I went back and checked Custer's 10/28/97 ARRB interview. It is not clear that Custer was referring to the 6.5 mm object when he discussed Ebersole's reference to an artifact. Custer's actual words suggest that he called Ebersole's attention to an "area" that contained fragments, i.e., the right frontal region, and that when he said that Ebersole "called it an artifact," the "it" was the area, not an individual fragment.
Importantly, Custer said the area was behind the superior right orbital ridge (i.e., just above the right socket), which is right next to the cloud of fragments. However, the extant AP skull x-ray shows the 6.5 mm object to be on the back of the skull, on the rear outer table. Custer was an experienced x-ray technician, and it seems unlikely that he would have mistaken an object behind the right orbital ridge for an object on the rear outer table of the skull.
Plus, Custer's comments later in the interview suggest that Custer was using the term "fragment" to refer to the cloud of fragments in the right frontal part of the skull, near the top of the skull; this cloud of fragments is the collection of metal flecks that constitutes most of the high fragment trail on the extant skull x-rays.
As many people sometimes do, Custer may have intermittently used a singular noun, in this case "fragment," as a collective noun to describe a collection of the same kinds of objects, in this case the cloud of tiny fragments in the right frontal region. If Ebersole identified the right-frontal cloud of fragments as an artifact, this would explain why the autopsy report says nothing about the high fragment trail, and why the autopsy doctors never mentioned the high fragment trail in their WC testimony, even though the high fragment trail, with its huge cloud of fragments in the right frontal region, is impossible to miss.
Later in the interview, Custer appears to return to Ebersole's artifact conclusion and seems to challenge it by stating his opinion that it was unlikely that the numerous metal flecks in the right frontal region were an artifact. The interviewer adds context by asking Custer what is holding those fragments if there's no brain in that area on the x-rays:
Q: Are you able to identify any metal fragments in the head?
A: Sure.
Q: And you're pointing toward the flecks?
A: Towards the black area. Towards the top of the skull. Here. That's the only way that can be, this fragment. There's no way an artifact will show up like that.
Q: Now, what is supporting those metal fragments, if there is no brain in the cranium? Where are they resting?
A: They have to be resting on the bone itelf somewhere. That's the only thing I can possibly think of, unless there's enough tissue there in that region to hold them. (p. 133)
Q: Let me draw your attention to what appear to be some flecks in what I would say is above the right eye socket.
A: Mm-hmm.
Q: -- and going towards the back. Are you able to identify whether those flecks arc artifacts or metal fragments?
A: They are metal fragments. Artifacts do not come in an irregular form like this. Not in that - in that traveling projection like that. It just doesn’t. Not that many in that one area. (p. 135)
With these statements in mind, let's go back and read Custer's comment about Ebersole's artifact conclusion in its full context:
Q: Can you identify in the X-ray any brain shadow?
A: No.There’s no brain shadow that I can see. Maybe portions - very small. But this is all empty. Anything -
Q: Do you know where the bullet fragment was located on the body?
A: Right orbital ridge, superior.
Q: How do you know it was in the right orbital ridge, rather than at the back of the skull?
A: Because of the protruding eyeball.
Q: Did you see the fragment removed?
A: No, I did not. Can I inject something here? This area, I pointed out to Dr. Ebersole as a fragment. And he called it an artifact. I said, "How about these fragments up here?" This is when he told me to mind my own business. (p. 115)
One can easily read "this area . . . a fragment" and "these fragments up here" as referring to the same thing: the cloud of metal flecks in the right frontal region near the top of the skull.
When Custer was specifically asked about the location of the "semi-circular" large "metal fragment," he said he could not identify its location on the x-ray he was being shown (p. 133). This suggests that he may not have been referring to this object when he mentioned Ebersole's artifact conclusion, since he was clear that that the area he pointed out to Ebersole was behind the right orbital ridge.
As mentioned, if this interpretation is correct, it clears up a number of issues. It explains why the autopsy report says nothing about the high fragment trail. It explains why the autopsy doctors said nothing about the high fragment trail in their WC testimony. If Ebersole told them that the right-frontal cloud of fragments was an artifact, their failure to say anything about it makes sense.
Humes mentioned that he saw 30-40 tiny fragments on the skull x-rays, but he said those fragments ran from the EOP to a point just above the right eye, several inches lower than the cloud of fragments on the extant x-rays. Finck reported, in writing, to General Blumberg that he saw the same low fragment trail. However, no such fragment trail appears on the extant x-rays.
I should add that Dr. Mantik and Custer met several times to discuss the autopsy and the autopsy x-rays, and during all those discussions, never once did Custer claim that Ebersole identified the 6.5 mm object as an artifact during the autopsy.
Finally, allow me to address Jerry Organ's erroneous claim that Oswald did not speak Russian well. Organ is making this bogus claim because the "Oswald" who called the Soviet Consulate in Mexico City spoke "terrible" Russian, "hardly recognizable" Russian.
Mrs. Natalie Ray, a native of Stalingrad, Russia, met Oswald after his return from the Soviet Union. She told the WC that Oswald's conversational Russian was "just perfect." She complimented Oswald while speaking in her own broken English: "I said, 'How come you speak so good Russian? I been here so long and still don't speak very well English." When WC attorney Liebeler ask her, "You thought he spoke Russian better than you would expect a person to be able to speak Russian after only living...there only 3 years?", she replied, "Yes; I really did."
George de Mohrenschildt, another native Russian speaker, praised Oswald's skills in the Russian language. He told the WC that Oswald "had remarkable fluency in Russian.... he preferred to speak Russian than English any time. He always would switch from English to Russian."
Peter Gregory, a native of Chita, Siberia, told the WC that "I thought that Lee Oswald spoke [Russian] with a Polish accent, that is why I asked him if he was of Polish descent. . . . It would be rather unusual . . . for a person who lived in the Soviet Union for 17 months that he would speak so well that a native Russian would not be sure whether he was born in that country or not."
Gregory's son, Peter Paul Gregory, was a graduate student in Russian language and literature at the University of Oklahoma in the early 1960s. He conversed with Oswald and later told the WC that Oswald "was completely fluent. He understood more than I did and he could express any idea . . . that he wanted to in Russian."
Other witnesses spoke of Oswald's good command of Russian, including George Bouhe, Mrs. Teofil Meller, Elena Hall, and Mrs. Dymitruk.
So the "Oswald" who called the Soviet Consulate in MC clearly was not the real Oswald.