PSC482G, Spring 1999
Assignment 23, due Friday 2 April 1999
NAA of bullet fragments

 

Read: Handout "JFK Assassination: Bullet analyses," by Vincent P. Guinn

Answer these questions. (Keep brief.)
1. How did Guinn interpret the evidence surrounding the JFK assassination at the time he (Guinn) was asked to reanalyze the bullet fragments? Was he fair-minded?

2. In Guinn's summary of evidence, which kinds did he focus on? Why?

3. How did Guinn interpret the FBI's nitrate tests? Their NAA tests of the paraffin casts from the nitrate tests? Their emission-spectroscopic analyses of the lead fragments?

4. Explain how Guinn learned of the FBI's earlier NAA tests of the fragments and how he obtained their data.

5. By the late 1970s, Guinn had been studying the elemental properties of lead in bullets for several years. Which elements had he found to be the best tracers? What had he found unusual about these elements in Mannlicher-Carcano bullets, and how might this property shed light on the assassination?

6. How did Guinn prepare the pieces of lead for neutron-activation analysis?

7. How did he analyze the fragments? [By this, I refer to lengths of irradiation, cooling (decay), counting of the radioactivity, etc.]

8. What were Guinn's major results? What did they appear to mean?

9. What did Guinn learn about the FBI's earlier NAA analyses?

10. In Guinn's testimony to the HSCA, what were his major points? Pay special attention to the implications for the single-bullet theory.

Back to list of assignments