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

Firearms Identification of Walker Bullet

Dallas police recovered a badly mutilated bullet from a room beyond where General Walker was sitting on the night of the shooting; the Dallas City-County Investigation Laboratory could not determine the weapon type due to the bullet’s condition. On November 30, 1963, the FBI requested the bullet for ballistics examination, and Dallas police forwarded it on December 2. FBI ballistics expert Robert A. Frazier testified that he was “unable to reach a conclusion” as to whether the Walker bullet had been fired from the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building, but concluded that the general rifling characteristics were of the same type, and on that basis the bullet could have been fired from the rifle based on its land and groove impressions. Frazier explained that the FBI avoids the category of “probable” identification and will not draw conclusions as to probability unless a weapon can be identified to the exclusion of all others. However, Frazier found no microscopic characteristics or other evidence indicating that the bullet was not fired from Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano, and testified that relatively few types of rifles could produce the characteristics found on this 6.5-millimeter bullet.

第五章 of this report.

This chapter presents the Commission’s evaluation of the Walker shooting attempt, the alleged Nixon threat, and Oswald’s rifle capability. It concludes that Oswald attempted to kill Major General Edwin A. Walker in April 1963 based on documentary evidence, firearms analysis, and Marina Oswald’s testimony. The alleged threat against Richard M. Nixon is found to lack probative value because no evidence confirms Nixon visited Dallas during the relevant period. The chapter then assesses whether Oswald possessed the marksmanship skill and equipment to have fired the shots that killed President Kennedy, drawing on expert testimony about shot conditions, Marine training, post-service practice, and weapon testing.