The keystone of the Warren Commission's case against Lee Harvey Oswald
was what became known as "The Single Bullet Theory".
This theory (which has never been proven) was necessitated by the
timing of the shots as recorded by the Zapruder film, and the number of
shells (3) that were found in the Texas School Book Depository.
The Single Bullet Theory maintains that one shot hit JFK in the head,
the other missed the car completely striking the curb and causing a
piece of concrete or bullet to strike James Tague in the face, and the
third was "the single bullet" that was responsible for all of the
non-fatal wounds in President Kennedy and Governor Connally.
It is this bullet, Commission Exhibit No. 399, which the Commission
claimed was the one that caused all of the non-fatal wounds in both
men.
The Commission reported that this bullet had been found on Governor
Connally's stretcher at Parkland Memorial Hospital.
However, not only was this bullet not found on the Governor's
stretcher, there is strong evidence that this bullet was not fired in
Dealey Plaza and thus had nothing to do with the assassination of JFK
or the wounding of Governor Connally.
First, let's take a look at the discovery of the bullet.
STRETCHING THE STRETCHER BULLET
When the presidential limousine arrived at Parkland Hospital, the
Governor was taken into Trauma Room 2 (The President was taken to
Trauma Room 1) in the hospital's emergency room. After being examined
by the doctors, he was taken, on the same stretcher, to a second floor
operating room. There he was removed from the stretcher and placed on
an operating cart. An orderly, R.J.Jimison, then rolled the stretcher
onto an elevator, leaving it unattended.
(WC Report, pp. 80-81)
Senior Hospital Engineer Darrell Tomlinson discovered the stretcher on
the elevator and placed it next to a stretcher located in a corridor on
the ground floor at about 1:12 PM. Despite the Commission's contention
that "a few minutes later he bumped one of the stretchers against a
wall and a bullet rolled out", Tomlinson actually left the stretcher
unattended for almost 40 minutes. He discovered the bullet sometime
between 1:45 and 1:50 PM. (Ibid., 81)
Tomlinson stated that, "I bumped the the wall and a spent cartridge or
bullet rolled out that apparently been lodged under the edge of the
mat." (WC Hearings VI, p. 130)
Tomlinson, being the person that found the bullet, was the only source
of information about its location when found. As such, he was subjected
to a series of leading questions by WC Counsel Arlen "Single Bullet
Theory" Specter. Tomlinson later told a researcher that he had been
unhappy with Specter's line of questioning. Originally certain that the
bullet came from a stretcher that had no connection to the case,
Tomlinson finally admitted that the bullet may have come from
Connally's stretcher after being hounded by Specter.
If Tomlinson was unhappy with Specter, the Commission was quite happy.
It concluded that " although Tomlinson was not certain whether the
bullet came from the Connally stretcher or an adjacent one, the
Commission has concluded that the bullet came from Governor Connally's
stretcher." (Ibid. VI, 130-34; Thompson, Six Seconds in Dallas, 205-6;
WC Report, 81)
Tomlinson was certain that the bullet was on a stretcher that was not
Governor Connally's and had nothing to do with the assassination.
However, even if the only witness was uncertain, the Commission
concluded on its own and with no proof to support it, that the bullet
came from Connally's stretcher.
In the realm of American jurisprudence, this conclusion would be
laughable if the case hadn't involved a murder.
Such stupidity would have been thrown out of "Judge Judy's " courtroom
for sure !
But that's not the end of this bizarre tale--there's more !
SUBSTITUTION OF THE STRETCHER BULLET
Neither Tomlinson, nor the man he gave the bullet to, O.P. Wright,
personnel director of security at the hospital, would identify CE 399
as the bullet found on the stretcher. In November 1966, Wright was
interviewed by researcher Josiah Thompson and told him, in the
prescence of two witnesses, that CE 399 was definitely NOT the bullet
that Tomlinson handed him. Wright procured a pointed .30 caliber bullet
and told Thompson that the bullet resembled it.
(Thompson, Six Seconds in Dallas, p. 175-76)
Wright's revelation suggests that after he turned over to the Secret
Service the bullet that Tomlinson found, it was substituted for a
bullet that could be ballistically matched to Oswald's rifle.
And that Western Cartridge bullet that was fired from Oswald's rifle
after the assassination and used to replace the bullet that Tomlinson
found, became Warren Commission Exhibit 399--what I call, "the
Not-So-Magic Bullet".
The substitution of CE 399 for the stretcher bullet is more than
possible : the facts support it.
The stretcher bullet was never taken seriously by either the FBI or the
Secret Service as evidence in the case. When O.P. Wright tried to get
the FBI to come look at the bullet on the stretcher, they were
uninterested. Then he contacted a Secret Service agent who refused to
view it. The bullet was never photographed in its position of
discovery. So Wright picked it up and carried it over to SS Agent
Richard Johnson, who put it in his pocket without putting any
identifying marks on it.
Apparently, none of the Federal agencies were interested in collecting
evidence at the time.
The chain of possession of this particular piece of evidence indicates
that it was the FBI, and not the Secret Service, that made the
substitution from the stretcher bullet to CE 399. The stretcher bullet
went from SA Johnson to SS Chief James Rowley, who turned it over to
Elmer Todd of the FBI who then gave it to Robert Frazier of the FBI
lab. (WC Hearings, XVIII, pp. 799-800)
Tomlinson and Wright, the only men who saw the bullet on the stretcher,
would not identify CE 399 as being that bullet.
Also, SS Chief Rowley and SA Johnson also would not identify CE 399 as
the stretcher bullet. (Ibid., XXIV, p. 412)
So here we have four witnesses within the chain of possession of the
evidence that say that CE 399 was NOT the bullet found on the stretcher
at Parkland Hospital. And yet, some time between Rowley's handing it to
Todd and Todd giving it to Frazier, the stretcher bullet became CE 399.
How do I know it was the FBI that substituted the bullet ? Because
Rowley refused to identify CE 399 as the bullet that he gave to the
FBI. Which means that CE 399 was NOT the bullet that he gave to them.
He handed the REAL stretcher bullet to Todd. Agent Todd received the
real stretcher bullet and while this bullet was in the possession of
the FBI, because it had no bearing on the case against Oswald, it was
replaced by a bullet that had been fired from Oswald's rifle--that
bullet we now know as CE 399.
VISUAL EXAMINATION OF CE 399
Upon receiving CE 399, Robert Frazier examined it and said that the
bullet did not have ANY microscopic particles from Kennedy's shirt or
coat or Connally's shirt, coat, or trousers, despite having allegedly
gone through all five garments.
(WC Hearings III, pp 428-31)
He further went on to say that had the bullet gone through coarse cloth
or leather, he would have expected to see microscopic particles of
those fabrics on the bullet. Why ? Because, ALL bullets pick up
microscopic particles from ANY fabric that they travel through and he
expected to see particles of fabric from the victim's clothing on CE
399.
But this was not the case when he examined this bullet.
What Frazier is saying here is this: based on his experience with
bullets travelling through clothing, CE 399 did not go through either
Kennedy's shirt and coat, or Connally's shirt and coat. Nor did it pass
through his trousers.
Without particles of clothing on the bullet, the only way that CE 399
could have travelled through both men was if they had taken their
shirts and coats off before they were shot. And that didn't happen.
The lack of microscopic particles of the President's clothing or
Governor Connally's clothing on CE 399 is further evidence that this
bullet had nothing to do with the assassination of President John F.
Kennedy or the wounding of Governor John B. Connally. The additional
fact that four eyewitnesses refused to identify CE 399 as the bullet
found on the stretcher at Parkland Hospital further supports my theory
that CE 399 had nothing to do with the assassination of President
Kennedy and the wounding of Governor Connally.
But that's not the only thing missing from this bullet.
There was no blood or bone particles on CE 399 when examined, despite
it allegedly having gone through two good-sized men. This bullet was
alleged to have caused seven wounds: two in Kennedy and five in
Connally. It blew out four inches of the Governor's fifth rib,
pulverizing it into dust, broke the radial bone in his right wrist and
ended up in his thigh and yet--no blood, no bone.
(WC Hearings III, pp 428-31)
If the witnesses' refusal to identify CE 399 as the stretcher bullet,
the lack of microscopic particles from the victim's clothing on CE 399,
and the lack of bone or blood on CE 399 hasn't convinced the reader yet
that CE 399 had nothing to do with the assassination of JFK and the
wounding of JBC, let's consider the Neutron Activation Analysis that
was performed on CE 399 and the fragments removed from Governor
Connally's wrist.
CE 399 AND THE CONNALLY WRIST FRAGMENTS
Let me preface this section by saying that every manufacturer of
ammunition has his own mixture of elements when making lead. In
addition, every manufacturer uses the same mixture in every one of his
bullets, regardless of the caliber. Only by measuring those elements
can Law Enforcement investigators determine which manufacturer made a
particular bullet. In a single ammunition-type scenario, all of the
elements of recovered bullets and bullet fragments will be identical.
Conversely, ANY variation of the percentage of any one element,
indicates that the bullets and bullet fragments were made from
different manufacturers.
The significance of all of this is that only one manufacturer, Western
Cartridge Company, made ammunition for the Mannlicher-Carcano, the
alleged murder weapon. Since only one manufacturer made the ammunition,
all of the bullets and bullet fragments should have the exact same
percentage of each element. Conversely, if the percentages differed
even slightly, it would indicate that some of the bullets or bullet
fragments originated from ammunition made by a manufacturer other than
Western.
If the elements do not match ANY manufacturer, chances are that someone
melted down the lead from bullets and made their own "reloads". We will
examine that possibility later.
If the ammunition came from a source other than Western, the weapon
that fired it could not have been Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, or
for that matter, ANY Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, because Western was the
only one that made the ammo for that rifle.
Having said all of that, investigators would be looking to compare CE
399, the Single Bullet that the FBI alleged had created all of the
non-fatal wounds in president Kennedy and Governor Connally, with the
bullet fragments removed from Governor Connally's wrist. If the
elements were exactly the same, like a fingerprint, it would be solid
evidence that CE 399 was the same bullet that hit Governor Connally in
the wrist. In addition, in this particular test, they compared CE 399
(which they knew WAS ammo for a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle) with the
Kennedy head fragments and the fragments found in the limousine.
( To try to prove that one gun made all of the shots)
The method used to examine the bullets and bullet fragments was the
Neutron Activation Analysis. It is a procedure whereby objects are
bombarded with nuclear radiation. The irradiated objects will display
different levels of radiation according to their chemical composition.
Each of the chemical elements composing the object will emit gamma
rays, which can be measured in amounts as small as one-billionth of a
gram. Each Western Cartridge bullet is made up of copper, lead, silver,
antimony, bismuth, zinc, and traces of other elements. In this test,
only silver and antimony were measured.
The results of the test for silver and antimony indicated that CE 399
did NOT match the Connally wrist fragments.
In addition, CE 399 was compared to the Kennedy head fragments and the
limousine fragments. It matched neither. The Kennedy head fragments
contained 20% less silver and 40% less antimony than CE 399.
(FBI Results of Neutron Activation Analysis, 72-page report dated 6 May
1964, FBI papers)
Since CE 399 was a Western Cartridge round and did not match the
Kennedy head fragments or the limousine fragments, the test proved that
the bullets that caused these fragments were NOT Western Cartridge
ammunition and thus had NOT been fired from a Mannlicher Carcano rifle.
More importantly, it proved that the Kennedy head shot did NOT come
from a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.
The test was so conclusive, that the FBI did not waste their time
measuring any of the other elements.
SUBSTITUTION OF THE WRIST FRAGMENTS
In September 1977, the House Select Committee on Assassinations had
another NAA test done on CE 399 and the Connally wrist fragments. Its
expert, Dr. Vincent P. Guinn of the Chemistry Department at the
University of California at Irvine, conducted the test.
Dr. Guinn found that the Connally wrist fragment contained 25% more
silver and 850% more copper than CE 399. It also contained 2400% more
sodium and 1100% more chlorine and it contained 8.1 parts per million
of aluminum, while CE 399 contained none.
(HSCA Hearings, I, p.538)
However, there were evidentiary problems with Dr. Guinn's test. The
wrist fragments that were originally tested in 1964 had vanished by the
time Guinn began his work for the HSCA. (I HSCA, p. 562)
The fragments he received from the National Archives were NOT the same
fragments tested in 1964. The description of the 1964 fragments did not
match the fragments he received in 1977.
When he weighed the fragments, not one of the fragments that he was
given matched the weight on record of a 1964 fragment.
Guinn told the HSCA that the Archives assured him that the fragments
they gave him were "the only bullet-lead fragments from this case still
present in the Archives". Guinn stated: "Presumably those are in
existence somewhere..but where they are, I have no idea." He also told
the committee that the wrist fragments would not have been destroyed by
testing in 1964.
To this day, no one knows what happened to the original Connally wrist
fragments. (I HSCA, p. 562)
The implication here is obvious: Sometime between the completion of the
original test in 1964 and the time Dr. Guinn received the fragments
from the National Archives in 1977, the 1964 wrist fragments were
substituted with fragments from CE 399.
In a tape recorded interview in the hallway after his testimony to
HSCA, Dr. Guinn posed the possibility of substitution in explaining why
two different tests resulted in two different conclusions. He said,
"Possibly they would take a bullet, take out a few little pieces and
put it in the container, and say, 'This is what came out of Connally's
wrist'. And naturally, if you compare it with 399, it will look
alike....I have no control over these things."
Which explains why Dr. Guinn concluded that the Connally wrist
fragments and CE 399 were a match, despite the overwhelming evidence to
the contrary and the indication that the fragments that he tested in
1977 were not the original Connally wrist fragments.
He had no control over his conclusions.
MY CONCLUSIONS
I believe that I've made a pretty good case for throwing out CE 399 as
evidence. That's what would have been done to it if it had been
introduced as evidence in any murder case in any court in the US. It's
garbage ! It's manufactured evidence and has no bearing on the
assassination of President Kennedy and the wounding of Governor
Connally.
Even though it contained ballistic markings that matched it to Oswald's
rifle, there is no proof that CE 399 was fired on November 22, 1963.
There is substantial proof, however, that CE 399 was fired at a later
date when the rifle was in the hands of the FBI. CE 399 lacked clothing
fibers from either victim. It lacked blood and bone particles from
either victim. Four eyewitnesses who possessed the stretcher bullet
refused to identify CE 399 as that bullet. The Neutron Activation Test
conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission in 1964 found differences in
the silver and antimony between the Connally wrist fragments and CE
399, proving that CE 399 was NOT the bullet that struck Governor
Connally's wrist. And Dr. Vincent Guinn's test, comparing CE 399 to the
wrist fragments, for the House Select Committee on Assassinations in
1977, is useless because (by his own admission) he did not test the
original wrist fragments.
More significant, is that the above evidence shows that since CE 399
WAS a Western Cartridge bullet, and it didn't match ANY of the
fragments in Connally's wrist, the President's head, or the limousine,
and since Western was the only company that made ammunition for the
Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, the evidence also proves that a
Mannlicher-Carcano rifle did not cause ANY of Connally's wounds or
Kennedy's head wound.
All of the above reasons support my theory that CE 399 was not part of
the Kennedy Assassination in any way. It really was the
"Not-So-Magic-Bullet", because it never did anything magical.
In fact, it never did anything at all.
