Tag: ARRB
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A Presumption of Innocence: Lee Harvey Oswald, Part 3
I. The Disposition and Discovery of the Shells
The discovery of the rifle shells on the sixth floor that go by the labels Commission Exhibits 543, 544, and 545 add more controversy into the investigation of the murder of President John F. Kennedy.
The shells, which the Commission concluded had been used in the assassination, were discovered, according to the Warren Report, by Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney. According to the report:
Around 1pm, Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney noticed a pile of cartons in front of the window in the south-east corner of the sixth floor. Searching that area, he found at approximately 1:12 p.m. three empty cartridge cases on the floor near the window. (WR, p. 79)
A few obvious questions arise with regard to the subsequent discovery of the alleged “Snipers Nest” and the shells allegedly contained therein.
- With various witnesses reporting to the police in the immediate aftermath of the Presidents murder that they had indeed witnessed a rifle in the possession of a man or men on the upper floors, then why did the Dallas police not immediately converge upon the book depository’s sixth floor? Instead, the police decided to commence a floor by floor canvass of the building in search of a gunman or evidence linked to the crime. This was in spite of the various witness testimonies to a man (men) with a rifle on the upper floors.
- Why did it take Mooney 12 minutes between his discovery of the alleged “sniper’s nest” to his apparent discovery of the three spent cartridges? According to Mooney’s testimony once he had ventured down from the seventh floor:
LM – So I went back down. I went straight across to the south-east corner of the building, and I saw all these high boxes. Of course, they were stacked all the way around over there. And I squeezed between two. And the minute I squeezed between these two stacks of boxes, I had to turn myself sideways to get in there—that is when I saw the expended shells and the boxes that were stacked up looked to be a rest for a weapon. (WCH, Vol. III, pp. 283–284)
Mooney’s testimony refutes the information contained in the Warren Report regarding the 12-minute discovery between the “Shield of Cartons” and the expended shells. And in reference to the earlier quoted testimony, “the minute I squeezed between these two stacks of boxes…that is when I saw the expended shells.” (ibid) It would seem that the authors of the report were too busy to re-acquaint themselves with the testimony which was deposed before them, choosing instead to print in error that 12 minutes had elapsed between the discovery of the shield of cartons and the discovery of the shells.
In reference to Fritz and his conduct in handling the evidence, we find the following printed within the Report:
When he was notified of Mooney’s discovery, Capt. J W. Fritz, chief of the homicide bureau of the Dallas Police Department, issued instructions that nothing be moved or touched until technicians from the police crime laboratory could take photographs and check for fingerprints. (WR, p. 79)
This account is disputed by cameraman for WFFA TV Tom Alyea, who was present on the sixth floor after the assassination. Alyea stated that:
After filming the casings with my wide-angle lens, from a height of 4 and half ft., I asked Captain Fritz, who was standing at my side, if I could go behind the barricade and get a close-up shot of the casings.
He told me that it would be better if I got my shots from outside the barricade. He then rounded the pile of boxes and entered the enclosure. This was the first time anybody walked between the barricade and the windows.
Fritz then walked to the casings, picked them up and held them in his hand over the top of the barricade for me to get a close-up shot of the evidence. I filmed between 3–4 seconds of a close-up shot of the shell casings in Captain Fritz’s hand.
Fritz did not return them to the floor and he did not have them in his hand when he was examining the shooting support boxes. I stopped filming and thanked him. I have been asked many times if I thought it was peculiar that the Captain of Homicide picked up evidence with his hands.
Actually, that was the first thought that came to me when he did it, but I rationalized that he was the homicide expert and no prints could be taken from spent shell casings. Over thirty minutes later, after the rifle was discovered and the crime lab arrived, Capt. Fritz reached into his pocket and handed the casings to Det. Studebaker to include in the photographs he would take of the sniper’s nest crime scene.
We stayed at the rifle site to watch Lt. Day dust the rifle. You have seen my footage of this. Studebaker never saw the original placement of the casings so he tossed them on the floor and photographed them. Therefore, any photograph of shell casings taken after this is staged and not correct. (https://www.jfk-online.com/alyea.html)
It should be noted that Alyea also said that the shells were in close proximity to each other at first appearance. There are two other witnesses who back him on this: Roger Craig and Mooney. (Cover-Up, J. Gary Shaw with Larry Harris, p. 70) That is not the way they appear in the Commission volumes. (Commission Exhibit 512) Once the “official crime scene” photographs were taken, Lt. Day and Detective Sims proceeded to collect the shells from the sixth floor.
II. Chain of Custody of the Shells
During his testimony before the Commission, Day stated what course of action he took in relation to preserving the shells as evidence.
Mr. Belin – All right. Let me first hand you what has been marked as “Commission Exhibit,” part of “Commission Exhibit 543, 544,” and ask you to state if you know what that is.
Mr. Day – This is the envelope the shells were placed in.
Mr. Belin – How many shells were placed in that envelope?
Mr. Day – Three.
Mr. Belin – It says here that, it is written on here, “Two of the three spent hulls under window on sixth floor.
Mr. Day – Yes, sir.
Mr. Belin – Did you put all three there?
Mr. Day – Three were in there when they were turned over to Detective Sims at that time. The only writing on it was “Lieut. J. C. Day.” Down here at the bottom.
Mr. Belin – I see.
Mr. Day – Dallas Police Department and the date.
Mr. Belin – In other words, you didn’t put the writing in that says two of the three spent hulls.
Mr. Day – Not then. About 10 o’clock in the evening this envelope came back to me with two hulls in it. I say it came to me, it was in a group of stuff, a group of evidence, we were getting ready to release to the FBI. I don’t know who brought them back. Vince Drain, FBI, was present with the stuff, the first I noticed it. At that time there were two hulls inside. I was advised the homicide division was retaining the third for their use. At that time, I marked the two hulls inside of this, still inside this envelope.
Mr. Belin – That envelope, which is a part of Commission Exhibits 543 and 544?
Mr. Day – Yes, sir; I put the additional marking on at that time.
Mr. Belin – I see.
Mr. Day – You will notice there is a little difference in the ink writing.
Mr. Belin – But all of the writing there is yours?
Mr. Day – Yes, sir.
Mr. Belin – Now, at what time did you put any initials, if you did put any such initials, on the hull itself?
Mr. Day – At about 10 o’clock when I noticed it back in the identification bureau in this envelope.
Mr. Belin – Had the envelope been opened yet or not?
Mr. Day – Yes, sir; it had been opened.
Mr. Belin – Had the shells been out of your possession then?
Mr. Day – Mr. Sims had the shells from the time they were moved from the building or he took them from me at that time, and the shells I did not see again until around 10 o’clock.
Mr. Belin – Who gave them to you at 10 o’clock?
Mr. Day – They were in this group of evidence being collected to turn over to the FBI. I don’t know who brought them back.
Mr. Belin – Was the envelope sealed?
Mr. Day – No, sir.
Mr. Belin – Had it been sealed when you gave it to Mr. Sims?
Mr. Day – No, sir; no. (WCH, Vol. IV, pp. 253–54)
Belin also elicits the following:
Mr. Belin – Your testimony now is that you did not mark any of the hulls at the scene?
Mr. Day – Those three; no, sir. (WCH, Vol. IV, p. 255)
Further, in his testimony, Day states he recognizes CE 543, because it has the initials GD on it. Surprisingly, Day failed to acknowledge the other defining characteristic on 543. Contained on the lip of the shell is a dent, which has led many experts to conclude that this shell could not have held a bullet which was fired during the assassination. But he did admit that this very peculiarly dented shell was not sent to the FBI the night of the assassination. It is surprising that after Day admits this, Belin does not ask the obvious question: Why was it not sent up?
Mr. Belin – Now, I am going to ask you to state if you know what Commission Exhibit 543 is?
Mr. Day – That is a hull that does not have my marking on it.
Mr. Belin – Do you know whether or not this was one of the hulls that was found at the School Book Depository Building?
Mr. Day – I think it is.
Mr. Belin – What makes you think it is?
Mr. Day – It has the initials “G.D.” on it, which is George Doughty, the captain that I worked under.
Mr. Belin – Was he there at the scene?
Mr. Day – No, sir; this hull came up, this hull that is not marked came up, later. I didn’t send that. (WCH, Vol. IV, p. 255)
Note what Day seems to be saying. He says it was marked by someone who was not at the crime scene. Again, Belin asks for no clarification as to when Doughty marked the shell. What makes this questioning even more off key is that Belin admits that he pre-interviewed Day in Dallas. And now Day has changed his story. At that prior interview, he admits that he told Belin that he did initial the shells. He now tells Belin that after he thought it over, no he did not mark any of them at the scene. (Ibid, p. 255). At this point, Belin actually said he should strike everything and start all over again.
It later got even worse. In a letter to the Commission dated April 23, 1964, Day then throws his identification of CE 543 and their subsequent chain of custody into serious doubt:
Sir:
In regard to the third hull which I stated has GD for George Doughty scratched on it, Captain Doughty does not remember handling this.
Please check again to see if possibly it can be VD or VED for Vince Drain.
Very truly yours,
J. C. Day
Through Day’s testimony, we elicit that he did not mark the shells at the scene of the crime even though they were in his possession. Furthermore, he placed these unmarked shells into an unsealed envelope.
This is a weird situation. And Belin does not seem to bat an eyelash while he is discovering it or the fact that the witness changed his story. Under these circumstances, how could Day swear under oath that the shells being presented in evidence against Oswald were the same ones allegedly found in the aftermath of the president’s murder? When he neglected to mark them at the scene and then proceeded to place them in an unsealed, unmarked envelope?
III. Tom Alyea writes to the ARRB
Lt. Day’s testimony is also disputed by press photographer Tom Alyea. He was the first such cameraman allowed entry into the crime scene. In a letter to the ARRB’s Tom Samoluk dated 8-15-97, Alyea states that:
Regarding the perjured testimony given to the Warren Commission Investigators by members of the Dallas Police Department. I understand there were several cases, but the one I checked for myself by reading the printed testimony in the Warren Report, involves Lt. Day and Det. Studebaker. These are the two crime lab men who dusted the evidence on the 6th floor. Their testimony is false from beginning to end.
This is what should have happened. According to Tom Alyea, Fritz was the first detective on the scene to come into contact with the shells. Fritz should have marked these shells at the scene in accordance with the chain of custody. Fritz then gave the shells to Det. Studebaker.
Studebaker should have then proceeded to mark these shells at the scene. But what the evidence seems to indicate is that Studebaker then threw the shells down on the floor of the south east corner window and captured the “crime scene” photos.
Lt. Day then retrieved the shells from the floor with help from Det. Sims. Day should have marked these shells at the scene and then put them into a sealed envelope, clearly stating what lay therein. Instead, Day gave up possession of the shells without adding his markings, which in turn lay in an unmarked, unsealed envelope.
The envelope remained unsealed when Day took back possession of these hulls at 10 p.m. on 11/22/63. Sims should have marked the shells at the crime scene while in his possession. But yet, Sims did not even recall picking up the shells. In a remarkable exchange with David Belin, he admitted that in his first Commission interview with Joe Ball, he did not mention doing this. In fact, at that time, he attributed the carrying of the envelope with the shells to Lt. Day. When Ball asked him if he took possession, he denied it. (WCH, Vol. VII, p. 163)
There had to have been a conference between Belin and Ball about this and Sims must have been made aware of their worries. Because two days after the April 6th Ball interview, Sims was recalled. This is what worried them: Belin knew that Day was going to testify that he turned over the unsealed envelope with shells to Sims. Therefore, they needed Sims on the record for this transfer. (WCH, Vol. IV, p. 256) Therefore, when he was returned to the stand, this time his questioner was Belin. And in almost no time flat, Belin is asking Sims about this specific point: the chain of custody of the shells. Sims now says that two days ago, he did not recall who brought the shells to the police station. But now, mirabile dictu, he says it was him! (WCH, Vol. VII, p. 183) So he has done a virtual 180 degree turn on this. After this pirouette, Belin asks Sims: Well, how did you remember that it was you who brought the cartridges to the station? Sims replies that, in the interval, he talked to Captain Will Fritz and his partner E. L. Boyd; they helped refresh his memory as to what happened.
So, in handling the most important pieces of evidence in the biggest case he ever worked on, Sims forgot he brought the cartridge cases to the station. But then, thanks to Will Fritz, he now recalled he did. But even then, this was included in his testimony:
Mr. Belin – Do you remember whether or not you ever initialled the hulls?
Mr. Sims – I don’t know if I initialled the hulls or not. (WCH, Vol. VII, p. 186)
There are established rules in the judicial system that every police department must follow with regards to the preservation of evidence. By no stretch of the imagination did the Dallas Police comply with any of them. It is a fact that had Oswald been permitted to stand trial Commission Exhibits 543/544/545 would have been a focus of serious questioning by defense counsel.
For example, in addition to all the above, there is the dent problem that CE 543 presents. Ballistics expert Howard Donahue has said this cartridge could not have been used to fire a bullet that day since the weapon would not have discharged properly. (Bonar Menninger, Mortal Error, p. 114) People like Gerald Posner, Vince Bugliosi, and Robert Blakey have said, well it could have been dented in the firing. Donahue replied to this by saying, “There were no shells dented in that manner by the HSCA…I have never seen a case dented like this.” (Letter dated September 11, 1996, emphasis in original.) Both Josiah Thompson and British researcher Chris Mills tried in every way to dent a 6.5 mm Western Cartridge case like this one was. They failed. Mills concluded that the only way it could be done was through loading empty shells, and only on rare occasion. (James DiEugenio, The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today, p. 95)
If only that were the end of it. Thompson wrote in Six Seconds in Dallas that CE 543 contained three identifying marks revealing it had been loaded and extracted at least thrice before. (Thompson, p. 144) These were not found on the other cartridge cases. But it’s even more puzzling than that. As Thompson wrote:
Of all the various marks discovered on this case, only one set links it to the follower. Yet the magazine follower marks only the last cartridge in the clip… (Thompson, p. 145)
The last cartridge in the clip was not this one. It was the live round.
IV. Lt. Day versus Sebastian Latona
With the alleged discovery of the Mannlicher Carcano on the sixth floor in the aftermath of the president’s murder, the rifle was bound to be subjected to fingerprint analysis by the Dallas police. Lt. Day, who had applied fingerprint powder to the rifle on the sixth floor, had apparently discovered partial prints near the trigger guard of the weapon. Day testified to that effect.
John McCloy – When was the rifle as such dusted with fingerprint powder?
Lt. Day – After ejecting the live round, then I gave my attention to the rifle. I put fingerprint powder on the side of the rifle over the magazine housing. I noticed it was rather rough. I also noticed there were traces of two prints visible. I told Captain Fritz it was too rough to do there, it should go to the office where I would have better facilities for trying to work with the fingerprints.
JM – But you could note with your naked eye or with a magnifying glass the remnants of fingerprints on the stock?
JCD – Yes, sir; I could see traces of ridges, fingerprint ridges, on the side of the housing. (WCH, Vol. IV, p. 259)
Upon the discovery of such incriminating evidence it would be logical to assume that Day would leave the depository, post haste, to process the latent prints found upon the suspected murder weapon. These prints could have been paramount for the Dallas police in their case in unmasking the President’s murderer. But while Day indeed had left the depository with the rifle, he opted to return to the Depository without processing the prints in order to conduct a press tour of the sixth floor. Thus, meaning that valuable evidence lay unprocessed whilst Day played tour guide to the media!
Later that night Day eventually proceeded to take photographs of the latent prints found on the rifle. These were taken around 8pm on 11/22/63. (Sylvia Meagher, Accessories after the Fact, p. 122) Day was alleged to have been ordered by Chief of Police Jesse Curry to “go no further in the processing of the rifle,” because the evidence pertaining to the murder was to be sent to the FBI crime lab in Washington DC. (Meagher, p. 122) The assassination of President Kennedy would not fall under federal jurisdiction until after the public killing of Lee Oswald. So why was the bulk of the core evidence being transferred to the FBI on 11/23/63? Amongst the evidence sent to the FBI were negatives of the partial prints, along with the Mannlicher itself. Here is what FBI fingerprint expert Sebastian Latona said with regards to the partial prints found on the trigger guard:
SL – There had, in addition to this rifle and that paper bag, which I received on the 23rd—there had also been submitted to me some photographs which had been taken by the Dallas Police Department, at least alleged to have been taken by them, of these prints on this trigger guard which they developed. I examined the photographs very closely and I still could not determine any latent value in the photograph. (WCH, Vol. IV, p. 21)
He then goes on to describe that:
SL – I made arrangements to immediately have a photographer come in and see if he could improve on the photographs that were taken by the Dallas Police Department. Well, we spent, between the two of us, setting up the camera, looking at prints, highlighting, sidelighting, every type of lighting that we could conceivably think of, checking back and forth in the darkroom—we could not improve the condition of these latent prints. So, accordingly, the final conclusion was simply that the latent print on this gun was of no value. (WCH, Vol. IV, p. 21)
Latona then concluded the following about his overall attempt to garner any such print evidence from the rifle.
SL – I was not successful in developing any prints at all on the weapon. (WCH, Vol. IV, p. 23, we shall return to this testimony later)
The latent prints were, therefore, deemed to be valueless by the FBI. And valueless they remained until 1993 when author Gary Savage co-published a book with former Dallas police officer Rusty Livingston titled First Day Evidence. Savage was the nephew of Livingston. This publication would claim that not only did the Dallas Police have evidence of Oswald’s “palm-print” on C2766, but they also had a partial print, identified as Oswald’s, near the trigger guard of the weapon. According to researcher Pat Speer, Savage came to this conclusion by
…working with a fingerprint examiner named Jerry Powdrill, [of the West Monroe, Louisiana, Police Department, who] claimed that the most prominent print apparent on the DPD’s photos of the trigger guard matched Oswald’s right middle finger on three points, and shared “very similar characteristics” on three more. Powdrill said, moreover, that this gave him a “gut feeling” the prints were a match. (Pat Speer, Chapter 4e: Un-smoking the Gun)
“Gut feelings” do not always produce forensically sound and reliable evidence.
In 1993 PBS aired the Frontline series program, “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?” Up for evaluation was the partial print found near the trigger guard which First Day Evidence claimed belonged to Oswald. PBS decided to run Rusty’s pictures through various fingerprint experts. Their first two experts, Powdrill and George Bonebrake, would not go on the record as saying such prints were Oswald’s. There simply were not enough points of identification. For example, in the British system, fifteen points are necessary. In the USA, depending on which state you are in, it’s between eight and twelve. Powdrill, for example, could only find three. (Gary Savage, First Day Evidence, p. 109)
What makes this notable is the following, Bonebrake was a longtime veteran in the fingerprint field. In fact, according to the book Forensic Evidence, Science and Criminal Law by Terrence Kiely, Bonebrake worked for the FBI as a fingerprint examiner from 1941–78. In his last three years with the Bureau, he was in charge of its latent print section. He supervised 100 examiners and 65 support people. He then went into private practice. (Click here for another source)
Come hell or high water, Frontline was determined to use this alleged Oswald fingerprint. We shall see how determined they were. But first let us pose some queries that the late producer of the show, Mike Sullivan, should have asked Rusty. Recall, the Dallas Police were getting all kinds of challenges about any prints of value from the media back in 1963–64. Since the illustrious Latona had declared there were none he could find, very few people accepted the Lt. Day palm print on the stock of the rifle. For one, the palm print on the barrel “was under the wooden stock of the rifle and could not be disturbed unless the weapon was disassembled.” (Meagher, p. 121) So would this not protect it from any kind of disturbance? How could the FBI have missed it?
Secondly, unlike the rest of the rifle, there was no trace of powder on the area the palmprint was supposed to be. Although Latona did get pictures from the Dallas Police of their examination of the rifle, there were none for where this palm print was alleged to be located. Further, there was “no verbal or written notification by Lt. Day calling attention to it.” (Meagher, p. 122) Day tried to excuse this by saying he took no pictures of the palm print since he had been directed to give the evidence over to the FBI. As Meagher notes there is a serious problem with this statement. Day was working on the rifle at 8 PM. He did not get the order about the FBI from Curry until “shortly before midnight.” (Meagher, p. 122) Four hours is a long time to remove the wooden stock and take a photo. Also, why did the police not photograph the palm print before lifting it? Latona testified this was common practice.
As Henry Hurt later wrote, even J. Lee Rankin, the Commission’s chief counsel doubted the authenticity of the palm print. He even suggested that it may have come from “some other source.” (Hurt, p. 108) Vincent Drain, the courier to the FBI from Dallas, told Hurt in 1984, that Day never indicated to him anything about such a print. He said “I just don’t believe there was ever a print.” Drain said there was lot of pressure on the DPD. This pressure got to the police which is why DA Henry Wade took until Sunday night, after Oswald was killed, to say someone had found a palm print on the rifle. So, it took nearly two days and the murder of Oswald for Wade to be informed of the palm print? And then it took another two days for it to be sent to the FBI. Finally—and this is telling—when the Warren Commission asked Day to sign an affidavit that he had identified the print before the rifle was turned over to the FBI, Day refused to do so. (Jim Marrs, Crossfire, p. 445)
Because of all the above, and more, no credible researcher took the palm print as being legitimate.
V. The Sullivan/Scalice Dog and Pony Show
As written above, in the midst of all the dubious points about the palmprint, in 1993 PBS and Frontline were determined to use Rusty’s other print, the one on the trigger guard. How did producer Mike Sullivan get around the morass presented above? Right off the bat, Sullivan should have called Rusty into his office and asked the following questions:
Sullivan – You knew all the problems that the Commission was having with the FBI about the palm print. If you had this other alleged fingerprint laying around, why did you not send that one to the Commission?
Rusty – Well…
Sullivan – Alright, but then why not send it to either Jim Garrison or Clay Shaw’s lawyers for use at the Shaw trial in 1969? I mean that went on for two years and was all over the media.
Rusty – Well…
Sullivan – Alright, but then why not send it to the Church Committee? They had a sub-committee that was inquiring into the JFK case. My God that was the lead story on the nightly news for months on end, it was in all the papers and news magazines. Jack Anderson wrote about it. You couldn’t have missed that.
Rusty – Well…
Sullivan – Alright, but then why not send it to the House Select Committee on Assassinations? They were around for three years!
Rusty – Well Mike…
Does anyone think that an experienced TV producer like the late Mike Sullivan was not aware of the value of asking such questions? Especially after Powdrill and Bonebrake refused to go on camera. The latter told Frontline that the prints were not clear enough to make an identification of anyone. “They lack enough characteristic ridge detail to be of value for identification purposes,” (Speer, Chapter 4e: Un-smoking the Gun)
As we shall see, it is utterly bizarre that it was Vince Scalice who finally did decide to go on camera. And this shows just how desperate Mike Sullivan and Frontline were. Why? Because Scalice posed serious liabilities as an authority, because he had previously studied these prints in 1978 for the HSCA. At that time, he came to the same opinion that the other two Frontline experts had. It was this earlier opinion which he and Sullivan tried to obfuscate out of the record. (See HSCA, Vol. 8, p. 248)
As Speer has noted, Scalice, after viewing Livingston’s copies of the prints, now proclaimed to PBS FRONTLINE:
I took the photographs. There were a total of four photographs in all. I began to examine them. I saw two faint prints, and as I examined them, I realized that the prints had been taken at different exposures, and it was necessary for me to utilize all of the photographs to compare against the inked prints. As I examined them, I found that by maneuvring the photographs in different positions, I was able to pick up some details on one photograph and some details on another photograph. Using all the photographs at different contrasts…I was able to find in the neighbourhood of about eighteen points of identity in the two prints.
Further from the PBS transcript:
When Vincent Scalice examined photographs of the trigger guard prints in 1978 for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, he apparently only had the one or two Dallas police photographs that were part of the Warren Commission files. “I have to assume,” says Scalice, “that my original examination and comparison was carried out in all probability on one photograph. And that photograph was apparently a poor quality photograph, and the latent prints did not contain a sufficient amount of detail in order to effect an identification. I know for a fact that I did not see all these four photographs in 1978, because if I had, I would have been able to make an identification at that point in time.” (Speer, Chapter 4e: Un-smoking the Gun)
Note the use of words like “apparently,” phrases like “I have to assume” and “in all probability.” Amid all this Scalice is claiming that, back in the day, the HSCA only furnished him with one photograph and this exhibit was substantially lacking in pictorial quality in order for him to make a positive identification as to the origin of the print.
There is a serious problem with Scalice’s statement. The records of the HSCA don’t support it. Consider the following:
Captioned: Red’d FBI 11/22/63
6-5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano Rifle
Photos of Latents on rifle
Contents 8 small negs w/10 small prints.
(HSCA Admin Folder M-3, p. 6)
So how could Scalice claim to work from only one “poor quality photograph” when the HSCA, who had employed him to ID the partial prints, had 8 small negatives with 10 small prints of the partials on the trigger guard? That number and date suggests that the HSCA had both the FBI and DPD prints of this area.
The other problem is this new technique Scalice was trying to sell. As Gil Jesus, a former investigator with experience in fingerprinting, has said: that is not the way it’s done. One does not piece partials together. One analyzes each individual partial and you compare it to the whole print. As Gil concluded, what Scalice claimed he did was like using a door of a Dodge, the hood of a Chevy and fender of a Ford, and then you claim it’s a Cadillac. (Gil Jesus posting on the Education Forum, July 15, 2021)
But further, in some quarters, the Livingston pictures were hailed as being a new “set.” Note that Scalice said he had four different pictures. When one separates the blow ups from the originals, this is not the case. It is very likely that the actual photos Livingston produced were just two. (Click here for details) PBS also tried to say the trigger guard prints had been ignored prior to 1993. This was also false. They had been examined by both the FBI and the HSCA. And it is with that statement that Mike Sullivan and Frontline probably committed their most grievous journalistic sin. For at the 40th anniversary of Kennedy’s murder in 2003, they wrote the following piece of narration: “The FBI says it never looked at the Dallas police photographs of the fingerprints…”
In his Warren Commission testimony, Latona said the opposite. He stated that he did examine photos of the trigger guard area sent by the DPD. (WCH, Vol. IV, p. 21) In fact, the FBI’s Gemberling Report states that at least three of these were sent to FBI headquarters. But Latona went beyond that. He said he examined the area with a magnifying glass. (WCH, Vol. IV, p. 20) He then called in a photographer and took his own pictures. He tried everything, “highlighting, side-lighting, every type of lighting that we could conceivably think of…” He then broke down the weapon into its assembly parts. It was at this point that he concluded there were no prints of value on the rifle. (WCH, Vol. IV, p. 23)
It is one thing to be in error. Everyone makes mistakes. But when a program states as fact the contrary of what happened, then the public has the right to suspect that Mr. Sullivan and Frontline had an agenda. Does anyone really think that everyone involved in the program failed to read Latona’s sworn testimony?
In a court of law, Vincent Scalice would have been required to produce evidence which would support his new and revised conclusions and explain why he had reversed himself. He would have to show a chart with photos of the (new) 18 points of identification between the prints on the rife, C2766, and those of the accused Lee Harvey Oswald. He would have had to explain why he could do it now, but not before. And also, why Powdrill, Bonebrake, and Latona could not do what he did.
Yet Scalice never offered up any evidence to support his conclusions. No charts were produced by Scalice, or by PBS. These are necessary in order to show, irrefutably, the points of comparison between a print of Lee Oswald and that of the latent print on C2766. Supplementary material such as an evidence chart is a basic fundamental requirement in order to evaluate an “expert” opinion. And like many of the other pronouncements of “evidence” against the accused, these proclamations almost never hold up under any sort of scrutiny. At a trial, with a knowledgeable attorney and an opposing authority, Scalice would have been in a very sorry position.
But, at the foot of Mike Sullivan, Scalice had learned how to sell himself in the world of partisan politics. Two years down the line he joined the board of Newsmax. Now, as a document examiner, he said that the note Vince Foster had written and placed in his briefcase before shooting himself was really a forgery.
This is what the JFK case does to the fields of legal identification and examination. The late Mike Sullivan has a lot to answer for in this regard, because PBS was duplicating the same evidentiary hijinks on the 50th anniversary. And these were also exposed as empty subterfuges of the actual facts. (Click here for details)
By his work in 1993, Mike Sullivan helped transform PBS into the equivalent of a forensic circus on the JFK case.
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Final Deadlines on JFK Records – What is Biden Going to do?
The JFK Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (the “JFK Act”) mandated the final release of all assassination records by October 26, 2017. In October of 2017, President Trump publicly committed to authorizing the release of all records, as mandated by the JFK Act. However, on the eve of the October 26, 2017, deadline, President Trump changed course and issued an executive memorandum authorizing an additional delay of six (6) months. We can only assume that agencies protecting these records (namely the CIA and FBI) pressured Trump at the eleventh hour for more time. We will never know exactly what happened. What we do know is that Trump’s executive memorandum was a violation of the JFK Act. At the very least, President Trump was supposed to issue a document that certified the specific reasons for postponement as required by the JFK Act.
After the six (6) month “extension,” agencies were supposed to provide their final reasons for postponement to the President and the Archivist. Compliance with the JFK Act was to be finally accomplished by April 26, 2018. Inexplicably, President Trump then issued another executive memorandum granting agencies an additional three (3) years to “complete” their review of assassination records. This was on the heels of a twenty-five (25) year mandatory review obligation imposed by the JFK Act and then an additional six (6) month period to complete that review.
In that same memorandum of April 26, 2018, the President required final action from agencies by April 26, 2021. By that date, the President required that all information on declassification of JFK Records be delivered to the Archivist. That would, according to the executive memorandum, put the Archivist in the position of making final recommendations to President Biden by September 26, 2021. After receiving recommendations from the Archivist, President Biden would then be in an informed position to authorize a final release by October 26, 2021. That was the plan, at least designed by President Trump in 2018 with legal advice from the Office of Legal Counsel.
What happened instead? We do not know of any action taken by agencies in the three (3) year period between April 2018 and April 2021. We saw no press releases from the Archivist and the President in April 2021 indicating that agencies (protecting these records) did their jobs. We saw no press releases from the Archivist and the President this summer indicating that they were making serious progress, in anticipation of the artificial “deadlines” authorized by President Trump in 2018.
The Archivist is not to blame here. I sincerely believe that the Archivist wants to see these records released. These records are based on an event that happened in 1963. The problem is that the Archivist is a custodian of records and does not have the authority under the JFK Act to compel the release of assassination records. Only the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) had that power under the JFK Act, but unfortunately the ARRB only had authority and funding through 1998.
Congressional oversight committees had authority to ensure compliance with the JFK Act after the winding-down of the ARRB. Those committees have done nothing that we know of, despite receiving correspondence from lawyers and researchers interested in compliance with the JFK Act. At this stage, President Biden has the authority to ensure compliance. President Biden should no longer entertain continuing and stale requests from agencies to postpone assassination records. In order to do his job under the JFK Act, a federal statute, President Biden needs legitimate and transparent reasons from agencies for continued postponement. If the President receives that information, he can then make an executive decision on continued postponement. If the President authorizes postponement of more records, it must be accompanied by a written and unclassified certification of the reason(s). That is what the JFK Act requires. Vague explanations based on “national security” do not come close to meeting the standards of the JFK Act.
Congress declared that continued classification of records would be warranted in only “the rarest of circumstances.” That was in 1992, almost 30 years after the assassination. We are now almost 30 years after the passage of the JFK Act, and almost 60 years after the assassination itself.
I recently signed a letter and legal memorandum to President Biden expressing the importance of this issue. That document can be viewed here. I strongly encourage you to contact the White House with a simple request. Follow the law. Stop the delays based on unfounded (and undisclosed) arguments from agencies that wish to continue hiding these records.
This effort is not about proving a conspiracy or validating the previous findings of the Warren Commission or House Select Committee on Assassinations. It is about following the law, which was passed by Congress in 1992. It is worth noting that Joe Biden was the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee when the JFK Act was passed by Congress in 1992. The executive branch recently authorized the release of 9/11 records and it has the same chance to earn trust from the American public by authorizing the release of the JFK records. It should not be a difficult decision. It is what the law requires.
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Larry Schnapf’s letter to President Joe Biden
To the Reader:
In the following two posted documents, attorney Larry Schnapf explains what happened to the JFK Act under the Trump administration. As he demonstrates in detail, the law was actually rewritten. We can only assume that somehow the CIA and the FBI put the fear of God into the President back in 2017. He not only went along with further postponement, he got the Justice Department to rewrite certain parts of the 1992 JFK Act. As explained by Larry, what the Gannon Memo did was it relieved the president of writing up individual exceptions as to why he was deferring the release of certain documents. Even though this had been the explicit intent of the law as written and passed back in 1992. It also postponed making a final determination from 2017 until 2021.
What You Can Do:
Please contact President Biden at the White House and let him know that enough is enough: Let us get everything out about JFK’s murder, whether it’s important or not. No matter what, the law should be obeyed. John F. Kennedy was killed 58 years ago. We are in a new millennium. Here is how you can get your message across:
How to contact the White House:
Phone Comments: (202) 456 – 1111
Snail Mail: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC 20500
E mail: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
(Click here if your browser is having trouble loading the above.)
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JFK Assassination Records—The Picture is Getting Clearer
I have written a series of articles for Kennedys and King regarding the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (the “JFK Act”). The main focus of the previous articles has been the failure of agencies and the Executive Branch to timely release all assassination records by October 26, 2017. That was the mandated date under the JFK Act for final declassification of all assassination records. This article will focus on the actual steps taken by agencies and the Executive Branch to delay the process of declassification since 2017. We will also examine what can be done to ensure compliance with the JFK Act at this point in time.
In recent months, I have been working with a group of skilled lawyers in an effort to determine why, in 2021, the American public still does not have access to tens of thousands assassination records. Let me say that again. In 2021, agencies and the Executive Branch are still classifying tens of thousands assassination records: almost 58 years after the Kennedy Assassination. Even worse, we do not have a valid explanation from the Executive Branch as required by the JFK Act. We will get back to that point later in the article.
Brief Early History of the JFK Act and Declassification Efforts
Congress overwhelmingly passed the JFK Act in October of 1992. Only one member of Congress did not vote in favor. The JFK Act required the formation of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB): an independent panel of academics, archivists and/or attorneys to begin the declassification process. In the opening declarations of the JFK Act, Congress made its intent very clear. Congress stated that all assassination records carried an immediate presumption of disclosure, and that only in the rarest of cases would continued postponement be possibly warranted. Remember, Congress declared that in 1992, almost 30 years ago.
The ARRB did a tremendous amount of work between 1994 and 1998. The result was declassification of thousands of assassination records, which was a significant step for American citizens and researchers who seek to understand the history of the Kennedy Assassination. It is worth noting that the “Public Interest” was a compelling reason for the creation of the JFK Act. The JFK Act itself states that the “Public Interest” means the “compelling interest in the prompt public disclosure of assassination records for historical and governmental purposes and for the purpose of fully informing the American people about the history surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.”
The ARRB, by Congressional mandate, completed its term by 1998. Congress then left further declassification efforts in the hands of agencies and the Executive Branch. That is where we start to see the problem.
The JFK Act required agencies to engage in a process of “periodic review” after the winding down of the ARRB. Even if the ARRB had initially determined that an assassination record warranted postponement under the evidentiary standards of the JFK Act, agencies were still required to review those determinations from the 1990’s and “address the public disclosure of additional assassination records.” The purpose of the “periodic review” by agencies was to continue the downgrade and the declassification of protected assassination records. Further, for any records initially approved for postponement by the ARRB, agencies were required to deliver to the Archivist (and publish in the Federal Register) an unclassified written description of the reason for continued postponement.
Brief Explanation of the Mandated Deadline—October 26, 2017
Agencies and the Executive Branch were given 25 years to complete the declassification process for JFK Records. As discussed above, this started with disclosures to the ARRB and requests for continued classification. Then, the agencies had between 1998 and 2017 to complete the declassification process through periodic review and additional disclosures to the Archivist. As of October 26, 2017, precisely 25 years after the passage of the JFK Act, only the President had authority to postpone the release of certain individual records, based on specific standards in the JFK Act. Specifically, President Trump was required to certify that 1) continued postponement was made necessary by an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations; and 2) the identifiable harm was of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.
What happened instead? On October 26, 2017, President Trump authorized a six (6) month “temporary” postponement for government offices and agencies to comply with final disclosure under the JFK Act. We do not know exactly what President Trump reviewed, or did not review, in terms of actual assassination records that posed an apparent “concern” for agencies. We do know that President Trump did not issue a record-specific certification for each record that agencies and/or the Executive Branch sought to postpone, as required by the JFK Act.
We also now know that a legal rationalization for “temporary postponement” was provided to President Trump on October 26, 2017. That rationalization was in the form of a legal opinion from Curtis E. Gannon, who was then an Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel. The rationalization proposed, in contravention of the Act, a delay of only “a few months.” In apparent reliance on the Gannon Memo, President Trump issued an order authorizing a 6-month delay for agencies to complete their review and disclosure obligations and comply with the JFK Act. As explained in this article, the Gannon Memo does not correctly interpret the JFK Act as written and was, from the outset, clearly designed to justify a certain outcome desired by agencies who wish to continue withholding assassination records from the American public.
Brief Review of the “Temporary Postponement” Period
Following the 6-month postponement discussed above, the President should have been in a position to authorize the release of all assassination records. At the very least, the President should have been in a legal position under the JFK Act to certify postponement of a handful of records and with record-specific explanations. That is not what happened. In fact, matters became far worse. On April 26, 2018, President Trump then authorized an additional three year period for agencies to “re-review” withheld assassination records and report to the Archivist on their continued requests for postponement. In that same executive memorandum of April 2018, President Trump established a new deadline of October 26, 2021 for the Archivist and the President (now President Biden) to make final decisions on the release of assassination records. Yes, you read that correctly – October 26, 2021. The 6-month delay, and the multi-year delay, were completely unwarranted under the JFK Act, and mark a clear departure from law.
It is now clear that President Trump’s decisions in October 2017 and April 2018 were based on the October 26, 2017 Gannon Memo. The Gannon Memo concluded that a delay of a “few months” was warranted based on purported concerns of the Archivist in terms of agencies not following the procedural and evidentiary requirements of the JFK Act. The Gannon Memo did not, however, discuss the Archivist’s concerns in any detail, nor did the Gannon Memo provide the complete written report or findings of the Archivist. Regardless, even if the 6-month delay in October 2017 was arguably warranted based on legitimate concerns of the Archivist, there is no legal justification for the President’s decision in April of 2018 for a multi-year postponement of legal obligations under the JFK Act.
The Gannon Memo Explored
Gannon’s analysis is contrary to the provisions of the Act. There is no authority in Section 5 of the JFK Act for a “temporary certification” authorizing postponement. Section 5(g)(2)(D) of the JFK Act clearly states that all assassination records were to be disclosed in full by October 26, 2017. The President only had authority to postpone release of records past this date with a written certification “as required by this Act.”
The words “as required by this Act,” as cited in Section 5(g)(2)(D) of the Act, are critical to a proper legal interpretation of the JFK Act and explicitly require that Section 5(g)(2)(D) be read in context with the JFK Act as a whole. Starkly absent from the Gannon Memo is any reference to the applicable provisions in Sections 5, 6, and 9 of the Act, which set forth the specific requirements and standards under which the President may authorize postponement. Specifically, when the JFK Act was enacted in 1992, each Government office was promptly required to: 1) determine whether its assassination records, and particular information therein, were covered by the standards for postponement of public disclosure; and 2) specify with particularity, in an identification aid, the applicable postponement provision contained in Section 6 of the Act. An identification aid is a standard form for identifications or findings for use with each assassination record subject to review under the JFK Act.
In addition to the process referenced in the preceding paragraph, Section 5 of the Act then required a specific reporting action from affected agencies for any continued postponement. Again, this was required in the early 1990’s. In 2017 and 2018, agencies had no basis to request continued postponement without providing written and unclassified reasons for postponement under the Act. Specifically, under the agencies’ periodic review obligations, Section 5 of the JFK Act required:
[A]n unclassified written description of the reason for such continued postponement. Such description shall be provided to the Archivist and published in the Federal Register upon determination.”
In other words, without the unclassified reporting from agencies for each record sought to be postponed, the President was required to release the remainder of the protected JFK collection on October 26, 2017. The “temporary certification” of an unspecified group of records, as recommended by the Gannon Memo, can only be viewed as the Executive Branch acquiescing to last-minute appeals from agencies that did not follow the standards of the JFK Act.
Gannon Memo Prevents a “Premature” Release Based on a
“Strong Likelihood of Sensitivities”Notwithstanding the clear requirements and procedures set forth in Sections 5, 6 and 9 of the Act, the Gannon Memo, twenty-five (25) years after the creation of the JFK Act, speculated that President Trump was somehow authorized to order a “short-term” postponement necessary to avoid a “premature” release of records. It was further supposed that said “premature” release would constitute the “identifiable harm” which would satisfy President Trump’s decision under Section 5(g)(2)(D) of the Act—although there is no clear evidence that President Trump was even aware of what specific records were being withheld and what the identifiable harm was with regard to such withheld records. A vague presumption of a “premature” release is not a specified identifiable harm under the JFK Act. However, that appears to be the legal justification given to President Trump.
Further, the Gannon memo presupposed a “strong likelihood” that many of the records in question would implicate the kinds of sensitivity about national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs contemplated by the JFK Act.
One searches in vain for any factual or legal basis in the Gannon Memo for such a sweeping presumption. Instead, the unsupported assertion of any such “strong likelihood” that the withheld records pose an identifiable threat stands contrary to both the spirit and letter of the JFK Act.
The Gannon Memo Creates an Escape
Finally, and most notably, the Gannon Memo hypothesized that President Trump could satisfy Section 5(g)(2)(D) of the Act by determining that a “group” of records somehow warranted postponement, but that the President was not required to articulate record-specific justifications for further postponement of each individual record. Again, a proper reading of Sections 5, 6 and 9 of the Act does not support the “temporary postponement” certification for an unspecified “group” of records.
The JFK Act is void of any authority for a “short-term postponement,” or any postponement at all without the evidentiary findings required by Sections 5, 6 and 9 of the JFK Act. Agencies had an obligation of periodic review starting with the enactment of the JFK Act in 1992, which “served to downgrade and declassify security classified information.” By 2017, according to a tacit admission in the Gannon Memo, each record already had gone through “an extensive and individualized multi-year review process to verify that public disclosure would have been harmful in the 1990’s and would continue to be harmful through October 26, 2017.” The Gannon Memo acknowledges that the ARRB and responsible agencies had already gone through the scrutinizing review process required by the Act, but at the same time the Gannon Memo recommended a “temporary postponement.” Even worse, President Trump in April of 2018 authorized an additional multi-year extension for final compliance with the Act, relying on the same Gannon Memo.
The bottom line is that, by October 26, 2017, the Executive Branch should have had at its disposal anything necessary to certify a record-specific postponement based on clear and convincing evidence and unclassified explanations filed in the Federal Register. Yet, as acknowledged and admitted in the Gannon Memo, there are still approximately 31,000 assassination records (an indeterminable number of pages) withheld in full or in part. The President has an obligation to either release the JFK assassination records or certify the specific reasons for continued postponement, even if agencies did not fully meet their declassification obligations under Sections 5, 6 and 9 of the JFK Act. The evidence for postponement is available to the President based on the findings of the ARRB and a 25-year obligation for periodic review by agencies, and the American public is entitled to an unclassified certification for any records that may warrant continued withholding under the standards of the JFK Act. President Trump, according to the Gannon Memo, had the data necessary in order to issue the proper record-specific certification under Section 5(g)(2)(D) of the JFK Act. President Biden presumably has access to the same data and the authority to ensure compliance with the Act.
As of the date of this article, we have not seen anything from the White House or Office of Legal Counsel in terms of resolving the purported “significant concerns” of the Archivist. Under President Trump’s executive order of April 26, 2018, all agencies were required to report back to the Archivist by April 26, 2021 on their efforts to properly continue declassification of withheld records. Any such reports’ existence should be a matter of public record. What is of public record, is a letter dated March 26, 2018, from the Archivist, David S. Ferriero, to then President Trump, wherein he clearly stated that, “I further recommend that you only certify further postponements through 26 October 2021, contingent upon any further recommendations for postponement being made in writing, on a document-by-document basis, by 26 April 2021 (to allow sufficient time for review by NARA and consideration by the President).” The Archivist recommended that a postponement certification by the President be contingent on a document-by-document review of a written request. The Archivist’s statement strongly suggests that he had an interpretation of the Act that departed from the conclusions in the Gannon Memo. The Archivist’s statement is the correct interpretation of the Act.
If the agencies did not fully or properly perform what was required under the Act, their neglect (whether intentional or not) should not be rewarded with unwarranted postponements. This in turn places President Biden in the position of having to issue yet another executive order that does not comply with the JFK Act.
Crucial Difference between FOIA and JFK Act
Unlike the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)—and this is a key point—the burden under the JFK Act is on the government offices and agencies to meet their evidentiary burden on each assassination record before continued classification is legally warranted. Regardless of the Gannon Memo’s interpretation of the President’s certification authority under Section 5(g)(2)(D) of the Act, the American public is entitled to a record-specific and unclassified explanation of the reasons for postponement under the JFK Act. A broad and unsubstantiated assumption that the withheld records could contain sensitive information, is contrary to the historical and legal foundation of the JFK Act. The operative mandate of the JFK Act is that the relevant records are presumed to be declassifiable.
The Gannon Memo concludes, however, that President Trump was authorized, under Section 5(g)(2)(D) of the JFK Act, to issue a temporary postponement of a “group” of records without record-specific explanations. The rationale in the Gannon Memo is that Section 5(g)(2)(D) of the Act is “silent” as to whether the President must make a certification regarding each individual record, or whether he may make a certification applicable to a group of withheld records that raise an unspecified identifiable harm.
Again, the rationale in the Gannon Memo fails to account for the entirety of Sections 5, 6 and 9 of the JFK Act. The entire purpose of the Act is to require declassification and public disclosure of all related assassination records based on specific standards. Those standards are set forth in Section 6, and the specific statutory reason for postponement must be in unclassified form and available to the American public even if postponement is properly authorized. Section 5(g)(2)(D) of the Act cannot be interpreted in a vacuum, as was attempted in the Gannon Memo. Doing so would unjustifiably allow the President to authorize postponements in perpetuity based on vague and opaque requests from agencies that seek to maintain secrecy, contrary to the express purpose and provisions of the Act.
An example of the crucial difference from FOIA, and an abuse of the JFK Act by agencies, is found in an identification aid discovered by our group of lawyers. This particular record we found listed section 5(g)(2)(D) of the JFK Act as the grounds for postponement. The evidence apparently provided was “Approval by the CIA.” Let that sink in. This is one of the most egregious things I have seen in my research of the JFK Act. What this means is that records have been withheld upon “approval by the CIA.” That is not the legal standard under the JFK Act! Only the ARRB had the legal authority to approve postponements in the 1990’s, and only the President had the authority to approve postponement in October of 2017. And if the President did authorize postponement, such a decision required unclassified written descriptions from the agencies under the JFK Act.
Continuing Effect of the Gannon Memo
In the broader scheme of the JFK Act, it would be completely antithetical to the entire purpose of the JFK Act to simply abandon all of the required grounds for postponement under section 6, and the detailed procedural, reporting and transparency requirements under sections 5 and 9 of the Act. However, that is exactly what the Gannon Memo did. Such a scheme has encouraged the various agencies to wait out the clock on the release deadlines, and then seek to postpone the release of the records on an ongoing basis for perpetuity. This is what happened at the October 26, 2017 statutory deadline, and also the April 26, 2018 and April 26, 2021 “deadlines” authorized by President Trump. Such actions are in flagrant disregard of the general purposes and the specific procedural requirements of the JFK Act, and contrary to the will of the American people as expressed by Congress when the JFK Act was enacted.
Conclusions and Remedies
Congress made its intent very clear in the Declarations of the JFK Act. Specifically, Congress declared that the “legislation is necessary because Executive Order No. 12356, entitled National Security Information, has eliminated the declassification and downgrading schedules relating to classified information across government and has prevented the timely public disclosure of records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.”
Executive Order 12356 was issued by President Ronald Reagan in 1982, in the middle of the Cold War. Classification levels included “Top Secret” information, “Secret” information, and “Confidential” Information. Under this Order, the President and agency heads were given classification authority under one or more of these classification levels, all on the grounds of “national security.” A broad assertion of “national security” is not sufficient for classification under the JFK Act. In the JFK Act, Congress clearly declared that historical executive orders have prevented the timely disclosure and declassification of assassination records, and that legislative action was required to ensure proper and timely declassification.
Section 11 of the JFK Act is also crucial for a proper legal review of the President’s obligations under the JFK Act. Specifically, Section 11(a) of the JFK Act states:
When this Act requires transmission of a record to the Archivist or public disclosure, it shall take precedence over any other law (except section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code), judicial decision construing such law, or common law doctrine that would otherwise prohibit such transmission or disclosure, with the exception of deeds governing access to or transfer or release of gifts and donations of records to the United States Government.
In other words, when evaluating the government’s obligations for accounting to the Archivist and disclosing assassination records to the American public, Congress declared that the JFK Act is the law of the United States with only very few and extraordinary circumstances.
The President can and should meet his legal duty to either 1) release the assassination records in full (now almost 60 years from the date of the assassination), or 2) order agencies to comply with the law and certify continued postponement only in the rarest of cases and based on record-specific findings and the “clear and convincing” evidentiary standard in the JFK Act. Failure to do so would be an abuse of power and contrary to the intent and clear language in the JFK Act.
I believe it is appropriate and legally warranted that President Biden rescind any prior executive orders or memoranda issued by President Trump, with respect to the JFK Act, since October 26, 2017. There is clearly a legal basis for rescission of those orders. Regardless, President Biden should take the appropriate measures to release all assassination records without further delay; or comply with the clear and express language of the JFK Act and issue record-specific and unclassified reasons for continued postponement, based on clear and convincing evidence, as required by the JFK Act.
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Oliver Stone to «Paris Match»: It was the CIA that shot Kennedy
Oliver Stone: “It was the CIA that shot Kennedy”
Paris Match | Posted on 07/31/2021 at 5:25 a.m. | Updated 07/31/2021 at 7:08 p.m. From our correspondent in New York Olivier O’Mahony
In 1991, in “JFK”, director Oliver Stone tackled the Dallas conundrum. Today, he relies on declassified documents to revive the thesis of the CIA-led operation. For “JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass”, which he just presented at Cannes, he couldn’t find funding in America. He tells Paris Match about his fight to transmit this appetite for truth to young people.
PARIS MATCH: Why go back to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, almost thirty years after the release, in January 1992, of your film “JFK”?
OLIVER STONE: Because what happened in November 1963 was a monstrosity that changed America forever. It wasn’t until the late 1980s, reading the book by Jim Garrison, the prosecutor who inspired my film, that I got involved in this investigation. The immense success of “JFK” subsequently led to the declassification of a number of documents. With this new documentary, I do not pretend to achieve the same result, but I hope to inspire the younger generation – to which it is dedicated – to take up the torch.
What more do we learn from this new documentary?
I rely on documents declassified after the release of “JFK”, and on interviews with members of the latest Commission of Inquiry [Assassination Records Review Board, ARRB] charged with revisiting the tragedy. Forty people are reported to have seen JFK’s corpse at Parkland Hospital immediately after the assassination that the official photos shown do not match him, which means they have been tampered with. Forty people! All claim to have seen a gaping wound in the back of the skull, caused by a bullet coming from the front and not from the back. This calls into question the thesis of the lone killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, posted on top of a book depot behind the president’s car …
You say Lee Harvey Oswald may not even have fired a bullet …
Yes. According to the official thesis, he used a sniper rifle he had just bought at the Klein’s store. Except that the one found on the spot, in Schoolbook Depository, does not correspond to the model in question. Oswald’s fingerprints should have been found there as well, but there were none.
What was Oswald’s role in this case?
The documentary sheds light on his personality and behavior on November 22. Lee Harvey Oswald was actually a patriot and admirer of John F. Kennedy. He made contact with pro and anti-Castro circles; he was both on the side of the Communists and on the side of troubled far-right figures like Guy Banister, a CIA agent.
A double agent?
Rather a provocateur, whom the CIA hired in the demonstrations to distribute leaflets …
According to the official thesis, he fled immediately after the assassination.
Except that we found witnesses who said the opposite. Three of his female colleagues, who feature in the documentary, say they were on the stairs right after the drama. However, they did not meet him there. And Oswald always claimed he was on the second floor, not the sixth. Before being killed by Jack Ruby, two days after the assassination, Oswald denied everything. He claimed to be the patsy of the case, the one who was going to be blamed.
Do you believe in this version?
Yes. He was not alone. There were several “Oswalds” scattered all over the United States. We tell that, before Dallas, John F. Kennedy was targeted by at least two failed assassination attempts [one in Chicago, the other in Tampa, Florida] and quite similar from an “operative” point of view, each time with a patsy with a profile strangely resembling that of Oswald. In the case of the Chicago attempt, the person in question was Thomas Arthur Vallee. In Tampa, it was a Cuban exile, Gilberto Policarpo Lopez.
There is also the infamous “magic bullet” which is said to have first hit JFK before hitting John Connally, the governor of Texas, who was also in the limo. Are you questioning this assumption?
This bullet is in direct contradiction with the results of the autopsy, which show that JFK was hit in the third vertebra from the neck. In the Warren Commission report, that same bullet suddenly “shot up” at the back of the neck to match the path you want it to take, through the throat. At the autopsy, it is mentioned that Kennedy was hit at this point by a “penetrating” bullet. In reality, it was an “in” bullet, coming from the front. The Warren report holds that three bullets were fired. I think there were at least five, some coming from the front.
You maintain that JFK’s doctors were asked to be silent after his death…
Yes. I found the testimony of JFK’s personal physician, Dr. George Burkley, who said he was ready to testify, before retracting …
How did you come across him?
After investigating the autopsy. It was the members of the ARRB commission who raised the hare, in particular one of them, Douglas Horne, who testifies with exemplary precision in the documentary. He explains that the autopsy was “made up” and that John Stringer, the official photographer, supposed to have taken the photos of JFK’s brain which are in the file, did not recognize the images that were shown to him, nor even the type of film used … From there, the investigators, intrigued, sought to approach Doctor Burkley, who had seen it all and signed the death certificate. He agreed to cooperate at first, before changing his mind. After his death, his daughter did exactly the same. And this doctor is not the only one. We also bring to mind Dr Perry, who years after the tragedy told a friend of his that he was “absolutely convinced” that the wound in his throat was from a bullet coming in, and therefore coming from the front. He began by testifying in this sense before saying the opposite …
JFK’s nephew Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom you interview, doesn’t believe in the lone killer thesis either.
Yes, just like his father, JFK’s Attorney General, who lost all power in the aftermath of the assassination. The first thing Lyndon Baines Johnson, the new president, does is appoint the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination. Among its members, Allen Dulles, ex-director of the CIA. Fired by JFK after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, he had every reason to hate him. Remember that John F. Kennedy, after the Bay of Pigs disaster, decided to bring the CIA to heel.
In your opinion, Gerald Ford, a member of the Warren Commission before becoming President of the United States, also did not believe in the Oswald trail.
Indeed, he opened up to Valéry Giscard d´Estaing, which was revealed in 2013. “We were sure it was a set-up,” he said. But we didn’t find out who rode him. ”
You’re clearly pointing the finger at the CIA. On what basis?
It should be remembered that John F. Kennedy, after the disaster at the Bay of Pigs, had decided to bring the CIA in line with, in particular, frank cuts in its budget. All of his foreign policy was against the interests of the CIA.
What do you mean?
JFK was a man of peace. He is the last American president to have sincerely acted in this direction. In this case, we are focusing too much on one question: how could all this be possible? My documentary reveals why it happened. JFK, this veteran, decorated for his acts of bravery during the Second World War, was going to change the world. He had seen the horrors of war, the disastrous role of the CIA in action at the Bay of Pigs, and then that of the US military during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was not impressed by the generals who advised him to attack the Soviet Union or Laos in 1961 or Cuba in October 1962. Not only did he resist their wartime spirit, but he signed, in 1963, an unprecedented agreement with the Soviets. John F. Kennedy did not want a “pax americana” imposed on the rest of the world. He wanted genuine peace. A bit like General de Gaulle who preferred to see France leave Algeria rather than endless conflict, which earned him an assassination attempt by the OAS, possibly supported by the CIA … Everyone claims that JFK started the war in Vietnam; This is not true, he wanted to repatriate the “military advisers”.
You give the CIA a lot of influence!
I note that Lyndon Johnson did the opposite of JFK. He bolstered the CIA and increased American engagement in Vietnam. He did nothing to fight colonialism, which Kennedy opposed. It is also this truth that I wanted to reestablish: everyone claims that JFK started the war in Vietnam; This is not true, he wanted to repatriate the “military advisers”.
How do you explain that your documentary was refused by Netflix?
The country has become very conservative. I had to look for funding abroad, in Great Britain. Already, my film about Edward Snowden, a hero in my opinion, could only be made with money from France and Germany. So I came to the Cannes Film Festival to promote this documentary in a Europe more open to such projects. But I am convinced that I will eventually find an independent platform that will allow me to broadcast it in the United States.
Is this lack of interest due to weariness over an over-rehashed subject or, rather, a truth America does not want to see?
There is no weariness. Simply put, America is a country on the decline and on the defensive. George W. Bush was probably our worst president. Obama was just a transitional president: he did nothing to turn the tide, and Joe Biden is in his wake. Censorship has imposed itself. I’m shocked by the way that social media has silenced Trump. Kennedy was killed by forces which exceeded him and which, since, frightens all his successors.
You have been accused of pro-Russian sympathies for asking soothing questions of Putin in one of your films. Your answer?
I don’t need to hate anyone: I’m a director, I have my own signature. No one scares me. Neither Putin, nor Castro, nor Chavez. In my films, I transcribe what they feel and think. I had no reason to tell Putin, who confided in me his views on Syria, Bush or Iran, among others, that he was wrong. Especially since nothing was wrong …
Do you think the truth about the JFK assassination will ever be known?
But we already know the truth! It was a conspiracy. He was killed by forces which exceeded him and which, since, frightens all his successors. The culprit was a Communist, a typical scenario of a “black op” set up from scratch by the CIA.
Trump had promised to declassify the archives but did not. Are you going to ask Biden to do it?
I should, but it’s a waste of time. If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. writes the letter for me, it might have more impact. What is certain is that there is nothing more that can be done for the people who still believe in the Oswald Lone-Assassin Thesis. They live in Disneyland!