DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
For many years now, a claim made by JFK assassination conspiracy theorists has been that the initials of FBI agent Elmer Lee Todd were not present on the bullet (Warren Commission Exhibit No. 399) that was found on a Parkland Hospital stretcher shortly after President Kennedy was shot on November 22, 1963.
Conspiracists such as James DiEugenio (among others) have made this claim even though the FBI agent in question (Elmer Todd) wrote up a report on 11/22/63 specifically saying that he had, indeed, etched his initials into the nose of the bullet:
Here's a conversation I had with DiEugenio in July 2015 concerning the topic of CE399 and Todd's initials:
JAMES DiEUGENIO -- "Todd's initials are not on the bullet."
DAVID VON PEIN -- "FBI Agent Elmer Todd most certainly marked Bullet CE399. It's just that the pictures of the bullet don't show the markings very well at all. And even Frazier's and Cunningham's and Killion's initials are very hard to discern. But Commission Document No. 7 proves enough (to me) to indicate that Elmer Todd marked bullet CE399."
And five years earlier, in August of 2010, I had this exchange with Jim DiEugenio:
JAMES DiEUGENIO -- "[John] Hunt then brought magnifying glasses and a computer scanner to visually inspect the documents, the bullet, and the photos at very close range and under magnification. Does anyone truly believe that he could not locate Todd's initials under those circumstances?"
DAVID VON PEIN -- "Yes, I do. ALL of the markings that John Hunt found on Bullet CE399 from the NARA photos are very faint and quite difficult to see and discern. I can easily envision Todd's faint mark on that bullet being overlooked."
JAMES DiEUGENIO -- "So let me ask you, if Todd's marks were on the bullet, would John [Hunt] not have been able to see them and arrow them as easily as he did the others? Right?"
DAVID VON PEIN -- "No, not necessarily. Perhaps Todd's initials are fainter than the other FBI agents' marks. What we DO know is this: CE2011 verifies for all time that Elmer L. Todd SAW HIS OWN INITIALS on Commission Exhibit 399 (or "C1", which is what the FBI called the bullet in June 1964, via CE2011)."
And one more for good measure (from October 2012):
ROBERT HARRIS -- "Those initials [of FBI agent Elmer Todd] are not on CE399."
DAVID VON PEIN -- "Yes, they are. You just can't see them in the NARA photos."
JAMES DiEUGENIO -- "This has now gone beyond absurdity. Davey Boy, everyone here is still waiting for you to put your money where your mouth is. Something you never ever do. In other words...go to Travelocity, book a flight and a hotel room, and go ahead and do what you have been saying you would do for ages: Prove John Hunt is a liar."
DAVID VON PEIN -- "Yeah, right, Jimbo. Like the NARA is going to allow me to just waltz right in and examine CE399. Get real. Fact is: John Hunt DID NOT examine the bullet itself. He examined the same photos that have been posted in this very thread. And those photos (as good as they might be) are not definitive proof that Todd did not mark CE399. Plus: There are TWO separate (and corroborating) official FBI documents that tell us that Elmer Todd DID mark the bullet (CD7 and CE2011). And CD7 confirms that Todd marked the bullet on the day of the assassination itself. Spit on those records if you want to; call them fake if you want to (and you do want to, naturally). But I'm not willing to do so. Period."
Well, as it turns out, I was correct when I said over the years that Elmer Todd's initials are on Bullet CE399. And this fact was proven beyond any doubt whatsoever in 2022 by JFK assassination researcher Steve Roe, whose article concerning this matter, entitled "The Unfounded Attack on CE 399’s Chain of Custody", was published online at the Washington Decoded website on June 11, 2022. The article can be found at THIS LINK.
That article by Steve Roe contains new high-definition photographs of CE399, including the picture below, which clearly shows that the initials "ET" (Elmer Todd) have been scratched into the surface of the bullet near the nose, which is precisely where Elmer Todd himself said in Commission Document No. 7 he had etched his initials:
So, with Mr. Roe's definitive discovery of Elmer Lee Todd's initials on that crucial and long-maligned piece of assassination-related evidence known as Commission Exhibit 399, it should forever put to rest yet another long-standing (and inaccurate) argument that has been made by conspiracy theorists—the argument that Todd's initials are nowhere to be found on CE399.
Because as everyone can easily see via the above high-quality photograph, Mr. Todd's markings are most certainly present and accounted for on that bullet.
For more posts and articles concerning Bullet CE399's "chain of custody", click on the links below:
David Von Pein
June 11-14, 2022
