Crossfire

by Jim Marrs

  Then in 1973, a batch of Warren Commission documents were released to the public that contained letters from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. In these, Hoover reported that composition of the fragments was “similar” and “that no significant differences were found.”

  The fact that differences—no matter how “significant”—were found means they are not from the same source.

  The real significance in this matter is that the results of these spectrographic tests have been kept from the public all these years. Obviously, if the tests proved conclusively that the fragments and Commission Exhibit 399 all came from the same ammunition, the case against Oswald would have been strengthened considerably. In fact, the opposite occurred. And by concealing the test results, the Commission raised further suspicion about government handling of the case.

  Unreported in the Commission’s report or volumes was an account of even further scientific testing, this time using neutron activation analysis, a sophisticated method of determining differences in composition by bombarding the test object with radiation.

  In referring to this test in a letter made public in 1973, Hoover wrote, “While minor variations in composition were found by this method, these were not considered to be sufficient to permit positively differentiating among the larger bullet fragments and thus positively determining from which of the larger bullet fragments any given small fragment may have come.”

  This wording is suspiciously deceptive, since any difference in composition is evidence that the fragments are not from the same ammunition.

  Faced with scientific evidence that Kennedy and Connally were not struck by the same bullet, the House Select Committee on Assassinations decided to conduct its own tests. But researchers’ hopes for a final, clear determination on this matter dimmed with the committee’s selection of Dr. Vincent P. Guinn to conduct the tests. Guinn admitted he had been an informal consultant to the FBI even prior to the Kennedy assassination. And predictably, Guinn concluded that it was “highly probable” that fragments taken from Connally’s wrist came from Commission Exhibit 399.

  This seemed to be the strong, clear evidence researchers had been looking for, even though it appeared to support the single-bullet theory. Guinn’s conclusions were warmly embraced by the House committee. But it was later learned that the wrist fragments originally tested in 1964 were missing. And Guinn admitted publicly that the fragments he tested were not the originals from the National Archives.

  Author Henry Hurt quoted Guinn as admitting that fragments from Commission Exhibit 399 could have been substituted for the missing fragments: “Possibly they would take a bullet, take out a few little pieces and put it in a container, and say, ‘This is what came out of Connally’s wrist.’ And naturally if you compare it with CE 399, it will look alike. . . . I have no control over these things.”

  Guinn also reported that he had examples of the ammunition from the four production runs in 1954 made at Western Cartridge Company, manufacturers of the Mannlicher-Carcano bullets. “Reportedly those are the only lots they ever produced, and we have boxes from each of those lots,” Guinn told the committee.

  If this was indeed the only ammunition ever produced, the results of Guinn’s tests gain credibility. However, a Warren Commission document dealing with an interview of a Western Cartridge representative revealed this comment:

  The Western Cartridge Company . . . manufactured a quantity of 6.5 . . . Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition for the Italian government during World War II. At the end of the war the Italian Carcano rifle, and no telling how much of this type of ammunition, was sold to United States gun brokers and dealers and subsequently was distributed by direct sales to wholesalers, retailers and individual purchasers.

  If the ammunition supposedly used in the Oswald rifle came from this World War II batch, then Dr. Guinn tested the wrong bullets. This is another example of how seemingly indisputable evidence in the assassination diminishes upon closer examination.

  Without arguing the technical aspects of Dr. Guinn’s analysis, it should be pointed out that he failed to recall or report on his prior governmental connections with the JFK case. House Select Committee on Assassinations subcommittee member Floyd J. Fithian asked:

  Dr. Guinn, this is not meant to be an embarrassing question, but I think I must ask it. Mr. Chairman, a recent article in the New York Times magazine stated that you had worked for the Warren Commission and therefore, your conclusions for this committee would be implicitly biased. Did you ever work for the Warren Commission or work for the FBI in connection with the analysis of these evidence samples?

  Dr. Guinn responded:

  Neither one. I think Mr. Wolf called my attention to the existence of this article, which I haven’t seen, and I don’t know where they got their misinformation, but I never did anything for the Warren Commission, and although I know people in the FBI, I have never done any work for them.

  In reality, it seems Dr. Guinn had a long record of working to prove Oswald’s guilt. On August 28, 1964, the New York Times reported:

  The use of radioactivity in criminology may determine whether Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy, a San Diego, Calif., chemist said today. Dr. Vincent P. Guinn, head of the activation analysis program of the General Atomic division of General Dynamics Corporation, has been working on the problem with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Dr. Guinn said he was working even then with radioactive analysis but could not make public his findings until released by the Warren Commission.

  Sherry Fiester, a retired certified senior crime scene analyst with more than twenty-five years’ experience, studied Guinn’s work and characterized it as “grossly flawed.” She noted, “Scientific testing in 2006 and 2007 indicate the available evidence is consistent with between two and five bullets being fired in Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination. This number of bullets would be consistent with more than one shooter and indicates the single-gunman theory can’t be supported by science.”

  Another major piece of evidence against Oswald was a brown paper bag reportedly discovered in the Texas School Book Depository on the afternoon of the assassination—although it is not depicted in any of the crime scene photographs. The Warren Commission claimed Oswald used the bag to transport the Carcano rifle from a home in Irving, Texas, to the Depository on the morning of November 22, 1963.

  If this bag indeed belonged to Oswald and if it could be traced to the Depository, it becomes strong evidence of Oswald’s guilt. But again, upon closer inspection, this piece of evidence becomes highly questionable. First, while the Oswald rifle was found to be well oiled, there is absolutely no trace of gun oil on the paper bag. Second, federal authorities claimed to have found cloth fibers on the bag that matched those of a blanket used to wrap the rifle at the Irving home. However, a Dallas police photograph of assassination evidence shows the bag touching the blanket, which thus could have produced the incriminating fiber evidence. To add credence to this idea, the FBI found no traces of paper bag particles on the rifle.

  When the Dallas evidence was shipped to the FBI laboratory early on November 23, there was no mention of the paper bag. Instead, Dallas FBI agent in charge J. Gordon Shanklin mentioned the blanket, which he suggested was used to carry the rifle into the Depository.

  Both Wesley Frazier and his sister, Linnie Mae Randle, testified that Oswald took a paper bag to work with him on the morning of the assassination. However, both said they did not believe the bag they saw was like the one the Warren Commission showed them. Frazier said Oswald told him the bag contained curtain rods for his room in Dallas. Frazier also said Oswald carried the package into the Depository tucked under his arm, with one end cupped in his hand and the other under his armpit.

  Since the disassembled rifle measured thirty-five inches long, it would have been impossible for someone of Oswald’s height to carry it in this position. Jack Dougherty, a Depository employee who saw Oswald arrive for work, said he had seen no bag.

  Yet the paper
bag was a necessary piece of evidence, for if Oswald did not carry the rifle into the Depository on November 22, then it must have gotten there in some other manner. This possibility opened too many areas of investigation. But if Oswald fashioned the bag from wrapping paper at the Depository—as the Warren Commission concluded—how did he get it to the Irving home, where he spent the night before the assassination?

  Frazier, who drove Oswald to Irving, repeatedly said Oswald had no package with him at that time. The Commission decided Oswald must have hidden the paper bag in his jacket, although there was no reason to do so and despite the discomfort and rustling noise sure to have been made by a forty-two-inch-by-eighteen-inch folded paper bag.

  This whole issue is further clouded by a duplicate FBI report that claims two opposite facts concerning the paper bag. In a November 29, 1963, report numbered Dallas 89-43 released with other FBI documents in 1968, agent Vincent Drain wrote, “This paper was examined by the FBI laboratory and found to have the same observable characteristics as the brown paper bag shaped like a gun case which was found near the scene of the shooting on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building.”

  In 1980, researcher Gary Shaw discovered what appeared to be this same FBI report in the National Archives. It bore the same dates and the same identification number—Dallas 89-43.

  However, in this version of Drain’s report, it stated, “This paper was examined by the FBI laboratory and found not to be identical with the paper gun case found at the scene of the shooting.”

  When pressed to explain the two opposite versions of the same report, William Baker, then the FBI’s assistant director of the Office of Congressional and Public Affairs, told researcher Edgar F. Tatro the version that states Depository paper and the paper bag are not the same was “inaccurate.” Baker said the inaccuracy in Drain’s original report was caught at FBI headquarters and the Dallas office was instructed to “make corrections at that time.” He added that the “inaccurate” report was mistakenly passed along to the Warren Commission. Baker concluded, “We hope the above explanation resolves the problem.”

  Far from resolving the problem of identical FBI reports that state opposite facts, this incident raises the question of how many other assassination documents stated one thing and were subsequently “revised.” And if there do exist “revised” documents in federal files, how would anyone know unless the originals accidentally slip out, as appeared to have happened in this case?

  Considering all of the above and considering that not one of the lawmen who searched the Depository mentioned finding the bag in their testimony, the evidence of the paper bag must be viewed skeptically. Recall the two days that all assassination evidence was in the hands of the FBI unbeknownst to the media and public.

  Two other observations should be made concerning primary pieces of evidence—the presidential limousine and the rifle.

  Even while the limousine was parked at the emergency-room door of Parkland Hospital, federal agents and even Dallas police apparently mopped up blood, picked up bullet fragments, and otherwise tampered with this important evidence, contrary to basic crime scene protection procedures in place even at that time. White House photographer Cecil Stroughton noticed agents at the limousine. The trunk was open and the plastic top was being placed on the car. He recalled a man washing the seat “with a cloth and he had a bucket.”

  Within forty-eight hours the limousine was shipped to the manufacturer Hess & Eisenhardt and completely dismantled, thus destroying any important bloodstains, bullet holes, or more bullet fragments that could have shed light on the assassination. Although government agents examined the car the day after the assassination, there is no evidence that members of the Warren Commission closely studied this important piece of evidence, including photographs of a controversial bullet or fragment strike on the windshield.

  And although the Carcano was checked for fingerprints, apparently it was never given the simple test by Dallas police or federal authorities to determine whether it had been recently fired. This normal testing might have proved conclusively whether the rifle had been used in the assassination. Researchers view the failure to conduct such a test as strong evidence of fabrication in the case against Oswald.

  Other vital evidence was destroyed. After receiving Governor Connally’s bloodstained clothing at Parkland Hospital, congressman Henry Gonzalez kept this potential evidence in a closet in his Washington office. Several months later, while Gonzalez was home in Texas, Clifton Carter, an aide to Lyndon Johnson, notified a Gonzalez secretary that the Secret Service was coming to pick up Connally’s clothing.

  Sometime later, this clothing was presented as evidence to the Warren Commission. But by this time, it had been cleaned and pressed, thereby eliminating metal traces at the bullet holes that could have been studied to determine the type of ammunition and the direction of shots.

  It is interesting that it was Gonzalez who formally called for a reopening of the assassination investigation in 1975, which led to the forming of the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

  But the one piece of evidence that did more than all others to convict Oswald as the assassin in the minds of the American public was the famous backyard photographs depicting Oswald with a rifle and a communist publication.

  Questionable Backyard Photos

  Dallas police claimed to have discovered two prints and one negative of pictures showing Lee Harvey Oswald standing in his backyard wearing a holstered pistol and holding a rifle and some communist literature. According to police reports, these photos were found among Oswald’s possessions in the garage of the Paine home in Irving, Texas, on Saturday, November 23, 1963, although a search the day before failed to turn up such photos.

  One of these photos became the cover of the February 21, 1964, issue of Life magazine. This now-famous issue, published seven months before the Warren Commission issued its verdict, convicted the suspect by proclaiming, “Lee Oswald with the weapons he used to kill President Kennedy and Officer Tippit.”

  The Warren Commission heard from Oswald’s accommodating wife, Marina, that she had taken the snapshots with a handheld Imperial Reflex camera at her husband’s insistence. Based on Marina’s testimony and the order form for Oswald’s rifle, the Commission pinpointed the date as March 31, 1963. She said she took one shot, then handed the camera back to Oswald, who advanced the film and handed it back for her to take another picture.

  The Commission asserted that the rifle in the picture is the same rifle found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

  Yet when shown the photographs by Dallas police, captain Will Fritz said Oswald made the following comments:

  He said the picture was not his, that the face was his face, but that this picture had been made by someone superimposing his face, the other part of the picture was not him at all and that he had never seen the picture before. . . . He told me that he understood photography real well, and that in time, he would be able to show that it was not his picture, and that it had been made by someone else.

  Of course, Oswald never got the opportunity to explain the backyard photos. But various researchers have spent years studying this incriminating evidence, and today most are convinced Oswald was truthful about the pictures’ being fabricated.

  To begin with, it appears there were actually four backyard pictures. One was described by Marguerite Oswald as depicting her son holding a rifle above his head with both hands. She was shown this photo by Marina at the Paines’ Irving home the night of the assassination. On Marguerite’s insistence, the incriminating photo was burned and flushed down a toilet.

  In 1976 the Senate Intelligence Committee discovered yet a fourth backyard photo in the hands of the widow of a Dallas policeman. Mrs. Roscoe White said her husband, who worked in the Dallas photographic lab, once told her the picture would be very valuable someday. In this heretofore unknown version of the backyard photo, Oswald is depicted holding the rifle in his left hand and
the communist material in his right. This is the same pose Dallas police used in reenacting the photo for the Warren Commission—strong evidence that authorities were aware of the suppressed picture long before it became known to the public.

  Photo experts told the House Select Committee on Assassinations that the most famous backyard picture—the one used on the cover of Life magazine—was obviously made from the original negative while in the hands of Dallas authorities. Yet this negative was never accounted for by the Dallas police. The committee noted, “There is no official record explaining why the Dallas Police Department failed to give the Warren Commission the other original negative.”

  To further cloud this issue, two Dallas commercial photographic processors have told this author they saw copies of the backyard photo the night of the assassination—more than twelve hours before they were reported found in the Paine garage.

  Robert Hester, who was called from home on November 22, 1963, to help process assassination-related photographs for the FBI and Dallas police at National Photo, said he saw an FBI agent with a color transparency of one of these pictures and that one of the backyard photos he processed showed no figure in the picture. Hester’s claim was corroborated by his wife, Patricia, who also helped process film on the day of the assassination.

  There is also considerable question regarding the camera reportedly used to make these photographs. Oswald’s brother Robert claimed to have obtained the camera from the Paine home on December 8, 1963. He said he did not mention it to authorities because he didn’t realize anyone would be interested.

  Robert was only told the camera belonged to his brother by Ruth Paine and the FBI did not receive the camera until February 24, 1964. About that time, Marina was shown two cameras but failed to identify either as belonging to her husband.

  When the government got the camera, it was inoperable. FBI photographic expert Lyndal L. Shaneyfelt told the Warren Commission, “In order to be able to make a photograph with the camera, I had to make slight repairs to the shutter lever, which had been bent. I straightened it and cleaned the lens in order to remove the dirt which had accumulated.”