Two Panels Ignored JFK Assassination FBI Ballistic Tests that Cast Doubt on Oswald as Lone Assassin!
by Dave O’Brien
As we research the JFK assassination some 55 years later, we can see persuasive proof that Lee Harvey Oswald was set-up as the ‘lone’ assassin of President John F. Kennedy.
It all started the moment that Oswald was himself assassinated while in police custody two days after the presidential assassination, silencing the defiant accused murderer forever.
With a public trial conveniently negated, the first step to frame Oswald as the solitary villain came the moment when new President Lyndon Johnson ordered a blue-ribbon panel to investigate the circumstances surrounding the horrific death of his predecessor.
The Warren Commission was established to take the place of a public trial of the accused, but with a couple of distinct advantages:
1. Presumption of Innocence Denied – Unlike a trial, Lee Oswald would not be allowed any legal representation before the Warren Commission hearings.
Posthumously, Oswald’s lawyer Mark Lane was not allowed to cross examine witnesses or refute physical evidence as he would have done on behalf of Oswald in a courtroom.
2. Highest Level Cover-Up – The Warren Commission conducted its investigation knowing that hundreds of thousands of FBI, CIA and Naval Intelligence files relevant to the assassination would be suppressed for 75 years by Presidential seal.
The Commission believed that its findings and supplemental evidence would not be subject to public scrutiny until 2038.
DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING!
But then something happened in 1967 that started to unravel the Warren Report findings as well as the unscrupulous ways the Commission and the investigative agencies conducted their inquiry.
The Freedom of Information Act allowed for the release of classified government documents, permitting reporters and researchers to request assassination files not intended for release for decades.
Since that law came into effect, these stunning revelations have been brought to light much sooner than expected:
• Grassy Knoll Cover-Up – As reported in my book Through The ‘Oswald’ Window, the majority of 40 eyewitnesses and ear witnesses who claimed to have identified a shot as coming from a location other than Oswald in the Book Depository Building were not interviewed by the Commission, the FBI or the Dallas police.
The few who were questioned about a grassy knoll shooter were ignored or labeled as mistaken due to the “trauma of the moment.”
• Whitewash – A systematic pattern of omission, misrepresentation and even altering of key physical evidence emerges that suggest more than one gunman may have been responsible for JFK’s death.
• Internal Cover-Up – The Warren Commission, from the outset, never had a chance to get at the truth or reveal it to the American people.
The internal investigative system was flawed from the beginning, starting with the Commission’s total reliance on the information provided to it by agencies more interested in establishing a pre-determined scenario meant to conceal their own shortcomings pertaining to their dealings with Oswald prior to the assassination.
As it relates to the truth, the Warren Commission was doomed to failure. Naval Intelligence files were filtered through the CIA and all CIA files were first reviewed by Warren Commission member Allen Dulles before being turned over to the full panel as evidence.
It is troublesome to know that Dulles ended up on the Warren Commission even though he was fired as CIA Director by President Kennedy after the failed Bay of Pigs fiasco.
With Dulles on the panel, the CIA knew that its interests and secrets would be protected, especially after JFK publicly threatened to disband the CIA and “scatter it into the winds.”
Consequently, we still don’t fully know why Oswald visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City just two months before the assassination.
And we still don’t know why the intelligence agencies failed to adequately keep tabs on Oswald upon his return home as a defector to the Soviet Union. Or perhaps the CIA did monitor Oswald’s activities once back in the U.S. but didn’t want that information revealed to the public for nefarious reasons.
FBI FOIBLES
Even more alarming is the role that the Federal Bureau of Investigation played in its pre-assassination and post assassination failings pertaining to Oswald.
And like Allen Dulles for the CIA, the FBI had a friend on the Warren Commission who helped filter, redact and even deny the panel any FBI documents that might sully the reputation of the agency.
With much of the Dallas Police Department records first reaching the desk of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, as well as the field work of his own agents, Hoover could count on Warren Commission member Gerald Ford to ensure that the Commission got only what Hoover wanted it to see.
What makes this disturbing is that the FBI was the Warren Commission’s chief investigative arm, responsible for up to 90% of the files the panel ever got to see.
Even with the two filters in place in Dulles and Ford, the Single Bullet Theory became an unavoidable double-edged sword for the Warren Commission.
THE ‘MAGIC’ BULLET
The dilemma for the Commission is what the Zapruder film shows, which is Governor Connally reacting to his non-fatal wounds a mere one second after President Kennedy is seen reacting to his non-lethal wounds.
Connally’s physical reaction comes before the 2.3 seconds required for Oswald’s rifle to be re-cocked, aimed and fired a second time.
Subsequently, the Commission is left with only two possibilities:
Either Governor Connally was hit by the same bullet that first struck President Kennedy or he was hit by a second bullet fired almost simultaneously to the first shot.
Obviously, to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald fired all three shots that day from above and behind the limousine, both the Warren Commission and HSCA decided that the two men were hit by the same first shot fired that day.
To prove the Single Bullet Theory to be fact, the Warren Commission, as usual, turned to the FBI for help. What follows are the FBI attempts to validate that Oswald acted alone by conducting ballistic tests to establish that the Single Bullet Theory is what likely happened.
Right from the get-go, things didn’t go well for the FBI or the Warren Commission.
TEST FIRE FIASCO!
The challenge for the investigators was not just the short time frame involved for the Single Bullet Theory to be viable (only one full second separating both men reacting to being hit), but also the condition of the bullet the Commission says caused all the non-lethal wounds on the two men.
Pictured here is Commission Exhibit 399, the bullet they say caused seven wounds in two men, broke two major bones in Connally and emerged in near pristine condition, missing just 2.4 grains of metal at the nose.
If this bullet did the described damage in both men, then one assassin could have carried out the assassination that day.
If this bullet did not do the damage attributed to it, then Kennedy and Connally had to have been hit by separate shots fired one second apart from two different gunmen positioned behind the limousine.
That is how crucial the ‘Single Bullet Theory’ is to the JFK assassination.
IT’S ALL IN THE WRIST
Governor John Connally, seated in front of JFK and the only other person injured in the limousine, became a major problem for the Warren Commission and HSCA in two ways:
1. His Own Testimony – Until his death in 1993, Texas Governor John Connally, himself an avid hunter experienced in firearms, says he was NOT hit by the same shot that first struck President Kennedy.
He explained that AFTER he heard the sound of the first shot, which he immediately identified as a gunshot, he had the time to turn to his right and return to a straight position in his seat before he felt anything.
Further, he reasoned that since CE399 was traveling faster than the speed of sound, by the time he would have heard the shot, the bullet would have already struck him and ripped through his body.
Connally further reported that he did not hear the sound of the second shot that hit him. Again, because the bullet would have reached him in advance of the sound, he believes his reaction and shock to being hit is why he didn’t hear the second shot fired.
2. His Badly Damaged Wrist – As the x-rays on Connally’s wrist show, he sustained a substantial fracture of the distal radius bone. In addition to breaking off his fifth right rib at its widest point, the wrist wound was the most severe of all the non-fatal wounds inflicted on the two men.
The Warren Commission saw this as problematic because it needed us to believe that CE399 caused seven wounds and suffered minuscule metallic damage in doing so.
It asked the FBI to conduct a ballistic test to show that a bullet like CE399 could inflict such a wrist wound with no discernible damage to the bullet.
The Commission believed that if this result could be demonstrated, it could reasonably assert that CE399 also caused all the lesser wounds attributed to it.
Using Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle and identical copper jacketed ammunition, the FBI test-fired into the wrist of a cadaver.
This test produced a remarkably similar wound to the wrist of the cadaver as that sustained by Governor Connally, but the good news ends there.
SHATTERED WRIST, SHATTERED THEORY
The test bullet that caused an identical wrist wound on the cadaver in no way resembles the bullet the Commission says caused the Governor’s wrist wound PLUS six other wounds on two men!
CE856, the bullet test fired into the wrist of a cadaver, shows significant flattening of the nose and massive loss of metallic substance compared to the 2.4 grains of metal missing on CE399.
And now you know part of the reason why CE399 has earned the nickname – the ‘Magic’ bullet!
Despite this test, the Warren Commission concluded that CE399 DID cause seven wounds in JFK and Connally. Why?
Because if CE399 didn’t cause ALL wounds inflicted accept for the President’s head wound, there had to be at least two gunmen stationed that day in Dealey Plaza.
IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED…
After being suppressed from public view for a dozen years, Geraldo Rivera’s airing of the Zapruder film on Good Night America in 1975 caused enough of a public furor to prompt a second government investigation into the assassination in 1978.
Tragically, like the Warren Commission before it, the HSCA failed history by not applying scientific advancements to ballistic tests mentioned here to solve the ‘Single Bullet’ quandary once and for all.
Although there was nothing to indicate that the initial FBI test was flawed, the House Select Committee on Assassinations decided to re-enact the wrist wound.
This time, the HSCA panel looked at what it would take to replicate the minor damage inflicted upon CE399.
The committee used the wrist of a cadaver, as well as a goat carcass and a large cube of cotton wadding, firing identical bullets from Oswald’s rifle into each.
Test bullets fired into the wrist of a cadaver produced similar results to CE856 as seen here in HSCA/JFK Exhibit 294 (bullet far right).
Test bullets fired into a goat carcass to simulate only the Governor’s broken rib wound also received more damage than CE399 in the form of squeezing along the sides and at the base (second bullet from right).
Only the test bullets fired into large vats of cotton wadding would produce fully intact bullets with virtually no damage like CE399 (second & third bullets from left).
Like the Warren Commission 15 years earlier, the HSCA discovered how unlikely it was that CE399 caused just the Governor’s wrist wound, never mind six additional wounds and one additional broken bone.
Despite these secondary ballistic tests, the HSCA sided with the Warren Commission in concluding that CE399 did cause all the non-fatal wounds sustained by President Kennedy and Governor Connally.
EVIDENCE NEVER PROCESSED
Equally confounding are ballistic tests NOT done by the FBI or other official investigators for the Warren Commission.
The most suspicious test never undertaken was an examination of the President’s severely damaged brain, which was removed at the time of autopsy.
Normally, a human brain is placed in a formalin solution to preserve it for future examination. After about two weeks, the brain is hardened, allowing it to be sliced into thin sections so a forensic pathologist can determine bullet or fragment pathways inside the brain.
Such a study of the brain often ascertains exact cause of death, as well as other key forensic evidence such as:
• Number of wounds sustained.
• Point of entry, thereby pinpointing the location of the shooter.
• Trajectory of the projectile(s) inside the brain.
• Point of exit.
Tragically, this vital information was never obtained because the President’s brain suddenly went missing before it could be examined by a specialist.
Such an examination may well have avoided the controversy that remains to this day about whether the kill shot came from the Book Depository Building behind the President or from the grassy knoll to the right front of Mr. Kennedy.
Conveniently, both the Warren Commission and House Select Committee on Assassinations ruled that the kill shot was fired by Oswald, stationed above and behind the target.
They were able to reach that conclusion because the one piece of evidence that would have definitively provided an answer as to the exact nature of the President’s death went missing and has never gone through this forensic process.
STRATEGICALLY FORGOTTEN TEST?
One ballistic test the FBI could have conducted, but didn’t, may solve the Single Bullet Theory after all these years.
Unlike the brain, this evidence still exists, so we have to ask why the government has declined to carry out this rather routine ballistic test.
Could it be that the Warren Commission or the HSCA was afraid of the answer that such a test might have revealed?
Commission exhibit 842 consists of bullet fragments removed from Governor Connally during his chest and wrist surgeries.
Although these fragments were turned over to the FBI by Parkland Hospital nurse Audrey Bell, apparently nothing was done with them.
Routine chemical and forensic analysis could have determined if they came from CE399, the bullet the two government panels say caused all the survivable wounds on Kennedy and Connally.
If these fragments proved to be a metallic match to CE399, then we must believe the Warren Commission would have proudly presented this as proof that CE399 did, in fact, strike Governor Connally.
At the very least, this makes the Single Bullet Theory feasible. So, why didn’t the Commission have the FBI conduct such a test?
One answer may be a matter of arithmetic.
2 + 2 = 5?
As the X-ray shown establishes, not all fragments in Governor Connally were removed at the time of his surgeries. They remained imbedded in him for the rest of his life.
When Governor Connally was near death, forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht and colleagues petitioned U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to ask the family for permission to remove all fragments before burial. Mrs. Connally declined the request.
A second interesting dilemma emerged when Dr. Robert Shaw appeared before the Warren Commission as the surgeon who operated on the Governor’s wrist.
He could only speculate, of course, but between the fragments removed from the Governor and the fragments that remained in his body, a possibility exists that the totality of these fragments adds up to more than the 2.4 grains of metal missing from CE399!
If this is correct, CE399 could not have been the bullet that caused all the wounds suffered by Connally that day. The Governor, alone, would have had to be hit by at least two bullets.
Such a notion would finally put the Single Bullet Theory to rest because the first and second shots, as well as the third and fourth shots were too close together to have come from the same rifle.
It is amazing that 55 years later, the Single Bullet Theory has not been scientifically proven or disproven as fact.
With these ballistic tests either ignored as evidence or not even undertaken as part of the investigation, we may now know why the Single Bullet Theory still points to one assassin named Lee Harvey Oswald.
Until this one riddle is solved, the JFK assassination will remain as America’s ultimate cold case!
