George Michael Evica misuses the FBI’s results

      George Michael Evica was for many years a professor of sociology at the University of Hartford, Connecticut. Even though he had no training as a chemical analyst, he undertook to aggressively use the FBI’s OES data that he received in November 1975 from the FBI Director at that time, Clarence M. Kelley. Evica sent the data to a “private spectroscopist” for an opinion on their meaning. Unfortunately, the spectroscopist did him wrong. Evica, not realizing the truth of the matter, used the spectroscopist’s erroneous conclusions as the basis for much of his (Evica’s) 1978 book And We Are All Mortal.[1] The two chapters of that book that depended on the chemical analyses are just as wrong as the spectroscopist was. The book went on to become quite influential in the JFK critical community, which also couldn’t see the error or perhaps didn’t want to.
      The spectroscopist wrote these nonsensical conclusions back to Evica:

1. The copper jacket of the Walker bullet (Q188) differs from the jackets of Q1 (the hospital bullet), Q2 (front seat) in tin; its lead core differs from them in antimony and tin.
2. The lead fragments Q4 and Q5 (from JFK’s brain), Q14 (from the rear carpet), Q9 (from Connally’s wrist), and Q2 (from the front seat) appear to be chemically identical. [Note: The FBI’s data sheet refers only to “larger piece from Q4 and Q5,” i.e. one fragment rather than the two or a composite that the spectroscopist implies.]
3. The lead cores of Q1, Q2, Q4, and Q5 are similar in composition. The copper jackets of Q1 and Q2 differ in copper, lead, and silicon. [I have no idea why the spectroscopist chose to lump these three fragments together unless he wanted to examine the link between Q1 and the others—Q1, Q2 were analyzed in one group and Q2, Q4,5, Q9, and Q14 in the other group. The only link between Q1 and the members of the other group is Q2.]
4. Because the copper jackets of Q4,5 were not analyzed, it cannot be determined whether fragment Q1 is identical to Q4,5. [This conclusion appears to require that fragments can only be said to be identical when their jackets and cores are separately identical. This conclusion is nonsensical because the spectroscopist didn’t need the jackets of Q4,5 to say they were identical to Q2, Q9, and Q14 in (3); and (b) matching copper jackets can’t help much because only two fo the five fragments had them.]

      Evica then reported in his book that the spectroscopist had “reached these key conclusions”:

1. The lead fragments Q2, Q4, Q5 [repeating the spectroscopist’s error that both fragments were analyzed], Q9, and Q14 (front seat, brain, wrist, rear carpet) all appear to be chemically identical.
2. The copper jackets of Q1 and Q2 (hospital, front seat) differed.

        Here are the fragments Q2, Q4, Q5, Q9, and Q14 that are supposed to be identical in composition, as taken from Table 5 above:

Table 8. Partial listing of the FBI’s optical emission spectroscopic data, ppm, from Table 5.

        It is clear that at best these four samples are only grossly similar in composition. In no way can they be called identical.
        Here are the copper jackets of Q1 and Q2 that are supposed to differ in composition:

Table 9. Partial listing of the FBI’s optical emission spectroscopic data, ppm, from Table 5.

        Again, the elemental concentrations in these two pieces of copper are expressed so qualitatively that little or nothing can be said about their composition.

      Evica then summarized the spectroscopist’s results on page 78 of the book. In preparing the summary, he wrongly assumed that fragments of identical composition come from the same bullet (a false assumption, as discussed above), but did not state this assumption until pages later. His summary was as follows:

1. Q1 differed from Q2 (from imagined differences in the brass jackets—sometimes called copper jackets).
2. Q2 was identical to Q4,5, Q14, Q9 (wrist)—taken straight from the spectroscopist.
3. Q3 (jacket) may be still another bullet.

      Evica then drew the following long series of conclusions (on pages 78 ff.):

1. Q1 could not have caused Connally’s wrist wound (and therefore not his thigh wound, either) (because Q1 differed from Q2 and Q2 matched Q9).
2. Therefore, the SBT is indefensible.
3. If Q1 did not penetrate Kennedy’s neck [not proven by this analysis] or Connally’s thigh [because it didn’t pass through his wrist], how did it reach the hospital?
4. The wounds in the wrist and thigh probably came from fragments of at least one fragmenting head bullet.
5. If Q1 fell out of Kennedy’s shallow back wound, it could not have penetrated Connally’s torso [which had to be a separate bullet because wrist matched brain and thus came from it]. Thus a fourth bullet was fired [#1 = head/wrist; #2 produced Q1; #3 wounded Kennedy’s body; #4 wounded Connally’s body].
6. The fourth bullet disproves the commission’s finding that only three bullets were fired.
7. The differences between Q1 and the other fragments prove that at least two rifles were firing different kinds of bullets. This proves that there was a conspiracy.
8. But the five identical fragments could represent as many as five bullets manufactured and boxed at the same time. [The maximum number of assailants was not stated.]
9. Hoover in his letter deliberately obfuscated the true meaning of the FBI’s data by speaking of similarity among fragments rather than their crucial identity.
10. This allowed the Warren Commission to rely on the inconclusive ballistics testimony to buttress its case against Oswald. The chemical data would have changed its conclusions considerably.
11. If different bullets from the same production run have identical compositions, as many as eight bullets could have been fired (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4,5 (here counted as one fragment), Q9, Q14, Q15, Tague shot).
12. Since Q1 matches nothing else here, its authenticity is suspect. That still leaves seven possible shots.
13. Since neither the FBI nor the Warren Commission offered evidence to dispute up to seven shots, the FBI may have known that the spectroscopic data invalidated their hypothesis of three shots and three hits. Hoover’s fuzzing of identity into similarity would confirm this interpretation of why the chemical data were suppressed for fifteen years.
14. Any of the fragments except Q1 could be parts of bullets that hit JFK’s back, JFK’s throat, Connally’s back, Connally’s wrist, Connally’s thigh, JFK’s head, the windshield, the curb near Tague (eight possible shots).
15. Another way to use the identity of the fragments is to list the possible hits and recognize that the fragments can be from one to eight bullets (Kennedy’s back, Kennedy’s throat, Connally’s thorax, Q4,5 from Kennedy’s brain, the dustlike fragments in Kennedy’s brain (possibly a second hit), Tague shot, Connally’s wrist, Connally’s thigh, windshield, chrome dent, for ten possible hits).
16. The smallest number of shots would be five: JFK’s back, JFK’s throat, Connally’s thorax, Kennedy’s head (whose fragments hit Connally’s wrist and thigh), and the “missed shot.”
17. Any more than three shots proves conspiracy.

      Obviously, these conclusions are completely wrong. Evica’s big mistake was in not seeking a second opinion on the spectroscopic data. Why did he not do this? I suspect that it was from some combination of (a) believing simplistically that all spectroscopists know how to interpret all spectroscopic data properly, and (b) getting the answer that he instinctively believed and wanted. Evica second big mistake was to not examine the spectroscopic data himself and use his common sense in interpreting them. His third big mistake was to not include the data in his book so that others could examine them. And his fourth big mistake was to not realize that “identical” was really “indistinguishable.” In fact, “indistinguishable” is much too strong a word for the relations between the samples. “Broadly similar” is about all that can be said. The FBI had expressed the limitations of these data properly.
      Evica then concluded with a tortuous chain of reasoning that culminated in a minimum of five shots being fired. He began by listing the possible shots if “Chemical identity [erroneously equated to “indistinguishability”] between bullet fragments might indicate that such fragments are from the same manufacturing “run”—that the bullets were produced and boxed at the same time” [in spite of the fact that Vincent P. Guinn had explicitly disproven this possibility years before]. This expanded the list of possible shots to eight:

1. Q1 (CE 399): not equal to Q2
2. Q2 (CE 567): limousine fragment; copper and lead
3. Q3 (CE 569): limousine fragment; copper
4. Q4,5 (CE 843): lead fragments from Kennedy’s head wound
5. Q9 (CE 842): lead fragments from Connally’s wrist wound
6. Q14 [written erroneously as Q24] (CE 840): limousine fragment; lead
7. Q15 (CE 841): windshield smear; lead
8. the “missed shot”: “lead with a trace of antimony” on the Tague curbing.

      Evica continued his reasoning with a paragraph full of unsupported follow-up and speculation that ultimately seemed to point an accusing finger of obfuscation and cover-up at the FBI. It represent a classic chain of unreliable evidence combined with unjustified reasoning. To be fair to Evica, here is his full paragraph:

      CE 399, of course, does not match the identical manufacturing run of items 2 through 7, casting further doubt on its authenticity. And items 2 through 8, excluding the suspect “stretcher bullet,” could represent at least seven bullets fired in Dealey Plaza. Neither the F.B.I. nor the Warren Commission offered any evidence to invalidate this possibility. In fact, Hoover’s vague word “similar” might be taken as confirmation the F.B.I. laboratory came to these same conclusions, destroying the Bureau’s own hypothesis of three shots and three separate hits (with no hint of a missed shot). Ignoring the chemical differences between Q1 (CE 399) and Q2 (CE 567) would be a way of protecting the F.B.I. while offering the Warren Commission room to move around in, and given the suppressed spectrographic evidence and the vague reports that eventually reached the Warren Commission (through the Dallas Police file submission), move around the Warren Commission most certainly did.

      The chain of evidence in this paragraph may be categorized as wrong, wrong, wrong….
      Evica then stated that any of the fragments (except CE 399) could have been parts of these eight bullets:

1. the bullet that struck Kennedy in the back (unlikely)
2. the bullet that struck Kennedy in the throat, leaving lead fragments in the tissues (unlikely)
3. the bullet that struck Connally in the back, exiting the front of his chest (likely)
4. the bullet or bullet fragment that struck Connally’s wrist (possible)
5. the bullet or bullet fragment that imbedded in Connally’s thigh bone (possible)
6. the bullet(s) which struck Kennedy’s head (possible)
7. the bullet or bullet fragment that struck the limousine windshield (possible)
8. the “missed shot”—the bullet or bullet fragment that struck the curbing in the wounding of Tague (highly unlikely).

      Evica continued with another list of hits, constructed by assuming that CE 399 cannot be associated with any of other fragments and that the fragments can be from as few as one bullet or as many as eight:

1. Kennedy’s back hit (copper traces on clothing)
2. Kennedy’s throat hit (lead fragments in the throat)
3. Connally’s thorax hit
4. Kennedy’s head wound(s):
1. the lead fragments (the Q2 identity)
2. the dust-like particles in his brain; a possible second head hit
5. the “missed shot”: the James Tague wounding
6. Connally’s wrist wound
7. Connally’s thigh wound
8. the windshield smear
9. the chrome defect above the windshield.

      Evica then concluded by listing the “most economical hypothesis…for the number of shots”:

1. Kennedy’s back hit
2. Kennedy’s throat hit
3. Connally’s thorax hit
4. Kennedy’s head hit, including
   1. Connally’s wrist and thigh wounds
   2. the limousine windshield (and chrome defect)
5.  the “missed shot.

      Since 5–8 shots is more than three, he concluded with confidence that “More than three shots is incontrovertible proof of conspiracy.”
      Thus Evica turned a spectroscopist’s mistaken interpretation of meaningless chemical data into “incontrovertible proof of conspiracy.” This long sequence of major errors came about because Evica accepted the “authority’s” words at face value and never checked them himself or sought a second opinion. We can all draw a lesson from Evica’s errors.
      Evica then continued with a chapter on how the spectroscopic data help interpret the medical data. At the end of that chapter, he presented these “statements contradicting the Warren Commission’s conclusions”:

1. The fragments from Connally’s wrist wound match the fragments from Kennedy’s head wound, disproving the CE 399 “single-bullet” theory
2. At least one fragment found in the president’s limousine does not match CE 399: by logical extension, the president’s head wound fragments and Governor Connally’s wrist wound fragments do not match CE 399. CE 399, in fact, cannot be linked to any wounds suffered by either Kennedy or Connally.
3. The bullet recovered at the scene of the Walker assassination does not match wither CE 399 or two fragments recovered at Dealey Plaza; the Mannlicher-Carcano examined by the F.B.I. cannot be linked with that murder attempt either ballistically or spectrographically.
4. Medical, ballistic, and spectrographic evidence supports the conclusions that John F. Kennedy was hit by at least one non-military, non-jacketed, fragmenting round at frame 313 of the Zapruder film.

Each of these statements is completely wrong.

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