Kennedys and King Test host626

Tag: OSWALD

The Dallas Police Convicted Oswald without a Trial – Part 1/2

“The dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a duty of the living to do so for them.” – Lois McMaster Bujold

History is replete with injustice, which often blooms from the seed of tragedy. In the tumultuous aftermath of the Dealey Plaza catastrophe, the roots of such an injustice would weave itself tightly around Lee Harvey Oswald, accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy.

In little under the 48 hours from his arrest to his violent execution, within the bowels of the Dallas City Jail, Oswald found himself ensnared in a caricature of justice at the hands of the Dallas Police. Faced with concocted accusations and deprived of his right to counsel, Oswald’s final hours were characterized not by the proclamations of a political assassin, but by the desperate protestations of his innocence.

“I don’t know what dispatches you people have been given but I emphatically deny these charges. I have nothing against anybody, I have not committed any acts of violence.” (See this)

Yet, amidst these protests, the authoritative voices in Dallas relentlessly pronounced his guilt. They nourished the fears of the American public with a narrative designed for convenience rather than for justice.

However, the case of the lone assassin is not founded on a bedrock of empirical evidence, but rather it is entrenched in a brew of circumstantial conjecture and outright fabrication. The case stands as a carefully crafted facade tailored to meet the demands of expediency. Under scrutiny, it falls, as Senator Richard Schweiker said, like a house of cards.

As you navigate the vast array of guilt-laden assertions, consider these critical questions: During his all-too-brief detention, did the Dallas Police ever uphold Oswald’s constitutional right to be presumed innocent? Could Oswald have received a fair trial in Dallas? Or anywhere in the United States for that matter? Or had the actions of the Dallas officials made Oswald’s hypothetical trial a perfunctory charade devoid of justice? You decide.

November 22, 1963

A Perpetual Rush to Judgement.

Sylvia Meagher. The Dallas Police are not so bad. Look how quickly they caught Jack Ruby.(Accessories After the Fact; p. xxvi)

Within just 76 minutes of his arrest, Lee Oswald was publicly identified as a suspect in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.Brandishing a photograph of Oswald for the television cameras, a newsman declared, “This is what the man charged with the assassination of the President looks like.” This rapid transition—from a man “sneaking” into a movie theater to being universally acclaimed as a communist Presidential assassin—was nothing short of remarkable. (WCR; p. 241; WCR, p. 206)

The media worked fast, broadcasting to an anxious nation the erroneous events surrounding Oswald’s arrest.

“Here in Dallas the man that all America is looking at this time is 24-year-old Lee H. Oswald, being interrogated at the Dallas City Police building. At the time of his arrest in a theater of the Oak Cliff section of Dallas he was subdued after ‘killing’ a Dallas Police Officer with a snub-nosed revolver. Struggling with another officer and striking him with that pistol and during that struggle he was heard to shout It’s all over now. I’ve got me a President and a cop, and I’ll try for two more. A fanatic in every sense of the word.” (See this)

Air Force One was informed of Oswald’s sole guilt in the murder as it transported the body of the martyred President back to Washington. The narrative carried was unequivocally dismissive of any well-orchestrated conspiracy behind Kennedy’s murder, preferring to lay the heinous crime squarely on the shoulders of a ‘lone-nut assassin’.

Simultaneously, the plane carrying President Kennedy’s cabinet members from Honolulu back to DC, was fed the same story. As Pierre Salinger details in With Kennedy. Salinger was provided with extensive information about Oswald’s background, his ‘defection’ to the Soviet Union and his affiliations with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.(Praise From A Future Generation; by John Kelin p.5, With Kennedy p; 28)

The Line-Ups.

As I documented in point 24 of “Assassination 60”, the line-ups Lee Oswald was subjected to by the Dallas Police should be regarded as “utterly worthless.”Yet, the most outrageous incident occurred during the parade attended by witnesses Ted Calloway, Sam Guinyard, and Cecil McWatters. Calloway testified that before their viewing of the suspects, he was told by the Dallas Police that:”We want to be sure. We want to try and wrap him up real tight on killing this officer. We think he is the same one that shot the President, and if we can wrap him up tight on killing this officer, we have got him.( WC Volume III; p. 355)

As Gerry Spence quipped to Calloway during the London mock trial of Lee Oswald,“Do you think that’s a fair and impartial way to make a line-up on somebody? I mean if you were standing in the line-up, innocent, charged with a crime and somebody said, we want to wrap him up real tight— because if we can show he killed the Officer, we got the man who killed the President, do you think you would have got a fair shake?” (For more on the line-ups, please see point 24 of Assassination 60. And this)

NBC Press Interview with Sergeant Gerald Hill.

In this interview, Sergeant Gerald Hill discusses Oswald’s insistence on his rights and firmly asserts his absolute conviction of Oswald’s guilt in both the Kennedy and Tippit murders.

Hill. Oswald started demanding that he be allowed to see a lawyer…and demanding his rights.
Q. Do you believe that he is the same man who killed the police officer?
Hill. Having been in it from the very beginning, as far as the officer’s death is concerned, I am convinced that he is the man that killed the officer. I am convinced that the man we have is the man who shot the officer.

Yet, Hill knew fine well that hours before this interview, he had declared to the police dispatch that:the shell at the scene indicates that the suspect is armed with an automatic .38 rather than a pistol. (WC Volume XXIII; CE1974-78; p. 870)

Why is this significant? Because the weapon alleged to have been taken from Oswald at the Texas Theatre was a revolver, not an automatic.

The interview then pivots to the capabilities of the cannibalized and defective WWII, Mannlicher Carcano, the alleged rifle used in the murder of President Kennedy. Hill assures the newsmen that it required ease, rather than extraordinary skill, to obtain from the Carcano the performance required to accomplish the assassination single-handedly.

Hill. (From the Texas School Book Depository, Oswald) would have had a clear shot, and with a scope it would have probably been real easy.
Q. (President Kennedy) was struck from behind, wasn’t he?
Hill. I understand that he was, yes, sir. That the shots were fired from behind. ( WC CE2160, p. 804-805)

Despite these critical revelations by Hill, the true shock emerges from the admissions of Assistant District Attorney William ‘Bill’ Alexander. Known as a staunch right-winger infamous for his provocative rhetoric, Alexander shocked many in 1968 when he advocated publicly for the hanging of Chief Justice Earl Warren. Notably, he likely would have served as the prosecutor in Oswald’s trial for the Tippit murder.

Alexander admitted to author Henry Hurt that; “Once Oswald was charged as the assassin of President Kennedy, the District Attorney’s office ceased collecting evidence in the Tippit case.”

This abrupt abandonment of due process is startling, yet Alexander continued: “The Tippit case just went by the boards. When Oswald was killed two days later, official interest in developing evidence in the Tippit case ceased altogether. There was never an indictment in the case or further investigation.”

Alexander then told Hurt this whopper; “We all knew the same man who killed the President had killed Tippit. We had made up our minds by the time we got to (10^th and Patton, scene of the Tippit murder). The two acts were so similarly drastic and unusual that it was virtually impossible that they were committed by separate killers.” (Henry Hurt, Reasonable Doubt, p.157)

This premature judgment underlines a miscarriage of justice, where subjective assumptions supplanted a rigorous investigation. How could such critical legal determinations be made with such disregard for factual accuracy and fairness?

Further compounding the investigative failures, the public assertions Hill made about the bullet trajectories in Dealey Plaza predated the autopsy of President Kennedy. So how could Hill know that all the wounds suffered by the president would jibe with the results of the autopsy?

The autopsy was so poorly conducted that it prompted Dr. Milton Helpern, the highly respected and decorated Chief Medical Examiner of New York City—once described as’Sherlock Holmes with a microscope’—to comment on the utter incompetence of the career Navy forensic pathologists, Dr. James Humes and Dr. Thornton Boswell, who performed President Kennedy’s autopsy. Dr. Helpern likened their skills to:“It’s like sending a seven-year-old boy who has taken three lessons on the violin over to the New York Philharmonic and expecting him to perform a Tchaikovsky symphony. He knows how to hold the violin and bow, but he has a long way to go before he can make music.” (NY Times, 4/23/1977; p. 22)

Moreover, in a recently uncovered video by Secret Service expert Vince Palamara, Dr. Malcolm Perry describes the neck wound of President Kennedy on November 22 as;“a small penetrating wound, which appeared to be the entrance wound of one of the missiles.” (See this)

(For a deeper look into the President’s autopsy, please refer to part 3 of Assassination 60.)

The Procession of the Rifle.

Newsman. “This is room 317 of the homicide bureau, here at the Dallas Police station. As you see, they are bringing the weapon that was allegedly used in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, this afternoon at 12:30pm here in Dallas. This is the weapon that was used. A rather well-worn military rifle, with a scope.” (See this)

In the claustrophobic corridors of the Dallas City Jail, the 6.5 Mannlicher Carcano, incontrovertibly labelled as the death weapon of President Kennedy, was ostentatiously displayed before a throng of avid television and newspaper reporters. Cameras snapped relentlessly as journalists jostled to capture images of the notorious rifle, which Lieutenant Day brandished.

The intentional public display of the Carcano was not merely a lapse in protocol—it was a deliberate strategy to influence public opinion and prematurely brand Oswald as the assassin of President Kennedy. This act effectively sidestepped the judicial process by contaminating the jury pool. Which depends on a neutral panel to carefully examine the evidence.

Mayor Earle Cabell.

Dallas Mayor Earle Cabell, whose brother Charles Cabell was the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and was dismissed by President Kennedy following the Bay of Pigs debacle, appeared on national television to assert Lee Oswald’s sole responsibility for the assassination of President Kennedy.

Mayor Cabell described the assassination as “the irrational act of a single man” and went on to depict Oswald as someone with “a deranged mind,” further embedding this narrative into the public consciousness. (See this and this)

Buell Wesley Frazier.

Detectives Gus Rose and Richard Stovall from the Dallas Police Department had arrested and had under interrogation at the Dallas City jail, 19-year-old Buell Wesley Frazier, a co-worker of Oswald’s at the Texas School Book Depository.

The young and vulnerable Frazier was not informed of any rights he had nor was he offered the opportunity to have an attorney present. During the interrogation, officers Rose and Stovall ruthlessly bombarded him with repetitive questions, aiming to catch him in a contradiction. Frazier vividly recalled the ordeal, noting, “They asked the same questions, over and over…they were trying to see if they could trip me up”,After they had exhausted their tactics, another team of detectives took over, prolonging the gruelling interrogation for several more hours.

The pressure intensified when Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz presented Frazier with a pre-typed confession as to his involvement in the assassination.: “In his hand was a sheet of white paper. He sat it down in front of me with a pen and said, sign this. I quickly realized this was a confession.”Stunned and appalled, Frazier stood his ground, asserting to Fritz, “I’m not signing this, this is ridiculous.” Enraged by Frazier’s refusal, Fritz menacingly raised his hand as if to strike him. Frazier bravely retorted,“There’s some policemen outside that door but before they get in here, we’re gonna have one hell of a fight.” Fritz then snatched the confession, wadded it up and stormed out of the room.” (Frazier, Steering Truth; p. 48-49)

This episode starkly exemplifies the Dallas Police Department’s propensity to deploy deeply unethical tactics in their investigative processes. The fact that 19-year-old Frazier was not informed of any rights he had and was subjected to hours of repetitive questioning without legal counsel is a glaring indicator of the coercive strategies employed by the police. As assistant DA Bill Alexander confirmed to Larry Sneed in No More Silence, “What most people don’t realize is that we had Miranda in Texas before the Miranda decision.” (p. 553)

This method of interrogation—relying on intimidation and psychological pressure—aims to wear down an individual to the point of vulnerability, increasing the likelihood of extracting a confession, regardless of its veracity. As Greg Parker pointed out, it is popularly termed the Reid technique, after its originator John Reid, a polygraph expert and former Chicago police officer.

The incident with Frazier is not an isolated one but rather a snapshot of a systemic issue within the Dallas Police Department. As further detailed through multiple cases, these underhanded tactics appear to be a standard operating procedure rather than exceptions. The repetition of such methods across different cases demonstrates a disturbing pattern of behavior, pointing to a deeply ingrained culture of disregard for legal norms and civil rights.

This pervasive abuse prompts a deeply unsettling question: when Buell Frazier was subjected to such harsh treatment, what kinds of threats and tactics were employed against Lee Oswald to coerce a confession or an admission of guilt from him?

Assistant DA William ‘Bill’ Alexander.

Around 10 p.m., in the office of Capt. Fritz, Bill Alexander, received a phone call from Joe Goulden, a seasoned reporter formerly associated with the Dallas Morning News.

Joe Goulden. What’s going on down there?
Bill Alexander. This Communist son of a bitch killed the President!
Joe Goulden. Well, I can’t run with that.
Bill Alexander. Well, I’m getting ready to write the complaint, how about if I wrote up did then and there, voluntarily, and with malice aforethought, take the life of John F. Kennedy in furtherance of a Communist conspiracy? Could you run with that?
Joe Goulden. You got it.

Alexander’s motivations for leaking this information to Goulden were later revealed to Larry Sneed, where Alexander expressed his desire; “to expose Oswald for what he was, a Communist.” Regarding the public’s reaction to John Kennedy’s murder, Alexander was disdainfully dismissive: “And as far as anybody giving a particular rat’s ass about John Kennedy getting his ass wiped in Dallas, who cares? A goddamn Yankee comes off down here and gets killed, for whatever reason, big deal!” (No More Silence; pp. 550/554)

Tragically, this remarkable perspective was pretty widespread within Dallas law enforcement. Detective Jim Leavelle, who was handcuffed to Oswald during his murder, expressed a similarly indifferent attitude towards the President’s murder in a 1992 conversation with author Joe McBride. “(The Assassination of President Kennedy) wasn’t no different than a South Dallas nigger killin’…It was just another murder to me, and I’ve handled hundreds of ‘em, so it wasn’t no big deal. (Into The Nightmare; p.240)

The American Civil Liberties Union.

Commission Conclusion. “On Friday evening, representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union visited the police department to determine whether Oswald was being deprived of counsel. They were assured by police officials and Justice of the Peace (David) Johnston that Oswald had been informed of his rights and was being allowed to seek a lawyer.” (WCR, p.201)

At approximately 10:30pm, Gregory Lee Olds, the President of the Dallas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), initiated contact with Captain Fritz to discuss Oswald’s rights and his entitlement to legal counsel. Fritz’s response, which suggested Oswald had declined legal representation, was the first in a series of unsettling assurances that painted a picture of a suspect uninterested in his fundamental rights. And as documented in point 17 of Assassination 60, “Oswald consistently expressed his desire for legal representation during his detention.” (see this)

Sam Stern: Did Captain Fritz say that Oswald did not want counsel at that time, or that he was trying to obtain his own counsel?
Greg Olds : What I was told, that he had been given the opportunity and had not made any requests.

Mr. Olds, not satisfied with this explanation, sought direct confirmation from Oswald and, along with three other attorneys, arrived at the Dallas City Jail around 11:35pm, aiming to engage with Oswald directly. Yet, their pursuit of justice was stonewalled under the pretext that Oswald, now charged with the assassination of President Kennedy, had knowingly waived his right to an attorney.

Greg Olds: Captain King (assistant to Chief Curry) assured us that Oswald had not made any requests for counsel. Justice of the Peace David Johnston…assured us that Oswald’s rights had been explained, and he had declined counsel. Chief Curry was quoted to us as having said that Oswald had been advised of his rights to counsel…We felt fairly well satisfied that Oswald probably had not been deprived of his rights, so, we then broke up.

These assurances from police officials, painted a misleading and complacent picture of Oswald’s understanding and waiver of his rights. These reassurances were enough to momentarily placate the ACLU representatives, leading them to disband— a decision that would soon be cast in a regrettable light.

In a twist of fate, Olds was present when Oswald made a public declaration of his desperate need for legal assistance—a plea he issued not once, not twice, but three times during the famous midnight press conference. For a few moments, Oswald addressed the American public, where he would declare his innocence.

Lee Oswald: I positively know nothing about this situation here. I would like to have legal representation. Well, I was questioned by a judge however I protested at that time that I was not allowed legal representation during that very short and sweet hearing. I really don’t know what this situation is about, no one has told me anything except I am accused of murdering a policeman. I know nothing more than that and I do request someone to come forward to give me a legal assistance. (See this)

Oswald’s public plea contradicted the police narrative and highlighted a chilling disregard for his rights. Yet, despite Oswald’s membership in the ACLU and his clear request for help, no immediate action was taken to ensure his access to legal representation.

This oversight—a missed opportunity for advocacy at a critical juncture—later emerged as a profound regret for Olds, who acknowledged the failure to engage with Oswald directly as a significant misstep. “I have always been sorry that we didn’t talk with Oswald…which I think was a mistake on my part.” (Volume VII; p. 322-325)

Press interview with Chief Jesse Curry, Capt. J. Will Fritz and DA Henry Wade.

Commission Conclusion. “Wade told the press on Saturday that he would not reveal any evidence because it might prejudice the selection of a jury. On other occasions, however, he mentioned some items of evidence and expressed his opinions regarding Oswald’s guilt.” (WCR; p. 235)

Q. Do you think you have got a good case?
Wade. I figure we have sufficient evidence to convict (Oswald).
Q. Was there any indication that this was an organized plot or was there just one man?
Wade. There’s no one else but him…(Oswald) has been charged in the State court with murder with malice. The charge carried the death penalty which my office will ask in both cases.
Q. Sir, can you confirm the report that his wife said he had in his possession as recently as last night, or some recent time, the gun such as the one that was found in the building?
Wade. Yes, she did…she said that he had a gun of this kind in his possession.
Q. A rifle? Last night?
Wade. Last night. The reason I answer that question—the wife in Texas can’t testify against her husband…
Q. Do you think you’ve got a good case against him?
Wade. I think we have sufficient evidence.
Q. Sufficient evidence to convict him of the assassination of the President?
Wade. Definitely. Definitely. (Volume XXIV, CE2142, CE2169 p. 750-751, 829-830-837-838-840.)

November 23^rd, 1963.

J. Edgar Hoover. “This man in Dallas. We, of course, charged him with the murder of the President. The evidence that they have at the present time is not very, very strong…The case as it stands now isn’t strong enough to be able to get a conviction.” (See this)

NBC Press interview of Jesse Curry.

Q. Chief Curry, how would you describe (Oswald) is he a prime suspect?
Curry. Yes.
Q. Is he the only suspect?
Curry . Yes.
Q. (Oswald) was yelling and complaining about no attorney. Does he have an attorney here now?
Curry. Not that I know of.
Q. Chief, are you convinced this is the man?
Curry. Well, we don’t have positive proof. We feel he is a prime suspect.
Q. What do you think personally?
Curry. Personally, I think we have the right man.( Volume XXIV, CE2143, p. 753-754.)

WFAA-TV. Press interview of Jesse Curry.

Commission Conclusion. “ Curry stated that Oswald had refused to take a lie detector test, although such a statement would have been inadmissible in a trial. The exclusion of such evidence, however, would have been meaningless if jurors were already familiar with the same facts from previous television or newspaper reports.” (WCR; p.238)

Q. Chief, was the subject of a polygraph, a lie detector test, broached with Oswald, and if so, what was the outcome?
Curry. I understood that it was offered to him, and he refused it.
Q. Did he give any reason for refusing to take the lie detector test?
Curry. I understand he said he didn’t have to take it and he didn’t want to.(Volume XXIV; CE2144. p.755-756)

WFAA-TV. Press interview of Captain Will Fritz.

Q. Captain, can you give us a resume of what you know concerning the assassination of the President and Mr Oswald’s role in it?
Fritz . I can tell you that this case is cinched— that this man killed the President. There’s no question in my mind about it.
Q. Well, what is the basis for that statement?
Fritz. I don’t want to get into the basis. In fact, I don’t want to get into the evidence. I just want to tell you that we are convinced beyond any doubt that he did the killing. (CE2153. Volume XXIV, p. 787.)

KRLD-WFAA-TV- Press interview with DA Henry Wade.

Commission Conclusion. “The disclosure of evidence was seriously aggravated by the statements of numerous responsible officials that they were certain of Oswald’s guilt…Wade told the public that he would ask for the death penalty.” (WCR; p. 239)

Q. What sort of man is he? How would you describe Oswald?
Wade. I, I couldn’t say. I can’t describe him any other than—the murderer of the President…since I have been District Attorney I’ve tried 24 death-penalty cases, in which we asked for the death penalty.
Q. And how many verdicts did you get?
Wade. Twenty-three.
Q. Are you going to try this personally?
Wade. Yes sir, yes sir…this is a proper case for the death penalty.
Q. Well, from what you have seen, how do you sum (Oswald) up as a man? Based on your experience with criminal types?
Wade. Well, I think he’s the man that planned this murder weeks or months ago and has laid his plans carefully and carried them out and has planned at that time what he’s going to tell the police that are questioning him at present. (CE2170, Volume XXIV, p. 842-843-844.)

Press Interview in the Office of Jesse Curry.

Q. (Is Oswald) Communist or Marxist?
Curry. They say he said he was a communist.

Regarding surveillance on Oswald prior to the President’s visit to Dallas, Curry stated that The FBI “usually let us know when these communist sympathisers or subversives come into the city and why they hadn’t got round to informing us of this man, I don’t know.”

When asked about Oswald’s movements before and after the assassination, Curry stated, ” a man (Buell Frazier) brought (Oswald) to work yesterday morning and (Oswald) had a large package with him which we believe to be the rifle.” Regarding Oswald’s movements after the assassination, Curry asserts that: “(Oswald)shot our officer over in Oak Cliff.”

Curry then qualifies Oswald as an“Expert Marksman”, when in reality Oswald was considered “a rather poor shot”,whilst serving in the U.S. Marine Corps. (See this)

Q. What did you find in his apartment Chief? Did you find some communist literature…
Curry. Yes we did. (See this)

The Paraffin Test.

Commission Conclusion. “Wade might have influenced prospective jurors by his mistaken statement that the paraffin test showed that Oswald had fired a gun. The tests merely showed that he had nitrate traces on his hands, which did not necessarily mean that he had fired either a rifle or a pistol.” (WCR; p. 238-239)

Henry Wade.

Q. What about the paraffin tests?
Wade. Yes, I’ve gone into that. The paraffin tests showed (Oswald) had recently fired a gun. It was on both hands. (CE2168; 821)

Jesse Curry.

Q. Chief, we understand you’ve had the results of the paraffin tests which were made to determine whether Oswald had fired a weapon. Can you tell us what those tests showed?
Curry. I understand that it was positive…it only means he fired a gun.
Q. That he fired a gun, Chief, not the rifle or the pistol.
Curry. That’s right…

Jesse Curry.

Q. What does the paraffin test prove then Chief?
Curry . It just proves that the man fired a weapon.
Q. But you believe he is the man who fired the rifle that killed the President?
Curry. Yes, I do. (See this)

For more on the paraffin tests, which strongly indicates Oswald’s innocence, please refer to Point 23 in Assassination 60.

WFFA-TV Press Interview with Jessie E. Curry.

Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Our investigation has revealed that Oswald did not indicate on his application that others, including an “A.Hidell” would receive mail through the box in question, which was Post Office Box 2915 in Dallas. This box was obtained by Oswald on October 9, 1962, and relinquished by him on May 14, 1963.” (Volume XXV; p. 857-862)

Newsman. This is a statement from Dallas Police Chief Curry.

Q. Chief Curry, I understand you have some new information in this case. Could you relate what that is?
Curry. Yes, we’ve just been informed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, that they, the FBI has just informed us that they have the order letter for the rifle…they received from a mail order house in Chicago. The order letter (has been) compared with known handwriting of our suspect, Oswald and the handwriting is the same on the order letter as Oswald’s handwriting. The return address on this order letter was to the post-office box in Dallas, Texas, of our suspect, Oswald and it was returned under another name. But it had definitely been established by the FBI that the handwriting is the handwriting of Oswald.
Q. Was it a recent purchase?
Curry. This purchase was made on March 20th of this year.(Ed. Note: The Hidell rifle was ordered on 3/12/63)
Regarding the backyard photographs, who’s existence was publicly disclosed by the Dallas Police, Chief Curry states the following
Curry. There is a photograph of him with a revolver on his hip and holding a rifle in his hand.
Q. Does this rifle look like the one that you have, that you think is the murder weapon, sir?
Curry. it does.
Q. Does it have a telescopic sight?
Curry.It does.
Q. Chief, has the order for this gun been connected definitely to the order for the rifle which you found?
Curry. It has.
Q. Chief, was the post office box rented by Oswald?
Curry. The name- the return-the name on the return address was A.Hidell. A.Hidell.
Q. How do you spell Hidell?
Curry. H-I-D-E-double L.
Q. Chief, do you feel pretty certain that this is the rifle which killed the President?
Curry. Yes. (Volume XXIV, CE2145. p. 759-760 WCR, p. 233) (See this)

(For further details on the mail-ordered rifle and Oswald’s alibi for ordering it, please refer to Part 4 of ‘Assassination 60’.)

Press Interview of Captain Will Fritz.

Q. Captain where does your investigation stand now? Does it look good?
Fritz. Yes it looks real good, I think we are in good shape. I think we are in good shape on both cases, both the killing of the President and the killing of the police officer later.
Q. You said a little while ago sir that you thought you had it cinched, do you feel that strongly about it sir?
Fritz. Yes sir I do. I feel that its alright.
Fritz then declares that Oswald, enroute to the Texas Theatre; encountered Officer Tippit, who he killed.
Q. That’s pretty well nailed down.
Fritz. That’s it, yes sir. (See this)

WFAA TV Press interview with Jesse Curry.

Commission Conclusion. “If the evidence in the possession of the authorities had not been disclosed, it is true that the public would not have been in a position to assess the adequacy of the investigation or to apply pressure for further official undertakings.” (WCR; p. 240)

Q. How would you describe his mood during the questioning?
Curry. Very arrogant. Has been all along.
Q. Is there any doubt in your mind, Chief, that Oswald is the man who killed the President?
Curry. I think this is the man who killed the President.
Q. Chief, could you tell us what you might have found in his rooming house in the way of literature or any papers connecting him-?
Curry. We found a great, great amount of Communist literature, Communist books…(Hattiesburg American, Nov. 23, 1963. P. 8)
Q. Chief, can you tell us in summary what directly links Oswald to the killing of the President?
Curry. Well, the fact that he was on the floor where the shots were fired from immediately before the shots were fired; the fact the he was seen carrying a package to the building…
Q. Do you figure that was a disassembled rifle?
Curry . I don’t think it was disassembled; the package was large enough for a rifle to be intact.
Q. Was it in a box or was it wrapped?
Curry. Wrapped. Wrapped in a bo—, in a paper.
Q. Has Oswald made any request for a lawyer?
Curry.He has, but he didn’t say who he wanted or anything, so we couldn’t just go out and start calling lawyers for him. That’s not our responsibility. (CE2146. Volume XXVI, p. 763-764-769-770.)

(For a more in depth look into the origins and scientific tests ran on the paper sack, designated as Commission Exhibit 142, please refer to Part 6 of Assassination 60)

Go to Part 2 of 2

May 8, 2024
Our Lady of the Warren Commission: Part 2/2
The Inconvenient Witness

Thomas Mallon. “And he (Oswald) had gotten away with it. The bullet had almost grazed the top of Walkers head, the hair, and he got away on foot, he didn’t drive a car… (And) he hid the rifle by the railroad tracks…”

To rebut Mr. Mallon’s claims, it is crucial to highlight that there is a substantial and irrefutable body of evidence indicating that Lee Harvey Oswald was never seen at or near General Walker’s home at4011 Turtle Creek Boulevard before, during, or after the attempted Walker assassination on April 10th, 1963. This point is not merely speculative but grounded in well-documented and verified accounts.

Furthermore, the weight of the evidence supports the conclusion that the assassination attempt involved not just one, but two individuals. Particularly compelling testimony comes from Walter Kirk Coleman, a 15-year-old residing near the General’s residence. On the night of April 10th, 1963, Coleman reported hearing a gunshot, an ominous sound aimed at ending General Walker’s life. In a swift reaction, Coleman dashed outside and peered over his fence. His vantage point provided a clear view of the church parking lot adjacent to General Walker’s residence. What he witnessed there is crucial to understanding the events of that fateful night.

Coleman observed:

A man getting into a 1949 or 1950 Ford, which was parked headed towards Turtle Creek Boulevard, with the motor running and the headlights on. (Before the man got into the car, he) glanced back in the direction of Coleman and (took) off. Also, further down the parking lot was another car, a two door, black over white, two-door Chevrolet sedan and a man was in it. He had the dome light on, and Kirk could see him bend over the front seat as if he was putting something in the back floorboard. Kirk described the car as; “black with a white stripe.” The man who took off in the Ford was described as; “a white male, about 19 or 20 years of age, about 5”10 tall, and weighing about 130 pounds. He was attired in “Kakhi pants and a sports shirt with figures in it. Kirk stated, “that this man had dark bushy hair, a thin face with a large nose, and was real skinny”. The second man was described by Coleman as, “a white male, about 6”1, about 200 pounds, wearing a dark long sleeve shirt and dark pants. Kirk could furnish no information on this man’s facial features nor his age.

Was one of the men Kirk Coleman saw, Lee Harvey Oswald?

“Coleman stated that he had seen numerous pictures of Lee Harvey Oswald, and he was shown a photograph of Oswald among several other photographs. He stated that neither man resembled Oswald and that he had never seen anyone in or around the Walker residence or the church before or after April 10, 1963, who resembled Lee Harvey Oswald”.

This testimony is a significant piece of evidence, as it directly challenges any claims that Oswald was present at the scene of the attempted assassination. (see this and this)

Coleman’s account is corroborated by Walker himself who testified to the Warren Commission that; “As I crossed a window coming downstairs in front, I saw a car at the bottom of the church alley just making a turn onto Turtle Creek. The car was unidentifiable. I could see the two back lights, and you have to look through trees there, and I could see it moving out. This car would have been about at the right time for anybody that was making a getaway. (Volume XI; p. 405)

April 8^th, 1963.

Between 9:00-9:30pm on April 8^th, 1963, Robert Surrey, a disciple of General Walker’s, was proceeding up Avondale Avenueto the house at 4011, Turtle Creek Boulevard. It was Surrey’s intention to enter the General’s property via the alleyway entrance. However, just prior to turning off Avondale, Mr. Surrey, “Observed a 1963 dark brown or maroon, four door Ford, parked on Avondale with two men sitting in it.” Surrey decided to avoid taking the alley, instead continuing around to block the car-park near the Mormon Church. Surrey observed the two men, “Get out of the car, walk up the alley and onto the Walker property and look into the windows of the Walker house.” At this point Surrey went to their automobile, where he checked the rear of the car, and observed there was no license plate. He then opened the door and looked into the car and opened the glove compartment. He observed nothing in the car or glove compartment which would help identify the occupants. He then went back to his car and drove to a position where he could observe the 1963 Ford leave.

Surrey testified to the Commission regarding the strange behavior of these two individuals…

Robert Surrey.“Well, the gist of the matter is that two nights before the assassination attempt, I saw two men around the house peeking in windows and so forth, and reported this to the general the following morning, and he, in turn, reported it to the police on Tuesday, and it was Wednesday night that he was shot at. So that is really the gist of the whole thing.”

Surrey told the FBI that, “He had never seen either of these two men before or since this incident, and (believed) neither of these two men was identical with Lee Harvey Oswald. (Surrey) “Described one of the men as a white male, in his 30s, about 5’10” to 6’ tall and weighing about 190 pounds. (Surrey) described the second individual as a white male, in his 30’s, 5’10” to 6’ tall, and weighing about 160 pounds. Both men were well dressed in suites, dress shirts and ties.FBI 105-82555 Oswald HQ File, Section 186 (maryferrell.org)

The Ballistics Evidence

From April 10, 1963, the bullet which was fired at General Walker, “Appeared to be from a high-powered, 30.06 rifle, and was a Steel jacketed bullet”. (see this)

This information was highly disseminated throughout the press and was reported in a New York Times article of April 12, 1963.

A Mystifying Metamorphosis: The “Magic Bullet” Phenomenon

From the ashes of President Kennedy, Officer Tippit and Lee Oswald’s tragic murders, a bewildering transformation occurred within the confines of the Dallas Police Evidence Room. Here, the “Walker bullet” performed a baffling act of alchemy, transforming from its official initial classification as a 30.06 steel-jacketed projectile into a 6.5 Mannlicher Carcano bullet—its steel guise mysteriously supplanted by copper. This near-miraculous change provided the Warren Commission with a serendipitous twist in their narrative, allowing them to lay the blame for the attempted assassination of Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker squarely on the now-silenced Oswald. This switch, a masterpiece of evidentiary sleight of hand, was instrumental in allowing the Commission to fortify their case of circumstantial evidence, confidently proclaiming in their report: “Oswald had attempted to kill Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker (Retired, U.S. Army) on April 10, 1963, thereby demonstrating his disposition to take human life.” (WCR; p. 20). Through this narrative legerdemain, the Commission could weave a more compelling, albeit convenient, story of guilt. (WCR;p..20)

A Dichotomy of Possibilities: Incompetence or Subterfuge?

The ballistic evidence bifurcates into two realms of possibility. One path leads to a conclusion of stark incompetence on the part of General Walker and the Dallas Police Department investigators, a lapse in judgment and identification that stood unchallenged for over seven months. The alternate path veers towards a more sinister landscape, positing that the bullet now residing in the National Archives (CE573) and officially linked to the Walker case was, in fact, a posthumous plant designed to frame Oswald. While this theory may initially seem steeped in the realms of far-fetched conjecture, it gains a semblance of plausibility when juxtaposed against the backdrop of questionable evidence marshalled against Oswald in both the JFK and Tippit cases.

The FBI’s Spectrographic Analysis: A Tale of Suppressed Evidence

Adding to the enigma, the FBI’s spectrographic analysis of Q-188 (CE573) painted a divergent picture. Special Agent Henry H. Heilberger, in his analytical report (PC-78378), discerned that the lead alloy comprising the Walker bullet bore no resemblance to the lead alloy from the two large bullet fragments allegedly retrieved from beneath the presidential limousine’s jump seat. This revelation, chronicled in Breach of Trust (pp. 49-50), never saw the light of public scrutiny, as both the FBI and Warren Commission elected to sequester Heilberger’s findings from the official record, and notably, his testimony was conspicuously absent from their proceedings. One ponders the alacrity with which the Commission might have embraced Heilberger’s testimony had it tilted the scales of evidence towards Oswald’s guilt in the Walker affair.

In the police report filed by Officers Van Cleave and McElroy, the authors noted that the projectile was steel jacketed. Both local Dallas newspapers, and an Associated Press story depicted the projectile as being 30.06 in caliber. (James DiEugenio, The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today, p. 100) But three weeks after the assassination, the FBI now had transformed the bullet to a 6.5 caliber, copper jacketed projectile. In fact, the bullet today in the National Archives, allegedly shot at Walker, is copper coated. But none of the Dallas policemen who handled that bullet were called to testify under oath before the Commission. (ibid) In other words, unlike what Mallon and Ruth Paine told their spectators, the eyewitness testimony and the ballistics evidence is exculpatory of Oswald.

I now wish to posit some questions to Mrs. Paine & Mr. Mallon regarding some substantial inconsistencies in their narrative surrounding Oswald’s guilt in this case.

Marina testified that Lee allegedly extracted the rifle from their Neely Street residence three days before the attempt, concealing it in bushes near Walker’s home. However, this raises significant questions about the practicality and rationality of such a decision. Why would a logical individual choose to stow this surplus WWII, Mannlicher Carcano, in a bush for an extended period, subjecting it to various environmental elements, only to later retrieve it for an assassination attempt? This scenario, frankly, challenges the bounds of credibility. (Breach of Trust; p.53)

Storing a rifle in a bush for three days before committing a crime poses several significant issues:
If Lee Harvey Oswald had been brought to trial for the alleged attempt on General Edwin Walker’s life, the task facing Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade would have been daunting, to say the least. The prosecution’s case would have been fraught with a series of significant hurdles, each casting a shadow of doubt over Oswald’s culpability. Key among these were the logistical improbabilities – the complex chain of events leading up to the incident that seemed almost too convoluted to be feasible. Coupled with this were glaring inconsistencies in the evidence presented, gaps large enough in the witness testimonies to drive a truck through, and serious procedural questions that begged to be answered.

To surmount these formidable challenges, the prosecution would have needed more than just the usual evidentiary fare; it would have required exceptionally strong and unimpeachable alternative evidence, alongside coherent and convincing explanations to iron out the existing inconsistencies. The absence of direct testimonies and conclusive photographic evidence only compounded the issue, necessitating an even more persuasive argument to bridge these gaps.

It’s noteworthy that, to this day, no one, whether officially or unofficially, has truly grappled with these glaring deficiencies in the case against Oswald for the attempted assassination of General Walker. The shortcomings in the case are not merely minor quibbles or legal technicalities; they represent fundamental flaws that go to the very heart of the judicial process and the principles of fair trial and justice. For any defense attorney, these issues would not just be talking points; they would be central pillars of a defense strategy rooted in the bedrock of reasonable doubt.

“I had no way of knowing that Oswald attacked me. I still don’t. And I am not very prone to say in fact he did.” Edwin Walker. (Volume X1; p.426)

Thomas Mallon Praises the Warren Commission

“Before publication of the Warren Report, there was the irresistible reaction against the audacity of those who loudly proclaimed the dead man’s guilt but asked those who had doubts to keep silent. After the Report, there was something even more irresistible: the feeling that, in this case, silence would give consent to injustice.” Leo Sauvage. (see this)

Thomas Mallon. All these years later, how do you feel The Commission, that Report, it still essentially holds up?

Ruth Paine. Oh yea, oh yea. They were very thorough…

Advocating for the Warren Report’s conclusions, 60 years after the fact, is not just a matter of differing historical interpretation; it’s a position that, quite frankly, borders on the delusional or suggests a profound misapprehension of the facts. In my detailed analysis in ‘Assassination 60’, particularly in point 13, I underline the profound skepticism held by key figures regarding the Report. Notably, Bobby Kennedy dismissed it as ‘a shoddy piece of craftsmanship,’ a stark indictment from a figure intimately connected to the events.

Sylvia Meagher.”It was appalling to find how many of the Commission’s statements were unsupportable or even completely contradicted by the testimony and/or exhibits. I began to list what is now a long series of deliberate misrepresentations, omissions, distortions, and other defects demonstrating not only extreme bias, incompetence, and carelessness but irrefutable instances of dishonesty.” (Praise from a Future Generation; pp. 149-150)

Penn Jones Jr. “I really believe that the only way you can believe the Warren Report is not to read it.” (Praise from a Future Generation; p. 130)

The Commission’s credibility is further eroded by the dissent within its own ranks. Commissioners Richard Russell, Hale Boggs, and John Cooper explicitly expressed their disbelief in the Single Bullet Theory (SBT), a cornerstone of the Commission’s findings. John Sherman Cooper was unequivocal: “I could not convince myself that the same bullet struck both of them. No, I wasn’t convinced by [the SBT]. Neither was Senator Russell.” (James DiEugenio, JFK Revisited, pp. 30-31)

Hale Boggs voiced similar concerns, “I had strong doubts about it [the single bullet theory], the question was never resolved.” (Edward Epstein, Inquest; pp.149-150)

Commissioner Gerald Ford told French President d’Estaing that the President’s murder “was something set up. We were sure it was a set up, but we were not able to discover by whom.” (JFK Revisited; p. 57)

Even more damning is the disbelief expressed by Richard Russell, a sentiment shared by President Lyndon Johnson himself: “…they said that they believed…that the Commission believed that the same bullet which hit Kennedy hit Conaolly… well I don’t believe it.” To which Johnson replied, “I don’t either.” (Phone call of 9/18/64).

In the fantastic new collaborative book The JFK Assassination Chokeholds by Jim DiEugenio. Paul Bleau, Matt Crumpton, Andrew Iler and Mark Adamczyk, Professor Bleau presents a modern, critical examination of the Warren Report, demonstrating conclusively that the official record challenges, rather than supports, the Commission’s findings. This contemporary analysis further undermines the Report’s standing.

Perhaps the most scathing indictment comes from the late United States Senator Richard Schweiker, who declared, “The Warren Commission has in fact collapsed like a house of cards and I believe it was a set up at the time to feed pablum to the American people for reasons yet known, and one of the biggest cover-ups in the history of our country occurred at the time.” (JFK Revisited, p. 108)

A Tumultuous Marriage?

Thomas Mallon. “Not everybody knows (this) about Oswald, he was not a good husband… he beat Marina, this is very well documented in Pricilla McMillian’s book…”

Lee and Marina Oswald’s marriage remains a subject of intrigue and speculation. While Lee’s character has often been scrutinised, Marina’s role in their relationship is less frequently examined.

In a memorandum written in 1964, Norman Redlich reports that, “James H. Martin stated that (after the assassination) he had consciously attempted to create a public image of Marina Oswald as a simple, devoted housewife who had suffered at the hands of her husband and who was now filled with remorse for her husband’s actions and deeply grateful for the generosity and understanding of the American people… As Martin’s testimony indicates, there is a strong possibility that Marina Oswald is in fact a very different person— cold, calculating, avaricious, scornful of generosity, and capable of an extreme lack of sympathy in personal relationships. A wife who married him for selfish motives, degraded him in public (and) taunted him about his inadequacies…” (see this)

The George and Jeanne De Mohrenschildt testimonies also revel the mutual abuse the young couple would engage it.

George DeMohrenschildt.“I don’t like a woman who bitches at her husband all the time, and she did, you know. She annoyed him. She bickered. She brought the worst out in him. And she told us after they would get a fight, you know, that she was fighting also. She would scratch him also. ‘He has been beating me’, but she said, ‘I fight him back also…She was annoying him all the time ‘Why don’t you make some money?’, why don’t they have a car, why don’t they have more dresses, look at everybody else living so well, and they are just miserable flunkeys. She was annoying him all the time. Poor guy was going out of his mind. She openly said he didn’t see her physically–right in front of him. She said, ‘He sleeps with me just once a month, and I never get any satisfaction out of it.’ A rather crude and completely straightforward thing to say in front of relative strangers, as we were.” (Volume IX; p. 166-284)

Jeanne De Morenschildt.…His greatest objection was that people helped them too much, they were showering things on Marina. Marina had a hundred dresses given to her…He objected to that lavish help, because Marina was throwing it into his face. He could never give her what the people were showering on her. So that was very difficult for him, no matter how hard he worked–and he worked very hard. (Volume IX; p. 309)

The Assassination & Mrs Paine

Mrs. Paine, in a response to a question from Mr. Mallon, then highlights her displeasure at the recent documentary by researcher Max Good, The Assassination and Mrs. Paine. She states;

Ruth Paine. “What troubles me is, for instance there is this new DVD out… Mrs Paine and the murder of John F. Kennedy… I asked him, you know, what do you think, what is your opinion about the attempt on Walker and he (Max) says well I don’t think that happened. So that’s how some of the plot people, follow their stories, they just take what they want and leave the rest alone, and that is not good research.”

Thomas Mallon.“Yea, which is the way they pick and choose from the Warren Report, the different ‘facts’”.

I was interested if Max had seen this segment, so I reached out to him and asked what his thoughts were on it;

Max Good.“I think Ruth was referring in this talk to my meeting with her several months ago, which was set up and filmed by the producers of “Four Died Trying.” She did ask me my thoughts on the Walker shooting. I believe I said that I had doubts that it happened the way the official story describes. The way Ruth states it in this talk with Mallon, it sounds like I am denying that anything happened. In reality, I believe the Walker shooting was probably a staged event and that if Oswald was involved, it was as a pawn. The evidence throws all kinds of doubt on the official story, including the type of bullet not matching Oswald’s rifle and a witness seeing two suspects each leaving in separate cars. I’ve never heard Ruth discuss any of these details of the investigation. She seems to depend solely on the dubious “Walker note” and testimony of Marina, and the conclusions of the Warren Commission. It seems that she’s just as guilty of “taking what she wants and leaving the rest alone.” (Personal Correspondence) (buy the documentary here)

With the session now moving into its question-and-answer phase, Mr. Mallon assumed the role of a careful gatekeeper, sifting through and discarding the numerous inquiries presented to him. He selectively allowed only a subset of questions, primarily the less challenging ones, to be presented to Mrs. Paine. More demanding questions put forward by Dealey Plaza UK members in the audience were amongst those discarded. In this sea of generally unremarkable questions, however, there was one that emerged as notably intriguing. This question is detailed below.

Thomas Mallon. “Ruth someone asks, do you think Dallas being The City of Hate, as it was sometimes called, because there was such fierce opposition to Kennedy, do you think any of that motivated Oswald”

Ruth Paine.“No… no… no, he (Oswald) saw an opportunity on Wednesday morning, and he fired the gun on Friday.

Thomas Mallon. …And the really awful part of the journey home (from New Orleans to Dallas) was you didn’t know that one of the items, that was in the car, that he had packed, that was with everything… and one of the things in the car was the rifle.

Ruth Paine.“It has to have been.”

Thomas Mallon.“Yes.”

Ruth Paine.“There were two large Marine duffel bags, standing this high, he could have easily put a full-fledged rifle, it wouldn’t even have to have been broken down to fit in there, so yea, looking back it has to have been in there.”

In a notable deviation from recent disclosures, Mrs. Paine had testified to the Warren Commission about Oswald’s luggage and the alleged concealment of the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle within. When probed specifically about the possibility of these bags containing a long, slim object like a rifle, Mrs. Paine firmly denied noticing anything that would suggest the presence of such an item, asserting that the bags appeared to be filled with clothes and showed no signs of concealing a weapon. (Volume II; p. 462-463)

Let He Who is Without Sin, Cast the First Stone

Thomas Mallon.“He (Oswald) was not shy about asking for favours sometimes, one of the extraordinary things he did on the Saturday (November 23^rd) after the assassination, when he was in the Dallas City Jail, he called and what did he want?

Ruth Paine.“… he called and wanted me to contact a man named John Abt, who had acted as a lawyer for the American Communist Party, he gave me a phone number, this is Saturday, the day after the assassination. So, I did as he asked, rang up the phone and nobody answered, which is not really a surprise.

Thomas Mallon.“But he was still willing to be helped by you, a day after he had upended, you’re own life.”

Ruth Paine.“Oh yes”

Michael Paine was a Christian Unitarian, and Ruth came from a Quaker background. Quakerism is sometimes called the Society of Friends. Quakerism arose in England as a religion without creeds, or clergy. A religion coming from an Inner Light. Quakerism is usually attributed in America to the founding of Pennsylvania by William Penn. In addition, that state is usually considered one of the hotbeds of the American Revolution and the Bill of Rights, the latter of which is perhaps what the revolution was about. Oswald had a right to counsel, he was also supposedly granted the presumption of innocence. Therefore according to both religion and the American Creed what was so jarring about Oswald requesting Ruth to make a call for an attorney?

What makes this even worse is that neither Mallon nor Paine ever refer to how Greg Olds of the local American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was apparently bamboozled in his attempt to represent Oswald by the Dallas Police. (WC Vol. 7, pp. 322-25) But here is the capper that Mallon never asked: “Ruth were not you and your husband members of the ACLU? And did not your husband take Oswald to an ACLU meeting? And did not Oswald later join that group?” (Philip Melanson, Spy Saga, pp. 56-57) The icing on the cake would be this: the ACLU came to prominence due to the deprivation of legal rights during the Palmer Raids.

The Final Curtain

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. Aldous Huxley.

Thomas Mallon. “Fundamentally as we look back… do you think the assassination fundamentally was more of a psychological crime rather than a political crime? Meaning it grew form Oswald’s psychology more than from any ideology he picked up?”

Ruth Paine.“His life wasn’t going well at all, and he wanted to be a big shot and he was not.”

From the moment of Lee Oswald’s arrest on November 22, a narrative of presumption has shrouded him in guilt. This presumption was swiftly embraced by Dallas Police and Prosecution officials and eagerly disseminated by the media. As the soul of the nation was entrenched in grief, the martyred President’s remains were solemnly returned to Washington, and Oswald’s guilt was prematurely declared aboard Air Force One.

The Dallas officials quickly branded Oswald—a man without an attorney– as the sole assassin, casting an unjust shadow over his reputation and grossly violating that bedrock of American jurisprudence: the presumption of innocence. Yet, a crucial inquiry persists: What definitive evidence did they possess to warrant such a precipitous rush to judgment?

A critical examination of the evidence reveals a narrative fraught with inconsistencies, credibility issues with key evidence, and outright fabrications, suggesting a narrative far more complex and disturbing than Oswald’s solitary guilt. The tampering with evidence, the distortion of facts, and the neglect of judicial fairness hint at a conspiracy that does not include Lee Oswald.

The failure to conduct a comprehensive and impartial investigation into the full scope of President Kennedy’s assassination has not only failed Oswald but has veiled the truth from both the American people and the world at large.

Faced with such profound doubts, it becomes our imperative duty to challenge the oversimplified and unfounded assertions advanced by Mrs. Paine & Mr. Mallon. In the face of such overwhelming doubts, it is our fundamental duty to reject the simplified and unsupported claims of Oswald’s guilt.

“The worst form of injustice is pretended justice.” – Plato.

The full talk is on YouTube.

Go to Part 1 of 2
February 18, 2024
Our Lady of the Warren Commission: Part 1/2
“I frankly don’t like to talk to the people who think it was a conspiracy….” Ruth Paine (November 20th, 2023).

“The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.” House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA)

On November 15th, 2023, I set course for a place once dubbed the ‘city of hate’ Dallas, Texas, a city forever haunted by the specter of November 22nd, 1963. This journey was not just a traversal across the Atlantic; it was a pilgrimage borne of a reverence for President Jack Kennedy

My itinerary in the United States was bursting with pivotal events, among these seminal moments was a night imbued with historical significance at Irving’s Dupree Theater on November 20th. Attending ‘An Evening of Conversation: (with) Ruth Paine & Thomas Mallon,‘ I wanted to take an opportunity to see Mrs. Paine and delve into her narrative, all be it one entrenched in the lore of the Warren Commission Report.

The Dupree Theatre, usually pulsating with the dynamism of the arts, had metamorphosed into a solemn sanctuary of contemplation that evening –its seats filled with an eclectic mix of individuals— Warren Commission stalwarts and those who advocate for the innocence of Lee Oswald, sat side by side united by a shared reverence for history.

We had all gathered to witness Mrs. Ruth Paine, a figure whose role in the Kennedy case oscillates between acclaim and controversy. As the most frequent witness before the Warren Commission, her accounts played a significant role in condemning Oswald as the lone assassin of President Kennedy— a portrayal I find quite contestable. Her testimonies, often cited as crucial in cementing Oswald’s culpability, added layers of complexity to an already convoluted historical puzzle. As she spoke, the air brimmed with a mix of reverence and skepticism.

Right on cue and wielding a tone steeped in certainty, Mrs. Paine delivered her highly questionable condemnation of the late Lee Oswald;“It was Lee who murdered President Kennedy, and he acted alone,”she declared, her voice imbued with a conviction that brooked no opposition.

Voltaire’s words echoed in my mind, “It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.” Yet, in the Dupree Theater, Ruth Paine’s stance was unyielding, projecting Oswald’s guilt as an indisputable fact to the captivated audience.

When Mrs. Paine declared Lee Oswald guilty of assassinating President Kennedy, she entered a realm where ethics and legal principles intersect. Such public declarations, especially from those closely linked to a high-profile event, carry an inherent moral duty to provide evidence, even though not legally required. Her statements, lacking substantial corroboration, significantly influence public opinion, placing on her an implicit obligation for fairness and evidence-based assertions. Moreover, her avowed disdain for Oswald, highlighted by a remark about regretting her association with him, raises questions about her objectivity in this historical discourse.

Mr. Mallon, assuming a notably sanctimonious demeanor, then steered the discussion towards the attempted assassination of General Edwin Walker on April 10, 1963. His shift in focus, however, was not underpinned by the presentation of empirical evidence, eyewitness accounts, or ballistic analysis against Oswald. Instead, he chose to spotlight the highly contentious backyard photographs, just then projected onto the overhead screen.

Thomas Mallon. Something which helps to explain the Assassination of The President and that was Oswald’s attempt in April of 63, to shoot General Edwin Walker… This is Oswald in the backyard of the house on Neely Street in Dallas, holding a rifle and a copy of the Daily Worker and he has got his pistol at his waist. Marina took these photographs in the backyard in Neely Street, I think on March 31^st 1963. About 10 days later, he used that rifle, which was the same rifle he would kill the President with, to shoot at General Walker”.

Mr. Mallon, I must press upon a critical point: How do you reconcile the significant leap in logic required to use photographs, taken weeks before the attempt on General Walker’s life and months prior to President Kennedy’s assassination, as conclusive or even suggestive evidence of Oswald’s involvement in both crimes? These photographs, temporally distant from the events in question, seem to offer scant connection to the actual incidents. Could you elucidate how such a substantial leap in deductive reasoning is justified in this case, especially in the absence of more direct, contemporaneous evidence?

Marina Oswald, A Credible or Compromised Witness?

The issue of Marina Oswald’s credibility is not only discussed in depth in my series, ‘Assassination 60’’, but is also a well-acknowledged concern among experts on the case. Freda Scobey, a lawyer on the staff of Warren Commission dissenter Richard Russell, was one of the first to highlight the inconsistencies and contradictions in Marina’s testimonies, casting serious doubt on her reliability as a witness. Scobey’s observations underscore the problematic nature of using Marina’s testimony as a reliable source. (see this)

Moreover, as highlighted by my compatriot, Scott Reid, an expert on the Walker shooting, in his critical article ‘Oswald and the Shot at Walker:Redressing the Balance,’ zealous prosecutor, Norman Redlich, voiced similar reservations regarding Marina in a 1964 memorandum. He specifically addressed Marina’s pattern of deception: ‘Marina Oswald has repeatedly lied to the (Secret) Service, the FBI, and this Commission on matters which are of vital concern to the people of this country and the world… (Marina) may not have told the truth in connection with the attempt on General Walker.’ (see this)

Fellow commission counsel, J. Lee Rankin also voiced similar concerns to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, stating; “Marina’s testimony on the Walker shooting to the FBI and Secret Service was giving the Commission lawyers fits because it was riddled with contradictions.” Marina’s statements, Rankin complained, “Just don’t jibe.” (Gerald McKnight, Breach of Trust; p. 57)

And for those still harboring any skepticism, I earnestly encourage delving into the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) 29-page report, “Marina Oswald-Porter, Statements of a Contradictory Nature.” This segment offers a thorough exploration of the discrepancies within her testimonies. It diligently documents the divergences in her narratives across different aspects of the case, presenting a compelling study of inconsistency. (see this)

Taken together, these factors paint a picture of a witness whose credibility has been seriously compromised. As such, the reliance on Marina’s testimony by Mr. Mallon to link Oswald to the Walker case becomes a weak foundation for his argument, raising profound questions about its overall validity.

Oswald Denies the Backyard Photographs

According to the report by Captain Will Fritz, chief of the Homicide & Robbery Division, regarding the interrogation of Lee Harvey Oswald, Oswald himself contested the authenticity of the Neely Street photographs. Fritz’s account reveals that Oswald denounced the backyard photographs as sophisticated forgeries. He reported that Oswald claimed: “I again asked him about his property and where his things might be kept, and he told me about the things at Mrs. Paine’s residence and a few things on Beckley…I showed Oswald an enlarged picture of him holding a rifle and wearing a pistol. This picture had been enlarged by our Crime Lab from a picture found in the garage at Mrs. Paine’s home. He said the picture was not his, that the face was his face, but that this picture had been made by someone superimposing his face, the other part of the picture was not him at all and that he had never seen the picture before. When I told him that the picture was recovered from Mrs. Paine’s garage, he said that the picture had never been in his possession… He denied ever seeing that picture and said that he knew all about photography, that he had done a lot of work on photography himself… and (that it) had been made by some person unknown to him. He told me that he understood photography real well, and that in time, he would be able to show that it was not his picture, and that it had been made by someone else”. (WCR; p. 607-609)

The Legal Considerations of the Backyard Photographs

“As far as I know, according to the local laws here, a wife cannot be a witness against her husband”, Marina Oswald. (Volume I; p.18)

As I also highlighted in ‘Assassination 60’, the question of whether Marina Oswald could have legally testified against Lee raises interesting forensic considerations for the case. Under Texas law, spouses are generally permitted to serve as witnesses for each other in criminal cases. However, a crucial exception exists they cannot testify against each other unless one spouse is being prosecuted for an offense committed against the other. In the context of Oswald’s hypothetical trial, Marina’s testimony would have been excluded based on this spousal privilege. This means that the controversial backyard photographs, which were allegedly linked to Lee, could not have been admitted into evidence to be used against him. This is because Marina’s testimony, which was the sole source of corroboration for the photographs, would have been inadmissible due to the spousal privilege.

A Tribute to Priscilla

“…Priscilla Johnston [sic] … also had contact with Oswald in Russia. [Priscilla was] formerly [a] State Department employee at the American Embassy and [her] contact with Oswald was official business.” (FBI Memo, November 23^rd 1963.)

Thomas Mallon. “Ruth, could you speak, to why you think this (Walker shooting) is so key to understanding the assassination?”

Ruth Paine. “It certainly is.”

At this, Mrs. Paine paid tribute to Priscilla Johnson McMillan, symbolized by a folder in her possession. Addressing the audience, Mrs. Paine conveyed, “That she (Priscilla) described it (the attempt on Edwin Walker) as the Rosetta Stone to understand the attempt on the President (Kennedy), (Oswald’s) trying to kill the President. That knowing what was going on in his mind and how he plotted and did all the preparation for trying to shoot General Walker. Said so much about his personality, his sense of being, not recognized and that he wanted to have notoriety.”

During the tribute, an image of Mrs. Johnson-McMillan suddenly appeared on the screen. Just then, my phone vibrated with a message. Neale Safety, the secretary of Dealey Plaza UK, had sent a message to the DPUK WhatsApp group. It read “Michael, Priscilla & Ruth at a CIA BBQ…” This one liner had undoubtedly become the highlight of the evening.

For those interested in learning more about Mrs. Johnson, I strongly recommend the insightful series ‘Priscilla and Lee; Before and After the Assassination,’ authored by Peter R. Whitmey. (see this)

The Oswald Paradox: Seeking Fame or Framed by Fate?

Mrs. Paine & Mr. Mallon’s narrative is a rehash of the weary, well-worn trope that the Warren Commission clung to in their attempts to explain Oswald’s hypothetical motives in the assassination of President Kennedy. As I dissected in ‘Assassination 60’, this theory buckles under the weight of its own contradictions. If Oswald was indeed driven by a deep-seated craving for notoriety, a thirst to bask in the infamy of such a heinous act, then why did he vehemently and persistently proclaim his innocence during his harrowing detention at the hands of the Dallas Police? His resolute denials, voiced with an unwavering firmness even in the face of grave accusations, starkly undercut the narrative that he was a man hungry for the dark spotlight of historical infamy. This incongruity casts a long shadow of doubt over the simplistic explanation offered by the Warren Commission and echoed by Mrs.Paine & Mr. Mallon, challenging us to look beyond the surface in our quest for truth.

Pleading Innocence: The Forgotten Voice of Lee Oswald

Reporter. “Did you shoot the President?”
Lee Oswald. “I didn’t shoot anybody, no sir.”

Reporter. “Oswald did you shoot the President?”
Lee Oswald. “I didn’t shoot anybody sir I haven’t been told what I am here for.”

Reporter. “Kill the President?”
Lee Oswald. “No sir I didn’t. People keep asking me that.”

Reporter. “Did you kill the President?”
Lee Oswald. “No, I have not been charged with that in fact no one has said that to me yet. The first thing I heard about it was when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that question.”

Lee Oswald. “I don’t know what dispatches you people have been given but I emphatically deny these charges… I have not committed any acts of violence.” (see this)

Oswald’s Last Defense: Proclaiming Innocence Against History

On November 24, 1963, in the dim, oppressive confines of the City Hall basement, a critically wounded Lee Harvey Oswald lay in a dire state. Surrounded by the urgency and chaos of the moment, his life precariously hanging by a thread, a profound silence enveloped him. Officer B.H. Combest of the Dallas Police Department, amidst the turmoil, sought to extract a final confession or declaration from Oswald, particularly about the assassination of President Kennedy. This was Oswald’s moment, if ever there was one, to claim the notoriety that some believed motivated him. Yet, in this charged atmosphere, where each second could have been his last, Oswald chose silence. He uttered no words of confession, no statements of guilt or pride; he merely shook his head in response to direct prompts. This silence, in such a critical juncture, resonated with a powerful implication of innocence. It stood in stark contrast to the allegations that he sought fame through infamy. Oswald’s refusal to embrace a narrative of notoriety in these final, fleeting moments, where a single word could have immortalized him in infamy, spoke more emphatically than any verbal declaration could. His silence in the face of death, under the weight of such grave accusations, became his most resounding and final testament to his claim of innocence. (Volume XII; p. 176-186)

Mrs Paine: On what firm bedrock of evidence do you anchor your assertion that Oswald was propelled by a voracious yearning for infamy and fame? This supposition appears to starkly contrast with the profound narrative woven by his actions, most notably his resolute silence in the face of imminent mortality.

This pivotal silence speaks volumes, challenging the notion of his supposed thirst for recognition.

As Mrs. Paine’s trenchant condemnations of Oswald continued, they resonated powerfully with the audience, evident in the synchronized nods of her supporters, symbolizing a shared conviction. She complained; “I seem to think that the shooting of Walker is absolutely crucial to understand what was going on with Oswald and what happened… not enough has been said about it!”This crescendo of influence reached its zenith when she directed a leading question to the assembled crowd, skillfully crafted to further cast Oswald in the role of the guilty. Her inquiry, loaded with implication and designed to sway opinion, hung heavily in the air, compelling the audience to view the situation through her lens of accusation; “How many of you know that Oswald, and most of you should because you are here, but how many of you ‘know’ that Oswald tried to kill Edwin Walker in April” (1963).

In a choreographed motion, her hand ascended first, soon echoed by a sea of hands in the crowd. Recognizing this solidarity, Mrs. Paine responded with a mix of satisfaction and camaraderie, remarking, “There you go, good crowd, “laughing as her supporters returned the favor. I would call it kind of a dull crowd. It was hard to comprehend that no one asked the obvious question:

Why would Oswald try to kill a right-wing fascist like Walker and then shoot the most liberal president since FDR? I mean, you must know Ruth that Kennedy sent in troops to put down a riot over integration at Ole Miss staged by Walker in 1962? You do know that don’t you? And you also must know that Kennedy retired Walker from the service for distributing John Birch Society material to his troops?

Absent one sentient person, the dog and pony show continued.

Thomas Mallon.“How did it finally come to light that he had shot Walker?”

Ruth Paine.“ When he went out to try and shoot Walker, he wrote a note for Marina… it started out here is the key to the post office box, if I am arrested here is where the police station is and of course she was frightened, terrified as she didn’t know what to do, who to tell… so she (Marina) tried to threaten him, I am going to hide this and if you ever do anything crazy like this I will go to the police with it, but it didn’t work. The amount of preparation that he did, for trying to shoot Walker, is in no way mimicked in the preparation he did before shooting Kennedy, because that was an impulse. He was working on a place that turned out to be on the parade route, with the car going by. He learned that when he was at work on Wednesday (November 20^th) called and came and got right out to my house, he had never come out on a weekday, he had never come out before asking permission, this was very different… He came out to get his rifle which was hidden in my garage, which I did not know. Got it and went in and shot the President as we ‘know’. It was a little bit later that the note came to light.

Thomas Mallon.“How did the note reach her?”

Ruth Paine.“…I sent the book to Marina (which contained the note). Of course, what is the first thing a Secret Service man going to do when he sees a book? See what falls out, and out came this note. She was confronted with this note and had to explain that it was the note he wrote when he went out to try and shoot Walker. If that note had not been found then I don’t think that we would ever have found out, because she was not going to tell”.

The Walker Note

“Did it seem strange to you at the time, Marina, that Lee did make these careful plans, take pictures, and write it up in a notebook, and then when he went out to shoot at General Walker, he left all that incriminating evidence right in the house so that if he had ever been stopped and questioned and if that notebook had been found, it would have clearly indicated that he was the one that shot at General Walker?” Wesley Liebeler.

If Exhibit A in the case against Lee Oswald—anchored by Mrs. Paine and Mr. Mallon’s account of the attempt on General Walker—draws heavily from Marina Oswald’s testimony, then Exhibit B is undoubtedly the infamous ‘Note,’ which surfaced, via Mrs. Paine, only after Oswald’s death. This ‘Note,’ has become a cornerstone of controversy. Its posthumous discovery raises pressing questions: What does the ‘Note’ truly prove? At the heart of this debate, several critical concerns undermine the ‘Note’s’ validity and its connection to Oswald:
1. Absence of Mention of General Edwin Walker: The note’s content does not reference General Edwin Walker, which is a significant omission if it was intended to be related to the assassination attempt on him. This raises questions about the note’s intended purpose and relevance to that specific incident.
2. Lack of Signature and Date: The note’s anonymity and lack of a temporal marker further cloud its authenticity. An unsigned and undated note lacks the definitive characteristics necessary to firmly tie it to a specific individual or time frame, undermining its credibility as a piece of evidence.
3. Fingerprint Analysis Results: The FBI’s analysis revealed that none of the seven latent prints found on the note matched Lee Harvey Oswald or Marina Oswald. This forensic evidence is crucial as it directly challenges the assumption that Oswald had physical contact with the note, casting serious doubts on its connection to him.View Source
4. Secret Service Inquiry into Mrs. Paine’s Possible Involvement: Mr. Gopadze of the Secret Service accosted Mrs. Paine over the “Walker note” suspecting her potential role in its creation. “
5. Expert Consensus on the ‘Walker’ Note’s Authenticity: The House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) consulted three experts to assess the authenticity of the ‘Walker’ note. Notably, there was no majority consensus that the note was written by Lee Harvey Oswald. This raises serious doubts about the note’s legitimacy and its alleged connection to Oswald.View Source
6. Oversight in Dallas Police Search: Despite an extensive search of the Paine residence on November 22-23, 1963, specifically aimed at uncovering evidence that could incriminate Lee Oswald, the Dallas Police failed to uncover the ‘Walker’ note. This oversight is particularly striking given Ruth Paine’s testimony indicating the thoroughness of the search. The fact that such a potentially incriminating item eluded the police during their detailed search adds a layer of mystery to the case and raises questions about the note’s whereabouts during this critical period.
  Ruth Paine:“I was just preparing to go to the grocery store when several officers arrived again from the Dallas Police Office and asked if they could search…and held up their warrant and I said, yes, they could search. They said they were looking for something specific… Before I left, they were leafing through books to see if anything fell out but that is all I saw… “(WC Volume III; p. 86-87)
  
  th, 2023, and Mrs. Paine stated that the note was contained within “a little book we had, a small book of advice to Russian mothers. It happened to be in the kitchen where we were reading, which made it different from the things in the garage… but they didn’t get that note because it was in my kitchen.”
  
  Considering your statement, Mrs. Paine, that the note was hidden “inside a little book of advice to Russian mothers’”in your kitchen – a location and item distinct from those in the garage – several deeply perplexing and troubling questions arise.
  
  Firstly, if this book was indeed in regular use by Marina in the days or weeks prior to the President’s assassination, it seems utterly baffling that neither of you noticed a note concealed within its pages? This oversight becomes even more confounding when considering the ease with which the Secret Service later discovered it. How is it possible that this note remained undetected in a book that was actively being used?
  
  Secondly this is 1960’s Texas, this period was marked by intense suspicion towards anything remotely associated with communism or the Soviet Union, it stretches credibility to suggest that a book intended for Russian mothers would go undetected by Texas police officers during a property search. My own visit to the property at 2515 W Fifth Street, in November 2023, offered insightful perspectives on this matter. As I toured the house, I found that the garage could be accessed directly from the kitchen/dining area, a detail clearly illustrated in the floor plan I have referenced above. This observation becomes critical when considering Mrs. Paine’s own admission of having given the police unfettered access to search her home in her absence, thus leaving them unsupervised. Given this level of access, and the fact that the garage is directly connected to a central living area of the house, the suggestion that their search would exclude the kitchen, and by extension, overlook a culturally and politically charged item like the book, seems strained. (see this)
7. Marina Oswald’s Initial Disavowal of Knowledge: In a striking turn of initial testimony, Marina Oswald professed complete ignorance regarding the existence of the ‘Walker’ note. This initial declaration of ignorance is pivotal, casting a veil of doubt over her subsequent revelations and the evolution of her narrative. View Source
8. Evidence Destroyed? The scenario as detailed in Marina Oswald’s testimony regarding the Walker shooting incident indeed unravels into a web of paradoxes and inconsistencies. Her claim that she urged Oswald to destroy a notebook, rich with intricate details of the attack on General Walker, stands in stark contrast to their apparent preservation of the ‘Walker’ note. This dichotomy is not just perplexing but contradictory. If Oswald, as suggested by Marina, felt compelled to incinerate the notebook due to its incriminating nature, it is logical to assume that similar caution would extend to all related materials, including the ‘Walker’ note, pictures of Walkers home found in the Paine garage and the notorious Neely Street photographs. The decision to eradicate one potential piece of evidence while seemingly safeguarding others defies logical reasoning and casts a shadow over their approach to handling such sensitive materials.
Marina Oswald. “I was so afraid after this attempt on Walker’s life that the police might come to the house. I was afraid that there would be evidence in the house such as this book… I told him that it is best not to have this kind of stuff in the house…I suggested to him that it would be awfully bad to keep a thing like that in the house.” (Volume XI; p.293-294)

The scenario presented by Marina Oswald’s testimony regarding the Walker shooting incident is fraught with paradoxes and inconsistencies. It is indeed paradoxical that while she claimed to have urged Oswald to destroy a notebook detailing plans for the attack on General Walker – an act acknowledging the danger of retaining incriminating evidence – she seemingly allowed the ‘Walker’ note to remain in their possession. This contradiction is puzzling. If Oswald took the drastic step to burn a notebook for fear of its incriminating nature, logic would dictate that all related materials, such as the ‘Walker’ note, the infamous backyard photographs, and the photographs of Walkers property would also be destroyed to eliminate any trace of involvement.

This inconsistency in the handling of evidence is succinctly highlighted by Wesley Liebeler’s poignant question:’If Oswald was guilty in the Walker shooting, why would Oswald keep the photos and the note around for almost eight months?’

Go to Part 2 of 2
February 18, 2024
Oswald in Japan: How the CIA Deceived Congress
[Fig. 1]
The House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) reinvestigated the murders of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King (Credit: U.S. Congress)

The excellent Solving JFK podcast, hosted by Matt Crumpton, reminds us of a thought-provoking anomaly. The 1964 final report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy (the “Warren Commission”) says that during his service as a Marine in the Far East, Lee Harvey Oswald, accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, was in Taiwan from Sept. 30, 1958, but returned to Atsugi, Japan, by Oct. 5. The Warren Report does not say what Oswald was doing in Taiwan, but the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which reinvestigated the JFK and Martin Luther King murders in 1976-79, concluded that Oswald never visited Taiwan at all.

The Solving JFK episode can be heard here.

This astonishing discrepancy in the official record is another arrow in the quiver of those entertaining the irrepressible theory of the “Two Oswalds.” That thesis essentially holds that there were two men who not only bore an uncanny resemblance to each other but also went by the same identity as a matter of official record in furtherance of an intelligence operation that desperately needed to be suppressed after the assassination.

The incongruity also, incidentally, strengthens the widespread and more general conviction that agencies controlling information on Oswald, whether the CIA, FBI, military intelligence services or others, repeatedly deceived official investigators. Although the HSCA at least concluded that JFK was “probably” murdered “as a result of a conspiracy,” its inquiry proved to be a “damp squib” overall. It is no longer controversial to assert that the CIA deliberately diverted and stonewalled the HSCA. One area in which CIA deception appears especially vigorous is Oswald’s time in Japan, a chapter that remains an information “black hole,” to paraphrase John Newman, author of JFK and Vietnam (2017) and Oswald and the CIA (2008). The Taiwan episode is just one example.

This “black hole” has exacerbated suspicions of Oswald’s ties to U.S. intelligence in Japan, as alleged by a former CIA employee based in the Tokyo Station at the time of the assassination. Such connections have never been proven, but in light of the CIA’s obvious deception of the HSCA about Oswald in other areas, especially New Orleans and Mexico City, Agency trickery on Oswald in Japan is also worth studying. JFK researchers of integrity are convinced that the CIA is still concealing the extent of its ties to Oswald, and these links may very well go back to his time in Japan — or even earlier.

The House of Representatives Inquiry

On June 12, 1978, a document handwritten by HSCA investigator Harold Leap was forwarded within the CIA. Fully declassified on Aug. 24, 2023, it summarizes Leap’s interviews of 12 employees of the CIA’s Tokyo Station pursuant to “critic publications and specific allegations by former CIA employee James Wilcott that LHO was a CIA agent.” Wilcott had stated in a closed-door HSCA session that “a CIA case officer stationed in Tokyo, Japan, told him that LHO was a CIA agent and also mentioned LHO’s cryptonym.”

The 71-page document that includes Wilcott’s HSCA testimony and related material refers to an unspecified “Oswald project” requiring disbursements of funds, and to Atsugi as “a plush super-secret cover base for Tokyo Station [i.e., CIA] special operations.” Wilcott, a CIA finance officer, testified that the conversation occurred “in the Tokyo Station shortly after the word of the JFK assassination was received on 23 Nov 1963.” Although Wilcott “could not recall the name of the case officer or the cryptonym,” he said that “considerable conversation took place among CIA employees at the time concerning the Oswald-CIA agent issue.” All 12 interviewees were asked whether they had come across any indication that Oswald was an intelligence agent. All said no.

The interview notes appear in summarized form for all officers but one, William Crawford, the CIA’s deputy chief of station in Tokyo from March 1959 to October 1960. In fact, all interview subjects are identified as having worked in the station in the period from 1959 through 1964, presumably to account for any CIA employees who were working in the Tokyo Station when Wilcott was, and whom Wilcott might thus have overhead. Yet Oswald was based in Japan from September 1957 to November 1958, and it is striking that no one but Crawford is identified as having served there during that period too.

Crawford is listed in another CIA document as “acting executive officer” of “Detachment C” when Oswald was serving at the Atsugi Naval Air Station. Detachment C was the CIA unit deployed to Atsugi to operate the U-2 spy plane program, which conducted surveillance missions over Communist China and the Soviet Union. But Crawford was not among the 18 CIA personnel that Wilcott recommended for interview by the HSCA. Even Detachment C’s actual executive officer for the relevant period, Werner Weiss, was not interviewed, despite the fact that he was alive and well in 1978.

[Fig. 2]

In all, Leap only interviewed four out of Wilcott’s 18 recommendations. Wilcott obviously provided the names of these 18 people because he knew they were working in the Tokyo Station when he (Wilcott) was, but, again, of the four employees that the CIA made available to the HSCA for interviews, nothing indicates that any of them were even in Japan when Oswald was. No explanation is given for this, even though, of the 14 people on Wilcott’s list who were never interviewed by Leap, most were actually serving in Japan during the time Oswald was at Atsugi. Why were they left out of the interviews?

Leap’s notes from his interview of Crawford say that the subject “didn’t know [Lee Harvey Oswald] and never heard the name until after the assassination.” The only reason Oswald was connected to the U-2 program (and thus the CIA) at all, Crawford said, was that “the CIA at Atsugi did not have their own radio-radar facilities,” so the U-2 planes “utilized the naval base communications only for take-off and landing clearance.”

Crawford did note that the “CIA recruited personnel for the program from the military service,” however, and “[a]ll program employees were paid by CIA.” He also outlined the system for U-2 personnel resigning from and returning to regular military service. [Note: As Oswald’s tax returns are still withheld in full from the public, we can’t know whether an intelligence agency paid JFK’s accused assassin during his time at Atsugi.]

[Fig. 3]
Aerial view of Atsugi Naval Air Station as it appeared in 1988 (Credit: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan/Public Domain)

CIA Sleight of Hand

The CIA apparently composed an undated document entitled, simply, “LIST OF AGENCY EMPLOYEES,” in preparation for the HSCA’s 1978 investigation. A table featuring several operatives includes operations officers, and four names — Jerome Fox, William V. Broe, Frederick C. Randall, Robert P. Wheeler — are recognizable from the Leap write-up.

However, others — notably Japanese-American CIA officers — are included in the still-redacted file and were in the Tokyo Station in the years 1957 and 1958. The most recent declassified version (June 27, 2023) retains redactions in the “Security Posture” column for Chester H. Ito, a CIA operations officer in the Tokyo Station for more than 20 years. Since Ito died in 1999, the Agency is concealing the profile of an employee who died a quarter-century ago but likely worked at Atsugi when Oswald was based there.

A conspicuous redaction in the CIA’s “LIST OF AGENCY EMPLOYEES” is the name of Number 6, whose security posture suggests a possible Soviet connection:

Former Department of Army employee in Japan picked up as contract employee. Poly revealed unresolved issues regarding Communist contacts and/or associations.

[Fig. 4]

Although the name is redacted, it is in the same position in the table as “Robert S. Hashima” in Wilcott’s list of 18 recommendations, and Hashima appears in other documents composed in preparation for the HSCA’s investigation. In his “executive session” testimony to the HSCA, Wilcott describes Hashima as a “deep commercial cover agent,” and elsewhere as a representative of “Fuji Shoji Co. Ltd.” Under or alongside Hashima’s name in CIA documents, regarding whether he should be made available to HSCA investigators, there is simply an unexplained (yet familiar) notation: “Disregard.”

Yet the most remarkable aspect of the case is this: the HSCA understood the importance of investigating the years 1957-1958 in connection with Oswald. HSCA Chief Counsel G. Robert Blakey, in a letter dated April 26, 1978, requested that the CIA make available for interview the “chief officers and deputy chief officers of the CIA base at Atsugi, Japan from 1956 to 1960.” These years encompassed Oswald’s time in Japan.

[Fig. 5]

This line of inquiry mysteriously fizzled. On the next day’s routing and records sheet, a handwritten note by Norbert Shepanek of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations says:

I do not know if there were any DDO officers at Atsugi 56-60. [Deputy Directorate of Science & Technology] is answering separately. Negative reply requested. Shep

Following this, in a handwritten note on an official routing slip dated (apparently) May 2, 1978, S&T officer Carroll Hauver (later CIA Inspector General) disseminates the falsehood that Atsugi was just a “support base staffed by support personnel” during 1956-60. That seems to have shut the inquiry down, yet as anyone who has looked into this subject in any depth knows very well, Atsugi was far more than just a “support base.”

The Biggest CIA Base in the Far East

While Oswald was based at Atsugi, the CIA’s “Joint Technical Advisory Group” (JTAG), whose activities remain obscure to this day, was located at the naval air station. Oswald was a radar operator and performed sentry duty at the U-2 hangar, but he also lived and worked in close proximity to JTAG, which encompassed more than the U-2 facility. As early as 1964, the CIA’s deputy director of plans, Richard Helms, had described the CIA’s Atsugi facilities — in particular JTAG — to the Warren Commission more extensively as

consisting of 20 to 25 individual residences, two dormitories, an office area, a power plant, several Butler-type warehouses, and a club building used for recreation and a bachelor officers’ mess.

The Warren Report avoided mention of either JTAG or Detachment C, never interviewing anyone about either. Helms, the No. 3 man at CIA, admitted 60 years ago that a specific CIA program (the U-2) operated from Atsugi while Oswald was there, but that was all.

Still, even this was more than the CIA told the HSCA.

In his book, The Missing Chapter: Lee Harvey Oswald in the Far East, Jack Swike — a former Marine Corps security officer at Atsugi — explains that JTAG was set up in 1950, employed “[a]bout 1,000 people” and occupied “50 acres of the Atsugi base.” Originally devoted to training clandestine agents infiltrating enemy areas during the Korean War, it served — according to Swike’s Marine Corps intelligence source — as a base where “weapons were flown in from hostile areas and were tested.”

Researcher Dick Russell, in The Man Who Knew Too Much, refers to JTAG as “the CIA’s main operational base in the Far East” and quotes L. Fletcher Prouty, former chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Kennedy administration:

“I went into Atsugi just as World War II ended, taking some of MacArthur’s bodyguard in there. A monstrous stairway went down into caverns, you could drive a truck into it. A huge underground base. The agency used it for a lot of things.”

[Fig. 6]
Left: Tunnel under the Atsugi base (1950s), reproduced by Jack Swike in The Missing Chapter: Lee Harvey Oswald in the Far East (Credit: USMC); Right: Photo of Oswald (doctored around head and shoulders), possibly in Atsugi, 1958 (Credit: Unknown)

In 1983, Jack Swike sued the CIA for information about JTAG but lost the case.

“I believe that the U.S. Department of Defense did not want any investigations conducted into military matters in Atsugi in the late 1950s because the Marine Corps Nuclear Weapons Assembly team was located in MAG-11. Thus, the U-2 Spy Plane was not the top-secret program on the base.” ~ Maj. Jack R. Swike, USMC

In other words, according to Swike, in 1957-58 Oswald’s unit (MAG-11) had a more sensitive purpose than the U-2, a program the Soviets already knew about anyway. Moreover, the CIA itself consistently downplayed the significance of the U-2 in Japan. An internal report titled “EIDER CHESS” (codename for the U-2 program), “Subject: DDS&T Interim Reply to HSCA Request, 8 May 78,” gives “General Background” on Detachment C, noting that Atsugi was not the usual departure point for U-2 missions over Russia:

The first overflight of the USSR from Atsugi occurred on 1 March 1958 and this flight was the only and last flight. This flight, as other previous flights by other Detachments, was tracked by Russian radar…

This seems to have ended the U-2 matter for the HSCA, though it shouldn’t have. Even if the U-2 made only one surveillance flight over the USSR directly from Atsugi, Oswald was serving there at that time. If Oswald’s defection to the USSR was part of a U.S. espionage operation to deceive the Soviet enemy, this detail would have served the scheme.

As early as Apr. 13, 1978, a routing and record sheet from the CIA’s Office of Legislative Counsel (OLC), released in full on Dec. 15, 2022, reflects that the HSCA had inquired about at least one CIA resident of the Tokyo station during Oswald’s time in Japan. The request from the OLC’s Rodger Gabrielson to the Directorate of Operations (DO) reads:

Harold Leap, HSCA staff, wants the name of COS [Chief of Station] Tokyo Station for the years 1957 and 1958 to close the loop on his inquiry as to whether Tokyo Station had any relationship with Oswald when he was in Japan.

Shepanek of the DO gives a handwritten answer: “The COS Tokyo for the years 1957-58 was: Mr. John Baker. Mr. Baker died in 1964.”

Leap’s handwritten document also contains anonymous entries in different handwriting. At the end of Leap’s notes from the Crawford interview, someone has written:

“Harold: Can you add the following statement?”

Crawford said that had LHO been associated with the Atsugi CIA Station, he, as exec officer, would’ve known about it.” (A crossed-out note after this is still legible: “However he would not been aware of his exsistence.”)

Doubts as to how forthright the CIA was about Oswald’s exposure to U.S. intelligence operations in Japan are compounded by these facts:
1. None of Leap’s interviewees began working at the CIA’s Tokyo Station until after Oswald had returned to the U.S., even according to the CIA’s own records; and
2. None of them discuss or are asked about the substantial JTAG complex.
The episode looks like another instance of CIA diversion of investigators, similar to the CIA’s assignment of former clandestine operations officer George Joannides as its liaison to the HSCA, in violation of the Agency’s agreement with Congress.

Soviet Connections

[Fig. 7]
U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps chart for Soviet recruitment of Japanese prisoners of war as agents in the early 1950s (Credit: 441st CIC Detachment). The 441st CIC Detachment was the unit of Richard Case Nagell, discussed below.

Some of Leap’s interviewees said they thought Soviet intelligence might have recruited Oswald because “the CIA station in Tokyo had identified a KGB program specifically designed to recruit U.S. military personnel in Tokyo.” Japan was a venue for active recruitment of U.S. servicemen by Soviet intelligence, and Soviet engagement of American base personnel likely had in mind operations far more sensitive than the U-2 when Oswald was at Atsugi. The still-mysterious JTAG closed in December 1960 (more than six months after the U-2 program folded in Japan), but a highly secret, heavily guarded nuclear weapons assembly center known as “METO” was also on the base.

Swike writes that, “Lee Harvey Oswald saw some activities in the METO area,” and when Oswald told U.S. consul Richard Snyder in Moscow on Oct. 31, 1959, that he knew “something of special interest,” he was “probably referring to the METO Site.”

[T]he belief was that he had information about the U-2 Spy Plane, which was not the most important item in Atsugi at the time. The Russians were well aware of the U-2s in Atsugi, and were seeking other information. Oswald probably gave them some clues about U.S. nuclear intelligence.

Knowing that Soviet intelligence in Japan was interested in cultivating agents among U.S. military and intelligence personnel, the CIA would, it is reasonable to conclude, have employed double agents to trick its Soviet counterpart there. In the CIA’s LIST OF AGENCY EMPLOYEES document, the notation in the “Security Posture” column for the CIA employee with the redacted name (presumably Robert S. Hashima) of “unresolved issues regarding Communist contacts and/or associations” is reminiscent of the story of a better known, self-described U.S.-Soviet double agent in Japan, Richard Case Nagell.

As is now well known, ex-U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) officer Richard Nagell was arrested in El Paso, Texas, on Sept. 20, 1963, and later claimed to have orchestrated his own arrest to ensure he was in U.S. custody when JFK was assassinated. In fact, while it is not known whether Nagell ever submitted to a polygraph, and the years for the redacted employee (1953-1954) do not coincide with Nagell’s time in Japan, the rest of the description coincides almost exactly with Nagell’s account of himself.

In the above-mentioned The Man Who Knew Too Much by Dick Russell, whose research forms the backbone of the recent Who Killed JFK? podcast series, Nagell described himself as a former Department of the Army employee when explaining the nature of the Foreign Operations Intelligence (FOI) agency for which he worked:

“On paper, FOI was subordinate and operationally responsible to the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Department of the Army. In function, however, FOI was merely an augmentation to CIA special (military) operations, in effect a covert extension of CIA policy and activity designed to conceal the true nature of CIA objectives.” (p. 50)

This would have qualified Nagell, like Hashima, as a “contract employee” of the CIA, and the “unresolved issues regarding Communist contacts and/or associations” square with Nagell’s description of himself as a U.S.-Soviet double agent working for the CIA. “Robert S. Hashima,” or whoever is redacted in the CIA document, was very likely one of the double agents the CIA used to interact with and infiltrate Soviet intelligence in Japan in the 1950s and 1960s. He may very well have interacted with Oswald in that capacity as well, and may thus have talked about Oswald in front of Wilcott in the Tokyo Station.

Nagell was never called before the HSCA in spite of his claim to have alerted the FBI from jail about Oswald and an assassination plot against JFK. Nagell claimed to have known Oswald in Japan and to have attempted to persuade the Soviet military attaché in Tokyo to defect in place. Nagell said he had met Oswald in New Orleans and Mexico City, and that he had warned the ex-defector about associating with Cuban exiles.

Suspicion of Oswald’s double-agent status endures. His “double agent” activity in New Orleans consisted of first posing as a sympathizer with anti-Castro Cubans of the CIA-funded Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE), offering to train them for attacks against their Communist homeland, then posing as a Castro sympathizer and Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) supporter, getting in the faces of the DRE members on camera as he passed out FPCC leaflets to passers-by on the street.

Nagell, when he was arrested, had a mimeographed FPCC newsletter addressed to him in his possession and FPCC contact data in his notebook. He refused to explain to Russell the extent of his own FPCC ties, but parallels with Oswald are unmistakable. One of three versions Nagell gave for orchestrating his own arrest in El Paso was to avoid becoming a patsy for the JFK assassination. In 1995, Nagell was found dead in his home at age 65, a day after the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) had summoned him to testify.

[Fig. 8]
Left: Richard Case Nagell, Bronze Star and 3-time Purple Heart recipient (Credit: U.S. Army); Center: Nagell under arrest in El Paso (Credit: El Paso Herald-Post); Right: Oswald under arrest in Dallas (Credit: The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza)

Special Treatment for a Lowly Private

According to the Harold Leap interview document,

All the subjects worked within the SR [Soviet Russia] Branch of the Tokyo Station and theoretically one of them would have handled or had knowledge of the recruitment. All thought if Oswald [had] been recruited without their knowledge it would have been a rare exception to the working policy and guidelines of the station.

Unfortunately, all of these “subjects” appear irrelevant as far as Oswald’s time in Japan is concerned. The CIA was no doubt very happy to keep it that way. But one thing is unquestionably correct about the above statement. From the circumstances of his defection to the USSR, to the inexplicably late opening of his 201 file under an erroneous name in the CIA’s Office of Security, to the lack of any proper debriefing of him after his arrival back in the US in June 1962 (unlike contemporary US defector Robert Webster, debriefed for over two weeks on his return), and the CIA’s close surveillance of him right up until the assassination itself, Lee Harvey Oswald remains a “rare exception” indeed.

Omission from the HSCA’s investigation of CIA personnel active in Japan during Oswald’s time there — as the CIA’s own files show — is inexplicable for a serious investigation. The witnesses that the CIA made available to the HSCA were mostly irrelevant to James Wilcott’s allegations, yet the HSCA mysteriously never followed up. The author of the LIST OF AGENCY EMPLOYEES document is unknown, but the style resembles that used by George Joannides, the CIA officer assigned to stonewall HSCA investigators, as evidenced by another tabular document known to have been his work.

[Fig. 9]
Excerpt from a 248-page document prepared by George Joannides in preparation for the HSCA investigation, dated July 24, 1978

Whether the HSCA was complicit in its own hoodwinking, the CIA successfully protected its information “black hole” around Oswald in Japan before congressional truth-seekers in 1978. Today, with its “Transparency Plan” for JFK files approved by President Biden in December 2022, the CIA is making sure the void in the historical record is never filled.

[This article first appeared on January 25^that the substack site: The Larger Evils.]
February 1, 2024
House of Omission

For every milestone anniversary of the Kennedy assassination comes a major documentary from mainstream media. In 1993 we saw the FRONTLINE special “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?”. In 2003 it was the ABC special “Beyond Conspiracy”. In 2013 came NOVA’s “Cold Case: JFK”. This time around it was National Geographic’s 3-part series “JFK: One Day In America”. However, unlike the ones that came before, rather than discussing actual evidence, the new kid on the block took a vastly different approach to the case—the simple art of omission.

Secret Service agent Clint Hill started the program off by saying “There are a few of us left. But very few.” This is hardly the case, as there are dozens of witnesses still alive from that day.

Right off the bat, the tone of the series was clear—they were going for emotion and tugging at heart strings, sad music and all. All throughout the series this tone was nonstop. Also right away, something felt off. This is because they colorized nearly every single black-and-white film from that day. This makes it offbeat to anyone familiar with the films. They did, however, sometimes use a variety of hardly seen films throughout.

EPISODE 1

The first witness we are introduced to is Buell Frazier, who drove Lee Harvey Oswald to work. Here come the omissions. They have Frazier tell the basic fact that Oswald carried a package into work that day—but omitted that Frazier has always insisted it was entirely too small to contain a rifle (2 H 240), and also his strong conviction that his friend didn’t kill Kennedy.

Up next are assassination eyewitnesses Bill and Gayle Newman. The program has them essentially tell their basic story—but omitted the basic fact that they’ve always said shots came from behind them up on the grassy knoll. (WC 19 H 490)

Agent Clint Hill tells his story—but they omitted him describing the massive blowout in the right rear of Kennedy’s head. (WC 2 H 141) Of course, all indicative of a shot from the front. He details this in every interview he does. Why did they omit it here?

Fellow agent Paul Landis was also interviewed—but left out was his recent revelation that he had found a bullet in the backseat of the limousine. And he too described the wound in the back of JFK’s head, and reported “that the shot came from somewhere towards the front.” (WC 18 H 759) Omitted too were these.

The famous Zapruder film is shown—but the headshot sequence is skipped over. One has to wonder: did they omit it simply because it’s graphic, or did they omit it because it shows JFK’s head going back-and-to-the-left (implying a shot from the front)? The first seems implausible, for it has been shown in dozens and dozens of mainstream documentaries for decades.

Strangely, when we get to Parkland Hospital, zero of the treating staff are interviewed for the program. Did they not interview these people because they have been insistent since day one that the President was shot from the front? They could’ve interviewed Dr. Ronald Jones, who’s still very much alive. Dr. Jones said in 1983: “If you brought him in here today, I’d still say he was shot from the front.” (Best Evidence, p. 705) They also could’ve interviewed Dr. Don Curtis, Dr. Joe Goldstrich, Dr. Philip Williams, Dr. Richard Dulany, Nurse Pat Hutton, etc.

EPISODE 2

Continuing at Parkland, we are given the impression JFK’s body was simply placed in the coffin and taken to the airport. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge about this case would know this is abominably incorrect. Completely omitted was the most basic fact that JFK’s body was illegally stolen from the coroner before an autopsy could be done. It wasn’t just stolen, there was a literal battle over the body. One of the doctors gave this shocking account: “[Agent] Kellerman took an erect stance and brought his firearm into a ready position. The other men in suits followed course…Had Dr. Rose not stepped aside, I’m sure that those thugs would have shot him.” (JFK: Conspiracy of Silence, p. 119)

We are taken back to Dealey Plaza, and Dallas police officer Rusty Robbins tells the audience “We were in the middle of the biggest manhunt the country had ever seen.” Well, I’m no professional historian, but wasn’t John Wilkes Booth the biggest manhunt ever? That lasted 12 days. This lasted just over an hour. Mentioning briefly the Tippit murder, Robbins tells us the reason Officer Tippit pulled over the man who killed him was because he “matched the description of the guy they thought killed the President.” Only the Warren Report believed this. If that were the case, Tippit would be pulling over every white guy in town that matched the very general description. The truth is, we have no idea why the man was stopped. Completely omitted from the program were any details or evidence about Tippit’s murder.

News anchor Bill Mercer tells the audience that “Oswald was unaccounted for” in a “roll call” at the Texas School Book Depository after the shooting. This is a common mainstream talking point. The truth of the matter is that 17 employees were never in the building after 12:30! (WC 22 H 632–686) There also wasn’t a roll call. (James DiEugenio, The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today, pp. 123-24)

Ruth Paine then tells her story, which is nothing new.

EPISODE 3

What was completely skipped over and not even mentioned was the President’s autopsy! They could have interviewed James Curtis Jenkins, who assisted the pathologists that night. He was just 19 years old and it greatly affected him. You’d think the producers would’ve jumped for an interview with him. They could’ve interviewed pathologist Dr. Robert Karnei. They could have interviewed Ed Reed, who X-rayed the President’s body. What about Richard Lipsey, Nick Rudnicki, Dr. Gregory Cross? Etc. I’ve interviewed all these men. Why didn’t National Geographic?

Also conveniently omitted from the series is the clip shown in every documentary of Oswald shouting to reporters “I’m just a patsy!”

The “One Day in America” program then jumped to 2 days later on 11/24 to cover Jack Ruby’s shooting of Oswald. This is told from the perspective of reporter Peggy Simpson and not the usual Hugh Aynesworth or Bob Jackson. It was very striking though seeing the film of Oswald being shot colorized.

The program of course covered President Kennedy’s funeral. But for an attempted sentimental and human interest documentary, why on earth did they not interview any of the surviving honor guards who buried JFK? 5 of the 6 are still living! I interviewed 3 of them.

After a lot of more sad imagery and music, the series ended with the quick caption: “On 24th September 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald alone and Jack Ruby also acted alone.” And roll credits and that’s all.

All this series did was tell the basic story of what happened that day without any details whatsoever. All it told was: JFK went to Texas, was killed in Dallas, a suspect was arrested, was killed 2 days later, and JFK was buried. That’s literally it. Nothing at all about evidence, what happened, why he died, and why it matters. It makes it seem like there’s no question at all about anything. They also made it sound like these handful of witnesses are the only ones left. Nothing could be further from the truth. This series is the biggest dud I’ve seen. As one reviewer on Rotten Tomatoes rightfully said:

“It’s just a painfully slow version of how the news was broadcast, nothing more. Asks zero questions about the greatest cold case of all time. Avoid if you are looking for answers.”

Another reviewer said: “Snooze fest I got 5 mins into episode 2 and turned it off.”

One has to wonder what we will see in the next ten years.

January 5, 2024
Part 5 of 6: The Rifle and the Ammunition

41. The Ammunition Clip.

“No link between the [Ammunition] clip and Oswald has been established. By either purchase, possession, fingerprints or other methods.” (Accessories After The Fact; p. 120)

42. The Same Prefix?

Commission Conclusion. “Information received from the Italian Armed Forces Intelligence Service has established that this particular rifle was the only one of its type bearing serial number C2766” WCR P119.

Documentation In The Record Refutes Commission Conclusion.

In a memorandum from FBI director J Edgar Hoover to General Council of the Warren Commission, J Lee Rankin, Hoover discloses the following information: “The Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was manufactured in Italy from 1891 until 1941; however, in the 1930’s Mussolini ordered all arms factories to manufacture the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. Since many concerns were manufacturing the same weapon, the same serial number appears on weapons manufactured by more than one concern.” In her fantastic study of the origins of the rifle, Martha Moyer reported that Dr John K. Lattimer had in his possession a Mannlicher Carcano which bore the serial number C2766. (Volume XXV; p. 808. p 30) (see this)

43. The Refurbished Carcano.

The credibility of the Mannlicher-Carcano as evidence has been significantly undermined due to its refurbishment at the hands of the US Army. This refurbishment seriously compromises the integrity of the weapon in evidence. The addition of shims to correct the telescopic sight indicates that the rifle required modifications to function properly during the Warren Commission tests. While an azimuth correction could have been made without the shims, using the available adjustment range, the shim provided a more permanent means of correction. This suggests that the alleged murder weapon of President Kennedy was not suitable for accurate use on 11/22/63 and required alterations to be operable.

Given these circumstances, the credibility of C2766 as evidence is severely compromised. In a court of law, evidence that has undergone substantial modifications or alterations to render it functional would be deemed inadmissible due to concerns of tampering and lack of reliability.

Eisenberg – “Was it reported to you by the persons who ran the machine-rest tests whether they had any difficulties with sighting the weapon?”

Simmons – “Well, they could not sight the weapon in using the telescope and no attempt was made to sight it in using the iron sight. We did adjust the telescopic sight by the addition of two shims, one which tended to adjust the azimuth and one which adjusted an elevation…the azimuth correction could have been made without the addition of the shim, but it would have meant that we would have used all of the adjustment possible and the shim was a more convenient means – not more convenient, but a more permanent means of correction.” (Volume III; p. 443.)

The testimony provided by Simmons further supports the conclusion that refurbished Carcano cannot be considered credible evidence. Their acknowledgment of the difficulties encountered in sighting the weapon and the subsequent adjustments made reinforce the notion that the rifle’s original condition was compromised, casting doubt on its value as reliable evidence in legal proceedings.

44. The Hardships Of C2766.

“Indeed, common sense suggests that if he [Oswald] had practiced with that rifle, he would have lost no time in dumping it for a bow and arrow.” Sylvia Meagher.

The testimonies of US Army Officer Ronald Simmons and Special Agent Robert Frazier, provides us with an insight into the operational deficiencies of the Mannlicher-Carcano [C2766]. The weapon, test fired by three master riflemen, who the Commission neglected to call, gives us a detailed account of the problems connected with the rifle.

Testimony of US Army Officer Ronald Simmons. “Yes, there were several comments made particularly with respect to the amount of effort required to open the bolt. As a matter of fact, Mr. Staley [Master rifleman] had difficulty in opening the bolt in his first firing exercise. He thought it was completely up and it was not, and he had to retrace his steps as he attempted to open the bolt after the first round. There was also comment made about the trigger pull which is different as far as these firers are concerned. It is in effect a two-stage operation where the first – in the first stage the trigger is relatively free, and it suddenly required a greater pull to actually fire the weapon…. In our experiments, the pressure to open the bolt was so great that we tended to move the rifle off the target, whereas with greater proficiency this might not have occurred.” None of the Master Riflemen were called to testify to the Commission.” (Volume III; p. 441/451)

Testimony of Special Agent Robert Frazier. “When we attempted to sight in this rifle at Quantico, we found that the elevation adjustment in the telescopic sight was not sufficient to bring the point of impact to the aiming point.”

“In attempting to adjust and sight-in the rifle, every time we changed the adjusting screws to move the crosshairs in the telescopic sight in one direction, it also affected the movement of the impact or the point of impact in the other direction.”

“That is, if we moved the crosshairs in the telescope to the left, it would also affect the elevation setting of the telescope. And when we had sighted-in the rifle approximately, we fired several shots and found that the shots were not all landing in the same place but were gradually moving away from the point of impact.”

“This was apparently due to the construction of the telescope, which apparently did not stabilize itself -that is, the spring mounting in the crosshair ring did not stabilize until we had fired five or six shots.” (Volume III; p. 405) (Accessories After The Fact; p. 133)

45. Marksman Vs Masters.

“Let me tell you what we did at Quantico. We reconstructed the whole thing, the angle, the range, the moving target, the time limit, the obstacles, everything. I don’t know how many times we tried, but we couldn’t duplicate what the Warren Commission said Oswald did.” Carlos Hathcock.

Commission Conclusion: “Based on testimony of the experts and their analysis of films of the assassination, the Commission has concluded that a rifleman of Lee Harvey Oswald’s capabilities could have fired the shots from the rifle used in the assassination within the elapsed time of the shooting. The Commission has concluded further that Oswald possessed the capability with a rifle which enabled him to commit the assassination”. (WR; p. 19.)

The Warren Commission choose enlisted the services of three riflemen rated as Master by the National Rifle Association to carry out the firing tests with the Mannlicher-Carcano [C2766]. This was to ascertain if the deficient weapon in the hands of marksman Oswald, could have been utilized to carry out the assassination of President Kennedy. It is obvious to any object observer what the Commission’s motives were here. On one hand they wanted to give themselves the optimal chance of re-creating the assassination shooting performance in the time span of six seconds while on the other, knowingly committed fraud by embellishing the record and suppressing the fact that Oswald’s skill was in no way comparable to that of these Master Riflemen.

Oswald’s shooting record in the Marine Corps provides insights into his marksmanship abilities. In 1956, he achieved a score of 212, just two points above the minimum requirement for the sharpshooter classification. It’s important to note that even this medium-level classification was barely attained after an intensive training period, primarily involving shooting at still targets. However, on his last recorded score with a rifle, Oswald’s score dropped to 191, placing him in the “marksman” category, which signifies a poor shooting ability.

Lieutenant-Colonel Allison G. Folsom, US Marine Corp, testified to the Commission regarding his interpretation of Oswald’s shooting record:

Ely – “I don’t see any point in doing this page by page. I just wonder, after having looked through the whole scorebook, if we could fairly say that all that it proves is that at this stage of his career, he was not a particularly outstanding shot.”

Col. Folsom – “No, no, he was not.”

Folsom’s interpretation of Oswald’s shooting record is of a Marine who was a “rather poor shot.” (Volume VIII; p. 303/311.)

This disparity between Oswald and the Master Riflemen’s shooting proficiency further underscores the need to critically evaluate the conclusions drawn from the firing tests conducted by the Commission and in particularly Oswald’s alleged role in the assassination.

46. I’d Pick Oswald.

In 1977, author Henry Hurt located and interviewed more than fifty of Oswald’s Marine Corps colleagues. These men had never been questioned by officials or journalists before. One of the Marines, Sherman Cooley told the following to Hurt. “If I had to pick one man in the whole United States to shoot me, I’d pick Oswald. I saw the man shoot. There’s no way he could have ever learned to shoot well enough to do what they accused him of. Take me, I’m one of the best shots around, and I couldn’t have done it.”

James R. Persons, another Marine Corp colleague, stated to Hurt that “Oswald possessed a lack of coordination that contributed to his being very poor in rifle marksmanship.”

As Hurt points out: “Many of the Marines mentioned that Oswald had a certain lack of coordination that, they felt, was responsible for the fact he had difficulty learning to shoot.” (Reasonable Doubt; p. P99/100. Picture Section)

47. Maggie’s Drawers.

Nelson Delgado who once served in the Marine Corp’s with Lee Oswald, feared reprisal from the FBI for the testimony he gave to the Warren Commission. Mr Delgado testified to the Warren Commission regarding Oswald’s rifling abilities:

Nelson Delgado – “It’s broken down into three categories: Sharpshooters–no; pardon me, take that back; Marksman is the lowest, Sharpshooters, and Experts. And then Oswald had a Marksman’s badge, which was just a plain, little thing here which stated ‘Marksman’ on it.”
Wesley Liebeler – “And that was the lowest one?”
Nelson Delgado – “That was the lowest. Well, that was qualifying; then there was nothing, which meant you didn’t qualify.”
Wesley Liebeler – “Did you fire with Oswald?”
Nelson Delgado – “Right. I was in the same line. By that I mean we were on line together, the same time, but not firing at the same position, but at the same time, and I remember seeing his. It was a pretty big joke, because he got a lot of “Maggie’s drawers,” you know, a lot of misses, but he didn’t give a darn.”
Wesley Liebeler – “Missed the target completely?”
Nelson Delgado – “He just qualified, that’s it. He wasn’t as enthusiastic as the rest of us. We all loved–liked, you know, going to the range.” Vol VIII, P235.

Mr. Delgado’s experience with the FBI left him feeling that they were pressuring him to alter his account concerning Oswald’s rifling abilities. Delgado had valid reasons to be concerned, for after testifying to the Warren Commission, he was shot in the shoulder. Fearing for his life, Delgado and his family fled to England. (watch this)
Assistant council for the Commission Wesley J. Leibler understood what the Commission was doing by their embellishment of Oswald’s rifling capabilities. In his famous “Leibler memorandum” the lawyer warns what such an approach will do to the Reports credibility:

“The conclusion indicates that Oswald had the capability to fire three shots with two hits in from 4.8 to 5.6 seconds. The conclusion at its most extreme states that Oswald could fire faster that the Commission experts fired in 12 of their 15 tries. [With] The fact that most of the experts were much more proficient with a rifle than Oswald could ever be expected to be, and the record indicates that fact… To put it bluntly, that sort of selection from the record could seriously affect the integrity and credibility of the entire report.” (Reclaiming Parkland; p. 91). (read this)

48.The Ammo-Less Assassin?

“The alternative is that this singular assassin squandered more than $20 of his meager earnings for a rifle but—unable or unwilling to spend a small additional sum for ammunition—stole, borrowed, or found on the street five cartridges that just happened to fit the weapon; and that those five cartridges sufficed, from March through November 1963, for dry runs, attempted murder, and successful assassination.” Syliva Meagher, Accessories After The Fact; p. 115.

What is the evidence in the record which would substantiate the supposition that Lee Oswald possessed ammunition for the Mannlicher-Carcano? And how does this evidence impact the case against Oswald? “The Dallas Police and FBI’s investigation regarding the source of Oswald’s alleged ammunition ownership included a canvass of all places of business that sold guns and ammunition in the Dallas and Irving area including hardware stores, pawn shops, department stores, sporting goods stores and Army/Navy surplus stores” (Volume XVI; p. 62/63).

Only two stores were known to have handled the 6.5 mm Western Cartridge Company Mannlicher-Carcano and ammunition. These stores were:

John Thomas Masen, owner of Masen’s Gun Shop, 7402 Harry Hines Boulevard in Dallas and John H. Brinegarn, owner of The Gun Shop, 11448 Harry Hines Boulevard in Dallas. By examining the testimonies of store owners Masen & Brinegarn, we can better understand what this means for the prosecution’s case.

John Masen advised the FBI that he was “unable to identify this individual as being a person to whom he had previously sold 6.5 ammunition.”

Masen also stated he bought some ten boxes of the 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition from the Western Cartridge Company. He advised that if he had “sold more than a box or two to any one person he would have remembered the sale.”

Upon further reading of CE 2694, we come across the following in regard to Masen:

Masen claimed, “he had never seen Lee Harvey Oswald, had no recollection of him ever having come to his place of business, and he had never sold any of this ammunition to Oswald.”

John Brinegarn, was also shown a photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald, the report states that “A photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald was exhibited to Mr. Brinegarn and he advised he was unable to identify this individual as being a person to whom he had previously sold 6.5 ammunition…Mr. Brinegarn stated he did not know Lee Harvey Oswald, had no recollection of ever seeing him and did not believe he had sold him any of this type of ammunition.” (Volume XXVI; p. 62.)

In light of the above, what definitive evidence would Henry Wade have presented, at trial, which links Oswald to the purchase of the ammunition for the Carcano? The existing gaps in evidence connecting Oswald to the specific stores and the unestablished ownership of ammunition introduce a substantial degree of reasonable doubt. This casts serious reservations on Oswald’s involvement in the assassination of the President. It also brings into focus the question of whether the prosecution has adequately met its burden of proof.

It’s important to remember that in criminal proceedings, the onus of providing proof beyond a reasonable doubt lies squarely with the prosecution.

Adding to these uncertainties is the testimony of Ronald Simmons. He testified that the master riflemen found that the pressure required to open the bolt [on C2766] was so immense that it invariably caused them to shift the rifle off target. Simmons speculated that a higher level of proficiency might have prevented this, but proficiency requires practice and practice requires a consistent consumption of ammunition. (Volume III; p.441-451)

49. World War II Ammunition.

Speculation – Ammunition for the rifle found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository had not been manufactured since the end of World War II. The ammunition used by Oswald must, therefore, have been at least 20 years old, making it extremely unreliable.

Commission’s Finding – The ammunition used in the rifle was American ammunition recently made by Western Cartridge Co., which manufactures such ammunition recently. In tests with the same kind of ammunition, experts fired Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle more than 100 times without any misfires. (WCR; p. 646.)

In reply to Stewart Galanor [Cover-Up] regarding the ammunition, Dated July 14, 1965, the Assistant Sales Manager for the Winchester-Western Division of Olin Mathieson wrote:

“Concerning your inquiry on the 6.5mm Mannlicher Carcano cartridge, this is not being produced commercially by our company at this time. Any previous production on this cartridge was made against Government contracts which were completed back in 1944.” (Rush To Judgement; p. 107.)

In April of 1965, researcher Sylvia Meagher wrote to Western Cartridge Company about the ammunition for the 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano. A corporate official replied: “The ammunition had once been produced under a government contract but was no longer available.”

A reply to a second correspondence to Western dated April 20th, 1965, prompted this note in Meagher’s book Accessories After the Fact – “The manufacturer stated quite frankly that the reliability of the ammunition still in circulation today is questionable.” (Accessories After The Fact; p. 113.)

Despite compelling contrary evidence, the Commission posits that Lee Oswald, wielding a compromised, cannibalized Carcano, whilst discharging unstable, twenty-year-old ammunition, single-handedly executed the assassination of Jack Kennedy with success.

50. The Police Conduct Searches

Despite extensive searches conducted by the Dallas and Irving Police Department on properties associated with Lee Oswald, no evidence linking him to ammunition purchase or ownership was found. Additionally, no oil, oil-stained rags, or cleaning solutions for weapons, which would be expected for routine maintenance, were discovered.

Lawyer Freda Scobey questions the legalities of the search of Oswald’s possessions at the Paine residence. Scobey writes that “The rifle/blanket and much other incriminating evidence was obtained from the Paine residence on the afternoon of November 22. At this time no search warrant was obtained. Mrs Paine had no right without a warrant to consent to a search of Oswald’s personal effects segregated in her garage, and it does not appear that Marina gave any knowing consent…. [because] it is fairly obvious that Marina Oswald, considering her scanty knowledge of English and Ruth Paine’s difficulties with Russian in a crisis, gave no intelligent consent to a search of the garage. Although Marina pointed out the blanket in the belief, as she said, that it still contained the rifle. Because of these factors there would seem to be a strong basis for excluding this evidence.” (see this and this)

Go to Part 1 of 6

Go to Part 2 of 6

Go to Part 3 of 6

Go to Part 4 of 6

Go to Part 6 of 6

November 30, 2023
Part 3 of 6: The Contamination of Evidence, the Inadmissible Lineups and the Autopsy
21. Marina’s Credibility.

The issue of Marina Oswald’s credibility and the evidence suggesting inconsistencies in her testimony is a matter of significant interest. The available evidence, which includes a declassified letter from Freda Scobey and a report from the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), presents concerns regarding the reliability of Marina’s statements.

In a declassified letter from attorney Freda Scobey, who worked for Warren Commissioner Richard Russell, there are allegations that Marina, “directly lied on at least two occasions” to the Warren Commission and that Marina’s Testimony “is so full of confusion and contradiction that without the catalystic element of cross-examination it reads like a nightmare. By her own admission Marina is a liar, and it is her voice that tells us how intensely she disliked the FBI and how she lied to that agency almost uniformly. When asked, for example, about the Walker note, she denied knowledge of it, but later admitted her husband wrote it. And when asked on December 3, if she had ever witnessed her husband leaving the house with the rifle, she replied No, but afterwards reversed this by saying she had frequently seen Lee go in and out carrying the rifle, once to “Lopfield” (Love Airfield) for target practice, and, on other occasion, to the park to shoot leaves. How, one asks, can a man go to the park with a rifle either by day or night and shoot leaves off the trees without being reported to the police?” (see this)

Furthermore, the HSCA report titled: “Marina Oswald-Porter, Statements of a Contradictory Nature,” raises additional doubts about Marina’s credibility. This report, spanning 29 pages, documents inconsistencies in Marina’s statements related to various aspects of the case.

These reports cast doubt on Marina’s reliability as a source of information in the investigation. The allegations of deception, contradictions, and the questioning of her credibility in these documents are significant factors to consider when evaluating her testimonies before the Warren Commission and their impact on the overall assessment of the case against Oswald.

Scobey notes that: “Marina is making quite the fortune out of this assassination. It does seem to me that if her testimony lacks credibility there is no reason for sheltering her. The above spots where her veracity was not tested are perfectly obvious to any person reading the report in connection with the transcript, and it might become a policy matter whether this decision to brush her feathers tenderly is well advised.” (see here)

22. The Contamination Of Evidence.

Commission Conclusion: “Fibres in paper bag matched fibres in blanket. When Paul M. Stombaugh of the FBI Laboratory examined the paper bag, he found, on the inside, a single brown delustered viscose fibre and several light green cotton fibres. The blanket in which the rifle was stored was composed of brown and green cotton, viscose and woollen fibres.” (WCR; p. 136)

Evidence In the Record Which Refutes Commission Conclusion:

The mingling of crucial evidence by the Dallas Police, from the homicide investigations pertaining to President Kennedy and Officer Tippit, in the photographs presented below, raise serious concerns about its scientific credibility. The clear touching of the paper sack (CE142) and the blanket from the Paine garage, poses a considerable risk of cross-contamination. Such contamination not only undermines the integrity of the evidence but also brings into question the ability to reliably connect Oswald to the crimes.

A thorough and precise approach to handling evidence is crucial to maintaining the investigation’s integrity and building a solid case against an accused individual. Thus, the questionable composition and potential contamination of evidence in these photographs escalate concerns about the overall authenticity of the case against Oswald.

According to an FBI document dated November 23rd, 1963, from J. Edgar Hoover, the following evidence, was received by Special Agent Orin Bartlett on November 22nd, 1963.
- Two 6.5 millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano cartridge cases found in the Book Depository Building.
- Oswald’s right palm print found on a book carton which was part of the ‘snipers perch’ in the Book Depository.
- A metal fragment from Governor Connally’s arm.
- A .38 Special bullet taken from Officer Tippit’s body.
- Textile fibres ‘found’ on the Carcano.
- The unfired 6.5mm Carcano cartridge alleged to have been found in the rifle.
- Paper bag- This is probably the same bag which was ‘found’ on the sixth floor by investigators. (CE142, see point 53)
- Oswald’s shirt, which he was wearing when arrested.
- ‘Oswald’s’ Revolver.
- ‘Oswald’s’ green and brown blanket from the Paine garage. (Jesse Curry, JFK Assassination File; pp.88-90)
Lt. Carl Day asserts that he was the photographer of CE738, However, various aspects of Day’s claim cast a shadow of doubt over his involvement and the veracity of his assertion.

Remarkably, Day does not include a date in CE738, an omission that stands out since he has included dates in previous evidentiary photographs, e.g., CE737. This inconsistency leads us to question why this particular image would be an exception?

Day’s assertion that he was the exclusive photographer of CE738 lacks corroboration from any third party, which weakens the credibility of his claim. This ambiguity is amplified by Day’s decision to photograph this evidence upon its second release to the FBI on November 26, instead of at its initial handover to the FBI on November 22. This leads us to wonder whether the Dallas police would not have preferred to maintain a visual record of the evidence being flown to Washington on the 22^nd?

Day’s integrity has been called into question by several sources including Tom Alyea, who accused Day of perjury, [see point 51]. This accusation, along with inconsistencies in his handling of crucial evidence, cast a pall over Day’s credibility. Notably, Day admitted to handling the revolver for the purpose of photographing it but denied marking it.

David Belin “Did you put any initials on the revolver or not?”
Lt. Carl Day. “No, sir; I don’t think I did.”

Belin then continues to question Day regarding CE737 & 738.

David Belin. “I am now going to hand you No. 737 and ask you to state if you know what this is.”
Lt. Carl Day. “Yes, sir. This is the rifle found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository on November 22, 1963.”
David Belin. “Who took that picture?”
Lt. Carl Day. “I took it myself.”
David Belin. “When?”
Lt. Carl Day. “About 9 or 9:30 p.m., November 22, on the fourth floor of the City Hall in my office.”
David Belin. “I am going to now hand you what has been marked as 738 and ask you to state if you know what this is.”
Lt. Carl Day. “Yes, sir. This is a photograph of most of the evidence that was returned to the FBI the second time on November 26, 1963. It was released to Agent Vince Drain at 2 p.m., November 26.”
David Belin. “Who took that picture, if you know?”
Lt. Carl Day. “I took this picture.” (Volume IV; p. 273/274)

What is striking here is Belin’s detailed questioning about CE737, contrasted with the absence of similar scrutiny for CE738.

Day’s unconventional decision to combine evidence from two distinct murder investigations into a single image invites additional scrutiny. This method jeopardizes the integrity of both cases, casting a spotlight on Day’s actions and honesty.

Even if 738 was taken on November 26, after Oswald’s death, the visible cross-contamination within the image questions the reliability of the evidence. Such contamination could render the evidence in this photograph completely useless for future testing. Given the visible cross-contamination, we cannot confidently assert that the evidence was properly handled outside this photograph.

These factors, including Day’s contested integrity, have substantial implications for the case against Oswald. While Henry Wade might have sought to convince the jury of the state’s evidence’s authenticity, the introduction of this photographic record could cast severe doubt on his case.

If Oswald had competent legal counsel, this photograph could be pivotal in challenging the state’s case. By emphasizing the potential mishandling and cross-contamination of the evidence, the defense could argue that the evidence’s integrity has been compromised. This photograph serves as a compelling visual aid to underscore these arguments and introduce reasonable doubt about Oswald’s alleged connection to the crimes. Furthermore, the defense could question the rationale behind the Dallas Police’s decision to consolidate evidence from two separate homicide investigations into one photograph – a practice that strays from standard procedure and threatens the reliability of the evidence. Such reasoning could critically undermine the jury’s confidence in the prosecution’s case.”

23. The Paraffin Test.

Commission Conclusion.“One would therefore not expect nitrates to be deposited upon a person’s hands or cheeks as a result of his firing a rifle.” (WCR; p. 561)

“I know that if the case, which has been presented against him, is full of falsehoods and contradictions and I know that right now in the office of the Dallas District Attorney, is a paraffin test which shows that Lee Harvey Oswald did not fire a rifle on November 22 1963. I know that because I have a photostatic copy of that document.” Mark Lane. (see here)

Just a few hours after the assassination of President Kennedy, Lee Oswald was subjected to a standard forensic procedure applied to individuals suspected of having recently discharged a firearm. This involved a method known as the paraffin test, where a layer of liquid paraffin wax was meticulously applied over the surfaces of Oswald’s hands and onto his right cheek. The principle behind this test was that once the paraffin hardened, it would act as a non-invasive extraction tool, capable of pulling out the most minute residues trapped deep within the pores of his skin, residues that could potentially originate from the firing of a weapon.

Dr. M. S. Mason, Director of the Dallas City County Criminal Investigative Laboratory, conducted these tests on behalf of the Dallas Police. The items he examined included:

Exhibit 1. “One manila envelope containing a paraffin cast of the right side of the face of Lee Oswald”.

Exhibit 2. “One manila envelope containing a paraffin cast of the left hand of Lee Oswald.”

Exhibit 3. “One manila envelope containing a paraffin cast of the right hand of Lee Oswald.” (see this and this)

Dr. Mason employed spectrographic analysis, a method regularly used by law enforcement, for the initial test. His findings, reported to the Dallas Police on November 23, 1963, revealed that “No Nitrates were found on exhibit 1. Nitrate patterns consistent with the subject having discharged a firearm were present on exhibits 2 and 3.” The analysis showed evidence of barium and antimony on Oswald’s hands but not on his cheek.

It is worth noting that these residues, which contain distinct elements like barium and antimony, can also be found in various everyday substances such as “Printing Ink, Paper, Rubber, Plastics, Urine, Tobacco, Cosmetics, and Pharmaceuticals,” etc. Considering Oswald’s job at the Texas School Book Depository, where he frequently handled books, as an order filler, cautious interpretation of these test results is necessary. (WCR; p. 561/562)

Though spectrographic analysis was deemed reliable enough for most criminal investigations, the lack of positive results on Oswald’s cheek prompted the need for a more incisive examination. This led to the paraffin cast’s being subjected to the process of Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA). This method is capable of detecting the presence of substances in quantities much too small to be identified by spectrographic analysis.

The proposal to subject Oswald’s paraffin casts to Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) evidently provoked a tangible sense of apprehension within the FBI ranks. This unease seemingly sprang from the potential revelation of exculpatory evidence through the test results. If such evidence was uncovered in Oswald’s favor, it would support the claim that Oswald had not operated a rifle on November 22, 1963, thereby significantly advancing the case for his exoneration.

On November 27, 1963, in an FBI memorandum, Mr. Jevons (FBI) suggests to his superior, Mr Conrad (FBI), that NAA should be used on Oswald’s casts, “To protect the Bureau against any possible future allegations that if Neutron Activation Analysis type of analysis had been conducted [on the paraffin casts], one might have contained extremely significant data.” Jevons also noted that “allegations might originate from relatively highly placed individuals in the Atomic Energy Commission, charged with developing NAA, who will recognise the publicity potential of such allegations.” Aware of the Bureau’s apprehensions, Mr. Jevons gives such reassurances as, “Oswald is now dead and there will be no trial… Any such examinations will, of course, be with the strict understanding that the information and dissemination of the results will be under complete FBI control.” (see this)

The results of neutron activation analysis corroborated the findings of the spectrographic examination. No gunpowder residue was present on Lee Oswald’s face, indicating innocence. (see this)

Despite having knowledge of the genuine results of the Spectrographic Analysis on November 23, 1963, the Dallas Police brazenly announced that Oswald’s paraffin test had returned positive results. This false assertion, deliberately disseminated by members of the Dallas Police and prosecutorial officials, stemmed from their distorted interpretation of the paraffin test findings pertaining to Lee Oswald. The dissemination of such groundlessly accusatory information to the media not only undeservedly cast Oswald in a shroud of suspicion, but it also egregiously violated his constitutional rights. Their contentious remarks, thoroughly marred by deception, are reproduced below for closer scrutiny.

11/23/63. City detective Charles Brown said he believed the hand tests were positive but was not certain about results of a paraffin test on Oswald’s face.

11/23/63. Brown said he has great faith in paraffin tests. (AP, 9:42 a.m. CST, Raymond Holbrook and Peggy Simpson.)

11/23/63. Dallas. Oswald, charged last night with murdering the President, insisted he is not the assassin. But an officer said today, I think we got some good results from the paraffin test on both Oswald’s hands.

11/23/63. Dallas. Curry said … paraffin tests, made to determine from powder residue whether Oswald had fired a gun, were positive. This meant Oswald had fired a weapon within a short time before he was arrested. Apparently, it could have been either a rifle or a pistol – or both. They wouldn’t say. (AP, 1:50 pm CST Peggy Simpson.)

11/24/63 Dallas. But a Dallas detective, Charles Brown, said a paraffin test of Oswald’s face and hands for gunpowder particles got good results. The paraffin tests, he said, indicated Oswald recently had fired a rifle – the type of weapon used to kill the President. The gunpowder on the face would come from cradling a rifle against the right cheek while the marksman took aim. It was pointed out that Oswald was also accused of killing Dallas patrolman J. D. Tippitt with a pistol while allegedly trying to flee the assassination scene.

“Wouldn’t this also leave gunpowder traces on the suspect’s hands?” was one question. But Dallas police indicated that their tests were able to distinguish between gunpowder from a pistol and rifle. (San Francisco Examiner, p. 1 col. 8, Bob Considine, Hearst Headline Service)

11/24/63. Henry Wade.

Reporter. “What about the Paraffin tests?”
Henry Wade. “Yes, I haven’t gone into that. The paraffin tests show he recently fired a gun, it was on both hands.”
Reporter. “Recently fired a rifle?”
Henry Wade. “A gun.”

The Director of the F.B.I. in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in charge of the investigation stated: “I have seen the paraffin test. The paraffin test proves that Oswald had nitrates and gunpowder on his hands and face. It proves he fired a rifle on November 22.” (The Minority of One, 9/64, p.11, “16 Questions on the Assassination”, Bertrand Russell)

Despite being fully aware of the results of the spectrographic analysis, the Dallas Police persisted in asserting publicly that the findings supported Oswald’s guilt. In certain instances, they went so far as to claim that the test had conclusively detected nitrates on his cheeks, which is an entirely false and fraudulent assertion. (see this)

(Henry Wade, 11/24/63 Press Conference)

Nestled within the speculative discourse and conjecture section of the Report, one can find the following declaration:

Speculation: “Gordon Shanklin, who was the Special Agent in charge of the Dallas office of the FBI, posited that the paraffin test conducted on Oswald’s face and hands produced positive results, indicating that Oswald had indeed fired a rifle.”

Commission Finding: “However, it’s essential to note that the paraffin tests were undertaken by members of the Dallas Police Department, and the subsequent technical examinations were carried out by the Dallas City-County Criminal Investigation Laboratory. The Commission was notified by the FBI that neither Shanklin nor any other FBI representative had ever made such a claim. The Commission found no substantiating evidence that Special Agent Shanklin had publicly voiced this statement.”

These statements were underpinned by a letter from J. Edgar Hoover to J. Lee Rankin, dated September 14, 1964. In this communication, Hoover addressed the claim that “Special Agent in Charge, J. Gordon Shanklin of our Dallas Office made a public statement about a paraffin test performed on Lee Harvey Oswald.” Shanklin advised Hoover that he had made no such statement, dubbing the allegation as “completely unfounded.”

Nonetheless, a conflicting report surfaced from The New York Times on November 25, 1963, claiming Shanklin as the source of the information about Oswald’s positive paraffin tests. The report detailed, “Already the authorities have collected evidence of all sorts, Gordon Shanklin, the FBI agent in charge of Dallas, said today…The FBI noted these other pieces of evidence, which have been assembled by the Dallas Police, FBI, and Secret Service… A paraffin test, used to determine if a person has recently fired a weapon, was administered to Oswald shortly after he was apprehended Friday. It showed particles of gunpowder from a weapon, probably a rifle, remained on Oswald’s cheek and hands” (NY Times; Fred Powledge; November 25th, 1963).

During the Warren Commission hearings, FBI Special Agent Cortland Cunningham testified about the results of paraffin tests conducted on Lee Oswald. The specific tests in question were aimed at determining whether Oswald had recently fired a weapon, specifically the Mannlicher Carcano, C2766.

Melvin Eisenberg, one of the Commission’s counsels, inquired whether Cunningham’s tests, or his experience with revolvers and rifles, could shed any light on the significance of a negative result being obtained on the right cheek, stating,

Melvin Eisenberg.”A paraffin test was also run of Oswald’s cheek, and it produced a negative result.”
Cortland Cunningham. “Yes.”
Melvin Eisenberg. “Do your tests, or do the tests which you ran, or your experience with revolvers and rifles, cast any light on the significance of a negative result being obtained on the right cheek?”
Cortland Cunningham. “No, sir; I personally wouldn’t expect to find any residues on a person’s right cheek after firing a rifle due to the fact that by the very principles and the manufacture and the action, the cartridge itself is sealed into the chamber by the bolt being closed behind it, and upon firing the case, the cartridge case expands into the chamber filling it up and sealing it off from the gases, so none will come back in your face, and so by its very nature, I would not expect to find residue on the right cheek of a shooter.”

Cunningham then testified that he, alongside fellow FBI Agent Charles Killion, executed a rapid-fire test with the rifle, yielding negative results for residues on both the cheek and hands.

Melvin Eisenberg. Also, before firing the rifle?
Cortland Cunningham. Yes. We fired the rifle. Mr. Killion fired it three times rapidly, using similar ammunition to that used in the assassination. We reran the tests both on the cheek and both hands. This time we got a negative reaction on all casts.
Melvin Eisenberg. So, to recapitulate, after firing the rifle rapid-fire no residues of any nitrate were picked off Mr. Killion’s cheek?
Cortland Cunningham. That is correct, and there were none on the hands. (Volume III; p. 492-494)

However, Cunningham’s statements were refuted by two different pieces of evidence. The first comes from Vincent P. Guinn, head of the Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) Section of the General Atomic Division, of the General Dynamics Corporation, in February 1964. Guinn and his colleagues had been using NAA to test the powder residues from discharged firearms. When they ran tests using a rifle similar to the one reportedly owned by Lee Harvey Oswald. Guinn found that “the triple firing of the rifle leaves unambiguous positive tests every time on the paraffin casts. Because of the inferior construction of the Carcano the blowback from one or three shots deposited powder residue on both cheeks of the shooter.” (Gerald McKnight, Breach Of Trust; p. 211)

The second piece of evidence comes from Harold Weisberg, a first-generation researcher who successfully sued for the actual test results from the FBI. Within the records he received, it was stated “These paraffin tests were subjected to NAA…there is no similar evidence [Nitrate] on [Oswald’s] cheek. The tests given me show that in seven “control” cases where others fired a rifle this evidence [Nitrate] was left on the cheeks.” This evidence stands as a direct challenge to Cunningham’s claim that residue wouldn’t be found on a shooter’s cheek. (Weisberg, Post Mortem; p. 437)

Regrettably, the all-encompassing data yielded from Cunningham’s test – including unprocessed results, spectrographic or neutron activation analyses, photographic proof, and procedural documentation – remains unrevealed. Which makes his testimony problematic to present at trial, especially with the countering evidence described above. That evidence appears to be exculpatory.

Also why weren’t the clothes worn by Oswald at the Texas School Book Depository and subsequently at his arrest at the Texas Theatre subjected to a gunshot residue analysis? Implementing these tests could have furnished critical evidence that either substantiated or refuted his involvement in the President’s assassination.

The problems with this evidence shine a spotlight on a fascinating facet of the case. It compelled the Commission to cast a skeptical eye on the veracity of these findings, and the test itself; thereby shrouding these potentially vindicating results in a fog of uncertainty.

Even Commission counsel Norman Redlich, in a memorandum to Commissioner Alan Dulles, noted, “At best, the analysis shows that Oswald may have fired a pistol, although this is by no means certain. … There is no basis for concluding that he also fired a rifle.” (McKnight, p. 207)

24. The Dallas Police Line-Ups.

Commission Conclusion. “The Commission is satisfied that the line ups were conducted fairly.” (WCR; p.169)

The Department Of Justice.“Testimony concerning a line up or showup identification is inadmissible if, considering the totality of the circumstances, the identification procedure was so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to a very substantial likelihood of misidentification.” (see here)

Between November 22 and 23, 1963, a series of line-ups were convened involving Lee Oswald, various Dallas Police personnel, and city prisoners held for unrelated offences. In every instance the participants were required to state their name and occupation to the identifying witness. It is important to note that while some participants provided false information during these line-ups, Oswald consistently provided accurate details about himself, more specifically his infamous name and place of employment, the Texas School Book Depository. Highly concerning is the fact that this information was widely publicised through the media, and many witnesses reported to having observed Oswald’s photograph on television prior to attending the actual line-ups.(Volume VII; p. 239.)

Joesph Ball. “Now, back to the first showup, did the detective ask you any questions? Ask your name and address and occupation?”
R. L. Clark. “Yes, sir.”
Joesph Ball. “What did he ask you?”
R. L. Clark. “He asked me my name.”
Joesph Ball. “Did you give him your real name?”
R. L. Clark. “No, sir.”
Joesph Ball. “Fictitious name?”
R. L. Clark. “Yes, sir.”
Joesph Ball. “Ask you your occupation?”
R. L. Clark. “Asked my occupation.”
Joesph Ball. “What did you tell him?”
R. L. Clark. “I don’t recall. All of them are fictitious.”
Joesph Ball. “Fictitious?”
R. L. Clark. “Yes, sir.” (Volume XII; p.237/238.)
Joesph Ball.“Policeman ask you any questions? Detective ask you any questions?”
William Perry. “Yes, sir; my name and what have you.”
Joesph Ball.“Well, what do you mean, “what have you.”?
William Perry. Well, occupation.”
Joesph Ball.“And what answer did you give him?”
William Perry. “I gave him all fictitious answers.” (Volume XII; p. 234.)
Joesph Ball.“Did the detective ask you name?”
Daniel Lujan. “Yes, sir.”
Joesph Ball.“And did you tell him your name?”
Daniel Lujan. “Yes, sir.”
Joesph Ball.“Did he ask your occupation?”
Daniel Lujan. “Yes, sir.”
Joesph Ball.“What did you tell him?”
Daniel Lujan. “Working for S. & F. Meat Co.” (Volume XII; p 245/246)

The judicial system has established rules by which police departments must adhere to in the assembly of line ups for witness identification. These rules, crucial for maintaining fairness and objectivity, are as follows:

Participant Similarity: ‘Fillers’ should generally resemble the suspect’s description. This includes aspects like height, weight, age, race, and other distinctive features.

Inadmissible Lineups. “When the others are grossly dissimilar in appearance from the suspect.” (see here)

Cecil McWatters.“No, sir; they were different ages, different sizes and different heights.” (Volume II; p. 270)

Lineup Size: A lineup should, by standard, include at least five ‘fillers’ in addition to the suspect. This discourages the suspect from being conspicuously distinctive.

Suspect’s Position: Suspects should have the liberty to choose their position in the lineup, rather than being consistently stationed at a specific number.

Oswald, Number 2 man: 3 times. Number 3 man:1 time.

Witness Instructions: The Police Department should make it clear to the witness that the perpetrator may not be part of the line up, relieving them from the pressure to identify someone.

David Belin. “Did they tell you one of the men was the man you saw or not, or did they tell you “See if you can”–just what did they say? Did they say, “Here is a lineup, see if you-can identify anyone,” or did they say, “One of the men in the lineup”
William Scoggins. “Yes, I believe those are the words they used.” (Volume III; p.334)

Clothing Change: In instances where multiple line ups are conducted, suspects should have their clothing changed. This prevents identification based on clothing instead of physical traits. On November 22, 1963, during all three line-ups, Oswald consistently wore the same clothes, except for the Saturday line-up conducted on November 23. During that particular line-up, Oswald’s brown long-sleeved shirt was missing, as it had been sent to Washington.

Non-Suggestive Environment: The lineup setting must be unbiased and devoid of suggestive elements. Police officers, for instance, should refrain from hinting at the identity of the suspect.

Inadmissible Lineups. “When the suspect is pointed out before or during the procedure.” (see here)

Captain Will Fritz or Jim Leavelle, intimated to an audience which included Ted Calloway, Sam Guinyard and Cecil McWatters that: “We want to be sure. We want to try and wrap him up real tight on killing this officer. We think he is the same one that shot the President, and if we can wrap him up tight on killing this officer, we have got him.” (Volume III; p. 355) (watch this) (see here)

Line up Protocol and its Importance:

Inadmissible Lineups. “When an identification is made in the presence of other identifying witnesses.” (see here)

Adhering to a rigorous and standardized protocol for police line ups is crucial in maintaining the reliability and integrity of witness testimony. This includes taking careful measures to ensure witnesses are kept separate from each other to mitigate any potential influence that may arise from shared discussions or collective reactions. Encouraging each witness to independently identify the suspect underscores the importance of their testimony being solely rooted in their own recollections.

The primary objective of this protocol is to minimize the risk of corrupting the identification process. Allowing witnesses to converse about the event or discuss the suspect’s attributes could lead to the contamination of the process. Such discourse could inadvertently foster groupthink, induce false positives, or in the worst-case scenario, yield tainted identifications.

The consequences of such errors are severe and far-reaching. They could trigger misidentifications and, subsequently, wrongful convictions.

What follows is a compilation of witness testimonies presented to the Commission. These statements confirm that the Dallas Police Department failed to adhere to the established protocol, jeopardizing the integrity of the investigation.

Sam Guinyard.

Joseph Ball. “Were you with Ted [Calloway] at the time?”
Sam Guinyard. “Yes, sir.”
Joseph Ball. “How close was Ted to you?”
Sam Guinyard. “Oh, sitting about like that.”
Joseph Ball. “You mean 3 or 4 feet away from you?”
Sam Guinyard. “Yes, something like that.” (Volume VII; p. 400)

Ted Calloway.“We first went into the room. There was Jim Leavelle, the detective, Sam Guinyard, and then this bus driver and myself. We waited down there for probably 20 or 30 minutes.” (Volume III; p. 355)
William Whaley.“Then they took me down in their room where they have their showups, and all, and me and this other taxi driver [William Scoggins] who was with me, sir, we sat in the room awhile and directly they brought in six men, young teenagers, and they all were handcuffed together.” (Volume II p. 260/261)

William Scoggins.

David Belin. “Mr. Scoggins, when you identified the man in the line up at the police station on November 23, was there any other person who at the same time was asked to identify a man in that lineup?”
William Scoggins. “Yes, one other.”
David Belin. “Do you know-one other person?”
William Scoggins. “Yes.” (Volume III; p. 337)

Virginia Davis

David Belin. “Where was your sister when you identified him?”
Virginia Davis. “She was sitting right next to me.”
David Belin. “How did you identify him? Did you yell that this is the man I saw?” Where was the detective? Was he to your right or to your left?”
Virginia Davis. “Let’s see to my right.”
David Belin. “Where was your sister, to your right or to your left?”
Virginia Davis. “Right.”
David Belin. “As she was to your right, so you leaned over to the detective and told the detective it was No. 2?”
Virginia Davis. “Yes, sir.” (Volume VI; p. 462)

The following is a chronological record of the line ups conducted by the Dallas Police Department on 11/22-11/23-1963.

11/22/63 16:05
Showup 1.
1. William E Perry, Dallas Police Officer. Aged 34. 5’10”1/2”. 170 Pounds. Brown Hair. Blue Eyes. Dark Complexion. Brown Sports Coat. Gave fictitious name and occupation to witness.
2. Lee H. Oswald, Texas School Book Depository, Warehouse Employee. Tattered Brown Long Sleeved Shirt. Tattered White T-Shirt. Dark Pants. Aged 24. 5’ 9”.131 Pounds. Medium Build. Brown, Receding Hair. Blue Eyes. Bruise Over His Right Eye. Cut On His Forehead.
3. R. L. Clark, Dallas Police Officer. Aged 31. 5’9,3/4”. 170 Pounds. Blond Hair. Blue Eyes. Ruddy Complexion. Red Vest, Short Sleeve White Shirt, Brown Pants With Belt. Gave fictitious name and occupation to witness.
4. Don Ables, Dallas Police Jail Clerk. Aged 26. 5’9”. 165 Pounds. Brown Hair. Eyes Brown. Ruddy Complexion. White Shirt, Gray-Knit Sweater. Dark Trousers. Gave fictitious name and occupation to witness.
(Volume VII; p. 125/168,170,233,236, 241/242)
Joseph Ball. “It’s unusual to use officers to show up prisoners?”
Elmer Boyd. “Well, I would say so.”
Joseph Ball.“Is that usual to use Don Ables, the clerk, in a show up?”
Elmer Boyd.“No, sir.”
Joseph Ball.“It is unusual?”
Elmer Boyd.“Yes.” (Volume VII; p. 125)

11/22/63 18:20.
Showup 2.
1. William E Perry, Dallas Police Officer. Aged 34. 5’10”1/2”. 170 Pounds. Brown Hair. Blue Eyes. Dark Complexion. Brown Sports Coat. Gave fictitious name and occupation to witnesses.
2. Lee H. Oswald, Texas School Book Depository, Warehouse Employee. Tattered Brown Long Sleeved Shirt. Tattered White T-Shirt. Dark Pants. Aged 24. 5’ 9”.131 Pounds. Medium Build. Brown, Receding Hair. Blue Eyes. Bruise Over His Right Eye. Cut On His Forehead.
3. R. L. Clark, Dallas Police Officer. Aged 31. 5’9,3/4”. 170 Pounds. Blond Hair. Blue Eyes. Ruddy Complexion. Red Vest, Short Sleeve White Shirt, Brown Pants With Belt. Gave fictitious name and occupation to witnesses.
4. Don Ables, Dallas Police Jail Clerk. Aged 26. 5’9”. 165 Pounds. Brown Hair. Eyes Brown. Ruddy Complexion. White Shirt, Gray-Knit Sweater. Dark Trousers. Gave fictitious name and occupation to witnesses.
(Volume VII; p. 125,168,169,170,233,236, 241/242)
Joseph Ball.“Were they dressed differently than Oswald?”
Richard Sims. “Yes; I know they didn’t have the color of clothes on or things like that.”
Joseph Ball.“His clothes were rougher looking than the other men?”
Richard Sims.“Well, I don’t imagine that he would be dressed as nice as the officers were, as far as their clothes.” (Volume VII; p. 170)
Joseph Ball.“The other three were better dressed than Oswald, would you say?”
Elmer Boyd.“Well, yes, sir; I would say they probably were.”(Volume VII; p. 127)

11/22/63 19:40
Showup 3.
1. Richard Walter Borchgardt. City Prisoner. Aged 23. 161 Pounds. 5’9”. Brown Hair. Blue Eyes. Fair Complexion.
2. Lee H. Oswald, Texas School Book Depository, Warehouse Employee. Tattered Brown Long Sleeved Shirt. Tattered White T-Shirt. Dark Pants. Aged 24. 5’ 9”.131 Pounds. Medium Build. Brown, Receding Hair. Blue Eyes. Bruise Over His Right Eye. Cut On His Forehead.
3. Ellis C. Brazel. City Prisoner.. Aged 22. 5’10”. 169 Pounds. Green Eyes. Blond Hair. Ruddy Complexion
4.Don Ables, Dallas Police Jail Clerk. Aged 26. 5’9”. 165 Pounds. Brown Hair. Eyes Brown. Ruddy Complexion. White Shirt, Gray-Knit Sweater. Dark Trousers. Gave fictitious name and occupation to witnesses.
(Volume VII; p. 131/132,170, 41/242

11/23/63.
Showup 4.
David Belin. “Had you seen any pictures of Lee Harvey Oswald in the newspapers prior to the time you went to the police station lineup?”
William Scoggins. “I think I saw one in the morning paper.”(Volume III; p.334)
1. John T. Horne. City Prisoner. Aged 17. Dark Shirt. Dark Pants. Dark Thick Hair.
2. David Knapp. City Prisoner. Aged 18. White Shirt. Dark Pants. Dark Thick Hair.
3. Lee H. Oswald. Texas School Book Depository, Warehouse Employee. Tattered White T-Shirt. Dark Pants. Aged 24. 5’ 9”.131 Pounds. Medium Build. Brown, Receding Hair. Blue Eyes. Bruise Over His Right Eye. Cut On His Forehead.
4. Daniel Lujan. City Prisoner. Aged 26. 170 Pounds. 5’8”. Black Hair. Brown Eyes. Complexion Olive. Mexican. Blue Shirt. Brown Jacket.
(Volume VII; p. 170, 245/246) (watch this

The Curious Case Of Howard Brennan.

Determining which line up Howard Brennan attended should, in theory, be straightforward. However, the available records yield no clear answer to this surprisingly complex question. This intriguing issue was first highlighted by Ian Griggs, who found no explicit evidence of Brennan attending any specific line up. As outlined in Commission Exhibit 2003, the list of ‘witnesses’ for the line ups is as follows: Helen Markham, Cecil McWatters, Sam Guinyard, Ted Calloway, Barbara Davis, and Virginia Davis on 11/22/63; and William Scoggins and William Whaley on 11/23/63. It is perplexing that the Dallas Police would allow ‘witnesses’ from two distinct homicide cases to participate in the same line up. Furthermore, the actions McWatters and Whaley supposedly witnessed are ambiguous at best. After all, when did taking a bus home or hailing a taxi qualify as a crime?”(Volume XXIV; p. 347)

For some perspective on this issue, let us first look at the testimony of Brennan himself on this point.

David Belin.“Now, taking you down to the Dallas Police Station, I believe you said you talked to Captain Fritz. And then what happened?”
Howard Brennan. “Well, I was just more or less introduced to him in Mr. Sorrels’ room, and they told me they were going to conduct a line up and wanted me to view it, which I did.”
David Belin. “Do you remember how many people were in the line up?”
Howard Brennan. “No, I don’t. A possibility seven more or less one.”
David Belin. “All right. Did you see anyone in the line up you recognized?”
Howard Brennan. “Yes.”
David Belin. “And what did you say?”
Howard Brennan. “I told Mr. Sorrels and Captain Fritz at that time that Oswald–or the man in the lineup that I identified looking more like a closest resemblance to the man in the window than anyone in the lineup.”
David Belin. “Were the other people in the lineup, do you remember–were they all white, or were there some Negroes in there, or what?”
Howard Brennan. “I do not remember.” (Volume III; p. 147)

Here are some notable observations drawn from this excerpt of Brennan’s testimony:
1. The line-up consisted of four individuals, three fillers and the suspect. If Brennan did indeed view a line-up, how could he possibly forget such a critical detail?
2. Brennan identified both SS Agent Sorrels and Captain Fritz as present at this line-up.
3. Curiously, Brennan could not recall the ethnic backgrounds of those in the line-ups. This strikes me as odd. Could Brennan, in his lifetime, have participated in an event more dramatic and pivotal? And in Texas? During segregation?
The idea that he could forget such fundamental elements of the procedure, assuming he genuinely attended, is quite puzzling to me.

Now let us take a look at the testimony of Forrest Sorrells.

Forrest Sorrells. “I got a hold of Captain Fritz and told him that the witness was there, Mr. Brennan. He said, I wish he would have been here a little sooner, we just got through with a line up. But we will get another fixed up. So I took Mr. Brennan, and we went to the assembly room, which is also where they have the line up, and Mr. Brennan, upon arrival at the police station, said, I don’t know if I can do you any good or not, because I have seen the man that they have under arrest on television, and he said. I just don’t know whether I can identify him positively or not because he said that the man on television was a bit dishevelled and his shirt was open or something like that, and he said the man I saw was not in that condition.

So when we got to the assembly room, Mr. Brennan said he would like to get quite a ways back, because he would like to get as close to the distance away from where he saw this man at the time that the shooting took place as he could.
And I said, “Well, we will get you clear on to the back and then we can move up forward.
They did bring Oswald in in a line up. He looked very carefully, and then we rooted him up closer and so forth, and he said, I cannot positively say.
Sam Stern. “How many other people were in the line up?”
Forrest Sorrells. “As I recall it, there were five. In other words, all told there was five or six-I don’t remember. I believe there were five.”
Sam Stern. “Were the others reasonably similar to Oswald in height and physical appearance, and color?”
Forrest Sorrells. “I noted that to me I thought it was a very fair line up, because they didn’t have anyone that was a lot taller than he was, or anyone a lot shorter. They didn’t have any big fat ones or anything like that. In other words, to me it was a good lineup.” (Volume XII; p. 354/355)
1. In an affidavit dated November 22, 1963, Mr. Brennan asserted that “he could identify the man if he ever saw him again”, as noted in point 7.
2. Sorrells failed to specify which line-up Brennan attended or identify any other attendees of the line-up.
3. Sorrells estimates that there were either “five or six” individuals present at the line-up. It raises questions about Sorrells’ accuracy, given that only four individuals were supposed to be viewed.
4. Sorrells described it as a “very fair line-up.” This mysterious line-up, which Mr. Brennan allegedly attended, appears to be more of an anomaly than the norm. Given what we know, it’s impossible for an unbiased observer to conclude that the line-ups conducted by the Dallas Police Department were anything but fundamentally flawed, exhibiting a shocking disregard for established protocols.
Lastly, let’s examine the testimony of Will Fritz regarding this matter.

John McCloy.“Were you present at the show up at which Brennan was the witness?”
Will Fritz. “Brennan?”
John McCloy. “Brennan was the alleged…”
Will Fritz. “Is that the man that the Secret Service brought over there, Mr. Sorrels brought over?”
John McCloy. “I don’t know whether Mr. Sorrels…”
Will Fritz. “I don’t think I was present but I will tell you what, I helped Mr. Sorrels find the time that that man–we didn’t show that he was shown at all on our records, but Mr. Sorrels called me and said he did show him and he wanted me to give him the time of the showup. I asked him to find out from his officers who were with Mr. Brennan the names of the people that we had there, and he gave me those two Davis sisters, and he said, when he told me that, of course, I could tell what showup it was and then I gave him the time.”
John McCloy. “But you were not present to the best of your recollection when Brennan was in the showup?”
Will Fritz. “I don’t believe I was there, I doubt it.” (Volume IV; p. 237)

Here are some notable observations drawn from this excerpt of Fritz’s testimony:
1. Strangely, Fritz appears not to recognize the name Brennan, even though Brennan was a pivotal witness in his case.
2. Fritz seems to distance himself from the assertion that he was present at Brennan’s line-up.
3. According to Fritz, it was Sorrells who informed him that Brennan had been taken to a line-up. Oddly, however, Sorrells wanted Fritz to specify the time of the line-up.
4. It raises the question, who are the officers that Fritz is referencing?
5. As Ian Griggs highlights, Brennan did not attend the Davis sisters’ line-up. Griggs posed this query to Dale Myers, who in turn asked Barbara Davis if Brennan or someone fitting his description had been present at her line-up. Barbara’s response was: “Just me and my sister-in-law and some guys from law enforcement” (No Case To Answer; pp. 92/93).
6. Lastly, if Brennan did indeed attend a line-up, it’s perplexing as to why his name was not listed in any of the Dallas Police Department records concerning these line-ups.
As highlighted by Ian Griggs, the undeniable facts remain that:
1. “Brennan or his description, does not appear in the testimony of any of the other eyewitnesses who attended the line-ups. Markham, Calloway, Guinyard, McWatters, Barbra and Virginia Davis, Scoggins, Whaley, fail to mention Brennan.”
2. “The name Brennan does not appear in the testimony or affidavits of any of the DPD officers who supervised the line-ups on record. Chief Curry, Sims, Boyd, Graves, Leavelle, Dhority, Moore, Potts, Brown, Hall, Senkel.” (Griggs, pp. 77-100)
Brennan’s name is not only absent from the DPD’s records relating to line-ups, but also from the testimonies and affidavits of the officers present at the other line-ups. Why is this the case? Despite its seemingly straightforward nature, why is there a sense of obfuscation around this event?

Dr Buckout Evaluates.

In 1979, the late Larry Harris approached Dr. Robert Buckout to assess the Dallas Police line-ups in which Lee Oswald was subjected to. Dr. Buckout, a renowned expert in eyewitness testimony and identification procedures, reached a clear conclusion. He stated,

“By any stretch of the imagination, virtually every rule in the book was violated in the conduct of these line-ups. The results of any of the line-ups conducted as poorly and under hysterical circumstances, as they were, should be regarded as utterly worthless.” (watch this)

Line-up participate Daniel Lujan on Oswald’s objections to the lineup:

Joesph Ball.“You were handcuffed to Oswald?”
Daniel Lujan. “Yes, sir.”
Joesph Ball. “He was complaining, was he?”
Daniel Lujan. “About having a T-shirt and wanted a jacket or something.”
Joesph Ball.“Oswald was doing some talking?”
Daniel Lujan.“Yes.”
Joesph Ball. “Was he shouting loud?”
Daniel Lujan. “He was shouting. He, he was shouting, said all of us had a shirt on and he had a T-shirt on. He wanted a shirt or something.” (Volume XII; p. 245/246)

Dr. Buckout’s assessment illuminates the serious flaws and deficiencies in the line-ups conducted by the Dallas Police Department. As an expert in the field of eyewitness testimony and identification procedures, his conclusion carries substantial weight, suggesting that the line-ups were conducted in a manner that not only violated established protocols but implies that they were conducted in such a manner which would reach a desired conclusion. Additionally, the actions of Fritz/Leavelle exposes a specific agenda and a desire to not only link Oswald to the murder of Officer Tippit, but also to the assassination of President Kennedy. It suggests a deliberate effort to construct a strong case against Oswald by solidifying his involvement in both crimes. This highlights the Dallas Police’s predisposition to connect Oswald to both murders, thereby influencing the direction of the investigation and subsequent legal proceedings. This again raises serious questions regarding Oswald’s treatment at the hands of the Dallas Police.

“When a line up or showup is conducted in violation of the defendant’s right to due process, an in-court identification of the defendant will not be permitted unless the government can establish an independent source. The factors used to establish an independent source where a line up or showup has been conducted in violation of the defendant’s right to counsel are also applicable here.” (see here)

25. Oswald Gets No Defense.

Marguerite Oswald:“My son, Lee Harvey Oswald, was tried and convicted within a few hours time, without benefit of counsel. And so, I am appealing to the Board that my son, Lee Harvey Oswald, be represented by counsel… I implore you, I implore you, in the name of justice, to let my son, Lee Harvey Oswald, who is accused of assassinating the President, and I, the mother of this man, who is the accused’s mother, be represented by counsel. Marguerite Oswald. (Volume I; p. 127/128)

Mark Lane, a seasoned attorney and vocal critic of the case against Oswald, was enlisted by Marguerite, Oswald’s mother. He put forth a petition to the Warren Commission, articulating his intent to advocate for Oswald’s legal rights during the forthcoming hearings. Prior to this, Lane had addressed a letter to Chief Justice Earl Warren, stating, “It would be appropriate that Mr. Oswald, from whom every legal right was stripped, be accorded counsel who may participate with the single purpose of representing the rights of the accused.” Nonetheless, Lane’s request to represent Oswald was rejected. As substantiation, Lane cited a letter dated January 23, 1964, from J. Lee Rankin, the Commission’s counsel. The correspondence stated, “The Commission does not believe that it would be useful or desirable to permit an attorney representing Lee Harvey Oswald to have access to the investigatory materials within the possession of the commission or to participate in any hearings to be conducted by the commission.” Earl Warren also informed Lane “that Oswald was not on trial, and that counsel would not be permitted to represent him”(NY Times, 26 Feb 1964; p. 17)

26. President Kennedy’s Clothing.

Commission Conclusion. “President Kennedy was first struck by a bullet which entered at the back of his neck and exited through the lower portion of his neck.” (WCR, P19.)

The clothing worn by President Kennedy serves as compelling evidence in this case. An examination of the garments reveals that President Kennedy sustained a gunshot wound in the upper portion of his back, specifically near the third thoracic vertebra. This fact finds support in numerous eyewitness testimonies and the documented evidence on the record. Had Oswald gone to trial, it would have been imperative for Henry Wade to demonstrate to the jury that despite the President’s shirt and jacket displaying a clear and concise bullet hole in the back, the actual entry point of the sustained injury was at the base of President Kennedys neck.

Sibert & O’Neill

FBI agents James Sibert & Francis O’Neill took meticulous notes during the Presidents autopsy. Included in these notes is a detailed description of the wounds sustained by the President.

“During the latter stages of this autopsy, Dr Humes located an opening which appeared to be a bullet hole which was below the shoulders and two inches to the right of the middle line of the spinal column. This opening was probed by Dr Humes with the finger, at which time it was determined that the trajectory of the missile entering at this point had entered at a downward position of 45 to 60 degrees. Further probing determined that the distance travelled by this missile was a short distance as much as the end of the opening could be felt with the finger.” (Sibert and O’Neil Report on the Autopsy 11/26/63) (see this)

Admiral George Burkley, Official Whitehouse Death Certificate, 11/23/63. “A second wound occurred in the posterior back at about the level of the third thoracic vertebra.” (see this)

Admiral George Burkley.Signed “verified” to the Autopsy Face sheet which depicts the wound in President Kennedy’s back way below the neckline, around the third thoracic vertebra.

Clint Hill.“I saw an opening in the back, about six inches below the neckline to the right-hand side of the spinal column.”(Volume II; p.143)

Roy Kellerman.“While the President is in the morgue, he is lying flat. And with part of the skull removed, and the hole in the throat, nobody was aware until they lifted him up that there was a hole in the shoulder. That was the first concrete evidence that they knew that the man was hit in the back first.” (Volume II; p.103)

Roy Kellerman.“The other wound I noticed was in his shoulder”.

Arlen Specter.“Which Shoulder”
Roy Kellerman. “Right shoulder…the upper neckline, sir, in that large muscle between the shoulder and the neck, just below it.” (Volume II; p. 81)

Glen Bennett.“At this exact time, I saw a shot that hit the Boss about 4 inches down from the right shoulder; a second shot followed immediately and hit the right rear high of the Boss’s head.” (Volume XXIV, pp. 541/542)

Willam Greer. “It was, to the best of my recollection it was, back here, just in the soft part of the shoulder.” (Volume II; p.127)

Paul O’Connor.“Finally, we turned the body over, and there was a bullet wound-an entrance wound-in his back, on the right side of his spinal column. To emphasize where it was in proximity to the rest of his body: if you bend your neck down and feel back, you feel a lump and that’s the seventh cervical vertebra. This bullet wound was about three inches down and an inch or two to the right of the seventh cervical vertebra.” (William Law, In The Eye Of History; p.199)

Jim Jenkins.“There was a bullet wound around the scapula in the back.”
William Law. “How far do you say that was. Give me an estimate: T1, T2-?”
Jim Jenkins. “He thinks, reaching around touching his back…I would say say about T4” [the fourth thoracic vertebra. (Law, p.226)

Pierre Finck, one of three autopsy pathologists who conducted the President’s autopsy has revealed that: “I was denied the opportunity to examine the clothing of Kennedy. One officer who outranked me told me that my request was only of academic interest. The same officer did not agree to state within the autopsy report that the autopsy was not complete, as I had suggested to indicate. I saw the clothing of Kennedy, for the first time on March 16, 1964, at the Warren Commission, before my testimony, more than 3 months after the autopsy.” see this

Pathologist Gerald Ford.

A declassified document released by the ARRB (Assassination Records Review Board), proves that Commissioner Gerald Ford made a critical change to the wording of the Warren Report, which describes the location of the wound on the President’s back. The original version explicitly described that “A bullet had entered at the back at a point slightly above the shoulder to the right of the spine.” This description was consistent with the verified autopsy face sheet, the death certificate, and numerous witness testimonies. However, Ford revised the report to state that the bullet entered at the back of the neck, thereby bolstering the credibility of the Single Bullet Theory (SBT). And, more importantly, keeping the blame for the assassination solely on Lee Oswald. Fords revision stated that “President Kennedy was first struck by a bullet which entered at the back of his neck.” This alteration not only calls into question the integrity of the report, but it appears to be a deliberate manipulation of the facts by an elected official. This was done purely to save the circumstantial case against Oswald. Alongside other fraudulent exhibits such as CE1302, these revisions underscore the practices employed by the Commission (See the film, JFK:Destiny Betrayed, Episode 3; WCR; p.19)

To summarize, the jacket and shirt of President Kennedy effectively serve as evidence that exonerates Oswald in the case, especially the shirt since these were tailored. Examination of the clothing reveals a gunshot wound in the upper portion of the President’s back, near the third thoracic vertebra. This finding is supported by eyewitness testimonies and documented evidence. However, in the aftermath of the autopsy, Dr. Finck has revealed that he was denied access to the President’s clothing, thus limiting the ability of the pathologists to thoroughly examine the evidence during the procedure. Gerald Ford made a critical change to the wording of the report, regarding the placement of the back wound. The original version accurately described the entry point above the shoulder to the right of the spine, but Ford revised it to support the Single Bullet Theory (SBT). This alteration raises serious concerns about the modus operandi of the Commission. It suggests a deliberate manipulation of facts to maintain a predetermined theory that Oswald was the lone assassin.

27. Admiral Burkley vs. The Warren Report.

“Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori.” Wilfred Owen.

Admiral George Burkley, President Kennedy’s personal physician who was present at both Parkland and Bethesda, had firsthand experience witnessing the fatal wounds sustained by the President. Given the significance of his testimony in establishing the facts surrounding the nature and locations of President Kennedy’s injuries, it was crucial for Dr. Burkley’s account to be heard on the record.However, astonishing it may seem, Dr Burkley was not called to testify before the Warren Commission.

In a 1967 interview with the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Burkley declined to comment on the findings of the Commission.

Interviewer– “Do you agree with the Warren Report on the number of bullets which entered the Presidents body?”Burkley – “I would not care to be quoted on that.” (see this)

28. Uncovering the Whitewash: Jim Humes and The ARRB.

James Humes: “In [the] privacy of my own home, early in the morning of Sunday, November 24, I made a draft of this report which I later revised, and of which this [handwritten draft of autopsy report] represents the revision. That draft I personally burned in the fireplace of my recreation room.” Commander J. J. Humes. (Volume II; p. 373)

Michael Baden: “Where bungled autopsies are concerned, President Kennedy’s is the exemplar.” (James DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland; p.37)

Chief autopsy surgeon Commander J.J. Humes destroyed crucial medical evidence on November 24, 1963, which had significant implications for the case against Oswald. This evidence consisted of the initial draft of President Kennedy’s autopsy report and the accompanying notes it was based upon. It is noteworthy that Humes alleged destruction occurred only after Lee Oswald had been shot to death by Jack Ruby. Humes testified: “The final changes in the notes prior to the typing of the report were made, and I will have to give you the time because whatever time Mr. Oswald was shot, that is about when I finished. I was working in an office, and someone had a television on and came in and told me that Mr. Oswald had been shot, and that was around noon on Sunday, November 24th.” If Oswald had lived to stand trial, these destroyed notes would have played a crucial role as evidence. On February 13, 1996, Jeremy Gunn and Doug Horne from the ARRB conducted a deposition of Commander Humes, during which they addressed the issue of his disposal of the original autopsy material. Gunn ultimately exposed Humes’ explanation for his actions.

Jim Humes “Also in Greenfield Village, there is an old Illinois courthouse where Lincoln used to preside when he was circuit-riding judge. And in that courthouse was a chair that was alleged to be the chair in which Lincoln sat when he was assassinated in Ford’s Theater. And the docent, in describing this chair, proudly spoke that here on the back of the chair is the stain of the President’s blood. The bullet went through his head. I thought this was the most macabre thing I ever saw in my life. It just made a terrible impression on me. And when I noticed that these bloodstains were on this document that I had prepared, I said nobody’s going to ever get these documents. I’m not going to keep them, and nobody else is ever going to get them. So, I copied them–and you probably have a copy in my longhand of what I wrote. It’s made from the original. And I then burned the original notes in the fireplace of my family room to prevent them from ever falling into the hands of what I consider inappropriate people”

Gunn then questions Hume’s about a glaring inconsistency in his story regarding the draft and notes:

Jeremy Gunn. “Did you ever make a copy that–a copy of the notes that contained the same information as was on the original handwritten notes that was in any form other than the form that appears in Exhibit 2?”
Jim Humes. “No.”
Jeremy Gunn. “Have you ever observed that the document now marked Exhibit 1 in the original appears to have bloodstains on it as well?”
Jim Humes. “Yes, I do notice it now. These were J’s. I’m sure I gave these back to J. I presume I did. I don’t know where they came from.” [J refers to Jay Thornton Boswell, who was a partner to Humes on the autopsy.]
Jeremy Gunn. “Did you ever have any concern about the President’s blood being on the document that’s now marked Exhibit 1?”
Jim Humes. “I can’t recall, to tell you the truth.”
Jeremy Gunn. “Do you see any inconsistency at all between destroying some handwritten notes that contained blood on them but preserving other handwritten notes that also had blood on them?”
Jim Humes. “Well, only that the others were of my own making. I didn’t–wouldn’t have the habit of destroying something someone else prepared. That’s the only difference that I can conceive of. I don’t know where these went. I don’t know if they went back to J or where they went. I have no idea. I certainly didn’t keep them. I kept nothing, as a matter of fact.
Jeremy Gunn: I’d like to show you the testimony that you offered before the Warren Commission. This is in Exhibit 11 to this deposition. I’d like you to take a look at pages 372 to the top of 373, and then I’ll ask you a question.”
Jim Humes. “All right.”
Jeremy Gunn. “I’ll read that into that record while you’re reading it yourself. Mr. Specter asked the question: And what do those consist of? The question is referring to some notes. “Answer: In privacy of my own home, early in the morning of Sunday, November 24, I made a draft of this report, which I later revised and of which this represents the revision. That draft I personally burned in the fireplace of my recreation room. Do you see Mr. Specter’s question and your answer?”
Jim Humes. “Yes.”
Jeremy Gunn. “Does that help refresh your recollection of what was burned in your home?”
Jim Humes. “Whatever I had, as far as I know, that was burned was everything exclusive of the finished draft that you have as Exhibit–whatever it is.”
Jeremy Gunn. “My question will go to the issue of whether it was a draft of the report that was burned or whether it was—”
Jim Humes. “I think it was—”
Jeremy Gunn. “—handwritten notes—”
Jim Humes. “It was handwritten notes and the first draft that was burned.”
Jeremy Gunn. “Do you mean to use the expression handwritten notes as being the equivalent of draft of the report?”
Jim Humes. “I don’t know. Again, it’s a hair- splitting affair that I can’t understand. Everything that I personally prepared until I got to the status of the handwritten document that later was transcribed was destroyed. You can call it anything you want, whether it was the notes or what, I don’t know. But whatever I had, I didn’t want anything else to remain, period. This business, I don’t know when J got that back or what.”

Further in the testimony Gunn asks Humes again about his destruction of the autopsy report and notes:

Jeremy Gunn. “When I first asked the question, you explained that the reason that you had destroyed it was that it had the blood of the President on it.”
Jim Humes. “Right”.
Jeremy Gunn. “The draft report, of course, would not have had the blood of…”
Jim Humes. “Well, it may have had errors in spelling, or I don’t know what was the matter with it, or whether I even ever did that. I don’t know. I can’t recall. I absolutely can’t recall, and I apologise for that. But that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I didn’t want anything to remain that some squirrel would grab on and make whatever use that they might. Now, whether you felt that was reasonable or not, I don’t know. But it doesn’t make any difference because that was my decision and mine alone. Nobody else’s.” (see this)

29. Pierre Finck Spills The Beans.

Harold Weisberg.“The President got an autopsy that wouldn’t have been acceptable for a bowery bum. But Oswald got an autopsy fitting of a President.”

The subsequent testimony from the 1969 trial, The People Vs Clay Shaw, strengthens the claim that President John F. Kennedy’s autopsy was significantly faulty, emphasizing the military’s substantial influence over the process. Within this scenario, Alvin Oser, the state prosecutor, cross-examines Pierre Finck, a defense witness who was also one of the pathologists involved in the autopsy that evening. What Oser elicits from Finck is crucial in understanding the autopsy.

Alvin Oser. “Well, at that particular time, Doctor, why didn’t you call the doctors at Parkland or attempt to ascertain what the doctors at Parkland may have done or may have seen while the President’s body was still exposed to view on the autopsy table?”
Pierre Finck. “I will remind you that I was not in charge of this autopsy, that I was called –”
Alvin Oser. “You were a co-author of the report though, weren’t you, Doctor?”
Pierre Finck. “Wait. I was called as a consultant to look at these wounds; that doesn’t mean I am running the show.”
Alvin Oser. “Was Dr. Humes running the show?”
Pierre Finck. “Well, I heard Dr. Humes stating that — he said, “Who is in charge here?” and I heard an Army General, I don’t remember his name, stating, I am.” You must understand that in those circumstances, there were law enforcement officers, military people with various ranks, and you have to co-ordinate the operation according to directions.”
Alvin Oser. “But you were one of the three qualified pathologists standing at that autopsy table, were you not, Doctor?”
Pierre Finck. “Yes, I am.”
Alvin Oser. “Was this Army General a qualified pathologist?”
Pierre Finck. “No.”
Alvin Oser. “Was he a doctor?”
Pierre Finck. “No, not to my knowledge”.
Alvin Oser. “Can you give me his name, Colonel?”
Pierre Finck. “No, I can’t. I don’t remember.”

Testimony continued.

Alvin Oser. “Colonel, did you feel that you had to take orders from this Army General that was there directing the autopsy?”
Pierre Finck. “No, because there were others, there were Admirals.”
Alvin Oser. “There were Admirals?”
Pierre Finck. “Oh, yes, there were Admirals, and when you are a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army you just follow orders, and at the end of the autopsy we were specifically told — as I recall it, it was by Admiral Kinney, the Surgeon General of the Navy — this is subject to verification — we were specifically told not to discuss the case.”

Finck’s sworn admission that military personnel were supervising the pathologists during President Kennedy’s autopsy brings to light serious concerns regarding the case against Oswald. In response to Oser’s questions about why Finck had refrained from dissecting the trajectory in President Kennedy’s neck, Finck testified that.

Alvin Oser. “Did you have an occasion to dissect the track of that particular bullet in the victim as it lay on the autopsy table?”
Pierre Finck. “I did not dissect the track in the neck.”
Alvin Oser. “Why?”
Pierre Finck. “This leads us into the disclosure of medical records.”
Alvin Oser. “Your Honor, I would like an answer from the Colonel, and I would as the Court so to direct.”
Judge: “That is correct, you should answer, Doctor.”
Pierre Finck. “We didn’t remove the organs of the neck.”
Alvin Oser. “Why not, Doctor?”
Pierre Finck. “For the reason that we were told to examine the head wounds and that the –”
Alvin Oser. “Are you saying someone told you not to dissect the track?”
Judge: “Let him finish his answer”.
Pierre Finck. “I was told that the family wanted an examination of the head, as I recall, the head and chest, but the prosectors in this autopsy didn’t remove the organs of the neck, to my recollection.”
Alvin Oser. “You have said they did not, I want to know why didn’t you as an autopsy pathologist attempt to ascertain the track through the body which you had on the autopsy table in trying to ascertain the cause or causes of death? Why?”
Pierre Finck. “I had the cause of death.”
Alvin Oser. “Why did you not trace the track of the wound?”
Pierre Finck. “As I recall I didn’t remove these organs from the neck.”
Alvin Oser.” I didn’t hear you.”
Pierre Finck. “I examined the wounds, but I didn’t remove the organs of the neck.”
Alvin Oser. “You said you didn’t do this; I am asking you why didn’t do this as a pathologist?”
Pierre Finck. “From what I recall I looked at the trachea, there was a tracheotomy wound the best I can remember, but I didn’t dissect or remove these organs.”
Alvin Oser. “Your Honor, I would ask Your Honor to direct the witness to answer my question.”
Alvin Oser. “I will ask you the question one more time: Why did you not dissect the track of the bullet wound that you have described today, and you saw at the time of the autopsy at the time you examined the body? Why? I ask you to answer that question.”
Pierre Finck. “As I recall I was told not to, but I don’t remember by whom.”
Alvin Oser. “You were told not to, but you don’t remember by whom?”
Pierre Finck. “Right.”
Alvin Oser. “Could it have been one of the Admirals or one of the Generals in the room?”
Pierre Finck. “I don’t recall.”
Alvin Oser. “Do you have any particular reason why you cannot recall at this time?”
Pierre Finck. “Because we were told to examine the head and the chest cavity, and that doesn’t include the removal of the organs of the neck.”
Alvin Oser. “You are one of the three autopsy specialist and pathologists at the time, and you saw what you described as an entrance wound in the neck area of the President of the United States who had just been assassinated, and you were only interested in the other wound but not interested in the track through his neck, is that what you are telling me?”
Pierre Finck. “I was interested in the track, and I had observed the conditions of bruising between the point of entry in the back of the neck and the point of exit at the front of the neck, which is entirely compatible with the bullet path.”
Alvin Oser. “But you were told not to go into the area of the neck, is that your testimony?”
Pierre Finck. “From what I recall, yes, but I don’t remember by whom.”

Finck’s testimony introduces serious doubts about the thoroughness of President Kennedy’s autopsy. Finck’s disclosure that military personnel directed the autopsy, including the decision not to dissect the wound in the neck, implies manipulation and restrictions imposed upon the pathologists. These revelations challenge the autopsy’s comprehensiveness and scrutiny of key evidence. This testimony confirms that intentional limitations were imposed upon the autopsy, concealing the fact that President Kennedy was shot from the front. (read this and this.

30. The Condition Of President Kennedy’s Brain.

“I’ve a rendezvous with Death. At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year, And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.” Alan Seeger.

The official record of President Kennedy’s brain post-mortem raises significant questions that further complicate the investigation. The “Supplementary Report of Autopsy Number A63-272 of President John F. Kennedy,” reported the brain weight as 1500 grams after formalin fixation. This is puzzling when compared to the expected average weight of an adult male brain. Typically, brain weight decreases with age, with the average male brain weighing around 1400 grams at the age of 20 and decreasing further to approximately 1300 grams by the age of 65. The recorded weight of President Kennedy’s brain, at 1500 grams presents a perplexing contrast to the evident and disturbing images of a shattered skull and mass eruption of brain matter, which is clearly visible in the Zapruder film. The stark incongruity between the autopsy report and the observable evidence raises significant doubts about the accuracy and trustworthiness of the post-mortem findings. To assess the correlation between witness testimonies and the findings in the supplementary autopsy report, it is crucial to consider the following testimonies from various witnesses who were present during the events surrounding President Kennedy’s death. These witnesses observed the immediate aftermath of the assassination and may have important information regarding the condition of President Kennedy’s brain.

Dr Robert McClelland.“The cause of death, I would say, would be massive head injuries with loss of large amounts of cerebral and cerebellar [brain] tissues and massive blood loss.” (Volume VI; p. 34.)

Dr Malcolm Perry. “I noted there was a large wound in the right posterior parietal area in the head exposing lacerated brain. There was blood and brain tissue on the cart.” (Volume VI; p. 9.)

Dr Marion Jenkins. “Regarding the head wound, Dr Jenkins said that only one segment of bone was blown out—it was a segment of occipital or temporal bone. He noted that a portion of the cerebellum (lower rear brain) was hanging out from a hole in the right—rear of the head. During the emergency medical procedures, Mrs Kennedy came in the room and gave Dr Jenkins a piece of the President’s brain.” (Dr Jenkins HSCA Interview with Andy Purdy; p. 15.) (see this)

Dr Jim Carrico. “The skull wound had avulsed the calvarium and shredded brain tissue present with profuse oozing. Attempts to control slow oozing from cerebral and cerebellar tissue via packs instituted.” (Volume XVII; p. 4/5.)
“
Dr Kemp Clark. “There was a large wound in the right occipito-parietal region, from which profuse bleeding was occurring. 1500 cc. Of blood were estimated on the drapes and floor of the Emergency Operating Room. There was considerable loss of scalp and bone tissue. Both cerebral and cerebellar tissue were extruding from the wound.” (Volume XVII; p. 3.)

Dr Paul Peters.“I could see that he [Kennedy] had a large, about 7cm opening in the right occipital parietal area. A considerable portion of the brain was missing there and uh the occipital cortex the back portion of the brain was lying down near the opening of the wound and blood was trickling out”. (see this)

Dr Charles Baxter.“Portions of the right temporal and occipital bones were missing and some of the brain was lying on the table. The rest of the brain was extensively macerated and contused” (Volume XVII; p. 8.)

Dr Adolph Giesecke Jr. “I noticed that he [JFK] had a very large cranial wound, with loss of brain substance and it seemed that most of the bleeding was coming from the cranial wound.” (Volume VI; p. 74.)

Dr Ronald Jones. “There was a large defect in the back side of the head as the President lay on the cart with what appeared to be some brain hanging out of this wound with multiple pieces of skull noted next with the brain and with a tremendous amount of clot and blood”. (Volume VI; pp 53-54)

Dr Don Curtis. “After I completed the cut-down, I went around to the right side of the patient [JFK] and saw the head wound.”
Arlen Specter. “And what did you observe there”?
Dr Don Curtis. “Oh –fragments of bone and a gross injury to the cranial contents, with copious amounts of haemorrhage.” (Volume VI; p. 60.)

Clint Hill. “As I lay over the top of the back seat, I noticed a portion of the President’s head on the right rear side was missing and he was bleeding profusely. Part of the brain was gone. I saw a piece of his skull with hair on it lying in the seat. (11/30/63 Report by Clint Hill on Activities on 11/22/63.)

Clint Hill. “His brain was exposed. There was blood and bits of brain all over the entire rear portion of the car.” (Volume II; p. 141.)
Dr Robert Karnei JR. “Dr. Karnei said that normally a neuropathologist is present for the examination of abnormal brains. He said this brain would be “…considered such because of the extensive damage.” (p. 6/7 of summary HSCA interview with Karnei.)
Governor Connally. “Immediately I could see on my clothes, my clothing, I could see on the interior of the car which, as I recall, was a pale blue, brain tissue, which I immediately recognized, and I recall very well, on my trousers there was one chunk of brain tissue as big as almost my thumb, thumbnail.
Arlen Specter. “Did Mrs Kennedy state anything at that time”?
Governor Connally. “Yes; I have to—i would say it was after the third shot when she said, They have killed my husband.
Arlen Specter. “Did she say anything more”?
Governor Connally. “Yes; she said, I heard her say one time I have got his brains in my hand”. (Volume IV; p. 133/134.)

Mrs Nellie Connally. “Then after the third shot she said [Mrs Kennedy] They have killed my husband. I have his brains in my hand.” (Volume IV; p. 148).

Bobby Hargis

Mr Stern.“Did something happen to you, personally in connection with the shot you have just described”?
Bobby Hargis. “You mean the blood hitting me”?
Mr Stern. “Yes”
Bobby Hargis. “Yes; when President Kennedy straightened back up in the car the bullet hit him in the head, the one that killed him and it seemed like his head exploded, and I was splattered with blood and brain and a kind of bloody water. (Volume VI; p. 294.)

J Thornton Boswell. “Well, probably half of one hemisphere was absent…the upper surface of that side of the brain was missing.” (ARRB Interview pp. 42/43)

Abraham Zapruder.
Forrest Sorrels testified that Zapruder had told him “My God, I saw the whole thing. I saw the man’s brains come out of his head.” (Volume VII; p. 352).

Go to Part 1 of 6

Go to Part 2 of 6

Go to Part 4 of 6

Go to Part 5 of 6

Go to Part 6 of 6
November 14, 2023
Part 4 of 6: Medical Witnesses and a Questionable Rifle
31. Entry or Exit? Autopsy ‘Picture’ V. Witness Testimony.

In a court of law, the admission of photographs follows a specific standard. Generally, photographs are admitted as evidence if they are relevant, authenticated, and have probative value. The standard, McCormick on Evidence, states that “The principle upon which photographs are most commonly admitted into evidence is the same as that underlying the admission of illustrative drawings, maps and diagrams. A photograph is viewed merely as graphic portrayal of oral testimony and becomes admissible only when a witness has testified that it is a correct and accurate representation of the relevant facts personally observed by the witness.”

With the standard clear, how would Henry Wade have admitted these exhibits into evidence? And is there testimony in the record which would refute the geniality of the autopsy photographs? (Reclaiming Parkland, p.135.)

Commission Conclusion. “The President was struck a second time by a bullet which entered the right rear portion of his head, causing a massive and fatal wound.” (WCR; p. 19.)

Eye Witness Testimony That Refutes ‘Autopsy’ Photograph & The Commission Conclusion.

Dr Paul Peters. “I could see that he [Kennedy] had a large, about 7cm opening in the right occipital parietal area. A considerable portion of the brain was missing there and uh the occipital cortex the back portion of the brain was lying down near the opening of the wound and blood was trickling out”. See supporting video at 25:40.

Dr Robert McClelland. As I took position at the head of the table that I have already described, to help out with the tracheotomy, I was in such a position that I could very closely examine the head wound, and I noted that the right posterior portion of the skull had been extremely blasted. It had been shattered, apparently, by the force of the shot so that the parietal bone was protruded up through the scalp and it seemed to be fractured almost along its right posterior half, as well as some of the occipital bone being fractured in its lateral half, and this sprung open the bones that I had mentioned in such a way that you could actually look down into the skull cavity itself and see possibly a third or so, at least, of the brain tissue, posterior cerebral tissue and some of the cerebellar tissue had been blasted out. There was a large amount of bleeding which was occurring mainly from the large venous channels in the skull which had been blasted open.” (Volume VI; p. 33.)

Dr Charles Crenshaw. “I walked to the President’s head to get a closer look. His entire right cerebral hemisphere appeared to be gone. It looked like a crater-an empty cavity. All I could see there was mangled, bloody tissue. From the damage I saw, there was no doubt in my mind that the bullet had entered his head through the front, and as it surgically passed through his cranium, the missile obliterated part of the temporal and all the parietal and occipital lobes before it lacerated the cerebellum. The wound resembled a deep furrow in a freshly ploughed field.” (Crenshaw, Conspiracy of Silence; p. 86.)

Dr Kemp Clark. “I then examined the wound in the back of the President’s head. This was a large gaping wound in the right posterior part, with cerebral and cerebellar tissue being damaged and exposed. There was considerable blood loss evident on the carriage, the floor, and the clothing of some of the people present.” (Volume IV; p. 20.)

Dr Malcolm Perry. “…It informed us that the President had been shot and was being brought to the emergency room. We went there immediately, and he had just been brought in. It was obvious initially that he had a severe lethal wound. Arriving at the emergency room Dr Carrico had placed a tube in the President’s trachea to assist his breathing. There was a neck wound internally and a large wound of his head in the right posterior area.” See video

Dr Ronald Jones. “There was a large defect in the back side of the head as the President lay on the cart with what appeared to be some brain hanging out of this wound with multiple pieces of skull noted next with the brain and with a tremendous amount of clot and blood. * (Volume VI; p. 53/54.)

Dr Marion Jenkins. “There was a great laceration on the right side of the head (temporal and occipital), causing a great defect in the skull plate so that there was herniation and laceration of great areas of the brain, even to the extent that the cerebellum had protruded from the wound. There were also fragmented sections of brain on the drapes of the emergency room cart. With the institution of adequate cardiac compression, there was a great flow of blood from the cranial cavity, indicating that there was much vascular damage as well as brain tissue damage.” Report of DR. M. T Jenkins, 11/22/63 16:30. (Volume XVII; p. 14/15.)

Dr Gene Coleman Akin. “The back of the right occipital parietal portion of his head was shattered, with brain substance extruding.” (Volume VI; p. 65.)

Dr Charles Baxter. “We had an opportunity to look at his head wound then and saw that the damage was beyond hope, that is, in a word-literally the right side of his head had been blown off. With this and the observation that the cerebellum was present-a large quantity of brain was present on the cart.” (Volume VI; p. 41.)

Dr Adolph Giesecke Jr. “It seemed that from the vortex to the left ear, and from the browline to the occiput on the left-hand side of the head the cranium was entirely missing.”

Arlen Specter. Was that the left-hand side of the head, or the right-hand side of the head?

Dr Adolph Giesecke Jr. “I would say the left, but this is just my memory of it.” (Volume VI; p. 74.)

Nurse Doris May Nelson.

Ben Bradlee Jr. “On page 104 of the House Assassination Committee Report, this rear view of the head. This is a photograph taken of the President’s head, during the autopsy. I should say it’s not a photograph, it’s a tracing, a drawing, which claims to be an exact replica of the rear-“

Nurse Nelson. “After he was shot?”

Bradlee. “After he was shot.”

Nurse Nelson. “It’s not true”

Bradlee. “It’s not true?”

Nelson. ….” Not unless they pulled all that skin back down, but some of his head was blown away, and his brains were fallin’ out on a stretcher.”

Bradlee. “Oh, can you be more specific? Are you saying that this photo- this photograph does not show the wounds that you saw?”

Nelson. “No.”

Bradlee. “And how doesn’t it exactly?”

Nelson. “Cause there was no hair, there wasn’t even hair back there, it was blown away”. See supporting video at 6:00.

Nurse Audrey Bell. “I recall the injury being right along in this area (pointing to occipital parietal area in autopsy photograph). I know they lifted it up for me to see the injury at the back of the head.

Robert Groden. “Ok but you remember there being a large hole there that is not apparent in this photograph?”

Bell. “Oh yes there was a big hole there. There was a large hole back in this area (pointing to occipital parietal area in autopsy photograph)” See video at 1.03.25

Nurse Pat Hutton. “Mr Kennedy was bleeding profusely from a wound on the back of his head. A doctor asked me to place a pressure dressing on the head wound, this was of no use, however, because of the massive opening on the back of his head.” (Volume XXI; p. 216.)

Nurse Diana Bowron. “He was moribund-he was lying across Mrs. Kennedy’s knee and there seemed to be blood everywhere. When I went around to the other side of the car, I saw the condition of his head.”

Mr Spector. “You saw the condition of his what?”

Nurse Diana Bowron. “The back of his head”

Mr Spector. “And what was that condition?”

Nurse Diana Bowron. “Well, it was very bad-you know.”

Mr Spector. “How many holes did you see?”

Nurse Diana Bowron. “I just saw one large hole.” (Volume VI; p. 136.)

Aubrey Rike. “The first time we began to pick up the President, I put my right hand underneath his head; I could feel the back of the skull had been blown out-it was literally blasted away. I felt the serrated edge of the hole in the skull on my hand. It was not painful, but I could feel the jagged edges of the bones through the sheet on the palm of my hand. I could also feel the President’s brain shifting in my hand within the hole located just to the right of the centre of the head.” (At The Door Of Memory; p. 58.)

ARRB Testimony

Jeremy Gunn. “Okay. If we could now look at the sixth view, which is described as the ‘wound of entrance ln right posterior occipital region”. Photograph No.42. Mr. Slbert, does that photograph correspond to your recollection of the back of President Kennedy’s head?”

James Sibert. “Well, I don’t have a recollection of it being that intact, as compared with these other pictures. I don’t remember seeing anything that was like this photo.”

Gunn. “But do you see anything that corresponds in Photograph No. 42 to what you observed during the night of the autopsy?”

Sibert. “No. I don’t recall anything like this at all during the autopsy. There was much- the wound was more pronounced. And it looks like it could have been reconstructed or something, as compared with what my recollection was and those other photographs.” (Sibert, ARRB Testimony; p. 126.)

Jeremy Gunn. “Okay. Can we take a look at view number six, which is described as wound of entrance in right posterior occipital region, Colour Photograph No. 42…I’d like to ask you whether that photograph resembles what you saw from the back of the head at the time of the autopsy”?

Francis X. O’Neill. “This looks like it’s been doctored in some way. Let me rephrase that, when I say “doctored” Like the stuff has been pushed back in, and it looks like more towards the end than at the beginning. All you have to do was put the flap back over here, and the rest of the stuff is all covered on up”. (O’Neill, ARRB Testimony; p. 158.)

Mrs Jackie Kennedy. Declassified excerpt from her testimony to the Warren Commission which was suppressed “I was trying to hold his hair on. But from the front there was nothing. I suppose there must have been. But from the back you could see, you know, you were trying to hold his hair on, and his skull on.” (Weisberg, Post Mortem; pp. 380/381.)

Secret Service Agent Clint Hill. “The right rear portion of his head was missing. It was lying in the rear seat of the car. His brain was exposed. There was blood and bits of brain all over the entire rear portion of the car. Mrs. Kennedy was completely covered with blood. There was so much blood you could not tell if there had been any other wound or not, except for the one large gaping wound in the right rear portion of the head.” (Volume II; p. 141.)

Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman.

Arlen Specter. “I would like to develop your understanding and your observations of the four wounds on President Kennedy.”

Roy Kellerman. “OK. This all transpired in the morgue of the Naval Hospital in Bethesda, sir. He had a large wound this size”

Arlen Specter. “Indicating a circle with your finger of the diameter of 5 inches; would that be approximately correct”?

Roy Kellerman. “Yes, circular; yes, on this part of the head.”

Arlen Specter. Indicating the rear portion of the head.

Roy Kellerman. Yes.

Arlen Specter. “More to the right side of the head”?

Roy Kellerman. “Right. This was removed.” (Volume II; p. 80/81.)

Secret Service Agent William Greer.

Arlen Specter. “What did you observe about the President with respect to his wounds”?

William Greer “His head was all shot; this whole part was all a matter of blood like he had been hit”

Arlen Specter. “Indicating the top and right rear side of the head”?

William Greer “Yes sir; it looked like that was all blown off.” (Volume II; p. 124.)

Thomas Robinson, mortician

Reporter. “What do you remember about the wounds you witnessed”?

Tom Robinson. “Well, the one at the back of the head course is the major one, that’s the one that took him. The one that killed him… it’s like that [Pointing to diagram on sheet] but its right here [pointing to right back of his head] right at the medulla.

Reporter. “Yeah… what happened to the brains of the President?

Tom Robinson. It was removed… course the back [points to back of head] portion of the brain was badly torn up. Then put into a jar and taken away. See supporting video.

Edward Reed, Bethesda assistant: “The head wound was very large and located in the right hemisphere in the occipital region.” (Stewart Galanor, Cover-Up; p. 33.)

Dr John Ebersole. “The back of the head was missing.” (Cover-Up; p. 33.)

Phil Willis. “I am very dead certain that at least one shot including the one that took the President’s skull off had to come from the right front…and I will stand to that to my death. Over my mother’s grave.” See all three Willis statements at 24:00.

Marilyn Wills. “The head shot seemed to come from the right front. It seemed to strike him here [pointing to right temple] and his head went back, and all of the brain matter went out the back of the head it was like a red halo, a red circle with bright matter in the middle of it it just went like that. It was a terrible time you cannot imagine seeing this. You knew it happened, but you didn’t want to believe it.”

Linda Kay Wills. “The particular headshot must have come from another direction besides behind him because the back of his head blew off and it doesn’t make sense to be hit from the rear and still have your face intact. So, he must have been hit from another position you know possibly in the front or over to the side I really don’t know where, but the back of his head blew off”.

Dr John Ebersole. “The back of the head was missing and the regular messy wound.” p. 3 of PDF

Jan Rudnicki. ” The back right quadrant of the head was missing” p. 2 of PDF.

James Metzler Bethesda witness “Right side of the head behind the right ear extending down to the centre back of the skull.” (Cover-Up; p. 33.)

Floyd Riebe

ARRB. “I would like you to describe as best you recall what or provide a description of the injuries to President Kennedy’s head so we will say from above the throat. Not to the throat but above the throat. What did you observe on the body?”

Riebe. “The right side in the back was gone (indicating). Just a big gaping hole with fragments of scalp and bone hanging in it.”

ARRB. “When you said that, you put your hand on the back of your head.”

Riebe. “The occipital.”

ARRB. “The occipital area? “

Riebe. “Yes.” See Riebe deposition

32. A Violation of Texas Law.

“Gentlemen, Texas law requires an autopsy, performed by the medical examiner in the jurisdiction where the homicide occurred, in order to have a homicide complaint issued or subsequent indictment occur.” (Walt Brown, The People V Lee Harvey Oswald; pp. 45-46)

According to Texas law, an autopsy must be conducted by the medical examiner in the jurisdiction where the homicide occurred. In the case of President Kennedy, Doctor Earl Rose, the medical examiner of Dallas County, should have been responsible for performing his autopsy. However, the Secret Service, without legal authority, took possession of the President’s body from Parkland Hospital, disregarding Dr. Rose’s jurisdiction and his rightful role in the investigation.

Dr. Rose, aware of the legal requirements, informed the Secret Service that he was the appropriate authority to conduct the autopsy. He reminded them that Texas law mandated the autopsy to be performed in the county where the homicide occurred. Dr. Rose’s objection was met with an alarming response from the Secret Service, as they callously threatened him, stating that “he should move out of the way or risk being run over by the casket.” This blatant disregard for the law and the medical examiner’s jurisdiction is a troubling violation of proper legal procedures. The Secret Service’s illegal removal of President Kennedy’s body has significant implications for the case against Oswald. By taking the body out of Dallas and transporting it to Washington, the chain of custody was compromised, potentially allowing for tampering of crucial evidence. This irregularity added to the serious doubts about the integrity of the subsequent autopsy conducted by military pathologists in Bethesda, Maryland. See supporting video at 10:00.

33. A Package For Hidell?

Commission Conclusion. “The Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5-millimeter Italian rifle from which the shots were fired was owned by and in the possession of Oswald.” (WCR, p.19.)

Where Was Oswald On March 12th, 1963?

Richard Stovall. “The fellow had a good record of being on the job, I mean, he didn’t have any absenteeism.” Albert Jenner. “He was prompt and worked every day and had little in the way of absenteeism?”

Richard Stovall. “Yes.” (Volume X; p. 173)

Commission Exhibit 773 provides a crucial piece of evidence in the form of a time-stamped money order envelope for the Hidell rifle. The stamp indicates the purchase location, time and date as “Dallas Tex. 12.1963. Mar12.10:30am.” This raises an important question: Where was Lee Oswald on March 12th, 1963, when the money order for the Hidell rifle was purchased? Is there any evidence in the record which would constitute as proof of Oswald’s whereabouts?

For this I present, Commission Exhibit 1855. This exhibit is a picture of Oswald’s timecard for Jaggers-Chiles-Stovall. The document shows that Oswald was accounted for at work between 8:00am and 17:15pm, with a lunch break from 12:15pm to 12:45pm. Considering the time stamp on the money order at 10:30am, Oswald’s presence at work during that period establishes a solid alibi. These exhibits collectively indicate that Oswald was accounted for at the relevant time the money order was purchased. This evidence challenges the concept that Oswald initiated the purchase of the Mannlicher, casting doubt on his direct involvement in this aspect of the case. (Volume XVII, p. 635 & Volume XXIII, p 605.)

34. Postal Regulations.

Commission Conclusion. “In accordance with postal regulations, the portion of the application which lists names of persons, other than the applicant, entitled to receive mail was thrown away after the box was closed on May 1963. Postal Regulations which were in effect in March 1963.” (WCR; p. 121).

Actual Postal Regulations In Effect In 1963 Which Refute The Commission Conclusion.

Contrary to the Commission’s conclusion, the actual postal regulations in effect in March 1963 provide evidence that contradicts the disposal of the portion of the application identifying authorised recipients of mail. These regulations include:
- “Section 846.53h of the postal manual provides that the third portion of box rental applications, identifying persons other than the applicant authorised to receive mail, must be retained for two years after the box is closed.
And…
- Section 355.111b(4) prescribes that the mail addressed to a person at a post office box, who is not authorised to receive mail, shall be endorsed “addressee unknown” and returned to sender where possible.” (Document 37; Cover Up) 35. No Hidell At PO-Box, 2915.
Commission Conclusion. “It is not known whether the application for post office box 2915 listed “A Hidell” as a person entitled to receive mail at this box” (WCR; p.121)

Commission Exhibit 2585, is a document from the FBI, dated June 3, 1963. Bullet point 12 states:

Claim. “The post office box in Dallas to which Oswald had the rifle mailed was kept under both his name and that of “A.Hidell”

Investigation. “Our investigation has revealed that Oswald did not indicate on his application that others, including an “A.Hidell” would receive mail through the box in question, which was Post Office Box 2915 in Dallas. This box was obtained by Oswald on October 9, 1962, and relinquished by him on May 14, 1963.” (Volume XXV; p. 857-862)

The evidence from the FBI investigation directly refutes the Commission’s conclusion, demonstrating that Oswald did not list “A. Hidell” as an authorised recipient of mail on his application for post box 2915. The discrepancy between the Commission’s conclusion and the FBI’s documented findings raises questions about the accuracy and completeness of the Commission’s investigation into the matter.

36. Monitored Mail?

There is compelling evidence within the report of FBI SA James P. Hosty (CE 829), dated 9/10/63, indicating that the FBI were indeed monitoring Oswald’s post office box.The report reveals connections between Oswald and communist organizations, suggesting surveillance of his activities: “On September 28th, 1962, Dallas confidential informant T-1 advised that LEE H. OSWALD, who at the time resided at 2703 Mercedes Street, Fort Worth, Texas, was a subscriber to The Worker, an East Coast communist newspaper.”

Furthermore, “On April 21, 1963, Dallas confidential informant T-2 advised that Lee H. Oswald of Dallas, Texas was in contact with the Fair Play For Cuba Committee in New York City at which he advised that he had passed out pamphlets for the Fair Play For Cuba Committee. According to T-2, Oswald had a placard around his neck reading “Hands off Cuba, Viva Fidel.” (Volume XVII; p. 722-775. Volume IV; p 443-444.)

The FBI also reported “Information from our informant, furnished to us on April 21, 1963, was based upon Oswald’s own statement contained in an undated letter to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) headquarters in New York City. A copy of this letter is included as Exhibit 61 in our Supplemental Report dated January 13, 1964. Our informant did not know Oswald personally and could furnish no further information. Our Investigation had not disclosed such activity on Oswald’s part prior to this type of activity in New Orleans.” (Volume XXVI; p. 92-99)

The FBI had established links between Oswald and various communist organizations, as evidenced by the Hosty report. It is also evident that the FBI maintained a significant degree of awareness and oversight on PO BOX 2915. Given their professed intensive scrutiny of his activities, it strikes me as highly unlikely that the arrival of the ‘Hidell Carcano’ at the Dallas post office would go unnoticed by the Bureau. This seemingly contradictory situation casts serious doubt upon the FBI’s claim of ignorance about the rifle’s delivery.

37. An FBI Informant.

Harry D. Holmes, a Postal Inspector whose testimony significantly contributed to the Commission’s conclusion that Oswald could have received the ‘Hidell Carcano’, has been discovered to be an informant for the FBI. This revelation surfaced when “members of Holmes family, who have stated that their father should be understood within the context of the times when being an FBI informant was considered commendable. They believe he fulfilled his duties responsibly in all aspects related to the investigation of President John F. Kennedy’s murder.” See Holmes document

38. The ‘Oswald’ Note.

On November 12, 1963, ten days prior to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, FBI Special Agent James P. Hosty received an unsigned note, reportedly from ‘Lee Oswald’. Intriguingly, this note, which could have been a key piece of incriminating evidence against Oswald, was destroyed by the FBI in the hours following Oswald’s tragic death on November 24, 1963.

Jerry Spence. “You received a note, in November 1963 from Mr Oswald, didn’t you?”

James Hosty. “Indirectly yes”

Jerry Spence. “After the Presidents assassination but before the Warren Commission met, you were told by the FBI to destroy that note, weren’t you?

James Hosty. “After Oswald was killed and 10 days to 2 weeks before the Warren Commission was even announced, I was ordered to destroy it yes.”

Jerry Spence. “And who told you to destroy that note?” James Hosty. I was told by the agent in charge, Gordon Shanklin. He handed it to me: here I don’t ever want to see this again.

Jerry Spence. And as a result of that what did you do?

James Hosty. “I got rid of it, I destroyed it.” See video

The controversy surrounding the note itself revolves around its contents. Nannie Lee Fenner, a receptionist from the FBI’s Dallas office, claimed that Oswald’s note contained a threatening ultimatum to Hosty that Oswald was to “blow up the FBI and the Dallas Police Department if you don’t stop bothering my wife.” Yet, Hosty’s recollection of the note’s contents diverges significantly from Fenner’s. Hosty recalls the note as saying “If you want to talk to me, you should talk to me to my face. Stop harassing my wife and stop trying to ask her about me. You have no right to harass her.” This significantly differing narrative raises a pertinent question? If Oswald had indeed made a severe threat against the Dallas FBI and Police Departments, wouldn’t it have warranted his immediate arrest? (Hosty, Assigment: Oswald; p. 21, p. 195)

If, as Fenner testified, the note did contain such a serious threat, it would have provided crucial evidence in support of the government’s emerging narrative about Oswald and his purported violent tendencies toward authoritative figures. The government likely would have relied heavily on this note, presenting it as proof of Oswald’s capability to assassinate President Kennedy.

Despite the potential significance of this evidence, the FBI made the puzzling decision to eliminate the so-called ‘Oswald’ note. The rationale behind the FBI’s decision to eradicate this potentially incriminating document remains, at the very least, puzzling. A genuinely threatening note would have undoubtedly strengthened the case against Oswald, rendering any government justification for its hasty elimination unnecessary.

39. The Humanitarian Rifle.

The Mannlicher Carcano (C2766) was a product of surplus weaponry from World War II, and it’s quite possible that it was cannibalized from the parts of several malfunctioning rifles. As William Sucher, who had purchased hundreds of thousands of these rifles from the surplus of the Italian government, testified to the Commission,: “Many of these rifles were collected from battlefields or places of improper storage and were in very poor condition. These rifles were bought by the pound rather than units. Upon arrival in Canada, defective parts were removed, and saleable rifles were sometimes composed of parts of three or more weapons.” To underscore this point even further, it’s worth noting that at the time of the assassination, the lot of rifles that included C2766 was embroiled in a legal dispute. As stated in CE1977: “Concerning the shipment of those rifles to Adam Consolidated Industries, Inc., there is presently a legal proceeding by the Carlo Riva Machine Shop to collect payment for the shipment of the rifles which Adam Consolidated Industries Inc., claims were defective.”

(Volume XXV; p. 808, CE 2562. Volume XXIV; p. 2)

40. The Disintegrating Carcano.

The Mannlicher (C2766) was found to be in a very poor mechanical condition. This weapon had a rusted and disintegrating firing pin as per an FBI report dated August 20, 1964, from J. Edgar Hoover to chief counsel J. Lee Rankin of the Warren Commission stated that: “In connection it should be noted that the firing pin of this rifle has been used extensively as shown by wear on the nose or striking portion of the firing pin, and further, the presence of rust on the firing pin and its spring may be an indication that the firing pin had not been recently changed prior to November 22,1963.” (CE 2974, Volume. XXIV; p. 455)

“The experts who test fired the rifle deemed that this rifle in evidence was so unreliable that they did not practice with it for fear that pulling the trigger would break the firing pin”. (Reclaiming Parkland; p. 27)

Go to Part 1 of 6

Go to Part 2 of 6

Go to Part 3 of 6

Go to Part 5 of 6

Go to Part 6 of 6
November 5, 2023
Former People by James Norwood

James Norwood was a professor at the University of Minnesota for 26 years. Among the classes he taught was a semester course in the John F. Kennedy assassination. He has written for this web site previously. (Click here for one example) He has now published a book which is entitled Former People.

As Norwood immediately explains, that rubric was used in conjunction with former members of the Russian aristocracy. Many of whom were displaced after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. He then uses other examples from Russian history like the Mensheviks who were also retired to what Trotsky called the “dustbin of history.”

In relation to his current book, Norwood is going to use that term to describe what happened to Nikita Khrushchev, President Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald. It’s a unique concept, at least I cannot think of a predecessor in the field. But to point out one useful strophe: the cemetery where Khrushchev was buried was close for renovation because it had too many people visiting after his burial. (pp. 2-3).

In his discussion of Khrushchev Norwood makes the case that he ended up opposing what Josef Stalin had done since he had a role in some of those crimes, for example, he was complicit in the Great Purges of the thirties. (p. 7) But as most know Khrushchev fought well in World War II, particularly during the epochal battle at Stalingrad. (Norwood points out that, although he took credit for it, Khrushchev was not part of the planning for the Russian offensive there.)

Having learned the Machiavellian tactics of Stalin’s court, Khrushchev emerged triumphant during the struggle for succession after the tyrant’s death. Yet, he was quite inexperienced in the art of diplomacy and statecraft on the world stage. As the British prime minister Harold Macmillan wrote in his diary:

How can this fat, vulgar man, with this pig eyes and his ceaseless flow of talk, really be the head—the aspirant Tsar—of all these millions of people in this cast country? (p. 10)

Yet he was. Norwood hallmarks the strikingly important secret speech of 1956. This was Khrushchev’s repudiation of the terror and purges of Stalin. (p. 40) This speech was entitled, “On the Cult of Personality and its Consequences.” Khrushchev said, “Stalin had committed criminal violations of the law that would have been punished in any country—except for countries not governed by law at all.” (ibid) He then added that Stalin’s rule was much closer to that of the Russian tsars than the Bolshevik revolutionaries. He also pointed out Stalin’s disastrous leadership at the beginning of the German invasion in World War II. As Khrushchev later wrote, the delegates at the Communist Party Congress were thunderstruck especially since Stalin had taken these actions against both Old Bolsheviks and Young Communists.

Yet, in that same year, Khrushchev ordered the crushing of Hungarian Spring. Which resulted in tens of thousands of casualties on both sides, and hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled the country. (p. 43) The author makes the case that Khrushchev was probably influenced by the Soviet ambassador to Hungary Yuri Andropov, who would later run the KGB for 15 years and briefly reign as General Secretary. For whatever reason Khrushchev also banned the book Doctor Zhivago, although he later admitted this had been a mistake. It resulted in a great propaganda triumph for the CIA.

In dealing with Kennedy, Norwood describes his many childhood ailments, his heroism in the Navy during the famous PT-109 incident, and the death of his older brother Joe in an air explosion during World War II. (pp. 10-13) He briefly deals with both his political career–elected three times to the House, and twice to the senate—and his literary vocation, the penning of Why England Slept and Profiles in Courage. He points out for praise Senator Kennedy’s 1954 speech warning about further American support of the French war in Vietnam. But, curiously, he does not mention the famous 1957 Algeria speech which literally rocked the political and journalistic establishment. Alistair Cooke, the British journalist, noted that this anti-colonial speech–and the attention the Republicans had given it–had made Kennedy the frontrunner for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination. (Richard Mahoney, JFK: Ordeal in Africa, p. 29)

Norwood builds his early narrative structure around two events: the Missile Crisis and Kennedy’s American University Peace Speech. Norwood considers the Russian leader’s decision to place missiles, bombers and 45,000 men in Cuba a result of his aforementioned lack of diplomatic sophistication and serious misjudgment of Kennedy. Norwood also thinks it was part of Russian vozhdism or one person rule. Khrushchev had put the question to the Kremlin leaders. There were no serious objections at this time, but there were would be many later recriminations. (Norwood, p. 23) As the author notes, it should have been clear to Khrushchev that the U 2 overflights would eventually pick up the installations, especially since the troops on the island had not practiced consistent camouflage and disguise techniques. A fact that enraged the Russian leader when he found out about it. The overflights did discover the installations on October 14^th. Kennedy had learned from the Bay of Pigs and now changed the command style. It was not just the Pentagon, CIA and NSC. Kennedy felt that had failed him. So this was expanded into something called the Ex Comm which now included Bobby Kennedy and Ted Sorenson.

Kennedy had been a great admirer of Tuchman classic The Guns of August. Kennedys was determined that no such book could be written about the Missile Crisis, one depicting a march to folly and destruction out of stupidity and impulsiveness. (p. 32) In fact, journalist Jordan Michael Smith wrote that “quite possibly Kennedy’s careful reading of the book helped prevent a nuclear war.” (p. 32)

If this is so Kennedy had to pretty much bypass his Joint Chiefs of Staff. Who considered the blockade route much too soft and giving way to much lenience to a provocation like this. To them, it was a time for aggression and attack. Although Norwood has Marine General Shoup tell Kennedy that he was in a pretty bad fix, it was actually Curtis Lemay who said it. (Ernest May and Philip Zelikow, The Kennedy Tapes, p. 182)

Once the deployment was discovered, and the blockade option was approved by Kennedy, Khrushchev was in a precarious situation. One which invited a terrible escalation by either side which could result in atomic war. The only realistic option the Russians had was to negotiate out a settlement. But the Russian ships stopping at the blockade line was not a victory as Dean Rusk exclaimed it was. Because it was later discovered that all the ICBM’s and tactical weapons—162 missiles in all– had been landed on the island before the blockade was secure. (The Armageddon Letters, by James Blight and Janet Lang, p. 257) So the Russians knew that their tactical weapons would incinerate any invading armada crossing the Caribbean. They also knew that with the armada burning at sea, the combination of ICBMS, bombers and submarines could deliver a formidable first strike. The Russian has achieved his goal of placing a hedgehog on Kennedy’s breakfast plate. (Norwood, p. 27) But General Thomas Power, commander of SAC, took it upon himself to raise the DEFCON alert from level 3 to 2. Which was one step short of war. (Norwood, p. 29). And there were three events which almost caused a shooting war to break out: the downing of a U2 over Cuba by Castro, another U 2 that flew off course and over Soviet air space where MIGS scrambled to intercept, but other planes came to the rescue in time. The last was when American surface ships were hurling grenades and depth charges at a nuclear tipped submarine off the coast of Cuba. With all the explosions, the Russians did not know if a war was going on but luckily the commander directed the sub to surface and find out before firing. (Norwood p. 30)

Having achieved what was for all intents and purposes a (lucky) standoff, the two sides now began to formulate negotiation positions. Adlai Stevenson reputedly brought up the idea of trading the UN Turkish and Italian missiles for the Russian missiles inside of Cuba. Robert Kennedy was determined to go around the Ex Comm through Soviet contacts with diplomat Georgi Bolskakov, and later with the Russian ambassador Anatoli Dobyrnin. And this is where the promise not to invade Cuba came into play.

The so-called peaceful outcome was not welcome to the hawks on both sides. The Pentagon concluded that Kennedy had blown a perfect chance to get rid of Castro. The Kremlin felt that Khrushchev had luckily dodged a bullet by enacting a hare-brained scheme. Norwood insinuates that the result of that crisis echoed through the next two years, eventually deposing them both.

Making this even more unfortunate was the mutual attempt at détente by both men e.g., the limited test ban treaty, the direct hot line. This was capped by Kennedy’s Peace Speech, which—like Columbia professor Jeff Sachs– the author spends some time explicating. (pp. 46-52). As a result, Norwood writes, “For a brief moment in history, between June and November of 1963, there was a genuine opening for rapprochement.” (p. 52)

Khrushchev wept when he heard the news of Kennedy’s death. He suspected American right-wingers had murdered the president in order to sink their attempt at a US-Soviet détente. (pp. 66-67). In some ways, Kennedy’s murder set the stage for Khrushchev’ own removal, since none of the tangible things the two men were working on were now going to be enacted. Therefore, the conservatives in the Politburo set up a plot to get rid of a leader who was actually contemplating with Kennedy a complete demobilization. (p. 75). Norwood argues, with some justification, that the USSR changed for the worse after this removal. A period of reform had now come to the end, economic stagnation ensued plus the formal imposition of the Brezhnev Doctrine. (p. 64). The true circumstances of Kennedy’s murder were covered up, and his achievements went largely unnoted in history textbooks. As far as Khrushchev went, the new Russian hierarchy began to write him out of history. (p. 66)

The last part of the book deals with the formal methods used to conceal the true circumstances of Kennedy’s death and a probing of the mystery of Oswald. First, he deals with how the MSM, and people like Walter Cronkite, placed a stamp on the three-bullet scenario right out of the gate. Like many before him, including the recently discussed Bart Kamp, Norwood squarely places the official blame for the JFK cover up on J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. He spends more than a few pages on how eager Hoover was to close the case with Oswald as the lone gunman. (p. 92ff). But he also exposes how people inside the FBI, like William Sullivan and Laurence Keenan, and Hoover himself, understood just how flawed the FBI inquiry really was. For instance, Hoover once said about the Oswald case, “If I told you what I really know, it would be very dangerous to this country. Our whole political system could be disrupted.” (Norwood, p. 101) But since the Warren Commission was so overwhelmingly reliant on the Bureau it more or less had to go along with Hoover’s very quickly drawn official conclusions.

Norwood ends with Oswald. He spends several pages on a real enigma about the man: How and where did Oswald learn to speak good Russian. He lists several witnesses who came to this conclusion about his fluency: Natalie Ray, Peter Gregory, George Bouhe, Elena Hall Rosaleen Quinn. The last is quite interesting since she conversed with Oswald in Russian before he left for the Soviet Union. (pp. 121-23). But then in Russia, many people have said that Oswald feigned not being able to speak the language. Norwood concludes this was part of his ruse as a fake defector since if he advertised that he could speak Russian the authorities would realize he was sent there by the Navy or CIA to be a spy. I would beg to disagree with Norwood’s portrayal of Ernst TItovets’ take on Oswald. (pp. 138-39) First, Ernst really was not a Johnny Come Lately to the case, as he was in the 1993 PBS special Who was Lee Harvey Oswald? And when I encountered the man in 2014 at the AARC Conference in Maryland, TItovets told me that when he met Oswald, he spoke good Russian.

Norwood is an advocate of the John Armstrong theorem of there being two Oswalds from an early age. He chalks up the long incubating experiment in doubles to CIA official Frank Wisner who used many people on the displaced persons list from World War !! as part of covert operations across Europe. And he notes that Robert Kennedy assistant William Vanden Heuvel on December 4, 1963 noted that “files of the IRC (International Rescue Commission) contain information pertaining to Oswald.” (p. 155) In an appendix, the author depicts Oswald’s Certificate of Enlistment for the Marines. He notes that the original name on the card was Harvey Lee Oswald, corrected to Lee Harvey Oswald. (p. 197). Another appendix lists a useful timeline in milestones on the JFK case beginning with Oswald’s defection and concluding with Oliver Stone’s two recent documentaries on the case, JFK Revisited and JFK: Destiny Betrayed.

In sum, Norwood’s book is unique in concept, mercifully concise, and adroitly argued. All the more impressive since it is his first book on the case.

October 23, 2023
Prayer Man: More Than A Fuzzy Picture by Bart Kamp

Bart Kamp’s book is the second to be dedicated to the phenomenon of the Prayer Man figure. The first was by Stan Dane in 2015. Dane’s book was called Prayer Man: Out of the Shadows and Into the Light. It had an introduction by Greg Parker. The three personages thus named are not involved by happenstance. They are all members of the Reopen Kennedy Case forum (ROKC). That group has been one of the strongest associations for advocating that Prayer Man is Oswald.

Bart Kamp is not just a member in good standing of that forum. He is also a good friend of the man who many consider the foremost archival researcher of this era, Malcolm Blunt of England. Bart has also done fine work in recovering and archiving the materials held by the late Harrison Livingstone, a significant contribution which I do not think anyone else would have done. (Click here for that)

One of the things that Kamp does in his book is to chronicle the history of the Prayer Man (PM) figure. To summarize, PM is not the same as figure that many thought to be Oswald staring out in the Altgens 6 photograph with his right shoulder partly hidden by the frame of the Texas School Book Depository doorway. That turned out to be Billy Lovelady. The PM person is standing back in that foyer area with his hands close together, which is why he was dubbed Prayer Man.

As Kamp chronicles, the suspicion about Prayer Man being Oswald was not first noted by researcher Sean Murphy, who is usually given credit for the discovery. As the book points out, there was a circle of Kennedy researchers who were looking into the Altgens 6 figure. This included photographic analyst Richard E. Sprague, writer Harold Weisberg and the young prodigy Howard Roffman. (Kamp, p 24).

The fourth member of this correspondence circle ended up being most important in this aspect. And yet today he is just about unknown in the literature. His name was Richard Bernabei, a professor at Queen’s University in Ontario. The four needed more angles on the people in the doorway and so Sprague got hold of a copy of the film originally made by Dave Wiegman, an NBC photographer who was in one of the camera cars in the motorcade. Bernabei, a skilled sketch artist, was the first to really discern the PM figure and be able to illustrate his observations with distinction. He called the figure “Man in the Shadow”. Kamp is to be congratulated for giving Bernabei—who died in 1979– the recognition he belatedly deserved.

For decades Bernabei’s writings and sketches lay like lost gems in a treasure chest at the bottom of the sea. In reality they were at Queen’s University archive. But they were bereft because the subject did not really resurface until the new millennium and the online revolution. Kamp centers this first revival in the years 2005-07 with online commentators and acquaintances Charles Wallace, Sean Murphy and Chris Davidson, the last is an authority on the films and photos. (Kamp, p. 26). The rubric Prayer Man did not get applied until 2010 by Murphy on the JFK Lancer Forum. But most of those postings have been lost since that forum was hacked. But now the Wiegman film was supplemented by film from James Darnell who rode in camera car 3.

It was at the Education Forum that a long and fascinating debate was sprung open, initially by Bill Kelly. But Murphy then entered it and this began a fascinating public debate over whether or not PM was Oswald. Murphy resigned from the field at the 50^th anniversary of the JFK assassination. But the debate he spawned continued with other followers. ROKC has taken the lead in this debate. But as the author notes, WEBS forum and the Forum Notion also have featured many postings on the subject. As Kamp writes, the Dane book was then the first to appear on the subject in 2015.

No one has been able to analyze the original films taken by Wiegman and Darnell. They are the property of NBC. And for whatever reason, NBC is not cooperating by letting anyone get access to them. (Kamp. P. 29)

Kamp begins the analysis by questioning whether or not motorcycle policeman Marrion Baker did directly go up the front stairs to the depository as many have postulated. Under analysis, Baker appears to walk past the steps and past supervisor Roy Truly.( p. 36). I will not go into that entire discussion at this point. I will just say it leads to a questioning of whether or not the second floor lunchroom episode actually happened. That, of course is the scene where Baker stuck a gun in Oswald’s stomach as he was (or was not) holding a Coke. Truly then advised Baker that Oswald was an employee, and they let him walk away.

For those who are not familiar with that controversy, please read about it here. Suffice it to say that Bart Kamp brought up many interesting details that do bring this alleged incident into doubt. Because after reading that link, one has to wonder: Did Baker actually stop another man on the third or fourth floor, as he mentioned in his first day affidavit? And if they did not sight Oswald in the second-floor encounter, then where was Oswald really?

The last issue leads to two pieces of evidence that Kamp was much responsible for both surfacing and popularizing. These are notes by both FBI agent Jim Hosty and DPD Captain Will Fritz. Hosty, and especially Fritz, were involved in the questioning of Oswald while he was in detention being held by the police. The first notes by Hosty say that Oswald went to lunch at noon. He then went to the second floor to get a Coke. He then returned to the first floor to eat. He then went outside to watch the motorcade. (p. 84) These are quite important, and we owe it to Blunt and Kamp for actually finding these notes. This set of notes had been gifted to the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) by Hosty in 1997. The set was not discovered by Kamp until over two decades later.

A few months after Hosty had donated his revealing notes, another set of notes–this time by Fritz–were anonymously donated to the ARRB. It said about Oswald that he was “Out with Bill Shelley, in front.” As the author adroitly asks: How did Oswald know Shelley was there in the first place?

If these two pieces of evidence had been in the record at the start, they would have given Oswald an even stronger alibi then he already had. That alibi was originally supplied of course by Victoria Adams, Sandy Styles and Dorothy Garner. Although Adams was the only one who made it into the Warren Report. These were the three secretaries on the fourth floor at the time of the shooting. As the book notes, using the material in Barry Ernest’s book, when combined, they produced powerful evidence that Oswald was not on the 6^th floor at the time of the shooting. (See Barry’s book The Girl on the Stairs, and Oliver Stone’s documentary, JFK Revisited)

On the back of this evidence the author first makes his case for Prayer Man being Oswald. He does this largely by a process of elimination. He goes through the entire building floor by floor naming all the people in the edifice that we know about, and using much of their testimony. He then states that from the best renditions we have of the Darnell and Wiegman films, PM was a white Caucasian. If one throws out all the people who we know were not on that exterior foyer, plus females, African Americans, and males of color, this reduces the possibilities about the Bernabei figure quite drastically. For Kamp, its Oswald. (p. 86)

There is a second major theorem in the book. As mentioned earlier, this deals with the second floor soda machine encounter. Which cyclist Marrion Baker did not mention in his first day affidavit. This reviewer dealt with this paradox in the book, The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today. It is stunning to behold since what Baker mentioned was not anything like the incident described by the Commission. (DiEugenio, pp. 217-18) At that time Baker mentioned going up the stairs with Truly and upon reaching the third or fourth floor he saw someone walking away from the stairway. Truly said he worked there, so Baker let him go. There is nothing about seeing Oswald through a window of the lunch room. There is nothing about his holding a Coke. They were not even in a room.

I won’t go into all the details, but the author fingers people like policeman Marvin Johnson for changing Baker’s first day affidavit and saying that Baker saw Oswald in a line up, which Baker denied. (Kamp pp. 107-08) He also uses Geneva Hine to impeach the testimony of Mrs. Robert Reid about Oswald being on the second floor right after the assassination with a Coke in his hands. Hine did not leave the building and was stationed in close proximity to where Reid said she saw Oswald right after the assassination. Hine never saw Oswald or Reid from 12: 25- 12: 35. In fact, she saw Reid return after the shooting in a group. The fact that Reid was Truly’s secretary may have had an influence on all this. (Kamp, pp. 111-14)

What the writer is saying is rather radical, but he has evidence to support it. It is this: the second-floor lunch meeting between Baker, Truly and Oswald was invented–probably between FBI agent Nat Pinkston and Truly—in order to deprive Oswald of a sure-fire alibi.

A large part of the second part of the book deals with a micro analysis of the interrogation sessions of Oswald by the DPD, along with the Secret Service and FBI in attendance. This is probably the most complete, extensive and detailed examination of that process in the literature. In fact, Kamp actually finds mini-interrogations by other persons that are not usually included in usual listings of the sessions.

But this whole second part of the book is also integrated with evidentiary examination of points, for example the DPD fingerprint and palm print exam and the paraffin test. About the latter Kamp says it was the first time DPD ever did one on the suspect’s cheek, and it was on the orders of Fritz. (p. 295). The results were not what the DPD wanted. When the FBI got the weapon, they found no prints of value on it. And since Sebastian LaTona was the foremost expert in the country, his testing carried much more weight than Lt. Day at the DPD. (Kamp, pp. 289-91) The problem was by sending the weapon back to Dallas and Day miraculously finding a palm print that somehow LaTona, with all his new and better technology and decades of skill, could not find.

I don’t even want to go into the so-called trigger guard prints which involved PBS, producer Mike Sullivan’s Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald? program and the allegedly long-lost Rusty Livingstone fingerprints. That has turned out to be a first class imbroglio that was deciphered first by Pat Speer and followed up on by Johnny Cairns. For Speer’s long detailed destruction of Sullivan, which may make you a little sick, click here.

As for the paraffin tests they were advertised as being positive on the hands and cheek, (p. 296) But, as we know, this was not accurate. At least for the cheek. In other words, due to Oswald’s denials, the unreliability of alleged eyewitness Howard Brennan (pgs. 298-303), and the failure of the two chemical tests, what was the DPD case on the night of the assassination?

What Kamp says turned the case around, and which J. Edgar Hoover took credit for, was the discovery of the Klein’s order for the alleged rifle used in the assassination from Chicago, with a coupon from a man named Hidell in Dallas/ Fort Worth. (p. 405). In fact, up to that time Hoover wrote, if John Abt—Oswald’s requested lawyer from New York had arrived–the case the DPD had would have been rocked back on its heels.

But here is what I will close the review with to show how layered in irony the book is. Because a fourth theorem of the book is this: The Dallas Police really did not have the Selective Service card with the Hidell alias on it the first day. (See the testimony on pp. 334-339) Obviously this leads to the question: was the Hidell card created after the fact? That is an answer that cannot be firmly replied to yet. But at least Bart Kamp brings up the question.

All in all, this is a credible effort which forges some new ground and replows some old ground in a new way. The matters Kamp examines go literally to the heart of the basics of the JFK case. If his theorems are true, there is no case to answer.

NBC could decide that.

October 19, 2023