Another important item of evidence of Oswald's innocence is the NAA testing that was done on the paraffin cast from his right cheek. The paraffin mold was made from his right cheek about eight hours after the assassination. The paraffin cast was eventually tested at the Oak Ridge Laboratory using the super-sensitive neutron activation analysis (NAA) test. The NAA test found no chemical indication, i.e., no nitrates, in the paraffin cast that Oswald had fired a rifle during the shooting. The NAA test results were suppressed for years until they were finally released as a result of Harold Weisberg's FOIA lawsuits.
Studies have proven that traces of gunshot residue (nitrates) on a person's skin can be placed on paraffin casts as long as 17 to 24 hours after a shooting. As mentioned, Oswald's paraffin mold was done eight hours after the assassination.
We now know that the morning after the assassination, Dr. M.S Mason and Louie Anderson analyzed the paraffin cast of Oswald’s right cheek for the Dallas police (DPD) with the standard test for detecting nitrates, the diphenyl-benzidine paraffin test, and that they found "no nitrates" on the cast. The FBI then tested the right-cheek paraffin cast with a spectrographic paraffin test, and found no nitrate traces on the mold. Yet, the DPD and the FBI lied about the test results and told newsmen that Oswald's right-cheek paraffin mold had tested positive for nitrates and that this was evidence he had a fired a rifle on the day of the assassination.
Oswald's right-cheek paraffin cast was then subjected to NAA testing at the Oak Ridge Laboratory, and the NAA test found no traces of nitrates in the mold.
The documents released by Weisberg’s FOIA lawsuit reveal that the FBI arranged for a control test of the validity of the NAA paraffin test of Oswald’s cheek and found NAA to be 100% reliable in detecting nitrate traces. Since the test required a nuclear reactor, the test was done on the FBI’s behalf at the Atomic Energy Commission’s Oak Ridge facility. Seven marksmen fired a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle once and then three times in rapid succession, and then underwent an NAA paraffin test. In every single case, NAA detected substantial amounts of nitrates in their cheek paraffin molds. In other words, all seven cheek paraffin casts tested positive for nitrates, just as they should have (Weisberg,
Post Mortem, 1975, pp. 436-438; see also FBI HQ JFK File, 62–109060–5; FBI HQ Oswald File, 105–82555–94).
It turns out that one member of the Warren Commission (WC) and one of the WC attorneys knew that NAA testing had found no traces of nitrates on the paraffin mold of Oswald’s right cheek, and that this meant he had not fired a rifle on the day of the assassination. WC attorney Norman Redlich advised WC member Alan Dulles about the NAA results in an internal memo, a memo that came to light only after a FOIA lawsuit filed by Harold Weisberg. Said Redlich,
At best, the analysis [the NAA test] shows that Oswald may have fired a pistol, although this is by no means certain. . . . There is no basis for concluding that he also fired a rifle.” (Memo from Redlich to Dulles, 7/2/1964)This contradicts the WC’s later claim that nitrates were found on both sides of the paraffin cast of Oswald’s cheek and that therefore the paraffin test was “unreliable.”
The Weisberg FOIA-released documents show that FBI expert Cortlandt Cunningham brazenly lied about the paraffin tests in his WC testimony. Yet, WC apologists still cite Cunningham’s testimony to justify their rejection of the negative paraffin results on Oswald’s right-cheek cast.
Moreover, in the Oak Ridge control test, two of the seven shooters also underwent the standard diphenylamine paraffin test, the same kind of test the Dallas police used,
and in both cases their cheek casts tested positive for nitrates (General Atomic Report GA-6152 to the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, pp. 10-11). Also, all seven shooters had to wait three or four hours after firing the rifle before the paraffin molds were made of their cheeks.
Dr. David Wrone, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Wisconsin, says the following about the tests done on Oswald's right-cheek paraffin cast:
Paraffin tests test on a well-known fact that when a rifle is fired, gases blow back on the shooter’s face and hands, depositing detectable residues. At midnight on November 22, the Dallas police performed the normal tests on Oswald to detect any deposits, using warm liquid paraffin on his right cheek and both hands to make casts. As it hardened, the paraffin would remove and capture any deposits from his skin and pores. Police sent the casts to Dr. Martin F. Mason, director of the Dallas City-County Criminal Investigative Laboratory at Parkland Memorial Hospital, who at 10:45 AM on November 23 tested them with reagent diphenyl-benzidine. The results showed “no traces of nitrates” on the right cheek, which meant Oswald had not fired a rifle. . . .
In its Report the Commission dismisses paraffin tests by asserting that “a positive reaction is . . . valueless” in showing a suspect fired a weapon and thus “unreliable.” This is disingenuous. To be sure, ink, paper, and many other common objects that Oswald’s hands touched that day during the normal course of his work could have
caused a positive reaction, but as the Commission’s own official evidence proved, the absence of traces is exculpatory. Oswald’s cheek had none; he had not fired a rifle.
Not satisfied with the Dallas testing, the FBI in its laboratory also performed a more refined spectrographic test of the samples, a scientific test used by law enforcement for 60 years in similar cases. The FBI lab drew the same conclusion about residues on the cheek. Then, under pressure from the Commission, the FBI submitted the paraffin casts to a third, even more sophisticated test. They took the samples to the Atomic Energy Commission facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. . . .
Upon receiving word of the findings, FBI headquarters immediately ordered its agents not to release or make known the results to anyone in order “to protect the Bureau”. . . .
Nevertheless, after a bitterly contested lawsuit that lasted ten years, critic Harold Weisberg and his attorney James Lesar obtained the NAA raw data and the results from the bureau and the Oak Ridge authorities.
Weisberg discovered an additional element to the tests that was devastating for the official findings. The FBI had used a control in making the tests. Seven different men had fired the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, and NAA officials had made paraffin casts of their cheeks, which were then tested for residues by the reactor. The control firings had deposited heavy residues on the control cheeks. Oswald’s check cast had no such residues or any traces whatsoever. He had not fired a rifle. (The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK’s Assassination, University Press of Kansas, 2003, pp. 171-172)Needless to say, and as we all know, if Oswald’s paraffin cheek cast had tested positive for nitrates in the DPD diphenyl-benzidine paraffin test, in the FBI's spectrographic paraffin test, and in the Oak Ridge NAA paraffin test, the WC would have hailed this as powerful evidence that Oswald fired a rifle on 11/22/1963, and WC apologists would still be parroting this position to this day.
But, since Oswald’s cheek cast tested negative for nitrates in all three of those tests, WC apologists bend over backward to not only ignore the negative result but to discredit even the NAA paraffin test, even though the FBI’s own control test found that the NAA paraffin test was 100% reliable for detecting traces of nitrates. They've offered such strained, implausible arguments as the claim that no two rifles discharge gunshot residue (GSR) in the same way or that gusts of wind blew into the sixth-floor window at just the right times, three times in a row, to blow the GSR away from Oswald's right cheek!
Yet, WC apologists offer no such exotic, improbable arguments when it comes to the fact that the paraffin casts of Oswald's hands tested positive for nitrates, indicating he may have fired a pistol on 11/22/63. Most researchers recognize that since Oswald frequently handled materials that could have left nitrates on his hands as part of his everyday job tasks, the finding of nitrates in his hand casts does not necessarily prove he fired a handgun. This is why Redlich told Dulles it was "by no means certain" that the NAA test proved Oswald had fired a pistol.
The most exhaustive analysis of the testing of Oswald's right-cheek paraffin cast is Pat Speer's chapter on the subject in his online book
A New Perspective on the John F. Kennedy Assassination:
https://www.patspeer.com/chapter4fcastsofcontentionHere's a greatly shortened version of Speer's analysis titled "Bugliosi Fails the Paraffin Test":
https://www.whokilledjfk.net/paraffin_test.htmJeremy Bojczuk's article "Oswald's Paraffin Casts" is a helpful introduction to this key evidence:
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2049-oswald-s-paraffin-casts
