Three Problems with the Lone-Gunman Theory

[Michael Carney]

I was wondering about chest x-rays, now I know why there aren’t any, be proof of another shooter.

I think if the bullet did hit the windshield I doubt the collision would generate a piece of glass and send it straight at JFK. Typically when a bullet hits glass it goes straight through and sends the broken bits of glass outward away from the bullet. Also more likely the bullet because the shooter was aiming at JFK.

I think by lining up the hole in the windshield and JFK’s throat one might place the shooter. Would be a fun project if we had an overhead view and bullet hole location in glass, elevation, etc.

[Michael Carney]

I think this video that was in the movie "JFK" is spot on.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Well, well, it turns out that one member of the Warren Commission (WC) and one of the WC attorneys knew that neutron activation analysis (NAA) had found no traces of nitrates on the paraffin mold of Oswald’s cheek, and that this meant he had not fired a rifle on the day of the assassination. WC attorney Norman Redlich advised WC member Alan Dulles about the NAA results in an internal memo, a memo that came to light years later and only after a FOIA lawsuit filed by Harold Weisberg. Said Redlich,

At best, the analysis shows that Oswald may have fired a pistol, although this is by no means certain. … There is no basis for concluding that he also fired a rifle. (Memo from Redlich to Dulles, 7/2/1964)

This contradicts the WC’s later claim that nitrates were found on both sides of the paraffin cast of Oswald’s cheek and that therefore the paraffin test was “unreliable.”

The documents released by Weisberg’s FOIA lawsuit also reveal that the FBI arranged for a control test of the validity of the NAA paraffin test of Oswald’s cheek and found NAA to be 100% reliable. Since the test required a nuclear reactor, the test was done on the FBI’s behalf at the Atomic Energy Commission’s Oak Ridge facility. Seven men fired a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle once and then three times in rapid succession, and then underwent an NAA paraffin test. In every single case, NAA detected substantial amounts of nitrates in their cheek paraffin molds. In other words, all seven cheek paraffin casts tested positive for nitrates, just as they should have (Weisberg, Post Mortem, 1975, pp. 436-438; see also FBI HQ JFK File, 62–109060–5; FBI HQ Oswald File, 105–82555–94).

The Weisberg-released documents show that FBI expert Cortlandt Cunningham lied through his teeth about the paraffin tests in his WC testimony. Yet, WC apologists such as John McAdams still cite Cunningham’s testimony to justify their rejection of the negative paraffin results on Oswald’s cheek cast.

Moreover, in the Oak Ridge control test, two of the seven shooters also underwent the standard diphenylamine paraffin test, the same kind of test the Dallas police used, and in both cases their cheek casts tested positive for nitrates (General Atomic Report GA-6152 to the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, pp. 10-11). Also, all seven shooters had to wait three or four hours after firing the rifle before the paraffin molds were made of their cheeks.

Dr. David Wrone, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Wisconsin, says the following about Oswald’s paraffin test:

Paraffin tests test on a well-known fact that when a rifle is fired, gases blow back on the shooter’s face and hands, depositing detectable residues. At midnight on November 22, the Dallas police performed the normal tests on Oswald to detect any deposits, using warm liquid paraffin on his right cheek and both hands to make casts. As it hardened, the paraffin would remove and capture any deposits from his skin and pores. Police sent the casts to Dr. Martin F. Mason, director of the Dallas City-County Criminal Investigative Laboratory at Parkland Memorial Hospital, who at 10:45 AM on November 23 tested them with reagent diphenyl-benzidine. The results showed “no traces of nitrates” on the right cheek, which meant Oswald had not fired a rifle. . . .

In its Report the Commission dismisses paraffin tests by asserting that “a positive reaction is . . . valueless” in showing a suspect fired a weapon and thus “unreliable.” This is disingenuous. To be sure, ink, paper, and many other common objects that Oswald’s hands touched that day during the normal course of his work could have caused a positive reaction, but as the Commission’s own official evidence proved, the absence of traces is exculpatory. Oswald’s cheek had none; he had not fired a rifle.

Not satisfied with the Dallas testing, the FBI in its laboratory also performed a more refined spectrographic test of the samples, a scientific test used by law enforcement for 60 years in similar cases. The FBI lab drew the same conclusion about residues on the cheek. Then, under pressure from the Commission, the FBI submitted the paraffin casts to a third, even more sophisticated test. They took the samples to the Atomic Energy Commission facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. . . .

Upon receiving word of the findings, FBI headquarters immediately ordered its agents not to release or make known the results to anyone in order “to protect the Bureau”. . . . Nevertheless, after a bitterly contested lawsuit that lasted ten years, critic Harold Weisberg and his attorney James Lesar obtained the NAA raw data and the results from the bureau and the Oak Ridge authorities.

Weisberg discovered an additional element to the tests that was devastating for the official findings. The FBI had used a control in making the tests. Seven different men had fired the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, and NAA officials had made paraffin casts of their cheeks, which were then tested for residues by the reactor. The control firings had deposited heavy residues on the control cheeks. Oswald’s check cast had no such residues or any traces whatsoever. He had not fired a rifle. (The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK’s Assassination, University Press of Kansas, 2003, pp. 171-172)

We all know that if Oswald’s paraffin cheek cast had tested positive for nitrates in the DPD diphenyl-benzidine paraffin test, in the FBI spectrographic paraffin test, and in the Oak Ridge NAA paraffin test, the WC would have hailed this as powerful evidence that Oswald fired a rifle on 11/22/1963, and WC apologists would still be parroting this position to this day. But, since Oswald’s cheek cast tested negative for nitrates in all three of those tests, WC apologists bend over backward to not only ignore the negative results but to discredit even the NAA paraffin test, even though the FBI’s own control test found that the NAA paraffin test was 100% reliable.

WC apologists handle the paraffin test evidence the same way they handle the HSCA acoustical evidence: They cite some government/government-hired expert's critique of the evidence and then ignore subsequent disclosures on the evidence and ignore scholarly responses to the government-sponsored critique.

[Michael Carney]

It’s curious, when you look at top down photo of where the JFK limo and the grassy knoll are located. A shot from the grassy knoll would be to JFK’s right, not front. So no windshield issues, no glass issues. But the throat shot had to have come from the front, where could a shooter have shot from the front. Overpass had a policeman on it. What am I missing??

[Ray Mitcham]

It’s curious, when you look at top down photo of where the JFK limo and the grassy knoll are located. A shot from the grassy knoll would be to JFK’s right, not front. So no windshield issues, no glass issues. But the throat shot had to have come from the front, where could a shooter have shot from the front. Overpass had a policeman on it. What am I missing??

Maybe from the storm drain on the north side of the Elm St.

[Michael T. Griffith]

It’s curious, when you look at top down photo of where the JFK limo and the grassy knoll are located. A shot from the grassy knoll would be to JFK’s right, not front. So no windshield issues, no glass issues. But the throat shot had to have come from the front, where could a shooter have shot from the front. Overpass had a policeman on it. What am I missing??

Journalist Richard Dudman, who got a long, good look at the windshield hole, said the hole was high up in the left-hand corner of the windshield. Even a bullet penetrating the windshield from the right front could have sprayed glass fragments toward JFK.

Interestingly, Tom Robinson, the mortician, noticed three tiny holes in JFK's cheek, near the right eye. He recalled these tiny holes because embalming fluid was leaking from them. These wounds could not have been caused by debris coming from inside the cheek: the major brain trauma sites were too far away, and bone would have obstructed a path from the brain anyway. Something must have struck JFK's cheek from the outside.

Dr. Mantik devotes four pages to this issue in Murder in Dealey Plaza, pp. 257-260. Among many other things, he says,

And then I wondered, if there really had been a complete hole in the windshield (Larry Sneed, No More Silence 1998, pp. 147-148), was it possible that a fragment of glass had caused the throat wound? It met all of the requirements: it was radiolucent, it had a limited range, the pathologists (probably) would not have seen it, and, furthermore, the bullet might even have come from the right front. In particular, spray of glass particles, diverging in a cone (even from a right front shot) might have permitted some of them to strike JFK in a left to right direction. (p. 258)

[Michael Carney]

I just did some investigating on my own and found some illustrations; one by Don Roberdeau and one by Ian Greenhalgh. Don’s illustration is a bullet path from the hole in the windshield to JFK’s throat. Ian’s illustration is a top view of Dealy Plaza showing JFK limo in various locations along the route with Z film frame numbers. I estimated the frame number JFK was hit in the throat at about 218, because he was behind the sign when hit. Then I reduced bullet path illustration and taped it to the Dealy Plaza at the approximate frame location I choose. By extending the bullet path you see where it would have come from, a parking area on the far side of Commerce St.

Parking lot: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Dealey+Plaza/@32.77807,-96.8091258,137m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x864e9915d508f639:0xcfa47bf25b709fe0!8m2!3d32.7788184!4d-96.8082993

Bullet path illustration: https://imgur.com/bx7eamY
Dealy Plaza map:    http://www.septclues.com/USA%20FAKERY/DealeyPlazaMAP_IanGreenhalgh.jpg

[Gerry Down]

I just did some investigating on my own and found some illustrations; one by Don Roberdeau and one by Ian Greenhalgh. Don’s illustration is a bullet path from the hole in the windshield to JFK’s throat. Ian’s illustration is a top view of Dealy Plaza showing JFK limo in various locations along the route with Z film frame numbers. I estimated the frame number JFK was hit in the throat at about 218, because he was behind the sign when hit. Then I reduced bullet path illustration and taped it to the Dealy Plaza at the approximate frame location I choose. By extending the bullet path you see where it would have come from, a parking area on the far side of Commerce St.

Parking lot: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Dealey+Plaza/@32.77807,-96.8091258,137m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x864e9915d508f639:0xcfa47bf25b709fe0!8m2!3d32.7788184!4d-96.8082993

Bullet path illustration: https://imgur.com/bx7eamY
Dealy Plaza map:    http://www.septclues.com/USA%20FAKERY/DealeyPlazaMAP_IanGreenhalgh.jpg

Sherry Fiester did some work on this. According to her trajectory, the bullet was fired from the south grassy knoll (the other knoll).This bullet went through the windscreen, hence why so many witnesses saw a hole in the windscreen, and hit JFK in the head exiting out the right rear, just like the Parkland doctors confirmed the wound was.