Introduction to the Series
In late September and October of this year, the nation will observe the 50th anniversary of the issuance of, respectively, the Warren Report and its accompanying 26 volumes of evidence. There are certain forms of commemoration already in the works. For instance, there is a book upcoming by inveterate Warren Report apologists Mel Ayton and David Von Pein. And undoubtedly, with the MSM in complete obeisance to the Warren Report, Commission attorney Howard Willens will undoubtedly be in the spotlight again.
At CTKA, since we report on the latest developments in the case, and are very interested in the discoveries of the Assassination Records Review Board, we have a much more realistic and frank view of the Warren Report. In the light of the discoveries made on the case today, the Warren Report is simply untenable. In just about every aspect. About the only fact it got right is that Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters. The Commission could not miss that since it was captured live on television. But, as we shall see, it got just about everything else related to that shooting wrong.
Today, to anyone who knows the current state of the evidence in the JFK case, the Warren Report stands as a paradigm of how not to conduct either a high profile murder investigation, or any kind of posthumous fact finding inquiry. In fact, just about every attorney who has looked at the Kennedy case since 1964 in any official capacity has had nothing but unkind words about it. This includes Jim Garrison, Gary Hart and Dave Marston of the Church Committee, the first attorneys of record for the HSCA, Richard Sprague and Robert Tanenbaum, as well as the second pair, Robert Blakey and Gary Cornwell, and finally, Jeremy Gunn, the chief counsel of the ARRB. This is a crucial point-among many others– that the MSM ignored during its (disgraceful) commemoration of the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination.
On the other hand, CTKA’s role is one of recording fact oriented history and criticism about President Kennedy’s murder. Therefore, we wish to assemble a list of reasons why, today, the Warren Report and its verdict has the forensic impact of a pillow slap.
In spite of that, we predict, come September, the MSM will carry virtually none of what is to follow. Even though everything you are about to read is factually supported and crucial as to why the Warren Report is so fatally flawed. The fact you will hear very little of the following, or perhaps none of it, tells you how dangerously schizoid America and the MSM is on the subject of the murder of President Kennedy. It also might give us a clue as to why the country has not been the same since.
The following starts a continuing series which will be added to on a regular basis until late October of this year. The series will be arranged in plaques or sets. These are composed of separate, specific points which are thematically related and will be briefly summarized after all the points in a plaque are enumerated. This first set deals with the formation of the Warren Commission. And we show just how hopelessly compromised that body was from the instant it was created. We strongly urge our readers to try and get the their local MSM outlets to cover some of these very important facts that are in evidence today, but, for the most part, were not known to the public back in 1964.
[For convenience, we have embedded the five originally separate articles into this single article. – Webmaster]
PLAQUE ONE: Hopelessly stilted at the start.
Posted June 20, 2014
1. Earl Warren never wanted to head the Commission and had to be blackmailed into taking the job.
Due to the declassified records made available by the ARRB, we now know that Chief Justice Earl Warren initially declined to helm the Commission. After he did so, President Johnson summoned him to the White House. Once there, LBJ confronted him with what he said was evidence that Oswald had visited both the Cuban and Russian consulates in Mexico City. Johnson then intimated that Oswald’s previous presence there, seven weeks before the assassination, could very well indicate the communists were behind Kennedy’s murder. Therefore, this could necessitate atomic holocaust, World War III. Both Johnson and Warren later reported that this warning visibly moved the Chief Justice and he left the meeting in tears. (See James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, pgs. 80-83; James DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, Second Edition, pgs. 358-59)
2. Clearly intimidated by his meeting with Johnson, Earl Warren had no desire to run any kind of real investigation.
Due to the declassification process of the ARRB, we now have all the executive session hearings of the Commission. Because of that, we know how effective Johnson’s chilling warning to Earl Warren was. At the first meeting of the Commission, Warren made it clear that he 1.) Did not want the Commission to employs its own investigators. 2.) They were just to evaluate materials produced by the FBI and Secret Service. 3.) He did not want to hold public hearings or use the power of subpoena. 4.) He even intimated that he did not even want to call any witnesses. He thought the Commission could rely on interviews done by other agencies. He actually said the following: “Meetings where witnesses would be brought in would retard rather than help our investigation.”
As the reader can see, Johnson’s atomic warning had cowed the former DA of Alameda county California, Earl Warren. He had no desire to run a real investigation.
3. Warren communicated Johnson’s warning about the threat of atomic warfare to his staff at their first meeting.
At the Commission’s first staff meeting, attorney Melvin Eisenberg took notes of how Warren briefed the young lawyers on the task ahead, i.e. trying to find out who killed President Kennedy. Warren told them about his reluctance to take the job. He then told them that LBJ “stated that rumors of the most exaggerated kind were circulating in this country and overseas. Some rumors went as far as attributing the assassination to a faction within the Government” that wanted to install LBJ as president. These rumors, “if not quenched, could conceivably lead the country into a war which could cost 40 million lives.” (Emphasis added, Memorandum of Eisenberg 1/20/64)
Warren then added “No one could refuse to do something which might help to prevent such a possibility. The President convinced him that this was an occasion on which actual conditions had to override general principles.” (Emphasis added) In discussing the role of the Commission, Warren asserted the “importance of quenching rumors, and precluding future speculation such as that which has surrounded the death of Lincoln.” Warren then added this, “He emphasized that the Commission had to determine the truth, whatever that might be.”
It is those 14 words that Commission staffers, like the late David Belin, would dutifully quote for The New York Times. We now know that, by leaving out the previous 166 words, Belin was distorting the message. Any group of bright young lawyers would understand that Warren was sending down orders from the White House. The last 14 words were simply technical cover for all that had come before. When Warren said, “this was an occasion on which actual conditions had to override general principles”, he could not be more clear. In fact, that phrase is so telling that, in his discussion of the memo, Vincent Bugliosi leaves it out of his massive book Reclaiming History. (See Bugliosi, p. 367, and Reclaiming Parkland by James DiEugenio, pgs. 253-54)
But there is further certification that the staffers got the message and acted on it. For in her first interview with the Church Committee, Sylvia Odio talked about her meeting with Commission lawyer Wesley Liebeler. After taking her testimony in Dallas, he told Odio, “Well, you know if we do find out that this is a conspiracy you know that we have orders from Chief Justice Warren to cover this thing up.” (Odio’s Church Committee interview with Gaeton Fonzi, of 1/16/76)
4. Hoover closed the case on November 24th, the day Ruby Killed Oswald.
On that day, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover called Walter Jenkins at the White House. He said that he had spoken with assistant Attorney General Nicolas Katzenbach already, and that they both were anxious to have “something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin.” (The Assassinations, edited by James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, p. 4)
It was on this day that Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby live on television. How could Hoover have completed an investigation of that particular murder on the day it happened? To do such an inquiry, Ruby’s entire background would have to be checked, all the people he dealt with and spoke to in the preceding weeks would have to be located and spoken to, the Dallas Police force would have to be interviewed to see if he had help entering the City Hall basement, and all films, photos and audio would have to be reviewed for evidentiary purposes. This point would be crucial: if Ruby was recruited, this would indicate a conspiracy to silence Oswald. That whole investigation was done in less than a day?
Nope. And, in fact, not only was the murder of Oswald not fully investigated at the time Hoover closed the case, but just 24 hours earlier, Hoover had told President Johnson that the case against Oswald for the JFK murder was not very good. (ibid) This all indicates that Hoover was making a political choice, not an investigatory one. It suggests everything the Bureau did from this point on would be to fulfill that (premature) decision. Which leads us to the next point.
5. The FBI inquiry was so unsatisfactory, even the Warren Commission discounted it.
In fact, you will not find the FBI report in the Commission’s evidentiary volumes. Even though the Commission relied on the Bureau for approximately 80% of its investigation. (Warren Report, p. xii) Why? First, Hoover never bought the Single Bullet Theory. That is, the idea that one bullet went through both President Kennedy and Governor John Connally, making seven wounds, smashing two bones, and emerging almost unscathed. The Warren Commission did end up buying into this idea, which later caused it so many problems.
But second, the FBI report sent to the Commission was inadequate even for the Commissioners. We know this from the declassified Executive Session transcript of January 22, 1964. The Commissioners were shocked about two things. First, the FBI is not supposed to come to conclusions. They are supposed to investigate and present findings for others to form conclusions. But in this case, they said Oswald killed Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit without accomplices. That Ruby killed Oswald with no accomplices or aid. And the two didn’t know each other. In other words, this report was a fulfillment of Hoover’s message to Walter Jenkins of November 24th. (See Point 4) The Commissioners, who were lawyers, saw that the FBI had not run out anywhere near all the leads available to them. As Commission counsel J. Lee Rankin exclaimed, “But they are concluding that there can’t be a conspiracy without those being run out. Now that is not my experience with the FBI.” (James DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland, p. 219)
In other words, in his zeal to close the case, Hoover broke with established FBI practice not once, but twice. In sum, the FBI report was so poor, the Commission decided it had to call witnesses and use subpoena power.
6. Hoover knew the CIA was lying about Oswald and Mexico City. He also knew his report was a sham.
President Johnson relied on the CIA for his information about Oswald in Mexico City. As we saw in Point 1, he used it to intimidate Warren. As we saw in Points 2 and 3, Warren then communicated this fear to the Commission and his staff.
But what if that information was, for whatever reason, either wrong, or intentionally false? Would that not put a different interpretation on the information, its source, and Johnson’s message to Warren?
Within seven weeks of the murder, Hoover understood that such was the case. Writing in the marginalia of a memo concerning CIA operations within the USA, he wrote about the Agency, “I can’t forget the CIA withholding the French espionage activities in the USA nor the false story re Oswald’s trip to Mexico, only to mention two instances of their double dealings.” (The Assassinations, p. 224, emphasis added) In a phone call to Johnson, Hoover revealed that the voice on the Mexico City tape sent to him by the Agency was not Oswald’s, “In other words, it appears that there is a second person who was at the Soviet Embassy down there.” (ibid) Needless to say, if Oswald was being impersonated in Mexico, this transforms the whole import of Johnson’s original message to Warren.
Knowing this, Hoover went along with what he knew was a cover-up. And he admitted this in private on at least two occasions. He told a friend, after the initial FBI report was submitted, that the case was a mess, and he had just a bunch of loose ends. In the late summer of 1964, he was asked by a close acquaintance about it. Hoover replied, “If I told you what I really know, it would be very dangerous to this country. Our political system would be disrupted.” (Reclaiming Parkland, p. 222)
7. Nicolas Katzenbach cooperated with Hoover to close the case almost immediately.
As we saw in Point 4, on November 24th, Hoover had closed the case. But he had also talked to Acting Attorney General Nicolas Katzenbach that day about getting something out to convince the public Oswald was the sole killer. As we saw, Hoover did this with his makeshift FBI report.
Katzenbach also did this with the famous Katzenbach Memorandum. (Which can be read here.) As one can see, there is evidence that Hoover actually drafted the memo for Katzenbach. It says that the public must be satisfied Oswald was the lone killer and he had no confederates still at large. It does not say Oswald was the lone killer. After all, Ruby had just killed him the day before. How could there be any conclusions reached about the matter in 24 hours? Katzenbach wants to rely on an FBI report to convince the public Knowing that the previous day Hoover had told him he was closing the case already. This memo was sent to the White House, and Katzenbach would later become the Justice Department liaison with the Commission. In fact, he attended their first meeting and encouraged them to accept the FBI report. Which they did not. (Executive Session transcript of 12/5/63)
8. Howard Willens actually thought the CIA was honest with the Warren Commission.
As the Commission liaison, Katzenbach appointed Justice Department lawyer Howard Willens to recruit assistant counsel to man the Commission. Willens then stayed with the Commission throughout as an administrator and Katzenbach’s eyes and ears there.
In his journal, on March 12, 1964, Willens wrote the following: “I consider the CIA representatives to be among the more competent people in government who I have ever dealt with. They articulate, they are specialists, and they seem to have a broad view of government. This may be, of course because they do not have a special axes (sic) to grind in the Commission’s investigation.”
Recall, former Director Allen Dulles sat on the Commission for ten months. He never revealed the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. Richard Helms also was in direct communication with the Commission. He did not reveal the existence of the plots either.
CIA counter-intelligence chief James Angleton was designated by Helms to be the point person with the Commission on Oswald. Tipped off by Dulles, he rehearsed with the FBI to tell the same story about Oswald’s lack of affiliation with both agencies. (Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy, pgs. 547-48) Today, of course, many informed observers believe that Oswald was an agent provocateur for the CIA and an informant for the FBI. There is ample evidence for both. (See Destiny Betrayed, Chapters 7 and 8, and John Newman’s Oswald and the CIA.) But you will not find any of it in the Warren Report.
9. When senior lawyers started leaving, Howard Willens hired law school graduates to finish the job.
As noted in Point 8, Howard Willens hired most of the counselors for the Commission. Surprisingly, many of these lawyers were not criminal attorneys. They had a business background or education e.g. David Belin, Melvin Eisenberg, Wesley Liebeler. But beyond that, by the summer of 1964, many of the senior counselors started to leave. Mainly because they were losing money being away from private practice. To replace them, Willens did a rather odd thing. He began to hire newly minted law school graduates. In other words, lawyers who had no experience in any kind of practice at all. In fact, one of these men, Murray Lauchlicht, had not even graduated from law school when Willens enlisted him. (Philip Shenon, A Cruel and Shocking Act, p. 404) His field of specialty was trusts and estates. When he got to the Commissions offices, Lauchlicht was assigned to complete the biography of Jack Ruby. Another recent law school graduate who had clerked for one year was Lloyd Weinreb. The 24 year old Weinreb was given the job of completing the biography of Oswald. (ibid, p. 405)
Needless to say, these two aspects of the report, the biographies of Oswald and Ruby have come to be suspect since they leave so much pertinent material out. In fact, Burt Griffin told the House Select Committee on Assassinations, senior counsel Leon Hubert left because he did not feel he was getting any support from the Commission administrators, or the intelligence agencies, to understand who Ruby really was. (HSCA, Volume XI, pgs. 268-83) Obviously, someone who had not even graduated law school would not have those kinds of compunctions. Willens probably knew that.
10. The two most active members of the Commission were Allen Dulles and Gerald Ford.
As we have seen from Points 1-3, from the moment that Johnson conjured up the vision of 40 million dead through atomic warfare, Earl Warren was largely marginalized as an investigator. He was further marginalized when he tried to appoint his own Chief Counsel, Warren Olney. He was outmaneuvered by a combination of Hoover, Dulles, Gerald Ford and John McCloy. Not only did they manage to jettison Olney, they installed their own choice, J. Lee Rankin. (Gerald McKnight, Breach of Trust, pgs.41-45)
Within this milieu, with no effective leadership, the two most active and dominant commissioners turned out to be Dulles and Ford. (Walt Brown, The Warren Omission, pgs. 83-85) Which is just about the worst thing that could have happened. As we have seen, Dulles was, to be kind, less than forthcoming about both Oswald, and the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. As has been revealed through declassified records, Ford was, from almost the outset, a Commission informant for the FBI. (Breach of Trust, pgs. 42-44)
Later on, in the editing of the final report, Ford did something unconscionable, but quite revealing. In the first draft, the report said that the first wound to Kennedy hit him in the back. Which is accurate. Ford changed this to the bullet hit Kennedy in the neck. (ibid, p. 174) Which reveals that he understood that the public would have a hard time accepting the trajectory of the Single Bullet Theory. When the HSCA made public some of the autopsy photos, it was revealed the bullet did hit Kennedy in the back. Lawyers, like Vincent Bugliosi, call an act like that “consciousness of guilt”.
11. The Warren Report only achieved a unanimous vote through treachery i.e. tricking its own members.
One of the best kept secrets of the Commission was that all of its members were not on board with the Single Bullet Theory. In fact, as we know today, there was at least one member who was not ready to sign off on the report unless certain objections were in the record. The man who made these objections was Sen. Richard Russell. Sen. John S. Cooper and Rep. Hale Boggs quietly supported him behind the scenes. These three not only had problems with ballistics evidence, they also questioned the FBI version of just who Lee and Marina Oswald actually were. Russell was so disenchanted with the proceedings that he actually wrote a letter of resignation-which he did not send-and he commissioned his own private inquiry. (Reclaiming Parkland, p. 258)
Realizing that Russell was going to demand certain objections be entered into the record at the final meeting, Rankin and Warren did something extraordinarily deceitful. They stage-managed a presentation that featured a female secretary there; but she was not from the official stenography company, Ward and Paul. (McKnight, p. 294) She was, in essence, an actress. Therefore, there is no actual transcript of this meeting where Russell voiced his reservations.
This fact was kept from Russell until 1968. Then researcher Harold Weisberg discovered it. When he alerted Russell to this internal trickery, the senator became the first commissioner to openly break ranks with his cohorts and question what they had done. (ibid, pgs. 296-97) Russell was later joined by Boggs and Cooper. Hale Boggs was quite vocal about the cover-up instituted by Hoover. He said that “Hoover lied his eyes out to the Commission.” (Reclaiming Parkland, p. 259)
12. In its design and intent, the Commission was a travesty of legal procedure, judicial fairness and objectivity.
One of the boldest lies in the Warren Report appears in the Foreword. There, the Commission declares that although it has not been a courtroom procedure, neither has it proceeded “as a prosecutor determined to prove a case.” (p. xiv) No one who has read the report and compared it with the 26 volumes believes this. For the simple reason that, as many critics pointed out, the evidence in the volumes is carefully picked to support the concept of Oswald’s guilt and Ruby acting alone. Sylvia’s Meagher’s masterful Accessories After the Fact, makes this point in almost every chapter. The Commission ignored evidence in its own volumes, or to which it had access, which contradicted its own predetermined prosecutorial conclusions.
A good example, previously mentioned, would be what Gerald Ford did with the back wound. (See Point 10) Another would be the fact that in the entire report–although the Zapruder film is mentioned at times–there is no description of the rapid, rearward movement of Kennedy’s entire body as he is hit at Zapruder frame 313.
Although it was helmed by a Chief Justice who had fought for the rights of the accused, the Commission reversed judicial procedure: Oswald was guilty before the first witness was called. We know this from the outline prepared by Chief Counsel Rankin. On a progress report submitted January 11, 1964, the second subhead reads, “Lee Harvey Oswald as the Assassin of President Kennedy.” The second reads, “Lee Harvey Oswald: Background and Possible Motives.” (Reclaiming Parkland pgs. 250-51) This was three weeks before the hearings began! Clearly, the Commission was arranged at this time as an adversary to Oswald. But there was no defense granted to the defendant. None at all.
This is a point that the Commission again misrepresents in its Foreword. They write that they requested Walter Craig, president of the ABA, to advise whether or not they were abiding by the basic principles of American justice. And he attended hearings and was free to express himself at all times. As Meagher pointed out, this arrangement lasted only from February 27th to March 12th. And not once did Craig make an objection in Oswald’s defense. (Meagher, p. xxix) After this, Craig and his assistants did not participate directly. They only made suggestions. Further, neither Craig nor his assistants were at any of the hearings of the 395 witnesses who did not appear before the Commission, but were deposed by Warren Commission counsel.
As more than one writer has noted, the Nazis at Nuremburg were provided more of a defense than Oswald. This fact alone makes the Warren Report a dubious enterprise.
13. As a fact finding body, the Commission was completely unsatisfactory.
For two reasons. First, usually, as with congressional hearings, when such a body is assembled, there is a majority and minority counsel to balance out two points of view. That did not happen here. And it was never seriously contemplated. Therefore, as we saw with Russell in Point 11, there was no check on the majority.
Second, a fact finding commission is supposed to find all the facts, or at least a good portion of them. If they do not, then their findings are greatly reduced in validity in direct proportion to what is missing from the record.
To cite what is missing from the Warren Report would take almost another 26 volumes of evidence. But in very important fields, like the medical evidence and autopsy procedures, like Oswald’s associations with American intelligence, as with Ruby’s ties to the Dallas Police and to organized crime, in all these areas, and many more, what the Warren Report left out is more important than what it printed. In fact, there have been entire books written about these subjects-respectively, William Law’s In the Eye of History, John Newman’s Oswald and the CIA, Seth Kantor’s Who was Jack Ruby?-that completely alter the depiction of the portraits drawn of those subjects in the report. And when we get to other specific subjects, like Oswald in New Orleans, or the Clinton/Jackson incident, Mexico City, or the killing of Oswald by Ruby, the Warren Report today is completely and utterly bereft of facts. Therefore, its conclusions are rudderless since they have no reliable scaffolding.
Conclusion from Plaque One: The Warren Commission was hopelessly biased against Oswald from its inception. Actually before its inception, as we have seen with he cases of Warren, Hoover and Katzenbach. And since each of those men had an integral role to play in the formation and direction of the Commission, the enterprise was doomed from the start. As a criminal investigation, as a prosecutor’s case, and as a fact finding inquiry. The Commission, in all regards, was like the Leaning Tower of Pisa: structurally unsound at its base. Therefore, all of its main tenets, as we shall see, were destined to be specious.
PLAQUE TWO: The Worst Prosecutorial Misconduct Possible
Posted July 23, 2014.
Introduction
As we have seen in Plaque 1, since there was no internal check on it, and no rules of evidence in play, the Warren Commission was essentially a prosecution run amok. And when a prosecutor knows he can do just about anything he wants, he will fiddle with the evidence. We will now list several examples where the Commission altered, discounted, or failed to present important exculpatory evidence in the case against Oswald.
14. Arlen Specter buried the testimony of FBI agents Jim Sibert and Frank O’Neill.
Commission counsel Specter had a difficult job. He had to camouflage the medical evidence in the JFK case to minimize the indications of a conspiracy. Sibert and O’Neill were two FBI agents assigned by Hoover to compile a report on Kennedy’s autopsy. Their report and observations would have created insurmountable problems for Specter. Among other things, they maintained that the back wound was actually in the back and not the neck, that this wound did not transit the body, and it entered at a 45-degree angle, which would make it impossible to exit the throat. Years later, when shown the back of the head photos of President Kennedy – which depict no hole, neatly combed hair, and an intact scalp – they both said this was not at all what they recalled. For example, O’Neill and Sibert both recalled a large gaping wound in the back of the skull. Which clearly suggests a shot from the front. (William Matson Law, In the Eye of History, pgs. 168, 245) Neither man was called as a witness, and their report is not in the 26 volumes of evidence appended to the Warren Report. Specter told Chief Counsel J. Lee Rankin that Sibert made no contemporaneous notes and O’Neill destroyed his. These are both false. (James DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland, p. 121) But they allowed a cover for prosecutor Specter to dispense with evidence that would have vitiated both the Single Bullet Theory and the idea that all shots came from the back.
15. Arlen Specter never interviewed Admiral George Burkley or produced his death certificate.
Burkley was an important witness. Not just because he was the president’s personal physician. But because he was the one doctor who was present at both Parkland Hospital and Bethesda Medical Center. (See Roger Feinman’s online book, The Signal and the Noise, Chapter 8.) As Feinman details, Burkley was in the room before Malcolm Perry made his incision for a tracheotomy. Therefore, he likely saw the throat wound before it was slit. But further, on his death certificate, he placed the back wound at the level of the third thoracic vertebra, which would appear to make the trajectory through the throat – and the Single Bullet Theory – quite improbable. (ibid) He also signed the autopsy descriptive sheet as “verified”. This also placed the back wound low (click here). The third thoracic vertebra is about 4-6 inches below the point at which the shoulders meet the neck. As we saw in Plaque One, Gerald Ford revised a draft of the Warren Report to read that the bullet went through the neck, not the back. Burkley’s death certificate would have seriously undermined Ford’s revision.
How troublesome of a witness could Burkley have been? In 1977, his attorney contacted Richard Sprague, then Chief Counsel of the HSCA. Sprague’s March 18th memo reads that Burkley “. . . had never been interviewed and that he has information in the Kennedy assassination indicating others besides Oswald must have participated.” Later, author Henry Hurt wrote that “. . . in 1982 Dr. Burkley told the author in a telephone conversation that he believed that President Kennedy’s assassination was the result of a conspiracy.” (Hurt, Reasonable Doubt , p. 49)
16. The Warren Report distorted the November 22nd impromptu press conference of Dallas doctors Kemp Clark and Malcolm Perry.
This press conference was particularly troublesome for the official story. Among other things, Dr. Malcolm Perry said three times that the throat wound appeared to be an entrance wound. This would indicate a shot from the front, and therefore a second assassin. Therefore, on page 90 of the Warren Report, a description of Perry’s comments appears which is simply not honest. The report says that Perry answered a series of hypotheticals, he explained how a variety of possibilities could account for JFK’s wounds, and he demonstrated how a single bullet could have caused all of the wounds in the president. This is, at best, an exaggeration.
On the next page, quoting a newspaper account, the report states that Perry said it was “possible” the neck wound was one of entrance. Perry never said this. And the fact that the report quotes a newspaper account and not the transcript gives the game away. Clearly, the report is trying to negate Perry’s same day evidence of his work on the throat wound, since he had the best view of this wound (click here). In modern parlance, this is called after-the-fact damage control. Attorneys searching for the truth in a murder case should not be participating in such an exercise.
17. In the entire Warren Report, one will not encounter the name of O. P. Wright.
Considering the fact that the report is over 800 pages long, this is amazing. Why? Because most people consider Commission Exhibit (CE) 399 one of the most important – if not the most important – piece of evidence in the case. Wright was the man who handed this exhibit over to the Secret Service. This should have made him a key witness in the chain of possession of this bullet. Especially since CE 399 is the fulcrum of the Warren Report. Sometimes called the Magic Bullet, Specter said this projectile went through both Kennedy and Governor Connally making seven wounds and smashing two bones. Without this remarkable bullet path, and without this nearly intact bullet, the wounds necessitate too many bullets to accommodate Specter’s case. In other words, there was a second assassin. So Specter did all he could to try and make the wild ride of CE 399 credible.
This included eliminating Wright from the report. Why? Because Wright maintained that he did not turn over CE 399 to the Secret Service that day. While describing what he did to author Josiah Thompson, Thompson held up a photo of CE 399 for Wright to inspect. Wright immediately responded that this was not the bullet he gave to the Secret Service. CE 399 is a copper-coated, round-nosed, military jacketed projectile. Wright said that he gave the Secret Service a lead-colored, sharp-nosed, hunting round. (Thompson, Six Seconds in Dallas, p. 175)
Needless to say, with that testimony, in any kind of true legal proceeding, the defense would have moved for a mistrial.
18. The drawings of Kennedy’s wounds depicted in the Warren Commission are fictional.
After the Warren Commission was formed, pathologists James Humes and Thornton Boswell met with Specter about 8-10 times. (DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland, p. 119) Specter then arranged a meeting between a young medical artist, Harold Rydberg, and the two pathologists. To this day, Rydberg does not understand why he was chosen to do the medical illustrations for the Warren Commission. (Law, In the Eye of History, p. 293) He had only been studying for about a year. There were vastly more experienced artists available in the area.
But further, when Humes and Boswell showed up, they had nothing with them: no pictures, no X-rays, no official measurements. Therefore, they verbally told Rydberg about Kennedy’s wounds from memory. Rydberg later deduced that this was done so that no paper trail existed. For the drawings are not done in accordance with the evidence. First, presaging Gerald Ford, the wound in Kennedy’s back is moved up into his neck. Then a slightly downward, straight-line flight path links this fictional neck placement with the throat wound. (See WC, Vol. 16, CE 385, 388)
The head wound is also wrong. Humes and Boswell placed Kennedy’s head in a much more anteflexed position than the Zapruder film shows. In fact, Josiah Thompson exposed this as a lie when he juxtaposed the Rydberg drawing with a frame from the film. (Thompson, p. 111) Beyond that, the Rydberg drawing of the head wound shows much of the skull bone intact between the entrance, low in the rear skull, and the exit, on the right side above the ear. Yet, in Boswell’s face sheet, he described a gaping 10 by 17 cm. defect near the top of Kennedy’s skull. When Boswell testified, no one asked him why there was a difference between what he told Rydberg and what he wrote on his face sheet. (WC Vol. 2, p. 376 ff)
19. The most important witness at the murder scene of Officer Tippit was not interviewed by the Warren Commission.
According to his affidavit, Temple Ford Bowley arrived at the scene of the murder of Officer Tippit when the policeman was already on the ground and appeared dead to him. The key point he makes there is that he looked at his watch and it said 1:10 PM. (Joseph McBride, Into the Nightmare, p. 247)
This is important because the last known witness to see Oswald before the Tippit shooting was Earlene Roberts, his landlady. She saw him through her window. He was outside waiting for a bus – which was going the opposite direction of 10th and Patton, the scene of the Tippit murder. But she pegged the time at 1:04. (ibid, p. 244) It is simply not credible that Oswald could have walked about 9/10 of a mile in six minutes. Or less. Because Bowley told author Joe McBride that when he arrived at he scene, there were already spectators milling around Tippit’s car.
Bowley’s name is not in the index to the Warren Report, and there is no evidence that the Commission interviewed him.
20. Two other key witnesses to the Tippit murder were also ignored by the Commission.
Jim Garrison thought the most important witness to the murder of Tippit was Acquilla Clemons. (On the Trail of the Assassins, p. 197) She said that she saw two men at the scene. One was short and chunky and armed with a gun she saw him reload. The other man was tall and thin. They were in communication with each other, and the shorter man was directed to run the other way from the scene as the taller man. (McBride, p. 492)
Barry Ernest interviewed another woman named Mrs. Higgins. She lived a few doors down from the scene. When she heard the shots she ran out the front door to look and saw Tippit lying in the street. She caught a glimpse of a man running from the scene with a handgun. She told Barry the man was not Oswald. She also said the time was 1:06. (The Girl on the Stairs, E book version, p. 59)
Defenders of the Commission have tried to undermine Higgins by saying Tippit radioed in at 1:08. As Hasan Yusuf has pointed out, this depends on which of the radio chronologies submitted to the Warren Commission one picks to use. For in the final version of the radio log, submitted by the FBI, Tippit’s last call in appears to be at about 1:05. (CE 1974, p. 45)
21. The Commission cannot even accurately tell us when Tippit was pronounced dead.
How shoddy is the Warren Commission’s chronology of Tippit’s murder?
They say Tippit was killed at about 1:15 PM. (WR, p. 165) Yet this is the time he was pronounced dead— at Methodist Hospital! Realizing they had a problem, they went to a secondary FBI record. The Bureau had submitted a typed memo based on the records at Hughes Funeral Home. In that typed FBI memo, it said Tippit was pronounced dead at Methodist Hospital at 1: 25.
There is no attempt in the report to reconcile this memo with the actual hospital record. (Click here and scroll down).
22. There is not a whiff in the Warren Report about the second wallet left at the scene of the Tippit murder.
One of the first things any high profile, public murder case should do is secure any and all audio or video recordings at the scene. Those exhibits should then be gone over minute by minute in order to secure any important evidence. This was not done in this case. Or if it was done, either the Warren Commission or the FBI failed to make all the results part of the record.
On the afternoon of the assassination, Channel 8 in Dallas showed a film by station photographer Ron Reiland. Taken at the scene of the Tippit murder, it depicted a policeman opening and showing a billfold to an FBI agent. That the Commission never secured this film for examination speaks reams about its performance. Because, years later, James Hosty revealed in his book Assignment Oswald that fellow FBI agent Bob Barrett told him that the wallet contained ID for Oswald and Alek Hidell! The problem with this is that the Warren Report tells us that the police confiscated Oswald’s wallet and ID in a car transporting him to city hall. (DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland, pgs. 101-102) This creates a huge problem for the official story. For it clearly suggests that the DPD deep-sixed the wallet from the Tippit scene to escape the implication that 1.) Someone planted Oswald’s ID at the Tippit scene 2.) Because–as Bowley, Clemmons, and Higgins indicate–Oswald was not there.
23. There is not a whiff in the Warren Report about the Babushka Lady.
This is the name given to a woman in a trench coat, with a scarf over her head. She is positioned on the grass opposite the grassy knoll, near prominent witnesses Charles Brehm, Jean Hill and Mary Moorman. In other words, to Kennedy’s left. She appears in several films and photographs e.g. the Zapruder film, Muchmore film and Bronson film. The fact that she appears in all of those films and the Commission never appeared to notice her is quite puzzling. But it is made even more so by the following: She has in her hand what appears to be either a still camera or movie camera. And she was using it during the assassination. Because of her location–opposite of Abraham Zapruder–what is on that film may be of the utmost importance. Because you could have a film taken to match up with Abraham Zapruder’s from an opposite angle. It may even contain views of possible assassins atop the knoll.
There is no evidence that the Commission ever made an attempt to track this witness down through any of its investigative agencies.
24. The Commission did everything it could to negate the testimony of Victoria Adams.
Victoria Adams was employed at the Texas School Book Depository on the day of the assassination. Within seconds after hearing the shots, she ran out her office door and down the stairs. Her testimony was always immutable: she neither heard nor saw anyone on those stairs. This posed a serious problem for the Commission. Because their scenario necessitated Oswald tearing down those same stairs right after he took the shots. If Adams did not see or hear him, this clearly indicated Oswald was not on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting.
So the Commission went about trying to weaken and obfuscate her testimony. David Belin asked her to locate where she stopped on the first floor when she descended. But as Barry Ernest discovered, this exhibit, CE 496, does not include a map of the first floor. (DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland, p. 93) The report says she left her office within a minute of the shooting, when she actually left within a few seconds. (ibid) The Commission then failed to question her corroborating witness Sandy Styles, the girl who followed her out and down the stairs. They then buried a document written by her boss, Dorothy Garner, which further substantiated the fact that she was on the stairs within a few seconds of the shooting. (ibid)
Adams put a spear through the heart of the Commission’s case. The Commission made sure it didn’t reach that far.
25. The Commission screened testimony in advance to make sure things they did not like did not enter the record.
There is more than one example of this. (See Reclaiming Parkland, pgs. 232-33) But a vivid and memorable example is what David Belin did with sheriff’s deputy Roger Craig. Craig told author Barry Ernest that when he examined his testimony in the Commission volumes, it was altered 14 times. Craig told Barry the following:
“When Belin interrogated me – he would ask me questions and, whenever an important question would come up – he would have to know the answer beforehand. He would turn off the recorder and instruct the stenographer to stop taking notes. Then he would ask for the question, and if the answer satisfied him, he would turn the recorder back on, instruct the stenographer to start writing again, and he would ask me the same question and I would answer it.
However, while the recorder was off, if the answer did not satisfy him, he would turn the recorder back on and instruct the stenographer to start writing again and then he would ask me a completely different question.” Craig added that none of these interruptions were noted in the transcript entered in the Commission volumes. (The Girl on the Stairs, E book version, p.95)
26. The Warren Commission changed the bullet in the Walker shooting to incriminate Oswald.
There was no previous firearms violence in Oswald’s past to serve as behavioral precedent for the murders of Kennedy and Tippit. General Edwin Walker had been shot at in April of 1963. The case was unsolved by the Dallas Police as of November, and Oswald had never even been a suspect. In fact, his name appears to have never even been brought up. But if one turns to the Warren Report, one will see that the Commission uses the Walker incident to “indicate that in spite of the belief among those who knew him that he was apparently not dangerous, Oswald did not lack the determination and other traits required to carry out a carefully planned killing of another human being…” (WR, p. 406)
There is one major problem with this verdict (among others). If Oswald misfired at Walker, it would have to have been done with a rifle different than the one the Commission says he used in Dealey Plaza. Because the projectile recovered from the Walker home was described by the Dallas Police as being a steel-jacketed 30.06 bullet. (See Gerald McKnight, Breach of Trust, p. 49 and the General Offense Report of 4/10/63 filed by officers Van Cleave and McElroy.)
There is no evidence Oswald ever had this kind of rifle. And the Warren Report never notes this discrepancy in the ammunition used in the Walker shooting versus the Kennedy murder.
Conclusion
This section could go on and on and on. Because the record of evidence manipulation by the Commission and its agents is so voluminous as to be book length. But what this plaque does is show that the bias demonstrated in Plaque 1 was then actively implemented by the Warren Commission. To the point that it accepted altered exhibits, allowed testimony to be censored and screened, and deep-sixed important testimony and evidence it did not want to entertain.
Therefore, the Commission can be shown to be untrustworthy in its presentation of facts and evidence. Especially revealing is that none of this seems random or careless. All of these alterations point in one direction: to incriminate Oswald. As New York Homicide chief Robert Tanenbaum once said about the Warren Commission, he was taken aback by the amount of exculpatory evidence that the Warren Report left out, and also the major problems with the breaks in the evidentiary trail. (DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland, p. 65) What makes this even more shocking is that every single member of the Commission was a lawyer, as was every staff member. In their almost messianic zeal to convict Oswald, they all seem to have utterly forgotten about the rules of evidence and the canon of legal ethics.
PLAQUE THREE: The Warren Commission Manufactures the Case Against Oswald
Posted July 30, 2014
Introduction
In Plaque 1, we showed the insurmountable bias the Warren Commission had against Oswald at the very start. Nor was there a minority to check the excesses of a majority fact finding function. The last did not exist because what constituted the minority; Sen. Russell, Rep. Boggs, Sen. Cooper; were completely marginalized. In fact, we now have this in writing. On his blog, Commission administrator Howard Willens, has posted his diary. In his discussion of a Secret Service matter, Willens writes the following. “Apparently at least Congressman Ford and Mr. Dulles felt that PRS is not adequate to do the job. The two remaining members of the Commission, the Chief Justice and Mr. McCloy disagreed on this issue.” (italics added) Can it be more clear? If the remaining members besides Dulles and Ford were Warren and McCloy, then for Willens, the Commission did not include Russell, Boggs and Cooper. That takes marginalization as far as it can be taken. There simply was no internal check on the majority who were hell bent on railroading Oswald.
In Plaque 2, we showed that the Commission, because of its innate bias, would then manipulate, discount or eliminate evidence. We will now show how the evidentiary record was fabricated to make Oswald into something he was not: an assassin.
27. Oswald’s SR 71 money order.
The SR 71 was the fastest plane that ever flew. It achieved speeds up to, and over, Mach III. Unfortunately for the Warren Report, the post office never used this plane to carry mail from one city to another.
The Warren Report tells us that Oswald mailed his money order for a rifle on March 12, 1963. It then tells us that the money order arrived at Klein’s Sporting Goods in Chicago and was deposited at its bank the next day. (WR, p. 119) This is how Oswald allegedly ordered the rifle that killed Kennedy.
Chicago is about 700 miles from Dallas. Recall, 1963 was way before the advent of computer technology for the post office. It was even before the advent of zip codes. But we are to believe the following: The USPS picked up a money order from a mailbox. They then transported it to the nearest post office. There, it was sorted and shipped out to the airport. It flew to Chicago. It was picked up at the airport there and driven to the main post office. There, it was sorted, placed on a truck and driven to the regional post office. It was then given to a route carrier and he delivered it to Klein’s. After its arrival at Klein’s it was then sorted out according to four categories of origin (John Armstrong, Harvey and Lee, p. 451) Klein’s then delivered it to their financial repository, the first National Bank of Chicago. There it was deposited in Klein’s account.
The Warren Report says that all of this happened in a less than 24 hour period. To which we reply with one word: Really?
28. The invisibly deposited money order.
This money order was made out for $21.45. Robert Wilmouth was a Vice-President of the First National Bank of Chicago. According to him, the money order should have had four separate stamps on it as it progressed through his bank and the Federal Reserve system. (ibid)
If such was the case, when one turns to look at this money order, one is surprised at its appearance. (See Volume 17, pgs. 677-78) For it bears none of the markings described by Wilmouth. The only stamp on it is the one prepared by Klein’s for initial deposit. Needless to say, Wilmouth did not testify before the Commission.
But further, if one looks in the Commission volumes for other checks deposited by Oswald, e.g. from Leslie Welding, Reily Coffee, and Jaggers-Chiles-Stovall, one will see that these are properly stamped. (See, for example, Vol. 24 pgs. 886-90)
29. The invisible money order drop off.
From the markings on the envelope, the money order was mailed prior to 10:30 AM on March 12, 1963. The problem is that Jaggers-Chiles-Stovall, where Oswald was working at the time, recorded each assignment an employee did during the day. They also recorded how much time he spent on each assignment. When one checks on his assignment sheet for March 12th, one will see that Oswald was continually busy from 8:00 AM until 12:15 PM. (Commission Exhibit 1855, Vol. 23, p. 605) Further, as Gil Jesus has discovered, the HSCA inquiry said the post office where Oswald bought the money order from opened at 8:00 AM. (Box 50, HSCA Segregated CIA files.)
So when did Oswald mail the money order? Even though Oswald’s time sheet is in the volumes, the Warren Report does not point out this discrepancy. Let alone explain it.
30. The invisible rifle pick up.
It’s hard to believe but it appears to be true. In its ten-month investigation, the Warren Commission, the FBI, the Secret Service, and the post office could never produce a single postal employee who gave, or even witnessed the transfer of the rifle to Oswald. (DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland, p. 62, Armstrong, p. 477) In fact, there is no evidence that Oswald ever actually picked up this rifle at the post office. For instance we don’t even know the day on which the rifle was retrieved.
Maybe that is because the transaction should not have occurred the way the Commission says it did. The rifle was ordered in the name of A. Hidell. But the post office box it arrived at was in the name of Lee Oswald. (ibid) Postal regulations at the time dictated that if a piece of merchandise addressed to one person arrived at a different person’s box; which was the case here; it was to be returned to the sender. Therefore, this rifle should have never gotten to Oswald’s box.
The Commission had an ingenious way to get around this problem. They wrote that the portion of the postal application Oswald made out listing others who could pick up merchandise at his box was thrown out after the box was closed in May. (WR, p. 121) The report says this was done in accordance with postal rules. Yet, if this was so, why did the post office not discard his application for his New Orleans box?
Because the Commission was lying. Stewart Galanor wrote the post office in 1966 and asked how long post office box applications were kept in 1963. The answer was for two years after the box was closed.
31. The rifle the Commission says Oswald ordered is not the rifle the Commission says killed Kennedy.
This one is shocking even for the Warren Commission. The Commission says that Oswald ordered a 36-inch, 5.5 pound Mannlicher Carcano carbine rifle. But this is not the rifle entered into evidence by the Dallas Police. That rifle is a 40.2 inch, 7.5 pound Mannlicher Carcano short rifle. Again, this discrepancy is never noted by the Commission nor is it in the Warren Report. (Armstrong, p. 477)
This issue is so disturbing for Commission defenders that they now say that Klein’s shipped Oswald the wrong rifle because they were out of the 36 inch carbine. To which the reply must be: And they never advised him of this first? When a mail order house is out of a product, they usually tell the customer that, and ask him if he wishes to change the order. At least that is this writer’s experience. There is no evidence or testimony in the record that any such thing happened in this case. Even in interviews of the executives from Klein’s.
There is evidence the Warren Commission knew this was a serious problem. This is why they entered into the record an irrelevant page from the November, 1963 issue of Field and Stream. This issue did carry an ad for the 40 inch rifle. But the magazine the commission decided Oswald ordered the rifle from was the February 1963 issue of American Rifleman. (Armstrong, p. 477, WC Vol. 20, p. 174)
32. Arlen Specter did not show Darrell Tomlinson CE 399.
As we showed in Plaque 2, O. P. Wright’s name is not in the Warren Report. But Arlen Specter did question Darrell Tomlinson. He was the hospital employee who recovered CE 399 and gave it to Wright. In the reports of the questioning of Tomlinson, and in his Warren Commission testimony, there is no evidence that Specter ever showed Tomlinson CE 399. (WC Vol. 6, pgs. 128-34)
To say this is highly irregular is soft-pedaling it. Wright and Tomlinson are the two men who recovered CE 399 and started it on its journey to the Secret Service and then the FBI lab that night. To not ask the two men who began the chain of possession; in fact, to totally ignore one of them; to certify their exhibit is more than stunning. It invites suspicion. The next point illustrates why.
33. The Warren Commission accepted a lie by Hoover on the validity of CE 399.
This was a mistake of the first order. Because it was later discovered that the FBI fabricated evidence to cover up the falsification of CE 399. As Gary Aguilar and Josiah Thompson later discovered, the man who the FBI said got identifications of CE 399 from Wright and Tomlinson was agent Bardwell Odum. According to Commission Exhibit 2011, when Odum showed the bullet to these two hospital employees, their reply was it “appears to be the same one” but they could not “positively identify it.” (The Assassinations, edited by Jim DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, p. 282)
That in itself was a nebulous reply to an important question. But it turned out that it concealed something even worse. For when Aguilar and Thompson visited Odum and asked him about this identification, he denied it ever happened. He said he never showed any bullet to any hospital employees concerning the Kennedy assassination. And if he did he would have recalled it. Because he knew Wright and he also would have filed his own report on it. Which he did not. (ibid, p. 284)
34. Hoover lied about Elmer Lee Todd’s initials.
There was another lie Hoover told about CE 399. He said that agent Elmer Lee Todd initialed the bullet. (WC Vol 24, p. 412) This turned out to be false. The Commission never examined the exhibit to see if Todd’s initials are on the bullet. Many years later, researcher John Hunt did so. He found they were not there (click here).
35. Robert Frazier’s work records proved the lie about CE 399, and the Commission never requested them.
But beyond that, Hunt’s work with Frazier’s records revealed something perhaps even more disturbing. Todd wrote that he got the bullet from Secret Service Chief Jim Rowley at 8:50 PM. He then drove it to Frazier at the FBI lab. But Frazier’s work records say that he received the “stretcher bullet” at 7:30. How could he have done so if Todd was not there yet? (DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland, p. 227)
From this evidence, either CE 399 was substituted or there were two bullets delivered, and one was made to disappear. Either way, the Commission fell for a phony story by Hoover (click here).
36. CE 543 could not have been fired that day.
The Commission tells us that there were three shells found near the sixth floor window, the so-called “sniper’s nest.” But one of these shells, CE 543, could not have been fired that day. As ballistics expert Howard Donahue has noted, this shell could not have been used to fire a rifle that day. For the rifle would not have worked properly. (DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland, p. 69) It also contains three sets of identifying marks which reveal it had been loaded and extracted three times before. It also has marks on it from the magazine follower. But the magazine follower only marks the last cartridge in a clip. Which this was not. (Thompson, p. 145)
Historian Michael Kurtz consulted with forensic pathologist Forest Chapman about this exhibit. He then wrote that the shell “lacks the characteristic indentation on the side made by the firing chamber of Oswald’s rifle.” (Kurtz, Crime of the Century, second edition, p. 51) Chapman concluded that CE 543 was probably dry loaded. The pathologist noted “CE 543 had a deeper and more concave indentation on its base…where the firing pin strikes the case. Only empty cases exhibit such characteristics.” (ibid, p. 52)
This was certified through experimentation by British researcher Chris Mills. He purchased a Mannlicher Carcano and then experimented repeatedly. The only way he achieved a similar denting effect was by using empty shells. And then the effect only appeared infrequently. Mills concluded this denting effect could only occur with an empty case that had been previously fired, and then only on occasion. (op cit. DiEugenio, p. 69)
37. In addition to the Commission presenting the wrong rifle, the wrong bullet and the wrong shell, it’s also the wrong bag.
The Commission tells us that Oswald carried a rifle to work the day of the assassination in a long brown bag. Wesley Frazier and his sister said the bag was carried by Oswald under his arm. The problems with this story are manifold. For instance, there is no photo of this bag in situ taken by the Dallas Police. The eventual paper bag produced by the police had no traces of oil or grease on it even though the rifle had been soaked in a lubricant called Cosmoline for storage purposes.(DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland, p. 177) Though the rifle had to be dissembled to fit under Oswald’s armpit, the FBI found no bulges or creases in the paper.
Further, after a long and detailed analysis by Pat Speer, it appears that the bag in evidence did not match the Depository paper samples. (ibid, p. 179) Further, the police did not officially photograph the alleged gun sack until November 26th!
All this strongly indicates that the bag the police brought outside the depository is not the same one in evidence today. (Click here for proof).
38. The Commission now had to alter testimony in order to match the phony evidence of the wrong gun, the wrong bullet, the wrong shell and the wrong bag. They did.
It was now necessary to place Oswald on the sixth floor in proximity to the southeast window. The Commission’s agents therefore got several people to alter their testimony. For instance, Harold Norman was on the fifth floor that day. He said nothing about hearing shells drop above him in his first FBI interview. Coaxed along by Secret Service agent Elmer Moore, he now vividly recalled shell casings dropping for a convenient three times.(DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland, pgs. 30-31.)
In his first DPD and FBI interviews, Depository worker Charles Givens said he had seen Oswald on the first floor lunchroom at about 11:50 AM, after he had sent up an elevator for him while they were working on the sixth floor. But when he testified before the Commission, Givens now added something completely new. Now he said that he forgot his cigarettes and went up to the sixth floor for them. There he conveniently saw Oswald near the southeast window. As many researchers, including Sylvia Meagher and Pat Speer have shown, it’s pretty clear that the Dallas Police, specifically, Lt. Revill got Givens to change his story. The Commission, which was aware of the switch, accepted the revised version. (ibid, p. 98).
Carolyn Arnold was a secretary working in the depository. She was interviewed by the FBI after the assassination. She told them she saw Oswald on the first floor at about 12:25. Years later, reporter Earl Golz showed her what the FBI had written about her. She was shocked. They had altered her statement to read that she saw him “a few minutes before 12:15 PM.” (ibid, p. 96)
With Oswald now transported up to the sixth floor, there was only Marina Oswald left. In her first Secret Service interviews, she had told the agents she had never seen a rifle with a scope. In fact, she did not even know such rifles existed. Which created a problem. Because the weapon in question did have a scope. Threatened with deportation, when she arrived for her Warren Commission testimony she was confronted with the scoped rifle. She now proclaimed “This is the fateful rifle of Lee Oswald.” (ibid, pgs.62- 63)
39. The WC never found any evidence that Oswald picked up the handgun with which it says Tippit was killed.
This weapon was shipped through the Railroad Express Agency. REA was a forerunner to private mail companies like Federal Express. When one looks at the evidence exhibits in the Warren Report one will see something strange. There is no evidence that Oswald ever picked up this revolver. In fact, the evidence trail stops right there. That is, at the point one would report to REA, show some ID, pay for the weapon, sign off on a receipt, and get a matching one. (WR, p. 173)
In fact, from the evidence adduced in the report, it does not even appear that the FBI visited REA. Which would be unfathomable. It is more likely they did visit and encountered the same situation there as at the post office with the rifle: No receipts, or witnesses, to attest to the pick-up.
40. The ballistics evidence in the Tippit case is fishy.
As many have noted, including Jim Garrison, the Dallas Police could not get the bullets expended in the Tippit case to match the alleged handgun used. (Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins, p. 199) They only sent one bullet to Washington, even though four were fired at Tippit. Further, on the day of the murder, Dallas police made out an inventory of evidence at the scene. That inventory did not include cartridge cases of any kind. (ibid, p. 200) These were not added until six days after the police got a report that he FBI could not match the bullets to the weapon.
Just as odd: the shell casings do not match the bullets. Three of the bullets were copper coated and made by Winchester. One bullet was lead colored and made by Remington. But two of the cartridges were from Winchester and two were made by Remington. (ibid, p. 201)
There is evidence that the shells found at the scene are not those in evidence. Sgt. Gerald Hill allegedly instructed Officer J. M. Poe to mark two of the shells. When Poe examined them for the Commission, he could not detect his markings on the shells. (ibid)
As Garrison suggested, this sorry trail indicates that once the police could not get a match for the bullets, they then fired the handgun to make sure they had a match for the shells. Even if they were not the same ones found at the scene. The Commission accepted this.
Conclusion
The Warren Commission misrepresented its own evidence. As we saw in Plaque 1, from its inception, the Commission had an overwhelming bias against Lee Oswald. And since Oswald was given no defense, and there were no restraints placed upon its bias, the Commission became a runaway prosecution. One which altered testimony and evidence, and accepted the most outlandish proclamations without crosschecking them.
There is actually internal documentary evidence to prove this point. In late April of 1964, staff administrator Norman Redlich wrote a memo to Chief Counsel J. Lee Rankin. Discovered by researcher David Josephs, it is a startling letter, one which shows that the Commission literally made up its case as it went along. In discussing the three shot scenario, Redlich is still maintaining that all three shots hit targets: the first into Kennedy, the second into Gov. Connally, and the last into Kennedy’s skull. Yet, this will not be what the Warren Report concludes.
But Redlich also writes that “As our investigation now stands, however, we have not shown that these events could possibly have occurred in the manner suggested above.” He also writes that the first shot was probably fired at Zapruder frame 190. This was also changed in the final report since it would have necessitated firing through the branches of an oak tree. He concludes with this: “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.”
The problem is this: the FBI and Secret Service were the two prime sources of information for the Commission. (WR, p. xii) Responsible for about 90% of the raw material they had. If these were “incorrect,” then what would the Commission do to “correct” them?
This memo can be read here.
PLAQUE FOUR: Specter covers up the Medical Evidence
Posted September 7, 2014
Introduction
With what is known about the medical evidence in the JFK case today, looking back at what the Warren Commission did with it in 1964 is almost staggering. Today, with the work of writers like Gary Aguilar, David Mantik, Milicent Cranor, William Law, Pat Speer, and Cyril Wecht, no objective person can deny that something went seriously wrong at the Kennedy autopsy in Bethesda, Maryland. In light of that, the work that the Commission did with this evidence in ’64 needs to be analyzed to appreciate just how careful Arlen Specter was in navigating a minefield.
41. Although President Kennedy was killed by a bullet wound to the skull, that wound was never dissected by lead pathologist James Humes.
This fact is unbelievable. In any high profile homicide case in which the victim is killed by a bullet wound, it is standard procedure to track the trajectory of the fatal wound through the body. This has to be done in order to trace the bullet path, to test if the wound is a transiting one, and to note where it entered and exited. All of this information would be crucial as forensic evidence during a legal proceeding.
The problem is that the Warren Commission was not at all forensic, nor was it a legal proceeding. It was not even a respectable fact finding commission. Shockingly, outside of printing some primary documents, the medical aspects of this case are dealt with in just seven pages in the Warren Report. (pgs. 85-92) In that section, it is not revealed why the head wound was not sectioned. In fact, the report does not even admit there was no sectioning of the brain. In Volume II of the Commission evidence, Arlen Specter never brings up the lack of sectioning of the brain in his examination of James Humes.
And to add further to the incredulity, the supplemental report to the autopsy, which deals with the skull wound, also does not admit there was no sectioning. (See WR pgs. 544-45)
42. Without comment, the Warren Report says that President Kennedy’s brain weighed 1500 grams.
In that supplemental report, it says that after formalin fixation, Kennedy’s brain weighed 1500 grams. (WR, p. 544) There is no comment on this in the 800 pages of the Warren Report. There should have been much comment about it. Why? Because the average weight of a brain for a 40-49 year old man is 1350 grams. Even allowing for the formalin fixing, Kennedy’s brain weight has more volume than it should.
Which is surprising considering the reports on the condition of the brain. FBI agent Frank O’Neill said half the brain was gone and a significant portion was missing from the rear. (James DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland, p. 137) Dr. Thornton Boswell, Humes’ fellow pathologist, said about a third of the brain was missing. Humes himself said about 2/3 of the cerebrum was gone. (ibid) Floyd Reibe, a photographic assistant, said only about half the brain was left when he saw it removed. Jim Sibert, O’Neill’s fellow FBI agent at the autopsy said, “you look at a picture, an anatomical picture of a brain and it’s all there; there was nothing like that.” (ibid) The list of witnesses to how disrupted the brain was could go on and on.
The point is, given all this testimony, plus what we see happening in the Zapruder film–a terrific head explosion, with matter ejecting high into the air; how could the volume of the brain be what it is reported as? That is, larger than normal.
If you can believe it, and you can by now, in the entire examination of James Humes, Arlen Specter never even surfaced the issue of the extraordinary weight of the brain. (WC Vol. II, pgs. 348-376) Neither did it come up in the examinations of assistants Thornton Boswell or Pierre Finck. (ibid, pgs. 376-84) Since it was in the record for all concerned to see, that fact clearly suggests deliberate avoidance.
43. Kennedy’s back wound was not dissected.
As noted in point 41, Kennedy’s fatal skull wound was not sectioned. Neither was the other wound the Commission says he sustained, the wound to his back. (Which as we saw, Gerald Ford transferred to his neck.) Again, this has to be the first, perhaps only, high profile murder case by gunfire, in which neither wound sustained by the victim was tracked.
In the examinations of Humes, Boswell, and Pierre Finck, this question is never brought up by Specter. That is: Why did none of the doctors dissect the track of this back wound. Again, this was crucial in determining directionality, if the wound was a transiting one, and if it was, points of entrance and exit. Because there has been so much debate about the nature of this wound, in retrospect, this was a key failing of an autopsy procedure which many have called, one of the worst ever. And that includes Dr. Michael Baden of the HSCA. (DiEugenio, op. cit, p. 114)
The reason Specter never asked why finally surfaced in 1969 at the trial of Clay Shaw in New Orleans. Called as a witness by Shaw’s defense team, under cross-examination by assistant DA Al Oser, Finck exposed much of the secrecy and subterfuge around the autopsy.
Finck revealed that the three autopsy doctors were not really in charge. He said that there were a number of military officers there; a fact which Humes covered up in his Commission testimony; and they actually limited what the doctors were doing. (See James DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, Second Edition, p. 300) To the point that a frustrated Humes asked, “Who is in charge here?” An Army General then replied, “I am.” (ibid)
When Oser tried to get Finck to answer the question Specter had deliberately ignored–namely why was the back wound not tracked–Finck clearly did not want to answer the question. Oser had to pose the query eight times. He even had to ask the judge to direct the witness to reply. Finck finally said, “As I recall I was told not to but I don’t remember by whom.” (ibid, p. 302) One can imagine the impact that confession would have had if it had been printed in the Warren Report. The obvious question then would have been: Why did certain people in the autopsy room not want the back wound dissected? Specter was sure to avoid that Pandora’s Box.
44. Arlen Specter’s questioning of Thornton Boswell was a travesty.
As Walt Brown notes in his book, The Warren Omission, Specter asked Boswell a total of 14 questions. When one subtracts the formalities, like tracing his education, that number is reduced to 8. (WC, Vol. II, p. 377)
Which is shocking. Because, for instance, of the controversy surrounding the face sheet which he allegedly prepared. That sheet places the posterior back wound well down into the back. In fact, in a place which corresponds to the evidence of the blood and holes in Kennedy’s back and shirt. It also allows for a rather large wound in the skull. This wound is not visible in either the autopsy photos or x-rays.
To ask such a key witness, who had such crucial information, just 8 relevant questions tells us what we need to know about Arlen Specter and his intentions as attorney for the Warren Commission. He was on a mission to conceal, not reveal.
45. The Commission slept through some of James Humes’ most revealing testimony.
In Volume II of the Commission volumes, James Humes made some puzzling and disturbing comments.
In responding to comments by Sen. John Cooper about determining the angle of the bullets from the Texas School Book Depository for the head shot, he said that this could not be done with accuracy, since the exit hole was too broad. But yet, this was not the question. The question was if he could determine the angle from the position Kennedy was in when he was struck. (p. 360) According to the Commission, they knew where this shot was fired from, and Humes indicated where it struck on the rear of the skull. (See Vol. 2, p. 351)
When Allen Dulles then tried to nail the location down by asking if the bullet was inconsistent with a shot from either behind or from the side, Humes made a reply that is mysterious to this day. He said, “Scientifically, sir, it is impossible for it to have been fired from other than behind. Or to have exited from other than behind.” (ibid, italics added) If the bullet exited from behind it was fired from the front. Stunningly, no one asked him to clarify what he meant by this. In fact, the next question, from John McCloy, was if he thought the head wound was a lethal one. Recall, the Commission had seen the Zapruder film several times.
As some have said, you couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.
46. Humes and Specter cooperated on a cover story as to why Humes destroyed the first draft of his autopsy report.
James Humes originally stated that the reason he burned the first draft of his autopsy report was because he did not want the blood stained report to come into the possession of some cheap souvenir hunter. (WC, Vol. II p. 373)
Over three decades later, in 1996, under questioning by Chief Counsel Jeremy Gunn of the Assassination Records Review Board, this story fell apart. Because Gunn honed in on the fact that the report was written in the privacy of his own home. It is hard to believe that Humes did not wash up before he left the morgue. (Gerald McKnight, Breach of Trust, p. 165)
But further, it was revealed that Humes also burned his unsoiled notes along with the first draft. Deeply agitated, and now outside the friendly patty cake of Specter’s cooperation, Humes began to come unglued. He offered up the startling excuse that, “it was my own materials.” (ibid)
This leaves two problems. First, what was the real reason Humes burned his report? Second, if he burned his notes, then how does one compare what is in the report with what it is supposed to be based upon?
47. The Commission lied about not having possession of the autopsy materials.
On January 21, 1964, Commissioner John McCloy asked J. Lee Rankin if the Commission had all the autopsy materials, including color photographs, in their offices. Rankin replied that yes they did. (See p. 36 of transcript) But according to Warren Commission historian Gerald McKnight, this information was kept hidden from most all of the Commission staff. (McKnight, p.171) The exception being Specter who was shown a photo by Secret Service agent Elmer Moore, Earl Warren’s “bodyguard.” (Specter alluded to this at Cyril Wecht’s Duquesne Symposium in 2003)
Rankin’s reply to McCloy is disturbing. Because at almost every opportunity in the intervening decades, the Commissioners and counsel had denied they had the materials. But further, they tried to say they did not have them because the Kennedy family denied them access. This was simply not possible. Because these materials, including photos and x-rays, were in the possession–and under the control–of the Secret Service at that time. Which is how Moore had them. So the Commission had to have gotten them from the Secret Service.
48. In the entire Warren Report, there is no mention of the Harper Fragment.
The Harper fragment is a crucial piece of forensic evidence. It was named after Billy Harper, the person who found this piece of bone in Dealey Plaza while taking photos on the 23rd. He brought it to his uncle, Dr. Jack Harper, who took it to Dr. A. B. Cairns, chief of pathology at Methodist Hospital in Dallas. Cairns determined it was occipital bone, from the rear of JFK’s head. He also had quality color slides made of both sides of the fragment. This is fortunate, since this piece of evidence has now disappeared.
Among the important points to remember about the Harper fragment is that, if it is occipital, then it strongly suggests a shot from the front. Secondly, when the House Select Committee tried to place the Harper fragment in their own reconstruction, situated to the front right side of the skull, it did not fit. And the HSCA tried to then ditch the evidence proving it did not. (See Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination, by Michael Benson, p. 173; John Hunt, “A Demonstrable Impossibility” at History Matters website)
For the Commission to try and determine the nature of Kennedy’s head wounds without even noting this piece of evidence is irresponsible.
49. James Humes lied about the diameter of Kennedy’s anterior neck wound in his testimony.
Under examination by Specter, Humes said the neck wound measured a few millimeters in diameter. (See WC, Vol. II, p. 362) Since this wound was slit at Parkland Hospital in Dallas for purposes of a tracheotomy, Humes could not have garnered this information on his own. It turns out he got it from Dr. Malcolm Perry, the man who did the tracheotomy. But when one looks at the notation made about this information, it does not say a few millimeters. It says 3-5 mm. (See James Rinnovatore and Allan Eaglesham, The JFK Assassination Revisited, p. 26 for the note)
The probable reason Humes fudged his testimony was that he had testified that the posterior back wound was 7 x 4 mm. (WC Vol. II, p. 351) This would have meant the entrance wound was larger than the exit wound. Something that could only happen in the solipsistic world of the Warren Commission.
50. James Humes and Arlen Specter cooperated on a cover story to conceal the true location of Kennedy’s back wound for the Commission.
Under questioning by Specter, Humes said that the bullet holes in Kennedy’s jacket and shirt line up well with Commission Exhibit 385. (WC, Vol II, p. 366) The bullet holes in those two clothing exhibits both depict the wound to have entered in JFK’s back about six inches below the collar. Which Humes admits to. Anyone can see that CE 385 depicts that wound much further up, near where the neck meets the back. (Click here)
So how do Specter and Humes explain this deliberate misrepresentation? They say Kennedy was heavily muscled and waving at the crowd. (WC, op. cit) Kennedy was not heavily muscled. He was about 6′ 1″ and 175 pounds. Anyone who has seen photos of him in a swimsuit or at autopsy will tell you he was rather slender. And there is no way in the world that the very mild wave Kennedy performs before he goes behind the freeway sign could account for the raising of that six inch differential. In fact, when Kennedy starts waving, his elbow is on the car door. (Click here)
These misrepresentations are deliberately designed to cover up the fraud of CE 385. And, in turn, to make the wild fantasy of the Single Bullet Theory palatable.
Conclusion
Arlen Specter clearly understood that there were serious problems with the evidence of the autopsy in the JFK case. Which is why, as previously noted, he deep-sixed the Sibert-O’Neill report made by the FBI.
The questioning of the three pathologists by Specter was a masterpiece of avoidance. Or, in plain language, a cover up. The true facts of this horrendous autopsy did not begin to be exposed until the trial of Clay Shaw–five years later in New Orleans. There, under a real examination, Pierre Finck first revealed that the doctors were not running the autopsy. The scores of officers in the room were. This explains why the back wound was not dissected and the brain not sectioned. Without those two practices, we do not know the direction of the bullets through the skull, throat and back; nor do we know how many bullets struck; nor do we know if all the wounds were transiting.
Because of Specter, we also did not discover the real circumstances of Dr. Humes burning his first autopsy draft and notes. And because of Specter and Humes cooperation on a deception, the true nature of Kennedy’s back wound, and the problems in connecting it with the throat wound, were camouflaged. All of these dodges, and more, were meant to disguise evidence of more than three shots. And therefore, more than one assassin.
If the Commission had been a true legal proceeding, Specter’s actions would have been just cause to begin a disbarment case against him.
PLAQUE FIVE: The Conspiracy the Commission Couldn’t Find
Posted September 24, 2014
Introduction
In this final series, we will center on information that most certainly indicated a plot, or at least suggested a conspiratorial set of associations in the JFK case. Almost all the material discussed here was available back in 1964. The problem was that the agencies that the Commission relied upon were not forthcoming in forwarding the facts to the Commission. In other words, the Commission was more or less at the mercy of men like J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI, James Rowley and Elmer Moore at the Secret Service, and Richard Helms and James Angleton at the CIA. Since those three agencies provided the overwhelming majority of information to the Commission, the investigation was doomed from the start.
51. Within 72 hours of the assassination, David Ferrie was trying to deny his association with Oswald. And he broke the law to do so.
After Jim Garrison turned Ferrie over to the FBI, Oswald’s longtime friend and CAP colleague lied his head off to the Bureau. He said he never owned a telescopic rifle, or used one, and he would not even know how to use one. Considering his activities as a CIA trainer for the Bay of Pigs and Operation Mongoose, these were clear deceptions.
He also said he never knew Oswald and that Oswald was not a member of a CAP squadron in New Orleans.
He then said he did not know Sergio Arcacha Smith from 544 Camp Street, and he had no association with any Cuban exile group since 1961. (James DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, p. 177)
Every one of these statements was a lie. Further, it is a crime to perjure yourself to an FBI agent in an investigation. (ibid) That Hoover did not indict Ferrie, shows that 1.) He did not give a damn about Kennedy’s murder and 2.) The Commission was at his mercy.
52. The FBI knew about Ferrie’s friendship with Oswald through CAP member Chuck Francis, and they knew about the association of Oswald with Ferrie and Shaw in the Clinton-Jackson area.
What makes Point 51 above even worse is that the Bureau had the evidence to prove Ferrie was lying to them. After the assassination, CAP member Chuck Francis was interviewed by the Bureau. Francis took the now famous CAP photo depicting Ferrie with Oswald at a picnic. (ibid, p. 233) How could Ferrie have denied that evidence? In fact, he was worried about it. Since in the days following the assassination, he called various CAP members to see if they had any pictures of him with Oswald. The FBI knew about these frantic calls also. (ibid) As Vincent Bugliosi would say, the perjury by Ferrie plus his attempt at obstruction of justice would indicate a “consciousness of guilt.”
Through the work of Joan Mellen, we know that the Bureau had a report by Reeves Morgan that Oswald had been in the Clinton/Jackson area that summer with two men who fit the description of Ferrie and Clay Shaw. The FBI then visited the hospital personnel office where Oswald went to apply for a job. (ibid)
There is no evidence that Hoover forwarded any of this important information to the Commission.
53. Both the CIA and the FBI had counter-intelligence programs active in 1963 against the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
At the 20th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, Commission counsel David Belin was one of the featured guests on a Nightline segment. During the telecast he made an astonishing declaration: He proclaimed he had seen every CIA document on the Kennedy case. If he was telling the truth, then why did he not say that the Agency, as well as the Bureau, had counter-intelligence programs arrayed against the FPCC in 1963, and that David Phillips headed the CIA operation? (DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland, p. 236)
This would seem to most to be of extreme evidentiary importance. Because Oswald formed his own one-man operation for the FPCC in New Orleans while working out of Guy Banister’s office. In fact, he even put Banister’s address on some of his FPCC flyers. And the FBI knew that also. (Destiny Betrayed, p. 102) Needless to say, this would all seem to suggest that perhaps Oswald was not really a communist; but at work, through Banister’s office, for Phillips’ anti-FPCC campaign.
Which leads us to an amazing fact.
54. You will not find the name of David Phillips in the 19,000 pages of the Commission volumes.
In retrospect, this is startling. Why? Because today Phillips is seen as one of the chief mid-level suspects in the Kennedy case. Oswald was seen with Phillips at the Southland Building in Dallas in late summer of 1963. Phillips occupied the Cuban desk in Mexico City while Oswald was allegedly there in late September and early October, 1963. And if Oswald was an agent provocateur for the CIA infiltrating the FPCC, then Phillips had to have known about his activities in New Orleans that summer. Since he was in charge of coordinating them.
In other words, Phillips seems to have been in direct proximity to Oswald throughout 1963. In fact, he told his brother James before he died that he was in Dallas the day JFK was killed. (DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, p. 364)
55. There is direct evidence and testimony linking Phillips to suspects in the JFK case in New Orleans.
After Gordon Novel first met Sergio Arcacha Smith, Arcacha invited him to a meeting in Guy Banister’s office. The subject was arranging a telethon in New Orleans to support the anti-Castro cause. Joining the trio was a fourth man, a Mr. Phillips. In a sworn deposition, Novel’s description of Mr. Phillips closely aligns with David Phillips. (See William Davy, Let Justice be Done, pgs. 22-24)
Secondly, in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs disaster, the CIA made a report on the Belle Chasse training camp south of New Orleans. Ferrie and Arcacha Smith were both heavily involved in this camp’s activities. (ibid, p. 30) That report is detailed in all aspects of the history of the camp including when it opened, who was trained there, how many were trained, and what they were trained in. Only someone with firsthand knowledge of its activities could have written the memo. At the end, the memo reads, “the training camp was entirely Agency controlled and the training was conducted by Agency personnel.” The memo was signed by Phillips. (ibid, p. 31)
Third, during the preparations for Operation Mongoose, another camp was opened across Lake Pontchartrain. Ferrie was a drill instructor at this camp also. (ibid, p. 30) When Bob Tanenbaum was Deputy Chief Counsel of the HSCA, he saw a film that was probably from this camp. He brought in witnesses to view it to get positive identifications. Three of the identified men were Oswald, Banister and Phillips. (ibid, p. 30)
As the reader can see, we now have evidence linking the people on the ground around Oswald in the summer of 1963, with a man one or two steps upward in the CIA’s chain of command. This would be an important development if one were seeking out a conspiracy.
56. The names of Rose Cheramie and Richard Case Nagell are not in the Warren Report.
Along with Sylvia Odio, this trio forms perhaps the most important evidence of a conspiracy before the fact. In fact, Jim Garrison once wrote that Nagell was the most important witness there was. (DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, Second Edition, p. 94) Nagell was a CIA operative who was hired out of Mexico City by the KGB. They heard there was a plot brewing to kill Kennedy. They thought they would be implicated in it. They hired Nagell to track it down. (ibid, pgs. 95-96) By the fall of 1963, Nagell was hot on the trail of David Ferrie, Sergio Arcacha Smith, and Carlos Quiroga. He was convinced that Oswald, who the KGB had given him a photo of at the start, was being set up by these men. (ibid, p. 97)
Rose Cheramie predicted the assassination in advance. She had been abandoned by two men who were talking about the plot as the trio was enacting a drug deal. After she was abandoned, she was having withdrawal symptoms. But she predicted to the officer who picked her up and drove her to a state hospital that Kennedy would be killed in Dallas shortly. (ibid, p. 78) When this turned out to be true, the officer returned to her and got more details.
There is no evidence the Commission ever investigated Cheramie. But Jim Garrison did. He got identifications of Cheramie’s companions. They turned out to be Sergio Arcacha Smith and CIA operative Emilio Santana.
57. The Commission’s investigation of Oswald in Mexico City was so skimpy as to be negligent.
Declassified in 1996, this was called the Slawson-Coleman report, named after staff attorneys David Slawson and William Coleman. The man who coordinated with the Commission about their visit to Mexico City was CIA Deputy Director Richard Helms. (Probe Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 1, p. 14) Helms advised that every step they took in Mexico that Slawson and Coleman deal “on the spot with the CIA representative.” (ibid) Consequently, this 37-page report does not mention Anne Goodpasture, or the Tarasoffs. Goodpasture has become an incredibly important figure today. Because she controlled the tapes and photo surveillance files from the Cuban and Russian consulates for suspect David Phillips. The Tarasoffs were the married couple that did the Russian translations from the surveillance tapes. Further, the Commission never interviewed Silvia Duran, the receptionist in the Cuban embassy who actually spent the most time with Oswald; or whoever this person was.
Why do I say that? Because the Slawson/Coleman report never reveals the following information: 1.) Duran talked to an “Oswald” who was short and blonde, not the real Oswald (DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, Second Edition, p. 349) 2.) The record says Oswald visited the embassies a total of five times. There should be ten pictures the CIA took of him entering and exiting the buildings. There are none. 3.) The FBI heard tapes the CIA said were of Oswald. The agents interviewing Oswald in detention said the man they talked to was not the man on the tapes. (ibid, p. 357) Which poses the question: was Oswald in Mexico City?
Maybe, but maybe not. Either way, it is doubtful he did the things the Commission said he did. In fact, the HSCA prepared two perjury indictments for the Justice Department to serve on this issue. One was for Phillips and one for Goodpasture. The Mexico City report issued by the HSCA, authored by Dan Hardway and Ed Lopez; which was 400 pages long– enumerates numerous lies told to the Committee by those two. And it strongly indicates someone was manipulating the surveillance record. If that is so, then one has to wonder if it was a coincidence that this was done to the man who would be accused of killing Kennedy in advance of the assassination.
58. The chief witnesses against Oswald were Ruth and Michael Paine.
As Walt Brown notes in his book, The Warren Omission, the Paines were in the witness chair on a combined nine days. In total, they were asked well over 6,000 questions. In fact, Ruth was asked the most questions of any single witness. (See Brown, pgs. 262-63) Yet, except for Senator Richard Russell, not one commissioner ever posed any queries as to who they really were, what they did in this case, and why the Commission used them so extensively. (DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, Second Edition, p. 195) But there is a telltale piece of evidence about all that. It appears that Allen Dulles solicited old friends of his from the Eastern Establishment to give the couple public endorsements as early as December of 1963; which was well before any witnesses were called, Or the Commission’s case took shape. (ibid)
But Dulles went even further about this connection. In private, he commented that the JFK researchers “would have had a field day if they had known…he had actually been in Dallas three weeks before the murder…and that one of Mary Bancroft’s childhood friends had turned out to be a landlady for Marina Oswald.” (ibid, p. 198) The Mary Bancroft Dulles was referring to had been an OSS agent he had run during World War II. Mary was a lifelong friend with Ruth Forbes, Michael Paine’s mother.
To make a long story short, both Ruth and Michael Paine came from family backgrounds that are intertwined with the power elite and the CIA. For instance, Ruth’s sister, Sylvia Hoke worked for the Agency in 1963, a fact the CIA and Ruth tried to keep from Jim Garrison. Sylvia’s husband worked for the Agency for International Development, which was closely affiliated with the Agency. Later in life, Ruth admitted to a friend her father worked for the CIA also. And during the Contra war in Nicaragua, many American Sandinista sympathizers on the scene saw Ruth’s activities there as being CIA sponsored. (ibid, pgs. 197, 199) There is also evidence that a man fitting the description of Michael Paine was at a restaurant adjacent to SMU trying to sniff out students who were sympathetic to Castro. Further, there were early reports that Dallas deputy Sheriff Buddy Walthers, in his search of the Paine household, discovered several “metal filing cabinets full of letter, maps, records, and index cards, with names of pro-Castro sympathizers.” (ibid, p. 198) There is also evidence that the Paines played a role in manufacturing the case against Oswald. For instance, they claimed the Minox spy camera found in Oswald’s belongings really belonged to Michael. (ibid, p. 207.) For a survey of the case against the Paines see, James DiEugenio’s Destiny Betrayed, Second Edition, pgs. 155-56, 194-208. (Also, click here for a visual essay). This declassified record makes the Paines appear fishier than an aquarium.
59. There is no mention of Carl Mather of Collins Radio in the Warren Report.
Carl Mather and his wife were good friends with Officer Tippit and his wife Marie. In fact, they went over to the Tippit home to console Marie at about 3:30 PM. (Joseph McBride, Into the Nightmare, p. 527) What makes that so interesting is what happened about 2 hours earlier.
In Oak Cliff, on Davis Street horns were blaring and police cars moving within an hour of the assassination due to the murder of Tippit in that area. A veteran auto mechanic named T. F. White saw a man in a car looking suspicious, like he was trying to hide himself. This was in the parking lot of the El Chico Restaurant across the street from his auto garage. Which was about six blocks from the scene of the Tippit murder. White went over to the car and got a better look at the man and took down the license plate. When he got home that night and watched TV, he told his wife that the man in the car was Oswald. (ibid, p. 526)
When reporter Wes Wise heard about the story, he got the license plate number checked out. It belonged to Carl Mather. Thus began the mystery of how either Oswald, or a double, got in a car after the assassination with a license plate belonging to Tippit’s friend Mather. To make it worse, Mather worked for a CIA related company called Collins Radio. Collins did work for the White House, had contracts in Vietnam and worked with Cuban exiles on ships used in raids on Castro’s Cuba. (ibid, pgs. 527-28)
That the Warren Report does not mention this pregnant lead is incredible.
60. The Warren Report says that Jack Ruby had no significant connections to organized crime figures.
Since they did not know about the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro, maybe the Commission did not think Santo Trafficante was significant. But Trafficante was one of the three mobsters the CIA contacted in order to do away with Fidel Castro (the other two were John Roselli and Sam Giancana.) There were reliable reports, from more than one source, that Ruby visited Trafficante while he was imprisoned by Castro at Tresconia prison in late 1959. One eyewitness even said that he saw Ruby serving the mobster a meal. (Michael Benson, Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination, pgs. 455-56)
Another witness said that on this trip to Cuba, Ruby was also seen with Lewis McWillie. McWillie was a former manager of Trafficante’s gambling casinos in Havana. Ruby actually shipped handguns to McWillie in Cuba. By all accounts Ruby idolized McWillie; and would do almost anything for him. (ibid, p. 272)
61. Officer Patrick Dean lied about how Ruby could have gotten into the city hall basement on Sunday November 24th to kill Oswald.
Dean was in charge of security for the transfer of Oswald that day. He told Burt Griffin of the Commission that Ruby would have needed a key to get into a door that ran along the alleyway behind the building. Griffin suspected Dean was lying about this point. Griffin wrote a memo saying he had reason to think that Ruby did not come down the Main Street ramp. But Dean was urging Ruby to say this as a part of a cover up. Commission Chief Counsel J. Lee Rankin would not back Griffin on this and succumbed to pressure out of Dallas, especially from DA Henry Wade. (DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland, pgs. 205-06)
It turned out that Dean was lying on this point. When the HSCA investigated this issue they found out that Ruby did not need a key to enter that door. They further found out that Dean flunked his polygraph test administered by the Dallas Police; even though he wrote his own questions! When the HSCA went looking for this test, it was nowhere to be found. (ibid, p. 205)
62. The FBI falsified Jack Ruby’s polygraph test.
The HSCA appointed a panel of polygraph experts to examine the records of Jack Ruby’s lie detector test for the Warren Commission. This was done by an FBI expert named Bell Herndon. The Commission accepted Herndon’s verdict that Ruby had passed the test. The HSCA panel did not. In fact, they exposed the test as being so faulty as to be about worthless. The panel said that Herndon violated at least ten basic protocols of polygraph technique. These ranged from having too many people in the room; which would cause diversions and false readings; to asking way too many questions. There were over 100; which is about six times as many as there should have been. (ibid, p. 244)
This was crucial. Because as the panel explained, liars become immune to showing physiological stimuli if questioned for too long. In other words, the subject could lie and get away with it. Herndon also confused the types of questions; relevant, irrelevant, and control questions; so that it was hard to arrange a chart based on accurate readings. (ibid)
Finally, Herndon completely altered the proper methods of using the Galvanic Skin Response machine (GSR). He started it at a low point of only 25% capacity, and then lowered it. The panel said the machine should never have been set that low. But it should have been raised, not lowered, later. (ibid, p. 245) This is interesting because when Ruby was asked, “Did you assist Oswald in the assassination?”; to which he replied in the negative; it registered the largest GSR reaction in the first test series. (ibid, pgs. 245-46)
63. The Dallas Police hid the best witness to the killing of Oswald by Ruby.
Sgt. Don Flusche was never examined by the Warren Commission. There are indications that the DPD did not want the Commission to know about him. (ibid, p, 204) Flusche was in a perfect position to watch the ramp from Main Street. He had parked his car across the street and was leaning on it during the entire episode of Ruby shooting Oswald. Further, he knew Ruby. He told HSCA investigator Jack Moriarty that “There was no doubt in his mind that Ruby did not walk down the ramp and further did not walk down Main Street anywhere near the Ramp.” (ibid, p. 203)
Conclusion
Much of the above evidence was kept from the Commission. Which shows how weak and controlled the whole exercise was. Without independent investigators, the Commission was reliant on the good will of bodies like the FBI and Dallas Police; who both had much to hide in regards to the murders of Kennedy, Tippit and Oswald.
But the clear outlines of a conspiratorial design is obvious in the evidence above. One in which Oswald is unconsciously manipulated by those around him in New Orleans and Mexico City e.g. Ferrie and Phillips. He then returns to Dallas where he and his wife are in the clutches of their false friends, Ruth and Michael Paine. Kennedy is killed, and the CIA brings in its old ally the Mafia. McWillie and Trafficante find the perfect man, one with prolific ties to the police, to polish off Oswald before he can talk.
Is this what happened? We don’t know that for sure since this scenario was never investigated at the time. But we know today that it is perfectly plausible; much more so than the wild fantasy proposed in the Warren Report.
We will stop at 63 pieces of evidence, for two reasons. First that is ten more than Vincent Bugliosi brought up in Reclaiming History to indict Oswald. And ours are much more solid and convincing than his. Second, it’s the year Kennedy was killed. And as many studies have shown e.g. Larry Sabato’s in The Kennedy Half Century; the vast majority of Americans felt that something went awry with America after Kennedy’s murder.
We agree. So although we could easily go to one hundred, 63 is a good number to stop at.
