From: david@cats.ucsc.edu (David Wright)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk
Subject: Re: Oswald's Paraffin Test
Keywords: JFK Oswald Assassination Paraffin
Date: 8 Sep 92 02:19:09 GMT
Organization: University of California; Santa Cruz
NNTP-Posting-Host: si.ucsc.edu


In article <1992Sep2.162052.2104@ncsu.edu> FIELD1@NIEHS.bitnet (Jack Field) writes:
|The following is from Mark Lane's book Rush To Judgement concering Oswald's
|paraffin test which the Dallas police administered.  Any errors are just simply
|typos, I did the best I could transcribing this section.
|
|PARAFFIN TEST
|
|RUSH TO JUDGMENT by Mark Lane, 1966

|The only test finding indicative of guilt is a positive result for one hand, a
|negative result for the other and - in the case of a rifle - a positive result
|on the fact. 

Can anyone back UP Lane's charge here? Seems reasonable.

|kTests were also made with a nuclear reactor on the cast of Oswald's cheek.  Dr.
|Vincent P. Guinn, head of the activation analysis program of the general atomic
|division of General Dynamics Corporation, made an analysis of the paraffin
|cast, the results of which were presented to the Commission.  Dr. Guinn said
|that he and his colleagues reasoned 'that if a gun was fired and some of the
|powder came back on the hands and cheek, some of the bullet primer should also
|come back'.  They decided 'to try looking for elements by putting the wax
|impressions of hands and cheeks into a nuclear reactor'.  Guinn said he had
|informed the FBI that it would be worthwhile to utilize 'activation analysis'
|because the Dallas police had merely used the chemical paraffin test.
|
|'We bought a similar rifle from the same gun shop as Oswald and conducted two
|parallel tests,' Guinn said.  'One person fired the rifle on eight occasions'. 
|The scientist stated that paraffin casts were made and when tested by means of
|radioactivity 'it was positive in all eight cases and showed a primer on both
|hands and both cheeks.  Then we took the casts of Oswald's cheek and put them
|in a nuclear reactor'.  Guinn added, 'I cannot say what we found out about
|Oswald because it is secret until the publication of the Warren Commission
|Report.'
|
|The secret has indeed survived publication of the Report.  The Commission,
|evidently differing with its own authority, stated only that it was 'impossible
|to attach significance' to the radioactive response to Oswald's paraffin casts.
| The Commission, which gave much space to the results of tests conducted with a
|pistol prior to the assassination, refused to inform its readers of the results
|of tests performed after the assassination with an Italian carbine identical to
|the so-called assassination rifle.  Although Dr. Guinn worked closely with the
|FBI on behalf of the Commission, was entrusted with the precious paraffin casts
|by the Commission and submitted his findings to the Commission, there is no
|reference to his name in the Report.


This stuff is very interesting.

-- 
   |^^^^^^|      _______________________________________________________
   |      |      |"There is nothing in the marginal conditions that    | 
   |      |      | distinguish a mountain from a mole hill"            |
   | (o)(o)      O         Kenneth Boulding                            | 
   @      _)    o|_____________________________________________________|  
    |  ____\ o o
    |     /   
   /     \                              All comments  are mine---(David Wright) 
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk