Robert Prudhomme

Malcolm Couch was a cameraman for WFAA-TV in Dallas, and he and photographer Bob Jackson were riding in the backseat of a press car convertible in the motorcade; the eighth car back from JFK's limo. According to Couch's WC testimony, they had just turned onto Houston St. when they heard the first shot. Then, just before they reached the corner of Houston and Elm, two more quick shots were heard. According to Couch, at this time Bob Jackson yelled "Look up in the window! There's the rifle!" Couch then testifies that he looked up to the 6th or 7th floor just in time to see a rifle barrel being withdrawn into the window.

This is the footage he took likely only a second later:

Amazingly, Couch passes up a chance, should the gunman have leaned out for another shot, of filming the 6th floor window, just to film Baker running into the TSBD. Anyone besides me find this a bit strange?

The REALLY interesting thing about this film, and I am embarrassed to say I never noticed it until last night, is that the car Couch and Jackson are in is sitting absolutely still for the entire time Couch was filming Baker, and only moves off down Elm St. after Couch pans back to film the convertible ahead of them in the motorcade.

Does this prove the limo halted?

Considering both cars were halted for quite some time, at the corner of Elm and Houston, Bob Jackson must not have yelled very loud about the rifle in the 6th floor window, as the occupants of the car ahead of them don't seem to be interested in it either, and none of them so much as glance up at the 6th floor.

Just out of curiosity, Gary, do you think Olin was acting out of concern for customer confidentiality? What I mean by this, could the CIA have asked them to give out the pre-1944 story, if anyone should come around asking questions?

This seems a bit of a stretch, but then one has to consider how much the people Meagher and Galanor spoke to were "in the know", and if, by 1963, the 1954 contract had been whitewashed into something from WW II.

Thank you for that, Gary. You've provided a perspective I had not considered before; the possibility that Meagher and Galanor were purposely misled by Olin.

Hello Gary

It is good to see you posting again. I had not seen anything from you in a while and it is good to see you are still in fine form.

Your work on the origins of the WCC 6.5mm Carcano cartridges is so thorough and extensive, it has inspired me to take a closer look at my beliefs, and to study the subject much more thoroughly.

What has always bothered me about the manufacture date of 1954, and the connection with the CIA, is just what part of the planet could possibly employ 4 million rounds of an obsolete cartridge at that particular point in history. My research eventually led me to the Italian occupation of the tiny country of Albania during the Second World War. It seems that, prior to Italy signing an armistice with the Allies in 1943 and removing themselves from the war, Italy had lost several battles to Albanian partisans with the subsequent seizure of many Carcano rifles. Following the signing of the armistice, Italian troops were disarmed by co-occupying German forces, often violently. One account states that the commanding general and 150 officers of one Italian division were executed by firing squad. As was the case with Italian troops being repatriated to Italy from Greece following the armistice, Germany was deeply afraid these troops would return to Italy as anti-Nazi partisans, which is precisely what happened.

It is unclear precisely what happened to the Carcano rifles seized by the Germans. It is known that some returned to Germany and were used there, but it must be assumed that many stayed in Albania, and were seized by partisans following the expulsion of German occupiers.

The next chapter, and I will only touch on it briefly, is the failed overthrow of the communist Albanian government in 1954, led by Western forces including the USA. The plan was betrayed to the Russians, and ultimately the Albanians, by the famous British double agent Kim Philby. The reading of the account of this failed overthrow finally explains, to me anyways, why 4 million rounds of this obsolete ammo would be made so secretively in 1954.

That being said, there still remains the conundrum of the two letters, from executives in the Olin Corp., stating that their production of this ammunition was all pre-1944.

From Sylvia Meagher's book "Accessories After the Fact":

"On March 23, 1964, Mr. RW Botts, District Manager, Winchester-Western Division, Olin Mathieson Chemical Corp., Braniff Building, advised that the Western Cartridge Co., a division of Olin Industries, East Alton, Illinois, manufactured a quantity of 6.5 M/M Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition for the Italian government during World War II. At the end of the war the Italian Carcano rifle, and no telling how much of this type ammunition, was sold to United States gunbrokers and dealers and subsequently was distributed by direct sales to wholesalers, retailers and direct purchasers."

From Mark Lane's "Rush to Judgement", an excerpt from a letter, also from the Olin Corp, to Lane associate Stewart Galanor:

"Any previous production on this cartridge was made against government contracts, which were completed in 1944."

Looking at the obvious contradiction here, one can only draw three reasonable conclusions.

1. Sylvia Meagher and Mark Lane have both told an outrageous lie.

2. The FBI memo from 1963 regarding the cartridges in 1954 is a deception by the FBI, and also a lie.

3. Cartridges were made pre-1944 AND in 1954, and the knowledge of the 1954 production was kept to a very few people in the Olin Corp.

No. 3 seems to be the most likely of the three, and opens up other possibilities. As far as anyone knows, 6.5 WCC cartridges never made it into the hands of Italian partisans in Italy, if they were ever manufactured, and likely were kept in storage in the USA.

Could it be possible these pre-1944 cartridges were taken out of storage and dressed up as "new" cartridges in 1954?

Robert

A couple of questions.

Can you provide testimonies or statements showing the Parkland bullet described as a "Mauser" bullet?

What calibre were the Argentine Mausers, and what source told you the CIA supplied them to Castro?

Yes, it usually does, with the result being a tremendous reduction in the muzzle velocity of the bullet fired from that round. This is one of the great myths of the JFK assassination, that the "shallow" back wound in JFK was from a "short shot".

Can you see the problems with this idea, and why it is not a rational explanation?

Would anyone care to give me his definition of what a "short shot" is?

Nah, he's too homely to be on TV, Pat.

Hang on here. I never fired a DRT frangible bullet into a deer's head and, to date, have not had the privilege to shoot one of these rounds. They are fairly new onto the market, and I'm not even sure they are sold in Canada yet. The bullet I fired into the deer's head was a simple hollow point bullet with a solid lead core. While the DRT frangible bullet also has a hollow point noise, its core is made from compressed metal powder.

A soft tipped bullet will often stay in one piece, although the nose will look mushroomed, and often will exit the opposite side of the skull.

Think of bullets in this order:

Full metal jacket - no expansion, tends to exit unless special features (not found in Carcano bullet) makes it tumble in wound

Soft tipped - limited and often controlled expansion (guarantees kill but limits amount of damage to meat in game animals), may not always exit. Expansion will impart energy.

Hollow point - uncontrolled expansion, does not have to hit bone to make it open up in fact, opens better going through flesh. Often does not exit and imparts most of its energy to surrounding tissue

Hollow point frangible (DRT Ammo) - total disintegration into 3-4 inch diameter lethal cloud of metal powder. NEVER exits, imparts ALL of its energy to surrounding tissue.

There are many variations of FMJ, soft tipped and hollow point bullets that will perform in various different ways but, these are the basic bullets.

You ask about the head snap. The thing to consider is that the skull is a water tight vessel filled with fluid and semi-fluid matter. The first thing taught in any class concerning hydraulics is that while air can be compressed, fluid cannot. If a frangible bullet stops 2 inches into the skull as it disintegrates, ALL of its energy is transferred to the brain matter ahead of it. As this brain matter is semi-fluid, it cannot be compressed within the skull, and this energy is transferred through it to the skull itself.

None of these bullets seem to have a hard time penetrating skull bone, and I don't believe they lose a lot of energy doing so. Even the hollow points I used only made a tiny entrance wound in a skull.

I have looked closely at the head snap in the Z film, and I recognize it. It is very brief, and I don't believe it moves JFK more than an inch to the left. I believe the remaining "back and to the left" motion is simply JFK's inert form falling over, due to gravity.

No, that's not what I am saying at all. Did you go to the Dynamic Research Technologies web site I posted and study up on their frangible hunting bullet?

David Andrews @ post #8:

David, I don't see the head snap in Nix that I see in Zapruder. Caveats: The perspectives are different. There's reason to believe the extant Nix film is a fabrication.

As for frangible bullets, the same principle of momentum applies. If the bullet pierces the scalp and skull, enters the brain, and then fragments, the bullet's momentum is transferred partly to the skull; the remaining momentum is allocated to the brain and the separate fragments. The laws of physics that apply here are relatively simple in concept but would be complex to apply in actual analysis. The basic outcome in terms of head-snapping will be the same as for an FMJ bullet.

If on the other hand a frangible bullet breaks apart upon hitting the head, does not enter the brain, and imparts all of its momentum to the skull, the skull is going to behave as if it were hit by a hard object (a rock, a hammer, etc.) that broke apart on hitting the skull (i.e., didn't rebound). That is, the skull is going to be driven forcibly.

The analysis is only slightly more complex if one assumes muscles are tensed and are holding the head in fairly fairly rigid way. In this case, momentum imparted to the head is imparted to the mass of the head, associated muscles and bones, and associated internal components. The whole of this mass will take on the momentum imparted by the striking of the bullet.

You've never done a lot of hunting, right? What would be the point of using a frangible bullet, if it broke up on the outside of the skull, instead of entering the skull?

For your education, go to this site and read all of the info there.

www.drtammo.com

"Do the ballistics of a frangible bullet affect the Zapruder head-snap?"

The perfect question, David, and I'm glad you asked it.

The prisoners seen being shot in the films are likely shot with non-expanding full metal jacket bullets. Because they do not come to an immediate halt inside of a head wound, or expand, they create a minimal pressure wave, and do not transfer that much energy to surrounding tissue. These bullets will likely exit the other side of the skull, or ricochet around inside the skull until they are spent.

OTOH, a frangible bullet or a hollow point bullet or even the humble soft tipped bullet is designed to expand or break up, and, in the case of the frangible bullet (and many hollow points), is designed to break up completely and come to a halt a few inches into the skull. By coming to a halt, ALL of the energy of the bullet is applied to a non-compressible semi-liquid matter (ie. the brain) and, hydraulically, this energy is then transferred to the skull itself. The amount of expansion and the amount the bullet is slowed (or halted) will directly determine the amount of energy transferred to the skull, along with factors such as bullet weight and bullet velocity.

Sound complicated? I'll put it in simpler terms. I hit a deer in the side of the skull, at about 100 yards, with a 110 grain hollow point bullet fired at a velocity of 2850 fps from a .308 calibre rifle. The bullet made a neat little entrance wound and did not exit; nor was there any blowout wound. This shot lifted this deer right off of his front feet and laid him on his side. I had never seen a soft tipped bullet lift a deer off its front feet.

One hundred yards is the range, and means it will not go further than that. My .308 calibre rifle has a range of a few miles. Are you seriously trying to tell me someone is going to try to hit JFK at z190 from the Grassy Knoll with this electric pop gun?

Why do you think it is we go to all the trouble of using rifles to hunt deer, instead of just using handguns?

I just saw that Mr. Holland corroborated another thing Dan Rather claimed to have seen. While we see JFK going back and to his left, Mr. Holland describes seeing JFK in this way, "I observed it. It knocked him completely down on the floor. Over, just slumped completely over." As the floor could only be ahead of the seat, Holland is NOT describing JFK going back and to the left.

Dan Rather's description of the JFK head shot, "His head could be seen to move violently forward."

Below is a link to a Youtube film showing newsman Dan Rather describing his viewing of the Zapruder film on 25/11/63.

His descriptions vary greatly from what is actually seen in the version of the Z film we see today. I had put this down to Mr. Rather misremembering (OMG! Misremembering? I just used a classic LN verb) what he had seen but, after reading some eyewitness testimony today, I believe he was describing exactly what he saw.

At about 1:34 in this film, Mr. Rather describes Gov. John Connally turning in his seat, and extending his right hand towards JFK. Of course, no such thing can be seen in today's version of the Z film. However, read this excerpt from the WC testimony of eyewitness S.M. Holland, a railroad worker who saw the assassination unfold from atop the Triple Underpass.

"Mr. HOLLAND - And the motorcade was coming down in this fashion, and the President was waving to the people on this side [indicating].

Mr. STERN - That is the north side of Elm Street?
Mr. HOLLAND - Yes; On the north side.
Mr. STERN - All right.
Mr. HOLLAND - And she was looking in this direction [indicating].
Mr. STERN - "She," is Mrs. Kennedy?
Mr. HOLLAND - His wife. And about that time---
Mr. STERN - Was looking in a southern direction?
Mr. HOLLAND - In the southern direction.
Mr. STERN - South side of Elm Street?
Mr. HOLLAND - And about that time he went over like that [indicating], and put his hand up, and she was still looking off, as well as I could tell.
Mr. STERN - Now, when you say, "he went like that," you leaned forward and raised your right hand?
Mr. HOLLAND - Pulled forward and hand just stood like that momentarily.
Mr. STERN - With his right hand?
Mr. HOLLAND - His right hand; and that was the first report that I heard.
Mr. STERN - What did it sound like?
Mr. HOLLAND - Well, it was pretty loud, and naturally, underneath this underpass here it would be a little louder, the concussion from underneath it, it was a pretty loud report, and the car traveled a few yards, and Governor Connally turned in this fashion, like that [indicating] with his hand out, and another report.
Mr. STERN - With his right hand out?
Mr. HOLLAND - Turning to his right.
Mr. STERN - To his right?
Mr. HOLLAND - And another report rang out and he slumped down in his seat, and about that time Mrs. Kennedy was looking at these girls over here [indicating]. The girls standing---now one of them was taking a picture, and the other one was just standing there, and she turned around facing the President and Governor Connally. In other words, she realized what was happening, I guess.
Now, I mean, that was apparently that---she turned back around, and by the time she could get turned around he was hit again along in---I'd say along in here [indicating].
Mr. STERN - How do you know that? Did you observe that?
Mr. HOLLAND - I observed it. It knocked him completely down on the floor. Over, just slumped completely over. That second---
Mr. STERN - Did you hear a third report?
Mr. HOLLAND - I heard a third report and I counted four shots and about the same time all this was happening, and in this group of trees--[indicating].
Mr. STERN - Now, you are indicating trees on the north side of Elm Street?"

So, Dan rather was not the only one to see Connally extend his hand out. Is this more proof of alteration of the Z film?

Sooo, if my logical deductions tell me the throat wound was a wound of exit, and came from the breakup of the nose section of a very special bullet that entered the back of JFK's skull, just to the right of the external occipital protuberance, does that mean I am a disinfo agent?

It would be compassionate to make leeway for visions of fantasy or insanity that had disregarded significant evidences to draw such a frivolous conclusion, we could pity your demise.

Just kidding Robert

I would say prove it.

Check out the thread about the back shot I started.

I read the whole thing, Cliff; twice, in fact.

Not ONE word about the effective range of a dart launcher, not ONE word about the muzzle velocity of such a launcher, absolutely NOTHING about what becomes of the dart once it enters its victim, although Dr. Senseny did testify the original cartridges became stuck in the launcher, and had to be replaced with platinum cartridges.

Do you think a platinum dart would dissolve inside of a wound?

Hi Jon

Take a look at these three diagrams showing the top two cervical vertabrae, C1 and C2, positioned below the foramen magnum opening.

As seen, C1 and C2 are also referred to as the "atlas" and "axis". It is clearly demonstrated here that the base of the skull and C1 vertebra are not a tight fit but, instead, are connected across the gap between them by membranes, and there should be sufficient space between them to allow a bullet fragment to pass. How tough these membranes are, I do not know, but I imagine they would offer far less resistance than the bone of a vertebra. Of course, this is not to say the fragment didn't strike C1 a glancing blow as it made its way to JFK's trachea.

I know exactly what you are talking about. I just don't believe it to be feasible. No one in their right mind is going to be taking a shot at JFK in a moving limo with an airgun. It would be hard enough to make that shot with a rifle.

JFK was shot in the throat from the front, whether you like it or not.

Where do you get "airgun"?

Simple. Anything with a higher muzzle velocity than an airgun would put your projectile right through JFK's neck and out the back of his neck.

Let me see if I have this right. The bullet (or whatever you call it) enters the throat, passing through the outer part of the right side of the trachea, passes just outside of the tip of the C7 transverse process, grazes the top of the T1 transverse process, and then what? Your arrow stops at T1. Does the projectile exit, or stay there? What becomes of it?

P.S.

Precisely what weapon would shoot this projectile, and what is your estimate of this projectile's muzzle velocity?

I know exactly what you are talking about. I just don't believe it to be feasible. No one in their right mind is going to be taking a shot at JFK in a moving limo with an airgun. It would be hard enough to make that shot with a rifle.

Answer the question, Cliff, unless, of course, you are afraid of what my response might be.

This is a line of discourse I don't wish to pursue.

Ain't my first rodeo, pal.

Since my name is on the header I have license to discuss what I want to discuss.

You asked a question -- "Where did the bullet in JFK's back go?"

I answered by citing one of 4 crucial conspiracy theories -- 3 theories regarding JFK, 1 theory regarding the murder of the Ngo Bros.

I'll argue going forward that these theories are connected.

US Army Special Operations Division "Staff Support Group"-- Paul Helliwell's drug crew, Averell Harriman's private militia.

You have a very strange way of debating. You seem to be answering the question of where the bullet in JFK's back went by reciting your four "crucial" conspiracy theories. How is it all connected?

I'm intrigued by the WC testimony of the DPD officer on the TUP who testified his view of the assassination was blocked by a train on the TUP. What was his name?

Answer the question, Cliff, unless, of course, you are afraid of what my response might be.

Proof, Cliff, we need proof.

First, that JFK was actually grabbing his tie.

Second, that there was any kind of wound in JFK's throat pre-z313.

I can provide medical evidence that JFK was shot in the top section of the right lung, and suffered a tension pneumothorax in that lung, for which he received emergency treatment from Parkland surgeons.