http://CTKA.net/2008/bugliosi_review.html
I've taken a look at James DiEugenio's lengthy review of Vincent
Bugliosi's 2007 JFK book, "Reclaiming History". And although I
completely disagree with almost everything Jim has written in his
review, I must say that I did enjoy reading it.
DiEugenio is 100% wrong about a whole bunch of conclusions he has
reached with respect to the way John Kennedy died in 1963. There can
be no doubt about that fact.
Jim, possibly, could best be categorized as a "hair-splitter". And
then, to borrow a phrase from my favorite of all authors (Mr.
Bugliosi, of course), after Jim has split each hair, he then proceeds
to "split the split hairs", until the end result is a great-big mess
of unanswerable questions and totally-incoherent plots and reasoning.
(IMHO, that is.)
And here's just one of several examples of this (again, IMO, that is):
In his critique of Vince Bugliosi's book, Mr. DiEugenio seems to imply
that many, many different Mannlicher-Carcano Model 91/38 rifles (like
Lee Harvey Oswald's) were manufactured with the exact same serial
number (C2766)....which, according to Robert Frazier of the FBI (via
his Warren Commission testimony) is not the case at all.*
* = And by way of footnote, when ordinary common sense is applied to
this topic (i.e., the main REASON for "serial numbers" to be stamped
on rifles--or ANY piece of merchandise for that matter) it seems
fairly obvious to me that Frazier would be correct when it comes to
the fact that Oswald's "C2766" MC 91/38 rifle was the ONLY weapon of
that exact TYPE and MODEL to have been stamped at ANY factory with
that unique serial number.
Because, isn't the #1 reason to put specific serial numbers on
products this one: So that the product in question has its own UNIQUE
identifying mark on it for later easy tracing and/or identification?
If that's not the main reason for all of the long serial numbers I see
on a lot of products I own...then what is the #1 reason to have serial
numbers on these things? ....
SERIAL NUMBER (Merriam-Webster definition) -- "A number indicating
place in a series and used as a means of identification."
SERIAL NUMBER (Wikipedia, 2008) -- "...A unique number assigned for
identification which varies from its successor or predecessor by a
fixed discrete integer value."
But, let's assume for the sake of argument that there were/are several
different MC 91/38 rifles with the exact same serial number on them of
"C2766"....my next logical question (based on the totality of evidence
in THIS Kennedy murder case) is this one:
So what?
Since we know beyond every speck of a doubt that the major pieces of
bullet evidence in the JFK case (CE399, CE567, CE569, and the three
shells found under the Depository's 6th-Floor window) can be
irrevocably tied and linked to CE139 (i.e., the Mannlicher-Carcano
rifle that is in evidence in this case with serial number C2766 on it,
and with Oswald's prints on it, to boot), what difference does it
really make if OTHER rifles of the same make and model also sported
the exact same serial number?
Do the conspiracy theorists who like to occasionally bring up this
argument about possible "other rifles with the same serial number"
somehow think that any of those OTHER rifles bearing a "C2766"
identifier (which, btw, nobody has ever produced, at least as far as I
know) would have had the EXACT SAME RIFLING/STRIATION MARKS that the
barrel of CE139 possesses?
It's really a huge non-issue in the first place.
Also:
The theorists who think there might be something "conspiratorial" or
"shady" connected with the issue of the Carcano serial numbers have a
pretty big "How Did They Do This, And When?" hurdle to climb (it seems
to me) when it comes to the detailed documentation of the "C2766"
rifle that was shipped by Klein's Sporting Goods Co. in Chicago to "A.
Hidell" of "P.O. Box 2915; Dallas, Texas" on March 20, 1963.
Do some CTers actually think that Klein's shipped a DIFFERENT rifle
with the serial number "C2766" to "Hidell"/Oswald?
In other words, via this make-believe "conspiratorial" episode I'm
concocting here just for the sake of concocting it, Klein's would have
shipped a rifle with the number C2766 on it to Oswald in March 1963
(which we know they did, via the internal Klein's document linked
below), but the rifle that ended up in evidence in the JFK murder case
(CE139) is a DIFFERENT rifle from the one that Klein's mailed to
Hidell/LHO....but they both JUST HAPPENED to have the exact same
serial number on them.
Because, lacking the above type of "coincidental" scenario, where can
the CTers take this type of argument at all? I guess they'd have to
believe that Klein's was "in" on a cover-up involving the rifle too.
And, apparently, the document shown below (Waldman Exhibit No. 7) is a
total "fake" of some kind, with the "C2766" that appears on this
document being written in after the assassination, in trying to link
the weapon to Oswald:
But when we get back into the world of "Reality" and "Common Sense",
it's fairly obvious (even to a half-blind individual) that CE139 is,
indeed, the very same "C2766" rifle that Klein's mailed to Lee Harvey
Oswald's post-office box in March of '63.
To believe otherwise is to dive into the bottomless pit of conspiracy-
oriented absurdity....a pit that has been dug by the conspiracy
theorists themselves.
David Von Pein
September 2008
