The Fair Play for Cuba Committee card had two signatures: “L. H. Oswald” and “A. J. Hidell.” Based on the standards, both Cole and Cadigan identified “L. H. Oswald” as the signature of Lee Harvey Oswald,[A10-230] but both were unable to identify the “A. J. Hidell” signature.[A10-231] Cadigan noted differences between the Hidell signature and Oswald’s handwriting, indicating the possibility that someone other than Oswald had authored the signature.[A10-232] Cole believed that the signature was somewhat beyond Oswald’s abilities as a penman.[A10-233] On the basis of a short English interlinear translation written by Marina Oswald, Cole felt that she might have been the author of the signature,[A10-234] but the translation did not present enough of her handwriting to make possible a positive identification.[A10-235] In subsequent testimony before the Commission, Marina stated that she was indeed the author of the Hidell signature on the card.[A10-236] Cadigan confirmed this testimony by obtaining further samples of Marina Oswald’s handwriting and comparing these samples with the signature on the card.[A10-237]
The Unsigned Russian-Language Note
Cadigan’s examination confirmed Marina’s testimony that the handwriting in the unsigned note, Commission Exhibit No. 1, was that of Lee Harvey Oswald.[A10-238] Since the note was written almost entirely in the Russian language, which uses the Cyrillic alphabet (as opposed to the Latin alphabet used in the English language), in making his examination Cadigan employed not only Oswald’s English language standards, but also letters written by Oswald in the Russian language.[A10-239]
The Homemade Wrapping Paper Bag
In the absence of watermarks or other distinctive characteristics, it is impossible to determine whether two samples of paper came from the same manufacturer.[A10-240] The homemade paper bag found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository following the assassination was made out of heavy brown paper and glue-bearing brown paper tape, neither of which contained watermarks or other distinctive characteristics.[A10-241] However, Cadigan compared the questioned paper and tape in the paper bag with known paper and tape samples obtained from the shipping department of the Texas School Book Depository on November 22, 1963, to see if the questioned items could have come from the shipping room.[A10-242] The questioned and known items were examined visually by normal, incidental, and transmitted natural and electric light, and under ultraviolet light;[A10-243] examined microscopically for surface, paper structure, color, and imperfections;[A10-244] examined for their felting pattern, which is the pattern of light and dark areas caused by the manner in which the fibers become felted at the beginning stages of paper manufacture;[A10-245] measured for thickness with a micrometer sensitive to one one-thousandth of an inch,[A10-246] subjected to a fiber analysis to determine the type of fibers of which they were composed, and whether the fibers were bleached or unbleached;[A10-247] and examined spectrographically to determine what metallic ions were present.[A10-248] The questioned and known items were identical in all the properties measured by these tests.[A10-249] (The width of the tape on the paper sack was 3 inches, while the width of the sample tape was 2.975, or twenty-five thousandths of an inch smaller; however, this was not a significant difference).[A10-250] In contrast, a paper sample obtained from the Texas School Book Depository shipping room on December 1, 1963, was readily distinguishable from the questioned paper.[A10-251]
Examination of the tape revealed other significant factors indicating that it could have come from the Texas School Book Depository shipping room. There were several strips of tape on the bag.[A10-252] All but two of the ends of these strips were irregularly torn; the remaining two ends had machine-cut edges. This indicated that the person who made the bag had drawn a long strip of tape from a dispensing machine and had torn it by hand into several smaller strips.[A10-253] Confirmation that the tape had been drawn from a dispensing machine was supplied by the fact that a series of small markings in the form of half-inch lines ran down the center of the tape like ties on a railroad track. Such lines are made by a ridged wheel in a tape dispenser which is constructed so that when a hand lever is pulled, the wheel, which is connected to the lever, pulls the tape from its roll and dispenses it. Such dispensers are usually found only in commercial establishments. A dispenser of this type was located in the Texas School Book Depository shipping room. The length of the lines and the number of lines per inch on the tape from the paper bag was identical to the length of the lines and the number of lines per inch on the tape obtained from the dispenser in the Texas School Book Depository shipping room.[A10-254]
WOUND BALLISTICS EXPERIMENTS
Purpose of the Tests
During the course of the Commission’s inquiry, questions arose as to whether the wounds inflicted on President Kennedy and Governor Connally could have been caused by the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building and Western Cartridge Co. bullets and fragments of the type found on the Governor’s stretcher and in the Presidential limousine. In analyzing the trajectory of the bullets after they struck their victims, further questions were posed on the bullet’s velocity and penetration power after exiting from the person who was initially struck. To answer these and related questions, the Commission requested that a series of tests be conducted on substances resembling the wounded portions of the bodies of President Kennedy and Governor Connally under conditions which simulated the events of the assassination.