Bonar Menninger Oral History

Bonar Menninger's book, Mortal Error: The Shot that Killed JFK (1992), was based on the work of ballistics expert Howard Charles Hinman Donahue. A World War II veteran who flew thirty-five combat missions in the Army Air Forces without injury, Donahue became interested in the Kennedy assassination during a 1967 CBS News investigation when he was invited, along with other gun experts, to fire the same make and model Mannlicher-Carcano as the one found in the Texas School Book Depository. Among the experts, Donahue was the only one able to recreate firing three shots in six and a half seconds, though he came to believe that, during an assassination attempt by Lee Harvey Oswald, a Secret Service agent in the follow-up vehicle accidentally fired the shot that fatally struck President Kennedy in the head. Donahue shared his theory with the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1977, although it did not garner much public or researcher attention until the publication of Bonar Menninger's book in 1992 and particularly following the release of the 2013 documentary, JFK: The Smoking Gun. Alongside the documentary, former Australian police detective Colin McLaren published his own book, also titled JFK: The Smoking Gun, that examined and supported Donahue's theory about the assassination. Howard Donahue passed away at the age of 77 in December 1999. - Stephen Fagin, Curator