Letter to the editor. NAA and JFK: Can revisionism take us home?

摘要

Occasionally during the course of the human learning experience we are facedwith an anomaly. An aberration of sorts, which try as we might, defiesappropriate classification. The recent paper by Spiegelman et al.--Chemical andforensic analysis of JFK assassination bullet lots: Is a second shooterpossible?--is one such aberration. It is riddled with both misconceptions anderrors of fact. Purporting to cast doubt on the NAA (neutron activationanalysis) work conducted by Dr. Vincent Guinn in the investigation of theassassination of President John F. Kennedy, it fails miserably. The paperoffers two central conclusions, one which is demonstrably false, and the otherwhich is specious. The authors opine; ``If the assassination fragments arederived from three or more separate bullets, then a second assassin is likely,as the additional bullet would not be attributable to the main suspect, Mr.Oswald.'' This statement relating to the likelihood of a second assassin basedon the premise of three or more separate bullets is demonstrably false. Theavailable evidence indicates that Oswald fired three shots, one of which isbelieved to have missed. However, on the off chance that all three shots hit(even though there is absolutely no other supporting forensic evidence for sucha notion) those three shots alone in no way would indicate then that ``a secondassassin is likely.'' The authors' erroneous conclusion was achieved becausethey have either been misled (which I personally believe is the case) or theysimply aren't familiar with the evidence.