Scientists Cast Doubt on Kennedy Bullet Analysis

[Nbadan]

Scientists Cast Doubt on Kennedy Bullet Analysis
Multiple Shooters Possible, Study Says
By John Solomon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 17, 2007; Page A03

In a collision of 21st-century science and decades-old conspiracy theories, a research team that includes a former top FBI scientist is challenging the bullet analysis used by the government to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald alone shot the two bullets that struck and killed President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

The "evidence used to rule out a second assassin is fundamentally flawed," concludes a new article in the Annals of Applied Statistics written by former FBI lab metallurgist William A. Tobin and Texas A&M University researchers Cliff Spiegelman and William D. James.

Scientists originally saw no evidence of a second assassin based on analysis of the bullets that killed President John F. Kennedy.

The researchers' re-analysis involved new statistical calculations and a modern chemical analysis of bullets from the same batch Oswald is purported to have used. They reached no conclusion about whether more than one gunman was involved, but urged that authorities conduct a new and complete forensic re-analysis of the five bullet fragments left from the assassination in Dallas.

"Given the significance and impact of the JFK assassination, it is scientifically desirable for the evidentiary fragments to be re-analyzed," the researchers said.

Tobin was the FBI lab's chief metallurgy expert for more than two decades. He analyzed metal evidence in major cases that included the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 1996 explosion of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island.

After retiring, he attracted national attention by questioning the FBI science used in prosecutions for decades to match bullets to crime suspects through their lead content. The questions he and others raised prompted a National Academy of Sciences review that in 2003 concluded that the FBI's bullet lead analysis was flawed. The FBI agreed and generally ended the use of that type of analysis.

Using new guidelines set forth by the National Academy of Sciences for proper bullet analysis, Tobin and his colleagues at Texas A&M re-analyzed the bullet evidence provided to the 1976 House Select Committee on Assassinations to support the conclusion that only one shooter, Oswald, fired the shots that killed Kennedy.

Now-deceased University of California at Irvine chemist Vincent P. Guinn. told the committee that he used bullet lead analysis to conclude that the five bullet fragments recovered from the Kennedy assassination scene came from just two bullets, which were traced to the same batch of bullets Oswald owned. Guinn's conclusions were consistent with the 1960s Warren Commission Report that found Oswald had acted alone. The House assassinations committee, however, concluded that Oswald probably was part of a conspiracy and that it was possible a second shooter fired one shot that missed the president.

Tobin, Spiegelman and James said they bought the same brand and lot of bullets used by Oswald and analyzed their lead using the new standards. The bullets from that batch are still on the market as collectors' items.

They found that the scientific and statistical assumptions Guinn used -- and the government accepted at the time -- to conclude that the fragments came from just two bullets fired from Oswald's gun were wrong.

"This finding means that the bullet fragments from the assassination that match could have come from three or more separate bullets," the researchers said. "If the assassination fragments are derived from three or more separate bullets, then a second assassin is likely," the researchers said. If the five fragments came from three or more bullets, that would mean a second gunman's bullet would have had to strike the president, the researchers explained.

Washington Post

NONE of the evidence in the case against Oswald would have held up in a court of law. It wouldn't have gotten as far as a trial in fact.

The chain of possession was broken on everything: the multiple rifles and s casings that were "found" in the book depository, the "autopsy" photos, the tissue samples, the body--illegally stolen at gunpoint from the area of jurisdiction (Parkland hospital in Texas where the doctors are civilians and don't have to follow orders) to DC (Bethesda naval hospital) where the doctors have to follow officer's orders.

This case would have been thrown out of any little backwater court of law for lack of credible evidence. But it was good enough for the Warren Commission's purposes, which was to rubber stamp the hastily prepared FBI report. This cover-up is actually do ented in this infamous memo from deputy Attorney General LBJ aide Bill Moyers at the White House.

Katzenbach, whose memo sets out the Warren report results a year before the commission reached them, suggests that a "Presidential Commission of unimpeachable personnel" be appointed to examine evidence and reach conclusions. In closing he writes,

"I think, however, that a statement that all the facts will be made public property in an orderly and responsible way should be made now. We need something to head off public speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong sort."