back.305 A rod was placed at an angle of 17°43'30" next to the stand-ins for the President and the Governor, who were seated in the same relative positions.306 The wounds of entry and exit on the President were approximated based on information gained from the autopsy reports and photographs.307 The hole in the back of the jacket worn by the Governor and the medical description of the wound on his back marked that entry point.308 That line of fire from the sixth floor of the Depository would have caused the bullet to exit under the Governor's right nipple just as the bullet did. Governor Connally's doctors measured an angle of declination on his body from the entry wound on his hack to the exit on the front of his chest at about 25°when he sat erect.309 That difference was explained by either a slight deflection of the bullet caused by striking the fifth rib or the Governor's leaning slightly backward at the time he was struck. In addition, the angle could not be fixed with absolute precision, since the large wound on the front of his chest precluded an exact determination of the point of exit.310

The alinement of the points of entry was only indicative and not conclusive that one bullet hit both men. The exact positions of the men could not be re-created; thus, the angle could only be approximated.311 Had President Kennedy been leaning forward or backward, the angle of declination of the shot to a perpendicular target would have varied. The angle of 17°43'30" was approximately the angle of declination reproduced in an artist's drawing.312 That drawing, made from data provided by the autopsy surgeons, could not reproduce the exact line of the bullet, since the exit wound was obliterated by the tracheotomy. Similarly, if the President or the Governor had been sitting in a different lateral position, the conclusion might have varied. Or if the Governor had not turned in exactly the way calculated, the alinement would have been destroyed.

Additional experiments by the Army Wound Ballistics Branch further suggested that the same bullet probably passed through both President Kennedy and Governor Connally. (See app. X, pp. 582-585. ) Correlation of a test simulating the Governor's chest wound with the neck and wrist experiments.' indicated that course. After reviewing the Parkland Hospital medical records and X-rays of the Governor and discussing his chest injury with the attending surgeon, the Army ballistics experts virtually duplicated the wound using the assassination weapon and animal flesh covered by cloth.313 The bullet that struck the animal flesh displayed characteristics similar to the bullet found on Governor Connally's stretcher.314 Moreover, the imprint on the velocity screen immediately behind the animal flesh showed that the bullet was tumbling after exiting from the flesh, having lost a total average of 265 feet per second.315 Taking into consideration the Governor's size, the reduction in velocity of a bullet passing through his body would be approximately 400 feet per second.316

Based upon the medical evidence on the wounds of the Governor and the President and the wound ballistics tests performed at Edgewood