Mr. DULLES. What do you mean by old, 2 or 3 months old, 2 or 3 weeks
old?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Well, a length of time, I would say that in excess of a
month or 2 months.
Mr. DULLES. In that area?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. In that area or longer. They weren't recently put in
there. Let's say that.
Mr. EISENBERG. What about the grease, did you attempt to examine the
grease?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. No.
Mr. EISENBERG. Why was that?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. I could see no need of it at that time.
Mr. EISENBERG. Let's return then to the fibers which you referred to as
being fresh, which you said you found in the crevice of the butt plate,
and I will ask Mr. Dulles' question in reverse: What do you mean by
fresh, why do you call these fresh?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. In the first place, this was just a small tuft. They
were adhering to the gun on a small jagged edge. In other words, the
gun had caught on a piece of fabric and pulled these fibers loose. They
were clean, they had good color to them, there was no grease on them
and they were not fragmented. They looked as if they had just been
picked up. They were folded very neatly down in the crevice.
Mr. EISENBERG. Were these fibers in a position where they could have
easily been knocked off by rough use?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. No; they were adhering to the edge rather tightly.
Mr. EISENBERG. In the crevice?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Well, it had the jagged edge sticking up and the fibers
were folded around it and resting in the crevice.
Mr. DULLES. I think you testified, though, that might have been done in
part by the dusting?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes, sir; I believe when the fingerprintman dusted it he
probably ran his brush along the metal portion here.
Mr. EISENBERG. Of the butt plate?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Of the butt plate, and at the time the brush folded
these down into the crevice.
Mr. EISENBERG. What led you to the particular conclusion that they had
been folded into the crevice by the dusting?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Because of the presence of fingerprint powder being down
in and through the crevice here. It looked as if it had been dusted
with a brush. You could make out the bristlemarks of the brush itself.
Mr. EISENBERG. Now assuming your conclusion is accurate that they were
dusted into the crevice, and had not been in the crevice originally but
had merely adhered to the jagged edge, how much--how rough a handling
would it have taken to have gotten them loose from that jagged edge?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Well, I would imagine if one took a brush and started
brushing pretty hard these would have worked loose and come out.
Mr. EISENBERG. Would the use of the weapon itself have jarred them
loose?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. I doubt it. I doubt it.
Mr. EISENBERG. I am talking now about the jagged edge position, and not
the crevice position.
Mr. STOMBAUGH. You mean breaking them loose? They were adhering to the
jagged edge.
Mr. EISENBERG. Yes.
Mr. STOMBAUGH. It might, of course--there are a lot of factors here you
don't know, but they were adhering pretty tightly to the gun. I believe
through ordinary handling of the gun eventually they would have worked
loose and fallen off.
Mr. EISENBERG. What I can't understand is, when you are talking about
the handling of the gun are you talking about the position in which you
found them, or are you talking about the position which you deduced
they were in before you found them brushed into the crevice?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Well, both. The position I found them in. I had to take
a pair of tweezers and work them out.
Mr. EISENBERG. Yes?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. And after I had the fibers lifted up which could have
been the original position they were in, then I had to pull them off.
They were wrapped around rather snugly to the sharp edge.
Mr. EISENBERG. Now, returning once more to this question of freshness.
Would you say they had been placed there within 1 hour, or 1 day, or 1
week of the time when you received the rifle or longer?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. I couldn't say in that regard to any period of time.
I refer, by saying they appeared fresh, to the fact that the other
fibers I removed from this gun were greasy, mashed, and broken, where
these were fairly good long fibers. They were not dirty, with the
exception of a little bit of fingerprint powder on them which I cleaned
off, and the color was good. They were in good shape, not fragmented.
They could conceivably have been put on 10 years ago and then the gun
put aside and remain the same. Dust would have settled on them, would
have changed their color a little bit, but as far as when they got on
the gun, I wouldn't be able to say. This would just be speculation on
my part.
Mr. EISENBERG. In other words, you concluded they were fresh--well,
you said you thought they were fresh, Mr. Stombaugh, and I don't quite
understand now whether you seem to be backing off a little from that?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. No; I am not trying to do that. I am trying to avoid a
specific time element, since there are other factors which may enter. I
couldn't--this is something that I won't even attempt to do, just say
this was on here for 1 hour or 10 minutes, something like that.
But I would say these fibers were put on there in the recent past for
this reason. If they had been put on there say 3, 4, 5 weeks or so ago,
and the gun used every day, these fibers would have come off.
Am I making myself a little more clear?
Mr. EISENBERG. Yes; you are making yourself clear; yes.
Now, looking at Exhibit 139, the weapon, and Exhibit 140, the blanket,
do you think it is possible that the bulge you described before, which
you marked "C," might have been caused by some component part of 139,
the rifle?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes. At the time I found the hump in the blanket which I
believed you have marked point C.
Mr. EISENBERG. That is point C on the replica piece of paper you have
folded up, marked Exhibit 663?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. I checked the telescopic sight on Exhibit 139, and noted
that the approximate length and general shape of the scope----
Mr. DULLES. Exhibit 139 being the blanket?
Mr. EISENBERG. Being the rifle.
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Were approximately the same so far as length and shape
went, and at the time I thought to myself it is quite possible the hump
in the blanket could have been made by that telescopic sight.
Mr. EISENBERG. Did you attempt to match up the rifle into the blanket
to see if that could be true?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. No; I didn't want to handle the rifle any more than
possible. I took a ruler and measured the scope and then compared the
measurement with the hump in the blanket and it was approximately the
same.
Mr. EISENBERG. What about the relationship, the spatial relationship
of the scope to the end of the gun, as compared with the spatial
relationship of the hump in the blanket to the end of the blanket? Were
those matching?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. From the way the blanket was folded at the time, and
from measuring this, and not using the gun itself and putting it in
contact with the blanket, just from measurements, I determined it is
possible that the scope could have made the hump. In other words, the
gun could have fitted in there. But I couldn't be absolutely certain on
any of this. This is just from measurements.
Mr. EISENBERG. And visual comparison?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. And visual comparison; yes.
Mr. EISENBERG. Is there any further information you would like to
give us concerning your examinations of the paper bag, the rifle, the
blanket, or the shirt which we have discussed this morning?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Just the fibers I removed.
Mr. DULLES. Are you going to go into the relationship of the fibers
that were found in the jagged edge?
Mr. EISENBERG. Yes. Mr. Stombaugh, did you attempt to determine the
origin of the fibers which were caught in the butt plate of the rifle?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes, sir; I did. I tried to match these fibers with the
fibers in the blanket, and found that they had not originated from the
blanket, because the cotton fibers were of entirely different colors.
So I happened to think of the shirt and I made a known sample of the
shirt fibers.
Mr. EISENBERG. What does that mean?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. I removed fibers from the shirt to determine the
composition of it and also the colors. I found that the shirt was
composed of dark-blue, grayish-black, and orangish-yellow cotton
fibers, and that these were the same shades of fibers I had found on
the butt plate of the gun.
Mr. DULLES. Did you find all three shades?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. All three shades; yes, sir.
Mr. EISENBERG. All three shades were found on the fragments that were
found in the butt of the gun?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes.
Mr. EISENBERG. Have you made photographs showing these, color
photographs showing these?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes, sir. Color photographs are very difficult to make
microscopically because the color isn't always identical to what you
see in the microscope. So these colors are slightly off.
Mr. EISENBERG. You have shown a chart captioned "Microphotograph
Showing Match Between Orange-Yellow Cotton Fibers From Butt Plate of
Assassination Rifle and Orange-Yellow Cotton Fibers From Oswald's
Shirt." Did you take this photograph?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. No; it was taken under my supervision.
Mr. EISENBERG. It was taken under your supervision.
Mr. Chairman, may I submit this as 674.
Mr. DULLES. It will be admitted, 674.
(The item referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 674, and was
received in evidence.)
Mr. EISENBERG. What is the magnification?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. I believe this was 400 also. I am not certain of this,
because the shot itself has also been enlarged.
Mr. EISENBERG. Now you were discussing the reproduction of the color in
the photomicrograph?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes, sir. These are the orangish-yellow fibers.
The color is not exactly the same as what one would see under the
microscope.
However, you can see that the fibers on both sides, namely, the fiber
from the rifle here, and this----