Multiple Stretcher Bullets, AKA "The Connally Bullet, Revisited"
Sections:
This article is divided into the following sections (jump-links recently added--click to jump)
This article is divided into the following sections (jump-links recently added--click to jump)
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Introduction
I had always want to add a "Bonus Episode" to my documentary series on the "Multiple Stretcher Bullets." But then, with my Mom's condition deteriorating and then her passing, I just never got around to it. And at the time, and though I briefly touched on this subject in one of my books, it occurs to me that, especially with the Paul Landis revelation having garnered attention, I really ought to write this article. Really, the only difference the Landis revelation made to my original thinking is that, instead of the "other" stretcher bullet falling out of Kennedy's head, Landis had placed it on his stretcher. Nurse Phyllis Hall, whom I personally interviewed, had described this bullet as "pointed"--a description that matches O.P. Wright's for his stretcher bullet. Given that follow-up car driver Sam Kinney had previously admitted, at least to his friend Gary Loucks, that he was the one who had put the bullet on the stretcher, it made sense to me that it was the same bullet, put on one stretcher and then the other by Secret Service agents who were either unfamiliar with the concept of preserving a chain of evidence, or who were trying to protect a fellow agent by ditching evidence. I am reminded of a quote attributed to Parkland nurse Doris Nelson and relayed by Josiah Thompson in his 2003 Duquesne University presentation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oolUozA1Crw&t=7s): "I wish they'd stop putting these bullets on our stretchers!"
Due to the limitations of my web-host Weebly, I can't include video clips of the interviews referred to, but I provide links and transcripts as the next best thing. Maybe, when I feel up to it, I'll go back and turn this information into that "Bonus Episode" I always meant to do.
In the meantime, consider this article to be that "Bonus Episode."
Due to the limitations of my web-host Weebly, I can't include video clips of the interviews referred to, but I provide links and transcripts as the next best thing. Maybe, when I feel up to it, I'll go back and turn this information into that "Bonus Episode" I always meant to do.
In the meantime, consider this article to be that "Bonus Episode."
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On the Backs of Others...
Researcher Robert Harris wrote an excellent article called "The Connally Bullet" (https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-connally-bullet). This article is excellent not for its faulty conclusion (that "The bullet or large fragment that Nolan turned in was obviously not from Oswald's rifle") but for the evidence it presents, culling multiple sources to present an alternative history for the Connally bullet than the one that has been generally believed. As said from the outset of my first book The JFK Cut-N-Paste Assassination, "Evidence is one thing; conclusions are another." It was the Harris article that first drew my attention to the alternate history of the Connally bullet. It is an alternate history with some very strong supporting evidence, and it a history with which every Kennedy assassination researcher should become familiar.
Add to the Harris article, another excellent article by Josiah Thompson and Gary Aguilar, entitled "The Magic Bullet: Even More Magical Than We Knew" (https://history-matters.com/essays/frameup/EvenMoreMagical/EvenMoreMagical.htm), describing the problems in the provenance of CE-399 as any bullet that came from Parkland Hospital, and a picture emerges of deliberate deceptions, dissemblance, mistakes, obfuscations, and yes, downright lies surrounding the bullet that purportedly struck Governor Connally, CE 399. Thompson's early work, Six Seconds in Dallas, explains why the Parkland carriage most likely had been used by a young patient named Ronald Fuller (Kennedy's having been pushed into Trauma Room Two rather than the hallway). Otherwise, without really going into the Ronnie Fuller connection, the Thompson/Aguilar "The Magic Bullet" article covers the Six Seconds information, and expands on it.
Two other important sources need to be noted. One is the work of Ray Marcus, "The Bastard Bullet: A Search for Legitimacy for Commission Exhibit 399" (https://archive.org/stream/TheBastardBulletASearchForLegitimacyForCommissionExhibit399ByRaymondMarcus1966/The%20Bastard%20Bullet_%20A%20Search%20for%20Legitimacy%20for%20Commission%20Exhibit%20399%20by%20Raymond%20Marcus%20%281966%29_djvu.txt). I found "Bastard Bullet" relatively recently from a footnote mention in the Thompson/Aguilar article while I was working on this one. Marcus' work was written close to the same time as Thompson's Six Seconds in Dallas, and may have contributed to, or been inspired by, that early Thompson work. At any rate, "The Bastard Bullet" provides important additional information regarding CE-399 not in the Thompson/Aguilar article. (Another work by Marcus, "Hypothesis Re: The Zapruder Film," apparently proved that the FBI had mis-numbered frames 314 and 315, and had presented them in reverse order, which would make the "printing error" excuse given to researcher David Lifton for the switch the fault of the FBI rather than the printers of the Warren Commission document. I will look up that article when I'm done writing this article.)
There are important articles by the late John Hunt, now no longer available: "The Phantom Identification of CE-399" and "The Mystery of the 7:30 Bullet," which I had read when they were available. They are no longer available on the JFKLancer website, and sadly were not published elsewhere. One can only speculate whether their disappearance is deliberate or benign, but I do wish that they had been published on multiple sites rather than just JFKLancer, as they present hard to find evidence of the government's perfidy in the JFK Assassination investigations, and their disappearance is distressing.) Of particular interest in the Hunt "Phantom" article is the now unavailable high-res images of CE-399 I remember being included, showing CE 399 in various rotations to show clearly all surfaces of the bullet jacket, which demonstrated that expected initials that were supposed to have been scratched onto the surface of the bullet as part of the chain-of-custody process, were, in fact, absent from the bullet. I was fortunate enough to download the critically important "Shanklin" memo from the "7:30" article, and it is presented below. What I don't have is the information Hunt provided as to exactly how he found this memo.
There are some other specific sources, given as they are referred to.
What makes my own work unique is that I have tried to pull everything together into a single reference location, given new interpretations to evidence already uncovered by others, draw attention to details that may have been overlooked, and pulled all that evidence together into what I hope is a complete narrative.
The fact is, there are two distinct histories for the Connally bullet--actually, three distinct histories, given that the small fragments that were removed from Governor Connally's wrist have their own distinct history--that are mutually exclusive of each other. Moreover, there is plenty of reason to suspect that CE 399 is a substitution for the actual bullet that was found on the Parkland hallway stretcher/carriage by Darrell Tomlinson. It might or might not have been the actual bullet causing Connally's wounds, but it wasn't the bullet found by Darrell Tomlinson.
So what was the Tomlinson bullet if not the one that struck Connally? And what happened to the original Connally bullet? This article answers those questions.
Note that in my discussion below, I will refer to the bullet in evidence as "CE 399," meaning "Commission Exhibit 399," which is how most researchers refer to this bullet. Some of the images presented refer to the bullet as "C1" (sometimes with the earlier "Q1" designation) which was the FBI's identifier for the same piece of evidence. But for simplicity's sake, I will call the bullet in extant evidence "CE 399."
Researcher Robert Harris wrote an excellent article called "The Connally Bullet" (https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-connally-bullet). This article is excellent not for its faulty conclusion (that "The bullet or large fragment that Nolan turned in was obviously not from Oswald's rifle") but for the evidence it presents, culling multiple sources to present an alternative history for the Connally bullet than the one that has been generally believed. As said from the outset of my first book The JFK Cut-N-Paste Assassination, "Evidence is one thing; conclusions are another." It was the Harris article that first drew my attention to the alternate history of the Connally bullet. It is an alternate history with some very strong supporting evidence, and it a history with which every Kennedy assassination researcher should become familiar.
Add to the Harris article, another excellent article by Josiah Thompson and Gary Aguilar, entitled "The Magic Bullet: Even More Magical Than We Knew" (https://history-matters.com/essays/frameup/EvenMoreMagical/EvenMoreMagical.htm), describing the problems in the provenance of CE-399 as any bullet that came from Parkland Hospital, and a picture emerges of deliberate deceptions, dissemblance, mistakes, obfuscations, and yes, downright lies surrounding the bullet that purportedly struck Governor Connally, CE 399. Thompson's early work, Six Seconds in Dallas, explains why the Parkland carriage most likely had been used by a young patient named Ronald Fuller (Kennedy's having been pushed into Trauma Room Two rather than the hallway). Otherwise, without really going into the Ronnie Fuller connection, the Thompson/Aguilar "The Magic Bullet" article covers the Six Seconds information, and expands on it.
Two other important sources need to be noted. One is the work of Ray Marcus, "The Bastard Bullet: A Search for Legitimacy for Commission Exhibit 399" (https://archive.org/stream/TheBastardBulletASearchForLegitimacyForCommissionExhibit399ByRaymondMarcus1966/The%20Bastard%20Bullet_%20A%20Search%20for%20Legitimacy%20for%20Commission%20Exhibit%20399%20by%20Raymond%20Marcus%20%281966%29_djvu.txt). I found "Bastard Bullet" relatively recently from a footnote mention in the Thompson/Aguilar article while I was working on this one. Marcus' work was written close to the same time as Thompson's Six Seconds in Dallas, and may have contributed to, or been inspired by, that early Thompson work. At any rate, "The Bastard Bullet" provides important additional information regarding CE-399 not in the Thompson/Aguilar article. (Another work by Marcus, "Hypothesis Re: The Zapruder Film," apparently proved that the FBI had mis-numbered frames 314 and 315, and had presented them in reverse order, which would make the "printing error" excuse given to researcher David Lifton for the switch the fault of the FBI rather than the printers of the Warren Commission document. I will look up that article when I'm done writing this article.)
There are important articles by the late John Hunt, now no longer available: "The Phantom Identification of CE-399" and "The Mystery of the 7:30 Bullet," which I had read when they were available. They are no longer available on the JFKLancer website, and sadly were not published elsewhere. One can only speculate whether their disappearance is deliberate or benign, but I do wish that they had been published on multiple sites rather than just JFKLancer, as they present hard to find evidence of the government's perfidy in the JFK Assassination investigations, and their disappearance is distressing.) Of particular interest in the Hunt "Phantom" article is the now unavailable high-res images of CE-399 I remember being included, showing CE 399 in various rotations to show clearly all surfaces of the bullet jacket, which demonstrated that expected initials that were supposed to have been scratched onto the surface of the bullet as part of the chain-of-custody process, were, in fact, absent from the bullet. I was fortunate enough to download the critically important "Shanklin" memo from the "7:30" article, and it is presented below. What I don't have is the information Hunt provided as to exactly how he found this memo.
There are some other specific sources, given as they are referred to.
What makes my own work unique is that I have tried to pull everything together into a single reference location, given new interpretations to evidence already uncovered by others, draw attention to details that may have been overlooked, and pulled all that evidence together into what I hope is a complete narrative.
The fact is, there are two distinct histories for the Connally bullet--actually, three distinct histories, given that the small fragments that were removed from Governor Connally's wrist have their own distinct history--that are mutually exclusive of each other. Moreover, there is plenty of reason to suspect that CE 399 is a substitution for the actual bullet that was found on the Parkland hallway stretcher/carriage by Darrell Tomlinson. It might or might not have been the actual bullet causing Connally's wounds, but it wasn't the bullet found by Darrell Tomlinson.
So what was the Tomlinson bullet if not the one that struck Connally? And what happened to the original Connally bullet? This article answers those questions.
Note that in my discussion below, I will refer to the bullet in evidence as "CE 399," meaning "Commission Exhibit 399," which is how most researchers refer to this bullet. Some of the images presented refer to the bullet as "C1" (sometimes with the earlier "Q1" designation) which was the FBI's identifier for the same piece of evidence. But for simplicity's sake, I will call the bullet in extant evidence "CE 399."
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Motive, Opportunity, and Means (for Oswald)--Why CE 399 is So Important
The development of a criminal case against a suspect typically zeroes in on the three main components: motive, opportunity, and means. As far as motive is concerned, it's hard to find. Oswald actually said that he liked Kennedy. The very interesting Oswald/CIA connections make the waters extremely murky, and have led many researchers to conclude that Oswald was being "sheep dipped" as the scapegoat for a "domestic coup d'etat." It may even be that Kennedy wasn't even a target, that Oswald had only ever meant to shoot Connally, and Kennedy was an "accidental victim." While there wasn't any concrete motive for Oswald to want to kill Kennedy, there was such a motive for him to want to kill the Governor. Connally, when he was Secretary of the Navy, had denied Oswald's request to have his "dishonarable discharge" revoked, and is theorized to have been the true target of Oswald's ire. (See, for example, James Reston Jr., "The Accidental Victim" or Tragic Truth: Oswald Shot Kennedy by Accident, or online articles like "Forget JFK conspiracy, it was 'a mistake'" at https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/sep/19/arnoldkemp.theobserver). Oswald's scope was known to have been mis-aligned, with shims having had to be added at the FBI Laboratory in order to get it to work correctly. Ostensibly, it was supposed to have fired high, and to the right of the intended target. However, if it actually fired high and to the left of the intended target during the assassination, it would account for Oswald hitting Kennedy instead of Connally with the first shot, especially given my scenario. After all, the weapon may well have been jostled at any point in its travels to the FBI ballistics lab, thus nullifying whatever alignment it had during the assassination, before the the FBI added shims to correct it. So was Kennedy an accidental victim in more ways than one? Was there a force behind Oswald? The question of motive is one that remains open.
Which brings us to the question of opportunity. Could Oswald have been on the TSBD 6th floor at the time of the shooting? Researchers have long pondered whether Oswald was in the doorway at the front of the building during the shooting--or was that Billy Lovelady? Did Oswald have time to get from the to the TSBD sixth floor window to the second floor lunch room where he was seen by DPD Officer Marion Baker in the seconds/minutes after the shooting? Especially since Victoria Adams was supposed to have been on the staircase between the sixth floor and the lunch room within seconds of the shooting. I have nothing new to add to those debates except to say that, given all the other evidence against Oswald, and even though I am quite certain that some of that evidence was "manufactured," I really do think Oswald was the shooter in the TSBD 6th Floor Window.
Which leaves "Means." Ostensibly, Oswald shot Kennedy and Connally with an Italian WWII era Mannlicher-Carcanno rifle (technically a "carbine") that he had purchased via mail order under the name "A. Hidell." The weapon used 6.5 mm round-tipped Full-metal jacket bullets. However, the weapon found in the 6th Floor of the TSBD was identified on site as a "Mauser," as an affidavit indicates. The "Mauser" identification was later purported to be a "mistake," but that initial identification--or mis-identification--was problematic, and it only increased the need for the bullets used in the assassination to be linked back to Oswald.
CE 399's value as evidence was primarily the rifling marks linking it to the Oswald Mannlicher-Carcanno weapon. Since the official narrative would be that only "three" shots were fired (eventually it was learned that one of the shots was a miss causing James Tague's minor wounding, and as far as anyone knows, that bullet was never recovered), it left two bullets from Oswald's gun to not only account for all the wounds to Kennedy and Connally, but also to comprise the ballistics evidence: the nose and tail fragments from the front of the limousine (and where was the middle?), and CE 399. The only rifling marks that could possibly lead back to the Oswald weapon were from the bullet nose and tail fragments found in the limousine, which without the middle bullet section, is pretty much useless in creating a definitive link between the bullet and the weapon. , a ut CE 399, an intact bullet in nearly "pristine" condition, with a complete and unbroken set of rifling marks, became all-important in linking the assassination to Oswald.
Given its importance, the "chain of evidence," or history of the bulletbecomes equally critical in establishing that Oswald was the shooter.
Unfortunately, as we will see, the "official" history of CE 399 is rife with problems.
In order to understand those problems, we need to understand what the "official" history of CE 399 is.
The development of a criminal case against a suspect typically zeroes in on the three main components: motive, opportunity, and means. As far as motive is concerned, it's hard to find. Oswald actually said that he liked Kennedy. The very interesting Oswald/CIA connections make the waters extremely murky, and have led many researchers to conclude that Oswald was being "sheep dipped" as the scapegoat for a "domestic coup d'etat." It may even be that Kennedy wasn't even a target, that Oswald had only ever meant to shoot Connally, and Kennedy was an "accidental victim." While there wasn't any concrete motive for Oswald to want to kill Kennedy, there was such a motive for him to want to kill the Governor. Connally, when he was Secretary of the Navy, had denied Oswald's request to have his "dishonarable discharge" revoked, and is theorized to have been the true target of Oswald's ire. (See, for example, James Reston Jr., "The Accidental Victim" or Tragic Truth: Oswald Shot Kennedy by Accident, or online articles like "Forget JFK conspiracy, it was 'a mistake'" at https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/sep/19/arnoldkemp.theobserver). Oswald's scope was known to have been mis-aligned, with shims having had to be added at the FBI Laboratory in order to get it to work correctly. Ostensibly, it was supposed to have fired high, and to the right of the intended target. However, if it actually fired high and to the left of the intended target during the assassination, it would account for Oswald hitting Kennedy instead of Connally with the first shot, especially given my scenario. After all, the weapon may well have been jostled at any point in its travels to the FBI ballistics lab, thus nullifying whatever alignment it had during the assassination, before the the FBI added shims to correct it. So was Kennedy an accidental victim in more ways than one? Was there a force behind Oswald? The question of motive is one that remains open.
Which brings us to the question of opportunity. Could Oswald have been on the TSBD 6th floor at the time of the shooting? Researchers have long pondered whether Oswald was in the doorway at the front of the building during the shooting--or was that Billy Lovelady? Did Oswald have time to get from the to the TSBD sixth floor window to the second floor lunch room where he was seen by DPD Officer Marion Baker in the seconds/minutes after the shooting? Especially since Victoria Adams was supposed to have been on the staircase between the sixth floor and the lunch room within seconds of the shooting. I have nothing new to add to those debates except to say that, given all the other evidence against Oswald, and even though I am quite certain that some of that evidence was "manufactured," I really do think Oswald was the shooter in the TSBD 6th Floor Window.
Which leaves "Means." Ostensibly, Oswald shot Kennedy and Connally with an Italian WWII era Mannlicher-Carcanno rifle (technically a "carbine") that he had purchased via mail order under the name "A. Hidell." The weapon used 6.5 mm round-tipped Full-metal jacket bullets. However, the weapon found in the 6th Floor of the TSBD was identified on site as a "Mauser," as an affidavit indicates. The "Mauser" identification was later purported to be a "mistake," but that initial identification--or mis-identification--was problematic, and it only increased the need for the bullets used in the assassination to be linked back to Oswald.
CE 399's value as evidence was primarily the rifling marks linking it to the Oswald Mannlicher-Carcanno weapon. Since the official narrative would be that only "three" shots were fired (eventually it was learned that one of the shots was a miss causing James Tague's minor wounding, and as far as anyone knows, that bullet was never recovered), it left two bullets from Oswald's gun to not only account for all the wounds to Kennedy and Connally, but also to comprise the ballistics evidence: the nose and tail fragments from the front of the limousine (and where was the middle?), and CE 399. The only rifling marks that could possibly lead back to the Oswald weapon were from the bullet nose and tail fragments found in the limousine, which without the middle bullet section, is pretty much useless in creating a definitive link between the bullet and the weapon. , a ut CE 399, an intact bullet in nearly "pristine" condition, with a complete and unbroken set of rifling marks, became all-important in linking the assassination to Oswald.
Given its importance, the "chain of evidence," or history of the bulletbecomes equally critical in establishing that Oswald was the shooter.
Unfortunately, as we will see, the "official" history of CE 399 is rife with problems.
In order to understand those problems, we need to understand what the "official" history of CE 399 is.
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The "Official" History of CE 399
The "Official" History of CE-399 goes something like this: This nearly pristine Mannlicher-Carcanno 6.5mm round entered Kennedy's lower neck/upper back (the exact entry location has always been somewhat problematic) and exited his throat (going through soft tissue only, no bone) then entered Governor Connally's back and exiting near his write nipple (shattering a rib bone in the process), went through the Governor's right wrist (shattering the wrist bones in the process, and leaving behind some small metallic fragments), and then went into his left thigh. It subsequently fell out of the Governor's thigh, and was discovered on the stretcher/carriage by Parkland employee Darrell Tomlinson, who reported it to Parkland head of security O.P. Wright, who turned it over to Secret Service agent Richard Johnson, who turned it over to his boss, Secret Service Chief James Rowley, who turned it over to FBI agent Elmer Todd, who took it to the FBI lab where it was logged into evidence (and initialed by Charles Killian, Cortland Cunningham, and Robert Frasier), labeled "Q1," later changed to "C1, and then later re-labeled by the Warren Commission as "CE 399." In the process of studying this bullet, a small piece was removed from the rounded tip for spectrographic analysis. (Law enforcement officials routinely scratch their initials into bullet evidence as a way of maintaining the "chain of custody" of the evidence--which is why the now missing John Hunt article, demonstrating how the initials of various individuals who said they initialed the bullet, and those initials were not present on CE-399 was so important. A bit more on this, below.)
Importantly, the near-pristine condition of CE 399 has been fodder for much of the criticism of the Single Bullet Theory and CE 399's role in that improbable scenario. This bullet was supposed to have passed through the soft tissue in Kennedy's neck, entered Connally's back, shattered his fifth rib, exited Connally's chest, gone through the Governor's right wrist and shattering several wrist bones in the process while leaving behind a number of small metallic fragments, and then created a wound in the governor's left thigh, before falling out of the thigh to be found on the carriage/gurney/stretcher later in the day. It was supposed to have somehow done all this with very minimal damage to the bullet itself.
Not even the small missing bit from the tip of CE 399 can be attributed to the wound damage caused by this bullet. From the April 21, 1964 Warren Commission testimony of Dr. Charles Gregory:
Dr. Gregory. In examining this bullet, I find a small flake has been either knocked off or removed from the rounded end of the missile.
(At this point Representative Boggs entered the room.)
I was told that this was removed for the purpose of analysis. The only other deformity which I can find is at the base of the missile at the point where it joined the cartridge carrying the powder, I presume, and this is somewhat flattened and deflected, distorted. There is some irregularity of the darker metal within which I resume to represent lead.
(Hearings, Vol. IV, p. 121)
Gregory went on to surmise that all of the metal recovered from Governor Connally must therefore have come from the exposed metal at the base of CE 399.
The "Official" History of CE-399 goes something like this: This nearly pristine Mannlicher-Carcanno 6.5mm round entered Kennedy's lower neck/upper back (the exact entry location has always been somewhat problematic) and exited his throat (going through soft tissue only, no bone) then entered Governor Connally's back and exiting near his write nipple (shattering a rib bone in the process), went through the Governor's right wrist (shattering the wrist bones in the process, and leaving behind some small metallic fragments), and then went into his left thigh. It subsequently fell out of the Governor's thigh, and was discovered on the stretcher/carriage by Parkland employee Darrell Tomlinson, who reported it to Parkland head of security O.P. Wright, who turned it over to Secret Service agent Richard Johnson, who turned it over to his boss, Secret Service Chief James Rowley, who turned it over to FBI agent Elmer Todd, who took it to the FBI lab where it was logged into evidence (and initialed by Charles Killian, Cortland Cunningham, and Robert Frasier), labeled "Q1," later changed to "C1, and then later re-labeled by the Warren Commission as "CE 399." In the process of studying this bullet, a small piece was removed from the rounded tip for spectrographic analysis. (Law enforcement officials routinely scratch their initials into bullet evidence as a way of maintaining the "chain of custody" of the evidence--which is why the now missing John Hunt article, demonstrating how the initials of various individuals who said they initialed the bullet, and those initials were not present on CE-399 was so important. A bit more on this, below.)
Importantly, the near-pristine condition of CE 399 has been fodder for much of the criticism of the Single Bullet Theory and CE 399's role in that improbable scenario. This bullet was supposed to have passed through the soft tissue in Kennedy's neck, entered Connally's back, shattered his fifth rib, exited Connally's chest, gone through the Governor's right wrist and shattering several wrist bones in the process while leaving behind a number of small metallic fragments, and then created a wound in the governor's left thigh, before falling out of the thigh to be found on the carriage/gurney/stretcher later in the day. It was supposed to have somehow done all this with very minimal damage to the bullet itself.
Not even the small missing bit from the tip of CE 399 can be attributed to the wound damage caused by this bullet. From the April 21, 1964 Warren Commission testimony of Dr. Charles Gregory:
Dr. Gregory. In examining this bullet, I find a small flake has been either knocked off or removed from the rounded end of the missile.
(At this point Representative Boggs entered the room.)
I was told that this was removed for the purpose of analysis. The only other deformity which I can find is at the base of the missile at the point where it joined the cartridge carrying the powder, I presume, and this is somewhat flattened and deflected, distorted. There is some irregularity of the darker metal within which I resume to represent lead.
(Hearings, Vol. IV, p. 121)
Gregory went on to surmise that all of the metal recovered from Governor Connally must therefore have come from the exposed metal at the base of CE 399.
The round-tipped CE-399 that was supposedly picked up from Governor Connally's stretcher
So assuming that all of the metal that came from Connally's body could have come from CE 399, and per Dr. Gregory, it may have, what's the problem? The problem is two-fold:
As will be seen, this bullet is not the Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet. It may or may not have played a role in the assassination, but it didn't come off the Tomlinson/Wright stretcher.
Nor is the SBT true. Separate bullets hit Connally and Kennedy. Which means that more than three shots were fired. Which means there was more than one shooter.
Spoiler alert: there were two other shooters, both Secret Service agents. One did nothing more than fire a warning shot or two to alert his fellow agents to the danger. The other was handling a defective AR-15 prone to slam fire discharge, and when the gun went off, it just happened to be pointed at the President's head. It seems too incredible to believe, but that is exactly what happened.
Let's start by looking at why the SBT is not true.
- If the Single Bullet Theory (SBT) is true, than this bullet must have caused all the damage to Kennedy and Connally and emerged in such "pristine" condition, and if the single bullet theory is not true, then there must have been more than three shots fired, given the missed shot that wounded bystander James Tague.;
- If the provenance of this bullet does not match that of the actual Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet, then it cannot be traced back to the Oswald weapon. Given that the rifling marks on this bullet are of critical importance in establishing a link between Oswald and the murder, the chain-of-evidence linking this bullet to the assassination is vitally important.
As will be seen, this bullet is not the Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet. It may or may not have played a role in the assassination, but it didn't come off the Tomlinson/Wright stretcher.
Nor is the SBT true. Separate bullets hit Connally and Kennedy. Which means that more than three shots were fired. Which means there was more than one shooter.
Spoiler alert: there were two other shooters, both Secret Service agents. One did nothing more than fire a warning shot or two to alert his fellow agents to the danger. The other was handling a defective AR-15 prone to slam fire discharge, and when the gun went off, it just happened to be pointed at the President's head. It seems too incredible to believe, but that is exactly what happened.
Let's start by looking at why the SBT is not true.
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Problems with the Single Bullet Theory
(Note: I recently added a new article to my website that also explains Why the SBT is BS)
Since CE 399, the purported "stretcher bullet" of the "official" history, is supposed to be the bullet that caused Kennedy's back and neck wounds as well as all of Governor Connally's wounds, a brief examination of the Single Bullet Theory (SBT), especially as it relates to CE 399, is in order.
Even assuming that a full-metal-jacket Carcanno bullet could remain as intact as CE 399 after doing all the damage attributed to it, and ignoring the critical reports that the bullet would necessarily have had to pass through Kennedy's bony spinal column in order to follow its purported path, there are other problems with the Single Bullet Theory. For one thing, critics often point to an improbable trajectory as so notably pointed out in the Oliver Stone JFK movie. The improbable trajectory has given CE 399 another derogatory nickname in addition to "the Pristine Bullet": "The Magic Bullet."
Supporters of the Single Bullet Theory point out the failure to take into account that Connally's jump seat was actually lower and further to the inside of the car than the declared trajectory. However, those critics fail to address the problem of the purported entrance wound location in Kennedy's back, not his neck. Secret Service agent Clint Hill, who viewed the body in the morgue after the autopsy in order to report back to the family on the wounds, said this:
Representative Boggs. Did you see any other wound other than the head wound?
Mr. Hill. Yes, sir; I saw an opening in the back, about 6 inches below the neckline to the right-hand side of the spinal column.
Clint Hill's observation is supported by the Boswell autopsy face sheet which, while not providing measurements, certainly does not support the wound being located at the base of the neck--which is the lowest location it could have been for the Single Bullet trajectory to work, This back wound location some 6 inches below the neck line is further corroborated by the locations of the holes in Kennedy's jacket and shirt (which were purportedly explained by the "bunched jacket" theory, which of course does not explain the under-oath testimony of the wound location or the autopsy face sheet wound location).
Recently, Knott Laboratory conducted a study of the Single Bullet Theory trajectory, possibly. A news segment on their study entitled "Why the 'single bullet theory' in JFK assassination is impossible" can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Ss8XOQD1hEE. For once, this study of the Single Bullet Theory uses the actual entrance wound location on Kennedy's back, rather than the "base of the neck" description that Gerald Ford admitted to fabricating. But in my view, anyone with eyes and a brain and who uses the correct entrance location can see that the Single Bullet Theory is "impossible." But it's nice to have an official laboratory confirmation of its impossibility.
I discussed the problem of the trajectory through Kennedy's body at length in my documentary well before the Knott laboratory study. The entrance wound in Kennedy's back was too low for the Single Bullet Theory to work, and all the Single Bullet Theory supporters necessarily place the wound at the bottom of the neck. To accurately place the back wound location from about 6 inches below the neck line to the throat wound location would have been an upward trajectory from back-to-front through Kennedy's body, which certainly didn't match any trajectory from the Texas School Book Depository. While the opposite hypothesis of a front-to-back trajectory with a throat wound entrance and exit at JFK's back is one that a few researchers have entertained, especially since the Parkland doctors believed the throat wound to be an entrance (due mainly to its small size), the fact of the matter is that no such trajectory between the two wounds was ever found. The autopsy doctors found the wound to be shallow, penetrating only as far as the first joint of Dr. Humes' little finger.
But the throat wound trajectory didn't line up with the back wound location, or even the base of the neck location. The ARRB deposition of autopsy X-ray technician Jerrol Custer creates further problems for the Single Bullet Theory. Custer testified to seeing an autopsy X-ray showing metallic fragments at the C3/C4 locations in the neck. This X-ray was missing from the collection of X-rays he was shown during his deposition--a case of evidence gone missing. On top of that, Jerrol Custer reported that a "king-size" bullet fragment fell out of Kennedy's back when the body was lifted to take X-rays for the autopsy. (Custer's deposition can be found at https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/Custer_10-28-97/html/Custer_0001a.htm . An audio version can be found at https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/audio/ARRB_Custer.htm ) Custer's assertion is supported by leaked FBI Report news accounts of a "bullet" being found "buried deep in the shoulder" and recovered during the autopsy. In actuality, the thing that was buried in Kennedy's shoulder was most likely the middle section of the bullet whose nose and tail fragments were recovered from the front of the limousine. But where that went is anybody's guess, since that bullet or "king-size fragment" does not appear in the extant evidence.
But one thing is evident: CE 399 did not go through two men.
The SBT, as I have stated in my books and documentary, is "B.S."
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The Paper Trail (The Richard Johnson Memo and "Q1" Envelope)
CE 399's provenance as a piece of actual assassination evidence is a crucial part in linking Oswald to the assassination. As an intact, nearly "pristine" fired bullet, it not only contains a general appearance that it could have been fired by the Oswald gun (that is, it is of the type of ammunition that the gun uses), it also contains the "rifling" marks that prove it came from Oswald's gun. But that proof is good only if the bullet is found at the assassination scene, or in the body, or shown to have come from the body. The links tracing the bullet to the body is called "chain of evidence."
CE 399's chain of evidence, its history linking it to the body of Governor Connally, is particularly weak--and was weak even before the recent Paul Landis revelation.
A chain of evidence involves paper trails, initials scratched onto the bullet by the law enforcement agents who handle it, and physical inspection of the bullet by witnesses who can place it in its found location. Nowadays, photographs provide crucial evidence placing the bullet at the scene, but in this case, no photographs placing the bullet at the scene were made.
There is a "paper trail" (Josiah Thompson's term) linking a bullet found on a gurney near the elevator in the emergency area to CE 399, which is purported to be that bullet. The "paper" part of that trail begins with an unsigned "White House" memo by Secret Service agent Richard Johnson, and an envelope that was apparently detached from this memo:
CE 399's provenance as a piece of actual assassination evidence is a crucial part in linking Oswald to the assassination. As an intact, nearly "pristine" fired bullet, it not only contains a general appearance that it could have been fired by the Oswald gun (that is, it is of the type of ammunition that the gun uses), it also contains the "rifling" marks that prove it came from Oswald's gun. But that proof is good only if the bullet is found at the assassination scene, or in the body, or shown to have come from the body. The links tracing the bullet to the body is called "chain of evidence."
CE 399's chain of evidence, its history linking it to the body of Governor Connally, is particularly weak--and was weak even before the recent Paul Landis revelation.
A chain of evidence involves paper trails, initials scratched onto the bullet by the law enforcement agents who handle it, and physical inspection of the bullet by witnesses who can place it in its found location. Nowadays, photographs provide crucial evidence placing the bullet at the scene, but in this case, no photographs placing the bullet at the scene were made.
There is a "paper trail" (Josiah Thompson's term) linking a bullet found on a gurney near the elevator in the emergency area to CE 399, which is purported to be that bullet. The "paper" part of that trail begins with an unsigned "White House" memo by Secret Service agent Richard Johnson, and an envelope that was apparently detached from this memo:
The unsigned "White House" memo purportedly by Secret Service agent Richard E. Johnson. Image from https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/19537-the-secret-service-and-ce399/page/4/
The "Q1" envelope, available on multiple sites on the Web. This image source is from "Frazier Speaks" by John Hunt at https://history-matters.com/essays/frameup/FrazierSpeaks/FrazierSpeaks.htm
The fact that the White House memo is unsigned may be important, as there seems to be a pattern of unsigned and anonymous memos creating a "phantom" identification of this bullet as being the Tomlinson/Wright bullets, as will be seen. (The Kennedy investigation is filled with such dissemblance.) The fact that the envelope is signed is good, but is not conclusive that it actually contained the bullet CE 399. It may have contained something else altogether. The only indication that it actually did contain the CE 399 bullet is the notation "Q1," which was added at the FBI Laboratory. That's why a visual inspection and identification is important to link the bullet to the envelope, and why law enforcement officers typically carve their initials into the bullet.
Note the "7:30" time notation on the memo, and the "8:50" time notation for its deliverance to FBI agent Elmer Todd, a 1 hour and 20 minute time difference. I doubt it took an hour and 20 minutes to drive from the White House to Chief Rowley's office, or wherever Rowley happened to be at the time, so one wonders what Johnson was doing in the intervening time frame, or why he didn't report to Rowley's office immediately upon arrival in Washington.
However, the problems with CE 399 being the actual Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet are more profound than that one apparent time discrepancy. So far, the paper trail discrepancies include the following, some of which are my own observations that I haven't seen noted by other researchers.
- The memo is unsigned. (This has been noted by Ray Marcus.)
- The memo has one "staple" mark (whereas the envelope has two). That the paper is not torn between the two staple holes of the memo indicates that staple was removed. Yet both staples are present in the "Q1" envelope.
- The memo has tape residue. What was it attached to?
- The memo is on "The White House" letterhead. Johnson was a Secret Service agent. Possibly Johnson stopped at the Secret Service White House office to type the memo before proceeding to Chief Rowley's office? Or did he meet Rowley at the White House? Did Johnson go to the White House to show the bullet to people there? Why is the memo typed on "White House" letterhead rather than "Secret Service" letterhead?
So let's back up this paper trail with the testimonies of the early participants in the bullet's chain-of-custody, where the visual inspection links the bullet to the envelope, etc. They should be able to visually confirm CE 399 as being--or at least, looking like--the bullet that would be dubbed "Q1."
Big problem: Those testimonies don't exist.
In the order of the links on the chain, here's a summary of whose testimonies we might expect to see:
- Parkland Maintenance Engineer Darrell Tomlinson: He was called to testify, but was never shown CE 399 and never asked to identify it during his testimony.
- Parkland Personnel Director and Head of Security O.P. Wright: He was never called to testify.
- Secret Service Agent Richard Johnson: He was never called to testify.
- Secret Service Chief James Rowley: He was called to testify, but was never shown CE 399 and never asked to identify it during his testimony.
- FBI agent Elmer Todd: He was never called to testify.
I think it's very telling that most of these people were not called to testify, and of the two who were, they were not shown CE 399 and not asked to identify it as even "resembling" the bullet they saw. These omissions were, I believe, deliberate, as part of the dissemblance that CE 399 ("Q1" being the FBI's designation for the first piece of "Questioned" evidence) was the actual Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet.
We will see shortly how CE 399 was--or actually, was not--"positively identified as the bullet found by Darrell Tomlinson.
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The "Point" of the Matter (The O.P. Wright, Phyllis Hall, and Nathan Burgess Pool Descriptions)
Why were the individuals involved in the early chain of custody or history either never called to testify, or never asked to identify CE 399 as their bullet? I believe this blatant failure was to keep out of public awareness the fact that CE 399 did not even resemble the Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet.
O.P. Wright described the stretcher bullet as being "pointed" to assassination researcher (and co-plaintiff of the Mary Ferrell Foundation's lawsuit against Joseph R. Biden and NARA) Josiah Thompson. No one can accuse the round-tipped CE 399 of being "pointed." In his interview, Wright gave Thompson a .30 caliber bullet he said resembled the one that came off the Parkland carriage and that he gave to Secret Service agent Richard Johnson:
Why were the individuals involved in the early chain of custody or history either never called to testify, or never asked to identify CE 399 as their bullet? I believe this blatant failure was to keep out of public awareness the fact that CE 399 did not even resemble the Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet.
O.P. Wright described the stretcher bullet as being "pointed" to assassination researcher (and co-plaintiff of the Mary Ferrell Foundation's lawsuit against Joseph R. Biden and NARA) Josiah Thompson. No one can accuse the round-tipped CE 399 of being "pointed." In his interview, Wright gave Thompson a .30 caliber bullet he said resembled the one that came off the Parkland carriage and that he gave to Secret Service agent Richard Johnson:
The .30 caliber bullet Wright gave to Thompson as looking like the one he saw on the hallway carriage, which Thompson photographed that night next to his hotel room key.
Parkland nurse Phyllis Hall has given accounts of a bullet being found on Kennedy's carriage/stretcher in Trauma Room One. According to Nurse Hall, this bullet was "removed." (To me, in a personal phone interview, she clarified that it was removed from the stretcher and placed in a specimen-type container and taken out of Trauma Room One.) Importantly, like O.P. Wright, Nurse Hall described her bullet as "pointed."
There is even a somewhat "official" documentation that the bullet is "pointed." Apparently, Darrell Tomlinson wasn't alone when he found the bullet on the gurney. There is a record of a HSCA phone interview of an unrecorded phone call with an Otis Elevator employee named Nathan Burgess Pool, who was present during the bullet's discovery (and claimed to have actually picked it up). Pool described the bullet as "pointed." The report itself is rather difficult to find online. Much easier to find is a reference to this call report in HSCA Volume 7, the "Introduction" to the "Firearms Panel" report, on p. 356, Item (8):
from https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol7/html/HSCA_Vol7_0183b.htm
The introduction to the HSCA Firearms report represents a mis-match between the official history and the call record with Nathan Burgess Pool in that it says Tomlinson gave the bullet to a Secret Service agent. In fact, the Richard Johnson memo says he received it from O.P. Wright, and the call report says that Pool gave the bullet to Tomlinson, who gave it to either a Secret Service agent or O.P. Wright. A couple more discrepancies (whether the bullet fell to the floor and was picked up by Pool, or whether it was simply laying on the stretcher) are relatively minor, but some of that might be solved by Pool's stated desire for Tomlinson not to mention his name to anyone.
The actual call report did not appear in the published HSCA Volume 7, and it is rather difficult to find the original report online, although a transcript of the report is much easier to find.. I did eventually find this HSCA Report on the phone call with Nathan Burgess Pool, released by the ARRB, at http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/P%20Disk/Pool%20Nathan/Item%2003.pdf :
The actual call report did not appear in the published HSCA Volume 7, and it is rather difficult to find the original report online, although a transcript of the report is much easier to find.. I did eventually find this HSCA Report on the phone call with Nathan Burgess Pool, released by the ARRB, at http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/P%20Disk/Pool%20Nathan/Item%2003.pdf :
Notice Pool's description of the bullet, which he "judged to be a 6mm, i.e. less than a 30-30 caliber. He described the bullet as bronze, long, pointed, and smooth ... the bullet didn't look like it had hit anything and didn't look like it had been in anything." (emphasis added) And as far as I know, the "further interviewing of Pool and Tomlinson (that was) recommended" never took place. (If it did, I have not yet found the supporting documentation.)
So there is even official documentation of the bullet being "pointed" beyond Josiah Thompson's unrecorded interview with O.P. Wright and Nurse Hall's unofficial interviews.
Also of interest in the reported phone interview with Pool is the statement that "A Secret Service agent was within ten feet when Pool delivered the bullet." That very intriguing comment leads to the reviewer's statement at the end that "Further development of Pool's testimony may confirm that a Secret Service agent was close enough to the elevator to plant a bullet."
So there is even official documentation of the bullet being "pointed" beyond Josiah Thompson's unrecorded interview with O.P. Wright and Nurse Hall's unofficial interviews.
Also of interest in the reported phone interview with Pool is the statement that "A Secret Service agent was within ten feet when Pool delivered the bullet." That very intriguing comment leads to the reviewer's statement at the end that "Further development of Pool's testimony may confirm that a Secret Service agent was close enough to the elevator to plant a bullet."
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"Planting" the Bullet -- A Secret Service Gardener (or Two)
The agent who was near the elevator "close enough to plant a bullet" in Pool's above account was most likely Sam Kinney, who admitted to his friend Gary Loucks that he (Kinney) was the one who had placed the bullet on the hallway stretcher.
At any rate, with the recent Paul Landis revelation that he put a bullet from the limousine on Kennedy's stretcher while it was in Trauma Room One, and the older assertion by Kinney's neighbor and friend Gary Loucks that Kinney had admitted to putting a bullet from the limousine onto the hallway stretcher, it seems clear that, at best, Secret Service agents untrained in procedures regarding evidence handling didn't know what to do with it. At worst, they were trying to "disappear" evidence in a hurry, and the stretcher was an expedient solution. At the very worst, they were "planting" evidence. My own thinking with Landis is that the 28-year-old agent who had gone straight from Secret Service School to the Kennedy inauguration (https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/local/2013/11/17/cleveland-area-man-who-was/10683130007/), was simply not very well trained. Multiple sources described the Secret Service's poor training practices prior to 1963, including being handed an AR-15 "on the first day of the job" and being told to "fake it" when they complained they didn't know how to use one. George Hickey, who was handling the AR-15, was only four-months new to the Secret Service at the time of the assassination. Although quarterly practices at a range with firearms, including the AR-15, were supposedly a requirement, these practices were often skipped due to budget and personnel limitations. Demonstrations of Secret Service readiness to respond to dangerous situations were more "shows" than simulations or actual practices, as Ronald Kessler describes in his critical book In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect. One can only hope that policies and practices have improved since 1963.
Sam Kinney, having served under Presidents Truman and Eisenhower before Kennedy, was more experienced than Landis or Hickey. However, there's an interesting story about Kinney that I think is relevant. The story is told by Kinney's daughter with the last name Rosser: ("Momentous seconds in Dallas 50 years ago haunted secret service agent who retired to Palm Beach County," https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/local/2013/11/17/cleveland-area-man-who-was/10683130007/
The agent who was near the elevator "close enough to plant a bullet" in Pool's above account was most likely Sam Kinney, who admitted to his friend Gary Loucks that he (Kinney) was the one who had placed the bullet on the hallway stretcher.
At any rate, with the recent Paul Landis revelation that he put a bullet from the limousine on Kennedy's stretcher while it was in Trauma Room One, and the older assertion by Kinney's neighbor and friend Gary Loucks that Kinney had admitted to putting a bullet from the limousine onto the hallway stretcher, it seems clear that, at best, Secret Service agents untrained in procedures regarding evidence handling didn't know what to do with it. At worst, they were trying to "disappear" evidence in a hurry, and the stretcher was an expedient solution. At the very worst, they were "planting" evidence. My own thinking with Landis is that the 28-year-old agent who had gone straight from Secret Service School to the Kennedy inauguration (https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/local/2013/11/17/cleveland-area-man-who-was/10683130007/), was simply not very well trained. Multiple sources described the Secret Service's poor training practices prior to 1963, including being handed an AR-15 "on the first day of the job" and being told to "fake it" when they complained they didn't know how to use one. George Hickey, who was handling the AR-15, was only four-months new to the Secret Service at the time of the assassination. Although quarterly practices at a range with firearms, including the AR-15, were supposedly a requirement, these practices were often skipped due to budget and personnel limitations. Demonstrations of Secret Service readiness to respond to dangerous situations were more "shows" than simulations or actual practices, as Ronald Kessler describes in his critical book In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect. One can only hope that policies and practices have improved since 1963.
Sam Kinney, having served under Presidents Truman and Eisenhower before Kennedy, was more experienced than Landis or Hickey. However, there's an interesting story about Kinney that I think is relevant. The story is told by Kinney's daughter with the last name Rosser: ("Momentous seconds in Dallas 50 years ago haunted secret service agent who retired to Palm Beach County," https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/local/2013/11/17/cleveland-area-man-who-was/10683130007/
A chance occurrence – seeing a Secret Service agent emerging from a men’s room – changed the arc of his life.
The agent patted his jacket, realizing he had left his gun in the bathroom. A small gesture, but the kind an observant police officer noticed.
“My dad just took off his side arm and handed it to the guy,” Rosser said. “A short time later he was promoted.
The agent patted his jacket, realizing he had left his gun in the bathroom. A small gesture, but the kind an observant police officer noticed.
“My dad just took off his side arm and handed it to the guy,” Rosser said. “A short time later he was promoted.
Kinney seems to have had a "care-taker" personality, looking out for others and taking care of them--a figurative "gardener," so to speak.
Kinney was reportedly a close friend of George Hickey. Anyone familiar with my work knows that my contention is that the AR-15 being handled by Hickey went off in a slam-fire incident, striking Kennedy in the head for a second time after he had already been struck in the head by Oswald. If Kinney, as a police officer, was willing to give his gun to a random Secret Service agent, he might have been willing to "disappear" --or at least, move--a bullet that the sight of was sure to upset his friend Hickey, "who loved Kennedy too well." Kinney and Hickey were photographed putting the bubbletop onto the limousine, along with a bucket of water that had probably been used to clean the inside of the car.
An audio interview with Gary Loucks talking about Sam Kinney can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaW6k0N6ZzI In addition to admitting that he had put the bullet on the stretcher, Kinney admitted that he had cleaned the car, "because he didn't want the President to be remembered like that." (The same article quoted above as showing police officer Kinney giving his gun to a Secret Service agent notes that Kinney would have reason to be grateful to Kennedy for paying the salaries of Secret Service agents, including Kinney's, out of his own pocket.) Note that in the interview, Loucks says that Kinney "heard the shot and smelled the smoke from the Grassy Knoll," but I take this to be a fabrication to take attention off his friend's inadvertent and unintended mishap, while assuaging his own personal guilt of putting the bullet on the stretcher.
Kinney was reportedly a close friend of George Hickey. Anyone familiar with my work knows that my contention is that the AR-15 being handled by Hickey went off in a slam-fire incident, striking Kennedy in the head for a second time after he had already been struck in the head by Oswald. If Kinney, as a police officer, was willing to give his gun to a random Secret Service agent, he might have been willing to "disappear" --or at least, move--a bullet that the sight of was sure to upset his friend Hickey, "who loved Kennedy too well." Kinney and Hickey were photographed putting the bubbletop onto the limousine, along with a bucket of water that had probably been used to clean the inside of the car.
An audio interview with Gary Loucks talking about Sam Kinney can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaW6k0N6ZzI In addition to admitting that he had put the bullet on the stretcher, Kinney admitted that he had cleaned the car, "because he didn't want the President to be remembered like that." (The same article quoted above as showing police officer Kinney giving his gun to a Secret Service agent notes that Kinney would have reason to be grateful to Kennedy for paying the salaries of Secret Service agents, including Kinney's, out of his own pocket.) Note that in the interview, Loucks says that Kinney "heard the shot and smelled the smoke from the Grassy Knoll," but I take this to be a fabrication to take attention off his friend's inadvertent and unintended mishap, while assuaging his own personal guilt of putting the bullet on the stretcher.
Sam Kinney and George Hickey are photographed with the limousine outside of Parkland Hospital. Note the bucket between them. Image from https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/107504
But CE 399 is not the bullet that came off the Tomlinson stretcher. It is not "pointed," as Wright, Hall, and Pool described that bullet as being. None of the early witnesses to this bullet were asked to identify CE 399 under testimony.
So how was CE 399 actually identified as the "stretcher bullet" by the early links in the Tomlinson/Wright chain?
Actually, it never was.
In fact, it was specifically "not positively identified."
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The False "Positive" Identification of CE 399 as the Tomlinson/Wright Stretcher Bullet
As noted above, there was no under oath testimony by Darrell Tomlinson or O.P. Wright identifying CE 399 as their bullet. The link was established via an obscure and anonymous FBI memo, CE 2011, wherein Tomlinson and Wright reportedly said that CE 399 "looked like" or "appeared to be" their bullet.
However, thanks to the diligent work of Josiah Thompson and Gary Aguilar "The Magic Bullet: Even More Magical Than We Knew," we know that the memo establishing this "resemblance" was a fraud. In fact, the only solid paper trail actually establishes that individuals in the chain (specifically Secret Service agent Richard Johnson and Secret Service Chief Rowley) "would not positively identify" CE 399 as the bullet, and there is no evidence to support that Tomlinson and Wright were actually shown CE 399 and interviewed.
Let's review the notion that Tomlinson and Wright admitted that CE 399 at least resembled the bullet they saw on the Parkland stretcher.
As the Thompson/Aguilar article shows, the only supporting evidence for this claim of resemblance is an unsigned (which Thompson and Aguilar should have noted as unsigned and which Ray Marcus in "The Bastard Bullet" does note as unsigned) FBI memo CE 2011. Unsigned documents are a potential way of creating fraudulent documentation. The unsigned Richard Johnson White House memo is problematic in part because it is unsigned. The CE 2011 memo is not only unsigned, it is anonymous. We don't know who was supposed to have written it. The CE 2011 memo is the only documentation that the Tomlinson and Wright had ever expressed a statement that CE 399 "looked like" or "appeared to be" the bullet they saw. These assertions were supposed to have been made to FBI agent Bardwell Odum, who supposedly showed them the CE 399 bullet on June 12, 1964, so Odum should have been able to confirm the veracity of that claim, but that is not the case.
Below is the excerpt of CE 2011 presented by Thompson and Aguilar (the full version of which can be found in https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh24/pdf/WH24_CE_2011.pdf):
As noted above, there was no under oath testimony by Darrell Tomlinson or O.P. Wright identifying CE 399 as their bullet. The link was established via an obscure and anonymous FBI memo, CE 2011, wherein Tomlinson and Wright reportedly said that CE 399 "looked like" or "appeared to be" their bullet.
However, thanks to the diligent work of Josiah Thompson and Gary Aguilar "The Magic Bullet: Even More Magical Than We Knew," we know that the memo establishing this "resemblance" was a fraud. In fact, the only solid paper trail actually establishes that individuals in the chain (specifically Secret Service agent Richard Johnson and Secret Service Chief Rowley) "would not positively identify" CE 399 as the bullet, and there is no evidence to support that Tomlinson and Wright were actually shown CE 399 and interviewed.
Let's review the notion that Tomlinson and Wright admitted that CE 399 at least resembled the bullet they saw on the Parkland stretcher.
As the Thompson/Aguilar article shows, the only supporting evidence for this claim of resemblance is an unsigned (which Thompson and Aguilar should have noted as unsigned and which Ray Marcus in "The Bastard Bullet" does note as unsigned) FBI memo CE 2011. Unsigned documents are a potential way of creating fraudulent documentation. The unsigned Richard Johnson White House memo is problematic in part because it is unsigned. The CE 2011 memo is not only unsigned, it is anonymous. We don't know who was supposed to have written it. The CE 2011 memo is the only documentation that the Tomlinson and Wright had ever expressed a statement that CE 399 "looked like" or "appeared to be" the bullet they saw. These assertions were supposed to have been made to FBI agent Bardwell Odum, who supposedly showed them the CE 399 bullet on June 12, 1964, so Odum should have been able to confirm the veracity of that claim, but that is not the case.
Below is the excerpt of CE 2011 presented by Thompson and Aguilar (the full version of which can be found in https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh24/pdf/WH24_CE_2011.pdf):
CE 2011, as presented by Agular and Thompson. This exhibit represents the only "positive" identification of CE 399 as the stretcher bullet by Darrell Tomlinson, who apparently told Special Agent Bardwell D. Odum on June 12, 1964 that although he couldn't positively identify it as the bullet he found on the Parkland hospital carriage, it "appeared to be the same one." On the same day, O.P. Wright apparently also told Odum that although CE-399 "looked like" the slug he had turned over to Secret Service agent Richard Johnson, he "advised he could not positively identify" CE 399 as the stretcher bullet. On June 24, FBI Special Agent Elmer Todd showed the CE-399 bullet to Secret Service agent Richard Johnson, and to Secret Service Chief James Rowley. Neither man could positively identify CE-399 as the bullet they received. Only FBI agent Elmer Todd positively identified CE-399 as the bullet they received from Parkland. Only Elmer Todd identified the bullet as the one he received from Rowley, based on the initials Todd marked on the bullet at the FBI Laboratory.
If the "pointed" bullet problem did not exist, one might attribute the failure of all four men (Tomlinson, Wright, Johnson, and Rowley) to positively identify CE 399 as their bullet as an over-abundance of caution--the same sort of over-abundance of caution that made Tomlinson express some doubt as to the absolute certainty that the carriage on which he found the bullet had not been the one he took off the elevator. Tomlinson's admission that it was "possible" that the stretcher had been the elevator stretcher (Connally's) came after Tomlinson explained that there was some intervening time between when he took the gurney off the elevator, and when he discovered the bullet, during which Tomlinson (who was manually operating the elevator in an effort to keep Emergency Room traffic under some semblance of control, had made some runs with the elevator. During his absence, someone could have moved stretchers around. In other words, he didn't know what could have happened with the stretchers while he was not on the Emergency Room floor (during which time, I note, Sam Kinney could have "planted" the bullet). But the fact is that Tomlinson certainly believed that the bullet carriage was not the one from the elevator, as his marking of the drawing during his Warren Commission testimony indicates.
However, the "pointed" bullet description by Wright and Pool is reason to believe that over-abundance of caution is not the case for the failure of Tomlinson, Wright, Johnson, and Rowley to fail to positively identify CE 399 as the Parkland hallway stretcher bullet, as well as reason to believe that neither Tomlinson nor Wright ever expressed any statements about CE 399 looking anything like the hallway carriage bullet that they saw on November 22,1963. Aside from this one unsigned CE 2011 memo saying that Tomlinson and Wright told FBI agent Bardwell Odum about the "resemblance" between CE 399 and their carriage bullet, there is no supporting documentation that such statements were ever made.
Given that Bardwell Odum, the FBI agent who supposedly showed Darrell Tomlinson and O.P. Wright the CE 3999 bullet and obtained their "resemblance" statements, represented the only "positive" identification of CE 399 as the Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet, Josiah Thompson and Gary Aguilar tracked down and interviewed Odum. Unfortunately for the supposed chain-of-evidence claim, Odum specifically denied to them that he had ever shown CE 399 to Tomlinson and Wright, or that he had ever been in possession of CE 399!
Given O.P. Wright's statements about his "pointed" bullet and the other chain-of-custody issues surrounding CE 399, in 2002, Josiah Thompson tracked down former FBI agent Bardwell Odum, and Thompson and Aguilar interviewed him in person. Odum told Thompson and Aguilar, “I didn’t show it [#399] to anybody at Parkland. I didn’t have any bullet … I don’t think I ever saw it even.” The authors later re-interviewed Odum, with the same result.
But perhaps Odum, although he appeared to Thompson and Aguilar to be in full possession of his mental faculties, simply forgot that he had ever been in possession of this very historic piece of evidence related to what has been called "the crime of the century." That seems unlikely, but let's go with it for a second. The FBI is known for its agents generating a paper record of every interview they conduct, called a "302" form. In fact, the joke is (as Thompson tells it), if an agent goes to the bathroom, he fills out a "302." The Odum interviews of Tomlinson and Wright should have corresponding "302" reports. However, despite Thompson and Aguilar's best efforts to track such a report down, which included having a research associate named Cathy Cunningham scour the Archives for the documents, contacting ARRB's T. Jeremy Gunn for help (receiving a reply from ARRB's Eileen Sullivan on Gunn's behalf, who looked for but was unable to find any such documentation, and contacting National Archivist Steve Tilley, receiving a reply on Tilley's behalf saying that a search "produced no further documents pertaining to (their) search," and that the serial numbers on the FBI documents ran "concurrently, with no gaps, indicating that no material is missing from these files."
On the other hand, sThompson and Aguilar were able to locate another document concerning the stretcher bullet identification by the Parkland Hospital employees. This Airtel memo dated 6/20/64 (pre-dating the 7/7/64 CE 2011 memo by roughly two and a half weeks, and post-dating the supposed 6/12/64 date of the Odum interviews), specifically stated that neither Tomlinson nor Wright could identify CE-399 as the carriage bullet, without any mention of either man saying it "looked like" the bullet from the gurney. In fact, this Air-Tel does not even mention Odum's name:
However, the "pointed" bullet description by Wright and Pool is reason to believe that over-abundance of caution is not the case for the failure of Tomlinson, Wright, Johnson, and Rowley to fail to positively identify CE 399 as the Parkland hallway stretcher bullet, as well as reason to believe that neither Tomlinson nor Wright ever expressed any statements about CE 399 looking anything like the hallway carriage bullet that they saw on November 22,1963. Aside from this one unsigned CE 2011 memo saying that Tomlinson and Wright told FBI agent Bardwell Odum about the "resemblance" between CE 399 and their carriage bullet, there is no supporting documentation that such statements were ever made.
Given that Bardwell Odum, the FBI agent who supposedly showed Darrell Tomlinson and O.P. Wright the CE 3999 bullet and obtained their "resemblance" statements, represented the only "positive" identification of CE 399 as the Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet, Josiah Thompson and Gary Aguilar tracked down and interviewed Odum. Unfortunately for the supposed chain-of-evidence claim, Odum specifically denied to them that he had ever shown CE 399 to Tomlinson and Wright, or that he had ever been in possession of CE 399!
Given O.P. Wright's statements about his "pointed" bullet and the other chain-of-custody issues surrounding CE 399, in 2002, Josiah Thompson tracked down former FBI agent Bardwell Odum, and Thompson and Aguilar interviewed him in person. Odum told Thompson and Aguilar, “I didn’t show it [#399] to anybody at Parkland. I didn’t have any bullet … I don’t think I ever saw it even.” The authors later re-interviewed Odum, with the same result.
But perhaps Odum, although he appeared to Thompson and Aguilar to be in full possession of his mental faculties, simply forgot that he had ever been in possession of this very historic piece of evidence related to what has been called "the crime of the century." That seems unlikely, but let's go with it for a second. The FBI is known for its agents generating a paper record of every interview they conduct, called a "302" form. In fact, the joke is (as Thompson tells it), if an agent goes to the bathroom, he fills out a "302." The Odum interviews of Tomlinson and Wright should have corresponding "302" reports. However, despite Thompson and Aguilar's best efforts to track such a report down, which included having a research associate named Cathy Cunningham scour the Archives for the documents, contacting ARRB's T. Jeremy Gunn for help (receiving a reply from ARRB's Eileen Sullivan on Gunn's behalf, who looked for but was unable to find any such documentation, and contacting National Archivist Steve Tilley, receiving a reply on Tilley's behalf saying that a search "produced no further documents pertaining to (their) search," and that the serial numbers on the FBI documents ran "concurrently, with no gaps, indicating that no material is missing from these files."
On the other hand, sThompson and Aguilar were able to locate another document concerning the stretcher bullet identification by the Parkland Hospital employees. This Airtel memo dated 6/20/64 (pre-dating the 7/7/64 CE 2011 memo by roughly two and a half weeks, and post-dating the supposed 6/12/64 date of the Odum interviews), specifically stated that neither Tomlinson nor Wright could identify CE-399 as the carriage bullet, without any mention of either man saying it "looked like" the bullet from the gurney. In fact, this Air-Tel does not even mention Odum's name:
There was one more document that Thompson and Aguilar were able to track down: a "suppressed" FBI report that stated that Richard Johnson and James Rowley "were unable to identify (CE 399), by inspection."
In summary, the "positive identification" of CE 399 as the Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet is fraught with issues:
Raymond Marcus points out that the "resemblance" statements, the only actual links in this otherwise "not positively identified" chain are attributed only to the civilians in the chain of custody (no such "resemblance" statements being associated with Johnson or Rowley or Todd) was an attempt at keeping the government agents' "hands clean," to put it figuratively. This sort of dissemblance was intended to distance government officials from any of the "dirty work" of positively identifying CE 399 as the Tomlinson/Wright bullet, thereby putting the onus of the fake identification by "appearance" on the civilians involved.
- There is no direct documentation of Darrell Tomlinson or O.P. Wright ever saying that CE 399 "looked like" or "resembled" the bullet they saw, aside from the anonymous CE 2011 report.
- The anonymous CE 2011 report claims the "resemblance" statements by Tomlinson and Wright were made to FBI agent Bardwell Odum, but Odum denied ever having possession of CE 399 or interviewing Tomlinson or Wright.
- If Bardwell Odum had interviewed Tomlinson and Wright, then corresponding "302" reports should have been generated. Those reports cannot be found, and seem to never have existed. These "302's" are reports which should exist do not exist.
- Of Tomlinson, Wright, Johnson, Rowley, and Todd, only two of them (Tomlinson and Rowley) were called to testify to the Warren Commission. During their testimonies, they could have been easily asked to identify CE 399 as the bullet they saw or received. Such questioning never occurred.
- Wright specifically told Josiah Thompson that the carriage bullet was "pointed" and denied CE 399 as looking like the carriage bullet.
- Parkland Nurse Phyllis Hall described a bullet that was seen on Kennedy's stretcher in Trauma Room One. She described it as "pointed."
- Nathan Burgess Pool, a relatively unknown witness to the Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet but one who was interviewed by the HSCA, also described the stretcher bullet as "pointed"--a description that certainly does not match the round-tipped CE 399.
Raymond Marcus points out that the "resemblance" statements, the only actual links in this otherwise "not positively identified" chain are attributed only to the civilians in the chain of custody (no such "resemblance" statements being associated with Johnson or Rowley or Todd) was an attempt at keeping the government agents' "hands clean," to put it figuratively. This sort of dissemblance was intended to distance government officials from any of the "dirty work" of positively identifying CE 399 as the Tomlinson/Wright bullet, thereby putting the onus of the fake identification by "appearance" on the civilians involved.
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The Elmer Todd "Identification"
FBI agent Elmer Todd, who received the Tomlinson/Wright bullet from Secret Service Chief James Rowley, is the first (and only) individual to "positively identify" CE 399 as the Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet. This identification was made by the presence of his initials carved into the bullet. There was no statement regarding the appearance of the bullet otherwise.
Here is where the now missing John Hunt article "The Phantom Identification of CE-399" becomes so important. I remember the Hunt article talking about how some expected initials appeared on the bullet, and how other expected initials, including Elmer Todd's initials, did not appear on the bullet. Hunt proved his point by including detailed high-res scans of CE 399 in rotated positions to show all areas of the jacket.
According to online discussion of the Robert Harris' "The Connally Bullet," assassination researcher and vocal critic of Harris' work, David Von Pein, apparently had a first-hand opportunity to view CE 399 and was also unable to find Todd's initials. This discussion can be found at the "Connally Talked" Google discussion group, https://groups.google.com/g/alt.assassination.jfk/c/JIFQd22sZRI/m/bdYRKv75AAAJ
Not to worry, though. There is a June, 2022 article in Washington Decoded, "A Single Photograph Disproves Oliver Stone's Conspiracy Claim" (https://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2022/06/roe3.html) with a picture of CE 399 showing the initials "ET" near the tip of the bullet:
FBI agent Elmer Todd, who received the Tomlinson/Wright bullet from Secret Service Chief James Rowley, is the first (and only) individual to "positively identify" CE 399 as the Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet. This identification was made by the presence of his initials carved into the bullet. There was no statement regarding the appearance of the bullet otherwise.
Here is where the now missing John Hunt article "The Phantom Identification of CE-399" becomes so important. I remember the Hunt article talking about how some expected initials appeared on the bullet, and how other expected initials, including Elmer Todd's initials, did not appear on the bullet. Hunt proved his point by including detailed high-res scans of CE 399 in rotated positions to show all areas of the jacket.
According to online discussion of the Robert Harris' "The Connally Bullet," assassination researcher and vocal critic of Harris' work, David Von Pein, apparently had a first-hand opportunity to view CE 399 and was also unable to find Todd's initials. This discussion can be found at the "Connally Talked" Google discussion group, https://groups.google.com/g/alt.assassination.jfk/c/JIFQd22sZRI/m/bdYRKv75AAAJ
Not to worry, though. There is a June, 2022 article in Washington Decoded, "A Single Photograph Disproves Oliver Stone's Conspiracy Claim" (https://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2022/06/roe3.html) with a picture of CE 399 showing the initials "ET" near the tip of the bullet:
Need I point out that between the time when Hunt took his photographs and when the 2022 photograph was taken, someone besides Todd, or even Todd himself, could have carved the initials into the bullet? Or that Elmer Todd could have been shown a completely different bullet than CE 399, a "pointed" bullet onto whose jacket he had carved his initials, and correctly identified that as his bullet, when in fact it was not CE 399? Or that Todd may have been asked to carve his initials into CE 399, knowing that it was a completely different bullet, for the express purpose of being able to "identify" the bullet via fraudulent dissemblance rather than outright lying? Or that CE 399 could have been a different bullet related to the case--say, a test-fire bullet--and Todd was asked to scratch his initials onto it "for later identification"? That's all speculation, of course, but I do remember the Hunt article as having very good photographs of CE 399 that proved his point of CE 399 not having the expected identification initials etched into its surface.
One wonders why neither Johnson nor Rowley nor Todd bothered to take a photograph of the bullet at the time it was in their possession, or why neither Johnson nor Rowley bothered to scratch their initials into bullet, as was common law-enforcement procedure. Even if Secret Service people were unaware of this basic procedure, Elmer Todd was certainly aware, and could have advised Johnson and Rowley to mark the bullet for later identification before Todd took possession of it. One also wonders if Johnson and Rowley did mark the bullet they received, and the reason they could not identify CE 399 was not only that it didn't look like the bullet they saw, but also that their identifying initials were not etched into the metal.
Again, speculation, but the the important confirmation of "appearance," but given that we have reason to suspect CE 399 as not being the Tomlinson/Wright bullet, is notably absent.
Elmer Todd's identification of CE 399 was only by his initials, with no mention of the bullet's appearance. This raises the smell of dissemblance. The Kennedy assassination was undoubtedly the most important case of his career. He surely would remember what the damn bullet looked like! So why didn't he say anything about its appearance? By now the answer should be obvious: because CE 399 did not look like the Tomlinson/Wright bullet.
For now, the point is the failure of the earliest witnesses in chain of custody to identify CE 399 as the one that was recovered from the Parkland Hospital stretcher. The only identification of CE 399 as the Parkland stretcher bullet was by Elmer Todd, and even that was done by the presence of his initials, not by the appearance of the bullet--initials that Todd or someone else might have added to the bullet in order to protect the cover-up. Tomlinson and Wright never said that CE 399 "looked like" or "appeared to be" or in any way resembled their bullet. No one in the early chain--not Darrell Tomlinson, nor O.P. Wright, nor Richard Johnson, nor James Rowley--would "positively identify" CE 399 as the bullet. The positive only identification came from Elmer Todd, and that was by his initials, which may have been fraudulently added to the bullet, or he may have been shown a different bullet than CE 399 and asked to identify it and did so. He was never called to testify, never asked directly if it "looked like" the most important bullet he had ever handled in his life. No one took any photographs of the bullet--understandable perhaps for the civilians in the chain, but not so much for Rowley or Johnson, or even Todd, who certainly had the opportunity--until Robert Frazier's eventual photographs CE 399 at the FBI lab.
As will be seen, there is a very good reason for Frazier and others to want to lie and dissemble about what happened in the Kennedy assassination. Those familiar with my work already know what that reason is.
The FBI Laboratory has had its share of scandals in fabricating evidence, e.g., the scandal brought to light by whistleblower Dr. Frederick Whitehurst, "in which FBI Lab employees were revealed as incompetent or disingenuous," and falsely testifying about the strength of hair analysis. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI_Laboratory) From the same Wikipedia source:
In a subsequent investigation in 2012, the DOJ found that evidence related to hair analysis had been falsified, altered, or suppressed, or that FBI agents had overstated the scientific basis of their testimony, to the detriment of defendants. In 2013, the Department of Justice began a review of cases referred to them for hair analysis from 1982 through 1999, as many as 10,000 cases, to determine whether their agents' testimony resulted in wrongful convictions. DNA testing has revealed some convicted inmates to be innocent of violent crime charges against them. In 2015 the FBI reported that their expert witnesses overstated the reliability of hair analysis in matching suspects 96 percent of the time, likely influencing conviction of some defendants.[5]
Cases are still being overturned as a result of incorrect hair analysis testimony.[9] In 2012, DNA testing revealed the innocence of three inmates from the District of Columbia who had been convicted to life and served years in prison based on hair analysis evidence and testimony by FBI experts. They have received large settlements from the city because of wrongful convictions and damages of the lost years.
A chain, as the saying goes, is only as strong as its weakest link. In the case of CE 399, the chain-of-evidence is extremely weak, with Wright specifically disavowing to Thompson that CE 399 looked anything like the "pointed" stretcher bullet he saw on November 22, 1963, with Nurse Hall describing her bullet as "pointed," and with Nathan Burgess Pool's description of the bullet as being "pointed" on an official HSCA document that was not released until the ARRB's work. (If I had one criticism of Thompson's work, it's that the interviews with Wright and Odum not recorded onto film or videotape or audiotape for other researchers to view directly for themselves.)
There are so many problems with the identification of CE 399 as the Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet:
Any single issue weakens the chain of evidence, making the whole provenance of CE-399 as the Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet questionable. Put together, they turn the smell of dissemblance into the stink of lies.
The bullet existed. Of that there is little doubt. But it was not a round-tipped Mannlicher-Carcanno bullet.
It was a "pointed" bullet.
And that's why it was made to "disappear."
- The failure of the Warren Commission to ask Tomlinson or Rowley about the bullet;
- The failure of the Commission to even call any of the other witnesses to the chain of evidence of the Tomlinson/Wright bullet;
- The anonymous CE 2011 memo "establishing" the identification;
- The complete absence of 302 reports to supposed interviews that established a "resemblance";
- The multiple--from every link except Todd--"would not positively identify" statements in the paper trail;
- The multiple accounts about the actual bullet being "pointed";
- The Odum disavowal that he had actually conducted his purported interviews (the purported source of the "resemblance" claim);
- The recent Paul Landis revelation.
Any single issue weakens the chain of evidence, making the whole provenance of CE-399 as the Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet questionable. Put together, they turn the smell of dissemblance into the stink of lies.
The bullet existed. Of that there is little doubt. But it was not a round-tipped Mannlicher-Carcanno bullet.
It was a "pointed" bullet.
And that's why it was made to "disappear."
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The Connally Bullet Fragments Per the Doctors
The metal fragments that were recovered from Governor Connally's body during the surgery were certainly part of "the Connally Bullet." They may be small, but they play an important role. And one very important figure in the saga of the Connally bullet fragments is Parkland nurse Audrey Bell.
Of course, neither O.R. Supervising Nurse Audrey Bell nor any of the other Connally nurses was ever called by the Warren Commission. This is an important fact worth noting, and likely by design, given what Bell and the others would have said. Five of the nurses who were involved in Kennedy's treatment (Ruth Jeanette Standridge, Jane Carolyn Wester, Diana Hamilton Bowron, Marietta M. Henchlife, and Doris MaeNelson) were called. But not a single nurse from Connally's team. Nor are any reports from the Connally nurses included in the (Charles J.) Price Exhibits (CE 392, https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/html/WH_Vol17_0021b.htm), aside from Elizabeth Wright, who was involved in the post-operative care.
There's a saying among attorneys that you never call a witness unless you know what they're going to say. All of the Parkland personnel who were called admitted that they had been previously interviewed by federal agents--they almost always said "Secret Service," I think they had a fair idea of who was going to say what. The non-doctor Connally personnel who were called (Operating Room technician Henrietta M. Ross and orderly R. J. Jimison) were interviewed primarily about the stretcher in an effort to support the SBT. (A bit more on what these two had to say later), but neither was the nurse (Audrey Bell] who picked up the wrist fragments, nor the nurse (name unknown) who had an important role in the "alternate" history of the Connally bullet (as will be discussed shortly).
I think the reason they were not called to testify is similar to why none of the Secret Service agents from the follow-up car were called: their under oath testimonies would not support the desired narrative--different parts of the narrative, to be sure, but what the nurses had to say would be damaging to the chain-of-custody that was being built for CE 399 and the wrist fragments, CE 842.
However, Audrey Bell was interviewed by both the HSCA and the ARRB, and what she had to say regarding the bullet fragments removed from Connally's wrist is interesting indeed.
Before delving into the Connally wrist fragments, it should also be pointed out that one reason Audrey Bell's testimony would have been damaging is in her description of how she saw Kennedy's head wound, specifically, the back of the head blow-out, which was damaging to the narrative that all the shots came "from behind."
While the Kennedy doctors who testified described the in med-speak terms (the average lay person would probably not understand "occipital" to mean "back of the head" or "occipitalparietal" to mean "back and side of the head"), lay people could more readily understand that Bell's asking "Where's the wound?" and the response being for Dr. Perry to turn Kennedy's head so she could see the blow-out at the back of the head (which she could not see in Kennedy's position of lying face-up on his gurney) meant that even lay people could understand that the blow-out was more towards the back of the head than towards the front. From her ARRB Interview Summary:
The metal fragments that were recovered from Governor Connally's body during the surgery were certainly part of "the Connally Bullet." They may be small, but they play an important role. And one very important figure in the saga of the Connally bullet fragments is Parkland nurse Audrey Bell.
Of course, neither O.R. Supervising Nurse Audrey Bell nor any of the other Connally nurses was ever called by the Warren Commission. This is an important fact worth noting, and likely by design, given what Bell and the others would have said. Five of the nurses who were involved in Kennedy's treatment (Ruth Jeanette Standridge, Jane Carolyn Wester, Diana Hamilton Bowron, Marietta M. Henchlife, and Doris MaeNelson) were called. But not a single nurse from Connally's team. Nor are any reports from the Connally nurses included in the (Charles J.) Price Exhibits (CE 392, https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/html/WH_Vol17_0021b.htm), aside from Elizabeth Wright, who was involved in the post-operative care.
There's a saying among attorneys that you never call a witness unless you know what they're going to say. All of the Parkland personnel who were called admitted that they had been previously interviewed by federal agents--they almost always said "Secret Service," I think they had a fair idea of who was going to say what. The non-doctor Connally personnel who were called (Operating Room technician Henrietta M. Ross and orderly R. J. Jimison) were interviewed primarily about the stretcher in an effort to support the SBT. (A bit more on what these two had to say later), but neither was the nurse (Audrey Bell] who picked up the wrist fragments, nor the nurse (name unknown) who had an important role in the "alternate" history of the Connally bullet (as will be discussed shortly).
I think the reason they were not called to testify is similar to why none of the Secret Service agents from the follow-up car were called: their under oath testimonies would not support the desired narrative--different parts of the narrative, to be sure, but what the nurses had to say would be damaging to the chain-of-custody that was being built for CE 399 and the wrist fragments, CE 842.
However, Audrey Bell was interviewed by both the HSCA and the ARRB, and what she had to say regarding the bullet fragments removed from Connally's wrist is interesting indeed.
Before delving into the Connally wrist fragments, it should also be pointed out that one reason Audrey Bell's testimony would have been damaging is in her description of how she saw Kennedy's head wound, specifically, the back of the head blow-out, which was damaging to the narrative that all the shots came "from behind."
While the Kennedy doctors who testified described the in med-speak terms (the average lay person would probably not understand "occipital" to mean "back of the head" or "occipitalparietal" to mean "back and side of the head"), lay people could more readily understand that Bell's asking "Where's the wound?" and the response being for Dr. Perry to turn Kennedy's head so she could see the blow-out at the back of the head (which she could not see in Kennedy's position of lying face-up on his gurney) meant that even lay people could understand that the blow-out was more towards the back of the head than towards the front. From her ARRB Interview Summary:
I'll address Nurse Bell's recollections concerning the bullet fragments that were removed from Governor Connally momentarily, after noting what the doctors said was removed, because there's a minor discrepancy between what the doctors said was removed, and what is in evidence (which matches Nurse Bell's accounts.), plus the question as to whether the amount of lead that was deposited in Connally's body could have come from the base of CE 399.
When Connally was in the operating room, the first O.R. team, led by Dr. Robert Shaw, stitched up the thoracic (chest) wounds and otherwise repaired the damage caused by the bullet as best they could. Shaw didn't find any bullet fragments in Connally's chest, according to his Warren Commission testimony. Normally, I would assume that meant there were no fragments, except that Connally's chest X-ray wasn't published until the HSCA documents were documents, which might indicate there was something in them devastating to the official story, given that the Warren Commission published the wrist and thigh X-rays. (So why didn't the Warren Commission publish Connally's chest X-ray?) Shaw might have meant that rather than a lack of presence of any metal in Connally's chest, he didn't remove any fragments (or didn't recall removing any fragments) because dissecting for fragments that might have appeared in the X-ray would have caused more damage than leaving the fragment/s in place, as the surgeon who operated on Connally's wrist, Dr. Gregory, explained as the reason for leaving one fragment in the wrist and another (which he specifically described as about 1mm X 2mm).. So if Dr. Mantik has any observations to make about the Connally chest X-ray--or any of the Connally X-rays--specifically in regard to annotating suspected bullet fragments, the number of fragments, the size of the fragments (if he can determine that from the X-rays), what he judges to be film artifacts rather than fragments, and whether he sees any indication of image alteration--they would be welcome additions to this article. It may be that these are impossible questions to answer without viewing the originals with an optical densitometry machine, but I'll let him answer that, if he will. I'd also like his view on the reason for the apparent safety pin in the middle of the (right?) lung (possibly used to hold a compression bandage in place?).
Below is Connally's chest X-ray as published by the HSCA (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol7/pdf/HSCA_Vol7_M53b_Connally.pdf):
When Connally was in the operating room, the first O.R. team, led by Dr. Robert Shaw, stitched up the thoracic (chest) wounds and otherwise repaired the damage caused by the bullet as best they could. Shaw didn't find any bullet fragments in Connally's chest, according to his Warren Commission testimony. Normally, I would assume that meant there were no fragments, except that Connally's chest X-ray wasn't published until the HSCA documents were documents, which might indicate there was something in them devastating to the official story, given that the Warren Commission published the wrist and thigh X-rays. (So why didn't the Warren Commission publish Connally's chest X-ray?) Shaw might have meant that rather than a lack of presence of any metal in Connally's chest, he didn't remove any fragments (or didn't recall removing any fragments) because dissecting for fragments that might have appeared in the X-ray would have caused more damage than leaving the fragment/s in place, as the surgeon who operated on Connally's wrist, Dr. Gregory, explained as the reason for leaving one fragment in the wrist and another (which he specifically described as about 1mm X 2mm).. So if Dr. Mantik has any observations to make about the Connally chest X-ray--or any of the Connally X-rays--specifically in regard to annotating suspected bullet fragments, the number of fragments, the size of the fragments (if he can determine that from the X-rays), what he judges to be film artifacts rather than fragments, and whether he sees any indication of image alteration--they would be welcome additions to this article. It may be that these are impossible questions to answer without viewing the originals with an optical densitometry machine, but I'll let him answer that, if he will. I'd also like his view on the reason for the apparent safety pin in the middle of the (right?) lung (possibly used to hold a compression bandage in place?).
Below is Connally's chest X-ray as published by the HSCA (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol7/pdf/HSCA_Vol7_M53b_Connally.pdf):
Connally Chest X-ray from https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol7/pdf/HSCA_Vol7_M53b_Connally.pdf
When the first thoracic surgery team was finished its work, a second team, led by Dr. Charles Gregory, took over and began working on Connally's wrist. Here is where the wrist bullet fragments come into the story. Dr. Gregory didn't really testify to the Warren Commission about the bullet fragments from memory, but from the X-rays he was shown. In the pre-operative X-rays, there were three apparent metallic fragments visible, two or three of which he said were removed, leaving one that was still apparent in the post-operative X-rays. This was left in the Governor's wrist, because it was deemed that more damage would be done dissecting to find the fragment than would be caused by leaving the fragment where it was. There were some areas of oil "artifacts" on one or other of the X-rays, deemed to be artifacts rather than metallic fragments, because they didn't appear in corresponding locations on the other pre-operative view. (Dr. Gregory calls the evidence of bullet fragments "shadows," but I think that is just a term of art referring to white or white-ish spots in the images.) So he ultimately testified that "two or three" fragments were removed from Connally's wrist.
Below are the Connally wrist X-rays referred to by Dr. Gregory during his testimony. (If Dr. Mantik cares to comment, I will add his comments to this article. I would especially like his expert eyes to annotate the breaks in the wrist bones, the metal fragments, and the artifacts.)
CE 690 - Preoperative X-ray of lateral view of Governor Connally's wrist, dated November 22, 1963.
CE 691 - Preoperative X-ray of ante posterior view of Governor Connally's wrist, dated November 22, 1963.
CE 692 - Postoperative X-ray of ante posterior view of Governor Connally's wrist, dated November 22, 1963.
CE 693 - Postoperative X-ray of lateral view of Governor Connally's wrist, dated November 22, 1963.
There was an additional fragment in the governor's thigh, which Gregory estimated to be about 1mm X 2mm in dimension, near the femur, corresponding with an approximately 1 cm wound, but the fragment by itself was too small to have caused the wound, in Dr. Gregory's opinion, and so he speculated that the bullet or missile causing the larger wound must have fallen out into the Governor's clothing. There was repeated mention, especially by Dr. Shires (who, though not listed on the Surgery reports, had been flown in from Galveston by special Air Force jet and had "scrubbed in" to join the surgeries towards the end of the thoracic surgery) that the thigh wound might be a "tangential" wound, due to the nature of its appearance. So again, any annotations Dr. Mantik cares to make as to the fragment/s he sees on this X-ray will be a welcome addition to this article:
CE 694 - Preoperative X-ray of anterior posterior view of Governor Connally's thigh, dated November 22, 1963.
CE 695 - Preoperative X-ray of anterior posterior view of Governor Connally's thigh, dated November 22, 1963.
CE 696 - Preoperative X-ray of lateral view of Governor Connally's thigh, dated November 22, 1963.
I assume no postoperative X-rays of the thigh were needed since no bones were broken in the thigh.
Can these small fragments be equal to or less than the amount of metal missing from the base of CE 399? That's not a question I can personally answer. However, the question was put to Dr. Gregory, and he answered in the affirmative--sort of. (More on this below.)
As a brief aside, notice that we get all these X-rays of Governor Connally published in the Warren Commission documents because they came from Parkland Hospital. Why didn't the Commission publish the autopsy X-rays of President Kennedy? Why aren't they included in the Hearings and Exhibits? I think we all know the answer to that--because they would clearly show the back of the head blow-out, Custer's C3/C4 metal fragments, and other things that were desired to be kept out of public view. We didn't get any Kennedy X-rays until the HSCA report, by which time some of the X-rays had been altered (although the "un-enhanced" lateral head X-ray was closer to the truth than the so-called "computer enhanced" version commonly found online), and some of the X-rays had disappeared from the collection.
So by the doctors' testimonies, we have two or three metal fragments that were removed from the Governor's wrist, leaving one fragment remaining in the wrist, and one fragment (described as approximately 1 mm X 2 mm) remaining in the thigh, There is a slight discrepancy between the number of "two or three" being removed, and the number in evidence and Audrey Bell's description. There might be a benign explanation for that slight discrepancy. However, Audrey Bell's ARRB deposition certainly raises some suspicion.
The big question is whether the total mass of all of these small fragments be equal to or less than the amount of metal missing from the base of CE 399? That's a question I personally cannot answer. Dr. Gregory was asked about it in a rather odd way (he was never shown CE 399 or the CE 842 fragments) and seemed to give an affirmative response to that question. However, the way he was asked leaves much room for doubt.
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The Number/Size Discrepancy--Nurse Audrey Bell and Dr. Charles Gregory
Now we turn briefly to Audrey Bell and her statements about the Connally bullet fragments. Nurse Bell was the Operating Room Nursing Supervisor, which explains her presence, however brief, in the O.R. despite not being listed on the Operating Room reports included in the Price Exhibits.
Although no Connally nurse was interviewed by the Warren Commission, Audrey Bell was interviewed by the HSCA and the ARRB. In an audio recording of Audrey Bell's HSCA interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9C2RbcqkvQ) she recalls having picked up "4 or 5, I am not sure (of the exact number) at this particular time" individual foreign bodies (described as "metallic" and "grayish in color"--meaning, not copper or brass or other bullet jacket color, but more probably bullet core material) from the O.R., which were in a "1 ounce" container. She placed these into a "foreign body envelope," and sealed the envelope. It's not clear from the interview whether she took them out of the O.R. container before sealing them into the envelope. What she did with the fragments next is important: "I delivered them to the FBI, and he signed for them. This was a deviation from our procedure... I took an interoffice memorandum, and wrote on there about my delivering these to the FBI, I believe Mr. Sorrels, and he signed it."
"Mr. Sorrels," of course, was Secret Service, not FBI, but I believe he was accompanied by an FBI agent, specifically, Gordon Shanklin, so Nurse Bell's confusion of the agency attributed to "Mr. Sorrels" is understandable.
She was also asked to make a drawing of the smallest of these fragments. The drawing was signed, dated, and signed by a witness. I have been unable to find this drawing anywhere, which is a typical state of affairs for inconvenient evidence in the case of the JFK Assassination. If such a drawing is found, the original should be photographed together with a ruler, as reproductions can be re-sized.But for now, it seems to have disappeared entirely.
So there is a discrepancy between Dr. Gregory's "two or three" bullet fragments that were removed, and Audrey Bell's "4 or 5" fragments. That difference might be accounted for by a failure of memory on her part, and a misreading of the X-rays for the Warren Commission on Dr. Gregory's part. In her later ARRB interview, she recalled "3 to 5" fragments.
Pictures of CE 842, especially the later color NARA photograph, seems to agree with Nurse Bell, showing four.
Unfortunately, the exact number of fragments isn't written on the outside of the evidence envelope that accompanies the the fragments designated as CE 842, the Connally bullet fragments, and the small fragments in the cotton batting are not all that visible, at least in the Warren Commission published image:
Now we turn briefly to Audrey Bell and her statements about the Connally bullet fragments. Nurse Bell was the Operating Room Nursing Supervisor, which explains her presence, however brief, in the O.R. despite not being listed on the Operating Room reports included in the Price Exhibits.
Although no Connally nurse was interviewed by the Warren Commission, Audrey Bell was interviewed by the HSCA and the ARRB. In an audio recording of Audrey Bell's HSCA interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9C2RbcqkvQ) she recalls having picked up "4 or 5, I am not sure (of the exact number) at this particular time" individual foreign bodies (described as "metallic" and "grayish in color"--meaning, not copper or brass or other bullet jacket color, but more probably bullet core material) from the O.R., which were in a "1 ounce" container. She placed these into a "foreign body envelope," and sealed the envelope. It's not clear from the interview whether she took them out of the O.R. container before sealing them into the envelope. What she did with the fragments next is important: "I delivered them to the FBI, and he signed for them. This was a deviation from our procedure... I took an interoffice memorandum, and wrote on there about my delivering these to the FBI, I believe Mr. Sorrels, and he signed it."
"Mr. Sorrels," of course, was Secret Service, not FBI, but I believe he was accompanied by an FBI agent, specifically, Gordon Shanklin, so Nurse Bell's confusion of the agency attributed to "Mr. Sorrels" is understandable.
She was also asked to make a drawing of the smallest of these fragments. The drawing was signed, dated, and signed by a witness. I have been unable to find this drawing anywhere, which is a typical state of affairs for inconvenient evidence in the case of the JFK Assassination. If such a drawing is found, the original should be photographed together with a ruler, as reproductions can be re-sized.But for now, it seems to have disappeared entirely.
So there is a discrepancy between Dr. Gregory's "two or three" bullet fragments that were removed, and Audrey Bell's "4 or 5" fragments. That difference might be accounted for by a failure of memory on her part, and a misreading of the X-rays for the Warren Commission on Dr. Gregory's part. In her later ARRB interview, she recalled "3 to 5" fragments.
Pictures of CE 842, especially the later color NARA photograph, seems to agree with Nurse Bell, showing four.
Unfortunately, the exact number of fragments isn't written on the outside of the evidence envelope that accompanies the the fragments designated as CE 842, the Connally bullet fragments, and the small fragments in the cotton batting are not all that visible, at least in the Warren Commission published image:
The question of the exact number of fragments might be answered by the half-page "interoffice memorandum" that Audrey Bell had the plainclothes agent (Denise update: she recalled the name "Sorrels" in her HSCA interview) sign as a receipt when he took possession of the fragments. That memorandum is apparently missing from the extant evidence. (Denise update: See "Update #1 below.)
Here's a color NARA image of the CE 842 fragments, showing one larger and three smaller fragments (the measurement is reportedly metric):
Here's a color NARA image of the CE 842 fragments, showing one larger and three smaller fragments (the measurement is reportedly metric):
There is a possibility that both Audrey Bell and Dr. Gregory were correct in their statements. Suppose Dr. Gregory actually removed "two or three" fragments, as his X-ray analysis indicates, but one or more broke in the removal process, resulting in the four pieces as seen in the above photo. That seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation to me, So this apparent difference would not trouble me a whole lot, except that Audrey Bell said, when shown the Warren Commission photograph of CE 842, that they were "too small, and too few in number" to match her recollections. And that is troubling.
What is also troubling, is the failure of the Commission to ever establish that the CE 842 fragments actually came from Connally's body, or that the fragments (assuming they were the ones Gregory removed, could have come from CE 399. CE 842 was never shown to Dr. Gregory to identify! He could easily have been shown CE 842 and asked, "Dr. Gregory, do these fragments appear to be the ones you removed from the wrist of Governor Connally?" That question was never asked of him--an extremely gross oversight!
Nor was the CE 399 bullet shown to him for the purposes of ascertaining whether the amount of lead recovered plus the amount of lead remaining in Connally's body could have come from the base of the bullet! For example, he could have been asked, "Dr. Gregory, I present to you Commission Exhibit 399, and for comparison purposes, Commission Exhibit (some number) and ask you: in your opinion, could these fragments, Commission Exhibit 842, have come from this bullet, Commission Exhibit 399?"
But of course, he was not asked that, either.
What he was asked was whether those fragments (which he didn't have in front of him) could have come from the exposed base of "a" bullet (but not CE 399 specifically, which was also not in front of him).
It's possible that someone noticed there was a bit of a problem, because he finally shown CE 399 during a second testimony, which he made on April 21, 1964 (wherein he described being told that the missing bit from the tip of Ce 399 had been removed "for analysis"). In this later testimony, he is shown the CE 399 bullet, but not the CE 842 fragments, and finally asked, based on memory alone, whether the wrist fragments could have come from this bullet. (But he doesn't have the wrist fragments in front of him.)
Here's the part of Dr. Gregory's March 23, 1964 testimony where he is asked about the fragments and whether they could have come from "a" bullet (implying that the bullet was CE 399):
What is also troubling, is the failure of the Commission to ever establish that the CE 842 fragments actually came from Connally's body, or that the fragments (assuming they were the ones Gregory removed, could have come from CE 399. CE 842 was never shown to Dr. Gregory to identify! He could easily have been shown CE 842 and asked, "Dr. Gregory, do these fragments appear to be the ones you removed from the wrist of Governor Connally?" That question was never asked of him--an extremely gross oversight!
Nor was the CE 399 bullet shown to him for the purposes of ascertaining whether the amount of lead recovered plus the amount of lead remaining in Connally's body could have come from the base of the bullet! For example, he could have been asked, "Dr. Gregory, I present to you Commission Exhibit 399, and for comparison purposes, Commission Exhibit (some number) and ask you: in your opinion, could these fragments, Commission Exhibit 842, have come from this bullet, Commission Exhibit 399?"
But of course, he was not asked that, either.
What he was asked was whether those fragments (which he didn't have in front of him) could have come from the exposed base of "a" bullet (but not CE 399 specifically, which was also not in front of him).
It's possible that someone noticed there was a bit of a problem, because he finally shown CE 399 during a second testimony, which he made on April 21, 1964 (wherein he described being told that the missing bit from the tip of Ce 399 had been removed "for analysis"). In this later testimony, he is shown the CE 399 bullet, but not the CE 842 fragments, and finally asked, based on memory alone, whether the wrist fragments could have come from this bullet. (But he doesn't have the wrist fragments in front of him.)
Here's the part of Dr. Gregory's March 23, 1964 testimony where he is asked about the fragments and whether they could have come from "a" bullet (implying that the bullet was CE 399):
Excerpt from the March 23, 1964 Warren Commission Testimony of Dr. Charles Gregory, Hearings, Vol. VI, https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/html/WC_Vol6_0055a.htm
See? It's all very non-specific. "Could this be the case with some bullet somewhere?" "Why yes, I suppose so."
Perhaps someone realized there was a problem, because Dr. Gregory was called back to testify again about a month later (although this testimony was published in an earlier volume number). Below is the excerpt from his second April 21 testimony, where he brought the X-rays. He was shown the CE 399 bullet, but not the CE 842 fragments, and asked whether it was possible that the wrist fragments could have come from this bullet. Notice that the thigh fragment was not mentioned in the question. His answer? "It's possible, but I don't know enough about the structure of bullets, or this one in particular, to know what is a normal complement of lead or for this particular missile." (That's where a sample unfired bullet for comparison would have been helpful.)
Perhaps someone realized there was a problem, because Dr. Gregory was called back to testify again about a month later (although this testimony was published in an earlier volume number). Below is the excerpt from his second April 21 testimony, where he brought the X-rays. He was shown the CE 399 bullet, but not the CE 842 fragments, and asked whether it was possible that the wrist fragments could have come from this bullet. Notice that the thigh fragment was not mentioned in the question. His answer? "It's possible, but I don't know enough about the structure of bullets, or this one in particular, to know what is a normal complement of lead or for this particular missile." (That's where a sample unfired bullet for comparison would have been helpful.)
Excerpt from the April 21, 1964 Warren commission Testimony of Dr. Charles Gregory, https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh4/html/WC_Vol4_0065a.htm
The correct way of establishing some sort of link that CE 842 were the actual fragments that came from Connally and that they came from bullet CE 399 would be to actually show the CE 842 fragments to Dr. Gregory, first to identify them as his fragments, and then to ask whether or not it would have been possible for the all the fragments removed from and left in Connally to have come from the CE-399 bullet, but that was never done! He was never shown the CE 842 fragments!
Establishing that Dr. Gregory agreed that the metal that the bullet deposited in Connally would be to show him the fragments he removed, and that they came from bullet CE 399 should involve something like the following: with the X-rays before him, also setting before him a sample unfired Carcanno bullet pulled from its casing, show him the CE 842 fragments, and setting before him the CE 399 bullet and asking, "Given this sample bullet and the X-rays you brought, is it possible that these CE 842 fragments, plus the fragments that were left in Connally's body, to have come out of the base of this CE 399 bullet, given that the missing bit at the tip was removed for laboratory analysis purposes?" If he says "Yes," we're good--or as good as we can expect to be. If he is doubtful, the next step is to ascertain the reason for the doubts. But as it is, it's all very vague and non-specific, all hypothetical, and nothing is really established.
So with those failures, the chain of custody of the fragments, linking them back to the nurse (Audrey Bell) who collected them and turned them over to the authorities, becomes critically important.
And that chain is as riddled with problems as the Tomlinson/Wright bullet chain, because the paper chain doesn't match what the people involved in the chain described.
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The Chain of Custody Problem for the Wrist Fragments--Audrey Bell and Bobby Nolan
In Audrey Bell's 3-20-97 ARRB Interview, we start to see some problems in the official record. From her Interview Summary report, note the following:
In Audrey Bell's 3-20-97 ARRB Interview, we start to see some problems in the official record. From her Interview Summary report, note the following:
- An FBI "302" Report describes her as having turned the fragments over to Texas Highway Patrolman Bobby Nolan rather than to FBI or Secret Service;
- The FBI "302" Report dated the day after the assassination describes her turning over one fragment, singular, whereas she was certain it was multiple fragments. Although there is some discrepancy between Audrey Bell and Dr. Charles Gregory on the exact number of fragments, they both referred to "fragments" in the plural form.
- She said the CE 842 fragments pictured in the Warren Commission Hearings were "too small, and too few in number to represent what she handled on 11/22/63."
- The half-page Interoffice Memorandum on Parkland letterhead, which she said she had one of the two federal agents sign upon turning over the fragments to them and which she subsequently gave to Parkland supervisor Jack Price was not in the collection of evidence.
From Audrey Bell's ARRB Interview Summary, https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md184/html/md184_0003a.htm
An audio recording of the entire ARRB interview can be found at https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_interviews/audio/ARRB_Bell.htm . There are some other topics of interest in addition to the bullet fragment discrepancies, but for now it is only her recollections about the bullet fragments that are under discussion.
So where is that half-page Interoffice Memorandum receipt that was executed when she turned the fragments over to the plainclothes federal agents? It seems to have disappeared altogether! However, unlike the supposed "302" reports of the purported Bardwell Odum interviews of Darrell Tomlinson and O.P. Wright, which I believe never existed, I believe this receipt did exist, and then was later "disappeared" because it was inconvenient to the desired narrative. So in Audrey Bell's case, I suspect this existing "302" is fabricated, as it does not agree with any of the accounts of the people involved.
Basically, the chain of custody discrepancies for the CE 842 fragments involve the following issues:
- Audrey Bell recalled executing a half-page interoffice memorandum as a receipt for the fragments which one of the plainclothes federal agents signed. This receipt was turned over to Hospital Administrator Jack Price. It subsequently disappeared. Meanwhile,
- the FBI "302" report contains two errors, in her view. It says "fragment" (singular) instead of fragments (plural), and says she turned them over to Texas Highway Patrolman Bobby Nolan, whereas she remembered turning the fragments over to two plainclothes federal agents, and specifically names "Sorrells," a known Secret Service agent stationed in Dallas.
- The "Foreign Bodies" envelope apparently filled out in Audrey Bell's own hand, bears the upside down initials for Texas Highway Patrolman Bobby Nolan. (I am uncertain if it contains the initials for J.W. "Will" Fritz, which it might.) By Audrey Bell's account, those initials should not be present.
- Texas Highway Patrolman Bobby Nolan did say that he received an envelope containing ballistic evidence from a nurse, whose name he never really took down. However, in a video interview by a researcher, he says he did not recall any writing on the envelope, and implies that he would never have written his initials "upside down" to the rest of the writing on the envelope. It was presented to him as containing something other than "fragments." It was presented as containing "a bullet that came from Connally's stretcher."
Let's start by looking at the envelope itself:
Just above the "Q9" notation appears the initials of Texas Highway Patrolman Bobby Nolan, who was at Parkland hospital shortly after the assassination because he had transported Connally's sister to the hospital from the Trade Mart and was asked to stay and render assistance until well into the evening of November 22, 1963. He was in uniform, and had been assisting in security at the Trade Mart.
While he was standing in the hallway, an unnamed nurse approached him and handed him an envelope, which she said contained a "bullet" that had come "from Governor Connally's gurney." Nolan, as perhaps the only uniformed officer in the area, was the person to whom she gave the bullet. Nolan put the envelope (which Nolan believed did not believe had any writing on it) into his pocket, contacted his superior about what to do with it, and was told to give it to Captain Will Fritz of the DPD. Upon leaving Parkland Hospital later in the evening, Nolan drove to the DPD headquarters, initialed the envelope, and left the envelope on Fritz's desk because Fritz was apparently busy interrogating Oswald at the time.
So already we have three major chain of custody problems: 1) The nurse apparently was not following "standard procedure," which was to fill out a "Foreign Body Envelope" describing the contents and who was involved in its recover, and subsequently turn the envelope over to the DPD crime lab, whose Parkland Hospital contact was a "Mr. Alexander'; 2) Nolan didn't get the name of the nurse and have her initial the envelope; and 3) Nolan left the envelope on Fritz's desk rather than waiting for Fritz to finish his interrogation of Oswald.
I'll discuss more about this "bullet," below, in subsection "The Alternate History of the Connally Bullet."
Some researchers think that Audrey Bell was "mistaken" in who she gave the envelope to, because of Nolan's initials being present on the envelope. However, we must also consider the hypothesis that Nolan's initials were forged onto the envelope. Nolan himself said that the envelope was "blank." Unfortunately, he didn't "interrogate" the envelope by feeling it. He wasn't curious enough to do that. Unfortunately, he was more concerned with doing his duty and following his orders to give it to Will Fritz than to pay much attention to what was actually inside the envelope. My own thinking is that the "feel" of the envelope matched what he was told was in it, so he didn't give it much thought.
I should point out that before Nolan laid the envelope on Fritz's desk, Nolan had already been accosted by "FBI" men who wanted the envelope as soon as he arrived at the station. It's entirely possible that one of them picked the envelope up from Fritz's desk while Fritz was still interrogating Oswald. On the other hand, Fritz certainly had to be aware of the envelope's pending arrival, given a woman manning the phones in Fritz's office was aware of Nolan's pending arrival, and that there were "FBI" men waiting for Nolan upon his arrival at DPD headquarters, and these men had knowledge that he was carrying an envelope intended for Fritz.
Here are transcripted excerpts of an interview with Bobby Nolan made on January 28, 2014, posted on YouTube, "“JFK Assassination ~ Officer Bobby Nolan” (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN9jIAiGNYg&t=690s) (Nolan does all of the talking without interruption by the interviewer, until some final questioning at the end of the Nolan's account)
While he was standing in the hallway, an unnamed nurse approached him and handed him an envelope, which she said contained a "bullet" that had come "from Governor Connally's gurney." Nolan, as perhaps the only uniformed officer in the area, was the person to whom she gave the bullet. Nolan put the envelope (which Nolan believed did not believe had any writing on it) into his pocket, contacted his superior about what to do with it, and was told to give it to Captain Will Fritz of the DPD. Upon leaving Parkland Hospital later in the evening, Nolan drove to the DPD headquarters, initialed the envelope, and left the envelope on Fritz's desk because Fritz was apparently busy interrogating Oswald at the time.
So already we have three major chain of custody problems: 1) The nurse apparently was not following "standard procedure," which was to fill out a "Foreign Body Envelope" describing the contents and who was involved in its recover, and subsequently turn the envelope over to the DPD crime lab, whose Parkland Hospital contact was a "Mr. Alexander'; 2) Nolan didn't get the name of the nurse and have her initial the envelope; and 3) Nolan left the envelope on Fritz's desk rather than waiting for Fritz to finish his interrogation of Oswald.
I'll discuss more about this "bullet," below, in subsection "The Alternate History of the Connally Bullet."
Some researchers think that Audrey Bell was "mistaken" in who she gave the envelope to, because of Nolan's initials being present on the envelope. However, we must also consider the hypothesis that Nolan's initials were forged onto the envelope. Nolan himself said that the envelope was "blank." Unfortunately, he didn't "interrogate" the envelope by feeling it. He wasn't curious enough to do that. Unfortunately, he was more concerned with doing his duty and following his orders to give it to Will Fritz than to pay much attention to what was actually inside the envelope. My own thinking is that the "feel" of the envelope matched what he was told was in it, so he didn't give it much thought.
I should point out that before Nolan laid the envelope on Fritz's desk, Nolan had already been accosted by "FBI" men who wanted the envelope as soon as he arrived at the station. It's entirely possible that one of them picked the envelope up from Fritz's desk while Fritz was still interrogating Oswald. On the other hand, Fritz certainly had to be aware of the envelope's pending arrival, given a woman manning the phones in Fritz's office was aware of Nolan's pending arrival, and that there were "FBI" men waiting for Nolan upon his arrival at DPD headquarters, and these men had knowledge that he was carrying an envelope intended for Fritz.
Here are transcripted excerpts of an interview with Bobby Nolan made on January 28, 2014, posted on YouTube, "“JFK Assassination ~ Officer Bobby Nolan” (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN9jIAiGNYg&t=690s) (Nolan does all of the talking without interruption by the interviewer, until some final questioning at the end of the Nolan's account)
…And I was just lolling around in the hallway there, in the emergency part of the hospital. And after a while this man came up to me and introduced himself and said his name was Bill Stinton. And he had on emergency room garb, the clothes that they wear. And I thought he probably was a doctor. I didn’t know who he was, and he didn’t tell me, except his name. So after he told me who he was, we were standing there talking, and this nurse came up to him and said that she had an envelope. And she said that this was a bullet that came off the governor’s gurney (and asked him) "What do you want me to do with it?
He just pointed to me and said, “Give it to him.” And she did. I don’t know who she was. And I finally find out that he (Stinson) was one of the Governor’s aides. In fact, I think he was a top aide. And he said, “Now you keep that, and just, if you could, just hang around here with me today.” I said, “Okay. I’ll have to call my boss, but I think that will be all right.”
So I called the Regional Commander and told him where I was, and how I got there. And he said, “Well, you need to stay there with Mrs. Connally and the family. Anything they need, you let me know, and we’ll get it there.” He said, “There’s gonna be a lot of people and the family coming in at Love Field, and we’re gonna have to furnish transportation.” He said, “You just call me, and we’ll send a car out there, and we’ll send a car out there to pick them up.” So basically that’s what I did there the whole afternoon there, with Mrs. Connally and the family, and these brothers. I think he had several brothers out there, coming in there to the hospital.
And Bill Stinson and I got on a first-name basis there. We got pretty friendly with each other, talking throughout the day. And she gave me this envelope that she said had the bullet in it. And I just stuck it in my pocket. I didn’t even look at it. I didn’t open it. It was sealed, and I didn’t think it was any of my business, so I just stuck it right down here in my left front pocket, and that’s where I kept it all day, for the rest of the day. And then about—we were shuffling people in and out, the Governor’s family, most all the afternoon. And the report was, I turned that bullet over to Will Fritz about 7:50. I thought it was later than that, but that’s been fifty years ago. It could be—could have been about that time.
The boss who—my supervisor at that time, the Regional Commander there in Dallas. He called me and asked me if I had a bullet that came off the Governor’s gurney or possibly out from his body or something, and I said, “Yes, sir, I do.” He said, “I want you to take that bullet down to Will Fritz, who was the Captain of the Police Department. And said, “Don’t let anyone else have it. Give it to Will Fritz. Don’t let anybody stop you, or nothing else.” Said “Give it to Will Fritz.”
I said “Okay.”
So I get in my car. This was—It was dark, so I don’t know really what time it was. The report is that it was around 4 or 5 o’clock, but I think it was later than that. So I get in my car, and I go start down to (the) Dallas Police Department. And when I pulled in, I think, as I remember, that Police Department was kind of down in a tunnel.
And I pulled in there, and parked, and started into the—to the headquarters of the Police Department, and there was two gentlemen that were inside the door, and as I opened the door, they asked me if I was Bob Nolan.
And I said, “Yes.”
And they said, “Well, we’re with the FBI,” and they showed me their credentials. And they said, “We understand that you have this bullet,” and said, “We’d like to have it.”
And I said, “Well, I hope you appreciate my position, but my supervisor told me to give it to Will Fritz. And unless he or someone higher than he tells me otherwise, that’s what I’d like to do with it.”
And they said, “Well, we understand that.”
So I went on down the hallway. And you wouldn’t believe the news media in that hallway. You couldn’t even walk for the people. But anyway, I finally got through, and I went on down to where Captain Will Fritz’s office was, and when I walked in the door, one of the ladies on the telephones in the office and things there said, “You Mr. Nolan?”
I said, “Yes.” “
We have a phone call for you.”
I said, “Okay.”
And it was Bill Stinton. And he said, “Bob, that bullet that you got earlier?”
I said, “Yes?”
He said, “The FBI wants it and said we better give it to them.”
I said, “Well, Bill, Major Smith told me to give it to Will Fritz, so you need to check with him before I can do that. You know I’ve got to go through the chain of command here.”
And he said, “I’ll get back with you.”
So in about ten minutes, Major Smith called me, and he said, “Bob,” he said, “I told you to give that bullet to Will Fritz.
I said, “Okay, Major. That’s where it’s going.” So I walk into his office, Captain Fritz, and Oswald was there. And I’m sure that he was interviewing him and questioning him. And I didn’t talk to Captain Fritz, but I initialed the envelope and laid it on the desk for Captain Will Fritz.
And then Bill Stinton called back and said, “I need you to stay up here all week with me.” And I said, “Well, I’ll have to check with my supervisor.” And I said, “I’d have to go home and get some more clothes, some more uniforms.”
And he said, “We can make that okay.”
So I called Captain Smith—Major Smith again, and he said, “Oh, that’s not necessary, Bob, for you to stay up here. We’ve got plenty other officers that can stay.” He said, “You go o home. Get yourself some rest.” ‘Cause I was worn out. This was up in the night.
And so, I told—I called Bill back and told him what he said, and he said, “Okay.” So I went home. I got home. I thought it was early in the morning, but the time that is in some of these reports and my time didn’t jive. But I went home, and I think I stayed home about a week…
...
And I’ve had several calls from people in the last few years. And this has been a long time ago, that wanted information about the bullet. And I don’t have any information, except it was in a small envelope. Now, I have seen a copy—in fact, I have a copy—of the envelope that had this—supposedly had this bullet in it. And there’s several signatures or initials on it, including mine. But mine are upside down to what the rest of them are. And the only explanation I can remember—assign it, I know that it’s my initials, there’s no doubt about that. But when I signed that envelope, I don’t remember any kind of writing on the outside of the envelope. And after I signed it, evidently they typed up or stamped all of this information on the envelope, and the other people signed it. That’s the only way I can under—explain my initials being upside down from everybody else. So that’s about the extent of it.
…
Q: Another question is, a lot of people will be curious as to whether you could interrogate this bullet by feeling it without opening the envelope, as to whether it was a whole bullet.
A: Yes, that’s one of the big questions, I understand, about this whole thing. I—and I can’t answer it, because I didn’t. She handed me the bullet—the envelope, and I stuck it in my pocket, and I didn’t touch it until I got back to Will Fritz. No. I wasn’t curious enough, I don’t guess. You know, I didn’t even think about it being two or three other bullets, maybe. If I did, I’d have probably opened the thing to look to see, but—and I don’t know, this one lady nurse said that she gave me the bullet, and I turned it over to the FBI, but that’s not true. I didn’t turn it over to the FBI. I gave it to Will Fritz. And she says she gave it to a plainclothes officer. Well, I was in uniform all the time I was there. These things have come out, and either she’s confused or something, I don’t know. I don’t know who she was. I don’t re—I didn’t get the lady’s name that gave it to me. Of course, back then, you know, back then, there’s not really—I wasn’t really that interested in it. And I wish now that I had. It would have solved a lot of problems.
He just pointed to me and said, “Give it to him.” And she did. I don’t know who she was. And I finally find out that he (Stinson) was one of the Governor’s aides. In fact, I think he was a top aide. And he said, “Now you keep that, and just, if you could, just hang around here with me today.” I said, “Okay. I’ll have to call my boss, but I think that will be all right.”
So I called the Regional Commander and told him where I was, and how I got there. And he said, “Well, you need to stay there with Mrs. Connally and the family. Anything they need, you let me know, and we’ll get it there.” He said, “There’s gonna be a lot of people and the family coming in at Love Field, and we’re gonna have to furnish transportation.” He said, “You just call me, and we’ll send a car out there, and we’ll send a car out there to pick them up.” So basically that’s what I did there the whole afternoon there, with Mrs. Connally and the family, and these brothers. I think he had several brothers out there, coming in there to the hospital.
And Bill Stinson and I got on a first-name basis there. We got pretty friendly with each other, talking throughout the day. And she gave me this envelope that she said had the bullet in it. And I just stuck it in my pocket. I didn’t even look at it. I didn’t open it. It was sealed, and I didn’t think it was any of my business, so I just stuck it right down here in my left front pocket, and that’s where I kept it all day, for the rest of the day. And then about—we were shuffling people in and out, the Governor’s family, most all the afternoon. And the report was, I turned that bullet over to Will Fritz about 7:50. I thought it was later than that, but that’s been fifty years ago. It could be—could have been about that time.
The boss who—my supervisor at that time, the Regional Commander there in Dallas. He called me and asked me if I had a bullet that came off the Governor’s gurney or possibly out from his body or something, and I said, “Yes, sir, I do.” He said, “I want you to take that bullet down to Will Fritz, who was the Captain of the Police Department. And said, “Don’t let anyone else have it. Give it to Will Fritz. Don’t let anybody stop you, or nothing else.” Said “Give it to Will Fritz.”
I said “Okay.”
So I get in my car. This was—It was dark, so I don’t know really what time it was. The report is that it was around 4 or 5 o’clock, but I think it was later than that. So I get in my car, and I go start down to (the) Dallas Police Department. And when I pulled in, I think, as I remember, that Police Department was kind of down in a tunnel.
And I pulled in there, and parked, and started into the—to the headquarters of the Police Department, and there was two gentlemen that were inside the door, and as I opened the door, they asked me if I was Bob Nolan.
And I said, “Yes.”
And they said, “Well, we’re with the FBI,” and they showed me their credentials. And they said, “We understand that you have this bullet,” and said, “We’d like to have it.”
And I said, “Well, I hope you appreciate my position, but my supervisor told me to give it to Will Fritz. And unless he or someone higher than he tells me otherwise, that’s what I’d like to do with it.”
And they said, “Well, we understand that.”
So I went on down the hallway. And you wouldn’t believe the news media in that hallway. You couldn’t even walk for the people. But anyway, I finally got through, and I went on down to where Captain Will Fritz’s office was, and when I walked in the door, one of the ladies on the telephones in the office and things there said, “You Mr. Nolan?”
I said, “Yes.” “
We have a phone call for you.”
I said, “Okay.”
And it was Bill Stinton. And he said, “Bob, that bullet that you got earlier?”
I said, “Yes?”
He said, “The FBI wants it and said we better give it to them.”
I said, “Well, Bill, Major Smith told me to give it to Will Fritz, so you need to check with him before I can do that. You know I’ve got to go through the chain of command here.”
And he said, “I’ll get back with you.”
So in about ten minutes, Major Smith called me, and he said, “Bob,” he said, “I told you to give that bullet to Will Fritz.
I said, “Okay, Major. That’s where it’s going.” So I walk into his office, Captain Fritz, and Oswald was there. And I’m sure that he was interviewing him and questioning him. And I didn’t talk to Captain Fritz, but I initialed the envelope and laid it on the desk for Captain Will Fritz.
And then Bill Stinton called back and said, “I need you to stay up here all week with me.” And I said, “Well, I’ll have to check with my supervisor.” And I said, “I’d have to go home and get some more clothes, some more uniforms.”
And he said, “We can make that okay.”
So I called Captain Smith—Major Smith again, and he said, “Oh, that’s not necessary, Bob, for you to stay up here. We’ve got plenty other officers that can stay.” He said, “You go o home. Get yourself some rest.” ‘Cause I was worn out. This was up in the night.
And so, I told—I called Bill back and told him what he said, and he said, “Okay.” So I went home. I got home. I thought it was early in the morning, but the time that is in some of these reports and my time didn’t jive. But I went home, and I think I stayed home about a week…
...
And I’ve had several calls from people in the last few years. And this has been a long time ago, that wanted information about the bullet. And I don’t have any information, except it was in a small envelope. Now, I have seen a copy—in fact, I have a copy—of the envelope that had this—supposedly had this bullet in it. And there’s several signatures or initials on it, including mine. But mine are upside down to what the rest of them are. And the only explanation I can remember—assign it, I know that it’s my initials, there’s no doubt about that. But when I signed that envelope, I don’t remember any kind of writing on the outside of the envelope. And after I signed it, evidently they typed up or stamped all of this information on the envelope, and the other people signed it. That’s the only way I can under—explain my initials being upside down from everybody else. So that’s about the extent of it.
…
Q: Another question is, a lot of people will be curious as to whether you could interrogate this bullet by feeling it without opening the envelope, as to whether it was a whole bullet.
A: Yes, that’s one of the big questions, I understand, about this whole thing. I—and I can’t answer it, because I didn’t. She handed me the bullet—the envelope, and I stuck it in my pocket, and I didn’t touch it until I got back to Will Fritz. No. I wasn’t curious enough, I don’t guess. You know, I didn’t even think about it being two or three other bullets, maybe. If I did, I’d have probably opened the thing to look to see, but—and I don’t know, this one lady nurse said that she gave me the bullet, and I turned it over to the FBI, but that’s not true. I didn’t turn it over to the FBI. I gave it to Will Fritz. And she says she gave it to a plainclothes officer. Well, I was in uniform all the time I was there. These things have come out, and either she’s confused or something, I don’t know. I don’t know who she was. I don’t re—I didn’t get the lady’s name that gave it to me. Of course, back then, you know, back then, there’s not really—I wasn’t really that interested in it. And I wish now that I had. It would have solved a lot of problems.
So which is it? Are Bell and Nolan both "mistaken"? Or is forgery involved in the CE 842 envelope? I am struck by the last section of the excerpt above before the question and answer, when Nolan describes the CE 842 envelope that "supposedly had this bullet in it." He goes on to describe how he didn't remember any writing on the envelope, and how his initials were upside down, and speculated that all "evidently they typed up or stamped all of this information on the envelope" after he had signed it.
My money's on the original Nolan envelope being "disappeared," and his initials being forged onto the Audrey Bell envelope.
A brief examination of the envelope might be in order. One would assume that if Nolan's initials are on the envelope, Will Fritz's initials should be, as well.
Here is the envelope again, followed by the Nolan initials and the only "Fritz" initials candidate I can find on the envelope, rotated to be right-side up, and annotated by red rectangles. I don't have a sample of Bobby Nolan's known signature or initials, but he did acknowledge the initials as his. However, I did find an example of Fritz's signature on a document shown online.
My money's on the original Nolan envelope being "disappeared," and his initials being forged onto the Audrey Bell envelope.
A brief examination of the envelope might be in order. One would assume that if Nolan's initials are on the envelope, Will Fritz's initials should be, as well.
Here is the envelope again, followed by the Nolan initials and the only "Fritz" initials candidate I can find on the envelope, rotated to be right-side up, and annotated by red rectangles. I don't have a sample of Bobby Nolan's known signature or initials, but he did acknowledge the initials as his. However, I did find an example of Fritz's signature on a document shown online.
The CE 842 envelope as published by the Warren Commission.
A cropped and rotated image of the CE 842 envelope with Bobby Nolan's initials and the only possible candidate for Will Fritz's initials annotated.
Here is the sample of Will Fritz's signature from another document I found online:
The signature of J.W. "Will" Fritz from an online document found at https://www.google.com/search?q=JFK+documentdocument+initialed+by+Fritz&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjYt6fs2vmDAxWzGGIAHWe1DaYQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=JFK+documentdocument+initialed+by+Fritz&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzoECCMQJzoECAAQAzoFCAAQgAQ6DggAEIAEEIoFELEDEIMBOggIABCABBCxAzoGCAAQCBAeOgcIABCABBAYOgkIABAFEB4QxwM6CQgAEAgQHhDHA1DFD1iW-AdglIEIaBpwAHgBgAH5BogB8S2SAQo1Ny40LTEuMS4xmAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWfAAQE&sclient=img&ei=-vCyZdjSHLOxiLMP5-q2sAo&bih=713&biw=985&client=safari#imgrc=UvVusM5lKtDZ8M
The "loops" for Fritz on the "known" signature look sharp, contrasted with more rounded loops on the envelope (which looks more like a "G" to me). The "W" looks the same on the known sample and the envelope. I can't read the "F" well enough on the envelope signature to tell if there is a significant difference, but there might be. On the other hand, even if the differences are not that significant, the FBI employs handwriting experts who could easily create the needed forgeries.
But note that from Nolan's account, we have another named witness, Connally Aide Bill Stinson, to the nurse transferring the "bullet" envelope to to Nolan. Stinson has remained silent about his role in this important history. There were others who were aware of the envelope: the unnamed nurse, Nolan's supervisor "Major Smith,"unnamed FBI agents, and at least one of the women answering phones in Fritz's office. Fritz had to be aware that Nolan's envelope was coming, and his (forged?) signature seems to appear on the CE 842 envelope itself.
And notice how the contents of the envelope were always represented to Nolan as being a "bullet" (not "fragments") that came off Connally's gurney. And even though Nolan didn't "interrogate" the envelope by feeling the contents through the envelope, I believe the reason he didn't do so was that it was fairly obvious that whatever was inside felt like the "bullet" it was represented to be.
This envelope handled by Bobby Nolan is not part of the chain of evidence involving the bullet fragments that were removed from Governor Connally's wrist and put into a "foreign body" envelope by nurse Audrey Bell. It turns out that there is one more important witness to this "bullet" that came off Connally's stretcher: Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade. Wade actually saw the bullet before it was put into an envelope, and provides the link in the chain of evidence before it was given to Nolan. We'll also look at who this unnamed nurse might have been--and who it was not.
But note that from Nolan's account, we have another named witness, Connally Aide Bill Stinson, to the nurse transferring the "bullet" envelope to to Nolan. Stinson has remained silent about his role in this important history. There were others who were aware of the envelope: the unnamed nurse, Nolan's supervisor "Major Smith,"unnamed FBI agents, and at least one of the women answering phones in Fritz's office. Fritz had to be aware that Nolan's envelope was coming, and his (forged?) signature seems to appear on the CE 842 envelope itself.
And notice how the contents of the envelope were always represented to Nolan as being a "bullet" (not "fragments") that came off Connally's gurney. And even though Nolan didn't "interrogate" the envelope by feeling the contents through the envelope, I believe the reason he didn't do so was that it was fairly obvious that whatever was inside felt like the "bullet" it was represented to be.
This envelope handled by Bobby Nolan is not part of the chain of evidence involving the bullet fragments that were removed from Governor Connally's wrist and put into a "foreign body" envelope by nurse Audrey Bell. It turns out that there is one more important witness to this "bullet" that came off Connally's stretcher: Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade. Wade actually saw the bullet before it was put into an envelope, and provides the link in the chain of evidence before it was given to Nolan. We'll also look at who this unnamed nurse might have been--and who it was not.
-----
The Alternate History of the Connally Bullet -- Henry Wade
There is a completely separate history of a Parkland Hospital "stretcher" bullet not involving Darrel Tomlinson, O.P. Wright, Richard Johnson, and the entire chain-of-evidence purportedly belonging to CE-399.
It is, however, part of the Bobby Nolan chain, and it involves Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade (who, incidentally, was the "Wade" in "Roe v. Wade").
Robert Harris outlines this alternate history in his article, "The Connally Bullet," which I link to at the top of the page. Harris's conclusion--that this "disappeared" bullet cannot have come from Oswald's gun--is exactly backwards. In fact, it is the "pointed" bullet of the Tomlinson/Wright chain that cannot have come from Oswald's gun. Otherwise, his history of this "other" Connally bullet is good.
The "alternate history" starts with Governor Connally himself. This page is from Connally's autobiography In History's Shadow (Please forgive my annotations and the dog-chewed state.) which I had bought to confirm that Harris had quoted the passage he cites correctly (which he did):
There is a completely separate history of a Parkland Hospital "stretcher" bullet not involving Darrel Tomlinson, O.P. Wright, Richard Johnson, and the entire chain-of-evidence purportedly belonging to CE-399.
It is, however, part of the Bobby Nolan chain, and it involves Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade (who, incidentally, was the "Wade" in "Roe v. Wade").
Robert Harris outlines this alternate history in his article, "The Connally Bullet," which I link to at the top of the page. Harris's conclusion--that this "disappeared" bullet cannot have come from Oswald's gun--is exactly backwards. In fact, it is the "pointed" bullet of the Tomlinson/Wright chain that cannot have come from Oswald's gun. Otherwise, his history of this "other" Connally bullet is good.
The "alternate history" starts with Governor Connally himself. This page is from Connally's autobiography In History's Shadow (Please forgive my annotations and the dog-chewed state.) which I had bought to confirm that Harris had quoted the passage he cites correctly (which he did):
Here's where Henry Wade comes into the picture. Harris provides the quoted excerpt below, though without much information about where it came from other than the Dallas Morning News. From another source (namely, The JFK Assassination Dissected: An Analysis by Forensic Pathologist Cyril Wecht) I learned that the exact date of the article is 11/23/93. (I asked my friend with a Newspapers.com subscription if he could track down the original article. If he does, I'll replace the below quote with the original article.)
I also went out to see (Gov. John) Connally, but he was in the operating room. Some nurse had a bullet in her hand, and said this was on the gurney that Connally was on. I talked with Nellie Connally a while and then went on home.
Q: What did you do with the bullet? Is this the famous pristine bullet people have talked about?
A: I told her to give it to the police, which she said she would. I assume that's the pristine bullet.
Q: What did you do with the bullet? Is this the famous pristine bullet people have talked about?
A: I told her to give it to the police, which she said she would. I assume that's the pristine bullet.
There is also a video interview of Wade by researcher Mark Oakes. There are some minor differences. According to the newspaper article, Wade told the nurse to "Give it to the police." In the video interview, he said he told her to "Give it to Homicide." In the Nolan version of the story, she started to give it Connally Aide Bill Stinson before turning it over to Nolan. Additionally, I believe that Wade told her to put it into an envelope that could be marked for evidence, as it appears to have been place into an envelope and sealed between the time when Wade saw it, and the time when she gave it to Nolan.
There is also a slight difference in the description of the nurse. According to the Dallas Morning News, it was just "some" nurse. In the Mark Oakes interview, it was a "head" nurse.
The transcript below is excerpted from the Mark Oakes interview of Henry Wade in "JFK Assassination: The Single Bullet...but WHICH bullet? Henry Wade, O.P. Wright Widow" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHw2lHSoIC0). The video starts in the middle of the conversation:
There is also a slight difference in the description of the nurse. According to the Dallas Morning News, it was just "some" nurse. In the Mark Oakes interview, it was a "head" nurse.
The transcript below is excerpted from the Mark Oakes interview of Henry Wade in "JFK Assassination: The Single Bullet...but WHICH bullet? Henry Wade, O.P. Wright Widow" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHw2lHSoIC0). The video starts in the middle of the conversation:
Wade: And they identified a bullet found on the--I believe it was on the gurney where Connally was, that evidently came out of that gun.
Oakes: Yeah, and unfortunately, they have discrepancies on that, because the guy that found it, his name was Darrell Tomlinson, he said he found it on a stretcher that wasn't--I mean, he could have been mistaken, but you see what I'm saying. There's a lot of --they throw more--
Wade: I talked with the girl, I think Yvonne, that was a constable over in Oak Cliff there, and his wife was the head nurse--I talked with her myself that Friday night, 'cause I went out there to see Connally and his wife, really his wife. I went to school with both of them. And she said she found it on the gurney that Connally was on, and she had the bullet in her hand, and showed it to me. See, this was right after the shooting. And I said, "you ought to give that to homicide. But be sure you trace the chain-of-command. (sic.)
Oakes: It was a nurse--You're saying a nurse--
Wade: The head nurse, there.
Oakes: The head nurse found this? Her name was--What was her name?
Wade: Bowen (or Bowman), I think. Her husband--
Oakes: Okay, I don't know the name. All I can think of is Audrey Bell, but that's not...you know. I don't know.
Wade: Well, all I know, she showed me a bullet and said "I took this off--" I said, "Where'd you get it?" She said, "I took it off the gurney that Connelly was on."
Oakes: Oh, wow.
Wade: That don't mean necessarily that was the bullet that went through Connally. You know, they were putting them on gurneys out there.
Oakes: She actually showed it to you?
Wade: Yeah.
Oakes: When was that? Was that--
Wade: It was 4:00, or 5.
Oakes: On Friday? On Friday night at 4?
Wade: I told her to "Give that to homicide," where they could trace where she found it.
Oakes: You said, "They were putting them on gurneys," you meant in reference to--
Wade: Well, I mean, referring to the body. The people are put on gurneys at the scene, and may be moving them to another one to go into the operating room or something.
Oakes: Yeah. And as far as you know--as far as you know, she did hand it over to somebody?
Wade: I don't (know)--I just told her to. I just--she said she would. But she showed me a bullet there, and I said, "Well, you don't have business in that. Homicide ought to have it."
Oakes: Yeah, and unfortunately, they have discrepancies on that, because the guy that found it, his name was Darrell Tomlinson, he said he found it on a stretcher that wasn't--I mean, he could have been mistaken, but you see what I'm saying. There's a lot of --they throw more--
Wade: I talked with the girl, I think Yvonne, that was a constable over in Oak Cliff there, and his wife was the head nurse--I talked with her myself that Friday night, 'cause I went out there to see Connally and his wife, really his wife. I went to school with both of them. And she said she found it on the gurney that Connally was on, and she had the bullet in her hand, and showed it to me. See, this was right after the shooting. And I said, "you ought to give that to homicide. But be sure you trace the chain-of-command. (sic.)
Oakes: It was a nurse--You're saying a nurse--
Wade: The head nurse, there.
Oakes: The head nurse found this? Her name was--What was her name?
Wade: Bowen (or Bowman), I think. Her husband--
Oakes: Okay, I don't know the name. All I can think of is Audrey Bell, but that's not...you know. I don't know.
Wade: Well, all I know, she showed me a bullet and said "I took this off--" I said, "Where'd you get it?" She said, "I took it off the gurney that Connelly was on."
Oakes: Oh, wow.
Wade: That don't mean necessarily that was the bullet that went through Connally. You know, they were putting them on gurneys out there.
Oakes: She actually showed it to you?
Wade: Yeah.
Oakes: When was that? Was that--
Wade: It was 4:00, or 5.
Oakes: On Friday? On Friday night at 4?
Wade: I told her to "Give that to homicide," where they could trace where she found it.
Oakes: You said, "They were putting them on gurneys," you meant in reference to--
Wade: Well, I mean, referring to the body. The people are put on gurneys at the scene, and may be moving them to another one to go into the operating room or something.
Oakes: Yeah. And as far as you know--as far as you know, she did hand it over to somebody?
Wade: I don't (know)--I just told her to. I just--she said she would. But she showed me a bullet there, and I said, "Well, you don't have business in that. Homicide ought to have it."
So we've got a nurse who was not familiar with procedures for processing evidence (i.e., Audrey Bell's procedure of putting the evidence in a "foreign body" envelope, filling out the information, and turning it over to the DPD crime lab representative Mr. Alexander) who finds this bullet that she doesn't know what to do with. She tries to give it to Henry Wade, but Wade tells her something like, "Put it in an envelope so chain of evidence can be followed, and give it to the police who take care of homicide." So she finds an envelope and puts it in, then looks for someone to give it to. She tells Bill Stinson, "I've got this bullet that came from Connally's gurney, and I need to find a homicide cop to give it to." Stinson points to the uniformed Bobby Nolan and says, "Give it to him." She does. Bobby Nolan asks his supervisor what to do with it, and his supervisor tells him to "Give it to Captain Will Fritz at DPD headquarters." So Nolan eventually takes it to Fritz's office. Meanwhile Nolan's supervisor alerts Fritz that the bullet is coming. FBI or Secret Service agents (they often got confused by witnesses) get wind of the bullet, and want to take possession of it. (The reason why will be explained shortly.) But Nolan's supervisor insists that Nolan give it to Fritz. He waits for a while, but it's getting later and later, and Nolan is tired. So eventually he just signs his initials to the envelope, and leaves it on Fritz's desk.
Oakes concluded that the "head nurse" recalled by Henry Wade was Elizabeth Wright, wife of O.P. Wright. If true, it would be rather ironic, given her husband's involvement in the Tomlinson/Wright bullet saga. However, Elizabeth Wright herself in her statements about her actions on that day (Price Exhibit 11) and in her interview following Wade's in the same YouTube video, never admits to doing anything of the sort, although she does give a bit of a tease about a gurney bullet in her video interview. I think Wade was just slightly confused about the identify of the nurse. He had gone to Parkland to see Governor Connally and his wife, both of whom he had known from their school days. Undoubtedly Wade encountered Head Nurse Elizabeth Wright, who was helping to look after Connally after his surgery and trying to make sure the Governor's family and friends were comfortable. But by her own accounts, Elizabeth Wright didn't arrive at Parkland until the Governor's surgery was well underway, she heard something about a bullet or fragments from a wrist or thigh (per her Price Exhibit). And by Connally's own account, the bullet was picked up by the nurse before his first surgery even started. So I don't think it was her. Some other researchers think that it was her, and that she was lying about not being the nurse--presumably because the nurse, whoever she was, didn't follow procedural protocols for dealing with criminal evidence.
-----
The Wright Stuff -- The Wrong Nurse
Elizabeth Wright was the "Head Nurse" at Parkland, which was why Mark Oakes believed her to be the nurse in question. I disagree. She was the head nurse, but I think she only heard about the gurney bullet second-hand. Meanwhile, she also heard about the Darrell Tomlinson bullet from her husband, and like he did for researcher Josiah Thompson, gave her a bullet like the one Tomlinson had found, "as a souvenir." O.P. Wright had a background in law enforcement. According to Josiah Thompson ("Duquesne University 2003 JFK Assassination Conference: Josiah Thompson, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oolUozA1Crw), he had once been a Deputy Chief of Police in charge of the Patrol Division in the Dallas Police Department. He would certainly have been familiar with correct procedures involving evidence.
Below are pages from Elizabeth Wright's memo to Jack Price, created when Parkland employees were directed to describe their activities related to the assassination and the Oswald murder, and submit these to Hospital administrator Jack Price in written form. Elizabeth Wright's response was one of the more lengthy ones. She does mention "Officer Knowland (spelling questionable) of the Dallas City Police Department" in regards to a "fragment" (singular), but that name came to her via hear-say (bottom of page 198, top of page 199, "Price Exhibit No. 11" (Note that for this formal document, she refers to her husband as "Mr. Wright."):
Elizabeth Wright was the "Head Nurse" at Parkland, which was why Mark Oakes believed her to be the nurse in question. I disagree. She was the head nurse, but I think she only heard about the gurney bullet second-hand. Meanwhile, she also heard about the Darrell Tomlinson bullet from her husband, and like he did for researcher Josiah Thompson, gave her a bullet like the one Tomlinson had found, "as a souvenir." O.P. Wright had a background in law enforcement. According to Josiah Thompson ("Duquesne University 2003 JFK Assassination Conference: Josiah Thompson, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oolUozA1Crw), he had once been a Deputy Chief of Police in charge of the Patrol Division in the Dallas Police Department. He would certainly have been familiar with correct procedures involving evidence.
Below are pages from Elizabeth Wright's memo to Jack Price, created when Parkland employees were directed to describe their activities related to the assassination and the Oswald murder, and submit these to Hospital administrator Jack Price in written form. Elizabeth Wright's response was one of the more lengthy ones. She does mention "Officer Knowland (spelling questionable) of the Dallas City Police Department" in regards to a "fragment" (singular), but that name came to her via hear-say (bottom of page 198, top of page 199, "Price Exhibit No. 11" (Note that for this formal document, she refers to her husband as "Mr. Wright."):
So Elizabeth Wright heard the name "Knowland" (which she deduced to be "Nolan") from Dr. Shires, who had been flown in by special Air Force jet to Dallas from Galveston where he had been giving a presentation, and who scrubbed in near the end of the thoracic surgery. Shires wasn't present when Connally was moved to the gurney, and much of what he knew came from talking to the other doctors--and perhaps, nurses. In other words, from hearsay. In fact, Shires isn't even listed in the official Parkland paper documents as having had any part in Connally's surgeries, though he testified to taking part.
Wright also shows confusion as to how many fragments were removed from Connally: "fragment" (singular) vs. "fragments" (plural). We've gone over the discrepancies concerning the exact number of fragments (ultimately four), but it was always more than one small fragment.
On the other hand, if one considers that the body of the bullet, assuming it was in one piece as CE 399 is, was not a complete bullet, given that tiny fragments had broken off in the Governor's wrist and thigh, one might consider the main part of the bullet to be, technically, a very large "fragment," even though a lay person would undoubtedly refer to it as a "bullet," and the entire bullet could be considered "shattered" or "fragmented"--terms of art that might be important later.
The Mark Oakes interview of Elizabeth Wright (right after the Henry Wade interview in "JFK Assassination: The Single Bullet...but WHICH bullet? Henry Wade, O.P. Wright widow" offers an additional account in Elizabeth Wright's own words. Although she shows Oakes a bullet given to her by her husband as the one that, at first, she says her husband had told her was "a bullet Darrell (Tomlinson) found on a stretcher," she later corrects herself and says she doesn't really know anything about it. I suspect that her husband gave her a bullet like the one Darrell Tomlinson had found as a souvenir, but not the bullet, answering that she didn't think the bullet she was holding was part of any evidence, and her husband would not have given it to her if it was, "because he'd been in police work long enough (to know that) you don't do that."
Excerpted from the Mark Oakes interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHw2lHSoIC0):
Wright also shows confusion as to how many fragments were removed from Connally: "fragment" (singular) vs. "fragments" (plural). We've gone over the discrepancies concerning the exact number of fragments (ultimately four), but it was always more than one small fragment.
On the other hand, if one considers that the body of the bullet, assuming it was in one piece as CE 399 is, was not a complete bullet, given that tiny fragments had broken off in the Governor's wrist and thigh, one might consider the main part of the bullet to be, technically, a very large "fragment," even though a lay person would undoubtedly refer to it as a "bullet," and the entire bullet could be considered "shattered" or "fragmented"--terms of art that might be important later.
The Mark Oakes interview of Elizabeth Wright (right after the Henry Wade interview in "JFK Assassination: The Single Bullet...but WHICH bullet? Henry Wade, O.P. Wright widow" offers an additional account in Elizabeth Wright's own words. Although she shows Oakes a bullet given to her by her husband as the one that, at first, she says her husband had told her was "a bullet Darrell (Tomlinson) found on a stretcher," she later corrects herself and says she doesn't really know anything about it. I suspect that her husband gave her a bullet like the one Darrell Tomlinson had found as a souvenir, but not the bullet, answering that she didn't think the bullet she was holding was part of any evidence, and her husband would not have given it to her if it was, "because he'd been in police work long enough (to know that) you don't do that."
Excerpted from the Mark Oakes interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHw2lHSoIC0):
Oakes: And as I told you earlier, I had an interview with the former District Attorney of Dallas Henry Wade, and he had mentioned you in this interview. He got the name wrong, but he did say that a head nurse at the hospital had shown him a bullet, and he said she had the bullet in her hand, and I said—he said, “Where did you get this?” And she said something to the effect of, “I got it off Connally’s stretcher.” And he said, “Well, you should turn that over to homicide.” And history has recorded that Darrell Tomlinson, who worked in the hospital, had found this bullet on a stretcher, and had given it to your husband.
Wright: An orderly in the Emergency Room. Well, to find a bullet in the bedding on a stretcher is nothing outstanding or unusual. So that’s why (O.P. said?) “Well, you might want this as a souvenir. It’s a bullet that Darrell found on a stretcher.” At least it was the same day. And so I took it and still have it. But of course, there’s no resemblance of that bullet (apparently referring to the bullet Oakes had brought with him to the interview, presumably a Mannlicher-Carcanno bullet) to the one I have.
Oakes: Oh, I see. They said that your husband gave the bullet to a Secret Service agent.
Wright: (nodding)
Oakes: I mean, that’s all we know up to that point. And the bullet he gave him was similar to this one. (Gives her the bullet) Does the bullet you have resemble that?
Wright: Well, I don’t know. If you like to see it, I’ll be happy to show it to you. But it—no. It doesn’t look anything like that.
Oakes: Okay. Yes, if you would, I’d be happy to--
Wright: (returns the bullet back to Oakes) Hold on a minute. I’ll get it.
Oakes: All right, well, thank you.
(Video stops, then resumes)
Oakes: …take a look at that. Wow!
Wright: (indicating her bullet) That might have done a worse job than that one (indicating Oakes’ bullet) did. I don’t know that much about bullets.
Oakes: That’s a bullet that you got from your husband that day?
Wright: Right. That day. Well, that—late that evening. (Looks to her right, thinking) Well, now, it might not—I couldn’t tell you whether it was that evening, or the next day, or the day after.
Oakes: Okay.
Wright: Because everything was in such an uproar that I can’t tell you minute by minute what I did.
(The phone rings, and she leaves to go answer it. Oakes holds up her bullet for the camera, but the image is not very clear. It appears to be about 2 inches tall. That’s about all this author can see.)
(Oakes introduces the passage about the bullet falling out of his body from John Connally’s book to Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Wright scoffs at his having heard the bullet fall out “In his condition?” Oakes then reads the passage to her. She recalls to the best of her knowledge that Connally was taken directly to the operating room.)
Wright: To the best of my knowledge, that (the bullet falling out) took place there (in the operating room). But the bedding on that stretcher, as I recall, was green, which was—no, gray, which is operating room color. And it was gray. And that’s not unusual (“that” meaning moving the patient to a different stretcher?), because we switch stretchers intermittently, depending on who needs the most at what time. This is not to say the operating room table, but the stretcher—or some people say gurney—for transportation (unintelligible). It has a little shelf underneath, and that’s where the—as I recall, being told the bullet was, being rolled up in the —in those bedsheets. However, Audrey Bell, who was the operating room supervisor at that time was a very astute operating room supervisor, and had someone heard it, or had he heard it, and said anything to her or to the nurses, I’m sure that they would have been astute enough to keep that as evidence, right. So I can’t say that Connally didn’t hear it and this did not happen, but I see flaws in the testament.
Oakes: Okay. (indicating Wright’s bullet) Do you think—I mean, do think feel that that bullet is part of any evidence? Or do you feel that--
Wright: No, I really don’t. I honestly don’t. And I don’t think Otis would have given it to me had he thought it was, because he’d been in police work long enough (to know that) you don’t do that.
Oakes: Your husband.
Wright: Right. But I kept it all those years, because it was there. That’s all. I do know it was there, but I don’t know anything more about it, the background. And obviously it has not been shot.
Oakes: Obviously. Yes. And your husband. He was never on any show or TV show that I recall. Was he asked not to—(speak about what happened)
Wright: We were all asked not to. And there’s only one person who was asked not to on my staff, to my knowledge, appear on television without permission.
Wright: An orderly in the Emergency Room. Well, to find a bullet in the bedding on a stretcher is nothing outstanding or unusual. So that’s why (O.P. said?) “Well, you might want this as a souvenir. It’s a bullet that Darrell found on a stretcher.” At least it was the same day. And so I took it and still have it. But of course, there’s no resemblance of that bullet (apparently referring to the bullet Oakes had brought with him to the interview, presumably a Mannlicher-Carcanno bullet) to the one I have.
Oakes: Oh, I see. They said that your husband gave the bullet to a Secret Service agent.
Wright: (nodding)
Oakes: I mean, that’s all we know up to that point. And the bullet he gave him was similar to this one. (Gives her the bullet) Does the bullet you have resemble that?
Wright: Well, I don’t know. If you like to see it, I’ll be happy to show it to you. But it—no. It doesn’t look anything like that.
Oakes: Okay. Yes, if you would, I’d be happy to--
Wright: (returns the bullet back to Oakes) Hold on a minute. I’ll get it.
Oakes: All right, well, thank you.
(Video stops, then resumes)
Oakes: …take a look at that. Wow!
Wright: (indicating her bullet) That might have done a worse job than that one (indicating Oakes’ bullet) did. I don’t know that much about bullets.
Oakes: That’s a bullet that you got from your husband that day?
Wright: Right. That day. Well, that—late that evening. (Looks to her right, thinking) Well, now, it might not—I couldn’t tell you whether it was that evening, or the next day, or the day after.
Oakes: Okay.
Wright: Because everything was in such an uproar that I can’t tell you minute by minute what I did.
(The phone rings, and she leaves to go answer it. Oakes holds up her bullet for the camera, but the image is not very clear. It appears to be about 2 inches tall. That’s about all this author can see.)
(Oakes introduces the passage about the bullet falling out of his body from John Connally’s book to Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Wright scoffs at his having heard the bullet fall out “In his condition?” Oakes then reads the passage to her. She recalls to the best of her knowledge that Connally was taken directly to the operating room.)
Wright: To the best of my knowledge, that (the bullet falling out) took place there (in the operating room). But the bedding on that stretcher, as I recall, was green, which was—no, gray, which is operating room color. And it was gray. And that’s not unusual (“that” meaning moving the patient to a different stretcher?), because we switch stretchers intermittently, depending on who needs the most at what time. This is not to say the operating room table, but the stretcher—or some people say gurney—for transportation (unintelligible). It has a little shelf underneath, and that’s where the—as I recall, being told the bullet was, being rolled up in the —in those bedsheets. However, Audrey Bell, who was the operating room supervisor at that time was a very astute operating room supervisor, and had someone heard it, or had he heard it, and said anything to her or to the nurses, I’m sure that they would have been astute enough to keep that as evidence, right. So I can’t say that Connally didn’t hear it and this did not happen, but I see flaws in the testament.
Oakes: Okay. (indicating Wright’s bullet) Do you think—I mean, do think feel that that bullet is part of any evidence? Or do you feel that--
Wright: No, I really don’t. I honestly don’t. And I don’t think Otis would have given it to me had he thought it was, because he’d been in police work long enough (to know that) you don’t do that.
Oakes: Your husband.
Wright: Right. But I kept it all those years, because it was there. That’s all. I do know it was there, but I don’t know anything more about it, the background. And obviously it has not been shot.
Oakes: Obviously. Yes. And your husband. He was never on any show or TV show that I recall. Was he asked not to—(speak about what happened)
Wright: We were all asked not to. And there’s only one person who was asked not to on my staff, to my knowledge, appear on television without permission.
So the bullet given to her by her husband she really didn't think had any evidentiary value. She wasn't sure where it came from, but it was given to her as a "souvenir," much like the one O.P. Wright had given Josiah Thompson. We don't really get much of a look at the bullet during the video, but it was "not like" the one Oakes had brought to the interview with him, which we can assume to be a Carcanno round (like CE 399), even though the make of that bullet isn't mentioned and we don't. really get a good view of it, either.
In our search for the nurse in question, it behooves us to take a look at who was on Connally's surgery teams. From CE 392 https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/pdf/WH17_CE_392.pdf , we see that the Parkland paperwork lists the surgery teams as this:
Thoracic Surgery
Anesthesiologist: Giesecke
Surgeon: Dr. Robert Shaw
Assistants: Drs. Boland and Duke
Scrub Nurse: King/Burkett
Circ. Nurse: Johnson
Ortho Surgery
Anesthesiologist: Giesecke
Surgeon: Dr. Charles Gregory
Assistants: Drs. Osborne and Parker
Scrub Nurse: Rutherford
Circ. Nurse: Schroder
So our nurse could be of the last name King, Burkett, Johnson, Rutherford, Schroder, or someone not even on the O.R. team who just helped move Connally onto the other gurney, but those would be possible candidates or places to start in looking for the Connally/Wade/Nolan bullet. None of these nurses was called to testify by the Warren Commission, and Google searches of their names connected to Connally's yield nothing. If there are any FBI "302's" on these nurses, I haven't found them.
In the end we've got a dozen people--actually more, since we know that Dr. Shires "scrubbed in" towards the end of the thoracic surgery and stayed throughout the orthopedic surgery to the wrist and presumably through the thigh repair, and there may have been others--busy in the O.R. treating Connally's injuries, Audrey Bell popping in to retrieve the wrist fragments, and God knows who else moving in and out of the O.R. At some point, a nurse (Was it actually a nurse? Or maybe just an aide who was helping to move Connally to the stretcher, and Connally and others thought she was a "nurse"?) tells someone on the O.R. team, "Hey, I found a bullet on the gurney. I think it came out of the Governor's thigh. I gave it to some police guy named Nolan."
Like the game "Telephone" where the initial message gets scrambled as it passes through a line of people and comes out different at the end, the information gets scrambled and misinterpreted. No one in the O.R., besides the "nurse" who might or might not have actually been in the O.R., actually saw the bullet, and were vaguely aware of some "fragment" that was in the Governor's thigh, and voila! A bullet is transformed into a "fragment" by those who didn't actually see it or by someone referring to its incomplete nature, and it came out of the Governor's thigh--sorry, I meant "wrist." (/s)
At the end of the excerpt, when Elizabeth Wright is asked whether her husband was ever asked not to speak about what happened, she replies, "We were all asked not to. And there’s only one person who was asked not to on my staff, to my knowledge, appear on television without permission." So I wonder, why were they all asked not to speak And who was the "one person" who was especially singled out? Could it have been our mysterious nurse?
And, may I remind the reader that none of the Connally nurses were called?
In our search for the nurse in question, it behooves us to take a look at who was on Connally's surgery teams. From CE 392 https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/pdf/WH17_CE_392.pdf , we see that the Parkland paperwork lists the surgery teams as this:
Thoracic Surgery
Anesthesiologist: Giesecke
Surgeon: Dr. Robert Shaw
Assistants: Drs. Boland and Duke
Scrub Nurse: King/Burkett
Circ. Nurse: Johnson
Ortho Surgery
Anesthesiologist: Giesecke
Surgeon: Dr. Charles Gregory
Assistants: Drs. Osborne and Parker
Scrub Nurse: Rutherford
Circ. Nurse: Schroder
So our nurse could be of the last name King, Burkett, Johnson, Rutherford, Schroder, or someone not even on the O.R. team who just helped move Connally onto the other gurney, but those would be possible candidates or places to start in looking for the Connally/Wade/Nolan bullet. None of these nurses was called to testify by the Warren Commission, and Google searches of their names connected to Connally's yield nothing. If there are any FBI "302's" on these nurses, I haven't found them.
In the end we've got a dozen people--actually more, since we know that Dr. Shires "scrubbed in" towards the end of the thoracic surgery and stayed throughout the orthopedic surgery to the wrist and presumably through the thigh repair, and there may have been others--busy in the O.R. treating Connally's injuries, Audrey Bell popping in to retrieve the wrist fragments, and God knows who else moving in and out of the O.R. At some point, a nurse (Was it actually a nurse? Or maybe just an aide who was helping to move Connally to the stretcher, and Connally and others thought she was a "nurse"?) tells someone on the O.R. team, "Hey, I found a bullet on the gurney. I think it came out of the Governor's thigh. I gave it to some police guy named Nolan."
Like the game "Telephone" where the initial message gets scrambled as it passes through a line of people and comes out different at the end, the information gets scrambled and misinterpreted. No one in the O.R., besides the "nurse" who might or might not have actually been in the O.R., actually saw the bullet, and were vaguely aware of some "fragment" that was in the Governor's thigh, and voila! A bullet is transformed into a "fragment" by those who didn't actually see it or by someone referring to its incomplete nature, and it came out of the Governor's thigh--sorry, I meant "wrist." (/s)
At the end of the excerpt, when Elizabeth Wright is asked whether her husband was ever asked not to speak about what happened, she replies, "We were all asked not to. And there’s only one person who was asked not to on my staff, to my knowledge, appear on television without permission." So I wonder, why were they all asked not to speak And who was the "one person" who was especially singled out? Could it have been our mysterious nurse?
And, may I remind the reader that none of the Connally nurses were called?
-----
Contemporaneous News Account of a "Bullet Slug"
There is a contemporaneous news account that not only mentions the blow-out at the back of Kennedy's head multiple times, it also tells of a "Bullet Slug" in connection with Governor Connally's thigh. This account is different from a "nurse" picking up the bullet from a gurney, but describes it as being removed during surgery. It also mentions "two unidentified plainclothesmen" (probably FBI agent Shanklin and Secret Service agent Sorrels, per Shanklin memo below) who were trying to retrieve the slug (little knowing it had already been given to uniformed Highway patrolman in the hallway).
From the November 23, 1963 Dallas Times Herald (p. 7) (https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/the-dallas-times-herald-final-edition-november-23-1963/678201?item=678209):
There is a contemporaneous news account that not only mentions the blow-out at the back of Kennedy's head multiple times, it also tells of a "Bullet Slug" in connection with Governor Connally's thigh. This account is different from a "nurse" picking up the bullet from a gurney, but describes it as being removed during surgery. It also mentions "two unidentified plainclothesmen" (probably FBI agent Shanklin and Secret Service agent Sorrels, per Shanklin memo below) who were trying to retrieve the slug (little knowing it had already been given to uniformed Highway patrolman in the hallway).
From the November 23, 1963 Dallas Times Herald (p. 7) (https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/the-dallas-times-herald-final-edition-november-23-1963/678201?item=678209):
Doctors Had No Chance
By BOB FENLEY, Staff Writer
...
FIGHT FOR CONNALLY As President Kennedy lay dying, another drama was unfolding in another emergency room of the hospital. Texas Gov. John Connally lay on another hospital bed, pierced by a high-powered slug which struck him at or below the right shoulder blade, exploded bits of bone into his lung, broke his fifth rib on his left side, broke a bone in his left arm and came to rest in his left thigh. Dr. Robert Shaw, professor of thoracic surgery at the University of Texas Medical School, was confronted with “ a sucking wound." One of the governor's lungs had collapsed and Dr. Shaw and other physicians went to work immediately to repair the extensive damage. “There was damage in the upper lung and there was a small hole in the lower lung.” said Dr. Shaw. After temporarily opening the wound, the lung was re-inflated and normal breathing restored.
SAID IT HURT "He acted like any other wounded person," the physician said. “He said it hurt. He made no statement other than those of a normal human being.” After the chest surgery, the next job was to repair Gov. Connally's fractured arm—a compound break--and remove the bullet slug from his leg. In total, the governor was in surgery nearly four hours— from 1:30 p.m. to 5:20 p.m. In summary, Dr. Shaw said: "The condition of Governor Connally— considering his injury— is satisfactory. The sucking wound in his chest is now closed and he is breathing normally.
...
10 DAY TO 2 WEEK STAY The doctor said that governor might have to stay in the hospital from 10 to 14 days. This would give the bruised lung tissue time to generally, but not fully, recover. Asked if he feared any complications, he replied, “Our main fear of complications is infection. But we are using antibiotics." At 5:30 p.m., a press aide reported that the governor had been removed to a recovery room and that his wife had been lodged in a room next to his. He reported Dr. Shaw as pleased with the status of the case at that time. Dr. Shaw had said there was no reason to believe that the governor wouldn't recover or that the wounds would be permanently impairing.
RED PHONE INSTALLED The reins of government of the United States had passed into Parkland Hospital before the stunned throng outside knew it. The red telephone was moved here from the Trade Mart in 30 minutes. Dallas Police Chief Curry had called for a force of 20 officers to secure the hospital at 1:30 p.m. Inside Emergency Operating Room No. 1, Mrs. Kennedy, her left stocking saturated with her husband's blood, stood with Vice President and Mrs. Lyndon Johnson. Hands were clasped in grief and condolence. Then, ashen and grim, the new President and Mrs. Johnson hurried from the entrance and, surrounded by a flock of Secret Sendee agents, got in a car and sped away with a wailing motor¬ cycle escort. He was headed for the silver and blue airliner to take the formal oath as President of the United States. “He was very solemn and made no statement,” said Sid Davis, a press pool reporter who watched as Federal Judge Sarah T. Hughes administered the oath of high office. Back at Parkland, two unidentified plainclothes officers were asking to be taken to Gov. Connally’s room so they could recover the bullet slug.
By BOB FENLEY, Staff Writer
...
FIGHT FOR CONNALLY As President Kennedy lay dying, another drama was unfolding in another emergency room of the hospital. Texas Gov. John Connally lay on another hospital bed, pierced by a high-powered slug which struck him at or below the right shoulder blade, exploded bits of bone into his lung, broke his fifth rib on his left side, broke a bone in his left arm and came to rest in his left thigh. Dr. Robert Shaw, professor of thoracic surgery at the University of Texas Medical School, was confronted with “ a sucking wound." One of the governor's lungs had collapsed and Dr. Shaw and other physicians went to work immediately to repair the extensive damage. “There was damage in the upper lung and there was a small hole in the lower lung.” said Dr. Shaw. After temporarily opening the wound, the lung was re-inflated and normal breathing restored.
SAID IT HURT "He acted like any other wounded person," the physician said. “He said it hurt. He made no statement other than those of a normal human being.” After the chest surgery, the next job was to repair Gov. Connally's fractured arm—a compound break--and remove the bullet slug from his leg. In total, the governor was in surgery nearly four hours— from 1:30 p.m. to 5:20 p.m. In summary, Dr. Shaw said: "The condition of Governor Connally— considering his injury— is satisfactory. The sucking wound in his chest is now closed and he is breathing normally.
...
10 DAY TO 2 WEEK STAY The doctor said that governor might have to stay in the hospital from 10 to 14 days. This would give the bruised lung tissue time to generally, but not fully, recover. Asked if he feared any complications, he replied, “Our main fear of complications is infection. But we are using antibiotics." At 5:30 p.m., a press aide reported that the governor had been removed to a recovery room and that his wife had been lodged in a room next to his. He reported Dr. Shaw as pleased with the status of the case at that time. Dr. Shaw had said there was no reason to believe that the governor wouldn't recover or that the wounds would be permanently impairing.
RED PHONE INSTALLED The reins of government of the United States had passed into Parkland Hospital before the stunned throng outside knew it. The red telephone was moved here from the Trade Mart in 30 minutes. Dallas Police Chief Curry had called for a force of 20 officers to secure the hospital at 1:30 p.m. Inside Emergency Operating Room No. 1, Mrs. Kennedy, her left stocking saturated with her husband's blood, stood with Vice President and Mrs. Lyndon Johnson. Hands were clasped in grief and condolence. Then, ashen and grim, the new President and Mrs. Johnson hurried from the entrance and, surrounded by a flock of Secret Sendee agents, got in a car and sped away with a wailing motor¬ cycle escort. He was headed for the silver and blue airliner to take the formal oath as President of the United States. “He was very solemn and made no statement,” said Sid Davis, a press pool reporter who watched as Federal Judge Sarah T. Hughes administered the oath of high office. Back at Parkland, two unidentified plainclothes officers were asking to be taken to Gov. Connally’s room so they could recover the bullet slug.
-----
A "Bullet" or a "Fragment"?--Audrey Bell and a Nolan Report
In her ARRB interview, nurse Audrey Bell was asked about a "302" document she said was "inaccurate" because the report said she turned over a "fragment" to a Texas State Trooper (aka Bobby Nolan), whereas she turned over multiple fragments to plainclothes federal agents. From her ARRB interview summary (previously shown above), note the third item in the section dealing with "Governor Connally's Bullet Fragments":
In her ARRB interview, nurse Audrey Bell was asked about a "302" document she said was "inaccurate" because the report said she turned over a "fragment" to a Texas State Trooper (aka Bobby Nolan), whereas she turned over multiple fragments to plainclothes federal agents. From her ARRB interview summary (previously shown above), note the third item in the section dealing with "Governor Connally's Bullet Fragments":
Below is a clipping that is probably from the same "report" that Bobby Nolan said stated he turned the envelope over to Will Fritz at "7:50," although he "thought it was later than that."
Image from https://jfkwitnesses.omeka.net/items/show/251
I found that clipping when doing a Google search of "Connally Bullet, Bobby Nolan. I wonder if it is from the same "302" that was shown to Audrey Bell. I would like to find the complete document of the "302" in question, as well as the entire document that is the source of the above clipping (ARC Identifier 7460508, Search Identifier: JFK Key Persons Files - Assassination of President Kennedy), because I think there is fraudulent "302" involved in the first case (the one that Audrey Bell said was "inaccurate") and a misleading dissemblance in the Nolan clipping.
The dissemblance is in calling the object in Bobby Nolan's envelope a "fragment." Technically, it was a fragment, in that it was not a complete bullet, not with the tiny fragments it had left in Connally's body. Technically, CE 399 is a "fragment." However, most people would describe CE 399 as a "bullet" (albeit slightly deformed, etc.)
What was in Bobby Nolan's envelope was the main part of the bullet that struck Governor Connally. Whether CE 399 was the actual "fragment" inside Nolan's envelope is another question, but it might have been. Calling it a "fragment" was a misleading term in an effort to merge the Wade/Nolan bullet with the wrist fragment chain of custody.
The dissemblance is in calling the object in Bobby Nolan's envelope a "fragment." Technically, it was a fragment, in that it was not a complete bullet, not with the tiny fragments it had left in Connally's body. Technically, CE 399 is a "fragment." However, most people would describe CE 399 as a "bullet" (albeit slightly deformed, etc.)
What was in Bobby Nolan's envelope was the main part of the bullet that struck Governor Connally. Whether CE 399 was the actual "fragment" inside Nolan's envelope is another question, but it might have been. Calling it a "fragment" was a misleading term in an effort to merge the Wade/Nolan bullet with the wrist fragment chain of custody.
-----
The Hoover-Johnson Phone Call and the Katzenbach Memo
There are a few other pieces of evidence that bear examination in addressing the subject of the "Multiple Stretcher Bullets." One is a phone call between J. Edgar Hoover and new president Lyndon Johnson, that occurred on November 29, 1963. From a transcript of that call:
There are a few other pieces of evidence that bear examination in addressing the subject of the "Multiple Stretcher Bullets." One is a phone call between J. Edgar Hoover and new president Lyndon Johnson, that occurred on November 29, 1963. From a transcript of that call:
"TELEPHONE CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE PRESIDENT AND J. Edgar Hoover," November 29, 1963, transcript, p. 4.
https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/lbjlib/phone_calls/Nov_1963/pdf/LBJ_11-29-63_Hoover.pdf
So here we have the head of the FBI, Hoover, telling Johnson that the FBI has all three bullets that were fired at the limousine.
Of course, given the November 29 date, as some researchers point out, this phone call could also have been Hoover trying out the story that the FBI had eventually put together, but it was also the truth--with the exception of pretending that the "pointed" bullet came from Oswald's gun.
Of course the "three bullets fired at the limousine" in the Hoover/Johnson phone call completely ignores the Tague wounding, which was not common knowledge until the middle of the summer. Taking that shot into account would mean either adding a fourth bullet to the three Hoover was describing, or taking away one of the bullets fired at the limousine in order to preserve the number "3." So if one is trying to preserve the myth that only "three" shots were fired, all by Oswald, the Tague wounding was extremely problematic to the scenario presented in this phone call.
In my scenario, I account for the "three bullets fired at the limousine" as follows:
But then, in the middle of the summer of 1964, James Tague's injuries become public knowledge, and it was learned that one of Oswald's shots missed. So now the Warren Commission had a huge problem, because it meant that either there was a fourth (#4) bullet in play that was not fired by Oswald, or only two bullets were fired at the limousine (instead of the "three" of the Hoover/Johnson phone call). I contend there was at least a fourth shot in the assassination sequence (actually, to be clear, I contend that there were one to three shots fired over and above the four, with those being Secret Service revolver-fired warning shots that did not hit anyone in the limousine that earwitnesses misperceived as "echoes." My documentary series explains why I think this. At least one of those bullets was recovered. It's history is as the obscure "Dr. Young" bullet which I believe ricocheted off the Stemmons sign and caused the windshield hole. See my article "The Limousine Redux Reduced.")
So to solve this problem of the Tague wounding, a subtraction was made to occur in the evidence. The Single Bullet Theory was invented to account for the multiple wounds to Kennedy and Connally, the chains of evidence for both the "nearly intact" bullet (#2) and the "intact, pointed" bullet (#3) were both weak, but the chain for #2 was deemed to be weaker than that of the inconvenient "pointed" bullet. So the history for bullet #3 is given to bullet #2, and part of the #2 bullet chain was assigned to the #2 fragment chain (largely because Elizabeth Wright's memo to Jack Price mentioning Nolan by name, and also because Nolan ws known by his supervisor and others--e.g., Tom Shires--to have had some role in all of this, inconvenient "302" forms were made to disappear, and fictitious reports were invented or referred to despite their non-existence. Voila! We are now back down to "three" bullets.
After all, we know from the Katzenbach memo that the purpose of the Commission was less about getting at the truth and more about "convincing the public" that Oswald was the only assassin/shooter:
Of course, given the November 29 date, as some researchers point out, this phone call could also have been Hoover trying out the story that the FBI had eventually put together, but it was also the truth--with the exception of pretending that the "pointed" bullet came from Oswald's gun.
Of course the "three bullets fired at the limousine" in the Hoover/Johnson phone call completely ignores the Tague wounding, which was not common knowledge until the middle of the summer. Taking that shot into account would mean either adding a fourth bullet to the three Hoover was describing, or taking away one of the bullets fired at the limousine in order to preserve the number "3." So if one is trying to preserve the myth that only "three" shots were fired, all by Oswald, the Tague wounding was extremely problematic to the scenario presented in this phone call.
In my scenario, I account for the "three bullets fired at the limousine" as follows:
- A "shattered" bullet whose nose and tail fragments were found in the car, removed from the car in the White House Garage and given to FBI agent Robert Frazier in the FBI Laboratory; and whose "king-size" middle section fell out of Kennedy's back when the body was lifted for X-rays at Bethesda (and was never seen again).
- A nearly intact bullet but "shattered" in the sense that tiny fragments were left in Connally's body. Some of these. fragments were removed, put in an envelope by Audrey Bell, and transferred to Secret Service Agent Forrest Sorrells, and the main body of which either fell out of Connally's body or out of his clothes (which had been placed on the shelf on the bottom of the gurney). This "bullet"--or "fragment," in the sense that it had a small bit missing from its base--was seen by Dallas DA Henry Wade, placed in an envelope and sealed, given to Texas Highway Patrolman Bobby Nolan, who initialed the envelope and then left it on the desk of DPD Captain J.W. "Will" Fritz, presumably turned over to Robert Frazier in the FBI Laboratory.
- An intact "pointed" bullet found on the hallway stretcher near the elevator by Darrell Tomlinson, picked up by or given to O.P. Wright, given to Secret Service agent Richard Johnson, then given to Secret Service Chief James Rowley, then given to FBI agent Elmer Todd, then given to FBI agent Robert Frazier in the FBI Laboratory.
But then, in the middle of the summer of 1964, James Tague's injuries become public knowledge, and it was learned that one of Oswald's shots missed. So now the Warren Commission had a huge problem, because it meant that either there was a fourth (#4) bullet in play that was not fired by Oswald, or only two bullets were fired at the limousine (instead of the "three" of the Hoover/Johnson phone call). I contend there was at least a fourth shot in the assassination sequence (actually, to be clear, I contend that there were one to three shots fired over and above the four, with those being Secret Service revolver-fired warning shots that did not hit anyone in the limousine that earwitnesses misperceived as "echoes." My documentary series explains why I think this. At least one of those bullets was recovered. It's history is as the obscure "Dr. Young" bullet which I believe ricocheted off the Stemmons sign and caused the windshield hole. See my article "The Limousine Redux Reduced.")
So to solve this problem of the Tague wounding, a subtraction was made to occur in the evidence. The Single Bullet Theory was invented to account for the multiple wounds to Kennedy and Connally, the chains of evidence for both the "nearly intact" bullet (#2) and the "intact, pointed" bullet (#3) were both weak, but the chain for #2 was deemed to be weaker than that of the inconvenient "pointed" bullet. So the history for bullet #3 is given to bullet #2, and part of the #2 bullet chain was assigned to the #2 fragment chain (largely because Elizabeth Wright's memo to Jack Price mentioning Nolan by name, and also because Nolan ws known by his supervisor and others--e.g., Tom Shires--to have had some role in all of this, inconvenient "302" forms were made to disappear, and fictitious reports were invented or referred to despite their non-existence. Voila! We are now back down to "three" bullets.
After all, we know from the Katzenbach memo that the purpose of the Commission was less about getting at the truth and more about "convincing the public" that Oswald was the only assassin/shooter:
The Katzenbach memo, from https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/fbi/105-82555/124-10010-10135/html/124-10010-10135_0002a.htm
I note that the Katzenbach memo is unsigned. I'm not sure what that means, if anything, but it's worth noting
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The Shanklin Memo
One other important piece of evidence that needs to be discussed is the "Shanklin" memo for "File" that I had downloaded from the now defunct John Hunt article "The Mystery of the 7:30 Bullet":
Hoo, boy, does this memo have a lot in it! For such a short memo, there's a lot to unpack.
First, Secret Service was making arrangements to get the "bullet" that killed President Kennedy. This would be the "pointed" Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet, which Secret Service agent Richard Johnson did receive from O.P. Wright. Those readers familiar with my work already know where contend this bullet originated. Those readers new to my work--keep reading
Second, the Washington FBI office (Belmont) was telling Secret Service agent Sorrells to turn "the gun" in Sorrell's possession--apparently the same gun that had fired "the bullet that apparently killed the President"--over to the FBI. But note that the Oswald gun was never in the hands of the Secret Service! It was found by the Dallas Police, and turned directly over to the FBI, without ever passing through the hands of the Secret Service.
Third, the Washington office (Belmont) was telling Shanklin to "secure the bullet that shot Governor CONNALLY." Well, this same-day memo saying that one bullet hit Connally is further evidence against the Single Bullet Theory.
Since this Connally bullet had fragmented--or at least some small pieces had broken off from the butt-end of the bullet, there were two separate chains of custody in Dallas. Aside from the tiny fragments left in Connally's body, the small fragments were in Audrey Bell's possession, and the main body of the bullet (the Wade/Nolan bullet) had been given to Captain Fritz of the DPD). So this memo gives us the next link in the chain-of-evidence for the Wade/Nolan bullet as well as the Connally wrist fragments: Gordon Shanklin gave them to some unnamed "Agent" to take them to Washington, either together or separately. (The Wade/Nolan bullet may have been picked up Friday night; the wrist fragments were probably picked up on Saturday the 23rd.)
Finally, this memo tells us that the same unnamed agent who took the Connally bullet to Washington, also took "the gun" that apparently fired the bullet that killed the President to Washington.
What's in Washington? The FBI Laboratory, run primarily by Robert Frazier.
And that's where we lose track of everything, where evidence seemingly gets mixed up.
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The Tomlinson/Wright "Pointed" Bullet as the AR-15 Bullet
Those readers familiar with my work know that I contend that this was an AR-15 bullet, accidentally fired in a "slam fire" incident that occurred when the agent (George Hickey holding the defective weapon (prone to "slam fire"--see Bonar Menninger "What If Hickey Didn't Pull the Trigger" at https://mokan9997.medium.com/what-if-hickey-didnt-pull-the-trigger-dd9fae6a664c) lost his balance due to the sudden stopping of the follow-up car when follow-up car driver Sam Kinney had to slam on the brakes in order to avoid hitting Secret Service agent Clint Hill and rear-ending the Presidential limousine. The too-heavy firing pin interacted with the too-heavy ammunition primer, the gun went off, it just happened to be pointed at Kennedy's head, and...oops. There is now a gigantic embarrassing reason, and a whole slew of lesser but also embarrassing reasons, to cover the whole thing upp. But there is Oswald's upcoming trial to consider. But then--Oswald is killed! There will be no trial! Now the urge to cover up grows so strong, it becomes irresistible, and it is decided to go through with it--all in the name of "national security." Inconvenient evidence is disappeared, other evidence is switched,needed evidence is fabricated in such away that the blame for any discrepancies in the imperfect cover-up is blamed on non-agency individuals--e.g., "mistakes" in witness recollections. And so on, and so forth.
So let's examine the possibility of the "pointed" Tomlinson/Wright bullet being the AR-15 bullet.
What do we know of the Tomlinson/Wright bullet?
From O.P. Wright, we know it was "pointed," and similar to the .30 caliber bullet O.P. Wright gave to Josiah Thompson. From Nathan Burgess Pool, it was "judged to be a 6mm, i.e. less than a 30-30 caliber. He described the bullet as bronze, long, pointed, and smooth ... the bullet didn't look like it had hit anything and didn't look like it had been in anything."
AR-15 bullets are typically pointed. I haven't seen a single example of a round-tipped AR-15 bullet.
What do we know about my hypothesized bullet? We know the weapon--an AR-15, which is chambered for 5.6mm rounds. 5.5mm is pretty close to Pool's 6mm description.
Being a quasi-military organization, the Secret Service was sure to use full-metal jacket ammunition, as was required by NATO, rather than hollow-point ammunition, as it was thought to be more "humane." A full-metal jacket bullet matches the descriptions, which didn't note any colored tips or other features, beyond "pointed," "bronze," and "long."
Below is an image of a NATO military full-metal-jacket 5.5 mm bullet:
Those readers familiar with my work know that I contend that this was an AR-15 bullet, accidentally fired in a "slam fire" incident that occurred when the agent (George Hickey holding the defective weapon (prone to "slam fire"--see Bonar Menninger "What If Hickey Didn't Pull the Trigger" at https://mokan9997.medium.com/what-if-hickey-didnt-pull-the-trigger-dd9fae6a664c) lost his balance due to the sudden stopping of the follow-up car when follow-up car driver Sam Kinney had to slam on the brakes in order to avoid hitting Secret Service agent Clint Hill and rear-ending the Presidential limousine. The too-heavy firing pin interacted with the too-heavy ammunition primer, the gun went off, it just happened to be pointed at Kennedy's head, and...oops. There is now a gigantic embarrassing reason, and a whole slew of lesser but also embarrassing reasons, to cover the whole thing upp. But there is Oswald's upcoming trial to consider. But then--Oswald is killed! There will be no trial! Now the urge to cover up grows so strong, it becomes irresistible, and it is decided to go through with it--all in the name of "national security." Inconvenient evidence is disappeared, other evidence is switched,needed evidence is fabricated in such away that the blame for any discrepancies in the imperfect cover-up is blamed on non-agency individuals--e.g., "mistakes" in witness recollections. And so on, and so forth.
So let's examine the possibility of the "pointed" Tomlinson/Wright bullet being the AR-15 bullet.
What do we know of the Tomlinson/Wright bullet?
From O.P. Wright, we know it was "pointed," and similar to the .30 caliber bullet O.P. Wright gave to Josiah Thompson. From Nathan Burgess Pool, it was "judged to be a 6mm, i.e. less than a 30-30 caliber. He described the bullet as bronze, long, pointed, and smooth ... the bullet didn't look like it had hit anything and didn't look like it had been in anything."
AR-15 bullets are typically pointed. I haven't seen a single example of a round-tipped AR-15 bullet.
What do we know about my hypothesized bullet? We know the weapon--an AR-15, which is chambered for 5.6mm rounds. 5.5mm is pretty close to Pool's 6mm description.
Being a quasi-military organization, the Secret Service was sure to use full-metal jacket ammunition, as was required by NATO, rather than hollow-point ammunition, as it was thought to be more "humane." A full-metal jacket bullet matches the descriptions, which didn't note any colored tips or other features, beyond "pointed," "bronze," and "long."
Below is an image of a NATO military full-metal-jacket 5.5 mm bullet:
So far, we have a fairly good match between the descriptions of the Tomlinson/Wright bullet and the AR-15 bullet. And note that 6mm is the measurement of the EOP entrance wound at the back of Kennedy's head. Bullets create entrance wounds in the skull that are somewhat larger than their diameter, so an AR-15 5.5mm bullet is entirely consistent with that entrance wound. On the other hand, the larger 6.5mm Mannlicher-Carcanno bullet has too big a diameter to create the smaller 6.0mm entrance wound.
However there is one more part of the description to consider. The Tomlinson/Wright bullet was also described as "intact" and "didn't appear to be damaged." Given that this bullet caused the explosive head shot, it might seem incompatible for the bullet to end up so "pristine" after entering a hard, bony skull.
But consider this: in my scenario, this AR-15 head shot was the second head shot, the first one having been fired by Oswald as a frontal shot, entering the forehead above the right eye, fragmenting, and creating multiple exit points at the back of the head and the beginning of the back of the head blow-out. And importantly, creating major, and multiple fractures in the skull. My AR-15 bullet didn't enter an intact skull; it entered an already severely damaged skull, so it remained relatively undamaged as it lost its energy in the soft tissues and liquid.
It was described as "bloodless."
Simple. Landis, Kinney, or someone else wiped it off prior to its being placed on the gurney where it was ultimately found.
The AR-15 bullet would have been entering an already damaged skull. It entered the at the autopsy EOP location, expended most of its energy (while creating a greatly visible "halo" of blood and brain matter) and exited above the right ear (where autopsy witness James Jenkins noted a hole that he thought was an entrance). It didn't need to do a lot of work to penetrate the skull, because the skull was already severely damaged and cracked. It could well have ended up "pristine."
Whether my AR-15 bullets\ was a NATO round or something else altogether, I can't say. I don't know a whole lot about bullets, especially early AR-15 ammunition. But I am convinced that the "pointed" Tomlinson/Wright bullet was the AR-15 bullet.
But there is one theory about this bullet that deserves a mention.
However there is one more part of the description to consider. The Tomlinson/Wright bullet was also described as "intact" and "didn't appear to be damaged." Given that this bullet caused the explosive head shot, it might seem incompatible for the bullet to end up so "pristine" after entering a hard, bony skull.
But consider this: in my scenario, this AR-15 head shot was the second head shot, the first one having been fired by Oswald as a frontal shot, entering the forehead above the right eye, fragmenting, and creating multiple exit points at the back of the head and the beginning of the back of the head blow-out. And importantly, creating major, and multiple fractures in the skull. My AR-15 bullet didn't enter an intact skull; it entered an already severely damaged skull, so it remained relatively undamaged as it lost its energy in the soft tissues and liquid.
It was described as "bloodless."
Simple. Landis, Kinney, or someone else wiped it off prior to its being placed on the gurney where it was ultimately found.
The AR-15 bullet would have been entering an already damaged skull. It entered the at the autopsy EOP location, expended most of its energy (while creating a greatly visible "halo" of blood and brain matter) and exited above the right ear (where autopsy witness James Jenkins noted a hole that he thought was an entrance). It didn't need to do a lot of work to penetrate the skull, because the skull was already severely damaged and cracked. It could well have ended up "pristine."
Whether my AR-15 bullets\ was a NATO round or something else altogether, I can't say. I don't know a whole lot about bullets, especially early AR-15 ammunition. But I am convinced that the "pointed" Tomlinson/Wright bullet was the AR-15 bullet.
But there is one theory about this bullet that deserves a mention.
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A Tracer Bullet?
Doctoral student Tim Cochran theorizes that the AR-15 bullet was a "tracer" bullet. It's an extremely interesting theory, given that the AR-15 gun could fire both regular and tracer rounds and that some Dealey Plaza witnesses reported a "flash of light" in addition to the "puff of smoke" that was an early "flaw" (Colin McLaren's word in JFK: The Smoking Gun, adding that the defect was corrected not long after the assassination). My documentary provides videos of an early AR-15 and M-16 showing that the early AR-15's would often produce a "puff of smoke" in its gas discharge.
But that "flash of light..."
I've argued with another researcher at length as to whether the Secret Service's AR-15 had a flash suppressor. He says it did, and I'm not so sure, arguing that they didn't necessarily all have flash suppressors in the early years of production, and who knows when the Secret Service was given their Ar-15? One might argue whether a flash suppressor is visible in the Volkland photograph, which was used for the cover of Mortal Error because it shows Hickey holding the AR-15 on Stemmons Freeway as the motorcade was rushing to Parkland Hospital. (I wrote an article about "A Flash of Light and a Puff of Smoke" which debates the flash suppressor question on my website.) But if a tracer bullet was used, it would explain that "flash of light" quite readily, even if the AR-15 did have a flash suppressor.
Kudos to Tim Cochran for thinking of it.
It would make sense that the Secret Service would use tracer bullets, because the Secret Service agent shooting at an adversary would want to alert other agents as to the exact location of the perceived danger. So the more I think about the tracer bullet theory, the more I like it.
However, without the bullet itself, this extremely interesting conjecture will be extremely difficult to prove. One hopes that it remains buried in the Archives somewhere, but I fear that bullet may have been permanently disappeared, perhaps as part of the December 6 or 7, 1963 Secret Service "Burn Party."
Doctoral student Tim Cochran theorizes that the AR-15 bullet was a "tracer" bullet. It's an extremely interesting theory, given that the AR-15 gun could fire both regular and tracer rounds and that some Dealey Plaza witnesses reported a "flash of light" in addition to the "puff of smoke" that was an early "flaw" (Colin McLaren's word in JFK: The Smoking Gun, adding that the defect was corrected not long after the assassination). My documentary provides videos of an early AR-15 and M-16 showing that the early AR-15's would often produce a "puff of smoke" in its gas discharge.
But that "flash of light..."
I've argued with another researcher at length as to whether the Secret Service's AR-15 had a flash suppressor. He says it did, and I'm not so sure, arguing that they didn't necessarily all have flash suppressors in the early years of production, and who knows when the Secret Service was given their Ar-15? One might argue whether a flash suppressor is visible in the Volkland photograph, which was used for the cover of Mortal Error because it shows Hickey holding the AR-15 on Stemmons Freeway as the motorcade was rushing to Parkland Hospital. (I wrote an article about "A Flash of Light and a Puff of Smoke" which debates the flash suppressor question on my website.) But if a tracer bullet was used, it would explain that "flash of light" quite readily, even if the AR-15 did have a flash suppressor.
Kudos to Tim Cochran for thinking of it.
It would make sense that the Secret Service would use tracer bullets, because the Secret Service agent shooting at an adversary would want to alert other agents as to the exact location of the perceived danger. So the more I think about the tracer bullet theory, the more I like it.
However, without the bullet itself, this extremely interesting conjecture will be extremely difficult to prove. One hopes that it remains buried in the Archives somewhere, but I fear that bullet may have been permanently disappeared, perhaps as part of the December 6 or 7, 1963 Secret Service "Burn Party."
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The December, 1963 Secret Service "Burn Party"
There were rumors of a Secret Service "Burn Party" taking place on December 6 or 7, 1963, in which assassination evidence--autopsy evidence mentioned, specifically--was destroyed. Secret Service photographer James Fox apparently witnessed it and said it was arranged and ignited by Secret Service agent Robert Bouck, who was apparently trusted by the Kennedy family. Being a rumor, it is hard to substantiate, but it would be in keeping with mucking of evidence that characterizes this case.
From an article by Dr. David Mantik (https://themantikview.org/pdf/The_Medical_Evidence_Decoded.pdf)
Moreover, James K. Fox (the Secret Service photographer) told Mark Crouch of a bum party (on approximately 6 or 7 December 1963) at which Robert Bouck (chief of the Protective Research Section of the Secret Service) deliberately destroyed photographs and X- rays (Harrison Livingstone, High Treason 2 1992, pp. 322-323). Even the family of Robert Knudsen understood from Knudsen himself that such items had been destroyed. The simplest hypothesis is the one with the least clutter, although initially the most difficult psychologically is that of photographic alteration. 5 In the end, though, it is ultimately not essential that agreement be reached on the question of how the deception occurred. It is enough to know that the photographic evidence has been deliberately manipulated to mislead a deception that has radically altered the entire history of this case.
Exactly where the "pointed" Tomlinson Wright bullet disappeared to, whether at the Burn Party or existing in a suppressed form or simply tossed in the trash, I can't say. Whether This bullet is still in existence remains to be seen. Whether any of the missing or unaltered originals of evidence known to be altered (Custer's missing autopsy neck X-rays, the original autopsy X-rays and photographs from before the forged elements were added, Audrey Bell's half-page memorandum receipt for the fragments signed by "Sorrels," expected but missing "302" reports, and more) remains to be seen. There are things that have gone missing since then (the written descriptions of "street features" used to create the "mic placement diagram" for the HSCA acoustical tests, Audrey Bell's HSCA drawing of the smallest of the bullet wrist fragments
The Mary Ferrell website describes some of the missing materials that the Foundation notes as missing, but those are only the things that they've so far realized are supposed to be present but aren't--who knows if they are buried in the Archives somewhere, or if they followed similar fates to the materials in the December, 1963 "burn party."
It's a deeply disturbing pattern in the JFK Assassination case.
There were rumors of a Secret Service "Burn Party" taking place on December 6 or 7, 1963, in which assassination evidence--autopsy evidence mentioned, specifically--was destroyed. Secret Service photographer James Fox apparently witnessed it and said it was arranged and ignited by Secret Service agent Robert Bouck, who was apparently trusted by the Kennedy family. Being a rumor, it is hard to substantiate, but it would be in keeping with mucking of evidence that characterizes this case.
From an article by Dr. David Mantik (https://themantikview.org/pdf/The_Medical_Evidence_Decoded.pdf)
Moreover, James K. Fox (the Secret Service photographer) told Mark Crouch of a bum party (on approximately 6 or 7 December 1963) at which Robert Bouck (chief of the Protective Research Section of the Secret Service) deliberately destroyed photographs and X- rays (Harrison Livingstone, High Treason 2 1992, pp. 322-323). Even the family of Robert Knudsen understood from Knudsen himself that such items had been destroyed. The simplest hypothesis is the one with the least clutter, although initially the most difficult psychologically is that of photographic alteration. 5 In the end, though, it is ultimately not essential that agreement be reached on the question of how the deception occurred. It is enough to know that the photographic evidence has been deliberately manipulated to mislead a deception that has radically altered the entire history of this case.
Exactly where the "pointed" Tomlinson Wright bullet disappeared to, whether at the Burn Party or existing in a suppressed form or simply tossed in the trash, I can't say. Whether This bullet is still in existence remains to be seen. Whether any of the missing or unaltered originals of evidence known to be altered (Custer's missing autopsy neck X-rays, the original autopsy X-rays and photographs from before the forged elements were added, Audrey Bell's half-page memorandum receipt for the fragments signed by "Sorrels," expected but missing "302" reports, and more) remains to be seen. There are things that have gone missing since then (the written descriptions of "street features" used to create the "mic placement diagram" for the HSCA acoustical tests, Audrey Bell's HSCA drawing of the smallest of the bullet wrist fragments
The Mary Ferrell website describes some of the missing materials that the Foundation notes as missing, but those are only the things that they've so far realized are supposed to be present but aren't--who knows if they are buried in the Archives somewhere, or if they followed similar fates to the materials in the December, 1963 "burn party."
It's a deeply disturbing pattern in the JFK Assassination case.
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About that "7:30 Bullet"...
Aside from the "Shanklin Memo" presented above, I really don't remember a whole lot about John Hunt's article "The Mystery of the 7:30 Bullet" (which used to be on the JFKLancer website, but is now no longer available) other than that he presents evidence that a bullet arrived at the FBI Laboratory well before the "8:50 pm" time on the "Q1" envelope, showing when FBI agent Elmer Todd received the "Q1" bullet from Secret Service Chief Rowley--7:30 pm, to be exact. Hunt refers to this "Mystery" of the 7:30 bullet in his Footnote 2 of "Frazier Speaks,"
But I have been paying attention to that "7:30" time frame, and have noticed a few things.
First, the Robert Frazier "Evidence Work Sheet" that I recall being shown in Hunt's "7:30" article is still available in another John Hunt article not on the JFKLancer website: "Frazier Speaks" (https://history-matters.com/essays/frameup/FrazierSpeaks/FrazierSpeaks.htm)
In that article, one can still find the Frazier "Laboratory Work Sheet" that has a handwritten time notation in the marginalia for the "Q1" description:
Aside from the "Shanklin Memo" presented above, I really don't remember a whole lot about John Hunt's article "The Mystery of the 7:30 Bullet" (which used to be on the JFKLancer website, but is now no longer available) other than that he presents evidence that a bullet arrived at the FBI Laboratory well before the "8:50 pm" time on the "Q1" envelope, showing when FBI agent Elmer Todd received the "Q1" bullet from Secret Service Chief Rowley--7:30 pm, to be exact. Hunt refers to this "Mystery" of the 7:30 bullet in his Footnote 2 of "Frazier Speaks,"
But I have been paying attention to that "7:30" time frame, and have noticed a few things.
First, the Robert Frazier "Evidence Work Sheet" that I recall being shown in Hunt's "7:30" article is still available in another John Hunt article not on the JFKLancer website: "Frazier Speaks" (https://history-matters.com/essays/frameup/FrazierSpeaks/FrazierSpeaks.htm)
In that article, one can still find the Frazier "Laboratory Work Sheet" that has a handwritten time notation in the marginalia for the "Q1" description:
The "Laboratory Work Sheet" from "Frazier Speaks," https://history-matters.com/essays/frameup/FrazierSpeaks/FrazierSpeaks.htm with arrow added to show time notation. Hunt notes this document as [FBI HQ 62-190606-8307X, Box 111B, Folder 56C] .
Unfortunately, the resolution of the image isn't high enough to determine for certain that it says "7:30." The minutes are not entirely clear. "7:50" for example, would be the time Bobby Nolan said that some "Report" said he laid his envelope on Captain Fritz's desk, although Nolan himself "thought it was later than that." However, Hunt certainly had access to the original from which this document was scanned, so let's assume that "7:30" is the right time notation.
Notice not only the 7-something time notation for "Q1" but also the date of this work sheet: 11/26/63. This date is important, especially given the date on another document containing very similar information, minus the handwritten notations, a "Report of the FBI Laboratory," addressed to Mr. Jesse E. Curry, Chief of Police in Dallas. The date of that report is "November 23, 1963," some 3 days before the date of the "Work Sheet":
Notice not only the 7-something time notation for "Q1" but also the date of this work sheet: 11/26/63. This date is important, especially given the date on another document containing very similar information, minus the handwritten notations, a "Report of the FBI Laboratory," addressed to Mr. Jesse E. Curry, Chief of Police in Dallas. The date of that report is "November 23, 1963," some 3 days before the date of the "Work Sheet":
Hunt decided that the Work Sheet date must have been in error, given the date of the Curry report. However, my own view is that the Work Sheet date, two days after Oswald's death--the point at which I contend the cover-up was agreed to--is the correct date, and the Curry report was back-dated to create the illusion that this information was put together immediately after the assassination (rather than massaged to reflect the desired narrative).
Frazier notes a number of errors in the Report, about which he contacted Robert Frazier in an effort to resolve them. In the "Frazier Speaks" article, he shows how one Frazier statement after another could not be true, ultimately concluding "Frazier speaks, but he does not speak the truth."
The entire article is worth a read, but for now it is the "7:30" time notation, which Hunt asserts is in Frazier's own hand, that I want to discuss.
That "7:30" time crops up in another document, that unsigned "White House" memo by Secret Service Richard Johnson, which I already discussed as being the only link, as a "paper trail," connecting CE 399 to the Tomlinson/Wright bullet:
Frazier notes a number of errors in the Report, about which he contacted Robert Frazier in an effort to resolve them. In the "Frazier Speaks" article, he shows how one Frazier statement after another could not be true, ultimately concluding "Frazier speaks, but he does not speak the truth."
The entire article is worth a read, but for now it is the "7:30" time notation, which Hunt asserts is in Frazier's own hand, that I want to discuss.
That "7:30" time crops up in another document, that unsigned "White House" memo by Secret Service Richard Johnson, which I already discussed as being the only link, as a "paper trail," connecting CE 399 to the Tomlinson/Wright bullet:
Note the time: "7:30 pm." This, I believe, is the source for that Robert Frazier handwritten "7:30" notation on his "Laboratory Work Sheet."
But, as I pointed out, this memo is on "White House" letterhead, not "Secret Service" letterhead. Why? Why would SSA Johnson go to the White House rather than straight to Rowley's office?
It turns out that there was something very interesting taking place in the White House on the evening of November 22, 1963.
According to the audio recordings of the communications between Air Force One, which was returning to Washington, D.C. from Dallas with Kennedy's body and the newly sworn in President Johnson, and Andrews Air Force Base and other ground-based stations (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Radio_Traffic_involving_AF-1_in_flight_from_Dallas,_Texas_to_Andrews_AFB_on_November_22,_1963_-_reel_1_-_NARA.ogg scroll down for Reel 2), A meeting involving available Cabinet members and other high brass was being set up at the White House. The Situation Room was having issues due to renovations, but it was promised that some other White House room would be set up for the meeting. Not much is known about this meeting beyond some named high-level brass whom Johnson requested attend, and who was not available at that particular moment. It was an emergency meeting, spurred by the assassination.
It was to this meeting, I believe, that Secret Service agent Richard Johnson was headed with his Tomlinson/Wright bullet. That's why the memo was typed on "White House" letterhead. Since Oswald was still alive at this point, the chain of evidence had to be preserved, and so the memo was typed up.
Records of exactly what transpired at this White House meeting would be most helpful. I contend that the main subject of discussion was the Secret Service AR-15 accident, and how these officials should deal with it. However, I don't think the "benign cover-up" was actual implemented until after Oswald's murder by Jack Ruby.
But, as I pointed out, this memo is on "White House" letterhead, not "Secret Service" letterhead. Why? Why would SSA Johnson go to the White House rather than straight to Rowley's office?
It turns out that there was something very interesting taking place in the White House on the evening of November 22, 1963.
According to the audio recordings of the communications between Air Force One, which was returning to Washington, D.C. from Dallas with Kennedy's body and the newly sworn in President Johnson, and Andrews Air Force Base and other ground-based stations (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Radio_Traffic_involving_AF-1_in_flight_from_Dallas,_Texas_to_Andrews_AFB_on_November_22,_1963_-_reel_1_-_NARA.ogg scroll down for Reel 2), A meeting involving available Cabinet members and other high brass was being set up at the White House. The Situation Room was having issues due to renovations, but it was promised that some other White House room would be set up for the meeting. Not much is known about this meeting beyond some named high-level brass whom Johnson requested attend, and who was not available at that particular moment. It was an emergency meeting, spurred by the assassination.
It was to this meeting, I believe, that Secret Service agent Richard Johnson was headed with his Tomlinson/Wright bullet. That's why the memo was typed on "White House" letterhead. Since Oswald was still alive at this point, the chain of evidence had to be preserved, and so the memo was typed up.
Records of exactly what transpired at this White House meeting would be most helpful. I contend that the main subject of discussion was the Secret Service AR-15 accident, and how these officials should deal with it. However, I don't think the "benign cover-up" was actual implemented until after Oswald's murder by Jack Ruby.
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My Scenario--"Here's What Happened..."
With the Secret Service agents' slow response to the first Oswald shot (due to being hung-over), the AR-15 slam-fire head shot accident (by an agent who was not out drinking the night before), a warning shot that ricochets back towards the car, Secret Service agents mucking with the crime scene by cleaning the limousine and moving bullets around and putting them on Parkland Hospital stretchers, there is now one gigantic embarrassing reason, and a whole slew of lesser but also embarrassing reasons, why a cover-up is desired. But there is Oswald's upcoming trial to consider. But then--Oswald is killed! There will be no trial! Now the urge to cover up grows so strong, it becomes irresistible, and it is decided to go through with it--all in the name of "national security." Inconvenient evidence is disappeared, needed evidence is fabricated in such away that the blame for any discrepancies in the imperfect cover-up is blamed on non-agency individuals--e.g., "mistakes" in witness recollections. And voila! One of the great mysteries of the 20th Century is created!
Could CE-399 actually be the Connally bullet? Certainly, it is a substitution for the Tomlinson/Wright (Kennedy) bullet. It is not the same bullet that Darrell Tomlinson found and that O.P. Wright turned over to the Secret Service agent Richard Johnson. CE 399 is undoubtedly a substitution for that bullet.
However, the possibility remains that CE 399 might actually be the Wade/Nolan bullet. When Dr. Gregory was shown CE 399, he admitted that the amount of lead that was deposited into Governor Connally was small enough that it could have come from the base of CE-399.
On the other hand, Audrey Bell told the ARRB that the pieces of lead in CE 342 were "too small" and "too few" to have been her fragments. So the fragments in CE 342 might be substitutions for the actual Connally fragments, and CE 399 may indeed be too "pristine" to account for the actual fragments removed and the pieces of lead that were left in Governor Connally's body.
So who knows? Maybe CE 399 is the actual Connally bullet, maybe it is isn't, but the "official" history of CE 399 is undoubtedly fraudulent. The Tomlinson/Wright bullet history, as troublesome as that history is with how the bullet ended up on the stretcher in the first place, belongs to the "pointed" AR-15 bullet, which came from Kennedy. The Wade/Nolan bullet is the Connally bullet.
In the words of one of my favorite TV detectives, Monk, "Here's what happened:"
First Paul Landis, by his own admission, finds a bullet (spent the AR-15 bullet) in the car and places it on Kennedy's stretcher in Trauma Room One. Then it is "removed" from Trauma Room One in a container (per nurse Phyllis Hall). Then it is returned to the limousine, where follow-up car driver Sam Kinney finds it and picks it up (possibly/probably because his friend and fellow agent George Hickey, who was helping him clean up the car and put the bubble top on, saw it and became upset--there is a photograph of Hickey behind the limousine with his hand to his head, visibly upset). So Kinney picks up the bullet again and puts it on another stretcher (the one used by young patient Ronnie Fuller, as Josiah Thompson points out in his book Six Seconds in Dallas). This is the stretcher where Darrell Tomlinson eventually finds the "pointed" bullet, along with Otis Elevator serviceman Nathan Burgess Pool. It is either given to O.P. Wright or put back on the stretcher before Wright gets there. Wright takes the bullet, and later turns it over to Secret Service agent Richard Johnson. Johnson transports the bullet to Washington, goes to the White House and types up a memo to start the official "chain of custody" paper work (alternatively, the memo was created later to create a paper trail). The bullet is given to Secret Service Chief Rowley, who gives it to FBI agent Elmer Todd. Todd takes it to the FBI Laboratory, where it is "disappeared." Meanwhile, the Connally bullet falls off the gurney when Connally is transferred to a different carriage. (Alternatively, it might actually have fallen out of Connally's clothing, which had been placed on the lower shelf of the gurney, and Connally, being in a state of semi-consciousness, misunderstood it as falling out of his body. At any rate, it is the main body of the bullet that caused all of Connally's wounds.) The nurse gives it to Texas Highway Patrolman Bobby Nolan in an envelope, telling him that it is a bullet that came from Connally's gurney. Nolan calls his superior, "Major Smith," for orders on how to dispose of it, and is told to "Give it Will Fritz." Nolan gives it to Fritz by leaving the envelope on Fritz's desk, since Fritz is busy interrogating Oswald. This chain is fraught with even more problems than the Tomlison/Wright bullet chain (unnamed nurse, left on the desk instead of given to Fritz personally), and there are already multiple Parkland witnesses to the Tomlinson/Wright bullet, so it is decided to claim that the Tomlinson/Wright bullet is the one that struck Connally.
I am not expert enough to determine whether the amount of lead in CE 842 plus what is estimated to be left in Connally's body is small enough to have come from the base of CE 399. There was some testimony to that effect, but there were enough weaknesses in the testimonies to make me question whether CE 399 might have been a test-fire bullet and the extant CE 842 fragments a substitution for the original ones. But there was a flaw in the way Audrey Bell was questioned by the ARRB that leaves room for the possibility that CE 842 was her wrist fragments, and she was simply misled by the size of the photograph rather than the actual size of the fragments. She should have been shown the actual fragments rather than the Warren Commission's picture of the fragments.
If the James Tague wounding had not become widespread knowledge, then the Connally bullet could have kept its Wade/Nolan history, and only a simple substitution of the "pointed" AR-15 bullet for a Mannlicher-Carcanno bullet was needed for the Tomlinson/Wright history,, and we would have had "all three" bullets to match "all three" shots (two intact or nearly intact ones from Parkland stretchers, one broken one from the limo) as described in The Hoover-Johnson phone call. But with the publicity surrounding Tague, one of the stretcher bullets had to quietly disappear entirely.
So the one with the stronger chain-of-evidence was kept (with the exception that CE 399's appearance didn't actually match that of the "pointed" Tomlinson/Wright bullet), problematic reports were removed or altered, necessary reports were referred to but never made, and so on.
So CE-399 might be the bullet that went through Connally, although its chain-of-evidence history was substituted, or it might be a test-fire bullet. Either way, whether CE 399 was the actual Connally bullet or not, the Tomlinson/Wright bullet history was fraudulently attached to it, while "pointed" bullet was quietly disappeared. Meanwhile, the Wade/Nolan bullet history was fraudulently made to be part of the CE 842 fragments history--just in case someone remembered Bobby Nolan's role and wondered where that had gone.
Why not just make the whole Tomlinson/Wright bullet and its history disappear and keep the Nolan history? Either the Tomlinson/Wright history had garnered more attention at Parkland than the Wade/Nolan history, and/or it was thought that the Tomlinson/Wright history was a more solid chain of evidence (even if it was for a different bullet) than the Wade/Nolan history. After all, there were two "stretcher" bullets, and one of them was extremely problematic for its embarrassment factor. The easiest solution was to make the problematic bullet disappear, and attribute all references to a "stretcher bullet" thought to refer to the one remaining bullet.
With the Secret Service agents' slow response to the first Oswald shot (due to being hung-over), the AR-15 slam-fire head shot accident (by an agent who was not out drinking the night before), a warning shot that ricochets back towards the car, Secret Service agents mucking with the crime scene by cleaning the limousine and moving bullets around and putting them on Parkland Hospital stretchers, there is now one gigantic embarrassing reason, and a whole slew of lesser but also embarrassing reasons, why a cover-up is desired. But there is Oswald's upcoming trial to consider. But then--Oswald is killed! There will be no trial! Now the urge to cover up grows so strong, it becomes irresistible, and it is decided to go through with it--all in the name of "national security." Inconvenient evidence is disappeared, needed evidence is fabricated in such away that the blame for any discrepancies in the imperfect cover-up is blamed on non-agency individuals--e.g., "mistakes" in witness recollections. And voila! One of the great mysteries of the 20th Century is created!
Could CE-399 actually be the Connally bullet? Certainly, it is a substitution for the Tomlinson/Wright (Kennedy) bullet. It is not the same bullet that Darrell Tomlinson found and that O.P. Wright turned over to the Secret Service agent Richard Johnson. CE 399 is undoubtedly a substitution for that bullet.
However, the possibility remains that CE 399 might actually be the Wade/Nolan bullet. When Dr. Gregory was shown CE 399, he admitted that the amount of lead that was deposited into Governor Connally was small enough that it could have come from the base of CE-399.
On the other hand, Audrey Bell told the ARRB that the pieces of lead in CE 342 were "too small" and "too few" to have been her fragments. So the fragments in CE 342 might be substitutions for the actual Connally fragments, and CE 399 may indeed be too "pristine" to account for the actual fragments removed and the pieces of lead that were left in Governor Connally's body.
So who knows? Maybe CE 399 is the actual Connally bullet, maybe it is isn't, but the "official" history of CE 399 is undoubtedly fraudulent. The Tomlinson/Wright bullet history, as troublesome as that history is with how the bullet ended up on the stretcher in the first place, belongs to the "pointed" AR-15 bullet, which came from Kennedy. The Wade/Nolan bullet is the Connally bullet.
In the words of one of my favorite TV detectives, Monk, "Here's what happened:"
First Paul Landis, by his own admission, finds a bullet (spent the AR-15 bullet) in the car and places it on Kennedy's stretcher in Trauma Room One. Then it is "removed" from Trauma Room One in a container (per nurse Phyllis Hall). Then it is returned to the limousine, where follow-up car driver Sam Kinney finds it and picks it up (possibly/probably because his friend and fellow agent George Hickey, who was helping him clean up the car and put the bubble top on, saw it and became upset--there is a photograph of Hickey behind the limousine with his hand to his head, visibly upset). So Kinney picks up the bullet again and puts it on another stretcher (the one used by young patient Ronnie Fuller, as Josiah Thompson points out in his book Six Seconds in Dallas). This is the stretcher where Darrell Tomlinson eventually finds the "pointed" bullet, along with Otis Elevator serviceman Nathan Burgess Pool. It is either given to O.P. Wright or put back on the stretcher before Wright gets there. Wright takes the bullet, and later turns it over to Secret Service agent Richard Johnson. Johnson transports the bullet to Washington, goes to the White House and types up a memo to start the official "chain of custody" paper work (alternatively, the memo was created later to create a paper trail). The bullet is given to Secret Service Chief Rowley, who gives it to FBI agent Elmer Todd. Todd takes it to the FBI Laboratory, where it is "disappeared." Meanwhile, the Connally bullet falls off the gurney when Connally is transferred to a different carriage. (Alternatively, it might actually have fallen out of Connally's clothing, which had been placed on the lower shelf of the gurney, and Connally, being in a state of semi-consciousness, misunderstood it as falling out of his body. At any rate, it is the main body of the bullet that caused all of Connally's wounds.) The nurse gives it to Texas Highway Patrolman Bobby Nolan in an envelope, telling him that it is a bullet that came from Connally's gurney. Nolan calls his superior, "Major Smith," for orders on how to dispose of it, and is told to "Give it Will Fritz." Nolan gives it to Fritz by leaving the envelope on Fritz's desk, since Fritz is busy interrogating Oswald. This chain is fraught with even more problems than the Tomlison/Wright bullet chain (unnamed nurse, left on the desk instead of given to Fritz personally), and there are already multiple Parkland witnesses to the Tomlinson/Wright bullet, so it is decided to claim that the Tomlinson/Wright bullet is the one that struck Connally.
I am not expert enough to determine whether the amount of lead in CE 842 plus what is estimated to be left in Connally's body is small enough to have come from the base of CE 399. There was some testimony to that effect, but there were enough weaknesses in the testimonies to make me question whether CE 399 might have been a test-fire bullet and the extant CE 842 fragments a substitution for the original ones. But there was a flaw in the way Audrey Bell was questioned by the ARRB that leaves room for the possibility that CE 842 was her wrist fragments, and she was simply misled by the size of the photograph rather than the actual size of the fragments. She should have been shown the actual fragments rather than the Warren Commission's picture of the fragments.
If the James Tague wounding had not become widespread knowledge, then the Connally bullet could have kept its Wade/Nolan history, and only a simple substitution of the "pointed" AR-15 bullet for a Mannlicher-Carcanno bullet was needed for the Tomlinson/Wright history,, and we would have had "all three" bullets to match "all three" shots (two intact or nearly intact ones from Parkland stretchers, one broken one from the limo) as described in The Hoover-Johnson phone call. But with the publicity surrounding Tague, one of the stretcher bullets had to quietly disappear entirely.
So the one with the stronger chain-of-evidence was kept (with the exception that CE 399's appearance didn't actually match that of the "pointed" Tomlinson/Wright bullet), problematic reports were removed or altered, necessary reports were referred to but never made, and so on.
So CE-399 might be the bullet that went through Connally, although its chain-of-evidence history was substituted, or it might be a test-fire bullet. Either way, whether CE 399 was the actual Connally bullet or not, the Tomlinson/Wright bullet history was fraudulently attached to it, while "pointed" bullet was quietly disappeared. Meanwhile, the Wade/Nolan bullet history was fraudulently made to be part of the CE 842 fragments history--just in case someone remembered Bobby Nolan's role and wondered where that had gone.
Why not just make the whole Tomlinson/Wright bullet and its history disappear and keep the Nolan history? Either the Tomlinson/Wright history had garnered more attention at Parkland than the Wade/Nolan history, and/or it was thought that the Tomlinson/Wright history was a more solid chain of evidence (even if it was for a different bullet) than the Wade/Nolan history. After all, there were two "stretcher" bullets, and one of them was extremely problematic for its embarrassment factor. The easiest solution was to make the problematic bullet disappear, and attribute all references to a "stretcher bullet" thought to refer to the one remaining bullet.
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Motive, Means, and Opportunity (for the Cover-up)
I began this article by talking about the motive, opportunity, and means that Oswald had as the TSBD shooter. I'd like to close it with a discussion of the motive, means, and opportunity on the part of government agencies, especially the Secret Service, CIA, and FBI.
It seems obvious to me that multiple lies were told, by various individuals. The conclusion of John Hunt's "Frazier Speaks" article was that "Frazier speaks; but he does not speak the truth." He's not the only one who lied. And if certain individuals didn't lie themselves, they enabled others by keeping their mouths shut.
So let's start with "motive." Why would people lie? Or at the very least, keep their mouths shut while others lied?
I've heard somewhere that there are basically two reasons to lie: 1) to protect yourself; or 2) to protect others. Both types were present. The Secret Service agents, especially those who were out drinking the night before into the morning of the assassination had obvious motivation not to tell the complete truth. If that truth came out, these agents, who were slow to respond to the initial Oswald shot, would probably have lost their jobs.
But in this case, protecting "yourself" meant not only the individual "self" but also the collective national "self."
For the individual "self," it was mostly a matter of simply not saying anything rather than engaging in outright lying. Parkland employees, as noted by Elizabeth Wright, were told not to say anything, or to "Let the government agencies do their jobs." Why were they told this? Because it was known pretty quickly about the AR-15 accident, and having the Parkland employees keep their mouths shut was essential. The self-interest motivation to comply was the implied threat of losing their jobs if they spoke out. Even Dr. Charles Crenshaw, whose outspokenness I admire, waited decades before he spoke up. He didn't speak out until after his career was largely over. He was worried about losing his job.
Dr. Robert McClelland was another one who waited to speak out--but again, not for years.
The assassination, remember, was before the HIPPA privacy acts, an. But even if "patient privacy" was a concern, the "patient" was dead. He didn't care. Moreover, as President, he was a national figure whose cause of death was of national concern.
And even when individuals spoke out, other forces at work suppressed that information. For example, the recently released National Geographic video JFK: What the Doctors Saw was filmed in 2013 and not released until 2023.
And still other forces, thanks to CIA-created propaganda that weaponized the term "conspiracy theorist," are at work. This has affected me personally. When I tried to promote my work on the progressive media site Daily Kos, I got banned, for being a "Conspiracy Theorist." (Never mind that I had published a number of well-received articles, such as an account of the historical figure "Cattle Kate.") As a result of the "Conspiracy Theorist" denigration, I have been unable to garner much attention for my work. I've tried to contact various news organizations and individuals with known assassination connections, with "crickets" in response. So even those who have something to say and want to speak out are silenced. If you made an honest study of the Kennedy assassination and disagreed with the official story, you were automatically a "conspiracy theorist."
And the passage of time didn't help, either. When I wrote my first book and presented a copy to the local Secret Service office, the response was, "Congratulations on your book. But why should we care? We weren't even born yet." I got a similar "Why should we care? We weren't even born yet" response when I handed my card to a couple of FBI agents who were manning a table at a local public event. And quite frankly, it's the lack of response to my documentary series that has caused my delay in writing this and other articles for my website. But since I'm currently not working at a paying job--perhaps the "conspiracy theorist" problem at work, or maybe it's just that no one wants to hire a 60-something woman, and with my Mom now gone, I've got some time on my hands, and so here we are.
But enough about me.
There were others known to be directly involved in official investigations who were threatened more explicitly than, say, the vague threats to his career if he spoke out as described by Dr. Charles Crenshaw in his book. The Bethesda autopsy participants, for example, were ordered to sign non-disclosure agreements that threatened them with court-martial if they spoke out. So even though the JFK Assassination Records Act apparently rescinded those orders, by that point, the national psyche had already been established. No one was interested in drawing attention to sworn accounts like Jerrol Custer's that were contrary the official accounts. And in the meantime, if anyone spoke out, they faced court-martial, the loss of their livelihood, or even jail.
Below is the non-disclosure agreement that lead autopsy doctor James Humes was forced to sign:
I began this article by talking about the motive, opportunity, and means that Oswald had as the TSBD shooter. I'd like to close it with a discussion of the motive, means, and opportunity on the part of government agencies, especially the Secret Service, CIA, and FBI.
It seems obvious to me that multiple lies were told, by various individuals. The conclusion of John Hunt's "Frazier Speaks" article was that "Frazier speaks; but he does not speak the truth." He's not the only one who lied. And if certain individuals didn't lie themselves, they enabled others by keeping their mouths shut.
So let's start with "motive." Why would people lie? Or at the very least, keep their mouths shut while others lied?
I've heard somewhere that there are basically two reasons to lie: 1) to protect yourself; or 2) to protect others. Both types were present. The Secret Service agents, especially those who were out drinking the night before into the morning of the assassination had obvious motivation not to tell the complete truth. If that truth came out, these agents, who were slow to respond to the initial Oswald shot, would probably have lost their jobs.
But in this case, protecting "yourself" meant not only the individual "self" but also the collective national "self."
For the individual "self," it was mostly a matter of simply not saying anything rather than engaging in outright lying. Parkland employees, as noted by Elizabeth Wright, were told not to say anything, or to "Let the government agencies do their jobs." Why were they told this? Because it was known pretty quickly about the AR-15 accident, and having the Parkland employees keep their mouths shut was essential. The self-interest motivation to comply was the implied threat of losing their jobs if they spoke out. Even Dr. Charles Crenshaw, whose outspokenness I admire, waited decades before he spoke up. He didn't speak out until after his career was largely over. He was worried about losing his job.
Dr. Robert McClelland was another one who waited to speak out--but again, not for years.
The assassination, remember, was before the HIPPA privacy acts, an. But even if "patient privacy" was a concern, the "patient" was dead. He didn't care. Moreover, as President, he was a national figure whose cause of death was of national concern.
And even when individuals spoke out, other forces at work suppressed that information. For example, the recently released National Geographic video JFK: What the Doctors Saw was filmed in 2013 and not released until 2023.
And still other forces, thanks to CIA-created propaganda that weaponized the term "conspiracy theorist," are at work. This has affected me personally. When I tried to promote my work on the progressive media site Daily Kos, I got banned, for being a "Conspiracy Theorist." (Never mind that I had published a number of well-received articles, such as an account of the historical figure "Cattle Kate.") As a result of the "Conspiracy Theorist" denigration, I have been unable to garner much attention for my work. I've tried to contact various news organizations and individuals with known assassination connections, with "crickets" in response. So even those who have something to say and want to speak out are silenced. If you made an honest study of the Kennedy assassination and disagreed with the official story, you were automatically a "conspiracy theorist."
And the passage of time didn't help, either. When I wrote my first book and presented a copy to the local Secret Service office, the response was, "Congratulations on your book. But why should we care? We weren't even born yet." I got a similar "Why should we care? We weren't even born yet" response when I handed my card to a couple of FBI agents who were manning a table at a local public event. And quite frankly, it's the lack of response to my documentary series that has caused my delay in writing this and other articles for my website. But since I'm currently not working at a paying job--perhaps the "conspiracy theorist" problem at work, or maybe it's just that no one wants to hire a 60-something woman, and with my Mom now gone, I've got some time on my hands, and so here we are.
But enough about me.
There were others known to be directly involved in official investigations who were threatened more explicitly than, say, the vague threats to his career if he spoke out as described by Dr. Charles Crenshaw in his book. The Bethesda autopsy participants, for example, were ordered to sign non-disclosure agreements that threatened them with court-martial if they spoke out. So even though the JFK Assassination Records Act apparently rescinded those orders, by that point, the national psyche had already been established. No one was interested in drawing attention to sworn accounts like Jerrol Custer's that were contrary the official accounts. And in the meantime, if anyone spoke out, they faced court-martial, the loss of their livelihood, or even jail.
Below is the non-disclosure agreement that lead autopsy doctor James Humes was forced to sign:
Lead autopsy doctor James Humes' non-disclosure orders, from https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md75/html/md75_0001a.htm
Notice the date: November 26, 1963. This was two days after Oswald's death, the event that as I believe sparked the decision by government authorities to engage in the active cover-up effort.
But there is a strategy at work. The civilian Parkland people are told to say nothing, let the official investigations (like the autopsy) play out. The autopsy people under military control are threatened with court-martial and jail if they speak out. See how that works? And in the meanwhile, evidence is destroyed or buried, time passes, memories fade, people die off, care about the truth of what happened wanes.
Earl Warren once said that the things would eventually be revealed, but "it might not be in your lifetime." Was there ever a plan to reveal what happened? One might have thought that the HSCA would reveal the truth. It didn't. Then it was the JFK Records Act and the ARRB, which brought no acknowledgements or apologies for the cover-up but just a plethora of documents to wade through. Now it's the Mary Ferrell et. al. lawsuit, which hasn't wrought, as far as the public knows, any major revelation. Was there ever a plan to come clean about the cover up?
But there was clearly a motivating self-interest for individuals to keep their mouths shut. For the most part, "lying to protect self" has largely been a matter of "not saying anything" or just going along with things, rather than speaking their truth. If they did speak up, they faced the threat, real or implied, of losing their jobs
But this required individuals of higher authority who were willing to lie, or to actively participate in the lie, like FBI Laboratory expert Robert Frazier, who was undoubtedly under orders to participate in the cover-up. This brings us to the "lying to protect yourself" meaning the collective self. It was this protection of the collective "self" that provided the primary impetus for the cover-up, and the protection of the individual self that caused others to go along with it by keeping their mouths shut.
The motive for protecting the collective "self" might be self-evident. The AR-15 slam-fire accident was embarrassing. The phrase "National Security" was the excuse used to justify the cover-up, when it really should have been "National Embarrassment." Individual law enforcement officials and law enforcement adjacent people were certainly sympathetic to Hickey's position. The accident was absolutely not his fault! I myself am absolutely sympathetic to that! But the nation's most elite protective agency accidentally shooting their own protectee was an embarrassment that the officials in charge were not willing to let be known.
And finally, there were those who were willing to lie to protect others. Sam Kinney, who as a policeman was willing to give his gun to a random Secret Service agent is one example. How much farther would he go to protect his friend?
The"means" and "opportunity" for the cover-up are closely related. The resources for the Secret Service, FBI, and CIA are far greater than the resources of any individual citizen--whether a more affluent critic like Mary Ferrell, or a more cash-strapped critic like myself. And in 1963, the reputations of all of these organizations was still untarnished. For example, the Church Committee, which revealed some of the misdoings of the CIA, wasn't established until 1975. The FBI scandals didn't occur until later, as well. It wasn't until after J. Edgar Hoover's death in 1972 that Hoover's penchant for working "to satisfy the political interests of some presidents and secretly undermine others" became known. ("The FBI's history of scandals: From Bielaski to Hoover, Sessions and Comey" https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-17/fbi-james-comey-trump-with-great-power-comes-great-scandal/8533382). In 1963, the public faith in institutions like the FBI, the CIA, and the Secret Service was widespread. I believe it is the criticism of the weaknesses of the Warren Report and the problems with how Kennedy's death was handled, rather than the assassination itself, is why the assassination has been called "the end of innocence." After all, Abraham Lincoln's death wasn't the "end of innocence"; Kennedy's was.
In the case of obscuring the evidence of the Connally bullet, having at least one key player at the FBI lab was crucial. The large chunk of blame for evidence manipulation can be laid at the feet of Robert Frazier. John Hunt's conclusion at the end of "Frazier Speaks" is "Frazier speaks. But he does not speak the truth." I agree, but he was not the only one responsible for the cover-up. Recall 1963's CIA Director John McCone's admission that he participated in a "benign cover-up" intended to keep the Warren Commission focused on "what the Agency believed at the time was the 'best truth' — that Lee Harvey Oswald, for as yet undetermined motives, had acted alone in killing John Kennedy." ("Yes, the CIA Director Was Part of the JFK Assassination Cover-up" https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/jfk-assassination-john-mccone-warren-commission-cia-213197/)
But there is a strategy at work. The civilian Parkland people are told to say nothing, let the official investigations (like the autopsy) play out. The autopsy people under military control are threatened with court-martial and jail if they speak out. See how that works? And in the meanwhile, evidence is destroyed or buried, time passes, memories fade, people die off, care about the truth of what happened wanes.
Earl Warren once said that the things would eventually be revealed, but "it might not be in your lifetime." Was there ever a plan to reveal what happened? One might have thought that the HSCA would reveal the truth. It didn't. Then it was the JFK Records Act and the ARRB, which brought no acknowledgements or apologies for the cover-up but just a plethora of documents to wade through. Now it's the Mary Ferrell et. al. lawsuit, which hasn't wrought, as far as the public knows, any major revelation. Was there ever a plan to come clean about the cover up?
But there was clearly a motivating self-interest for individuals to keep their mouths shut. For the most part, "lying to protect self" has largely been a matter of "not saying anything" or just going along with things, rather than speaking their truth. If they did speak up, they faced the threat, real or implied, of losing their jobs
But this required individuals of higher authority who were willing to lie, or to actively participate in the lie, like FBI Laboratory expert Robert Frazier, who was undoubtedly under orders to participate in the cover-up. This brings us to the "lying to protect yourself" meaning the collective self. It was this protection of the collective "self" that provided the primary impetus for the cover-up, and the protection of the individual self that caused others to go along with it by keeping their mouths shut.
The motive for protecting the collective "self" might be self-evident. The AR-15 slam-fire accident was embarrassing. The phrase "National Security" was the excuse used to justify the cover-up, when it really should have been "National Embarrassment." Individual law enforcement officials and law enforcement adjacent people were certainly sympathetic to Hickey's position. The accident was absolutely not his fault! I myself am absolutely sympathetic to that! But the nation's most elite protective agency accidentally shooting their own protectee was an embarrassment that the officials in charge were not willing to let be known.
And finally, there were those who were willing to lie to protect others. Sam Kinney, who as a policeman was willing to give his gun to a random Secret Service agent is one example. How much farther would he go to protect his friend?
The"means" and "opportunity" for the cover-up are closely related. The resources for the Secret Service, FBI, and CIA are far greater than the resources of any individual citizen--whether a more affluent critic like Mary Ferrell, or a more cash-strapped critic like myself. And in 1963, the reputations of all of these organizations was still untarnished. For example, the Church Committee, which revealed some of the misdoings of the CIA, wasn't established until 1975. The FBI scandals didn't occur until later, as well. It wasn't until after J. Edgar Hoover's death in 1972 that Hoover's penchant for working "to satisfy the political interests of some presidents and secretly undermine others" became known. ("The FBI's history of scandals: From Bielaski to Hoover, Sessions and Comey" https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-17/fbi-james-comey-trump-with-great-power-comes-great-scandal/8533382). In 1963, the public faith in institutions like the FBI, the CIA, and the Secret Service was widespread. I believe it is the criticism of the weaknesses of the Warren Report and the problems with how Kennedy's death was handled, rather than the assassination itself, is why the assassination has been called "the end of innocence." After all, Abraham Lincoln's death wasn't the "end of innocence"; Kennedy's was.
In the case of obscuring the evidence of the Connally bullet, having at least one key player at the FBI lab was crucial. The large chunk of blame for evidence manipulation can be laid at the feet of Robert Frazier. John Hunt's conclusion at the end of "Frazier Speaks" is "Frazier speaks. But he does not speak the truth." I agree, but he was not the only one responsible for the cover-up. Recall 1963's CIA Director John McCone's admission that he participated in a "benign cover-up" intended to keep the Warren Commission focused on "what the Agency believed at the time was the 'best truth' — that Lee Harvey Oswald, for as yet undetermined motives, had acted alone in killing John Kennedy." ("Yes, the CIA Director Was Part of the JFK Assassination Cover-up" https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/jfk-assassination-john-mccone-warren-commission-cia-213197/)
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Final Thoughts
Much of the criticisms in the Black Lives Matter movement has been that the same organizations whose climate contributed to unwarranted deaths of Black citizens were also responsible for the investigation. In other words, "They investigated themselves and found themselves to be innocent."
Of course, it was the FBI, not the Secret Service, that was in charge of the investigation, and later, the House Select Committee. but in both of those cases, they were not sincere investigations. In both cases, evidence was buried or kept hidden. It wasn't until the ARRB, which included civilian investigators, that a genuine investigative effort was begun. But in the meantime, by the time this effort was begun, evidence had destroyed/obfuscated/lost/misplaced, witnesses had died, and many people have ceased to care.
With the exception of individual well-meaning agents who played their parts and then turned their evidence over to their superiors, with that evidence moving up the chain of command until it reached someone complicit in the cover-up, the same FBI that was supposed to be investigating the case was actually in charge of covering it up. Robert Frazier played fast and loose with the evidence, and other loyalists either went along, or otherwise played their own smaller parts.
The CIA controlled information flow to the Warren Commission, and altered the Zapruder Film. They also spread the propaganda that critics of the Warren Report and its associated investigative bodies (i.e., the FBI) were "kooks" and "nuts," by weaponizing the term "conspiracy theorist" and/or claiming that such critics were only interested in selling book (thereby implying that there criticisms were unfounded).
Meanwhile, at the Secret Service, all Rowley and his men had to do was keep their mouths shut. Rowley and Johnson could even answer honestly when they "did not positively identify" CE 399 as their bullet.
Parkland employees were ordered to keep silent, and not talk to the media, and "let the FBI/Secret Service do their job."
Bethesda autopsy participants even had to sign non-disclosure orders under threat of court-martial if they spoke out.
All the Warren Commission had to do was fail to call certain key witnesses, like the Connally nurses and the Secret Service agents who were in the follow-up car at the time of the AR-15 head shot. Do that, and the aura of verisimilitude is preserved.
If anyone spoke up, they were in danger of losing their jobs or their reputations, and there were mouths at home that needed to be fed.
Could CE 399 be the actual Connally bullet? CE 399 is certainly a substitution for the "pointed" Tomlinson/Wright bullet--or at the very least, its Wade/Nolan history was switched for the Tomlinson/Wright history. Dr. Gregory, without having the CE 842 wrist fragments in front of him, testified that it was possible that the fragments came from the base of the bullet. HSCA expert Vincent Guinn testified that the CE 842 fragments could have come from CE 399, but nothing was said in his questioning of the small fragments still left in Connally's wrist and thigh. Given that Audrey Bell said in her ARRB interview that the CE 842 fragments appeared to be "too small, and too few in number" for what she put in the "foreign body" envelope. Then again, she made that statement based on the Warren Commission published picture, not with the fragments themselves before her, which might have made a difference. The DNA analysis that was done on the nose and tail fragments purportedly found in the limousine was never done on CE 399 or CE 842 (One wonders why not--it may be that both exhibits were at some point cleaned in such a way as to preclude such analysis). So I suppose it's possible that CE 399 is the Wade/Nolan bullet, and thus the Connally bullet. But it is certainly not the "pointed" Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet (the AR-15 bullet), which was certainly "disappeared." So it may just be the histories that were switched, with the Nolan bullet history being merged into the wrist fragments history while the Wright/Tomlinson bullet was completely disappeared.
But here's the thing:
Threats, either real or implied, over loss of livelihood or credibility for speaking the truth are characteristics of fascism, not democracy. The threats might not have been as great of those in other countries where imprisonment or worse are punishments for truth-telling, but even the threat of losing one's job or having one's reputation damaged is a huge step in moving our country in the direction of authoritarian fascism.
There didn't have to be many people directly involved in the cover-up, just a few well-placed individuals willing to go along with hiding an accident by a fellow law enforcement agent who was handling a defective weapon. It wasn't Hickey's fault--I get that. But the cover-up--done in the name of "National Security"--has been extremely detrimental to our society. The AR-15 slam-fire shooting by a well-intentioned agent was entirely accidental. It can be readily forgiven. However, the cover-up was deliberate. As bad as the AR-15 accident was, it is the cover-up that has undermined faith in the various agencies involved (the Secret Service for not coming clean, the FBI for its fraudulent "investigation," the CIA for its fraudulent alteration of the Zapruder Film and propaganda against critic and control of information, thus eroding National Security rather than strengthening it. The cover-up "cure" has been worse than the "disease" of an accidental shot fired at a man who was likely already doomed by the assassin's first shot.
The shots fired during the assassination, including the Secret Service accident, were wounds to our national body. The cover-up, however, has been an infection in those wounds. The festering wounds must be cleansed before true healing can begin. Cleansing, in this case, means admitting to the cover-up--coming clean, as it were--and apologizing. Then, and only then, can we move on.
Much of the criticisms in the Black Lives Matter movement has been that the same organizations whose climate contributed to unwarranted deaths of Black citizens were also responsible for the investigation. In other words, "They investigated themselves and found themselves to be innocent."
Of course, it was the FBI, not the Secret Service, that was in charge of the investigation, and later, the House Select Committee. but in both of those cases, they were not sincere investigations. In both cases, evidence was buried or kept hidden. It wasn't until the ARRB, which included civilian investigators, that a genuine investigative effort was begun. But in the meantime, by the time this effort was begun, evidence had destroyed/obfuscated/lost/misplaced, witnesses had died, and many people have ceased to care.
With the exception of individual well-meaning agents who played their parts and then turned their evidence over to their superiors, with that evidence moving up the chain of command until it reached someone complicit in the cover-up, the same FBI that was supposed to be investigating the case was actually in charge of covering it up. Robert Frazier played fast and loose with the evidence, and other loyalists either went along, or otherwise played their own smaller parts.
The CIA controlled information flow to the Warren Commission, and altered the Zapruder Film. They also spread the propaganda that critics of the Warren Report and its associated investigative bodies (i.e., the FBI) were "kooks" and "nuts," by weaponizing the term "conspiracy theorist" and/or claiming that such critics were only interested in selling book (thereby implying that there criticisms were unfounded).
Meanwhile, at the Secret Service, all Rowley and his men had to do was keep their mouths shut. Rowley and Johnson could even answer honestly when they "did not positively identify" CE 399 as their bullet.
Parkland employees were ordered to keep silent, and not talk to the media, and "let the FBI/Secret Service do their job."
Bethesda autopsy participants even had to sign non-disclosure orders under threat of court-martial if they spoke out.
All the Warren Commission had to do was fail to call certain key witnesses, like the Connally nurses and the Secret Service agents who were in the follow-up car at the time of the AR-15 head shot. Do that, and the aura of verisimilitude is preserved.
If anyone spoke up, they were in danger of losing their jobs or their reputations, and there were mouths at home that needed to be fed.
Could CE 399 be the actual Connally bullet? CE 399 is certainly a substitution for the "pointed" Tomlinson/Wright bullet--or at the very least, its Wade/Nolan history was switched for the Tomlinson/Wright history. Dr. Gregory, without having the CE 842 wrist fragments in front of him, testified that it was possible that the fragments came from the base of the bullet. HSCA expert Vincent Guinn testified that the CE 842 fragments could have come from CE 399, but nothing was said in his questioning of the small fragments still left in Connally's wrist and thigh. Given that Audrey Bell said in her ARRB interview that the CE 842 fragments appeared to be "too small, and too few in number" for what she put in the "foreign body" envelope. Then again, she made that statement based on the Warren Commission published picture, not with the fragments themselves before her, which might have made a difference. The DNA analysis that was done on the nose and tail fragments purportedly found in the limousine was never done on CE 399 or CE 842 (One wonders why not--it may be that both exhibits were at some point cleaned in such a way as to preclude such analysis). So I suppose it's possible that CE 399 is the Wade/Nolan bullet, and thus the Connally bullet. But it is certainly not the "pointed" Tomlinson/Wright stretcher bullet (the AR-15 bullet), which was certainly "disappeared." So it may just be the histories that were switched, with the Nolan bullet history being merged into the wrist fragments history while the Wright/Tomlinson bullet was completely disappeared.
But here's the thing:
Threats, either real or implied, over loss of livelihood or credibility for speaking the truth are characteristics of fascism, not democracy. The threats might not have been as great of those in other countries where imprisonment or worse are punishments for truth-telling, but even the threat of losing one's job or having one's reputation damaged is a huge step in moving our country in the direction of authoritarian fascism.
There didn't have to be many people directly involved in the cover-up, just a few well-placed individuals willing to go along with hiding an accident by a fellow law enforcement agent who was handling a defective weapon. It wasn't Hickey's fault--I get that. But the cover-up--done in the name of "National Security"--has been extremely detrimental to our society. The AR-15 slam-fire shooting by a well-intentioned agent was entirely accidental. It can be readily forgiven. However, the cover-up was deliberate. As bad as the AR-15 accident was, it is the cover-up that has undermined faith in the various agencies involved (the Secret Service for not coming clean, the FBI for its fraudulent "investigation," the CIA for its fraudulent alteration of the Zapruder Film and propaganda against critic and control of information, thus eroding National Security rather than strengthening it. The cover-up "cure" has been worse than the "disease" of an accidental shot fired at a man who was likely already doomed by the assassin's first shot.
The shots fired during the assassination, including the Secret Service accident, were wounds to our national body. The cover-up, however, has been an infection in those wounds. The festering wounds must be cleansed before true healing can begin. Cleansing, in this case, means admitting to the cover-up--coming clean, as it were--and apologizing. Then, and only then, can we move on.
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Update #1 -- A Receipt for a "Fragment"
I posted a link to my article on the Education Forum site (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30125-new-article-multiple-stretcher-bullets-aka-the-connally-bullet-revisited/), and a researcher named Gary Murr posted a very interesting half-page "memorandum":
I posted a link to my article on the Education Forum site (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30125-new-article-multiple-stretcher-bullets-aka-the-connally-bullet-revisited/), and a researcher named Gary Murr posted a very interesting half-page "memorandum":
Source update--Murr notes "HSCA: Record Number: 180-10096-10351: Agency File Number: 001894" as his source. I do note the "HSCA (RC 233)" notation along the right edge of the image. He also notes that whenever he presents this image, its authenticity is questioned. He apparently doesn't question the authenticity, but I note that it would be very easy to fabricate Audrey Bell's handwriting if one had her original memo--for example, by putting it on a light box and tracing the lettering. I know it seems far-fetched, but it is one way to account for this without both Nolan and Bell being "mistaken" about how they received or transferred their bullet/fragment/fragments. I think it was fabricated, to try to deal with an already weak chain of evidence and make one of the two stretcher bullets disappear, since two stretcher bullets would clearly disprove the SBT, and thus necessitate a fourth shot in order to account for Tague's minor wounds.
IF this receipt is authentic (and it's a big "if" in my view), I wonder why the ARRB was unable to locate it? And why Audrey Bell would remember the name "Sorrels" (an actual Secret Service agent) as one of the two "plainclothes federal agents" who received the fragments? Or why it would say "fragment" (singular) on this receipt when Audrey Bell specifically disavowed "fragment" singular? Or why Nolan didn't recount signing a memo for his "bullet"? Or why it would be addressed to "Lt. Alexander, Crime Lab" and Nolan (a Highway Patrol officer) signed for it? Or why Nolan would question his initials being "upside down"? Why would there be "fragment" (singular) written on the receipt and "fragments" (plural) written on the envelope?
Audrey Bell seemed specifically attuned to "procedure," and the nurse who was showing the bullet to Henry Wade in the hallway (and told by Bill Stinson to "give it to [Nolan]") seemed unaware of procedure. However, in trying to reconcile this receipt with everything else, I'm thinking the following possibilities:
I believe those who saw the Tomlinson/Wright bullet and described it as "pointed." After all, it fits the AR-15 accident scenario.
But assume, for a moment, there was only one "stretcher" bullet, that it was the round-tipped CE 399 and the "pointed" witnesses were mistaken, and that Audrey Bell was mistaken about who she turned the "fragments" (plural) envelope over to, and that the word "fragment" (singular) on this receipt was a typo. I don't think any of those were the case, but let's assume so for a second. It raises the following questions:
No, I think that the Tomlinson/Wright bullet was "pointed," just as the witnesses described, that the Connally bullet was the one I've described as the "Wade/Nolan bullet," and that Nolan's initials, at the very least, were forged onto the envelope for the wrist fragments.
--Denise
IF this receipt is authentic (and it's a big "if" in my view), I wonder why the ARRB was unable to locate it? And why Audrey Bell would remember the name "Sorrels" (an actual Secret Service agent) as one of the two "plainclothes federal agents" who received the fragments? Or why it would say "fragment" (singular) on this receipt when Audrey Bell specifically disavowed "fragment" singular? Or why Nolan didn't recount signing a memo for his "bullet"? Or why it would be addressed to "Lt. Alexander, Crime Lab" and Nolan (a Highway Patrol officer) signed for it? Or why Nolan would question his initials being "upside down"? Why would there be "fragment" (singular) written on the receipt and "fragments" (plural) written on the envelope?
Audrey Bell seemed specifically attuned to "procedure," and the nurse who was showing the bullet to Henry Wade in the hallway (and told by Bill Stinson to "give it to [Nolan]") seemed unaware of procedure. However, in trying to reconcile this receipt with everything else, I'm thinking the following possibilities:
- Audrey Bell was the nurse who turned a single large bullet "fragment" (note the technicality as noted in my article of CE 399 being a "fragment" since it was not a complete bullet) over to Nolan, and had him sign a receipt for it, telling him to deliver it to the DPD crime lab. Perhaps in the process, having Nolan call his superior (in Audrey Bell's presence?) who told him to "Give it Fritz." Audrey Bell, being a stickler for procedure, had Nolan sign this receipt for it. There was a separate envelope containing the Connally wrist "fragments" (plural). The ARRB was only asking Audrey Bell about the wrist fragments, which is why she was only answering about that rather than about the large bullet "fragment" that came out of Connally's thigh? I know from experience that when answering questions in a deposition, the lawyers tell you only to respond to what's being asked, not to volunteer anything, so she didn't volunteer the information about the bullet (technically a large "fragment") from Connally's thigh.
- Nolan returned to Parkland to provide additional security for Connally, not that night, but the next day and throughout the next week. Perhaps Audrey Bell was trying to cover for one of her more inexperienced nurses and realized there was a problem, and retroactively had Nolan sign a receipt, dating it as the date he received the bullet "fragment" rather than the date he signed the receipt. Nolan's "upside down" signature was later forged onto the CE 842 envelope, or he was brought the CE 842 envelope retroactively and asked to sign it retroactively. Retroactively could be after Oswald's murder, when the cover-up began in earnest.
- It could be that both Nolan's signature on both the envelope and the entire receipt are forgeries. Or just the envelope signature is a forgery, added after the Single Bullet Theory became necessary in order to account for Tague's wounding and one of the bullet histories. had to be disappeared.
I believe those who saw the Tomlinson/Wright bullet and described it as "pointed." After all, it fits the AR-15 accident scenario.
But assume, for a moment, there was only one "stretcher" bullet, that it was the round-tipped CE 399 and the "pointed" witnesses were mistaken, and that Audrey Bell was mistaken about who she turned the "fragments" (plural) envelope over to, and that the word "fragment" (singular) on this receipt was a typo. I don't think any of those were the case, but let's assume so for a second. It raises the following questions:
- Why would Hoover tell Johnson in the phone call that they had "all three" bullets if they didn't?
- Why would would Audrey Bell distinctly remember the name "Sorrells" (an actual Secret Service agent in Dallas) as one of the two "plainclothes federal agents" who signed for the wrist fragments if he wasn't?
- Why would the Washington, DC FBI office (Belmont) be telling the Dallas FBI agent Gordon Shanklin to secure two bullets: the one that struck Governor Connally, and the "other" one (per the Shanklin Memo above)
No, I think that the Tomlinson/Wright bullet was "pointed," just as the witnesses described, that the Connally bullet was the one I've described as the "Wade/Nolan bullet," and that Nolan's initials, at the very least, were forged onto the envelope for the wrist fragments.
--Denise
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Update #2: About Audrey Bell's ARRB Interview, and a Speculation about the Unnamed Nurse (Diana Bowron)
Audrey Bell's ARRB Interview
Well, I finally did something I should have done earlier--actually listened to Audrey Bell's ARRB interview tape (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_interviews/audio/ARRB_Bell.htm) instead of just relying on the summary, as interesting as that is.
On Side 2 of the tape, there is discussion of what appears to be the receipt Gary Murr provided, as shown above. Here is an excerpt (starting about 6:38):
Q: We have a little bit of a mystery here that we’re trying to clarify and resolve. What I would like to do is read to you an excerpt from a memo written by one of our (ARRB) staff members, Mr. Joe Kramer (sp?) who wrote this memo on April 26, 1996. And it concerns the Connally fragments, and concerns the subject of your transmission of them to another person. If you may, I’d like to read a paragraph from it, and I’ll let you read it if you like, and ask for your comments. Mr. (Freeman?) writes, “We discussed this foreign body envelope, which he found in this letter I just showed you. And then he says, “Hell, after consulting with one or more members of Governor Connally’s staff present at Parkland concerning turning the envelope containing the fragments over to State—Texas State Trooper Bobby M. Nolan. There is a receipt for this transaction written in handwriting which appears to be the same as that on the envelope—i.e., it appears to be Audrey Bell’s handwriting. On the receipt, as opposed to the envelope, the term ‘fragment’ (singular) is used to describe the envelope’s contents, as opposed to the plural version of the noun on the envelope. The receipt is written on an office memorandum from—and in the “to” category, Bell writes what appears to be “Lt. Alexander” on the top line, “crime lab” on the second line. End quote. Bell and Nolan each signed the receipt, which is dated 11/22/63. Nolan also initialed the envelope itself.
A: Well, Lieutenant Alexander was with the Dallas crime lab. We had a Lieutenant Alexander who we worked with who was down there. How—if he was up there that day--
Q: Do you—Have you ever met Bobby Nolan, Texas State Trooper Bobby Nolan
A: I could have met him. I just don’t recognize who he is at this time. I had so many from the Texas Trooper’s office there, because they were the ones guarding the Governor.
Q: Were they normally in uniform, or not?
A: Yeah. They were in uniform. The ones that I recall were in uniform. That’s the reason I don’t think that is correct. You know, that kind of ties them to—there was a newspaper report out in Dallas. There was somebody—and I think it was with Texas State Department, said that they had a handful of those fragments themselves. This came out in the Dallas Times Herald. And that they were—pulled them out of his pocket accidentally, and I don’t think they ever said that knew knew how they got there, and said that they were from the Governor’s room. And I know that I had a call that day from DP and everything else wanting to know, because it’d, you know, been on record many times that I had all the fragments and then turned them over. And there was—at that time, there was one of the TV guys, news guys, living in our apartment complex down there, and he called me first about it.
Q: This man—person that your describing, was this possibly the same year that the House Committee spoke to you?
A: I don’t know. I—It could have been. It was along in about that time, I think.
Q: Do you remember the name of that trooper involved in that incident? Was it this man, Bobby Nolan? Or was it a different--
A: It could have been Bobby Nolan. I don’t know if it was him, or whether it was someone else. But there was a big play in Dallas for at least 24 hours about somebody else having those fragments.
Q: And the media interviewed you?
A: The media—I think it was Channel 4.
Q: Did that other individual who said he had fragments call you?
A: No. We had no contact.
Q: Okay. Mr. Freeman, when he wrote this, I think he’s basing his account on—he cited this receipt. He’s no longer with the staff. (Unintelligible) He was basically assigned this receipt. He was trying to piece this together. Did you ever meet any State Troopers who were not in uniform the whole time at the hospital?
A: Not that I’m aware of. I think even Colonel Garrison always wore a uniform.
Q: Do you remember talking to Mr. Alexander at all about any fragments or having any conversations with him?
A: Our crime lab Alexander?
Q: Yes.
A: I’m just trying to recall. That could have been the other person. Because I wanted—I was going to give them to him, and he said it was okay to go ahead and give them. He could have have been the second individual that was in the room. But basically, no. This is the first time I’ve ever thought about talking to Lieutenant Alexander about the fragments. Because they never got down to him. Normally I would have taken them down to him.
Q: Do you remember any other documents or memoranda about the fragments, or describing the transfer of them in a handwritten memorandum about the transfer of them—anything else about the envelope that you’ve already--
A: (unintelligible) the envelope. And the individual signed. I wrote on there something about the foreign body envelope containing the fragments were being given to--
Q: And you’re talking about the receipt now. There was an envelope, and there was a separate receipt.
A: Yes. They had to sign for them. It was on Dallas County Hospital Memorandum. I remember it was one of the red ones, the red memos that we had.
Q: Okay.
A: And it was about half of a 8 1/2 by 11 page, standard. And he signed it for me, and then that wen to Administration that afternoon.
Q: You sent it down to Administration?
A: I took it down.
Q: You took it down. Okay.
Q; And that was in your handwriting?
A: It was in my handwriting, yes.
So Audrey Bell was aware of this receipt. She was also aware of newspaper account in the Dallas Times Herald that mentioned "someone else" having this bullet, and the name "Nolan" might have been associated with that story. She seemed confused about the memo being discussed (whether it was actually shown to her is unclear.) She was trying to reconcile the name "Lt. Alexander" as possibly one of the two men who were at her office (I suspect she may have spoken with him over the telephone and being told it was "okay" to give her fragments over to the plainclothes agents). She seems to have forgotten the name "Sorrels" that she mentioned in her HSCA interview (it had been by the time of her ARRB interview some 30 years since the assassination), but she never wavered in her belief about two "plainclothes" agents.
Some researchers have suggested that Bobby Nolan was wearing plainclothes that day. He was not. In his account, he was uniformed, and that aided in his ability to escort Connally's sister around and being asked to assist in the Governor's security. It was his uniform that probably suggested to the nurse that it was okay to give the bullet to him, since he was law-enforcement. To repeat a quote from his interview above:
...this one lady nurse said that she gave me the bullet, and I turned it over to the FBI, but that’s not true. I didn’t turn it over to the FBI. I gave it to Will Fritz. And she says she gave it to a plainclothes officer. Well, I was in uniform all the time I was there. These things have come out, and either she’s confused or something, I don’t know. I don’t know who she was. I don’t re—I didn’t get the lady’s name that gave it to me.
I think he's misremembering something that was said in the Dallas Times Herald article or Channel 4 segment that was part of the 24-hour long "big play" Audrey Bell mentioned in her ARRB interview. If someone can dig up that article or find a video of the "Channel 4" segment and post it on YouTube, I would appreciate it.
A Speculation about the Unnamed Nurse
I am going to offer a speculation as to the identity of the nurse who picked up the Connally bullet: Diana Bowron. Nurse Bowron was recently come to Parkland Hospital from England, and had only been working at Parkland for 3 months of her 1-year contract, and planned to return to England at the end of her contract. She was also only 22 years old at the time of her Warren Commission testimony. She was young, inexperienced, and unfamiliar with U.S. laws. Henry Wade also suggested the name “Bowman” during his Mark Oakes interview. He could easily have confused his interactions with “Head Nurse” Elizabeth Wright with his earlier “some nurse” and “Bowman” to mean Diana Bowron, given that he had surely interacted with Elizabeth Wright (who was working to ensure the comfort of the Connally entourage) during his time visiting with Governor and Mrs. Connally.
And while she was apparently not involved in Connally’s care after he was taken to Trauma Room 2, Nurse Bowron did help get Governor Connally onto the gurney!
From Her Warren Commission Testimony:
Mr. SPECTER. And, where did you take your stretcher?
Miss BOWRON. To the left-hand side of the car as you are facing it, and we had to move Governor Connally out first because he was in the front. We couldn’t get to the back seat. While all the Secret Service men were moving Governor Connally I went around to the other side of the car to try to help with the President and then we got him onto the second cart and then took him straight over to trauma room 1.
Mr. SPECTER. Trauma Room Number 1?
Miss BOWRON. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. And describe in a general way Governor Connally’s condition when you first saw him?
Miss BOWRON. He was very pale, he was leaning forward and onto Mrs. Connally but apparently—I didn’t notice very much—I was more concerned with the person in the back of the car—the President.
Mr. SPECTER. And what, in a general way, did you observe with respect to President Kennedy’s condition?
Miss BOWRON. He was moribund—he was lying across Mrs. Kennedy’s knee and there seemed to be blood everywhere. When I went around to the other side of the car I saw the condition of his head.
Mr. SPECTER. You saw the condition of his what?
Miss BOWRON. The back of his head.
Mr. SPECTER. And what was that condition?
Miss BOWRON. Well, it was very bad—you know.
(I included some of the bit about Kennedy to show her observation of the back of the head blow-out.)
Vol. XI:X of the Warren Commission’s Hearings (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/html/WH_Vol19_0093a.htm) contains Bowron Exhibits 2, 3, and 4, which were articles published in British newspapers. Bowron Exhibits 3 and 4 were stamped “Top Secret.” One wonders why, since they seem fairly innocuous, although all three do mention her helping to get Connally onto the stretcher. One also wonders why there is no Bowron Exhibit "#1"? It was not mentioned in her testimony. Why would they start with “2”? Is there a “#1” buried somewhere? Removed because it mentioned the stretcher bullet? Who knows.
So Miss Bowron wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to Connally, and had a habit of putting stuff into her pocket. She had some interaction with Connally and the gurney when Connally was being taken out of the limousine. Henry Wade recalled the name “Bowman” (albeit erroneously attributing it to the “head nurse”).
So I’m thinking that maybe, just maybe, the bullet fell out of Connally’s leg as he was being placed on the first gurney as he was taken out of the car and before he was wheeled into Trauma Room 2, rather than when he was being moved onto the surgical gurney, perhaps hitting the edge of the gurney in the process to create the clink sound Connally recalled. The Governor was in a semi-conscious state and may have confused exactly which time he was being transferred onto a stretcher that the bullet fell out—although I do think he was correct about a “bullet” (and not a “cuff link,” as some researchers have suggested), especially given the Nolan and Wade accounts.
One of the reasons the Connally nurse has been so hard to track down is because she left Parkland Hospital at the end of her contract and returned to England, where she would be that much harder for researchers to track down (although Harrison Edward Livingstone managed to do it an interviewed her over the telephone and mail for one of his “High Treason” books, specifically to ask her about Kennedy’s back wound). Other Parkland workers, specifically Elizabeth Wright and Phyllis Hall (in her interview with me) made vague references to a nurse whom they declined to name—perhaps because they didn’t want to get the very young Diana Bowron into further trouble than she might already have been for not following standard procedure? And perhaps she never came forward publicly because she knew she had made a mistake and didn’t want to jeopardize her future career options, or had been warned not to say anything about it because of chain-of-custody issues?
Again, this is all speculation, but it has the merit of Henry Wade mentioning the name “Bowman” in his Mark Oakes interview, the inexperience of a young nurse who was likely unaware of proper chain-of-evidence procedures, and a known association of this nurse with the Connally stretcher. There’s also the very interesting missing “#1” in her exhibits, and the very interesting “Top Secret” stamp on two of the British newspaper articles that mention her helping get Connally onto his gurney.
So my candidate for the unnamed nurse is: Diana Bowron.
--Denise
Audrey Bell's ARRB Interview
Well, I finally did something I should have done earlier--actually listened to Audrey Bell's ARRB interview tape (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_interviews/audio/ARRB_Bell.htm) instead of just relying on the summary, as interesting as that is.
On Side 2 of the tape, there is discussion of what appears to be the receipt Gary Murr provided, as shown above. Here is an excerpt (starting about 6:38):
Q: We have a little bit of a mystery here that we’re trying to clarify and resolve. What I would like to do is read to you an excerpt from a memo written by one of our (ARRB) staff members, Mr. Joe Kramer (sp?) who wrote this memo on April 26, 1996. And it concerns the Connally fragments, and concerns the subject of your transmission of them to another person. If you may, I’d like to read a paragraph from it, and I’ll let you read it if you like, and ask for your comments. Mr. (Freeman?) writes, “We discussed this foreign body envelope, which he found in this letter I just showed you. And then he says, “Hell, after consulting with one or more members of Governor Connally’s staff present at Parkland concerning turning the envelope containing the fragments over to State—Texas State Trooper Bobby M. Nolan. There is a receipt for this transaction written in handwriting which appears to be the same as that on the envelope—i.e., it appears to be Audrey Bell’s handwriting. On the receipt, as opposed to the envelope, the term ‘fragment’ (singular) is used to describe the envelope’s contents, as opposed to the plural version of the noun on the envelope. The receipt is written on an office memorandum from—and in the “to” category, Bell writes what appears to be “Lt. Alexander” on the top line, “crime lab” on the second line. End quote. Bell and Nolan each signed the receipt, which is dated 11/22/63. Nolan also initialed the envelope itself.
A: Well, Lieutenant Alexander was with the Dallas crime lab. We had a Lieutenant Alexander who we worked with who was down there. How—if he was up there that day--
Q: Do you—Have you ever met Bobby Nolan, Texas State Trooper Bobby Nolan
A: I could have met him. I just don’t recognize who he is at this time. I had so many from the Texas Trooper’s office there, because they were the ones guarding the Governor.
Q: Were they normally in uniform, or not?
A: Yeah. They were in uniform. The ones that I recall were in uniform. That’s the reason I don’t think that is correct. You know, that kind of ties them to—there was a newspaper report out in Dallas. There was somebody—and I think it was with Texas State Department, said that they had a handful of those fragments themselves. This came out in the Dallas Times Herald. And that they were—pulled them out of his pocket accidentally, and I don’t think they ever said that knew knew how they got there, and said that they were from the Governor’s room. And I know that I had a call that day from DP and everything else wanting to know, because it’d, you know, been on record many times that I had all the fragments and then turned them over. And there was—at that time, there was one of the TV guys, news guys, living in our apartment complex down there, and he called me first about it.
Q: This man—person that your describing, was this possibly the same year that the House Committee spoke to you?
A: I don’t know. I—It could have been. It was along in about that time, I think.
Q: Do you remember the name of that trooper involved in that incident? Was it this man, Bobby Nolan? Or was it a different--
A: It could have been Bobby Nolan. I don’t know if it was him, or whether it was someone else. But there was a big play in Dallas for at least 24 hours about somebody else having those fragments.
Q: And the media interviewed you?
A: The media—I think it was Channel 4.
Q: Did that other individual who said he had fragments call you?
A: No. We had no contact.
Q: Okay. Mr. Freeman, when he wrote this, I think he’s basing his account on—he cited this receipt. He’s no longer with the staff. (Unintelligible) He was basically assigned this receipt. He was trying to piece this together. Did you ever meet any State Troopers who were not in uniform the whole time at the hospital?
A: Not that I’m aware of. I think even Colonel Garrison always wore a uniform.
Q: Do you remember talking to Mr. Alexander at all about any fragments or having any conversations with him?
A: Our crime lab Alexander?
Q: Yes.
A: I’m just trying to recall. That could have been the other person. Because I wanted—I was going to give them to him, and he said it was okay to go ahead and give them. He could have have been the second individual that was in the room. But basically, no. This is the first time I’ve ever thought about talking to Lieutenant Alexander about the fragments. Because they never got down to him. Normally I would have taken them down to him.
Q: Do you remember any other documents or memoranda about the fragments, or describing the transfer of them in a handwritten memorandum about the transfer of them—anything else about the envelope that you’ve already--
A: (unintelligible) the envelope. And the individual signed. I wrote on there something about the foreign body envelope containing the fragments were being given to--
Q: And you’re talking about the receipt now. There was an envelope, and there was a separate receipt.
A: Yes. They had to sign for them. It was on Dallas County Hospital Memorandum. I remember it was one of the red ones, the red memos that we had.
Q: Okay.
A: And it was about half of a 8 1/2 by 11 page, standard. And he signed it for me, and then that wen to Administration that afternoon.
Q: You sent it down to Administration?
A: I took it down.
Q: You took it down. Okay.
Q; And that was in your handwriting?
A: It was in my handwriting, yes.
So Audrey Bell was aware of this receipt. She was also aware of newspaper account in the Dallas Times Herald that mentioned "someone else" having this bullet, and the name "Nolan" might have been associated with that story. She seemed confused about the memo being discussed (whether it was actually shown to her is unclear.) She was trying to reconcile the name "Lt. Alexander" as possibly one of the two men who were at her office (I suspect she may have spoken with him over the telephone and being told it was "okay" to give her fragments over to the plainclothes agents). She seems to have forgotten the name "Sorrels" that she mentioned in her HSCA interview (it had been by the time of her ARRB interview some 30 years since the assassination), but she never wavered in her belief about two "plainclothes" agents.
Some researchers have suggested that Bobby Nolan was wearing plainclothes that day. He was not. In his account, he was uniformed, and that aided in his ability to escort Connally's sister around and being asked to assist in the Governor's security. It was his uniform that probably suggested to the nurse that it was okay to give the bullet to him, since he was law-enforcement. To repeat a quote from his interview above:
...this one lady nurse said that she gave me the bullet, and I turned it over to the FBI, but that’s not true. I didn’t turn it over to the FBI. I gave it to Will Fritz. And she says she gave it to a plainclothes officer. Well, I was in uniform all the time I was there. These things have come out, and either she’s confused or something, I don’t know. I don’t know who she was. I don’t re—I didn’t get the lady’s name that gave it to me.
I think he's misremembering something that was said in the Dallas Times Herald article or Channel 4 segment that was part of the 24-hour long "big play" Audrey Bell mentioned in her ARRB interview. If someone can dig up that article or find a video of the "Channel 4" segment and post it on YouTube, I would appreciate it.
A Speculation about the Unnamed Nurse
I am going to offer a speculation as to the identity of the nurse who picked up the Connally bullet: Diana Bowron. Nurse Bowron was recently come to Parkland Hospital from England, and had only been working at Parkland for 3 months of her 1-year contract, and planned to return to England at the end of her contract. She was also only 22 years old at the time of her Warren Commission testimony. She was young, inexperienced, and unfamiliar with U.S. laws. Henry Wade also suggested the name “Bowman” during his Mark Oakes interview. He could easily have confused his interactions with “Head Nurse” Elizabeth Wright with his earlier “some nurse” and “Bowman” to mean Diana Bowron, given that he had surely interacted with Elizabeth Wright (who was working to ensure the comfort of the Connally entourage) during his time visiting with Governor and Mrs. Connally.
And while she was apparently not involved in Connally’s care after he was taken to Trauma Room 2, Nurse Bowron did help get Governor Connally onto the gurney!
From Her Warren Commission Testimony:
Mr. SPECTER. And, where did you take your stretcher?
Miss BOWRON. To the left-hand side of the car as you are facing it, and we had to move Governor Connally out first because he was in the front. We couldn’t get to the back seat. While all the Secret Service men were moving Governor Connally I went around to the other side of the car to try to help with the President and then we got him onto the second cart and then took him straight over to trauma room 1.
Mr. SPECTER. Trauma Room Number 1?
Miss BOWRON. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. And describe in a general way Governor Connally’s condition when you first saw him?
Miss BOWRON. He was very pale, he was leaning forward and onto Mrs. Connally but apparently—I didn’t notice very much—I was more concerned with the person in the back of the car—the President.
Mr. SPECTER. And what, in a general way, did you observe with respect to President Kennedy’s condition?
Miss BOWRON. He was moribund—he was lying across Mrs. Kennedy’s knee and there seemed to be blood everywhere. When I went around to the other side of the car I saw the condition of his head.
Mr. SPECTER. You saw the condition of his what?
Miss BOWRON. The back of his head.
Mr. SPECTER. And what was that condition?
Miss BOWRON. Well, it was very bad—you know.
(I included some of the bit about Kennedy to show her observation of the back of the head blow-out.)
Vol. XI:X of the Warren Commission’s Hearings (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/html/WH_Vol19_0093a.htm) contains Bowron Exhibits 2, 3, and 4, which were articles published in British newspapers. Bowron Exhibits 3 and 4 were stamped “Top Secret.” One wonders why, since they seem fairly innocuous, although all three do mention her helping to get Connally onto the stretcher. One also wonders why there is no Bowron Exhibit "#1"? It was not mentioned in her testimony. Why would they start with “2”? Is there a “#1” buried somewhere? Removed because it mentioned the stretcher bullet? Who knows.
So Miss Bowron wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to Connally, and had a habit of putting stuff into her pocket. She had some interaction with Connally and the gurney when Connally was being taken out of the limousine. Henry Wade recalled the name “Bowman” (albeit erroneously attributing it to the “head nurse”).
So I’m thinking that maybe, just maybe, the bullet fell out of Connally’s leg as he was being placed on the first gurney as he was taken out of the car and before he was wheeled into Trauma Room 2, rather than when he was being moved onto the surgical gurney, perhaps hitting the edge of the gurney in the process to create the clink sound Connally recalled. The Governor was in a semi-conscious state and may have confused exactly which time he was being transferred onto a stretcher that the bullet fell out—although I do think he was correct about a “bullet” (and not a “cuff link,” as some researchers have suggested), especially given the Nolan and Wade accounts.
One of the reasons the Connally nurse has been so hard to track down is because she left Parkland Hospital at the end of her contract and returned to England, where she would be that much harder for researchers to track down (although Harrison Edward Livingstone managed to do it an interviewed her over the telephone and mail for one of his “High Treason” books, specifically to ask her about Kennedy’s back wound). Other Parkland workers, specifically Elizabeth Wright and Phyllis Hall (in her interview with me) made vague references to a nurse whom they declined to name—perhaps because they didn’t want to get the very young Diana Bowron into further trouble than she might already have been for not following standard procedure? And perhaps she never came forward publicly because she knew she had made a mistake and didn’t want to jeopardize her future career options, or had been warned not to say anything about it because of chain-of-custody issues?
Again, this is all speculation, but it has the merit of Henry Wade mentioning the name “Bowman” in his Mark Oakes interview, the inexperience of a young nurse who was likely unaware of proper chain-of-evidence procedures, and a known association of this nurse with the Connally stretcher. There’s also the very interesting missing “#1” in her exhibits, and the very interesting “Top Secret” stamp on two of the British newspaper articles that mention her helping get Connally onto his gurney.
So my candidate for the unnamed nurse is: Diana Bowron.
--Denise
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Update #3: The (Fraudulent?) FBI "302" Report on Audrey Bell
I did receive a reply back from one Gene Morris at the Archives (email dated 2/6/24 Re: [24-19976] Agency File Number 000919) to my request to Audrey Bell FBI "302" mentioned in Nurse Bell's ARRB interview in the respect of it saying "fragment" (singular) and it saying she turned this over to a "Texas State Trooper" whereas she recalled turning it over to two plainclothes federal agents (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md184/html/md184_0002a.htm). In the audio version of her interview, it is apparent that Audrey Bell was in her office when the two plainclothes agents came to collect the Connally wrist fragments.
Meanwhile, Bobby Nolan never mentioned signing any receipt for the fragments, and stated that he was "in uniform" on that day and on all subsequent days while at Parkland, and that he was standing in the hallway, when a nurse came up to him and gave him an envelope containing a "bullet" she said had come off Connally's gurney.
The FBI "302" report, on the other hand, says that she turned the "fragment" (singular) over to Nolan. The report is anonymous, being unsigned. My belief is that it is fraudulent. I think that in her interview the day after the assassination, in which Audrey Bell tells the ARRB interviewers that she was given a hard time during her 11/23/63 FBI interview (per the audio recording of the ARRB interview), they could not get her to say that she had been the one who turned either the Wade/Nolan bullet or the wrist fragments over to Bobby Nolan, so they just fraudulently said it for her. I think they were under orders to track the chain of custody for the Wade/Nolan bullet, and they couldn't the right nurse (my nurse candidate is Diana Bowman), so they claimed it was Audrey Bell. In Bell's HSCA interview, she (unprompted) mentioned the name of "Sorrels" as the one she gave the fragment to.
So either Audrey Bell are both "lying" or "mistaken," or the "302" is a fraudulent report. Given that it is unsigned (and aren't 302's required to give the name/s of the agent/s conducting the interview?) I suspect that it is a fraudulent report. They sent me a 4-page .pdf. However, pages 3 & 4 were simply repeats of p. 2 (the actual 1-page "302" report).
Anyway, here it is:
I did receive a reply back from one Gene Morris at the Archives (email dated 2/6/24 Re: [24-19976] Agency File Number 000919) to my request to Audrey Bell FBI "302" mentioned in Nurse Bell's ARRB interview in the respect of it saying "fragment" (singular) and it saying she turned this over to a "Texas State Trooper" whereas she recalled turning it over to two plainclothes federal agents (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md184/html/md184_0002a.htm). In the audio version of her interview, it is apparent that Audrey Bell was in her office when the two plainclothes agents came to collect the Connally wrist fragments.
Meanwhile, Bobby Nolan never mentioned signing any receipt for the fragments, and stated that he was "in uniform" on that day and on all subsequent days while at Parkland, and that he was standing in the hallway, when a nurse came up to him and gave him an envelope containing a "bullet" she said had come off Connally's gurney.
The FBI "302" report, on the other hand, says that she turned the "fragment" (singular) over to Nolan. The report is anonymous, being unsigned. My belief is that it is fraudulent. I think that in her interview the day after the assassination, in which Audrey Bell tells the ARRB interviewers that she was given a hard time during her 11/23/63 FBI interview (per the audio recording of the ARRB interview), they could not get her to say that she had been the one who turned either the Wade/Nolan bullet or the wrist fragments over to Bobby Nolan, so they just fraudulently said it for her. I think they were under orders to track the chain of custody for the Wade/Nolan bullet, and they couldn't the right nurse (my nurse candidate is Diana Bowman), so they claimed it was Audrey Bell. In Bell's HSCA interview, she (unprompted) mentioned the name of "Sorrels" as the one she gave the fragment to.
So either Audrey Bell are both "lying" or "mistaken," or the "302" is a fraudulent report. Given that it is unsigned (and aren't 302's required to give the name/s of the agent/s conducting the interview?) I suspect that it is a fraudulent report. They sent me a 4-page .pdf. However, pages 3 & 4 were simply repeats of p. 2 (the actual 1-page "302" report).
Anyway, here it is:
But like I said, I greatly suspect that this unsigned "302" report was fraudulently produced, for the reasons stated above. They needed something because they had a "fragment/bullet" that they could trace back to Bobby Nolan, but no farther. They needed that nurse (Diana Bowron?), and hadn't yet found her, They were under orders to establish the chain-custody of the Wade/Nolan bullet (technically a "fragment"), and their solution was to once again, blame any weaknesses of the story on the civilians--in this case, Audrey Bell.
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Update #4: AORN Article Attributed to Audrey Bell
On the Education Forum Site "JFK Assassination Debate," in the thread I started referencing this article, researcher Pat Speer posted an excerpt from an AORN (nursing journal) article entitled "Forty-Eight Hours and Thirty-One Minutes" attributed to Audrey Bell. The article can be found at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10.1177/216507996801600401 Clicking on the .pdf button above the article will get you to the whole article. This excerpt can be found on the second page:
On the Education Forum Site "JFK Assassination Debate," in the thread I started referencing this article, researcher Pat Speer posted an excerpt from an AORN (nursing journal) article entitled "Forty-Eight Hours and Thirty-One Minutes" attributed to Audrey Bell. The article can be found at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10.1177/216507996801600401 Clicking on the .pdf button above the article will get you to the whole article. This excerpt can be found on the second page:
My response to Pat Speer:
I found page 1 of this article at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001209208700474 ...This excerpt does present a conundrum. Audrey Bell insisted to the ARRB that it was "fragments" (plural) that she turned over to two "plainclothes" federal agents. This excerpt about a "fragment" (singular) turned over to "the Department of Public Safety" with the "garment itself" being released (passive voice) to a patrolman matches neither her HSCA interview (where she said "4 or 5 fragments" (plural) that she "delivered" to (she believed) "Mr. Sorrels," nor to her ARRB interview, wherein she denounced the (unsigned, unattributed) FBI "302" report dated 11/23/63 as "inaccurate" because it said "fragment" (singular) that she turned over to Dallas Highway Patrol officer Bobby Nolan, whereas she recalled turning "fragments" (plural) over to plainclothes federal agents in her office. Nor does this match Bobby Nolan's recollection that he was handed an envelope (with no writing) containing a "bullet" by a nurse in the hallway.
You might suggest that Audrey Bell was "mistaken" and mis-remembering who she turned the fragment/fragments over to But listening to the ARRB audio interview, she struck me as a pretty sharp cookie, even some 30 years after the assassination. She also struck me as someone who was familiar with proper procedure in handling the chain-of-evidence procedures, and turning a "fragment" over to Nolan would have been a breach of those procedures.
On the other hand, I recall the Carl Bernstein expose on The CIA and the Media (https://www.carlbernstein.com/the-cia-and-the-media-rolling-stone-10-20-1977) along with a CIA scandal at an institution where I used to work, the Rochester Institute of Technology (I taught English at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, NTID, as an Adjunct, and then Visiting instructor) indicating a massive CIA presence in that institution of education. (See https://reporter.rit.edu/views/cap-and-dagger). The scandal came out just after I had left in 1990. So I know that the CIA presence in various institutions has been more prevalent than most people realize.
I also recall that then-CIA director John McCone admitted to participating in a "benign cover-up" intended to keep the Warren Commission focused on "what the Agency believed at the time was the 'best truth'--that Lee Harvey Oswald, for as yet undetermined motives, had acted alone in killing John Kennedy." ("Yes, the CIA Director Was Part of the JFK Assassination Cover-up" https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/jfk-assassination-john-mccone-warren-commission-cia-213197/)
So given all that, and knowing personally that the CIA had a presence in a place where they had no business being (and RIT, by the way, was also the institution that "authenticated" the back yard photographs) I have to wonder whether a CIA presence in the editorial office in AORN might have altered her words.
I also note that neither the HSCA nor the ARRB asked her about that article, which is a damn shame.
So personally, I think that the "National Security" interest in covering up the AR-15 accident led to a CIA disinformation campaign that included altering Audrey Bell's original words for this article. I also think that there's a possibility that some Parkland personnel heard about a young and inexperienced nurse, Diana Bowron, who did not follow proper procedures for dealing with criminal evidence. Elizabeth Wright describes the entire staff being told not to talk to the press, and hints that "there was one (person)" who was especially told not to talk (about something) in her Mark Oakes interview. So there may have been an effort to protect a young 22-year-old nurse fresh out of training who was at the beginning of her career. That's all speculation, of course, but I like it better than the alternative: that Bell and Nolan were both so "mistaken" in their accounts.
Audrey Bell was apparently the President of AORN in 1968, the same year this article was published, which should be noted, as it would seem to make alteration more unlikely. However, the alteration could have occurred after the original article was published, in the process of creating this online version. I know that may seem absurd, but I still think the chances of its having been altered from Bell's original words are very good, given the alteration to the Zapruder Film, other photographs, autopsy evidence, etc. and the fact that the CIA was everywhere (including the place where I used to work--and I need to clarify that NTID was one of the umbrella colleges of RIT, technically "NTID at RIT"). Also remember Quentin Schwinn, the RIT student whom the CIA had tried to recruit by teasing him with autopsy photographs different from the extant ones? All that would need to be changed is one sentence: "Since it was apparent that the bullet fragment would be of utmost significance to the authorities, I removed it from the scrub nurses' table and turned it over to the Department of Public Safety." from "Since it was apparent that the bullet fragments would be of utmost significance to the authorities, I removed them from the scrub nurses' table and turned them over to Federal agents." Note that the next sentence about a "garment" that was released to "a patrolman" is in the passive voice, meaning that Audrey Bell didn't do this herself.
I realize that my assertion that the (unsigned) FBI "302" report for Audrey Bell is fraudulent, and my belief that Audrey Bell's original words for this article were altered (by some unnamed CIA asset) makes me seem like a "Conspiracy Theorist nut-case," but bearing in mind the Zapruder Film and assassination photographs were altered, and autopsy images were altered, I take this to be just one more facet of a wide-spread cover-up. Given also the CIA's presence in the media (per Carl Bernstein's exposé, the "hit job" done on Dr. Charles Crenshaw in the Journal of the American Medical Association--described in Crenshaw's book) and my own personal knowledge of a CIA presence in a place where it had no business being (in the very institution that "authenticated" the Oswald backyard photographs) makes me suspect that this paragraph is an alteration of her original words done by a CIA asset. Again, it's a damn shame she wasn't asked about this article in her HSCA interview, where she specifically pointed out the "fragment/fragments" discrepancy and insisted it was "fragments" plural.
I am reminded of the attempts to discredit Dr. Charles Crenshaw when he wrote an article for JAMA (Journal of American Medical Association) that ran counter to the official version of things, suggesting he had never even been in Trauma Room One. Crenshaw successfully sued the Journal, as I recall, but the damage to his reputation had been done. There was a sort of "damage control" effort done with Crenshaw, and there may well have been something of the sort done with Audrey Bell. Otherwise, we are left with a jarring discord between this article, and other statements by Bell inisisting that she dealt only with small multiple bullet fragments from Connally's wrist that were subsequently turned over to plainclothes federal agents, and the unsigned "302" and the article excerpt above.
At one point in time, I used to give the government and the official version of events the benefit of the doubt. That is no longer true. As I dug deeper and deeper into the case, my opinion changed. I doubt there was any "Deep State coup d'etat" or plan by LBJ or the CIA to have Kennedy murdered, or anything of the sort like that--an opinion so many others have reached. However, I am quite convinced that there was a widespread "benign cover-up" (John McCone's words) of the AR-15 "slam fire" accident.
Addendum: I also want to note how easy it would be to forge the half-page memorandum listing Bobby Nolan as the recipient of a "fragment." All it would take is a blank memorandum and a Lightbox (or alternatively, a window during daylight hours) and to trace the original receipt, minus the "-s" on "fragments" and to add "Bob Nolan's" name instead of the original recipient whom Bell named as "Sorrells." I also note that this receipt was not included in the collection of Price Exhibits that were part of the Warren Commission documents, so that would be another reason to question its provenance. I also want to note thatAudrey Bell described having received a "hard time" during her November 23, 1963 interview with FBI agents about the chain-of-custody of the wrist fragments, and how this led to an extra-careful chain-of-custody for the bullet (with no one else besides Bell and Shires handling it) that killed Oswald, with Dr. Shires handing it to her personally and telling her not to let another person touch it. And I suspect that the reason Nolan was told to "Give it Fritz" (and not to the DPD Crime Lab) was so that Fritz could use it in his interrogations of Oswald, to try to get a confession out of him.
I found page 1 of this article at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001209208700474 ...This excerpt does present a conundrum. Audrey Bell insisted to the ARRB that it was "fragments" (plural) that she turned over to two "plainclothes" federal agents. This excerpt about a "fragment" (singular) turned over to "the Department of Public Safety" with the "garment itself" being released (passive voice) to a patrolman matches neither her HSCA interview (where she said "4 or 5 fragments" (plural) that she "delivered" to (she believed) "Mr. Sorrels," nor to her ARRB interview, wherein she denounced the (unsigned, unattributed) FBI "302" report dated 11/23/63 as "inaccurate" because it said "fragment" (singular) that she turned over to Dallas Highway Patrol officer Bobby Nolan, whereas she recalled turning "fragments" (plural) over to plainclothes federal agents in her office. Nor does this match Bobby Nolan's recollection that he was handed an envelope (with no writing) containing a "bullet" by a nurse in the hallway.
You might suggest that Audrey Bell was "mistaken" and mis-remembering who she turned the fragment/fragments over to But listening to the ARRB audio interview, she struck me as a pretty sharp cookie, even some 30 years after the assassination. She also struck me as someone who was familiar with proper procedure in handling the chain-of-evidence procedures, and turning a "fragment" over to Nolan would have been a breach of those procedures.
On the other hand, I recall the Carl Bernstein expose on The CIA and the Media (https://www.carlbernstein.com/the-cia-and-the-media-rolling-stone-10-20-1977) along with a CIA scandal at an institution where I used to work, the Rochester Institute of Technology (I taught English at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, NTID, as an Adjunct, and then Visiting instructor) indicating a massive CIA presence in that institution of education. (See https://reporter.rit.edu/views/cap-and-dagger). The scandal came out just after I had left in 1990. So I know that the CIA presence in various institutions has been more prevalent than most people realize.
I also recall that then-CIA director John McCone admitted to participating in a "benign cover-up" intended to keep the Warren Commission focused on "what the Agency believed at the time was the 'best truth'--that Lee Harvey Oswald, for as yet undetermined motives, had acted alone in killing John Kennedy." ("Yes, the CIA Director Was Part of the JFK Assassination Cover-up" https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/jfk-assassination-john-mccone-warren-commission-cia-213197/)
So given all that, and knowing personally that the CIA had a presence in a place where they had no business being (and RIT, by the way, was also the institution that "authenticated" the back yard photographs) I have to wonder whether a CIA presence in the editorial office in AORN might have altered her words.
I also note that neither the HSCA nor the ARRB asked her about that article, which is a damn shame.
So personally, I think that the "National Security" interest in covering up the AR-15 accident led to a CIA disinformation campaign that included altering Audrey Bell's original words for this article. I also think that there's a possibility that some Parkland personnel heard about a young and inexperienced nurse, Diana Bowron, who did not follow proper procedures for dealing with criminal evidence. Elizabeth Wright describes the entire staff being told not to talk to the press, and hints that "there was one (person)" who was especially told not to talk (about something) in her Mark Oakes interview. So there may have been an effort to protect a young 22-year-old nurse fresh out of training who was at the beginning of her career. That's all speculation, of course, but I like it better than the alternative: that Bell and Nolan were both so "mistaken" in their accounts.
Audrey Bell was apparently the President of AORN in 1968, the same year this article was published, which should be noted, as it would seem to make alteration more unlikely. However, the alteration could have occurred after the original article was published, in the process of creating this online version. I know that may seem absurd, but I still think the chances of its having been altered from Bell's original words are very good, given the alteration to the Zapruder Film, other photographs, autopsy evidence, etc. and the fact that the CIA was everywhere (including the place where I used to work--and I need to clarify that NTID was one of the umbrella colleges of RIT, technically "NTID at RIT"). Also remember Quentin Schwinn, the RIT student whom the CIA had tried to recruit by teasing him with autopsy photographs different from the extant ones? All that would need to be changed is one sentence: "Since it was apparent that the bullet fragment would be of utmost significance to the authorities, I removed it from the scrub nurses' table and turned it over to the Department of Public Safety." from "Since it was apparent that the bullet fragments would be of utmost significance to the authorities, I removed them from the scrub nurses' table and turned them over to Federal agents." Note that the next sentence about a "garment" that was released to "a patrolman" is in the passive voice, meaning that Audrey Bell didn't do this herself.
I realize that my assertion that the (unsigned) FBI "302" report for Audrey Bell is fraudulent, and my belief that Audrey Bell's original words for this article were altered (by some unnamed CIA asset) makes me seem like a "Conspiracy Theorist nut-case," but bearing in mind the Zapruder Film and assassination photographs were altered, and autopsy images were altered, I take this to be just one more facet of a wide-spread cover-up. Given also the CIA's presence in the media (per Carl Bernstein's exposé, the "hit job" done on Dr. Charles Crenshaw in the Journal of the American Medical Association--described in Crenshaw's book) and my own personal knowledge of a CIA presence in a place where it had no business being (in the very institution that "authenticated" the Oswald backyard photographs) makes me suspect that this paragraph is an alteration of her original words done by a CIA asset. Again, it's a damn shame she wasn't asked about this article in her HSCA interview, where she specifically pointed out the "fragment/fragments" discrepancy and insisted it was "fragments" plural.
I am reminded of the attempts to discredit Dr. Charles Crenshaw when he wrote an article for JAMA (Journal of American Medical Association) that ran counter to the official version of things, suggesting he had never even been in Trauma Room One. Crenshaw successfully sued the Journal, as I recall, but the damage to his reputation had been done. There was a sort of "damage control" effort done with Crenshaw, and there may well have been something of the sort done with Audrey Bell. Otherwise, we are left with a jarring discord between this article, and other statements by Bell inisisting that she dealt only with small multiple bullet fragments from Connally's wrist that were subsequently turned over to plainclothes federal agents, and the unsigned "302" and the article excerpt above.
At one point in time, I used to give the government and the official version of events the benefit of the doubt. That is no longer true. As I dug deeper and deeper into the case, my opinion changed. I doubt there was any "Deep State coup d'etat" or plan by LBJ or the CIA to have Kennedy murdered, or anything of the sort like that--an opinion so many others have reached. However, I am quite convinced that there was a widespread "benign cover-up" (John McCone's words) of the AR-15 "slam fire" accident.
Addendum: I also want to note how easy it would be to forge the half-page memorandum listing Bobby Nolan as the recipient of a "fragment." All it would take is a blank memorandum and a Lightbox (or alternatively, a window during daylight hours) and to trace the original receipt, minus the "-s" on "fragments" and to add "Bob Nolan's" name instead of the original recipient whom Bell named as "Sorrells." I also note that this receipt was not included in the collection of Price Exhibits that were part of the Warren Commission documents, so that would be another reason to question its provenance. I also want to note thatAudrey Bell described having received a "hard time" during her November 23, 1963 interview with FBI agents about the chain-of-custody of the wrist fragments, and how this led to an extra-careful chain-of-custody for the bullet (with no one else besides Bell and Shires handling it) that killed Oswald, with Dr. Shires handing it to her personally and telling her not to let another person touch it. And I suspect that the reason Nolan was told to "Give it Fritz" (and not to the DPD Crime Lab) was so that Fritz could use it in his interrogations of Oswald, to try to get a confession out of him.