General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy believed President Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy. [View all]AntiFascist
(12,792 posts)I have a real problem with CE-399, the bullet that primarilly supports the Single Bullet Theory from Oswald's rifle.
Just reading through Tomlinson's testimony (the engineer who first found the bullet) it seems like he was badgered and repeatedly asked the same question over and over about which stretcher he found it on, until the FBI got an answer it would accept. Finally he made a comment about wanting to be able to sleep at night and began to doubt his own recollection. You could say that he was just unreliable, or you could say that the pressure of possibly raising questions in such an important case got to him. He was an engineer who worked at a major hospital so you would think he would have something of an analytical eye. He wasn't just an "orderly," as some have claimed.
Also, why would the FBI conclusion in a memo to the WC contradict its own declassified report that Tomlinson (and Wright) were unable to positively identify CE-399 as the bullet found? At the very least, this would again point to Tomlinson as being unreliable, but you would think this would be an important fact to include in such an important investigation.
In a 1966 interview, Wright stated that the bullet found was more "point-nosed," not "round-nosed" like CE-399. This would support a conclusion that the actual bullet found did not come from Oswald's rifle, and would be more consistent with a modern assualt weapon... obviously not a possibility that the FBI was interested in entertaining.
Also, in the course of the investigation, the FBI used a technique called Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis to indicate, conclusively, that the fragments found in Connolly's wrist match CE-399. While it is understandable that the FBI would be using the technique at the time, more recently the technique has been demonstrated conclusively to be of no value, including in a press release from the FBI itself in 2005. The Single Bullet (from Oswald's rifle) Theory defenders continue to cite this as conclusive evidence even though it is clearly no longer supported.