Annotated Compendium, 1993-1996

Steven S. Airheart—Searching the Shadows
Richard Bartholomew—Possible Discovery of an Automobile Used in the JFK Conspiracy
Bob Callahan—Who Shot JFK?
Waggoner Carr and Byron Varner—Texas Politics in my Rearview Mirror
Noam Chomsky—Rethinking Camelot
Col Davies—Named!
John H. Davis—The Kennedy Contract
Robin T. DeLoria—Mirror of Doubt
Donald L. Kimball—Assassination II: The Kennedy Killing
Officer J.W. Hughes—Square Peg for a Round Hole
Ron Lewis—Flashback
Oleg M. Nechiporenko—Passport to Assassination
Vincent Michael Palamara—The Third Alternative
Michael Collins Piper—Final Judgment
Gary Savage—JFK: First Day Evidence
Peter Dale Scott—Deep Politics and the Death of JFK
Bill Sloan—JFK: Breaking the Silence
Matthew Smith—Vendetta: The Kennedys

Benson’s paragraphs on Guinn and NAA are of mixed quality. The first paragraph correctly summarizes Guinn’s major finding because it quotes him directly. The second paragraph raises doubts about the validity of Guinn’s findings, but is ultimately unsatisfying because it uses one of the least qualified books as references, and never seeks to resolve the criticisms. This kind of halfway analysis will ultimately work against its practitioners.

Page 163: GUINN, VINCENT, HSCA ballistics expert; head of the activation analysis program of the general atomic division[1] of General Dynamics Corporation. Guinn performed neutron activation analysis on the “magic bullet” (WCE 399) and bullet fragments reportedly taken from Governor Connally’s wrist. He stated that his tests “established that it was highly likely that the injuries to the Governor’s wrist were caused by the bullet found on the stretcher at Parkland Hospital.”

According to HT [High Treason by Groden and Livingstone, 1990], “The main problem with this test was that Dr. Guinn stated afterwards that none of the fragments he tested weighed the same as any listed as evidence by the Warren Commission. That is, along with many missing fragments, it would appear that the evidence had been switched before he got it.” When Guinn opened up the can that was supposed to hold bullet fragments that had struck the limo’s windshield, he found the can empty.[2]

Fonzi stresses stories from witnesses and deemphasizes scientific and technical evidence, to the point of almost mocking it. He mentions NAA only once, and that wasn’t considered important enough to index it. That reference and the associated paragraph illustrate Fonzi’s attitude toward anything other than gumshoe investigation of the assassination.

Page 216: Compared to his interest in the empirical aspects of the investigation—what the investigators on the street were actually coming up with—Blakey spent a disproportionate share of his time looking after the scientific examination of the evidence.[3] He had the academician’s view that this would have the “greatest reliability,”[4] which is undoubtedly why so much time and money were spent on such things as neutron-activation analysis, acoustics studies, ballistic and other scientific studies.[5] But science, like statistics, can lie and two scientists often read the same results in opposite ways.[6] It happened, for instance, with the Assassination Committee’s panel of forensic pathologists: One eminent doctor totally disagreed with his eminent peers, who had all endorsed the Warren Commission’s single-bullet theory.[7]

What is particularly important about that dissent, by the way, is that it was not based on fine-point technicalities or subtle differences in methodology, as such dissents often are. It was much harder and more definitive than that, and it came from the President of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, Dr. Cyril Wecht. As Chief Coroner of Allegheny County in Pittsburgh, Dr. Wecht had done thousands of homicide autopsies and, in his lengthy and detailed dissent, he did not mince words:

Despite the semantical sophistry and intellectual gymnastics of the forensic pathology panel report, it is clear that the single-bullet theory can no longer be maintained as an explanation for the bullet wounds in JFK’s back and neck, and all the bullet wounds in Gov. John B. Connally. The angles at which these men were hit do not permit a straight line trajectory (or near straight line trajectory) of Commission exhibit 399 (the so-called magic bullet) to be established. Indeed, quite the opposite is true. In order to accept the single-bullet theory, it is necessary to have the bullet move at different vertical and horizontal angles, a path of flight that has never been experienced or suggested for any bullet known to mankind.

The two passages below are Groden’s only references to analysis of bullet lead. Note that he discusses the two earlier analyses (FBI’s spectrography and NAA), which gave indeterminate results, but omits the HSCA’s later neutron-activation analysis, which gave very clear results. Also note the two factual errors in the first paragraph. Groden was one of only two authors who discussed only the FBI’s NAA even though the HSCA’s NAA data were available at the time they wrote. The other was Carl Oglesby—The JFK Assassination: The Facts and the Theories (1992).

Page 128 (caption of photograph): Fragments of the bullet taken from Governor Connally’s wrist. Some are now missing or destroyed by the neutron activation analysis performed as part of the ballistics testing. The Warren Commission believed that the two or three bullet fragments they had in evidence could have come from the pristine bullet, but that this was doubtful because of those fragments’ collective weight.[9] FBI Director Hoover, in a secret memorandum directed to the Commission dated July 8, 1964, discussed the spectrographic analysis of the fragments and said that there were only “minor variations” between the fragments. Hoover sought to encourage the Commission’s belief in the power of the “magic” bullet, but some Commission members remained skeptical.[10] The presence of any variation in the fragments, no matter how minute, indicated that different bullets probably had been used.[11]

Page 129 (caption to photograph): Spectrographic analysis on the bullet fragments was suppressed by FBI Director Hoover and two Attorneys General, Ramsey Clark and John Mitchell. Also hidden were neutron activation analyses by the Atomic Energy Commission.

In his descriptions of NAA and how it was used, Livingstone commits more serious errors than nearly any other author cited here. By referencing many of his assertions, Livingstone tries to give his work a scholarly look. But when the footnotes are checked, many of them are found to be misleading or irrelevant. Combined with many errors of fact and logic in the text, they make these passages highly untrustworthy. When reading Livingstone, the reader must truly beware!

This is one of the key lies and initial point of cover-up in the case. (1) Certain weights of fragments recovered from John Connally and from the limousine were recorded by the Warren Commission and placed in the National Archives. (2) Dr. Vincent Guinn stated that the fragments he was given to conduct Neutron Activation analysis (NAA) tests did not correspond to those recorded by the Warren Commission. (3) Neither can they possibly correspond to those seen and handled at Parkland Hospital by medical personnel who drew pictures and described them as much larger than those whose photographs the Warren Commission published.[12] (4) The photographs of those published by the Warren Commission show fragments that could not possibly come from CE 399, the “magic bullet.”[13]

Mr. Fithian asked Dr. Guinn: “Now, then, did you test exactly the same particles that the FBI tested in 1964?”

“Well, it turns out I did not, for reasons I don’t know, because as they did the analysis, they did not destroy the samples.”

“The particular little pieces that they analyzed, I could just as well have analyzed over again, but the pieces that were brought out from the Archives—which reportedly, according to Mr. Gear, were the only bullet-lead fragments from this case still present in the Archives—did not include any of the specific little pieces that the FBI had analyzed. Presumably, those are in existence somewhere, I am sure nobody threw them out, but where they are, I have no idea.”[14]

On November 23, 1963, spectrographic tests were conducted on some of the bullet fragments to measure the presence of eleven chemical elements usually in bullets.[15] The purpose was to see if the fragments could be related to the found bullets in the Book Depository and at Parkland Hospital. On the same day, a five-page report was prepared by the FBI and signed by J. Edgar Hoover. It concluded that the metal smear on the car’s windshield, the bullet fragments from President Kennedy, Governor Connally, and the fragments found under Mrs. Connally’s jump seat were only “similar” in composition. This would appear to be conclusive proof “that they did not all come from the same type of ammunition…[16] None of the assassination specimens (the bullet that was found in General Walker’s house as well) could be matched spectrographically with the comparison samples used by the FBI laboratory personnel,” as Emory Brown wrote.[17]

Emory Brown wrote, “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.”[18] This is a much more sophisticated method of measuring the elements present in metal, which requires the bombardment of the specimens with neutrons, which causes the specimens to give off gamma rays. Each element has its own radiation level, which can be measured. Brown wrote that “the findings presented in two of the papers he (Dr. Vincent Guinn) 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 analysis.”[19]

Dr. Guinn either helped do the tests for the Warren Commission, or had access to the papers and results, and having then tested fragments for the House Committee years later, his statements that the fragments were not the same and not of the same weight was [sic] of that much more importance.[20] This indicates substitution after the original material was stolen, as is true of so much of the other evidence from the National Archives.[21]

Dr. Guinn had determined that “the usual standard deviation of the Antimony concentration within a single bullet or box of bullets was about plus or minus 3 percent and that the Antimony concentrations [which were the focus of his work] are very uniform within a single bullet and box of bullets.”[22] He concluded that “if the percentage of variation is greater, then the bullets or fragments would have different origins.”[23] The conclusion of the test 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.”[24]

Winchester-Western wrote Emory Brown in September 1975 to say that they used the same metal alloys in the production of many different types of bullets. Metal from any one of the other caliber and types of bullets would have matched in both spectrographic and NAA tests.[25] Brown writes, “This bit of information completely invalidates the Government’s test results.”[26] In addition, other manufacturers may have used the same metal for their bullets.[27]

NAA tests were never applied to the smears from the windshield of the fatal car, to the bullet portions found in the front seat, or to the smears on the curb from which fragments hit James Tague.[28]

Page 81: The size of the fragments removed from Governor Connally, as described and illustrated by the medical witnesses, does not correspond at all to the small fragments recorded by the Warren Commission,[29] and those recorded by the Warren Commission—according to Dr. Guinn—do not correspond to that which he was given by the National Archives to test with Neutron Activation Analysis.[30]

Page 115: As for the alleged linking of the bullet fragments to the murder weapon, the neutron activation analysis has always been a joke because Dr. Guinn stated that the weight of the fragments he tested for the HSCA bore no relation to those recorded by the Warren Commission, AND WERE NOT THE SAME AS THOSE TESTED BY THE FBI IN 1964.[31] “The particular little pieces that they analyzed, I could just as well have analyzed over again, but the pieces that were brought out from the Archives—which reportedly, according to Mr. Gear, were the only bullet-lead fragments from this case still present in the Archives—did not include any of the specific little pieces that the FBI had analyzed. Presumably those are in existence somewhere, I am sure nobody threw them out, but where they are, I have no idea.”[32] And Guinn adds that “the FBI did not appear to be able to draw any conclusions from the numbers.”[33]

In addition, the findings were, in fact, not conclusive, since there were variations in the molecular structure among the fragments and bullet. Any variation at all in the molecular structure indicates that different batches of metal are involved. Thus “essentially similar” is not good enough.[34]

Such pseudoscientific expertise is preposterous because many bullets can be made from one lot of lead and fired from several identical guns, though the barrels might show different land and groove marks.[35] Many Mannlicher-Carcanos had the same serial number as that of the gun attributed to Lee Harvey Oswald.[36] Mere circumstantial evidence that a gun can be traced to a particular individual doesn’t mean that the subject fired that gun at the victim.[37] The fine bullet found at Parkland on the stretcher of a little boy[38] might certainly be linked to the gun alleged to belong to Oswald, but it certainly could not have left any of the fragments found in John Connally.[39] No fragments as such could be linked to the gun itself or to the bullet.[40] If there is any variation in the molecular structure, as there was between the fragments found and that of the bullet found at the hospital, it could not have come from the same lot of lead.[41] Of course, two different bullets can be made from two different lots of lead having different amounts of antimony and so on in them. The metallurgy in the bullet is not homogeneous.[42]

It is also clear from the descriptions of the Dallas witnesses that along with the other stage props at the National Archives, the bullet fragments cannot be the same ones removed from Connally’s body. They held in their hands in Dallas fairly large chunks of metal that could not have come from the “magic bullet,” as Dr. Humes tried to tell Arlen Specter, who covered up what the Dallas doctors had to say.[43]

As for the credibility of the National Archives, years ago the Archives published a long list of the missing documents stolen from there, and we all know that the brain and numerous other physical specimens and photographs are missing.[44]

What we have is a compartmentalized case. The evidence and testimony from Dallas were kept in the far compartment, separate from that supposed evidence concocted at Bethesda and in Washington.

Page 217 (citing testimony of Dr. Robert L. Piziali to John Keker, Prosecuting Attorney, at the American Bar Association’s Mock Trial, in the summer of 1992 in San Francisco):

Page 241 (cross-examination of Dr. Roger McCarthy by John Keker, at the same mock trial):

Gerald Posner is a lawyer who writes like one. Although his book is exceptional (in my opinion, at least), he tends to oversimplify and overstate, to conclude rather than to cite probabilities. This lends an air of certainty to situations where probability and subtlety are appropriate. Readers of Posner must remember this.

In discussing Guinn’s NAA, Posner does not mention the flap over the chain of evidence for the two brain fragments. The critics’ argument, that no one can say where those two fragments originated, carries considerable weight. But the question is resolved by Guinn’s reinterpretation of the FBI’s NAA data, for fragments whose origin is not questioned. They resembled the limo bullet as closely as the later fragments did. Posner’s laudable attempt to keep his wording simple ended up sacrificing accuracy.

Page 323: After the assassination, two large bullet fragments were found on the front floorboard of the limousine,[51] and a nearly intact bullet on the Parkland stretcher. Neutron-activation tests done on the whole bullet and the fragments show they represent only two bullets.[52] No part of a third bullet was ever found.[53]

Page 340: One of the most significant scientific experiments conducted for the single bullet was neutron activation, a nuclear test performed on the fragments. By analyzing the trace elements found in bullet lead, neutron activation makes it possible to determine the probability that different fragments were part of one bullet. In 1974, Dr. Cyril Wecht, the most vocal medical critic of the Warren Commission’s conclusions, wrote: “If it had been found that the composition of the lead in the fragment recovered from Governor Connally’s wrist wound was indistinguishable from the composition of the lead in the nearly whole bullet found at Parkland Hospital, that fact alone would lend strong support to the single bullet theory.”[54]

The House Select Committee engaged Dr. Vincent Guinn, one of the country’s most respected experts in neutron activation, to test the stretcher bullet (CE 399), the three fragments removed from Connally’s wrist (CE 842), two removed during the autopsy from the President’s brain (CE 843), the large mashed fragment found on the front floorboard of the limousine (CE 567), and several small ones found on the rear floor of the limo (CE 840).[55]

When the House Select Committee announced it had asked Dr. Guinn to undertake that test, the critics were pleased.[56] It is very easy to exclude different items under neutron activation.[57] Most were convinced that the tests would prove that the fragments from Connally’s wrist did not come from the stretcher bullet.[58] But they were shocked when Dr. Guinn reported his results. He discovered that the Western Cartridge Co. bullets made for the Carcano were different from any of the other bullets he had tested during twenty years. According to Dr. Guinn, the most striking feature, and most useful for identification purposes, was that “there seems to be no uniformity within a production lot. That is, even when we would take a box of cartridges all from a given production lot, take one cartridge out and then another and the another…all out of the same box—boxes of twenty, these were—and analyze them, they all in general look…widely different, particularly in their antimony content. …In general, if you take most boxes of ammunition…take a bunch of them out, you can’t tell one from the other. They all look like little carbon copies even to activation analysis, but not so with the Mannlicher-Carcano.” This lack of uniformity among the Carcano bullets allowed him to match the fragments with a degree of certainty[59] normally not available, even in a sophisticated test like neutron activation.

Guinn concluded that all the fragments were Western Cartridge Co. bullets manufactured for the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.[60] He found they came from only two bullets.[61] “There is no evidence for three bullets, four bullets, or anything more than two…” he said. He determined that the fragments from Kennedy’s brain matched the three testable fragments found on the floorboard of the limousine, meaning they were all part of the third shot fired.[62] His most important finding was that CE 399, the stretcher bullet, was indistinguishable, both in antimony and silver, from the fragments recovered from the Governor’s wrist. Guinn’s finding ended the speculation that CE 399 had been planted on the stretcher, since there was now indisputable evidence that it had traveled through Connally’s body, leaving behind fragments.[63]

The critics now tried to say that all that Dr. Guinn’s test proved is that the stretcher bullet and the Connally wrist fragments came from the same batch of bullets.[64] But the great difference in the composition of the metal among individual bullets meant that Guinn’s conclusion was much more specific than that. He considered the test results as definite[65] as any he had seen in two decades of testing. “The stretcher bullet matches the fragments in the wrist,” Guinn said, “and that indicates indeed that that particular bullet did fracture the wrist.”[66] When asked is there was a chance that another Carcano bullet could have the same composition as Connally’s fragments, he said, “Extremely unlikely, or very improbable, however you prefer.”

This is one of the most disturbing passages of this whole compendium. Dr. Wecht, who originally called vociferously for NAA of bullets and fragments, and then refused to accept the obvious conclusion that the results strongly supported the single-bullet theory, now calls equally vociferously for more analyses without mentioning how he repudiated the undesired results of the first set!

Page 76: I do not believe the Department of Justice and its sister organization, the FBI, have any interest in solving this case. Both agencies demonstrated that attitude again in June 1993 when John Connally died of pulmonary fibrosis at the age of seventy-six. Before Governor Connally was buried, I joined a request by the Assassination Archives and Research Center of Washington, D.C., asking the FBI to recover the bullet fragments still lodged in his body.

“Subjected to neutron activation analysis and other scientific procedures, these fragments may be able to resolve the controversy as to whether President Kennedy was assassinated as the result of a conspiracy,” we said in our request to Attorney General Janet Reno.

Amazingly, the Justice Department agreed it would be important for them to retrieve the fragments. However, when the Connally family rejected an FBI request to recover the bullet fragments, the agency did a total cop-out by completely dropping its inquiry. I know such a request may seem insensitive to the Connally family, but this was a matter of national public interest.

One day, the American public will know the truth about who killed their president and why. And I firmly believe it will be physical evidence that has yet to be released or tested that will give us those answers.[67]

Claudia Furiati—ZR Rifle: The Plot to Kill Kennedy and Castro
Connie Kritzberg—Secrets from the Sixth Floor Window
Beverly Oliver with Coke Buchanan—Nightmare in Dallas
Craig Roberts—Kill Zone

Notwithstanding all of the evidence against the magic-bullet theory, WC defenders continue to hail the neutron activation analysis (NAA) conducted by Dr. Vincent Guinn for the HSCA. Guinn analyzed CE 399 and some alleged fragments from Connally's wrist, from Kennedy's brain, and from the limousine. He concluded it was "very likely" and "highly probable" they were from the same ammunition. The HSCA's chief counsel, G. Robert Blakey, accepted Guinn's NAA without question, and he continues to portray it as absolute proof of the single-bullet theory and of Oswald's alleged guilt. Walter Cronkite's 1988 NOVA documentary, WHO SHOT PRESIDENT KENNEDY?, portrayed Guinn's conclusions as definitive. Moore and Cohen see Guinn's NAA as scientific confirmation of the single- bullet theory and of the lone-gunman scenario, with Oswald, of course, identified as the gunman (Moore 170–171; Cohen 38). However, in light of the evidence against the magic-bullet theory, Guinn's conclusions deserve to be viewed with a great deal of skepticism from the outset. As for Guinn's NAA itself, given the items he tested, as well as those he did NOT test, his NAA does not support the magic-bullet theory. Nor is it evidence of the lone-gunman scenario.

When Guinn began his NAA, he found that a can which had contained fragments that had apparently struck the limousine's windshield was empty, so he obviously could not test them (Groden and Livingstone 73). The fragments from Connally's wrist that were tested in 1964 were (and still are) missing and thus were not subjected to Guinn's NAA, either (Marrs 447). Of the fragment specimens which were available to Guinn, one of them, CE 569, could not be tested because it was only the copper bullet jacket with no lead inside (Groden and Livingstone 73). In addition, Guinn later conceded that NONE OF THE FRAGMENTS AVAILABLE FOR HIS TEST WEIGHED THE SAME AS THOSE LISTED AS EVIDENCE BY THE WC (Groden and Livingstone 69; Lifton 558-559). Guinn also admitted he could not verify the genuineness of the fragments given to him for testing. These facts alone render Guinn's NAA results highly suspect, if not irrelevant.

In 1964 the FBI subjected CE 399 and fragments from Connally's wrist, from Kennedy's head, and from the limousine to spectrographic analysis AND to NAA. BOTH TESTS INDICATED THE WRIST FRAGMENTS DID NOT COME FROM CE 399 (Marrs 445-446; Oglesby 87-89). When J. Edgar Hoover informed the WC's chief counsel of the results of the tests, he tried to put the best possible face on them. With regard to the spectrographic analysis, Hoover said that "no significant differences were found." In other words, "…differences were found." In reference to the NAA, he reported that "minor variations in composition were found." As Hoover well knew, with NAA ANY difference or variation, no matter how small or slight, indicated that Connally's wrist fragments did not come from the magic bullet. Perhaps this explains why the results of the FBI's NAA were concealed until 1974 when their release was forced by a suit filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

Anthony and Robyn Summers—The Ghosts of November (Article in Vanity Fair, December 1994)

Credit where credit is due: This paragraph is an excellent summary of the official position on the rifle, the cartridge cases, the bullets, and the fragments. The Summers’ position is given in a later paragraph also reproduced here.

Page 98: Where does the evidence leave Oswald? Here are the key facts. Oswald did have a rifle in the spring of 1963. Handwriting evidence suggests that he bought it, by mail order, using the name Hidell, and his widow said she took the famous photographs of him holding a rifle in their backyard. That rifle appears to be the 6.5-mm. Mannlicher-Carcano found after the assassination, dumped among cartons on an upstairs floor of the depository. One live round remained in the breech, and three used cartridge cases were found near a sixth-floor window. Experts say the cartridges had been fired in the Carcano, as had the magic bullet reportedly found at Parkland Hospital. They add that fragments retrieved from the president’s and Connally’s wounds, and from the limousine, were almost certainly from just two bullets fired from the Carcano.[68]

This next passage reflects the Summerses’ opinions on the ballistic and chemical evidence. In contrast to their clear restatement of the official position in their previous paragraph, their own opinions are muddled and logically indefensible.

Two paragraphs later: Oswald steadfastly denied having shot anyone on November 22, and there were some weaknesses in the prosecution case. It was not established that it was he who had picked up the mail-order rifle at the post office. Also, to the horror of congressional staff[69], it was discovered in the 70s that the chain of possession and storage of the fragments of bullets, allegedly fired from the Carcano, had been hopelessly inadequate.[70] A fragment from the limousine had vanished[71], and one fragment container was found to be empty[72]. If some of the ballistic evidence is missing and some remains in the bodies, the shooting cannot be blamed conclusively on one man with one gun.[73]

This large-format, 638-page book thoroughly documents the photographic efforts of that day. It contains but a single passing reference to the HSCA’s neutron-activation analyses, which suggests that Trask believe that they supported the single-bullet theory.

Page 139: This meshing of the untimely, and to some not fully developed, acoustics analysis evidence with the previous evidence of two shots at Z190 and Z312, did not negate the body of the medical, ballistics, photographic, and neutron-activated analyses of bullet fragments previously developed.

Page 89: Posner hates to refer to “the magic bullet,” part of his pretense that there was no such thing, although he himself has introduced real magic, as in that tree that he says stripped the bullet core of its casing and then redirected the core alone in two different directions. So he heads his version of some of Failure Analysis’s work “Appendix A” while Random House sold the serialization rights to the magazine when it had “Magic Bullet” headline in large type.

Each version begins with the identical picture with similar captions. In the book the caption is “This is the single bullet that wounded both JFK and Connally.” In the magazine the caption is “bullet that hit JFK and Connally: true size.” In the book this is presented as Posner’s picture, his work. The magazine has credit to “National Archive.” But in each the picture is identical. It consists of a side view of the bullet, which is vertical, and a short distance below the bottom is an “end view” of its base. In neither version is it possible to make any sense out of the view of the base. If this were not significant for other reasons, as it is, it would still be true because the end view is so small and so unclear nothing can be made out of it what is there to be made out. From side to side in this version the bullet, slightly compressed, is less than a quarter of an inch across. As I published two different photographs of the same base of the same bullet on the same page, 602, of Post Mortem, the narrower of the two I published is more than eight times the size of what Failure Analysis used, a full two inches wide compared with less than a quarter of an inch.

What Failure Analysis (and Posner—and U.S. News) obscured with so small a picture is all of the evidence held by the base of the bullet. It also failed to explain the difference between the picture of the base of the bullet it published and that I did, mine having also been taken for me by the National Archives.

There is a black dot in the picture of the base Failure Analysis used and Posner took from it and also used. There is no explanation for the addition of any dot to the picture. Of the possible explanations what seems most likely is that after Vincent Guinn drilled out a sample for his testing for the House Assassinations Committee, when photographed the hole appears to be solid black.

If this is true then we have still another view of what it takes to be and act as a great scientific expert dealing with evidence! With the rest of the entire base of the bullet entirely untouched, Guinn drilled his hole of only about a single millimeter in length specimen, all that is necessary for spectrographic analysis!

My authority for saying that this is all that is required for spectrographic analysis is the FBI lab agent who performed that very test, John F. Gallagher, when I deposed him in my FOIA lawsuit for those test results, C.A. 75-226. (This and the other depositions in that lawsuit are in the files of the court, of my attorney, Jim Lesar, who did the questioning, in the Department of Justice files, and in my own files.)

Guinn used the one place that should have been preserved precisely as it was, with all the area around the entire circumference of that base where he could have drilled his hole for his sample.

But then from Failure Analysis there is no way of knowing that any hole was drilled or that any specimen was taken. And although, as we have seen, Posner knew that Guinn had taken the sample and then Posner wrote quite deceptively about that, he makes no mention of this in the caption with that picture even though the entire text of that page is his, not Failure Analysis’s.

How Failure Analysis was going to “educate” lawyers for the bar association, especially as in this instance, criminal lawyers, without showing that the specimens that are removed so radically and so unnecessarily altered the evidence and its meaning, and that misuses are possible with what is removed and is not accounted for, only it can try to explain.

How it did not “educate” criminal lawyers to ask questions about such untoward official treatment of evidence Failure Analysis can also try to explain, as it does not. But then it does not mention that Guinn himself certified, covering his own ass, that the official specimens he tested to not match their official descriptions in any way. He nonetheless proceeded with his charade of an expert testing for expert testimony.

What this says and means is important to understand in this matter and as commentary on professional experts who testify.

Guinn knew the specimens he was given to test did not match their official descriptions. He even said he did not know what happened to those official specimens. But he nonetheless went ahead and tested what he had been given, knowing they were not the actual specimens described, and then reported on his tests of them as though they were the official specimens he said they were not.

Guinn also testified that the specimens he tested were remarkably identical in their composition.

Now if by chance the FBI, which was careful not to keep any records, including the weight of the core material it removed from the base of that bullet, had for any reason, by accident or design, substituted for the actual specimens material it removed from the base of that bullet, then, of course, it would test identical, as Guinn emphasized it did.

Examination of the bullet base in the pictures I published where the minimum width of the quarter-inch bullet is so greatly magnified makes it apparent that there is no other area of that base from which any fragments could have been shed in the course of its officially conjectured meteoric career. All the rest of it is of unblemished smoothness.

With this for beginnings ought not some lawyers sure as hell be getting an education? Albeit not the education intended by the bar or the scientists?—without any mention of it by the bar or the scientists? Could not a competent criminal lawyer get an acquittal on this alone?

Walt Brown, Ph.D.—The J.F.K. Assassination Quiz Book
Walt Brown—Treachery in Dallas
Mark Collom and Glen Sample—The Men on the Sixth Floor
James Ellroy—American Tabloid
Robert J. Groden—The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald
Norman Mailer—Oswald’s Tale
John Newman—Oswald and the CIA
Craig Roberts and John Armstrong—JFK: The Dead Witnesses
Peter Dale Scott—Deep politics II

This short paragraph reveals Livingstone’s continuing superficial analysis of the NAA process and its results. He consistently

Page 329: Posner writes about Dr. Guinn’s neutron activation analysis for the House Committee, which tested the metal found in the car and in John Connally’s body to see if it corresponded to that of the bullets[74], but he ignores the entire issue Guinn raised when he indicated that the fragments he tested did not weigh the same as those tested in 1964[75], or the fact that Guinn was connected to those tests also[76]. What we have is a case of substituted fragments[77], following a general pattern of substitution in the evidence.

Page 335: A fuller account [of the disappearance of the FBI’s spectrographic plate from analyzing the curb smear near James Tague in Dallas] is in “The New ‘New Evidence’” in Post Mortem on pages 403–66. It includes some of the information I did get in that lengthy and costly lawsuit [CA 75-228], including the suppressed results of neutron-activation analysis that proved Oswald had not fired a rifle that day!

The Dallas police made the usual tests to determine whether Oswald’s hands and face held traces of the gases that are blown back when a rifle is fired. They are known as paraffin tests because molten paraffin is placed on the hands and face and allowed to harden.

It should be understood that the deposits are of common substances, that are found in such items as soaps and inks. The mere presence of these substances is, therefore, not incriminating. But their absence is exculpatory.

Traces were detected on Oswald’s hands. However, they did not necessarily come from the discharge of a rifle. Of the many materials that leave the same deposits, one was the ink on the books and cartons he handled on the job. Another could have been soap if he had washed his hands.

Traces were not detected on the paraffin casts of his face. This means he did not fire a rifle. It also meant that tests were kept official hush-hush until the very last minute of the Commission’s life.

The FBI was forced to have neutron-activation analysis made when, only a few days after the assassination, Paul Aebersold, then in charge of this area of the work of the Energy and Research and Development Administration (ERDA),[78] successor to the Atomic Energy Commission, wrote the Criminal Division of the department [of Justice] urging that they be done on the bullet and fragments of bullet. He recommended an expert to perform the test.

I learned of this and much else about these tests when ERDA, which I had joined in the lawsuit, CA 75-226, anxious not to be besmirched for noncooperation in the lawsuit that the Department of Justice and the FBI controlled, decided to give me copies of its records. They were delivered to my lawyer, Jim Lesar, at this home[79] by the assistant United States attorney for the District of Columbia who represented the government in the lawsuit. These records included the results of a number of test firings with that rifle and the paraffin tests made on those who fired it. The test firings left heavy deposits on all the shooters’ faces, quite the opposite of what the paraffin tests of Oswald’s face disclosed. This, of course, was even more exculpatory.

FBI lab agent, John F. Gallagher, the spectrographer who did not testify to any of his spectrographic examinations before the Warren Commission, handled the deal for the FBI. He began by bad-mouthing Aebersold, and then he bad-mouthed Dr. Vincent Guinn, the expert Aebersold recommended. (Guinn was later the HSCA’s neutron-activation analysis expert witness.) Gallagher supervised the tests he arranged for at the ERDA installation at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. They were performed by a government contractor already working there.

The transcript of the Warren Commission’s executive session of January 27, 1964, classified TOP SECRET until I got it through FOIA action (the subject of Whitewash IV and there printed it in facsimile[80], includes discussion of the performance of these tests by Rankin and the Commission members present. After that they all ignored them entirely until the Report was in page proof and the presses were about to roll. Then, almost as an afterthought, on September 15, 1964, Norman Redlich deposed Gallagher.

Like all Commission testimony, this was in complete secrecy. It remained secret for two months, until the Commission’s twenty-six volumes were published. Lost in the mass of those ten million words all dumped on the press at once, it got no attention at all. It is the very last testimony, in the last volume of the testimony, Volume 15 (pages 764–52). The purpose of this afterthought was to get Gallagher to say that paraffin tests are worthless. (No doubt the reason police used them!)

They could have been quite valuable to the defendant and his counsel. As they certainly would have been to Oswald and his lawyer if Oswald had lived to be tried!

Page 367: Neither the FBI nor the Commission ever made any real investigation in a legitimate effort to prove that Oswald or any other person fired the fatal shot, and neither made an effort to establish whether or not there had been a conspiracy, or any person or persons, whether or not as a shooter, involved with the one who fired the fatal shot. But in spite of themselves and their best effort, the FBI and the Commission both proved with evidence each ignored that there had been a conspiracy. The simplest proof, and there are others, is that the crime as officially accounted for officially proved to be beyond the capability of any one person.

Many elements of the evidence immediately available were viable, promising leads.

To simplify (and it must be simplified because there is enough information available for a book-length study, a politically and historically important study of how our basic institutions worked or did not work at the moment of what could have been an unimaginable crisis), a ballistic impact leaves an identifiable and retrievable deposit that can be compared, roughly, with a fingerprint, although it is not that unique. The definitive tests that can be performed, spectrographic and neutron-activation analyses, are finer than in parts per million! They require only the minutest specimens, as tiny a piece, if in pieces, as a millimeter in length, and if no piece that small is available, only a minute collection of very small fragments.

There was a very small hole in the windshield of the presidential limousine. The FBI swept up the almost invisible particles after the limousine was back in Washington and performed spectrographic analysis with these sweepings. (When it later attempted to subject that specimen to neutron-activation analysis, as I learned in CA 75-226, it no longer existed.)

Each test determines the composition of what is tested and the concentration of each element. This makes it possible to state, with bullet fragments, that they did or did not have a common origin and with whole bullets whether or not they came from the same manufacturer’s batch. Neutron-activation analysis, relatively new at the time of the JFK assassination, is the finer test. Spectrographic analyses have been recognized by the courts for about seventy-five years.

All police know these things and what to do to be able to perform them or have them performed. The FBI, which performs this test routinely, certainly knew of the importance in any real investigation of retrieving the ballistic signature, the metallic deposit, on the curbstone at the point of impact, and comparing it with the other specimens it had.

It did not do it. Nor did it recommend this to the Commission a week later, when the Commission was appointed. It was not even attempted for more than eight months, and then it was a farce and a futility, an opportunity that was not missed by ignorance.

Ray and Mary La Fontaine—Oswald Talked
Jerry Robertson—Denial
Louis Sproesser—3 Days in Dallas

Richard Bartholomew—Dial “P” for Perjury (Article in JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 4, July 1996)

Life is getting tough for the loud majority who deny the conspiracy that killed President Kennedy.[81] Those of us who know the evidence in this case often wonder if they really believe what they are saying or if they are, at best, playing some sort of devil’s advocate game. We may soon know. If they are devil’s advocates, they must admit checkmate or stalemate.

Conspiracy deniers have always started their argument with “Since the rifle in question propelled two bullets into the limousine within the few seconds the car was on Elm Street; and since one of those bullets passed through both President Kennedy and Gov. Connally…blah blah blah,” or words to that effect. They have been able to do that because one of the weakest arguments of authors critical of the Warren Commission, since 1978, has been their attempt to discredit the testimony of Dr. Vincent P. Guinn, who did the neutron activation analysis (NAA) tests of the ballistic evidence for the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA).[82] Those tests have been hailed as hard proof of the above-cited “facts.” But the proof seems to be going poof. Dr. Vincent P. Guinn’s middle name is Perry. It may soon be “Perjury.”

Major authors of the critical literature have failed to note that conspiracy deniers have always spotted Guinn a credibility stipend.[83] They have failed to note that conspiracy deniers must ignore Guinn’s caveat that NAA is exclusive rather than inclusive (1 HSCA 493).[84] Conspiracy deniers must forget that his credibility is paramount to his “opinion”[85] and that the fragments are “most likely” from Western Cartridge Company Mannlicher Carcano bullets (ibid., 504[86]). The deniers have had to imagine that two missing (ibid., 497[87]; 7 HSCA 366, asterisked foot-note 117[88]) and three untestable specimens (1 HSCA 496[89]) have no bearing on “the really interesting part” for Guinn that “there is no evidence for three bullets, four bullets, or anything more than two, but there is clear evidence that there are two.”[90] (ibid., 505[91]). And they have had to ignore the spurious veracity of Guinn’s other “opinion” that it is Dr. Cyril H. Wecht’s opinions, and not his own, that “don’t agree with the facts”[92] (ibid., 506[93]).

Conspiracy deniers have been able to get away with all of that for one simple reason: one of the worst oversights committed by Warren Commission critics appears to be our failure to see that Dr. Vincent Perry Guinn committed perjury.[94]

He said the evidence had been given to the Warren Commission and would be included in the report soon to be published on the death of the President.[99]

Guinn swore to tell the whole truth. He mentioned none of this even when given the perfect chance. If the 1964 United Press International report is even half right, Guinn’s statement is outright perjury.[100] It is compounded by the fact that the Warren Commission conducted additional NAA tests which they kept secret until a memo from J. Edgar Hoover surfaced in 1993 revealing their existence. It stretches our already mylar-thin credulity to the breaking point to believe that Guinn knew nothing about those tests.[101]

He was “unaware” of too much when he testified. He developed a spurious case of amnesia about his own involvement with the Warren Commission. Some scientist! He swore to tell the whole truth. But when he talked about the FBI’s 1964 NAA tests for the WC in detail, he denied the fact that he did some of them himself.[102] Guinn was aware, however, that NAA is not destructive. He said, “the same samples I analyzed, if somebody didn’t agree with the numbers, they could come back and do them all over again on the same specimens.” (ibid., 557) But Guinn later said, “I would not recommend any further analytical studies at the present time.” (ibid., 565) No surprise.[103]

For readers who may be unfamiliar with this aspect of the case, here are the facts: Six of the seven items used in the 1977 NAA tests of nuclear chemist Guinn underwent emission spectrography (ES) tests in 1964.[104] At least two of the items had also undergone NAA testing in 1964 (a fact curiously unreported by the Warren Commission).[105]

The ES test particles were consumed. The 1964 NAA samples were not consumed and can be retested. But none of the same NAA particles were retested and are now missing--allegedly, needlessly disposed of as nuclear waste. Item Q3 (CE 569 copper right front seat base fragment), which Guinn did not test, was never fully analyzed.

In all, the Q1 and Q9 NAA 1964 test samples (from the stretcher bullet and Connally wrist fragments), and items Q14 (three CE 840 lead left jump seat rug fragments), Q15 (CE 841 lead windshield smear) and Q609 (the lead Tague curb smear) are missing in whole or in part. One of the Q14 fragments was discovered missing from the Archives in 1970. The windshield and curb smears were allegedly consumed beyond reuse. That means less than 1 milligram remains (1 HSCA 554). Scientist Guinn, unscientifically, did not question the authenticity of these items of evidence, although authentication was a simple matter of comparing the recorded and known weights.

Researcher Anthony Marsh reportedly found a document in the Archives which shows that those irradiated samples of 1964 were disposed of as radioactive waste, something Guinn claimed he was unaware of when he testified. Guinn took his own tiny samples from the fragments and tested them.

Spotting Guinn an even more generous credibility stipend, conspiracy deniers will argue that Guinn did not know the FBI had disposed of tiny test particles from the fragments, deeming them to be radioactive waste. They will say, “Of course the weight of the fragments he tested didn’t match the weight of the original samples minus what was consumed in spectrographic testing. What was missing was the ‘radioactive waste.’”

We can only hope that they will share with us WHY Guinn did not know. In 1964, when the FBI did those first ever forensic studies using nuclear energy, Guinn had been doing NAA tests for eight years--a long way toward realizing his dual expertise in nuclear and forensic science. (Marquis, Who’s Who in the West, 21st ed., 1978–1988, Willamette, IL: Macmillan; Wasserman and McLean, eds., Who’s Who in Consulting, 2nd ed., Detroit, MI: Gale Research Company, 1973.) He did NAA tests for the WC himself. Perhaps they will grace us with another of their innocent explanations.

As for the tiny fragments given the scary label, “nuclear waste,” the FBI “…would have rightly considered them to be perfectly harmless,” according to Guinn. (1 HSCA 563) It is odd that after Guinn discovered “quite accidentally” that the 1964 NAA tests had been done, he and Dr. John Nichols were determined to obtain the data through the Freedom of Information Act, but did not try to locate the original test samples--even after Guinn became engaged by the HSCA to replicate the tests (ibid., 557). He knew that the fragments he received form the Archives “did not include any of the specific little pieces that the FBI had analyzed.” Yet despite being “…sure nobody threw them out…” he displayed a strange lack of interest in finding them. (ibid., 563)

Given Guinn’s apparent willingness to deceive the HSCA, and his blind trust in the fragments he was given, new tests should be done on the original NAA samples from CE 399 and CE 842. The paper trail can be pursued further. Radioactive waste is not put at the curb on trash pickup day.

Finally, we must also come to terms with the fact that all of this seems to have fallen through the cracks of the major assassination literature. I discovered it first while combing the JFK literature on Guinn. Mark Lane mentioned him in Rush to Judgment (1st ed. 1966, pp. 152–153). Lane cited the New York World Telegram and Sun for Aug. 28, 1964. That amazing report contains more detailed quotes from Guinn than the New York Times article. It was then a simple matter of cross-referencing the data in DeLloyd J. Guth and David R. Wrone’s excellent book, The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: A Comprehensive Historical and Legal Bibliography, 1963–1979. Interestingly, that incriminating article is not mentioned after Guinn’s name in their index.

Nevertheless, anyone who continues to cite Guinn’s opinion about the likelihood that the NAA tests support the Single Bullet and Lee Harvey Oswald’s guilt is no devil’s advocate. That position can now only be defined as psychological denial or poor propaganda.

While discussing the evidence in his “Postscript,” James Hosty generally displays a good intuitive feeling for what is reasonable and what isn’t. His reasoning is not always sophisticated, though, and can be simplistic. The three sentences on the NAA make an example of this. I was a bit surprised to see the longtime FBI agent use overly strong terms like “conclusively” and match” where probabilistic statements were obviously called for. As a result, he has overstated the conclusions that can be drawn from the NAA data.

Page 251: There is also one inescapable bit of evidence many [people] ignore: the traces of lead recovered from Connally’s wrist conclusively match the so-called stretcher bullet[106]. The bullet was copper-jacketed with a lead core. The core was exposed on the rear end only; a small amount of it was squeezed out like toothpaste from a tube and left in Connally’s wrist.

[1]Wrong name for Guinn’s company. “general atomic division” should be General Atomic Division.

[2]The only book that Benson chooses to quote from on NAA is one of the least accurate sources. The particular quote leaves the impression that fragments had been switched or removed entirely before given to Guinn. No such conspiratorial explanation is required, however. The spectrographic testing employed by the FBI on behalf of the Warren Commission is a destructive technique, that is, it destroys the part of the sample that is analyzed. Thus after analysis, all samples will weigh less. (In testimony to the WC, Robert A. Frazier of the FBI discussed this very point.) Very small samples may be consumed entirely by the test (as Guinn noted in his HSCA testimony). Given that the two alternatives for explaining the weight loss are testing and testing plus tampering, and given that testing decreased all weights, we may not accept testing plus tampering unless presented with positive evidence for tampering. Since there is no such evidence, the hypothesis of tampering must be discarded.

[3](a) Fonzi’s categorization of scientific study of evidence as being other than empirical is false. Evidence from street investigators is no more empirical than scientific evidence, only a bit more obvious, perhaps. (b) Fonzi’s logic is askew—he meant “proportionate” share of Blakey’s time rather than ”disproportionate” share (Blakey was more interested in science and spent more time on it).

[4]Not only “academicians” rate scientific evidence over witness testimony—the entire legal community does, too. One of the conventional legal classifications of evidence is “moral” vs “mathematical,” where moral refers to testimonial evidence (always highly uncertain) and mathematical refers to scientific evidence, which can be conclusive.

[5]“Such things” as NAA etc. is not the kindest way of characterizing scientific evidence.

[6]Flawed logic. If the same data are interpreted differently by different scientists, how can the data be “lying”? “Lying” refers to presenting a definite untruth, which these data are not doing. Fonzi needs to place the responsibility on the scientists to agree or to accept the data as being ambiguous. Ambiguity is hardly the same as lying.

[7]Flawed logic. A lone dissenting voice hardly proves that data are lying (see previous footnote).

[8]Wecht’s dissent is notable for its absence of proof or documentation. His words ring out with clarion force, but they must be considered empty until justification is provided. In fact, a reasonable working hypothesis is that Wecht is committing the “Big Lie.” The responsibility is Wecht’s to demonstrate otherwise.

[9]False statement. The Report states that the fragments were light enough to have come from the hospital bullet (page 95).

[10]Of course, most members were not skeptical.

[11]Incorrect conclusion. Neglects the inevitable analytical uncertainties and variations between bullets (no two bullets are exactly alike). See earlier footnotes discussing this important principle of NAA.

[12]Flawed logic. Drawings and pictures of tiny particles after the fact can hardly have the same evidentiary weight as recorded weights.

[13]Unsubstantiated assertion; must be ignored. To buttress this sentence, Livingstone names the wrist fragments (CE 842), and then offers references to Dr. George T. Shires of Parkland Hospital stating only that he saw the fragments in the wrist (6 H 111), and to Colonel Pierre Finck testifying (2 H 382) that too many fragments were described [no reference to description] in Connally’s wrist to have come from the Parkland bullet (emphasis added to stress that Finck himself did not see the fragments in the wrist).

[14]The simple, clear explanation for the disappearance of the actual particles analyzed by the FBI’s NAA (fragments taken from the original particles) is that the analysts at Oak Ridge National Laboratory discarded them as radioactive waste. Strange as it may seem in hindsight, it would have appeared quite reasonable at the time. First, don’t forget that the particles in question were all small fractions of the originals removed for testing. They were not the full original particles. The originals remained and were reanalyzed by Dr. Guinn (except for the very tiny scrapings from the windshield and the curb, which were apparently totally consumed in the spectrographic analysis). Second, laboratory practice at that time was to discard all NAA samples as radioactive waste, a practice apparently followed with the Warren Commission’s fragments (according to an FBI memo of 11 June 1979 from a “JWK” to Robert L. Keuch, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, in response to an inquiry of 31 May 1979 from G. Robert Blakey, former Chief Counsel and Staff Director, HSCA).

[15]False statement. Guinn testified clearly that not all the elements he reported were always present in bullets—only antimony, silver, and copper were. He decided to report a few others “for completeness”—a decision that later caused only grief and confusion when critics seized upon the erratic behavior of the other elements and tried to draw meaningful conclusions without listening to Guinn’s words of warning.

[16]Quote taken from article entitled “Neutron Activation Analysis” by Emory Brown, Jr. in The Continuing Inquiry, Volume I, Number 4, of 22 November 1976. Emory Brown seriously misinterpreted that spectrographic data because he didn’t understand spectrographic procedures or the resulting data. As noted in an earlier footnote, the spectrographic data were semiquantitative only, and allowed ranges of concentration for most elements of at least an order of magnitude. If anything, “similar” is too strong a word for the fragments. Virtually nothing could be said about how they compared to one another. Hoover spoke correctly; Emory Brown greatly overinterpreted the data.

[17]Reference to the article by Emory Brown, Jr. cited in previous footnote. In the last part of this sentence, Brown shows that he doesn’t understand basic analytical procedures. The “comparison samples” to which he refers were actually two laboratory standards for analyzing bullets. They served only to calibrate the spectrography against known amounts of the elements—there is no reason why the standards should agree with the fragments. This sentence by Brown reveals graphically how little he knows about the subject he is “describing.”

[18]Same reference as two footnotes earlier. The assertion by Brown that he knew how Hoover interpreted the spectrographic results is, or course, unprovable, and Brown offers none. From Livingstone’s quote of Brown in the previous paragraph, it appears that Brown believed that Hoover agreed with him—the spectrographic data proved that the bullets came from at least two types of ammunition. That interpretation—offered without documentation—leads to the complex scenario of Hoover proclaiming a lone assassin from the first day but being terrified inside that the spectroscopic data showed otherwise. A simpler interpretation, consistent with just as many facts, is that Hoover took the data at face value as showing only broad similarities among the fragments, and called for neutron activation simply to provide better data and maybe validate the SBT. The simpler hypothesis must be chosen over the more-complex one.

[19]Joint reference to Emory Brown (above) plus “Forensic Neutron Activation Analysis of Bullet Lead Specimens” by Lukens, Schlesinger, Guinn and Hackman, Gulf Radiation Project 295 (June 30, 1970), National Technical Information Service, Springfield, VA; “Comparison of Bullet Lead Specimens By Nondestructive Neutron Activity [sic] Analysis” by Lukens and Guinn, American Academy of Forensic Sciences. (Livingstone copied the last two references from Brown’s article, including the erroneous “Activity” in place of “Activation”.) Brown may have written that he came to understand Guinn’s NAA results as proving the opposite from what Guinn thought and thereby damaging the government’s case, but that doesn’t make it so. In fact, Brown got almost everything wrong (See discussion of his article under “1976”).

[20]Two errors and one false deduction. The first error is that Guinn did not help with the FBI’s NAA for the Warren Commission. We have a sworn statement by Guinn to that effect, as well as a statement by the Warren Commission. The second error is the implication that Guinn had special access to the FBI’s NAA data—he did not. He received the data from Dr. John Nichols of Kansas, who had to use a FOIA suit (with Guinn and others as co-plaintiffs) to get them. Others have also received the FBI’s NAA data in a similar manner. The false deduction is that Guinn’s statement about altered weights of fragments counts more because he was analyzing them. This conclusion does not follow from either of the (false) premises. The sentence also contains a basic grammatical error (…his statements…was…) that shows that both writer and editor failed.

[21]False deduction and unsubstantiated assertion. The false deduction is that the original fragments were stolen and replaced by planted fragments—false because different weights do not automatically mean planted fragments (see earlier discussion of why weights naturally decrease during testing). The unsubstantiated assertion is that much other evidence in the National Archives has suffered this same fate.

[22]Doubly misleading sentence. (a) This quote, which appears at first to be from Dr. Guinn, is actually an unreferenced sentence from Emory Brown’s article discussing Guinn. (b) Livingstone creates a false context by making Guinn’s result appear to refer to WCC/MC bullets, when it actually referred only to other brands of bullets. The sentence is thus irrelevant to Livingstone’s topic. Worse, Guinn’s central finding that individual WCC/MC bullets differed greatly from one another is not mentioned by Livingstone. Livingstone thus highlights an irrelevant finding and ignores a relevant one. Either he is deliberately misleading the reader, or he doesn’t understand his subject.

[23]Reader beware! Here Livingstone offers a new reference number, but the “Sources and Notes” at the back of the book indicates that it is identical to the previous reference, which grouped one article by Brown with two articles by Guinn and colleagues. The form of the quote in this sentence makes it appear to have come directly from Guinn, but it is actually a quote from Brown paraphrasing Guinn. At best, this is highly questionable journalism.

To make matters worse, the idea expressed in the sentence is irrelevant to Livingstone’s discussion, because Guinn’s results refer to other brands of bullets, not to WCC/MC bullets.

[24]Reader beware! Livingstone does it a second time! Again he cites a new reference number, but the back of the book shows that it is the same joint reference described in the previous footnote. Again the quote appears to be from Guinn but is actually from Emory Brown.

[25]False assertion. It wasn’t the metal alloys that gave WCC/MC bullets their distinctive chemical characteristics, it was the source of the lead. Livingstone’s conclusion is thus false because it is based on a false unstated premise.

[26]False assertion. Brown’s statement that the NAA conclusions were invalidated by WCC’s use of the same alloys in other types of bullets is false on two grounds: (a) the differences between alloys and impurities discussed in the previous footnote; and (b) it is a conjectural idea that is not supported by Guinn’s extensive, unbiased tests of many other brands of bullets, only a few of which overlapped with MC bullets (four brands out of 165—2.4%—according to Guinn’s HSCA testimony). Of these four brands, only one—0.6% of the total—was made in the U.S.

[27]They may have used the same metal, but until data are produced to document this possibility, it must remain pure speculation and without evidentiary value.

[28]False sentence. The base portion of a bullet, found on the left side of the front seat, was analyzed both times by NAA. The nose portion was not analyzed by NAA because it was the copper jacket, and its impurities could not be meaningfully compared with the impurities of the other (lead) fragments. The tiny fragments from the windshield scraping and the curb stone appear to have been completely consumed by the spectrography.

[29]This assertion was discussed in a previous footnote. Recollections of witnesses—even medical witnesses—must be considered qualitative and therefore to be superseded by the quantitative weights supplied by the FBI’s analytical laboratory.

[30]Misleading sentence. This discrepancy means nothing. It is a normal consequence of cleaning the surfaces of fragments before analysis, and of consuming portions of fragments by the spectrographic process. Also, the fragments used for the FBI’s NAA appear to have been routinely discarded as radioactive waste. See previous footnotes for details.

[31]Livingstone is repeating himself. See previous footnotes for explanation. The simple explanation for the differences in weights of fragments hardly merits Livingstone’s characterization as “a joke.”

[32]False implication of conspiracy. Guinn was simply wrong about the fate of the fragments. According to a 1979 memo from the FBI, they were probably thrown out after analysis. (See earlier footnote.)

[33]This is a completely different topic, unrelated to the authenticity of the fragments. Guinn was wrong about the FBI’s understanding of the fragments. In fact, the FBI was right on the border of drawing very strong conclusions from its NAA of the fragments, but this was not mentioned in Hoover’s 8 July 1964 memo.

[34]False assertions based on incorrect understanding of NAA’s analytical uncertainties. See earlier footnotes.

[35]Confusing sentence. If Livingstone’s point is that proving only that the bullets and fragments were Mannlicher-Carcano did not automatically prove a single shooter because two or more MC rifles might have been used that day, he would seem to defeat it himself in the last clause of his sentence. But he didn’t even make his counter-point correctly, because most of the fragments recovered were too small to have ballistics markings on them and thereby be traced to different rifles. The counter-point to this counter-point is of course that both NAA analyses revealed the same two groups of fragments, each containing one fragment large enough to be traced by markings, and they came from Oswald’s MC rifle to the exclusion of all other rifles. The probability that the other fragments in those groups got there by chance alone is vanishingly small. Thus there is extremely strong evidence that all recovered fragments came from Oswald’s rifle.

[36]Here Livingstone quotes a 30 April 1964 report by J. Edgar Hoover that the same serial number might have been on “more than one” MC rifle. Considering the tens of thousands of such weapons manufactured, the probability that two with the same serial number would appear in Dealey Plaza on the same day seems totally negligible.

[37]Here Livingstone is completely correct—no one can prove that Oswald fired his rifle that day. But by the same token, not one piece of hard evidence has arisen that anyone else fired it. The default hypothesis must thus be that it was Oswald, until proof to the contrary arises.

[38]The Warren Commission was not able to establish with certainty from which stretcher the Parkland bullet originated.

[39]Unsubstantiated assertion, for reasons given above. Livingstone is repeating himself again.

[40]False assertion. This sentence ignores Guinn’s conclusions of very high probability.

[41]False statement. This is at least the third time for this statement.

[42]Livingstone’s “virus.” Here, lurking innocently, is a statement that, if properly understood, defeats all Livingstone’s arguments about the tiniest difference in composition meaning different types of bullets. The short sentence expresses nothing less than Guinn’s central finding on WCC/MC bullets, that differentiates them from all other brands that he tested. If Livingstone believes this sentence, then he must disbelieve nearly everything else he has written about the NAA, including all those quotes from Emory Brown, Jr. I must conclude that Livingstone did not understand the import of this sentence.

[43]Is this the fourth or the fifth repetition of this false argument? Repeating the argument endlessly does not justify Livingstone’s sarcasm reference to “stage props.”

[44]Innuendo. Stealing evidence from the National Archives is a far cry from planting false evidence there.

[45]This is my favorite misprint of the entire Kennedy case. Too many neurons have been activated in all of us, I fear.

[46]False deduction. Here Dr. Piziali commits a basic logical error—correlation does not equal causation. Finding two fragments with the same composition does not prove one is the source of the other. Guinn states this axiom early in his 1979 HSCA testimony.

[47]Unjustified conclusion based on lack of careful study of NAA data. Also overstates Guinn himself, who claimed only “high probability” for the SBT.

[48]Same kind of overstatement discussed in previous footnote. All conclusions from NAA are probabilistic, not conclusive.

[49]This highly indirect answer falsely claims that NAA gave a conclusive answer (“the bullet fired from Oswald’s rifle left a residue in Governor Connally’s wrist”).

[50]Irrelevant technicality that avoids the main question of probability of origin of the fragments in the President’s head. “Scalp” versus “skull” does not affect the argument in question. Dr. McCarthy was incorrect in stating that the fragments “matched” others from the car—they were indistinguishable from those other fragments (a big difference in meaning).

[51]False statement. One large fragment was found on the front seat of the limousine, not the floorboard.

[52]Misleading statement, for three reasons. (a) The NAA tests didn’t show anything—they provided high-but-undetermined probabilities that the fragments were from only two bullets. (b) Identity of composition does not necessarily mean common origin. The fragments that were found to be indistinguishable cannot automatically be said to have come from the same bullets. Probabilities must be generated, but they have never been. (c) The copper nose of a bullet, found to the right of the front seat, was never analyzed. From chemistry alone, this fragment could have represented part of a third bullet.

[53]Overstatement. Ballistically, the three traceable fragments were all found to have come from Oswald’s MC rifle to the exclusion of all other rifles. But chemically, the fragments that were found to be indistinguishable may still have come from different bullets. (See previous footnote.)

Throughout this paragraph, Posner systematically oversimplifies the true conclusions, and thereby falsifies them. Perhaps he is just writing like the lawyer he is. But if so, he is writing inappropriately for the needs of the subject.

[54]False statement by Wecht. In order to support the SBT, the wrist fragment and bullet would have to be indistinguishable from each other AND different from other bullets that might have been fired. If most or all MC bullets were very similar in composition, matching a fragment to one of them would be meaningless, because it would not exclude the others from being the source.

[55](Posner’s footnote) Dr. Guinn also examined the deformed bullet found at the scene of the attempted assassination of General Walker (CE 573) and was able to identify it as a Western Cartridge Co. 6.5mm Carcano bullet, the same brand Oswald used in the presidential assassination. Three pieces of evidence did not contain enough lead to be subjected to neutron activation: FBI No. Q-609, the section of the curbstone near James Tague that was struck by a bullet fragment; CE 569, a fragment recovered from the front floorboard of the presidential limousine; and CE 841, tiny particles scraped from the inside surface of the limousine’s windshield.

[Posner’s footnote contains several errors. The first part is misleading in two ways. First, it reads as though Guinn identified the Walker bullet by examining it physically. In fact, Guinn only analyzed it chemically, and found low-enough antimony to call it probably a Mannlicher-Carcano bullet. Second, it oversimplifies and overstates Guinn’s conclusion. Guinn did not “identify it” as an MC bullet—he provided strong evidence that it was an MC bullet. There is a big difference between the two wordings.

The second part of Posner’s footnote claims incorrectly that three other samples were not analyzed by Guinn because they did not contain enough lead. Concerning the curbstone sample, Guinn noted that it was clear that the FBI had scraped off all the discolored area for spectrographic analysis. If Guinn were to try to scrape more, he would get practically only cement, which would interfere with his analysis of the impurities in lead. Guinn could not analyze the fragment from the front floorboard of the limousine not because it had too little lead, but because it was the copper nose section of a bullet, and impurities in copper cannot be meaningfully compared with impurities in lead. Lastly, Guinn did not analyze any fragments from the front windshield because none remained in the container! Apparently they had been consumed in the earlier spectrographic analysis.

All these errors by Posner are either from being careless or from deliberately oversimplifying the issues. While it is commendable to try to reach as many people as possible, errors of oversimplification hurt more in the long run than they help.]

[56]This sentence is ambiguous. If it means that the critics were pleased about the choice of Guinn. it is inaccurate. I could find no critic praising Guinn’s qualifications, whereas critic Marrs (1989) wrote the opposite: “But researchers’ hopes dimmed with the Committee’s selection of Dr. Vincent P. Guinn…” If the sentence means that critics applauded the decision to repeat the NAA, Posner is probably correct, although I could find no critic writing after Guinn’s report to support the second NAA. In fact, Cyril Wecht, who in 1974 had called strongly for a second round of NAA, all but repudiated Guinn’s tests in testimony to the HSCA.

[57]Again Posner writes a certainly where a probability is required. NAA never “excludes” items—it provides various degrees of probability that items should be excluded. There is a big difference.

[58]If the critics were convinced that NAA would “prove” anything, they too were misunderstanding the limits of analytical techniques.

[59]Improper wording. There are degrees of probability, not degrees of certainty.

[60]Guinn’s conclusion was that it was “highly probable” that all fragments were from MC bullets. Posner falsely makes Guinn’s conclusion appear certain.

[61]False again. Guinn found “no evidence” for a third bullet. This is very different from Posner’s rendition of Guinn’s conclusion. In fact, Posner’s very next sentence quotes Guinn correctly, but Posner doesn’t see the contradiction.

[62]False statement. Guinn found that these fragments were indistinguishable, not that they matched.

[63](Posner’s footnote) The FBI had scraped a microscopic amount from the bullet to conduct its first-ever neutron-activation test in 1964. New to the procedure, the FBI misread the results as inconclusive. However, subsequent experts read the results, and said they also confirm that Connally’s fragments came from the stretcher bullet.

[Posner’s footnote contains three major problems. First is the identity of the “subsequent experts.” “They” were Guinn himself. Posner confuses things unnecessarily by not identifying Guinn here. He makes it seem as though some anonymous third party was involved, when there was a much simpler explanation.

Posner then misstates Guinn’s conclusions that the FBI data were supposed to confirm. Guinn did not report that “Connally’s fragments came from the stretcher bullet.” He reported that there was a very high probability that the fragments came from that bullet. Guinn’s actual words were: “The new results cannot prove the Warren Commission’s theory that the stretcher bullet is the one that caused the President’s back wound and all of the Governor’s wounds, but the results are indeed consistent with this theory.” “Cannot prove” and “consistent with” are fundamentally weaker than “indisputable evidence”—Posner is contradicting Guinn by overstating him.

Then Posner overstates the FBI data. They do not “confirm” Guinn’s conclusion, but “provide strong support for it.”]

[64]False statement. Henry Hurt claimed more—that Guinn’s basic procedure was seriously questionable because he based his conclusions on properties of a batch of bullets that may not have been the source of the actual bullets.

[65]No such thing as “as definite.” “Definite” is an absolute term that cannot be modified. “As strong” would have been more appropriate.

[66]Stronger than Guinn’s conclusion in the professional journal Analytical Chemistry.

[67]No acknowledgment in this book that all available fragments had been analyzed extensively by the same neutron activation he is calling for on new fragments.

[68] A veiled reference to Guinn’s NAA tests and the conclusions he drew from them.

[69] I am unaware of any reports of congressional staff being “horrified” at fragments being missing. The opinion of staff members, who most likely would understand little about NAA or emission spectrography, would not be meaningful or even relevant. The only opinion that counts would be that of their analytical expert Guinn.

[70] This charge is not justified by the evidence cited in the next sentence, all of which has a perfectly normal explanation. The Summerses fail to cite the considerable evidence contrary to their position.

[71] This comment refers to sample Q14, which originally consisted of three fragments found by the FBI in the rear carpet f the limousine. When Guinn received the cannisters of samples in 1977, q14 contained only two fragments. In Guinn’s report to the HSCA, he does not comment on why the third fragment might have been missing.

[72] This comment refers to sample Q15 (CE 841), which consisted of particles scraped from the inside surface of the limousine’s windshield. Guinn, who found the container empty in 1977, did not seem perturbed about it (in contrast to the Summerses). He noted: “The particles probably were entirely consumed in the emission spectrographic analyses performed by the FBI Laboratory in 1963/1964.” (HSCA Volume I, p. 515)

[73] This conclusion by the Summerses is a bit of a stretch. The missing evidence was one of three fragments from the rear carpet, which had already been analyzed by the FBI in 1964 and found indistinguishable from the other two. Since all fragments large enough to be retrieved had been removed from both bodies, the tiny fragments that remained would have been of little or no value analytically. Since all fragments had proven indistinguishable from the large fragments of the two (or possibly three) bullets there were recovered, since these fragments were found in very obvious places (prominently in the car and in the hospital), and since there was no hint of any other bullets, it is highly unlikely that small fragments of any more bullets existed. All arguments aside, anyone who proposes that additional guns, gunmen, or bullets were involved must produce strong evidence before that claim can be considered anything but speculative.

[74] Guinn also analyzed fragments of lead found in Kennedy’s brain.

[75] The differences in weights is a false issue. All weights are compatible with previous analyses of the fragments. See discussion in accompanying text as well as the numerous comments throughout this compendium.

[76] False statement. Guinn was associated with analyzing the plaster casts from the paraffin tests of Oswald, not the analyses of the bullet fragments. The record clearly differentiates these two acts.

[77] Unsupported conclusion.

[78]Incorrect name. Should be Energy Research and Development Administration.

[79]his home?

[80]Closing parenthesis omitted here.

[81] Strange premise. Every poll that I have ever seen cited reports that typically 80% to 95% of Americans believe in a conspiracy. The remaining 10% to 15%, part of whom will be undecided, hardly constitute a majority denying conspiracy.

[82] Note that Bartholomew states the goal of the critics as discrediting Guinn’s testimony rather than determining whether he was correct. So much for open-mindedness and the genuine search for truth!

[83] Considering that in 1977 Guinn was the country’s foremost expert on forensic applications of NAA, he had earned the benefit of the doubt.

[84] (a) Incorrect page number--should be 491–492. (b) Incorrect citation of Guinn. He said that it was easier to exclude than to include with NAA, not that NAA was exclusive rather than inclusive. He then proceeded to explain how to use NASA inclusively.

[85] His opinion was based on the results of his analysis and was nearly always expressed in terms of probabilities. Thus it was a professional opinion, not an uninformed feeling.

[86] Incorrect page number—should be 503.

[87] (a) Incorrect page number—should be 495–496; (b) Even with the correct page numbers, this reference describes only one missing sample, not two.

[88] This footnote describes how in 1970 one particle out of the original three that comprised CE 840, recovered by the FBI from the carpet underneath Mrs. Connally’s jump seat, was discovered missing from the National Archives.

[89] (a) Incorrect page number—should be 495–496; (b) These pages describe three samples in total, not the five implied by Bartholomew’s two footnotes. Although Guinn refers to the three samples as “unsuitable for analysis,” his testimony immediately following revealed that one was actually missing, not just unsuitable.

[90] Bartholomew’s statement about two missing and three untestable fragments is extremely misleading. It makes the situation with the fragments appear far more pessimistic than it actually was. One of the missing samples (Q14, scrapings from the inside of the windshield) is also one of the untestable samples, reducing the total number of unavailable samples to four. Bartholomew fails to note that the FBI did not analyze this sample by NAA either, presumably because its small mass was completely consumed by the FBI’s initial emission spectroscopy. The other missing sample was one of three fragments found on the rear carpet (Q14). Bartholomew fails to note that the FBI did indeed analyze this sample by NAA and found it to be indistinguishable from the other two. Thus its subsequent loss, while regrettable, took away little or none of the force from Guinn’s results. Another of the unsuitable samples was the discolored section of curb from near James Tague (Q609). Guinn noted that this sample was impossible to analyze reliably because there was very little discoloration remaining, and it would be impossible to avoid contamination from the concrete of the curb. The FBI apparently felt the same way in 1964 because they didn’t analyze it by NAA, either. The third unsuitable sample was copper jacketing only (Q3) , recovered from the front seat of the limousine. It was unsuitable for analysis because it contained no lead. It had also not been analyzed by the FBI in 1964, presumably for the same reason. Thus the “five” unanalyzable samples were actually four, and of these, only one had been included in the FBI’s original NAA, and it was duplicated by two other samples. In other words, no essential information was lost from these “five” samples. No wonder Guinn said they had no bearing on the essential evidence. He was exactly right!

[91] Wrong page number—should be 504.

[92] Guinn was responding to Wecht’s claim in testimony earlier that day that it was impossible for CE 399 to have hit Connally’s wrist because CE 399 wasn’t deformed enough. Guinn responded calmly that since the NAA showed CE 399 and the wrist fragment to be indistinguishable chemically but substantially different from the three other fragments, there was indeed a high probability that they were one and the same. Wecht’s opinion was therefore at odds with the facts. How there is anything spurious about Guinn’s conclusion is beyond me.

[93] Wrong page number—should be 505.

[94] I hope that Richard Bartholomew understands the seriousness of his charge against Guinn and the incorrect reading of Guinn’s chemical data upon which it is based. This statement is clear grounds for a lawsuit by Guinn.

[95] Wrong page number—should be 556.

[96] Wrong magazine—it is New Times, not New York Times magazine.

[97] Introductory quotation marks omitted by JFK/DEEP POLITICS QUARTERLY.

[98] Misprint by JFK/DEEP POLITICS QUARTERLY—should be “or.”

[99] End of segment of the article not noted by JFK/DEEP POLITICS QUARTERLY

[100] False deduction for at least two reasons. First, Guinn was asked very specifically whether he ever worked for the Warren Commission or the FBI on these evidence samples—meaning the bullet fragments. The question did not include the paraffin casts discussed in the New York Times article. That Guinn’s answer appears more general does not take away from the specificity of the question. Second, one must distinguish carefully between what the UPI writes and what Guinn says. Guinn says “we” began working on NAA of paraffin casts, “we” bought a rifle, and “we” conducted parallel tests—he never mentions the FBI. The reader may only assume then that “we” simply refers to Guinn and coworkers at Gulf General Atomic. Guinn’s later testimony to the HSCA was then completely accurate—he had begun a forensic NAA program under Gulf General Atomic and had investigated on his own whether a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle left detectable chemicals on the hand or cheeks. He had turned over his conclusions to the Warren Commission. This in no way implies he had ever worked for them. The UPI article sounds like a typical case of reporter relating technical facts imprecisely, which from my own experience occurs in 95% of all such press reports. Note how short the quote from Guinn is—a sure sign that he and the reporter had talked only briefly, if at all.

[101] Bartholomew’s credulity or lack of it is not the issue here—Guinn’s sworn testimony is. Until Bartholomew can produce evidence stronger than Guinn’s testimony, he has no case.

[102] Guinn’s testimony to the HSCA concerning previous FBI NAA analyses was limited to the bullet fragments. The record is very clear, both from Guinn’s testimony and others, that Guinn did none of this work—John Gallagher of the FBI Laboratory did it all.

[103] These last four sentences bear no logical connection to the first half of this paragraph. When Guinn spoke of the samples he had analyzed, he was clearly referring to the 1977 analyses, not anything in 1964 by the FBI. When he recommended no further analytical studies, it was because (a) he saw that the agreement between his and the earlier FBI analyses was so good that the important questions had been answered; and (b) he feared that additional analyses would consume the rest of the samples and leave nothing for posterity. His full testimony is quite clear on these points. He was hiding nothing.

[104] False statement. There were tested in 1963, on the night of November 22–23.

[105] I have no idea where Bartholomew got this figure of “at least two” of the ES samples also being tested by the FBI’s NAA. The record is clear that six samples were tested by both techniques (Hoover’s letter).

[106] Both “conclusively” and “match” are too strong for the NAA data and the conclusions that can be drawn from them. Instead, a phrase like “It is highly probable that the lead from Connally’s wrist and the stretcher bullet were indistinguishable chemically.”