Annotated Compendium of Published Comments on Neutron Activation and the JFK Assassination

Kenneth A. Rahn, 1998

Part I: Introduction; 1964-1974

This section compiles all published comments on neutron activation and the JFK assassination that I could find, other than Dr. Vincent P. Guinn’s extensive testimony to the HSCA regarding his analyses of bullets and fragments. Although almost all the entries are from books, a few important excerpts from articles have been included. Books with multiple copyright dates are listed under the one that best corresponds to the first appearance of the text on NAA—usually the first copyright. In some cases, comments on emission-spectrographic analyses are included, because they form the background against which the neutron activation was needed.

To avoid confusing footnotes from the citations with those from this listing, footnotes in the citations have generally been eliminated. Important references from the original texts are noted, however.

Citations are listed by year. Within a year, references that did not mention NAA are listed first, then references that discussed NAA. Each group is arranged alphabetically by author.

This compendium is not light reading. It was intended as a work of reference, to be consulted as needed. By using footnotes rather than annotating directly in the text, I have tried to give the reader the choice of reading passages straight through or checking each footnote as it occurs. I recommend that readers approach this document in three stages. Browse it first—read casually, without consulting footnotes—and roam the pages in sequence or by jumping around as interests dictate. Next, pick a passage and read it carefully. Compare its ideas with similar ideas treated by other authors, and see whether the writers agree. Finally, study the section in detail, consulting all footnotes and thinking about them. Challenge writers and footnotes for accuracy and correctness. Compare carefully with other authors. Follow threads through the entire compendium. Observe the evolution of an idea or a style of criticism during the thirty years of writings represented here. Turn the pages back and forth until you are satisfied that you fully understand the point you were addressing. A good night’s rest often provides renewed energy and fresh perspective. The truly engaged student will find that this document is best approached in multiple short sessions rather than fewer long sessions.

A word about content. The reader will first note the abundance of footnotes. Since most footnotes point out errors of fact, interpretation, or logic, the reader will justly conclude that most published writers on the Kennedy assassination made many errors in discussing how NAA was used and what the results mean. An average of ten to fifteen errors per writer is not out of line. Next, the reader will note that virtually every author—conspiracist and nonconspiracist—made serious mistakes concerning the NAA. In this sense, neutron activation is a democratic issue. Last, the reader will note that almost all authors also made serious and multiple errors in reasoning. These depressing observations should spur all of us to redouble our efforts to think clearly, write clearly, and to be our own strongest critics.

List of bullets and fragments received by the FBI and analyzed by emission spectroscopy and neutron activation

1964—No comments on NAA

Thomas G. Buchanan—Who Killed Kennedy?
Evangelist John R. Rice—What Was Back of Kennedy’s Murder?
UPI and American Heritage Magazine—Four Days

1965—No comments on NAA

Gerald R. Ford and John R. Stiles—Portrait of the Assassin
Sylvan Fox—The Unanswered Questions About President Kennedy’s Assassination

1965—Comments on NAA

Harold Weisberg—Whitewash (1965)

These passages by Weisberg represent the earliest published discussion of the Warren Commission’s spectrographic analysis of bullets and fragments that I could find. Although Weisberg does not mention neutron activation, the section is valuable because the general rationale it portrays for using emission spectrography is exactly the same as for neutron activation—identifying types of bullets, linking fragments with bullets, and determining the number of bullets that hit and the directions from which they were fired. The immediate rationale was to check the Commission’s controversial single-bullet theory by seeing if the fragment from Connally’s wrist could be linked uniquely with the bullet recovered from Parkland Hospital. Weisberg explains these motivations, and then provides some of the earliest criticism of the quality of the physical evidence and how it was handled. While many of his remarks are overly zealous, his focus on the importance of physical evidence remains exemplary. He maintained this attitude for a full thirty years, through the publication in 1995 of Never Again!

These passages also show why NAA was so needed—the spectrographic data were too imprecise to discriminate among the fragments.

Page 160: The spectrographic analysis of the curbstone reflects the mark of one of the other types of bullets the Commission declined to consider, even though it knew—but did not report—they were readily available in Dallas.[1] But spectrographic analysis was only one of the problems the Report had with its evidence, especially the scientific evidence.

Page 161: This tampering with evidence[2] had, above all others, one major effect upon the reconstruction of the crime, especially about the number of bullets. Once the Governor’s clothes were cleaned and pressed, there was no longer the possibility of spectrographically identifying the bullets or types of bullets that caused the injuries to the President and the Governor. There was also no opportunity of spectrographically comparing the damages to the Governor’s clothing to determine whether he had been struck with one or more bullets. His suit alone had four such damages.

Spectrographic analysis of the whole bullet could reveal a world of information, including not only the identity of the manufacturer, but even the batch from which it came.[3] However, the source of the bullet had to be known.[4] The Commission decided this with its new dimension in evidence evaluation, the “eenie-meenie-minie-moe” method. It is this bullet the Report almost invariably refers to as “found on Governor Connally’s stretcher”. Admitting “Tomlinson was not certain whether the bullet came from the Connally stretcher or the adjacent one”, the Report just assumes it came from the Governor’s and wants its assumption accepted as fact. There is no evidence from which stretcher it came. Nor is there any evidence on how it got there. There is evidence that, on several occasions and for some time, this stretcher was unattended and accessible to anyone wandering through the hospital.[5]

This long passage shows some reasons why Weisberg felt that the single-bullet theory was not credible and why the FBI had to cover up spectrographic data that contradicted the SBT.

Page 163: What happened to this bullet between the time it was discovered [in Parkland Hospital] and the time it got to the FBI laboratory for analysis? It was cleaned. Not completely, not chemically cleaned; just wiped clean. By the time the Commission’s photograph, Exhibit 399, was taken, the job appears to have been thoroughly performed. There seems to be no visible trace of any extraneous matter in the grooves cut into the bullet by the rifling in the barrel or in the coarse knurling at the base of the bullet, resembling cogs in a wheel. This photograph substantiates the Report 100 percent in its description of this bullet as “unmutilated”. If there is the slightest mutilation by slivering or fragmentation, it is not visible, even with a magnifying glass. As reproduced, this bullet is enlarged many times, for the length in the picture is almost three times the actual length of the bullet.

The wiping of the evidence from the bullet was not complete by the time it got to the FBI’s expert, Frazier, and there was still a residue that could have been subjected to analysis. This intelligence was not the product of diligent digging by the Commission. It was revealed accidentally in the course of a routine answer about what was done to prepare the bullet for spectrographic analysis. “…it wasn’t necessary,” Frazier said. “The bullet was clean.” Even when counsel asked, “There was no blood or similar material on the bullet when you received it?” Frazier responded, “Not that would interfere with the examination, no, sir.”

In saying there was not enough blood or tissue remaining to interfere with spectrographic analysis, Frazier was admitting that enough of this foreign matter did remain for its own such analysis.[6] Only minuscule quantities are required. The tiny amount scraped from the nose of the bullet is not visible in the picture. Enough was secured from the edges of the tiny hole not all the way through the windshield of the Presidential car for spectrographic study. So, apparently, no one ever tested the bullet to see whether in fact it had ever been through human tissue or bone. Asked later about his reference to “blood or some other substance on the bullet…Is this an off-hand determination or was there a test to determine what the substance was?” Frazier replied, “No, there was no test made of the materials.” And someone went to the trouble of seeking to make this analysis impossible.[7] None of this is in the Report. No one raised the obvious question, either.

When asked to explain some very fine lines visible on the bullet, Frazier explained that if they did not come from inside the barrel of the rifle, they could have been made by “even a piece of coarse cloth, leather…(which leave)…infinitesimal scratches which, when enlarged sufficiently, actually look like marks on the bullet.”

This bullet, according to the Commission’s theory, shattered the Governor’s fifth rib and his wrist, and probably in the chest and certainly in the wrist, was tumbling. There were no questions to elicit information about bone markings, and no such intelligence was volunteered. The same was true of the fragments—encrustation but no examination.

Questioning about the spectrographic analysis was characterized by an equal zeal in avoiding the fundamentally important questions. Early in the morning the day after the assassination, three small fragments were recovered from the floor of the rear portion of the Presidential car, under the jump seat.[8] Before midnight the day of the assassination, two large fragments were recovered from the front section, one from the seat and the other from the floor, and delivered to the FBI. Comparison of the whole bullet, the front-seat fragment and the rear-floor fragments revealed only that “the lead fragments were similar.” The rear and front fragments could not be identified as from the same bullet.[9] The scrapings from the windshield were “similar in composition” to the hospital bullet; hence, to the others, although this was the only comparison asked. And when fragments from the President’s head and the Governor’s wrist were compared, Frazier gave the same response, only that these were similar lead.[10] The Commission makes no effort to trace the fragment from the Governor’s wrist to the hospital. It is satisfied to stop with the police, although with the fragments found at the White House, every step was meticulously detailed. Frazier would say of the wrist fragment only that it was lead. “It lacks any physical characteristics which would permit stating whether or not it actually originated from a bullet.”[11]

It would thus seem that all Frazier was saying is that he could testify only that the samples he examined were lead.[12] He was not asked whether there had been a comparison between the fragment from the Governor’s wrist and the entire bullet.[13] This would seem to have been one of the Commission’s prime interests, were it to conclude that the one bullet inflicted all the injuries except the President’s head wound. Frazier’s wrap-up, when again asked if he could tie the fragments together, was that he could say “Only that they are similar lead composition.” With “similar lead composition” already having been defined so broadly that one of the samples could not be identified as coming from any bullet, these comparisons seem meaningless.

But Frazier had kept himself and the FBI in the clear, except for the matter of not examining the encrustations. He made clear that his function was not physical examination, although in a couple of instances he drew upon the spectrographic examination, which was secondhand to him. It had been made by another FBI expert, John F. Gallagher.

Spectrographer Gallagher was finally called as a witness by the Commission in one of its last, if not in fact the very last, hearings. He appeared September 15, 1964, and his testimony is the final one in the last printed volume. He was asked about his spectrographic examination of the Oswald paraffin test, which the Commission did not think had any value.

But he was not asked about his spectrographic examination of the bullet or any of the fragments!

The inference is only too obvious.[14]

Another serious question remains about the FBI spectrographic report and Frazier’s “formal” report. These are “a part of the permanent record of the FBI”, but not in the Commission’s record, which includes a truly amazing collection of hairs, cheesecake pictures of Ruby’s strippers and other trivia probably unequaled in the history of official government publications. The Commission thus is in the position of having not questioned the spectrographer, “best evidence”, about his own scientific study, but instead asked another witness who had not made the study; of avoiding the proper questioning of the spectrographer; and of suppressing his study—keeping it out of its record.

These, then, are the shots the Commission had accounted for:

One bullet, possibly of a different type than the Commission assumes all to have been, that missed;

Fragments which cannot be identified as coming from a single bullet and may, in fact, have come from different bullets[15] (and this ignores the small fragments from the back seat and the Governor’s wrist that are proved to be part of another).[16] These are presumed to be from one bullet and from that bullet which exploded in the President’s head and inflicted the fatal injury;

One more bullet which, the Commission to the contrary notwithstanding, had to have caused all the non-fatal wounds, both to the President and the Governor, else, as is clear, still another bullet would have had to be involved. This is the bullet the Commission presumes was recovered at the hospital, the bullet about which nothing is known and in the handling of which the vital evidence was destroyed, ignored or not asked for. Of this bullet the Report says, “there is very persuasive evidence for the experts to indicate” that it caused the non-fatal injuries. Precise language would have reversed some of the words, making the selection more accurate in saying the “experts” were “very persuaded”, as the explanation of the doctors shows. Of this bullet the Report says, “all the evidence indicates” it caused Connally’s wounds. Further, the Report quotes two Edgewood Arsenal experts as believing that, “based on the medical evidence”, this one bullet did all these things.

The Commission spent hour after hour trying to establish just this, leading the doctors through speculations based on hypotheses without end. And it is the Commission’s position that, in fact, the bullet did all those things and then was recovered in the hospital. Otherwise, is there not a fourth bullet and does not the whole construction collapse?[17]

Page 190: Why was the spectrographic evidence in effect suppressed? Why was the spectrographer, when called as a witness, never asked to testify about his spectrographic analysis of the presumed assassination bullets?[18] Why is all of this not in the Report? With respect to the Tippit bullets, why was not similar analysis also made and reported?

1966—No comments on NAA

Edward Jay Epstein—Inquest
Mark Lane—Rush to Judgment
Raymond Marcus—The Bastard Bullet

1966—Comments on NAA

Harold Weisberg— Whitewash II

Having fully expressed himself about the spectrographic analyses in his 1965 book Whitewash, Weisberg returns to the subject only briefly here.

Page 241: Not listed [in the Federal Register of 1 November 1966, detailing evidence on the JFK assassination to be kept by the federal government] are the bullet and the various fragments and their spectrographic analysis. I wrote Mr. Hoover about these on May 23, 1966, without answer. I specified they were improperly kept secret. When I requested this analysis at the archive in early November 1966, I was told that the FBI alleges it is contained in a different document. I soon proved this to be false. Then I was told only that it is not in the archive. It was “considered” by the Commission. I cited the testimony and produced it.

1967—No comments on NAA

Rosemary James and Jack Wardlaw—Plot or Politics?
William Manchester—The Death of a President (1967, 1988)
Josiah Thompson—Six Seconds in Dallas

1967—Comments on NAA

Sylvia Meagher—Accessories After the Fact (1967, 1976)

This is the first published reference to NAA and the assassination that I could find. Meagher apparently learned of NAA from the Warren Commission’s use of it to check the paraffin tests on Oswald. Later it was revealed that Dr. Guinn had been involved with these first NAA tests. Meagher was right to wonder why the Commission had not tried NAA on the bullets and fragments once it had used NAA for the paraffin casts. Meagher’s text shows confidence that NAA would have disproven the Commission’s single-bullet theory. Not being an analytical chemist, she displays a simplistic attitude toward the powers of NAA— like many later writers. She overrates the capabilities of both NAA and emission spectrography.

Page 170: Because only the wrist fragments were taken into account in the [Warren] Report, the argument that they were so small and light that they could have been deposited by the “nearly whole bullet” (which in fact may be whole) is scarcely scientific or conclusive. Yet there was open to the Commission a scientific and conclusive method for determining whether a metallic fragment recovered from Connally’s wrist had originated in the stretcher bullet. That method was the neutron activation analysis[19]—the same scientific test the Commission utilized in an abortive attempt to reverse the negative result of the paraffin test of Oswald’s face…[20]

Neutron activation analysis can determine to the millionth of a part the composition of a metal fragment and establish whether or not it is identical with another sample. Such analysis would have eliminated all need for guesswork.[21] But the Commission presented dubious and slanted arguments for insisting, despite contrary expert testimony, that the stretcher bullet had caused all of Connally’s wounds, and declined the opportunity to prove its claim by neutron activation analysis.[22]

Another scientific test—spectrographic analysis—was utilized to establish the composition of bullet fragments and metallic residue. The bullet fragments recovered from Kennedy and Connally, the fragments found in the car, and the residue found at the clothing holes, the curb, and the crack on the windshield were submitted to spectrography. The spectrographic analysis was performed by FBI Expert John Gallagher but no testimony was taken from him as to the results.[23] The spectrographic report is missing from the Commission’s Exhibits, as Harold Weisberg pointed out in his book Whitewash, and it is not among the documents available in the Archives—presumably because it remains “classified” for unknown reasons.[24]

The only information we have about the results of the spectrography is that, according to FBI weapons expert Robert Frazier, “the lead fragments were similar in composition”, and that comparison of the stretcher bullet, the various bullet fragments, and the lead scraped from the windshield showed that they were “similar in metallic composition.”[25] The similarity relates to the lead in these samples, but no information is given about the copper fragments[26] or residue (on the stretcher bullet, on two of the fragments found in the car, and at the holes in the back of Kennedy’s clothes). The fact that the lead in the samples was “similar in composition” in no way proves that it came from the same bullet or the same kind of bullet—on the contrary. To say that the metals were of “similar” composition, according to Lawrence R. Brown[27], historian and critic of the Warren Report:

…means in fact that they were spectrographically dissimilar since spectrographic analysis—there are many kinds [and] that, or those, used is not specified on the record—can be made sufficiently refined to go on down to the number of parts per million where the two pieces of metal were shown to be either the same or different. When the tests failed to prove identity they automatically proved lack of identity.[28]  

The physical evidence, including the metal fragments and scrapings, presumably still exists and can still be subjected to neutron activation analysis. Certainly it is not too late to produce the spectrographic report which has been excluded from the published exhibits and the testimony of the responsible FBI expert and which is not available in the Archives. Nor is it too late for spokesmen of the Warren Commission to explain why the spectrographic report was suppressed and why the neutron activation analysis was not performed despite weighty evidence against the unsupported conclusions in the Report.[29]

William G. Turner—In the Shadow of Dallas (Article in Ramparts Magazine, 1967)

Although this reference to NAA discusses paraffin tests rather than bullets and fragments, I consider it so illustrative of sloppy reasoning and presentation that I chose to include it here. This short passage contains four significant errors that detract seriously from its value.

Page 127: There is scientific evidence tending to support[30] [Oswald’s contention that he was just a patsy]. The Dallas Police made paraffin casts of Oswald’s hands and right cheek in order to chemically test for nitrates. Although many common substances can deposit nitrates, the blowback from a gun ordinarily deposits an appreciable amount. The test showed positive reactions for both hands; a negative reaction for the cheek. Ordinarily, a right-handed man who has shot both a pistol and a rifle, as Oswald was accused of doing, would have nitrates on the right hand and cheek.[31] Most likely the source of the nitrates on Oswald’s hands was fingerprint ink—he had been finger and palm printed before the paraffin was applied.

Moreover, the FBI subjected the casts to Nuclear Activation Analysis[32], a relatively new technique, so sensitive it can detect a thimbleful of acid in a tankcar of water.[33] Deposits on the casts, the FBI reported, “could not be specifically associated with the rifle cartridges,” but ballistics expert Cortlandt Cunningham did not view the result as exculpating Oswald. “A rifle chamber is tightly sealed,” he testified, “and so by its very nature, I would not expect to find residue on the right cheek of a shooter.”[34]

The explanation sounded so implausible I contacted Dr. Vincent Guinn of General Atomics[35] in San Diego, who pioneered the development of the NAA process. He said that he and Raymond Pinkler of the Los Angeles police crime lab were also curious about the test, and ordered an Italian Carcano rifle such as Oswald supposedly fired. They both fired the obsolete weapon, which some authorities think is liable to blow up, and tested their cheeks. Nitrates from the blowback were present in abundance.[36]

1968—No comments on NAA

Jim Bishop—The Day Kennedy Was Shot
Ed Butler—Revolution is My Profession
Jay David—The Weight of the Evidence
James Hepburn—Farewell America
Mark Lane—A Citizen’s Dissent
Gary Wills and Ovid Demaris—Jack Ruby (1967, 1968, 1994)

1969—No comments on NAA

Dr. Carlos Bringuier—Red Friday
Paris Flammonde—The Kennedy Conspiracy

1970—No comments on NAA

James Kirkwood—American Grotesque

1970—Comments on NAA

Albert H. Newman—The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: The Reasons Why

Newman was a fine newspaperman. His book displays great acumen in deducing justifiable conclusions from complex evidence. He was not technical, however, and all but ignored the scientific evidence. This is his only reference to the chemical analysis in 609 pages of small type. He missed the fact that the same person had testified differently to the Warren Commission five years earlier.

Page 576: …As to the smaller fragments “consistent with this origin [i.e., Oswald’s rifle],” Robert A. Frazier, FBI ballistics expert, testifying in the trial of Clay Shaw on conspiracy charges brought by prosecutor Jim Garrison, swore, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune of February 23, 1969, that “an almost intact bullet (Exhibit 399), two bullet fragments, one a nose and the other a base fragment, three small fragments found in the limousine, and a lead smear taken from the interior of the limousine windshield…all…had the same metallic composition.”[37]

1972—Comments on NAA

Cyril A.H. Wecht—Pathologist’s View of JFK Autopsy: An Unsolved Case       (Article in Modern Medicine, 27 November 1972)

This article is important because it contains the first call for NAA by a professional. Although Wecht’s sentiments were defensible, his first paragraph overstates the capabilities of NAA for discriminating bullets. His letter to the same magazine two years later exaggerates still more.

Page 32: It is important to note here that two tests would answer some of the most urgent questions [about the assassination]. Although spectrographic analysis was ordered—and presumably done—the results have never been made available. Also, neutron activation analysis—a test that was not performed[38]—would enable us to match fragments of infinitesimal size with a known object.[39] This could be done with the bullet (Exhibit 399) and the fragments still in the Archives. All this is vital information.

However, I am still waiting for a reply to my requests,[40] which were made three months ago. In light of the obvious scientific inconsistencies and incomplete examinations, it is indeed most puzzling why the government and representatives of the Kennedy family would not be eager to cooperate in a bona fide attempt to resolve these critical problems in a sound, objective and impartial medical fashion.

1973—No comments on NAA

Donald Freed and Mark Lane—Executive Action
L. Fletcher Prouty—The Secret Team

1974—No comments on NAA

Wim J.F. Meines—De Moordfabriek: Tussen Dallas en Watergate
Harold Weisberg—Whitewash IV[41]

1974—Comments on NAA

Cyril H. Wecht—JFK assassination: ‘a prolonged and willful cover-up’ (Article in Modern Medicine, 28 October 1974)

This is an article of inconsistent quality. The first part is one of the clearest expositions of the importance of the chemical composition of bullet and fragments that I have seen. It is far superior to Wecht’s 1972 article. The second part, where Wecht turns critical, is overly strident, badly reasoned, and reads as though written by different person. Maybe this is a mirror of Wecht himself—part brilliant mind that grasps intellectual issues that many miss, but part unwilling to live with the consequences of his logical deductions. Maybe it is a mirror of all of us, as our head fights continually with our heart.

Because of the extreme importance and usefulness of this article, I reproduce it in its entirety.

Page 40: Two years ago in this journal, I wrote that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 simply did not happen the way the Warren Commission said it did and that my own examination of the available records and the autopsy photographs and x-rays at the National Archives had led me to conclude that more than one person had been involved in the shooting. I described several irreconcilable flaws in the “single-bullet theory” of the Warren Report, the hypothesis that both the President and Texas Governor John Connally had been hit by the same bullet early in the shooting. The Commission used the theory to accommodate no less than four separate penetrating wounds in the two men by means of a single shot and thus avoided the evidence of more than one assassin.

I cited a number of serious errors and omissions in the autopsy procedure itself, as well as the fact that some of the most important items from the autopsy, items that were definitely known to exist and that had played an essential role in the autopsy findings, had not been made available to me despite my repeated requests.

Finally, I pointed out that it was still possible to resolve some of the critical questions about the assassination if the government would make available the missing autopsy materials and certain other scientific test data, specifically the spectrographic analyses of the bullet fragments recovered in the FBI’s investigation of the case. I also suggested that the government should conduct neutron activation analysis (NAA) of these bullet fragments as a further aid to determining their origin.

Since then, the government has not changed its position on release of these materials. On the other hand, additional facts have come to light that add considerable emphasis to the points made earlier. The net result is that I can say today—with even more confidence—that the Warren Commission did not solve this case. Moreover, I now believe that there has been a prolonged and willful cover-up of the Commission’s failure by the government.

Early in 1973, within two months after my article appeared, the government released, for the first time, a considerable volume of correspondence that had passed between the Warren Commission and various governmental agencies during the period when the Commission was still deliberating on the case. This material previously had been withheld from public view, although it had been on file at the National Archives since 1964. The material had not been classified and it is not clear just why it should ever have been withheld.[42] Neither is it clear why the government suddenly chose to release it at that particular time, although some parts of it, as I shall show, are directly relevant and seemingly responsive to the point I had made about the need for the spectrographic analyses and NAA of the bullet fragments.

Buried within this volume of correspondence are three letters from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to J. Lee Rankin, then general counsel to the Warren Commission, discussing various aspects of the FBI’s examinations of the bullet fragments. These letters, bearing various dates from February to July 1964, contain references to previous inquiries by Rankin and are evidently in response to the Commission’s requests for technical information about the FBI’s identification of the bullet fragments. Two of the three Hoover letters, in fact, make specific reference to the spectrographic analyses of the lead portions of certain of the fragments, reporting that the compositions of some of these fragments were “similar” or that “no significant differences were found within the sensitivity of the spectrographic method.”

Resolving critical questions

This, in principle, is exactly the kind of information I had in mind when I wrote that such data are vital to resolving some of the critical questions about the assassination. Thus, 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 (Commission Exhibit [CE] 399), that fact alone would lend strong support to the single-bullet theory, since under that theory the Commission had postulated that all of the nonfatal wounds of both the President and the Governor had been inflicted by CE 399; whereas, if the compositions were significantly different, the single-bullet theory would have to be abandoned, independently of the other reasons I cited in the November 1972 article.

Unfortunately, the FBI’s spectrographic analyses as described in the Hoover letters do not appear to have included that particular comparison; at any rate, it is not reported.[43] One can find statements that the fragment from Connally’s wrist was “similar in composition” to a certain fragment found in the front of the car (CE 567), which is believed to have been part of the bullet that caused the President’s head wound (an implied origin of Connally’s wrist wound that the Commission considered but rejected); however, one looks in vain for a direct statement about the critical comparison between the Connally wrist fragment and CE 399.[44] Nor does one find any statement at all comparing the copper portions of the fragments, although there were two large fragments, CE 567 and CE 569, found in the front of the car, both with substantial copper portions that could and should have been compared to determine whether they had originated from the same bullet or from two separate bullets. The latter is a question of considerable importance in attempting to determine the number of shots fired and what happened to them, but the Commission was forced to leave it unanswered and we still do not know the answer today.[45]

However, despite the incompleteness of the FBI’s spectrographic comparisons, the Hoover letters on the bullet analyses might appear to lend some support to the Commission’s lone-assassin conclusion. After all, the several fragment compositions that were compared and reported were found to be “similar” and that suggests, in the FBI’s cautious semantics, that all the fragments came from a common source and thus, presumably, from the same gun.[46] Is this not a sufficient answer to me and other critics? So why don’t we just shut up and leave the Warren Report alone?

It is not a sufficient answer and we are not going to shut up. Aside from the flaws in the single-bullet theory—which I cited and which are still unrefuted two years later—it turns out that the government has not given us the full story on the analysis of the bullet fragments. When I wrote the previous article, I did not know that NAA of any of the fragments had been performed.

Sensitivity of NAA

A few words are necessary here to describe the general nature of NAA and why it is so valuable. The technique involves irradiation of a specimen in a nuclear reactor, followed by detection and analysis of the induced radioactivity. Particular elements in the specimen produce a characteristic radiation pattern, and this permits the determination of the elemental composition of the specimen in great detail, considerably more so than by spectrographic analysis, for example. Trace elements can be detected and measured down to parts per billion or even less in somes [sic] cases.[47] Thus, different specimens of paint, paper, metals, and many other substances can be analyzed and compared to determine whether they have a common origin, for example, whether a certain flake of paint came from a particular automobile. It is one of the most powerful and sophisticated forensic science methods ever developed, and its uses are growing.[48]

No reference was made to such NAA tests of the bullet fragments in the Warren Report or in any of the accompanying 26 volumes of testimony and exhibits. I had therefore assumed that it had not been conducted, for surely it would have merited mention in the Warren Report if the Commission had been aware of it. After all, determination of the origin of the various fragments was one of the most crucial considerations in the Commission’s reconstruction of the shooting, and even the Commission itself was well aware that its reconstruction had some uncertainties in it.

I was astonished to discover, then, that one of the newly released Hoover letters to Rankin disclosed that NAA had indeed been conducted on several of the bullet fragments, including CE 399 and the Connally wrist fragment, and that some differences in composition had been observed! The letter reporting this information to the Commission is dated July 8, 1964, and by that time the Commission was already committed to the single-bullet theory and the lone-assassin conclusion. In fact, the first draft of Chapter 3 of the Warren Report, the chapter that sets forth the Commission’s reconstruction of the shooting, had already been written by Arlen Specter and submitted to Rankin earlier. Undoubtedly, the lateness in the availability of the NAA information played a role in the manner in which the information was presented to the Commission by the FBI: by July 1964, the Commission’s staff had already missed one deadline for the final report and was being told by Rankin that, at that stage, it should be “closing doors, not opening them.”

In any case, Hoover’s letter to Rankin announcing the NAA tests is a masterpiece of tactful palliation of the fact that some differences in composition were detected among the various bullet fragments. The language has to be read in its entirety to be appreciated, and so I quote the July 1964 letter verbatim:

As previously reported to the Commission, certain small lead metal fragments uncovered in connection with this matter were analyzed spectrographically to determine whether they could be associated with one or more of the lead bullet fragments and no significant differences were found within the sensitivity of the spectrographic method.

Because of the higher sensitivity of the neutron activation analysis, certain of the small lead fragments were then subjected to neutron activation analyses and comparisons with the larger bullet fragments. The items analyzed included the following: C1—bullet fragment from stretcher; C2—fragment from front seat cushion; C4 and C5—metal fragments from President Kennedy’s head; C9—metal fragment from the arm of Governor Connally; C16—metal fragments from rear floor board carpet of the car.

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.

Sincerely yours,
/s/ J. Edgar Hoover

The final paragraph of the letter contains several nuances difficult to comprehend[49], but in any case, we know that some significant differences in composition were observed.[50] That much is clear from comparison with the language used to describe the spectrographic results in the first paragraph. Moreover, if there had been a close match between the compositions of “C9” (the Connally wrist fragment) and “C1” (the stretcher bullet, i.e. CE 399), it is unlikely that Hoover’s letter would have omitted mention of it, for such an observation would have been very helpful to the Commission’s single-bullet theory and undoubtedly would have been useful in the Report.[51] On the other hand, note that if the compositions of these two items had been found to be “positively” different, as I suspect they were,[52] that fact would not be contrary to Hoover’s conclusion as stated, because the Connally wrist fragment, C9, is not one of the “larger bullet fragments.” (C9 weighed only 0.5 gr and was the smallest item among those tested.)

Semantic exercises aside, the Hoover letter is exasperating for its lack of detail and complete absence of any quantitative data. Nor is there any indication in any of the other available documents at the Archives that the Commission later asked for or received the details, probably because of the Rankin dictum that doors should be closed, not opened.[53]

Shedding more light

Nor is this the whole story. In June of this year, another document was released that sheds still more light on the Commission’s procedures and the history of the NAA tests. The transcript of the Warren Commission’s executive session meeting of January 27, 1964—classified “top secret” and withheld for more than 10 years—is now available at the National Archives. It is an intriguing document for many reasons, although no part of it has any visible connection with national security.

This transcript shows that as of January 27, 1964, more than two months after the assassination, Rankin and the members of the Commission are under the impression that the autopsy report then in their hands suggests that the President’s throat wound had probably been caused by a fragment of a bullet, not a whole bullet and not CE 399. Moreover, Rankin expresses considerable bewilderment that the President’s back wound, as Rankin understands it, is “below the shoulder blade” and thus below the hole in the front of the President’s shirt where the bullet or fragment could have emerged. He and the Commission members then indulge in speculation as to just how these wounds in the President could have been inflicted by an assassin firing from a position above the President.

On its face, this passage of the transcript might reflect no more than the normal early consideration of the evidence, before the final explanation had been found. The trouble is that the autopsy report published by the Commission says nothing about the throat wound having possibly been caused by a fragment of a bullet. Neither does it note any problem about the relative elevations of the back and throat wounds nor equivocate in any manner whatsoever about the path of the bullet that purportedly caused these wounds. The autopsy report as published by the Commission concludes plainly that the “missile entered the right superior posterior thorax above the scapula,” going on to add that this missile passed through the President’s neck, leaving various indications of its passage allegedly observed by the autopsy team, and then “made its exit through the anterior surface of the neck.” Now I submit that there is no way to misinterpret that conclusion, no way to be bewildered about the bullet’s supposed pathway, and no way to imagine that this autopsy report somehow suggests that the throat wound had been caused by anything but a whole bullet. Yet, this is the autopsy report that Commander Humes testified that he had drafted on the morning of November 24, 1963, and it is the “official autopsy report” that Hoover declared had been given to the FBI and the Warren Commission on December 23, 1963, more than a month before this executive session of the Commission. There is only one possible inference: the Commission, as of January 27, 1964, did not have the autopsy report that was ultimately published as the “official” autopsy report. They had some earlier and obviously much different version of the autopsy report, and both Humes and Hoover were in error—to use the most charitable language for their statements.

Blunder or lie?

Blunder or lie?

This is a sickening discovery, and it might be thought to confirm some of the worst suspicions ever expressed about the Warren Report and the integrity of those who produced it. I hope that it means no more than that the autopsy team had blundered badly and found it necessary to rewrite their report at a later date, with the Commission and the FBI consenting to a cover-up of that fact on the grounds that the later report was the correct one and that was all that mattered.

But this is still not all. In the same portion of the transcript, where Rankin is found casting about for some explanation of the President’s wounds consistent with an elevated location for the lone assassin, we read that the bullet fragments had been sent in early January to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), “who are trying to determine by a new method…whether they [the fragments] are a part of one of the bullets that was broken and came out in part through the neck, and just what particular assembly of the bullet they were part of.”[54] The new method referred to by Rankin, of course, has to be NAA, as there would otherwise be no special reason to send the fragments to the AEC. There is no further mention of this test in any of the subsequent executive sessions of the Commission. The next time the subject appears in any of the available records is in the aforementioned Hoover letter to Rankin of July 8, 1964, almost six months later, when it was too late to be of any assistance to the Commission.

What could possibly account for this long interval between the AEC’s receipt of the fragments for NAA testing and the FBI’s carefully qualified report of the results? I believe there were two separate tests. I find no other way to account for the long lapse, since the test can be completed in a few days and the Commission obviously was in need of the results as soon as possible.[55] If indeed two separate NAA tests had been conducted, what were the results of the first one and why was it necessary to repeat it? Like so many other questions about the government’s investigation of this case, no answers are available.

      I have spent a great deal of effort over the past few months trying to get the NAA data from the FBI and the Justice Department. Alternatively, in lieu of the actual laboratory data, I requested the Justice Department to provide some definitive answers to the most crucial questions about the data. For example, I asked if the composition of the Connally wrist fragment did or did not differ significantly from that of CE 399 and if the copper portions of the two large fragments found in the front seat of the presidential car, CE 567 and CE 569, did or did not differ significantly. It has been a totally frustrating experience. I have three courteous letters from FBI Director Kelley and Attorney General Saxbe, but I have received no data, no answers to the questions, and no explanation for the denials except a reference to, of all things, the “Freedom of Information Act.”

      I am forced to conclude that the Justice Department is covering up the Commission’s failure to solve the case. If anyone has a more palatable explanation for these events, I should like to know what it is.[56] In the meantime, I am going to continue to point out the government’s blundering and hypocrisy about the case, and I am going to continue to insist that there was more than one assassin, based on the presently available evidence.

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