Recent articles and claims about General Walker's attempted assassination have caused quite a buzz. Are they true?
For the last couple of weeks, there's been a renewed interest in General Edwin A. Walker, specifically surrounding the event of the failed assassination attempt on his life on April 10, 1963. The resigned 2-star Army Major General has been a long major research project of mine, and still ongoing today. In no way do I describe myself as an expert, but I have studied the General's life and events for many years. For JFK assassination buffs, it is an under-researched topic and crucial to understanding Lee Harvey Oswald's time in Dallas.
Researchers are now posing many questions and claims
There are three items of interest recently that have sparked a new discussion concerning General Walker.
1. Scottish researcher Scott Reid's article on James DiEugenio's conspiracy website questioning whether or not it was a forgone conclusion that Oswald took the shot at Walker. https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/oswald-and-the-shot-at-walker-redressing-the-balance
2. Researcher Greg Doudna's article on a possible staged "fake assassination" ploy as a publicity stunt. https://www.scrollery.com/?p=1497
3. James DiEugenio and Benjamin Cole's assertion that CE573 (Walker bullet) was a steel-jacketed 30.06 and was replaced by a 6.5 mm WCC bullet to cast the blame on Oswald.
https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28924-oswald-and-the-shot-at-walker-redressing-the-balance/
There's a lot of ground to cover here so there will be another follow-up article addressing theories and questions surrounding General Walker.
For now, let's get clear the table of the garbage that the Walker bullet was a steel-jacketed, 30.06 bullet and was switched to a copper-jacketed 6.5 mm bullet.
Walker Bullet, Steel-Jacketed 30.06? Really?
Back in August 2021, I addressed this issue that Mr. DiEugenio and Mr. Cole are fixated on.
In DiEugenio's book, he says:
Near the end of his testimony Walker said that he had heard the FBI had matched up the bullet fired at him with the alleged Oswald rifle.128 This last statement explains why, among all the photos shown to him, Walker was never shown the most important one of all: The bullet the FBI said they had matched up to Oswald’s rifle. For they were now saying that it was a 6.5 caliber, copper-jacketed bullet. One compatible with the alleged rifle in evidence. Yet, this was not the bullet the police retrieved from Walker’s house that night and Walker had held in his hand. That bullet was a 30.06, steel jacketed bullet.129 As the reader can see, the combination of Ruth Paine with the FBI allowed the Warren Commission to manufacture a case that likely did not exist. As we will see, this will recur.
DiEugenio, James. Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case (p. 202). Skyhorse. Kindle Edition.
DiEugenio, who can find conspiracy evidence in a Kellogg's cereal box, does what he has always has in the past, plant false suspicions with his readers. Here he thinks the Warren Commission intentionally did not want Walker to look at CE573 (Walker bullet). Isn't that interesting, the Warren Commission knew CE573 was a fake? Adding more to the silliness, DiEugenio says the "real" bullet was a steel jacketed 30.06, citing the DPD case report (129 footnote in his book). Again, we catch DiEugenio exaggerating because yes it does state "steel jacketed" but nowhere in the DPD case report is there any mention of the bullet being a 30.06. In fact, it states the bullet was of unknown caliber. See the article link above where all this has been addressed before.
To his credit, Ben Cole now has admitted the 30.06 caliber is not mentioned in the DPD case report, even though his article online still mentions it. https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/walker-oswald-and-the-dog-that-didn-t-bark
But after the Kennedy murder, the DPD sent the steel-jacketed bullet—stated in police reports to be a 30.06 calibre
Ben Cole was being an honest broker admitting the 30.06 in the DPD case report mistake. However, DiEugenio to date, has no intention of editing out the mistake in the online article, which tends to mislead readers. DiEugenio made the same mistake in his Destiny Betrayed book.
Trying to bolster this crazy bullet switcheroo story, DiEugenio points to this article in the Dallas Morning News by Eddie Hughes.
Dallas Morning News, April 11, 1963
The DMN article does say "identified as a 30.06". A check of the Dallas Times Herald article by Warren Bosworth, who was there that night at the Walker home, says nothing about a 30.06. The case report by Burglary Detectives Van Cleave and McElroy clearly states, "unknown caliber".
So, what to make of this 30.06 newspaper report? As I stated in my previous article, I have no doubts that cops on the scene were speculating about the caliber, but Van Cleave and McElroy were not. The 30.06 is a common round used by deer hunters in Texas.
Chain of Custody Issues? Seriously?
Another big contention by theorists is some sort of chain of custody problem with the Walker bullet. This is a common gripe, and you will see how laughable these claims are in regard to CE573. Let's follow the trail.
Dallas Police Patrolmen D.P. Tucker and Billy Gene Norvell (partners) were the first to arrive at the scene after Walker called the police. General Walker showed them the window where the shot came through. At that time Norvell called the Burglary and Theft division requesting detectives come to the scene to investigate. Sometime later, Burglary Detectives Van Cleave and McElroy, and B.G. Brown of CSSS (Crime Scene Search Section) showed up to begin their investigation. While waiting on the Detectives to arrive, Billy Gene Norvell found the spent slug in the adjacent room lying among some of Walker's stack of literature. His partner Tucker confirmed Norvell finding the slug.
As mentioned in the DPD case report, McElroy/Van Cleave turned over the Walker bullet to Detective B.G. Brown of CSSS (Crime Scene investigator). Detective Brown then turned over the bullet to Lt. Carl Day, head of the CSSS at City Hall. Day examined the bullet, marked it and transported it to the City-County Investigation Lab at Parkland Hospital. F.T. Alexander and Louie L. Anderson then took possession of the Walker bullet. Lt. Day requested if both men could make an ID on what rifle was used. A few days later, Lt. Day got an oral report that they could not make a rifle or caliber identification due to the mangled condition of the slug. The Walker bullet remained at the City-County Investigation Lab from April 25, 1963, to December 2, 1963, when the Oswald-Marina letter was revealed. Lt. Day then retrieved the Walker bullet from Parkland back to CSSS and relinquished it to Dallas FBI SA Bardwell Odum at 4:10 pm on December 2nd. (1)
In my previous article, this is all explained in the context of Walker objecting to a showing of a pristine bullet on the televised HSCA hearings. https://steveroeconsulting.wixsite.com/website/post/the-general-walker-bullet-real-or-fake
There was no chain of custody issue, the bullet and the evidence box were all initialed by DPD and FBI Lab examiners.
Factoring all this in, is there any other evidence to solidify that CE573 in the National Archives was the real bullet found in the Walker home on the night of April 10, 1963?
The answer is yes.
Billy Gene Norvell who was only on the DPD force from December 1, 1962, to May 4, 1963, was tracked down by Dallas FBI agents Barrett and Lee. After some confusion with a Bobby Gene Norvell, who was a popular Garland High School football player, who went onto Baylor University and into the service, the FBI located former DPD patrolman Billy Gene Norvell in Irving, Texas and interviewed him in a report on June 4, 1964. Norvell explained what happened that night, and stated he did initial the bullet with a "N" or "BN", near the base of the bullet. He described the bullet being in a mangled condition. (2)
Using the NIST Hi-Def photos of CE573, which revealed the Elmer Todd initials on CE399, here is Billy Gene Norvell's "N" initial exactly as he described where he put his initial, near the base of the bullet.
NIST Photo 573_6179 Walker Bullet
Note: due to the mangled condition of CE573, I adjusted the brightness of the NIST photo slightly to see the initial in the partial shadow.
Conclusion
There was no crazy elaborate switcheroo on bullets. CE573 is the same bullet found at the Walker home. It doesn't matter if the bullet was described as a "steel-jacketed" bullet, it's the same bullet.
General Walker has never claimed CE573 was not the bullet he handled at his home that night. He only objected to a pristine bullet being shown in the HSCA televised hearings.
This steel jacketed bullet description in the DPD case report was a question posed to Robert Frazier (FBI) by Melvin Eisenberg of the Warren Commission.
Eisenberg: Is this a jacketed bullet?
Frazier: Yes, it is a copper-alloy jacketed bullet having a lead core.
Eisenberg: Can you think of any reason why someone might have called this a steel-jacketed bullet?
Frazier: No sir; except that some individuals commonly refer to rifle bullets as steel-jacketed bullets, when they actually in fact just have a copper-alloy jacket. (3)
1 - FBI Internal Memo 105-82555, Oswald HQ File, Section 186 https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60410#relPageId=104&search=Walker_bullet
2 - FBI Internal Memo 105-82555, Oswald HQ File, Section 186
3 - Warren Commission Testimony of Robert A. Frazier