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Article: 723 of sgi.talk.ratical
From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
Subject: "Presumed Guilty, How & Why the W.C. Framed Lee Harvey Oswald"
Summary: A factual account based on the Commission's public & private documents
Keywords: continued endemic denial of our true history consigns us to oblivion
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1992 13:18:15 GMT
Lines: 9864
__________________________________________________________________________
PRESUMED GUILTY
How and why the Warren Commission framed Lee Harvey Oswald
A factual account based on the Commission's public and private documents
by Howard Roffman
(c)1976 by A.S. Barnes and Co., Inc.
(c)1975 by Associated University Presses, Inc.
ISBN 0-498-01933-0
* * * * * * *
From the inside front and back jacket
of the 1976 issue of "Presumed Guilty:"
If Howard Roffman is right, and his careful documentation argues
that he is, Lee Harvey Oswald could not have been the assassin of
John F. Kennedy. He could not have been the gunman in the sixth
floor window of the Texas School Book Depository building, as is
shown by his close analysis of both the circumstantial evidence and
the ballistics of the case.
The implications are serious indeed, and the Introduction deals
with them extensively, besides assessing the contributions of other
critics. The documentation here presented, extracted from the
once-secret working papers of the Warren Commission, demonstrates
conclusively that the Commission prejudged Oswald guilty and made
use of only circumstantial evidence to bolster its assumption,
while suppressing information that tended to undermine it.
Roffman in this book states the charge explicitly: "When the
Commissioners decided in advance that the wrong man was the lone
assassin, whatever their intentions, they protected the real
assassins. Through their staff, they misinformed the American
public and falsified history."
About the Author
Howard Roffman, now 23, was born and raised in Philadelphia,
Pa., where he attended public school. His interest in the
assassination of President Kennedy began when he was fourteen, and
he read everything he could lay his hands on on the subject. By
the 11th grade he had bought all 26 volumes of the Warren Report
($76), and, convinced of the inadequacy of the conclusions, he went
to the National Archives and studied the files--the youngest
researcher ever to see them. Alarmed at what he discovered, he
writes, "I can't think of anything more threatening than when the
government lies about the murder of its leader."
Mr. Roffman completed his undergraduate studies as a History
major at the University of Pennsylvania, and graduated with honors
in 1974. At present studying law at the Holland Law Center,
Gainesville, Fla., he is the author of a second book,
"Understanding the Cold War."
* * * * * * *
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank the following publishers for having given me
permission to quote from published works:
The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., for permission to quote from
"Accessories After the Fact," copyright (c) 1967 by Sylvia
Meagher, reprinted by permission of the publisher, The Bobbs-
Merrill Company, Inc.
CBS News, for permission to quote from "CBS News Extra: `November
22 and the Warren Report,'" 1964, and "CBS News Inquiry: `The
Warren Report,'" 1967.
Harold Weisberg, for permission to quote from his books
"Whitewash," 1965, "Whitewash II," 1966, "Photographic
Whitewash," 1967, and "Oswald in New Orleans," 1967.
I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to Dick
Bernabei and Harold Weisberg, who gave so unselfishly of themselves
to help further my research and my personal development. Special
thanks go to Sylvia Meagher for her encouragement and assistance
with my manuscript, and to Halpert Fillinger for his time and
invaluable advice concerning the medical/ballistics aspects of this
study. To those too numerous to name who helped in so many ways, I
offer my thanks and appreciation.
* * * * * * *
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
Note on Citations
PART I: THE PRESUMPTION OF GUILT
1 Assassination: The Official Case
2 Presumed Guilty: The Official Disposition
PART II: THE MEDICAL/BALLISTICS EVIDENCE
3 Suppressed Spectrography
4 The President's Wounds
5 The Governor's wounds and the Validity of the Essential
Conclusions
PART III: THE ACCUSED
6 The Rifle in the Building
7 Oswald at Window?
8 The Alibi: Oswald's Actions after the Shots
9 Oswald's Rifle Capability
Conclusion
Appendix A: Tentative Outline of the Work of the President's
Commission
Appendix B: Memorandum to J. Lee Rankin from David W. Belin
Appendix C: Memorandum to J. Lee Rankin from Norman Redlich
Appendix D: A Later Memorandum to J. Lee Rankin from Norman
Redlich
Appendix E: Report of the FBI's First Interview with Charles
Givens
Appendix F: FBI Report on Mrs. R. E. Arnold
Bibliography
Index
* * * * * * *
Preface
A Decade of Deceit: From the Warren Commission to Watergate
Whoever killed President John F. Kennedy got away with it
because the Warren Commission, the executive commission responsible
for investigating the murder, engaged in a cover-up of the truth
and issued a report that misrepresented or distorted almost every
relevant fact about the crime. The Warren Commission, in turn, got
away with disseminating falsehood and covering up because virtually
every institution in our society that is supposed to make sure that
the government works properly and honestly failed to function in
the face of a profound challenge; the Congress, the law, and the
press all failed to do a single meaningful thing to correct the
massive abuse committed by the Warren Commission. To anyone who
understood these basic facts, and there were few who did, the
frightening abuses of the Nixon Administration that have come to be
known as "Watergate" were not unexpected and were surprising only
in their nature and degree.
This is not a presumptuous statement. I do not mean to imply
that anyone who knew what the Warren Commission did could predict
the events that have taken place in the last few years. My point
is that the reaction to the Warren Report, if properly understood,
demonstrated that our society had {nothing} that could be depended
upon to protect it from the abuses of power that have long been
inherent in the Presidency. The dynamics of our system of
government are such that every check on the abuse of power is
vital; if the executive branch were to be trusted as the sole
guardian of the best interests of the people, we would not have a
constitution that divides power among three branches of government
to act as checks on each other, and we would need no Bill of
Rights. Power invites abuses and excesses, and at least since the
presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, an enormous amount of power has
been assumed and acquired by the president.
Political deception is an abuse that democracy invites; in a
system where the leaders are ultimately accountable to the people,
where their political future is decided by the people, there is
inevitably the temptation to deceive, to speak with the primary
interest of pleasing the people and preserving political power.
There probably has not been a president who has not lied for
political reasons. I need only cite some more recent examples:
Franklin Roosevelt assured the parents of America in October
1940 that "your boys are not going to be sent into foreign wars";
at the time he knew that American involvement in World War II was
inevitable, even imminent, but he chose not to be frank with the
people for fear of losing the 1940 election.
Dwight Eisenhower in 1960 denied that the American aircraft shot
down by the Russians over their territory was a spy-plane, when he
{and} the Russians knew very well that the plane, a U-2, had been
on a CIA reconnaissance flight;
John F. Kennedy had the American ambassador at the United
Nations deny that the unsuccessful invasion of Cuba at the Bay of
Pigs was an American responsibility when exactly the opposite was
true.
So, deception and cover-up per se did not originate with the
Warren Commission in 1964 or the Nixon administration in 1972.
They had always been an unfortunate part of our political system.
With the Warren Commission they entered a new and more dangerous
phase. Never before, to my knowledge, had there been such a
systematic plan for a cover-up, or had such an extensive and
pervasive amount of deception been attempted. And certainly never
before had our government collaborated to deny the public the true
story of how its leader was assassinated.
In the face of this new and monumental abuse of authority by the
executive, all the institutions that are supposed to protect
society from such abuses failed and, in effect, helped perpetrate
the abuse itself. As with Watergate, numerous lawyers were
involved with the Warren Commission; in neither case did these
lawyers act as lawyers. Rather, they participated in a cover-up
and acted as accessories in serious crimes. The Congress accepted
the Warren Report as the final solution to the assassination and
thus acquiesced in the cover-up of a President's murder. And,
perhaps most fundamentally, the press failed in its responsibility
to the people and became, in effect, an unofficial mouthpiece of
the government. For a short time the press publicized some of the
inconsistencies between the Warren Report's conclusions and the
evidence; yet never did the press seriously question the
legitimacy of the official findings on the assassination or attempt
to ascertain why the Johnson administration lied about the murder
that brought it into power and what was hidden by those lies.
It was only a small body of powerless and unheralded citizens
who undertook to critically examine the official investigation of
President Kennedy's murder, and among them it was still fewer who
clearly understood the ominous meaning of a whitewashed inquiry
that was accepted virtually without question. It was only these
few who asked what would happen to our country if an executive
disposed to abuse its authority could do so with impunity.
It was in 1966, long before the press and the public saw through
the thicket of deception with which we had been led into a war in
Vietnam, long before this country was to suffer the horrors of
Watergate, that a leading assassination researcher, Harold
Weisberg, wrote and published the following words:
If the government can manufacture, suppress and lie when
a President is cut down--and get away with it--what cannot
follow? Of what is it not capable, regardless of motive . .
.?
This government {did} manufacture, suppress and lie when
it pretended to investigate the assassination of John F.
Kennedy.
If it can do that, it can do anything.
And will, if we let it.
Weisberg, in effect, warned that the executive would inevitably
commit wrongdoing beyond imagination so long as there was no
institution of government or society that was willing to stop it.
That one man of modest means could make this simple deduction in
1966 is less a credit to him than it is an indictment of a whole
system of institutions that failed in their fundamental
responsibility to society.
My political maturity began to develop only in the past few
years; all of my research on the assassination was conducted while
I was a teenager. Yet the basic knowledge that my government could
get away with what it did at the murder of a president made me
fearful of the future. On October 10, 1971, when I was eighteen
years old, I wrote what I hoped would be the last letter in a long
and fruitless correspondence with a lawyer who had participated in
the official cover-up as an investigator for the Warren Commission.
I concluded that letter with these words:
I ask myself if this country can survive when men like
you, who are supposed to represent law and justice, are the
foremost merchants of official falsification, deceit, and
criminality.
It was to take three years and the worst political crisis in our
history for the press and the public to even begin to awaken to the
great dangers a democracy faces when lawyers are criminals.
It is with pain and not pride that I look back and see that so
few were able to understand what the Warren Commission and the
acceptance of its fraudulent Report meant for this country. This
was not omniscience, but simple deduction from basic facts. I
cannot escape the conviction that had the Congress, or the lawyers,
or especially the press seriously endeavored to establish the basic
facts and then considered the implications of these facts, we all
might have been spared the frightening and threatening abuses of
Watergate. If the institutions designed to protect society from
such excesses of power had functioned in 1964, it is possible that
they would not have had to mobilize so incompletely and almost
ineffectively in 1972 and 1973.
Watergate has brought us into a new era, hopefully one in which
all institutions will work diligently to see that our government
functions properly and honestly. As of now, the reasons for
optimism are still limited. It was not the press as an institution
that probed beneath the official lies about Watergate and demanded
answers; essentially, it was {one} newspaper, the "Washington
Post," that, true to its obligations, bulldogged the story that
most of the nation's press buried until it became a national
scandal. It was not the law as an institution that insisted on the
truth; it was one judge, John Sirica, who best served the law by
settling for no less than the whole truth, and he was and continues
to be deceived and lied to by those whose responsibility it is to
uphold and defend the law. Whether Congress will adequately
respond to the crimes and abuses of the Nixon administration
remains to be seen.
Our very system of government and law faces its most profound
challenge today. A nation that did not learn from the Warren
Commission has survived to relive a far worse version of that past
in Watergate. It would do well to live by the wisdom of Santayana,
for it is doubtful that American democracy could survive another
Watergate.
Howard Roffman
January, 1974
* * * * * * *
Introduction
On January 22, 1964, the members of the then two-month old
Warren Commission were hastily assembled for a top-secret meeting.
Half-way into their executive session, the Commissioners decided
their words were so sensitive that they should not be recorded.
Commission member Allen Dulles, the former CIA director, even
suggested "this record ought to be destroyed." The incomplete
stenographer's tape remained locked in government vaults for eleven
years until, under pressure from a persistent researcher named
Harold Weisberg, the National Archives retrieved it and forwarded
it to the Pentagon for transcription. The result was a blow to
anyone who ever entertained the belief that the Warren Commission
set out in good faith to investigate the murder of President
Kennedy and discover the full truth.
It was never a secret that the Commission relied almost entirely
on the FBI to conduct the bulk of its investigation. In its own
Report, the Commission boasted of this relationship: "Because of
the diligence, cooperation, and facilities of the Federal
investigative agencies, it was unnecessary for the Commission to
employ investigators other than the members of the Commission's
legal staff" (Rxiii). It was also no secret that this relationship
was inherently compromising because the investigative agencies,
particularly the FBI, had a vested interest in the conclusion that
the President's murder was the unforeseeable act of a lone madman.
In the aftermath of the assassination, the FBI was left holding the
bag. Rumors immediately spread that Oswald had been an FBI
informant and that the FBI knew of Oswald's potential for violence
but failed to report his identity to the Secret Service. As Harold
Weisberg succinctly put it as early as 1965, after President
Kennedy was killed, all the federal agencies "had one objective, to
take the heat off themselves."[1]
By any reasonable standard, the last investigator to have been
entrusted with the task of developing the facts surrounding the
assassination was the FBI.
The Warren Commission realized this, but decided to rely on the
FBI nonetheless. Its public position would be one of praise for
the FBI's diligent cooperation. But the secret executive sessions
and confidential memoranda tell another story: The Commission knew
what J. Edgar Hoover was up to and played along.
The Commission convened in secret that January 22 to discuss the
rumor that Oswald had been a paid informant for the FBI. As
chapter 2 of this book documents, the FBI had already preempted the
Commission by publicly claiming to have solved the assassination
within three weeks of the event. At the January 22 session, an
unidentified speaker, probably General Counsel J. Lee Rankin,
explained the basic problem to the Commission: "That is that the
FBI is very explicit that Oswald is the assassin . . . and they are
very explicit that there was no conspiracy." However, the speaker
noted, "they have not run out all kinds of leads in Mexico or in
Russia. . . . But they are concluding that there can't be a
conspiracy without those being run out." The inevitable question
was raised: "Why are they so eager to make both of those
conclusions . . . ?" Mr. Dulles claimed to be confused as to why
the FBI would want to dispose of the case by finding Oswald guilty
if, at the same time, Oswald was rumored to have been in the FBI's
employ. Dulles's question was quickly answered by Rankin:
A: They would like to have us fold up and quit.
Boggs: This closes the case, you see. Don't you see?
Dulles: Yes, I see that.
Rawkin [{sic}]: They found the man. There is nothing more
to do. The Commission supports their conclusions, and we
can go on home and that is the end of it.[2]
The Commission engaged in a more explicit discussion of the problem
at its secret session five days later, on January 27. John J.
McCloy noted "we are so dependent upon them [the FBI] for our facts
that it might be a useful thing to have him [Hoover] before us" for
the purpose of requesting further investigation "of the things that
are still troubling us." The following discussion ensued:
Mr. Rankin: Part of our difficulty in regard to it is
that they have no problems. They have decided that it is
Oswald who committed the assassination, they have decided
that no one else was involved, they have decided--
Sen. Russell: They have tried the case and reached a
verdict on every aspect.
Rep. Boggs: You have put your finger on it. . . .
Mr. Rankin: . . . They have decided the case, and we are
going to have maybe a thousand further inquiries that we say
the Commission has to know all these things before it can
pass on this.
And I think their reaction probably would be, "Why do you
want all that. It is clear."
Sen. Russell: "You have our statement, what else do you
need?"
Mr. McCloy: Yes, "We know who killed cock robin."[3]
Thus, the Commission recognized the untenable position it faced
being put in if it relied on the FBI for additional investigation
when the FBI was claiming that the crime had been solved and no
more investigation was necessary. Hoover had already staked the
very reputation of his agency on a solution that demanded Oswald as
the lone assassin. It would have been a naive Commission indeed
that would have expected the FBI to destroy its own "solution" of
the crime with further investigation. In light of these secret
discussions, the Commission's heavy dependence on the FBI is
nothing less than culpable.
The central FBI conclusion, which the Commission adopted as its
own, was that Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President Kennedy.
This conclusion was sustained solely on the finding that bullets
from Oswald's rifle had caused the wounds to President Kennedy and
Governor Connally. If this one finding crumbles, the case for
Oswald's guilt must crumble with it. It was thus of paramount
importance that the Commission independently verify this FBI
finding.
The Commission was certainly aware of its responsibility. In
secret, the members admitted to each other the inadequacy of the
Bureau's ballistics findings as set forth in the FBI Report. At
the executive session held December 16, 1963, Mr. McCloy
complained, "This bullet business leaves me totally confused."
Chairman Warren concurred: "It's totally inconclusive."[4]
Members of the Commission's staff, noting the FBI's sloppy work,
recognized a need "to facilitate independent analysis of the
Bureau's ballistic conclusions"[5] and to "secure from the FBI and
consider the underlying documents and reports related to the rifle
and shells."[6]
As I explain in chapter 3, the only way the Commission could
possibly have established a firm link between bullets fired from
Oswald's rifle and the wounds inflicted during the assassination
was to compare the metallic composition of all the ballistic
specimens through a meticulous scientific process called
spectrographic analysis. The FBI claimed to have run such tests
and arrived at inconclusive results. The Commission took the FBI
at its word, based on nonexpert testimony, without ever having
looked at the spectrographer's report or having put the relevant
documents into its record. Evidence has since been developed by
Harold Weisberg that a far more detailed comparative process,
neutron activation analysis (NAA), was utilized by the Commission
through the Atomic Energy Commission.[7] Proper NAA testing could
at once have settled the doubts that plagued the Commission.
The Commission knew the value of NAA and recognized the need to
apply the technology to the evidence in the assassination. Indeed,
the AEC had immediately offered its services to the FBI, only to be
snubbed by Hoover. Then, on December 11, 1963, Paul C. Aebersold
of the AEC wrote a letter to Herbert J. Miller at the Department of
Justice explaining how the NAA process might be of vital importance
in the investigation of the President's murder.[8] Aebersold noted
that "it may be possible to determine by trace-element measurements
whether the fatal bullets were of composition identical to that of
the purportedly unfired shell" found in the chamber of Oswald's
rifle. Likewise, "Other pieces of physical evidence in the case,
such as clothing . . . might lend themselves to characterization by
means of their trace-element levels." The Justice Department
forwarded Aebersold's letter to the Commission, which immediately
took the matter up with Hoover. The Commission sought "your advice
regarding the feasibility and desirability of taking advantage of
[the AEC's] offer."[9] When the Commission assembled on January
27, 1964, Mr. Rankin advised as follows:
Now, the bullet fragments are now, part of them are now,
with the Atomic Energy Commission, who are trying to
determine by a new method, a process that they have, of
whether they can relate them to various guns and the
different parts, the fragments, whether they are part of one
of the bullets that was broken and came out in part through
the neck, and just what particular assembly of bullet they
were part of.
They have had it for the better part of two and a-half
weeks, and we ought to get an answer.[10]
Indeed, an investigative Commission aware of its obligation to
verify ballistic findings on which the case against an alleged
presidential assassin depended "ought" to have insisted upon and
received an immediate "answer" from an independent agency employing
a sensitive new technology. But {this} Commission {never} got an
answer.
And that was exactly how J. Edgar Hoover wanted things.
Still awaiting the AEC's test results, the Commission on March
16, 1964, had staff lawyer Melvin Eisenberg discuss the NAA process
with FBI Special Agent John F. Gallagher, the man who had run the
Bureau's earlier spectrographic analysis. Among the questions
raised by Eisenberg was the application of NAA to President
Kennedy's clothing, particularly to the overlapping holes in the
shirt near the collar button, which the FBI had been unable to
relate spectrographically to the passage of a bullet. Hoover
disapproved the idea, writing the Commission on March 18 that "It
is not felt that the increased sensitivity of neutron activation
analysis would contribute substantially to the understanding of the
origin of this hole and frayed area" (20H2). The Commission bowed
to Hoover's wish and never subjected the alleged bullet damage in
President Kennedy's and Governor Connally's clothing to NAA. The
secrets that might be held by the minuscule traces of metal left on
the clothing would not be unlocked by this Commission charged with
evaluating "{all} the facts" of the assassination (R471).
For what its own record discloses, the Commission merely forgot
about the scientific tests it knew were crucial and proceeded
without them to assemble a case against Oswald (see chapter 2).
The Commission took not a word of testimony about NAA's of the
ballistic specimens, and allowed into the published evidence
references only to NAA's of the paraffin casts of Oswald's hands
and cheek made by the Dallas Police (R562). Even at that, as late
as September 5, 1964, a week before the Warren Report was set in
type, the staff was still trying to obtain from the FBI a
description of the NAA process.[11]
The only word the Commission ever officially received relating
to these vital tests was communicated not through the AEC but
through Hoover, whose brief letter remained buried in the
Commission's unpublished files until Harold Weisberg dug it
out.[12] Hoover did not write the Commission until July 8, 1964,
after sections of the Report naming Oswald as the assassin had been
preliminarily drafted. Although he then attempted to play down the
value of the NAA's, his letter stands as a monument to the
deliberate inadequacy of the Commission's investigation.
To begin, Hoover's July 8 letter informed the Commission that
the NAA's conducted were incomplete:
Because of the higher sensitivity of the neutron
activation analysis, certain of the small lead fragments
were then subjected to neutron activation analysis and
comparisons with larger bullet fragments.
Thus, according to Hoover, there were no NAA comparisons of any of
the copper components of the recovered bullets and fragments.
Hoover's listing also excluded several items of ballistics evidence
possessed by the Commission, among them the unfired cartridge and
the metallic traces on the clothing. What were the results of this
examination of fatally limited scope? Hoover reported the
following only:
While minor variations in composition were found by this
method, these were not considered sufficient to permit
positively differentiating among the larger bullet fragments
and thus positively determining from which of the larger
bullet fragments any given small lead fragment may have
come.
I invite the reader to unscramble these semantics. It is indeed
impossible to know what Hoover considered a "larger bullet
fragment," especially because a whole bullet, Commission Exhibit
399, was alleged to have been tested but seems not to have been
included within the above description of the test results. In
short, Hoover told the Commission very little, if anything, about
the NAA results, and provided no documentation to support or
clarify his incomprehensible summary.
The Commission, having already decided that Oswald was the
assassin, was content to leave the record in this hopeless state.
One researcher, Harold Weisberg, was not, and tried to force the
government to release the entire record concerning the
spectrographic analysis by filing a suit under the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA), as described in chapter 3. After I
completed the text of this book, a federal court of appeals decided
against Weisberg and allowed the Department of Justice to continue
suppression of the spectrographer's report.[13] The decision was
so contrary to the FOIA that Congress almost immediately moved to
overrule it legislatively. A 1974 amendment to the FOIA cited the
{Weisberg} case as a frightening precedent and expressed Congress's
intent that the government not be permitted to suppress reports
involving well-known scientific procedures such as
spectrography.[14] By February 1975, when the new law took effect,
Weisberg was back in court, demanding not only the spectrographer's
report but also the full report on the NAA's performed by the AEC
for the Warren Commission. The government produced a batch of
almost incomprehensible working papers, most of them incomplete,
some containing tables of elements with statistical data missing.
These, it claimed, represented the full extent of the relevant
documents within its files. The government's claims defied belief:
the spectrographer's report that FBI Agent Robert Frazier swore had
been made "a part of the permanent records of the FBI" (5H69) did
not exist; the NAA's that Rankin described to the Commission on
January 27 had not been conducted until May 15; and the experts of
the FBI and AEC are equipped with such computerlike memories that
they could understand and evaluate the results of the
spectrographic and NAA testing without tabulating or recording
literally thousands of multi-digit figures. Bald as the
government's representations were, they satisfied a federal
district judge.[15] Once again, release of meaningful, possibly
determinative scientific data on the assassination awaits the
appellate process.
One need not await the release of the full documentation, if it
exists, to ask why it was not published by the Warren Commission
and made part of a complete historical record. Nor can one avoid
the observation that the Commission's investigation cannot have
been complete or legitimate absent this most fundamental scientific
evidence, the value of which was only too well known to the
Commission.
One conclusion is both basic and irrefutable: the people have
been lied to about the murder of their president and how that
murder was investigated by the government. Without a doubt, the
falsehoods and misrepresentations disseminated by the government
and the media concerning the assassination of President Kennedy are
as odious in our society as the assassination itself. The freedoms
guaranteed under the law are without meaning unless the people are
honestly and competently informed. Indeed, when a government can
get away with whitewashing the truth about a president's murder,
the suggestion of authoritarianism is more than apparent.
The reader should understand that I regard the significance of
the Warren Commission's failure not as part of an intriguing
"whodunnit" but rather as a frightening breakdown of the principle
of governmental accountability. Surely the question of who killed
the President must concern us all, but over twelve years after the
murder, speculation about who was responsible becomes a futile
exercise of questionable value. I have yet to see a shred of
credible evidence linking any known group or individual with the
President's murder. Yet speculation on that score is as rife today
as it is profitable. Those who engage in it have been dubbed
"conspiracy theorists."
In this book I do not deal with theory; I deal with fact. The
facts are that we do not know who killed President Kennedy, that
the Warren Commission named the wrong man as the assassin and never
searched for the truth of the crime. Although I do not allege that
the Commission or its staff knew that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the
assassin, the documents presented here reveal that no possibility
other than Oswald as the assassin was ever considered in the
investigation. What this means, regardless of motives (about which
I am not competent to speculate), is that the Commission left
President Kennedy's murder unsolved, tacitly allowing the real
assassin or assassins to go free.
A reader approaching the field of critical works on the
assassination faces a thicket of conflicting theories, doctrines,
and allegations. I think it only fair to let the reader know in
advance where I believe my book stands within the maze. First,
however, it would be helpful to review briefly the events of the
assassination and its subsequent history.
President Kennedy was shot to death at 12:30 P.M., c.s.t., on
November 22, 1963, as he rode through the streets of Dallas, Texas,
in a motorcade. Texas Governor John Connally, seated in the
President's open limousine, received serious bullet wounds in the
shooting. Immediately, the motorcade sped to nearby Parkland
Hospital, where a team of doctors tried in vain to save the
President's life. The President's death was announced, and, over
the objections of the local authorities, who then had exclusive
jurisdiction in the crime, the body was forcefully removed from the
hospital and flown back to Washington. Before the plane bearing
the President's body took off, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, who
had ridden in the motorcade, took the oath of office and assumed
the duties of President.
Within forty-five minutes of the assassination, a Dallas Police
Officer, J. D. Tippit, was shot to death in a Dallas suburb. A
half-hour later, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in a movie theater
a half mile from the site of the Tippit murder. He was first
accused of killing only Tippit, but by that evening he became the
prime suspect in the murder of the President as well. Throughout
that hectic weekend, the Dallas Police made repeated public
accusations of Oswald's guilt. Oswald steadfastly maintained that
he was innocent and said he would prove it when he was brought to
trial.
The trial never came, however. On November 24, Oswald, still in
police custody, was shot to death by Jack Ruby.
Elimination of the only suspect in the assassination precluded a
trial that might have turned up the facts about the President's
murder through the adversary system of justice. In its stead,
President Johnson on November 29 appointed a commission to
"evaluate and report upon the facts relating to the assassination .
. . and the subsequent violent death of the man charged with the
assassination"(R471). Earl Warren, then Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court, presided over this commission, whose members
included Senators Richard Russell and John Sherman Cooper,
Representatives Hale Boggs and Gerald Ford, Allen Dulles, and John
J. McCloy. This panel, which became known as the Warren
Commission, appointed a General Counsel, J. Lee Rankin, who headed
a group of fourteen Assistant Counsel and twelve staff members.
Throughout the Warren Commission's ten-month investigation, it was
this staff of lawyers under Rankin who took virtually all the
testimony and composed the final report.
The Commission itself conceded that its task was not executed by
its prestigious but preoccupied members. In the words of the
Warren Report, it was the staff that "undertook the work of the
Commission with a wealth of legal and investigative experience."
"Highly qualified personnel from several Federal agencies, assigned
to the Commission at its request" also assisted in the
investigation(Rxi). Members of the legal staff, divided by subject
into teams, were responsible for analyzing and summarizing much of
the information originally received from the various agencies, and
for "determin[ing] the issues, sort[ing] out the unresolved
problems, and recommend[ing] additional investigation to the
Commission"(Rxii).
On September 24, 1964, the Warren Commission submitted an 888-
page report to the President. (This report was later to become
known as the Warren Report.) The Commission concluded that Lee
Harvey Oswald alone had assassinated President Kennedy, and
maintained that it had seen no evidence indicating that Oswald and
Ruby, together or alone, had been part of a conspiracy to murder
the President. Two months after the issuance of its Report, the
Commission published as a massive appendix the evidence upon which
the Report was allegedly based, including transcripts of witness
testimony, evidential exhibits, and thousands of documents. This
evidence is contained in twenty-six volumes.
Immediately upon its release, the Warren Report was met by an
overwhelmingly favorable response from the nation's "establishment"
press.[16] This response, analyzed objectively, was in fact a
blatant instance of irresponsible journalism, for newsmen lavished
praise on the Report before they could have read and analyzed it--
{two months} before the evidence upon which it rested was released
to the public.
Nevertheless, the Warren Report, which was introduced to the
public as the definitive and final word on the assassination, was
soon to be seriously questioned; a national controversy would
erupt in which the Warren Commission, its Report, its evidence, and
its workings would be challenged by a broad range of critics.
Criticism of the Commission and doubts about the assassination
were brewing prior to the issuance of the Report, although they did
not command broad public attention and were regarded more as
suspicious rumblings of foreign origin. By the end of 1965 things
were beginning to change. Vincent Salandria published a well-
documented critique of the medical/ballistics conclusions of the
Commission in a small left-of-center magazine. "The Oswald
Affair," by respected correspondent Leo Sauvage, was published in
France, challenging the conclusion that Oswald was guilty. In late
1965, "The Unanswered Questions About President Kennedy's
Assassination," a hasty critical analysis by reporter Sylvan Fox,
was published. "Whitewash," written in 1965 by Harold Weisberg,
was the first full-length book to examine in detail the
Commission's investigation, and bore the unenviable burden of
"breaking" the subject of Warren Report criticism in the United
States. After Weisberg published his book in a private printing at
his own expense, several other works critical of the official
version of the assassination appeared on the market, including, in
chronological order of publication: "Inquest," by Edward Jay
Epstein; "Rush to Judgment," by Mark Lane (Lane had been among the
first to defend the dead Oswald, and, at his own urging, gave
testimony before the Warren Commission); "The Second Oswald," by
Richard Popkin; "Whitewash II" and "Photographic Whitewash," by
Harold Weisberg; "Accessories After the Fact," by Sylvia Meagher;
and "Six Seconds in Dallas," by Josiah Thompson.
These books were widely reviewed and often appeared on best-
seller lists. They were responsible for generating a considerable
national controversy over the findings of the Warren Commission, in
which several responsible periodicals called for a new
investigation[17] and about two-thirds of the public rejected the
allegation of Oswald's lone guilt.[18]
Early in 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison made
the dubitable announcement that his office, after conducting an
extensive investigation, had "solved" the assassination.[19] One
figure in the plot alleged by Garrison died immediately before he
was to be arrested.[20] Soon after, a New Orleans businessman,
Clay Shaw, was arrested and charged with conspiring to murder
President Kennedy.[21] Finally the assassination was to get its
day in court. But Shaw did not come to trial until January 1969,
and he was easily acquitted after a two-month proceeding in which
all the shocking evidence against him promised by Garrison failed
to materialize.[22] Garrison was in consequence widely condemned
by the media, and the New Orleans fiasco caused the virtual
destruction of whatever foundation for credibility had previously
been established by critics of the Warren Report. Garrison did not
refute or in any tangible way diminish the legitimacy of several
responsible and documented criticisms of the official version of
the assassination. But his unethical behavior and the mockery of
justice (involving only Shaw) perpetrated under him were "bad
press"; it left the public and the media highly suspicious of
Warren Report criticism.
Then, in June 1972, there was the break-in at the Watergate and
the beginning of a new national consciousness, a skepticism toward
government and an unwillingness to believe the official word. By
the time President Nixon resigned in August 1974, deception,
dishonesty, and malfeasance in government were accepted as the
reality, even expected as the norm. Suddenly, the notion that the
government had not told the truth about John Kennedy's murder did
not seem so outrageous.
It was not long before there formed a new wave of doubt about
the Warren Commission's findings. Revelations about the illegal
domestic activities of the CIA led President Ford to appoint a
presidential commission in February 1975. This commission's scope
was quickly expanded to include allegations that the CIA had been
involved in the Kennedy assassination as well as numerous plots
against foreign leaders, notably Fidel Castro of Cuba.[23]
However, the commission, whose investigation was headed by an ex-
staff lawyer for the Warren Commission, David Belin, chose to
"investigate" only the most unfounded of the charges against the
CIA relating to the assassination. The outlandish allegations of
Dick Gregory and A. J. Weberman that E. Howard Hunt and Frank
Sturgis were arrested in Dealey Plaza on November 22 provided easy
targets for Mr. Belin's selectively aimed investigative
cannons.[24] It soon became public knowledge that the United
States had indeed been involved in the assassination business,
having used the CIA and the Mafia to make attempts on the lives of
Castro, Trujillo, and Lumumba, among others. Doubts grew. In the
fall of 1975 it was revealed that the Dallas office of the FBI, on
orders from J. Edgar Hoover, had destroyed a threatening note left
there by Oswald.[25] After the FBI confirmed this deliberate
destruction of evidence,[26] no one could deny that there {had}
been some sort of conspiracy to conceal by the government.
Representative Don Edwards announced that his subcommittee would
hold hearings into the FBI's withholding of evidence from the
Warren Commission, and two Senators on a select committee
investigating the CIA formed a special subcommittee to study the
need for a congressional investigation of the assassination.
Clearly the tide was turning. Even the Commission's staunchest
defenders were forced to call for a new investigation, including
David Belin[27] and President Ford,[28] both Warren Commission
alumni.
I support the movement toward a new investigation, but the vital
question now concerns {what} should be investigated. A
congressional reopening of the case should focus on those areas
which will yield meaningful findings and serve a constructive
national purpose. Such an investigation would inevitably have to
deal with the question of "Who killed Kennedy?" However, my own
familiarity with the evidence leads me to believe that an inquiry
limited only to that question would be doomed to achieving very
little. The major question at this point is "Who covered up the
truth about the murder, how, and why?" A congressional
investigation could establish with little effort that the Warren
Report's "solution" of the crime is erroneous; the Commission's
files, as well as the files of other federal agencies, would
provide a fertile starting point for the determination of
responsibility in the cover-up. The participants in all stages of
the official investigation of the assassination are either known or
identifiable, and those individuals still living can be subjected
to cross-examination. I do not personally believe that the federal
investigators knew who killed President Kennedy. But the evidence
is certain that decisions were made, at times and levels now
unknown, that the truth about the assassination should not be
discovered, that falsehood should be disseminated to the people.
When such decisions are made by the government, the Congress has a
reason, indeed an obligation, to investigate and to assure that the
executive is made to account.
Thus, it is my conviction that the only responsible approach to
be taken toward the assassination at this point is to focus upon
the question of the Warren Commission's failure, rather than to
speculate about conspiracies and solutions for which there is no
evidence. My own review of the critical literature and the varied
positions of those opposing the Warren Report persuades me that
this approach is in fact the only viable one. I hope that a brief
elaboration will help the reader to understand my position.
The early writings on the assassination by Weisberg, Meagher,
Lane, and Epstein focused on the inadequacy of the official
solution to the crime. Each author approached the subject in his
or her own manner, although, in my estimate, the books by Lane and
Epstein were seriously flawed.
Harold Weisberg was the first and the strongest advocate of the
doctrine that the assassination should be studied from the
perspective of the official noninvestigation. Weisberg has
continually stressed the great implications of the fraudulent
investigation for our government and our society. His own words on
the subject forcefully convey his approach:
In its approach, operations and Report, the Commission
considered one possibility alone--that Lee Harvey Oswald,
without assistance, assassinated the President and killed
Officer Tippit. Never has such a tremendous array of power
been turned against a single man, and he was dead. Yet even
without opposition the Commission failed. . . .
A crime such as the assassination of the President of the
United States cannot be left as the Report . . . has left
it, without even the probability of a solution, with
assassins and murderers free, and free to repeat their
crimes and enjoy what benefits they may have expected to
enjoy therefrom. No President is ever safe if Presidential
assassins are exculpated. Yet that is what the Commission
has done. In finding Oswald "guilty," it has found those
who assassinated him "innocent." If the President is not
safe, then neither is the country.[29]
Much more does it relate to each individual American, to
the integrity of the institutions of our society, when
anything happens to any president--especially when he is
assassinated.
The consignment of President John F. Kennedy to history
with the dubious epitaph of the whitewashed investigation is
a grievous event.[30]
Above all, the Report leaves in jeopardy the rights of
all Americans and the honor of the nation. When what
happened to Oswald once he was in the hands of the public
authority can occur in this country with neither reprimand
nor question, no one is safe. When the Federal government
puts its stamp of approval on such unabashed and open denial
of the most basic legal rights of any American, no matter
how insignificant he may be, then no American can depend on
having those rights, no matter what his power or
connections. The rights of all Americans, as the
Commission's chairman said when wearing his Chief Justice's
hat, depend upon each American's enjoyment of these same
rights.[31]
Perhaps the simplest statement of the context enunciated by
Weisberg is contained in the quotation that I included in the
Preface of this book: "If the government can manufacture, suppress
and lie when a President is cut down--and get away with it--what
cannot follow?"[32]
The basic focus of Mrs. Meagher's book is set forth in its very
appropriate title, "Accessories After the Fact: The Warren
Commission, The Authorities and The Report." Mrs. Meagher
scrupulously contrasts the statements contained in the Warren
Report with the Commission's published hearings and exhibits. She
finds that:
The first pronounces Oswald guilty; the second, instead
of corroborating the verdict reached by the Warren
Commission, creates a reasonable doubt of Oswald's guilt and
even a powerful presumption of his complete innocence of all
the crimes of which he was accused.[33]
As stated by Mrs. Meagher, the corollary to this finding is as
follows:
Because of the nature of the investigation, it is
probable that the assassins who shot down President John F.
Kennedy have gone free, undetected. The Warren Report has
served merely to delay their identification and the process
of justice.[34]
This is to say that the Warren Commission and the federal
authorities, regardless of their motives or conscious intent, made
themselves accessories after the fact in the President's murder by
constructing a false solution that allowed the real criminals to go
free.
Mark Lane's best-selling "Rush to Judgment" was presented as a
critique of the Commission's investigation. One may question
Lane's selection and presentation of evidence; certain basic flaws
in the book raise more serious questions about its value as a
"critique" of the official inquiry. The Warren Commission's
investigation cannot be understood without reference to the
relationship between the Commission and its staff, for it was the
staff that handled virtually all of the work and digested the
information that filtered up to the Commission members. Yet in
"Rush to Judgment" the staff is never identified. Where
questioning of a particular witness is quoted, names of individual
staff members have been replaced by an anonymous "Q." An
introduction by Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper states: "It is clear
that the bulk of the work fell upon the Chairman and upon the
assistant counsel and staff [who for Lane's readers are
nameless]."[35] This assertion unjustly singles out Earl Warren
for blame, although he never came close to doing "the bulk of the
work." Trevor-Roper seems immediately to thwart the supposed
purpose of the book by offering the assurance that "moderate,
rational men will naturally and . . . rightly" reject the idea that
the Commission and the "existing agencies" "sought to reach a
certain conclusion at the expense of the facts . . . that they . .
. were dishonest . . . [that the] Commission . . . engaged in a
conspiracy to cover up a crime. . . ."[36] Lane surely no longer
accepts this kind but false view of the Commission's work, and has
omitted the introduction by the prestigious Trevor-Roper from the
1975 paperback reissue of his book. In the intervening years,
however, Lane has taken public stances that have seriously
compromised his credibility. In the midst of his close association
with Jim Garrison prior to the acquittal of Clay Shaw, Lane told
the press that he knew the identities of the real murderers of
President Kennedy.[37] During the 1968 presidential campaign, in
which he ran for Vice-President on a ticket with Dick Gregory, Lane
held a press conference in Philadelphia to announce that Garrison
"has substantially solved the assassination conspiracy. He knows
who was involved and has strong evidence. I've seen the evidence;
I've talked to the witnesses."[38] Lane also claimed to have two
copies of this evidence, which he promised to release if the
government kept Shaw from going to trial. The evidence presented
at Shaw's trial, needless to say, did not solve the assassination;
neither Garrison nor Lane ever possessed the dispositive evidence
each claimed to have.
Doubters who sought a rational and scholarly treatment of the
Commission's failure flocked to Edward Jay Epstein when his
critique of the inner workings of the Commission, "Inquest," was
published in 1966; they were soon to be disappointed. Many of
Epstein's most telling points were based on unrecorded interviews
with Commission members and staff lawyers and thus could not be
verified when the inevitable denials came. Yet, for all his
pretenses, Epstein actually defended the official investigation.
According to Epstein, the Warren Commission was involved in a
situation that might have excused lying in the "national interest."
He rightly asserted that the "nation's faith in its own
institutions was held to be at stake."[39] But, in concluding his
book, he found that "in establishing its version of the truth, the
Warren Commission acted to reassure the nation and protect the
national interest."[40] This, he implied, justified the failure to
make "it clear that very substantial evidence indicated the
presence of a second assassin."[41] Three years after writing his
book, Epstein totally reversed his position in a "New York Times
Magazine" article.[42] "Nor is there any substantial evidence that
I know of," he wrote in 1969, "that indicates there was more than
one rifleman firing." Suddenly, to Epstein, it was incidental that
the Commission "had conducted a less than exhaustive
investigation." Of the "great number of inconsistencies" between
the official evidence and the official conclusions, he could say
only that "there is no formula for adding up inconsistencies and
arriving at the truth," as if this platitude would rescue the
Commission's findings. Those who suggest that these massive
"inconsistencies" prove the invalidity of the Warren Report,
Epstein opined, merely engage in "obfuscatory rhetoric."
Perhaps the two best-known books departing from the perspective
of the inadequacies of the official investigation and entering into
the realm of alternative theories are Richard Popkin's "The Second
Oswald" and Josiah Thompson's "Six Seconds in Dallas." Both books
cite a wealth of evidence but are thoroughly inadequate in
themselves, and thus, to my thinking, are counterproductive. "The
Second Oswald" was introduced as "the third stage of a great case"
and promoted as "the startling new theory of the
assassination."[43] The theory--that someone, resembling and
posing as Oswald, planted incriminating circumstantial evidence
during the two months before the assassination--was hardly new.
Harold Weisberg had devoted a chapter of his "Whitewash" to it,
although not in the context of suggesting a solution to the crime.
Weisberg's copyrighted work was never acknowledged by Popkin, who
falsely claimed singular and original credit. Popkin's
preoccupation with the importance of solving the crime has led him
into strange pursuits, the latest of which was to inform President
Ford that John Kennedy was killed by "zombie assassins," programmed
like robots by the CIA.[44] Professor Thompson's book, a slick
presentation utilizing numerous photographs, refuses to name any
assassins but offers a scenerio [sic] in which three assassins
fired four shots in Dealey Plaza. The theory is hopelessly flawed.
It is based on a first shot fired later than the evidence
indicates;[45] it relies heavily on interpretations of the
Zapruder film that are tenuous at best;[46] it fails to account
for at least one shot that missed the car;[47] and it is riddled
with basic inaccuracies such as the misidentification of a
cartridge case first forwarded to the FBI by the Dallas Police (an
integral part of the "theory").[48]
Of all those critics who began with a desire to help but who
wound up damaging their credibility through irresponsible action,
no one has been more of a disappointment than Dr. Cyril Wecht. For
years Dr. Wecht was an outspoken and highly qualified critic of
President Kennedy's autopsy. His exceptional credentials in
forensic pathology were of great value to many critics researching
the case. Then, in 1972, Dr. Wecht applied for and was granted
access to the photographs and X rays of President Kennedy's body
taken during the autopsy. Most critics rejoiced that finally an
expert from "our side" would be allowed to study this long-
suppressed evidence.
I had great reservations as to the advisability of Dr. Wecht's
viewing this material. Affirmatively, there was little that the
pictures and X rays could tell because the autopsy itself had been
hopelessly botched. The report of an earlier examination by an
expert panel convened at the government's behest in 1968 had
already revealed enough information to destroy the official
reconstruction of the crime and suggest perjury in the testimony of
the autopsy pathologists before the Warren Commission.[49] Thus, I
felt that an examination by Dr. Wecht in 1972 could accomplish
little and actually be disserving, because Dr. Wecht, for all his
expertise in forensic pathology, was never an expert {on the
assassination}. I knew that Dr. Wecht was closely advised by
critics whom I considered irresponsible, and I feared the sort of
public posture he would assume as a result of their counsels. When
Dr. Wecht solicited my help prior to viewing the pictures and X
rays,[50] I advised him of my position[51] and received no
response. Years later I learned that he was so enraged at my
suggestions of caution that he forbade his panel of "advisers" from
ever communicating his findings to me.[52]
Dr. Wecht's behavior subsequent to viewing the suppressed
photographic material has exceeded my worst expectations. His
early statements and writings sensationalized the fact that
President Kennedy's brain was missing,[53] seriously overrating
the evidential value of the brain.[54] He initially chose to
temper his remarks about the pictures and X rays themselves by
claiming that the incomplete state of the evidence made a
conclusive determination of the source of the shots impossible.[55]
However, Dr. Wecht did not hesitate to offer unfounded speculation
about the assassination or the murder of Officer Tippit.[56] On
one occasion he stated: "I believe the evidence shows conclusively
. . . that the assassination was the work of a conspiracy, and that
the Central Intelligence Agency--the CIA--was definitely
involved."[57] When Dr. Wecht ultimately reduced his findings to
an article for a medical journal, his position changed, although
hardly for the better. He toned down his earlier caveats about the
limits of the medical evidence and concluded that the available
evidence led him to believe that President Kennedy was struck by
two bullets from the rear.[58] In my opinion, it was highly
irresponsible for Dr. Wecht to announce such a tenuous conclusion
while ignoring the irrefutable evidence that the pictures and X
rays destroy the integrity of all the medical evidence upon which
the Warren Report was based--as he himself had testified in open
court years before. In some cases it is difficult to believe that
errors in Dr. Wecht's article could have been inadvertent. The
article casually notes that an X ray of the President's head
revealed at least three fragments of metal in the {left} hemisphere
of the brain;[59] the article also claims to vouch for the
accuracy of the description of the same X ray contained in the
report of the 1968 panel review.[60] What Dr. Wecht failed to tell
his readers is that the 1968 panel stated that there were {no}
metallic fragments depicted on the X ray to the left of the midline
of the head, a finding which, according to that panel, renders the
theory of a frontal shot "not reasonable to postulate."[61] If Dr.
Wecht's observation is correct, he deceived his readers in claiming
to verify the earlier panel report and in failing to note the
glaring discrepancy.
Dr. Wecht's apparent desire to solve a crime that cannot be
solved has earned him the dubious honor of being quoted extensively
by defenders of the Warren Report.[62] Even the 1975 presidential
commission investigating the CIA cited Dr. Wecht's testimony and
writings to support the notion that President Kennedy was shot only
from behind.[63] Dr. Wecht, ostensibly still a "critic," protested
that he had been misrepresented and promised to eat the transcript
of his testimony--on the steps of the White House--if he really
said what had been attributed to him.[64] Soon Wecht admitted that
his words had merely been used out of context.[65] But there would
be no eating on the White House steps; the testimony had already
consumed Dr. Wecht.
Facts, not theories, documentation, not speculation, are the
only responsible approach to the sordid history of President
Kennedy's murder. The evidence is simply insufficient to allow any
determination of what really happened on November 22, 1963, and a
critic attempting to fashion a solution without respecting the
limits of the evidence is doomed to sacrifice his credibility.
The crime remains unsolved, and, as I document here, the federal
government played a direct and deliberate role in assuring that it
would remain unsolved. This is a fact far more frightening than
even the most outrageous theory about who committed the crime. It
is also intolerable. One of the few remedies available to the
average citizen is to set the record straight, however and wherever
it can be done, in order to lay the foundation for responsible
congressional action.
To set the record straight is the purpose of this book. Here I
present documented proof of two points essential to any
understanding of the assassination and its official
"investigation":
1. Lee Harvey Oswald did not fire any shots in the
assassination;
2. The Warren Commission considered no possibility other than
that Oswald was the lone assassin, and consciously endeavored to
fabricate a case against Oswald.
It is not the critic's responsibility to explain the motives of
the Commission members or their staff, or to name assassins and
conspirators. The only responsibility of the critic is to deal
with the facts and never to avoid or attempt to modify, without
factual basis, the implications of the evidence. So, when the
Commissioners decided in advance that the wrong man was the lone
assassin, whatever their intentions, they protected the real
assassins. Through their staff they misinformed the American
people and falsified history. Regardless of whether their false
solution to the crime was a "politically acceptable explanation,"
they did nothing to rectify the politically "unacceptable" fact.
When a government can get away with what ours did at the death of
its president, the presidency and the people are betrayed.
The assassination of a president is a total negation of the
electoral process, which is the very foundation of democratic
institutions. With the Warren Report, the government sacrificed
its credibility, and undermined any legitimate basis the people
might have had for confidence in it. Very simply, a government
that disseminates blatant falsehoods about the murder of its chief
executive and frames an innocent man is not accountable to and does
not deserve the confidence of the people.
This is a disquieting reality, but one that must be faced if
integrity is to be restored to our government and its institutions.
The government must function properly, with decency, honesty, and
respect for the law. In framing Oswald and exculpating
presidential assassins, the Commission mocked the law and every
principle of justice. In the words of former Supreme Court Justice
Louis Brandeis, "In a government of laws, the very existence of the
government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law
scrupulously."[66]
This book is not a call to the people to lose faith in their
government. It is a call to reason, so that no one will
unquestioningly accept governmental assurances without first
checking the facts. In the end we must face reality; we must
reckon with truth no matter where it is found.
__________
[1] Harold Weisberg, "Whitewash: The Report on the Warren Report"
(Hyattstown, Md.: Harold Weisberg, 1965), p. 189.
[2] Transcript of Warren Commission executive session of January 22,
1964, pp. 11-13. The transcript is reproduced in Harold
Weisberg's "Post Mortem" (Frederick, Md.: Harold Weisberg, 1975),
pp. 475ff.
[3] Transcript of Warren Commission executive session of January 27,
1964, pp. 170-71. The full transcript is reproduced in Harold
Weisberg's "Whitewash IV: JFK Assassination Transcript"
(Frederick, Md.: Harold Weisberg, 1974).
[4] Transcript of Warren Commission executive session of December 16,
1963, p. 11.
[5] Memorandum dated February 10, 1964, from Charles Shaffer to
Howard Willens, available from the National Archives. This
document is reproduced in Weisberg's "Post Mortem" at p. 488.
[6] Memorandum dated January 23, 1964, from Francis Adams and Arlen
Specter to J. Lee Rankin, attachment II, item (c), available
from the National Archives. This document is reproduced in
Weisberg's "Post Mortem" at p. 490.
[7] See "Post Mortem," chap. 29 and pp. 407ff.
[8] Aebersold's letter is available from the National Archives. The
letter notes: "Our work leads one to expect that the tremendous
sensitivity of the activation analysis method is capable of
providing useful information that may not be otherwise attainable."
[9] Letter from J. Lee Rankin to J. Edgar Hoover, dated January 7, 1964.
[10] Transcript of Warren Commission executive session of January 27,
1964, p. 194.
[11] Memorandum from Melvin Eisenberg to Norman Redlich dated September
5, 1964. This document is reproduced in Weisberg's "Post Mortem"
at p. 477.
[12] See "Post Mortem," chap. 29 and p. 607.
[13] "Weisberg v. U.S. Department of Justice," 489 F.2d 1195 (D.C. Dir.
1973).
[14] During the Senate debate on the 1974 FOIA amendments, Senator
Edward Kennedy expressed his understanding that one of the
proposed amendments would "in effect override the court decisions
in the court of appeals on the Weisberg against United States."
Senator Philip Hart, who had written the amendment, responded:
"That is its purpose." "Congressional Record" of May 30, 1974,
S9329-30. The official legislative history is contained in the
Conference Report, H. Rep. 93-1380, 93d Congress, 2d Session, 1974.
[15] Weisberg's second FOIA suit for the spectrographic and NAA results
is described in detail with much of the accompanying documentation
reproduced in "Post Mortem," pp. 407ff. See also the affidavit of
FBI Agent John W. Kilty filed by the government in the suit, at
pp. 623-24.
[16] E.g., see Anthony Lewis's coverage of the Warren Report and
editorial comment by James Reston, "New York Times," September 28,
1964; "Washington Post" coverage of the same date, including
praise by Robert Donovan, p. A14, Roscoe Drummond, p. A13, Marquis
Childs, and an editorial saying the Report "deserves acceptance as
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth", a favorable editorial
in the "Washington Evening Star," September 28, 1964, p. A-8;
"Time" (October 2, 1964) and "Newsweek" (October 5, 1964) carried
lengthy "news" features praising the Report.
[17] E.g., see "Life," November 25, 1966, pp. 38-48; "Ramparts,"
October 1966, p. 3; "Saturday Evening Post," January 14, 1967,
and December 2, 1967, p. 88.
[18] In May 1967 a Harris Survey revealed that 66 percent of the
American public believed that the assassination was not the work
of one man but was part of a broader plot.
[19] "Philadelphia Inquirer," February 25, 1967.
[20] "Washington Post," February 23, 1967.
[21] "Philadelphia Inquirer," March 2, 1967.
[22] Ibid., March 2, 1969.
[23] "New York Times," March 8, 1975.
[24] "New York Times," May 12, 1975. See "Report to the President by
the Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States" (June
1975), Chap. 19.
[25] "Dallas Times Herald," August 31, 1975.
[26] "New York Times," September 1, 1975, p. 7.
[27] "New York Times," November 23, 1975.
[28] "New York Times," November 27, 1975.
[29] Weisberg, "Whitewash," p. 188.
[30] Weisberg, "Whitewash II," p. 7.
[31] Weisberg, "Whitewash," p. 189.
[32] Weisberg, "Photographic Whitewash," p. 137.
[33] Sylvia Meagher, "Accessories After the Fact" (New York: The
Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1967), p. xxiii.
[34] Ibid., p. 456.
[35] Mark Lane, "Rush to Judgment" (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston,
1966), p. 8.
[36] Ibid., pp. 15-16.
[37] "Lane: I Know the Assassin," "New York Post," March 21, 1967, p. 14.
[38] Philadelphia "Distant Drummer" for bi-weekly period beginning
November 1, 1968, p. 9.
[39] Edward J. Epstein, "Inquest" (New York: Bantam Books, 1966), p. 2.
[40] Ibid., p. 125.
[41] Ibid.
[42] Edward J. Epstein, "The Final Chapter in the Assassination
Controversy?", "New York Times Magazine," April 20, 1969.
[43] Richard Popkin, "The Second Oswald" (New York: Avon Books, 1966),
p. 9 and jacket blurb, back cover.
[44] Dick Russell, "'Dear President Ford: I Know Who Killed
JFK . . . ,' " "Village Voice," September 1, 1975.
[45] Compare Josiah Thompson, "Six Seconds in Dallas" (New York: Bernard
Geis Associates, 1967), pp. 34- 35, with Olson and Turner,
"Photographic Evidence and the Assassination of President John F.
Kennedy," "Journal of Forensic Sciences," October 1971.
[46] For example, Thompson claims that the precise moment of impact on
Governor Connally is ascertainable because the Governor's right
shoulder slumps, his cheeks puff, and a lock of hair flies up. "Six
Seconds," pp. 71-75. The shoulder slump would occur coincidentally
with the impact of the bullet; the other signs necessarily would
appear an instant {after}. Yet, the film reveals the shoulder slump
at frame 238, with the secondary signs of impact first appearing in
frame 237, {before} the supposed momentum transfer occurs.
[47] Thompson suggests that a fragment from the head shot might have
retained enough energy to travel 270 feet, strike a curbstone, and
ricochet to wound a bystander, but adds that "270 feet is a long
way for a fragment to fly." Ibid., pp. 230-33.
[48] The three cartridge cases found in the Book Depository were given
FBI identification numbers C6, C7, and C38. Only two cases were
forwarded to the FBI on the night of the assassination. Thompson,
attempting to "excite . . . suspicion" about C6, alleges that C6
was the case initially withheld from the FBI by the Dallas Police.
Ibid., p. 143. However, the evidence establishes beyond question
that C38 was the withheld case and that C6 and C7 were immediately
forwarded to the FBI. See CE 717, and 24H262. In support of his
assertion that C6 had been withheld, Thompson cites testimony by
Dallas Police Lt. J. C. Day (4H254-55), which was erroneous and
was later retracted by Day in a sworn affidavit (7H402). Thompson
does not mention the retraction.
[49] See Weisberg, "Post Mortem," Part II.
[50] Letter from Dr. Cyril H. Wecht to the author, dated July 20, 1972.
[51] Letter from author to Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, dated July 26, 1972.
[52] Tape of a conference between Dr. Wecht and several Warren Report
critics, recorded August 23, 1972. The tape was made available
to me by a participant in the conference. Of my letter, Dr. Wecht
stated: "I'm a little too big of a boy to receive a letter from
a punk kid like that, you know, 18 year old snotty nose kid." Dr.
Wecht also expressed anger that Harold Weisberg disapproved of his
examination.
[53] "Mystery Cloaks Fate of Brain of Kennedy," "New York Times," August
27, 1972, p. 1.
[54] Philip Nobile questioned Dr. Wecht about the brain in a nationally
syndicated column:
WECHT: The brain has disappeared because it would give us hard
physical evidence that the Warren Commission is
inaccurate regarding (1) the number of bullets that
struck the president's head and (2) the direction the
bullets came from.
NOBILE: In other words, you think the brain is the key to
solving the assassination?
WECHT: Yes, it is.
"Fort Lauderdale News and Sun-Sentinel," November 19, 1972, p. 4E.
[55] See Dr. Wecht's article in "Modern Medicine," November 27, 1972.
[56] E.g., see source cited in note 54.
[57] "National Enquirer," October 15, 1972.
[58] In 1972 Dr. Wecht wrote, "So far as the available materials show,
there might even have been shots fired from the front and right. .
. ." "Modern Medicine," November 27, 1972, p. 31. In 1974 Dr.
Wecht wrote: "So far as the available medical evidence shows, all
shots were fired from the rear. No support can be found for
theories which postulate gunmen to the front or right-front of the
Presidential car." Wecht and Smith, "The Medical Evidence in the
Assassination of President John F. Kennedy," "Forensic Science
Gazette," April 1974, p. 128.
[59] Wecht and Smith, "Forensic Science Gazette," April 1974, p. 118.
[60] Ibid., p. 114.
[61] Report of the Ramsey Clark panel, 1968, p. 12.
[62] E.g., see Jacob Cohen, "Conspiracy Fever," "Commentary," October
1975. My citation of Cohen's article should not in any way be
construed as an endorsement of it, for it is a gross and deliberate
misstatement of fact, as I documented in collaboration with Jerry
Policoff in the "Washington Star," October 26, 1975, Section H.
[63] "Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities Within
the United States," June 1975, p. 264.
[64] "New York Times," June 12, 1975.
[65] "Philadelphia Inquirer," June 15, 1975, p. 3-A.
[66] Dissenting opinion of Justice Brandeis in "Olmstead v. United
States," 277 U.S. 438 (1928).
__________________________________________________________________________
PART I:
THE PRESUMPTION OF GUILT
A Note on Citations
References to the 26-volume "Hearings Before the President's
Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy" follow this
form: volume number, H, page number; thus, for example, 4H165
refers to volume 4, page 165. Exhibits introduced in evidence
before the Commission are designated CE and a number; CE399, for
example, refers to the Commission's 399th exhibit. References to
the "Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of
President Kennedy" (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,
1964) follow this form: R, page number; R150, for example
indicates page 150 of the Report. Most references to the
Commission's unpublished files deposited in the National Archives
follow this form: CD, number: page number; CD5:260, for example,
indicates page 260 of Commission Document 5.
* * * * * * *
1
Assassination: The Official Case
As stated in its Report, one of the Warren Commission's main
objectives was "to identify the person or persons responsible for
both the assassination of President Kennedy and the killing of
Oswald through an examination of the evidence" (Rxiv).
Accordingly, the Commission produced one person whom it claimed to
be solely responsible for the assassination: Lee Harvey Oswald
(R18-23). Because the scope of the present study is limited to
Oswald's role in the shooting, it is vital that we first understand
the foundations for the Commission's conclusion that Oswald was
guilty.
In this chapter I will deal solely with the evidence that is
alleged to prove Oswald's guilt, as presented in the Report. I
will make no attempt to criticize the selection of evidence, but
rather will take the final report at face value, probing its logic
and structure so that it can be judged whether the determination of
Oswald's guilt is warranted by the "facts" set forth.
The first and most vital step in determining who shot at the
President involved ascertaining the location(s) and weapon(s) from
which the shots came. In a chapter entitled "The Shots From the
Texas School Book Depository," the Commission "analyzes the
evidence and sets forth its conclusions concerning the source,
effect, number and timing of the shots that killed President
Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally" (R61).
{The Scene}
The scene of the assassination was Dealey Plaza, the so-called
heart of Dallas, made up of three streets that converge at a
railroad overpass. At the opposite side of the plaza are several
buildings, many city owned. Along each side leading to the
underpass are grassy banks adorned with shrubbery and masonry
structures. Two grassy plots separate the three streets--Elm,
Main, and Commerce--all of which intersect with Houston at the head
of the plaza. The shooting occurred as the Presidential limousine
cruised down Elm Street toward the underpass.
One of the major conclusions of the Commission is that the shots
"were fired from the sixth floor window at the southeast corner of
the Texas School Book Depository" (R18), a book warehouse located
on the northwest corner of Elm and Houston. (Oswald was employed
in this building.) Several factors influenced this conclusion.
The Report first calls upon the witnesses who indicated in some
way that the shots originated from this source. It refers to two
spectators who claimed to see "a rifle being fired" from the
Depository window, two others who "saw a rifle in this window
immediately after the assassination," and "three employees of the
Depository, observing the parade from the fifth floor," who "heard
the shots fired from the floor immediately above them" (R61).
{The Limousine}
Discussed next is the presidential automobile (R76-77). On the
night of the assassination, Secret Service agents found two
relatively large bullet fragments in the front seat of the car--one
consisting of the nose portion of a bullet, the other a section of
the base portion. An examination of the limousine on November 23
by FBI agents disclosed three very small lead particles on the rug
beneath the left jump seat, which had been occupied by Mrs.
Connally, and a small lead residue on the inside surface of the
windshield, with a corresponding series of cracks on the outer
surface. All of the metallic pieces were compared by
spectrographic analysis by the FBI and "found to be similar in
metallic composition, but it was not possible to determine whether
two or more of the fragments came from the same bullet." The
physical characteristics of the windshield damage indicated that it
was struck on the inside surface from behind, by a bullet fragment
traveling at "fairly high velocity."
{Ballistics}
In a crime involving firearms, the ballistics evidence is always
of vital importance. This was especially true of the ballistics
evidence adduced by the Commission relating to the President's
murder. As used in the Report, this evidence seems to have a
clarifying effect, bringing together loose ends and creating a
circumstantial but superficially persuasive case. The relevant
discussion is summarized in the Report as follows, based on
unanimous expert testimony:
The nearly whole bullet found on Governor Connally's
stretcher at Parkland Memorial Hospital [the President and
the Governor were rushed to this hospital after the
shooting] and the two bullet fragments found on the front
seat of the Presidential limousine were fired from the 6.5-
millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found on the sixth floor
of the Depository Building to the exclusion of all other
weapons.
The three used cartridge cases found near the window on
the sixth floor at the southeast corner of the building were
fired from the same rifle which fired the above-described
bullet and fragments, to the exclusion of all other weapons.
(R18)
Here the Commission has related a rifle and three spent
cartridge cases found at the scene of the crime to a bullet found
in a location presumably occupied by Governor Connally as well as
to fragments found in the car in which both victims rode. The
circumstantial aspect of the ballistics evidence presented by the
Commission is this: it does not directly relate the weapon to a
specific shooter nor the bullet specimens to a specific victim's
body.
{Autopsy}
An autopsy is a central piece of evidence in violent or
unnatural death. In the case of death by gunshot wounds, an
autopsy can reveal a wealth of information, indicating the type(s)
of ammunition used by the assailant(s), as well as the general
relationship of the gun to the victim's body. Bullets or fragments
found in the body can sometimes conclusively establish the specific
weapon used in the crime. The medical evidence used by the
Commission emanated from (a) the doctors who observed the
President's and the Governor's wounds at Parkland Hospital, (b) the
autopsy on the President performed at the Bethesda Naval Hospital,
Maryland, on the night of the assassination, (c) the clothing worn
by the two victims, and (d) ballistics tests conducted with the
Carcano found in the Depository and ammunition of the same type as
that found in the hospital and the car. From this information the
Commission drew the following conclusions:
The nature of the bullet wounds suffered by President
Kennedy and Governor Connally and the location of the car at
the time of the shots establish that the bullets were fired
from above and behind the Presidential limousine, striking
the President and the Governor as follows:
(1) President Kennedy was first struck by a bullet which
entered at the back of his neck and exited through the lower
front portion of his neck, causing a wound which would not
necessarily have been lethal. The President was struck a
second time by a bullet which entered the right-rear portion
of his head, causing a massive and fatal wound.
(2) Governor Connally was struck by a bullet which
entered on the right side of his back and travelled downward
through the right side of his chest, exiting below his right
nipple. This bullet then passed through his right wrist and
entered his left thigh where it caused a superficial wound.
(R18-19)
For each set of wounds, the Report cites ballistics tests in
support of the notion that the injuries observed were consistent
with bullets fired from the Carcano (R87, 91, 94-95). In two
instances it is asserted that the tests further indicated that the
wounds could have been produced by the bullet specimens traceable
to the {specific} Carcano found in the Depository, as opposed to
merely being consistent with a {similar} rifle firing similar
ammunition (R87, 95).
{The Trajectory}
"The trajectory" is the next topic of discussion in the Report,
which says: " . . . to insure that all data were consistent with
the shots having been fired from the sixth floor window, the
Commission requested additional investigation, including analysis
of motion picture films of the assassination and on-site tests"
(R96). The films referred to by the Commission were those taken of
the assassination by spectators Abraham Zapruder, Orville Nix, and
Mary Muchmore. Only Zapruder's film, taken from the President's
side of the street, provided a photographic record of the entire
shooting. (Zapruder's position is shown in the sketch of Dealey
Plaza.)
Motion picture footage is composed of a series of still pictures
called "frames" taken in extremely rapid succession which, when
projected at approximately the same speed of exposure, create the
illusion of motion. The frames of the Zapruder film were numbered
by the FBI for convenient reference, and it is not until frame 130
that the President's car appears in the film. From that point on,
this is basically what we see in terms of frames: The car
continues down Elm for a brief period, gradually approaching a road
sign that loomed in Zapruder's view. At frame 210, President
Kennedy goes out of view behind this sign. Governor Connally, also
temporarily blocked from Zapruder's sight, first reappears in frame
222. At 225 the President comes into view again, and he has
obviously been wounded, for his face has a grimace and his hands
are rising toward his chin. Within about ten frames, the Governor
is struck; he manifests a violent reaction. In the succeeding
frames we see Mrs. Kennedy reach over to help her husband, her
attention temporarily diverted by Connally, who is screaming.
Finally, at frame 313, the President is struck in the head, as can
be clearly seen by the great rupturing of skull and brain tissues.
Mrs. Kennedy scrambles frantically onto the trunk of the limousine
and is forced back into her seat by a Secret Service agent who had
run to the car from the follow-up vehicle. Subsequent to the head
shot, the limousine accelerated in its approach toward the
underpass. Once the car is out of view, the film stops. The Nix
and Muchmore films depict sequences immediately before, during, and
after the head shot.
Examination of Zapruder's camera by the FBI established that an
average of 18.3 film frames was exposed during each second of
operation; thus the timing of certain events could be calculated
by allowing 1/18.3 seconds for the action depicted from one frame
to the next. Tests of the "assassin's" rifle disclosed that at
least 2.3 seconds (or 41-42 film frames) were required between
shots (R97).
The on-site tests were conducted by the FBI and Secret Service
in Dealey Plaza on May 24, 1964. A car simulating the Presidential
limousine was driven down Elm Street, as depicted in the various
assassination films, with stand-ins occupying the general positions
of the President and the Governor. An agent situated in the
sixth-floor window tracked the car through the telescopic sight on
the Carcano as the assassin allegedly did on November 22. Films
depicting the "assassin's view" were made through the rifle scope
(R97). During these tests it was ascertained that the foliage of a
live oak tree would have blocked a sixth-floor view of the
President during his span of travel corresponding to frames 166
through 210. An opening among the leaves permitted viewing the
President's back at frame 186, for a duration of about 1/18 second
(R98).
The Commission concluded that the first shot to wound the
President in the neck occurred between frames 210 to 225, largely
because (a) a sixth-floor gunman could not have shot at the
President for a substantial time prior to 210 because of the tree,
and (b) the President seems to show an obvious reaction to his neck
wounds at 225. Exact determination of the time of impact was
prevented because Mr. Kennedy was blocked from Zapruder's view by a
road sign from 210 to 224 (R98, 105).
The Report next argues that the trajectory from the sixth-floor
window strongly indicated that a bullet exiting from the
President's throat and traveling at a substantial velocity would
not have missed both the car and its occupants. No damage to the
limousine was found consistent with the impact of such a missile.
"Since [the bullet] did not hit the automobile, [FBI expert]
Frazier testified that it probably struck Governor Connally," says
the Report, adding, "The relative positions of President Kennedy
and Governor Connally at the time when the President was struck in
the neck confirm that the same bullet probably passed through both
men" (R105). The evidence allegedly supporting this double-hit
theory is then discussed, and the Commission concludes that one
bullet probably was responsible for all the nonfatal wounds to the
two victims (R19).
{Number of Shots}
"The weight of the evidence indicates that there were three
shots fired," declares the Report (R19). This conclusion is based
not so much on witness recollections as on the physical evidence at
the scene--namely, the presence of three cartridge cases (R110-11).
The Commission reasons that, because (a) one shot passed through
the President's neck and probably went on to wound the Governor,
(b) a subsequent shot penetrated the President's head, (c) no other
shot struck the car, and (d) three shots were fired, "it follows
that one shot probably missed the car and its occupants. The
evidence is inconclusive as to whether it was the first, second, or
third shot which missed" (R111).
{Time Span}
Determination of the time span of the shots, according to the
Commission's theory, is dependent on which of the three shots
missed. As calculated by use of the Zapruder film, the time span
from the first shot to wound the President to the one that killed
him was 4.8 to 5.6 seconds. Had the missed shot occurred between
these two, says the Report, all the shots could still have been
fired from the Carcano, which required at least 2.3 seconds (or 42
frames) between successive shots. If the first or third shots
missed, the time span grows to at least 7.1 to 7.9 seconds for the
three shots.
Thus, the Commission concluded
that the shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded
Governor Connally were fired from the sixth-floor window at
the southeast corner of the Texas School Book Depository
Building. Two bullets probably caused all the wounds
suffered by President Kennedy and Governor Connally. Since
the preponderance of the evidence indicated that three shots
were fired, the Commission concluded that one shot probably
missed the Presidential limousine and its occupants, and
that the three shots were fired in a time period ranging
from approximately 4.8 to in excess of 7 seconds. (R117)
{The Assassin}
In a preface to its discussion of the evidence relevant to the
identity of President Kennedy's assassin, the Report adds a new
conclusion to those of its preceding chapter. Here it asserts not
only that it has established the source of the shots as the
specific Depository window, but also "that the weapon which fired
[the] bullets was a Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5-millimeter Italian rifle
bearing the serial number C2766" (R118). Although it had
previously traced the found bullet specimens to this rifle
discovered in the Depository, the Report never specifically
concluded that these bullets were responsible for the wounds.
Making such an assertion at this point provided the premise for
associating the owner of that rifle with the murder.
Who owned the rifle? The Report announces:
Having reviewed the evidence that (1) Lee Harvey Oswald
purchased the rifle used in the assassination [although the
name under which the rifle was ordered was "A. Hidell," the
order forms were in Oswald's handwriting (R118-119)], (2)
Oswald's palmprint was on the rifle in a position which
shows that he had handled it while it was disassembled, (3)
fibers found on the rifle most probably came from the shirt
Oswald was wearing on the day of the assassination [although
the Commission's expert felt that these fibers had been
picked up "in the recent past," he could not say definitely
how long they had adhered to the rifle (R125)]. The
Commission never considered the possibility that they were
deposited on the rifle subsequent to Oswald's arrest.], (4)
a photograph taken in the yard of Oswald's apartment shows
him holding this rifle [the photographic expert could render
no opinion as to whether the rifle shown in these pictures
was the C2766 and not another rifle of the same
configuration (R127)], and (5) the rifle was kept among
Oswald's possessions from the time of its purchase until the
day of the assassination [The Commission cites no evidence
that the specific C2766 rifle was in Oswald's possession.],
the Commission concluded that the rifle used to assassinate
President Kennedy and wound Governor Connally was owned and
possessed by Lee Harvey Oswald. (R129)
At this point the Commission has related Oswald to the
President's murder in two ways. It has posited the source of the
shots at a location accessible to Oswald, and has named as the
assassination weapon a rifle purchased and possibly possessed by
Oswald. This, although circumstantial, obviously laid the
foundation for the ultimate conclusion that Oswald was the
assassin. Now his activities on the day of the shooting had to be
considered in light of this charge.
In a section headed "The Rifle in the Building," the Report
takes up the problem of how the C2766 rifle was brought into the
Depository. The search for an answer was not difficult for the
Commission. Between Thursday night, November 21, and Friday
morning, Oswald had engaged in what could have been construed as
incriminating behavior. As the Report explains,
During October and November of 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald
lived in a roominghouse in Dallas while his wife and
children lived in Irving, at the home of Ruth Paine,
approximately 15 miles from Oswald's place of work at the .
. . Depository. Oswald travelled between Dallas and Irving
on weekends in a car driven by a neighbor of the Paine's,
Buell Wesley Frazier, who also worked at the Depository.
Oswald generally would go to Irving on Friday afternoon and
return to Dallas Monday morning. (R129)
On Thursday, November 21, Oswald asked Frazier whether he could
ride home with him to Irving that afternoon, saying that he had to
pick up some curtain rods for his apartment. The Report would lead
us to believe that Oswald's Irving visit on the day prior to the
assassination was a departure from his normal schedule. Adding
further suspicion to this visit, the Report asserts "It would
appear, however, that obtaining curtain rods was not the purpose of
Oswald's trip to Irving on November 21," noting that Oswald's
apartment, according to his landlady, did not need curtains or
rods, and no curtain rods were discovered in the Depository after
the assassination (R130).
By seeming to disprove Oswald's excuse for the weekday trip to
Irving, the Report establishes a basis for more sinister
explanations; they hinge on the assumption that the rifle was
stored in the Paine garage. Asserting that Oswald had the
opportunity to enter the garage Thursday night without being
detected, the Report emphasizes that, by the afternoon of November
22 the rifle was missing from "its accustomed place." The
implication is that Oswald removed it (R130-31).
To top off this progression of hypotheses is the fact that
Oswald carried a "long and bulky package" to work on the morning of
the assassination. As he walked to Frazier's house for a ride to
the Depository, Frazier's sister, Linnie May Randle, saw him
carrying a package that she estimated to be about 28 inches long
and 8 inches wide. Frazier was the next to see the brown paper
container, as he got into the car and again as he and Oswald walked
toward the Depository after parking in a nearby lot. He thought
the package was around 2 feet long and 5 or 6 inches wide,
recalling that Oswald held it cupped in his right hand with the
upper end wedged in his right armpit. The Report expresses its
apparent exasperation that both Frazier's and Mrs. Randle's
estimates and descriptions were of a package shorter than the
longest component of the Carcano which, when disassembled, is 34.8
inches in length. It asserts that "Mrs. Randle saw the bag
fleetingly" and quotes Frazier as saying that he paid it little
attention, and concludes that the two "are mistaken as to the
length of the bag" (R131-34). Had they not been "mistaken" in
their recollections, Oswald's package could not have contained the
rifle.
"A handmade bag of wrapping paper and tape was found in the
southeast corner of the sixth floor along-side the window from
which the shots were fired (R134)," says the Report, citing
scientific evidence that this bag was (a) made from materials
obtained in the Depository's shipping room, and (b) handled by
Oswald so that he left a palmprint and fingerprint on it. After
connecting this sack with the "assassin's" window and Oswald, the
Report attempts a further connection with the rifle by asserting
that some fibers found inside the bag matched some of those which
composed the blanket in which the rifle was allegedly stored,
suggesting that perhaps the rifle "picked up the fibers from the
blanket and transferred them to the paper bag." This feeble
evidence is all the Commission could produce to suggest a
connection between the rifle and the bag. A Commission staff
lawyer, Wesley Liebeler, called it "very thin."[1] Likewise, the
Commission asserts that Oswald {constructed} this bag, while it
presents evidence only that he {handled} it (R134-37).
One may indeed express concern that, on the basis of the above-
cited evidence, the Commission asserts, "The preponderance of the
evidence supports the conclusions that" Oswald: "(1) told the
curtain rod story to Frazier to explain both the return to Irving
on a Thursday and the obvious bulk of the package he intended to
bring to work the next day," even though no explanation other than
the transporting of the rifle was considered by the Commission
(e.g., that perhaps Oswald told the "curtain rod story" to Frazier
to cover a personal reason such as making up with his wife, with
whom he had quarreled earlier that week, bringing a large package
the following morning to substantiate the false excuse); "(2) took
paper and tape from the wrapping bench of the Depository and
fashioned a bag large enough to carry the disassembled rifle,"
although no evidence is offered that Oswald ever constructed the
bag; "(3) removed the rifle from the Paine's garage on Thursday
evening," citing no evidence that it might not have been someone
other than Oswald who removed the rifle, if it was ever there at
all; "(4) carried the rifle into the Depository Building,
concealed in the bag," even though, to make this assertion, it had
to reject the stories of the only witnesses who saw the package,
and could produce no direct evidence that the rifle had been in the
bag; and "(5) left the bag alongside the window from which the
shots were fired," offering no substantiation that it was Oswald
who left the bag in this position (R137). The Commission's
conclusion from this evidence is that "Oswald carried [his] rifle
into the Depository building on the morning of November 22, 1963"
(R19), although the prefabrication of the bag demands premeditation
of the murder, and the presence of the bag by the "assassin's"
window implies, according to the Report, that Oswald brought the
rifle to this window.
Because its logic was faulty, the Commission's interpretation of
"the preponderance of the evidence" loses substantial foundation.
Not one of the five above-quoted subconclusions relating to the
rifle in the building is confirmed by evidence; a conclusive
determination is precluded by insufficient evidence. The most the
Commission could fairly have asserted from the facts presented is
that, although there was no conclusive evidence that Oswald brought
his rifle to the Depository, there was likewise no conclusive
disproof, that is, the state of the evidence could not dictate a
reliable conclusion.
As the Commission edged toward its ultimate conclusion that
Oswald was the lone assassin, it reached a comfortable position in
having concluded that Oswald brought his rifle to the Depository.
It next had to consider the question of Oswald's presence at the
right window at the right time. Assured that Oswald "worked
principally on the first and sixth floors of the building," we
learn that "the Commission evaluated the physical evidence found
near the window after the assassination and the testimony of
eyewitnesses in deciding whether Lee Harvey Oswald was present at
this window at the time of the assassination" (R137).
The Report presents only one form of "physical evidence"--
fingerprints--asserting that a total of four of Oswald's prints
were left on two boxes near the window and on the paper sack found
in that area. In evaluating the significance of this evidence,
the Commission considered the possibility that Oswald
handled these cartons as part of his normal duties. . . .
Although a person could handle a carton and not leave
identifiable prints, none of these employees [who might have
handled the cartons] except Oswald left identifiable prints
on the cartons. This finding, in addition to the freshness
of one of the prints . . . led the Commission to attach some
probative value to the fingerprint and palmprint
identifications in reaching the conclusion that Oswald was
present at the window from which the shots were fired,
although the prints do not establish the exact time he was
there. (R141)
The Report's reasoning is that the presence of Oswald's prints
on objects present at the sixth-floor window is probative evidence
of his presence at this window at some time. Liebeler felt that
this evidence "seems to have very little significance indeed," and
pointed out that the absence of other employees' fingerprints "does
not help to convince me that [Oswald] moved [the boxes] in
connection with the assassination. It shows the opposite just as
well."[2] Both Liebeler and the Report avoid the logical, and the
only precise, meaning of these fingerprint data: the presence of
Oswald's prints on the cartons and the bag means {only} that he
handled them; it does not disclose {when} or {where}. Oswald
{could} have touched these objects on the first floor of the
Depository prior to the time when they were moved to their location
by the "assassin's" window, perhaps by another person. Thus, this
evidence does not connect Oswald with the source of the shots and
is meaningless, because Oswald normally handled such cartons in the
building as part of his work.
"Additional testimony linking Oswald with the point from which
the shots were fired was provided by the testimony of Charles
Givens," the Report continues, "who was the last known employee to
see Oswald inside the building prior to the assassination."
According to the Report, Givens saw Oswald walking {away} from the
southeast corner of the sixth floor at 11:55, 35 minutes before the
shooting (R143). That Oswald was seen where he normally worked
such a substantial amount of the time prior to the shots connects
him with nothing except his expected routine. That "none of the
Depository employees is known to have seen Oswald again until after
the shooting," if true, is likewise of little significance,
especially since most of the employees had left the building to
view the motorcade.
In its next section relevant to the discussion of "Oswald at
Window," the Report--best expressed in colloquial terms--"pulls a
fast one." This section is entitled "Eyewitness Identification of
Assassin," but contains {no} identification accepted by the
Commission (R143-49). The first eyewitness mentioned is Howard
Brennan who, 120 feet from the window, said he saw a man fire at
the President. "During the evening of November 22, Brennan
identified Oswald as the person in the [police] lineup who bore the
closest resemblance to the man in the window but said he was unable
to make a positive identification." Prior to this lineup, Brennan
had seen Oswald's picture on television. In the months before his
Warren Commission testimony, Brennan underwent some serious changes
of heart. A month after the assassination he was suddenly positive
that the man he saw was Oswald. Three weeks later, he was again
unable to make a positive identification. In two months, when he
appeared before the Commission, he was again ready to swear that
the man was Oswald, claiming to have been capable of such an
identification all along. Brennan's vacillation on the crucial
matter of identifying Oswald renders all of his varying statements
unworthy of credence. The Report recognized the worthlessness of
Brennan's after-the-fact identification, although it managed to use
his testimony for the most it could yield:
Although the record indicates that Brennan was an
accurate observer, he declined to make a positive
identification of Oswald when he first saw him in the police
lineup. {The Commission therefore, does not base its
conclusion concerning the identity of the assassin on
Brennan's subsequent certain identification of Lee Harvey
Oswald as the man he saw fire the rifle}. . . . The
Commission is satisfied that . . . Brennan saw a man in the
window who closely resembled . . . Oswald. (R145-46;
emphasis added)
If the Commission did not base its conclusion as to Oswald's
presence at the window on Brennan's identification, upon whose
"eyewitness identification of assassin" did it rely? Under this
section it presents three additional witnesses who saw a man in the
window, all of whom gave sketchy descriptions, and {none} of whom
were able to identify the man. Thus, the Report, having rejected
Brennan's story, could offer {no} eyewitness capable of identifying
the assassin.
In pulling its "fast one," the Commission sticks to its
justified rejection of Brennan's identification for only 11 pages
for, when the conclusion to the "Oswald at Window" section is
drawn, his incredible identification is suddenly accepted. Here
the Commission concludes "that Oswald, at the time of the
assassination, was present at the window from which the shots were
fired" on the basis of findings stipulated above. One of these
"findings" involves "an eyewitness to the shooting" who "identified
Oswald in a lineup as the man most nearly resembling the man he saw
and later identified Oswald as the man he observed" (R156).
Through this double standard the Report manifests itself to be no
more credible than Brennan.
"In considering whether Oswald was at the southeast corner
window at the time the shots were fired, the Commission . . .
reviewed the testimony of witnesses who saw Oswald in the building
within minutes after the assassination" (R149). Immediately after
the shots, Patrolman M. L. Baker, riding a motorcycle in the
procession, drove to a point near the front entrance of the
Depository, entered the building, and sought assistance in reaching
the roof, for he "had it in mind that the shots came from the top
of this building." He met manager Roy Truly, and the two ran up
the steps toward the roof. Baker stopped on the second floor and
saw Oswald entering the lunchroom there. This encounter in the
lunchroom presented a problem to the Commission:
In an effort to determine whether Oswald could have
descended to the lunchroom from the sixth floor by the time
Baker and Truly arrived Commission counsel asked Baker and
Truly to repeat their movements from the time of the shot
until Baker came upon Oswald in the lunchroom. . . . On the
first test, the elapsed time between the simulated first
shot and Baker's arrival on the second-floor stair landing
was one minute and 30 seconds. The second test run required
one minute and 15 seconds.
A test was also conducted to determine the time required
to walk from the southeast corner of the sixth floor to the
second-floor lunchroom by stairway [Oswald could not have
used the elevator.]. . . . The first test, run at normal
walking pace, required one minute, 18 seconds; the second
test, at a "fast walk" took one minute, 14 seconds. (R152)
Thus, as presented in the Report, these tests could prove that
Oswald was {not} at the sixth-floor window, for had his time of
descent been one minute, 18 seconds and Baker's time of ascent been
one minute, {14} seconds, Oswald would have arrived at the
lunchroom {after} Baker, which was not the case on November 22.
Recognizing this, the Report assures us that the reconstruction of
Baker's movements was invalid in that it failed to simulate actions
that would have lengthened Baker's time. Thus, it is able to
conclude "that Oswald could have fired the shots and still have
been present in the second floor lunchroom when seen by Baker and
Truly" (R152-53).
Here the Commission is playing games. It tells us that its
reconstructions could support or destroy the assumption of Oswald's
presence at the window. This point is crucial in determining the
identity of the assassin, for it could potentially have provided
Oswald with an alibi. Instead of conducting the tests properly,
the Commission tells us that it neglected to simulate some of
Baker's actions, and on the premise that its test was invalid,
draws a conclusion incriminating Oswald. One of the factors
mentioned by the Report as influencing the conclusion that Oswald
was at the window is that his actions after the assassination "are
consistent with" his having been there. Because the premise of an
invalid reconstruction makes debatable any inferences drawn from
it, and because Oswald's actions after the shooting were consistent
with his having been almost {anywhere} in the building, this aspect
of the Report's conclusion is a {non sequitur}.
The Report ultimately attempts to combine its four logically
deficient arguments in support of the conclusion that Oswald was
present during the assassination at the window from which the shots
were fired. The facts presented are not sufficient to support such
a conclusion. The fingerprint evidence does not place Oswald at
that window, for the objects on which he left prints were mobile
and therefore may have been in a location other than the window
when he handled them. That someone saw Oswald near this area 35
minutes before the shots does not mean he was there during the
shots, nor does the alleged fact that no one else saw Oswald
eliminate the possibility of his having been elsewhere. The one
witness who claimed to have seen Oswald in the window could do so
only at intervals, rendering his story incredible. Oswald's
actions after the assassination do not place him at any specific
location during the shots and might even preclude his having been
at the window.
The only fair conclusion from the facts presented is that there
is no evidence that Oswald was at the window at the time of the
assassination.
At this point in the development of the Commission's case,
Oswald "officially" possessed the murder weapon, brought it to the
Depository on the day of the assassination, and was present at the
"assassin's" window during the shots. There would seem to be only
one additional consideration relevant to the proof of his guilt:
his capability with a rifle. This issue is addressed only after
several unrelated matters are considered.
The Commission's conclusion that Oswald was the assassin is not
based on a constant set of considerations. The chapter "The
Assassin" draws its conclusion from eight factors (R195). The
chapter "Summary and Conclusions" omits two of these factors and
adds another. The eight-part conclusion states that:
On the basis of the evidence reviewed in this chapter the
Commission has found that Lee Harvey Oswald (1) owned and
possessed the rifle used to kill President Kennedy and wound
Governor Connally, (2) brought this rifle to the Depository
Building on the morning of the assassination, (3) was
present, at the time of the assassination, at the window
from which the shots were fired, (4) killed Dallas Police
Officer J. D. Tippit in an apparent attempt to escape, (5)
resisted arrest by drawing a fully loaded pistol and
attempting to shoot another police officer, (6) lied to the
police after his arrest concerning important substantive
matters, (7) attempted, in April 1963, to kill Major General
Edwin A. Walker, and (8) possessed the capability with a
rifle which would have enabled him to commit the
assassination. On the basis of these findings the
Commission has concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the
assassin of President Kennedy. (R195)
Obviously, considerations 4, 5, 6, and 7 do not relate to the
question of whether Oswald did or did not pull the trigger of the
gun that killed the President and wounded the Governor. In the
alternate version of the Commission's conclusions, 4 and 5 are
omitted from the factors upon which the guilty "verdict" is based.
Added in this section is the consideration that the Mannlicher-
Carcano and the paper sack were found on the sixth floor subsequent
to the shooting (R19-20).
"In deciding whether Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots . . .,"
says the Report, "the Commission considered whether Oswald, using
his own rifle, possessed the capability to hit his target with two
out of three shots under the conditions described in Chapter III
[concerning the source of the shots]" (R189). The Commission's
previous conclusions leave little room for an assertion other than
one indicating that Oswald had the capability to fire the
assassination shots. If he could not have done this from lack of
sufficient skill, the other factors seeming to relate him to the
assassination will have to be accounted for by some other
explanation.
First considered under this section is the nature of the shots
(R189-91). Several experts are quoted as saying that the shots,
fired at ranges of 177 to 266 feet and employing a four-power
scope, were "not . . . particularly difficult" and "very easy."
However, in no case did the experts take into account the time
element involved in the assassination shots. Without this
consideration, Wesley Liebeler could not understand the basis for
any conclusion on the nature of the shots. He wrote:
The section on the nature of the shots deals basically
with the range and the effect of a telescopic sight.
Several experts conclude that the shots were easy. There
is, however, no consideration given here to the time allowed
for the shots. I do not see how someone can conclude that a
shot is easy or hard unless he knows something about how
long the firer has to shoot, i.e., how much time is allotted
for the shots.[3]
Liebeler's criticism had no effect on the final report, which
ignores the time question in evaluating the nature of the shots.
The evaluation of the shots as "easy" should therefore be
considered void and all inferences based on it at best
questionable.
In considering "Oswald's Marine Training," the Report deceives
its readers by use of common and frequent {non sequiturs}. First
it includes, as relevant to Oswald's {rifle} capability, his
training in the use of weapons other than rifles, such as pistols
and shotguns. Of this Liebeler said bluntly, "That is completely
irrevelant to the question of his ability to fire a rifle. . . .
It is, furthermore, prejudicial to some extent."[4] The Report
then reveals with total dispassion Oswald's official Marine Corps
evaluation based on firing tests: when first tested in the
Marines, Oswald was "a fairly good shot"; on the basis of his last
recorded test he was a {"rather poor shot."} A Marine marksmanship
expert who had absolutely no association with Oswald is next quoted
as offering various excuses for the "poor shot" rating, including
bad weather and lack of motivation. No substantiation in any form
is put forth to buttress these "excuses." As the record presented
in the Report stands, Oswald left the Marines a "fairly poor shot."
However, the unqualified use of the expert's unsubstantiated
hypothesizing gives the impression that Oswald was not such a "poor
shot." On the basis of this questionable premise, the Report
quotes more experts who, in meaningless comparisons, contradicted
the official evaluation of Oswald's performance with a rifle and
called him "a good to excellent shot" (R191-92). One may indeed
question the state of our national "defense" when "rather poor
shots" from the Marines are considered "excellent" marksmen.
In discussing "Oswald's Rifle Practice Outside the Marines"
(R192-93), the Report cites a total of 11 instances in which Oswald
could be physically associated with a firearm. Most of these
instances involved hunting trips, six of which took place in the
Soviet Union. However, as Liebeler pointed out in his critical
memorandum, Oswald used a shotgun when hunting in Russia.
Liebeler's concern can be sensed in his question "Under what theory
do we include activities concerning a {shotgun} under a heading
relating to {rifle} practice, and then presume not to advise the
reader of that?"[5] The latest time the Report places a weapon in
Oswald's hands is May 1963, when his wife, Marina, said he
practiced operating the bolt and looking through the scope {on a
screened porch at night}. Liebeler thought "the support for that
proposition is thin indeed," adding that "Marina Oswald first
testified that she did not know what he was doing out there and
then she was clearly led into the only answer that gives any
support to this proposition."[6] The Report evoked its own
support, noting that the cartridge cases found in the Depository
"had been previously loaded and ejected from the assassination
rifle, which would indicate that Oswald practiced opening the
bolt." Marks on these cases could not show that {Oswald,} to the
exclusion of all other people, loaded and ejected the cases.
In the end, the Commission was able to cite only two instances
in which Oswald handled the Carcano, both based on Marina's tenuous
assertions. It produced {no} evidence that Oswald ever fired his
rifle. Despite this and the other major gaps in its arguments, the
Report concludes that "Oswald's Marine training in marksmanship,
his other rifle experience and his established familiarity with
this particular weapon show that he possessed ample capability to
commit the assassination" (R195). Because the Report offers no
evidence to support it, this conclusion is necessarily dishonest.
Liebeler cautioned the Commission on this point but was apparently
ignored. He wrote:
The statements concerning Oswald's practice with the
assassination weapon are misleading. They tend to give the
impression that he did more practicing than the record
suggests he did. My recollection is that there is only one
specific time when he might have practiced. We should be
more precise in this area, because the Commission is going
to have its work in this area examined very closely.[7]
That a shooter can be only as good as the weapon he fires is a
much-repeated expression. In fact, the proficiency of the shooter
and the quality of his shooting apparatus combine to affect the
outcome of the shot. To test the accuracy of the assassination
rifle, the Commission did not put the weapon in the hands of one
whose marksmanship was as "poor" as Oswald's and whose known
practice prior to firing was virtually nil. Its test firers were
all experts--men whose daily routines involved working with and
shooting firearms. Liebeler, as a member of the Commission's
investigatory staff, was one of the severest critics of the rifle
tests. The following paragraphs, again from Liebeler's memorandum,
provide a good analysis of those tests as represented in the
Report:
As I read through the section on rifle capability it
appears that 15 different sets of three shots were fired by
supposedly expert riflemen of the FBI and other places.
According to my calculations those 15 sets of shots took a
total of 93.8 seconds to be fired. The average of all 15 is
a little over 6.2 seconds. Assuming that time calculated is
commencing with the firing of the first shot, that means the
average time it took to fire two remaining shots was about
6.2 seconds. That comes to about 3.1 seconds for each shot,
not counting the time consumed by the actual firing, which
would not be very much. I recall that Chapter Three said
that the minimum time that had to elapse between shots was
2.25 seconds, which is pretty close to the one set of fast
shots fired by Frazier of the FBI.
The conclusion indicates that Oswald had the capability
to fire 3 shots with two hits in from 4.8 to 5.6 seconds.
Of the fifteen sets of three shots described above, only
{three} were fired within 4.8 seconds. A total of five
sets, including the three just mentioned, were fired within
a total of 5.6 seconds. The conclusion at its most extreme
states Oswald could fire faster than the Commission experts
fired in 12 of their 15 tries and that in any event he could
fire faster than the experts did in 10 out of their 15
tries. . . .
The problems raised by the above analysis should be met
at some point in the text of the Report. The figure of 2.25
as a minimum firing time for each shot is used throughout
Chapter 3. The present discussion of rifle capability shows
that expert riflemen could not fire the assassination weapon
that fast. Only one of the experts managed to do so, and
his shots, like those of the other FBI experts, were high
and to the right of the target. The fact is that most of
the experts were much more proficient with a rifle than
Oswald could ever be expected to be, and the record
indicates that fact.[8]
Despite the obvious meaning of Liebeler's analysis, the rifle tests
are used in the Report to buttress the notion that it was within
Oswald's capability to fire the assassination shots (R195). The
kindest thing that can be said of this one-sided presentation of
the evidence was written by Liebeler himself: "To put it bluntly,
that sort of selection from the record could seriously affect the
integrity and credibility of the entire Report. . . . These
conclusions will never be accepted by critical persons anyway."[9]
The only possible conclusion warranted by the evidence set forth
in the Report is that Oswald left the Marines a "rather poor shot"
and, unless a major aspect of his life within a few months prior to
the assassination has been so well concealed as not to emerge
through the efforts of several investigative teams, he did not
engage in any activities sufficient to improve his proficiency with
his weapon to the extent of enabling him to murder the President
and wound the Governor unaided.
This is the official case, the development of the "proof" that
Oswald, alone and unaided, committed the assassination. To avoid
the detailed discussion required for a rebuttal, I have assumed
that the source of the shots was as the Commission postulated--the
sixth-floor window of the Depository, from "Oswald's rifle."
This was as far as the Commission could go in relation to the
question of Oswald's guilt. Obviously, the use of his rifle in the
crime does not mean he fired it. The Commission offers, in
essence, {no} evidence that Oswald brought his rifle to the
Depository, {no} evidence that Oswald was present at the window
during the shots, and {no} evidence that Oswald had the capability
to have fired the shots. This is not to say that such evidence
does not exist, but that none is presented in the Report. That,
for the scope of this chapter's analysis, is significant.
The Commission's conclusion that Oswald was the assassin is
invalid because it is, from beginning to end, a {non sequitur}.
This analysis of the derivation of that conclusion, based solely on
the evidence presented in the Report, demonstrates that evidence to
be without logical relationship, used by the Commission in total
disregard of logic. The Report's continued fabrication of false
premises from which are drawn invalid inferences is consistent with
one salient factor: that the Commission evaluated the evidence
relating to the assassin's identity on the presumption that Oswald
alone was guilty.
__________
[1] "Memorandum re Galley Proofs of Chapter IV of the Report," written
on September 6, 1964, by Wesley J. Liebeler, p. 5. (Hereinafter
referred to as Liebeler 9/6/64 Memorandum. This document is
available from the National Archives.)
[2] Ibid., p. 7.
[3] Ibid., p. 20.
[4] Ibid., p. 21 .
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid., p. 22.
[7] Ibid., p. 21.
[8] Ibid., p. 23.
[9] Ibid., p. 25.
* * * * * * *
2
Presumed Guilty: The Official Disposition
The discussion in chapter 1 did not disprove the Commission's
conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President Kennedy.
It merely showed that, based on the evidence presented in the
Report, Oswald's guilt was presumed, not established. The
Commission argued a case that is logical only on the premise that
Oswald alone was guilty.
The official assurance is, as is to be expected, the opposite.
In the Foreword to its Report, the Commission assures us that it
"has functioned neither as a court presiding over an adversary
proceeding nor as a prosecutor determined to prove a case, but as a
fact finding agency committed to the ascertainment of the truth"
(Rxiv). This is to say that neither innocence nor guilt was
presumed from the outset of the inquiry, in effect stating that the
Commission conducted a "chips-fall-where-they-may" investigation.
At no time after a final bullet snuffed out the life of the
young President did {any} agency conduct an investigation not based
on the premise of Oswald's guilt. Despite the many noble
assurances of impartiality, the fact remains that from the time
when he was in police custody, Oswald was officially thought to be
Kennedy's sole assassin. In violation of his every right and as a
guarantee that virtually no citizen would think otherwise, the
official belief of Oswald's guilt was shamefully offered to a
public grieved by the violent death of its leader, and anxious to
find and prosecute the perpetrator of the crime.
{The Police Presumption}
Two days after the assassination, the "New York Times" ran a
banner headline that read, in part, "Police Say Prisoner is the
Assassin," with a smaller--but likewise front-page--heading,
"Evidence Against Oswald Described as Conclusive." The article
quoted Captain Will Fritz of the Dallas Police Homicide Bureau as
having said, "We're convinced beyond any doubt that he killed the
President. . . . I think the case is cinched."[1]
Other newspapers echoed the "Times" that day. The "Philadelphia
Inquirer" reported: "Police on Saturday said they have an airtight
case against pro-Castro Marxist Lee Harvey Oswald as the assassin
of President Kennedy."[2] On the front page of the "St. Louis
Post-Dispatch" was the headline "Dallas Police Insist Evidence
Proves Oswald Killed Kennedy."
Dallas police said today that Lee Harvey Oswald . . .
assassinated President John F. Kennedy and they have the
evidence to prove it. . . . "The man killed President
Kennedy. We are convinced without any doubt that he did the
killing. There were no accomplices," [Captain] Fritz
asserted.
Police Chief Jesse E. Curry outlined this web of evidence
that, he said, showed Oswald was the sniper.[3]
The following day, November 25, was the occasion for yet another
banner headline in the "Times." In one fell swoop, there was no
longer any doubt; it was no longer just the Dallas police who were
prematurely convinced of Oswald's guilt. "President's Assassin
Shot to Death in Jail Corridor by a Dallas Citizen," the headline
proclaimed. There was no room for such qualifiers as "alleged" or
"accused." Yet, in this very issue, the "Times" included a strong
editorial that criticized the police pronouncement of guilt:
The Dallas authorities, abetted and encouraged by the
newspaper, TV and radio press, trampled on every principle
of justice in their handling of Lee Harvey Oswald. . . .
The heinousness of the crime Oswald was alleged to have
committed made it doubly important that there be no cloud
over the establishment of his guilt.
Yet--before any indictment had been returned or any
evidence presented and in the face of continued denials by
the prisoner--the chief of police and the district attorney
pronounced Oswald guilty.[4]
It is unfortunate that this proper condemnation applies equally to
the source that issued it.
Transcripts of various police interviews and press conferences
over the weekend of the assassination (which confirm the above
newspaper accounts) demonstrate that, in addition to forming a bias
against Oswald through the press, the police made extensive use of
the electronic media to spread their improper and premature
conclusion.
On Friday night, November 22, NBC-TV broadcast a press interview
with District Attorney Henry Wade, whose comments included these:
"I figure we have sufficient evidence to convict him [Oswald] . . .
there's no one else but him" (24H751). The next day, Chief Curry,
though he cautioned that the evidence was not yet "positive," said
that he was convinced. In an interview carried by NBC, Curry
asserted, "Personally, I think we have the right man" (24H754). In
another interview broadcast by local station WFAA-TV, Curry was
asked, "Is there any doubt in your mind, Chief, that Oswald is the
man who killed the President?" His response was: "I think this is
the man who killed the President" (24H764). In another interview
that Saturday, Captain Fritz made the absolute statement:
There is only one thing that I can tell you without going
into the evidence before first talking to the District
Attorney. I can tell you that this case is cinched--that
this man killed the President. There's no question in my
mind about it. . . . I don't want to get into the evidence.
I just want to tell you that we are convinced beyond any
doubt that he did the killing. (24H787)
By November 24, Curry's remarks became much stronger. Local
station KRLD-TV aired this remark: "This is the man, we are sure,
that murdered the patrolman and murdered--assassinated the
President" (24H772). Fritz stuck to his earlier conviction that
Oswald was the assassin (24H788). Now D.A. Henry Wade joined in
pronouncing the verdict before trial or indictment:
WADE: I would say that without any doubt he's the
killer--the law says beyond a reasonable doubt and to a
moral certainty which I--there's no question that he was the
killer of President Kennedy.
Q. That case is closed in your mind?
WADE: As far as Oswald is concerned yes. (24H823)
{The FBI Presumption}
That same day the FBI announced, contrary to the police
assertion, that the case was still open and that its investigation,
begun the day of the shooting, would continue.[5] This continued
investigation climaxed after a duration just short of three weeks.
In a series of contrived news "leaks," the Bureau added to the
propaganda campaign started by the Dallas Police.
The decision of the FBI and the Commission was to keep the first
FBI Summary Report on the assassination secret.[6] However, even
prior to the completion of this report, the newspapers carried
frequent "leaked" stories telling in advance what the report would
contain. The Commission met in executive session on December 5,
1963, and questioned Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach
about these leaks. Katzenbach spoke bluntly. FBI Director Hoover,
he related, denied that the leaks originated within the FBI, but "I
say with candor to this committee, I can't think of anybody else it
could have come from, because I don't know of anybody else that
knew that information."[7]
On December 9, Katzenbach transmitted the completed FBI Report
to the Commission. In his covering letter of that date, he again
expressed the Justice Department's desire to keep the Report
secret, although he felt that "the Commission should consider
releasing--or allowing the Department of Justice to release--a
short press statement which would briefly make the following
points." Katzenbach wanted the Commission to assure the public
that the FBI had turned up no evidence of conspiracy and that "the
FBI report through scientific examination of evidence, testimony
and intensive investigation, establishes beyond a reasonable doubt
that Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy."[8]
Although the Commission released no such statement, the
conclusions of which the Justice Department felt the public should
be informed were widely disseminated by the press, through leaks
which, according to Katzenbach, must have originated with the FBI.
On December 1, the "Washington Post" in a major article told its
readers that "all the police agencies with a hand in the
investigation . . . insist that [the case against Oswald] is an
unshakable one."[9] "Time" magazine, in the week before the FBI
report was forwarded to the Commission, said of the report, "it
will indicate that Oswald, acting in his own lunatic loneliness,
was indeed the President's assassin."[10] "Newsweek" reported that
"the report holds to the central conclusion that Federal and local
probers had long since reached: that Oswald was the assassin."[11]
The "New York Times" was privy to the most specific leak concerning
the FBI report. On December 10 it ran a front-page story headed
"Oswald Assassin Beyond a Doubt, FBI Concludes." This article, by
Joseph Loftus, began as follows:
A Federal Bureau of Investigation report went to a
special Presidential commission today and named Lee H.
Oswald as the assassin of President Kennedy.
The Report is known to emphasize that Oswald was beyond
doubt the assassin and that he acted alone. . . .
The Department of Justice, declining all comment on the
content of the report, announced only that on instruction of
President Johnson the report was sent directly to the
special Commission.[12]
All of these news stories, especially that which appeared in the
"Times," accurately reflect those findings of the FBI report which
Katzenbach felt should be made public. The FBI has long claimed
that it does not draw conclusions in its reports. The FBI report
on the assassination disproves this one of many FBI myths. This
report {does} draw conclusions, as the press reported. In the
preface to this once-secret report (released in 1965), the FBI
stated:
Part I briefly relates the assassination of the President
and the identification of Oswald as his slayer.
Part II sets forth the evidence conclusively showing that
Oswald did assassinate the President. (CD 1)
The Commission, in secret executive sessions, expressed its
exasperation at the leak of the FBI report. On December 16,
Chairman Warren stated:
CHAIRMAN: Well, gentlemen, to be very frank about it, I
have read that report two or three times and I have not seen
anything in there yet that has not been in the press.
SEN. RUSSELL: I couldn't agree with that more. I have
read it through once very carefully, and I went through it
again at places I had marked, and practically everything in
there has come out in the press at one time or another, a
bit here and a bit there.[13]
It should be noted here that even a casual reading of this FBI
report and its sequel, the "Supplemental Report" dated January 13,
1964, discloses that neither establishes Oswald's guilt, nor even
adequately accounts for all the known facts of the assassination.
In neither report is there mention of or accounting for the
President's anterior neck wound which, by the night of November 22,
was public knowledge around the world. The Supplemental Report, in
attempting to associate Oswald with the crime, asserts that a
full-jacketed bullet traveling at approximately 2,000 feet per
second stopped short after penetrating "less than a finger length"
of the President's back. One need not be an expert to discern that
this is an impossible event, and indeed later tests confirmed that
seventy-two inches of flesh were insufficient to stop such a bullet
(5H78). The Commission members themselves, in private, grumbled
about the unsatisfactory nature of the FBI report, as the following
passage from the December 16 Executive Session reveals:
MR. MC CLOY: . . . The grammar is bad and you can see
they did not polish it all up. It does leave you some
loopholes in this thing but I think you have to realize they
put this thing together very fast.
REP. BOGGS: There's nothing in there about Governor
Connally.
CHAIRMAN: No.
SEN. COOPER: And whether or not they found any bullets
in him.
MR. MC CLOY: This bullet business leaves me confused.
CHAIRMAN: It's totally inconclusive.[14]
Thus, by January 1964, the American public had been assured by
both the Dallas Police and the FBI that Oswald was the assassin
beyond all doubt. For those who had not taken the time to probe
the evidence, who were not aware of its inadequacies and
limitations, such a conclusion was easy to accept.
{The Commission Presumption}
Today there can be no doubt that, despite their assurances of
impartiality, the Commission and its staff consciously planned and
executed their work under the presumption that Oswald was guilty.
The once-secret working papers of the Commission explicitly reveal
the prejudice of the entire investigation.
General Counsel Rankin did not organize a staff of lawyers under
him until early in January 1964. Until that time, the Commission
had done essentially no work, and had merely received investigative
reports from other agencies. Now, Rankin and Warren drew up the
plans for the organization of the work that the staff was to
undertake for the Commission. In a "Progress Report" dated January
11, from the Chairman to the other members, Warren referred to a
"tentative outline prepared by Mr. Rankin which I think will assist
in organizing the evaluation of the investigative materials
received by the Commission."[15][see Appendix A -- ratitor] Two
subject headings in this outline are of concern here: "(2) Lee
Harvey Oswald as the Assassin of President Kennedy; (3) Lee Harvey
Oswald: Background and Possible Motives."[16] Thus, it is
painfully apparent that the Commission did, from the very
beginning, plan its work with a distinct bias. It would evaluate
the evidence from the perspective of "Oswald as the assassin," and
it would search for his "possible motives."
Attached to Warren's "Progress Report" was a copy of the
"Tentative Outline of the Work of the President's Commission."
This outline reveals in detail the extent to which the conclusion
of Oswald's guilt was pre-determined. Section II, "Lee Harvey
Oswald as the Assassin of President Kennedy," begins by outlining
Oswald's movements on the day of the assassination. Under the
heading "Murder of Tippit," there is the subheading "Evidence
demonstrating Oswald's guilt."[17] Even the FBI had refrained from
drawing a conclusion as to whether or not Oswald had murdered
Officer Tippit. Yet, at this very early point in its
investigation, the Commission was convinced it could muster
"evidence demonstrating Oswald's guilt."
Another heading under Section II of the outline is "Evidence
Identifying Oswald as the Assassin of President Kennedy," again a
presumptive designation made by a commission that had not yet
analyzed a single bit to evidence. The listings of evidence under
this heading are sketchy and hardly conclusive, and further reveal
the biases of the Commission. Some of the evidence that was to
"identify Oswald as the assassin" was "prior similar acts: a)
General Walker attack, b) General Eisenhower threat."[18] Thus we
learn that Oswald was also presumed guilty in the attempted
shooting of the right-wing General Walker in April 1963.
Under the additional heading "Evidence Implicating Others in
Assassination or Suggesting Accomplices," the Commission was to
consider only the possibility that others worked with {Oswald} in
planning or executing the assassination. The outline further
reveals that it had been concluded in advance that Oswald had no
accomplices, for the last category under this heading suggests that
the evidence be evaluated for the "refutation of allegations."[19]
The Commission was preoccupied with the question of motive.
According to the initial outline of its work, it had decided to
investigate Oswald's motives for killing the President {before} it
determined whether Oswald had in fact been involved in the
assassination {in any capacity.} At the executive session of
January 21, 1964, an illuminating discussion took place between
Chairman Warren, General Counsel Rankin, and member Dulles. Dulles
wanted to be sure that every possible action was taken to determine
Oswald's motive:
Mr. Dulles: I suggested to Mr. Rankin, Mr. Chairman, that
I thought it would be very useful for us, if the rest of you
agree, that as items come in that deal with motive, and I
have seen, I suppose, 20 or 30 of them already in these
various reports, those be pulled together by one of these
men, maybe Mr. Rankin himself so that we could see that
which would be so important to us.
Chairman Warren: In other words, to see what we are
running down on the question of motive.
Mr. Dulles: Just on the question of motive I found a
dozen or more statements of the various people as to why
they thought he [Oswald] did it.
Warren: Yes.
Mr. Dulles: Or what his character was, what his aim, and
so forth that go into motive and I think it would be very
useful to pull that together, under one of these headings,
not under a separate heading necessarily.
Warren: Well, I think that that would probably come
under Mr. [Albert] Jenner, wouldn't that, Lee [Rankin],
isn't he the one who is bringing together all the facts
concerning the life of Oswald?
Mr. Rankin: Yes, yes. We can get that done. We will
see that that is taken care of.
Warren: Yes.[20]
The staff, working under the direction of Rankin, was likewise
predisposed to the conclusion that Oswald was guilty. Staff lawyer
W. David Slawson wrote a memorandum dated January 27 concerning the
"timing of rifle shots." He suggested that:
In figuring the timing of the rifle shots, we should take
into account the distance travelled by the Presidential car
between the first and third shots. This tends to shorten
the time slightly during which {Oswald} would have had to
pull the trigger three times on his rifle.[21] (emphasis
added)
At this early point in the investigation, long before any of the
relevant testimony had been adduced, Slawson was positive that
Oswald "pulled the trigger three times on his rifle."
Another staff lawyer, Arlen Specter, expressed the bias of the
investigation in a memorandum, dated January 30, in which he
offered suggestions for the questioning of Oswald's widow, Marina.
Specter felt that certain questions "might provide some insight on
whether Oswald learned of the motorcade route from newspapers." He
added that "perhaps [Oswald] was inspired, in part by President
Kennedy's anti-Castro speech which was reported on November 19 on
the front page of the Dallas Times Herald."[22] The implication
here is obvious that the President's speech "inspired" Oswald to
commit the assassination. Again, it must be emphasized that until
Oswald's guilt was a proven fact, which it was {not} at the time
these memoranda were composed, it was mere folly to investigate the
factors that supposedly "inspired" Oswald. Such fraudulent
investigative efforts demonstrate that Oswald's guilt was taken for
granted.
Rankin had assigned teams of two staff lawyers each to evaluate
the evidence according to the five divisions of his "Tentative
Outline." Working in Area II, "Lee Harvey Oswald as the Assassin
of President Kennedy," were Joseph Ball as the senior lawyer and
David Belin as the junior.[23] On January 30, Belin wrote a very
revealing memorandum to Rankin, concerning "Oswald's knowledge that
Connally would be in the Presidential car and his intended
target."[24] This memorandum leaves no doubt that Belin was quite
sure of Oswald's guilt {before} he began his assigned
investigation. He was concerned that Oswald might not have known
that Governor Connally was to ride in the presidential limousine
because this "bears on the motive of the assassination and also on
the degree of marksmanship required, which in turn affects the
determination that Oswald was the assassin and that it was not too
difficult to hit the intended target two out of three times in this
particular situation." The alternatives, as stated by Belin, were
as follows:
In determining the accuracy of Oswald, we have three
major possibilities: Oswald was shooting at Connally and
missed two of the three shots, two misses striking Kennedy;
Oswald was shooting at both Kennedy and Connally and all
three shots struck their intended targets; Oswald was
shooting only at Kennedy and the second bullet missed its
intended target and hit Connally instead.[25]
Belin could not have been more explicit: Three shots were fired
and Oswald, whatever his motive, fired them all. Of course, at
that point Belin could not possibly have {proved} that Oswald was
the assassin. He merely presumed it and worked on that basis.
It is important to keep this January 30 Belin memorandum in mind
when we consider the 233-page "BALL - BELIN REPORT #1" dated
February 25, 1964, and submitted by the authors as a summation of
all the evidence they had evaluated up to that point. The
"tentative" conclusion reached in this report is that "Lee Harvey
Oswald is the assassin of President John F. Kennedy."[26]
However, Ball and Belin were careful to include here a new
interpretation of their assigned area of work. They wrote:
We should also point out that the tentative memorandum of
January 23 substantially differs from the original outline
of our work in this area which had as its subject, "Lee
Harvey Oswald as the Assassin of President Kennedy," and
which examined the evidence from that standpoint. At no
time have we assumed that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin
of President Kennedy. Rather, our entire study has been
based on an independent examination of all the evidence in
an effort to determine who was the assassin of President
Kennedy.[27]
Although this new formulation was no doubt the proper one, the
Warren Report makes it abundantly clear that Ball and Belin failed
to follow the course outlined in their "Report #1." As we have
seen, the only context in which the evidence is presented in the
Report is "Lee Harvey Oswald as the Assassin of President Kennedy,"
even though that blatant description is not used (as it was in the
secret working papers). Furthermore, that Belin a month before
could write so confidently that Oswald was the assassin completely
refutes this belatedly professed intention to examine the evidence
without preconceptions. It would appear that in including this
passage in "Report #1," Ball and Belin were more interested in
leaving a record that they could later cite in their own defense
than in conducting an honest, unbiased investigation. Indeed,
Belin has quoted this passage publicly to illustrate the
impartiality of his work, while neglecting to mention his
memorandum of January 30.[28]
The Warren Report was not completed until late in September
1964, with hearings and investigations extending into the period
during which the Report was set in type. Yet outlines for the
final Report were drawn up as early as mid-{March}. These outlines
demonstrate that Oswald's guilt was a definite conclusion at the
time that sworn testimony was first being taken by the Commission.
The first outline was submitted to Rankin at his request by staff
lawyer Alfred Goldberg on approximately March 14, according to
notations on the outline.[29] Under Goldberg's plan, Chapter Four
of the Commission's report would be entitled "Lee Harvey Oswald as
the Assassin." Goldberg elaborated:
This section should state the facts which lead to the
conclusion that Oswald pulled the trigger and should
indicate the elements in the case which have either not been
proven or are based on doubtful testimony. Each of the
facts listed below should be reviewed in that light.[30]
The "facts" enumberated [sic] by Goldberg are precarious.
Indeed, as of March 14, 1964, no testimony had been adduced on
almost all of the "facts" that Goldberg outlined as contributing to
the "conclusion that Oswald pulled the trigger." Goldberg felt
that this chapter of the Report should identify Oswald's rifle "as
the murder weapon." Under this category he listed "Ballistics" and
"Capability of Rifle." Yet the first ballistics testimony was not
heard by the Commission until March 31 (3H390ff.). Another of
Goldberg's categories is "Evidence of Oswald Carrying Weapon to
Texas School Book Depository." Here he does not specify which
evidence he had in mind. However, the expert testimony that
{might} have supported the thesis that Oswald carried his rifle to
work on the morning of the assassination was not adduced until
April 2 and 3 (4H1ff.). This pattern runs through several other
factors that Goldberg felt established Oswald's guilt {before} they
were scrutinized by the Commission or the staff. To illustrate:
"Testimony of eyewitnesses and employees on fifth floor"--this
testimony was not taken until March 24, at which time the witnesses
contradicted several of their previous statements to the federal
authorities (3H161ff.); "Medical testimony"--the autopsy surgeons
testified on March 16 (2H347ff.), and medical/ballistics testimony
concerning tests with Oswald's rifle was not taken until mid-May
(5H74ff.); "Eyewitness Identification of Oswald Shooting Rifle"--
only one witness claimed to make such an identification, and he
gave testimony on March 24 (3H140ff.) that was subsequently
rejected by the Commission (R145-46).
On March 26, staff lawyer Norman Redlich submitted another
outline of the final Report to Rankin; in almost all respects,
Redlich's outline is identical with Goldberg's. Chapter Four is
entitled "Lee H. Oswald as the Assassin," with the notation that
"this section should state the facts which lead to the conclusion
that Oswald pulled the trigger. . . ."[31] In general, Redlich is
vaguer than Goldberg in his listing of those "facts" which should
be presented to support the conclusion of Oswald's guilt. However,
he does specify what he considers to be "evidence of Oswald
carrying weapon to building." One factor, he wrote, is the "fake
curtain rod story." Yet, when Redlich submitted this outline, no
investigation had been conducted into the veracity of the "curtain
rod story." The first information relevant to this is contained in
an FBI report dated March 28 (24H460-61), and it was not until the
last day in {August} that further inquiry was made (CE2640).
The pattern is consistent. The Commission outlined its work and
concluded that Oswald was guilty before it did any investigation or
took any testimony. The Report was outlined, including a chapter
concluding that Oswald was guilty, before the bulk of the
Commission's work was completed. Most notably, these conclusions
were drafted {before} the staff arranged a series of tests that
were to demonstrate whether the official theories about how the
shooting occurred were physically possible. A series of ballistics
tests using Oswald's rifle, and an on-site reconstruction of the
crime in Dealey Plaza were conducted in May; the Report was
outlined in March. On April 27, Redlich wrote Rankin a memorandum
"to explain the reasons why certain members of the staff feel that
it is important" to reconstruct the events in Dealey Plaza as
depicted in motion pictures of the assassination. Redlich stated
that the Report would "presumably" set forth a version of the
assassination shots concluding "that the bullets were fired by one
person located in the sixth floor southeast corner window of the
TSBD building." He then pointed out:
As our investigation now stands, however, we have not
shown that these events could possibly have occurred in the
manner suggested above. All we have is a reasonable
hypothesis which appears to be supported by the medical
testimony but which has not been checked out against the
physical facts at the scene of the assassination.[32]
Thus, Redlich admitted that the Commission did not know if the
conclusions already outlined were even physically possible. But
his suggestion of on-site tests should not be taken to indicate his
desire to establish the untainted truth, for he explicitly denied
such a purpose in his memorandum. Instead, he wrote:
Our intention is not to establish the point with complete
accuracy, but merely to substantiate the hypothesis which
underlies the conclusions that Oswald was the sole
assassin.[33]
This is as unambiguous a statement as can be imagined. The
reconstruction was not to determine whether it was physically
possible for Oswald to have committed the murder as described by
the Commission; it was "merely to substantitate" [sic] the
preconceived conclusion "that Oswald was the sole assassin."
On April 30, three days after Redlich composed the above-quoted
memorandum, the Commission met in another secret executive session.
Here Rankin added to the abundant proof that the Commission had
already concluded that Oswald was guilty. The following exchange
was provoked when Dulles expressed his well-voiced preoccupation
with biographical data relating to Oswald:
Mr. Dulles: Detailed biography of Lee Harvey Oswald--I
think that ought to be somewhere.
Mr. Rankin: We thought it would be too voluminous to be
in the body of the report. We thought it would be helpful
as supplementary material at the end.
Mr. Dulles: Well, I don't feel too strongly about where
it should be. This would be--I think some of the biography
of Lee Harvey Oswald, though, ought to be in the main
report.
Mr. Rankin: {Some of it will be necessary to tell the
story and to show why it is reasonable to assume that he did
what the Commission concludes that he did do}.[34] (emphasis
added)
As late as the middle of May, long after the Commission and the
staff had decided, in advance of analyzing the evidence, that
Oswald was guilty, Commission member McCloy expressed his feeling
that the conclusion as to Oswald's guilt was not being pursued with
enough vigor by the staff. McCloy was not interested in a fair and
objective report. This story was related by David Belin in his
memorandum of May 15, which described his trip to Dallas with
certain Commission members, McCloy included. One night in Dallas,
Belin persuaded McCloy to read "Ball-Belin Report # 1," which by
then was almost three months old. Belin recounts McCloy's
reactions:
He seemed to misunderstand the basic purpose of the
report, for he suggested that we did not point up enough
arguments to show why Oswald was the assassin. . . .
Commissioner McCloy did state that in the final report he
thought that we should be rather complete in developing
reasons and affirmative statements why Oswald was the
assassin--he did not believe that it should just merely be a
factual restatement of what we had found.[35]
As quoted at the opening of this chapter, the Warren Report
asserted that the Commission functioned not "as a prosecutor
determined to prove a case, but as a fact finding agency committed
to the ascertainment of the truth." This statement is clearly a
misrepresentation of the Commission's real position, as expressed
in private by McCloy when he told Belin that he wanted a report
that argued a prosecution case, and not simply "a factual
restatement."
The Dallas Police and the FBI both announced their "conclusion"
before it could have been adequately substantiated by facts and, in
so doing, almost irrevocably prejudiced the American public against
Oswald and thwarted an honest and unbiased investigation. The
Commission operated under a facade of impartiality. Yet it
examined the evidence--and subsequently presented it--on the
premise that Oswald was guilty, a premise openly stated in secret
staff memoranda and reinforced when the members met in secret
sessions. Now, as the curtain of secrecy that once sheltered the
working papers of the investigation is lifted, the ugly and
improper presumption of guilt becomes obvious. Wesley Liebeler
expressed the prejudice of the entire "investigation" when he
argued to Rankin in a once-secret memorandum that " . . . the best
evidence that Oswald could fire as fast as he did and hit the
target is the fact that he did so."[36]
__________
[1] "New York Times," November 24, 1963, p. 1.
[2] "Philadelphia Inquirer," November 24, 1963.
[3] "St. Louis Post-Dispatch," November 24, 1963.
[4] "New York Times," November 25, 1963, p. 18.
[5] "St. Louis Post-Dispatch," November 24, 1963, p. 2.
[6] Transcript of the December 5, 1963, Executive Session of the Warren
Commission, pp. 10-11.
[7] Ibid., p. 8.
[8] Letter from Nicholas Katzenbach to Chief Justice Warren, dated
December 9, 1963. This letter is available from the National
Archives.
[9] "Washington Post," December 1, 1963.
[10] "Time," December 13, 1963, p. 26.
[11] "Newsweek," December 16, 1963, p. 26.
[12] "New York Times," December 10, 1963, p. 1.
[13] Transcript of the December 16, 1963, Executive Session of the
Warren Commission, p. 11.
[14] Ibid., p. 12.
[15] "Progress Report" by Chairman Warren, p. 4, attached to "Memorandum
for Members of the Commission" from Mr. Rankin, dated January 11,
1964.
[16] The "Tentative Outline of the Work of the President's Commission"
was attached to the memorandum mentioned in note 15.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Transcript of the January 21, 1964, Executive Session of the Warren
Commission, pp. 10-11.
[21] Memorandum from W. David Slawson to Mr. Ball and Mr. Belin, dated
January 27, 1964, "SUBJECT: Time of Rifle Shots," located in the
"Slawson Chrono. File."
[22] Memorandum from Arlen Specter to Mr. Rankin, dated January 30, 1964,
concerning the questioning of Marina Oswald, p. 3.
[23] "Memorandum to the Staff," from Mr. Rankin, dated January 13, 1964,
p. 3.
[24] "Memorandum" from David W. Belin to J. Lee Rankin, dated January 30,
1964. This document was discovered in the National Archives by
Harold Weisberg and was first presented in "Post Mortem I," pp.
61-62.
[25] Ibid.
[26] "Ball-Belin Report #1," dated February 25, 1964, p. 233.
[27] Ibid., pp. 1-2.
[28] See "Truth Was My Only Goal," by David Belin in "The Texas
Observer," August 13, 1971, p. 14.
[29] "Memorandum" from Alfred Goldberg to J. Lee Rankin, dated "approx
3/14," 1964.
[30] "Proposed Outline of Report," attached to the memorandum referred
to in note 29. This outline was discovered in the National
Archives by Harold Weisberg and is presented in "Post Mortem I,"
p. 123.
[31] "Proposed Outline of Report (Submitted by Mr. Redlich)," attached
to "Memorandum" from Norman Redlich to J. Lee Rankin, dated March
26, 1964. This document was discovered in the National Archives by
Harold Weisberg and is presented in "Post Mortem I," p. 132.
[32] "Memorandum" from Norman Redlich to J. Lee Rankin, dated April 27,
1964. This document was discovered in the National Archives by
Harold Weisberg and is presented in "Post Mortem I," pp. 132-34.
[33] Ibid.
[34] Transcript of the April 30, 1964, Executive Session of the Warren
Commission, p. 5891.
[35] Memorandum from Mr. Belin to Mr. Rankin, dated May 15, 1964, p. 5.
[36] Liebeler 9/6/64 Memorandum, p. 25.
__________________________________________________________________________
PART II:
THE MEDICAL/BALLISTICS EVIDENCE
* * * * * * *
3
Suppressed Spectrography
In the final analysis, the Warren Commission had three pieces of
tangible evidence that linked Lee Harvey Oswald to the
assassination of President Kennedy: (1) A rifle purchased by
Oswald and three empty cartridge cases fired in that rifle were
discovered on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository,
(2) a nearly whole bullet that had been fired from Oswald's rifle
was found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital, and (3) two
fragments of a bullet or bullets that had been fired from Oswald's
rifle were found on the front seat of the presidential limousine.
Yet, there is nothing in this evidence itself to prove either
that Oswald's rifle was used in the shooting or, if it was, that
Oswald fired it. The whole fault in the Commission's case relating
the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle to the shooting is this: bullets
identifiable with that rifle were found {outside} of the victims'
bodies. Pieces of metal not traceable to any rifle were found
{inside} the bodies. The Report merely assumes the legitimacy of
the specimens found externally and works on the assumption that
these bullets and fragments had once been {inside} the bodies, and
thus were involved in the shooting.
Obviously, bullets found outside the bodies are entirely
circumstantial evidence, for although they may be conclusively
linked with a particular weapon, their location of discovery does
not link them with a particular victim. No matter how close to the
victims or to the scene of the crime these bullets were found, as
long as they were not {in} the actual bodies when discovered, proof
is lacking that they were ever in the bodies at all. If Commission
Exhibit 399, the nearly whole bullet found on a stretcher at
Parkland, had been removed from Governor Connally's body, it could
be asserted that it had indeed produced his wounds. Likewise, if
the identifiable bullet fragments found on the front seat of the
limousine had instead been located in President Kennedy's head
wound, we would have the proof linking Oswald's rifle to the fatal
shot.
In the case of the assassination, there was an easy and
conclusive way to determine whether the bullet specimens found
{outside} the bodies had ever been {inside} the victims, thus
providing either the proof or the disproof of the notion that
Oswald's rifle was used in the shooting. This conclusive evidence
is the spectrographic comparison made between the metallic
compositions of the projectiles found outside of the victims and
the bits of metal removed from the wounds themselves.
Spectrography is an exact science. In spectrographic analysis,
a test substance is irradiated so that all of the elements
composing it emit a distinct spectrum. These spectra are recorded
on film and analyzed both qualitatively (to determine exactly which
elements compose the substance in question) and quantitatively (to
determine the exact percentage of each element present). Through
such analysis, two substances may be compared in extremely fine
detail, down to the percentages of even their most minor
constituents.[1]
Comparative chemical analysis such as spectrography has long
been a vital tool in crime solving. The following are actual cases
that illustrate the value of such comparison:
1. A deformed slug with some white metal adhering to it
was found at the scene where a man had been shot, but
not wounded. The white metal was first suspected to be
nickel, which would have indicated a nickel-coated
bullet, but was subsequently tested and found to be
silver from a cigarette case that had been penetrated.
The slugs in the cartridges taken from the suspect in
the attack were analyzed and found to differ in
composition from the projectile used in the shooting;
the suspect thus escaped conviction.
2. In another case, a man escaped conviction because of
dissimilarities in composition found upon comparative
analysis of the bullet removed from the wounded man and
bullets from cartridges seized in the suspect's house.
The former contained a trace of antimony and no tin and
the latter contained a comparatively large amount of
tin.
3. A night watchman shot at some unidentified persons
fleeing the scene of a robbery, but all escaped. Blood
found at the scene the next morning indicated that one
of the persons had been wounded and subsequently a man
was arrested with a bullet wound in his leg for which
he could provide no plausible explanation. Analysis
demonstrated that lead fragments removed from the wound
did not agree in composition with the slugs in the
watchman's cartridges and the man was released. The
impurities present in the lead were the same in each
case, consisting chiefly of antimony, but the fragments
from the wound contained much less antimony than the
watchman's slugs.[2]
The identifiable bullets and fragments found {outside} the
victims' bodies are the suspect specimens in the presidential
assassination. The tiny pieces of metal found {inside} the bodies
are, in effect, the control specimens. All of the specimens--
including those removed from the President and the Governor--were
subjected to spectrographic analysis. The results of these
analyses hold the conclusive answer to the problem that was the
central issue in the question of Oswald's guilt: Did the bullets
from Oswald's rifle produce the wounds of the victims?
The spectrographic analyses could solve this central problem
through minute qualitative and quantitative comparison. If a
fragment from a body was not {identical} in composition with a
suspect bullet, that bullet could not have entered the body and
left the fragment in question. The requirements for "identical"
composition are stringent; if the exact elements are not present
in the exact percentages from one sample to another, there is no
match and the samples must have originated from two different
sources. If a fragment is found to be identical in composition
with a suspect bullet, it is possible that the bullet deposited the
fragment in the body. However, before this can be conclusively
proven, it must be demonstrated that other bullets manufactured
from the same batch of metal were not employed in the crime.[3]
Some of the major comparisons that should have been made in the
case of the President's death are these:
1. The Commission apparently believed that the two large
bullet fragments (one containing part of a lead core)
found on the front seat of the car and traceable to
Oswald's rifle were responsible for the head wounds.
Two pieces of lead were recovered from the President's
head. The head fragments could have been compared to
the car fragment containing lead. Had the slightest
difference in composition been found, the car fragments
could not have caused the head wounds.
2. The Commission believed that the two car fragments were
part of the same bullet. Spectrographic comparison
might have determined this.
3. Copper traces were found on the bullet holes in the
back of the President's coat and shirt. Since the
Commission believed that bullet 399 penetrated the
President's neck, the copper residues on the clothing
could have been compared with the copper jacket of 399
for a conclusive answer. Any dissimilarity between the
two copper samples would rule out 399.
4. The Commission believed that 399 wounded Governor
Connally. Fragments of lead were removed from the
Governor's wrist. These could have been compared with
the lead core of 399. Again, any dissimilarity would
conclusively disassociate 399 from Connally's wounds.
An identical match might support the Commission's
belief.
5. The lead from the Governor's wrist could have been
compared with the lead from one of the identifiable car
fragments to determine whether this might have caused
Connally's wounds in the event that 399 did not. This
could have associated "Oswald's" rifle with the wounds
even if 399 had been proven "illegitimate."
6. The lead residue found on the crack in the windshield
of the car could have been compared with fragments from
the two bodies plus fragments from the car in an effort
to determine which shot caused the windshield damage.
7. As a control, the lead and copper composition of 399
could have been compared to that of the identifiable
car fragments to determine whether all were made from
the same batches of metal.
The government had in its possession the conclusive proof or
disproof of its theories. It is not presumptuous to assume that,
had the spectrographic analyses provided the incontrovertible proof
of the validity of the Warren Report's central conclusions, they
would have been employed in the Report, eliminating virtually all
of the controversy and doubt that have raged over the official
assertions.
But the complete results of the spectrographic analyses were
never reported to the Commission; there is no indication that the
Commission ever requested or desired them; they are not in the
printed exhibits or the Commission's unpublished files; no expert
testimony relevant to them was ever adduced; and to this day, the
Department of Justice is withholding the complete results from
researchers.
On November 23, 1963, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent a report
to Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry summarizing the results of FBI
laboratory examinations, including spectrographic analysis (see
24H262-64). On the matter of composition, Hoover said only that
the jackets of the found specimens were "copper alloy" and the
cores and other pieces, "lead." The element mixed with the copper
to form the "alloy" is not even mentioned. It is quite unlikely
that the other specimens were composed solely of "lead," for the
lead employed in practically all modern bullets is mixed with small
quantities of antimony, bismuth, and arsenic.[4] The only
spectrographic comparison mentioned in this report is meaningless:
The lead metal of [exhibits] Q4 and Q5 [fragments from
the President's head], Q9 [fragment(s) from the Governor's
wrist], Q14 [three pieces of lead found under the left jump
seat in the limousine] and Q15 [scraping from the windshield
crack] is similar to the lead of the core of the bullet
fragment, Q2 [found on the front seat of the car].
That two samples are "similar" in composition is without meaning in
terms of the precise data yielded through spectrographic analysis.
The crucial determination, "identical" or "not identical," is
consistently avoided. Also avoided is the essential comparison
between the "stretcher bullet," 399, and the metal fragments
removed from the Governor's wrist.
The Commission sought virtually no testimony relevant to the
spectrographic analysis. When it did seek this testimony, it asked
the wrong questions of the wrong people. FBI ballistics expert
Robert Frazier gave testimony about these tests on May 13, 1964.
At this time, he told the Commission and Arlen Specter, his
interrogator, that the spectrographics examinations were performed
by a spectrographer, John F. Gallager (5H67, 69). Frazier,
accepted by the Commission only as a "qualified witness on
firearms" (3H392), was not a spectrographic expert. His field was
ballistics and firearms identification, and while he might have
supplemented his findings with those from other fields, he was not
qualified in spectrography, which entails expertise in physics and
chemistry. Gallagher, the expert, could well be called the
Commission's most-avoided witness. His testimony, the {last} taken
in the entire investigation, was given in a deposition attended by
a stenographer and a staff member the week before the Warren Report
was submitted to President Johnson. At this time, he was not asked
a single question relating to the spectrographic analyses.[5] (See
15H746ff.)
Neither Specter nor the Commission members can deny having known
that Frazier was not the man qualified to testify about
spectrographic analysis; Frazier stated this in his testimony:
Mr. Specter: Was it your job to analyze all of the
bullets or bullet fragments which were found in the
President's car?
Mr. Frazier: Yes; it was, {except for the
spectrographic analysis of the composition}. (5H68;
emphasis added)
Frazier added, "I don't know actually whether I am expected to give
the results of (the spectrographer's) analysis or not" (5H59). If
this statement fails to make it clear that Frazier was not prepared
to testify about the results of the spectrographic analyses, an
earlier statement by him leaves no doubt: "[The spectrographic]
examination was performed by a spectrographer, John F. Gallagher,
and I do not have the results of his examination here" (5H67). If
Frazier did not have the actual report of the results of the tests
with him when he appeared before the Commission, there was
obviously no way of vouching for the accuracy of the findings to
which he testified, whether he was qualified as an expert in
spectrography or not. Also, Frazier's knowledge of the
spectrographic analysis was merely secondhand; he was aware of the
results of these tests because the spectrographer "submitted his
report to me" (5H69). Thus, Frazier played no role in conducting
this analysis. His only "qualification" for giving testimony about
the spectrographic analyses was that he had read a report about
them. Because this report is not part of the public records, we
have no way of determining whether Frazier accurately related the
results of the analyses, or whether the report upon which he based
his testimony was competent, complete, or satisfactory. In short,
we are asked to take Frazier on his word when (1) he knew of these
tests only secondhand, (2) he did not have the actual results with
him when he testified about them, and (3) he had no expertise in
spectrography. On this basis alone, Frazier's testimony concerning
the tests is not worthy of credence.
However, if we examine exactly what Frazier specified as the
results of the spectrographic analyses, it becomes apparent that
his testimony, if true, is meaningless and incomplete. Frazier
spoke of essentially the same comparisons that Hoover did in his
letter to police chief Curry, repeating Hoovers meaningless
designation that the ballistic specimens compared were "found to be
similar in metallic composition" (5H67, 69, 73-74). When the
{exact} composition had been determined to a minute degree and
could be compared for conclusive and meaningful answers, there was
no legitimate reason to accept this testimony about mere
"similarities" in composition. Furthermore, Frazier offered his
opinion that the spectrographic analyses were inconclusive in
determining the origin of certain of the ballistics specimens
(5H67, 69, 73-74). However, because Frazier was not a
spectrographic expert and because the actual report of these tests
is not available, his interpretation of the test results is
worthless. Even at that, Frazier and his Commission interrogator,
Arlen Specter, avoided mention of those comparisons affecting the
legitimacy of bullet 399--namely, the copper from the President's
clothing and the lead from Governor Connally's wrist as compared
with the copper and lead of 399.
Frazier was cross-examined at the New Orleans conspiracy trial
of Clay Shaw. Here he was pressed further on the spectrographic
analysis. When asked about any "similarity" in the compositions of
the various ballistic specimens he replied, "They all had the same
metallic composition as far as the lead core or lead portions of
these objects is concerned."[6]
This response prompts two inferences. First, Frazier
specifically excluded as being the "same in metallic composition"
the {copper} portions of the specimens. If this omission was
necessitated by the fact that the copper of the recovered specimens
did not match in composition, a significant part of the Warren
Report is disproved. Second, Frazier's description of the lead as
being the "same" in composition is ambiguous. Did he mean that the
{elements} of the composition or the {percentages} of the elements
were the "same"? In the former case, his testimony would again be
meaningless, for {what} is contained in the metal is not so
important as {how much} is contained. If the percentages were the
same, the Report could be confirmed.
Further questioning by Attorney Oser cleared up this ambiguity.
Mr. Oser: Am I correct in saying there is a similarity
in metallic composition or they are identical?
Mr. Frazier: It was identical as far as the metallic
{elements} are concerned.[7] (emphasis added)
Here Frazier leaves no doubt that the individual {elements} in the
various lead samples were identical. What he avoids saying is that
the percentages of those elements were identical throughout. This
is the crucial point. If anything, Frazier's specification that
the {elements} were identical (when questioned about the
{composition}) leads to the inference that the percentages of those
elements were not identical, hence the recovered specimens could
{not} be related and the Warren Report is necessarily invalid.
The Commission's failure to obtain the complete spectrographic
analyses and to adduce meaningful expert testimony on them can be
viewed only with suspicion. Here was the absolute proof or
disproof of the official theories. If truth was the Commission's
objective, there can be no explanation for the exclusion of these
tests from the record. If the Commission was right in its
"solution" of the assassination, for what reason could it
conceivably have omitted the {proof} of its validity? One is
reasonably led to believe that the spectrographic analyses proved
the opposite of what the Commission asserted.
If the Commission's failure to produce the spectrographic
analyses was no more than a glaring oversight, the remedy is indeed
a simple one. The government need only release these tests to the
public. They cannot contain the gore that makes publication of the
President's autopsy pictures a matter of questionable taste. They
cannot be injurious to living persons as other classified reports
might be. They cannot threaten our national defense. They are
merely a collection of highly scientific data that could support or
destroy the entire official solution to the assassination.
The government has to this day kept them squelched.
Harold Weisberg, the first researcher to recognize the
significance of the spectrographic tests and their omission from
the record, has fought and continues to fight for access to the
report detailing these tests. In 1967, Weisberg wrote as follows
of his efforts to obtain the tests:
On October 31, 1966, then Acting Attorney General Clark
ordered that everything considered by the Commission and in
the possession of the government be placed in the National
Archives. I had written [J. Edgar] Hoover five months
earlier, on May 23, 1966, asking for access to the
spectrographic analysis of the bullet allegedly used in the
assassination and the various bullet fragments, clearly the
most basic evidence, but not in the printed evidence. He
has not yet answered that letter. Since issuance of the
Attorney General's order, I have on a number of occasions
requested this evidence of the Archives. Hoover, as of
March 1967, had not turned it over. Once, in my presence,
one of his agents deceived the Archives by falsely reporting
this analysis was in an FBI file that was accessible. Since
then, silence, but no spectrographic analysis.[8]
Weisberg's efforts have continued. In 1970, he made available
to me all of his government correspondence. I saw, over the
signatures of then Attorney General John Mitchell and Deputy
Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, the government's constant
refusal to release the spectrographic analyses.[9] Having
exhausted his administrative remedies, Weisberg took the Justice
Department to court, suing for release under provisions of the
"Freedom of Information" law. The U.S. District Court for the
District of Columbia ruled against Weisberg in this case, Civil
Action No. 712-70. Weisberg and his attorney appealed this
decision, and the appeal, brief No. 71-1026, is currently before
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Without the spectrographic analyses, there is {no} evidence to
associate Oswald's rifle with the wounds suffered by President
Kennedy and Governor Connally. Nothing was found in the body of
either victim that would suggest a connection between that specific
Mannlicher-Carcano and the wounds. The spectrographic tests might
establish such a connection; they might also conclusively
{dissociate} that rifle from the wounds. However, omission of the
exact spectrographic results from the Commission's evidence and the
subsequent refusal of the government to release the
spectrographer's findings do not leave one at all confident that
these tests support the official solution to the assassination.
__________
[1] See "Spectrography" in "Encyclopaedia Britannica" (Chicago:
William Benton Publishers, 1963), vol. 21, and "Photography" in
vol. 17; Herbert Dingle, "Practical Applications of Spectrum
Analysis" (London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1950), pp. 1-3, 74-75,
122-24.
[2] A. Lucas, "Forensic Chemistry and Scientific Criminal Investigation"
(New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1935), pp. 265-66.
[3] Author's interview with Dr. John Nichols on April 16, 1970. See
also Nichols's statement in the "Dallas Morning News," June 19, 1970.
[4] "The Winchester-Western Ammunition Handbook" (New York: Pocket
Books, Inc., 1964), p. 120. (Hereinafter referred to as "Winchester
Handbook.")
[5] First public attention drawn to the spectrographic analyses and
their omission from the Commission's record was by Harold Weisberg
in "Whitewash," p. 164. Sylvia Meagher later discussed this topic
in her book, pp. 170-72.
[6] Transcript of court proceedings of February 21, 1969, in "State of
Louisiana v. Clay L. Shaw," p. 40. (Hereinafter referred to as
"Frazier 2/21/69 testimony.")
[7] Ibid., p. 41.
[8] Weisberg, "Oswald in New Orleans," pp. 148-49.
[9] Weisberg's attorney in this case, Bernard Fensterwald, requested
that his client be furnished with the spectrographic analyses in a
letter to Justice Department lawyer Joseph Cella, dated October 9,
1969. Then Deputy Attorney General Richard Kleindienst responded to
this request in a letter dated November 13, 1969; he refused to
disclose the document, (These letters are a part of the public
record. They are part of the set of exhibits appended to the
"COMPLAINT" dated March 11, 1970, filed in U.S. District Court for
the District of Columbia in the case of "Harold Weisberg v. U.S.
Department of Justice and U.S. Department of State," Civil Action
No. 718-70.)
Weisberg has attempted to obtain the report of the spectrographer
through a series of written requests dated May 23, 1966, March 12,
1967, January 1, 1969, June 2, 1969, April 6, 1970, May 15, 1970,
and an official request form submitted on May 10, 1970. In a letter
dated June 4, 1970, then Attorney General John Mitchell personally
denied Weisberg's request for access. Richard Kleindienst, in a
letter dated June 12, 1970, also denied Weisberg's request. (These
letters are also a part of the public record. They are contained in
the appendix to Appeal No. 71-1026, "Weisberg v. U.S. Department of
Justice," filed by attorney for plaintiff-appellant in the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.)
* * * * * * *
4
The President's Wounds
There is evidence independent of the spectrographic analyses that
reasonably, although not conclusively, disassociates Oswald's rifle
from the wounds inflicted on President Kennedy. Certain aspects of
the medical evidence strongly indicate that the President was {not}
struck by bullets of the type recovered and traced back to the
C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano purchased by Oswald. The implication of
this evidence as well as the evidence relating to Governor
Connally's wounds is that the identifiable bullet recovered at
Parkland Hospital and the bullet fragments found in the limousine
played no role in the wounding of either victim, and came to rest
in their location of discovery by some means other than that
alleged by the Commission. More precisely, the significance of the
medical evidence is that it forces the conclusion that the items of
physical evidence that implicate Oswald in the murder--his rifle,
the spent cartridge cases, and the bullets--were deliberately
"planted" for the purpose of implicating Oswald, although none
played a role in the actual shooting.
We must recognize that the medical evidence in this case suffers
severe limitations, to which almost infinite discussion could be
and has been devoted.[1] Because the scope of this study does not
include an examination of the official investigation into the
President's wounds, including the autopsy and other examinations,
it must suffice here to say that most of the medical evidence
available today is not credible and precludes a positive
reconstruction of the exact manner in which President Kennedy was
killed. There is currently enough solid information to say with
some precision what did {not} happen to the President, and it may,
in fact, never be possible to say more than that.
Respecting the limits of the medical evidence, I will make no
effort to explain exactly how President Kennedy was shot, from
which directions, by how many bullets, and so on. Instead, I will
focus on one aspect of the wounds, namely, the type of ammunition
that produced them. This is the only aspect of the medical
evidence that relates to the question of Oswald's guilt, assuming,
of course, that at least some of the assassination shots originated
from the rear. The question to be answered is this: Could the
President's wounds have been caused by bullets of the type
recovered and traced to Oswald's rifle?
{The Head Wounds}
The wounds to President Kennedy's head can be briefly described
as follows: There was a 15 by 6 mm. entrance wound situated at
the rear top of the head. Most of the right half of the brain had
been blasted away by a bullet. Numerous tiny metal fragments were
depicted on X-rays as being located in the right-frontal portion of
the head. Much of the skull and scalp in the right frontal area
had also been blasted away, creating a large, irregular defect from
which lacerated brain tissue oozed. Many lacerations of the scalp
and severe fractures of the skull accompanied this large defect.
It can be said with reasonable certainty that {a} bullet struck the
President's head from the rear. The evidence does {not} establish
that it was the rear-entering bullet that produced the explosive
wound to the right-front of the head, nor is there currently any
evidence to preclude the possibility that the head was in fact
struck by two separate bullets from different directions.
The Warren Commission made no serious effort to establish the
type of ammunition that produced the head wounds, and it failed to
establish {any} connection between those wounds and the ammunition
allegedly used by Oswald. The Commission postulates that Oswald
fired military ammunition. Such bullets are constructed of a lead
core chemically hardened and inserted into a jacket of copper
alloy.[2] The principal reason for this type of construction is to
insure good penetrating ability by inhibiting bullet deformation.
Hard metal-jacketed military bullets can be deformed upon striking
resistant tissue such as bone. In such a case, the bullet is
liable to become mangled and distorted in shape. When such bullets
undergo fragmentation, it is rarely extensive. Typically, the
jacket may separate from the core which, in turn, may break up into
relatively large chunks, depending on the nature of the resistant
tissue and the force with which it was struck.[3]
The autopsy pathologists concluded that one bullet struck the
head, entering through the small rear entrance wound, and
explosively exiting through the gaping defect in the right-frontal
area of the head. The conclusion that the rear wound was one of
entrance was justified on the basis of the information available.
However, the pathologists could present no evidence to substantiate
the "conclusion" that the gaping defect was an exit wound. The
unmistakable inference of the testimony of Dr. James Humes, the
chief autopsy pathologist, is that the doctors "concluded" this was
an exit wound solely because the only other external head wound was
one of entrance (2H352). This reasoning is in total disregard of
any practicable medico-legal standards, and is worthless without
tangible evidence to buttress it.
Given the unsupportable premise that one bullet caused all the
head wounds, Assistant Counsel Arlen Specter was able to adduce
worthless testimony from Dr. Humes about the type of ammunition
involved. First he asked Dr. Humes whether a "dumdum" bullet
struck the head:
Dr. Humes: I believe these were not dumdum bullets, Mr.
Specter. A dumdum is a term that has been used to describe
various missiles which have a common characteristic of
fragmenting extensively upon striking.
A . . Had [the entrance wound on the head] been inflicted
by a dumdum bullet, I would anticipate that it would not
have anything near the regular contour and outline which it
had. I would also anticipate that the skull would have been
much more extensively disrupted, and not have, as was
evident in this case, a defect which quite closely
corresponded to the overlying skin defect because that type
of missile would fragment on contact and be much more
disruptive at this point. (2H356)
Thus, the clean characteristics of the entrance hole led Dr. Humes
to conclude that it was not caused by a "dumdum" bullet. What such
a bullet would produce upon striking the skull, according to Humes,
is in essence what appeared on the right side of the President's
head and was arbitrarily designated an exit wound. The Commission
never raised the proper question: Was the gaping head defect
really the "exit" wound or could it have been another entrance,
caused by a "dumdum"?
The Commission members continued this line of questioning.
First Mr. McCloy queried about soft-nose ammunition having caused
{only} the entrance wound:
Dr. Humes: From the characteristics of this wound, Mr.
McCloy, I would believe it must have had a very firm head
rather than a soft head.
Mr. McCloy: Steel jacketed, would you say, copper
jacketed bullet?
Dr. Humes: I believe more likely a jacketed bullet.
Allen Dulles joined in:
Mr. Dulles: Believing that we know the type of bullet
that was usable in this gun ["Oswald's" rifle], would this
be the type of wound that might result from that kind of
bullet?
Dr. Humes: I believe so, sir. (2H357)
During his testimony, Col. Pierre Finck, who participated in the
autopsy as a consultant to Dr. Humes, was asked about the nature of
the bullet's fragmentation within the head. Commissioner Gerald
Ford, apparently feeling that he had asked one question too many,
cut Finck off at the vital point and did not permit him to
elaborate:
Mr. Ford: Is it typical to find only a limited number of
fragments as you apparently did in this case?
Dr. Finck: {This depends to a great deal on the type of
ammunition used}. There are many types of bullets,
jacketed, not-jacketed, pointed, hollow-nosed, hollow-
points, flatnose, roundnose, all these different shapes will
have a different influence on the pattern of the wound and
the degree of fragmentation.
Mr. Ford: That is all. (2H384; emphasis added)
The Report does not cite any of the above-quoted testimony.
Instead, it discusses ballistics which, it asserts,
showed that the rifle and bullets identified above were
capable of producing the President's head wound. The Wound
Ballistics Branch . . . at Edgewood Arsenal, Md., conducted
an extensive series of experiments to test the effect of . .
. the type [of bullet] found on Governor Connally's
stretcher and in the Presidential limousine, fired from the
C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found in the Depository. . .
. One series of tests, performed on reconstructed inert
human skulls, demonstrated that the President's head wound
could have been caused by the rifle and bullets fired by the
assassin from the sixth floor window. (R87)
How could such tests "demonstrate that the President's head
wound could have been caused by" bullets fired from a rifle
traceable to Oswald? The tests, in fact, do {not} suggest {any}
correlation between the head wounds and "Oswald's" rifle. When
analyzed, they prove to be nothing more than incompetent,
meaningless, hence invalid simulations.
Used for these tests were old skulls, hard and brittle, having
long lost the natural moisteners of living bone. These test skulls
were filled and covered with a 20 percent gelatin solution, a
standard simulant for body tissues (5H87). Not simulated in the
experiments was a vital determining factor--the scalp. As the
"expert" who conducted the tests admitted, the scalp of a living
person would serve to retain or hold together the bones of the
cranium upon impact of a missile (5H89). Obviously, this
reconstructed "head" could not possibly respond to a bullet's
strike as would a normal, living head.
Ten skulls were fired upon with "Oswald's" rifle under
conditions duplicating only those under which Oswald allegedly
fired. Only one skull was subsequently shown to the Commission;
the bullet that struck it "blew out the right side of the
reconstructed skull in a manner very similar to the head wound of
the President" (R87). This persuaded the "expert" to conclude--
contrary to his beliefs nurtured by prior experience--"that the
type of head wounds that the President received could be done by
this type of bullet" (R87).
The pictures of this test exhibit printed by the Commission show
a gelatin-filled skull with the bone of the entire right side
missing (17H854). However, the gelatin underlying this missing
bone is completely intact, so utterly undisturbed that it still
bears the various minute impressions of the skull that once covered
it. This gelatin was supposed to simulate the tissues within the
skull (5H87). Yet those tissues, according to the autopsy report,
were "lacerated," "disrupted," and "extensively lacerated" (16H981,
983). Obviously, even upon its entering the bony vault of the
skull, the test bullet was not capable of producing the extensive
damage attributed to it by the Commission. As for the disruption
of the skull on the test exhibit, almost {any} force could have
dislodged pieces of the brittle skull not restrained by scalp. As
forensic pathologist Dr. John Nichols confirmed to me, even a blow
with a hammer could have produced the damage shown on the test
skull.[4]
The Commission adds a further note, again unjustly incriminating
Oswald. Two large fragments of the bullet that struck the test
skull were recovered, a portion of the copper jacket near the base,
and a sizable piece of the lead core. The Commission had its
"expert" compare these fragments with the two similar fragments
that were found in the front seat of the presidential limousine and
identifiable with "Oswald's" rifle. The result of this comparison,
as presented in the Report, is seemingly to associate these
traceable fragments with the head wounds. The expert is quoted as
follows:
the recovered fragments were very similar to the ones
recovered on the front seat and the floor of the car.
This to me, indicates that those fragments did come from
the bullet that wounded the President in the head. (R87)
These are the last words of the Report's discussion of the head
wounds. Since no qualifying language follows, the reader is left
with the impression that the "expert opinion" is valid in
associating the identifiable fragments with the wounds. Nowhere in
the Report do we find the simple fact that the fragmentation of
both the test bullet and the found bullet pieces is not an
exclusive occurrence, as implied. The break-up observed is
consistent with the normal fragmentation pattern of full-jacketed
military bullets. When such bullets break apart, the core usually
separates from the jacket.[5] The Commission could have produced
the same effect if it fired the bullet through a piece of masonite.
Thus, for all its claims, the Commission was able to present no
credible evidence associating bullets from "Oswald's" rifle, or
even military bullets in general, with the President's head wounds.
The nature of the bullet fragmentation within the President's
head actually disassociates military bullets from the head wounds,
and strongly suggests that some type of sporting ammunition struck
the head.
One essential fact about the entrance wound in the head was
omitted from both the autopsy report and the pathologists'
testimonies. It came to light in the following passage from a
report released by Attorney General Ramsey Clark in January 1969.
(In February 1968, Clark secretly convened a panel of three
forensic pathologists and a radiologist to study and report on the
photographs and X rays taken of the President's body during the
autopsy. [This photographic material has been withheld from the
public for a variety of reasons.] Clark kept the report of his
panel secret until January 1969, when he released it as part of the
Justice Department's legal argument against New Orleans District
Attorney Jim Garrison's attempt to have the pictures and X rays
produced at the conspiracy trial of Clay Shaw.) The passage reads:
Also there is, embedded in the outer table of the skull
close to the lower edge of the [entrance] hole, a large
metallic fragment which . . . lies 25 mm. to the right of
the midline. This fragment . . . is round and measures 6.5
mm. in diameter.[6]
The "Clark Panel" is describing a 6.5 mm. piece of metal that
separated from the bullet upon entering the skull and became
embedded in the skull at the bottom portion of the entrance wound.
This, the key to the type of ammunition causing the wound, vitiates
Dr. Humes's previously cited testimony that a "jacketed bullet"
probably caused this entrance wound.
The bullet from which was shaved this substantial fragment upon
entrance could {not} have been covered with a hard metal jacket
such as copper alloy. Such a fragment is, in fact, a not
infrequent occurrence from a {lead} bullet. Rowland Long, in his
book "The Physician and the Law," speaks of the penetration of lead
bullets into the skull and asserts: "Not infrequently a collar
shaped fragment of lead is shaved off around the wound of entrance
and is found embedded in the surrounding scalp tissues."[7]
Criminologist LeMoyne Snyder describes a similar phenomenon in his
book "Homicide Investigation."[8] Forensic pathologist Halpert
Fillinger explained to me the principles that rule out full-
jacketed ammunition and suggest a lead bullet:
You can appreciate the fact that a jacketed projectile is
going to leave very little on the [bone] margins because
it's basically a hardened jacket, and it's designed so that
it will not scrape off when it goes through a steel barrel.
One can appreciate the fact that going through bone, which
is not as hard as steel, may etch or scratch it, but it's
not going to peel off much metal. In contrast to this a
softer projectile might very well leave little metallic
residues around the margins.[9]
The Commission's case against Oswald requires full-jacketed
ammunition to have been used to inflict the wounds of President
Kennedy. The presence of the 6.5 mm. metallic fragment in the
margin of the skull entrance wound eliminates the possibility that
a full-jacketed bullet entered through this hole. Such a fragment
located at that site is indicative of a lead or soft-nosed bullet.
Most of the right hemisphere of the President's brain had been
shot away. The intact portions of the right side were extensively
disrupted, with laceration and fragmentation (see 2H356; The
"Clark Panel" Report, p. 8; R541, 544). However, when seen and
photographed at the autopsy, the brain was missing more tissue than
had been blown out directly from the force of the missile. The
Zapruder film shows brain tissue oozing out of the gaping skull
defect subsequent to the impact of the fatal bullet. Similarly,
the Parkland doctors who viewed the President shortly after he
suffered this wound reported that brain matter was slowly oozing
out and becoming detached (R519, 521, 523, 530).
The loss of a substantial quantity of brain tissue becomes
significant when we consider Dr. Humes's testimony that the X rays
showed "30 or 40 tiny dustlike particle fragments" of metal in the
President's head (2H353). Humes cautioned that the fragments that
appeared to be "the size of dust particles" (2H359) on the X rays
would actually have been smaller because "X ray pictures . . . have
a tendency to magnify these minute fragments somewhat in size"
(2H353). Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman saw the X rays during
the autopsy and provided a similar description: " . . . the whole
head looked like a little mass of stars, there must have been 30,
40 lights where these little pieces were so minute that they
couldn't be reached" (2H100).
The Clark Panel adds some details about the head fragments. It
reports that the majority of these fragments were located
"anteriorly and superiorly" (toward the front and top of the head),
and that none were visible on the left side of the brain or below a
horizontal plane through the anterior floor of the skull.[10] With
such minute fragments scattered through the brain, we can infer
that an indeterminable amount of metal was evacuated from the head
as brain tissue oozed out subsequent to the President's head being
struck. From this it follows that (a) there were originally more
fragments in the head than are shown in the X rays and, (b) the
pattern of distribution of these fragments as illustrated by the X
rays may not precisely represent the original distribution except
to indicate that the majority were situated toward the front of the
head.
The only solid observation that can be made on the basis of
fragmentation depicted in the head X rays is that {a} bullet
striking the head fragmented extensively, leaving pieces of metal,
for the most part "the size of dust particles," concentrated toward
the frontal portion of the brain. This type of fragmentation is
not consistent with the type of full-jacketed military ammunition
that the Commission says was used. The construction and
composition of full-jacketed bullets obviates any such massive
break-up. As noted previously, when military ammunition fragments,
it is usually in such a manner that the core separates from the
jacket. The core may undergo further break-up, although its
metallic composition does not permit the creation of numerous
dustlike particles.[11] Dr. Fillinger tells me that the fragments
described in the President's brain were not characteristic of a
military round, and, while he makes no absolute statement, he has
expressed his skepticism that they actually came from such a round.
He feels that the break-up of the bullet is more consistent with a
hunting round.[12]
In addition to this extensive brain damage and the accompanying
bullet fragmentation, a good deal of scalp and skull in the right
frontal and parietal area of the President's head had been blasted
away by the bullet, creating a large, irregular defect. Associated
with this gaping wound was fracturing and fragmentation of the
skull so extensive that the contours of the head were "grossly
distorted."[13] Dr. Humes reported that in peeling the scalp away
from the skull around the margins of the head defect, pieces of
skull would come "apart in our hands very easily" or fall to the
table (2H354). Dr. Humes stated also that "radiating at various
points from the large defect were multiple crisscrossing fractures
of the skull which extended in several directions" (2H351). The
Clark Panel describes multiple fractures of the skull
"bilaterally"--on {both} sides extending into the base of the
skull.[14] Information recorded in contemporary autopsy notes
indicates that the vomer (a bone in the nose) was crushed, and that
there was a fracture through the floor of the globe of the right
eye (17H46). Dr. J. Thornton Boswell, assistant to Dr. Humes at
the autopsy, has confirmed to a private researcher that a large
area of skull damage was present in the mid- and low-temple region,
although none of these fractures had broken the skin.[15]
The size and extent of the gaping defect, and the associated
fracturing and fragmentation of the skull, are indicative of a
high-velocity bullet's having struck the head to produce this
damage. Dr. Fillinger has expressed to me his strong feeling that
the extensive fragmentation of the skull is the consequence of a
high-velocity round.[16] He stated that the presence of such
massive fracturing means that "there is a tremendous amount of
force applied to the skull to produce all these fractures. . . .
This has been pretty well fragmented, as a matter of fact," he told
me, "and again, it speaks for some sort of high-velocity
round."[17]
The gaping defect and accompanying extensive fragmentation of
the skull are not consistent with having been produced by the type
of ammunition the Commission alleges was used which, despite
contrary claims, was of "medium" velocity.
The Commission asserts that the fatal shot was fired at a
distance of 270 feet (R585). Although the Report gives the average
striking velocity of the bullets fired from "Oswald's" rifle at
other distances as measured during the wound ballistics tests, it
does not record the velocity for the head shot tests at the proper
distance. At 210 feet, the average striking velocity was 1,858
feet per second (R584). Dr. Fillinger told me that he would
consider an impact velocity of 2,000 f.p.s. "medium."[18] Even Dr.
Malcolm Perry of Parkland Hospital testified that he considered the
Mannlicher-Carcano "a medium velocity weapon" (3H389). FBI
ballistics expert Robert Frazier called the velocity "low" (3H414)
although this would appear more of a comparative evaluation than an
absolute statement, since bullets can be fired as slowly as 800
f.p.s. or as fast as 4,100 f.p.s.
Because there was great damage to the head and extensive bullet
fragmentation in the brain, Dr. Fillinger was doubtful that the
Mannlicher-Carcano could have produced these wounds. "To produce
this kind of effect," he told me, "you have to have a very high-
velocity projectile, and the Carcano will not stand very high bolt
pressures."[19] The massive defect corresponds perfectly to the
characteristics that Humes described in reference to bullets that
"have a common characteristic of fragmenting extensively upon
striking," and that would have "extensively disrupted" the skull at
the point of impact (2H356). Such a bullet would most likely be
that which is used for "varminting." Bullets used in varmint
hunting must be fired at very high velocities ranging upward from
2,700 f.p.s., and are designed so that they will smash apart
immediately on impact. They commonly leave pinhead-sized fragments
scattered throughout the tissues.[20]
Without consideration of the question of whether the damage to
the President's head was the consequence of a strike by one or two
bullets, it can be said with a reasonable degree of certainty that
in no instance are any of the head wounds associable with full-
jacketed military ammunition of the type attributed to Oswald. The
medical evidence relating to the head wounds is thus exculpatory of
Oswald, for his guilt hinges on the assumption that he fired full-
jacketed military bullets from the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found
in the Depository and linked to him.
{The Neck and Upper Thorax Wounds}
The autopsy report concludes that a bullet struck the President
in the upper thoracic region of his back and penetrated his body on
a slightly downward angle, exiting through the lower part of the
anterior neck. This theory has long been rendered incredible in
numerous critical analyses.[21] However, one piece of information
in particular prevents anyone, whether or not he believes the
Warren Report, from asserting that a bullet went through the neck
in the manner described in the autopsy report. In order to
substantiate the assumption of a continuous bullet track, that
track must be dissected at the autopsy. According to Drs.
Fillinger and Wecht, there is no way to positively identify a
bullet path other than by dissecting it--taking it apart and
following it through every fraction of an inch of the tissue it
penetrates.[22] In his New Orleans testimony, Colonel Finck stated
explicitly, under oath, that the putative bullet track in the
President's neck was {not} dissected.[23] This failure to dissect
is, according to Dr. Fillinger, "the most critical thing of the
whole autopsy."[24] Without such dissection, {no one,} including
the autopsy pathologists, can be in a position to assert that one
bullet made a continuous path through the President's neck.
There is one piece of information concerning the neck and upper
thorax wounds that establishes beyond any doubt that (1) the
particular bullet traced to Oswald's rifle and alleged by the
Commission to have penetrated the President's neck could not have
produced the damage attributed to it, and (2) military ammunition
of the general type attributed to Oswald could not have caused
these wounds. This information came to light in the report of the
Clark Panel.
Describing antero-posterior X-ray views of the lower neck
region, the Panel Report declared, "Also several small metallic
fragments are present in this region."[25] This observation by the
Panel vitiates Dr. Humes's sworn testimony to the Commission that
the X rays revealed no metallic fragments in the neck region
(2H361).
Detailed information concerning these fragments is scant. Of
their number, the Clark Panel says only that there are "several";
of their size, that they are "small." My requests to the Panel for
more specific designations have gone unanswered. The radiologist
on the Panel, Dr. Russell Morgan, has told me that the exact
"region" in which these fragments appeared on the films was just
lateral to the tip of the right transverse process of the seventh
cervical vertebra, which is located at the very base of the
neck.[26] However, the back-to-front (or front-to-back)
distribution of these fragments cannot be determined because the
inventory of X rays includes no lateral views of the neck. As I
learned from Dr. Fillinger, antero-posterior X-ray views can be
very deceiving in depicting the front-to-back distribution of X-ray
densities. As a case in point, he showed me X rays of a boy shot
in the chest with shotgun pellets. The "A-P" view seemed to show
the tiny "shot" particles in the same plane within the chest. A
lateral X ray, however, revealed that the particles were actually
scattered throughout the chest at various levels from front to
back.[27] Thus, all we can know about the distribution of the
fragments in the President's neck is that they were at the level of
the seventh cervical vertebra.
Nevertheless, the knowledge that there were metallic fragments
in the neck, regardless of their number, size, or distribution, is
sufficient to eliminate the possibility that military ammunition of
the type attributed to Oswald was responsible for the neck wounds.
As previously noted, full-jacketed military bullets are
constructed so that they will not fragment in soft tissue. Even if
a bone in the neck region were struck (the official story is that
{no} bone in President Kennedy's neck region was struck), it is
unlikely that this military ammunition of medium velocity could
have produced "several small" fragments and no large ones. (There
was no point on the body from which a large fragment could have
exited. The 5 mm. wound on the anterior neck, alleged by the
autopsy pathologists and the Commission to have been an exit wound,
was entirely too small and regular to have been caused by a large
section of a bullet that had become deformed as a result of
fragmenting.)
That neither the head nor the neck wounds are attributable to
the ammunition Oswald allegedly used would seem to provide
persuasive evidence that Oswald played no part in the shooting of
the President. In fact, the evidence of the neck fragments is
clearly exculpatory, as is illustrated in an actual case presented
by LeMoyne Snyder in "Homicide Investigation."[28] Snyder relates
the story of a hunter found dead from a rifle wound in the chest.
Investigation disclosed only two persons who could have shot the
man--one armed with a military rifle firing jacketed ammunition,
the other with a .30-calibre Winchester firing soft-nosed hunting
bullets. According to Snyder, "The problem was to try to determine
whether the victim had been killed by jacketed ammunition or a
soft-nosed bullet." In reference to an X ray of the victim's
chest, Snyder writes: "Notice the numerous flecks of lead
scattered through the tissues, strongly indicating that the wound
was caused by soft-nosed ammunition." The parallel to the
assassination is striking, for the fragments scattered in the
President's neck must "strongly indicate . . . soft-nosed
ammunition," although the government's suspect allegedly fired
jacketed bullets.
Snyder's case ends justly; the guilty person is identified by
the medical evidence, the innocent is exculpated. Tests using the
two suspect weapons demonstrated that the military ammunition would
have left no metal in the chest, while the soft-nosed bullet would
have scattered numerous tiny fragments, proving "that it was soft-
nosed ammunition and not a jacketed bullet which killed the man."
In denying the Commission knowledge of the neck fragments, Dr.
Humes denied Oswald the possible proof of his innocence.
The presence of these fragments in the President's neck further
disassociates Oswald from the crime because it establishes beyond
any doubt that the specific bullet alleged by the Commission to
have penetrated the neck could {not} have produced the damage
attributed to it. The Report never directly identifies a
particular bullet as having caused the neck wounds. However, it
clearly implies that the bullet that wounded Governor Connally had
first penetrated the President's neck. It asserts that a whole
bullet traceable to the Mannlicher-Carcano was found on Governor
Connally's stretcher at Parkland Hospital (R79, 81), and expresses
the belief that this bullet caused the Governor's wounds.
Obviously, according to the theory that one bullet produced all the
nonfatal wounds to both men, it must be the Commission's belief
that the President's neck was penetrated by the "stretcher bullet,"
Commission Exhibit 399.
CE 399 could not have produced the President's neck wounds, for
the simple reason that it is unfragmented. Several factors destroy
the possibility that the bullet merely brushed some fragments from
its surface in passing through the neck, thereby leaving the
metallic pieces observed on X rays. The loss of fragments that
might almost insignificantly have reduced the bullet's mass would
certainly have created some irregularity of its surface. Yet an
irregular missile of substantial size could not have produced the
small round wound in the throat upon exiting (see 6H5, 15).
In his testimony at the New Orleans conspiracy trial, FBI
ballistics expert Robert Frazier described the condition of CE 399
and the circumstances under which it could have deposited metal
fragments:
Mr. Frazier: In my opinion there was no jacketing
missing, no discernible amount of jacket missing [from the
bullet].
Mr. Oser: . . . If such a pellet as Exhibit 399 is shot
. . . during its travel what could possibly remove the
copper jacketing in order for the lead contained therein to
be deposited into a particular target?
Mr. Frazier: The bullet would have to strike some object
with sufficient force to rupture the jacket either from
striking head-on or if it were tumbling the striking of the
side, or the other alternative would be if the bullet
tumbled in flight and wound up in a base-first attitude,
then the lead would be exposed at the point of impact.
Mr. Oser: In Commission Exhibit 399, you found the
copper jacketing intact, I believe you said?
Mr. Frazier: Yes.[29]
Because none of CE 399's jacket was missing, the neck fragments
could not possibly have come from that area of the bullet. The
only other means by which 399 could have lost fragments (since the
jacket was not ruptured) is if it somehow began tumbling in the
neck, presenting its base to some hard surface and scraping off
fragments. Had 399 been tumbling in this manner, it would have
produced a massive and lacerated exit wound, which certainly did
not occur on the President's neck.
Thus, there is no conceivable way in which 399 could have
deposited metallic fragments in the President's neck.
Although the putative bullet track through the neck was never
dissected, on the night of the autopsy the pathologists were able
to insert metal "probes" into the back wound to a depth of about
two inches.[30] No path could be probed beyond this point and the
pathologists speculated that the bullet that entered the back might
somehow have stopped short after this modest penetration and fallen
out of the wound prior to the autopsy.[31] Although the
pathologists abandoned this theory when they were confronted with
the anterior neck wound to be accounted for, others, including the
FBI and some critics of the Warren Report, have suggested that the
"stretcher" bullet, CE 399, penetrated the President's back a very
short distance and dropped out of the wound at Parkland
Hospital.[32] This theory seems to offer an alternative by which a
bullet fired from Oswald's rifle might be connected with the
President's wounds. However, to postulate that CE 399 or any other
bullet of the type allegedly fired by Oswald penetrated two inches
of flesh and suddenly stopped short is to beg for the ludicrous;
as a theory, it is unworthy of serious consideration. I base this
assertion on the following considerations brought out to me by
Richard Bernabei, a fellow researcher who has made substantial
contributions to the medical-ballistics aspects of this case.
{General Principles.} A cartridge, or round of ammunition, is
composed of a primer, a cartridge case, powder, and a bullet. The
primer, a metal cup containing a detonatable mixture, fits into the
base of the cartridge case, which is loaded with the powder. The
bullet fits into the neck of the cartridge case. To fire the
bullet, the cartridge is placed in the chamber of the firearm,
immediately behind the barrel, with its base resting against a
solid support which, in a bolt-operated weapon, is called the bolt
face. When the trigger is pulled a firing pin strikes a swift,
hard blow into the primer, detonating the primer mixture. The
flames from the resulting explosion ignite the powder, causing a
rapid combustion whose force propels the bullet forward through the
barrel (R547).
Because the bullet is propelled by the pressure of the expanding
gases in the cartridge case, the bullet's velocity will vary with
the amount of pressure generated. This pressure not only expands
the sides of the case, but also drives the base back against the
bolt face.[33] The latter action flattens out the base, and the
degree of flattening plus the resultant depth of the firing-pin
indentation provide a very fair means of estimating whether the
pressure was normal, high, or low, and thus whether the bullet was
fired at its standard velocity.[34]
{Background.} According to the Warren Report, three empty
cartridge cases were found near the alleged "assassin's window,"
all of which were traceable to "Oswald's" rifle owing to the
microscopic marks left on the bases (R79, 84-85). The presence of
these expended cases weighed heavily in the Commission's conclusion
that three shots were fired. The Report states: "The most
convincing evidence relating to the number of shots was provided by
the presence . . . of three spent cartridges" (R110). Without
making comment as to the soundness of this reasoning and assuming
for argument's sake that the Carcano was used, I claim that it
logically follows that bullet 399, if it is a legitimate
assassination bullet, was fired from one of the spent cases.
{Drawback.} Bullets fired from "Oswald's" rifle into flesh
simulants exhibited good penetrating power, passing easily through
more than 72 cm. of gelatin. These bullets struck a simulated neck
from a distance of 180 feet, traveling at approximately 1,904
f.p.s. and exiting from the simulant at 1,779 f.p.s. (R581-82). As
ballistics expert Charles Dickey confirmed to me, bullets moving at
such speeds would not stop short in muscle, as is demanded by the
theory placing CE 399 in the President's back.[35]
The only way a bullet such as CE 399 could have made a short
penetration into muscle at a distance of 50 yards is if its
velocity had somehow been significantly retarded. Owing to the
lack of physical mitigants, the only explanation for such a
tremendous slowing down is a "short-charge" cartridge, whose
explosive power is far less than standard.[36] Dickey told me that
this would be an extremely unusual occurrence and that, despite the
age of the alleged ammunition, the propellants should have remained
stable.[37] In all the many times this ammunition has been test-
fired subsequent to the assassination, not one "short charge" has
been reported.[38]
{Disproof.} As mentioned previously, a key indication of the
velocity at which a bullet was fired is found by the degree of
flattening of the cartridge base and the depth of the primer
indentation. Dick Bernabei had told me that, from his own
examination of the three found cartridge cases and two others fired
from the rifle for comparison purposes, the primer indentations on
all the cases were identical, proving that they had all been fired
at the same velocity. To check this, I had the National Archives
prepare a photo illustrating the five bases all under similar
lighting. This picture confirmed Dick's observations, indicating
that the bullets fired from the suspect cases were fired at their
normal velocity.
Thus, from the unlikely to the impossible, neither bullet 399
nor any other bullet of that type fired at standard velocity from
the Mannlicher-Carcano could have lodged in the soft tissues of the
President's back.
{Conclusion}
Throughout this chapter, I have endeavored to answer the
question: Could the President's wounds have been caused by bullets
of the type recovered and traced to Oswald's rifle? The answer to
that question, to the most reasonably certain degree allowed by the
limitations of the medical evidence, is No. The nature of the
bullet fragmentation observed within the President's wounds
strongly indicates that he was {not} struck by military ammunition
of the type attributed to Oswald's rifle. In every case, it is
likely that the President's wounds were produced by some type of
sporting ammunition. It is possible to conclude beyond a
reasonable doubt that a specific bullet, CE 399, traced to Oswald's
rifle, did {not} penetrate the President's neck, for there is no
way in which that bullet could have deposited the metallic
fragments located in the neck region. Before any conclusions can be
drawn concerning whether CE 399 played any role in the shooting, we
must first ask whether it is possible for CE 399 to have produced
the wounds of Governor Connally.
__________
[1] The best published discussions of the limitations of the medical
evidence may be found in the following sources: Weisberg,
"Whitewash," chap. 13; Meagher, chap. 5; Cyril Wecht, "A Critique
of President Kennedy's Autopsy," in Thompson, pp. 278-84.
The most definitive expose of the medical evidence is contained
in a three-part book by Weisberg called "Post Mortem." This is a
copyrighted study based on Weisberg's exhaustive research over a
period of about eight years; however, it is not commercially
published.
[2] "Winchester Handbook," p. 121, and A. Lucas, pp. 241-42.
[3] Rowland H. Long, "The Physician and the Law" (New York, 1968),
p. 239.
[4] Author's interview with Dr. John Nichols on April 16, 1970.
[5] Author's taped interview with Dr. Halpert Fillinger on January 14,
1970. (Hereinafter referred to as "Fillinger Interview.") See
also Long, p. 239.
[6] Report of the Ramsey Clark panel, p. 11.
[7] R. Long, p. 231. This phenomenon is also described and illustrated
in Thomas Gonzales, Milton Helpern, Morgan Vance, and Charles
Umberger, "Legal Medicine, Pathology and Toxicology" (New York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1954), pp. 396 and 423.
[8] LeMoyne Snyder, "Homicide Investigation" (Springfield, Mass., 1953),
p. 132.
[9] Fillinger Interview.
[10] Clark Panel Report, pp. 10-11.
[11] The lead used in most military projecticles is an alloy of antimony
with small quantities of arsenic and bismuth added for hardening to
resist expansion. See Lucas, pp. 241-42.
[12] Fillinger Interview.
[13] Clark Panel Report, p. 7.
[14] Ibid., p. 10.
[15] Thompson, p. 110.
[16] Fillinger Interview.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] "Winchester Handbook," p. 123; C. E. Hagie, "The American Rifle
for Hunting and Target Shooting" (New York: The Macmillan Co.,
1946), pp. 69, 73, 83.
The possibility that a frangible bullet produced the massive head
wound was first suggested by Vincent Salandria in an article that
appeared in "Liberation" magazine, March 1965, p. 32. The
specification of a varminting bullet was first introduced to me by
Dick Bernabei, who has done much admirable and worthwhile work on
the medical/ballistics aspects of the case.
[21] See Weisberg, "Whitewash," pp. 178-86; Meagher, pp. 139-59; David
Welsh and David Lifton, "A Counter-Theory: The Case For Three
Assassins," "Ramparts," January 1967, section II: "The Bullet in
the Back." Much of the original research can be found in Vincent
Salandria, "The Warren Report," "Liberation," March 1965, pp. 14-22,
Part I: A Philadelphia Lawyer Analyzes the President's Back and
Neck Wounds.
[22] Fillinger Interview, and Thompson, p. 50.
[23] Transcript of court proceedings of February 24, 1969, in "State of
Louisiana v. Clay L. Shaw," p. 115. (Hereinafter referred to as
"Finck 2/24/69 testimony.")
[24] Fillinger Interview.
[25] Clark Panel Report, p. 13.
[26] Letter to the author from Dr. Russell Morgan, dated November 12,
1969.
[27] Fillinger Interview.
[28] This case and the accompanying illustrations can be found in LeMoyne
Snyder, pp. 135-39.
[29] Frazier 2/21/69 testimony, pp. 159-60.
[30] See CD 7, p. 284; 2H93; Thompson, p. 167.
[31] See CD 7, p. 284, 2H367.
[32] See the first FBI report on the assassination, CD 1, and the
Supplemental Report, dated January 13, 1964; Thompson, pp. 165-70.
[33] Sir Sydney Smith and Frederick Fiddes, "Forensic Medicine" (London:
J. and A. Churchill, Ltd., 1955), p. 174.
[34] Major Sir Gerald Burrard, "The Identification of Firearms and
Forensic Ballistics" (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1951), p. 51. The
scheme I use in the text is adapted from this book, p. 52.
[35] Author's taped interview with Charles Dickey at Frankford Arsenal.
July 16, 1968. (Hereinafter referred to as "Dickey Interview.")
[36] Thompson, pp. 167-68.
[37] Dickey Interview.
[38] E.G., see R193 and "International Surgery" 50, no. 6 (December
1968): p. 529.
* * * * * * *
5
The Governor's Wounds and the Validity of the Essential Conclusions
In the case of Governor Connally, it is not possible to determine
the type of ammunition that produced his wounds. Three bones in
his body were struck by a bullet, two of them seriously broken and
fractured, and flecks of metal were observed in, and in one case
removed from, his injuries. The presence of these metallic
fragments in the Governor's wounds, however, does not specifically
indicate that he was struck by a type of sporting ammunition,
because the force with which the bone tissue was struck was
sufficient for military ammunition to have deposited the fragments
observed. It is the Warren Commission's belief that the Governor's
wounds were caused by the almost pristine bullet, CE 399, fired
from Oswald's rifle (R95). Therefore, in this chapter I will deal
not with the general question of the type of ammunition, but with a
specific bullet, CE 399. The question to be answered is this: Did
bullet 399 produce the wounds sustained by Governor Connally?
A bullet entered the back of the Governor's chest to the left of
his right armpit. This bullet struck the fifth rib and shattered
it, actually stripping away about 10 cm. of bone starting
immediately below the armpit (4H105; 6H86). The right lung was
severely lacerated (6H88). The bullet exited from the anterior
chest, causing a large sucking wound about 5 cm. in diameter just
below the right nipple (6H85). There was an atypical entrance
wound on the dorsal (back of the hand) side of the Governor's wrist
and an atypical exit wound on the volar (palm) side (6H07; R93).
The radius (wrist bone) had been broken into about seven or eight
pieces from the passage of the bullet (4H120). There was a 1 cm.
puncture wound located on the Governor's left thigh some five to
six inches above the knee (R93). X rays revealed a small metallic
fragment embedded in the left thigh bone, the femur (6H106). This
fragment was not surgically removed and still remains in Mr.
Connally's femur.
It is probable that one bullet caused all of Connally's
injuries. In support of this hypothesis, the Report paraphrases
the Parkland doctors as follows:
In their testimony, the three doctors who attended
Governor Connally expressed independently their opinion that
a single bullet had passed through his chest, tumbled
through his wrist with very little exit velocity, leaving
small metallic fragments from the rear portion of the
bullet; punctured his left thigh after the bullet had lost
virtually all of its velocity; and had fallen out of the
thigh wound. (R95)
A footnote to this statement cites portions of the doctors'
depositions taken in Dallas on March 23, before two of them were
brought to Washington to testify for the Commission a month later.
At this time, they had not seen bullet 399 and spoke on a strictly
hypothetical basis.
Dr. Tom Shires, who was involved in the Governor's medical
treatment, explained that, from the discussion among Connally's
surgeons, "everyone was under the impression this was one missile-
-through and through the chest, through and through the arm and the
thigh." When asked if any of the doctors had dissented from this
consensus he replied, "Not that I remember" (6H110).
Dr. Charles Gregory, who attended to the Governor's wrist wound,
best explained the reasoning behind the theory that one bullet
caused Connally's wounds:
Mr. Specter: Would you consider it possible, in your
professional opinion, for the same bullet to have inflicted
all of the wounds which you have described on Governor
Connally?
Dr. Gregory: Yes; I believe it is very possible, for a
number of reasons. One of these--is the apparent loss of
energy manifested at each of the various body surfaces,
which I transected, the greatest energy being at the point
of entry on the posterior aspect of the chest and of the
fifth rib, where considerable destruction was done and the
least destruction having been done in the medial aspect of
the thigh where the bullet apparently expended itself.
. . . We know that high velocity bullets striking bone
have a strong tendency to shatter bones and the degree to
which the fifth rib was shattered was considerably in excess
of the amount of shattering which occurred in the radius--
the forearm.
. . . I think that the missile was continually losing
velocity with each set of tissues which it encountered and
transected, and the amount of damage done is progressively
less from first entrance to the thorax to the last entrance
in the thigh. (6H101-2)
The Report is entirely misleading, however, when it asserts
that the doctors felt that the wrist fragments were left "from the
rear portion of the bullet" and that this {bullet} subsequently
punctured the thigh. In their original testimonies, the doctors
did not postulate from what part of the bullet the fragments had
come. The intent of the Report is obvious, when we consider that
the only possible surface from which CE 399 could have lost
fragments is its rear, or base, where the lead core was naturally
exposed. The thinking of the doctors, however, tended to rule out
the possibility of CE 399's having gone into the wrist at all,
because they felt that this wound was the result of an irregular or
fragmented missile (6H90-91, 98-99, 102). Dr. Robert Shaw, who
conducted the operation on the Governor's chest, was puzzled as to
how the wrist wounds could have appeared as they did if a whole
bullet had caused them (6H91).
According to Dr. Shaw, it is not exactly correct to assert that
a whole bullet entered the thigh. In the portion of his original
testimony cited by the Report, Dr. Shaw explained the theory of
one bullet's causing all the Governor's wounds in this way: "I
have always felt that the wounds of Governor Connally could be
explained by the passage of one missile through his chest, striking
his wrist and {a fragment of it} going on into his left thigh"
(6H91; emphasis added).
What the Report does not reflect is the substantial change in
Drs. Shaw's and Gregory's opinions when shown the bullet that
allegedly produced the Governor's wounds. The first indication of
varied opinions came through this exchange between Dr. Shaw and
Commissioners Cooper, Dulles, and McCloy. Dr. Shaw had been asked
about the possibility that one bullet had caused the Governor's
wounds:
Dr. Shaw: . . . this is still a possibility. But I
don't feel that it is the only possibility.
Sen. Cooper: Why do you say you don't think it is the
only possibility? What causes you {now} to say that it is
the location--
Dr. Shaw: This is again the testimony that I believe Dr.
Gregory will be giving, too. It is a matter of whether the
wrist wound could be caused by the same bullet, and we felt
that it could but {but we had not seen the bullets until
today,} and we still do not know which bullet actually
inflicted the wound on Governor Connally.
Mr. Dulles: Or whether it was one or two rounds?
Dr. Shaw: Yes.
Mr. Dulles: Or two bullets?
Dr. Shaw: Yes; or three.
Mr. McCloy: You have no firm opinion that all these
three wounds were caused by one bullet?
Dr. Shaw: I have no firm opinion. . . . Asking me now
if it was true. {If you had asked me a month ago I would
have} [had].
Mr. McCloy: Could they have been caused by one bullet,
in your opinion?
Dr. Shaw: They could.
Mr. McCloy: I gather that what the witness is saying is
that it is possible that they might have been caused by one
bullet. But that he has no firm opinion {now} that they
were.
Mr. Dulles: As I understand it too. Is our
understanding correct?
Dr. Shaw: That is correct. (4H109; emphasis added)
It might be regarded as highly culpable that Commissioners
Dulles and McCloy, who professed such a clear understanding of Dr.
Shaw's position, signed a report stating the opposite of what Dr.
Shaw had testified to, with a footnote referring to prior
statements withdrawn by Shaw in their presence. Dr. Shaw's
testimony is explicit that, prior to seeing the bullet in evidence,
he felt that all the Governor's wounds were caused by one bullet;
when shown the bullet, CE 399, which allegedly did this damage, he
retracted his original opinion. What was it about this bullet that
caused such a change of judgment?
Under questioning by Arlen Specter, Dr. Shaw summed up the
indications that CE 399 did not produce the Governor's wounds. He
had first been asked to comment on the possibility of a bullet's
having caused the wounds:
Mr. Specter: When you started to comment about it not
being possible, was that in reference to the existing mass
and shape of bullet 399?
Dr. Shaw: I thought you were referring directly to the
bullet shown as Exhibit 399.
Mr. Specter: What is your opinion as to whether bullet
399 could have inflicted all the wounds on the Governor
then, without respect at this point to the wound of the
President's neck?
Dr. Shaw: I feel that there would be some difficulty in
explaining all of the wounds as being inflicted by bullet
Exhibit 399 without causing more in the way of loss of
substance to the bullet or deformation of the bullet.
(4H114)
CE 399 is a virtually undistorted, intact bullet. Its weight is
approximately two grains below the average weight of an unfired
bullet of that type. As was mentioned in the previous chapter,
none of the copper jacket of 399 is missing. The nose and sides of
this bullet--as shown in photographs and as I saw in a personal
examination--are without gross deformity. The base of 399 has been
slightly squeezed so that, in contrast to its rounded shaft, the
tail end is slightly elliptical in shape. A small amount of lead,
which apparently has flowed from the open base, creates a slight
irregularity of the base.
Given the almost pristine condition of CE 399, it is
understandable that Drs. Shaw and Gregory were puzzled at the
inference that this bullet had caused the Governor's wounds.
Before having seen 399, they imagined the bullet that penetrated
Connally as being irregular or distorted, the natural consequence
of powerful impacts with two substantial bones. Dr. Shaw did not
think the bullet could even have remained intact (6H91). On the
basis of the nature of the wrist wound, Dr. Gregory thought that
"the missile that struck it could be virtually intact, insofar as
mass was concerned, but probably was {distorted}" (6H99).
According to Dr. Gregory, the wrist wound showed characteristics
of suffering the impact of an {irregular} missile (6H98, 102). In
his testimony before the Commission, Dr. Gregory expounded on the
nature of this "irregular" missile:
Dr. Gregory: The wound of entrance (on the wrist) is
characteristic in my view of an irregular missile in this
case, an irregular missile which has tipped itself off as
being irregular by the nature of itself.
Mr. Dulles: What do you mean by irregular?
Dr. Gregory: I mean one that has been distorted. It is
in some way angular, it has sharp edges or something of this
sort. It is not rounded or pointed in the fashion of an
ordinary missile. (4H124)
Obviously, the condition of the bullet that produced the wrist
wound, as described by Dr. Gregory, does not match that of bullet
399, which is not "distorted" or "irregular." There is only one
surface on CE 399 that is the least bit "irregular," the base end
where the lead core is naturally exposed. When Arlen Specter asked
Dr. Gregory about a possible correlation between CE 399 and the
wrist wound, the latter responded:
the only . . . deformity which I can find is at the base of
the missile. . . . The only way that this missile could
have produced this wound, in my view, was to have entered
the wrist backward. . . . That is the only possible
explanation I could offer to correlate this missile with
this particular wound. (4H121)
Dr. Gregory admitted, in response to a hypothetical question from
Counsel Specter, that the slight irregularity in the base of CE 399
"could have" been sufficient to produce the lacerated wounds
observed on the Governor's wrist (4H122).
Yet, Dr. Gregory's only correlation of CE 399 to the wrist wound
is not applicable to the circumstances of the shooting. Dr.
Gregory examined 399 in its spent state, long after it had been
fired and incurred its slight amount of damage. He related the
bullet in {this} state to a bullet in flight that had not suffered
the full extent of its damage. The irregularity of 399's base
would have occurred {after} it hit the wrist, as the Commission
postulates. Certainly a base-first strike on the radius would not
have left the base in the same condition as it was {prior} to
impact. Dr. Gregory's answer to Specter's hypothetical question
could not apply to the actual shooting.
Specter knew independently from wound ballistics experts that
the condition of CE 399 was not at all consistent with having
struck a wrist. Two conferences that Specter attended were held
during the week prior to Dr. Gregory's Commission testimony. The
consensus of the first meeting was, in part, that "the bullet
recovered from the Governor's stretcher does not appear to have
penetrated a wrist."[1] The expert opinion was more explicit at
the next meeting, held the day of the Shaw-Gregory testimony and
attended by those doctors, the wound ballistics experts, Specter,
McCloy, and others. A memorandum of this conference reports that
in a discussion after the conference Drs. Light and Dolce
(two wound ballistics experts from Edgewood Arsenal)
expressed themselves as being very strongly of the opinion
that Connally had been hit by two different bullets,
principally on the ground that the bullet recovered from
Connally's stretcher could not have broken his radius
without having suffered more distortion. Dr. Olivier
(another wound ballistics expert) withheld a conclusion
until he has had the opportunity to make tests on animal
tissue and bone with the actual rifle.[2]
_______________________________________________________________________
| photograph of 5 bullets: |
| |
| leftmost--virtually pristine |
| 2nd from left--flattened length-wise but not squished vertically |
| middle--top half missing/middle squished, bottom recognizable |
| 2nd from right--"apparent" [misshapen] top of middle bullet |
| rightmost--top 3rd of bullet is mushroomed into a "pancake" |
|_____________________________________________________________________|
Fig. 4. CE 399 (far left) is beautifully preserved as compared to
similar bullets fired from the Carcano: (from left to right) CE
853, fired through a goat's chest, CE 857 (in two pieces), fired
into a human skull, and CE 856, fired into a human wrist. Not one
of the three, each of which did less damage than the Commission
attributes to 399, emerged as undistorted as 399. It is
preposterous to assume that 399 could have struck so many
obstructions and remained so undamaged. (This photograph was taken
for Harold Weisberg by the National Archives.)
Dr. Olivier's tests, despite their shortcomings, demonstrated a
very common ballistics principle--that a bullet striking bone will
usually suffer some form of distortion.
As is apparent from Figure 4, none of Dr. Olivier's test bullets
admitted into evidence matched 399, since all were grossly deformed
by extreme flattening, indenting, or separation of jacket from core
(see also 17H849-51).
Although Dr. Olivier's tests included shots through ten cadaver
wrists, only one of the bullets recovered from this series was
admitted into evidence, CE 856 (see Fig. 4). The other bullets are
not in the National Archives, and until recently no researchers had
seen them. On March 27, 1973, the Archives declassified a once-
"Confidential" report written in March 1965 by Dr. Olivier and his
associate, Dr. Arthur J. Dziemian. This report is entitled "Wound
Ballistics of 6.5-MM Mannlicher-Carcano Ammunition," and represents
the final report of the research conducted for the Commission at
Edgewood Arsenal. This report includes photographs of four of the
test bullets fired through human wrists, published here for the
first time ever (Fig. 5). The bullet marked "B" in Figure 5 is
apparently CE 856. However, the other three bullets, which
produced damage similar to that suffered by Governor Connally's
wrist, are even more mutilated than the one bullet that was
preserved for the record. These newly released photographs
graphically reveal the degree of mutilation that might be found on
Mannlicher-Carcano bullets that had struck human wrists, and make
even more preposterous the Commission's assertion that near-
pristine 399 penetrated Connally's wrist. {goes below: .ll 75}
_______________________________________________________________________
| photograph of 4 bullets lying horizontally: 2 bullets in 2 rows: |
| |
| top left--head mashed slightly down (1 to 2 centimeters?) |
| top right--head mashed w/more deformity, (1-2 cms?) |
| bottom left--head mashed, more deformity (3-4 cms?) |
| bottom right--head mashed, extreme deformity (5-6 cms?) |
|_____________________________________________________________________|
Fig. 5. This photograph was considered "Confidential" by the
government and withheld from researchers for eight years. It
depicts "6.5-MM Mannlicher-Carcano Bullets Recovered after being
Fired Through Distal Ends of Radii of Cadaver Wrists."
The obvious conclusion dictated by the nature of the Governor's
wounds is that CE 399 could not have caused them. This is contrary
to the Report's assertion that "all the evidence indicated that the
bullet found on the Governor's stretcher could have caused all his
wounds" (R95). The substantiating argument of the Report is that
the total weight of the bullet fragments in the Governor's body
does not exceed the weight lost by 399. This argument is
nonsensical, for it ignores the thoroughly nonstatistical nature of
ballistics and the expected consequences of bullets striking bone;
such a line of reasoning attempts to replace imprecision with
pseudo-exactness and inapplicable mathematics.
It is therefore, in light of the well-preserved state of that
bullet, preposterous to postulate that CE 399 caused Governor
Connally's wounds. Drs. Shaw and Gregory, barraged by the official
contention that 399 was discovered on the Governor's stretcher and
thus must have caused his wounds, were reserved in expressing
themselves on the unlikelihood of such a proposition. Other
experts have been more free in voicing their opinions. I have yet
to find one expert who will concede the likelihood of an occurrence
such as the Commission assumes. When I spoke with ballistics
expert Charles Dickey at Frankford Arsenal, he cautioned me that he
could not speak out directly against the validity of the
government's beliefs relating to the assassination. Even he found
it hard to accept that 399 caused the Governor's wounds.[3] Among
the many forensic pathologists who have scoffed at this theory are
William Enos,[4] Halpert Fillinger,[5] Milton Helpern,[6] John
Nichols,[7] and Cyril Wecht.[8]
The absence of gross deformity in bullet 399 contradicts the
career of massive bone-smashing attributed to it. However, as I
learned from Dr. Fillinger and as Harold Weisberg pointed out
several years ago in a copyrighted study of the medical evidence,
the most crucial aspect of 399's state is its absence of
significant distortion detectable through microscopic
examination.[9]
The barrels of modern firearms are "rifled," that is, several
spiral grooves are cut into the barrel from end to end. As the
bullet is propelled through the barrel, these spiral grooves and
lands (the raised portions of the barrel between the grooves) set
the bullet spinning around its axis, giving it rotational as well
as forward movement, thus increasing its stability in flight. The
lands and grooves consequently etch a pattern of very fine striated
lines along the sides of the bullet, which will vary from one
weapon to another just as fingerprints vary from one person to
another. Like fingerprints, the lands and grooves scratched onto
the surface of the bullet can be microscopically identified with a
particular weapon to the exclusion of all others, provided that
they remain sufficiently intact subsequent to impact (R547-48).
The very fine lands and grooves along the copper sides of CE 399
allowed the conclusive determination that the bullet had been fired
from "Oswald's" rifle. FBI agent Frazier provided vital testimony
about the defacement of these microscopic markings on 399:
Mr. Eisenberg: Were the markings of the bullet at all
defaced?
Mr. Frazier: Yes; they were, in that the bullet is
distorted by having been slightly flattened or twisted.
Mr. Eisenberg: How material would you call that
defacement?
Mr. Frazier: It is hardly visible unless you look at the
base of the bullet and notice it is not round.
Mr. Eisenberg: How far does it affect your examination
for purposes of identification?
Mr. Frazier: It had no effect at all . . . because it
did not mutilate or distort the microscopic marks beyond the
point where you could recognize the pattern and find the
same pattern of marks on one bullet as were present on the
other. (3H430)
From Frazier's testimony it is apparent that the very slight
"defacement" of 399's lands and grooves could be better termed a
"displacement," for the microscopic marks were distorted only by an
almost insignificant change in the {contour} of the bullet as
opposed to a disruption in the continuity of the surface.
After closely examining 399 at a magnification of five
diameters, I was convinced of the veracity of Frazier's testimony.
I followed each set of lands and grooves on the bullet and saw that
all were continuous and without disruption, beginning just below
the rounded nose and running smoothly down to the tail end.
Dr. Fillinger emphasized to me that a jacketed bullet such as
399 could strike one bone and leave its lands and grooves intact so
far as visible {to the naked eye}. When I assured him that Agent
Frazier had found these marks still to be intact even through
microscopic examination, Fillinger seemed somewhat taken aback.
"Well, this is unlikely," he said. "It's very unlikely, as a
matter of fact. Even our own ballistics people here don't get that
kind of good luck."[10] One can readily appreciate that forceful
contact with firm bone tissue is bound to disrupt the fine
striations on a bullet's surface, even with a jacketed projectile.
If 399 wounded Governor Connally, then it was necessarily immune
to the conditions that distort and deform other bullets of its
kind. If it smashed through two substantial bones and rammed into
another one, it failed to manifest the normal indications of such a
flight, those which marked other bullets under even less stress.
The theory that 399 wounded the Governor is valid only on the
premise that it was a magic bullet capable of feats never before
performed in the history of ballistics.
Bullet 399 is not magic. It is just the typical mass of copper
and lead that constitutes other bullets of its kind. Governor
Connally was likewise not magic. His flesh and bones would deform
bullets as would anyone else's; his wounds showed very strong
indications that the bullet causing them had, in fact, become
distorted and irregular.
The only tenable conclusion warranted by the evidence of the
Governor's wounds, the condition of 399, and the laws of physics is
that 399 did not wound Governor Connally.
{The Search for Legitimacy}
Did 399 figure in the assassination shots?
As we have seen, there is no possible way by which bullet 399
can be related to the President's wounds. The extensive
fragmentation involving the fatal wounds rules out a missile left
intact. The presence of fragments in the President's neck likewise
rules out 399, for there is no possible circumstance under which it
could have deposited fragments in the neck and still account for
the other wounds, such as the tiny hole in the throat. Had the
President sustained a back wound of short penetration, it could not
have been caused by a bullet whose penetrating power was as great
as 399's.
Governor Connally, to judge from the nature of his wounds and
the predictable consequences of a strike such as he endured, was
hit by a missile that did not leave behind a very large percentage
of its substance but ended its flight in a distorted or mangled
condition.
Thus, CE 399 can not be related to any of the wounds inflicted
on either victim during the assassination. From this it follows
that 399 must have turned up at Parkland Hospital in a manner not
related to the victims and their treatment. It had to have been
placed on the stretcher at some time, manually and intentionally.
It can not be a legitimate assassination bullet.
The situation at Parkland on the afternoon of the assassination
would have enabled almost anyone to gain access to the area where
399 was discovered on the stretcher. A man identifying himself as
an FBI agent tried to enter the room in which the dead President
lay at the hospital. The Secret Servicemen who witnessed this
incident and had to restrain the man with force reported that he
"appeared to be {determined} to enter the President's room"
(18H798-99 and 795-96). The Commission apparently made no efforts
to determine the identity of this man and sought no further details
from other witnesses.
Two witnesses were positive that they saw Jack Ruby at Parkland
Hospital at about the time the President's death was announced
(15H80; 25H216).
Harold Weisberg, in his book "Oswald in New Orleans," reveals
that a Cuban refugee of "disruptive influence" was employed at
Parkland at the time of the assassination. Pointing out that the
Commission's best evidence indicated that 399 was a "plant,"
Weisberg finds it extremely suspicious that no effort was made to
identify this "political Cuban" when his existence was known to
both the Secret Service and the Commission.[11] Such a man would
have had access to the stretcher on which 399 was found and would
not have attracted the least suspicion, since he was an employee of
the hospital.
Nurse Margaret Henchcliffe related an incident that illustrates
how almost {anyone} could have made his way to the area of the
stretcher. She reported that a 16-year-old boy {carrying a camera}
had gotten into the Emergency Area, seeking to take pictures of the
room in which the President had died less than an hour before
(21H240).
There is currently no evidence against the possibility that the
two bullet fragments found in the front seat of the limousine and
traced to "Oswald's" rifle were likewise "planted" after the
victims were taken to the hospital. We should recall from the
discussion of the President's head wounds that the fatal damage
was, in no instance, consistent with the damage produced by
military ammunition of the type attributed to Oswald. Photographs
taken outside the hospital show substantial crowds in proximity to
the unguarded limousine.[12] As in the case of the stretcher
bullet, the circumstances {did} permit incriminating evidence to be
planted.
It cannot be said, and indeed I make no pretense of saying, that
a phony FBI man, a "disruptive Cuban," Jack Ruby, or a young boy
with a camera planted bullet 399 at Parkland Hospital. The thrust
of this discussion has been that anyone could have gained access to
the locations in which evidence pointing to Oswald was found. This
point may also be applied to the Book Depository, where Oswald's
rifle and three spent shells were discovered. Within fifteen
minutes of the assassination, the Depository was swarming with
unidentified people.[13] The medical evidence, as the discussion
in this and the previous chapter demonstrates, disassociates
military bullets from the President's wounds and proves that a
specific bullet traced to Oswald's rifle and found at Parkland
could {not} have wounded either victim in the assassination. The
spectrographic analyses, the only evidence that could correlate
Oswald's rifle with the wounds, was conspicuously avoided by the
Commission, and has been suppressed by the government so that no
one to this day may know the spectrographer's findings. It is
therefore not unreasonable to postulate, in accordance with the
only scientific evidence currently available, that the tangible
evidence that implicates Oswald was deliberately "planted," and did
not figure in the actual shooting. The unmistakable inference from
the medical evidence is that the rifle, the cartridge cases, and
the bullets {had} to have been planted. The circumstances at the
Book Depository and at Parkland Hospital indisputably could have
enabled a "conspirator" to plant evidence pointing to Oswald. The
Commission has produced no evidence that precludes the possibility
of a "plant."
The discussion in this section has removed the very foundation
of the official case against Oswald by demonstrating, to the degree
of certainty possible, that Oswald's rifle was not responsible for
the wounds of President Kennedy and Governor Connally. The
medical/ballistics evidence thus exculpates Oswald and presents
several unmistakable conspiratorial implications.
The Warren Commission claimed to have much evidence, apart from
the medical/ballistics findings, that proved or indicated that
Oswald was the assassin. This additional evidence, and the
Commission's treatment of it, I will consider in Part III.
__________
[1] "Memorandum for the Record," dated April 22, 1964, written by
Melvin Eisenberg about a conference held on April 14, l964.
[2] "Memorandum for the Record," dated April 22, 1964, written by
Melvin Eisenberg about a conference held on April 21, 1964.
[3] Dickey Interview.
[4] "CBS News Inquiry: `The Warren Report,'" Part II, broadcast over
the CBS Television Network on June 26, 1967, p. 18 of the
transcript prepared by CBS News.
[5] Fillinger Interview.
[6] Marshall Houts, "Where Death Delights" (New York: Coward-McCann,
1967), pp. 62-63.
[7] Nichols Interview and letter to author from Dr. John Nichols,
dated September 5, 1969.
[8] Thompson, p. 153.
[9] Fillinger Interview; Weisberg, "Post Mortem I," p. 25
[10] Ibid.
[11] Weisberg, "Oswald in New Orleans," pp. 292-93.
[12] E.g., see Jesse Curry, "Personal JFK Assassination File" (Dallas:
American Poster and Printing Co., Inc., 1969), pp. 34-37. The
"Dallas Morning News" of November 23, 1963, estimated that a
crowd or 200 had gathered outside the hospital (p. 9).
[13] See Weisberg, "Whitewash II," p. 35.
__________________________________________________________________________
[10 photographs included over the next 10 pages (inserted between
page 148 and 149 of the text); for "ascii completeness," their
captions follow. -- ratitor ]
FIRST PAGE:
J. Lee Rankin, head of the Warren Commission's staff of lawyers.
(UPI photo)
Arlen Specter, Commission staff lawyer, and architect of the
single-bullet theory. (UPI photo)
SECOND PAGE:
Commission staff lawyer David Belin (center), in Dallas, with
Commission members Senator John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky
(left) and John J. McCloy. Belin is responsible for assembling
much of the case against Oswald. (UPI photo)
THIRD PAGE:
Lee Harvey Oswald in police custody on November 22, 1963. Note
Oswald's dark shirt (rust brown), which witnesses recalled he wore
that entire day. The alleged gunman in the sixth floor of the Book
Depository wore a light, short-sleeved shirt consistently described
as white or khaki. (Wide World Photos)
FOURTH PAGE:
Lee Harvey Oswald is silenced forever by Jack Ruby as Oswald is
being escorted through Dallas city jail. (Wide World Photo)
FIFTH PAGE:
Lee Harvey Oswald, dying, refuses to confess to a crime that he did
not commit. (Wide World Photos)
SIXTH and SEVENTH PAGES:
Extreme close-up of the tail end of Bullet 399, shown in relation
to a millimeter scale. This photograph reveals the sole deformity
of this so-called magic bullet: there has been a slight squeezing
at the base with some disruption of the lead core that is exposed
at that point. It is difficult to believe that this bullet could
emerge so unscathed after penetrating two bodies, smashing two
bones, and brushing another, as the Warren Commission alleges.
However, it is {impossible} for this bullet to have left the lead
fragments demanded if it is a legitimate assassination bullet.
Metal fragments, some with dimensions greater than 3mm., were left
behind at each point 399 is alleged to have hit: The President's
neck, and the Governor's chest, wrist, and thigh. As this
photograph reveals, such an array of fragments could not have come
from 399's base, thus disassociating 399 from the shooting. The
one area of 399's lead base that is missing appears as a small
crater in this photograph; this is the result of FBI Agent
Frazier's having removed a slug of lead for spectographic analysis.
(Photo: National Archives)
EIGHTH and NINTH PAGES:
Suppressed Skull X rays--These [2] X rays depict gelatin-filled
human skulls shot with ammunition of the type allegedly used by
Oswald. They were classified by the government and remained
suppressed until recently; they are printed here for the first
time ever. What they reveal is that Oswald's rifle could not have
produced the head wounds suffered by President Kennedy. The bullet
that hit the president in the head exploded into a multitude of
minuscule fragments. One Secret Service agent described the
appearance of these metal fragments on the X rays: "The whole head
looked like a little mass of stars." The fragmentation depicted on
these test X rays obviously differs from that described in the
president's head. The upper X ray reveals only relatively large
fragments concentrated at the point of entrance; the lower reveals
only a few tiny fragments altogether. This gives dramatic,
suppressed proof that Oswald did not fire the shot that killed
President Kennedy. (Photo: National Archives)
TENTH PAGE:
Marina Oswald, widow of supposed assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, being
escorted to testify before Warren Commission investigators. (UPI
Photo)
__________________________________________________________________________
PART III:
THE ACCUSED
* * * * * * *
6
The Rifle in the Building
The Mannlicher-Carcano C2766 rifle was brought into the Book
Depository and taken to the sixth floor in some way at some time
prior to 1:30 P.M., November 22, when it was found hidden in a
stack of boxes near the sixth-floor stair landing. For the "lone
assassin-no conspiracy" theory to be valid, the only man who could
have brought the rifle into the building is Lee Harvey Oswald.
The Commission's conclusion that Oswald brought the rifle into
the Depository demands premeditation of the murder. According to
the Report, Oswald deliberately lied to co-worker Frazier about his
reason for returning to Irving the day before the assassination and
constructed a paper sack on or before Thursday, November 21, for
the purpose of carrying his rifle into the building (R137).
The prerequisite of premeditation in this case is prior
knowledge of the motorcade route. If Oswald did not know by
Thursday morning that President Kennedy would pass his building, he
obviously could not have planned to shoot the President. The
closest the Commission came to considering the question of prior
knowledge was to assert that Oswald could have known the motorcade
route as early as November 19, when it appeared in the Dallas
papers (R40, 642). It never established whether Oswald {did} know
the route.
Despite the Commission's assurances, on the basis of newspaper
accounts neither Oswald nor any Dallas resident could have known
the {exact} motorcade route, for conflicting accounts were
published. The problem, as stated by the Report in its
"Speculations and Rumors" appendix, is this:
{Speculation}. --The route shown in the newspaper took
the motorcade through the Triple Underpass via Main Street,
a block away from the Depository. Therefore, Oswald could
not have known that the motorcade would pass directly by the
. . . Depository Building. (R643).
The Report appears to dispel this speculation by asserting that the
published route clearly indicated a turn-off from Main onto
Houston, and Houston onto Elm, taking the President directly in
front of the Depository as the procession approached the underpass.
In dispelling this rumor, the Report quotes incompletely and
dishonestly from the relevant Dallas papers.
On November 16, the "Dallas Times Herald" reported that while
the route had not yet been determined, "the presidential party
apparently will loop through the downtown area, probably on Main
Street" (22H613). Both the "Dallas Morning News" and the "Times
Herald" carried the release of the motorcade route on November 19,
including the information about the turn onto Elm (22H614-15). The
next day, the "Morning News" carried another description of the
route, saying the motorcade "will travel on Mockingbird Lane,
Lemmon Avenue, Turtle Creek Boulevard, Cedar Springs, Harwood, Main
and Stemmons Freeway," with mention of the Houston-to-Elm stretch
omitted (22H616). Not included in the Commission's evidence but
discovered and printed by Harold Weisberg, is a map of the
motorcade route that appeared on the front page of the "Morning
News" of November 22, the day of the President's visit. The map
shows the route as taking Main down to Stemmons Freeway again,
avoiding the cut-over to Elm.[1]
The Report never quotes those press accounts which did not
include the Elm Street stretch, leaving the impression that Oswald,
in his premeditation, knew previously that the President would pass
directly before him, and therefore present an easy target (R40).
The distinction is not major, because either published route would
have put the President within shooting range of the Depository. It
should be noted, however, that the Commission, in making its case,
quoted selectively from the record.
Before it can be stated that Oswald knew of {any} motorcade
route, it must first be established that he had access to a medium
by which he could have been so informed. Roy Truly and Bonnie Ray
Williams thought that Oswald occasionally read newspapers in the
Depository (3H218, 164). Mrs. Robert Reid saw Oswald in the
building some five to ten times and recalled that "he was usually
reading," although she did not specify what he read (3H279).
Charles Givens provided the best detail on Oswald's reading habits
during work. He testified that Oswald would generally read the
previous day's paper: "Like if the day was Tuesday, he would read
Monday's paper in the morning." Givens was certain that the
editions of the paper Oswald read, the "Dallas Morning News," were
dated, for he usually looked at them after Oswald finished (6H352).
Oswald's sufficient access to the electronic media is not
definitely established. Mrs. Earlene Roberts, the woman who rented
Oswald his small room on North Beckley, testified that he rarely
watched television: "If someone in the other rooms had it on,
maybe he would come and stand at the back of the couch--not over 5
minutes and go to his room and shut the door" (6H437). The police
inventory of materials confiscated from Oswald's room reveals he
had a "brown and yellow gold Russian make portable radio" (24H343),
although there is no information as to whether the radio was
usable, or used.
Although the evidence of Oswald's accessibility to information
relating to the motorcade route does not establish whether he
{could} have known {anything} about the exact route, there are
indications that he was, in fact, totally uninformed about and
uninterested in the procession. The narrative written by Marina
Oswald when she was first put under protective custody leads one to
believe that Oswald knew nothing of the President's trip. "Only
when I told him that Kennedy was coming the next day to Dallas and
asked how I could see him--on television, of course--he answered
that he did now know," Marina wrote of the night before the
assassination (18H638).[2]
More important information was provided by co-worker James
Jarman, who met Oswald on the first floor of the Depository between
9:30 and 10:00 on the morning of November 22. According to Jarman,
Oswald
was standing up in the window and I went to the window also,
and he asked me what were the people gathering around the
corner for, and I told him that the President was supposed
to pass that morning, and he asked me did I know which way
he was coming, and I told him, yes; he probably come down
Main and turn on Houston and then back again on Elm.
Then he said, "Oh, I see," and that was all. (3H201)
Jarman first reported this incident on November 23, 1963, in his
affidavit for the Dallas Police (24H213).
Jarman's story is subject to two interpretations. If Oswald
spoke honestly, then he clearly revealed his ignorance of the day's
events, knowing neither the reason for the crowds gathering around
the building nor the route of the motorcade. If Oswald knew the
answers to the questions he posed to Jarman, it would seem that he
was deliberately trying to "plant" false information to indicate
his lack of interest in the motorcade, a good defense in case he
was later apprehended in connection with the assassination.
However, as Sylvia Meagher has pointed out, if Oswald deliberately
dropped exculpatory hints to Jarman, why did he not later offer
this to the police as part of the evidence in his favor?[3] In all
the pages of reports and testimony relating to Oswald's
interrogation sessions, there is no indication that Oswald ever
mentioned the early morning meeting with Jarman.
Thus there is no basis for asserting that Oswald knew the exact
motorcade route as of Thursday morning, November 21. The
newspapers, including the one Oswald normally saw a day late,
carried conflicting versions of the route, varying at the crucial
juncture--the turn-off on Houston Street. While there is no way of
knowing whether Oswald had seen any of the published information
relevant to the motorcade, his actions indicate a total unawareness
of the events surrounding the procession through Dallas.
During October and November of 1963, Oswald lived in a Dallas
rooming house while his wife, Marina, and two children lived in
Irving at the home of Ruth Paine, some 15 miles from the
Depository. In the words of the Report, "Oswald traveled between
Dallas and Irving on weekends in a car driven by a neighbor of the
Paines, Buell Wesley Frazier, who also worked at the Depository.
Oswald generally would go to Irving on Friday afternoon and return
to Dallas Monday morning" (R129). On November 21, the day before
the assassination, Oswald asked Frazier whether he could ride home
with him that afternoon to obtain "some curtain rods" for "an
apartment." Sinister implications are attached to this visit to
Irving, which the Report would have us believe was unprecedented.
Assuring us that the curtain-rod story was a fabrication, and
asserting that "Oswald's" rifle was stored in the Paine garage, the
Report lays ground for the ultimate assertion that Oswald returned
to Irving to pick up his rifle and bring it to work the next day.
The Report's explanation of Oswald's return to Irving hinges on
the assumption that the C2766 rifle was stored in the Paine garage.
Of this there is not a single shred of evidence. The Commission
had one tenuous item that could indicate the presence of {a} rifle
wrapped in a blanket in the Paine garage; Marina testified she
once peeked into this blanket and saw the {stock} of a rifle
(R128). The other evidence indicates only that a bulky object was
stored in the blanket. Certainly no one saw the {specific} C2766
rifle in the garage. As Liebeler has pointed out, "that fact is
that not one person alive today ever saw that rifle in the Paine
garage in such a way that it could be identified as that rifle."[4]
The Report recounts in dramatic detail the police search of the
Paine garage on the afternoon of the assassination. When asked
that day if her husband owned a rifle, Marina pointed to the
rolled-up blanket, which the officers proceeded to lift. The
blanket hung limp in an officer's hand; it was empty (R131).
Although there was no evidence that the rifle had ever been stored
there, the Commission found the presence of the empty blanket on
November 22 evidence that Oswald "removed the rifle from the
blanket in the Paines' garage on Thursday evening" (R137). Had the
rifle been stored where the Commission assumed, {anyone} could have
removed it at almost {any} time prior to the afternoon of the
shooting. The Paines apparently were not preoccupied with the
security of their home, as indicated on Saturday, November 23.
While the police were searching the Paine house that day, Mr. and
Mrs. Paine drove off, leaving the officers completely alone
(7H193).
With no evidence that Oswald ever removed the rifle from the
Paine garage or that the rifle was even stored there, the
Commission's case loses much of its substance, however
circumstantial. Further reducing the suspicion evoked by Oswald's
return to Irving is the fact that this trip was {not} particularly
unusual. Despite the Commission's statement that he generally went
home only on weekends, Oswald kept to no exact pattern for visiting
his wife during the short time he was estranged from her. On the
contrary, Oswald frequently violated the assumed "pattern" of
weekend visits. He began his employment at the Depository on
October 16. That Friday, the 18th, he came to Irving but did not
return to Dallas the following Monday because his wife had given
birth to a second daughter that Sunday; he visited Marina on
Monday and spent the night at the Paines's. The next weekend was
"normal." However, there are strong indications that Oswald
returned to Irving the next {Thursday}, October 31. During the
weekend of November 8, Oswald again spent Monday with his wife in
Irving, this time because it was Veteran's Day. Furthermore,
Oswald did not return at all the following weekend, and he fought
over the telephone with his wife that Sunday about his use of an
assumed name in registering at the roominghouse. The following
Thursday, the 21st, he returned to Irving (see R737-40).
The Report does not include mention of a visit by Oswald to
Irving on any Thursday other than November 21. But there is strong
evidence of another such return, as was brought out by Sylvia
Meagher:
It does not appear that Oswald's visit on Thursday
evening without notice or invitation was unusual. But it is
not clear that it was unprecedented. An FBI report dealing
with quite another matter--Oswald's income and
expenditures--strongly suggests that Oswald had cashed a
check in a grocery store in Irving on Thursday evening,
October 31, 1963 [CE 1165, p. 6]; the Warren Commission
decided arbitrarily that the transaction took place on
Friday, November 1 [R331]. Neither Oswald's wife nor Mrs.
Ruth Paine, both of whom were questioned closely about the
dates and times of Oswald's visits to Irving during October
and November, suggested that he had ever come there--with or
without prior notice--on a Thursday. It is possible, though
implausible, that Oswald came to Irving on Thursday, October
31, 1963 solely to cash a check and then returned to Dallas
without contacting his wife or visiting the Paine residence.
More likely, Marina and Mrs. Paine forgot that visit or,
for reasons of their own, preferred not to mention it.
Either way, it is clear that Oswald's visit to Irving on
Thursday night, November 21, may not have been
unprecedented.[5]
Oswald's excuse for his return to Irving Thursday was that he
intended to pick up curtain rods for "an apartment." The Report
attempts to vitiate this excuse by noting that (a) Oswald spoke
with neither his wife, nor his landlady, nor Mrs. Paine about
curtain rods, (b) Oswald's landlady testified that his room on
North Beckley Avenue had curtains and rods, and (c) "No curtain
rods were known to have been discovered in the Depository Building
after the assassination" (R130).
The source cited for the assertion that no curtain rods were
found in the Depository after the assassination is CE 2640. The
Report neglects to mention that CE 2640 details an investigation
conducted on September 21, 1964, ten months after the
assassination, when only one person, Roy Truly, was questioned
about curtain rods (25H899). Truly was "certain" that no curtain
rods had been found because "it would be customary for any
discovery of curtain rods to immediately be called to his
attention." Aside from the ludicrous implication that the
Depository had rules governing the discovery of curtain rods, this
"inquiry" was too limited and too late to be of any significance.
Apparently, the Commission's request for this inquiry calculated
its worthlessness. Rankin made this request of Hoover in a letter
dated August 31, 1964. The letter, which I obtained from the
National Archives, leaves little doubt that the result of the
inquiry was preconceived to be against Oswald. Rankin ordered that
Truly be interviewed "in order to establish that no curtain rods
were found in the [Depository] following the assassination."[6]
This phraseology seems to instruct Hoover {not} to conduct an
objective investigation; otherwise, the letter would have read "in
order to establish {whether any} curtain rods were found."
The Commission accepted without question the landlady's
assurance that Oswald's room had curtain rods. Had it conducted
the least investigation, it could easily have determined that the
room {did} need rods. Black Star photographer Gene Daniels
followed many of the events in Dallas on the weekend of the
assassination. On Saturday morning, November 23, he went to
Oswald's rooming house and obtained a fascinating set of pictures.
Daniels explained the circumstances to me:
I went to the rooming house the following morning and
requested permission to make the photograph from the
landlady. I'm not sure of her name but I don't think she
was the owner. We went into the room and she told me she
preferred not to have me take any pictures until she put
"the curtains back up." She said that newsmen the evening
before had disturbed the room and she didn't want anyone to
see it messed up. I agreed and stood in the room as she and
her husband stood on the bed and hammered the curtain rods
back into position. While she did this, I photographed them
or possibly just her I forget right now, up on the bed with
the curtain rods etc.[7]
It seems doubtful in the extreme that the activity of newsmen
the night before could physically have removed curtain rods from
the wall in Oswald's room. A more reasonable possibility is that
the rods had not been up at all until November 23, when Daniels
witnessed and photographed the landlady and her husband hammering
the rods into the wall.
This renovating of Oswald's cubicle could not have come at a
better time in the development of the Dallas police case against
Oswald. On the day of the assassination, Wesley Frazier filed an
affadavit for the police that included information about the
curtain-rod story (24H209). At 10:30 on the morning of November
23, police Captain Will Fritz asked Oswald if he had carried
curtain rods to work the previous day. According to Fritz, Oswald
denied having told the curtain-rod story to Frazier (R604). (This
denial, in light of opposing testimony from Frazier and his sister,
was apparently a falsehood.)
Thus, the Commission is on shaky ground when it assumes Oswald's
excuse for returning to Irving to have been false. The inferences
drawn from the premise of a spurious excuse are likewise weakened
or disproved. This Commission, which seems to have become a panel
of amateur psychiatrists in conjuring up "motives" for Oswald,
showed an appalling lack of sympathy and understanding in
"evaluating" the "false excuse."
In deciding whether Oswald carried a rifle to work in a
long paper bag on November 22, the Commission gave weight to
the fact that Oswald gave a false reason for returning home
on November 21, and one which provided an excuse for the
carrying of a bulky package the following morning. (R130)
The preponderance of the evidence supports the conclusion
that Lee Harvey Oswald . . . told the curtain rod story to
Frazier to explain both the return to Irving on a Thursday
and the obvious bulk of the package which he intended to
bring to work the next day. (R137)
The curtain-rod story may not have been false. However, there
are several possible explanations for Oswald's Irving visit other
than the one that had such appeal to the Commission--that Oswald
came to pick up his rifle. As Leo Sauvage has pointed out, Ruth
Paine and Marina had their own theory about Oswald's return.[8] In
the words of the Report:
The women thought he had come to Irving because he felt
badly about arguing with his wife about the use of the
fictitious name. He said that he was lonely, because he had
not come the previous weekend, and told Marina that he
"wanted to make his peace" with her. (R740)
Sylvia Meagher, more understanding than the Commission, finds
nothing suspicious in a man's trying to "make his peace" with his
wife or visiting his two young daughters after not having seen them
for two weeks. She points out that if this were the reason for
Oswald's visit, it is unlikely that he would have admitted it to
Frazier, with whom he was not close. Oswald could very innocently
have lied about the curtain rods to Frazier to cover up a personal
excuse, bringing a package the next morning to substantiate his
story and avoid embarrassing questions.[9] (The Paine garage,
stuffed almost beyond capacity with the paraphernalia of two
families, contained many packages that Oswald could have taken on
the spur of the moment.)
As the record now stands, Oswald's actions on November 21 could
well have been perfectly innocent. The fact is that we do not know
why Lee Oswald returned to Irving that Thursday, but the trip is no
more an indictment of Oswald than it is an element of his defense.
However, official misrepresentations allowed unnecessary and unfair
implications to become associated with the return. There is no
reason to believe that Oswald knew anything about the November 22
motorcade. His visit to Irving on a Thursday probably was not
unprecedented. Since there is no proof that the C2766 rifle was
ever stored in the Paine garage, there is no basis for the theory
that Oswald's return was for the purpose of obtaining that rifle.
A number of innocent explanations for the visit present themselves
as far more plausible than the incriminating and unsubstantiated
notion of the Commission.
{The Long and Bulky Package}
At about 7:15 on the morning of the assassination, Oswald left
the Paine home to walk to the residence of Mrs. Linnie Mae Randle,
Buell Wesley Frazier's sister. Mrs. Randle and Frazier were the
only two people to see Oswald that morning before he arrived at the
Depository; they were likewise the only two people who saw the
long package that Oswald had brought with him to work. Their
accounts are critical in the whole case and deserve close scrutiny.
Standing at the kitchen window of her house, Mrs. Randle saw
Oswald approaching. In his right hand he carried "a package in a
sort of heavy brown bag," the top of which was folded down. Mrs.
Randle specified that Oswald gripped the package at the very top
and that the bottom almost touched the ground (2H248). When
Commission Counsel Joseph Ball had Mrs. Randle demonstrate how
Oswald held the package, he apparently tried to lead her into
providing a false description for the record; she corrected him:
Mr. Ball: And where was his hand gripping the {middle}
of the package?
Mrs. Randle: No, sir; the {top} with just a little bit
sticking up. You know just like you grab something like
that.
Mr. Ball: And he was grabbing it with his right hand at
the top of the package and the package almost touched the
ground?
Mrs. Randle: Yes, sir.[10] (2H248; emphasis added)
Mrs. Randle estimated the length of this package as "a little
more" than two feet. When shown the 38-inch paper sack found near
the alleged "assassin's" window, she was sure this was too long to
have been the one carried by Oswald unless it had been folded down.
In fact, she volunteered to fold the bag to its proper length; the
result was a 28 1/2-inch sack (2H249-50). Furthermore, the FBI, in
one of its interviews with Mrs. Randle, staged a "reconstruction"
of Oswald's movements in which a replica sack was used and folded
according to Mrs. Randle's memory. "When the proper length of the
sack was reached according to Mrs. Randle's estimate," states the
FBI report of this interview, "it was measured and found to be 27
inches long" (24H408) .
We must admire Mrs. Randle's consistency in estimating the
length of Oswald's package despite severe questioning before the
Commission. Her recollection of the sack's length varied by only
one and half inches in at least two reconstructions and one verbal
estimate. If we recall her specific description of the manner in
which Oswald carried the sack (gripped at the {top} with the bottom
almost touching the ground), it is obvious that the package {could
not} have exceeded 29 inches in {maximum} length. (Oswald was 5
feet, 9 inches [24H7].)
Frazier first noticed the package on the back seat of his car as
he was about to leave for the Depository. He estimated its length
as "roughly about two feet long" (2H226). From the parking lot at
work, Oswald walked some 50 feet ahead of Frazier. He held the
package parallel to his body, one end under his right armpit, the
other cupped in his right hand (2H228). During his testimony
before the Commission, Frazier, slightly over 6 feet tall compared
to Oswald's 5 feet, 9 inches, held a package that contained the
disassembled Carcano. He cupped one end in his right hand; the
other end protruded over his shoulder to the level of his ear. Had
this been the case with Oswald's package, Frazier is sure he would
have noticed the extra length (2H243). Frazier's Commission
testimony is buttressed by the original sworn affidavit he filed on
November 22, 1963. Here he estimated the length of the sack as
"about two feet long," adding "I noticed that Lee had the package
in his right hand under his arm . . . straight up and down"
(24H209). Furthermore, during another "reconstruction," Frazier
indicated for FBI agents the length occupied by the package on the
back seat of his car; that distance was measured to be 27 inches
(24H409). Again, if we take Frazier's description of how Oswald
held the package in walking toward the Depository, the maximum
length is fixed at 27 to 28 inches.
Frazier and Mrs. Randle proved to be consistent, reliable
witnesses. Under rigorous questioning, through many
reconstructions, their stories emerged unaltered and reinforced:
the package carried by Oswald was 27 to 28 inches long. Both
witnesses provided ample means for verifying their estimates of
length; on each occasion their recollections proved accurate.
Frazier and Mrs. Randle both independently described the package as
slightly more than two feet long; they both physically estimated
the length of the package at what turned out to be from 27 to 28
1/2 inches; they both recalled Oswald's having carried his sack in
a manner that would set the maximum length at about 28 inches. One
could hardly expect more credible testimony. Perhaps it is true
that the combined stories of Frazier and Mrs. Randle, persuasive as
they are, do not prove that Oswald's package was 27 to 28 inches
long. However, no evidence has been put forth challenging their
stories, and until such evidence can be produced, establishing a
valid basis for doubt, we are forced to accept the 28-inch estimate
as accurate.
Not even the Commission could produce a single piece of evidence
disputing Frazier and Mrs. Randle. It merely believed what it
wanted to believe and quoted what it wanted to quote, even to the
point of self-contradiction. Without comment as to the remarkably
accurate aspects of Mrs. Randle's testimony, the Report dismisses
her story entirely by asserting with no substantiation that she
"saw the bag fleetingly." It then quotes Frazier as saying he did
not pay much attention to Oswald's package (R134). This, however,
was not the full extent of what Frazier had said, as the self-
contradictory Report had previously quoted. "Like I said, I
remember I didn't look at the package very much," warned Frazier, "
. . . {but when I did look at it he did have his hands on the
package like that}" (R133-34).
Accepting Frazier's and Mrs. Randle's stories would have aborted
in its early stages the theory that Oswald killed the President
unassisted. The longest component of the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle
{when disassembled} is 34.8-inches long (3H395). The Commission's
best and, in fact, {only} evidence on this point said the package
carried to work by Oswald was too short to have contained the rifle
in its shortest possible form, disassembled. Obviously, a 35-inch
package strains the limits imposed by the recollections of Frazier
and Mrs. Randle. Such a sack would have dragged on the ground when
grasped at the top, protruded over Oswald's shoulder when cupped in
his hand (as Frazier himself demonstrated), occupied more space on
the back seat of Frazier's car, and been perceptibly longer than
was consistently described by the two people who saw it. There is
just no reason to believe that the package was over 28 inches long,
and every reason to believe that 28 inches was very close to its
proper length. The Commission could give no valid reason for
rejecting that estimate; it merely chose to disregard the stories
of its only two witnesses. Any alternative would have entailed
admitting that Oswald did not carry the "assassination weapon" to
work with him that morning.
The Report plays up its rejection of the Frazier-Randle
testimony as if, virtually torn between witness accounts and cold,
hard, scientific fact, it gave in to the latter. In the words of
the Report:
The Commission has weighed the visual recollection of
Frazier and Mrs. Randle against the evidence here presented
that the bag Oswald carried contained the assassination
weapon and has concluded that Frazier and Randle are
mistaken as to the length of the bag. (R134)
What evidence was "presented that the bag . . . contained the
assassination weapon"?
"A [38-inch long] handmade bag of paper and tape was found in
the southeast corner of the sixth floor alongside the window from
which the shots were fired. It was not a standard type bag which
could be obtained in a store and it was presumably made for a
particular purpose," says the Report (R134). Before any evidence
relevant to this bag is presented, the Report draws an important
inference from its location; "The presence of the bag in this
corner is cogent evidence that it was used as the container for the
rifle" (R135). The Commission was unequivocal; the evidence meant
only what the Commission wanted it to mean--nothing more, nothing
less. To take issue with the inference read into the evidence:
the presence of that bag in that corner is "cogent evidence" {only}
that someone placed the bag in the corner. Its location of
discovery can not tell who made the bag, when it was made, or what
it contained. The Commission wanted it to have contained the
rifle; therefore, it must have.
Having attached a significance to this bag (CE 142) "cogent"
only for the Commission's predisposition toward Oswald's sole
guilt, the Report presents what it labels "Scientific Evidence
Linking Rifle and Oswald to Paper Bag." There was no difficulty in
linking Oswald to the bag; his right palmprint and left index
fingerprint were on it, proving that at some time, in some way, he
had handled it. Again, the Commission reads an improper inference
into this evidence. Because the palmprint was found at the bottom
of the paper bag, says the Report, "it was consistent with the bag
having contained a heavy or bulky object when [Oswald] handled it
since a light object is usually held by the fingers" (R135). Not
mentioned is the fact that, as Oswald walked to Frazier's home, he
grasped his package at the {top}, allowing it to hang freely,
almost touching the ground. According to the Commission's analysis
of how people hold packages, it would seem unlikely that Oswald's
bag contained anything "heavy or bulky." Nor is there any proof
that Oswald was holding CE 142 when he left prints on it. Had it
been lying on a hard, flat surface, Oswald could have leaned
against or on it and left prints.
The Report quotes questioned-documents experts to show that CE
142 had been constructed from paper and tape taken from the
Depository's shipping room, probably within three days of November
22 (R135-36). Here the Report explicitly states what it had been
implying all along: "One cannot estimate when, prior to November
22, {Oswald} made the paper bag." The bag was made from Depository
materials; at some time it was touched by Oswald. This does not
prove or so much as indicate that {Oswald} constructed the bag.
The Commission {assumed} Oswald made it, offering no evidence in
support of its notion. It {could not} provide substantiation, for
the evidence proves Oswald did {not} make CE 142.
Troy Eugene West, a full-time mail wrapper at the Depository,
worked at the same bench from which the materials for the paper
sack were taken. As Harold Weisberg points out in "Whitewash,"
"West had been employed by the Book Depository for 16 years and was
so attached to his place of work that he never left his bench, even
to eat lunch. His only separation from it, aside from the
necessary functions of life [and this is presumed; it is not in
his testimony], was on arrival before work, to get water for
coffee."[11]
Although West was the one man who could know if Oswald had taken
the materials used in constructing CE 142, he was never mentioned
in the Report. In his deposition, he virtually obviated the
possibility that Oswald made the bag:
Mr. Belin: Did Lee Harvey Oswald ever help you wrap
mail?
Mr. West: No, sir; he never did.
Mr. Belin: Do you know whether or not he ever borrowed
or used any wrapping paper for himself?
Mr. West: No, sir; I don't.
Mr. Belin: You don't know?
Mr. West: No; I don't.
Mr. Belin: Did you ever see him around these wrapper
rolls or wrapper roll machine, or not?
Mr. West: No, sir; I never noticed him being around.
(6H360)
West brought out another important piece of information. Expert
examination showed that one long strip of tape had been drawn from
the Depository's dispenser and then torn into smaller pieces to
assemble the bag (R579-80). West told Counsel Belin that the
dispensing machine was constructed so that the dried mucilage on
the tape would be automatically moistened as tape was pulled out
for use. The only way one could obtain dry tape, he added, was if
he removed the roll of tape from the machine and tore off the
desired length (6H361). However, the tape on CE 142 possessed
marks that conclusively showed that it had been pulled through the
dispenser (R580). Thus, the tape used in making CE 142 was wet as
soon as it left the dispenser; it had to be used at that moment,
demanding that the entire sack be constructed at West's bench.
The fabricator of CE 142 had to remain at or near the bench long
enough to assemble the entire bag. West never saw Oswald around
the dispensing machines, which indicates that Oswald did not make
the bag. This contention is supported by those who observed Oswald
during his return to Irving on Thursday evening. Frazier never saw
Oswald take anything with him from work (2H141), despite the fact
that, even folded, CE 142 would have been awkward to conceal.
Likewise, neither Ruth Paine nor Marina ever saw Oswald with such a
sack on or before November 21 (1H120; 3H49; 22H751).
The Report thus far has done some rather fancy footwork with the
paper sack, asserting without basis that Oswald was its fabricator
when the evidence allows the conclusion only that Oswald once
touched the bag. Next in line was the "scientific evidence" that
the Commission promised would link the "rifle . . . to paper bag."
When FBI hair-and-fiber expert Paul Stombaugh examined CE 142 on
November 23, he found that it contained a single, brown, delustered
viscose fiber and "several" light-green cotton fibers (R136). The
Report does not mention Stombaugh's qualification of the word
"several" as indicating only two or three fibers (4H80). It seems
that these few fibers matched some composing the blanket in which
the rifle was allegedly stored, although Stombaugh could render no
opinion as to whether the fibers had in fact come from that blanket
(R136-37). How does this relate the {rifle} to the paper bag when
it does not conclusively relate even the {blanket} to the bag? The
Commission's theory is "that the rifle could have picked up fibers
from the blanket and transferred them to the paper bag" (R137).
Had the Commission not been such a victim of its bias, it could
have seen that this fiber evidence had no value in relating
anything. The reason is simple: the evidence indicates that the
Dallas Police took no precautions to prevent the various articles
of evidence from contacting each other {prior} to laboratory
examination. On Saturday morning, November 23, physical items such
as the rifle, the blanket, the bag, and Oswald's shirt arrived in
Washington, on loan from the police for FBI scrutiny. It was then
that Stombaugh found fibers in the bag (4H75). Prior to Oswald's
death, this evidence was returned to the police. However, on
November 26, the items remaining in police custody were again
turned over to the FBI. Before the second return, some of the
items were photographed together on a table (4H273-74). This
photograph, CE 738, shows the open end of the paper bag to be in
contact with the blanket. Such overt carelessness by the police
ruined the bag for any subsequent fiber examinations. If this was
any indication of how the evidence was handled by the police when
{first} turned over to the FBI, {all} the fiber evidence becomes
meaningless because the various specimens could have come in
contact with each other {after} they were confiscated.
There is ample evidence that CE 142 never contained the
Mannlicher-Carcano. James Cadigan, FBI questioned-documents
expert, disclosed an important piece of information in his
testimony concerning his examination of the paper sack:
I was also requested . . . to examine the bag to
determine if there were any significant markings or
scratches or abrasions or {anything} by which it could be
associated with the rifle, Commission Exhibit 139, that is,
could I find {any} markings that I could tie to that
rifle....And I couldn't find {any} such markings. (4H97;
emphasis added)
Cadigan added that he could not know the significance of the
absence of marks (4H97-98).
There is, however, great significance, due to circumstances
unknown to Cadigan. If Oswald placed the rifle into CE 142, he
could have done so only between 8 and 9 P.M. on November 21; he
simply did not have time to do it the following morning before
going to work.[12] Had he removed the rifle immediately upon
arriving at the Depository at 8 A.M., it would still have remained
in the bag for at least 12 hours. The bag likewise would have been
handled by Oswald during a half-block walk to Frazier's house and a
two-block walk from the parking lot to the Depository. It is
stretching the limits of credibility to assume that a rifle in
{two} bulky parts (the 40-inch Carcano could have fit into the 38-
inch bag {only} if disassembled) in a single layer of paper would
fail to produce obvious marks after over 12 hours of storage and
handling through two-and-a-half blocks of walking. More
significantly, Cadigan made no mention of oil stains having been
found on the bag, but the rifle was described by FBI Director
Hoover as "well-oiled" (26H455). It is reasonable to conclude from
the condition of CE 142 that this sack, even if Oswald had made it,
never held "Oswald's" rifle.
CE 142 may be significant in two ways. Judging from the
immediate impression received that this sack had been used to
transport the rifle (despite the lack of evidence that it did), it
is not impossible that it was made and left by the window with
exactly that effect in mind, even for the purpose of incriminating
Oswald.
_____________________________________________________________________
| photograph of flat paper bag on top |
| |
| and disassembled rifle lying at bottom |
| (at least 9 discernable pieces) |
|___________________________________________________________________|
Fig. 6. The Commission says that all these pieces of the
disassembled Carcano were carried in this bag without leaving any
identifiable marks or oil stains. There is no crease in the bag
where it would have been folded over had it contained the
disassembled rifle. Oswald's careless handling of his package is
not consistent with its having contained so many loose parts.
However, with all the trash scattered about the storage spaces in
the building, it is conceivable that CE 142 had been made for some
unknown purpose entirely unrelated to the shooting and merely
discarded on the sixth floor. The evidence that Oswald neither
made 142 nor carried it home the evening of November 21 leads to
the inference that the bag he {did} carry on the 22nd has never
come to light subsequent to the assassination. Likewise, it
follows that the contents of Oswald's package may never have been
found. (There is evidence suggesting that Oswald, before entering
the Depository, may actually have discarded his package in rubbish
bins located in an enclosed loading dock at the rear of the
building. Employee Jack Dougherty saw Oswald arrive for work,
entering through a back door. At that time, Dougherty saw nothing
in Oswald's hands [6H377].)
There is not the slightest suggestion in any of the evidence
that Oswald carried his rifle to work the morning of November 22.
The indications are persuasive and consistent that Oswald carried
almost anything {but} his rifle. Oswald took little care with his
package, hardly treating it as if it contained the apparatus with
which he later intended efficiently to commit murder. As he
approached Frazier's house, he held the package at the top, "much
like a right handed batter would pick up a baseball bat when
approaching the plate" (24H408), certainly a peculiar and dangerous
way for one to transport a package containing a rifle in two bulky
parts. Every indication of the length of Oswald's sack
consistently precludes its having contained the disassembled rifle.
Interestingly enough, Frazier had once worked in a department store
uncrating packaged curtain rods. Having seen the appearance of
these, Frazier found nothing suspicious about Oswald's package
which, he was informed, contained curtain rods (2H229).
It is no longer sufficient to say, as I did in the first
chapter, that there is no evidence that Oswald carried his rifle to
work on the morning of the assassination. There is, as the
evidence indicates, no reason even to suspect that he did (based on
the descriptions of the package he carried), that he would have
(based on the indications that he knew nothing of the motorcade
route), or that he could have (based on the total lack of proof
that the C2766 rifle had been stored in the Paine garage). The
most reasonable conclusion--if any is to be drawn--is that Oswald
did not carry his rifle to work that morning.
__________
[1] Weisberg, "Whitewash," p. 23.
[2] Ibid., pp. 13-14.
[3] Meagher, pp. 37-38.
[4] Liebeler 9/6/64 Memorandum, p. 4.
[5] Meagher, p. 37.
[6] Letter from J. Lee Rankin to J. Edgar Hoover, dated August 31,
1964, found in the Truly "K.P." (Key Persons) file.
[7] Letter to the author from Gene Daniels, received March 19, 1970.
Quoted by permission.
[8] Leo Sauvage, "The Oswald Affair" (Cleveland: The World Publishing
Co., 1965), pp. 363-67.
[9] Meagher, p. 38.
[10] The first critical analysis of the questioning of witnesses Frazier
and Randle appeared in Weisberg's "Whitewash," pp. 17-19.
[11] West's testimony was first noted by Harold Weisberg and published
in "Whitewash," p. 21.
[12] According to Marina, Oswald overslept on the morning of the
assassination and did not get up until 7:10, at which time he
dressed and left (18H638-39). Oswald arrived at Frazier's home at
7:20 that morning (24H408). Thus, he had only ten minutes to get
ready for work and walk to Frazier's, which would not have allowed
him time to disassemble the rifle, place it in the sack, and
replace the blanket.
* * * * * * *
7
Oswald at Window?
Hard as the Commission tried to make tenable that Oswald carried
his rifle to work on November 22, it tried even harder to place him
at the southeast corner window of the Depository's sixth floor, the
putative source of the shots. This was the location at which a man
with a gun had been seen, and to which Oswald had unlimited access.
In accordance with the official story, Oswald's guilt hinges on
this one point, he had to have been at the window to have fired
some or all of the shots.
The first evidence discussed in this section of the Report
concerns the fingerprints left by Oswald on two cartons located
next to the "assassin's" window. As was noted in chapter 2, the
Commission used this evidence to place Oswald at the window at some
time. In doing this, it read an unfair and improper meaning into
limited data. The presence of Oswald's prints on these objects
indicates {only} that he handled them and does not disclose exactly
when or {where} he did so. I noted that Oswald could have touched
the cartons {prior} to the time they were moved to the southeast
corner window. The fingerprints were the only "physical evidence"
the Commission could offer to relate Oswald to that specific window
(R140-41). Since the fingerprint evidence in fact does {not}
relate Oswald to the window, it is important to note that {no}
physical evidence placed Oswald at the window at any time.
{Oswald's Actions Prior to the Shooting}
On the morning of the assassination, a number of Depository
employees had been putting down flooring on the sixth floor. About
15 minutes before noon, these employees decided to break for lunch.
Going to the northeast corner of the building, they began to "race"
the elevators down to the first floor. On their way down, they
noticed Oswald standing at the elevator gate on the fifth floor
(6H349), where he was shouting for an elevator to descend (3H168;
6H337).
One of the floor-laying crew, Charles Givens, told the
Commission that upon returning to the sixth floor at 11:55, to get
his cigarettes, he saw Oswald on that floor (6H349). The Report
attaches great significance to Givens's story by calling it
"additional testimony linking Oswald with the point from which the
shots were fired" (R143). No testimony was needed to link Oswald
with the sixth floor; he worked there. However, the Report adds
that Givens "was the last known employee to see Oswald inside the
building prior to the assassination," unfairly precipitating a bias
against Oswald by implying that he remained where Givens saw him
for the 35 minutes until the assassination.
It is necessary to note, although admittedly it is not central
to Oswald's possible involvement in the shooting, that there are
many aspects of Givens's story that cast an unfavorable light on
its veracity.[1] It seems illogical that Oswald would have gone
{up} to the sixth floor after yelling for an elevator {down} from
the fifth; even at that, such "jumping" between floors is
consistent with the type of work Oswald did: order filling. In
addition, police Lieutenant Jack Revill and Inspector Herbert
Sawyer both testified that Givens was taken to city hall on the
afternoon of the shooting to make a statement about seeing Oswald
on the sixth floor (5H35-36; 6H321-22). However, the police radio
log indicates that Givens was picked up because he had a police
record (narcotics charges) and was missing from the Depository
(23H873). Givens himself told the Commission he was picked up and
asked to make a statement, but not in reference to having seen
Oswald (6H355). Indeed, the affidavit he filed on November 22,
1963, makes no mention of either his return to the sixth floor or
his having seen Oswald there (24H210).
The previous information forms a basis for doubting Givens's
story. There is one other consideration that strongly suggests
this entire episode to be a fabrication: it was physically
impossible for Givens to have seen Oswald as he swore he had done.
From Givens's testimony, it is clear that his position on the sixth
floor when he claimed to have seen Oswald was somewhere between the
elevators at the northwest corner of the building to about midway
between the north and south walls. Either way, he would have been
along the far west side of the sixth floor (6H349-50). However,
Givens said he observed Oswald walking along the {east} wall of the
building, walking {away} from the southeast corner in the direction
of the elevators (6H349-50). Dallas Police photographs of the
sixth floor (CEs 725, 726, 727, 728) show that such a view would
have been obscured by columns and stacks of cartons as high as a
man. If Givens saw Oswald, then there {must} be a major flaw in
his description of the event. As the record stands, Givens {could
not} have seen Oswald on the sixth floor at 11:55.
We should recall that when Oswald was seen on the fifth floor at
about 11:45, he was shouting for an elevator to take him {down}.
Apparently this is exactly the course Oswald pursued, if not by
elevator, then by the stairs. Bill Shelley was part of the floor-
laying crew that left the sixth floor around 11:45. He testified
unambiguously that after coming down for lunch he saw Oswald on the
first floor near the telephones (7H390). Mention of this fact is
entirely absent from the Report.
The Commission seized upon Givens's story because, according to
the Report, he was the last person known to have seen Oswald prior
to the shots. The Report strongly implies that Oswald must have
remained on the sixth floor, since no one subsequently saw him
elsewhere. But Oswald was both inconspicuous and generally unknown
at the Depository; he always kept to himself. Likewise, most of
the other employees had left the building during this time. It
would have been unremarkable if no one noticed his presence,
especially then. However, if someone {had} noticed Oswald in a
location other than the sixth floor after 11:55, his story would
have been all the more important by virtue of Oswald's
inconspicuousness.
The Report makes two separate assurances that no one saw Oswald
after 11:55 and before the shots, first stating "None of the
Depository employees is known to have seen Oswald again until after
the shooting" (R143), and later concluding, "Oswald was seen in the
vicinity of the southeast corner of the sixth floor approximately
35 minutes before the assassination and no one could be found who
saw Oswald anywhere else in the building until after the shooting"
(R156). A footnote to the first statement lists "CE 1381" as the
source of information that no employee saw Oswald between 11:55 and
12:30 that day.
CE 1381 consists of 73 statements obtained by the FBI from all
employees present at the Depository on November 22, 1963. In
almost every instance, the particular employee is quoted as saying
he did not see Oswald at the time of the shots. A few people
stated they either had never seen Oswald at all or had not seen him
that day (see 22H632-86). This collection of statements does not
support the Report's assertion that no employee saw Oswald between
11:55 and 12:30, for it almost never addresses that time period,
usually referring only to 12:30, the time of the shots.
I have learned that General Counsel Rankin, in requesting these
statements from the FBI, deliberately sought information relating
to Oswald's whereabouts at 12:30 {only}, never considering the
11:55 to 12:30 period. The Report then falsely and wrongly applied
this information to the question of Oswald's whereabouts between
11:55 and 12:30.
I obtained from the National Archives a letter from J. Lee
Rankin to Hoover dated March 16, 1964, in which Rankin requested
that the FBI "obtain a signed statement from each person known to
have been in the Texas School Book Depository Building on the
assassination date reflecting the following information:" Rankin
then listed six items to be included in each statement: "1. His
name . . . [etc.], 2. Where he was at the time the President was
shot, 3. Was he alone or with someone else. . . ?, 4. If he saw Lee
Harvey Oswald {at that time?,"} plus two other pieces of
information.[2] Clearly, Rankin desired to know whether any
employee had seen Oswald {at the time of the shots}. There is no
reason to expect that the agents who obtained the statements would
have sought any further detail, and the final reports reveal that
indeed none was sought. Even Hoover, in the letter by which he
transmitted CE 1381 to the Commission, reported, "Every effort was
made to comply with your request that six {specific} items be
incorporated in each statement" (22H632).
Why did Rankin, when he had the FBI go to such extensive efforts
in contacting all 73 employees present that day, fail to request
the added information about the time between 11:55 and 12:30, the
period that could hold the key to Oswald's innocence had he been
observed then in a location other than the sixth floor?
The Commission knew of at least two employees who {had} seen
Oswald on the first floor between 12:00 and 12:30. It suppressed
this information from the Report, lied in saying that no one had
seen Oswald during this time, and cited an incomplete and
irrelevant inquiry in support of this drastic misstatement.
Depository employee Eddie Piper was questioned twice by
Assistant Counsel Joseph Ball. During one of his appearances,
Piper echoed the information he had recorded in an affidavit for
the Dallas Police on November 23, 1963, namely, that he saw and
spoke with Oswald on the first floor at 12:00 noon (6H383;
l9H499). Piper seemed certain of this, and he was consistent in
reporting the circumstances around his brief encounter with Oswald.
Clearly, this is a direct contradiction of the Report's statement
that no one saw Oswald between 11:55 and 12:30. The Report, never
mentioning this vital piece of testimony, calls Piper a "confused
witness" (R153). This too was the opposite of the truth. Piper
was able to describe events after the shooting in a way that
closely paralleled the known sequence of events (6H385). There
was, in fact, no aspect of Piper's testimony that indicated he was
less than a credible witness.
While Piper's having seen Oswald on the first floor at 12:00
does not preclude Oswald's having been at the window at 12:30, it
is significant that this information was suppressed from the
Report, which makes an assertion contrary to the evidence. One
aspect of Piper's story could have weighed heavily in Oswald's
defense. In his November 23 affidavit, Piper recalled Oswald as
having said "I'm going up to eat" during the short time the two men
met (19H499). In his testimony, Piper modified this quotation,
expressing his uncertainty whether Oswald had said "up" or "out" to
eat (6H386). Despite the confusion over the exact adverb Oswald
used, the significant observation is that he apparently intended to
eat at 12:00. He would most likely have done this on the first
floor in the "domino" room or in the second-floor lunchroom.
{Oswald consistently told the police that he had been eating his
lunch at the time the President was shot} (R600, 613). The
suppression of Piper's story was, in effect, the suppression of an
aspect of Oswald's defense.
The Commission had other corroborative evidence of a probative
nature. Oswald's account of his whereabouts and actions at and
around the time of the shooting cannot be fully known, for no
transcripts of his police interrogations were kept--a significant
departure from the most basic criminal proceedings (see 4H232;
R200). Our only information concerning Oswald's interrogation
sessions during the weekend of the assassination is found in
contradictory and ambiguous reports written by the various
participants in the interrogations--police, FBI, and Secret Service
(R598-636).
The interrogation reports are generally consistent in relating
that Oswald said that he had been eating his lunch at the time of
the shots. In three of these reports a significant detail is
added, in three partially contradictory versions. Captain Fritz
thought Oswald "said he ate lunch with some of the colored boys who
worked with him. One of them was called `Junior' and the other was
a little short man whose name he didn't know" (R605). FBI Agent
James Bookhout wrote that "Oswald had eaten lunch in the lunchroom
. . . alone, but recalled possibly two Negro employees walking
through the room during this period. He stated possibly one of
these employees was called `Junior' and the other was a short
individual whose name he could not recall but whom he would be able
to recognize" (R622). Secret Service Inspector Thomas Kelley
recalled that Oswald "Said he ate lunch with the colored boys who
worked with him. He described one of them as `Junior,' a colored
boy, and the other was a little short negro [{sic}] boy" (R626).
These versions are consistent in reporting that Oswald had been
eating lunch (probably on the first floor) when he saw or was with
two Negro employees, one called "Junior," the other a short man.
It is possible that Oswald was in a lunchroom (the domino room)
during this time, although we cannot be certain that Oswald
directly stated so to the police. Likewise, it is possible that
Agent Bookhout correctly reported that Oswald ate alone and merely
observed the two Negro employees, while Fritz and Kelley
misconstrued Oswald's remarks as indicating that he ate his lunch
{with} these two men.
James Jarman was a Negro employed at the Depository; his
nickname was "Junior" (3H189; 6H365). On November 22, Jarman quit
for lunch at about 11:55, washed up, picked up his sandwich, bought
a coke, and went to the first floor to eat. He ate some of his
lunch along the front windows on the first floor, near two rows of
bins; walking alone across the floor toward the domino room, he
finished his sandwich. After depositing his refuse, Jarman left
the building with employees Harold Norman and Danny Arce through
the main entrance (3H201-2).
Harold Norman, another Negro employee, was of rather modest
height, fitting the description of the man Oswald thought had been
with Jarman on the first floor (see CE 491). On November 22,
Norman ate his lunch in the domino room and "got with James Jarman,
he and I got together on the first floor." According to Norman,
Jarman was "somewhere in the vicinity of the telephone" near the
bins when the two men "got together." This would define a location
toward the front of the building. Norman confirmed Jarman's
testimony that the two subsequently left the building through the
main entrance (3H189).
There is no firm evidence pinpointing the exact time Jarman and
Norman left the Depository. Their estimates, as well as those of
the people who left at the same time or who were already standing
outside, are not at all precise, apparently because few workers had
been paying much attention to the time. The estimates varied from
12:00 as the earliest time to 12:15 as the latest (see 3H189, 219;
6H365; 22H638, 662; 24H199, 213, 227). Twelve o'clock seems a
bit early for Jarman and Norman to have finished eating and to be
out on the street; the time was probably closer to 12:15. It was
most likely within five minutes prior to 12:15 that Jarman and
Norman "got together" near the front or south side of the first
floor and walked out the main entrance together.
Jarman and Norman appeared together on the first floor again,
about ten minutes after stepping outside. Because the crowds in
front of the Depository were so large, the two men went up to the
fifth floor at 12:20 or 12:25. To do this, they walked around to
the back of the building, entering on the first floor through the
rear door and taking the elevator up five stories (3H202).
Obviously, Oswald could not have told the police that "Junior"
and a short Negro employee were together on the first floor unless
he had seen this himself.[3] For Oswald to have witnessed Jarman
and Norman in this manner, he had to have been on the first floor
between either 12:10 and 12:15 or 12:20 and 12:25. The fact that
Oswald was able to relate this incident is cogent evidence that he
was in fact on the first floor at one or both of these times. If
he was on the {sixth} floor, as the Commission believes, then it
was indeed a remarkable coincidence that out of all the employees,
Oswald picked the two who were on the first floor at the time he
said, and together as he described. Since this is a remote
possibility that warrants little serious consideration, I am
persuaded to conclude that Oswald was on the first floor at some
time between 12:10 and 12:25, which is consistent with the
previously cited testimony of Eddie Piper.[4]
Buttressing the above-discussed evidence is the story of another
employee, who claimed to have seen Oswald on the first floor around
12:15. Mrs. Carolyn Arnold, a secretary at the Depository, was the
crucial witness. Her story was omitted not only from the Report
but also from the Commission's printed evidence. It was only
through the diligent searching of Harold Weisberg that an FBI
report of an early interview with her came to light.[5] She spoke
with FBI agents on November 26, 1963, only three days after the
assassination. The brief report of the interview states that
she was in her office on the second floor of the building on
November 22, 1963, and left that office between 12:00 and
12:15 PM, to go downstairs and stand in front of the
building to view the Presidential Motorcade. As she was
standing in front of the building, she stated that she
thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of LEE HARVEY OSWALD
standing in the hallway between the front door and the
double doors leading into the warehouse, located on the
first floor. She could not be sure this was OSWALD, but
said she felt it was and believed the time to be a few
minutes before 12:15 PM. (CD5:41)
As Weisberg cautioned in his book "Photographic Whitewash," where
he presents this FBI report, "This is the FBI retailing [sic] of
what Mrs. Arnold said, not her actual words."[6]
Mrs. Arnold was never called as a witness before the Commission;
absolutely no effort was made to check her accuracy or obtain
further details of her story. If what she related was true, she
provided the proof that Oswald could not have shot at the
President. The Commission's failure to pursue her vital story was
a failure to follow up evidence of Oswald's innocence.
Mrs. Arnold was reinterviewed by the FBI on March 18, 1964, in
compliance with Rankin's request to Hoover for statements from all
Depository employees present at work November 22 (22H634). In
accordance with the deliberate wording of Rankin's items to be
included in the statements as discussed earlier, Mrs. Arnold was
not asked about seeing Oswald {before} the shooting, as she earlier
said she did. Instead, she provided the specific information
requested in item (4) of Rankin's letter: "I did not see Lee
Harvey Oswald at the time President Kennedy was shot." "At the
time" of the assassination obviously is not the same as "before"
the assassination. If Rankin for some specific reason avoided
asking about any employee who had seen Oswald right before the
shots, he could have had no better witness in mind than Mrs.
Arnold.
In her March 18 statement, Mrs. Arnold wrote: "I left the Texas
School Book Depository at about 12:25 PM." The report of her first
interview states that she left her office on the second floor
between 12:00 and 12:15 and saw Oswald from outside the building at
"a few minutes before 12:15." The important distinction between
these two estimates is that one is in Mrs. Arnold's words, the
other but a paraphrase. Of the people who left the Depository with
Mrs. Arnold, Mrs. Donald Baker recalled having left at about 12:15
(22H635), Miss Judy Johnson at about 12:15 (22H656), Bonnie Rachey
also at 12:15 (22H671), and Mrs. Betty Dragoo at 12:20 (22H645).
It is perfectly reasonable to assert that Mrs. Arnold saw a man
whom "she felt" was Oswald on the first floor anywhere between a
few minutes before 12:15 and, at the latest, 12:25. The actual
time probably tended toward the 12:15 to 12:20 period. The
significance of this one piece of information is startling; the
"gunman" on the sixth floor was there from 12:15 on. If Mrs.
Arnold really did see Oswald on the first floor at this time, he
could not have been a sixth-floor assassin.
Arnold Rowland is the first person known to have spotted a man
with a rifle on the sixth floor of the Depository. The time of
this observation was, according to Rowland, who had noted the large
"Hertz" clock atop the Depository, 12:15 (2H169-72). Rowland
provided an even more accurate means for checking his time
estimate:
there was a motorcycle parked just on the street, not in
front of us, just a little past us, and the radio was on it
giving details of the motorcade, where it was positioned,
and right {after} the time I noticed him (the man on the
sixth floor) and when my wife was pointing this other thing
to me . . . the dispatcher came on and gave the position of
the motorcade as being on Cedar Springs. This would be in
the area of Turtle Creek, down in that area. . . . And this
was the position of the motorcade and it was about 15 or 16
after 12. (2H172-73; emphasis added)
Rowland could not have had access to the police radio logs.
However, every version of these logs in the Commission's evidence
shows that the location of the motorcade described by Rowland was
in fact broadcast between 12:15 and 12:16 PM (17H460; 21H390;
23H911). We must note also that while Rowland first noticed this
man {before} hearing the broadcast at 12:15, it is possible that he
had been there for some period of time prior to that.
The difference between Mrs. Arnold's earliest estimate of the
time she possibly saw Oswald on the first floor and the time
Rowland saw the sixth-floor gunman is but a few minutes, hardly
enough time for Oswald to have picked up his rifle, made his way to
the sixth floor, assembled the rifle, and appeared at the
appropriate window. If Mrs. Arnold's later estimates are accurate,
then Oswald was, in fact, on the first floor while the "assassin"
was on the sixth.
Without elaboration from Mrs. Arnold, we can draw no conclusions
based on the brief FBI report of her first interview. At this late
date, I feel that Mrs. Arnold can not honestly clarify the
information reported by the FBI, either through fear of challenging
the official story or through knowledge of the implication of what
she knows. It was the duty of the Warren Commission to seek out
Mrs. Arnold to obtain her full story and test her accuracy, if not
in the interest of truth, certainly so as not posthumously to deny
Oswald the possible proof of his innocence.
The Commission failed in its obligation to the truth for the
simple reason that it (meaning its staff and General Counsel) never
sought the truth. The truth, according to {all} the relevant
evidence in the Commission's files, is that Oswald was on the first
floor at a time that eliminates the possibility of his having been
the sixth-floor gunman, just as he told the police during his
interrogations.
{Identity of the Gunman}
The Commission relied solely on the testimony of eyewitnesses to
identify the source of the shots as a specific Depository window.
The presence of three cartridge cases by this window seemed to
buttress the witnesses' testimony. The medical findings, although
not worth credence, indicated that some shots were fired from above
and behind; still, that evidence, even if correct, cannot pinpoint
the {precise} source "above and behind" from which certain shots
originated. It was the people who said they saw a man with a gun
in this window who provided the evidence most welcome to the
Commission.
The Commission's crew of witnesses consisted of Howard Brennan
and Amos Euins, both of whom said they saw the man fire a rifle;
Robert Jackson and Malcolm Couch, two photographers riding in the
motorcade, who saw the barrel of a rifle being drawn slowly back
into the window after the shots (although neither saw a man in the
window); Mrs. Earle Cabell, wife of the city's mayor, who, also
riding in the procession, saw "a projection" from a Depository
window (although she could not tell if this was a mechanical object
or someone's arm); and James Crawford, who saw a "movement" in the
window after the shots but could not say for sure whether it was a
person whom he had seen (R63-68). Two additional witnesses are
added in the Report's chapter "The Assassin." They are Ronald
Fischer and Robert Edwards, both of whom saw a man without a rifle
in the window shortly before the motorcade arrived.
Two other "sixth-floor gunman" witnesses didn't quite make it
into the relevant sections of the Report--one, in fact, never made
the Report at all. Arnold Rowland saw the gunman 15 minutes before
the motorcade arrived at the plaza. However, at this time, the man
was in the far south{west} (left) window. Rowland told the
Commission that another man then occupied the southeast corner
(right) window. The Commission, whose legal eminences knew that
another man on the sixth floor at this time satisfied the legal
definition of conspiracy, sought only to discredit Rowland,
rejecting his story under a section entitled "Accomplices at the
Scene of the Assassination" (R250-52). Mrs. Carolyn Walther saw
the gunman in the right window, shortly before the procession
arrived. However, she too saw a second man on the sixth floor,
although the "accomplice" she described was obviously different
from Rowland's (24H522). Rowland sprang his information on the
Commission by surprise, none of the various reports on him having
ever mentioned the second man. Mrs. Walther told of a second man
from the beginning and was totally ignored by the Commission.
While the testimony indicates the presence of a man {holding} a
rifle in the southeast-corner sixth-floor window, there is {no}
evidence that this rifle was {fired} during the assassination.
Under questioning by Arlen Specter, Amos Euins, a 16-year-old whose
inarticulateness inhibited the effectiveness with which he conveyed
his observations, said he saw the Depository gunman fire the second
shot (2H209). However, Specter never asked Euins what caused him
to conclude that the gun he saw had actually discharged, that is,
that the gunman was not merely performing the {motions} of firing
that gave the impression of actual discharge when combined with the
noises of other shots, but was fully pulling the trigger and
shooting bullets.
The Report cites the testimony of three employees who were
positioned on the fifth floor directly below the "assassin's"
window, one of whom claimed to have heard empty cartridge cases
hitting the floor above him, with the accompanying noises of a
rifle bolt (R70). However, there is nothing about the testimony of
any of these men to indicate that the {shots} came from {directly}
above them on the sixth floor. As Mark Lane points out in "Rush to
Judgement," the actions of these men subsequent to the shooting
were not consistent with their believing that any shots came from
the sixth floor; one of the men even denied making such a
statement to the Secret Service[7] (3H194). The stories of the
fifth-floor witnesses, if valid, indicate no more than the presence
of someone on the sixth floor operating the bolt of a rifle and
ejecting spent shells.
Howard Brennan was the Commission's star witness among those
present in the plaza during the assassination. His testimony is
cited in many instances, including passages to establish the source
of the shots and the identity of the "assassin." Brennan was the
only person other than Euins who claimed to have seen a gun fired
from the Depository window (R63). Yet, in spite of Brennan's
testimony that he saw the sixth-floor gunman take aim and {fire} a
last shot, there is reason to believe that the man Brennan saw
never discharged a firearm. Brennan was asked the vital questions
that Euins was spared.
Mr. McCloy: Did you see the rifle explode? Did you see
the flash of what was either the second or the third shot?
Mr. Brennan: No.
Mr. McCloy: Could you see that he had discharged the
rifle?
Mr. Brennan: No . . .
Mr. McCloy: Yes. But you saw him aim?
Mr. Brennan: Yes.
Mr. McCloy: Did you see the rifle discharge, did you see
the recoil or the flash?
Mr. Brennan: No.
Mr. McCloy: But you heard the last shot?
Mr. Brennan: The report; yes, sir. (3H154)
If Brennan looked up at the window as he said, his testimony would
strongly indicate that he saw a man aim a gun {without firing it}.
When the Carcano is fired, it emits a small amount of smoke
(26H811) and manifests a recoil (3H451), as do most rifles. That
Brennan failed to see such things upon observing the rifle and
hearing a shot is cogent evidence that the rifle Brennan saw did
not fire the shot.
Thus, the Commission's evidence--taken at face value--indicates
only that a {gunman} was present at the sixth-floor window, not an
{assassin}. This distinction is an important one. A mere gunman
(one armed with a gun) cannot be accused of murder; an assassin is
one who has committed murder. A gunman present at the sixth-floor
window could have served as a decoy to divert attention from real
shooters at other vantage points.[8] While we cannot know surely
just what the man in the sixth-floor window was doing, it is vital
to note that evidence is entirely lacking that this gunman was, in
fact, an assassin.
To the Commission, the gunman was {the} assassin, no questions
asked. The limitations of the evidence could not be respected when
the conclusions were prefabricated. By arbitrarily calling a
gunman the "assassin," the Commission, in effect, made the charge
of murder through circumstances, without substantiation.
As was discussed in chapter 1, the Commission had {no} witness
identification of the "assassin" worthy of credence. Of the few
who observed the gunman, only Brennan made any sort of
identification, saying both that Lee Harvey Oswald {was} the gunman
and that he merely {resembled} the gunman. The Commission rejected
Brennan's "positive identification" of Oswald, expressed its
confidence that the man Brennan saw at least looked like Oswald,
and evaluated Brennan as an "accurate observer" (R145).
Many critics have challenged the Report's evaluation of Brennan
as "accurate."[9] Evidence that I have recently discovered
indicates that Brennan was not even an "observer," let alone an
accurate one.
One of the main indications of Brennan's inaccuracy is his
description of the gunman's position. Brennan contended that in
the six-to-eight-minute-period prior to the motorcade's arrival, he
saw a man "leave and return to the window `a couple of times.'"
After hearing the first shot, he glanced up at this Depository
window and saw this man taking deliberate aim with a rifle (R144).
The Report immediately begins apologizing for Brennan:
Although Brennan testified that the man in the window was
standing when he fired the shots, most probably he was
either sitting or kneeling. . . . It is understandable,
however, for Brennan to have believed that the man with the
rifle was standing. . . . Since the window ledges in the
Depository building are lower than in most buildings [one
foot high], a person squatting or kneeling exposes more of
his body than would normally be the case. From the street,
this creates the impression that the person is standing.
(R144-45)
The Report's explanation is vitiated by the fact that Brennan
claimed to have seen the gunman standing {and sitting}. "At one
time he came to the window and he sat sideways on the window sill,"
swore Brennan. "That was previous to President Kennedy getting
there. And I could see practically his whole body, from his hips
up" (3H144). Thus, Brennan should have known the difference
between a man standing and sitting at the window, despite the low
window sill. Had the gunman been standing, he would have been
aiming his rifle through a double thickness of glass, only his legs
visible to witness Brennan. Had he assumed a sitting position--on
the sill or on nearby boxes--he would have had to bend his head
down {below} his knees to fire the rifle out the window (see
photographs taken from inside the window, at 22H484-85).
From November 22 until the time of his Commission testimony,
Brennan said he was looking at the sixth floor at the time of the
last shot. His November 22 affidavit states this explicitly
(24H203) and it can be inferred from his later interviews. In
observing the Depository, Brennan contended that he stopped looking
at the President's car immediately after the first shot (3H143-44).
Obviously, then, he could not have seen the impact of the fatal
bullet on the President's head, which came late, probably last, in
the sequence of shots. However, Brennan's observations were
suddenly augmented when he was interviewed by CBS News in August
1964 for a coast-to-coast broadcast. As was aired on September 27,
1964, Brennan told CBS "The President's head just exploded."[10]
Unless Brennan lied to either CBS or the federal and local
authorities, it must now be believed that he saw the sixth-floor
gunman fire the last shot, then turned his head faster than the
speeding bullet to have seen the impact of that bullet on the
President's head, then turned back toward the window with equal
alacrity so as to have seen the gunman slowly withdraw his weapon
and marvel at his apparent success. Unless, of course, Brennan had
eyes in the back of his head--which is far more credible than any
aspect of his "witness account."
Brennan's identification of Oswald as the man he saw (or said he
saw?) in the sixth-floor window weighed heavily in the Commission's
"evaluation" of the "evidence." As was discussed in chapter 1, the
Commission first rejected Brennan's positive identification in
discussing the evidence, and subsequently accepted it in drawing
the conclusion that Oswald was at the window. Without Brennan,
there would have been not even the slightest suggestion in any of
the evidence that Oswald was at the window during the shots. No
one else even made a pretense of being able to identify the sixth-
floor gunman.
On November 22, 1963, Brennan was unable to identify Oswald as
the man he saw in the window, but picked Oswald as the person in a
police line-up who bore the closest resemblance to the gunman.
Months later, when he appeared before the Commission, Brennan said
he could have made a positive identification at the November 22
lineup,
but did not do so because he felt that the assassination was
"a Communist activity, and I felt like there hadn't been
more than one eyewitness, and if it got to be a known fact
that I was an eyewitness, my family or I, either one, might
not be safe." (R145)
The Report continued that, because Brennan had originally failed to
make a positive identification, the Commission did "not base its
conclusion concerning the identity of the assassin on Brennan's
subsequent certain identification of Lee Harvey Oswald as the man
he saw fire the rifle." Through the Report, the Commission
expressed its confidence that "Brennan saw a man in the window who
closely resembled Lee Harvey Oswald, and that Brennan believes the
man he saw was in fact . . . Oswald" (R146).
The Commission accepted Brennan's observations and assurances
without question. However, the excuse Brennan offered for not
originally making a positive identification was falsely and
deliberately contrived, as the evidence reveals. As Brennan is
quoted, he felt that he had been the only eyewitness and feared for
his family's security should his identity become known. Contrary
to this sworn statement, Brennan immediately knew of at least one
other witness who had seen the sixth-floor gunman. Secret Service
Agent Forrest Sorrels spoke with Brennan in Dealey Plaza within
twenty minutes after the shooting, at which time he asked Brennan
"if he had seen anyone else, and he pointed to a young colored boy
there, by the name of Euins" (7H349). Sorrels testified that
Brennan also expressed his willingness to identify the gunman. On
the afternoon of the assassination, {before} he attended the line-
up, Brennan filed an affidavit with the police (3H145; 7H349) in
which he again made it known that he could identify the man if he
were to see him once more (24H203). This contradicts Brennan's
testimony that he could have identified Oswald on November 22 but
declined to do so for fear of its becoming known.
Thus, Brennan originally indicated a willingness to identify the
gunman, saw Oswald in a line-up and declined to make a positive
identification, and subsequently admitted lying to the police by
saying that he {could} have made the identification but was afraid
to.
However, even Brennan's identification of Oswald as the man who
most closely resembled the gunman is invalid, since prior to the
line-up, Brennan twice viewed Oswald's picture on television
(3H148). Brennan again contradicted himself in speaking of the
effect that seeing Oswald's picture had on his later identification
of Oswald.
On December 17, 1963, Brennan spoke with an FBI Agent to whom he
confided "that he can now say that he is sure that LEE HARVEY
OSWALD was the person he saw in the window." At this time, Brennan
began offering his many excuses for not having originally made a
positive identification. One of these
was that prior to appearing at the police line-up on
November 22, 1963, he had observed a picture of OSWALD on
his television set at home when his daughter asked him to
watch it. He said he felt that since he had seen OSWALD on
television before picking OSWALD out of the line-up at the
police station that it tended to "cloud" any identification
of OSWALD at that time. (CD5:15)
On January 7, 1964, Brennan's "clouded identification" was further
lessened, for he told another FBI Agent that seeing Oswald's
picture on television "of course, did not help him retain the
original impression of the man in the window with the rifle"
(24H406). Finally, on March 24, Brennan could no longer tell just
what seeing Oswald prior to the line-up had done. On this date,
Brennan testified before the Commission:
Mr. Belin: What is the fact as to whether or not your
having seen Oswald on television would have affected your
identification of him one way or the other?
Mr. Brennan: That is something I do not know. (3H148)
As his earlier interviews demonstrate, Brennan "knew" but was
not saying. It seems obvious that seeing Oswald's picture on
television prior to the line-up not only would have "clouded" and
"not helped" the identification, but would also have prejudiced it.
The best that can be said of Howard Brennan is that he provided
a dishonest account that warrants not the slightest credence. He
contradicted himself on many crucial points to such a degree that
it is hard to believe that his untruths were unintentional. He was
warmly welcomed by the unquestioning Commission as he constantly
changed his story in support of the theory that Oswald was guilty.
This man, so fearful of exposure as to "lie" to the police and
possibly hinder justice, consented to talk with CBS News for a
coast-to-coast broadcast {before} the Warren Report was
released,[11] and allowed himself to be photographed for the
October 2, 1964, issue of "Life" magazine, where he was called by
Commissioner Ford "the most important witness to appear before the
Warren Commission."[12] His identification of Oswald, incredible
as it was through each of his different versions of it, was
worthless, if for no other reason than that he saw Oswald on
television prior to the police line-up.
Through twenty pages of repetitious testimony, Howard Brennan
rambled on about the man he saw and who he looked like,
interjecting apologies, and inaccurately marking various pictures.
The Commission could not get enough of Brennan's words, for he
spoke the official language: "Oswald did it." Yet, when Brennan
offered one meaningful and determinative fact, he was suddenly
shown the door. Commission Counsel David Belin had been showing
Brennan some of Oswald's clothing when Brennan interjected:
Mr. Brennan: And that was another thing that I called
their [the police's] attention to at the lineup.
Mr. Belin: What do you mean by that?
Mr. Brennan: That he [Oswald] was not dressed in the
same clothes that I saw the man in the window.
Mr. Belin: You mean with reference to the trousers or
the shirt?
Mr. Brennan: Well, not particularly either. In other
words, he just didn't have the same clothes on.
Mr. Belin: All right.
Mr. Brennan: I don't know whether you have that in the
record or not. I am sure you do.
Mr. Dulles: Any further questions? I guess there are no
more questions, Mr. Belin.
Mr. Belin: Well, sir, we want to thank you for your
cooperation with the Commission.
Mr. Dulles: Thank you very much for coming here.
(3H161)
The Commission had no witness-identification-by-appearance that
placed Oswald in the window at the time of the shots. No one,
including Brennan, could identify the sixth-floor gunman. However,
Brennan's statement that the gunman wore clothes different from
those that Oswald wore on that day might indicate the presence of
someone other than Oswald in the window.
If there is anything consistent in the testimonies of those who
observed a man on the sixth floor, it is the clothing descriptions.
Rowland recalled that the man wore "a very light-colored shirt,
white or a light blue . . . open at the collar . . . unbuttoned
about halfway" with a "regular T-shirt, a polo shirt" underneath
(2H171). Brennan described light-colored, possibly khaki clothes
(3H145). Ronald Fisher and Bob Edwards described "an open-neck . .
. sport shirt or a T-shirt . . . light in color; probably white"
(6H194), and a "light colored shirt, short sleeve and open neck"
(6H203), respectively. Mrs. Carolyn Walther saw a gunman "wearing
a white shirt" (24H522).
In each case, these witnesses have described a shirt completely
different from that worn by Oswald on November 22. That day Oswald
wore a long-sleeved rust-brown shirt open at the neck with a polo
shirt underneath. At least two witnesses described such attire on
Oswald {before} he went to his rooming house within a half hour
after the shots (see 2H250; 3H257), and a third provided a similar
but less-complete description (R159). From the time of his arrest
until sometime after midnight that Friday, Oswald was still wearing
this shirt, as is shown in many widely printed photographs.[13]
Although it seems likely that he wore the same shirt all day long,
Oswald told police he changed his shirt during a stop at his
rooming house at 1:00 P.M. that afternoon, having originally been
wearing a red long-sleeved buttondown (see R605, 613, 622, 626).
However, Oswald did not possess a shirt of this description (see
CEs 150-64).
The Commission never sought to determine if Oswald had worn the
same shirt continually that day or if he had changed prior to his
arrest. Apparently it was not going to risk the implications of
Brennan's testimony that the clothing worn by Oswald in the line-up
(Oswald wore the rust-brown shirt during the line-ups on November
22 [7H127-29, 169-70]) differed from that of the sixth-floor
gunman. Indeed, when shown the shirt in question, CE 150, Brennan
said the gunman's shirt was lighter (3H161).
The testimony of Marrion Baker, a police officer who encountered
Oswald right after the shots, is somewhat illuminating on this
point. When Baker later saw Oswald in the homicide office at
police headquarters, "he looked like he did not have the same
[clothes] on" (3H263). However, the reason for Baker's confusion
(and Baker was not nearly so positive about the disparity as was
Brennan) was that the shirt Oswald wore when seen in the Depository
was "a little bit {darker}" than the one he had on at the police
station (3H257; emphasis added).
The crux of the matter is whether Oswald was wearing his rust-
brown shirt all day November 22, or if he changed into it
subsequent to the assassination. While there is testimony
indicating that he wore the same shirt all along, the nature of the
existing evidence does not permit a positive determination. Had
Oswald been wearing CE 150 at the time of the shots, it would seem
that he was not the sixth-floor gunman, who wore a white or very
light shirt, probably short sleeved. While it can be argued that
Oswald may have appeared at the window in only his white polo
shirt, he was seen within 90 seconds after the shots wearing the
brown shirt.[14] As will be discussed in the next chapter, there
was not enough time, had Oswald been at the window, for him to have
put on his shirt within the 90-second limit.
The Commission had no evidence in any form that Oswald was at
the sixth-floor window during the shots; its only reliable
evidence placed Oswald on the first floor shortly before this time.
The Commission concluded that Oswald was at this window because it
wanted, indeed needed, to have him there. To do this, it put false
meaning into the meaningless--the fingerprint evidence and Givens's
story--and believed the incredible--Brennan's testimony. Through
its General Counsel, it suppressed the exculpatory evidence, and
claimed to know of no evidence placing Oswald in a location other
than the sixth floor when its {only} evidence did exactly that.
The conclusion that Oswald was at the window is simply without
foundation. It demands only the presumption of Oswald's guilt for
acceptance. It cannot stand under the weight of the evidence.
__________
[1] It was Sylvia Meagher who brought the shortcomings of Givens's
story to light in her book, pp. 64-69.
Since her initial disclosure in 1967, Mrs. Meagher has discovered
several unpublished documents in the National Archives that leave
little doubt that Givens's story of seeing Oswald on the sixth
floor {was} fabricated and that staff lawyer David Belin knew this
when he took Givens's testimony. The documents tell a shocking
story, which Mrs. Meagher incorporated in an impressive article
published in the "Texas Observer," August 13, 1971.
When Givens was interviewed by the FBI on the day of the
assassination, he not only failed to mention having seen Oswald on
the sixth floor, but he actually said he saw Oswald on the {first}
floor at 11:50, reading a newspaper in the domino room (CD 5,
p. 329). On February 13, 1964, Police Lt. Jack Revill told the FBI
"he believes that Givens would change his story for money" (CD 735,
p. 296). A lengthy memorandum by Joseph Ball and David Belin dated
February 25, 1964, acknowledges that Givens originally reported
seeing Oswald on the first floor reading a paper at 11:50 on the
morning of November 22 (p. 105). On April 8, 1964, Givens
testified for Belin in Dallas and said for the first time that he
saw Oswald on the sixth floor at 11:55 when he returned for his
cigarettes (Givens had never before said that he returned to the
sixth floor) (See 6H346-56). Belin twice asked Givens if he ever
told anyone that he "saw Lee Oswald reading a newspaper in the
domino room around 11:50 . . . that morning?" On both occasions,
Givens denied ever making such a statement (6H352, 354). Finally,
on June 3, 1964, when the FBI reinterviewed him, Givens "said he
{now} recalls he returned to the sixth floor at about 11:45 A.M. to
get his cigarettes . . . [and] it was at this time he saw Lee
Harvey Oswald" (CD 1245, p. 182; emphasis added).
Belin apparently found nothing unusual in Givens's failure to
mention the sixth-floor encounter until he testified in April 1964,
contradicting a previous statement that he denied making. Givens's
denial does not prove he actually never made his early statement,
although for Belin the pro forma denial was sufficient, despite the
caution of Lt. Revill that Givens would change his story for money.
The Report (R143) mentions only the later Givens story and says
nothing of the original version. This is consistent with the
constant suppression of evidence exculpatory of Oswald.
[2] Letter from J. Lee Rankin to J. Edgar Hoover, dated March 16, 1964,
in the "Reading File of Outgoing Letters and Internal Memoranda."
This letter was based on a request for additional investigation
by staff lawyers Ball and Belin. In their lengthy "Report #1,"
dated February 25, 1964, they suggested that "everyone who had a
reason to be in" the Depository on November 22, 1963, be
interviewed. "Each of these persons should be asked: 1) to account
for his whereabouts at the time the President was shot. . . . 3) if
he saw Lee Oswald at that time" (p. 125).
[3] The episode with Jarman and Norman was first brought to light by
Harold Weisberg in "Whitewash," p. 73. Sylvia Meagher later
discussed the issue in more detail in her book, p. 225.
[4] The Report mentions this incident in a context other than one of
Oswald's defense. It assures that Jarman neither saw nor ate with
Oswald at the times involved (R182). This in no way disproves the
validity of Oswald's claim that he saw Jarman, for it would not
have been unusual for Jarman or any other employee not to have
noticed Oswald.
[5] Harold Wesiberg, "Photographic Whitewash," pp. 74-75, 210-11.
[6] Ibid., p. 74.
[7] Mark Lane, chap. 6.
[8] The possibility that the sixth-floor gunman was a decoy was first
suggested by Sylvia Meagher in her book, p. 9.
[9] E.G., see Weisberg, "Whitewash," pp. 39-42, and Lane, chap. 5.
[10] "CBS News Extra: `November 22 and the Warren Report,'" broadcast
over the CBS Television Network, September 27, 1964, p. 20 of the
transcript prepared by CBS News.
[11] Ibid. At page two of the transcript, Walter Cronkite specifies
that CBS interviewed various witnesses a month before the release of
the Report.
[12] "Life," October 2, 1964, pp. 42, 47.
[13] E.G., see CEs 1769, 1797, 2964, 2965; CD 1405 (reproduced in
"Photographic Whitewash," p. 209); Curry, pp. 72, 73, 77; "Life,"
October 2, 1964, p. 48.
[14] Baker testified to this at 3H257. In December 1963, Truly, who also
saw Oswald within 90 seconds after the shots, said that Oswald had
been wearing "light" clothing {and} a T-shirt (CD 87, Secret Service
Control No. 491)
* * * * * * *
8
The Alibi: Oswald's Actions after the Shots
The first person to see Oswald after the assassination was Dallas
Patrolman Marrion Baker, who had been riding a motorcycle behind
the last camera car in the motorcade. As he reached a position
some 60 to 80 feet past the turn from Main Street onto Houston,
Baker heard the first shot (3H246). Immediately after the last
shot, he "revved up that motorcycle" and drove it to a point near a
signal light on the northwest corner of Elm and Houston (3H247).
From here Baker ran 45 feet to the main entrance of the Book
Depository, pushing through people and quickly scanning the area.
At the main entrance, Baker's shouts for the stairs were
spontaneously answered by building manager Roy Truly as both men
continued across the first floor to the northwest corner, where
Truly hollered up twice for an elevator. When an elevator failed
to descend, Truly led Baker up the adjacent steps to the second
floor. From the second floor, Truly continued up the steps to the
third; Baker, however, did not. The Report describes the
situation:
On the second floor landing there is a small open area
with a door at the east end. This door leads into a small
vestibule, and another door leads from the vestibule into
the second-floor lunchroom. The lunchroom door is usually
open, but the first door is kept shut by a closing mechanism
on the door. This vestibule door is solid except for a
small glass window in the upper part of the door. As Baker
reached the second floor, he was about 20 feet from the
vestibule door. He intended to continue around to his left
toward the stairway going up but through the window in the
door he caught a fleeting glimpse of a man walking in the
vestibule toward the lunchroom. (R151)
Baker ran into the vestibule with his pistol drawn and stopped the
man, who turned out to be Lee Harvey Oswald. Truly, realizing that
Baker was no longer following him, came down to the second floor
and identified Oswald as one of his employees. The two men then
continued up the stairs toward the Depository roof.
"In an effort to determine whether Oswald could have descended
to the lunchroom from the sixth floor by the time Baker and Truly
arrived," the Commission staged a timed reconstruction of events.
The Commission knew that this encounter in the lunchroom such a
short time after the shots could have provided Oswald with an
alibi, thus exculpating him from involvement in the shooting. The
reconstruction could not establish whether Oswald was at the
sixth-floor window; it could, however, tell whether he was {not}.
In the interest of determining the truth, it was vital that this
reenactment be faithfully conducted, simulating the proper actions
to the most accurate degree possible.
From beginning to end, the execution of the reconstruction was
in disregard of the known actions of the participants, stretching-
-if not by intent, certainly in effect--the time consumed for Baker
to have arrived on the second floor and shrinking the time for the
"assassin's" descent.[1]
To begin with, the reconstruction of Baker's movements started
at the wrong time. Baker testified that he revved up his
motorcycle immediately after the {last} shot (3H247). However,
Baker's time was clocked from a simulated {first} shot (3H252). To
compare the time of the assassin's descent with that of Baker's
ascent, the reconstruction obviously had to start after the last
shot. Since the time span of the shots was, according to the
Report, from 4.8 to over 7 seconds, the times obtained for Baker's
movements are between {4.8 and 7 seconds in excess}.
Although Baker testified that he was flanking the last "press"
car in the motorcade (3H245), the record indicates that he was, in
fact, flanking the last {camera} car--the last of the convertibles
carrying the various photographers, closer to the front of the
procession than the vehicles carrying other press representatives.
Baker said he was some 60 to 80 feet along Houston Street north of
Main when he heard the first shot (3H246). Those in the last
camera car were also in this general location at the time of the
first shot (Jackson: 2H158; Couch: 6H156; Dillard: 6H163-64;
Underwood: 6H169;). During the reconstruction, Baker drove his
motorcycle from his location at the time of the {first} shot a
distance of 180 to 200 feet to the point in front of the Depository
at which he dismounted (3H247). However, since Baker had revved up
his cycle immediately after the {last} shot on November 22, the
distance he traveled in the reenactment was entirely too long.
Since the motorcade advanced about 116 feet during the time span of
the shots, the distance Baker should have driven in the
reconstruction was no greater than 84 feet (200 - 116 = 84). This
would have placed Baker near the intersection of Elm and Houston at
the time he revved up his cycle, not 180 feet from it as was
reconstructed. Likewise, the men in the last camera car recalled
being in proximity to the intersection at the time of the last shot
(Underwood: 6H169; Couch: 6H158; Jackson: 2H159).
With 116 feet extra to travel in a corresponding added time of
4.8 to 7 seconds, Baker was able to reach the front entrance of the
Depository in only 15 seconds during the reconstruction (7H593).
Had the reenactment properly started at the time of the last shot,
it follows that Baker could have reached the main entrance in 8 to
10 seconds. Did Baker actually consume so little time in getting
to the Depository on November 22?
The Commission made no effort to answer this question, leaving
an incomplete and unreliable record. Billy Lovelady, Bill Shelley,
Joe Molina, and several other employees were standing on the steps
of the Depository's main entrance during the assassination.
Lovelady and Shelley testified that another employee, Gloria
Calvery, ran up to them and stated that the President had been
shot; the three of them began to run west toward the parking lot,
at which time they saw Truly and a police officer run into the
Depository (6H329-31, 339). This story is contradicted by Molina,
who contended that Truly (he did not notice Baker) ran into the
main entrance before Gloria Calvery arrived (6H372). Mrs. Calvery
was not called to testify, and the one statement by her to the FBI
does not address this issue. From her position just east of the
Stemmons Freeway sign on the north side of Elm (22H638), it does
not seem likely that she could have made the 150-foot run to the
main entrance in only 15 seconds. Yet, adding to this confusion is
an affidavit that Shelly executed for the Dallas Police on November
22, 1963. Here he stated that {he} ran down to the "park" on Elm
Street and met Gloria Calvery {there} (24H226). Obviously, the
issue cannot be resolved through these witnesses.
While Molina felt that Truly ran into the Depository some 20 to
30 seconds after the shots (6H372), Lovelady and Shelley estimated
that as much as three minutes had elapsed (6H329, 339). When
Counsel Joe Ball cautioned Lovelady that "three minutes is a long
time," Lovelady partially retracted because he did not have a watch
then and could not be exact (6H339). Supporting Molina's estimate,
Roy Truly told the Secret Service in December 1963 that Baker made
his way to the front entrance "almost immediately" (CD87, Secret
Service Control No. 491); almost a year later Truly said on a CBS
News Special that Baker's arrival "was just a matter of seconds
after the third shot."[2]
I was able to resolve the issue concerning Baker's arrival at
the Depository through evidence strangely absent from the
Commission's record. Malcolm Couch, riding in the last camera car
(Camera Car 3), took some very important motion-picture footage
immediately after the shots. Couch, whose car was almost at the
intersection of Elm and Houston when the last shot sounded,
immediately picked up his camera, made the proper adjustments, and
began filming (6H158). Others in Camera Car 3 related how their
car came to a stop or hesitated in the middle of the turn into Elm
to let some of the photographers out (2H162; 6H165, 169). Couch's
film begins slightly before the stop, just as the car was making
the turn (6H158). From Couch's testimony and the scenes depicted
in his film, in addition to the testimony of others in the same
car, it can be determined that Couch began filming no more than 10
seconds after the last shot.[3]
The first portion of the Couch film depicts the crowds
dispersing along the island at the northwest corner of Elm and
Houston. The camera pans in a westerly direction as the grassy
knoll and Elm Street come into view. In these beginning sequences,
a motorcycle is visible, parked next to the north curb of Elm, very
slightly west of a traffic light at the head of the island. Baker
testified that he parked his cycle 10 feet {east} of this signal
light (3H247-48). The position of the motorcycle in the Couch film
is not in great conflict with the position at which Baker recalled
having dismounted; it is doubtful that Baker paid much attention
to the exact position of his motorcycle in those confused moments.
It would appear that this cycle, identical with the others driven
in the motorcade, {must} have been Baker's, for it is not visible
in any photographs taken {during} the shots, including footage of
that area by David Weigman,[4] and no other motorcycle officer
arrived at that location in so short a time after the shots. No
policeman appears on or around the cycle depicted in the Couch
film.
Thus, photographic evidence known to, but never sought by, the
Commission proves that Officer Baker had parked and dismounted his
motorcycle {within 10 seconds after the shots}. Corroborative
evidence is found in the testimony of Bob Jackson, also riding in
Camera Car 3. Jackson told the Commission that after the last
shot, as his car hesitated through the turn into Elm, he saw a
policeman run up the Depository steps, toward the front door
(2H164). This is entirely consistent with Baker's abandoned
motorcycle's appearing at this same time in the Couch film.
During the Baker-Truly reconstructions, Baker reached the second
floor in one minute and 30 seconds on the first attempt and one
minute, 15 seconds on the second (3H252). Since Baker's simulated
movements up to the time he reached the main entrance consumed 15
seconds (7H593), the actions subsequent to that must have been
reenacted in a span of one minute to about 75 seconds. However,
since Baker actually reached the main entrance within 10 seconds on
November 22, the reconstructed time is cut by at least five
seconds. Further reductions are in order.
Officer Baker described the manner in which he simulated his
movements subsequent to dismounting his motorcycle:
From the time I got off the motorcycle we walked the
first time and then we kind of run the second time from the
motorcycle on into the building. (3H253)
Baker neither walked nor "kind of" ran to the Depository entrance
on November 22. From his own description, he surveyed the scene as
he was parking his cycle, and then "{ran} straight to" the main
entrance (3H248-249). Billy Lovelady also swore that Baker was
{running} (6H339). However, Truly provided the most graphic
description of Baker's apparent "mad dash" to the building:
I saw a young motorcycle policeman {run} up to the building,
up the steps to the entrance of our building. He {ran}
right by me. And he was pushing people out of the way. He
pushed a number of people out of the way before he got to
me. I saw him coming through, I believe. As he {ran} up
the stairway--I mean up the steps, I was almost to the
steps, and I {ran} up and caught up with him. (3H221;
emphasis added)
Thus, walking through this part of the reconstruction was, as
Harold Weisberg aptly termed it, pure fakery, unnecessarily and
unfaithfully burdening Baker's time.[5] The Report, on the other
hand, assures us that the time on November 22 would actually have
been {longer}, because "no allowance was made for the special
conditions which existed on the day of the assassination--possible
delayed reaction to the shot, jostling with the crowd of people on
the steps and scanning the area along Elm Street and the Parkway"
(R152-53). Had the Commission directed any significant effort to
obtaining as many contemporaneous pictures as possible--including
those taken by Couch--it could not have engaged in such excuse-
making. Even at that, how could the Commission dare go to all the
efforts of staging a reconstruction and then admit--to its own
advantage--that it deliberately failed to simulate actions? As was
discussed in chapter 1, this child's play was inexcusable as an
effort bearing such weight in deciding Oswald's guilt. The Couch
film eliminates the possibility that the factors mentioned in the
Report could have slowed Baker down. As for "jostling with the
crowd of people on the steps," the Report neglected to mention
other disproof of this as a slowing factor. As Truly testified,
when the officer and I ran in, we were shouldering people
aside in front of the building, so we possibly were slowed a
little bit more coming in than we were when he and I came in
on March 20 (date of the reconstruction). {I don't believe
so. But it wouldn't be enough to matter there}. (3H228;
emphasis added)
Once in the building during the reconstruction, the two men
proceded [sic] to the elevators "at a kind of trot . . . it wasn't
a real fast run, an open run. It was more of a trot, kind of"
(3H253). This, again, was not an accurate simulation of the real
actions. While Truly admitted that the reconstruction pace across
the first floor was "about" the same as that of November 22, he
described the former as a trot and the latter as "a little more
than a trot" (3H228). Baker himself said that once through the
door, he and Truly "kind of ran, not real fast but, you know, {a
good trot}" (3H249), not the "kind of trot" he described during the
reconstruction. A swinging door at the end of the lobby in the
main entrance was jammed because the bolt had been stuck.
Apparently, the pace on November 22 was of sufficient speed for
Truly to bang right into this door and Baker to subsequently
collide with Truly in the instant before the door was forced open
(3H222). Likewise, Eddie Piper, a first-floor witness, had seen
the two men {run} into the building, yell up for an elevator, and
"take off" up the stairs (6H385).
In walking through part of the reconstruction, which should have
been conducted running and was begun at least five seconds early,
Baker and Truly managed to arrive on the second floor in one
minute, 30 seconds. In the reconstruction, equally begun too early
but staged at a pace closer to, though not simulating that of
November 22, the time narrowed to a minute and 15 seconds. While
Baker and Truly felt that the reconstructed times were minimums
(3H228, 253), it would seem that the opposite was true.
Subtracting the extra seconds tacked on by including the time span
of the shots reduces even the maximum time to one minute, 25
seconds. The understandably hurried pace of November 22 as
manifested in all the evidence would indicate that Truly and Baker
reached the second floor in under 85 seconds, and the Couch film
introduces the possibility that it may have taken as little as 70
seconds, since Baker parked and abandoned his motorcycle within ten
seconds of the last shot.
The second part of the reconstruction was supposed to have
simulated the "assassin's" movements from the sixth-floor window
down to the second-floor lunchroom. Here the figurative lead
weights tied to Baker and Truly during the reconstruction of their
movements are exchanged for figurative roller skates, to shorten
the time of the "assassin's" descent.
Secret Service Agent John Howlett stood in for the "assassin."
He executed an affidavit for the Commission in which he described
his actions:
I carried a rifle from the southeast corner of the sixth
floor northernly along the east aisle to the northern
corner, then westernly [{sic}] along the north wall past the
elevators to the northwest corner. There I placed the rifle
on the floor. I then entered the stairwell, walked down the
stairway to the second floor landing, and then into the
lunchroom. (7H592)
This test was done twice. At a "normal walk" it took one minute
and 18 seconds; at a "fast walk," one minute, 14 seconds (3H254).
This reconstruction also suffered from most serious
ommissions.[sic]
The "assassin" could not just have walked away from his window
as Howlett apparently did. If the gunman fired the last shot from
the Carcano as the official theory demands, a minimum time of 2.3
seconds after the last shot must be added to the reconstructed time
since the cartridge case from that shot had to be ejected--an
operation that involves working the rifle bolt. Furthermore,
witnesses recalled that the gunman had been in no hurry to leave
his window (2H159; 3H144).
There were also physical obstructions that prevented immediate
evacuation of the area. Commission Exhibit 734 shows that some
stacks of boxes nearest to the "assassin's" window did not extend
far enough toward the east wall of the building to have blocked off
the window there completely. However, as Commission Exhibits 723
and 726 clearly show, other columns of boxes were situated behind
the first stacks; these formed a wall that had no openings large
enough for a man to penetrate without contortion. Deputy Sheriff
Luke Mooney discovered three cartridge cases by this window. He
had to squeeze "between these two stacks of boxes, I had to turn
myself sideways to get in there" (3H285). The gunman would have
had to squeeze through these stacks of boxes while carrying a 40-
inch, 8-pound rifle. Considering these details, we must add at
least six or seven seconds to the Commission's time to allow for
the various necessary factors that would slow departure from the
window.
To simulate the hiding of the rifle, Howlett "leaned over as if
he were putting a rifle there [near the stair landing at the
northwest corner of the sixth floor]" (3H253). The Commission did
not do justice to its putative assassin who, as the photographs
reveal, took meticulous care in concealing his weapon. The mere
act of gaining access to the immediate area in which the rifle was
hidden required time. This is what Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone
went through before he discovered the rifle:
As I got to the west wall, there were a row of windows
there, and a slight space between some boxes and the wall.
I squeezed through them. . . . I caught a glimpse of the
rifle, stuffed down between two rows of boxes with another
box or so pulled over the top of it. (3H293)
Luke Mooney "had to get around to the right angle" before he could
see the rifle (3H298). Likewise, Deputy Constable Seymour Weitzman
reported that "it was covered with boxes. It was very well
protected as far as the naked eye" (7H107). Another Deputy
Sheriff, Roger Craig, recalled that the ends of the rows between
which the rifle had been pushed were closed off by boxes, so that
one could not see through them (6H269).
Photographs of the area in which the rifle was found (e.g., CE
719), and a bird's-eye view of the hidden rifle itself (e.g., CE
517), corroborate what these men have described and add other
information. CE 719 shows that the rifle was found amid clusters
of boxes that did not permit easy access. CE 517, in particular,
is very revealing. It shows that the rifle had been pushed upright
on its side between two rows of boxes that partially overlapped on
top, thus eliminating the possibility that the rifle had merely
been dropped down between the stacks. CE 517 also demonstrates
that both ends of the rows of boxes were partially sealed off by
other boxes, indicating a possibility never pursued by the
Commission--namely, that boxes had to be moved to gain access to
the weapon. When interviewed by CBS News, Seymour Weitzman
inadvertently admitted this fact:
I'll be very frank with you. I stumbled over it two
times, not knowing it was there. . . . And Mr. Bone [sic]
was climbing on top, and I was down on my knees looking, and
{I moved a box, and he moved a carton, and there it was}.
And he in turn hollered that we had found a rifle.[6]
Hence, the concealment of the rifle required much maneuvering.
In addition to squeezing in between boxes, the gunman had to move
certain cartons filled with books. The rifle itself had been very
carefully placed in position. Doubtless this would have added {at
least} 15, perhaps 20, seconds to the reconstructed time {even if
the hiding place had been chosen in advance} (of which there is no
evidence either way).
If we take the Commission's minimum time of one minute, 14
seconds (giving the advantage to the official story) and add the
additional six or seven seconds needed just to evacuate the
immediate area of the window, plus the 15 to 20 seconds more for
hiding the rifle, we find that it would have taken {at least} a
minute and 35 seconds to a minute and 41 seconds for a sixth-floor
gunman to have reached the second-floor lunchroom, {had all his
maneuvers been planned in advance}. Had Oswald been the assassin,
he would have arrived in the lunchroom {at least} five to eleven
seconds {after} Baker reached the second floor, even if Baker took
the {longest} time obtainable for his ascent--a minute, 30 seconds.
Had Baker ascended in 70 seconds--as he easily could have--he would
have arrived at least 25 seconds before Oswald. Either case
removes the possibility that Oswald descended from the sixth floor,
for on November 22 he had unquestionably arrived in the lunchroom
{before} Baker.
The circumstances surrounding the lunchroom encounter indicate
that Oswald entered the lunchroom {not} by the vestibule door from
without, as he would have had he descended from the sixth floor,
but through a hallway leading into the vestibule. The outer
vestibule door is closed automatically by a closing mechanism on
the door (7H591). When Truly arrived on the second floor, he did
not see Oswald entering the vestibule (R151). For the Commission's
case to be valid, Oswald must have entered the vestibule through
the first door before Truly arrived. Baker reached the second
floor immediately after Truly and caught a fleeting glimpse of
Oswald in the vestibule through a small window in the outer door.
Although Baker said the vestibule door "might have been, you know,
closing and almost shut at that time" (3H255), it is dubious that
he could have distinguished whether the door was fully or "almost"
closed.
Baker's and Truly's observations are not at all consistent with
Oswald's having entered the vestibule through the first door. Had
Oswald done this, he could have been inside the lunchroom well
before the automatic mechanism closed the vestibule door. Truly's
testimony that he saw no one entering the vestibule indicates
either that Oswald was already in the vestibule at this time or was
approaching it from another source. However, had Oswald already
entered the vestibule when Truly arrived on the second floor, it is
doubtful that he would have remained there long enough for Baker to
see him seconds later. Likewise, the fact that neither man saw the
mechanically closed door in motion is cogent evidence that Oswald
did not enter the vestibule through that door.
One of the crucial aspects of Baker's story is his position at
the time he caught a "fleeting glimpse" of a man in the vestibule.
Baker marked this position during his testimony as having been
immediately adjacent to the stairs at the northwest corner of the
building (3H256; CE 497). "I was just stepping out on to the
second floor when I caught this glimpse of this man through this
doorway," said Baker.
It should be noted that the Report never mentions Baker's
position at the time he saw Oswald in the {vestibule} (R149-51).
Instead, it prints a floor plan of the second floor and notes
Baker's position "when he observed Oswald in {lunchroom}" (R150).
This location, as indicated in the Report, was immediately outside
the vestibule door (see CE 1118). The reader of the Report is left
with the impression that Baker saw Oswald in the vestibule as well
from this position. However, Baker testified explicitly that he
first caught a glimpse of the man in the vestibule from the stairs
and, upon running to the vestibule door, saw Oswald in the
lunchroom (3H256). The Report's failure to point out Baker's
position is significant.
Had Oswald descended from the sixth floor, his path through the
vestibule into the lunchroom would have been confined to the north
wall of the vestibule. Yet the line of sight from Baker's position
at the steps does not include any area near the north wall. From
the steps, Baker could have seen only one area in the vestibule--
the southeast portion. The only way Oswald could have been in this
area on his way to the lunchroom is if he entered the vestibule
through the southernmost door, as the previously cited testimony
indicates he did.
Oswald could not have entered the vestibule in this manner had
he just descended from the sixth floor. The only way he could have
gotten to the southern door is from the first floor up through
either a large office space or an adjacent corridor. As the Report
concedes, Oswald told police he had eaten his lunch on the first
floor and gone up to the second to purchase a coke when he
encountered an officer (R182).
Thus, Oswald had an alibi. Had he been the sixth-floor gunman,
he would have arrived at the lunchroom {at least} 5 seconds {after}
Baker did, probably more. It is extremely doubtful that he could
have entered the vestibule through the first door without Baker's
or Truly's having seen the door in motion. Oswald's position in
the vestibule when seen by Baker was consistent only with his
having come up from the first floor as he told the police.
Oswald {could not} have been the assassin.
The Commission had great difficulty with facts, for none
supported the ultimate conclusions. Instead, it found comfort and
security in intangibles that usually had no bearing on the actual
evidence. Amateur psychology seems to have been one of the
Commission's favorite sciences, approached with the predisposition
that Oswald was a murderer. This was manifested in the Report's
lengthy chapter, "Lee Harvey Oswald: Background and Possible
Motives" (R375-424).
To lend credibility to its otherwise incredible conclusion that
Oswald was the assassin, the Commission accused Oswald of yet
another assassination attempt--a shot fired at right-wing Maj. Gen.
Edwin Walker on April 10, 1963 (R183-87). Thus, Oswald officially
was not a newcomer to the "game" of political assassination.
Although I am not in accord with the conclusion that Oswald shot at
Walker, I find it illuminating that the Commission did not follow
its inclination for psychology in its comparison of Oswald as the
Walker assailant to Oswald as the Kennedy assailant.
Having just torn open the head of the President of the United
States, as the Commission asserts, how did Oswald react when
stopped by a policeman with a drawn gun? Roy Truly was first asked
about Oswald's reaction to the encounter with Baker:
Mr. Belin: Did you see any expression on his face? Or
weren't you paying attention?
Mr. Truly: He didn't seem to be excited or overly afraid
or anything. He might have been a little startled, like I
might have been if someone confronted me. But I cannot
recall any change in expression of any kind on his face.
(3H225)
Officer Baker was more explicit under similar questioning:
Rep. Boggs: When you saw him [Oswald] . . ., was he out
of breath, did he appear to have been running or what?
Mr. Baker: It didn't appear that to me. He appeared
normal you know.
Rep. Boggs: Was he calm and collected?
Mr. Baker: Yes, sir. He never did say a word or
nothing. In fact, he didn't change his expression one bit.
Mr. Belin: Did he flinch in anyway when you put the gun
up . . .?
Mr. Baker: No, sir. (3H252)
Sen. Cooper: He did not show any evidence of any
emotion?
Mr. Baker: No, sir. (3H263)
This "calm and collected" "assassin" proceeded to buy himself a
coke and at his normal "very slow pace," was then observed by
Depository employee Mrs. Robert Reid walking through the office
space on the second floor on his way down to the first floor
(3H279). Presumably he finished his coke on the first floor.
Documents in the Commission's files (but omitted from the Report,
which assumes Oswald made an immediate get-away) indicate very
strongly that, at the main entrance after the shots, Oswald
directed two newsmen to the Depository phones (CD354).
According to the evidence credited by the Commission, Oswald was
not such a cool cucumber after his first assassination attempt.
Here the source of the Commission's information was Oswald's wife,
Marina, and his once close "friends," George and Jeanne De
Mohrenschildt. The incident in question is described in the Report
as follows:
The De Mohrenschildts came to Oswald's apartment on Neely
Street for the first time on the evening of April 13, 1963
(three days after the Walker incident), apparently to bring
an Easter gift for the Oswald child. Mrs. De Mohrenschildt
then told her husband, in the presence of the Oswalds, that
there was a rifle in the closet. Mrs. De Mohrenschildt
testified that "George, of course, with his sense of humor-
-Walker was shot at a few days ago, within that time. He
said, `Did you take a pot shot at Walker by any chance?'"
At that point, Mr. De Mohrenschildt testified, Oswald "sort
of shriveled, you see, when I asked this question . . . made
a peculiar face . . . (and) changed the expression on his
face" and remarked that he did target-shooting. Marina
Oswald testified that the De Mohrenschildts came to visit a
few days after the Walker incident and that when De
Mohrenschildt made his reference to Oswald's possibly
shooting at Walker, Oswald's "face changed, . . . he almost
became speechless." According to the De Mohrenschildts, Mr.
De Mohrenschildt's remark was intended as a joke, and he had
no knowledge of Oswald's involvement in the attack on
Walker. Nonetheless, the remark appears to have created an
uncomfortable silence, and the De Mohrenschildts left "very
soon afterwards." (R282-83)
De Mohrenschildt further testified that his "joking" remark "had an
effect on" Oswald, making him "very, very uncomfortable" (9H249-
50). In another section, the Report adds that Oswald "was visibly
shaken" by the remark (R274).
The Commission certainly chose a paradoxical assassin. We are
asked to believe, according to the Commission, that Oswald was
guilty of attacking both Walker and Kennedy. Yet, this man who
officially became markedly upset when jokingly confronted with his
attempt to kill Walker did not even flinch when a policeman put a
gun to his stomach immediately after he murdered the President!
The Commission begged for the charge of being ludicrous in
drawing its conclusions relevant to Oswald and the assassination;
it insulted common sense and intelligence when it asked that those
conclusions be accepted and believed.
__________
[1] The first critical analysis of these reconstructions appeared in
"Whitewash," pp. 36-38.
[2] "CBS News Extra: `November 22 and the Warren Report,'" p. 28.
[3] To my knowledge, the Couch film is not commercially available. I
was fortunately able to obtain numerous stills made from
individual frames of a copy of the Couch film, which was
originally obtained from the Dallas television station for which
Couch worked. Due to the legalities involved, these pictures can
not be reproduced here.
[4] I obtained numerous frames from the Weigman film in the same manner
as described above. These can not be reproduced either.
[5] Weisberg, "Whitewash," p. 37.
[6] "CBS News Inquiry: `The Warren Report,'" Part I, p. 9.
* * * * * * *
9
Oswald's Rifle Capability
The lunchroom encounter was Oswald's alibi; it proved that he
{could not} have been at the sixth-floor window during the shots.
The Warren Commission falsely pronounced Oswald the assassin. In
so doing, it alleged that Oswald had the proficiency with his rifle
to have fired the assassination shots. Obviously, in light of the
evidence that proves Oswald innocent, his rifle capability has no
legitimate bearing on the question of his involvement in the
shooting. In this chapter I will examine the Commission's handling
of the evidence related to Oswald's rifle capability. It will be
demonstrated that the Commission consistently misrepresented the
record in an effort to make feasible the assertion that Oswald was
the assassin.[1]
The first consideration germane to this topic is the nature of
the shots, assuming theoretically that all originated from the
sixth-floor window by a gunman using the Mannlicher-Carcano. For
such a rifleman, "the shots were at a slow-moving target proceeding
on a downgrade in virtually a straight line with the alignment of
the assassin's rifle, at a range of 177 to 266 feet" (R189).
According to the Commission, three shots were fired, the first and
last strikes occurring within a span of 4.8 to 5.6 seconds; one
shot allegedly missed, although the Commission did not decide
whether it was the first, second, or third. While the current
analysis ignores evidence of more than three shots from more than
one location, I can make only a limited departure from reality in
working under the Commission's postulations. My analysis of the
wounds proved beyond doubt that the President and the Governor were
wounded nonfatally by two separate bullets. This demands, in line
with the Commission's three-shot-theory, that all shots hit in the
car. The Zapruder film reveals that the first two hits occurred
within a very brief time, probably shorter than the very minimum
time needed to fire two successive shots with the Carcano, 2.3 to 3
seconds. The fatal shot came about four seconds after the one that
wounded Connally.
The Report repeatedly characterizes the shots as "very easy" and
"easy." However, the experts who made these evaluations for the
Commission did not consider two essential factors that cannot be
excluded from any hypothesizing: 1) the President was a living,
moving target, and 2) the shots had to be fired in a very short
period of time. First quoted in the Report is FBI ballistics
expert Frazier:
From my own experience in shooting over the years, when
you shoot at 175 feet or 260 feet, which is less than 100
yards, with a telescopic sight, you should not have any
difficulty hitting your target. (R190)
Frazier testified at the New Orleans trial of Clay Shaw, where he
modified his previous Commission testimony. How would the added
consideration of a moving target affect his previous assessment?
it would be a relatively easy shot, slightly complicated,
however, if the target were moving at the time, it would
make it a little more difficult.[2]
The next "expert" quoted is Marine Sgt. James A. Zahm, who was
involved in marksmanship training in the Marine Corps:
Using the scope, rapidly working the bolt and using the
scope to relocate your target quickly and at the same time
when you locate that target you identify and the crosshairs
are in close relationship to the point you want to shoot at,
it just takes a minor move in aiming to bring the crosshairs
to bear, and then it is a quick squeeze. (R190)
Zahm never used the C2766 Carcano; his comments related to four-
power scopes in general as aids in rapid shooting with a bolt-
action rifle. Another expert, Ronald Simmons, was directly
involved in tests employing the Carcano. Although this is not
reflected in the Report, he told the Commission that, contrary to
Zahm's generalization of a "minor move" necessary to relocate the
target in the scope, such a great amount of effort was needed to
work the rifle bolt that the weapon was actually moved {completely}
off target (3H449). There is yet another factor qualifying Zahm's
evaluation. This was brought out during Frazier's New Orleans
testimony:
Mr. Oser: . . . when you shoot this rifle . . . can you
tell us whether or not in rebolting the gun you had to move
your eye away from the scope?
Mr. Frazier: Yes, sir, that was necessary.
Mr. Oser: Why was that necessary?
Mr. Frazier: To prevent the bolt of the rifle from
striking me in the face as it came to the rear.[3]
At best, the Report drastically oversimplified the true nature
of the shots. It is true that shots fired at ranges under 100
yards with a four-power scope are generally easy. However, the
assassination shots, in accordance with the Commission's lone-
assassin theory, were fired in rapid succession (indeed the first
two would have occurred within the minimum time needed to operate
the bolt) and at a moving target. The difficulty of such shots
becomes apparent when it is considered that operation of the bolt
would have thrown the weapon off target and caused the firer
temporarily to move his eye from the sight.
One is prompted to ask what caliber of shooter would be required
to commit the assassination alone as described above. Simulative
tests conducted by the Commission, while deficient, are quite
illuminating.
The Commission's test firers were all rated as "Master" by the
National Rifle Association (NRA); they were experts whose daily
routines involved working with and shooting firearms (3H445). In
the tests, three targets were set up at 175, 240, and 365 feet
respectively from a 30-foot-high tower. Each shooter fired two
series of three shots, using the C2766 rifle. The men took 8.25,
6.75, and 4.60 seconds respectively for the first series and 7.00,
6.45, and 5.15 for the second (3H446). In the first series, each
man hit his first and third targets but missed the second. Results
varied on the next series, although in all cases but one, two
targets were hit. Thus, in only two cases were the Commission's
experts able to fire three aimed shots in under 5.6 seconds as
Oswald allegedly did. {None} scored three hits, as was demanded of
a lone assassin on November 22.
These tests would suggest that three hits within such a short
time span, if not impossible, would certainly have taxed the
proficiency of the most skilled marksman.[4] In his testimony
before the Commission, Ronald Simmons spoke first of the caliber of
shooter necessary to have fired the assassination shots on the
basis that only two hits were achieved:
Mr. Eisenberg: Do you think a marksman who is less than
a highly skilled marksman under those conditions would be
able to shoot within the range of 1.2 mil aiming error [as
was done by the experts]?
Mr. Simmons: Obviously, considerable experience would
have to be in one's background to do so. And with this
weapon, I think also considerable experience with this
weapon, because of the amount of effort required to work the
bolt. (3H449)
Well, in order to achieve three hits, it would not be
required that a man be an exceptional shot. A proficient
man with this weapon, yes. But I think with the opportunity
to use the weapon and to get familiar with it, we could
probably have the results reproduced by more than one firer.
(3H450)
Here arises the crucial question: Was Lee Harvey Oswald a
"proficient man with this weapon," with "considerable experience"
in his background?
While in the Marines between 1956 and 1959, Oswald was twice
tested for his performance with a rifle. On a scale of expert-
sharpshooter-marksman, Oswald scored two points above the minimum
for sharpshooter on one occasion (December 1956) and only one point
above the minimum requirement for marksman on another (May 1959)--
his last recorded score. Colonel A. G. Folsom evaluated these
scores for the Commission:
The Marine Corps consider that any reasonable application
of the instructions given to Marines should permit them to
become qualified at least as a marksman. To become
qualified as a sharpshooter, the Marine Corps is of the
opinion that most Marines with a reasonable amount of
adaptability to weapons firing can become so qualified.
Consequently, a low marksman qualification indicates a
rather poor "shot" and a sharpshooter qualification
indicates a fairly good "shot." (19H17-18)
There exists the possibility that Oswald's scores were either
inaccurately or unfairly recorded, thus accounting for his
obviously mediocre to horrendous performances with a rifle.
However, there is other information independent of the scores to
indicate that Oswald was in fact {not} a good shot. In his
testimony, Colonel Folsom examined the Marine scorebook that Oswald
himself had maintained, and elaborated on his previous evaluation:
Mr. Ely: I just wonder, after having looked through the
whole scorebook, if we could fairly say that all that it
proves is that at this stage of his career he was not a
particularly outstanding shot.
Col. Folsom: No, no, he was not. His scorebook
indicates . . . that he did well at one or two ranges in
order to achieve the two points over the minimum score for
sharpshooter.
Mr. Ely: In other words, he had a good day the day he
fired for qualification?
Col. Folsom: I would say so. (8H311)
Thus, according to Folsom, Oswald's best recorded score was the
result of having "a good day"; otherwise, Oswald "was not a
particularly outstanding shot."
Folsom was not alone in his evaluation of Oswald as other than a
good shot. The following is exerpted [sic] from the testimony of
Nelson Delgado, one of Oswald's closest associates in the Marines:
Mr. Liebeler: Did you fire with Oswald?
Mr. Delgado: Right; I was in the same line. By that I
mean we were on the same line together, the same time, but
not firing at the same position . . . and I remember seeing
his. It was a pretty big joke, because he got a lot of
"maggie's drawers," you know, a lot of misses, but he didn't
give a darn.
Mr. Liebeler: Missed the target completely?
Mr. Delgado: He just qualified, that's it. He wasn't as
enthusiastic as the rest of us. (8H235)
The Report tried desperately to get around this unanimous body
of credible evidence. First Marine Corps Major Eugene Anderson
(who never had any association with Oswald) is quoted at length
about how bad weather, poor coaching, and an inferior weapon might
have accounted for Oswald's terrible performance in his second
recorded test (R191). Here the Commission scraped the bottom of
the barrel, offering this unsubstantiated, hypothetical excuse-
making as apparent fact. Weather bureau records, which the
Commission did not bother to check, show that perfect firing
conditions existed at the time and place Oswald last fired for
qualification--better conditions in fact, than those prevailing
during the assassination.[5] As for the quality of the weapon
fired in the test, it is probable that at its worst it would have
been far superior to the virtual piece of junk Oswald allegedly
owned and used in the assassination.[6] Perhaps Anderson guessed
correctly in suggesting that Oswald may have had a poor instructor;
yet, from the time of his departure from the Marines in 1959 to the
time of the assassination in 1963, Oswald had {no} instructor.
For its final "evaluation," the Report again turned to Anderson
and Zahm. Each man is quoted as rating Oswald a good shot,
somewhat above average, as compared to other Marines, and an
"excellent" shot as compared to the average male civilian (R192).
That the Commission could even consider these evaluations is beyond
comprehension. Oswald's Marine scores and their official
evaluation showed that he did not possess even "a reasonable amount
of adaptability to weapons firing." If this is better than average
for our Marines, pity the state of our national "defense"! The
testimonies of Folsom and Delgado--people who had {direct}
association with Oswald in the Marines--are not mentioned in the
Report.
Thus, Oswald left the Marines in 1959 as a "rather poor shot."
If he is to be credited with a feat such as the assassination, it
must be demonstrated that he engaged in some activity between 1959
and 1963 that would have greatly developed his rifle capability and
maintained it until the time of the shooting. The Report barely
touched on the vital area of Oswald's rifle practice. In a brief
two-paragraph section entitled "Oswald's Rifle Practice Outside the
Marines," the Report painted a very sketchy picture, entirely
inadequate in terms of the nature of the issue (R192-93). In all,
Oswald is associated with a weapon eleven or twelve times, ending
in May 1963.
Let us examine each of the Commission's assertions from this
section of the Report:
1. During one of his leaves from the Marines, Oswald
hunted with his brother Robert, using a .22 caliber bolt-
action rifle belonging either to Robert or Robert's in-laws.
A footnote to this statement refers to Robert Oswald's testimony
at 1H327, where essentially the same information is found.
2. After he left the Marines and before departing for
Russia, Oswald, his brother, and a third companion went
hunting for squirrels and rabbits. On that occasion Oswald
again used a bolt-action .22 caliber rifle; and according
to Robert, Lee Oswald exhibited an average amount of
proficiency with that weapon.
Here again the Report cites Robert Oswald's testimony at 1H325-
327. Although Robert did say that Lee showed "an average amount"
of proficiency (1H326), his other descriptions of the occasion
would indicate that none of the men showed any proficiency at all
that day. This excursion took place in a "briar patch" that "was
very thick with cottontails." Among the three men, eight rabbits
were shot, "because it was the type of brush and thorns that didn't
grow very high but we were able to see over them, so getting three
of us out there it wasn't very hard to kill eight of them." Robert
further illuminated the proficiency of the shooting when he
revealed that it once took all three men firing to hit one rabbit.
3. While in Russia, Oswald obtained a hunting license
joined a hunting club and went hunting about six times.
As mentioned in chapter 1, Liebeler criticized the inclusion of
this statement in the Report, for Oswald hunted with a shotgun in
Russia. Wrote Liebeler, "Under what theory do we include
activities concerning a {shotgun} under a heading relating to
{rifle} practice, and then presume not to advise the reader of
that?"[7] The sources given for the above-quoted statement are CEs
1042, 2007, and 1403 (which establish Oswald's membership in the
club) and 1H96, 327-28, and 2H466. The latter references to the
testimony do not support the Report's implication that Oswald's
Russian hunting trips helped to further his marksmanship abilities.
In the portion of her testimony cited (1H96), Marina Oswald said
that Oswald hunted only once during the time she knew him in the
Soviet Union. This prompted a brief exchange not complimentary to
Oswald's performance with his weapon during the hunt:
Mr. Rankin: Was that when he went hunting for squirrels?
Mrs. Oswald: If he marked it down in his notebook that
he went hunting for squirrels, he never did. Generally they
wanted to kill a squirrel when we went there, or some sort
of bird, in order to boast about it, but they didn't.
Robert Oswald testified that Lee hunted "about six times" in Russia
(1H327-328). He too revealed the poor nature of Oswald's
performance:
We talked about hunting over there, and he said that he had
only been hunting a half dozen times, and so forth, and that
he had only used a shotgun, and a couple of times he did
shoot a duck.
The third reference to testimony is most revealing. The source is
Mrs. Ruth Paine, who related what Marina had told her:
She quoted a proverb to the effect that you go hunting in
the Soviet Union and you catch a bottle of Vodka, so I judge
it was a social occasion more than shooting being the prime
object. (2H466)
Information not mentioned or cited in the Report corroborates
the informal nature of Oswald's hunting in Russia as well as his
usual poor performance with his weapon. CD 344 contains the
transcript of a Secret Service interview with Marina recorded
Sunday night, November 24, 1963, at the Inn of the Six Flags Motel
at Arlington, Texas. This was Marina's first interview conducted
while she was in protective custody. When asked about Oswald's
membership in the hunting club, she made this response through an
interpreter:
While he was a member of this hunting club, he never
attended any meetings. He simply had a card that showed his
membership. She said Lee enjoyed nature and as a member of
the club he was entitled to free transportation in an
automobile which enabled him to go out of town.[8]
Marina added that Lee owned a "hunting gun" in Russia but "he never
used it."
Other information came from Yuri I. Nosenko, a Soviet KGB staff
officer who defected in February 1964 and apparently participated
in or knew of the KGB investigation of Oswald in Russia. CD 451
contains an interview with Nosenko, but it is currently withheld
from research. Liebeler, who saw CD 451 during his Commission
work, composed a staff memorandum on March 9, 1964, repeating some
of the information obtained from Nosenko. According to the
memorandum, "Oswald was an extremely poor shot and it was necessary
for persons who accompanied him on hunts to provide him with
game."[9]
4. Soon after Oswald returned from the Soviet Union he
again went hunting with his brother, Robert, and used a
borrowed .22 caliber bolt-action rifle.
Robert Oswald is again the source of this information. The
hunting trip in question took place at the farm of Robert's in-
laws. However, according to Robert, "we did just a very little bit
[of hunting]. I believe this was on a Sunday afternoon and we
didn't stay out very long" (1H327).
5. After Oswald purchased the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle,
he told his wife that he practiced with it. Marina Oswald
testified that on one occasion she saw him take the rifle,
concealed in a raincoat, from the house on Neely Street.
Oswald told her he was going to practice with it.
Marina Oswald is the source of this above-quoted information.
The footnote in the Report refers to 1H14-15; CE 1156, p. 442; CE
1404, pp. 446-48.
Marina's progression of statements relevant to Oswald's rifle
practice is truly amazing. The Report quotes her incompletely and
dishonestly, choosing only those statements which support the
belief that Oswald practiced with the Carcano. The following is a
chronological listing of Marina's relevant words:
{12/3/63, FBI report of interview with Marina:} "MARINA
said she had never seen OSWALD practice with his rifle or
any other firearm and he had never told her that he was
going to practice." (22H763)
{12/4/63, FBI report of interview with Marina:} "She
cannot recall ever hearing Oswald state that he was going to
fire the rifle in practice or that he had fired it in
practice." (22H785)
{12/4/63, Secret Service report of interview with
Marina:} "The reporting agent interviewed Marina Oswald as
to whether she knew of any place or of a rifle range where
her husband could do some practicing with a rifle, and
whether she ever saw her husband taking the rifle out of the
house. She said that she never saw Lee going out or coming
in to the house with a rifle and that he never mentioned to
her doing any practice with a rifle." (23H393)
{12/10/63, Secret Service report of interview with
Marina:} "Marina Oswald was asked if she ever saw her
husband doing any dry practice with the rifle either in
their apartments or any place else, and she replied in the
negative." (23H402)
{12/16/63, FBI report of interview with Marina:} "She
cannot recall that [Oswald] ever practiced firing the rifle
either in New Orleans or in Dallas." (22H778)
{2/3/64, Marina makes her first appearance before the
Commission:}
Mr. Rankin: Did you learn at any time that he had been
practicing with the rifle?
Mrs. Oswald: I think he went once or twice. I didn't
actually see him take the rifle, but I knew he was
practicing.
Mr. Rankin: Could you give us a little help on how you
knew?
Mrs. Oswald: He told me. And he would mention that in
passing . . . he would say, "Well, today I will take the
rifle along for practice." (1H14-15)
{2/17/64, FBI report of interview with Marina:} "MARINA
advised OSWALD had told her after the WALKER incident that
he had practiced with his rifle in a field near Dallas. She
said further that in the beginning of January, 1963, at the
Neely Street address, he on one occasion was cleaning his
rifle and he said he had been practicing that day. [The
rifle was not mailed until the end of March 1963.]
"MARINA was asked if she had ever seen OSWALD take the
rifle from the house and she replied that she had not. She
was asked if she had ever known the rifle to have been gone
from the house at the same time OSWALD was gone from the
house. She replied that she could not recall any such
incident. She was then asked if it were true then that she
had never seen OSWALD take the rifle from the house nor knew
any occasion when he might have had the rifle at a place
other than at home. She then admitted that she did know of
such an occasion. She said this occasion occurred on an
evening in March, 1963. On this evening, she and JUNE
[their daughter] and OSWALD left the house at about 6:00 PM.
OSWALD had his rifle wrapped up in a raincoat. . . . When
OSWALD returned about 9:00 PM, he told her he had practiced
with his rifle." (22H197)
{2/18/64, FBI report of interview with Marina:} "She
advised she had been mistaken on February 17, 1964, when she
said she had recalled OSWALD cleaning his rifle at Neely
Street, at which time he made the statement he had been
practicing. She said she is now able to place the date . .
. as being shortly before the WALKER incident. . . . At one
of the four or five times that she observed OSWALD cleaning
his rifle at their home on Neely Street . . . he told her he
had been practicing with the rifle but he did not say when
he had practiced. On the other occasions of his cleaning
the rifle . . . he did not say he had been practicing.
MARINA deduced that he might have been practicing with the
rifle." (22H785)
{6/11/64, Marina again testifies before the Commission:}
"Lee didn't tell me when he was going out to practice. I
only remember one time distinctly that he went out because
he took the bus. I don't know if he went to Love Field at
that time. I don't--after all this testimony, after all
this testimony, when I was asked did he clean his gun a lot,
and I answered yes, I came to the conclusion that he was
practicing with his gun because he was cleaning it
afterwards." (5H397)
Sen. Cooper: Did he ever tell you that he was practicing
with a rifle?
Mrs. Oswald: Only after I saw him take the gun that one
time. (5H398)
Thus Marina, until three months after the assassination, denied
any knowledge whatsoever of Oswald's rifle practice; he never told
her he practiced, and she knew of no practice. When she first
appeared before the Commission, her story changed. She suddenly
knew of one or two instances when Oswald mentioned he was going to
practice, although she never saw him take the rifle from the house.
Subsequent to her testimony, she changed her story again. After
telling the FBI she saw Oswald clean the rifle before he even
ordered it, she "admitted" an incident in which she saw Oswald
remove the rifle {concealed in a raincoat} to practice {at night}.
The following day her memory conveniently improved as she retracted
her statement that she had seen Oswald with the rifle as early as
January 1963. She added at this time that although Oswald had
actually admitted practicing only once, she "deduced" he had
practiced other times. This, essentially, was the final version of
her story.
{Marina was an entirely incredible witness}. No honest jury
could have believed any of her statements; for everything she
said, there almost always existed a contradictory statement that
she had made earlier. The Commission merely chose her most "juicy"
descriptions of rifle practice and cited them, ignoring completely
the other statements. The official use of Marina's testimony could
best be described in Aldous Huxley's words, "You pays your money
and you takes your choice."
6. According to George De Mohrenschildt, Oswald said he
went target shooting with that rifle.
The footnote to this assertion refers to portions of the
testimonies of George De Mohrenschildt, the Oswalds' "friend" in
Dallas, and his wife, Jeanne. The combined stories of the De
Mohrenschildts are so ridiculous as to make Marina's appear
reliable and consistent.
In his testimony, George De Mohrenschildt had been relating the
incident in which he and his wife paid a late-night visit to the
Oswalds shortly after the Walker incident (as described in the
previous chapter). De Mohrenschildt described how his wife had
seen a rifle in the closet and offered "facts" unsubstantiated by
any of the Commission's evidence:
Mr. De Mohrenschildt: And Marina said "That crazy idiot
is target shooting all the time." So frankly I thought it
was ridiculous to shoot target shooting in Dallas, you see,
right in town. I asked him "Why do you do that?"
Mr. Jenner: What did he say?
Mr. De Mohrenschildt: He said, "I go out and do target
shooting. I like target shooting." (9H249)
Despite the lack of corroborative evidence, De Mohrenschildt's
story might have remained plausible had his wife not attempted to
substantiate it. In the portion of her testimony cited but {not}
quoted in the Report, she revealed--to the exasperation of staff
member Jenner--the details of the incident {ad absurdium:}
Mrs. De Mohrenschildt: I just asked what on earth is he
doing with a rifle?
Mr. Jenner: What did she [Marina] say?
Mrs. De Mohrenschildt: She said, "Oh, he just loves to
shoot." I said, "Where on earth does he shoot? Where can
he shoot?" when they lived in a little house. "Oh, he goes
in the park and shoots at leaves and things like that." But
it didn't strike me too funny, because I personally love
skeet shooting. I never kill anything. But I adore to
shoot at a target, target shooting.
Mr. Jenner: Skeet?
Mrs. De Mohrenschildt: I just love it.
Mr. Jenner: Didn't you think it was strange to have
someone say he is going in a public park and shooting
leaves?
Mrs. De Mohrenschildt: But he was taking the baby out.
He goes with her, and that was his amusement.
Mr. Jenner: Did she say that?
Mrs. De Mohrenschildt: Yes; that was his amusement,
practicing in the park, shooting leaves. That wasn't
strange to me, because any time I go to an amusement park I
go to the rifles and start shooting. So I didn't find
anything strange.
Mr. Jenner: But you shot at the rifle range in these
amusement parks?
Mrs. De Mohrenschildt: Yes.
Mr. Jenner: Little .22?
Mrs. De Mohrenschildt: I don't know what it was.
Mr. Jenner: Didn't you think it was strange that a man
would be walking around a public park in Dallas with a
high-powered rifle like this, shooting leaves?
Mrs. De Mohrenschildt: I didn't know it was a high-
powered rifle. I had no idea. I don't even know right now.
(9H316)
The Commission did not see fit to include in the Report the fact
that the extent of the De Mohrenschildts' knowledge of Oswald's
"rifle practice" was that he fired at leaves while walking his baby
daughter through public parks. Had this been included, no one
could have believed the De Mohrenschildts.
7. Marina Oswald testified that in New Orleans in May of
1963, she observed Oswald sitting with the rifle on their
screened porch at night, sighting with the telescopic lens
and operating the bolt.
For this the Report cites Marina's testimony at 1H21-22, 53-54,
and 65 and CE 1814, p. 736. However, CE 1814 has nothing to do
with Marina Oswald, or rifle practice (23H471).
Marina's testimony about the bolt-working sessions on the porch
of the Oswald's New Orleans home was another spectacle of blatant
self-contradiction, again none of which was reflected in the
Report. In three days, Marina gave three opposing accounts
represented in the Report as consistent. On February 3, Marina
said:
I know that we had a kind of a porch with a--a screened-in
porch, and I know that sometimes evenings after dark he
would sit there with his rifle. I don't know what he did
with it. I came there only by chance once and saw him just
sitting there with his rifle. I thought he is merely
sitting there and resting . . .
Mr. Rankin: From what you observed about his having the
rifle on the back porch, in the dark, could you tell whether
or not he was trying to practice with the telescopic lens?
Mrs. Oswald: Yes. (1H21-22).
On February 4, Marina offered a version of the porch practice
different from that put forth in the Report:
Mr. Rankin: Did you ever see him working the bolt, the
action that opens the rifle, where you can put a shell in
and push it back--during those times [on the porch]?
Mrs. Oswald: I did not see it, because it was dark and I
would be in the room at that time. But I did hear the noise
from time to time--not often. (1H54)
Finally, on February 5, Marina reached the height of her confusion
and merely retracted the statement attributed to her in the Report:
Mr. Rankin: You have told us about his practicing with
the rifle, the telescopic lens, on the back porch at New
Orleans, and also his using the bolt action that you heard
from time to time. Will you describe that a little more
fully to us, as best you remember?
Mrs. Oswald: I cannot describe that in greater detail.
I can only say that Lee would sit there with the rifle and
open and close the bolt and clean it. No, he didn't clean
it at that time. Yes--twice he did clean it.
Mr. Rankin: And did he seem to be practicing with the
telescopic lens, too, and sighting the gun on different
objects?
Mrs. Oswald: I don't know. The rifle was always with
this. I don't know exactly how he practiced, because I was
in the house, I was busy. I just knew that he sits there
with his rifle. I was not interested in it. (1H65)
It is important to note that Marina originally denied any such
New Orleans porch practice to the FBI. An FBI report of an
interview with Marina on December 16, 1963, states that "She never
saw [Oswald] clean [the rifle] nor did he ever hold it in her
presence [in New Orleans] as best as she can recall" (22H778).
If Marina's stories of porch practice are true (and here the
reader may believe whichever version he likes), then Oswald
practiced sighting with his rifle {in total darkness} on a screened
porch. If this call be called "practice," it certainly cannot be
applied to normal daylight firing.
The seven assertions as quoted above from the Report constitute
the known extent of "Oswald's Rifle practice." Only one had
substantiation. The others are either misrepresentations of the
evidence or are merely unsupported altogether. Oswald performed
badly on the hunts in which he participated. He did not even use a
rifle in Russia although, to the Commission, intent on associating
Oswald with a rifle as frequently as possible, a shotgun was the
same as a rifle. Marina's assertions that Oswald practiced with
the Carcano are rendered invalid by her earlier statements that
Oswald never practiced. Even if the one incident she finally
conceded was true, Oswald would have had a total of 64 minutes to
practice (26H61). The De Mohrenschildts' description of Oswald's
target shooting at leaves in the park warrants no serious
consideration. As Marina admitted to the Commission, she did not
know what Oswald did with the rifle when he sat with it on the
porch of their New Orleans home (if he ever did this at all, as
Marina originally denied).
Taking the issue further than did the Commission, we can be
reasonably certain that Oswald engaged in {no} rifle practice in
New Orleans during the summer of 1963 or in Dallas up until the
time of the assassination.
If Marina was consistent in any of her statements, it was her
denial that Oswald practiced with the rifle in New Orleans. While
she recalled no such incident, she felt that Oswald could not have
practiced without telling her.
because as a rule he stayed home when he was not working.
When he did go out, she did not see him take the rifle.
(22H778)
Marina told this to the FBI on December 16, 1963. She stuck to
this story before the Commission, saying she knew "for sure" Oswald
did not practice in New Orleans (1H21).
More reliable information relating to possible New Orleans
practice comes from Adrian Alba, a New Orleans garage owner who
spoke with Oswald about rifles during the summer of 1963. On
November 25, 1963, Alba told the FBI that
he knew of no rifle practice which OSWALD had engaged in
while in New Orleans, adding that from his conversation with
OSWALD he did not believe that OSWALD belonged to any of the
local gun clubs. He added that it would have been almost
impossible for OSWALD to practice with a rifle around New
Orleans unless he belonged to a gun club. (CD7:203)
Alba repeated this information in his deposition before staff
member Liebeler. He explained why Oswald could not have practiced
in New Orleans unless he belonged to a gun club (which he did not).
According to Alba, if someone attempted to practice in the only
possible regions other than the clubs, "they would either run you
off or arrest you for discharging firearms" (10H224).
There is no credible evidence in any form to indicate that
Oswald practiced with his rifle after moving back to Dallas from
New Orleans in October 1963. If the rifle was stored in the Paine
garage as the Commission asserts (though proof of this is lacking),
then the possibility that Oswald could have taken the rifle for
practice is virtually nil. Likewise, Marina was emphatic that
Oswald never practiced during the time she lived with the Paines.
For what little reliance, if any, can be put in her testimony, I
quote her relevant words:
he couldn't have practiced while we were at the Paine's,
because Ruth was there. But whenever she was not at home,
he tried to spend as much time as he could with me--he would
watch television in the house. (1H53)
There is no evidence indicating that the rifle was in Oswald's
possession during this period. The woman who cleaned his small
room on North Beckley never saw it there, although she did not go
into the drawers of the "little wooden commode or closet" in the
room (6H440-441). While several witnesses thought they had seen
Oswald practicing at a rifle range in Dallas throughout September
to November 1963, the evidence strongly indicates that the man
observed neither was nor {could} have been Oswald, as the Report
admits (R318-30). Various FBI and Secret Service checks failed to
turn up any evidence of rifle practice by Oswald in the Dallas area
(see CEs 2694, 2908, 3049).
And this was Oswald the marksman--from the time he received his
first weapons training in the Marines, where he went from a fairly
good to a rather poor shot, to his few hunting trips with Robert
Oswald, where he manifested his lack of skill with a rifle, to his
presumed hunting in the Soviet Union with other than a rifle but
the same absence of any proficiency, to the time of his assumed
possession of the rifle, when no credible evidence indicated that
he ever engaged in practice.
This obviously was not the caliber of shooter defined by expert
Simmons as necessary to have pulled off the assassination alone.
The presumed lone assassin, according to Simmons, had to have
"considerable experience" in his background, especially
"considerable experience with" the Carcano, and had to be "a
proficient man with this weapon." Oswald was none of these. The
only reliable evidence now known demonstrates that he was simply a
poor shot who never did a thing to improve his capability.
As we have seen, the Commission consistently misrepresented the
evidence relevant to Oswald's rifle capability. In its conclusion
to this section of the Report, it retained its propensity for
conjuring up what it wanted without regard to evidence. It
concluded this:
Oswald's Marine training in marksmanship, his other rifle
experience and his established familiarity with this
particular weapon show that he possessed ample capability to
commit the assassination. (R195)
The Commission, in essence, told the public that "rather poor
shot" Oswald did what shooters in the NRA Master classification,
the highest rating, could not do. It must have caused great
concern among those who spend hours of concentrated practice each
day trying to maintain proficiency with a rifle to learn that
Oswald outdid the best and "established familiarity" with his rifle
by {never} practicing, probably never even playing with his rifle!
Oswald did not have the capability to fire the assassination
shots as the official theory proclaims. That he was a competent
marksman is a pure myth created by the Commission in flagrant
disregard of the evidence.
__________
[1] Analyses of the nature of the shots and related topics have
appeared in "Whitewash," chap. 4; Lane, chap. 9; Epstein,
chap. 9; Meagher, chap. 4.
[2] Frazier 2/21/69 testimony, p. 67.
[3] Ibid., p. 148.
[4] See also the excerpts from the Liebeler 9/6/64 Memorandum as
discussed in chap. 1.
[5] U.S. Department of Commerce, Weather Bureau, "Local Climatological
Data," for San Diego, California, May 1959, and Los Angeles,
California, May 1959.
[6] I have seen this rifle at the National Archives and it does appear
rather dilapidated. Fingerprint expert Latona called it "a cheap
old weapon" (4H29). Ballistics expert Robert Frazier went into
more detail on the condition of the rifle:
Mr. Eisenberg . . . . How much use does this weapon show?
Mr. Frazier. The stock is worn, scratched. The bolt is relatively
smooth, as if it had been operated several times. I cannot
actually say how much use the weapon has had. The barrel is--was
not, when we first got it, in excellent condition. It was, I would
say in fair condition. In other words, it showed the effects of
wear and corrosion. (3H394)
[7] Liebeler 9/6/64 Memorandum.
[8] CD 344 was discovered in the National Archives by Harold Weisberg
and is discussed in "Whitewash II," pp. 15-19.
[9] This memorandum was shown to Epstein by Liebeler. References to it
may be found in "Inquest," p. 146, and the "Saturday Evening Post,"
April 6, 1968, p. 72.
* * * * * * *
Conclusion
Throughout twelve hours of interrogation over the weekend of the
assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald steadfastly denied that he had
shot the President (R613, 627). He repeated that denial before
hundreds of newsmen crowded into the narrow corridors of the police
headquarters: "I'm just a patsy," he exclaimed (20H362, 366).
Even as he lay dying on a stretcher, the police pressed him for a
final confession. But Oswald merely shook his head; he would die
protesting his innocence (12H185).
Oswald's plea was ignored amid the clamor of official voices,
which hastened to assure the public of Oswald's guilt.
The Dallas Police wasted no time in announcing their verdict.
Of course, it is preposterous to assume that even the most
competent police force could have solved one of the century's most
complex crimes overnight. Yet this was precisely the claim made by
the Dallas Police when, on the day after the assassination, they
told the world that Oswald was beyond doubt the lone assassin.
Two weeks later the FBI claimed that it too had conclusively
determined that Oswald was the lone assassin. This was indeed an
unwarranted conclusion since, in its "solution" of the crime, the
FBI failed to account for one of the President's wounds and a shot
that missed the car. The FBI seems never to have anticipated that
concerned citizens would probe its thoroughly flawed report. It
made sure that everyone knew the conclusion reached in the report
by leaking to the press everything it wanted known. The report
itself, however, the FBI decided to keep secret.
The FBI's ploy had one salient effect: it preempted the Warren
Commission and left the Commission little choice but to affirm the
FBI's conclusions. The alternative was for the Commission to
conduct a genuinely independent investigation and announce that the
FBI had erred. In 1964, given the FBI's reputation as the greatest
law-enforcement investigative agency in the world and the
pervasive, although then unspoken fear of J. Edgar Hoover's power,
this was an unthinkable alternative for the conservative Commission
members. The choice was made to rely on the FBI--in effect, to let
the FBI investigate itself.
Thus, from the very beginning of its investigation, the
Commission planned its work under the presumption that Oswald was
guilty, and the staff consciously endeavored to construct a
prosecution case against Oswald. One Commission member actually
complained to the staff that he wanted to see more arguments in
support of the theory that Oswald was the assassin. There could
have been no more candid admission of how fraudulent the
"investigation" was than when a staff lawyer secretly wrote, "Our
intention is not to establish the point with complete accuracy, but
merely to substantiate the hypothesis which underlies the
conclusions that Oswald was the sole assassin." In its zeal to
posthumously frame Oswald--and falsify history--the staff often
considered ludicrous methods of avoiding the facts--as in the
suggestion of one staff lawyer that "the best evidence that Oswald
could fire as fast as he did and hit the target is the fact that he
did so."
The Commission, in presuming Oswald guilty, abdicated its
responsibility to the nation. But did the Commission, in spite of
its prejudices, arrive at the truth? Does the evidence establish
that Oswald was the assassin?
The medical evidence actually disassociates Oswald's rifle from
the wounds suffered by President Kennedy and Governor Connally.
The nature of the bullet fragmentation within the President's
wounds rules out full-jacketed military bullets such as those
allegedly fired by Oswald. Bullet 399, discovered at Parkland
Hospital and traced to Oswald's rifle, could not, in any
conceivable way, have produced any of the President's wounds.
Likewise, 399 could not have produced the Governor's wounds without
having suffered some form of mutilation; bullets simply do not
smash through two or three bones and emerge in the condition of
399, with no apparent distortions and no disruption of their
microscopic markings.
The medical evidence leads one to believe that Oswald's rifle
played no role in the shooting and that all the evidence that seems
to link Oswald to the shooting was in fact planted. The only
evidence that might conclusively show whether bullet 399 and the
two fragments traced to Oswald's rifle were actually involved in
the wounding of either victim is the spectrographic and neutron
activation analyses, and they are withheld from the public. One
need not be an expert analyst to deduce that the government would
hardly suppress this evidence if it corroborated its account of the
assassination. The only credible explanation for the suppression
of this crucial scientific evidence is that it must establish
conclusively what the medical evidence established to but a
reasonable degree--that Oswald's rifle played no role in the
shooting.
The evidence of the rifle, the cartridge cases, and the bullets
is significant because it creates the powerful assumption that
Oswald was the assassin. The medical evidence, in disassociating
Oswald's rifle from the crime, makes it apparent that unknown
persons deliberately planted the recovered ballistic items with the
intention of leaving evidence that would point to Oswald as the
murderer. Such planting of evidence does not necessarily imply an
enormous conspiracy, as some of the Commission's defenders have
suggested. Two accomplices, one at the Book Depository and one at
Parkland Hospital, are all that would have been required.
Conditions at both sites were so chaotic at the time that such
accomplices could easily have escaped detection.
Once it is established that Oswald's rifle was not involved in
the shooting, there is not a shred of tangible or credible evidence
to indicate that Oswald was the assassin. The evidence proves
exactly the opposite.
The circumstantial evidence relating to Oswald himself is almost
entirely exculpatory. Every element of it was twisted by the
Commission to fit the preconceived conclusion of Oswald's guilt. I
have documented that, through its staff and its Report, the
Commission:
1. Drew undue suspicion to Oswald's return to Irving on
November 21, although the evidence indicated that
Oswald did not know the motorcade route and broke no
set pattern in making the return;
2. Ignored {all} evidence that could have provided an
innocent excuse for Oswald's visit;
3. Wrongly discredited the reliable and consistent
testimony of the only two witnesses who saw the package
Oswald carried to work on the morning of the
assassination; because their descriptions meant that
the package could {not} have contained the rifle, the
Commission claimed to have made this rejection on the
basis of "scientific evidence," which did not exist;
4. Concluded that Oswald made a paper sack to conceal the
rifle, citing no evidence in support of this notion and
suppressing evidence that tended to disprove it;
5. Concluded that the sack was used to transport the
rifle, although its evidence proved that the sack never
contained the rifle;
6. Used the testimony of Charles Givens to placed [sic]
Oswald at the alleged source of the shots {35 minutes
too early,} even though Givens described an event that
physically could not have taken place;
7. Claimed to know of no Depository employee who saw
Oswald between 11:55 and 12:30, basing its claim on an
inquiry in which it (through General Counsel Rankin)
had the FBI determine whether any employee had seen
Oswald {only} at 12:30, completely suppressing from the
Report three distinct pieces of evidence indicating
Oswald's presence on the first floor during the period
in question.
8. Failed to produce any witness who could identify the
sixth-floor gunman as Oswald; both rejected and
accepted the identification of one man who admitted
lying to the police, who constantly contradicted
himself, and who described physically impossible
events; and ignored evidence of clothing descriptions
that might have indicated that Oswald was {not} the
gunman;
9. Reconstructed the movements of Baker and Truly in such
a way as to lengthen the time of their ascent to the
second floor;
10. Reconstructed the movements of the "assassin" so as to
greatly reduce the time of his presumed descent; a
valid reconstruction would have proved that a sixth-
floor gunman could {not} have reached the second-floor
lunch-room before Baker and Truly;
11. Misrepresented Baker's position at the time he saw
Oswald entering the lunchroom, making it seem possible
that Oswald could have just descended from the third
floor, although, in fact, the events described by Baker
and Truly prove that Oswald must have been coming {up}
from the {first} floor (as Oswald himself told the
police he did);
12. Misrepresented the nature of the assassination shots by
omitting from its evaluation the time factor and other
physical obstacles, thus making it seem that the shots
were easy and that Oswald could have fired them;
13. Misrepresented the evidence relevant to Oswald's rifle
capability and practice, creating the impression that
he was a good shot with much practice, although the
evidence indicated exactly the opposite. The
conclusion dictated by all this evidence en masse is
inescapable and overwhelming: Lee Harvey Oswald never
fired a shot at President Kennedy; he was not even at
the Depository window during the assassination; and no
one fired his rifle, the Mannlicher-Carcano, on that
day. Beyond any doubt, he is innocent of the monstrous
crime with which he was charged and of which he was
presumed guilty. The official presumption of his guilt
effectively cut off any quest for truth and led to the
abandonment of the principles of law and honest
investigation. At {all} costs, the government has
denied (and, to judge from its record, will continue to
deny) Oswald's innocence and perpetuated the myth of
his lone guilt.
With this, a thousand other spiders emerge from the walls.
It can now be inferred that Oswald was framed; he was
deliberately set up as the Kennedy assassin. His rifle was found
in the Depository. We know that it had to have been put there; we
also know that it was not Oswald who put it there. {Someone else
did.}
We know that a whole bullet traceable to Oswald's rifle turned
up at Parkland Hospital; we also know that this bullet was never
in the body of either victim. {Someone had to have planted it at
the hospital.} The same applies to the two identifiable fragments
found in the front seat of the President's limousine.
We know that someone shot and killed President Kennedy; we also
know that Oswald did not do this. The real presidential murderers
have escaped punishment through our established judicial channels,
their crime tacitly sanctioned by those who endeavored to prove
Oswald guilty. The after-the-fact framing of Oswald by the federal
authorities means, in effect, that the federal government has
conspired to protect those who conspired to kill President Kennedy.
It is not my responsibility to explain why the Commission did
what it did, and I would deceive the reader if I made the slightest
pretense that it was within my capability to provide such an
explanation. I have presented the facts; no explanation of
motives, be they the highest and the purest or the lowest and the
most corrupt, will alter those facts or undo what the Commission
indisputably has done.
The government has lied about one of the most serious crimes
that can be committed in a democracy. Having lied without
restraint about the death of a president, it can not be believed on
anything. It has sacrificed its credibility.
Remedies are not clearly apparent or easily suggested.
Certainly, Congress has an obligation to investigate this
monumental abuse by the executive. But first and foremost, the
people must recognize that they have been lied to by their
government and denied the truth about the murder of their former
leader. They must demand the truth, whatever the price, and insist
that their government work honestly and properly.
Until then, the history of one of the world's most democratic
nations must suffer the stigma of a frighteningly immoral and
undemocratic act by its government.
* * * * * * *
Appendix A
Tentative Outline of the Work of the
President's Commission
{Author's note: This "Tentative Outline" was attached to a
"Progress Report" dated January 11, 1964, from Commission Chairman
Earl Warren to the other Commission members, and reveals the extent
to which the Commission's conclusions were formulated prior to its
investigation.}
I. {Assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in Dallas}
A. Trip to Texas--Prior to Assassination
1. Initial plans for trip
a. relevent dates [sic]
b. itinerary
c. companions
d. motorcade to luncheon
e. other
2. Events of morning of November 22
a. arrival at airport--time, etc.
b. motorcade--crowds, time, etc.
B. Assassination (based on all available statements of witnesses,
films, photographs, etc.)
1. Shots
a. number of shots fired
b. time elapsed during shots
c. direction of shots
d. location of car at time
2. Postures and apparent injuries to President Kennedy and
Governor Connally
a. President Kennedy
b. Governor Connally
C. Events Immediately Following the Shooting
1. Treatment at hospital
2. Activities of Dallas law enforcement
3. Return of entourage to Washington
a. President Johnson's trip to airport
b. trip of Mrs. Kennedy with body of late
President to airport
c. swearing-in
4. Removal of President Kennedy's body to
Bethesda Naval Hospital
5. Removal of car to Washington--condition and repairs
D. Nature and Extent of Wounds Received by President
Kennedy (based on examinations in Dallas and Bethesda)
1. Number of individual wounds received by
President Kennedy
2. Cause of death
3. Time of death
4. Evaluation of medical treatment received in
Dallas
II. {Lee Harvey Oswald as the Assassin of President Kennedy}
A. Brief Identification of Oswald (Dallas resident,
employee of Texas School Book Depository, etc.)
B. Movements on November 22, 1963 Prior to Assassination
1. Trip to work
a. time
b. package
c. other significant facts, e.g. any conversations, etc.
2. Entry into Depository
a. time
b. package
c. other significant facts
3. Activities during morning
a. nature of his work
b. location of his work
c. other significant facts, e.g. any conversations, etc.
4. Movements immediately prior to 12:29 P.M.
C. Movements after Assassination until Murder of Tippit
1. Presence within building
a. location
b. time
c. encounter with police
d. other relevant facts
2. Departure from building
a. time
b. direction of movement
c. other relevant facts, e.g. crossing police line, etc.
3. Boarding of bus
a. time and place of boarding
b. duration of ride
c. other relevant facts, e.g. dress, appearance,
conversations, etc.
4. From bus to taxi
a. time and place
b. distance and route of cab
c. time to destination
d. other relevant facts obtained from cab driver or
other witnesses or sources
5. Arrival at rooming house
a. time
b. actions within rooming house
c. departure and direction
6. Route until encounter with Tippit
a. time
b. distance
D. Murder of Tippit
1. Encounter of Oswald and Tippit
a. time
b. location
2. Evidence demonstrating Oswald's guilt
a. eyewitness reports
b. murder weapon
c. autopsy and ballistics reports
d. paraffin tests
e. other, e.g. statements (if any)
E. Flight and Apprehension in Texas Theater
1. Movement until entry into theater
a. time
b. actions, e.g. reloading weapon
c. other relevant facts, e.g. recovery of jacket
2. Apprehension in theater
a. movements of Oswald in theater
b. notification and arrival of police
c. arrest of Oswald
d. removal to station
F. Oswald at Dallas Police Station
1. Interrogation
a. time, manner and number of interrogation sessions
b. persons present
c. persons responsible
d. results
2. Other investigation by Dallas police
a. line-ups and eyewitness identification
b. seizure of Oswald's papers
c. other
3. Denials and other statements by Oswald
4. Removal to County Jail on November 24, 1963
5. Killing of Oswald by Ruby
G. Evidence Identifying Oswald as the Assassin of
President Kennedy
1. Room of Texas School Book Depository identified as
source of shots
a. eyewitness reports
b. trajectory of shots
c. evidence on scene after assassination
d. other
2. Oswald placed in Depository (and specific room?)
a. eyewitness reports
b. fingerprints on objects in room
c. facts reviewed above
3. Assassination weapon identified as Oswald's
a. discovery of rifle and shells
b. obtaining and possession of gun by Oswald
c. whereabouts of gun on November 21 and November 22
d. prints on rifle
e. photographs of Oswald and rifle
f. General Walker ballistic report.
4. Other physical evidence
a. clothing tests
b. paraffin tests
5. Prior similar acts
a. General Walker attack
b. General Eisenhower threat
6. Permissible inferences from Oswald's:
a. flight from Depository
b. statements on bus
c. murder of Tippit
H. Evidence Implicating Others in Assassination or
Suggesting Accomplices
1. Evidence of shots other than from Depository?
2. Feasibility of shots within time span and with use
of telescope
3. Evidence re other persons involved in actual
shooting from Depository
4. Analysis of all movements of Oswald after
assassination for attempt to meet associates
5. Refutation of allegations
III. {Lee Harvey Oswald: Background and Possible Motive}
A. Birth and Pre-school Days
1. Family structure (death of father; statements of
persons who knew family; interviews of mother,
brother, and members of family)
2. Where family lived (statements as to childhood
character of Oswald from neighbors who recall family
and child)
3. Standard of living of family (document factors which
would have bearing upon development)
B. Education
1. Schools (reports from each school attended regarding
demeanor, grades, development, attitude to fellow
students, activities, problems, possible aptitude
for languages, sex life, etc.)
2. Reports of fellow students, associates, friends,
enemies at each school attended
3. Reports from various neighbors where Oswald lived
while attending various schools
4. Special report from juvenile authorities in New York
City concerning Oswald.
a. report of case worker on Oswald and family
b. psychiatrist who examined him, treatment and
results, opinion as to future development
C. Military Service
1. Facts regarding entry into service, assignments,
stations, etc. until discharge
2. Reports of personnel from each station regarding
demeanor, character, competence, activities, sex
life, financial status, attitude, etc.
3. Report on all activities while in Japan
4. Report and document study of Russian language
a. where and when
b. books used
c. instruction or self-taught
d. any indication of degree of accomplishment
* * * * * * *
Appendix B
Memorandum to J. Lee Rankin
from David W. Belin
{Author's note: This memorandum by staff lawyer Belin speaks for
itself. A month later, on February 25,1964, Belin wrote in another
memorandum, "At no time have we assumed that Lee Harvey Oswald was
the assassin of President Kennedy." See chapter 2.}
MEMORANDUMJanuary 30, 1964
TO:J. Lee Rankin
FROM:David W. Belin
SUBJECT:Oswald's knowledge that Connally would be in the
Presidential car and his intended target.
According to the Secret Service Report, Document No. 3, page 11,
the route of the motorcade was released on the evening of November
18 and appeared in Dallas newspapers on November 19 as shown in
Exhibits 6D and 6E (Document No. 3 is the December 18 Secret
Service Report).
In examining these exhibits, although the general route of the
motorcade is shown, there is nothing that shows that Governor
Connally would be riding in the Presidential car.
In determining the accuracy of Oswald, we have three major
possibilities: Oswald was shooting at Connally and missed two of
the three shots, the two misses striking Kennedy; Oswald was
shooting at both Kennedy and Connally and all three shots struck
their intended targets; Oswald was shooting only at Kennedy and
the second bullet missed its intended target and hit Connally
instead.
If there was no mass media coverage that Connally would be
riding in the Presidential car, it would tend to confirm the third
alternative that Kennedy was the only intended target. This in
turn bears on the motive of the assassination and also on the
degree of markmanship [sic] required, which in turn affects the
determination that Oswald was the assassin and that it was not too
difficult to hit the intended target two out of the three times in
this particular situation.
In any event, I believe it would be most helpful to have the FBI
investigate all newspaper, television and radio reports from
November 18 to November 22 in Dallas to ascertain whether or not in
any of these reports there was a public announcement that Connally
would be riding in the Presidential car. If such public
announcement was made, we should know specifically over what media
and when.
Of course, there is another element of timing: If Connally's
position in the motorcade was not released until the afternoon of
November 21, then when Oswald went home to get the weapon, he would
not have necessarily intended Connally as the target.
Finally, we would like to know whether or not there was any
release to the public news media that Connally would ride in any
car in the motorcade, regardless of whether or not it was the
Presidential car.
Thank you.
* * * * * * *
Appendix C
Memorandum to J. Lee Rankin
from Norman Redlich
{Author's note: This is one of many similar outlines of the Warren
Report, drafted long before the Commission's "investigation" ended,
and before virtually all of the relevant testimony was taken. It
proves that the Commission worked to substantiate a preconceived
conclusion naming Oswald as the sole assassin.}
MEMORANDUMMarch 26, 1964
TO:J. Lee Rankin
FROM:Norman Redlich
SUBJECT:Proposed Outline of Report
I attach a proposed outline of our final report. This plan
envisages a main report and supplementary materials to be published
as one volume. This will be followed by appendixes to be published
when prepared. These appendixes will contain the supporting
material for the report such as the transcript of testimony,
important underlying investigatory material, and photos of
important exhibits not published with the original report.
I have listed the staff members who I feel should have
responsibility for the particular sections of the report. Although
I have assigned small sections of the report to Mr. Williams, Mr.
Eisenberg, and myself, the major responsibility lies with other
members of the staff. I am assuming that Mr. Williams as your
Administrative Assistant, and I as your Special Assistant, together
with Mr. Eisenberg, will have responsibility for review, editing,
avoidance of duplication, and other technical details of putting a
report into publishable condition.
With your permission, I would like to distribute this outline to
the staff.
PROPOSED OUTLINE OF REPORT
(Submitted by Mr. Redlich)
I. Statement of Objectives and Standards (Mr. Rankin)
(The Report should start with a brief statement setting forth the
Commission's view of its objectives and standards used to achieve
them. It is important to clarify the Commission's position as a
fact-finding body and to indicate wherein our findings differ
from a judicial determination of criminal guilt.)
II. Brief Summary of Major Conclusions (Redlich and Willens)
(The purpose of this section is to provide the reader with a
short statement of our major conclusions without having to read
through the entire document.)
A. Basic Facts Concerning Assassination of President Kennedy and
Shooting of Governor Connally
B. Identity of the Assassin
C. Conclusions Concerning Accomplices
D. Conclusions Concerning Motive
E. Ruby's Killing of Oswald and Conclusion as to Possible Link
to Assassination
III. The Assassination--Basic Facts (Adams and Specter)
A. Physical Setting
1. Description of Motorcade
2. Description of Area where Shooting Occurred
B. Shooting
1. Number of Shots
2. Medical Effect of Each Shot
3. Point from which Shots Fired
4. Statistical Data
a. Elapsed time of shooting
b. Distance travelled by Presidential car
c. Speed of car
d. Distance travelled by each bullet
5. Events Immediately following Shooting
a. Reaction of Secret Service
b. Trip to Parkland
c. Events in Parkland
d. Trip to Love Field
e. Return to Washington
IV. Lee H. Oswald as the Assassin (Ball and Belin)
(This section should state the facts which lead to the conclusion
that Oswald pulled the trigger and should also indicate the
elements in the case which have either not been proven or are
based on doubtful testimony. Each of the factors listed below
should be reviewed in that light.)
A. Identification of Rifle as Murder Weapon
B. Oswald's Ownership of Weapon
C. Evidence of Oswald Carrying Weapon to Building
1. Fake Curtain Rod Stroy [sic]
2. Buell Frazier's Story
3. Possible Presence in Paine's Garage on Evening of
November 21, 1963
D. Evidence of Oswald on Sixth Floor
1. Palm Prints on Carton
2. Paper Bag with Oswald Print
E. Eyewitness Testimony
F. Oswald After Assassination--Actions in Building
G. Oswald After Assassination--Actions up to Tippit Shooting
H. Shooting of Tippit and Arrest in Theatre
1. Eyewitnesses
2. Gun as Murder Weapon
3. Oswald's Ownership of Gun
I. Statements After Arrest
J. Prior Actions
1. Walker Shooting
2. Possible Nixon Attempt
3. Practice with Rifle
K. Evidence of any Accomplices in Assassination
L. Appraisal of Oswald's Actions on November 21 and 22 in Light
of Assassination
(This will be a difficult section, but I feel we must face up
to the various paradoxical aspects of Oswald's behavior in
light of his being the assassin. I suggest the following
items for consideration.)
1. Did He Have a Planned Escape?
2. Why did he pass up the Opportunity to get money on
November 21 when he returned to Irving?
3. Discussion with Marina about getting apartment in Dallas
4. Asking fellow employee, on morning of November 22, which
way the President was coming.
V. Possible Motive (Jenner, Liebeler, Coleman, Slawson)
A. Brief Biographical Sketch of Oswald (Fuller Biography in
Supplement)
B. Any Personal Animosity Toward Kennedy or Connally
C. Do his Political Beliefs Furnish Motive
D. Link to Domestic Left-Wing Groups
1. Fair Play for Cuba
2. Communist Party
3. Conclusions to be Drawn from such Links
E. Link to Right-Wing Groups
F. Possible Agent of Foreign Power
G. Possible Link to Underworld
VI. Killing of Oswald by Ruby (Hubert and Griffin)
A. Facts of the Killing
1. Actions of Ruby starting with November 22
2. Description of Events on November 24
B. Discussion of Possible Link with Assassination of President
Kennedy
C. Other Possible Motives
1. Brief Biographical Sketch (Fuller Sketch in Supplement)
2. Ruby as Self-styled Patriot, Hero, Important Man
3. Possibility of Ruby being Mentally Ill
SUPPLEMENT TO BE PUBLISHED WITH REPORT
A. Visual Aids To Help Explain Main Body of Report (All Staff
Members Concerned)
B. Organization and Methods of Commission (Willens)
C. Security Precautions to Protect Life of President (Stern)
1. What Was Done on This Trip
2. Broader Recommendations in This Area
(I recognize that this area has been the subject of extended
discussion and it might be desirable to move this section to
the main body of the Report)
D. Detailed Facts About President's Trip up to Assassination
(Adams, Specter, Stern)
E. Biography of Oswald (Jenner, Liebeler, Coleman, Slawson)
F. Biography of Ruby (Hubert and Griffin)
G. Oswald Relationship with U.S. Government Agencies (Redlich,
Stern, Coleman, Slawson)
H. Discussion of Widely Circulated Theories (Redlich and
Eisenberg)
I. Other Important Documents We May Wish to Publish as Part of
Supplement, I suggest the following:
1. Autopsy Reports
2. Summary of Testimony of Experts on Physical Evidence
(Eisenberg)
3. Charts and Other Data Presented by Experts (Eisenberg)
4. Reports of Medical Examination on Governor Connally
5. Report of FBI and Secret Service on Location of
President's car at Time of Shots (Redlich and Eisenberg)
* * * * * * *
Appendix D
A Later Memorandum to J. Lee Rankin
from Norman Redlich
{Author's note: This memorandum by staff lawyer Redlich explicitly
states that the object of the investigation was not to determine the
truth as far as it could be known, but rather to substantiate a
preconceived conclusion.}
MEMORANDUMApril 27, 1964
TO:J. Lee Rankin
FROM:Norman Redlich
The purpose of this memorandum is to explain the reasons why
certain members of the staff feel that it is important to take certain
on-site photographs in connection with the location of the approximate
points at which the three bullets struck the occupants of the
Presidential limousine.
Our report presumably will state that the President was hit by the
first bullet, Governor Connally by the second, and the President by
the third and fatal bullet. The report will also conclude that the
bullets were fired by one person located in the sixth floor southeast
corner window of the TSBD building.
As our investigation now stands, however, we have not shown that
these events could possibly have occurred in the manner suggested
above. All we have is a reasonable hypothesis which appears to be
supported by the medical testimony but which has not been checked out
against the physical facts at the scene of the assassination.
Our examination of the Zapruder films shows that the fatal third
shot struck the President at a point which we can locate with
reasonable accuracy on the ground. We can do this because we know the
exact frame (no. 313) in the film at which the third shot hit the
President and we know the location of the photographer. By lining up
fixed objects in the movie fram [sic] where this shot occurs we feel
that we have determined the approximate location of this shot. This
can be verified by a photo of the same spot from the point were
Zapruder was standing.
We have the testimony of Governor and Mrs. Connally that the
Governor was hit with the second bullet at a point which we probably
cannot fix with precision. We feel we have established, however, with
the help of medical testimony, that the shot which hit the Governor
did not come {after} frame 240 on the Zapruder film. The Governor
feels that it came around 230 which is certainly consistent with our
observations of the film and with the doctor's testimony. Since the
President was shot at frame 313, this would leave a time of at least 4
seconds between two shots, certainly ample for even an inexperienced
marksman.
Prior to our last viewing of the films with Governor Connally we
had assumed that the President was hit while he was concealed behind
the sign which occurs between frames 215 to 225. We have expert
testimony to the effect that a skilled marksman would require a
minimum of time of 2 1/4 seconds between shots with this rifle. Since
the camera operates at 18 1/3 frames per second, there would have to
be a minimum of 40 frames between shots. It is apparent therefore,
that if Governor Connally was hit even as late as frame 240, the
President would have to have been hit no later than frame 190 and
probably even earlier.
We have not yet examined the assassination scene to determine
whether the assassin in fact could have shot the President prior to
frame 190. We could locate the position on the ground which
corresponds to this frame and it would then be our intent to establish
by photography that the assassin could have fired the first shot at
the President prior to this point. Our intention is not to establish
the point with complete accuracy, but merely to substantiate the
hypothesis which underlies the conclusions that Oswald was the sole
assassin.
I had always assumed that our final report would be accompanied by
a surveyor's diagram which would indicate the appropriate location of
the three shots. We certainly cannot prepare such a diagram without
establishing that we are describing an occurrence which is physically
possible. Our failure to do this will, in my opinion, place this
Report in jeopardy since it is a certainty that others will examine
the Zapruder films and raise the same questions which have been raised
by our examination of the films. If we do not attempt to answer these
questions with observable facts, others may answer them with facts
which challenge our most basic assumptions, or with fanciful theories
based on our unwillingness to test our assumptions by the
investigatory methods available to us.
I should add that the facts which we now have in our possession,
submitted to us in separate reports from the FBI and Secret Service,
are totally incorrect and, if left uncorrected, will present a
completely misleading picture.
It may well be that this project should be undertaken by the FBI
and Secret Service with our assistance instead of being done as a
staff project. The important thing is that the project be undertaken
expeditiously.
* * * * * * *
Appendix E
Report of the FBI's First
Interview with Charles Givens
{Author's note: This is the actual report of the FBI's first
interview with Charles Givens. Givens is reported as saying nothing
about the alleged encounter with Oswald on the sixth floor that he was
to describe to the Commission much later. Rather, he is reported to
have told the FBI on the day of the assassination that he saw Oswald
on the first floor at the same time he later told the Commission he
saw Oswald on the sixth floor. This FBI report was not published by
the Commission or mentioned in the Warren Report.
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Date 11/23/63
CHARLES DOUGLAS GIVENS, 2511 Cochran Street, advised he was
employed by the Texas School Book Depository, Houston and Elm Street,
from October 1, 1963, to present time. GIVENS said he has worked at
this same position as a wrapper on several occasions prior to this
employment.
On November 22, 1963, GIVENS worked on the sixth floor of the
building until about 11:30 A.M. when he used the elevator to travel to
the first floor where he used the restroom at about 11:35 A.M. or
11:40 A.M. GIVENS then walked around on the first floor until 12
o'clock noon, at which time he walked onto the sidewalk and stood for
several minutes, then walked to the Classified Parking Lot at Elm and
Records Street. GIVENS then walked to Main Street to watch the parade
and after the President and the group had passed, he walked back to
the parking lot, at which time he heard several shots fired from the
direction of the building at which he is employed. He attempted to
return to work but was told that he had been released for the balance
of the day.
GIVENS advised that a white male, known as LEE, was employed in the
same building and worked as a wrapper or order filler. He said he saw
this same person's picture on television on the afternoon of November
22, 1963, who was supposed to have been the person being investigated
for the shooting of the President. LEE worked on all floors of the
building, and on November 22, 1963, GIVENS recalls observing LEE
working on the fifth floor during the morning filling orders. LEE was
standing by the elevator in the building at 11:30 A.M. when GIVENS
went to the first floor. When he started down in the elevator, LEE
yelled at him to close the gates on the elevator so that he (LEE)
could have the elevator returned to the sixth floor. GIVENS said that
during the past few days LEE had commented that he rode to work with a
boy named WESLEY.
GIVENS said all employees enter the back door of the building when
JACK DOUGHERTY, the foreman opens the door at about 7 A.M. On the
morning of November 22, 1963, GIVENS observed LEE reading a newspaper
in the domino room where the employees eat lunch about 11:50 A.M.
__________________________________________________________________
11/22/63 Dallas, Texas DL 89-43
on ____________ at _________________ File # ____________
WILL HAYDEN GRIFFEN
by Special Agent _________________________ and
BARDWELL D. ODUM (HM)
Date dictated 11/23/63
____________
* * * * * * *
Appendix F
FBI Report on Mrs. R. E. Arnold
{Author's note: The Warren Commission stated in its Report that it
knew of no Book Depository employee who claimed to have seen Oswald
between 11:55 and 12:30 on the day of the assassination. This was
false, as this FBI report from the Commission's files reveals. The
Warren Report never mentions Mrs. Arnold and this FBI document was
omitted from the Commission's published evidence.}
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Date 11/26/63
Mrs. R. E. ARNOLD, Secretary, Texas School Book Depository, advised
she was in her office on the second floor of the building on November
22, 1963, and left that office between 12:00 and 12:15 PM, to go
downstairs and stand in front of the building to view the Presidential
Motorcade. As she was standing in front of the building, she stated
she thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of LEE HARVEY OSWALD
standing in the hallway between the front door and the double doors
leading to the warehouse, located on the first floor. She could not
be sure that this was OSWALD, but said she felt it was and believed
the time to be a few minutes before 12:15 PM.
She stated thereafter she viewed the Presidential Motorcade and
heard the shots that were fired at the President; however, she could
furnish no information of value as to the individual firing the shots
or any other information concerning OSWALD, whom she stated she did
not know and had merely seen him working in the building.
__________________________________________________________________
11/26/63 Dallas, Texas DL 89-43
on ____________ at _________________ File # ___________
RICHARD E. HARRISON/rmh
by Special Agent ___________________________
Date dictated 11/26/63
____________
* * * * * * *
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* * * * * * *
[The index has been included verbatim from the original book. Hence the
page numbers are not correct for this copy of the book, but it was felt
the subjects noted here would still be useful as reference --ratitor ]
Index
Accessories after the fact in assassination 33
Accomplices in assassination, 81- 82
Accountability of government, 24, 41
Aebersold, Paul C., 19
Alba, Adrian, 244-45
Alibi for Oswald, 221, 225
Ammunition. {See} Military ammunition; Sporting ammunition
Anderson, Eugene, 231
Arce, Danny, 183
Archives. {See} National Archives
Arnold, Mrs. Carolyn, 184-87, 276-77
Assassin's rifle. {See} Rifle
Atomic Energy Commission, 19, 20, 21, 23
Autopsy on President Kennedy, 37, 121
Autopsy photos and Xrays, 37-39, 115, 117, 121-22
Bag. {See} Paper bag
Baker, Mrs. Donald, 186
Baker, M. L., 63, 199, 201-9, 213, 218-21, 252-53
Ball Joseph 84-86, 163, 181, 205
Ballistics evidence, 48
Ballistics tests, 50; simulating head wounds, 111-14
Belin, David, 29-30, 84-86, 90, 169, 196, 197-98, 222, 288-89
Bernabei, Richard, 126, 129, 283
Blanket, 170-71
Boggs, Hale, 17, 26, 80, 222
Bolt practice by Oswald, 242-43
Bookhout, James, 182
Boone, Eugene, 212, 213
Boswell, Dr. J. Thornton, 118-19
Brandeis, Louis, 41
Brennan, Howard, 61-62, 188, 190-98,199
Bullet fragments, 19-20, 21-22; in car, 98, 107, 114, 146, 254;
from Governor Connally, 99-100, 103, 131, 132; in President
Kennedy's head, 38-39, 117; in President Kennedy's neck, 121-25,
145
Bullet 399, 22, 95-96, 99-101, 103, 121, 124, 128, 129, 131, 133,
134, 136-45, 250; planted, 253
Bullet wounds 50, of Governor Connally, 131-45, of President
Kennedy's anterior neck, 79, 123,125,145; of President Kennedy's
back, 126, 145; of President Kennedy's head, 108-20; of
President Kennedy's neck, 120-29
Bullets. {See} also Military ammunition; Sporting ammunition
Bullets and fragments, 48
Bullets, high-velocity, 119
Cabell, Mrs. Earle, 188
Cadigan, James, 171-72
Calvery, Gloria, 204-5
Cartridge cases, 37, 49, 69, 107, 127-28, 129, 147
Castro, Fidel, 29, 30
CBS News, 193,197, 205, 213
Central Broadcasting System. {See} CBS News
Central Intelligence Agency. {See} CIA
CIA, 29, 30, 38
CIA, President's Commission on domestic activities of, 29-30, 39
Clark, Ramsey, 105,114-15; panel assembled by, 37, 39, 115, 117,
118, 121
Clothing: description, 288; worn by gunman, 198-99; worn by
President Kennedy, 20, 99, 103; worn by Oswald, 198-99
Cohen, Jacob, 281
Congress, 9, 11, 30-31, 40, 255
Connally, John, 25, 84
Cooper, Sen. John Sherman, 26 80, 134-35, 222, 238
Couch, Malcolm, 188, 203, 205, 208, 209, 289
Craig, Roger, 212
Crawford, James, 188
Cuban refugee at Parkland Hospital, 146
Curry, Jesse E., 74, 100
Curtain rods, 56, 146, 158-60, 174; story about, 58, 88
"Dallas Morning News," 152-53, 154
Dallas police, 37, 74, 90, 160, 171, 180-82, 195, 199, 205, 248;
line-ups of, 195, 199, 200; radio logs of, 187
"Dallas Times Herald," 83, 152
Daniels, Gene, 159-60
Dealey Plaza, 46
Deception, political, 10-13
Delgado, Nelson, 230-31, 232
De Mohrenschildt, George, 223, 239-41, 244
De Mohrenschildt, Jeanne, 223 240-41, 244
Department of Justice, 78; withholding of spectographic analysis by,
22, 100, 106
Dickey, Charles, 128, 142
Dillard, Tom, 203
Dissection: lack of at autopsy, 121
Dolce, Dr. Joseph, 139
Dougherty, Jack, 173-74
Dragoo, Mrs. Betty, 186
"Dumdum" bullet, 110
Dulles, Allen, 15, 16-17, 26, 82, 89, 111, 134-35, 137, 198
Dziemian, Dr. Arthur J., 140
Edgewood Arsenal, 112
Edwards, Don, 30
Edwards, Robert, 189, 198
Eisenberg, Melvin, 20, 143, 229
Eisenhower, Dwight, 10
Ely, John Hart, 230
Enos, William, 142
Epstein, Edward Jay, 28, 31, 35-36
Euins, Amos, 188, 189-90, 195
Executive sessions of Warren Commission: 12/5/63, 77; 12/16/63, 18,
79-80; 1/21/64, 82-83; 1/22/64, 15, 16; 1/27/64, 17, 19;
4/30/64, 89
"Eyewitness identification of assassin," 61
FBI, 15-23, 30, 37, 76-77, 90, 163, 171, 179-80, 181, 185, 196, 204,
239, 243, 244, 248-49; "agent" at hospital, 145-46; ballistics
findings of, 18; report on assassination, 76 77, 249
Federal Bureau of Investigation. {See} FBI
Fensterwald, Bernard, 284
Fiber evidence, 170-71; in bag 58; on rifle, 55
Fillinger, Halpert, 116, 118, 119, 121, 122, 142, 144
Finck, Col. Pierre, 111, 121
Fingerprints: on boxes, 60, 65, 175; on paper bag, 167-68
Fischer, Ronald, 191, 198
Folsom, Col. A. G., 229-30, 232
Ford, Gerald, 26, 29, 36, 111, 197
Fox, Sylvan, 28
Fragments. {See} Bullet fragments
Frankford Arsenal, 142
Frazier, Buell Wesley, 56-57, 58, 151, 156, 160, 162, 163-67, 170,
174
Frazier, Robert, 23, 53, 70, 101-4, 119, 125, 143, 226-27
Freedom of Information Act, 22-23, 106
Fritz, Will, 74, 160, 182
Full-jacketed bullets. {See} Military ammunition
Gallagher, John, 20, 101-2
Garrison, Jim, 28-29, 34-35, 115
Givens, Charles, 61, 153, 176-78, 252, 274-75, 287-88
Goldberg, Alfred, 86
Gregory, Dr. Charles, 133, 137-38, 142
Gregory, Dick, 29, 34
Hart, Philip, 278-79
Helpern, Dr. Milton, 142
Henchcliffe, Margaret, 146
"A. Hidell," 55
High-velocity bullets. {See} Bullets
Hoover, J. Edgar, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21-22, 30, 77, 100, 105, 159, 172,
179, 185, 249
Howlett, John, 210, 212
Humes, Dr. James J., 109-11, 115, 118, 124
Hunt, E. Howard, 29
Hunting rounds. {See} Sporting ammunition
Huxley, Aldous, 239
Interrogation sessions of Oswald, 182-83, 248
Irving, Texas, 56, 58, 156, 157-58, 161-62, 251
Jacketed bullets. {See} Military ammunition
Jackson, Robert, 188, 203, 206
Jarman, James, 154, 185-86, 288
Jenner, Albert, 82, 240-41
Johnson, Miss Judy, 186
Johnson, Lyndon B., 25, 26, 78
"Junior," 182-84
Justice Department. {See} Department of Justice
Katzenbach, Nicholas, 77
Kellerman, Roy, 117
Kelley, Thomas, 182
Kennedy, Edward, 278
Kennedy, John: Bay of Pigs, 10
Kleindienst, Richard, 106, 282
Landlady of Oswald's rented room, 160
Lands and grooves, 143-44
Lane, Mark, 28, 31, 33-35, 190
Lawyers, 11, 13
Liebeler, Wesley, 58, 60, 67, 68, 69-71, 91, 156, 231, 233, 235, 245
"Life" magazine, 197
Light, Dr. F. W., 139
Limousine: examination of, 47; at hospital, 147
Lineups. {See} Dallas Police
Loftus, Joseph, 78
Long, Rowland, 115
"Long and bulky package," 162-74
Lovelady, Billy, 204-5
Lumumba, 30
Lunchroom, on second floor, 202
McCloy, John J., 17,18, 26, 80, 90, 110-11, 134-35, 139, 191
Mannlicher-Carcanco. {See} Rifle
"Marksman" rating of Oswald, 230
Meagher, Sylvia, 28, 31, 33, 155, 158, 161-62, 287
Media. {See} Press
Medical evidence: limitations of, 107-8 ; meaning of, 107, 249-50
Military ammunition, 109, 114, 116, 117-18, 120, 121, 122, 123-24,
129, 131, 147
Miller, Herbert J., 19
Missed shot, 37, 249
Mitchell, John, 106, 284
Molina, Joe, 204-5
Mooney, Luke, 211, 212
Morgan, Dr. Russell, 122
"Motive" of Oswald, 82, 84
Motorcade: prior knowledge of route of, 151-55; position of at
12:15, 186-87
Muchmore, Mary, 51
National Archives, 15, 105, 129, 140, 159, 179
Neutron Activation Analysis, 19-23, 250
"Newsweek," 78
"New York Times," 74, 78
Nichols, Dr. John, 113, 142
Nix, Orville, 51
Nixon, Richard, 29
Norman, Harold, 183-84
Nosenko, Yuri I., 235
Note to FBI from Oswald, 30
Olivier, Dr. Alfred G., 139-40
On-site tests. {See} Reconstruction of shots
Oser, Alvin, 104, 125, 227-28
Oswald, Marina 68, 83, 154, 156 157-58, 161, 170, 223, 233-46
Oswald, Robert, 232-33, 234-35, 246
Outline of Warren Commission work, 80-82, 257-63
Outlines of Warren Report, 86-88, 266-70
Paine garage, 245
Paine home: police search of, 157
Paine, Ruth, 56, 156, 158, 161, 170, 234, 245
Palmprint: on bag, 57-58; on rifle, 55
Paper bag, 57-58, 151, 163, 167-73, 251; prints on, 57-58, 167-68
Paraffin casts, 21
Parkland Memorial Hospital, 25 107, 145, 146, 251; Cuban refugee
employed at, 146; doctors employed at, 116, 132; "FBI agent" at,
145-46
Patsy, Oswald as, 248
Perry, Dr. Malcolm, 119
"Philadelphia Inquirer," 74
Photograph of Oswald with rifle, 55
Piper, Eddie, 180-81, 209
"Planted" evidence, 147-48, 251, 254
Police. {See} Dallas Police
Popkin, Richard, 28, 36
Presidency, 10
Press, 9, 11-13; reaction to Warren Report, 27; suspicious of
Warren Report criticism, 29; presumption of Oswald's guilt by, 75
Psychology, 221
Rachey, Bonnie, 186
Radio: in Oswald's possession 154
Randle, Linnie Mae, 57, 162-64, 165-66
Rankin, J. Lee, 16-17, 19, 23, 26, 80, 82-83, 89, 91, 159, 179-81,
185, 234, 237, 242-43, 252
Reconstruction: of assassin's movements, 209-14; of movements
after the shots, 64, 202-21, 252; of shots, 52, 88-89, 271-73
Redlich, Norman, 33, 87-89
Reid, Mrs. Robert, 153, 222-23
Revill, Jack, 177
Rifle, 18, 49, 50, 52, 54-55, 56-57, 58, 95, 106, 107, 151, 156, 162,
167, 170-72, 191, 210, 225, 227 235-39, 246, 249-50, 253, 289;
ammunition for, 140; capability of, 66; capability tests with
228-29; disassembled, 164, 166; fibers on, 55; hiding of,
212-16, palmprint on, 55; photograph of Oswald with, 55; test
firing for accuracy, 70-71; practice with by Oswald, 232-46
Roberts, Mrs. Earlene, 154
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 10
Rowland, Arnold, 186-87,189,198
Ruby, Jack, 25, 27, 146
Russell, Sen. Richard, 17, 26, 79
Russia: hunting by Oswald in, 233-35, 243, 246
Salandria, Vincent, 27, 283
Sauvage, Leo, 27, 161
Sawyer, Herbert, 177
Secret Service, 16, 181, 190, 234
"Sharpshooter" rating of Oswald, 230
Shaw, Clay: trial of, 28-29, 35, 103, 115, 226-27
Shaw, Dr. Robert, 134-37, 142
Shelley, Bill, 178, 204-5
Shires, Dr. Tom, 133
"Short charge," 128
Shotgun practice by Oswald, 233-35
Shots: as "easy," 67; nature of, 225-28; number of, 53; time span
of, 54
Simmons, Ronald, 227, 229, 246
Single-bullet theory, 53, 226
Sirica, John, 14
Slawson, W. David, 83
Snyder, LeMoyne, 115, 123
Soft-nosed ammunition. {See} Sporting ammunition
Sorrels, Forrest, 195
Soviet Union. {See} Russia
Specter, Arlen, 83, 101-3, 110, 133, 136, 138-39, 189
Spectographic analyses, 18-19, 22, 47, 95-106, 147, 250, 284
Sporting ammunition, 114, 116, 118, 123-24, 129, 131
Staff of Warren Commission, 15, 18, 21, 26, 34, 35, 40, 188, 249
"St.Louis Post-Dispatch," 74
Stombaugh, Paul, 170
Sturgis, Frank, 30
Tape from Depository dispenser, 169
Texas School Book Depository, 47, 56, 147, 151, 251; discovery of
curtain rods in, 159
Thompson, Josiah, 28, 36-37
"Time," 77
Tippit, J. D., 25, 32, 38, 66, 81
Trevor-Roper, Hugh, 34
Trujillo, 30
Truly, Roy, 63, 153, 159, 201-9, 216-20, 222, 252-53
"Twenty-six volumes," 27
Underwood, Jim, 203
Varminting bullets, 120
Vestibule on second floor, 202, 214, 217
Wade, Henry, 75
Walker Edwin A.: shot fired at, 66, 81, 221, 237, 240
Walther, Mrs. Carolyn, 189, 198
Warren, Earl, 18, 26, 32, 34, 79, 80, 82-83
"Washington Post," 13, 77
Watergate, 9, 13, 29
Weberman, A. J., 29
Wecht, Cyril, 37-39, 121, 142, 280-81
Weigman, David, 206
Weisberg, Harold, 15, 16, 19, 21, 22-23, 28, 31-33, 36, 105-6, 142,
146, 153, 168, 184-85, 208, 284
Weitzman, Seymour, 212, 213
West, Troy Eugene, 168-70
Williams, Bonnie Ray, 153
Window, evidence near, 59-60
Witnesses of sixth-floor gunman, 47
Wounds. {See} Bullet wounds
Zahm, James A., 227, 231
Zapruder, Abraham, 51; film by, 36, 51, 54, 116, 226