Joe Backes's Letter on Gullo's AP Article
21 January 2000
Distributed the same day by JFK News
From: JoeBackes@aol.com
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 19:32:42 EST
Subject: Backes responds to NARA's blundered test report, and Gullo's AP piece.
To all,
As you know by now NARA has finally released a report on the testing performed on CE 567. We have only had to wait about 2 years for this report.
Karen Gullo, of the Associate Press has written a garbled news story that's as bad as the blundered way these tests were performed in the first place. Her headline is "No JFK shirt material on bullets."
Well, we weren't testing bullets. We were testing bullet fragments, fragments believed to have come from one bullet, the bullet that hit JFK in the head. JFK was not wearing his shirt on his head that day in Dallas. The piece is a total obfuscation. You are deliberately diverted away from the real issue.
The issue is what are these fragments adhering to the bullet fragments? They are in two categories. Category one is what appears to be a white fibrous material. Category two are what NARA itself called "human remains."
The issue is, and remains despite this incompetent blundering, are any of the human remains from Connally? We would expect them to be from JFK as the bullet fragment is reported to be from the fatal head shot, but if any are from Connally then we have to rethink the whole assassination. The trajectory through JFK's head negates this bullet from going on to hitting Connally.
Gullo thinks this report helps to disprove a second gunman in Dallas. She's got some nutty ideas depending on whether the fiber might have come from clothing worn by JFK. How can anyone support that or reconcile that to the obvious fact that this bullet fragment is supposed to have come from the head shot, and JFK is obviously not wearing any clothing on his head? She is completely ignorant of the fact that CE 567 is supposed to be from the bullet that hit JFK in the head.
Gullo is aware that JFK's tie had a nick in it. This has long been shown to have come from the nurses at Parkland who did not bother to neatly untie the tie of the moribund president bleeding in front of them, they quickly cut it with a scalpel blade nicking the knot of the tie in the process (See Josiah Thompson's "Six Seconds in Dallas" and Harold Weisberg's "Post Mortem"). Ignorant people have leaped upon this tie knick as evidence strengthening the notion of the later proposed Single Bullet Theory. Gullo, listening to some of these people, thinks the bullet fragment may have something to do with the tie knick and therefore this bullet fragment isn't from the head shot but rather the wound to JFK's throat which would affect the Single Bullet Theory, in effect negating it, so there must have been another shooter somewhere.
Excrement.
It is the DNA testing on the human remains, and if they came from Connally that would support the idea of a second gunman.
This statement by Gullo, "The Justice Department asked the FBI to test the fragments to determine whether the materials had any relevance to the Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman." is totally false! Gullo lies! The Justice Department never asked any such thing.
Let's have a full factual background. In December of 1991 Oliver Stone's movie "JFK" was released. That directly led to the call to release assassination material that the government was keeping from the people. This led to many bills and congressional hearings that culminated in Public Law 102-526. This Act began the process of declassifying JFK assassination materials. However, it had flaws. One flaw was that it mandated that federal intelligence agencies start reviewing and releasing to NARA assassination records without defining what an assassination record was. They wanted to leave the definition of what an assassination record was to the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), a new independent agency not yet established. So, the intelligence agencies decided for themselves what was and was not an assassination record, decide what of their material fell into that and turned stuff over to NARA per the new legislation. When the ARRB was appointed and began to define an assassination record NARA tried to exclude from the definition artifacts. NARA only wanted paper records to be in this new JFK Assassination Records Collection. NARA lost that round.
However, NARA could still control access to artifacts. So, they began to photograph everything, and referred people to the photographs of artifacts first. At this point someone noticed this stuff adhering to CE 567. We now know who this is. His name is John T. Orr. He is described in a Justice Department letter to FBI Director Louis Freeh as Chief of the Antitrust Division's Atlanta Field Office. This "conspiracy theorist" works for the Justice Department. Mr. Orr wrote up a memorandum and gave it to higher ups requesting that this material be tested as part of his theory. It was Mr. Orr's belief that the fiber would be consistent with JFK's shirt collar, tie, or tie lining, "thus establishing a different trajectory than previously identified."
The request came to the attention of the ARRB in April 1995, as noted in their Final Report on p. 127-8. On January 25, 1996 John Keeney wrote to FBI Director Louis Freeh requesting that the FBI initiate specific aspects of Mr. Orr's assassination theory, namely to test the fibers. The ARRB discovered that the Firearms Examination Panel of the House Select Committee on Assassination proposed the exact same thing 19 years earlier. "For unknown reasons, the Panel's recommendation did not appear in the HSCA's March 1979 Final Report." The ARRB's final report continues stating that in March 1996 the ARRB, the FBI, the Dept of Justice and NARA began a series of meetings to discuss re-examination of the ballistics evidence.
For two years NARA stonewalled them all arguing that any such testing would harm the artifact. Finally, in August 1998 they relented and allowed testing. This was the second to last month of the ARRB's life. The ARRB was hopeful of a report from NARA on this in October of 1998.
At no time, ever, by anyone was the Warren Commission's conclusions a factor in requesting or determining that testing should be done, not by the ARRB, not by the FBI, and not by the Justice Dept.
WHY is there no mention of the ARRB in Gullo's piece? It wouldn't work for her false claim that "The Justice Department asked the FBI to test the fragments to determine whether the materials had any relevance to the Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman."
So, now we are told that fibers, from a source unknown, exist on the bullet fragments known as CE 567.
But what of the far more important human remains? DNA testing was supposed to have been done on them. Well, we're told it was but it's "inconclusive."
Now with the ARRB long gone, and never there to oversee the testing in the first place we get this garbage that the inconclusive results support the gold old Warren Commission.
Excrement.
The fiber is not as important as the human remains. DNA from JFK or Connally or from a living blood relative should be collected and tested against the material. This was never done. Trying to determine the "precise area of origin" the material came from is a non-issue, but it is used as though it is a needed prerequisite.
True, honest, and accurate testing on these materials was never performed in the first place. Why the testing was requested and by whom is being lied about so that NARA and the media can claim the Warren Commission is as strong as ever.
Joe Backes
joebackes@aol.com