From: grant_jo@ripple.enet.dec.com (Joel Grant)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk
Subject: RE: Marrs Radio Interview
Date: 16 Dec 92 20:03:47 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
NNTP-Posting-Host: RIPPLE


In article <1992Dec11.144829.1@cc.newcastle.edu.au> it is written:


> Edna and Wauyne Hartman. THis is a Dallas couple. They still live in Dallas.
> They were nearby Dealey Plaza. When they heard the shots, they ran
> into Dealey Plaza. They saw a policeman and some plainclothesmen
> gathered on the south side of Elm Street. They ran down there and
> said: "What's going on?"  They said: "Here is where some bullets
> hit in the grass." They looked, and they said that there was a
> long bullet furrow in the grass where a bullet had turned up the
> sod. In the FBI report, made that day, it states all of this, and
> it goes on to say that they told the FBI that the bullet furrow
> lined up with the Texas School Book Depository. Okay?  Oswald, in
> the Depository, missed a shot. Furrow in the ground. That all 
> makes sense. The problem is that that is NOT what they [the Hartmans]
> told them. When I was preparing my book, CROSSFIRE, instead of
> just taking the Government's documents at face value, which seems
> to be the way to do it today (at least that's what the major news
> organizations are doing), I called the Hartmans. And they were
> absolutely SHOCKED and amazed when I read them this FBI report
> which, keep in mind, was part of the fundamental, raw investigative
> material that the Warren Commission used to reach their conclusions.
> Because THEY [the Hartmans] said: "That's not what we told them at
> all. We told them that the bullet furrow lined up with the GRASSY
> KNOLL on the north side of Elm Street."   So here we have a clear
> example of FBI documents that were being cooked, back in 1963 and
> `64, to slant away from the truth of the assassination.
> 

>>So Joel, what about this? I can't wait to hear a SLG-devotee's views.
>>(PS PLease don't just shrug).

	There isn't much info above on which to go.  Turning to
	Marrs's book we find that the Hartmans' story is just
	another variation on the same old `bullet in the grass'
	story.  A few points:

- The Hartmans told the FBI in 1964 they saw two furrows in the
grass; others said they saw one.  So the number of furrows isn't
even clear.

- No one actually saw a bullet.  There were several people, including
Dallas police personnel, inspecting the furrow to see what they could
see.  No bullet was visible.  Nevertheless, the story goes that an
unidentified FBI agent (if he did not identify himself how did they
know he was an FBI agent?) placed his hand on the ground then
quickly thrust his hand into his pocket.  The implication is that
he had picked up and removed a bullet.  But one must wonder just
how he accomplished this with a bullet lying nowhere near the
surface of the ground.

- I have seen no evidence that anyone actually dug it up to see what,
if anything, was at the end of the furrow.  Perhaps it occurred to
someone that to make such a furrow a bullet would have had to have
been moving at almost parallel to the ground.  Perhaps bullets don't
even make furrows in the ground; I really don't know.  But, again,
no one saw a bullet in the ground or on the ground in that area.

- We should also ask what would cause a gunman from the grassy knoll
to not only miss JFK and Jackie, but to miss the limo altogether
from a range of about 110 feet or so.  And why, if someone was back
there firing a gun, the witnesses on top of the triple overpass who
looked over there during the fusillade to see if they could see a
gunman saw no one behind the picket fence, period.  Let alone anyone
firing a gun at the President of the United States.

In short, there really isn't evidence in this incident for anything
other than the apparent fact that on that day in November, 1963, there
was a gouge or a furrow in the grass in Dealy Plaza.  Attempts to
turn this into yet another manifestation of the omniscient Dealy
Plaza cover-up goons strike me as being a grasp, not for bullets,
but for straws.

Joel Grant (speaking on his own behalf)