A former Secret Service agent who was with President Kennedy the moment he was assassinated has come forward to claim the president was the victim of multiple shooters, not just Lee Harvey Oswald. The account, which comes nearly 60 years after the assassination, gives new inspiration to those who have long believed that the real story of Kennedy’s murder has been hidden from the public eye. 

In an exclusive interview with the New York Times’ Peter Baker, the former agent, Paul Landis, says the official account of Kennedy’s assassination does not align with what he says he experienced that day as he stood just feet from the slain president’s limousine. Mr. Landis is releasing a book that details his account of that day on October 10. 

Mr. Landis tells the Times that for years he struggled with nightmares about that fateful day, reliving what happened minute by minute. One of the bullets that struck the president, Mr. Landis says, could not have been fired by Oswald, as it was lodged in the seat where Kennedy had been sitting in the back of the car. Oswald had been behind Kennedy at the Texas Book Depository when the three shots were fired. 

Mr. Landis’ account of the day centers on the so-called “magic bullet” — the bullet that passed through both Kennedy and the Texas governor who was riding in front of the president, John Connally. “There was nobody there to secure the scene, and that was a big, big bother to me,” Mr. Landis told the Times. “All the agents that were there were focused on the president.”

Mr. Landis said that he himself pulled the “magic bullet” from the backseat of the car. “This was all going on so quickly. And I was just afraid that — it was a piece of evidence that I realized right away. Very important. And I didn’t want it to disappear or get lost. So it was, ‘Paul, you’ve got to make a decision,’ and I grabbed it.’”

The Warren Commission, which was convened to investigate the events surrounding Kennedy’s assassination, concluded that the “magic bullet” had been taken out of Connally during a surgery at Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he and the Kennedys were rushed after the shooting. Mr. Landis’ account refutes that long-held belief. “At this point, I’m beginning to doubt myself,” he said of the account that Oswald acted alone. “Now I begin to wonder.” 

Mr. Landis has not convinced some experts on the Kennedy assassination. One author who wrote a book that purportedly debunked all of the theories of other shooters and government involvement in Kennedy’s assassination, Gerald Posner, told the Times that Mr. Landis’ story does not align with the facts. 

“People’s memories generally do not improve over time, and it is a flashing warning sign to me, about skepticism I have over his story, that on some very important details of the assassination, including the number of shots, his memory has gotten better instead of worse,” Mr. Posner said.

“Even assuming that he is accurately describing what happened with the bullet,” he added, “it might mean nothing more than we now know that the bullet that came out of Governor Connally did so in the limousine, not on a stretcher in Parkland where it was found.”

The slain president’s nephew, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., says he believes Mr. Landis’ account. “The magic bullet theory is now dead,” the Democratic presidential candidate wrote on X. “This preposterous construction has served as the mainstay of the theory that a single shooter murdered President Kennedy since the Warren Commission advanced it 60 years ago under the direction of the former CIA Director Allen Dulles whom my uncle fired.” 

“The recent revelations by JFK’s Secret Service protector Paul Landis have prompted even the New York Times — among the last lonely defenders of the Warren Report — to finally acknowledge its absurdity,” Mr. Kennedy continued. 

Mr. Landis had regaled others with his theory over the years. One friend of Mr. Landis’, lawyer James Robenalt, told the Times he found the former agent’s account more reasonable than not. 

“If what he says is true, which I tend to believe, it is likely to reopen the question of a second shooter, if not even more,” Mr. Robenalt told the Times. “If the bullet we know as the magic or pristine bullet stopped in President Kennedy’s back, it means that the central thesis of the Warren Report, the single-bullet theory, is wrong.”

The president of Duquesne University, Ken Gormley, who is also a trained historian, helped Mr. Landis set up his book deal and says he has some credibility. 

“It’s very common as people get to the end of their lives,” Mr. Gormley said of the former agent. “They want to make peace with things. They want to get on the table things they’ve been holding back, especially if it’s a piece of history and they want the record corrected. This does not look like a play by someone trying to get attention for himself or money. I don’t read it that way at all. I think he firmly believes this. Whether it fits together, I don’t know. But people can eventually figure that out.”