new windshield had been made.

When Doug Weldon interviewed Whitaker in August of 1993, his witness insisted on anonymity. Weldon reported on the story without releasing Whitaker's name in his excellent and comprehensive article titled: "The Kennedy Limousine: Dallas 1963," which was published in Jim Fetzer's anthology Murder in Dealey Plaza, in 2000. After Weldon interviewed Whitaker in August of 1993, Mr. Whitaker subsequently – on November 22, 1993 (the 30th anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination) – wrote down all he could remember about the events he witnessed involving the Presidential limousine and its windshield. After George Whitaker's death in 2001, his family released his written testament to Nigel Turner, who with their permission revealed Mr. Whitaker's name, as well as the text of his "memo for history," in episode 7 of The Men Who Killed Kennedy, "The Smoking Guns."

In "The Smoking Guns," the text of Whitaker's memo can be read on the screen employing freeze frame technology with the DVD of the episode. It said, in part: "When arrived at the lab the door was locked. I was let in. There were 2 glass engineers there. They had a car windshield that had a bullet hole in it. The hole was about 4 or 6 inches to the right of the rear view mirror [as viewed from the front]. The impact had come from the front of the windshield. (If you have spent 40 years in the glass [illegible] you know which way the impack [sic] was from."