Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

Cadigan’s paper tests—visual, microscopic, ultraviolet, micrometric, fiber, and spectrographic—showed the bag’s paper matched Texas School Book Depository shipping samples exactly. The bag’s tape bore half-inch center lines from a ridged commercial dispenser wheel; such a dispenser was found in the Depository shipping room, and line length and frequency matched precisely.

Chapter II. With the assistance of Agent in Charge Sorrels of the (Part 8 of 21)

The Commission consulted Edgewood Arsenal wound ballistics experts Drs. Alfred G. Olivier, Arthur J. Dziemian, and Frederick W. Light, Jr. Using the actual assassination weapon and comparing with NATO M-80 and 257 Winchester Roberts rounds, they confirmed the Western bullet’s “terrific penetrating ability,” passing through gelatin blocks straight before curving.

Simulating Kennedy’s neck wound with gelatin and meat blocks duplicating the 13½–14½ cm of tissue, at an estimated 180 feet, bullets struck at approximately 1,904 feet per second and exited gelatin at 1,779 feet per second—retaining stability and producing only slightly elongated wounds.

Simulating Connally’s chest wound produced an animal injury matching the Governor’s—an eighth-rib fracture with similar bone loss. The test bullet, like Commission Exhibit No. 399 found on Connally’s stretcher, was flattened with extruded lead core; the animal’s bullet (Exhibit No. 853) was flatter, indicating higher speed, and left an imprint almost a bullet-length long on the velocity screen, suggesting end-over-end tumbling. For Connally’s greater body mass, velocity reduction was estimated at 400 feet per second.

Wrist-injury tests at 210 feet showed greater bone damage than the Governor’s, with a larger entry than exit wound—characteristic of a tumbling bullet with substantially reduced velocity.

Olivier and Dziemian concluded one bullet caused all Connally’s wounds, most probably the same bullet that struck Kennedy’s neck first, passing through the President’s neck, beginning to yaw between the men, losing substantial velocity through Connally’s chest, tumbling through his wrist, and slightly penetrating his left thigh. Light found anatomical evidence alone insufficient but agreed the single-bullet theory was supported by limousine positioning.

Inert skulls filled with gelatin and draped with simulated hair replicated Kennedy’s head wound. A skull struck 2.9 cm right and almost horizontal to the occipital protuberance broke apart like the President’s; bone deformed the bullet’s end, expending enormous energy. Two test fragments resembled Commission Exhibits 567 and 569 found in the front seat. Olivier concluded the under-seat fragments most probably came from the head bullet, ruling out dumdum speculation.

FBI hair and fiber specialist Paul M. Stombaugh examined the green-brown blanket (Exhibit 140), paper bag (142), Oswald’s November 22 shirt (150), and C2766 rifle (139). The blanket was about 1–2% wool, 20–35% cotton, remainder delustered viscose scrap. A 10-inch crease corresponded in length and shape to the rifle’s telescopic sight. Foreign textile fibers and Caucasian hairs were present; several limb and pubic hairs matched Oswald’s—medium brown fading to transparent tips, narrow diameters, smooth surfaces, sharp tips unusual for pubic hairs, thin cuticle, fine even pigmentation, unusual absence of cortical fusi. The paper bag held a brown delustered viscose fiber and several light-green cotton fibers matching the blanket in shade, diameter, twist, and delustering distribution.

The dusted rifle held few useful fibers, but a tuft of six or seven orange-yellow, gray-black, and dark-blue cotton fibers caught on the metal butt plate edge—folded into a crevice by the fingerprint brush and remaining “fresh.” They matched Oswald’s shirt fibers in all observable characteristics; Stombaugh concluded they “could easily” have come from the shirt, though he could not eliminate an identical shirt.

FBI photographer Lyndal D. Shaneyfelt examined photographs of Oswald holding a rifle found in the Paine garage—Exhibits 133-A and 133-B—and their negative (133-B’s negative being Exhibit 749) and Marina’s Imperial Reflex camera (Exhibit 750). Background and lighting in 133-A and 133-B were virtually identical, only poses differing. Comparing the pictured rifle with the actual C2766, Shaneyfelt found no differences, though he could not positively identify it from the photograph alone.

The crucial evidence was the camera’s film-plane aperture, whose microscopic irregularities—like rifle barrel toolmarks—are unique due to manufacturing handwork and wear; negative edges form a shadowgraph of these irregularities. Shaneyfelt compared 133-B’s negative shadowgraph with one he produced using Oswald’s Imperial camera and determined they matched. Though Oswald claimed 133-A was a composite—his face superimposed—Shaneyfelt found no lighting, lens, or retouching inconsistencies under magnification, and the 133-B negative showed no doctoring. Since 133-B was produced in Oswald’s identified camera, any composite would require pasting, retouching, and rephotographing in the same camera—“in the realm of the impossible.”