Washington Decoded

Articles by Title

 

A Lie on Every Page

Advancing POTUS,   ’60s Style

After Thirty Years: Making Sense of the Assassination

Agee's Archive: The Truth Unredacted?

All the President’s Editors

Angleton Unrevealed

Arthur J. Goldberg and the Reds in the OSS

The Assassin as Political Pilgrim

Assassination: As American as Apple Pie?

Assassination Chronicle

The Assassination Tapes

Bashing, Bullying, Blaming Japan
US Deals with a Deficit

Big D

Birthers, Truthers, and Buffs: The Paranoid Style

Bombshell or Dud? Earle Cabell’s CIA Connections

Bradlee’s ‘Especially Privileged Seat at the Parade’

Buyouts: The LBO Lobby Makes Its Move on Washington  

Camelot and Cuba

Castros and Kennedys

The Charm of Saddam: Part 1

The Charm of Saddam: Part 2

Citizen McCloy   

Civics Lesson

Clay Shaw: The Man Jim Garrison Tormented

A Cold War Odyssey: The Oswald File

Cold War Origins

Commission Confidential

Commission the Truth

Commissions Shed Light on Darkest Days

Concocting the Dots

A Conspiracy of Dunces

Conspiracy Theories Keep Coming, But the Plot Gets Thinner

Credit Where Credit Is Due

The Cuban Missile Crisis: Once More Unto the Breach

The Cuban Missile Crisis 45 Years Later:
A Personal and Professional Remembrance 

The Cuban Missile Crisis, Harvard-Style

Dealing with Dealey Plaza

The Death of Conservatism-and Other Vital Center Illusions

Deep Throat 3.0

A Defection in the Family

Defending CHAOS

In Defense of Skeptics and Conspiracy Theorists (Sort Of)

The Demon in Jim Garrison

The DeRonja-Holland Report (Final)

The DeRonja-Holland Report (Interim)

The Docudrama That Is JFK

Don’t Blame the Japanese: The Rise and Fall of Burgmaster

Doubt and Disbelief in the Warren Report

Dreamland Fantasies

Drone Wars

Drugs, Corruption, and Justice in Vietnam and Afghanistan: A Cautionary Tale

11 Seconds in Dallas, Not Six

11 Seconds in Dallas Redux: Filmed Evidence

Erasing History at the National Archives

Fantasy v. Reality in the Federal Budget

The FBI According to Weiner

Fidel Catastrophes

The Final DeRonja-Holland Report

Five Best Books on the Conspiracy Mindset

The Ford Files

Four Decades of Speculation on the Kennedy Assassination 

The Girl in the Red Skirt: A Micro-Study of the Zapruder Film

“Grassy Knoll” Sid: Hillary’s Personal Conspiracy Theorist

Greed Is All Right

A. C. Greene on the Texas School Book Depository

Harvard Does Dallas

Havana’s Cold War

The Historian as Hustler

The Homophobic Backdrop to Jim Garrison’s Persecution of Clay Shaw

How the 1 Percent Got That Way

How to Kill a Company: Anatomy of a Leveraged Buyout

How Moscow Undermined the Warren Commission

In Denial: Round 11

Indoctrination U

An Industrial Saga Marred by Conspiracy-Mongering

In Search of the Third Man

Inside Casino Capitalism

Inside KKR’s Buyout Boutique

I. F. Stone: Encounters with Soviet Intelligence

Jane Fonda and Her Friendly North Vietnamese Intelligence Officer

Jerry Ford Was No Accidental President

The JFK Files: Cuba, Kennedy, and the Cold War

The JFK Lawyers’ Conspiracy

JFK’s Death, Re-Framed

Jim Garrison: Trump Before Trump

Jim Garrison’s Collateral Victim: Louis Bloomfield

J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Spy? No. But a Communist Once? Yes.

John O’Connor Jumps the Shark

Junkman in DC

Just a Shot Away

The Kennedy Assassination Tapes

The Key to the Warren Report

KGB vs. the Papacy

Kill or Capture, Torture or Deceive

King Henry

King Oil

LBOs: Enough Already!

Libby Indicted, But the Press Still Needs a Federal Shield Law

Looking for Faust in Texas

A Luce Connection:
Senator Keating, William Pawley, and the Cuban Missile Crisis

Luce Falls Short: Andrew Bacevich on the End of the American Century

Lucien Haag’s Flawed Analysis of the First Shot Fired in the JFK Assassination

Mailer Tracks Down the Lone Assassin

The Making of Richard Nixon

The Making of a Washington Expert

Mark Lane: The Original Shyster

McCarthy, According to Evans (and Novak)

McCone’s Telcon Gaffe

The Mind of Somoza

A Miss

The Missile Crisis, Harvard-Style

A Most Unlikely Agent: Robert S. Allen

Mr. Young Goes to Washington

The Myths of Kim Philby

New Light on a Lingering Forensic Controversy

The New McCarthyism

Naftali Reconsidered

The Nixon Precedent

Nixon Reiterated

Nixon’s Overreach—and an Author’s

November 22, 1963: Conspiracy or No, One Day Has Stretched to Fill a Writer ’s Years

Nut Country: From A(lger) to (Cru)Z

An Old Schism Haunts the 9/11 Commission

Oliver Stone on Jim Garrison, the KGB, and the CIA

Oliver Stone on Garrison’s Demon

Once More ‘Round the Plaza

One Year After  a Major Realignment,
the Intelligence Community Is in Disarray

Operation PBHISTORY: The Aftermath of SUCCESS

Outing Deep Throat

Paranoia Unbound

Politics and Intelligence:
The ‘Photo Gap’ That Delayed Discovery of Missiles in Cuba

The Politics of Association: Ayers v. Kravis

The Politics of Postmortems: Cuba 1962-1963

The Politics (and Profits) of Information: The 9/11 Commission

The Power of Disinformation:
The Lie That Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination

Presidential Tapes and Historical Interpretation

Presidential Tapes and Transcripts:
Crafting a New Historical Genre

Private Sources of US Foreign Policy:
William Pawley and the 1954 Coup d’Etat in Guatemala

Procuring Inaction

The Propagation and Power of Communist Dezinformatsiya

The Quiet Vietnamese

Reality Check

Reel History: Should ABC Have Yanked The Path to 9/11?

RFK OK'd Sabotage Against Cuba in November 1963

RFK: The Man Who Really Brought Down LBJ

Richard Nixon’s Own Deep Throat

The Riddle of Lee Harvey Oswald

Road to Nowhere

Roger and the NYSE

The Russell (and Warren) Commission

Sabato’s Folly

The Secret Assassination Records and the Story They Tell

The Secret That Wasn’t: Deep Throat Exposed in 1973

Seeing Red in the Caribbean

Senators Beat the Market with Insider Information

Shame on the History Channel

Silence of the Corporate Lambs: Where was Vernon Jordan?

A Single Photograph Disproves Oliver Stone’s Conspiracy Claim

Sins of Omission and Commission

The Spy Who Never Came In from the Cold

Still Guilty After All These Years: Sirhan B. Sirhan

Tales from the LBJ Tapes: History with the Bark Off

Tapes: Hearing a Wrong Leaning, er, Meaning

The Tapping of ‘Tommy the Cork’

A Technical Investigation Pertaining to the First Shot Fired in the JFK Assassination

A Theory Too Far

Three Decades’ Doubt About the JFK Assassination
Will Now Get Three Years’ Scrutiny

Truth in A Lie: Forty Years After the 18½ Minute Gap

The Underwood Hoax

Unspeakably Awful

The Vanity of Vanity Fair

Was Jim Garrison Duped by the KGB?

Washing White

Watergate: The Director’s Cut

What Did LBJ Know About the Cuban Missile Crisis?
And When Did He Know It?

What Oswald Wrought: Lament of a Generation

When Burgmaster Lost Its Edge 

Who Interrogated American Electronic Warfare Specialists in North Vietnam During the War?

Who Needs Soviet Propaganda?

Who's Bankrolling the Buyout Artist?

Why Did I. F. Stone Sidestep the Hiss Case?

Why RFK Shunned the Inquiry into His Brother’s Assassination

A Word About Lee Harvey Oswald

Contributors

Ayton, Mel

    “Assassination: As American as Apple Pie?” April 2022   

    “A Lie on Every Page,” March 2019   

    “Mark Lane: The Original Shyster,” May 2012

    “Still Guilty After All These Years: Sirhan B. Sirhan,” May 2008

 

Barrett, David M.

    “Who Needs Soviet Propaganda?” October 2015   

    “McCone’s Telcon Gaffe,” August 2012

 

Bohning, Don

    “Havana’s Cold War,” June 2012

    “Seeing Red in the Caribbean,” June 2011   

    “Indoctrination U,” June 2008

    “Camelot and Cuba,” July 2007

 

Brennan, Tim

     “ In Search of the Third Man,” June 2016

 

Byrne, Jeb

    “Advancing POTUS, ’60s Style,” April 2010

 

Canal, John

   “ New Light on a Lingering Forensic Controversy,” September 2013

 

Capshaw, Ron

    “Big D,” November 2013

    “A Miss,” April 2013

 

Carpenter, Donald H.

     “Jim Garrison: Trump Before Trump,” March 2017

 

Colhoun, Jack

     “A Theory Too Far,” October 2019

 

DeRonja, Frank S.

    “Lucien Haag’s Flawed Analysis of the First Shot Fired in the JFK Assassination,” November 2016  

     “The Final DeRonja-Holland Report,” May 2016

    “The Interim DeRonja-Holland Report,” November 2011

 

Drake, Richard

    “An Industrial Saga Marred by Conspiracy-Mongering,” February 2020

 

Feldstein, Mark

   “John O’Connor Jumps the Shark,” April 2020

 

Flanders, Jefferson

    “The Myths of Kim Philby,” April 2015

    “Luce Falls Short: Andrew Bacevich on the End of the American Century,” July 2012   

    “Drone Wars,” January 2010

    “Birthers, Truthers, and Buffs,” August 2009

 

Gaines, William

    “Deep Throat 3.0,” May 2007

 

Hartman, Andrew

    “The Death of Conservatism-and Other Vital Center Illusions,” September 2009

 

Haynes, John Earl

    “Washing White,” August 2013

    “J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Spy? No. But a Communist Once? Yes.” February 2012

    “ Arthur J. Goldberg and the Reds in the OSS,” September 2011

    “In Denial: Round 11,” June 2009

    “McCarthy, According to Evans (and Novak),” December 2007

    “The New McCarthyism,” April 2007

 

Kelly, Jr., Martin J.

    “Reality Check,” November 2022

    “The Homophobic Backdrop to Jim Garrison’s Persecution of Clay Shaw,” October 2021

 

Kern, Gary

    “The Charm of Saddam: Part 2,” December 2019

    “The Charm of Saddam: Part 1,” June 2019   

    “Kill or Capture, Torture or Deceive,” December 2011

 

Klehr, Harvey

    “Washing White,” August 2013

    “J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Spy? No. But a Communist Once? Yes.” February 2012     

    “Arthur J. Goldberg and the Reds in the OSS,” September 2011

    “In Denial, Round 11,” June 2009

    “The New McCarthyism,” April 2007

 

Latell, Brian

    “Concocting the Dots,” January 2009

 

Litwin, Fred

    “Jim Garrison’s Collateral Victim: Louis Bloomfield,” November 2020

 

McAdams, John

    “Looking for Faust in Texas,” February 2017   

   “Unspeakably Awful,” December 2009

    “Road to Nowhere,” March 2009

 

McMillan, Priscilla J. 

    “The Assassin as Political Pilgrim,” October 2013

    “A Word About Lee Harvey Oswald,” June 2007

 

Nicholson, Samuel

    “A Most Unlikely Agent: Robert S. Allen,” September 2010

 

Norris, Robert S.

    “Dreamland Fantasies,” June 2011

 

Novello, Ginette

    “Anatomy of a Malignant Narcissist,” October 2020

 

Payne, Darwin

    “Nut Country: From A(lger) to (Cru)Z,” April 2016

 

Peterzell, Jay

    “Defending CHAOS,” January 2013

 

Pompowski, Tomasz

    “The Soviet Attack on Archbishop Marcinkus,” March 2012

 

Pribbenow, Merle L.

    “Who Interrogated American Electronic Warfare Specialists in North Vietnam During the War? December 2014

    “Jane Fonda and Her Friendly North Vietnamese Intelligence Officer,” August 2011

    “Drugs, Corruption, and Justice in Vietnam and Afghanistan: A Cautionary Tale,” November 2009

    “The Quiet Vietnamese,” August 2007

 

Reiman, Richard

    “The Riddle of Lee Harvey Oswald,” February 2023

 

Reitzes, David

    “Sabato’s Folly,” September 2014

 

Reynolds, Robert

    “When Is the News Media Going to Catch On?”  May 2022

    “Once More ‘Round the Plaza,” December 2021

 

Richelson, Jeffrey T.

    “Dreamland Fantasies,” June 2011

    “Sins of Omission and Commission,” September 2007

 

Ritchie, Donald A.

    “The Making of Richard Nixon,” March 2022    

 

Robarge, David

    “Angleton Unrevealed,” October 2017

 

Robenalt, James D.

    “The Nixon Precedent,” February 2021

    “Nixon’s Overreach—and an Author’s,” October 2015

    “Truth in A Lie: Forty Years After the 18½ Minute Gap,” May 2014

 

Roe, Steve

    “A Single Photograph Disproves Oliver Stone’s Conspiracy Claim,” June 2002   

    “Bombshell or Dud? Earle Cabell’s CIA Connections,” April 2018

   

Rosenfeld, Susan

    “The FBI According to Weiner,” April 2012

 

Roy, Stephen

    “Clay Shaw: The Man Jim Garrison Tormented,” March 2015

 

Rush, Johann W. 

    “JFK’s Death, Re-Framed,” November 2007

    “11 Seconds in Dallas, Not Six,” March 2007

 

Tonelson, Alan

    “How the 1 Percent Got That Way,” February 2015

 

Scearce, Kenneth R.

    “The Girl in the Red Skirt: A Micro-Study of the Zapruder Film,” December 2013

    “In Defense of Skeptics and Conspiracy Theorists (Sort Of),” January 2012 

    “11 Seconds in Dallas Redux: Filmed Evidence,” November 2008

 

Seeger, Murray

    “The Spy Who Never Came In from the Cold,” May 2011

    “Agee’s Archives: The Truth Unredacted?” November 2010

 

Small, Melvin

    “Nixon Reiterated,” July 2015

 

Stern, Sheldon M.

    “ The Cuban Missile Crisis: Once More Unto the Breach,” June 2020   

    “Cold War Origins,”  July 2008

    “The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Personal and Professional Remembrance,” October 2007

The Interim DeRonja-Holland Report

 

Editorial Note: This report was originally posted online in November 2011, and was reposted in August 2016 for reference purposes. It is superceded by the Final DeRonja-Holland Report published in May 2016.

 

 

 

FORENSIC METALLURGY ASSOCIATES

Springfield, Virginia

 

 

Print text

Print figures

 

 

 

Technical Investigation Pertaining to the

First Shot Fired in the Kennedy Assassination

22 November 1963

 

 By
              
Frank S. DeRonja

Forensic Metallurgy, M.S. Metallurgical Engineering

and

Max Holland

Special Consultant

20 November 2011

Introduction

    In May of 2010, producers at the National Geographic cable channel, NatGeoTV, requested Forensic Metallurgy Associates to participate in an inspection of a traffic signal assembly in Dealey Plaza at the intersection of Elm and Houston Streets in Dallas, Texas.

    On 22 November 1963, this assembly consisted of a transformer base situated on the northwest corner of the intersection; a vertical steel pole, 18.5 feet in height, affixed to the base; a curved horizontal mast arm with an effective length of 15 feet, attached to the pole and supported by two brace rods; and a traffic signal that was attached onto the end of the mast arm.[1]

    President Kennedy’s limousine passed underneath this signal assembly prior to his fatal shooting and just before Abraham Zapruder began filming the assassination (see figure 1, below). The purpose of the inspection was to determine if the signal assembly displayed any bullet metal damage. If so, that would corroborate that Lee Harvey Oswald fired his first shot from a sixth floor window in the Texas School Book Depository just before the Zapruder film began, and that the bullet missed the presidential limousine and its occupants because it struck the signal assembly overhanging Elm Street.[2]

   

Figure 1: Still photo taken during a re-staging of the assassination by the Secret Service on 27 November 1963. The ghost image, which is inserted, approximates the position of the presidential limousine on November 22 at the moment Abraham Zapruder re-started his camera.

 

  Although the Warren Commission (1964) and House Select Committee on Assassinations (1979) considered various explanations for why the first shot missed, the signal assembly had never been subjected to any forensic examination. This oversight occurred because the obstruction presented by the signal assembly to the line of sight from the sixth floor window occurred before the Zapruder film started, and the film was always presumed to have captured the entire shooting sequence (see figure 1, above).[3]

    This report summarizes the results of inspections of various portions of the traffic signal assembly; corresponding forensic metallurgy observations; limited laboratory testing of exemplars; and the relationship of the technical findings to known factual information. All of the photos accompanying the report can be enlarged by clicking on them.