The Testimony of Dr. Vincent Guinn: The Misuse of Science
BACKGROUND
1. In September, 1977, at the request of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), the National Archives delivered to Dr. Vincent Guinn, nuclear physicist at the University of California at Irvine, certain bullets and bullet fragments said to be related to the assassination of President Kennedy. [See Appendix F on the issue of whether or not Dr. Guinn had previously done work for the Warren Commission.]
2. Guinn performed neutron activation analysis on the metal at his laboratory during a three-day period in September.
3. On September 8, 1978, one year later, Dr. Guinn testified before the HSCA in open hearings concerning the results of his analysis. Among other things, Dr. Guinn stated:
a. that Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition manufactured by the Western Cartridge company in 1954 tended to be distinctive, especially in the antimony content of the bullets;
b. that it was probable the five relevant fragments said to be related to the wounds of President Kennedy and Governor Connally came from only 2 bullets;
c. that it was "highly probable" that three metal fragments allegedly removed from Governor Connally's wrist came from the bullet allegedly found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital.
4. Dr. Guinn's testimony was used by the HSCA to buttress the single-bullet theory. Committee counsel Jim Wolf put the proposition to Guinn:
a. WOLF. You can...today state for the first time scientifically that CE-399 [stretcher bullet] did cause the injuries to Governor Connally's wrist?
GUINN. Yes sir, those two match so closely that I would say that such was the case. (HSCA, Vol. I, P. 504)
b. Sources close to the committee reported that Guinn's test results weighed heavily in HSCA's decision to endorse the single-bullet theory in its conclusions. Chief Counsel Robert Blakey was said to have been greatly impressed by Guinn's findings. Since 1979, Blakey, David Belin and others have spoken of the single-bullet theory as a fact, and have stated that it is the "scientific proof" from Guinn's neutron activation analysis which elevated the theory to its new status. In several television debates, Blakey refered to Guinn's conclusions as the "linchpin" which held the single-bullet theory together. His characterization went unchallenged.
c. The importance of the Guinn testimony can thus be demonstrated quite easily:
(i) The single-bullet theory is necessary to explain how Oswald or any other one person could have assassinated the President.
(ii) Guinn's neutron activiation analysis provides the strongest "scientific" proof of the validity of the single-bullet theory.
THE FRAGMENTS GUINN TESTED
1. Dr. Guinn was given fragments with the same CE and/or Q numbers which the FBI had used in its 1964 NAA tests, but none of these "same" fragments weighed the same!
2. HSCA implied that this was due to alteration of the fragments during the previous tests:
a. "There are differences in the count and weight of the materials examined by the FBI and Dr. Guinn. This is attributable to the character of the FBI tests and to the fact that the FBI disposed of the samples examined after the tests." (HSCA Report, p. 599, note 33)
b. No footnotes or other citation offers proof of this explanation.
c. The implication here is that the FBI's tests were of a kind which destroyed some of the samples being tested. However, Dr. Guinn's testimony clearly disputes this explanation:
FITHIAN. You have said this whole process that you go through does not destroy the material, is that correct?
GUINN. That is correct.
FITHIAN. Now, then, did you test exactly the same particles that the FBI tested in 1964?
GUINN. Well, it turns out, I did not, for reasons I don't know, because as they did the analysis, they DID NOT destroy the samples either. [emphases added]
FITHIAN. So?
GUINN. The particular little pieces that they analyzed, I could just as well have analyzed over again, but the pieces that were brought from the Archives-which reportedly, according to Mr. Gear--were the only bullet-lead fragments from this case still present in the Archives-did not include any of the specific little pieces that the FBI had analyzed. Presumably those are in existence somewhere, I am sure nobody threw them out, but where they are I have no idea.
FITHIAN. And the 1964 equipment wouldn't have consumed them either?
GUINN. No. (HSCA, I, pp. 561-562. emphases added)
3. Thus, we have these improbable circumstances:
a. The FBI tested certain metal fragments with certain identification labels (CE's/Q's) in 1964.
b. The FBI's tests were not of a kind which would have used up any of the fragments.
c. The National Archives passed on to Dr. Guinn an entirely different set of fragments-with the same CE and/or Q numbers, alleging them to be related to the Kennedy case.
d. The Archives told Dr. Guinn that these were the only bullet-lead fragments remaining there from the case.
e. HSCA's explanation for this remarkable state of affairs is contradicted by Dr. Guinn and unsupported by any documentation whatsoever.
4. After his testimony before the committee was completed, Dr. Guinn talked with several people in the hallway outside the committee room. His remarks were recorded on tape, and they are noteworthy. Among other things, Dr. Guinn said:
a. It was not until the fragments from the National Archives arrived at his California lab that he discovered he was testing fragments different from those tested by the FBI.
b. None of the weights matched those of the 1964 test fragments.
c. It would have been easy to deliberately falsify the evidence to be tested:
"Possibly they would take a bullet, take out a few little pieces and put it in the container, and say, 'This is what came out of Connally's wrist.' And naturally, if you compare it with 399, it will look alike... I have no control over these things."
PRINICIPALS AND PROCEDURES OF NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS
Both in his testimony before HSCA and in a paper which he submitted to the committee (JFK-F331), Dr. Guinn outlined the basics of neutron activation analysis (NAA) and the procedures he used in studying the fragments from the National Archives:
1. First, Guinn grouped the materials: the unfired Mannlicher-Carcano round allegedly from the rifle found on the sixth floor and the "mashed bullet" allegedly fired at General Walker became Group II. Those fragments "reportedly found in or near the limousine and its occupants" were designated Group I. Eight items were included in this group:
a. a piece of curb from Dealey Plaza (Q609)
b. a fragment reportedly found in the front seat of the limousine (Q3, CE-569)
c. particles scraped from the windshield of the limousine (Ql5, CE-841)
d. a whole bullet allegedly found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital (Ql, CE-399)
e. a large bullet fragment from the front seat of the limousine (Q2, CE-567)
f. two fragments removed from President Kennedy's brain during autopsy (Q4-5, CE-843)
g. three small fragments reportedly removed from Governor Connally's wrist during surgery (Q9, CE-842)
h. fragments from the rear floor of the limousine (Ql4, CE-840)
2. Guinn soon decided that three of his samples were not suitable for NAA. The vial supposedly containing the windshield scrapings was empty, the curbing sample consisted only of a smear, and one of the front seat fragments (CE-569), consisted only of the copper Jacketing, with no lead present. None of these three samples consisted of the requisite 5 milligrams of lead necessary for NAA.
3. The remaining samples were washed with acetone and deionized water and placed in polyethylene vials, which were then inserted into a nuclear reactor. Apparently, Guinn did not do any control testing, that is, he did not take 2 pieces from the same exhibit and measure their antimony and/or silver content to assure himself that the cylindrical lead core from which these samples came was homogeneous with regard to these key elements throughout. This failure becomes crucial when his purported results are presented.
4. Inside the reactor, the samples were bombarded with neutrons, some of which were captured by the nuclei of the various kinds of atoms present in the samples, making these atoms radioactive.
5. These radioactive atoms then began to decay at a specific rate or half-life.
6. In decaying, their nuclei gave off radiation-beta particles and gamma rays.
7. It was the gamma rays which Guinn used in making his analysis. A sensitive germanium lithium-drift semiconductor gamma ray detector was used. Gamma rays emitted from the nuclei of the atoms of each element present have energies specific for that element and thus showed up at the same point or "channel" on the analyzer. A "spike" at a discrete point on the "channel" indicated the atomic source or element, while the area of the "spike" indicated the quantity of the element present in the sample.
8. A mathematical formula allowed the quantity of each radioactive element to be expressed in parts per million (ppm) found in the sample.
9. The theory behind neutron activation analysis is that irradiation and decay produce qualitative and quantitative data on all elements present in a given specimen. In the case of bullets and bullet fragments, NAA may allow the identification of the various elements present in the bullet lead and the amounts of each element present.
10. Various "trace elements" in addition to lead are found in "bullet lead," the core portion of bullets. These elements may be present as a result of contamination or may be added in order to change the nature of the bullet.
11. Dr. Guinn's instruments detected and measured the amounts of 8 elements present in bullet lead-antimony, silver, copper, magnesium, chlorine, sodium, manganese, and aluminum.
12. Dr. Guinn stated on several occasions (both in his paper and in his testimony) that antimony was the most important trace element in comparing bullet samples through NAA, with silver of slightly less significance. Copper was also usually present, but often as jacket contamination which had found its way into the core sample. The other five elements were found to be present from time to time as a result of contamination of the sample.
13. Thus, the first of two overriding hypotheses on which the principle of neutron activation analysis of bullet lead depends is that it possible to accurately measure the amounts of antimony, silver, and copper in a given sample of bullet material.
14. The second hypothesis is that bullets of different calibers, from different manufacturers, from different manufacturing lots, and from different individual bullets within a given lot or box have distinctive and unique amounts of antimony, silver and copper.
15. The first hypothesis, if correct, would allow the creation of a body of data. The second hypothesis, if correct, would allow scientific interpretation of the meaning of the data. Together, they would, in theory, allow the grouping or the separation of bullet fragments as to origin. At a crime scene, recovered bullet fragments could be accurately attributed to or separated from one another. Fragment A could be said to have come from the same bullet as Fragment B, or all the fragments present could be said to have come from the same box of ammunition. The combining of these two hypotheses gives NAA its potential value as a forensic tool.
NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS OF OTHER AMMUNITION
1. In actual practice, NAA proved far less than a perfect forensic tool. Gamma rays could be counted accurately using the increasingly-sophisticated equipment. However, the pattern of trace elements present in various bullet leads proved not to be distinctive for individual brands, lots or bullets.
2. In 1968, Dr. Guinn and M. R. Lukens presented a paper,, "Comparison of Bullet Lead Specimens by Nondestructive Neutron Activation Analysis," before the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in Chicago. The paper offers insights into the state of NAA at the time.
3. Guinn and Lukens reported "Progress has been made toward the establishment of probabilities that, within the bounds of analytical precision, (1) bullets of common origin will have the same composition, and (2) bullets of different origins will have different composition." (Guinn and Lukens, Journal of Forensic Sciences, Vol. 16, No. 3, p. 30)
4. Antimony had been pinpointed as the most significant trace element in bullet lead, and the authors reported the antimony content of 36 different types of bullets from a variety of manufacturers, ranging from 0.22 caliber to 0.45 caliber. As many as 20 bullets from a given box of rifle ammunition were analyzed for antimony content, and several 0.38 caliber bullets of various makes had been fragmented into from 10-12 pieces per bullet, with antimony measurements made of each of the fragments from different portions of the same bullet. (See Appendix B)
5. In their research, Guinn and Lukens identified a persistent problem for NAA: many types of bullets had overlapping antimony values. A Peters 0.22 and a Remington 0.22 contained virtually the same amount of antimony as a trace element. In some cases, the other trace elements, such as copper and silver, could be used to help distinguish between bullets whose antimony contents were overlapping, but in many other cases, this was not possible. Guinn and Lukens wrote in the conclusion to their article:
"Thus while it can be said with confidence that bullets with different antimony concentrations have different origins, the present data indicate that there is a 28% chance that whole bullets with the same antimony level may have a different origin..." (Journal of Forensic Sciences, Vol. 16, No. 3, p. 306)
6. In 1970, Dr. Guinn published on NAA again, this time with Lukens, H. L. Schlesinger and R. P. Hackleman in "Forensic Neutron Activation Analysis of Bullet-Lead Specimen," for the Atomic Energy Commission.
7. By now, 230 samples of bullet leads from 75 different lots of bullets had been examined. Three elements were now identified as having the greatest diagnostic significance-antimony, copper, and arsenic, in order of their analytical value.
8. But the problem of overlapping was still there. Antimony concentrations for many types of bullet lead fell within a range of 0.7-0.8% of the sample, and the copper and arsenic concentrations tended (a) overlap in the same manner as antimony and (b) to have large standard deviations.
9. In the end, Guinn and his colleagues conceded that "less than half of the 75 lots of bullets were uniquely characterized by the concentrations of Sb (antimony), Cu (copper) and As (arsenic) ... As a result of the foregoing it can be said that a significant difference in concentration of any one of the three elements between two bullet specimens indicates that they came from different lots, but that matching concentrations of all three elements does not indicate that two bullets came from the same lot." The chemists concluded by recommending that manufacturers might add a "unique combination trace element tag" to each lot of bullets, in order to assist with NAA.
NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS OF MANNLICHER-CARCANO AMMUNITION
1. In 1972, Dr. Guinn first turned his attention to Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition manufactured by the Western Cartridge Company, the type supposedly used in the assassination of President Kennedy.
2. Dr. John Nichols of Kansas University contacted Guinn and offered him bullets from each of 4 production lots made by WCC in 1954. Subsequently, Nichols sent Guinn a total of 14 WCC bullets, 2 from one production lot and 4 each from three other production lots. [There are no indications in either Guinn's testimony before HSCA or his technical writings that he ever examined any WCC Mannlicher ammunition other than these 14 bullets from Nichols.]
3. During 1973, 1974 and 1975, Guinn did NAA on the materials sent him. At the time he performed his tests for HSCA, Guinn had not published any findings concerning his work. [Guinn submitted a paper at the time of his testimony in September, 1978, dated "September, 1978," and he and Nichols published "Neutron Activation Analysis of Bullet Lead Specimens: The President Kennedy Assassination" in Number 28 of Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, also dated 1978.]
4. Guinn told the committee that he had found WCC Mannlicher bullets to be unique in certain respects:
a. WCC Mannlicher bullets had very low antimony contents.
Guinn explained that antimony is sometimes deliberately added to bullet-lead in order to "harden" it. "Hardened" bullets often contain from 0.4% to as much as 5% antimony. A 0.4% addition of antimony in the hardening process would yield parts-per-million concentrations of antimony in the range of 4000. Guinn reported that "virgin lead" could be used to produce a bullet with very low antimony content-within ranges he placed at only 10-20 ppm. (HSCA, Vol. I, p. 544) Guinn stated that although WCC Mannlicher rounds were not produced of virgin lead, they were very low in antimony content: "They are definitely unhardened bullets." (HSCA, Vol. I, p. 494)
b. WCC Mannlicher bullets showed "tremendous" antimony and other trace element variations from one lot to the other and also between bullets taken from the same box. Unlike the earlier problem encountered--overlapping trace element values for various makes of bullets, Mannlicher-Carcano bullets returned values "all over the place"
GUINN. The other unusual feature of the WCC Mannlicher Carcano is that there seems to be no uniformity within a production lot. That is, even when we would take a box of cartridges all from a given production lot, take 1 cartridge out and then another and then another and then another, all out of the same box--boxes of 20, these were-and analyze them, they all in general look different, and widely different, particularly in their antimony content ... This is not true of most bullet leads that we have ever looked at before, which are very uniform. In general, if you take most boxes of ammunition-and we published on this; it is in the literature-take a bunch of them out, you can't tell one from the other. They all look like little carbon copies even to activation analysis, but not so with the Mannlicher-Carcano." (HSCA, Vol. I, pp. 494-495)
Guinn offered an explanation for this phenomenon in his report to HSCA. While some bullet leads are deliberately hardened with antimony and other, virgin leads are kept free of any antimony except small amounts of accidental contaminants, other bullet leads, including those from WCC, are made from lead which has been recycled from other bullets or other lead sources, such as storage batteries.. This "used lead" may be a complex mixture of bullet-leads which were hardened and of bullet leads which were virgin (and of even previously recycled leads) and lead which was never a part of any bullet. As a result, the antimony content could vary-in Guinn's words-"tremendously"-in any portion of the recycled bullet lead, from lot to lot and from bullet to bullet within a lot.
c. Within individual WCC Mannlicher bullets, there was homogeneity of bullet lead trace elements. In contrast to the "tremendous" variations found bullet to bullet, "...you simply do not find a wide variation in composition within individual WCC Mannlicher-Carcano bullets..." (HSCA, Vol. I, p. 505), In the paper he submitted, Guinn wrote "Results of UCI [University of California Irvine] background studies of WC bullet lead indicates a wide range of Sb values, from bullet to bullet, but reasonable homogeneity within an individual bullet." (HSCA, Vol. I, p. 546)
This becomes the key point of the entire issue of NAA. It is this claim which allowed Guinn to make the matches of bullets and fragments in the Kennedy case. It was this claimed characteristic of WCC Mannlicher ammunition which brought Guinn to Washington to testify and which gave his testimony its meaning. [More on the issue of homogeneity within Mannlicher bullets in Part 2].
GUINN'S TESTIMONY AND THE KENNEDY MATERIALS
1. On September 8, 1978, Dr. Guinn told HSCA his tests showed that only 2 bullets struck Governor Connally and President Kennedy. "There is not evidence for three bullets, for four bullets or anything more than two, but there is clear evidence that there were two." (HSCA, I, p. 504)
2. Guinn found that the two fragments removed from Kennedy's brain and fragments from the interior of the limousine were parts of the same bullet. He based this conclusion on the claimed homogeneity of their antimony content-621 ppm for the brain fragments and 638 ppm, 647 ppm, and 602 ppm for the pieces of metal from the car. (HSCA, I, p. 538)
3. Alleged homogeneity of antimony content was also the basis of Guinn's statement that the fragments removed from Governor Connally's wrist matched drillings taken from the lead core of CE 399, the famous bullet allegedly found in a stretcher at Parkland Hospital. The three wrist fragments contained 797 ppm of antimony, while the stretcher bullet showed 833 ppm. [The 797 ppm measurement given for the three wrist fragments is puzzling. Guinn's tables show that he took 2 samples from CE 842 for testing but these 2 samples were really 3 separate specimens. He identified a "single larger specimen" of 16.4 milligrams and "two tiny specimens" of 1.3 milligrams. He gives only one antimony measurement for CE 842-797 ppm. Yet, as we shall see, the likelihood of 3 pieces of metal from any bit of Mannlicher lead having the precise amounts of antimony present is extremely dubious.]
4. Thus, the evidence Dr. Guinn presented to the committee reinforced the previous findings of the Warren Commission and provided a "scientific" basis for the later findings of the House Select Committee on Assassinations:
a. The finding that only two bullets struck the car and its occupants is consistent with both the earlier Warren Commission conclusions and the later HSCA report.
b. The finding that all bullet leads involved were of WCC Mannlicher-Carcano manufacture tied the fragments to evidence on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
c. The finding that fragments from Connally's wrists were from the stretcher bullet made the single-bullet theory scientifically possible and elevated the stretcher bullet, once called the "bastard bullet," to the status of key and legitimate evidence.
d. Dr. Cyril Wecht had testified before the committee earlier in the same afternoon as Guinn. Wecht had raised many objections to the single-bullet theory, one being that the bullet involved would have to have been more deformed. Counsel Wolf asked Guinn about Wecht's belief.
WOLF. Dr. Guinn, on the basis of your scientific analysis, do you believe Dr. Wecht to have been correct?
GUINN. Well, I think that is his opinion, but like many opinions and many theories, sometimes they don't agree with the facts. (HSCA, Vol. I, p. 505)
5. Dr. Guinn had apparently brought the committee "the facts."
THE CRUCIAL QUESTION OF HOMOGENEITY
1. But what is the evidentiary basis for Dr. Guinn's "facts"? He clearly based his entire neutron activation analysis in this case on the proposition that Western Cartridge Company Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition varied greatly from bullet to bullet but showed homogeneity within a given Mannlicher bullet. This turns out to be contradicted by the results of Dr. Guinn's own tests.
2. As Mr. Wolf prepared Dr. Guinn for the coup de gras by having him state his finding that it was "highly probable" that the fragments found in Connally's wrist came from CE 399, Dr. Guinn made these remarks:
"One can only show what information we have, and that is that you simply do not find a wide variation in composition within individual WCC Mannlicher-Carcano bullets, but you do find wide composition differences from bullet to bullet, for this kind of bullet lead." (HSCA, Vol. I, p. 505. Emphasis added.)
3. But a study of "what information we have" shows (a) that Dr. Guinn had very little information on which to base any conclusion about intra-bullet homogeneity, (b) that tests performed in his own laboratory revealed great variations, some of over 100%, in the antimony content of test fragments taken from a single Mannlicher bullet, bringing into question the data on which Dr. Guinn based all his important findings given to HSCA; and (c) that Dr. Guinn had given a quite different interpretation of homogeneity within individual Mannlicher bullets in a paper he had recently written.
4. During the years 1973-75, Dr. Guinn performed tests on bullet samples from the 4 production lots of Western Cartridge Company Mannlicher bullets made available to him by Dr. Nichols. In addition to testing bullets from different lots, Guinn, on one occasion took one bullet each from lots 6001, 6002 and 6003, then broke each of the chosen bullets into 4 fragments. NAA tests for composition of antimony, silver, and copper were then run on the bullet fragments.
5. The results are printed on page 549 of Volume I of the HSCA Hearings and they are astonishing,, especially in the light of Dr. Guinn's subsequent statement that "you simply do not find a wide variation in composition within individual WCC Mannlicher-Carcano bullets."
a. The 4 fragments from one bullet from lot #6002 showed the following antimony composition: 358 ppm, 983 ppm, 869 ppm, and 882 ppm. This represents a variation of 625 parts-per-million between two of the fragments.
b. The 4 fragments from one bullet from lot #6003 showed the following antimony composition: 667 ppm, 395 ppm, 363 ppm, 441 ppm. This represents a variation of 304 parts-per-million between two of the fragments.
c. The 4 fragments from one bullet from lot #6001 showed the following antimony composition: 1139 ppm, 1062 ppm, 1235 ppm, and 1156 ppm This represents a variation of 173 parts-per-million between two of the fragments.
6. It appears that on the day Dr. Guinn told HSCA that "you simply do not find a wide variation in composition within individual WCC Mannlicher-Carcano bullets," the entire database on which he relied consisted of three broken WCC Mannlicher bullets, one of which showed an intra-bullet variation of 175%, one of which showed an intra-bullet variation of 84%, and a third which showed an intra-bullet variation of 16%. [See Appendix B for Guinn's test charts, as well as a comparison of intra-bullet variations with lot variations in his tests.] It is reasonable to assume that if Dr. Guinn had performed other tests of fragments from single Mannlicher bullets and they had shown greater homogeneity, he would have included them in his test results. Further, the fact that he worked with only 14 bullets limited the number he had available for fragmenting and testing.
7. It is shocking to learn that the basis for Dr. Guinn's authoritative statements about homogeneity rests on such narrow and contradictory testing. What significance can be given to the presence of ANY given amount of antimony in ANY Mannlicher samples from WCC-whether from Connally's wrist, a hospital stetcher, or Guinn's reactor-when it is realized that another piece of the same lead core, located a millimeter or a centimeter away along the length of the bullet, may vary in its antimony content by as much as 600 ppm, may have half as much or twice as much antimony?
8. What Dr. Guinn really found is that Mannlicher-Carcano bullets cannot be differentiated by NAA. The answer may well lie in the process of their manufacture. The use of recycled lead brings together a potentially very heterogeneous collection of bullet lead. This is shown in the wide variations which Guinn obtained between bullets from different lots and bullets from within the same box. What would be the basis for expecting that unmeasured, heterogeneous, recycled lead could come together homogeneously in a given bullet? If the bullet lead went into the manufacturing process in a heterogeneous form, by what manufacturing step would it be made homogeneous? (Recall that NAA on non-Mannlicher ammunition had yielded homogeneity throughout the analytical process-within bullet makes, within boxes of bullets, and within individual bullets.)
9. Furthermore, there is compelling evidence that Doctor Guinn held the opinion that fragments from an individual Mannlicher bullet were, in fact, HETEROGENEOUS in antimony content instead of homogeneous, as his conclusions required. on the same day that he told Wolf, the HSCA, and the world that "...you simply do not find a wide variation in composition within individual WCC Mannlicher-Carcano bullets," Dr. Guinn submitted a paper said to support that conclusion. In his bibliography he included an article he had co-authored ("Neutron Activation Analysis of Bullet-Lead Specimens: The President Kennedy Assassination," Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, 28 (1978), p. 92-93.) In that article, the same man who told HSCA that variations are not found in WCC Mannlicher bullets wrote, "In the U. C. Irvine INAA [Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis] background studies of the Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition, it was found that this bullet lead is remarkably HETEROGENEOUS ... SOMEWHAT WITHIN A GIVEN BULLET... (Emphasis added).
10. It is difficult to find a more shocking statement. Homogeneity within a bullet is the key to Guinn's entire interpretation! He swore that there are not wide variations "within individual Mannlicher-Carcano bullets", but he had recently written that there was heterogeneity-not homogeneity-"within a given bullet." When I first discovered this statement, I was overwhelmed by the misuse and perversion of science it implied. Conclusions are inescapable:
a. Tests in Guinn's own lab indicated that fragments from WCC Mannlicher bullets showed more intra-bullet heterogeneity than homogeneity.
b. Nonetheless, Guinn testified that one did not find heterogeneity within individual bullets.
c. Guinn was well aware that his tests indicated heterogeneity instead of the publicly-stated homogeneity.
11. And there is more. In the same article from Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Guinn quoted results from the FBI's 1964 NAA tests, tests which he insists actually were conclusive, not inconclusive as the FBI reported. [In his HSCA testimony, Guinn told Congressman Fithian that the FBI's scientists had the correct test results back in 1964, but had not made the proper interpretations.] Referring to the FBI tests, Guinn wrote, "....the 17 values obtained for various portions of the 'Connally stretcher' bullet averaged 837 ppm Sb [antimony], but ranged all the way from 636 to 1125 ppm."
a. Amazing. So much for homogeneity within a given bullet. Guinn took one 10.7 mg sample from CE 399, the "stretcher bullet," and found it contained 833 ppm of antimony. This led him to match it with CE 842, the alleged Connally wrist fragments, which contained 797 ppm. That "match" is the scientific underpinning for the single-bullet theory.
b. But Guinn knew the FBI had taken numerous portions from this same bullet and had found no homogeneity among the portions! He had their data before him. Guinn's finding of 833 ppm in a given piece of CE 399 has no meaning because, according to the FBI tests (which Guinn thinks gave accurate data), an adjoining piece of the same bullet had anywhere from 636 ppm to 1125 ppm! Guinn was forewarned of the obvious heterogeneity in CE 399, a heterogeneity he never found because he never took multiple samples.
c. Consider for a moment the ranges the FBI did find in CE 399. A glance at Guinn's charts shows that the piece of CE 399 which had 636 ppm would have most closely matched the fragments alleged to be from the floor of the limousine--not the Connally wrist fragments, while the piece which had 1125 ppm would not fall within 300 ppm of the Connally wrist fragment or any of the other fragments said to be associated with the car or its occupants. The FBI got a lot of things wrong in the Kennedy investigation, but the Bureau was right on target when it called its NAA tests "inconclusive."
12. Dr. Guinn submitted his paper, "A Report to the House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations on the subject of 1977 Neutron Activation Analysis Measurements on Bullet-Lead Specimens Involved in the 1963 Assassination of President John F. Kennedy," when he testified on September 8, 1978. Not only did the bibliography contain the disturbing references noted above, the body of his paper included opinions about homogeneity in 6.5 Mannlicher bullets which are both revealing and inconsistent with his sworn testimony:
a. Guinn stated to the committee that "you simply do not find a wide variation in composition within individual WCC Mannlicher-Carcano bullets." His accompanying monograph says "...individual bullets were found to be fairly homogeneous in their Sb and Ag concentrations ... (HSCA, Vol. I, p. 511. Emphasis added)
b. In describing the results of taking 4 pieces of bullet lead from each of 3 Mannlicher bullets [see page 12 and also Appendix C for findings], Guinn stated that the bullet from lot 6001 "is fairly homogeneous for all three elements; one (6002) is fairly homogeneous in Ag and Cu but not so homogeneous in Sb; and one (6003A) is fairly homogeneous in Cu but not homogeneous in Sb and Ag." (HSCA, Vol I, p. 545. Emphasis added) Note that by his own admission, 2 of the 3 bullets were "not homogeneous" and "not so homogeneous" in antimony content, which he had called the most significant from an analytical standpoint.
c. In his conclusion, Guinn wrote, "....the UCI [University of California Irvine] study of MC bullet lead indicates a wide range of Sb values from bullet to bullet, but reasonable homogeneity within an individual bullet." (HSCA, Vol. I, p. 546. Emphasis added.)
d. Is this finally a "battle of adjectives"? Do the terms "fairly homogeneous," "not so homogeneous," and "reasonable homogeneity" justify a scientist stating that "you simply do not find a wide variation" in this type of bullet?
e. No, indeed. There is no battle of adjectives. The facts are clear. Guinn had tested 4 particles each from three bullets and the average range of antimony concentration in the particles from these 3 bullets was 93%! When Guinn stated that "you simply do not find a wide variation in composition within individual WCC Mannlicher-Carcano bullets," he had just completed finding those "wide variations" in his own laboratory. What justification can be found for saying that the 4 fragments from bullet 6002, containing antimony measurements of 358 ppm, 983 ppm, 869 ppm, and 882 ppm, don't have "wide variations"? Or that bullet 6003, containing antimony measurements of 667 ppm, 395 ppm, 441 ppm, and 363 ppm, has "reasonable homogeneity"? [SEE APPENDICES D AND E FOR MORE ON GUINN'S TESTS]
13. From Dr. Guinn's work and the literature available, a new picture of the cores of Western Cartridge Company's Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5 mm bullets emerges. The cylinders were actually composed of hybrids of lead from a variety of sources. Due to recycling, a given bullet could have contained, in one area, recycled hardened lead, with high parts-per-million measurements of antimony. Alongside it, there might have been recycled virgin bullet lead, with very low antimony measurements. And alongside these could have been lead which was the result of "re-recyling," that is, bullet lead which had been a part of bullets or other leaded objects in which no effort had been made to precisely measure the amounts of trace elements present. The nature of the production process eliminated any chance for homogeneity. Dr. Guinn was actually acknowledging this when he wrote in his report to HSCA: "Intermediate Sb levels (between about 10 ppm and perhaps 1500 ppm are encountered in unhardened bullet lead in which some recycled lead is used, along with virgin lead, but in which no Sb has been deliberately added for hardening." (JFK Exhibit F-331, pp. 3-4, published in HSCA Hearings, Volume I, p. 509-510) What Guinn referred to as "deliberately added" would actually mean "measured and added." Predicatably, when all the Sb measurements Guinn submitted to HSCA are reviewed,the range of Sb measurements is from 80 to 1235 p.m., indicating an amalgam of recycled and virgin lead--with no hint of homogeneity at any level--not among bullets of the same production lot, bullets from the same box, or fragments from within the same bullet.
14. Knowing these things enables us to understand why Guinn's measurement of 833 p.m. of antimony in his core sample from CE 399 (the "stretcher bullet")-and his subsequent matching of the bullet to the Connally wrist fragments with their 797 ppm count-are meaningless conclusions. We know (and Guinn knew when he gave his testimony) that the FBI had already taken 17 other bits of metal from that same "stretcher bullet" --with antimony ranges from 636 to 1125 ppm. The lead cylinder at the core of CE 399 is a heterogeneous mixture of recycled leads. Based on the antimony levels found by both the FBI and Guinn, CE 399 was almost certainly composed of recycled lead. Guinn treated it as if it were a uniform cylinder of lead with a constant antimony content throughout, even though he knew the cylinder contains lead areas with a wide range of antimony content. Guinn's work is analogous to the police examining a crime scene, finding 4 fingerprints (in this case actually many more "bullet fingerprints" than that), lifting one set of prints, ignoring the others, then announcing that all the fingerprints are the same and the crime was committed by identical quadruplets!
15. The best which can be said of Guinn's performance is:
a. He proved that neutron activation analysis cannot be used with Mannlicher-Carcano bullets or any other bullets not with carefully-measured portions of lead.
b. He raised serious questions about his own integrity.
THE WCC PRODUCTION LOTS
1. Dr. Guinn felt he could make his assertions about the nature of Mannlicher bullets with certainty because he believed he had examined bullets from every production lot manufactured by Western Cartridge Company.
WOLF. Did you examine bullets from every lot produced by the Western Cartridge Company?
GUINN. Yes. The Western Cartridge Company reportedly made 1 million rounds of each of 4 production runs, lots 6000. 6001, 6002, and 6003. They were made at different times in 1954, and reportedly those were the only lots they ever produced, and we had boxes from each of those lots. (HSCA, I, p. 494)
2. But Guinn was again in error. His assumptions were false. Western Cartridge Company had produced ammunition for the 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano before 1954 and this ammunition had found its way into the mainstream of sellers and distributors. This had been told to the Warren Commission fourteen years before Guinn testified:
"on March 23, 1964, Mr. R. W. Botts (District Manager, Winchester-Western) advised the Western Cartridge Company ... manufactured a quantity of 6.5 M/M Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition for the Italian government during World War II. At the end of the war, the Italian Carcano rifle, and no telling how much of this type of ammunition was sold to the United States gun brokers and dealers and subsequently was distributed by direct sales to wholesalers, retailers and individual purchasers." (WC Exhibit 2694, Vol XXVI, p. 62)
3. The purpose of Mr. Wolf's question and Dr. Guinn's answer was clearly to establish the comprehensiveness of the work at Guinn's laboratory and to insure that no kind of 6.5 Mannlicher ammunition had evaded his testing. Once again, Dr. Guinn's answer is at variance with known facts.
CONCLUSIONS
1. It is troubling that Dr. Guinn made blanket statements about the characteristics of WCC Mannlicher-Carcano bullets while unaware of the existence of Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition from production lots he had never tested.
2. But these facts should not detract from two other points which go the heart of the findings of the House Select Committee on Assassinations;
a. By his own admission, Dr. Guinn did not examine ANY of the same fragments the FBI had tested earlier, even though the fragments he received for testing bore the same exhibit numbers as those analyzed in 1964, and even though the type of testing done by the FBI would not have destroyed any parts of those fragments. HSCA's explanation for the failure of the samples to match in weight or count is both unsatisfactory and contradicted by Dr. Guinn himself. The purpose of individual exhibit numbers is to lend specificity to the sample. "CE 842" or "CE 567" or any of the other numbers refer to a single entity-or at least they are supposed to do so. In this case, they do NOT, thus throwing into serious question the source and nature of the materials provided Dr. Guinn.
b. From an evidentiary point of view, it wouldn't have mattered which fragments were given to Guinn. The tests he performed, no matter what materials were used, were meaningless. Guinn presented no evidence to support his claim that WCC Mannlicher ammunition could be identified and differentiated by neutron activation analysis; in fact, his own tests and his own earlier interpretation of those tests indicated the opposite. MANY WILL FIND IT SHOCKING THAT KEY FINDINGS IN A 2-YEAR GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATION INTO THE ASSASSINATION WERE BASED ON CONTRADICTORY DATA OBTAINED FROM THREE FRAGMENTED BULLETS AND REPORTED IN A PAPER WHICH WOULD SURELY HAVE BEEN REJECTED BY ANY REPUTABLE SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL.
3. To understand this last statement, it is necessary to return to some points made earlier.
*The first is Guinn's unwillingness to place a numerical probability on his test conclusions. When Wolf tried to get him to do so, the following exchange occurred:
WOLF. What is the degree of confidence and certainty with which you can state this conclusion?
GUINN. I wish I could put a number on it, as we often can do, that is, calculate a probability, but we really don't have the background information to make a numerical calculation in this case...
When Wolf pressed for a more precise answer, he got this response:
GUINN. I would state it is highly probable, yes. I would not want to state how high, whether it was 99 percent or 90 percent, or 99.9 percent.
From a scientific standpoint, this renders Guinn's tests worthless. The principles of scientific research require statements of numerical probability. Without them, test results are devoid of validity.
*The second point is closely related: Guinn failed to perform multiple tests on the same samples, to assure and to document the hypothesis upon which his entire work was based: that the Mannlicher-Carcano bullet really is a homogeneous cylinder of lead, with the amounts of key elements such as antimony and silver being distributed equally throughout. Had he performed such tests and received the same results he had gotten from his 3 previous intra-bullet tests (and that the FBI had gotten in 1964), he would have been forced to conclude that there was no homogeneity within a given Mannlicher-Carcano core, and thus there was no possibility that NAA could do with Mannlicher bullets what NAA could not do with any other bullet leads-assign given fragments to a particular bullet. The failure to do multiple tests on each fragment also served another "useful" function: it allowed Guinn to assign six standard deviations to his measurements, resulting in statistically meaningless conclusions.
4. In fact, Guinn, in his testimony, tended to exaggerate the amount of testing he had done. Even though the paper he submitted made it clear that he worked with only 14 Western Cartridge Company Mannlicher-Carcano bullets (HSCA, Vol. 1, p. 540), 4 each from lots 6001, 6002, and 6003, and 2 from lot 6000, his testimony created the impression that an extensive study was made of the ammunition. Under oath, he described to HSCA counsel Wolf how he discovered that there was no homogeneity among bullets found within a given box or lot: "...when we would take a box of cartridges all from a given production lot, take 1 cartridge out and then another and then another and then another, all out of the same box, boxes of 20, these were, and analyze them, they all in general look different and widely different, particularly in their antimony content." The truth is, "we" (whoever that is) never had a box of 20, never took "one cartridge and then another and then another and then another" from any box, and never took an entire box of cartridges from a given production lot. His own Table II-A, reproduced on page 547 of HSCA's Volume 1, confirms that he tested only a total of 14 bullets from the three production lots.
5. Guinn did do a reproducibility test, in which he took Mannlicher fragments (not from the JFK case) and subjected them to 4 tests in his counter. He found a high degree of reproducibility. (These results are reported in page 548 of HSCA's Volume One.) Of course, it must be understood that here Guinn was testing his equipment, and its ability to reproduce results, not the nature of the metal fragments being tested. Finally, it must be repeated that there is no evidence that Guinn ever sought any evidence by experimentation to prove his statement that Mannlicher cores were "remarkably homogeneous," the very hypothesis on which all his conclusions were based. Indeed, all previous laboratory testing told him quite the opposite.