Lucy's Bones, Sacred Stones, & Einstein's Brain

by Harvey Rachlin

  Diamond reported her findings in 1985 in Experimental Neurology, a professional journal. She is the only investigator to date to publish scientific research on Einstein’s brain.

  Harvey asked Diamond if she wanted to continue studying Einstein’s brain, but she declined. She had no other databases from human brains with which to compare other aspects of Einstein’s brain.

  Although she has no future plans for studying Einstein’s brain, Diamond has retained the four pieces, storing them in a slide box.

  Einstein’s brain continued to be itinerant over the next several years, as Harvey moved around, taking the brain with him and keeping it in his home or office.

  In 1988 Harvey moved to North Carolina to work in hospital emergency rooms. He stayed only a year, then returned to live in Leavenworth, Kansas. Now retired from the medical field, he and his wife moved a short time later to Lawrence.

  Today Harvey keeps the blocks of Einstein’s brain in his home. The microscopic slides are in boxes that sit on a shelf, and the larger pieces are kept in jars. One small piece, from which no microscopic sections were made, is immersed in formaldehyde.

  Indeed, within these boxes and jars rests the gray matter of one of history’s all-time geniuses. When Einstein was alive, its cells were throbbing with the electrical and chemical signals that represented the “raw” form of E = mc2. The extracted brain matter may be said to carry the imprint, the specter, the ghost of that primal formula of energy, which continues in the cells of millions of other brains today as an icon of scientific triumph.

  The microscopic sections that were made consumed only a small portion of the brain. Dr. Harvey has kept all the pieces save a few he has sent to medical research laboratories to examine. Of the almost 170 blocks of Einstein’s brain in Harvey’s possession today, the largest is three inches by two inches, from the area of the frontal lobes. Harvey continues to diligently research Einstein’s brain and plans one day to bequeath the blocks to a medical center.

  Curiously, much of the material Princeton Hospital had on Einstein’s autopsy disappeared. The whereabouts of the clinical record of his illness and the autopsy protocol are not known. And the specimens from Einstein’s body that Harvey cut away during the autopsy for anatomical studies are gone too.

  Although Einstein died in 1955, his brain tissue is still good and holds the promise of future revelations. With new scientific methods and equipment constantly being developed, new avenues of opportunity will no doubt arise for unlocking the physiological secrets of genius.

  And there is always the fantastic possibility that in the future Einstein’s brain could be cloned. Science has not yet identified the physiological basis of genius, so whether there is a genetic component of cerebral nerve cell chromosomes that could be cloned cannot be determined at the moment. But in the end, would it make a difference?

  According to Harvey’s investigation, Einstein’s brain was not significantly different from any other human brain. It would indeed be a monumental discovery if some hidden ingredient were found in Einstein’s brain that would reveal the secret of genius. But if not, the nature of genius remains all the more elusive.

  “The most beautiful thing we can experience,” Einstein once wrote, “is the mysterious.” With his own brain matter shedding little light on why he was so blindingly intelligent, Einstein was the quintessential example of his own philosophy.

  LOCATIONS: Approximately 170 pieces of the brain and two sets of slides: Lawrence, Kansas.

  Four pieces of the brain: University of California at Berkeley (Lawrence Hall of Science).

  Several pieces and slides: Japan, Australia, and Germany.

  THE RIFLE THAT KILLED

  PRESIDENT KENNEDY

  DATE: 1963.

  WHAT IT IS: The weapon identified by the Warren Commission as the one used to assassinate John F. Kennedy.

  WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE: It is a Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5-millimeter rifle with a telescopic sight and measures over forty inches long. It has various inscriptions on it, including the serial number C2766.

  It was a day all those of a certain age can remember: where they were when they first heard the news, their shock, their grief. And the images that were continuously rebroadcast are indelibly imprinted in the minds of all Americans who lived through the harrowing event—the grassy knoll, the presidential motorcade winding through downtown Dallas, the smiling, waving president.

  November 22, 1963, Dallas, Texas. Air Force One had landed late in the morning at Love Field, carrying President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, his wife, Jacqueline, and a small entourage. The airport was mobbed with people carrying welcome signs and cheering the president on his way to drive through the city and deliver a speech at the Trade Mart.

  At about 11:50 A.M. central standard time, the presidential motorcade departed from Love Field. The president sat in the backseat of an open-top Lincoln limousine with Mrs. Kennedy. In front of them in the jump (pull-out) seat were Texas governor John B. Connally and his wife, Nellie, and in the front seat were two Secret Service agents, one of whom was the driver. In several vehicles behind the president’s were additional armed Secret Service agents, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, members of the press corps, and various local VIPs.

  When the trip was planned and the motorcade route through downtown Dallas chosen on November 1 at the White House, there was concern that the president might find antagonistic crowds in the Lone Star State and perhaps should not make the trip there. The anti-Kennedy sentiment in Texas ran deep, and just the week before, on October 24, Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was physically and verbally abused in Dallas after delivering a speech on the UN. But the president thought that going to Texas might boost his popularity in the state and infuse energy into the troubled Democratic Party there, which could be helpful in the upcoming 1964 election.

  In his two years and ten months in office, President John F. Kennedy had had his share of successes and failures. Among his successes was the Soviet dismantling of nuclear missile bases in Cuba after he quarantined the island from receiving offensive military equipment, entering into a treaty with the Soviets to ban nuclear testing in the air and under water, establishing a Peace Corps to send American men and women overseas to help foreign countries, and establishing a ten-year program called Alliance for Progress to help countries south of the United States. The president’s most notable failure was the Bay of Pigs debacle, in which CIA-trained anti-Castro Cuban exiles failed miserably in an attempt to take over Cuba in a surprise attack. But John F. Kennedy, America’s youngest elected president, had an engaging charm and charisma about him that electrified the nation, and in the spirit of the Kennedy regime’s glamour and vigor and quest for peace in the world, his administration was dubbed Camelot. Although Kennedy hadn’t really been president long enough for history to judge his ability in the role, he resolutely desired a second term in office; given the challenges he faced, he thought it would not be too soon for him to begin campaigning for reelection.

  With local newspapers having announced the route of the motorcade over the past few days, the streets of downtown Dallas were now lined with people waiting to catch a glimpse of the handsome young president; above the crowd, curious onlookers were peering out the windows of many buildings. The charge of excitement grew as the caravan of vehicles cruised into the area. Along Main Street the people cheered wildly, and the president and Mrs. Kennedy smiled and waved. There were more uproarious greetings on Houston Street. It was a warm autumn day in the South, and the president was not only relieved to find the crowds warm and friendly but thrilled that they received him so enthusiastically.

  But as the Kennedys’ car turned left onto Elm Street, it moved slowly toward disaster. Six floors above the ground, in the Texas School Book Depository building, a man was waiting by a window to shoot the president. Arranged behind him were stacks of cartons to prevent anyone on the floor from seeing him carry out his deadly mission. From his high perch, he co
uld see the motorcade travel on Houston Street and turn onto Elm. As he observed the president’s limousine approach in front of him, he peered through the telescopic sight of the rifle he held.

  With the rifle supported on three cartons at the window at the southeast corner of the sixth floor, the sniper, later identified by the Warren Commission as Lee Harvey Oswald, focused on his moving target. The president was engaging in casual conversation in the car, enjoying the day, while Secret Service agents, planted on the side running boards of their backup vehicles, scanned the crowds for potential danger.

  Without warning, at 12:30 P.M., cracks sounded and two bullets struck the president. One tore through the lower back of his neck and came out the front of his neck. Another entered the back of his head, splattering blood and brain tissue over the car; he then collapsed onto his wife, Jacqueline, seated to his left. Governor Connally, sitting on the right side of the limo directly in front of the president, was also wounded by a bullet. Jacqueline Kennedy cried out. People on the sides screamed and ran for cover or hit the ground. The scene was one of pandemonium. Mrs. Kennedy, apparently disoriented, turned and started crawling over the trunk of the limo just as a Secret Service agent jumped onto the rear of the vehicle. Mrs. Kennedy climbed back into her seat, and the vehicle, with the Secret Service agent now draped over President and Mrs. Kennedy, sped away.

  As the president was being rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, Lee Harvey Oswald walked calmly out of the Texas School Book Depository (its name was changed in 1980 to the Dallas County Administration Building), which had been identified as the origin of the shots. He was empty-handed; the assassination rifle would be found later between boxes near the stairwell at the northwest corner of the sixth floor. Within minutes, a description of the suspected sniper—a witness claimed to have seen a gunman in the building—was broadcast. The police quickly zeroed in on the sixth-floor window of the building as the location from which the shots had been fired, but the gunman was already at large. At 1:00 P.M., after a hopeless effort by doctors to keep him alive, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was pronounced dead. A Catholic priest administered last rites.

  The weapon that changed twentieth-century history. The rifle (with its scope), which cost less than twenty dollars, was used to assassinate President John F. Kennedy.

  Lee Harvey Oswald was on the move. After leaving the Texas School Book Depository, he took a bus and cab to a street near his boardinghouse, then walked to it, entered his room, and after staying there for only a few minutes, left. Then, walking along East Tenth Street, he was spotted by J. D. Tippit, a policeman who thought Oswald fit the assassin’s description. As Tippit alighted from his car and approached him, Oswald drew a revolver and opened fire, immediately killing the officer.

  By now, news of the forty-six-year-old president’s death had reached across the nation, and people wept. It was almost inconceivable that the United States president was cut down in the prime of his years, in the full bloom and glory of his remarkable career. The New York Stock Exchange immediately shut down; businesses closed; schools let out early—the shock was incredible. Just as quickly, the news traveled around the world, and the outpouring of grief was tremendous.

  Meanwhile, in Dallas, police continued the manhunt for the suspect, now a double murderer. Oswald made his way over to the Texas Theater, which he slipped into without paying, and took a seat (Texas Theater, Dallas, Texas). On the screen was the movie Cry Battle, which with War Is Hell composed a double feature. Before long, Oswald was surrounded by police, who converged on the theater after someone phoned in a tip. With the theater lights turned on, the police quickly identified the suspect, and after a brief scuffle—Oswald reached for his gun—he was apprehended and taken to police headquarters. Two days later, on November 24, Lee Harvey Oswald was to be transferred to the county jail. As he was being led through the basement corridor of the Dallas Police building—the proceeding being televised live to the nation—a nightclub owner, Jack Ruby, stepped out from the crowd, thrust a gun to Oswald’s stomach, and fired. Like JFK only days before, Oswald was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he died shortly after 1:00 P.M. Ruby himself died at the same hospital in January 1967, succumbing to cancer before his second trial for the murder of Oswald.*

  Who killed President Kennedy? On September 24, 1964, the Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, also known as the Warren Commission Report, was presented to President Lyndon B. Johnson. From the evidence before it, the Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots that killed John F. Kennedy and that he acted alone. That finding has long been the source of controversy; in September 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) opened hearings on the killings of President Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Regarding the Kennedy assassination, the committee reported that the three shots fired at Kennedy came from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository and were triggered by Lee Harvey Oswald. From the acoustical evidence, mainly the recording of a police motorcycle’s transmission, however, the committee concluded there were two gunmen involved in a conspiracy to kill the president. This evaluation was struck down in 1982 when the National Research Council, which studied the HSCA’s acoustical evidence, questioned the conclusions of the HSCA, finding that its examination of the tape did not support the idea of two shooters.

  A new American president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, came on board with the mission to lift the nation out of its throes of anguish and plot a course for the future. And with the new guard, new seeds were planted and new routes navigated that might not have been charted by the fallen president. For although Kennedy had brought Americans to the shores of Vietnam, he is said to have confided to close associates that after the 1964 election, he would withdraw troops in what he saw as a potentially futile war. Clearly, this changing of the guard marked the end of one era and the beginning of another.

  Through the years numerous theories have been put forth attributing the assassination of John Kennedy to one conspiracy or another. Among the many culprits named have been the Mafia, Fidel Castro, Cuban exiles, Lyndon Johnson, the KGB, and the CIA. Many of the theories don’t deny Lee Harvey Oswald as the assassin or as one of the assassins; it’s just that, they tell us, he was merely a pawn in a large and complex game. In any case, the evidence is overwhelming that Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, and that the rifle recovered on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository was the weapon used to assassinate the president. As such, this weapon becomes a source of intrigue: How did Oswald acquire it and how was it determined that it was in fact the weapon from which the fatal bullet was fired?

  As the Warren Commission Report tells us, shortly after the assassination and the discovery of the weapon, a Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5-milli-meter rifle with the serial number C2766, FBI agents canvassed firearms dealers in Dallas for information on the rifle. They were told that the Mannlicher-Carcano, a rifle made in Italy, was distributed by a company in New York City called Crescent Firearms. The night of the assassination, November 22, law enforcement agents in New York City perused Crescent’s records to find out to whom the C2766 was sold. An invoice showed that it went to Klein’s Sporting Goods Company, located at 227 West Washington Street in Chicago, Illinois.

  With the rifle bearing an un-effaced serial number and documentation existing from its original source of distribution, it wasn’t difficult for law enforcement officials to follow the weapon’s paper trail. An examination of the records of Klein’s Sporting Goods, a firm that sold rifles by mail order, revealed to whom the rifle was shipped. A Klein’s shipping order form showed that the C2766 was sold, with a nightscope, for $19.95 plus $1.50 for shipping, or $21.45 in total, to an A. Hidell, at P.O. Box 2915, Dallas, Texas. The purchaser remitted a U.S. postal money order made out to Klein’s Sporting Goods in the amount of $21.45 and stamped with the date March 12, 1963. It was enclosed with a coupon
from the magazine American Rifleman, on which the purchaser’s name and address (a post office box) were written, as they had also been on the postal money order.

  Did Lee Harvey Oswald, pictured above, plan to kill President John F. Kennedy when he posed for this picture around the end of March 1963? Oswald asked his wife Marina to take this picture in the backyard fo their Dallas home less than 8 months before Kennedy was killed.

  Post Office Box 2915 was in the Oak Cliff Station of Dallas. The application for this box showed that it was taken out on October 9, 1962, by a Lee H. Oswald (whose signature appears on the document) of 3519 Fairmore Road, Dallas, Texas. The “A. Hidell” name, as Dallas police found, was a pseudonym used by Lee Harvey Oswald. When he was arrested, he had identification on him using the Hidell name, including a Selective Service card signed by “Alek J. Hidell” with Oswald’s photograph on it, and other identification was later found in his boardinghouse room with the Hidell name or a variation of it.

  There was even more evidence that Oswald used the Hidell alias to order the rifle and that it was he who picked up the rifle mailed to Post Office Box 2915. Both the writing on the post office box rental application and on the rifle order form with the name A. Hidell were compared by handwriting experts with writing known to be in the hand of Lee Harvey Oswald, and their conclusion was that the writing on the rental application and on the order form was Oswald’s. This was the same Lee Harvey Oswald who worked at the Texas School Book Depository and was seen in the Depository building on the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated, who was identified as the shooter of J. D. Tippit, and who was arrested later in the Texas Theater after putting up a struggle.