Impossible: The Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald (50 page)

But now let us compare the 2 empty hulls on the right in the above photograph to the 2 empty hulls on the left (placed by J. Doyle Williams in an upside-down position) in the below photograph taken on November 22 by the FBI (close-up and cropped by author), and see if you can notice any difference in coloration:

There certainly is, not only between the shells in the two photographs, but even between the 2 empty hulls on the left in the FBI photograph (with a more black hue) with the live round on the right (which has the silver tone characteristic of brass in black-and-white we would expect to see). If we were to go simply by appearances alone, we might postulate that the shells on the left were constituted from a different metal than the bullet on the right.

One could speculate that the difference in coloration in the second photo was produced by heat from firing, but why wasn’t that difference produced in the first photograph?

An interesting observation, which could easily be seen as visual evidence of a bait and switch operation. Unfortunately, this observation, which is inductive in character, is not as strong as the deductive verification to which we were exposed over the last sixty or so pages. It is vulnerable to rival hypotheses, for example, that the photo has been retouched or poorly reproduced, or, if not, that perhaps the lighting on the shells on the left was different from the lighting on the bullets on the right, thus leading to what would be an apparent difference in coloration, but not one which existed in reality. And the reply to this would be, perhaps this latter point is so, but given that what we see in this photograph confirms what deductive analysis reveals to be true, we can use the deductive analysis as corroboration for what our initial visual perception tells us.

In light of this, it might have been useful to inquire of the first two people known to have possession after Day, FBI agents Brown and Williams, just what they knew on the subject, but there is no testimony on record from them regarding their role in the chain of custody. That’s not surprising, because their testimony would directly contradict Day’s testimony that he passed the bullets along to Sims of the Dallas Police Department, and not to Brown (and thereafter Williams). Consequently, as far as chain of custody testimony goes, Brown and Williams are the “invisible men,” as shown from an analysis of the page references in the screen captures below from the Warren Commission index (Williams, 15 H 800; Brown, 15 H 757):
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http://www.krusch.com/jfk

The information in the appendix is difficult to understand, as noted, so here is a summary (NOTE: a legend beneath the table defines the initials present in the “Type” and “Source” rows):

You are going to find this table confusing, but no need to worry, you will be able to see instantly, and visually, the problem.

To understand the table, let’s start with a column-centric view, and look at column A, which tells us that CE 543 had one magazine follower mark (the magazine follower is a spring-tensioned lever whose function is to push cartridges up the clip), CE 545 also had one magazine follower mark, and CE 141 had two magazine follower marks.

When we take a row-centric view, we learn that CE 543 not only has one magazine follower mark, it also had three striations on the head, three marks on the base, and a dented lip.

You don’t need to understand what the marks indicate, all you need to understand is the differences in how the marks appear on the shells. Once you understand the table, you can concentrate on your visual impressions to draw some conclusions about what you are seeing, and the first thing you notice is that the marks on the empty shells and live round are
all over the map
. Is there any consistency at all? No, and some of the inconsistencies are quite telling.

For example, take a look at column B. Only
one
of the shells,
CE 544
has a mark from the bolt of Oswald’s rifle. But wasn’t he supposed to have made
three
shots? If so, why a mark from the bolt on CE 544 only? And take a look at column A; why does only
CE 544
lack the magazine follower mark?

Most importantly, take a look at columns C through F: here we can see quite clearly that CE 543 can be differentiated from the other exhibits along not just one, but
four
parameters:

• The number of striations on the head (543 has 3, the others none);
  
• The number of marks on the base (543 has 3, the others none);
  
• A dented lip (543 has 1, the others none);
  
• Chambering marks (543 has none, the others each have one);