I'm convinced - CE 399 is entirely bogus!

[Martin Weidmann]

For purposes of this thread, we will stipulate that CE 399, Ye Magick Bullette, was:

1.   Entirely bogus! A dastardly, Oswald-framing plant by evil conspirators!

2.   Plagued by a chain of custody so flawed it would never have been admitted into evidence at a trial of Oswald!

3.   In impossibly good condition for it to have done all the damage the SBT says it did!

Good. Now we’re all on the same page as to the essential facts. No need to debate any of the above stipulations for the 14,823rd time.

Let us proceed to ask the questions that leap to the minds of epistemologically oriented CTers such as ourselves. To wit:

1.   Why did the conspirators plant CE 399 at Parkland rather than in the limousine? Why take these risks and raise these red flags?

2.   Why did the conspirators plant CE 399 in circumstances where it might not be found at all and there would always be uncertainty as to where it actually was found? Why take these risks and raise these red flags? Why not just have a DPD, FBI or SS agent say, “Hey, look what just rolled off the Governor’s stretcher”?

3.     Who planted CE 399 anyway? The DPD, FBI or SS? They had a bullet fired from Oswald’s rifle prepared in advance? Why? “Just in case” – but just in case what?

4.   Why did the conspirators plant a bullet in suspiciously good condition? Why raise this red flag? Why not plant a bullet that would be a more plausible fit for the SBT?

5.   How did the conspirators know CE 399 was “needed”? Was the SBT part of the plan even before the assassination? How did the conspirators know CE 399 wouldn’t be one bullet too many when all the fragments were retrieved? How did they know there wouldn’t be too many fragments in Connally to make CE 399 plausible?

6.   Why did the conspirators allow such a muddled chain of custody, one so muddled some participants couldn’t identify CE 399 as the bullet they’d been shown and others said it wasn’t? Despite intimidating doctors, knocking off inconvenient witnesses and whatnot, the conspirators couldn’t assemble a clean, no-problems chain of custody for CE 399?

7.   What did CE 399 actually accomplish? What did it add to our conspiracy theory? How could whatever it accomplished, if anything, possibly be worth all the risks that planting it required and all the red flags it has raised for 60+ years?

I confess, my fellow CTers, I am puzzled. A bogus, planted CE 399 is one of the linchpins of our gospel, is it not? And yet, I am deeply concerned that a bogus, planted CE 399 makes no sense whatsoever in any of the 15 or 20 conspiracy theories I’m willing to entertain. It appears to me that, once again, the conspirators were bungling fools whenever our pet theory requires them to have been so.

Help me out here. Explain how a bogus, planted CE 399 actually does make sense in the context of a conspiracy theory – any conspiracy theory.

(I am a sufficiently epistemologically oriented CTer that “It doesn’t have to make sense, dammit!” will not allay my concerns. Nor will doddering old Landis’s latter-day revelations, I must admit. CE 399 was found on the back seat of the limo and Landis allowed the WC, HSCA and 60 years of raging controversy to play out because, hey, it didn't seem like that big of a deal until he decided to write a book? It was on the back seat because it was responsible for the head wound - hello? My fellow CTers, we are better than this, are we not?)

1.   Why did the conspirators plant CE 399 at Parkland rather than in the limousine? Why take these risks and raise these red flags?

Just to be clear from the outset; when you say CE 399 you actually mean the bullet that Tomlinson found on a stretcher, right?

So, my reply to your question is: Did they? Tomlinson wasn't even sure on which stretcher it was. It may have been a bullet that was totally unrelated to the JFK murder. Parkland Hospital was known for receiving many victims of gun shots. Perhaps it was just happenstance.

2.   Why did the conspirators plant CE 399 in circumstances where it might not be found at all and there would always be uncertainty as to where it actually was found? Why take these risks and raise these red flags? Why not just have a DPD, FBI or SS agent say, “Hey, look what just rolled off the Governor’s stretcher”?

Why do you assume that the conspirators planted CE 399 (i.e. the bullet Tomlinson found) at all?

3.     Who planted CE 399 anyway? The DPD, FBI or SS? They had a bullet fired from Oswald’s rifle prepared in advance? Why? “Just in case” – but just in case what?

Again, why do you assume it was planted at all? And why do you assume they (whoever they are) had a bullet fired "from Oswald's rifle" (LOL) prepared in advance?

The rifle found at the TSBD was in Washington on Saturday morning. How hard would it be to fire a bullet in a tank of water or cotton wool?

4.   Why did the conspirators plant a bullet in suspiciously good condition? Why raise this red flag? Why not plant a bullet that would be a more plausible fit for the SBT?

Again, what makes you think that they planted a bullet at all. And as far as the condition of CE 399 goes, it fits what you would expect a bullet to look after having been fired in water or cotton wool, don't you think?

5.   How did the conspirators know CE 399 was “needed”? Was the SBT part of the plan even before the assassination? How did the conspirators know CE 399 wouldn’t be one bullet too many when all the fragments were retrieved? How did they know there wouldn’t be too many fragments in Connally to make CE 399 plausible?

Why do you assume that the conspirators knew CE 399 was needed? Perhaps they received a bullet (that O.V. Wright described as being pointed) and figured it could be helpful if they substituted it for the bullet now in evidence. Or don't you think that's possible? You clearly seem to believe that if there were conspirators, they were people in power who were able to control and manipulate the evidence.

And iirc there were in fact more fragments in Connally's body than there were missing from CE 399

6.   Why did the conspirators allow such a muddled chain of custody, one so muddled some participants couldn’t identify CE 399 as the bullet they’d been shown and others said it wasn’t? Despite intimidating doctors, knocking off inconvenient witnesses and whatnot, the conspirators couldn’t assemble a clean, no-problems chain of custody for CE 399?

In this case there isn't a single solid chain of custody. It's one of the reasons why so many questions are still being asked. The problem with a chain of custody is that it is intended to protect the evidence against manipulation. The problem is that it involves people who might no be prepared to play along.

Btw Even a request for authentication of CE 399 by the WC was completely bundled by the FBI and I believe they did it on purpose. But in the larger scheme of things, why bother with pesky chains of custody when you can easily misrepresent the evidence and then lock it away for 75 years, as was the original plan.

7.   What did CE 399 actually accomplish? What did it add to our conspiracy theory? How could whatever it accomplished, if anything, possibly be worth all the risks that planting it required and all the red flags it has raised for 60+ years?

I believe the purpose of CE 399 (the bullet now in the archives) was to tie Oswald to the murder weapon. A one shooter scenario requires one rifle and bullets and fragments that can be linked to that rifle. So, look what we have;

A bullet found at Parkland which conveniently turned into the CE 399 bullet now in the National Archives
Bullet fragments allegedly recovered from the limo, before Frazier and his team were able to examine the car. No photographs of the fragments in situ and a completely disturbed crime scene before the FBI could get there.
Frazier was told that he was given fragments found in the limo but there is not a shred of evidence that shows this is true.

And then, of course, we have the Walker bullet, which was allegedly also shot by the same rifle. When the HSCA showed a photograph of the bullet, General Walker instantly denied that this was the bullet that was taken from his house.
He went so far as to have his lawyer write a letter to the HSCA that the bullet shown was a substitute!

I am a sufficiently epistemologically oriented

Really? You seem to be making a lot of assumption for that to be true.

[David Von Pein]

https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2011/04/index.html#CE399

Excerpt from above articles....

"...Since there's so much OTHER stuff (bullet-wise and shell-wise) that links Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano to the assassination, CTers who continue to want to believe that CE399 didn't really come out of Oswald's rifle when JFK's car passed through Dealey Plaza on November 22nd have a very large mountain to climb in order to advance the "399 Is A Fraud" conspiracy theory.

Because if CE567 and CE569 (the two front-seat bullet fragments linked conclusively to Oswald's rifle) are the Real McCoy (i.e., genuine evidence that wasn't tampered with in some manner)....

And: if the three bullet shells that were found by the police underneath the sniper's window on the sixth floor are also genuine....

Then common sense (plus the overall ODDS) would certainly indicate that it's very, very likely that Bullet #399 was ALSO a "genuine" article as well, with that whole bullet exiting Lee Harvey Oswald's gun at 12:30 PM on 11/22/63 in Dealey Plaza.

And if the CTers wish to travel down the "ALL OF THE CARCANO (C2766) BULLET EVIDENCE IS TAINTED" road, then they've got THREE "This Evidence Is Tainted" mountains to climb -- the "CE567/569" mountain; the "Shells In The Window" mountain; and the large hill marked "CE399" too.

I hope those CTers are in good shape and are really good mountain climbers. Because getting to the top of just ONE of those three Mount Everests is likely to give an average (and reasoned-thinking) person a coronary.

But that hasn't stopped certain conspiracy theorists from heading up that unclimbable series of
peaks. Has it?" -- DVP; October 2007

[Martin Weidmann]

https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2011/04/index.html#CE399

Excerpt from above articles....

"...Since there's so much OTHER stuff (bullet-wise and shell-wise) that links Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano to the assassination, CTers who continue to want to believe that CE399 didn't really come out of Oswald's rifle when JFK's car passed through Dealey Plaza on November 22nd have a very large mountain to climb in order to advance the "399 Is A Fraud" conspiracy theory.

Because if CE567 and CE569 (the two front-seat bullet fragments linked conclusively to Oswald's rifle) are the Real McCoy (i.e., genuine evidence that wasn't tampered with in some manner)....

And: if the three bullet shells that were found by the police underneath the sniper's window on the sixth floor are also genuine....

Then common sense (plus the overall ODDS) would certainly indicate that it's very, very likely that Bullet #399 was ALSO a "genuine" article as well, with that whole bullet exiting Lee Harvey Oswald's gun at 12:30 PM on 11/22/63 in Dealey Plaza.

And if the CTers wish to travel down the "ALL OF THE CARCANO (C2766) BULLET EVIDENCE IS TAINTED" road, then they've got THREE "This Evidence Is Tainted" mountains to climb -- the "CE567/569" mountain; the "Shells In The Window" mountain; and the large hill marked "CE399" too.

I hope those CTers are in good shape and are really good mountain climbers. Because getting to the top of just ONE of those three Mount Everests is likely to give an average (and reasoned-thinking) person a coronary.

But that hasn't stopped certain conspiracy theorists from heading up that unclimbable series of
peaks. Has it?" -- DVP; October 2007

CTers who continue to want to believe that CE399 didn't really come out of Oswald's rifle

I never believed that. Of course the bullet now in evidence as CE399 came from from the rifle found at the TSBD.

I'm just not convinced that that rifle belonged to Oswald or that the bullet Tomlinson found at Parkland is the same one now in evidence as CE 399

Because if CE567 and CE569 (the two front-seat bullet fragments linked conclusively to Oswald's rifle) are the Real McCoy (i.e., genuine evidence that wasn't tampered with in some manner)....

BS, Frazier was given those fragments and was told that they came from the limo. That's hardly "genuine evidence that wasn't tampered with in some manner"

And: if the three bullet shells that were found by the police underneath the sniper's window on the sixth floor are also genuine....

Which shells do you mean? The ones now in evidence or the ones Fritz threw down after having picked up the shells that were actually there?

Then common sense (plus the overall ODDS) would certainly indicate that it's very, very likely that Bullet #399 was ALSO a "genuine" article as well, with that whole bullet exiting Lee Harvey Oswald's gun at 12:30 PM on 11/22/63 in Dealey Plaza.

Oh boy... now you are speculating and making assumptions..... Not good at all!

I hope those CTers are in good shape and are really good mountain climbers. Because getting to the top of just ONE of those three Mount Everests is likely to give an average (and reasoned-thinking) person a coronary.

What mountains would that be? They seem to exist in your imagination only.

[Lance Payette]

(Edited to correct brain fart pointed out by DVP)

An individual on my dreaded Not Worth My Time (NWMT) list has chimed in with what we shall call the Tomlinson Deflection (or the Wright Deflection, as the case may be). Not content with my entirely CT-oriented stipulations, he has added the wrinkle that CE 399 was not planted at Parkland at all. At Parkland, employee Tomlinson actually found a pointy-headed .30 caliber bullet that he showed to employee Wright and that Wright gave to SS agent Johnsen. Ergo, CE 399 was fabricated by the conspirators at a later stage. (According to he who is NWMT, the pointy-headed bullet might have been evidence of a second gunman or even entirely unrelated to the JFKA – i.e., just a bullet from some other shooting. In either case, CE 399 was fabricated outside of Parkland.)

The Tomlinson Deflection is, of course, old news, dating back at least to Tink Thompson’s Six Seconds in Dallas (I have a signed copy!). See https://history-matters.com/essays/frameup/EvenMoreMagical/EvenMoreMagical.htm.

When Tink met with Wright in 1966, the latter said the found bullet was pointy-headed. This in itself seems problematical, since it would suggest the found bullet was pretty much as pristine as CE 399! Somewhat weirdly, or so it seems to me, Wright pulled a pointy-headed .30 caliber bullet out of his desk drawer as an example of what the found bullet had looked like! Oh, well, life is full of these little incongruities.

He who is NWMT accuses me of “making a lot of assumptions” whereas I was really only making entirely CT-oriented stipulations for the sake of discussion. Dissatisfied with my stipulations, he who is NWMT now assumes that (1) in his brief handling of the found bullet, Wright formed a sufficiently distinct image to speak confidently in 1966, and (2) when both Tomlinson and Wright said they could not identify CE 399 as the bullet found at Parkland, they did not simply mean “because we have no way of knowing if this is actually the same bullet” but rather “it looks nothing like the bullet we found” (an assumption Thompson also makes). Alternatively, everything Tomlinson and Wright said was true because Tomlinson actually did find a pointy-headed bullet and CE 399 never was at Parkland.

These seem to me like rather critical and dubious assumptions. My guess would be that Wright simply had a failure of recollection, perhaps due to seeing that pointy-headed bullet in his desk drawer day after day, but let’s play along and stipulate that Tomlinson actually found an intact, pointy-headed, .30 caliber bullet and not CE 399. (FWIW, a .30 caliber bullet is a mere 0.044” larger in diameter than a 6.5 bullet.)

The scenario then is: Pointy-headed bullet is found by Tomlinson and shown to Wright, Johnsen or someone else realizes it can’t have come from Oswald’s rifle but could be useful if the found-at-Parkland scenario is made to fit a bullet that did come from Oswald’s rifle, someone fires Oswald’s rifle into a tank of water or cotton wool to generate CE 399, the pointy-headed bullet is made to disappear, a chain of custody for CE 399 is fabricated, the SBT is formulated, and all is well in Conspiracy Land.

Sound good to you, my fellow epistemologically oriented CTers?

1.   Knowing Tomlinson and Wright have found and handled a pointy-headed bullet that looks entirely different from CE 399, the conspirators nevertheless adopt Tomlinson and Wright as the linchpins of a CE 399-was-found-at-Parkland scenario and yet leave them free to say CE 399 doesn’t look like the bullet they found? Why do the conspirators do this, why do they run these seemingly insane risks? Who decided this seemed like a good plan?

2.   Why do the conspirators need Tomlinson and Wright at all? Why don’t they just say the Tomlinson bullet was unrelated to the JFKA and have a SS agent (Landis!) say CE 399 was found in the limo or fell out of Connally’s pants? How does the Tomlinson-Wright scenario make anything better?

3.   Why do the conspirators need CE 399 at all? What does it add to the Lone Nut narrative? Why do they need another bullet from Oswald’s rifle? How do they know how many fragments may eventually be found in the limo or elsewhere in Dealey Plaza? What if CE 399 turns out to make things far worse?

4.   Why do the conspirators fire CE 399 into a tank of water or cotton wool? Since they have the luxury of time, why do they generate a bullet as problematical as CE 399? Why not fire into a dead cow or even a cadaver? Fire ten bullets until one looks "just right."

5.   Is CE 399 somehow critical to the SBT? Why? Isn’t it more of a problem for the SBT than a help? Had the SBT been formulated at this early date, long before it was even a gleam in Specter’s eye?

6.   Why create a chain of custody for CE 399 that includes Tomlinson and Wright at all? Just establish a chain of custody for the pointy-headed bullet and say it turned out to be unrelated to the JFKA. Even if we ignore Tomlinson and Wright, the chain of custody for CE 399 is problematical anyway (as Thompson pointed out). Why would there be any flaws in the chain of custody if CE 399 had been created outside of Parkland? The conspirators couldn’t even get that right?

This just goes nowhere – does it, my fellow CTers? It’s just ad hoc to the 32nd degree, isn’t it? We can do better than this – can’t we?

[David Von Pein]

When Tink met with Tomlinson in 1966, the latter said the bullet he’d found was pointy-headed. .... Tomlinson pulled a pointy-headed .30 caliber bullet out of his desk drawer as an example of what the found bullet had looked like!

Lance,

You meant to say O.P. Wright in your above post, not Tomlinson.

But speaking of Tomlinson....

He (Darrell Tomlinson) told Ray Marcus in 1966 that the bullet he was shown by the FBI "appeared to be the same one" that he (Tomlinson) found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital on 11/22/63.

Plus:

The fact that the FBI forthrightly admitted in their July 7, 1964, report (aka Warren Commission Exhibit No. 2011) that neither Darrell Tomlinson nor O.P. Wright could positively identify the CE399 bullet is a very good indication that there's nothing phony about any of the verbiage we see in CE2011.

https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2011/12/marcus-tomlinson-interview-7-25-66.html

https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2011/04/index.html#Darrell-Tomlinson-And-CE399

[Martin Weidmann]

Lance,

You meant to say O.P. Wright in your above post, not Tomlinson.

But speaking of Tomlinson....

He (Darrell Tomlinson) told Ray Marcus in 1966 that the bullet he was shown by the FBI

"appeared to be the same one" that he (Tomlinson) found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital on 11/22/63.

Plus:

The fact that the FBI forthrightly admitted in their July 7, 1964, report (aka Warren Commission Exhibit No. 2011) that neither Darrell Tomlinson nor O.P. Wright could positively identify the CE399 bullet is a very good indication that there's nothing phony about any of the verbiage we see in CE2011.

https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2011/12/marcus-tomlinson-interview-7-25-66.html

https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2011/04/index.html#Darrell-Tomlinson-And-CE399

He (Darrell Tomlinson) told Ray Marcus in 1966 that the bullet he was shown by the FBI

Yes, he did. But in the same interview he also said that he was only shown a bullet once and that was about a week after the shooting, by SAC Shanklin. At that time he may well have been shown the actual bullet he had found.
In his WC testimony, two years earlier, he also confirmed that he was only interviewed by the FBI once, he believed in late November.

The fact that the FBI forthrightly admitted in their July 7, 1964, report (aka Warren Commission Exhibit No. 2011) that neither Darrell Tomlinson nor O.P. Wright could positively identify the CE399 bullet is a very good indication that there's nothing phony about any of the verbiage we see in CE2011.

What else could SAC Shanklin have written in his airtel? That Tomlinson and Wright did identify the bullet? Bending the truth a bit is something he could perhaps get away with, but telling an outright lie and hoping he wouldn't be found out. Really?

We know now that Odum has denied ever having CE 399 or showing it to anybody for identification. There is no receipt signed by Odum for CE 399 nor is there a FD 302 written by Odum about this alleged encounter.
In 1966 O.V. Wright said that the bullet he received from Tomlinson was pointed (which the bullet now in evidence as CE 399 clearly isn't) and Tomlinson told Marcus in 1966 that he was only interviewed by the FBI once, in late November.

Now let me guess what your reply is going to be. O.V. Wright simply misremembered, as did Odum and Tomlinson just simply forgot that he was shown a bullet after his testimony had already been taken... Yeah, right!

So, let's take this thing a step further. When Specter took a deposition from Tomlinson he didn't show him CE 399 to identify it. In fact, CE 399 had not even been entered into evidence. That happened later during the testimony of Dr. Humes, who was in fact shown the bullet, "subject to later proof" that "this is the missile which has been taken from the stretcher".

Mr. SPECTER - Doctor Humes, I show you a bullet which we have marked as Commission Exhibit No. 399, and may I say now that, subject to later proof, this is the missile which has been taken from the stretcher which the evidence now indicates was the stretcher occupied by Governor Connally. I move for its admission into evidence at this time.
The CHAIRMAN. It may be admitted.
(The article, previously marked Commission Exhibit No. 399 for identification, was received in evidence.)

But Specter never provided the proof to show the bullet was found at Parkland and he already knew that he wouldn't be able to do so as he had already desperately tried and failed to get confirmation from Tomlinson.

Why did Specter let a golden opportunity go by to get CE 399 identified by Tomlinson? I can only speculate about his reason(s), but it's likely to be the same one for not taking testimony from O.V. Wright.
Lawyers normally ask witnesses only questions for which they already know the answer.

[Lance Payette]

Lance,

You meant to say O.P. Wright in your above post, not Tomlinson.

Sorry about that! I'd better correct it or I'll appear to be fallible.    I may consign myself to my own NWMT bin for a spell of purgatory. I see that he who is NWMT persistently refers to O. V. Wright rather than O. P., so apparently fallibility is contagious.

One of my little quirks is to ask, "So when did these people die?" Wright lived until 1974 and was only 67 when he died. Tomlinson lived until 1993 and was only 71 when he died. Painting with a broad brush, it often seems that the hordes of JFKA researchers prefer to debate endlessly what Wright and Tomlinson said in 1964 or 1966 than to make a serious effort to nail it down. Even the HSCA does not seem to have taken up the issue, even though Tomlinson seemingly would have been readily available. The article by Thomspon and Aguilar makes clear that they did considerable research on the FBI angle in the late 1990s, and Aguilar spoke with Odum by phone twice in 2002, but there seemingly was no additional follow-up before Tomlinson died. On an issue this central, wouldn't one think the HSCA or some serious researcher would attempt to really nail it down? Perhaps everyone just accepts the mystery and deals with it as best they can - which is why I think the critical questions are the "epistemological" ones that no one ever asks: "OK, stipulating to your version of what occurred, please explain how it makes any sense in the context of the conspiracy you posit."