Former Gov. John Connally went to his grave with the bullet fragments conspiracy theorists say could prove whether a second gunman took part in the assassination of President Kennedy.
Friends and relatives of Connally were cool to researchers' requests that the fragments be removed from the body, and the government made no move to halt the burial Thursday or have him exhumed."It's an appalling attempt to capitalize on Governor Connally's death to gain publicity for worn-out theories," said Julian Read, a family spokesman.
Connally, governor from 1963 to 1969, died Tuesday of pulmonary fibrosis at 76. He was buried Thursday in Austin.
He was sitting in the open limousine with Kennedy and the first lady when the president was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963.
According to the Warren Commission report, one of the bullets - fired by Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone - passed through the president and pierced Connally's back. It exited through his chest, passed through his right wrist, went into his left thigh and was found on a hospital stretcher, the report said.
Critics of the Warren Commission report have said a single bullet could not have taken such a path and come out in such good condition.
Bullet fragments taken from Connally were examined in the late 1970s by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The panel concluded that the fragments came from the same bullet that struck Kennedy.
Dr. Cyril Wecht, a Pittsburgh pathologist, said the fragments still in Connally's body would show otherwise. He was among researchers who signed a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno asking that the pieces be removed.
At Connelly's funeral, relatives, friends and dignitaries remembered him as a giant of a man and a Texas legend. About 850 people gathered at First United Methodist Church.