Science proves JFK conspiracy -- and it took only 43 years!

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore labs have destroyed the single bullet theory.

The case against Oswald as the lone assassin depends on this theory, which holds that one bullet, found mysteriously intact on a stretcher at the hospital (!), caused all seven non-fatal wounds in President Kennedy and Governor John Connally. (I'm glossing over many subsidiary controversies; see here.) Both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations insisted that a process known as neutron activation analysis linked the chemical make-up of the bullet fragments, recovered from the wounds, to the bullet itself. The HSCA scientists repeatedly used the phrase "to the exclusion of all other bullets in the world."

Well, not quite. Chemist Pat Grant and mettalurgist Erik Randich of Lawrence Livermore beg to differ:

Randich's training as a metallurgist told him there was something wrong with this reasoning.

"I realized these people could put my sons in jail with bogus science," he said. "I thought I ought to do something about it."

By analyzing years of data kept by lead smelters, Randich found that batches are not unique, and bullets from different batches of bullets poured months or years apart could have the same chemical signature. And bullets poured from the start of a batch could differ slightly, but measurably, from those at the end.

He has testified in about a dozen cases. Because of his work, courts now reject bullet-lead analysis and the FBI no longer uses it as evidence.

The implications go beyond the JFK case. We must continually call into question the very nature of the evidence used in our courtrooms.

We must also continue to rewrite our history books. By the way -- Arlen Specter invented the single bullet theory. The past never dies, does it?