JFK Assassination Forum

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/chapter4fcastsofcontention

Here's a greatly shortened version of Speer's analysis titled "Bugliosi Fails the Paraffin Test":

https://www.whokilledjfk.net/paraffin_test.htm

Jeremy Bojczuk's article "Oswald's Paraffin Casts" is a helpful introduction to this key evidence:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2049-oswald-s-paraffin-casts

Not that I care, but in the best photos, including the one from the Sixth Floor Museum, https://www.jfk.org/collections-archive/photograph-of-the-exterior-of-the-texas-school-book-depository-3/, it definitely doesn't look like a flat sign. It looks like a "box." That would seemingly be a very odd place for a sign, but not for an electrical box or an alien craft from another dimension of some sort.

The first photo I posted was a crop from a higher definition of the one you linked to! So....
Secondly, why would an electrical box be mounted at a right angle instead of flush against the wall? and on the second floor??
Thirdly, why would the lower section be cut out to fit over the facia?
Fourthly, why is the "front on" photo showing an electrical box with no depth?
And finally, in the following higher res copy of the image, as opposed to the photo in your link, the cable you claim leads to the electrical box, passes by right in front and is not seen in any other hi-res photo.











BTW, establishing a box from a virtually shadowless object in a two dimensional photo is not a good technique, just saying.

JohnM

MTG-

Thanks for posting, but I have always had reservations about the "JFK was shot from the front" narratives.

Have you read the ARRB materials? One of the many historic disclosures from the ARRB-released documents is Dr. Ebersole's statement to the HSCA FPP that by around 10:00 or 10:30 Humes knew about the throat wound from communications with Dallas ("Testimony of John H. Ebersole," HSCA, 3/11/1978, p. 5). This is crucial because we know from the released transcript of the WC's 1/27/64 executive session that one of the first two drafts of the autopsy report said the back wound bullet had no exit, and that the other draft said the throat wound was the exit point for a fragment from the head shot, proving that Humes knew about the throat wound long before he claimed he did.

This, in turn, is very important because we know from the ARRB materials that by the end of the autopsy the autopsy doctors knew for an absolute fact that the back wound had no exit point, that they had done prolonged and repeated probing, that they had even removed the chest organs so they could see where the probe went inside the chest cavity, and that the autopsy doctors and the men standing near the autopsy table could see the end of the probe pushing up against the lining of the chest cavity. Jenkins told Lifton the same thing years before the ARRB.

The long-standing myth had been, and among WC apologists still is, that Humes did not know about the throat wound until the following morning and that this was why he did not identify the throat wound as a possible exit point for the back wound. The 1/27/64 WC executive session transcript alone destroys that myth because it reveals that one of the first drafts of the autopsy report said the throat wound was the exit point for a head-shot fragment. Yet, to this day, lone-gunman theorists continue to repeat the myth that Humes knew nothing about the throat wound until the morning after the autopsy.

The very notion that the autopsy doctors did not know about the throat wound before the autopsy is doubtful on its face. The throat wound had been discussed at the televised press conference with the Dallas doctors held shortly after JFK died. News reports about the press conference were carried on radio stations and appeared in evening-edition newspapers all over the country. For that matter, the autopsy photo that shows JFK's neck clearly shows the bottom half of the circular throat wound; a first-year med student would not have missed it. Anyway, the issue has long since been settled by the 1/27/64 WC executive session transcript and later by Ebersole's disclosure to the FPP that Humes know about the throat wound by no later than 10:30 that night (no wonder Ebersole's FPP testimony was sealed--thank goodness the ARRB released it).

Since the throat wound could not have been caused by the back-wound bullet, and since the throat wound could not have resulted from a head-shot fragment (such a fragment would have had to tear a path from the inner skull to the throat), this is strong evidence that the Dallas doctors and nurses were correct in identifying the throat wound as an entry wound, and this, in turn, explains why the throat wound was small, neat, circular, and punched inward, and why the damage behind and below the throat wound was larger than the wound itself.   

I cover this historic evidence in some detail in the research notes that I linked in the OP: “Research Notes on the Shored-Wound Theory to Explain JFK’s Throat Wound,” https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h48FpT89KrC0rNrl4XC3MDePLDFEBBHb/view.

As for the evidence of a head shot from the front, I would refer you to three articles that are good introductions on the subject:

Dr. Michael Chesser, “A Review of the JFK Cranial x-Rays and Photographs,” Assassination of JFK website, 2015, http://assassinationofjfk.net/a-review-of-the-jfk-cranial-x-rays-and-photographs/

Dr. Michael Chesser, “The Application of Forensic Principles for the Analysis of the Autopsy Skull X-Rays of President Kennedy and a Review of the Brain Photographs,” 2017, Kennedys and King website, https://kennedysandking.com/images/pdf/michael-chesser-houston-2017.pdf

"The Head Shot from the Front"
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19GwhnIVGHlrffoyM_T242fF_J9v4QeQl/view

Just one point on a frontal head shot: Mortician Tom Robinson told the HSCA that there was a small hole in JFK's right temple, and that he filled it with wax to keep embalming fluid from leaking out of it. This is telling because shortly after JFK died, Malcolm Kilduff pointed to his own right temple to show reporters how JFK had been shot. In addition, there is a suspicious lesion in this same spot on the stare-of-death autopsy photo that surely looks like it could be an entry wound--and there is also a notch in this same area on the autopsy skull x-rays, as Dr. Chesser discusses. I think one of the best discussions on the implications of Robinson's disclosure is Dr. Don Thomas's analysis in Hear No Evil, pp. 247-279.

1. The windshield.

This is not a problem for a frontal shot to the throat. This issue has already been covered by a number of scholars. Rather than repeat what they've observed, I would just refer you to their research: Dr. Mantik, Doug Weldon, and Doug Horne.

2. Witnesses. JBC and wife believe the shots came from the rear. There are indisputable bullet wounds in JFK's and JBC's back.

I agree, and we both agree that JFK and Connally were hit by separate non-fatal bullets.

But keep in mind that many witnesses also said shots came from the front, and several witnesses saw gun smoke or smelled gun powder on and near the knoll. In addition, the Wiegman film shows a small cloud of smoke hanging in the air in an area near the fence on the knoll, and that smoke could not have come from the steam pipe over 100 feet away or from patrol bike exhaust, not to mention that the acoustical evidence proves that a shot came from the knoll--and from the same area that Lee Bowers saw two men hanging around and then saw a flash of light or smoke during the shooting. The acoustical evidence for a grassy knoll shot is so strong that even the abjectly biased NAS panel was forced to admit that their own research showed there was a 77.7% probability that the 144.9 impulse pattern was caused by gunfire from the knoll.

I should add that the NAS panel was only able to reduce the probability of the grassy knoll shot from 95%-plus  to 77.7% by introducing two outright errors into their analysis, as Dr. Scheim, Dr. Chambers, and Dr. Thomas have discussed. Even then, 77.7% is a high probability.

3. Where did the bullets from the front go?

I'm a bit surprised by this question, but I would answer it by saying we should first consider what we have long known about the FBI's and the DPD's handling of evidence, what we have long known about the evidence of extra bullets and missed shots in Dealey Plaza, what we now about the finding of an extra bullet--a misshapen bullet--in the limo during the autopsy, and what we now know from ARRB and other disclosures about the amount of bullet fragments found during the autopsy and the finding of a bullet in the sheets that were wrapped around JFK at the autopsy.

I would refer you to my article "Extra Bullets and Missed Shots in Dealey Plaza," https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WRwhDQ9HMydf5pICsHwgtkoNKw0YSO8T/view?usp=sharing.

The front head-shot bullet was a frangible missile that exploded after penetrating the skull. This bullet's fragments remained in the skull, as is typical for frangible ammo. This is why we see a "snowstorm" of dozens of tiny fragments in the right-frontal region on the autopsy skull x-rays. Humes said nothing about this obvious cluster of fragments in the autopsy report because he knew he could not associate it with the EOP entry wound.

The FPP's radiology consultants acknowledged the right-frontal fragment snowstorm, but the FPP themselves merely acknowledged that the x-rays show "numerous minute fragments widely distributed throughout the skull" (7 HSCA 11), and then later in their report they blandly acknowledged that they considered the "small particles of radiopaque materials" at the right coronal suture "to be missile fragments" (7 HSCA 120)--and the FPP obscured the right-frontal lead snowstorm in their "enhanced" versions of the skull x-rays by virtually washing it out of the images.

The "enhanced" skull x-rays fooled Dr. Sturdivan into believing there was no right-frontal cluster of numerous small fragments on the skull x-rays, which cluster he said would be there if a frangible bullet had struck in the right front. (Yet, when he became aware that the unenhanced x-rays show the right-frontal snowstorm, he forgot all about what he told the FPP on the issue and still says the rear head shot was the only head shot.)

We have good evidence that JFK's body arrived about 40-45 minutes before its officially recorded arrival time, and we have at least two witnesses who saw Humes working on the body before the autopsy began. It is entirely possible that Humes removed the throat-wound bullet from the upper chest during this pre-autopsy surgery (the Dallas doctors believed the bullet had ranged downward into the chest).

Another possibility has been raised by several scholars, namely, that a fragment of glass from the bullet that made a hole in the windshield hit the throat and ranged downward into the chest.

The gashed appearance of the throat wound in the autopsy photos could have resulted from pre-autopsy surgery to the wound to remove the projectile that caused it (several Dallas medical witnesses said the throat wound did not look so large and gashed after the tracheostomy).

Those who find the idea of pre-autopsy surgery or another type of suppression of the throat bullet unacceptable need to explain the fact that the throat wound could not have been made by the back-wound bullet or by a head-shot fragment, and the fact that the throat wound had every major textbook characteristic of an entry wound. Fact must govern theory, not the other way around.

It's always a pleasure talking with you, Ben.

Not that I care, but in the best photos, including the one from the Sixth Floor Museum, https://www.jfk.org/collections-archive/photograph-of-the-exterior-of-the-texas-school-book-depository-3/, it definitely doesn't look like a flat sign. It looks like a "box." That would seemingly be a very odd place for a sign, but not for an electrical box or an alien craft from another dimension of some sort.

OUR PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED! 

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Can it get any better than this?