The Connollys

At one point during his testimony, Texas' Governor John Connally stripped off his shirt to show the scars on his chest. Repeatedly, his eyes filled with tears as he spoke.

Said Connally: "I heard this noise, which I immediately took to be a rifle shot. I instinctively turned to my right because the sound appeared to come from over my right shoulder, so I turned to look back over my right shoulder, and I saw nothing unusual except just people in the crowd, but I did not catch the President in the corner of my eye, and 1 was interested because, once I heard the shot in my own mind, I identified it as a rifle shot, and I immediately--the only thought that crossed my mind was that this is an assassination attempt." Hearing It Hit. When Connally himself was hit, his wife pulled him down into her lap. He was "conscious all the time, and with my eyes open, and then, of course, the third shot sounded, and I heard the shot very clearly. I heard it hit him. I heard the shot hit something, and I assumed again--it never entered my mind that it ever hit anybody but the President. I heard it hit.

It was a very loud noise, just that audible, very clear.

"Immediately, I could see on my clothes, my clothing, I could see on the interior of the car which, as I recall, was a pale blue, brain tissue, which 1 immediately recognized, and I recall very well, on my trousers there was one chunk of brain tissue as big almost as my thumbnail, and again I did not see the President at any time either after the first, second, or third shots, but I assumed always that it was he who was hit and no one else."

When Connally's wife Nellie heard the first shot, she turned around to see Kennedy. "He made no utterance, no cry. I saw no blood, no anything. It was just sort of nothing, the expression on his face, and he just sort of slumped down. Then, very soon, there was the second shot that hit John. I never again looked in the back seat of the car after my husband was shot. I just pulled him over into my arms because it would have been impossible to get us really both down with me sitting and me holding him. So that I looked out, and all I could see were the people flashing by. I didn't look back any more."

Like Spent Buckshot. "The third shot that I heard I felt," said Nellie Connally. "It felt like spent buckshot falling all over us, and then, of course, I too could see that it was the matter, brain tissue, or whatever, just human matter all over the car and both of us. Mrs.

Kennedy said, the first thing I recall her saying was, after the first shot, and I heard her say, 'Jack, they have killed my husband,' and then there was the second shot, and then after the third shot, she said, They have killed my husband; I have his brains in my hand,' and she repeated that several times. And that was all the conversation."

At the hospital, while her husband was in one emergency room and the President in another, Mrs. Connally recalled: "There were lots of what I assumed were Secret Service men rushing in with machine guns, I guess, or tommy guns. There was no one with me and, of course, my thoughts then were, I guess like any other woman, I wondered if all the doctors were in the room on the left [with Kennedy], and they were not taking too good care of my husband on the right. I shouldn't have worried about that, should I?"

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