One of the earliest charges made by conspiracy buffs was the claim that
Bill Greer, the President's driver deliberately slowed the limo down in
order to make him an easy target. The truth is that he most certainly did
hit the brake, just before Zapruder frame 300, but he did so in a state of
total panic, just a fraction of a second after being thoroughly startled by
the sharp crack of the shock wave at Z285. To understand this, let's go
back a few frames. Like Mrs. Connally and Kellerman, Greer responded to
the first audible shot by turning to look to the rear. It is difficult to
see exactly when this turn was made, though my impression is that it
happened just after Z260. But there is no doubt at all that he is looking
backward, no later than Z280.
Greer testified that he didn't turn far enough to see the President, but
he recalled seeing Governor Connally falling back toward Mrs. Connally. Of
course, this matches perfectly with his first turn to the rear. But
suddenly, beginning at about Z291-292, he begins an abrupt and extremely
rapid counterclockwise movement back toward the front. As Dr. Alvarez and
other researchers have determined, by analyzing the speed of the limousine
from frame to frame, the limo begins a substantial slowdown at exactly,
Z300. This tells us that after Greer turned back to the front, he panicked
and hit the brake, although he doesn't hold it down long enough to bring
the heavy limousine to a full stop.
It is also terribly significant that Greer began his panic turn, within a
sixth of a second of three other limo passengers' clear reactions. They
were Mrs. Connally, Mrs. Kennedy, and SA Roy Kellerman. His turn also
began within the same sixth of a second in which Abraham Zapruder blurred
the first in a series of three frames, in precise 1/3 second increments,
exactly as we see in the frames following the known shot at Z312.
Like almost everyone else who heard the shots, Greer confirmed that the
shooting sequence ended with a flurry of closely spaced re****ts. This is
from his Warren Commission testimony:
Mr. SPECTER. Do you have an independent recollection at this moment of
having heard three shots at that time
Mr. GREER. I knew that after I heard the second one, that is when I looked
over my shoulder, and I was conscious that there was something wrong,
because that is when I saw Governor Connally. And when I turned around
again, to the best of my recollection there was another one, right
immediately after.
Mr. SPECTER. To the best of your ability to recollect and estimate, how
much time elapsed from the first noise which you have described as being
similar to the backfire of a motor vehicle until you heard the second
noise?
Mr. GREER. It seems a matter of seconds, I really couldn't say. Three or
four seconds.
Mr. SPECTER. How much time elapsed, to the best of your ability to
estimate and recollect, between the time of the second noise and the time
of the third noise?
Mr. GREER. The last two seemed to be just simultaneously, one behind the
other..
It is apparent that the shot at frame Z285 startled Greer, causing him to
spin around to the front in a panic. Interestingly, some critics have
claimed that his turn at that point was so rapid that it was humanly
impossible and therefore evidence that the film was edited or tampered
with. In early 1997 I ran some simple tests in which I had someone film me
as I turned rapidly in a chair, similar to Greer. The test proved quite
conclusively that his turn was not at all impossible, but it most
certainly was fast. The turns I made that matched his performance quite
frankly, left me a little bit dizzy. Greer further confirmed the cause of
his panic in this part of his testimony,
Mr. GREER. The second one didn't sound any different much than the first
one but I kind of got, by turning around, I don't know whether I got a
little concussion of it, maybe when it hit something or not, I may have
gotten a little concussion that made me think there was something
different to it.
This is an im****tant part of Greer's recollections. First, he confirms
that he was turned around when he heard this second shot. Since we know he
turned to the rear no earlier than Z260, he fully corroborates the
recollections of Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. Connally, and SA Kellerman, as well as
most other witnesses who placed the final shots at the very end of the
attack. His statement makes even more sense when we consider his seemingly
strange claim that he felt the "concussion" of this shot. The shock wave of
a supersonic bullet carries with it, a small but noticeable amount of
force, enough in some cases, to blow out a candle and certainly enough to
cause a distinct tingling sensation on the skin of anyone who is exposed
in close proximity to it.
We can easily see that at Z285, Greer was facing the rear, so a supersonic
bullet from that direction, and especially one that missed would generate a
shock wave that would certainly have been felt on his face. This was the
"concussion" he re****ted. The slight sting of such a force, combined with
it's ear-shattering noise would certainly be more than enough to provoke
the panic reaction we see in the film.
It has been suggested that Greer might have simply gotten confused and was
thinking of the explosive Z312-313 shot when he described feeling it's
"concussion". But he seems to have eliminated that possibility when he
described his uncertainty about, "when it hit something or not".
Certainly, after the terrible explosion at Z313 he would have had no
doubts at all about whether that bullet had found a target. But as it
turned out, the Z285 bullet missed the President and found another victim
more than 200 feet away.
Bob Harris
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