For general background information on the Warren Commission and the development of the single-bullet theory I have relied mainly on four books: A Cruel and Shocking Act by Philip Shenon, Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi, History Will Prove Us Right by Howard Willens, and Passion for Truth by Arlen Specter.
David Belin describes his work with the Warren Commission, and his studies of the Zapruder film, in two books, Final Disclosure and November 22, 1963: You Are the Jury.
“I would wake up in the middle of the night …” Belin in November 22, 1963.
“I assumed conspiracy …” quoted by Shenon.
“Considerably more detail than any of the copies we had …” quoted by Shenon.
“I wound up the next day realizing ..." from the Warren Commission testimony of John Connally, which can be read here.
For the “ragged edges” of the entry wound on Connally’s wrist, see the Warren Commission testimony of Dr Charles Gregory here.
For a general discussion of Kennedy and Connally’s body positions at various frames of the Zapruder film, see Bugliosi, Reclaiming History, p. 481, and the Warren Report, p. 106.
“I thought that I had indeed proved there was more than one gunman …” Belin, Final Disclosure, p. 50.
“The Single Bullet Conclusion developed naturally … ” Specter, Passion for Truth, pp. 81-82.
“An historic moment …” quoted by Shenon.
For the minutiae of the stretcher bullet’s discovery, see Bugliosi, Reclaiming History, p. 811, and his Endnotes, p. 55.
“I intended to take the sworn testimony of every doctor …” quoted by Shenon.
R. J. Jimison’s Warren Commission testimony can be read here.
On the fate of Kennedy’s stretcher, see Specter, Passion for Truth, p. 97.
Ballistics tests proved … Warren Report, p. 557.
“Slightly bent on its long axis …” Dr John Lattimer, Kennedy and Lincoln: Medical and Ballistic Comparisons of Their Assassinations, p. 285.
“The theory … would have to be checked out against the X-Rays … “ Specter, Passion for Truth.
For a good summary of the nature and weight of the bullet fragments left in Connally, see Josiah Thompson’s Six Seconds in Dallas, p. 150, and Bugliosi’s Reclaiming History, Endnotes, p. 443.
“A fraction of a grain, maybe a tenth of a grain …” from the Warren Commission testimony of Dr George T. Shires, which can be read here.
“They would represent in lay terms flakes, flakes of metal …” from the Warren Commission testimony of Dr Charles Gregory, which can be read here.
The fragments in Connally added up to 1.5 grains ... see Thompson’s Six Seconds in Dallas, p. 150.
“The wound entrance was an elliptical wound …” from the Warren Commission testimony of Dr Robert Shaw, which can be read here.
Specter was worried … See Shenon, A Cruel and Shocking Act.
For more on the Warren Commission’s on-site reconstruction of the assassination, see Specter’s Passion for Truth, pp. 109-110 and the New York Times of May 25, 1964, p. 25.
“Where, if it didn’t hit Connolly, did that bullet go ...?" Quoted in Bugliosi, Reclaiming History, pp. 461-2.
My account of Specter’s feelings as he looked down the scope of Oswald’s rifle, and of his conversation with Earl Warren in the sniper’s nest, is based on the recollections Specter offers in Passion for Truth, pp. 110-112.
On the single-bullet reservations of Hale Boggs, Dick Russell and Sherman Cooper, see Shenon’s A Cruel and Shocking Act, Specter’s Passion for Truth (p. 120) and Bugliosi’s Reclaiming History (p. 455).