Annotated Compendium, 1975-1977

Michael H.B. Eddowes—Krushchev Killed Kennedy
Hugh C. McDonald—Appointment in Dallas
W.R. Morris—The Men Behind the Guns

Robert Sam Anson—The greatest cover-up of all (Article in New Times (New York), 18 April 1975)

As with his book (next review), Robert Sam Anson’s references to NAA in his 1975 article in New Times are almost completely wrong. He shows no understanding of NAA or of how its data are used in forensic science. Unfortunately this article was widely circulated among proconspiracists and cited numerous times. By offering the strong impression that the FBI’s NAA data disproved the single-bullet theory, it evidently threw conspiracy-writers off the track.

Page 19 ff.: The most damning evidence, though [against the lone-gunman hypothesis], comes from the most unlikely source: J. Edgar Hoover. In a letter to the commission not included in the original 26 volumes of evidence and testimony, Hoover reveals that the magic bullet and bullet fragments were subsequently subjected to spectrographic analysis. That test, Hoover, reports, was inconclusive. However, there was an additional test, a Neutron Activation Analysis, a highly sophisticated technique that measures the differences in material that has been bombarded with radiation down to parts per billion and sometimes even less. In his letter to the commission, Hoover blandly reports that while “minor variations” were found between the fragments taken from President Kennedy’s body and those taken from Governor Connally’s body, those differences were not judged to be “sufficient.” To the layman, that explanation sounds fine, and certainly the commission did not question it. But the beauty of NAA is that the size of differences between particles are [sic] meaningless. Virtually any difference, however minute, is not only “sufficient” but irrefutable.[1] Unless atoms changed their structure that day in Dallas, John Kennedy and John Connally were wounded by separate bullets.[2]

Perhaps subtleties of neutrons and atoms may have escaped the members of the commission.[3] Incredibly, no mention of the NAA test or Hoover’s letter is to be found either in the report or the 26 volumes of evidence (so far the FBI has refused to release copies of the actual NAA findings).[4]

Anson’s description of the FBI’s spectrographic analysis and NAA is seriously wrong. Most of the passages bear no resemblance to reality. Unfortunately, he was later cited or drawn upon in numerous conspiracist books. Anson seems to have used Wecht’s 1974 article in Modern Medicine as a prime source.

Page 90: Only one bullet was recovered intact after the assassination, the infamous C.E. 399. Ballistics tests conducted by the FBI established conclusively that it had been fired from the Mannlicher-Carcano. In addition, mutilated bullet fragments were later recovered from the presidential limousine, along with several other shards of metal taken from Connally’s wrist and the President’s head. The two largest fragments taken from the car were tested,[5] and it was found only that they were similar in composition, not that they had come from the same bullet.[6] Which only left the fragments taken from the two men’s bodies.[7]

The question that had aroused the curiosity of the critics was whether tests had been conducted on them, and, if so, whether they, too, matched.

Publicly the Warren Commission was silent on what amounted to one of the most important aspects of the entire case. For if the fragments taken from Connally didn’t match 399, the governor, then, had to have been hit by a second bullet. And if that were the case, there was also a second assassin. The critics could only wonder. There seemed to be no evidence.[8]

Not until more than ten years later did they find out that there was evidence, and that it came from the unlikeliest of sources: J. Edgar Hoover. In a July 8, 1964, letter to the Commission not declassified until nine years later, Hoover reported that the bullet fragments removed from Connally’s body had, in fact, been subjected to spectrographic analysis, but that the tests had been inconclusive.[9] However, there was an additional test, NAA, a neutron activation analysis, a highly sophisticated technique that measures differences in material that has been bombarded with radiation down to parts per billion and sometimes even less[10]. In his letter to the Commission, Hoover blandly reported that while “minor variations” were found between the fragments taken from Connally and 399, those differences were not judged to be “sufficient.” To the layman the explanation sounds fine, and certainly there is no record that the Commission ever questioned it. But when Hoover’s letter fell into the hands of knowledgeable critics, bells started ringing.

At last it seemed as if there were a piece of conclusive evidence within reach, a document as irrefutable[11] as the laws of atomic structure. For the beauty of the NAA was that its measurements were so precise that virtually any differences between materials subjected to its radiation were not only “sufficient” but “absolute.”[12] Several of the critics immediately filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to secure the data on which Hoover had based his conclusions. There was a current of excitement among the researchers: the NAA test was the key they had been looking for. Why else had it been withheld from the twenty-six volumes of testimony and evidence?[13] There were destined to be disappointed.

When the data finally became available in 1975, it [sic] neither proved nor disproved the existence of the single assassin. It was difficult, in fact, to figure out what the data proved at all. There was no report, no statement of conclusions, only seventy-three pages of raw lab notes. The final sorting out of what these notes showed awaited sophisticated computer analysis. But first indications were that Hoover was telling the truth; there were differences observed between the composition of the fragments and that of 399, but they were, as the Director had written “insufficient,”[14] falling somewhere in that great gray area scientists call “statistical error.”[15] Moreover, the NAA test itself was crude by current standards.[16] New tests might show differences that were absolute. As long, however, as the government held onto 399 and the fragments, there was no way new tests could be conducted.

Surely the “Umbrella Man” is one of the most intriguing characters of the entire JFK assassination scenario. Cutler’s book must be seen in that context. When reading the passages below, the reader should keep in mind that Cutler proposes nine shots, five rifles, and at least 50 conspirators in and around Dealey Plaza—an exceedingly complex conspiracy scenario.

Page 81: According to a news item in the Boston Globe of May 30, 1975, the FBI did test to see if there was any similarity between some of these bits of bulletry. In 1964 a neutron activation analysis was conducted at the National Laboratory at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. CE 399 was found to be “similar in atomic composition” to CE 842, the tiny fragments from the Governor’s wrist. This was close enough for the Globe to headline the news: “Test of Bullet Fail to Prove JFK Plot!” Near the end of the article the reader learns that Dr. Nichols and Dr. Vincent Guinn, director of atomic research at University of California, said the tests “were incomplete, contained errors, and had essential facts missing.”[17] The headline should have read: “Faulty Bullet Tests Prove JFK Plot.”[18] And so the fight continues to preserve CE 399’s glorious 1964 image, elevated by the Warren Report to a shelf immediately below that reserved for the King James version of the Bible.

Cutler’s final comments on spectroscopy are contained in a long passage that is difficult to understand even when his Figure 33 is available. I have tried to abstract the relevant sections, but it still remains obscure. Fundamentally, Cutler uses his interpretation of the FBI’s “similarity in composition” to create a scenario based on two groups of bullets and related fragments. Cutler’s misuse of the spectrographic data, based on his misunderstanding of them, illustrates one possible reason why the FBI was so reluctant to release them.

Page 175: ELB 2 [on Cutler’s Figure 33] is one of three pages of notes included with three spectrographic plates, the lab report of CD 81b[19], published by the Commission as CE 2003.…there is no difference whatsoever in the makeup of the first four items…identified as Q4 & Q5, Q14, Q9 and Q2.…[20]In simple language, this says that the fragments on the front seat, on the rear carpet and removed from the Governor’s wrist are similar to fragments removed from the President’s head.[21] From this point it is easy to take the final step and say they all came from the same bullet…This accounts for everything in Figure 33 except CE 569[22] [a large fragment], found on the front carpet next to the seat. Following the White Paper’s line of reasoning,[23] the bullet through the Governor’s chest did not zig-zag hard-right and wound the wrist and thigh any more than it vanished into thin air. Continuing straight ahead it penetrated the back of the front seat and “fishtailed” its way through the upholstery: Q3 in the Hoover-Curry correspondence.[24]

Fortunately for my credibility, something led me to consult with Dr. Edward Gilfillan, a nuclear physicist, who immediately rescued me from the danger of the simple-language assumption improperly applied to ELB 2’s notations.[25] The information contained in the analysis of the top four items[26] is that they were all from the same lot of ammunition. The only permissible step beyond this threshold is that they probably came from the same box. That there were actually from the same bullet is well within the boundaries of reasonable consideration by ELB 2 does not prove that.[27]

In sober reflection, the FBI’s investagatory [sic] techniques for the Commission do not permit linking pieces of bulletry found in the presidential limousine with other particles removed from the wounds of the two men who happened to be riding in that limousine. Discounting the limousine particles, CE 567 and 840, the similarity of the wounds’ particles, CE 842 and 843 when coupled with the Z-film’s evidence, more than implies that Smith’s 1972 hunch[28], elaborated on in Figure 33, was correct: the Governor’s wrist was wounded at Z-313 by a particle of the head shot.[29]

In the film the wrist can be seen alive and well from Z-229 thru Z-275. With no shots in the limousine until Z-313 it is difficult to imagine what could have traversed the wrist other than a fragment of the head shot. This same reasoning has been applied to the scarring of the windshield, see Figure 33.

Crossfire’s design[30] as shown in Figure 33 indicates the possibility that CE 840, found under Mrs. Connally’s jumpseat, could have flaked off the bullet which traversed the Governor’s chest when it hit the back of the front seat, This was the first bullet fired by the rifleman who assassinated the President with his second shot. It is no more unreasonable to assume that he loaded his rifle with bullets from the same box of ammo then [sic] it is to assume the bullets in that box came from the same lot.

All of which suggests strongly that the first four items tested spectrographically in ELB 2[31] are similar to at least two more fragments not included in this listing: CE 569, Q3, “bullet fragment from beside the front seat” and CE 696, bullet fragment currently lodged in the Governor’s left femur.[32] The Governor should be persuaded to have this fragment removed for spectrographic analysis in the interest of bringing these various pieces of the puzzle closer to the point where they can be properly dropped into the matrix of the mystery.[33] The world is entitled to a simple-answer solution.

Unlike most other critics, Weisberg recognized that before he wrote about spectrography and neutron-activation analysis, he needed to understand them technically. He needed to grasp their strengths and limitations. For this, he is to be commended. Unfortunately, he never succeeded.

Weisberg began by writing to an acquaintance, whom he describes anonymously as a brilliant and seriously concerned forensic pathologist pursuing a triple career as consultant, professor, and coroner (Cyril Wecht?), and requested that the man gather the appropriate technical references for him.

Page 373: I requested…a selection from standard scientific texts on the capabilities and limitations of spectrographic analyses and neutron-activation testing. I preferred a selection by the trained, professional mind rather than my own, to assure that the sources quoted would be the most dependable…from standard sources exactly what can and cannot be done with, by and through spectrographic and neutron-activation tests so my writing could be accurate and could cite them.

The pathologist never sent Weisberg the materials. Weisberg eventually assembled references on spectrography and neutron activation, and cited several of them in this text, although with a different slant than in the sentences above.

Page 409: There are no details about the [neutron activation] tests themselves that cannot be learned in almost any library. As rapidly as these tests are developed to even further perfection, that also is published, in books and in specialized journals. The processes and their uses are taught in schools. For this there are texts, for the chemistry and physics departments and for such specialties as criminalistics.

A relatively recent text, 1973 third edition of Fundamentals of Criminal Investigation, by Charles E. O’Hara, illustrates how long these processes have not been secret and their potential. (O’Hara is a professional police official and lecturer in police science at Western Reserve University[34]. The book is published by Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois.)

In the “Illustrative Cases” that follow, O’Hara evaluates the precision of this test by comparison with fingerprints (pp. 722–3). It is possible that, in the spectroscopic examination of substances containing impurities, “finding two identical batches…may be even smaller than finding two human fingerprints exactly alike.” His evaluation is that “such a coincidence is far beyond the leeway of reasonable doubt.”[35]

“Neutron activation analysis” he describes (p. 725) as “measuring the wavelength and intensity of radiation given off by substances” made radioactive when “subjected to a stream of neutrons. These measurements serve as qualitative and quantitative determination of the constituents…and as means of unique identification. The method is a non-destructive, ultra-microanalytical tool of extreme sensitivity.” [Emphasis added][36]

So sensitive and dependable are these tests that O’Hara describes one of the past, the case of a man picked up “three blocks from” where a woman coming out of the subway had been assaulted “from behind by an assailant who clapped his hand over her mouth…The woman had not seen the man’s face.” But “Spectrophotometric analysis showed that…a red smear on the palm of his left had [sic] was from the woman’s lipstick.” (p. 723)[37]

The techniques are well-known and well-used. Even when the FBI was virtually in its infancy. In A. Lucas’ [sic] Forensic Chemistry and Scientific Criminal Investigation, published by Longmans, Green 40 years ago, under “projectiles” there are cases of acquitting accused police and watchmen by use of this analysis (pp. 265-6). O’Hara (pp. 721-2) reports the exculpation of a policeman who actually killed a man in a hit-and-run chase because spectroscopy proved the officer’s claim “that the bullet had ricocheted from a nearby automobile” when he fired a “warning.” The fatal bullet, recovered from the victim, actually retained a tiny trace of paint. “Spectrographic analysis of this minute sample of the paint established that it was identical with the paint on the car, thus verifying the patrolman’s story.”[38]

Prior to the sophistication now reached in neutron activation analysis, a 1953 text, Crime Investigation, by Paul L. Kirks, Professor of Biochemistry and Criminalistics at the University of California at Berkeley (Interscience Publishers, New York and London), says, “The Spectrograph is nearly the ideal instrument for the study of identities of metals and metals in turn come near to being ideal evidence for the spectrograph…the most outstanding [use] is in metal analysis…When the plate is developed all spectra have identical development and will be strictly comparable regardless of other conditions.”

When the nonsecret literature on the nonsecret tests is almost rhapsodic[39] about what they can do, can one believe that the FBI is not skilled in these tests and in the most complete and acceptable manner of conducting them? When they have for decades been so “superior” for metals, particularly bullet evidence, and have repeatedly saved the lives of policemen, does one believe the nation’s leading police force is not ultraproficient in these definitive police methods, prepared to use them not only to convict but to exculpate any of its own agents and other police in time of need?[40]

The Journal of Forensic Science, which certainly the FBI receives, has carried definitive articles in recent years. One reported study conducted “under a research contract with the Division of Isotope Development of the United States Atomic Energy Commission…and the Office of Law Enforcement Assistance of the United States Department of Justice” (Vol. 16, No. 3, July 1971) begins: “It has been shown that neutron activation analysis (NAA) can be used to determine a number of impurity and alloying elements—especially antimony—in bullet lead with very good accuracy, precision and ease.”[41]

A second supported “by the National Research Council of Canada…through an agreement with the Department of the Solicitor General of Canada” (Vol. 18, No. 1, January 1973) concludes that “It is clear that for the several kinds of ammunition studied, there was a substantial variation in the trace element content between samples of different manufacture, and the different ammunition variations could have been clearly distinguished from each other.” This is to say that bullets of different manufacture are “clearly distinguished from each other.” The same is true of different batch mixes of a single manufacturer.[42]

The study emphasizes in its title what all the readily available literature stresses, the importance of trace elements in these tests. It is “Studies of the Trace Element Content of Bullet Lead and Jacket Material.” In the commonly available ammunition, 12 different components were found, not counting the impurities that also are vital in both processes and in making positive identifications and eliminating the possibility.

The Missouri Law Review (Vol. 37, 1972) has a study on “Neutron Activation Analysis.” Its evaluation of the degree of perfection and certainty[43] and of the requirements of evidence is headed “Degree of Certainty Required of Expert Testimony.” It goes into cases in several jurisdictions. They hold that these tests can be definitive and the results can be stated positively.

In State v Holt the conviction was reversed because the expert testimony on NAA results was not expressed with the proper degree of certainty. The expert witness testified that “the samples are similar and are likely to be from the same source.” The Ohio Supreme Court concluded that such testimony should have been based on reasonable scientific certainty that the samples came from the same source.

Perhaps one of the reasons the Warren Commission did not want these test results—nowhere in its Report is there mention of NAA[45]—is another statement of both capability and the requirements of proof as well as the essence of preparation of these test results:

Reliable statistical interpretation in the crux of meaningful evaluation of NAA results and the inferences drawn therefrom. For example, two samples which have nearly identical trace element concentration do not necessarily have common origin.

This is followed by explanation of the “firm statistical basis” that “must be acquired.”

This kind of relevant quotation could be continued indefinitely. It is all excerpted from what several inexperienced students obtained from their libraries. If college student can find this literature, there is no doubt it is not known to the venerated FBI.

The FBI, however, gave neither this kind of information not the results of its tests or final reports to the Commission, all of whose lab services it performed. Instead, Hoover wrote it on March 18, 1964, alleging that, for its purposes, NAAs are valueless.[46] His letter concludes, “It is not felt that the increased sensitivity of neutron activation analyses would contribute substantially to the understanding of this hole and frayed area.”

(Even for the past master, this was quite a semantical exploit, as we have seen and will see further.)

Page 450: Just how sensitive NAAs can be is reported in Scientific Evidence in Criminal Cases, by Andre Moenssens, Foundation Press, Page 397: “The extreme sensitivity of NAA allows it to identify some elements in concentrations as low as one ten-millionth of a microgram.”[47] With elements “less sensitive to detection” the concentration need be no greater than “five millionths of a gram.” The “Limitation of Detections in Micrograms” varies within minuscule limits only. For antimony it is 0.0009, barium 0.005, copper 0.0002. These are quantities so ultra-minute they can hardly be conceived and cannot be seen.[48]

Since so many of Weisberg’s attitudes toward neutron activation parallel his attitudes toward spectrography, I reproduce several of his comments on the latter.

Page 17: So, the fragments from the Governor’s body—all of them, from all three parts—must have come from the hospital bullet. This spectrographic analysis can prove or disprove.[49] The bullet and the fragments do exist.

There are also the scrapings from the windshield of the car. They must match the fragments belatedly found inside the car.[50] Of these five fragments, the government was forced to concede it could not show they were from a single bullet.[51] The existing evidence is that they could come from as many as five bullets.[52] But for the case to hang together at all, all of these fragments, the scrapings from the windshield and the metal from the President’s head, must have come from a single bullet. This, too, spectrographic analysis can prove or disprove.[53] Again, all the fragments do exist.

Page 19: In the case of the [bullet] fragments, the failure—then the refusal—of the government to make them with their spectrographic analysis public lead inevitably to the conclusion that the evidence does not support the Report, which without it rests entirely on supposition, a strange concept of evidence when the assassination of a President is the issue and when it is not necessary.[54]

If the five fragments from the Presidential car cannot be proved to have come from the same bullet, to have caused the damage to the windshield, and to have also been parts of a single fatal bullet, the government is without proof of its case. If the fragments recovered from the Governor cannot be proved to have come from the magical and seemingly intact, undeformed and unmitigated bullet, Exhibit 399, the government on this point alone has its case destroyed....

If in either case, with the fatal bullet or the magical one, spectrographic analysis, extant but persistently suppressed by the government in violation of its own regulation, proves as it can that the suppositions that replace evidence in the Report are false, then we have the most monstrous frameup in our history and a prima facie case of a government conspiracy.[55]

Page 313: Spectrography can show possibility and impossibility when used in testing and comparing traces left by a bullet with the bullet itself.[56] It cannot show that a damage was caused by one particular bullet, but it can show that this bullet could have caused that damage. Where it is positive and beyond question is in making possible scientific proof that damage could not have been caused by the tested bullet.[57]

Page 314: Can it be believed that if the spectrographic studies prove the official version Hoover and the Commission would not have been proclaiming it throughout the land? There is only one reason for suppressing it, and that is because it proves the official story false.[58]

Page 317: It should be understood that, unless all fragments recovered from any source except the governor are provable as causing the explosion of the President’s head and all traces recovered for analysis from the clothing and the Governor’s wrist are identical with Bullet 399, the whole official story is destroyed.[59] And if the FBI knew this not to be the case and withheld its proof, aside from the culpability reflected, the historical magnitude of which I leave to the reader’s own estimate, there is apparent reason for all this suppression, including of the spectrographic and other tests and of access to the clothing in any kind of evidentiary form.[60]

Page 318: Of these technical questions Eisenberg asked, to which Hoover responded in his March 18 letter, the fourth is most relevant here. Hoover’s restatement of the question and his answer are:

4. Would neutron activation analyses show if a bullet passed through the hole in the front of President Kennedy’s shirt near the collar button area and also if a bullet passed through the material of his tie? Neutron activation is a sensitive analytical technique to determine elements present in a substance. During the course of the spectrographic examinations previously conducted of the fabric surrounding the hole in the front of the shirt, including the tie, no copper was found in excess of that present elsewhere in undamaged areas of the shirt and tie. Therefore, no copper was found which could be attributable to projectile fragments.

…Translated from Hooverese into plain English, what this says is that the damages were not caused by any bullet or fragment of bullet. Had either been, there would have been traces of cooper (sic) from the bullet jacket, as was said to be the case with the holes in the back of the President’s garments.[61]

…Hoover’s concluding sentence seems to say that there is no need for making any neutron-activation analyses, and this was a pennypinching investigation. But in the context of the real meaning of the answer to the question, it means much more. It means that since spectrography proves this damage was not from a bullet, neutron-activation will do no more than confirm the spectrographic analyses and prove all over again that the “solution” to the crime and the Report are monstrous fakes.[62]

[The major point of the long section that follows is that “minor variations” means “real variations” and that any variations mean that fragments are of different origin. Thus the whole WR crumbles. This of course is completely wrong, for it ignores (a) analytical uncertainties and (b) variations within a bullet, both of which are real. For Weisberg to misunderstand something so basic is understandable given his nontechnical training, but unacceptable in the context of his strident, caustic writing and self-portrayal as smarter than all the other players. One would think that the same spirit that impelled him to seek technical understanding at the beginning would also keep him moderate and reflective throughout the rest of his investigation, but apparently not so. These contrasts and internal contradictions are characteristics of many critics, who have not been educated in the subtleties of real research and real scholarship.]

Page 319: However, Paul Hoch has found that some neutron-activation testing was done. It is reported in an unpublished July 8, 1964 letter from Hoover to Rankin. Even for Hoover, that old master of official semantics, it is a remarkable performance. This deals with the lead.

First of all, he avoids saying which of the many fragments were compared with which. Let us assume that he really means a comparison between fragments recovered from the bodies and the fragments of bullets recovered from the car, the only known sources of such fragments. Aside from whatever he may or may not mean by “significant”, what he may or may not regard as “significant differences”, any differences dismember the Report. If the spectrography showed the possibility of common origin, all the wily old dissembler need have said—and he does know his business—is very simple: “This analysis shows the possibility of common origin.” Or, if he wanted to expand a bit, “These spectrographic analyses of the composition of the samples compared prove they could have come from the same bullet.”

This is the requirement for any other evidence or part of the Report to be considered at all.

If Hoover did not say something like this, there is only one reason for it: He knew he did not dare! He knew the proof was to the contrary.

There is also something quite important and missing. The test reported was no more than comparison of unidentified fragments with “one or more of the lead bullet fragments”, also unidentified. Now, how about that fragment from Connally (Specimen C9)? It had to be compared not with any fragment but with Bullet 399, from which the Report says it came. If it did not, then on this basis alone the whole Report is false. Without the FBI reporting this comparison and its results, there is every reason to presume that this required comparison shows the Connally fragment did not come from Bullet 399, hence the omission. This is not carelessness, not by a long shot, coming from the man who practically invented the FBI business.

First of all, if not until after the Commission had expected to have completed its work, there was neutron-activation testing. Until now, this was a state secret. There is no reference to it in all the Commission’s publishing. It was avoided like the plague in all testimony and the Report itself. This also can be no accident.

Second of all, Hoover reports insufficient testing. There is none of the clothing, for example. And of the two fragments from the front seat and the scrapings from the windshield, Hoover reports testing of one fragment alone. This, with the limitation to “lead” in both paragraphs, refers to a sample taken from the previously described “Q2” fragment, “Q3” being a piece of copper-alloy jacket only. Or, additional and more significant omissions when considered with the absence of any reporting of any neutron-activation testing of the clothing: There was none of the jacketing of this fragment or of Bullet 399, and copper traces were found on the back of the President’s shirt and coat.

“The items analyzed” by Hoover do not include those three fragments said to have been recovered from the back seat of the limousine, Commission Exhibit 840. The reason may have been established when Howard Roffman ordered a photograph of these fragments from the Archives so he could study them. However, the picture sent him showed only two fragments, not three.

When he raised questions, the Archives acknowledged “it appears that one of the fragments is missing…We have made a search for the missing fragment but have not found it and must assume it was not transferred to us with the others.”

If we strip the polite officialese to stark fact, this means the FBI did not give the missing fragment to the permanent repository of evidence in the Archives. If the FBI was and remains silent—and this is not its only infidelity with the most quintessential of the evidence—it does not persuade that this now-missing fragment is in any way helpful to the scientific analyses as interpreted by Hoover or to the fiction presented as an official Report. All three of these fragments must have the same origin as the two said to have been found in the front seat, for they are all said to have been part of what was recovered from the single bullet said to have exploded in the head.

With all of these limitations and disqualifications of any genuine scientific testing, all the clear effort to avoid the reporting of disproof of the whole sorry fabrication foisted off on the entire world, what does Hoover say? This is his third and last paragraph:

“Positive differentiation among the larger bullet fragments” was not the purpose of the test.[63] It was to establish common origin of all the “larger bullet fragments”, plus all others except C9, the one from Connally, a basic requirement of the Report. Without this, no Report, merely a gruesome official lie. The same is true if C9 cannot be tied to C1, Bullet 399.

Nor was the question one of “determining from which of the larger bullet fragments any given lead fragment may have come”.

The Report is also based on the absolute necessity for all five fragments from the car, plus the sweepings from the windshield, the sample from the curbstone and all fragments from the President’s head, however many there were, all having come from this one exploded bullet.

From whatever one larger fragment of bullet any of the fragments from the President’s head may have split off also is not the question, nor is it possible to answer this irrelevant question.

By not asking the right question, Hoover is able to lie and kid himself into believing he is not lying. He asks what he knows is the wrong question so that he can give an irrelevant answer and avoid the right question and the destructiveness of the right answer.

There is only one reason for all this, only one reason for Hoover to have avoided the obviously right question, “Did the head fragments come from the bullet of which the car fragments are part.” It is because he cannot say “yes”.

And if he cannot say “yes”, if he has to go through all this FBI gobbledygook which may in the past have convicted God knows how many innocent, it is not because he does not know the right answer to the right question. It is because he cannot face either question or answer.

There is no end to the cuteness of that old cutie Hoover. But there must be an end to exposing them, for book after book could be written on just this, the deceits so often masterful, the semantics that, though heavy-handed and awkward, did succeed, perhaps easier because his victims yearned to be skinned.

One more here cannot be ignored. It is that verbal gem cut with such skill and care, that sparkler about “minor variations in composition”. Variation in composition is negative proof, one of the purposes of the tests. Variation in composition proves no common origin and disproves the Hoover and the Commission Report “solution” to the crime. If the fragments are, as required to be by the official fabrications, all from a single shot to the head except the Connally fragment, which must come from Bullet 399, then in each case there has to be no variation in composition. Hoover sought to circumvent this by saying the variations are “minor”.

If in either case there is variation, end of Report and Hoover is a cunning faker.

To say there are “minor” variations is to say that a woman is only a little bit pregnant.

Unless the metal from Connally has the same composition as Bullet 399, poof! and the Report is up in smoke.

If there is any variation in the lead composition of everything else—the erroneously accounted for fragments removed from the President’s head, the fragments found in the car, the scrapings from the windshield, the traces from the curbstone—all other lead of which there is any relic—then this Report has to be the biggest official lie in official history. All this lead must be of exactly the same composition or it cannot be claimed that the fatal bullet was fired from “Oswald’s” rifle.

So, what all of this must mean is that the suppressed scientific tests disprove the conjecture substituted for the fact that is basic to any consideration of any other evidence and proves the falsity of the Report and the “solution” to “the crime of the century”, the assassination of the President.

No innocence, again. None of the indestructible master of deceit, Hoover. None for any of the Commission lawyers who saw these reports.

And ample reason for and explanation of why the medical evidence I was able to obtain had to be withheld from the Commission. Suppressing these laboratory tests dovetails perfectly with suppressing all the most important medical evidence.

I have chosen to reproduce this entire passage without interspersed comments because it is such an illuminating picture of the unconstrained critical mindset taken to an extreme. The passage is totally flawed, of course, because it is based on the false premise that any variation in composition means difference in origin. As we have noted repeatedly in the sections dealing with the other critical writers, there are two normal sources of variation in analytical results from a single fragment: omnipresent analytical uncertainties and variations of subsamples of individual fragments. Neither variation means difference in origin. The careful analyst knows how to differentiate these variations from true variations between bullets; the critical writers do not. The critical writers thus commit major interpretive errors that can throw them off the track and confuse their readers. When Hoover spoke of “minor variations,” he was referring to a combination of analytical and sampling effect, not genuine differences between bullets. Hoover interpreted his laboratory’s results correctly; the vocal critics did not. The lesson here is to think and study before you speak.

Here is another passage from Weisberg that illustrates the same incorrect attitude toward analytical differences. It concerns NAA results on paraffin tests of Oswald, where gunpowder residue was picked up on the inside of the paraffin casts. Weisberg is describing a document that he received from the FBI

Page 451: The next two [samples analyzed] are Q6 and Q7 [two empty shell casings retrieved from the sniper’s nest of the sixth floor of the Depository]. Each is described identically as “Rifle (powder from inside)” of tests for barium (Ba) and antimony (Sb). Aebersold [Paul C., Director of the AEC’s Division of Isotope Development] said the “tremendous sensitivity” of the “activation analysis” could pick up the tiniest “traces of antimony and barium (from the bullet primer).” [Earlier written remark to the FBI; see later section] He said NAAs would pick up “gunpowder residues.”

While barium and antimony are not the only components of gunpowder, this test for them shows the “ tremendous sensitivity.” It is in micrograms.

To fully appreciate the significance of these figures, remember that Aebersold also said that “by trace-element measurement” it could be determined “whether the fatal bullets were of composition identical with that of” the unfired one, the always-missing Q8.

Rather than showing “identical” composition, these tests record large differences. The column headed “Ba/Sb” shows 4.8 for Q6 and 5.9 for Q7. The differences under “barium micrograms” are between 31.79 and 44.35. Under “Sb micrograms” these differences are between 6.62 and 7.42. In percentages, these come to 21, 39.35, and 12.1, respectively.

Maybe the FBI of the fabled memory and the telepathic computers with the brain-wave printouts could keep the thousands of figures in mind and not require the tabulations required of mortals performing the same tests, but is there any magic to make differences of 40 per cent “identical?”

If these otherwise undescribed figures on this one sheet lost among so many uncollated hundreds of sheets represents measurements of weights of the samples examined, then there remains what in any ordinary sense is a significant difference. It is in the proportion of each ingredient rather than the weight. This difference is between 4.8 and 5.9. Depending on how calculated, this is 19 percent or 23 percent.

Weisberg was “So near, and yet so far.” He had grasped the important idea that ratios could express differences in composition more reliably than individual masses could. He found the right column and extracted the significant information from it. Relative to his assumption that NAA was an absolute technique, the Ba/Sb ratio in cartridges Q6 and Q7 did indeed differ by about 20 percent. What’s more, the composer of the table he was examining didn’t help matters by not noting analytical uncertainties (see bad copy of table in Weisberg’s text). That just reinforced Weisberg’s mistaken idea. It’s sad to see such dedicated researchers completely thrown off by a technicality like analytical uncertainties. On the one hand, we can say it’s their own fault, for rushing into unfamiliar territory without thinking carefully. On the other hand, analytical uncertainties are esoteric, and not everybody can be a chemist.

Penn Jones, Jr.—Forgive My Grief III
Robert D. Morrow—Betrayal
Harold Weisberg—Photographic Whitewash (1967, 1976)

Emory Brown, Jr.—Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) (Article in The Continuing Inquiry, Volume I, Number 4, 22 November 1976)

(A special thanks to Harold Weisberg, without whose many personal sacrifices this and other such information would not have become available.)

On November 22, 1963, the FBI laboratory conducted a series of Spectrographic analyses on certain of the ballistical evidence associated with the assassination of President Kennedy. In addition, the bullet which reportedly had been fired into the residence of General Walker, earlier that year underwent the same examination. The purpose of the tests was to measure the presence of some eleven chemical elements commonly found in bullet metal and thereby determine what, if any, relationship there might be between the various bullets and bullet fragments.

Later that same day, a five page FBI report containing a summary of the test results was forwarded to Dallas Police Chief Jesse E. Curry.[64] The report, which was signed by the late J. Edgar Hoover, concluded that the bullet fragments from President Kennedy, Governor Connally, the lead residue from the windshield and the fragments found under Mrs. Connally’s jump seat, were only “similar” in composition which was another way of saying that they did not all come from the same type of ammunition.[65]

During the same series of tests, it was also revealed that the Walker bullet did not match any of the assassination specimens, including CE:399, the Magic Bullet.[66]

Of particular interest to this researcher was the fact that none of the assassination specimens (the Walker bullet as well) could be matched spectrographically with the comparison samples used by the FBI laboratory personnel.[67] The significance of this discovery will be discussed later.

Even if no one else caught the possible implications of the Spectro results, Hoover certainly did and requested the Atomic Energy Commission to perform additional tests at their Oak Ridge National Laboratory.[68] During May of 1964, certain of the ballistical evidence was subjected to a highly sensitive analytical technique known as Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA). In NAA, a specimen is placed in the core of an atomic reactor where, after being bombarded by neutrons, it will begin to emit Gamma rays. Each of the elements in nature[69] will give off these rays at a given intensity and for a known length of time.[70] With special detection instruments, it is possible to determine which elements are present and in what proportion. The measurements are recorded in parts per million[71] and often in amounts as small as one billionth of a gram.[72]

The results of NAA tests are contained in a 57 page report consisting of handwritten laboratory notes. To gain a better understanding of the technical aspects of the procedure, I contacted Dr. Vincent P. Guinn, Professor of Chemistry at the University of California and leading expert in the field of NAA. The findings presented in two of the papers he had worked on, soon gave me to understand that the NAA results were even more damaging to the Government’s case, than those of the Spectrographic analyses.[73]

In his work with bullet specimens, Dr. Guinn had found that the usual standard deviation of the Antimony concentration within a single bullet or box of bullets was about plus or minus three percent and that the Antimony concentrations (which were the focus of his work) are very uniform within a single bullet and box of bullets. He concluded that if the percentage of variation is greater, then the bullets or fragments would have different origins. Applying this scientific knowledge to the NAA report, and by placing that data on graphs which I had prepared, it was easy to see why the Government had withheld that information.[74]

The NAA results showed that there was a match between the fragment removed from Connally’s wrist, CE:399 and some samples taken from Western Cartridge Company Lot 6003. This strongly indicated that the Governor’s wrist wound may have been caused by a bullet of the same type as C#:399 [sic] but obviously not CE:399 itself. The results also showed that there was a match between the two fragments taken from the President’s head, another found in the limousine’s front seat and the three fragments from beneath Mrs. Connally’s seat. The problem was, that neither group would match with the other! What this meant of course, was that the bullet which had killed the President wasn’t even remotely related to the fragment from the Governor’s wrist. The NAA report had demonstrated that two different types of bullets were involved and since only one type could be associated with those loaded in the ammo which was found with the Depository Carcano, the physical necessity of at least a second weapon was obvious.[75]

In September of 1975, I was informed by Winchester-Western that the exact same alloys used to manufacture the WCC 6.5s, were also used in the production of many of their commercial bullets of that same period.[76] Now, there existed the possibility that the Carcano bullets were only one of a dozen or more calibers and types, all of which would have matched in both the Spectrographic and NAA tests. This bit of information completely invalidates the Government’s test results.[77]

Did the FBI use only WCC 6.5 bullets as comparison samples or did they test a cross-section of commercial bullets of that same period?

The Spectrographic report is not clear for in it, those samples are identified only by letter and numerical codes and since September of 1975, FBI Director Clarence Kelley has consistently refused to furnish me with the true identity of those samples. What is more, for some yet unexplained reason, the FBI never tested (by NAA) the bullet fragment found beside the front seat, the lead residue scraped from the windshield or the lead smear from the curb of south Main Street (Tague shot). How come?[78] And, could it be that those specimens may have pointed to even a third weapon? Kelley’s replies are like a broken record, quoting official statutes which have been perverted by the Government for its own benefit. As far as he is concerned, the Freedom on[sic] Information Act means the right to remain ignorant.[79]

This conspiracy book was very influential in the period surrounding the HSCA’s investigation of the assassination. Unfortunately, the book shows many traces of having been assembled hastily. Its two passages on neutron activation are heavily flawed, with the authors at one point even confusing it with the entirely different optical emission spectroscopy.

Page 69 ff.: Aside from CE 399, the only links between the wounds and Oswald’s gun were the bullet fragments that the Secret Service discovered the night of the assassination while going over the limousine at Bethesda. Because the fragments were too deformed to produce meaningful ballistics comparisons, the Warren Commission asked the FBI to go to the Atomic Energy Commission and have the fragments tested by what was then the brand-new method of Neutron Activation Analysis in order to determine whether the fragments had been fired from the same gun as CE 399.

NAA calls for the irradiation of a specimen in a nuclear reactor in order to produce a characteristic radiation “pattern” that either matches or doesn’t match that of the secondary specimen. It is so exact a test that it’s possible to detect and measure trace elements down to parts-per-billion. (Recently, NAA performed on the preserved hair of Napoleon Bonaparte, 140 years after his death in exile on St. Helena, suggested that the Emperor may have been assassinated by his British jailers: an ever-increasing level of arsenic in his hair follicles indicated a slow and gradual introduction of poison into his food.)

The FBI’s Neutron Activation Analysis Report is one of the documents that has never been published, one possible reason being that the test tended to undercut the relationship of the magic bullet” found at Parkland Hospital to the fragments found in the limousine. All we have to go on is a July 1964 memo from Hoover to the Commission’s Executive Counsel, J. Lee Rankin. The FBI, said Hoover:

The fact that “minor variations” were detected should have alerted the Commission, for what makes NAA such a definitive technique is that specimens either match or don’t match: there can be no variations of any kind, minor or otherwise.

Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) coroner Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, one of the few forensic pathologists in the country who have joined the movement disputing the Warren Report, has an explanation of why the Commission didn’t jump on the FBI. “By July of 1964, the Commission’s staff had already missed one deadline…and was told by Rankin that, at that stage, it should be ‘closing doors, not opening them’.”[80]

Page 86: This much is sure: none of the fragments dug out of Kennedy’s head or Connally’s body have been satisfactorily shown to have come from bullets fired by the Mannlicher-Carcano. And the only fragments that were said to have been linked did not seem to have passed the Neutron Activation Analysis test.

This short passage is completely wrong. The authors repeat the false notion that NAA analyses are infinitely precise, i.e., have no experimental uncertainties. Would that it were so simple!

Page 76: While it is not mentioned in the [Warren] Report or the 26 volumes, CE 399 and other bullet fragments were also subjected to Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA), a test even more definitive than spectrographic analysis. In simple terms, NAA is a highly sophisticated technique in which differences in the composition of objects is [sic] measured by bombarding the objects with radiation down to parts per billion.[81]

In another letter from Hoover to Rankin (not released from the Archives until 1973), the FBI Director reports: “While minor variations in composition were found [emphasis added by Shaw] by this method, these were not considered to be sufficient to permit positively differentiating among the larger bullet fragments and thus positively determining from which of the larger bullet fragments any given small lead fragment many have come.”

But this letter emerges as one of the most damaging pieces of evidence against the single-bullet theory, for what Hoover does not mention is that with NAA the amount of difference between particles is virtually meaningless; any difference, no matter how small, is both sufficient and irrefutable.[82] The tests were conclusive and they prove that JFK and the Governor were indeed struck by separate bullets.[83]

Priscilla Johnson McMillan—Marina and Lee
Peter Dale Scott—Crime and Cover-Up (1977,1993)

Carl Oglesby—The Yankee and Cowboy War (1976, 1977)
Carl Oglesby—The JFK Assassination: The Facts and the Theories (1992)

Several passages of “Dealey Plaza,” Chapter 5 of Carl Oglesby’s The Yankee and Cowboy War (1976, 1977), dealt with the FBI’s neutron-activation analyses and the meaning of their results. In Oglesby’s 1992 book The JFK Assassination: The Facts and the Theories, he reprinted this chapter with some revisions and updates. All passages on NAA were identical to the original 1977 versions, however, and are therefore listed under 1977 here.

It is a pity that Oglesby chose not to update his discussion of NAA, because this cost him the opportunity to include Guinn’s 1977 analyses for the HSCA, and to discuss their strong implications for the SBT and for conspiracy. Based solely on chemical compositions, Guinn successfully differentiated two groups of bullets and fragments. He then showed that these results were consistent with the earlier FBI data, once systematic errors in the earlier set were recognized and compensated for. To a high probability, Guinn matched the fragments in Connally’s wrist to the “Magic Bullet” CE 399, something that Oglesby denies being possible with the older data. By omitting all mention of Guinn, Oglesby leaves the double misimpression that NAA couldn’t do what the Warren Commission wanted it to, and that NAA disproved the single-bullet theory. Both conclusions are wrong.

Why didn’t Oglesby discuss Vince Guinn and his new analyses? I see only three possible answers: he just didn’t bother to; he did not understand the significance of the 1977 data; or he understood the significance of the new results and deliberately ignored them. All three possibilities distress me.

Only Robert Groden (1993) also published after the 1979 HSCA report and discussed the earlier NAA but ignored the HSCA’s NAA.

Page 87: …the [Warren] commission produced out of its own inquiries the most technically conclusive evidence against the magic-bullet theory, although the significance of this evidence may have been concealed from the commission by the FBI, which arranged for the test to be conducted for the commission by the Atomic Energy Commission. This test, neutron-activation analysis, or NAA, involves the same technique that two Swedish scientists used in 1961 to prove that Napoleon had actually been murdered by gradual arsenic poisoning. The method is to bombard the specimen material with neutrons and then measure the emissions thus produced. The operating premise is that any difference in atomic structure of two materials, however slight, will be observable in these emissions.[84] This is why Allegheny County coroner Cyril Wecht described NAA as “one of the most powerful and sophisticated forensic science methods ever developed.”[85]

In the current case, NAA was used to compare fragments of a bullet taken from Connally’s wrist (and elsewhere) with material taken from the nose of CE 399. If the fragments and the slivers were from the same bullet, they would give off precisely the same emissions under neutron activation.[86]

Until the success of Harold Weisberg’s Freedom-of-Information Act suit in 1974, it was not known for a fact that NAA had been performed. Hoover reported that it had been, but knowingly or not, he concealed the significance of it in a letter to Warren’s chief counsel Rankin dated July 8, 1964. By that time, Specter’s draft of chapter 3 of the Report, setting forth the single-bullet theory, had already been submitted to Rankin. As Wecht observes, Hoover’s language “has to be read in its entirety to be appreciated,” so I follow him in repeating the letter in full:

The boiling obfuscations of that last paragraph show us Hoover at his best.[87] There is no way for the technically uninformed to know that in the NAA test any difference is “sufficient.”[88] If one could strip down Hoover’s subordinate clause to its grammatical essentials, one would have the heart of the matter right enough: “Variations…were found.”[89] Therefore the fragments from Connally’s wrist and CE399 were not of the same bullet.[90] Which should have been obvious to grown men to start with from looking at bullet CE399 with their two eyes open.[91]

[1] This statement and its implications are full of serious errors. The sizes of compositional differences between particles are indeed highly meaningful because NAA, like any other analytical technique, is not absolute. Depending on analytical conditions and the specific elements being measured, analytical uncertainties can range from a percent or so up to tens of percent. Then there is the matter of heterogeneities within a sample, which, depending on the type of ammunition, can range from a few percent up to hundreds of percent. The conclusions to be drawn from all this are that (a) apparent differences do not necessarily mean real differences; (b) apparent similarities do not necessarily mean real similarities; (c) indistinguishable compositions do not necessarily mean the same origin; and (d) differences in compositions only mean differences in origin when that are greater than heterogeneities. In short, Anson did not know what he was writing about; he probably got his erroneous idea from other conspiracy-writers who had been spreading them for more than a decade at this point (see specifics in the review of his book of the same year). If you want to know about NAA, go to a profession in NAA, not to another JFK writer.

[2] Anson’s writing here is so bad that he applies false reasoning to the wrong premise and produces a conclusion that is literally correct but not the one he intended! He was trying to say that differences in the compositions of bullet fragments disproved the single-bullet and lone-assassin theories. But instead of citing CE 399 and the fragments from Connally’s wrist, he appealed to differences between the wrist fragments and fragments from Kennedy’s brain, which very few theorists have ever argued came from the same bullet. Where NAA was concerned, Anson apparently needed two wrongs to get a right.

[3] Given Anson’s gross misunderstanding of NAA and its forensic uses, he is in no position to snipe at members of the Warren Commission.

[4] The simple explanation for the omission of NAA from the Warren Report is that it’s existence was revealed after the report’s original deadline, at a time when the commission was writing furiously to make the next deadline (which they also missed). The last thing they needed at that time was new and inconclusive information not accompanied by supporting data.

[5]This sentence refers to the emission-spectrographic tests of the fragments done by the FBI the night of the assassination. Although this test measured both large fragments found in the front of the limousine, the later NAA analyzed only the base fragment. The tip fragment was not tested because it contained no lead, just copper.

[6]For months I was puzzled by this sentence of Anson’s, because the chemical comparison of only the two largest fragments that he seems to be referring to never happened—the FBI analyzed all bullets and fragments simultaneously by emission spectroscopy, discussed the full set of results together, and held back all analytical data simultaneously. Eventually I realized that Anson had misunderstood one of the key sentences from Hoover’s letter of 8 July 1964 to J. Lee Rankin (see Part II): [referring to the neutron-activation results] “While minor variations in composition were found by this method, these were not considered sufficient to permit positively differentiating among the larger bullet fragments and thus positively determining from which of the larger bullet fragments any given small lead fragment may have come.” When Hoover noted in the previous paragraph that “certain of the small lead fragments” were analyzed and compared with the two large fragments, Anson took it to mean that the larger fragments had been analyzed first. When Hoover referred to the two large fragments, Anson erroneously took them to be the two from the front seat, whereas Hoover meant the Parkland bullet (C1) and the base fragment from the front seat (C2). Hoover may have inadvertently caused the misunderstanding by calling the Parkland bullet a bullet in the second paragraph and one of the “larger bullet fragments” in the third paragraph. Anyone who reads Hoover’s list of bullets and fragments in the second paragraph hill not be confused, however. Apparently Anson did not read the second paragraph carefully or perhaps did not have the actual memo when he was writing. A third error by Anson was to take Hoover’s discussion of the two larger fragments, which referred to the NAA, and use it in his discussion of emission spectroscopy.

This sentence also means that Anson equates “similar” to “somewhat different” and therefore, because emission spectrography is so precise, “coming from different bullets.” This is the “any difference is a real difference” argument also applied erroneously to neutron-activation results by many critics.

[7]The last two sentences of this paragraph bear no resemblance to the actual FBI testimony to the Commission—they are nearly fiction. The FBI compared the compositions of all the fragments , and in a completely different order than Anson reports. See footnote under Weisberg’s Whitewash (1965).

[8]This paragraph is false. Robert A. Frazier of the FBI told the Warren Commission that the FBI had tested the Parkland bullet [CE 399] and all the bullet fragments spectrographically, and that all were “similar in composition.” [Commission Hearing Volume V, pp. 66–74] The FBI was not silent on this critical matter. Frazier’s language may be a bit confusing at first, but his meaning can be determined unambiguously with just a few minutes of study. See footnote to Weisberg’s Whitewash (1965).

[9]Hoover is simply restating Frazier’s 1964 testimony.

[10]Ill-constructed sentence. Anson means to say that NAA can measure differences in materials down to at least parts per billion, not that the material is bombarded with radiation down to parts per billion. This error shows that Anson does not understand what he is writing about. Much of this sentence is drawn from Wecht (1974).

[11]Incorrect formulation. “Irrefutable” is an absolute, and so cannot be modified

[12]Here Anson refers to Wecht’s 1974 article in Modern Medicine. The citation is most unfortunate. First, Wecht did not use the terms “sufficient” and “absolute” in that article. Second, Wecht’s article presented a simplistic picture of NAA that ignored its analytical uncertainties and how they limited its ability to distinguish potential sources of fragments. By greatly overstating NAA’s capabilities, Wecht misled two generations of researchers, who assumed he understood the technique.

[13]Hasty conclusion. While the form of deduction used by the critics is valid (modus tollens), the problem lies in their use of it. The opposite of “data supporting the WC’s single-bullet premise” is not “data refuting the WC’s premise,” but rather “data not supporting the premise,” which includes neutral data as well as refuting data. Thus the FBI could have withheld inconclusive data simply because they didn’t felt that presenting these data wouldn’t enlighten the discussion. The critics were hasty in assuming that the withheld data automatically refuted the SBT.

[14]Hoover’s actual words were “not considered sufficient”. This phrase carries a different connotation from Anson’s incorrect “insufficient.”

[15]The differences also reflected heterogeneity within bullets, not just statistical uncertainties of the measurement technique.

[16]Not so. The FBI’s NAA measurements have been unnecessarily bad-mouthed. Granted that older equipment was used, and that the results were not interpreted properly. But they established two groups of fragments better than Guinn’s later data did.

[17]Guinn’s later assessment of the FBI’s NAA data was much more positive (in his testimony to the HSCA, for example).

[18]Unjustified conclusion. “Similar” compositions prove very little, especially when unaccompanied by the actual data and background information on bullets.

[19]Commission Document 81b

[20]Cutler’s remark about “no difference whatsoever” in these four items is false. True, the FBI’s spectrographic results were the same for all four items, but they were general enough to allow wide variations among the items. For example, antimony was listed as 90–800 ppm; copper was roughly 400 ppm; magnesium and iron were listed as “traces”; and silicon was listed as “very slight traces.” Silver, arsenic, tin, and bismuth were not detected. Clearly, the four fragments could have differed by up to a factor of ten or so and remained within the ranges reported.

[21]False, for the reason given in the previous footnote.

[22]Q3

[23]An earlier publication by Cutler

[24]Impossible, because no holes were found in the front seat.

[25]The rescue did not require nuclear physics—just sound reasoning.

[26]Q4 & Q5, Q14, Q9 and Q2—fragments from front seat, rear carpet, Governor’s wrist, and President’s head

[27]In other words, they might be from the same bullet but the data didn’t prove it.

[28]R.P. Smith, then Director of Research for The Committee to Investigate Assassinations (CTIA), Washington, D.C.

[29]This questionable reasoning attempts to combine two weak pieces of evidence into a stronger conclusion.

[30]Cutler’s scenario of rifles, locations, and shots

[31]Q4 & Q5, Q14, Q9 and Q2 (head, floorboard, wrist, front seat).

[32]Not clear why four similar fragments should imply that the remaining two are also similar

[33]In principle, Cutler’s justification for extracting the fragments from Connally is sound. Connally, though, who never believed in conspiracy, probably didn’t feel such a test was necessary. After he died, his family also declined to have the fragments removed and tested, and the Justice Department chose not to contest their view.

[34]And therefore probably not an analyst.

[35]This remark or others like it apparently formed much of Weisberg’s mistaken idea that the tests are so precise that they always reveal differences among substances. Thus, every substance is different, and spectroscopy reveals them all. Could it be that Weisberg erroneously took this to mean that any time differences are found, the substances really are different? Analytically speaking, of course, it does not follow that all observed differences are real differences.

[36]Unfortunate choice of words by O’Hara. Identifications based on chemistry are never “unique.”

[37]Distinguishing lipstick from other red substances is much easier than distinguishing one bullet from another. It is easy to read too great a discriminatory power into this kind of example.

[38]As with the lipstick in the previous footnote, the story of the ricocheting bullet can easily give a false impression of the powers of spectrography. In actuality, it is not clear what the discoloration on the bullet was compared with in order to establish that it was paint from the car. In all likelihood, it was compared either with nothing else or with something other than paint. The use of “identical” under these circumstances is unfortunate, to say nothing of inaccurate. Creating a high probability that the fleck was paint required only a close resemblance to the composition of the paint, not to proving the fleck identical to the paint. The lay reader can too-easily be overawed by this kind of story.

[39]“Almost rhapsodic” is another unfortunate choice of words, that makes the powers of spectrography seem almost unlimited.

[40]Speculation. In 1964, the FBI was just beginning to use NAA, and was certainly not skilled at it.

[41]It’s a far cry from measuring elements to actually distinguishing bullets.

[42]Guinn’s later analyses of many bullets gave a less-optimistic picture.

[43]Poor choice of words. “Perfection” and “certainty” are absolutes, and so cannot have “degrees.” Modifying absolutes inevitably obscures meaning and confuses readers, if not writers.

[44]I think Weisberg really misunderstood this point. The court simply wanted the expert witness to associate some probabilities with his “similar” and “likely.” Weisberg thinks it means that NAA is absolute and that the witness should have said so.

[45]Erroneous deduction that the Commission did not want the NAA results. They didn’t know that NAA had been applied to the fragments until July 1964, after the original deadline for the Report to appear. Even then, Hoover characterized them so blandly that most people would have been discouraged from pursuing the matter.

[46]Hoover’s remark was very specific, referring only to excess zinc on clothing near a hole.

[47]A microgram is not a unit of concentration. It is a unit of mass.

[48](1) Moenssens seems to use grams and micrograms interchangeably, thereby making errors of a millionfold. (2) Weisberg seems to be confusing sensitivity with precision of measurement, and using this citation to imply that because spectrography is so sensitive, its results are correspondingly low in uncertainty. Not so, unfortunately.

[49]False

[50]Within analytical uncertainties and variations within bullets.

[51]But they still could be from a single bullet, even if the government couldn’t show it.

[52]Evidence for this claim not offered.

[53]False again

[54]Unjustified conclusion from lack of evidence.

[55]Weisberg is either being disingenuous here or deliberately setting up the government for the kill. The quotes above beseech the government to use spectrography to prove its case, or condemn it for not using spectrography for that purpose. Either way, Weisberg assumes that spectrography can link bullets conclusively to their fragments or their damage. In the quote below, however (from page 313), Weisberg states that spectrography cannot prove that a bullet caused a certain damage, only that it could have caused the damage. Which is it?

[56]Again, serious overstatement. Words such as “impossibility” must never be used in reference to deductions from analytical data.

[57]Weisberg correctly points out here that dissimilarity of composition can exclude a potential source (to a certain probability, of course), but similarity of composition can never include a source (because other possible sources may have the same composition). He should have framed the discussion in terms of probabilities, however.

[58]Wrong. There are other possible reasons, such as inadequacy of analysis leading to embarrassment, or ambiguous results leading to no clear conclusion.

[59](1) He said above that this kind of proof was impossible with spectrography. (2) If some fragments are too small to be tested and must be considered of indefinite origin, does the government’s whole case still collapse? Weisberg is being harsh and unrealistic.

[60]Pure speculation like this requires confirmatory evidence in order to be considered further.

[61]Not so on two counts. First, Hoover’s reply says simply that no copper attributable to a bullet was found. It properly declines to speculate what that means. Thus, Weisberg is hasty in concluding that it means no bullet.

[62]To repeat, spectrography did not prove anything about the presence of a bullet. Weisberg is drawing unwarranted conclusions.

[63]Undocumented assertion.

[64]Reference to Commission Document 81 b: FBI laboratory report PC 78243 BX dated November 23, 1963 (Hoover to Curry).

[65] False deduction. Brown is (a) ignoring the omnipresent uncertainties of all analytical results that makes “similar” the appropriate term and “identical” an inappropriate term, and (b) assuming fallaciously that all types of ammunition have exact and fully reproducible elemental compositions that differ from all other types of ammunition. Both these mistakes are typical of laymen.

[66] The spectroscopic analysis was incapable of drawing any such conclusion. Brown’s remark sounds very much like the incorrect deduction in his previous paragraph. Without the FBI’s actual statement on the subject, Brown’s interpretation of it is indefensible.

[67]Reference to FBI laboratory work sheets from report PC 78243 BX, concerning spectrographic analyses by John A. Gallagher. The “comparison samples” were actually analytical standards. To expect a fragment to match an analytical standard is a meaningless idea that shows that Brown understands nothing of the analytical process he purports to be interpreting for his readers.

[68] False interpretation of Hoover’s decision to use NAA. In fact, he was urged repeatedly by the Atomic Energy Commission to try it because the spectroscopic analysis had worked so poorly (had not been able to distinguish among any of the bullets or fragments. Brown has it exactly backwards.

[69] “Elements in nature” is a nonsensical phrase. “(a) Nature has nothing to do with it; and (b) individual radionuclides rather than elements decay.

[70] ‘Known length of time” is a misstatement of the “half-life” of radioactive decay. The “length of time” is actually infinite for all radionuclides.

[71] False. The measurements are not recorded in any unit other than decays per unit time. After masses of decaying elements are calculated from the rates of decay, they may be expressed as parts per million of sample, parts per billion, or even percent. The choice of unit is a matter of convenience rather than anything fundamental.

[72]Reference to Neutron Activation Analysis by Wahl and Kramer ,in Scientific American, April 1967, Volume 216, Number 4, pp. 68-86.

[73]Reference to (a) Forensic Neutron Activation Analysis of Bullet Lead Specimens by Lukens, Schlesinger, Guinn and Hackleman. Gulf Radiation Project 295 (6-30-70), National Technical Information Service, Springfield, VA; and (b) Comparison of Bullet Lead Specimens by Nondestructive Neutron Activity [sic] Analysis by Lukens and Guinn, American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

[74] Brown’s conclusion is completely wrong. It shows that he has completely missed the point of Guinn’s research on antimony in bullets, which is that in nearly all bullets other than Mannlicher-Carcano, antimony is reproducible in concentration. In MC ammunition, however, antimony varies greatly from bullet to bullet and from box to box.

[75] This paragraph is utter nonsense. Brown has everything wrong because he does not understand analytical uncertainties, NAA, or the unusual properties of MC bullets.

[76]Reference to Winchester-Western letter to Brown dated 9 September 1975, from Product Service Manager Howard G. Boker.

[77] The NAA tests were less oriented toward determining the types of bullets, which they mostly knew already because of being able to trace three large fragments ballistically back to LHO’s Mannlicher-Carcano to the exclusion of all other rifles, than to determining how many bullet had hit and which fragments went with which bullet.

[78] Guinn later provided the reason: The fragment from the front seat was copper jacketing that did not contain enough lead for testing (testing copper itself is much less helpful that testing lead), and the other two samples were small enough that they were probably fully used up in the initial emission spectroscopy. No mystery or conspiracy here, just plain and simple technical answers.

[79] The only perversion here is Brown’s complete distortion of the NAA data. Brown’s abuse of the data is a perfect example of what Kelley and the FBI were trying to avoid, justifiably or unjustifiably.

[80]From Wecht’s 28 October 1974 article in Modern Medicine (reproduced entirely here in an earlier section).

[81]There is no such thing as “radiation down to parts per billion.” This is an unacknowledged quite from Anson (1975), who in turn quoted Wecht (1974). Note the progressive degradation of the passage as it passed from author to author: Wecht wrote: “The technique involves irradiation of a specimen…the specimen produces a characteristic radiation pattern…Trace elements can be detected and measured down to parts per billion or even less…different specimens…can be compared…”; Anson distorted it to: “neutron activation analysis, a highly sophisticated technique that measures differences in material that has been bombarded with radiation down to parts per billion and sometimes even less”; Shaw and Harris further distort it to “NAA is a highly sophisticated technique in which differences in the composition of objects is measured by bombarding the objects with radiation down to parts per billion.” It’s like the old party game: Whisper the phrase enough times and it becomes unrecognizable.

[82]Here Shaw and Harris refer to an article by Robert Sam Anson in New Times of 18 April 1975.

[83]This last paragraph is false on enough counts to make it worthless. First is the contention that any difference is composition is conclusive. This is wrong on two counts: NAA has analytical uncertainties like any other technique, and subsamples within bullets may differ. The source of these errors is Robert Sam Anson, who is a writer, not an authority on NAA. Second is the idea that the tests were conclusive. They were not, for two reasons: their results were probabilistic, and equality of composition is only consistent with common origin but cannot guarantee it. Third is the statement that JFK and the Governor were struck by separate bullets. This is technically correct, but from two errors canceling: wrong interpretation applied to wrong test. Shaw’s statement refers to a presumed refutation of the single-bullet theory, but that is impossible here because no fragments of lead from JFK’s body wounds or clothing were available to analyze. The test could never have proven that the same bullet passed through both bodies. The “JFK” fragments were actually from his head, and indeed they matched the two large bullet fragments found in the front of the limousine, not the stretcher bullet. Thus, Shaw applied an improper test (any difference means dissimilar origins) to an unmatched pair of fragments (stretcher bullet and JFK’s head), found that they didn’t match, and then claimed that the results applied to a nonexistent pair of fragments (JFK’s body and Connally’s body)!

[84]False statement. NAA fails to detect some elements, and measures others with various sensitivities. Like any analytical technique, NAA produces data with measurement uncertainties. NAA’s measurement uncertainties stem from the randomness of counting statistics, and range from <1% to 100%. Although NAA records nuclear decay atom by atom, NAA’s incompleteness of capture of gamma-rays and the randomness of the decay process itself produce a technique that is far less than absolute.

[85]Here Oglesby cites Wecht’s 1974 article in Modern Medicine. Wecht’s statement is easily overinterpreted, however. “Powerful” and “sophisticated” do not mean that NAA provides absolute measurements. More to the point, Oglesby has misrepresented Wecht, who did not proclaim NAA to be so powerful and sophisticated for the reason Oglesby said. Wecht’s reason was just that NAA “permits the determination of the elemental composition of the specimen in great detail, considerably more so than by spectrographic analysis.” There is a fundamental difference between analyzing a substance “in great detail” and “observing any difference in atomic structure…however slight.” [Italics added.] What led Oglesby to exaggerate so? ...

[86]False statement, for reasons given in the previous two footnotes.

[87]Incorrect interpretation of technical language. What Oglesby calls “boiling obfuscations” are just the conventional language of the analyst stating that the FBI found smaller variations between bullets then they felt they needed to distinguish them or their fragments chemically. Nontechnical writers need to be more careful when dealing with unfamiliar technical subjects than Oglesby is here. His misinterpretations help no one.

[88]Oglesby is the “technically uninformed,” not his readers to whom he con descends here. Oglesby’s statement is about any difference being “sufficient” is false, for reasons given in earlier footnotes. Differences in NAA measurements over and above genuine differences between bullets can arise from randomness of counting statistics and intrabullet variations. Hoover clearly understands this, but Oglesby seems not to.

[89]False statement. Hoover’s concluding sentence contains much more meaning than Oglesby implies.

[90]False conclusion based on false premise. Hoover is reporting small differences in composition and declining to interpret them, that’s all. Hoover’s error of concluding too little is more defensible than Oglesby’s error of interpreting too much.

[91]Oglesby shows the frustrations of not being able to have his viewpoint accepted by governmental authorities. Sarcasm can be dangerous, however, for it can easily lead to excess. In this case, grown men examining the base of bullet CE 399 would see a deformation that required viselike forces, as well as lead being squeezed out the bottom like toothpaste from a tube. Given the violence needed to deform CE 399, it could easily have shed a few tiny fragments of lead.