DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Here are some portions of the transcript of Raymond Marcus' telephone interview with Darrell C. Tomlinson on Monday, July 25, 1966; 8:00 pm, Pacific Time:
T: Tomlinson
M: Marcus
******
M: Did anybody show you the bullet after the time you found it, and after the time you gave it to Mr. Wright?
T: I seen it one time after that. I believe Mr. Shanklin from the FBI had it out there at the hospital in personnel with Mr. Wright there when they called me in.
M: When Shanklin and Mr. Wright called you in at that time, did they show you the bullet?
T: Yes.
M: Did they ask you if it looked like the same one?
T: Yes, I believe they did.
M: And as far as you could tell--- of course, you weren't making a ballistics test of it--- but as far as you could tell, did it look like the same one to you?
T: Yes, it appeared to be the same one.
[....]
M: Now I know they questioned you over and over again in the volumes there, about which stretcher the bullet came off of, and you seemed to think it was not off the one that came off of the elevator?
T: No, it (pause) that *was* the one that it came off of.
M: You think it was off the one that came off the elevator?
T: I know it was.
M: OK, all right.
[....]
M: Now, when it rolled out from under the pad, it rolled out onto the stretcher itself?
T: Right there, there's a little dip in the stretcher there.
M: Right.
T: And that bullet, it must have been lodged right under the pad there.
M: I got it. I got it. And your best recollection is that was from the stretcher that came off the elevator?
T: Yes, that's right.
M: OK; now when you noticed the bullet there --- this wasn't clear -- then it never fell on the floor? The bullet didn't actually fall to the floor, did it?
T: No, uh uh (as in shaking one's head to indicate negative)
M: It was right there on the stretcher?
T: That's right (unintellig. words -- about 2 or 3)
M: Now, who did you-- did you pick the bullet up yourself at that time?
T: Right. I picked the bullet up and put it in my pocket.
M: OK, did you-- as far as you can tell, I know you just picked it up like that, but did you notice, was it bloody, did the bullet show any evidence of blood on it itself?
T: I didn't notice it.
M: It would have been too slight to notice, I imagine.
T: Right. I just glanced at the (? ---damned, says RM) bullet so I put it in my pocket and the first time that the security chief stopped by, Mr. Wright, I turned it over to him-- first time by.
M: OK. Now do you recall when you saw that bullet, was there anything about it that struck you, was it, uh, was it, uh, banged up, or was it neat and clean, or do you recall that, was it mangled at all?
T: No, it wasn't mangled., it was a pretty clean bullet.
M: Pretty clean shape.
T: Yep.
SOURCE LINK
COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT OF THE MARCUS/TOMLINSON INTERVIEW
CONSPIRACY THEORIST WILLIAM KELLY INTERJECTED:
You also claim to enjoy humoring yourself by proving [Robert] Harris and [James] DiEugenio wrong, and as Harris has said, and I'm sure Jimmy D will acknowledge, they are open to persuasion and will correct the record where necessary, but that still doesn't change the fact that the provenance of CE399 is tarnished, there is evidence that it isn't what caused all of the non-fatal damage in the limo, and that its origin has never been established.
DAVID VON PEIN:
CE399 is a bullet from Oswald's gun, Bill.
That fact ALONE is powerful evidence that it IS a legit bullet in this case. And that's because, as I've mentioned before, it dovetails and fits perfectly with all of the other ballistics evidence connected with JFK's murder. Which is ballistics evidence recovered from THREE different locations by multiple law enforcement agencies.
That's some fantastic across-the-board coordination for the bullet fakery in this case, wouldn't you agree Bill? The SS and the FBI and the DPD all got together and decided to make it look UNIFIED so that everything would come back to this conclusion in the end:
Lee Oswald's Carcano was the murder weapon.
Amazing that anyone could even begin to believe that ANY of the bullet/rifle evidence in this case is faked or planted when considering the fact that this stuff was recovered by DIFFERENT law agencies and was found in THREE separate places--Parkland, the Depository, and in the President's limousine itself.
WILLIAM KELLY:
As I quoted what Bill Turner said about the assassin's bullets - the important question is who paid for them? A question you can't answer, don't bother to ask or try to find the answer to - because you already know they were somehow obtained by LHO, the accused assassin, and he's a nut case anyway, so we don't really need to know where the bullets came from or who paid for them, do we?
I don't know why [Robert] Harris and Jimmy D even bother trying to amuse you, but I guess it's good they keep you busy with this nonsense.
DAVID VON PEIN:
It is all nonsense, Bill. CTer nonsense, that is.
The WC and the HSCA had no problem declaring that Oswald killed Kennedy.
And the WC and HSCA had no problem declaring that CE399 was THE BULLET that struck both JFK and Connally.
But apparently you think the HSCA was too stupid (or was too corrupt) to seek out the truth about the stretcher bullet. So they merely rubber-stamped the Warren Commission's conclusion of CE399 being the SBT bullet.
Two different fact-finding committees (the WC & HSCA), some 14 years apart, reached the conclusion that Oswald was JFK's murderer and that CE399 was the SBT bullet.
But that EXTRA hunk of confirmation by the House Select Committee means NOTHING to conspiracy theorists, does it Bill? The HSCA was filled with nothing but liars too, right?
And to think we need to know WHERE Oswald purchased the bullets he used to kill President Kennedy is just another one of the many chaff-like things that CTers love to prop up to cloud the true facts of Oswald's guilt.
Heck, CTers now even demand to know where Oswald got his revolver bullets too -- even though Oswald was caught red-handed with that gun in his hands just 35 minutes after he shot J.D. Tippit with it!
Can you name one other murder case in history where the prosecution, in order to secure a conviction, was required to track down where the accused killer bought his bullets? (And it's a particularly needless thing to know in a case where the accused murderer was caught by the police with the murder weapon in his hands when he was arrested.)
JAMES DiEUGENIO:
Davey: Where is the record of this interview with Shanklin that you and Jeannie [Davison] are so attached to? Can you please show me the memorandum by Shanklin?
DAVID VON PEIN:
No, I can't. And that's because the agent who visited Tomlinson & Wright at Parkland on 6/12/64 probably wasn't Gordon Shanklin. It was probably just exactly who the FBI said it was in its July 1964 report (seen in CE2011) -- Bardwell Odum.
And, no, I can't show you the official "FD-302" report from Odum either. But there are undoubtedly lots of FBI interviews that were conducted after the assassination where the FD-302s have never been tracked down (or even looked for). Have you seen EVERY FD-302 connected with every FBI interview regarding this case, Jim? Of course you haven't. That doesn't mean that they never existed.
I wouldn't be surprised if a 302 form for Odum's interviews with Tomlinson and Wright is buried somewhere at the Mary Ferrell site right now. If you give me sixteen years, I'll try to find it for you, Jimmy. [See the Dec. 2022 edit below.]
Anyway, regardless of the "FD-302" form, this stuff below from Tomlinson's own lips is getting under Jimmy's skin. And that's quite obvious from the nature of DiEugenio's last question. He still doesn't want to believe that Tomlinson said anything to ANYBODY like the stuff quoted below (let alone having this stuff being elicited by a CTer like Marcus; that really irks Mr. Anybody But Oswald).
And even if an official FD-302 form never existed for the FBI's visit to Parkland in June of '64, we still have Tomlinson telling Marcus that the FBI did show him a bullet at some point in time after Nov. 22, and we still have Tomlinson telling Marcus that the bullet that was shown to him by an FBI man "appeared to be the same one" that Tomlinson found on a stretcher on November 22:
Marcus: Did anybody show you the bullet after the time you found it, and after the time you gave it to Mr. Wright?
Tomlinson: I seen it one time after that. I believe Mr. Shanklin from the FBI had it out there at the hospital in personnel with Mr. Wright there when they called me in.
Marcus: When Shanklin and Mr. Wright called you in at that time, did they show you the bullet?
Tomlinson: Yes.
Marcus: Did they ask you if it looked like the same one?
Tomlinson: Yes, I believe they did.
Marcus: And as far as you could tell--- of course, you weren't making a ballistics test of it--- but as far as you could tell, did it look like the same one to you?
Tomlinson: Yes, it appeared to be the same one.
DAVID VON PEIN:
The next theory that I expect to hear from DiEugenio is this one:
Well, yes, Davey, I'll concede that an FBI agent went out to Parkland and showed Tomlinson a "bullet", and I'll concede that Tomlinson told the FBI man that that bullet looked pretty much like the bullet Darrell had taken off a stretcher.
But the reason for that is: The FBI didn't show him CE399 at all. They showed him the POINTY-TIPPED BULLET that Tomlinson REALLY DID find on a stretcher. And that's why Tomlinson was able to say that the bullets looked the same.
After all, since Hoover and his boys were the ones who actually SWITCHED the bullets, then they wouldn't dare go out to Parkland and show Tomlinson a bullet that they knew WASN'T the bullet Tomlinson actually saw on 11/22.
[End CTer Simulation.]
Would you like to try that theory out for size, Jim D.?
Anyway, I'm sure Jimbo is working on some kind of new twist that will somehow still make the FBI out to be liars regarding the Tomlinson matter. Wait and see.
JAMES DiEUGENIO:
OK, so you admit that you cannot find any memo of this interview with Shanklin. Even though this is what Tomlinson said happened.
Did you look? Just curious.
Because Gary Aguilar did look for the record of all field interviews in this category.
He could not come up with any at the National Archives.
So you and Jeanie did not look then did you? Even though you claim that Jeannie (AKA Priscilla) is such a careful researcher. (I mean you even had Bill K swallowing that BS.) When in fact she is not a researcher at all. IF she was, she would have cross checked this out.
She either did not do so, or she thinks it did not happen. Which would be a good reason for her not to check.
DAVID VON PEIN:
Oh, goodie. This just keeps getting better and better. Because now (by inference) DiEugenio wants to call Tomlinson a liar. And Ray Marcus too. (And Raymond is one of Jimmy's own CT boys.)
WHO CARES if a 302 exists for the Tomlinson interview, Jim? We have Marcus' transcript, which is a VERBATIM ACCOUNT of his telephone conversation with Darrell C. Tomlinson.
You think Marcus just made up his 1966 interview with Tomlinson? A CTer who thinks CE399 is a "Bastard Bullet" just made up the part where Tomlinson admitted that 399 looked the same as the stretcher bullet? Is that what you want to believe, Jimmy?
Give it another try, Jimbo. Because your last pathetic attempt to discredit both Tomlinson and Marcus reeks of "Anybody But Oswald" desperation. (As usual.)
Footnote---
It's also possible that an official FD-302 report by Odum (or Shanklin) would not really be required in the instance of the FBI interviews with Tomlinson, Wright, Rowley, Johnsen, and Todd.....and that's because the July 7, 1964, FBI report essentially COULD serve as the FD-302 report regarding those interviews.
In other words, the FBI report of 7/7/64 (seen in CE2011) says the exact same thing that a 302 would also say.
[DECEMBER 2022 EDIT -- The third paragraph of This June 27, 1964, FBI Airtel seems to confirm the fact that no FD-302 reports were filed by the FBI agents for the individual interviews they conducted for the FBI report which eventually became Warren Commission Exhibit No. 2011. Quoting from the 6/27/64 Airtel: "Inasmuch as this investigation was conducted at the specific request of the President's Commission, information contained in the letterhead memorandum will not be set forth in a subsequent report UACB (Unless Advised to the Contrary by the Bureau)." .... Also see this post.]
JAMES DiEUGENIO:
Gordon Shanklin does not remotely recall Bardwell Odum. You and Jeannie just made that up in order to insert it into CE 2011.
DAVID VON PEIN:
Huh? You're going to have to explain that last hunk of nonsense regarding Shanklin and Odum, Jimbo. What is it that "Jeannie" and I just "made up"?
JAMES DiEUGENIO:
Now, let us continue so we can see the kind of work DVP does, and the kind of work he admires. You know, that "fine" researcher Jean Davison.
In a June [1964] Airtel the FBI sent to Hoover, the message is that Tomlinson (and Wright) could not ID the bullet. (Whichever bullet it was.)
But see, that contradicts what Davey Boy is saying here. And he does not even note the paradox. For if Tomlinson DID identify the bullet with Shanklin, why would the FBI say he did not?
DAVID VON PEIN:
The June 20, 1964, Airtel is not contradictory at all with Tomlinson's interview with the FBI agent at Parkland on 6/12/64.
Tomlinson didn't make a POSITIVE IDENTIFICATION of the bullet EITHER time. And the Airtel does not say that Tomlinson said that CE399 was definitely NOT the stretcher bullet. It merely means (quite obviously) that Tomlinson could not POSITIVELY identify the bullet.
How COULD he have positively IDed it? He didn't put any mark on the stretcher bullet. So the most he could say is that 399 looked similar to the bullet he saw on 11/22/63, which is exactly what he told the FBI on June 12th, 1964, which, btw, is eight days before the 6/20/64 FBI Airtel to Hoover.
The FBI report seen in CE2011 wasn't officially dated until July 7, 1964, but that multi-page report contains many FBI interviews with various witnesses, spanning from June 2nd to July 6th, 1964.
So it's very likely that Tomlinson's June 12th interview (when he DID say that CE399 looked the same as the stretcher bullet) actually came BEFORE the June 20th Airtel report, and not the other way around.
In fact, given the very close range of dates here, the 6/20/64 FBI Airtel might very well be referring to the very same interview that the FBI did with Darrell Tomlinson on 6/12/64. Tomlinson, after all, told Ray Marcus that he had only been shown CE399 "one time" after 11/22/63. So, the Airtel is very likely referring to the June 12th interview with Tomlinson. And if that's the case, then the FBI Airtel is a non-issue, because CE2011 confirms that Tomlinson told the FBI that CE399 looked like the stretcher bullet.
[EDIT: The two-page 6/20/64 FBI Airtel message, which can be seen HERE, is almost certainly referring to the 6/12 interview. There's even reference in the Airtel to the 5/20/64 letter sent to the FBI by the Warren Commission, which is also mentioned at the top of Page 1 in CE2011.]
DiEugenio is now undoubtedly going to play word games with the FBI's June '64 Airtel message....with Jimbo likely saying that the words "could not identify the bullet" absolutely have to mean this:
CE399 doesn't even resemble the bullet I [Darrell C. Tomlinson] found on a stretcher on Nov. 22, 1963.
But that's not the meaning in that Airtel. It merely means that Tomlinson could not provide any kind of POSITIVE identification.
And the FBI HAD to know, of course, that they weren't going to get a "Yes, that's definitely THE bullet I saw on Nov. 22" response out of Tomlinson or O.P. Wright -- because the FBI knew that neither man had put any initials on the bullet. So the best the FBI could possibly hope for is just what the FBI man got out of Tomlinson and Wright on June 12th, which is when BOTH Tomlinson & Wright were specifically asked if CE399 looked like the stretcher bullet.* And both men said at that time that CE399 did look like the bullet they each saw on 11/22.
* = At least we can know that Tomlinson was SPECIFICALLY asked that question, because Tomlinson told Marcus in 1966 that he was asked that question (and since O.P. Wright was right there with Tomlinson, I think it's reasonable to assume that Wright was also asked this specific question too):
MARCUS: Did they ask you if it looked like the same one?
TOMLINSON: Yes, I believe they did.
MARCUS: And as far as you could tell--- of course, you weren't making a ballistics test of it--- but as far as you could tell, did it look like the same one to you?
TOMLINSON: Yes, it appeared to be the same one.
The FBI Airtel has likely made many CTers salivate, because of the language used. But just because Tomlinson said he "could not ID" the bullet in the Airtel, that doesn't mean that CE399 couldn't at least resemble the stretcher bullet.
And we've got TWO interviews with the same man (Tomlinson) that verify that when Tomlinson WAS specifically asked if CE399 resembled the stretcher bullet, Tomlinson said Yes, 399 looks like the stretcher bullet. Those two interviews are the FBI interview of 6/12/64 and the Marcus interview with Tomlinson on 7/25/66.
And Jim D. cannot escape the Marcus transcript....which is a document that proves for all time that Darrell Tomlinson definitely told the FBI that CE399 "appeared to be the same one" that Darrell found on a Parkland stretcher on November 22nd.
JAMES DiEUGENIO:
DAVID VON PEIN:
Huh? You're going to have to explain that last hunk of nonsense regarding Shanklin and Odum, Jimbo. What is it that "Jeannie" and I just "made up"?
JAMES DiEUGENIO:
Now, let us continue so we can see the kind of work DVP does, and the kind of work he admires. You know, that "fine" researcher Jean Davison.
In a June [1964] Airtel the FBI sent to Hoover, the message is that Tomlinson (and Wright) could not ID the bullet. (Whichever bullet it was.)
But see, that contradicts what Davey Boy is saying here. And he does not even note the paradox. For if Tomlinson DID identify the bullet with Shanklin, why would the FBI say he did not?
DAVID VON PEIN:
The June 20, 1964, Airtel is not contradictory at all with Tomlinson's interview with the FBI agent at Parkland on 6/12/64.
Tomlinson didn't make a POSITIVE IDENTIFICATION of the bullet EITHER time. And the Airtel does not say that Tomlinson said that CE399 was definitely NOT the stretcher bullet. It merely means (quite obviously) that Tomlinson could not POSITIVELY identify the bullet.
How COULD he have positively IDed it? He didn't put any mark on the stretcher bullet. So the most he could say is that 399 looked similar to the bullet he saw on 11/22/63, which is exactly what he told the FBI on June 12th, 1964, which, btw, is eight days before the 6/20/64 FBI Airtel to Hoover.
The FBI report seen in CE2011 wasn't officially dated until July 7, 1964, but that multi-page report contains many FBI interviews with various witnesses, spanning from June 2nd to July 6th, 1964.
So it's very likely that Tomlinson's June 12th interview (when he DID say that CE399 looked the same as the stretcher bullet) actually came BEFORE the June 20th Airtel report, and not the other way around.
In fact, given the very close range of dates here, the 6/20/64 FBI Airtel might very well be referring to the very same interview that the FBI did with Darrell Tomlinson on 6/12/64. Tomlinson, after all, told Ray Marcus that he had only been shown CE399 "one time" after 11/22/63. So, the Airtel is very likely referring to the June 12th interview with Tomlinson. And if that's the case, then the FBI Airtel is a non-issue, because CE2011 confirms that Tomlinson told the FBI that CE399 looked like the stretcher bullet.
[EDIT: The two-page 6/20/64 FBI Airtel message, which can be seen HERE, is almost certainly referring to the 6/12 interview. There's even reference in the Airtel to the 5/20/64 letter sent to the FBI by the Warren Commission, which is also mentioned at the top of Page 1 in CE2011.]
DiEugenio is now undoubtedly going to play word games with the FBI's June '64 Airtel message....with Jimbo likely saying that the words "could not identify the bullet" absolutely have to mean this:
CE399 doesn't even resemble the bullet I [Darrell C. Tomlinson] found on a stretcher on Nov. 22, 1963.
But that's not the meaning in that Airtel. It merely means that Tomlinson could not provide any kind of POSITIVE identification.
And the FBI HAD to know, of course, that they weren't going to get a "Yes, that's definitely THE bullet I saw on Nov. 22" response out of Tomlinson or O.P. Wright -- because the FBI knew that neither man had put any initials on the bullet. So the best the FBI could possibly hope for is just what the FBI man got out of Tomlinson and Wright on June 12th, which is when BOTH Tomlinson & Wright were specifically asked if CE399 looked like the stretcher bullet.* And both men said at that time that CE399 did look like the bullet they each saw on 11/22.
* = At least we can know that Tomlinson was SPECIFICALLY asked that question, because Tomlinson told Marcus in 1966 that he was asked that question (and since O.P. Wright was right there with Tomlinson, I think it's reasonable to assume that Wright was also asked this specific question too):
MARCUS: Did they ask you if it looked like the same one?
TOMLINSON: Yes, I believe they did.
MARCUS: And as far as you could tell--- of course, you weren't making a ballistics test of it--- but as far as you could tell, did it look like the same one to you?
TOMLINSON: Yes, it appeared to be the same one.
The FBI Airtel has likely made many CTers salivate, because of the language used. But just because Tomlinson said he "could not ID" the bullet in the Airtel, that doesn't mean that CE399 couldn't at least resemble the stretcher bullet.
And we've got TWO interviews with the same man (Tomlinson) that verify that when Tomlinson WAS specifically asked if CE399 resembled the stretcher bullet, Tomlinson said Yes, 399 looks like the stretcher bullet. Those two interviews are the FBI interview of 6/12/64 and the Marcus interview with Tomlinson on 7/25/66.
And Jim D. cannot escape the Marcus transcript....which is a document that proves for all time that Darrell Tomlinson definitely told the FBI that CE399 "appeared to be the same one" that Darrell found on a Parkland stretcher on November 22nd.
JAMES DiEUGENIO:
Talk about playing word games.
He started this whole thread by saying that Tomlinson said that he did ID CE 399 as the bullet,
Now he says, Oh geez, he could not really be sure since he did not mark it.
C'mon, you double-talking back tracker. Fess up.
The FBi airtel says the exact opposite of what you are now claiming and you did not even have the guts or honesty to tell the reader that.
That is the truth. So don't start dancing around like you are getting salsa lessons.
Tell the truth, man, is that so foreign?
You came on like gangbusters here, that you had this really hot discovery that was going to shove it down our throats. Then me and Bob [Harris] start poking holes in your "discovery" and Jean Davison's "fine researcher" illusion, and what do you do?
Oh, he didn't mark it!
Davey, since when do witnesses mark evidence? Maybe in Hoosier country?
But man, that is a road you don't want to go down do you?
Because whose initials are on the bullet? C'mon tell the truth, just for once maybe?
Next time, put things in context OK? Then you won't have to go through this denuding process.
DAVID VON PEIN:
Mighty weak, Jimmy. Especially in light of the Marcus transcript, which confirms something you just flat-out don't want to believe---
I.E.,
Darrell Tomlinson DID talk to the FBI in '64 and he DID tell an FBI agent that CE399 looked like the stretcher bullet and he DID tell Marcus that the bullet he found came from the ELEVATOR stretcher.
Go ahead, Jim....call Ray Marcus a liar. I dare ya.
Or perhaps you'd prefer to spit on Jean Davison some more. Being the type of repulsive Anybody But Oswald conspiracy clown that you are, it wouldn't surprise me if you came right out and accused Jean of making up the whole Marcus transcript. After all, you've already essentially called both Jean and myself liars earlier in this thread when you claimed that Jean and I "made up" something connected with CE2011. (What was the "made up" stuff again, Jimbo? You never did tell me.)
REPEATING THIS DiEUGENIO QUOTE:
Davey, since when do witnesses mark evidence?
DAVID VON PEIN:
Exactly. Which is one of the main points I made earlier. Didn't you hear me when I said this just a little while ago? .....
"Tomlinson didn't make a POSITIVE IDENTIFICATION of the bullet EITHER time. And the Airtel does not say that Tomlinson said that CE399 was definitely NOT the stretcher bullet. It merely means (quite obviously) that Tomlinson could not POSITIVELY identify the bullet.
"How COULD he have positively IDed it? He didn't put any mark on the stretcher bullet. So the most he could say is that 399 looked similar to the bullet he saw on 11/22. ....
"And the FBI HAD to know, of course, that they weren't going to get a "Yes, that's definitely THE bullet I saw on Nov. 22" response out of Tomlinson or O.P. Wright -- because the FBI knew that neither man had put any initials on the bullet. So the best the FBI could possibly hope for is just what the FBI man got out of Tomlinson and Wright on June 12th, which is when BOTH Tomlinson & Wright were specifically asked if CE399 looked like the stretcher bullet. And both men said at that time that CE399 did look like the bullet they each saw on 11/22." -- DVP
JAMES DiEUGENIO:
But I am still not done with you partner. Just warming up.
DAVID VON PEIN:
Bring it on, Mr. Conspiracy Clown. I always look forward to reading more of your silly claptrap (for the laughs). Maybe you can start by clearing up that allegation of yours that Jean Davison and I "made up" some stuff recently. I'd enjoy cramming that lie down your silly gullet.
JAMES DiEUGENIO:
You try and insinuate through pure alchemy that somehow CE 2011 is now salvaged because of the Marcus-Tomlinson interview.
But evidently you never read Gary Aguilar's definitive article on this episode. (The Assassinations, pgs 282-86)
[...]
[Quoting Aguilar:]
"Thus, no contemporaneous FBI record supports the claim in Commission Exhibit 2011 that either Tomlinson or Wright said CE 399 resembled the bullet they saw on the day JFK died." (p. 284)
Now, this article was written especially for that book, which was published in 2003. And as I mentioned earlier, Gary was in direct contact with the Archives in his records search. So at least as far as that date goes, no other search surpasses it. And this is much more than you and that "fine researcher" Jean Davison (aka Priscilla Johnson) did. Therefore, one has to consider this to be rather definitive. That is unless someone goes back to NARA and finds out a mistake was made or that something new has been released.
DAVID VON PEIN:
This is really getting hilarious, Jimmy.
Incredibly, DiEugenio evidently thinks Aguilar's article, which does not include a verbatim interview with Darrell Tomlinson (as Marcus' transcript does), somehow trumps Ray Marcus' personal interview with Tomlinson.
I love it!
This is a great example of a conspiracy theorist squirming and flapping in the wind after discovering that something happened that he has insisted for years never happened at all. And it's actually TWO important things that people like DiEugenio insist never happened, both of which do a nice of job of clogging up Jimbo's Anybody-But-Oswald works:
1.) Tomlinson definitely said that CE399 looked like the stretcher bullet.
2.) Tomlinson was definitely shown Bullet CE399 by a member of the FBI.
Both of the above things are confirmed in the Marcus/Tomlinson interview. And both of those things are things that ABO CTers like Jim DiEugenio have (for years) said the FBI lied about.
So, short of calling Raymond Marcus (a CTer like Jimmy, no less) an outright liar and/or calling Darrell Tomlinson an outright liar, there is no escape hatch for Jimbo and other CTers concerning this particular issue.
But I love watching a conspiracy monger like DiEugenio attempt to wiggle his way out of the fact that Tomlinson said he told the FBI that 399 looked like the stretcher bullet.
And although it's utterly despicable and vomit-inducing, I also love Jimbo trying to discredit one of the very finest JFK researchers ever born--Jean Davison.
And the "aka Priscilla Johnson" stuff when referring to Jean is really weird....even for Mr. Anybody-But-Oswald (DiEugenio).
JAMES DiEUGENIO:
From a guy who tries to substitute Gordon Shanklin for Bardwell Odum. .... There was no separate interview Odum did with Tomlinson. You are just making that up. CE 2011 is a fraud. Because Odum never had CE 399 to show. (BTW, I wanted to make sure there was no ambiguity on this. So I called Gary [Aguilar] up on this and asked him directly about it. He said, yes, that is what he meant since that is what Odum told him.)
DAVID VON PEIN:
For Jimbo's edification, it wasn't me who said that the FBI agent Tomlinson talked to was Gordon Shanklin. It was Darrell Tomlinson who said that:
"I believe Mr. Shanklin from the FBI had it out there at the hospital in personnel with Mr. Wright there when they called me in." -- Darrell C. Tomlinson; 7/25/66
So, after seeing the above Tomlinson quote (and also after seeing the part in the Tomlinson/Marcus interview about Tomlinson saying that he had seen CE399 just "one time" after 11/22/63), it seems fairly logical to conclude one of the following things:
1.) CE2011 is incorrect as to the name of the FBI agent who showed Tomlinson a bullet on 6/12/64. (It was really Shanklin and not Bardwell Odum.)
2.) Darrell Tomlinson, in his 1966 interview with Marcus, was incorrect about the name of the FBI agent. (It was really Odum and not Shanklin.)
3.) Perhaps BOTH Odum and Shanklin went to Parkland Hospital on 6/12/64 to interview Tomlinson and O.P. Wright, and only the name of the field agent (Odum) was placed in the 7/7/64 FBI report that appears in CE2011.
Any one of the above three possibilities seems fairly reasonable to me, in light of the Marcus/Tomlinson interview.
Of course, NONE of those three choices is even in the ballpark for Jimbo DiEugenio. Right, Jim?
ADDENDUM:
Vincent Bugliosi had this to say about this issue:
"Per the July 7, 1964, report (CE 2011), the FBI agent who showed Tomlinson and Wright Commission Exhibit No. 399 (FBI Exhibit C-1) was Bardwell D. Odum. But interestingly, when assassination researchers [Gary] Aguilar and Josiah Thompson visited Odum at his home in Dallas in late September of 2002 [other sources claim it was in late 2001], Odum told them he never had that bullet in his possession and, hence, did not show it to anyone.
"Unless the July report is in error as to the name of the agent who showed Tomlinson the bullet, Odum, almost forty years after the fact, has simply forgotten. Odum said that if he had shown anyone the bullet, he would have prepared an FBI report (called a “302” after the number of the form, FD-302) on it. (Letter from Gary Aguilar to author dated October 13, 2004)
"The same “bogus” [Aguilar's word] July 7, 1964, FBI report (CE 2011) says that Secret Service agent Richard Johnsen, to whom O. P. Wright gave the slug, “could not identify this bullet,” and James Rowley, chief of the U.S. Secret Service to whom Johnsen gave the slug, also “could not identify this bullet.” (FBI special agent Elmer Todd, to whom Rowley gave the bullet, was, per the report, able to identify it “from initials” marked thereon by Todd at the FBI laboratory.)
"In an effort to explain why, if the FBI were up to no good, FBI agents would falsify what Tomlinson and Wright told them, but not what Johnsen and Rowley told them, Aguilar amusingly writes that the FBI authors of the July 7, 1964, report (CE 2011) probably thought that “Secret Service agents would have been more likely to read the FBI reports” than Tomlinson and Wright would."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 544-545 of Endnotes in "Reclaiming History"
David Von Pein
December 2011
