Why was the Walker bullet hole not a through-and-through hole?

[Greg Doudna]

Tom, speaking of the Warren Commission asking the FBI to investigate the Walker shot, the FBI did somewhat and returned its results a whole one hour—that’s sixty minutes—before the WC began its only questioning of arguably the single most sensitive witness next to the never-called Kirk Coleman, namely Walker aide Robert Surrey. 

And although it has attracted little attention, in that report, in a closing paragraph with the personal stamp of Director Hoover right over that physical paragraph, the FBI informed the Warren Commission that it had NOT come to a finding that Oswald tried to shoot and kill Walker. 

The Warren Commission found and published that conclusion, and if asked the FBI would refer to what the WC found. But the WC’s own investigators, the FBI, never claimed themselves to have found that. And that was months after Marina had said Lee did it. For some reason the FBI still pointedly refused to say or find, in the name of the FBI, that. 

In 1998 Gus Russo reported from a 1990s interview of James Hosty with Russo, that Hosty suggests, present tense in the 1990s, that the Walker shot had been an inside staged shot. That is Gus Russo’s syntax of Hosty to him. Just reporting here. Anyone who thinks that’s in error take it up with Russo. (It’s in a footnote in Live By The Sword, 1998.) 

The FBI submitting its investigative file to the WC sixty minutes before Surrey’s testimony and questioning under oath began has an unsavory smell to it. No time for follow-up or analysis before the start of prepared questioning. I will have more on this when I finish my rewrite of my Walker study. 

Edited Friday at 07:12 PM by Greg Doudna

[Tom Gram]

6 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Tom, speaking of the Warren Commission asking the FBI to investigate the Walker shot, the FBI did somewhat and returned its results a whole one hour—that’s sixty minutes—before the WC began its only questioning of arguably the single most sensitive witness next to the never-called Kirk Coleman, namely Walker aide Robert Surrey. 

And although it has attracted little attention, in that report, in a closing paragraph with the personal stamp of Director Hoover right over that physical paragraph, the FBI informed the Warren Commission that it had NOT come to a finding that Oswald tried to shoot and kill Walker. 

The Warren Commission found and published that conclusion, and if asked the FBI would refer to what the WC found. But the WC’s own investigators, the FBI, never claimed themselves to have found that. And that was months after Marina had said Lee did it. For some reason the FBI still pointedly refused to say or find, in the name of the FBI, that. 

In 1998 Gus Russo reported from a 1990s interview of James Hosty with Russo, that Hosty suggests, present tense in the 1990s, that the Walker shot had been an inside staged shot. That is Gus Russo’s syntax of Hosty to him. Just reporting here. Anyone who thinks that’s in error take it up with Russo. (It’s in a footnote in Live By The Sword, 1998.) 

The FBI submitting its investigative file to the WC sixty minutes before Surrey’s testimony and questioning under oath began has an unsavory smell to it. No time for follow-up or analysis before the start of prepared questioning. I will have more on this when I finish my rewrite of my Walker study. 

Do you have a link to that FBI report? Is it CE1953? I don’t recall ever seeing a conclusion from the FBI on the Walker case. How did you find down-to-the-hour accuracy on the submittal time? 

I thought the Surrey investigation was done in response to the same 5/20/64 letter from Rankin I linked in my last comment, and became a part of CE1953, but I could be misremembering. 

Edited Saturday at 01:20 AM by Tom Gram

[Benjamin Cole]

7 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

I do think it’s possible that the steel jacket description was used as a colloquial term for all jacketed bullets, but it’s not really that simple. 

If the steel jacket description was really a genuine mistake, the WC and FBI could have cleared it up in two seconds. 

Instead, not one of the four cops - two officers and two detectives - who signed the two police reports containing the steel jacket description was ever asked a single question about it, at least not on the record.

The only officer who ever even provided a basic description of the recovered bullet to the FBI was B. G. Norvell, who had quit the DPD less than a month after the Walker shooting. All he said was that the bullet was mushroomed - not one word about the jacketing. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60410#relPageId=110

Norvell was also the only officer who was shown the actual bullet by the FBI, which was by design. The WC had specifically directed the FBI to only display the bullet to the person who discovered it. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=62229#relPageId=119

However, there were conflicting reports on who actually discovered the bullet that were never resolved. Detective Don McElroy for example told the FBI that he found the bullet himself. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60410#relPageId=129

Even the WC was suspicious about the Walker bullet. J. Lee Rankin sent a memo to the FBI on 5/20/64 ordering additional FBI investigation into the Walker shooting, citing the “conflicting stories concerning the nature of the bullet which was actually recovered from General Walker’s home”. 

Rankin even specifically mentioned the report of detectives McElroy and Ira Van Cleave. Van Cleave was the guy who told the press that the bullet recovered was a .30-06. He also could have cleared up the chain of custody issue since he was McElroy’s partner. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=61500#relPageId=163

Note that Rankin also requests a full chain of custody. 

As a result of Rankin’s memo, the FBI interviewed the DPD officers involved in the Walker investigation and compiled a LHM for the WC that became CE1953. All the officers involved were interviewed and accompanying 302 reports were prepared, with one glaring exception: Ira Van Cleave.

So despite Rankin’s memo that specifically mentions Van Cleave - one of the first two detectives on the scene and arguably the most important witness to the entire event - we’re supposed to believe that the FBI didn’t talk to him at all.

Long story short, the evidence strongly suggests that FBI’s failure to resolve the questions surrounding the Walker bullet was intentional. That alone doesn’t prove anything, but a reasonable suspicion is more than warranted here, IMO. 

TG--Great work by you. 

But I have to respectfully disagree that two DPD detectives, investigating the scene of the most high profile assassination attempt in Dallas history up to that point, of a nationally prominent political figure, would use a colloquial term to describe the intended murder bullet held in evidence, in signed and written reports. 

In fact, I can find nothing in the literature that suggests anyone in any position of authority ever referred to all rifle bullets as "steel jacketed," since copper-jacketed bullets were then, as now, the default and most common jacket. Steel-jacketing was always uncommon--uncommon enough to warrant mention, properly, in a detective report. 

If you or I were DPD detectives in the early 1960s, and we found a steel-jacketed bullet at the scene of an attempted murder, we would (properly) note that it was "steel-jacketed." A relative rarity.  This might aid in the arrest of the perp, who might have similar steel-jacketed bullets in his possession. It is a clue. 

 

[Greg Doudna]

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

Do you have a link to that FBI report? Is it CE1953? I don’t recall ever seeing a conclusion from the FBI on the Walker case. How did you find down-to-the-hour accuracy on the submittal time? 

I thought the Surrey investigation was done in response to the same 5/20/64 letter from Rankin I linked in my last comment, and became a part of CE1953, but I could be misremembering. 

Here it is Tom, last page of a 6/16/64 FBI document: "our investigation did not establish whether Oswald did or did not make the attempt on General Walker’s life". The timing of delivery of the FBI investigation to the Warren Commission at 9 am on the day Surrey's questioning was to begin at 10 am is in the paragraph too. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=59602#relPageId=23 

 

 

 

[Gerry Down]

23 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

I do think it’s possible that the steel jacket description was used as a colloquial term for all jacketed bullets, but it’s not really that simple. 

If the steel jacket description was really a genuine mistake, the WC and FBI could have cleared it up in two seconds. 

Instead, not one of the four cops - two officers and two detectives - who signed the two police reports containing the steel jacket description was ever asked a single question about it, at least not on the record.

The only officer who ever even provided a basic description of the recovered bullet to the FBI was B. G. Norvell, who had quit the DPD less than a month after the Walker shooting. All he said was that the bullet was mushroomed - not one word about the jacketing. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60410#relPageId=110

Norvell was also the only officer who was shown the actual bullet by the FBI, which was by design. The WC had specifically directed the FBI to only display the bullet to the person who discovered it. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=62229#relPageId=119

However, there were conflicting reports on who actually discovered the bullet that were never resolved. Detective Don McElroy for example told the FBI that he found the bullet himself. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60410#relPageId=129

Even the WC was suspicious about the Walker bullet. J. Lee Rankin sent a memo to the FBI on 5/20/64 ordering additional FBI investigation into the Walker shooting, citing the “conflicting stories concerning the nature of the bullet which was actually recovered from General Walker’s home”. 

Rankin even specifically mentioned the report of detectives McElroy and Ira Van Cleave. Van Cleave was the guy who told the press that the bullet recovered was a .30-06. He also could have cleared up the chain of custody issue since he was McElroy’s partner. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=61500#relPageId=163

Note that Rankin also requests a full chain of custody. 

As a result of Rankin’s memo, the FBI interviewed the DPD officers involved in the Walker investigation and compiled a LHM for the WC that became CE1953. All the officers involved were interviewed and accompanying 302 reports were prepared, with one glaring exception: Ira Van Cleave.

So despite Rankin’s memo that specifically mentions Van Cleave - one of the first two detectives on the scene and arguably the most important witness to the entire event - we’re supposed to believe that the FBI didn’t talk to him at all.

Long story short, the evidence strongly suggests that FBI’s failure to resolve the questions surrounding the Walker bullet was intentional. That alone doesn’t prove anything, but a reasonable suspicion is more than warranted here, IMO. 

Do you know if we have access to the 7 photos as listed in CE1953 here:

 

LINK: https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh23/pdf/WH23_CE_1953.pdf 

[Gerry Down]

There are two photos of the window in question, one from the inside and one from the outside:

The inside photo is CE1006

And the outside photo is CE1007

According to Walkers WC testimony, CE1006 is a DPD photo. Now perhaps CE1007 also is a DPD photo, i dont know, but i would have thought the DPD would have been more professional than to take a photo of the window which had Walkers hand in it pointing outwards. So i cant tell for certain if CE1007 is a DPD photo or not.  

[Gerry Down]

More Walker photos can be found here starting at CE997:

https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/contents/wc/contents_wh18.htm