Gun Bluing Wore Off?
- by Hugh Sprunt, posted to the Internet June 14, 1996

The problem with the silver gun theory is that many assume Lisa [Foster] is describing a chrome, stainless steel or nickel plated gun. She could be describing a polished (through wear and use) blued steel gun. - Roger B. Olsen

This, "I have heard," is the Starr OIC take on this point (uh, well, that's what they told me when I was at the OIC last March). The official Foster death gun was "blued" (I have the Colt certification on the gun -- using the S/N on the frame). The "silver gun" was also described by Lisa Foster in the USPP handwritten notes as a "Silver six-gun. Large barrel."

For the gun to appear silver-colored (as in nickel-plated -- which was a Colt option for this gun) the color of the gun under the bluing would have to have been silver and pretty much all the bluing would have had to have been worn off. Some major "ifs" here, in my humble opinion. From the limited advice I have taken on the point, I rather doubt that the gun in question would have been "silver" in color prior to bluing.

Chrome plating was not a manufacturer's (Colt) option for the gun in question per the spec sheets I have. Of course, someone who bought it could at some point have had it chromed. I do not believe stainless steel was being used in gun manfacture (or even existed?) in 1913 -- can anyone with more knowledge than I comment on this point?

Although certainly not dispositive, Lisa referred to the silver gun having a "large barrel" -- the 4" barrel on the Colt .38 Army Special found we are told with Vince Foster's body is the shortest barrel length offered with the .38 Army Colt (per the Colt spec sheets I have)....

If the bluing on the gun had largely worn off, I would think the lab work in the Hearings Volumes on the gun would have included info to the effect that the gun was blued with virtually all the bluing worn off, producing a silver color. We're talking the fundamental visual description here. I also bet that if that had been the case it would have been plastered all through the relevant FBI FD-302s that have been released to the public.

I say that for the same reason that, Foster family privacy considerations notwithstanding, Mr. Fiske would have trumpeted the news in his report if Foster's letter to his mother regarding the oil lease transfers (mailed on either 7/19 or 7/20/93 from the White House) included any words of emotion or farewell from Vince to his mother (let alone, good by cruel world -- Mom, don't blame yourself for what I am about to do). Such words would have obviously heavily supported the official "suicide verdict."

Of course, based on the public record, this letter to his mother, mailed either the day before or the morning of his purported suicide was entirely barren of words of emotion, sentiment, or farewell. I argued in the CIR that a letter mailed by Foster to his mom under such circumstances (last letter to Mom before killing himself) could be expected to have some touching emotional flourishes in it even if he did not directly imply or explicitly state he was about to take his own life.

Also bear in mind that Vince's Mom had lost her husband (and Vince his father) two years previously. The letter in question concerned some oil leases in the father's estate. I am more or less Foster's age and grew up in the same culture (eastern AR, western TN), general economic status, religion etc. My dad graduated from Davidson (Vince's college), my mom graduated from Lisa's college (Sweet Briar). Certain of my relatives have some personal affiliations with the so-called AR elite (or did until recently).

Although I have never met anyone in the immediate family, this cultural kinship and the research I have done makes me think that I have some idea of Foster's values and what made him tick. It would astound me that Vince could mail a letter to his recently widowed mother within a day or so of killing himself and show no emotion or sentiment at all in what he knew was the final letter to his mom. It's just not done that way.

Finally, let's look at the flip side -- for similar reasons I questioned (see May 1996 Media Bypass) that Vince Foster would unburden himself six days before his death in a solo meeting with Susan Thomases in which (per the book Blood Sport) he provided Ms. Thomases (whom he did not know that well at all and whom I rather doubt he was trying to seduce) with a detailed accounting of the many dimensions of his utterly failed marriage.

That account in Blood Sport just didn't ring true to me, any more than writing his mom within a day or so of killing himself and failing to at least express affection, etc. I thought that in addition to realizing that the account in Blood Sport directly contradicts her account of the same event (last meeting with Foster) that she provided the FBI. I realize this is very "soft" opinion-related stuff (I have no psychiatric or phychological training, either), but it makes sense to me.

Oh, for what it's worth, I have long resisted believing (even if Foster's death was not a suicide) that he met his end in the White House. There are a variety of reasons for this that I will not go into here, but one of them was "conservatism" in the general sense of the word. The trend over the last almost three years now for me is toward thinking that he did die in or near the White House (if not somewhere in or under the White House, perhaps in or under the building immediately to the west of the White House -- the old Executive Office Building). . .

Warm regards,
Hugh S.