Ben Cole and Tom Gram team up to cast doubts and plant false suspicions about the provenance of the Walker bullet.
Walker tending to his slight shrapnel wounds. Credit: Bob Welch, WBAP cameraman
Background
It seems there is still continued interest on the April 10, 1963, murder attempt of General Walker. This time Ben Cole and Tom Gram joined forces and co-wrote this article on James DiEugenio's conspiracy site, Kennedys and King, CE 573: Is it Real? https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/walker-bullet-ce-573-is-it-real
This article presents a different scenario to the official story that Oswald fired a Western Cartridge Company (WCC) copper-jacketed 6.5 mm bullet into General Walker's home.
I asked another Education Forum member, Mark Ulrik, to look this Cole/Gram article over as well to provide any insights to its credibility.
Synopsis of the Cole/Gram article Walker Bullet CE 573: Is it Real?
The writing team of Cole/Gram laid out their arguments that there is reasonable doubt that CE 573, now in the National Archives, is the real bullet fired into the Walker home.
CE 573 (Walker Bullet)
In a nutshell, in their own words, Cole/Gram summarize their points of contention as follows:
The original and official DPD reports described a relatively rare “steel-jacketed” slug found in the Walker home, on April 10, 1963, the night of the shooting. The bullet was handled and initialed through inscribing by four DPD officers. But CE 573—the WC’s purported Walker Bullet—is obviously copper-jacketed.
The extremely thin Warren Commission questioning of FBI agent Frazier, as to how and why the Walker Bullet could ever be described as “steel-jacketed” by DPD detectives. Frazier answered that “some individuals refer to all rifle bullets as steel-jacketed,” a novel and unique observation. There is nothing in police or FBI literature to suggest police detectives or FBI special agents anywhere ever described “all rifle bullets” as steel-jacketed—especially when copper-jacketed rifle bullets were and are the norm.
Lt. Day of the Dallas Police Department, stating unequivocally to the FBI and then to the WC that he had carved the true Walker slug with his name “DAY” and a cross. No such markings can be seen on CE 573, even under a microscope.
The lack of same-day April 10, 1963, or indeed any Dallas Police Department photographs of the true Walker Bullet. The true Walker Bullet was never photographed or, if it was, the photographs have disappeared. Moreover, there are no surviving written DPD lab reports on the Walker Bullet that describe the slug as steel-or copper-jacketed.
The weak chain of evidence confirmation by the FBI-WC on the provenance of CE 573. The FBI in 1964 showed a slug purported to be the Walker Bullet only to Norvell, the DPD patrolman, who at best handled the slug briefly 14 months earlier. The FBI did not show the purported Walker Bullet to detectives McElroy or Van Cleave.
Neither FBI nor the Commission ever asked Van Cleave why they thought the Walker Bullet was a steel-jacketed 30.06. A simple question, such as “OK, Van Cleave. You handled and inscribed the Walker Bullet, held it in your hand on April 10. Why did you call the Walker Bullet ‘steel-jacketed’ in official police reports and 30.06 when talking to reporters?” That simple question was never asked of the best witness.
Chief Curry opining on Nov. 29 that JFK had been assassinated with “steel-jacketed” bullets, and that he was trying to confirm that fact with the FBI. Curry was almost certainly referring to the Walker shooting, and the “steel-jacketed” 30.06 slug found on the scene—a shooting being laid at the feet of LHO, due to the photographs of the Walker home and approaches found in LHO’s possession post JFKA.
Adding to their conclusions, they add on these inflammatory statements:
In sum, it is difficult to have confidence the true Walker Bullet, described as steel-jacketed, is also the WC’s CE 573, the torn-asunder copper-jacketed.
What could be corroborating evidence—the correct marks on the CE 573, or correct same-day detective reports, or a true contemporary April 1983 Walker Bullet photograph, or a true contemporary written report from the DPD lab—are all lacking regarding CE 573. Anyone driving to confirm the authenticity of CE 573 meets roadblock after roadblock after roadblock.
It is hardly a secret that the job of the Commission was not to investigate the JFK case, but rather to prosecute LHO as a “leftie, loner, loser.” And their narrative on the Walker shooting was that Oswald took a potshot at the General, thus indicating LHO’s predisposition to assassination of public figures.
However, prosecutorial zeal can lead to excesses and shortcomings.
There you have it, Cole/Gram do not trust the Warren Commission's conclusions that Oswald fired CE 573 into the Walker home. They opine it was a predetermined mindset by Warren Commission staff to point the finger at Oswald to paint him as already engaging in violent actions that ultimately led to the murder of President Kennedy and Officer JD Tippit.
While they hedge their comments with "little or no confidence" that CE 573 was the true Walker bullet, the implied message is there may exist a possibility of a bullet swap or a planted bullet at the Walker home.
There are two main issues brought up here; was the Walker bullet was a steel-jacketed bullet? And could it be a 30.06 bullet?
Let's take a look at the 30.06 bullet angle first.
Differences between the WCC 6.5 mm bullet and 30.06 bullets
30.06 bullets are really .30 caliber bullets, but often referred to as 30.06. The .06 refers to the year the Springfield company introduced this caliber bullet (1906). It was widely used in the military and of course by sportsmen hunters. There are slight differences in the diameter of both bullets. The .30 caliber bullet is measured in inches, and its metric equivalent is 7.62 millimeters in diameter. Therefore, the delta between the 6.5 mm and the 7.62 mm is of course only 1.12 millimeters. Or as a comparison, slightly larger than the thickness of a common credit card.
In the Warren Commission Executive Sessions, they recognized that fact. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1325#relPageId=17&search=Walker
Regarding the Walker case, as I have stated in one of my earlier blog articles, I believe there was some speculation going on about the caliber of the bullet. But due to the mangled condition of the Walker bullet to accurately describe it as a 30.06 to the naked eye, would be difficult. Here's where Mr. Cole and Mr. Gram need to pay close attention. This is why Lt. Carl Day sent the Walker bullet to the City-County Crime lab over at Parkland hospital to determine what rifle was used in conjunction with the slug. They gave an oral report back to Lt. Day and they could not make that determination. If it was a 30.06 bullet, then they most certainly would have told Lt. Day that. The investigating DPD detectives and police officers knew it was a rifle bullet and a 30.06 is a common round used by deer hunters which might have been speculated on as reported in some newspaper articles.
The important thing to remember here is nowhere on the Walker case reports is there mention of the slug being a 30.06. This was falsely stated by Ben Cole in his previous Walker, Oswald, and the Dog That Didn't Bark article.
But after the Kennedy murder, the DPD sent the steel-jacketed bullet--stated in police reports to be a 30.06 calibre--to the FBI.
Ben Cole acknowledged the mistake on the Education Forum, yet it is still in the article. Apparently, Ben Cole and James DiEugenio have no intention to correcting that false statement, misleading readers.
There was speculation on the bullet being a 30.06 as mentioned in this Dallas Morning News article on December 7, 1963.
Officers speculated at the time that a 30.06 rifle fired the bullet which almost hit Walker. The official report states, however, that crime lab technicians (City-County Lab) were unable to determine the caliber of the weapon because of the condition of the slug.1
The Cole/Gram article builds on this 30.06 misidentification by this claim.
Though not considered official evidence, the April 12, 1963 edition of The New York Times reported that Walker had been targeted with a 30.06 rifle, citing information provided by DPD detective Ira Van Cleave. Van Cleave would tell not only the Times, but the national wire service the Associated Press and at least two Texas newspapers that he had, in effect, handled and marked a steel-jacketed 30.06 slug the night of April 10 1963, in the Walker home.[3]
New York Times, April 12, 1963
As correctly pointed out by Mark Ulrik, the New York Times article is the same Dallas Associated Press article sent over the wires across the nation. Ira Van Cleave did not talk to the New York Times. In addition, they claimed Ira Van Cleave "marked" the slug with his initials. This is false. Nowhere in the New York Times or other AP wires does it say, "Van Cleave marked the steel-jacketed slug". Clearly this is a major exaggeration and a misleading statement by Cole/Gram.
Did Ira Van Cleave actually make that statement? His case report along with Detective McElroy on April 10, 1963, states "unknown caliber". This question was asked by Kevin Walsh, formerly of the HSCA staff, in a letter to Cliff Fenton.2
While visiting Dallas last January I contacted Ira Van Cleave at the Crimes Against Persons Division of the Dallas Police Dept. Office Van Cleave now operates a polygraph and security consulting firm separate from his official duties. At the time of the attempt on Maj. Walker's life Van Cleave was assigned to the investigation and quoted in the press to the effect that the recovered bullet had been fired from a 30.06. I asked him about this and he stated the bullet had been too mangled for identification and he had been misquoted.
In conclusion on the 30.06 bullet story, it was all just speculation. There was no evidence to support it.
The great "Steel-Jacketed" bullet controversy
This steel-jacketed bullet question has been around for many years. And it's one that the Cole/Gram team really focus on in their arguments. Here they go after the Warren Commission interviewer Melvin Eisenberg for weakly probing Robert Frazier of the FBI Lab explanation why some people call rifle bullets steel-jacketed bullets as per the Van Cleave/McElroy case report. From their article:
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.[5]
This is just another example how silly the writing team of Cole/Gram can construct an irrational argument. With 27 years of firearms experience and 23 years of FBI training and lab work, Robert Frazier's explanation that rifle bullets were sometimes referred as steel-jacketed bullets was rejected outright and mocked by Cole/Gram. Furthermore, the writing team really embellished their comments with such phrases as "without hesitation", "park winos" and "hunter housewives" as to discredit Frazier's hands on experience. But in the absolutist world of Cole/Gram, only steel-jacketed bullets meant steel-jacketed bullets, nothing else. Who do you trust here? Internet firearm experts Cole/Gram or Robert Frazier's real life work experience?
Mark Ulrik found this in a 1938 Firearms Identification book.
Of importance here is the sentence "The term "steel jacket" commonly applied to such bullets is a misnomer (an inaccurate description), as are many popular concepts concerning matters of a technical nature". This is actually what Robert Frazier was explaining when Cole/Gram dismissed his answer. As stated earlier, Cole/Gram will not accept the term "steel-jacketed" as anything else. They wander off into another subject that steel-jacketed bullets were rare, and of course Van Cleave/McElroy had to mean it was really a "rare" steel-jacketed bullet instead of a copper-jacketed. Here they apply the same to Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry.
Chief Curry opining on Nov. 29 that JFK had been assassinated with “steel jacketed” bullets, and that he was trying to confirm that fact with the FBI. Curry was almost certainly referring to the Walker shooting, and the “steel jacketed” 30.06 slug found on the scene—a shooting being laid at the feet of LHO, due to the photographs of the Walker home and approaches found in LHO’s possession post JFKA.
Conspiratorial zeal? Curry was referring to the Walker shooting bullet?? As Mark Ulrik has noted before, trying to reason with Ben Cole, there sure was a lot of "mind reading" going on. Cole/Gram need to face facts, some people did refer to rifle bullets as steel-jacketed.
Authenticating the Walker bullet
One important thing to remember about looking for initials on CE 573, the mushroomed slug was approximately 27 x 16 millimeters. Or in inches, 1.063 x 0.63. It was small, and you can envision that in your hand. Even on the NIST photos, not all sides are exposed, and there are shadows due to the mangled condition of the bullet. The most efficient way to examine this bullet is under a microscope. This was exactly what Special Counsel to the Attorney General, Robert L. Keuch, did when he commissioned a microscopic examination of CE 573 in answer to General Walker's complaint that the real bullet was not properly shown in the HSCA televised hearings. Under the microscope, the magnification power can be adjusted, the lighting can be manipulated, and the bullet can be rotated freely to see all sides and at all angles.
Cole/Gram make this ambiguous assertion about DPD officer initials.
The original and official DPD reports described a relatively rare “steel jacketed” slug found in the Walker home, on April 10, 1963, the night of the shooting. The bullet was handled and initialed through inscribing by four DPD officers. But CE 573—the WC’s purported Walker Bullet—is obviously copper-jacketed.
The only documented DPD initials on CE 573 were Norvell, Brown, Day and Parkland Hospital City-County Crime Lab officers Alexander or Anderson in the HSCA Keuch examination. Were they referring to Norvell, Tucker, Van Cleave and McElroy? Cole/Gram claim Van Cleave marked the slug, but that's not true. Nowhere in the DPD case reports or FBI reports it was stated that Van Cleave or McElroy placed their marks on the bullet. Let's take a look at the NIST photos to determine.
Officer B.G. Norvell's "N" initial on CE573 (National Archives)
Cole/Gram did mention the fact that the FBI went out to B.G. Norvell's home in Irving and he did identify his mark on the slug. He said he marked it near the base of the bullet (not the nose) and clearly you can see the "N" mark as per this NIST photo. Shouldn't this be of high consideration in evaluating the true identity of the Walker bullet? How do Cole/Gram handle this Norvell marking?
But at best the novice Norvell handled the original Walker bullet briefly, before being asked to identify a bullet shown to him by the FBI 14 months later. Suppose an “N” was on a mangled bullet? Or…who is to know if the FBI, in fact, showed the true original steel jacketed Walker Bullet to Norvell, while CE 573 stayed back in the FBI lab?
Planting false suspicions doesn't verify anything. Clearly Mr. Norvell remembered what happened and showed the FBI the location of his mark. It's on the copper-jacketed CE 573. Who do you believe? Cole/Gram or your lying eyes?
The word "DAY" presents a challenge to find utilizing the NIST photos. As touched on earlier, not all sides of CE 573 are presented, along with the uneven surface of the bullet, casting shadows. Although the Keuch examiners thought they found a "D", assuming it was Day's, were they looking for the full initials "DAY"? It does mention "Day 7640" on the evidence box, but it's unknown or not apparent they were actually looking for "DAY" on the slug, or the "cross" marking. Does this automatically preclude Lt. Day's marking on the slug as he testified to?
Two researchers back in 1971, Robert Smith and Mike Clark, went to the National Archives and viewed CE 573 with a magnifying glass (just like Dr. David Mantik with CE 399). They tried to find the noted initials on the bullet. The only one they could find was "DAY" and an "obscure mark". They falsely concluded the bullet was a substitution with the absence of other initials. Smith and Clark drew a rough sketch of CE 573.
Smith and Clark misidentified the word "DAY", but they noted the cross symbol which they called "obscure mark". This is clearly visible on the NIST photos as Q 188 (FBI Specimen #), not "DAY". In all likelihood, this was Lt. Day's cross symbol. You can see it clearly etched in.
NIST Photo #573_6159 (section enlarged)
Raising false suspicions
In their article, Cole/Gram made a number of these questionable allegations.
On Dec. 4, 1963, mere hours after the FBI had recorded receipt of the Walker Bullet, FBI Asst. Director W.C. Sullivan was evidently in a frenzy regarding the slug.
According to an FBI memo sent to the FBI office in Dallas, on Dec. 4, “Asst. Director W. C. Sullivan called at 3:10 am and instructed he receive a return phone call and be filled in on the details regarding to the alleged bullet shot into the home of General Edwin A. Walker.”[9]
Yes, 3:10 am.
The FBI memo, on which the sender's identity has curiously been redacted, continued, “Mr. Sullivan then instructed that agents review Dallas newspaper morgues first thing Wednesday morning, 12/4/63, and details be obtained and furnished to him by teletype.”
Sullivan may have been a night owl. Perhaps overwrought by JFK case duties. But even so, it is evident that Sullivan had urgent concerns about the authenticity of the Walker Bullet, and called the purported Walker Bullet the “alleged” slug—unusual for evidence submitted to the FBI by a police department. Well before sunrise on Dec. 4, Sullivan was issuing urgent orders demanding immediate action from the Dallas FBI and information on the Walker Bullet.
But not only did Sullivan think the true Walker Bullet might actually be steel jacketed.
One has to be truly amazed with the clairvoyant mind reading skills of Cole/Gram. Not only did they read the mind of FBI Deputy Director Sullivan, but they also performed another Spock Vulcan Mind Meld on Jesse Curry as mentioned earlier, that the Walker bullet was steel-jacketed. Using their own words in the article on another misguided point:
You can’t make this stuff up.
Clearly, Cole/Gram did make this stuff up to fluff up suspicions and create more false mysteries. Dallas FBI agent Bardwell Odum obtained the Walker bullet from Lt. Carl Day on December 2, 1963. Odum sent the bullet by registered mail to the FBI lab in Washington D.C and it was received by the lab on December 4, 1963. Since the post office requires a signature by the receiver on registered mail, that suggests the bullet arrived sometime on the 4th in normal post office delivery times, not at night. Therefore, Deputy Director Sullivan had not received any FBI lab reports on their examination of the bullet at 3:10 AM early on December 4th. There is absolutely no indication at all that Sullivan had any idea what type of bullet it was. It is apparent Sullivan wanted any local FBI files on the Walker shooting, of which there were none. In light of that, Sullivan instructed Dallas field agents to review local newspaper articles on the shooting of Walker for reports of background information. This had nothing to do with Sullivan's suspicions of a "steel-jacketed" bullet as put forth by Cole/Gram. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=145516#relPageId=27
Another dubious claim by Cole/Gram is this:
J. Lee Rankin was the general counsel to the Warren Commission, and thus one of the staffers who “did the real work” of the body.
On May 4, 1964, Rankin sent to FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover a memo, regarding physical evidence and the chain of evidence in the JFK case. That memo in part reads:
“We would like you to determine, and set forth in one document, where and by whom these items were found following the assassination. In each case the item should be shown to the person who found it so that he can identify through inspection….However it is unnecessary to trace the chain of possession forward past the first person who can identify the item by inspection.”[8]
The memo specifically mentions the Walker Bullet, CE 573.
Thus, FBI agents followed Rankin’s directive, and showed the Walker bullet CE 573 only to patrolman Novell, even though there was a conflict in the written official FBI record regarding if Novell actually found and handled the bullet. One obvious interpretation is that Rankin wanted to sidestep showing the bullet and getting testimony from DPD detectives McElroy and Van Cleave.
First of all, the Walker bullet was designated C 148 (item #5), incorrectly stated, a minor point. Also, Rankin's memo to Hoover (May 2, 1964) has a long list of 37 items that he asked Hoover's agents to establish "chain of possession" for. Rankin states:
In each case, the item should be shown to the person who found it, so he can identify it by inspection. If he cannot so identify the item, a chain of possession should be traced between him and the first person who can identify it by inspection. However, it is unnecessary to trace the chain of possession forward past the first person who can identify the item by inspection.
Cole/Gram add this mind reading interpretation that "Rankin wanted to sidestep showing the bullet and getting testimony from DPD detectives McElroy and Van Cleave". Seriously, Rankin wanted to sidestep McElroy and Van Cleave on May 2, 1964, before FBI agents were dispatched to make their investigation?
Update: June 19, 2023. The May 2, 1964, date as stated above, was in error. The author referred to the Cole/Gram link on footnote #8 of their article which links to this Rankin memo which shows "May 2".
Tom Gram pointed this error out, and it is duly noted. The correct date should be May 20, 1964, as noted by another Rankin memo copy. The previous document has the "0" cut off or obscured. The point remains the same about Cole/Gram's belief that Rankin wanted to sidestep McElroy and Van Cleave. The correct document is now: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=59597#relPageId=2
Indeed, there is some confusion on FBI documents and teletypes. For example, this teletype (dated June 1, 1964) from Dallas FBI says Detective McElroy found the bullet and gave it to Officer Bobby Brown of the Crime Scene Search Service (CSSS). But Brown stated he got the bullet from Patrolman B.G. Norvell and it was stated on the case report Officer Norvell found the bullet.
The above teletype was from the investigation by Dallas FBI agents Bob Barrett and Ivan Lee (CE 1245 in Gemberling Report). https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11640#relPageId=98&search=Norvell
Cole/Gram exploit this confusion on who found the bullet and handed if off to CSSS Officer Bobby Brown to add a sinister twist to bolster the misguided steel jacketed bullet allegation. What Cole/Gram conveniently failed to inform their readers was that Barrett and Lee did reconcile who found that bullet. They also interviewed Donald P. Tucker; he and B.G. Norvell were the first responding patrolmen on the scene. Cole/Gram incorrectly identify Tucker as "J.P. Tucker", just another minor example of the lack of fact-checking of their own article.
Officer Donald P. Tucker (40 years old) died in 1973 while on duty responding to a domestic disturbance call with an ex-con beating on his ex-wife. He took a .357 round to the head (face) from the ex-con.3
Officer Donald Paul Tucker, Credit: Find A Grave Website
Reporters at the scene
At 9:10 PM on April 10, 1963, General Walker called the Dallas Police about the shooting. Working out of the Northwest Area Substation, Officers Tucker and Norvell, who were riding together, responded to the radio call.4 Upon arriving at 4011 Turtle Creek, they met General Walker and surveyed the damage caused by the bullet. Then either Tucker or Norvell called the Dallas PD requesting detectives to come out and investigate. During this time waiting on the detectives to arrive, Norvell found the spent bullet, laying among some of Walker's mail- out literature, wrapped in craft paper. Using Cole/Gram's article photo (which was originally provided by Mark Ulrik), here is the DPD photo of where the bullet passed through the adjacent room, going through approximately 9" of lath/plaster wall.
As you can see, the bullet hole is below the picture frame, and plaster remnants are scattered on top of the wrapped literature/pamphlet bundles. Let's pick up the story from there with an eyewitness who was at the Walker home in the aftermath.
Warren Bosworth
Warren Bosworth was a Dallas Times Herald reporter who was on the night shift police beat in April 1963. That night on April 10th, Bosworth and Eddie Hughes of the Dallas Morning News were sitting in the press room, located on the 3rd floor of City Hall listening to the police radio transmissions. The press room was a small room with a couple of desks located on the same floor as the Dallas Police Detective bureaus. Sometime after 9:00 that evening both reporters heard a report about an "attempted suicide" in the Turtle Creek high rise apartments. About 5-10 minutes later both Bosworth and Hughes went across the hall to talk to Sgt. John B. Toney in the Forgery Bureau. While they were there, a Burglary/Theft detective stopped by Toney's office and said that someone just tried to shoot General Walker. The detective asked Toney if they wanted the Burglary/Theft bureau to handle it as a "burglary by firearms" or the Forgery Bureau. Toney who was short staffed that night, turned it over to Burglary/Theft to go investigate. Toney and Lt. Elmo Cunningham of the Forgery Bureau did go out to the Walker home a few days later to follow up on the investigation.
General Walker of course was a well-known personality in Dallas, which got Bosworth/Hughes immediately interested in pursuing the story. They ran down the hall and out the door. Bosworth hopped into Hughes' car, and they took off to Turtle Creek. Upon arrival at the Walker home, they were met at the front door by Robert Surrey, who let them in after presenting their press ID's. Bosworth noted that only Surrey/Walker and the two radio patrolmen were in the house when they came in. A few minutes later, the Burglary/Theft detectives arrived. While there, Hughes pointed out to Bosworth the hole in the wall where Walker was working at this desk and the bullet strike on the window sash.
After talking to Walker for a little bit, Bosworth and Hughes wandered off around the house. Walker made no objection to the reporters looking around. In the next room, as Bosworth relates in his Oral History, there was the slug, lying on top of Walker's literature bundles in full view. Bob Porter who interviewed Bosworth, asked him what kind of bullet it was. Bosworth told him it was so damaged that it was impossible to tell what caliber it was. Indeed, Bosworth in his next day Times Herald newspaper article on the front page, makes no mention of the caliber of the bullet. Bosworth, a former Korean War Marine vet, most certainly knew firearms. However, it would be the next morning in the Dallas Morning News that Eddie Hughes mentioned a 30.06. According to Bosworth, the Morning News was skeptical of this Walker shooting account by Hughes. They buried it deep in the paper, not on the front page like the Times Herald. This was probably the source for the AP wire report of 30.06 and another clue that there was speculation going on. It was Bosworth who noticed General Walker bleeding from his right arm. Walker told Surrey to go get some tweezers upstairs. Bosworth went with Surrey and found the tweezers and volunteered to help remove the bullet jacket shards and glass embedded in his right arm.5
Cole/Gram again try to weave more mysterious suspicions on where that bullet slug was found. They cite CE 1953 and July 1964 Commission Document 1124, which is included in CE 1953.
In both CE 1953 and CD 1124 there is a mention of removing some literature to reveal a mushroomed bullet lying on one of the stacks of literature near the hole in the wall below the picture frame (see above photo). Then they state this:
If the true Walker Bullet was found resting in-between bundles of paper, lying on one of the stacks, then one might have suspicions the bullet had been planted there.
This of course is silly beyond reason. Clearly you can see plaster dust on top of the literature bundles in the photo. Does it really matter where that slug found its final resting place? Another perfect example of conspiratorial zeal courtesy of Cole/Gram.
Why you should have extreme reasonable doubt on the Cole/Gram article
General Walker was wounded slightly in his right arm. There's no planted bullet fantasy here, as you see CE 573 did suffer quite a bit of damage, with loss of lead and jacket.
Cole/Gram make a mega-deal out of this steel jacket business. They reject the idea that detectives and police officers sometimes referred to jacketed rifle bullets as steel-jacketed bullets. In absolutist fashion, they can't fathom why trained police officers used that term.
Did General Walker, Robert Surrey or any of the DPD officers object to seeing CE 573 in the Warren Commission Report as not representative of the condition of that bullet that they saw? Of course not.
Does anyone actually believe there was a bullet substitution from a steel jacketed bullet to a copper jacketed CE 573? Who would do such a thing? For what reason? Does this make logical sense risking being caught or noticed by anyone who did see that bullet? If the FBI made this fantasy bullet switcheroo to frame Oswald, why didn't they conclude beyond a reasonable doubt it was fired from Oswald's rifle to the exclusion of all others? They didn't of course. If the DPD did it, where did they get a Western Cartridge Company bullet from and fire it into a hard surface to mimic the original bullet? This is just unreasonable logic and sheer delusional fantasy.
If any of Walker shooting conspirators gave Oswald another rifle to shoot a steel jacketed bullet, why did he take his Carcano and hide it?
None of this makes sense.
In conclusion
Let me preface my remaining remarks with this. I know there will be a few naysayers claiming I made the following story up out of thin air and that's to be expected. For the record, I do not make up false fantastical stories.
A few weeks ago, I was in contact with a person who was very close to this April 10, 1963, shooting event. His family asked me to keep his identity confidential at this moment to protect his privacy. I agreed to do that out of privacy concerns. There are plans to meet him in person in the near future, as one family member said he was open to that.
In phone conversation with him about what happened that night, he gave me a good rundown. We talked about many things and some I will not reveal in this article. But I did check out things he told me, and it was never embellished, and he was most credible with a good memory of this 60-year-old event.
Without coaching or leading on, I simply asked this question, what was the color of that bullet that was found? His exact words were "it was a copper coated bullet".
I'd like to thank Mark Ulrik for his valued contributions in preparing this blog article. In addition to this, Mark has prepared the following links to the Dallas Police case reports on General Walker for those that maybe interested.
General Offense report (Records Bureau)
Supplemental Offense report (Records Bureau)
General Offense report (Investigating Bureau)
Supplemental Offense report (Investigating Bureau)
1 - Dallas Morning News, December 7, 1963, Woman Says FBI Told Where Oswald Worked - Marxist Linked to Walker Shot
2 - Credit: Fred Litwin, Letter from Kevin Walsh to Cliff Fenton, August 5, 1978
3 - Dallas Morning News, December 14, 1973, Ex-Convict Jailed - Policeman Killed Answering Call
4 - Batchelor Exhibit No. 5002 shows Officer D. P. Tucker assigned to the Northwest Area Substation in late 1963. Norvell had resigned from the DPD in May 1963, previous to the Batchelor report.
5 - Warren Bosworth Oral History, September 24, 1997, interview by Bob Porter, author's collection courtesy of the 6FM.
???????
"Without coaching or leading on, I simply asked this question, what was the color of that bullet that was found? His exact words were "it was a copper coated bullet".---SR
That is the exact description of a steel-jacketed copper-washed or gilded steel-jacketed bullet bullet. Steel jacketed bullets are copper-washed or gilded---or "coated."
I have a "challenge" that is little unfair:
Can you find another police report of a murder or attempted murder, in which an obviously copper-jacketed slug, collected as evidence at the crime scene, was reported to be "steel jacketed"?
I admit this is an unfair challenge. Police reports from the 1990s are earlier are not online, and perhaps even modern-day report are inaccessible.
Still, if you search online through newspapers and official literature, are you able to locate even one such event, in which two detectives found an obviously copper-jacketed slug at a murder or attempted-murder scene, but then described the bullet in official reports as "steel jacketed."?
Not the diameter...but the length of the Western Cartridge 6.5 slug vs. the length of the 30.06 m2 ball slug.
You may be correct that most people cannot detect the difference between a slug that is a little more than a quarter-inch around vs. one that is a little less than one-third of an inch in diameter.
However, I am "still stuck on steel" in that I assert that gun hobbyists, game wardens, target range operators, police, military and federal investigative agencies were able to immediately detect the differences between steel and copper-jacketed bullets and did not conflate nomenclature in official reports.
But more later.
SR—
Very good report…but I have reservations. Am I allowed a response?
I will own up to at least two errors I made.
Also, quickie question: What is the length of 30.06 slug vs. that of Western Cartridge 6.50 (the M-C slug). I am looking at literature that says the 30.06 slug is about 3/4 inch long, while the Western slug is an 1 1/4 inch long. Can you check?