A Single Photograph Disproves Oliver Stone’s Conspiracy Claim

 

The Unfounded Attack on CE 399’s Chain of Custody

 

 

By Steve Roe

 

 

    Some people, when they are responsible for creating a disaster, apologize and slink away. Others attempt to make amends. A few double down.

    Oliver Stone’s new pseudo-documentary, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, proves the nothing-if-not indefatigable director belongs firmly to the double-down school. He first unveiled his conspiratorial take on the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy in JFK, a 1991 feature film. At that time he proclaimed the film ought to be accorded as much weight as the Warren Report. Now Stone declares that his “conspiracy theories are now conspiracy facts.”[1]

    One of the outlandish claims in JFK: Destiny Betrayed concerns a most important piece of ballistic evidence. This artifact is Warren Commission Exhibit (CE) 399, the spent bullet fired from Lee Harvey Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle to the exclusion of all other weapons. This bullet, after penetrating the president’s upper back and exiting his throat, traversed Texas Governor John Connally’s torso and wrist before lodging itself superficially in his left thigh. During the chaos at Parkland Hospital, the bullet fell out onto the stretcher cart being used to transport Connally to the operating room. Within an hour or so a Parkland employee noticed the bullet on the stretcher, and it was eventually handed over to a Secret Service agent before finally reaching the FBI Lab on the evening of November 22nd.

Above: A frame from the Zapruder film shows President Kennedy and Governor Connally an instant after they were struck by the second bullet fired.                                         

Below: CE 399, the second bullet fired by Lee Harvey Oswald.                                                                                                                .                                                                                              

    Stone and James DiEugenio, who wrote the screenplay, would have everyone believe, however, that CE 399’s provenance can be impeached, and that unnamed conspirators planted a key piece of evidence that was the focus of every federal investigation. As Stone asserted during a March interview with an all-too-credulous Boston Herald reporter, “Nothing matches. There’s no chain of custody—of a bullet [CE 399] or a rifle or fingerprints. Nothing was done right. It was a completely botched investigation . . . .[2]

    In point of fact, there is no chain of custody issue. The Warren Commission worked hard in 1964 to establish how CE 399 got from Parkland to the FBI Lab on the night of November 22nd. The House Select Committee on Assassinations corroborated the accuracy of the commission’s findings in the late 1970s. The Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) reaffirmed these findings in 1996. And most recently, the National Archives (NARA), which preserves all assassination artifacts, acted in concert with the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to employ state-of-art imaging that enables researchers to examine CE 399 as never before.

    The issue comes down to whom do you believe: Oliver Stone? Or your own eyes?

The Chain of Custody

    From the moment it was obvious that much hinged on whether or not CE 399, the second bullet fired by Oswald, was retrieved from the stretcher used to transport Connally, Warren Commission assistant counsel Arlen Specter endeavored to establish the series of events that occurred from the moment the bullet was first noticed until it arrived at the FBI Lab. He did this by interviewing principal actors at Parkland Hospital and reviewing the accounts provided by the Secret Service and FBI. Specter developed this chain of custody from the hospital until the bullet arrived at the FBI’s Crime Lab:

• About 45 minutes after the remnants of the motorcade arrive at Parkland, Darrell C. Tomlinson, a senior engineer, pushes a recently-used stretcher cart against the wall on the ground floor; the bump causes a spent bullet to roll out from under the edge of the mat.
• Some 15-20 minutes later, Tomlinson brings the bullet to the attention of O. P. Wright, Parkland’s director of personnel and hospital security, and a former Dallas police officer.
• Wright gives the bullet to Secret Service agent Richard E. Johnsen about five minutes before Mrs. Kennedy and the late president—now in a coffin—leave the hospital at around 2 PM CST.
• Johnsen returns to Washington aboard Air Force One just after 6 PM EST. Once he arrives at the White House he hands the bullet over to Secret Service chief James J. Rowley. Johnsen then writes a very brief memo at 7:30 PM memorializing his receipt of the bullet from Wright.
• Special agent Elmer Lee Todd from the FBI’s Washington Field Office takes custody of the bullet from Rowley at 8:50 PM.
• Todd finally delivers the bullet to FBI special agent Robert A. Frazier, a firearms and ballistics examiner, at the Bureau’s Crime Lab. Both Todd and Frazier put their initials on the spent bullet.[3]

The envelope containing the spent bullet, labeled "Q1," after it arrived at the FBI Lab. Special agents Robert Frazier, Charles Killion, and Cortlandt Cunningham inscribed the same initials seen here on the envelope ("RF," "CK," and "JH") on the nose of the bullet. The chain of custody from chief Rowley via agent Todd is also recorded, along with the time and date. Source: John Hunt from the JFK Assassination Records Collection, NARA.

   Stone disputes this account. The program alleges that Todd’s initials are missing from CE 399, despite the agent’s claim that he marked the bullet. (It is standard law enforcement procedure for officers to scratch one or more initials on a recovered bullet to memorialize their receipt of it after a crime has been committed.) This alleged broken link in the chain, Stone argues, demolishes CE 399’s evidentiary value.

    Stone and DiEugenio base their allegation on the work of two researchers, Dr. David Mantik and John Hunt. Mantik appears in the program, and states that he went to the National Archives and personally examined CE 399. “Specifically what we want to know is, do we see Todd’s initials on this bullet?” Mantik says. “[Todd] said he initialed the bullet. It [sic] is not there!” Invoking Hunt’s findings is a bit more complicated since he died in 2018. So Mantik and another conspiracy advocate, Debra Conway, along with a narrator, Whoopi Goldberg, stand in for Hunt and describe his supposed findings.[4]

    Mantik and Hunt are incorrect in claiming that Elmer Todd’s initials are not on the bullet. In fact, Todd’s initials are right where he said they would be, as proved by NIST’s high-resolution photographs.

 

The NARA/NIST 3D Digital Program

    In 2015-16, the National Archives, concerned about protecting the ballistic evidence amid a steady stream of requests from researchers to handle these items, developed a solution in conjunction with NIST. A state-of-the-art digital scanning project promised to address the twin objectives of preservation and public access.

    Five items from the ballistic evidence, including CE 399, the nearly whole bullet often called the “stretcher bullet,” were transported from NARA’s vault to NIST’s climate-controlled facility in nearby Gaithersburg, Maryland. NIST technicians then used a technique called “focus variation microscopy” to create three-dimensional (3D) digital replicas of these five items. “These virtual artifacts are as close as possible to the real things,” observed Martha Murphy, NARA’s deputy director of government information. And in some respects the 3D visual replicas are better because they are easier to manipulate. Researchers can rotate the object along any axis; change colors to better discern minute features; and, of course, greatly enlarge minute areas without losing any sharpness.[5]

    The NIST team also used its temporary custody of these artifacts to take archival-quality, high-resolution photos of each item. These pictures are more than sufficient for researchers to discern even small features that might be barely visible to the naked eye—such as initials said to be carved in CE 399 to document the chain of custody.[6]

    The nose of CE 399, with its copper jacket twisted but still attached, is where federal agents left their respective marks. This area was chosen so as not to disturb in any way the unique rifling that occurs whenever a bullet passes through a barrel at a high velocity. Akin in a way to human fingerprints, these signature marks on every fired bullet are what allow firearms examiners to determine if a bullet came from a particular weapon. Bullets or fragments thereof recovered from a crime scene are compared to bullets known to be test-fired from the weapon in question.

    All told, there are four sets of initials on CE 399’s nose: “RF” for Robert Frazier; “JH” for Cortlandt Cunningham, who was another bureau agent in the FBI Lab’s Firearms Identification Unit; “CK” for Charles Killion, also an agent with expertise in firearms identification who double-checked Frazier’s work. And lastly, a fourth set of easily discernible initials that read “ET,” for Elmer Todd.[7]

The nose of CE 399 with Robert Frazier's initials.

    The images displayed immediately above and below are taken from the actual NIST high-resolution photographs. They have been cropped to highlight the area of interest, i.e., the nose of the bullet. In addition, the image below has been sharpened and brightened for optimal clarity of Todd’s initials. (For an unenhanced version click here).

The nose of CE 399 with Elmer Todd's initials clearly visible.

        What next? A claim that the initials “ET” were added recently to CE 399, after Hunt, Mantik and Stone noted their absence? Such a theory would have to explain how it was that in 1996—10 years before Hunt’s first article—Tammi S. Long, an ARRB attorney/analyst, specifically noted the presence of Todd’s initials on CE 399 in her review of the chain of custody. Long wrote,

. . . SA Johnson [sic] gave the bullet to James Rowley, Chief, USSS, on 11/22/63 upon his return to Washington, DC. Chief Rowley gave the bullet to [FBI] SA Elmer Todd (Todd marked it with his initials), 11/22/63 . . . . SA Todd gave the bullet to SA Frazier at the FBI lab . . . . I can personally verify that I have seen the item identified as CE 399 in the National Archives, JFK Collection, at College Park, Maryland. On April 23, 1996 . . . . I was able to descern [sic] the initials representing the chain of custody [emphasis added] of item CE 399.[8]

    Stone and DiEugenio, who claim to stay abreast of all the latest assassination-related research, should have known about the landmark NARA/NIST effort and could have fact-checked Hunt’s and Mantik’s claims about missing initials. That they did not bother tells everyone all they need to know about their spurious documentary.

 

Timing Issue

    Apart from their buncombe about Todd’s initials, Stone/DiEugenio attempt to raise a timing issue that supposedly underscores their allegation that there was something untoward about CE 399’s journey from Parkland Hospital to the FBI Lab.

    Again, they rely on Mantik and Hunt. In a 2006 article the latter alleged that Frazier received a bullet from Todd at 7:30 PM, although the evidence envelope that contained CE 399 indicates that Todd himself did not actually receive CE 399 from Secret Service chief Rowley at the White House until 8:50 PM. So how could Frazier have received it 80 minutes earlier? This discrepancy, supposedly, is further proof of something sinister regarding the CE 399’s chain of custody.[9]

 

The brief note Secret Service special agent Richard Johnsen wrote upon passing the spent bullet to chief James Rowley. Source: John Hunt from the JFK Assassination Records Collection, NARA.

    There was nothing sinister about the timing. When Frazier received the bullet, attached to the envelope was a brief note from Richard Johnsen, dictated or typed at 7:30 PM, in which the Secret Service agent described from whom, and under what circumstances—to the best of this knowledge—the bullet was retrieved at Parkland. Presumably he did this in lieu of putting his own initials on what would eventually be designated CE 399. Subsequently, while Frazier was preparing to testify before the Warren Commission for the first time on 31 March 1964, rather than use the time he actually received the bullet, he simply jotted down on his testimony worksheet the time referenced in Johnsen’s note.[10]

Ignoring the Evidence

    It is not difficult to understand why CE 399’s chain of custody is disputed in the Stone/DiEugenio screenplay. Critics of the Warren Report have long derided the commission’s finding that one bullet—which critics labeled “magic”—could have managed to wreak so much damage on two human beings in the presidential limousine while seeming to sustain so little damage to itself. CE 399, together with Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle; the three spent hulls found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository; and CEs 567 and 569, fragments found in the limousine that were still large enough to be traced to the rifle to the exclusion of all other weapons, are the linchpins in the commission’s finding that Oswald alone fired all the shots in Dealey Plaza. If doubt can be cast on CE 399’s provenance and/or chain of custody, the Warren Report is undermined.

    Stone and DiEugenio are not just about political subversion of the report, however. They are bent on proving an immense conspiracy that dwarfs anything Senator Joe McCarthy ever imagined. As the Canadian author Fred Litwin wrote,

James DiEugenio would have you believe that issues with [CE 399’s] chain of possession can only mean that somewhere, between Dallas and Washington, the conspirators changed the bullet . . . .

DiEugenio believes that supposed anomalies in the chain of possession of much of the underlying evidence (Oswald’s rifle, CE 399, etc.) renders them not just inadmissible in a court of law but also renders them inadmissible in an investigation. He has no interest in getting Oswald off on a technicality; he wants the judgment of history to declare Oswald innocent of killing JFK.[11]

    A genuine documentary would have to be probably twice as long as Stone’s to debunk every falsehood, half-truth, misrepresentation, and omission he presents as fact in JFK: Destiny Betrayed. It brings to mind Jonathan Swift’s old adage, perhaps more pertinent now than when he wrote it in 1710:

    “Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it.”

Steve Roe is an independent researcher based in Texas. This is his second article for Washington Decoded. He would like to thank Fred Litwin, Paul Hoch, David Von Pein, and Frank Badalson for their assistance.

 

[1] Quote from JFK Revisited @ 1:06:18. There are actually two versions of Stone’s program. A four-hour version, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, consists of four episodes. The truncated one is JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, which consists of one episode with a running time of two hours. James DiEugenio wrote both screenplays, and the allegation re anomalies in CE 399’s chain of custody appears in both.

[2] Stephen Schaefer, “Oliver Stone Adds Up the Clues in JFK: Destiny Betrayed Doc,” Boston Herald, 8 March 2022.

[3] Tomlinson Testimony, 6 Warren Commission Hearings (hereafter WCH) 130; Johnsen Note, CE 1024, 18 WCH 799-800; Frazier Testimony, 3 WCH 428; CE 2011, FBI Memo, 7 July 1964, 24 WCH 412; Warren Commission Document 7, all Mary Ferrell Foundation.

[4] John Hunt, “Phantom Identification of the Magic Bullet: E. L. Todd and CE 399,” JFK Lancer, 2006, and Partial Transcript prepared from JFK: Destiny Betrayed. The screenplay is not the first time DiEugenio has made this bogus claim, In his 2013 book, Reclaiming Parkland, DiEugenio wrote, “[John] Hunt, on a Motel 6 budget, went to Washington. He did what [author Vincent] Bugliosi . . . did not. He photographed the bullet in sequential rotation. Therefore, the reader can see its entire circumference. Todd's initials are not on CE 399 today.” In point of fact, Hunt did not take new photos of CE 399; he merely studied photos already available at the National Archives. These did not allow for close inspection of the bullet’s entire circumference. James DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland: Tom Hanks, Vincent Bugliosi, and the JFK Assassination in the New Hollywood (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2013), 226.

[5] “Kennedy Assassination Bullet Preserved in Digital Form,” NIST News, 5 December 2019. In addition to CE 399, the ballistic evidence included CE 567 and CE 569 (both of which were fired bullet fragments from a Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5 mm caliber bullet, and both of which were recovered from the presidential limousine); CE 572 (a Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5 mm caliber bullet test-fired from CE 139, Oswald’s rifle); and CE 573 (a fired bullet fragment from a Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5 mm caliber bullet that was recovered in April 1963 from the home of former Army General Edwin A. Walker). Click here for access to these images.

[6] “Kennedy Assassination Bullet Preserved in Digital Form,” NIST News, 5 December 2019.

[7] John Hunt asked Frazier why Cunningham used the initials “JH,” and the FBI agent told him Cunningham was concerned that “CC” might be confused with the then-common term “Carbon Copy.” Therefore Cunningham, according to Frazier, often used the initials “JH” as his evidence marker. John Hunt, “Phantom Identification of the Magic Bullet: E. L. Todd and CE 399,” JFK Lancer, 2006. Cunningham also used “JH” on the spent cartridges recovered from the site of Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit’s murder, and on the Walker bullet, CE 573. CE 399’s nose also has “Q1” carved into it, which was what the FBI Lab called the bullet internally before it was labeled “CE 399” during testimony before the Warren Commission.

[8] Tammi S. Long, Preliminary Report on the Ballistics Evidence, ARRB Electronic Records, Mary Ferrell Foundation.

[9] John Hunt, “The Mystery of the 7:30 Bullet,” JFK Lancer, 2006.

[10] Testimony of Robert A. Frazier, 3 WCH 428. In Frazier’s testimony he makes no mention of the actual time he received the bullet, but the notation on the envelope is clear. It’s also worth noting that Frazier, Killion, and Cunningham wrote on the envelope the same initials they inscribed on the bullet.

[11] Fred Litwin, “The Enabling of Oliver Stone.” Litwin has debunked many of Stone/DiEugenio’s claims on his blog, On the Trail of Delusion.

©2022 by Steve Roe

Comments

[Pat Speer]

I think Roe makes a good case for the bullet not being switched. I think the article is hampered, however, by its assertion as fact that "This bullet, after penetrating the president’s upper back and exiting his throat, traversed Texas Governor John Connally’s torso and wrist before lodging itself superficially in his left thigh. During the chaos at Parkland Hospital, the bullet fell out onto the stretcher cart being used to transport Connally to the operating room." As he well knows, there are many reasons to doubt this happened. While he may not doubt this happened, the article would be far more effective, IMO, if it stuck to the chain-of-custody issue, and did not present such speculation as fact.

[Brian Doyle]

Parnell [sic] and Roe forgot to mention that the Parkland Hospital personnel who found the bullet made clear it was a pointed-tip round and not the round-tipped copper-jacketed bullet seen in evidence.
Typical of Parnell [sic], he also forgets to mention that FBI agent Odum disavowed what was attributed to him in the report and told researchers he never handled the bullet.
While this is interesting it doesn't prove that the timing issue isn't evidence of a swapped-in bullet. Todd's initials are not proof that it wasn't swapped-in before that.

[Antoni Wrega]

Who believes Oliver Stone's fantasy movies? Well, hard-working people who simply do not have time to read such articles like this one by Steve Roe. This is it.

[BillTracy17]

Just to clarify, although I agree with the article and see it as a fine piece of work, I am not a co-author.

W. Tracy Parnell

[Lawrence P. Schnapf]

Steve Roe occasionally comes up with good finds and I acknowledge them when he does. This article is a mixed bag. It does to bed the issue of Todd's initials but is flawed when it comes to the timeline. Steve presumes an innocent explanation without any evidence or corroborating testimony as to why Frazier said he received the bullet 80 minutes later.

This is yet another example of how Steve uses different levels of scrutiny when assessing evidence supporting the official theory as opposed to evidence supporting a conspiracy. He is eager to dismiss any inconsistencies with the official record as a harmless error but employs an exacting level of scrutiny for evidence supporting a conspiracy. This suggests a bias in his analysis and not a true pursuit of the truth. I wish he could view evidence through a lens that is not colored towards a particular view.

[Steve Roe]

In response to Lawrence Schnapf:

Thanks for acknowledging Elmer Todd's initials on CE399. I'm sure researcher John Hunt did his best to find them, but sadly he passed away before the NIST images were made available.

Regarding the timing issue you put forth, there is no issue. Per the article, Robert Frazier simply noted on his "Warren Commission Testimony Worksheet" the 7:30 PM notation. This is not, and let me repeat, this is not the time he received CE399 at the FBI Lab from Todd. This has been badly misinterpreted. As the article states, you can see Frazier, Killionm and Cunningham's initials on the envelope that had the staple marks that Johnsen's White House letter was attached to. Frazier simply used the 7:30 time off that letter. It's as simple as that. There was no sinister timing issue.
Your statement that "I should view evidence that is not colored towards a particular view" is ludicrous and unfounded. I point to your own participation in this Oliver Stone film. I could call that bias, as one-sided as the film was, but out of respect I will not put that label on you.
The bigger issue now is whether Oliver Stone will acknowledge this egregious error. I hope you would agree with me that Mr. Stone and Mr. DiEugenio should issue a correction or statement in this regard if they have any concern at all about the truth.

[William OHalloran]

While this settles the issue of the initials being on the bullet, it doesn't change the fact that the bullet did not and could not have struck JFK and Governor Connally.

Considering when experts at Edgewood Arsenal fired the same rifle and same bullets into goat ribs and human cadaver wrists, all of their test bullets emerged deformed:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=62296#relPageId=35

Except those fired into cotton and gelatin, which don't count since they aren't as dense as human bone:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=62296#relPageId=43

In an April 2021 interview, ballistics expert Daniel O'Kelly confirmed to me, "Can they [full metal jacketed bullets] still deform? Yes. What would cause that? A variation in the speed of the bullet. The faster it goes, the more resistance it's going to encounter when it hits a hard object. Obviously bone is harder than muscle."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tZXZRIOA_0

Furthermore, Dr. Joseph Dolce, who supervised those tests for the Warren Commission, declared, "It's impossible . . . . Under no circumstances do I feel that this bullet could hit the wrist and still not be deformed. We proved that by experiments."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJQy1cHna04

Ironically, Dolce wasn't called to testify to the Warren Commission, but his colleagues who disagreed (Dr. Alfred Oliver and Dr. Arthur Dziemian) were called to testify. But given Steve Roe's clear bias, he of course didn't acknowledge that.

[George Watson]

Is it possible that the Secret Service agents who were in Dallas looked at their watches, after they returned to DC and still being on Central Time, wrote down 7:30 PM (CST) instead of 8:30 PM (EST) ?

Those who worry about the chain of custody have to admit that no such chain can ever be perfect, as evidence can be manipulated even after " final custody " has taken place.

If someone wanted to plant a bullet in the hope that it would be recognized as the same bullet that injured JFK and JBC, they would have to know that no such bullet or large fragments of the original bullet remained in JFK or JBC or the limousine.

How could they be sure by 2:00 PM (CST) as Air Force One headed back to Washington, DC?

It seems to morally offend some people, to the very marrow of their bones, that Oswald could have killed JFK. But all of Oswald's action in the 24 hours before JFK dies,
point to him being the assassin and his actions in the 90 minutes after the assassination point to his guilt and willingness to murder, and so he murders Officer Tippit and tried to murder the arresting officers in the Dallas Theater.

To think there must have been some vast or very tight conspiracy to kill JFK and no one has ever come forth from among the conspirators--if not for dying fame, then to provide money for their elderly spouse, family, belies reality.

Watergate demonstrated that people at any level of a conspiracy will confess or just speak to the media, as time goes by.