How Many Bullets?

[Kathleen Collins]

There's a story in the news today about bullet fragments. Scientists have reviewed the bullets again and have come to the conclusion that there was more than one assassin. I expect this should make Kennedy Researchers very happy. I wonder what Bugliosi will say about this report.

http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/ke...S00010000000001

Kathy

[Michael Hogan]

There's a story in the news today about bullet fragments. Scientists have reviewed the bullets again and have come to the conclusion that there was more than one assassin.....

http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/ke...S00010000000001

Not true according the Washington Post:

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

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7051601967.html

The original thread on this subject contains important links. Nowhere does it say the scientists concluded there was more than one assassin. They just allow for the possibility.

Edited May 18, 2007 by Michael Hogan

[Shanet Clark]

Not that simple.

The new report is clearly a denial of the Warren Commission.

Rather than state positively that all the lead fragments came from

two Oswald bullets, the new conclusions state that the fragments

could have come from up to five separate shells.........

that is not support for the lame single assassin / lone gunman theory

it directly REFUTES the old false evidence supporting the Warren Commission !!!

[Michael Hogan]

Not that simple.

The new report is clearly a denial of the Warren Commission.

Rather than state positively that all the lead fragments came from

two Oswald bullets, the new conclusions state that the fragments

could have come from up to five separate shells.........

that is not support for the lame single assassin / lone gunman theory

it directly REFUTES the old false evidence supporting the Warren Commission !!!

Shanet, no one is claiming these findings are not potentially significant. The scientists involved in the study recommend

further testing. But the fact remains; The scientists did not conclude there was more than one assassin.

Here is the link supplied by Doug Caddy in the original thread to The Annals of Applied Statistics:

http://www.imstat.org/aoas/next_issue.html

Edited May 19, 2007 by Michael Hogan

[Kathleen Collins]

Not that simple.

The new report is clearly a denial of the Warren Commission.

Rather than state positively that all the lead fragments came from

two Oswald bullets, the new conclusions state that the fragments

could have come from up to five separate shells.........

that is not support for the lame single assassin / lone gunman theory

it directly REFUTES the old false evidence supporting the Warren Commission !!!

I agree with you, Shanet. AOL news has been reporting it since yesterday and continue to. This is proof that there were at least 2 gunmen. This argument reminds me of when they did carbon testing on the Shroud of Turin and told the Vatican the Shroud was a fraud. The Vatican found its own experts and ruled out carbon testing as a means of determining if this cloth covered Jesus' body after he died. The Shroud had fire marks -- it had caught fire in some century -- so carbon dating couldn't be accurate. Somehow the Vatican got an expert's opinion for proof the Shroud was genuine.

This will go on forever, the argument that Kennedy was killed by Oswald from behind and our argument that there were multiple assassins and Lee Harvey Oswald became the patsy.

Kathy

[John Simkin]

Doubt cast on JFK 'lone assassin' theory

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington

Published: 18 May 2007

More than 40 years after he was fatally shot in Dallas, researchers have added fresh fuel to the speculation over who was involved in the assassination of President John F Kennedy by claiming the original bullet analysis was flawed and cannot rule out that a second gunman was involved.

Using new scientific techniques not available to previous researchers and analysing bullets from the same batch purportedly used by Lee Harvey Oswald, the team has argued that it cannot be assumed that Oswald was the only assassin involved. While they do not claim evidence to prove a second gunman participated, they say the original fragments of the bullets recovered from the scene of the shooting should be re-examined.

"Given the significance and impact of the JFK assassination, it is scientifically desirable for the evidentiary fragments to be reanalysed," the researchers write in the journal Annals of Applied Statistics.

Kennedy, the 35th US president, was fatally shot as his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas on 22 November 1963. The official Warren commission that investigated the killing concluded the following year that the president had been killed by two of three shots fired by Oswald - his first shot having missed - from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

The second shot - the so-called magic bullet - struck Kennedy in the back and exited through his neck before striking the Texas Governor John Connally, who was travelling in the same limousine. The third shot hit Kennedy in the head and killed him.

Despite the official conclusion that Oswald acted alone, there has been endless speculation other gunmen participated in the killing and that the authorities sought to cover up their participation. Grainy photographs and footage from a home movie, the Zapruder film, are examined for other possible assassins standing on the grassy knoll or else behind the white picket fence - locations surrounding Dealey Plaza that have entered conspiratorial lore.

The team arguing that five fragments of bullet recovered from Dealey Plaza be re-examined include William Tobin, the FBI's former chief metallurgy analyst, who examined evidence from cases such as the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 1996 bombing of TWA Flight 800.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that after he retired, Mr Tobin drew national attention by questioning the FBI's methods of matching bullets to suspects based on their lead content. As a result of his questions, the bureau switched its methods.

The original analysis, based on lead content, concluded the five fragments came from just two bullets, traced to the same batch that Oswald bought. Mr Tobin and his colleagues purchased bullets from the same batch owned by Oswald - available on the internet as collectors' items - and used new techniques to analyse them. They found the science and statistical assumptions used by the original examination to conclude the fragments were from just two bullets was wrong.

"This finding means that the bullet fragments from the assassination that match could have come from three or more separate bullets," the researchers write. "If the assassination fragments are derived from three or more separate bullets than a second assassin is likely."

Conspiracists have received support from many areas, not least Oswald's background as a visitor to the Soviet Union and his interest in Cuba. The fact that he himself was shot just days after the assassination by a man with low-level links to the Mafia - and who himself died soon afterwards from cancer - have only added to speculation.

A 1979 report by the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded it was likely Oswald acted as part of a conspiracy and that a second gunman is likely to have fired at Kennedy but missed.

But for each point raised by the conspiracists, others have been able to offer a rebuttal. Just last month, former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi published an exhaustive 2,792-page book, Reclaiming History, that also concludes Oswald acted alone and seeks to knock down most, if not all, the surviving conspiracies.

Despite this, polls show that a majority of Americans still believe there was more to Kennedy's assassination and the official version is not complete. Gerald Posner, author of Case Closed, another convincing study that concludes Oswald acted alone, hits upon one reason why people cannot accept that Oswald, armed with a $12 rifle, could be responsible for such an epic event.

In the book he quotes the historian William Manchester: "Those who desperately want to believe that President Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy have my sympathy. If you put the murdered President of the United States on one side of the scale and that wretched waif Oswald on the other side, it does not balance. You want to add something weightier to Oswald."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americ...icle2556467.ece

[Michael G. Smith]

Doubt cast on JFK 'lone assassin' theory

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington

Published: 18 May 2007

More than 40 years after he was fatally shot in Dallas, researchers have added fresh fuel to the speculation over who was involved in the assassination of President John F Kennedy by claiming the original bullet analysis was flawed and cannot rule out that a second gunman was involved.

Using new scientific techniques not available to previous researchers and analysing bullets from the same batch purportedly used by Lee Harvey Oswald, the team has argued that it cannot be assumed that Oswald was the only assassin involved. While they do not claim evidence to prove a second gunman participated, they say the original fragments of the bullets recovered from the scene of the shooting should be re-examined.

"Given the significance and impact of the JFK assassination, it is scientifically desirable for the evidentiary fragments to be reanalysed," the researchers write in the journal Annals of Applied Statistics.

Kennedy, the 35th US president, was fatally shot as his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas on 22 November 1963. The official Warren commission that investigated the killing concluded the following year that the president had been killed by two of three shots fired by Oswald - his first shot having missed - from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

The second shot - the so-called magic bullet - struck Kennedy in the back and exited through his neck before striking the Texas Governor John Connally, who was travelling in the same limousine. The third shot hit Kennedy in the head and killed him.

Despite the official conclusion that Oswald acted alone, there has been endless speculation other gunmen participated in the killing and that the authorities sought to cover up their participation. Grainy photographs and footage from a home movie, the Zapruder film, are examined for other possible assassins standing on the grassy knoll or else behind the white picket fence - locations surrounding Dealey Plaza that have entered conspiratorial lore.

The team arguing that five fragments of bullet recovered from Dealey Plaza be re-examined include William Tobin, the FBI's former chief metallurgy analyst, who examined evidence from cases such as the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 1996 bombing of TWA Flight 800.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that after he retired, Mr Tobin drew national attention by questioning the FBI's methods of matching bullets to suspects based on their lead content. As a result of his questions, the bureau switched its methods.

The original analysis, based on lead content, concluded the five fragments came from just two bullets, traced to the same batch that Oswald bought. Mr Tobin and his colleagues purchased bullets from the same batch owned by Oswald - available on the internet as collectors' items - and used new techniques to analyse them. They found the science and statistical assumptions used by the original examination to conclude the fragments were from just two bullets was wrong.

"This finding means that the bullet fragments from the assassination that match could have come from three or more separate bullets," the researchers write. "If the assassination fragments are derived from three or more separate bullets than a second assassin is likely."

Conspiracists have received support from many areas, not least Oswald's background as a visitor to the Soviet Union and his interest in Cuba. The fact that he himself was shot just days after the assassination by a man with low-level links to the Mafia - and who himself died soon afterwards from cancer - have only added to speculation.

A 1979 report by the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded it was likely Oswald acted as part of a conspiracy and that a second gunman is likely to have fired at Kennedy but missed.

But for each point raised by the conspiracists, others have been able to offer a rebuttal. Just last month, former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi published an exhaustive 2,792-page book, Reclaiming History, that also concludes Oswald acted alone and seeks to knock down most, if not all, the surviving conspiracies.

Despite this, polls show that a majority of Americans still believe there was more to Kennedy's assassination and the official version is not complete. Gerald Posner, author of Case Closed, another convincing study that concludes Oswald acted alone, hits upon one reason why people cannot accept that Oswald, armed with a $12 rifle, could be responsible for such an epic event.

In the book he quotes the historian William Manchester: "Those who desperately want to believe that President Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy have my sympathy. If you put the murdered President of the United States on one side of the scale and that wretched waif Oswald on the other side, it does not balance. You want to add something weightier to Oswald."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americ...icle2556467.ece

This is a perfect example as to why we were never able to get the remaining fragments out of Connally. Back then it was because there was too many fragments left in Connally to account for on the "magic" bullet. They were never going to let anyone get those fragments, as it would have blown the single shooter theory out of the water. Now if we had those fragments [from Connally] you would really have something to work with. I wouldnt be surprised to hear that after all these years, they "lost" the remaining fragments. Lol [i suppose they would have doctored all of the fragments by now to match] Just my opinion FWIW-smitty