DVP vs. DiEUGENIO
(PART 37)


At The Education Forum, William Kelly is apparently serving as one of
James DiEugenio's lapdogs/servants (since DiEugenio will never lower
himself to post on any Internet forums [as of early June 2010 anyway;
but I will amend that previous criticism, because DiEugenio did join The
Education Forum as an active participant on June 22, 2010]), with Kelly
posting this message from DiEugenio on June 2, 2010.

Allow me to highlight some of DiEugenio's latest blather from the
above-linked article:

"So now, you have both people [Darrell Tomlinson and O.P.
Wright] who handled the stretcher bullet saying that the bullet in
evidence...is not the bullet they turned over to the authorities." --
Jim DiEugenio

DiEugenio is overstating things here (as usual). Via the July 7, 1964,
FBI report that can be seen in Warren Commission Exhibit No. 2011 [at
24 H 412], Tomlinson and Wright BOTH claimed that Bullet CE399
(designated "C1" by the FBI) "appears to be the same" and "looks like
the slug found at Parkland Hospital" shortly after JFK was
assassinated.

DiEugenio and many other Anybody-But-Oswald conspiracy kooks simply
do not want to believe that Tomlinson and Wright ever told the FBI on
6/12/64 that CE399 looked like the same bullet that each man handled
on the day of Kennedy's murder.

But CE2011 exists and is a part of the official record in this case--
like it or not. And that exhibit positively indicates that FBI agent
Bardwell Odum talked to both Darrell Tomlinson and O.P. Wright on the
date of June 12, 1964, with both men stating that CE399 looked like
the bullet they saw at Parkland on November 22nd.

When Bardwell Odum, decades later, said he didn't show CE399 to
anybody at Parkland in June of 1964, it's very likely that he just
simply did not remember doing so. More than 37 years had passed, and I
wonder how good Odum's memory was in November 2001.

In any event, we can know beyond a reasonable person's reasonable
doubt that Odum DID show Commission Exhibit 399 to Wright (and
Tomlinson too) on June 12, 1964. And the reason we can know that Odum
talked to those men on that date in 1964 is because CE2011 exists and
tells us that he did.

And I'm not ready to take a huge leap off of the conspiracy diving
board and accuse the Federal Bureau of Investigation of MAKING UP FROM
WHOLE CLOTH the words that we find in Commission Exhibit No. 2011 (at
24 H 412). Jim DiEugenio, however, is more than willing to take that
leap.

Quoting from CE2011:

"On June 12, 1964, Darrell C . Tomlinson...was shown Exhibit C1
[CE399], a rifle slug, by Special Agent Bardwell D. Odum, Federal
Bureau of Investigation. Tomlinson stated it appears to be the same
one he found on a hospital carriage at Parkland Hospital on November
22, 1963, but he cannot positively identify the bullet as the one he
found and showed to Mr. O.P. Wright."


"On June 12, 1964, O. P. Wright...advised Special Agent Bardwell
D. Odum that Exhibit C1 [CE399], a rifle slug, shown to him at the
time of the interview, looks like the slug found at Parkland Hospital
on November 22, 1963, which he gave to Richard Johnsen, Special Agent
of the Secret Service. .... He advised he could not positively
identify C1 as being the same bullet which was found as November 22,
1963."

[Also see Commission Document 1258, which is the same as CE2011.]

Plus: If the FBI had just invented the above stuff out of thin air,
then I'd ask this -- Why didn't the FBI extend their blatant lie even
further and make the additional false claim that Tomlinson and Wright
had, indeed, positively identified C1/CE399 as the bullet they each
saw on 11/22/63?

If both of the above paragraphs that I excerpted from CE2011 are
nothing but a great-big lie, then why didn't J. Edgar Hoover and his
FBI boys go one step further and make the identification of the bullet
ironclad and POSITIVE in CE2011?

The fact that the FBI forthrightly admits in CE2011 that NEITHER
Tomlinson nor Wright could positively identify the bullet is a very
good indication that there's nothing phony about any of the verbiage
we see in Commission Exhibit 2011.

------------------------

"Both the FBI and the Commission say in writing that FBI agent
Elmer Lee Todd put his initials on CE 399. .... Todd's initials are
not there." -- J. DiEugenio

Here, once again, we have a conspiracy theorist who is ready and eager
to think that the FBI faked evidence relating to the assassination of
a United States President.

The fact is that the previously-discussed document (CE2011) also
indicates, without a shred of a doubt, that FBI agent Elmer L. Todd
positively identified CE399. And he did so by confirming that his own
initials are on that bullet:

"On June 24, 1964, Special Agent Elmer Lee Todd...identified C1,
a rifle bullet, as being the same one he received from James
Rowley...on November 22, 1963. This identification was made from
initials marked thereon by Special Agent Todd at the Federal Bureau of
Investigation Laboratory upon receipt."

Regarding the above statement made by the FBI:

If that statement, too, is nothing but a bald-faced lie and part of a
massive cover-up in the JFK murder case, I'd like to know why Elmer
Todd (or somebody at the FBI) didn't simply PLACE TODD'S INITIALS ON
CE399 AT SOME POINT IN TIME AFTER NOVEMBER 22, 1963?

If the FBI was so brazen with their lies in their written reports (as
conspiracy theorists like James DiEugenio obviously think they were),
then why not make sure their lie about Elmer Todd's initials can never
be proven to be a lie by simply scratching the letters "ELT" into the
bullet?

That would have been a very simple thing for the liars and cover-up
agents at the FBI to do, wouldn't it? But apparently DiEugenio thinks
this would have been too difficult for the Federal Bureau of
Investigation to accomplish.

But, then too, maybe J. Edgar and his merry band of crooks, just for
kicks, WANTED to be discovered as liars in the future, so they decided
to not perform the very easy task of putting Special Agent Todd's
initials on Bullet CE399.

------------------------

"Both the FBI and the Commission say in writing that FBI agent
Elmer Lee Todd put his initials on CE 399. .... Researcher John Hunt
did something that neither Von Pein nor his hero Vincent Bugliosi did. He went to the National Archives to see if this was true. ....
Hunt photographed the entire circumference of CE 399 and Todd's
initials are not there." -- J. DiEugenio

Elmer Todd most certainly DID put his initials on Commission Exhibit
399. That fact is verified in CE2011 and Commission Document 1258.

And despite what James DiEugenio said, John Hunt never once said in
his article (linked here) that he handled CE399 HIMSELF at the
National Archives.

Hunt said he looked at four National Archives color photos of the
bullet, which are all available at the Mary Ferrell website, here.

It was from those four photographs that Hunt examined the bullet,
looking for Todd's initials. And all of the initials of the FBI agents
on that bullet are very difficult to see in those pictures.

Here's exactly what Hunt said:

"The question for me became, is Todd's mark on the CE-399
bullet? To answer that question, I put together an illustration using
photographs of CE-399. I was able to track the entire surface of the
bullet using four of NARA's preservation photos." -- John Hunt

I think it's pretty clear from the above quote that John Hunt did not
examine Bullet CE399 itself at the National Archives. He performed his
"ARE TODD'S INITIALS ON THE BULLET?" test by looking at photos of the
bullet, not by handling the bullet itself.

And DiEugenio is also wrong when he said that Hunt himself
"photographed the entire circumference of CE 399". Hunt didn't take
those four color photos of CE399.

DiEugenio needs a better pair of reading glasses. Because he clearly
has misrepresented what John Hunt did with respect to Hunt's analysis
of Commission Exhibit 399.

Quoting John Hunt once more, for emphasis:

"I was able to track the entire surface of the bullet using four of NARA's preservation photos." -- John Hunt




[2022 DVP EDIT -- New hi-def photos of CE399, published online in June of 2022 by researcher Steve Roe, provide the proof that FBI Special Agent Elmer Todd's initials are definitely there on the nose of the stretcher bullet. See the photo of those initials at my webpage HERE.]

------------------------

"It may be that this [Robert] Harris bullet is one of the others
planted that day." -- J. DiEugenio

Get ready for a huge belly-laugh here, folks:

DiEugenio is suggesting that "this Harris bullet" was planted inside
Parkland Hospital by some unknown and unseen conspirator(s).

But the problem with DiEugenio's kooky statement here is this --- the
bullet Robert Harris was talking about (i.e., "this Harris bullet") is
a bullet that Harris thinks DROPPED OUT OF THE LEG OF GOVERNOR JOHN
CONNALLY IN THE OPERATING ROOM AT PARKLAND HOSPITAL!

So, if DiEugenio accepts Harris' theory, this would have to mean that
an unknown conspirator apparently "planted" a bullet INSIDE CONNALLY'S
THIGH.

Or, as an alternative, I guess DiEugenio could try to save face and
say that his "planted" comment about "this Harris bullet" (which
Harris firmly believes is a bullet that fell out of Connally's leg)
was not really meant to align itself with Bob Harris' beliefs at all,
but was instead a general type of unsupportable comment about
other bullets that might have been planted by the evil conspirators
on November 22nd. (And note Jim's exact word that he used there--"others"--plural! As in MULTIPLE BULLETS that Jim seems to
think might have been planted at Parkland!)

DiEugenio, of course, could also plead insanity, and then claim that
he was merely spitting out theories about planted bullets, sans a
speck of evidence to back them up, just to see where those theories
would splatter.

At this point, perhaps an "insanity" plea would be the best way for
Jim to go.

David Von Pein
June 2010

LINK TO ORIGINAL POST (JUNE 2, 2010)