OLIVER,
REVILO Volume XV
TESTIMONY
OF PROF. REVILO PENDLETON OLIVER
The testimony of Prof. Revilo Pendleton Oliver was taken at 2 p.m., on
September 9, 1964, at 200
Mr. JENNER. Mr. Reporter, this is Mr. Revilo Pendleton Oliver of Urbana,
Doctor, would you mind standing so I can swear you.
Do you swear that in the deposition which you are about to give that you
will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Mr. OLIVER. I do.
This is a deposition and not a hearing?
Mr. JENNER. It is the same thing. We call hearings when the Commission, a
member of the Commission is present. These are hearings but we call them
deposition hearings. And all of your testimony will he published in full in
volume XV of the testimony volumes, and without any editing, expurgating, or
deletion.
Mr. OLIVER. Will all testimony be published?
Mr. JENNER. Yes, sir; every bit. It now runs 15 printed volumes.
Mr. UNGER. May I interrupt just a second. I notice that under the
resolution adopting the rules that it provides that one or more members of the
Commission shall be present at all hearings.
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Don't you intend to have a member of the Commission present at this
hearing?
Mr. JENNER. No; unless you
desire to have one.
Mr. UNGER. Well, I didn't understand that it was a matter of preference.
I understood that under the rules under which you operated it wasn't a legal
hearing unless you did have one.
Mr. JENNER. It is a hearing; what you are reading is a hearing at which
the Commission is sitting as distinguished from a deposition hearing. You will
find also in the rules, John, that you have, that they provide for the
deposition hearings.
Mr. UNGER. Are you referring now to the second paragraph which says that
any member of the Commission or any agent or agency designated by the Commission
for such purpose may administer oaths and affirmation, examine witnesses, and
receive evidence?
Mr. JENNER. Yes, sir.
Mr. UNGER. I wouldn't normally take that as repealing a previous section
that a member be present at all hearings.
Mr. JENNER. It doesn't repeal it, it supplements it.
Mr. UNGER. You see, the subpena under which Dr. Oliver is here commands
him to appear before the President's Commission.
Mr. JENNER. That is right.
Mr. UNGER. Well, I have made my point. I have some question as to whether
or not this would be a proper hearing in the absence of a Commission member, and
I have so stated in the record.
Mr. JENNER. But if you--Mr. McCloy happens to be here this afternoon, and
if you want Mr. McCloy present, why we will have him present.
Mr. UNGER. We have no preference in the matter.
Mr. JENNER. Off the record.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. JENNER. Dr. Oliver, the nature of the inquiry enjoined upon the
Commission in the discharge of which it has been assiduously engaged is to
determine the facts and circumstances relating to the deaths of President John
F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald. There has come to the attention of the
Commission and its staff an article entitled, "Marxmanship in Dallas,"
of which we understand you were the author, published in two parts in American
Opinion, a magazine published by the John Birch Society, part I, in the February
1964 issue, pages 13 through 28, and part II in the March 1964 issue, pages 65
through 78.
That article--it is charged among other things that President Kennedy's
assassination was a part of a Communist plot engineered with the help of the
Central Intelligence Agency, that Lee Harvey Oswald was a Communist agent
trained in sabotage, terrorism, and guerrilla warfare, including accurate
shooting from ambush, in a school for international criminals near Minsk,
Russia, under order from Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, the U.S. Army
began to rehearse for President Kennedy's funeral more than a week before the
funeral actually took place----
Mr. OLIVER. Now, are we not confusing quite a number of things, here, Mr.
Jenner?
Mr. JENNER. Well, you may comment when I finish the statement, if you
please.
Mr. OLIVER. Very good.
Mr. JENNER. That Lee Harvey Oswald was sent to Dallas where he tried to
murder Gen. Edwin A. Walker; that in November, Oswald was sent back from New
Orleans, La, to Dallas, Tex., where a job at a suitably located building had
been arranged for him and that something went wrong with the Communist
conspiracy's plans, as a result of which Oswald was apprehended and identified.
There has also come to the attention of the Commission various news items
and newspapers published in Washington, D.C., Illinois, Mississippi, Arizona,
Texas, Colorado, California, and other States, which contain reports of lectures
and speeches made by you from time to time, in which you have repeated,
elaborated upon, or added to the charges and claims made in your article in the
American Opinion which I have summarized.
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The Commission is interested, among other things, in obtaining from you
the sources of, and the basis for, the foregoing charges and claims appearing in
your article and those reported in the news media as having been made by you in
lectures and speeches.
John, if you want that, there it is.
Mr. UNGER. Thank you.
Mr. JENNER. I wanted to give
you the framework of the examination.
Mr. OLIVER. May I point out that the article to which you originally
referred contained no reference to a rehearsal for the funeral, and certainly
contained no statement that the CIA had engineered the assassination.
Mr. JENNER. What we will do. I will go into the article. I understand you
brought copies of it, and we can put the article in the record and it will speak
for itself.
Mr. OLIVER. The entire
article will be reproduced in the record?
Mr. JENNER. I beg your
pardon?
Mr. OLIVER. Will the entire
article be reproduced in the record?
Mr. JENNER. Yes, sir.
Mr. OLIVER. All right.
Mr. JENNER. Have I stated your name accurately, that is, Revilo Pendleton
Oliver.
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. You do reside at
Mr. OLIVER. 701, simply
Mr. JENNER. You are a professional man. What is your profession, sir ?
Mr. OLIVER. I am a professor of classical philology in the
Mr. JENNER. You have held that position since when?
Mr. JENNER. I held rank as a full professor, I believe, since 1953, it
could be 1954.
Mr. JENNER. You are the holder of a doctor of philosophy degree, are you
not?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. From what university, sir?
Mr. OLIVER. The
Mr. JENNER. When did you
receive your doctorate?
Mr. OLIVER. To the best of my recollection, 1940.
Mr. JENNER. Approximately?
Mr. OLIVER. 1940.
Mr. JENNER. Have you resided in
Mr. OLIVER. Legally, I believe; yes.
Mr. JENNER. Would you want to explain to me what you mean by
"legally"?
Mr. OLIVER. Well, I have lived elsewhere during that time; I have been
abroad, and I have lived in
Mr. JENNER. These, I take it, were either special assignments, or
vacations, or sabbatical leaves to which you refer ?
Mr. OLIVER. Right, and let us say
Mr. JENNER. Yes. Urbana/Champaign, they are twin cities, and the
university is located in both cities, is that not correct?
Mr. OLIVER. Between the two.
Mr. JENNER. Between the two. Although their boundaries touch?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes; in fact, their boundaries so touch they have a problem
because cars parked in one city would find the parking meters on the curb of the
other city.
Mr. JENNER. Would you give
me, but not in great elaboration, your career from your college days. You
received a master's degree, where did you receive that?
Mr. OLIVER. Out at the
Mr. JENNER. Just tell us in summary.
Mr. OLIVER. I took my doctoral degree at the
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Mr. JENNER. A very great man.
Mr. OLIVER. A very distinguished man. I have been successively
instructor, assistant professor, associate professor, and professor of the
classics, and I have also been assistant professor, associate professor, and
full professor of Spanish and Italian--largely a matter of my giving courses in
the Renaissance.
Mr. JENNER. Do you teach Latin and Greek, too, or
have you?
Mr. OLIVER. Oh,
that is classics.
Mr. JENNER. I
see. During the war did you have some special assignment militarily oriented or
Government oriented?
Mr. OLIVER.
Yes; during the war I was on leave from the university for service with the War
Department.
Mr. JENNER. And
without revealing any secrets, would you tell us the general nature of that?
Mr. OLIVER. The
general nature of that was work that is supposedly secret in nature. I can only
say I was with the War Department and that the offices in which I principally
worked were located on
Mr. JENNER. Was this civilian oriented rather than army oriented?
Mr. OLIVER. I was a civilian expert. It was, however, an Army
Establishment under the command of a general.
Mr. JENNER. What was that, research work?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes; under the command of a brigadier general, I should say.
Mr. JENNER. This research work, did that involve any work of
investigating or inquiring into the commission of crimes or conspiracies, work
of that nature?
Mr. OLIVER. Not actual investigation on my part.
Mr. JENNER. But----
Mr. OLIVER. It involved the use of the results of the investigations of
others.
Mr. JENNER. So that you had experience in examining investigators'
reports and reaching judgments from those reports?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And reporting your judgment to your superiors.
Mr. OLIVER.That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Are you a member of the John Birch
Society?
Mr. OLIVER. I
am a member of the council of John Birch Society.
MR. JENNER. Would you explain to me what that is ? I am frank to say to
you I don't know.
Mr. OLIVER. The John Birch Society was founded by Mr. Robert Welch in
Mr. JENNER. Is it in the nature of a board of managers or a board of
governors of a bar association? I am
not trying to be technical, but just trying to get a notion of what the council
is.
Mr. OLIVER. I am not
sufficiently familiar with the board of governors of a bar association but I
think as a general analogy that would stand, yes.
Mr. JENNER. That is all I wanted.
And you became a member in 1958, did you say ?
Mr. OLIVER. At the foundation.
Mr. JENNER. And you have remained one ever since?
Mr. OLIVER. Oh, yes.
Mr. JENNER. Do
you have any other official connection with the John Birch Society apart from
being a member of the society and of the council?
Mr. OLIVER. No;
I write for American Opinion. And I am associate editor of it, I believe.
American Opinion, by the way, is published by Robert Welch, Inc.
Mr. JENNER Explain that to
me, if you please?
Mr. OLIVER. Which is a corporation, some of the stock of which is held by
the John Birch Society.
Mr. JENNER. Could I ask you one thing, Doctor?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. You tend, and many witnesses do, you
tend to drop your voice
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about
three quarters of the way through a sentence. It. would be helpful to me if you
could keep it up a little.
Mr. OLIVER. Very good. I didn't want to seem to be lecturing.
Mr. JENNER. Don't worry about it.
I see you have before you what looks like a magazine with a colored
cover. Does that happen to be a copy of American Opinion?
Mr. OLIVER. It is.
Mr. JENNER. Would you mind if I looked at it?
Mr. OLIVER. Not at all. That is the March issue of this year.
Mr. JENNER. I take it that
the document I have in my hand and the other that you have before you contain
part I and part II of the article to which I made reference in my opening
statement?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right. Will these copies be returned to me?
Mr. JENNER. Are these the only ones you have, sir?
Mr. OLIVER. Those are my file copies.
Mr. JENNER. May I say this to
you, any witness who wants the return of his documents is entitled to them. That
is our practice. If we have to return them, we duplicate them on a Xerox
machine. Some of the material, like the pictures will not be as clear as you
will wish. Whereas if you permit us to retain the original copy, then it will be
photographed and the photograph of the document in evidence will be quite clear.
It occurred to me if acceptable to you, that for purposes of reproduction, the
original is to be preferred. May I suggest that you probably will so desire, can
you not obtain official copies ?
Mr. OLIVER. I will take the chance of obtaining additional copies. The
issues were sold out.
Mr. JENNER. I see.
Mr. OLIVER. But perhaps I can
find extras. So you may have those.
Mr. JENNER. Thank you.
Mr. Reporter, I will mark the copy entitled "American Opinion, An
Impartial Review, March 1964," upon which appears the rubber stamp "R.
P. Oliver, File copy," as Oliver Exhibit No. 1.
(The document referred to was marked Oliver Exhibit No. 1 for
identification.)
Excuse me. Whose picture is that on the cover page?
Mr. OLIVER. Senator Thurmond's.
Mr. JENNER. I mark the second document which is on its face, the February
1964 issue of
(The document referred to was marked Oliver Exhibit No. 2 for
identification )
Mr. JENNER. I take it from
the discussion we have had, Dr. Oliver, that in Oliver Exhibit No. 1 appears
part I.
Mr. OLIVER. Part II.
Mr. JENNER. Have I got them reversed?
Mr. OLIVER. I thought of interrupting at the time you marked those
exhibits, and then thought perhaps I should not.
Mr. JENNER. Well, I have got them marked so I will have to leave them
that way.
In Oliver Exhibit No. 1, appears part II at pages 65 through 76 of your
article entitled "Marxmanship in
These two pamphlets, Doctor, are true and correct copies of the issues of
American Opinion of the dates that we have described ?
Mr. OLIVER. They are the printed copies, yes.
Mr. JENNER. Now, I will refer to Exhibits 1 and 2 in which are contained
the parts II and I, respectively of your article. I want to ask you some
questions as to the sources of some of the statements made therein.
But before I do that, I will ask whether you are the author of the
article?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes, that is right.
Mr. JENNER. Part I and part II.
Mr. OLIVER. Right.
Mr. JENNER. The picture representation in each of those issues is your
picture?
Mr. OLIVER. The picture of myself, yes. I may say I did not choose the
other photographs. That was the work of the editor.
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Mr. JENNER. I should say that the picture representation on page 13 of
Exhibit 2, and the picture representation on 65 is in each instance your
picture?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. I will ask you a general question first.
If you want to particularize you may.
I will tell you that I will get into particulars as we go along.
What was the source, or what were the sources, if there was more than one
source, of the statements and claims made in your article.
When I say 'your article' I mean both parts, unless I distinguish.
Mr. OLIVER. Statements
which I make as statements of fact or of reports are taken very largely, perhaps
entirely, from printed sources, such as newspapers, periodicals.
The portions in
which I reason from those facts are, of course, the deductions which I draw.
Mr. JENNER.Do the articles indicate when you are reasoning and when you
are referring to sources?
Mr. OLIVER. I believe so with
at least reasonable clarity. It was
my intention to make that clear.
Mr. JENNER. I take it then
that none of the portions of the article is derived from any personal source of
information upon your part, that is personal knowledge as distinguished from
reference sources that you have described to me.
Mr. OLIVER. Certainly nothing
concerning the assassination is derived from any personal knowledge of mine.
I was not present, and as a matter of fact, have seen none of the persons
involved. By "seen," of
course, I mean seen personally, not in pictures or films.
Mr. JENNER. All
right.
I direct your
attention to part I, on page 13. You
make the statement, "Lee Harvey
Oswald was a young punk who defected to the Soviet taking with him the
operational codes of the Marine Corps and sufficient other secrets as a
fledgling traitor had been able to steal while in military service."
What is the
source of your statement that Lee Harvey Oswald took with him or even had the
operational codes of the Marine Corps?
Mr. OLIVER.
The principal source certainly is a statement made by a former officer of
the Marine Corps and reported widely in the press at the time, that after
Oswald's defection the Marine Corps found it necessary to change all of their
operational codes, and further had to make certain other changes evidently
involving radar frequencies, and quite possible the location of radar stations.
The officer,
naturally, was not too explicit on that point.
He stated, however, that this work involved, I believe, many thousands of
man-hours of work.
Well, I think that a reasonably inference is that no organization would
expend without reason the many thousands of man-hours of hard work and the other
effort and expensse that would be necessary to make those changes without good
and sufficient reasons to believe that their codes had been compromised.
Mr. JENNER. I take it then
that the source of your information, to pinpoint it, was a newspaper report?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Of a statement
made by an officer of the Marine Corps?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. That was your
sole source of information?
Mr. OLIVER. To the best of my
recolliction it was.
Mr. JENNER. Do you happen to
have a copy of that newspaper account? Did
you bring one with you by any chance?
Mr. OLIVER. I believe that I
have. You people have the American
Eagle reprint of the assassination story, do you not?
Mr. JENNER. Would you
describe that more definitely for the record?
Mr. OLIVER. The American Eagle reprint is a reprint by photo offset of
clippings from the two
Mr. JENNER. May I
interrupt you? Now I know what you
are talking about.
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. It is published
by the American Eagle Publishing Co.
Mr. OLIVER.
That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Of which Robert
A. Surrey is president?
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OLIVER. That is right.
JENNER. Of
Mr. OLIVER. I believe he is president.
Mr. JENNER. He has so testified. When you first mentioned this document
it didn't click with me, but now I recall. It is tall, newspaper-sized yellow
covered----
Mr. OLIVER. Document.
Mr. JENNER. Document. (Discussion off the record. )
Mr. JENNER. Mr. Reporter, that has been received in evidence as
Commission Exhibit No. 1015. If you have a copy with you in your bag, Doctor,
would you please get it out and then refer me to the page ?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Please make your
references to the Commission Exhibit No. 1015 and the record will be much
clearer.
Mr. OLIVER. That is, the Commission Exhibit No. 1015 is the American
Eagle reprint?
Mr. JENNER. That is right. You will notice, if you will turn to the back
page Doctor, that Robert Surrey is listed as president of the American Eagle
Publishing Co.
Mr. OLIVER. Right
Mr. JENNER. Would you have the record show, Mr. Reporter that Dr. Oliver
is now examining a copy of Commission Exhibit No. 1015 to see if he can locate
the news source on which he based the statement in Oliver Exhibit 2 that Oswald
took with him the operational codes of the Marine Corps and sufficient other
secrets as a fledgling traitor had been able to steal in the military service.
Mr. JENNER. All right, Doctor. Would you identify the page if you have
located it?
Mr OLIVER. This is the page of reprints from the
Mr. JENNER. We are now looking at the back of page 12. It has a dateline
Wednesday, December 4, 1963. You are
referring, sir, to a particular item?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Would you read the headline?
Mr. OLIVER. This particular item is an Associated Press Dispatch, and in
this paper is headlined, "Oswald a 'wise guy,' ex-Marine officer
says." And in it, John E. Donovan, a former Marine officer, is reported as
saying, the Oswald's defection "compromised all our secret radio
frequencies, call signs and authentication codes. He knew the location of every
unit on the west coast, and the radar capability of every installation. We had
to spend thousands of man-hours changing everything, all the technical
frequencies"-"all the tactical frequencies," I am
sorry--"and verify the destruction of all of the codes." That I regard
as the significant part of the statement.
Mr. JENNER. Is there any
other newspaper clipping contained in Commission Exhibit No. 1015 upon which you
relied in making the statement in question or to which I have referred in part 1
of your statement?
Mr. OLIVER. It is possible that the same dispatch is reproduced from
another newspaper also in this document, but to the best of my recollection it
would be the same in both.
Mr. JENNER. So it is a fair statement that the quotation I read into the
record from your article was based upon that news report of Officer Donovan's
statement or a repetition of that news item in some other newspaper ?
Mr. OLIVER. Right.
Mr. JENNER. And no other source?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. No other source meaning yes, there
was no other source?
Mr. OLIVER. Meaning there was no other source.
Mr. JENNER. Then, follow me in your article again. You say a sentence
later, "He was then trained" the "he" referrig to Lee Harvey
Oswald, "in sabotage, terrorism and guerrilla warfare (including accurate
shooting from ambush) in the well-known school for international criminals near
Minsk, and while
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there
he married the daughter of a colonel in the Soviet military espionage system
(and possible also in the Secret Police. )"
That is starred, indicating a footnote. The footnote reads, "If you
missed the detail about Mrs. Oswald's father, see the Congressional Record for
December 4, page 22215." Have I read it correctly?
Mr. OLIVER. I believe so.
Mr. JENNER. What is the source of your statement that Oswald was trained
in sabotage, terrorism, and guerrilla warfare, including accurate shooting from
ambush in the well-known school for international criminals near
Mr. OLIVER. It would be a number of sources. The first, a radio broadcast
on an international hookup made, as I recall, on the Saturday following the
assassination from
Mr. JENNER. Excuse me, that would be the next day, the 23d of November,
1963. The 22d was a Friday. That is the day of the assassination. The 23d was a
Saturday. The 24th was Sunday, and was the day on which Mr. Ruby shot Lee Harvey
Oswald. All I am seeking to clear up, Doctor, is I gather, that the Saturday you
have in mind is the day immediately following, or in other words, the day after
the assassination, rather than the succeeding week.
Mr. OLIVER. That is right. In other words the Saturday and Sunday
immediately following that Friday. This was a broadcast from
Mr. JENNER. Would you spell it for me, please?
Mr. OLIVER. As I heard it, I would assume that it was F-l-i-e-d-e-r-s or
F-l-i-e-g-e-r-s, I was not quite sure, which. Who stated----
Mr. JENNER. Your understanding, it was a broadcast from
Mr. OLIVER. No;
Mr. JENNER. Thank you.
Mr. OLIVER The man stated that he had learned from underground sources
that Oswald under cover of employment in a factory at Minsk, was trained in the
school for sabotage and terrorism--that I believe was the phrase used--at
Mr. JENNER. When you say "such a," you mean this particular
one? This one at
Mr. OLIVER. It is my recollection it was in connection with some
inquiries I was making into the careers of some Communists in
Now, Granovsky himself was trained at Bykova. But my recollection is not
clear in what connection he mentions the school at
Mr. JENNER. Or at least claimed.
Mr. OLIVER. It would take me quite some time because most of those books
do not have indices. It would be quite some time to run down the references, but
the statement that he was trained at
Mr. JENNER. Is this a fair statement of the import of your testimony,
that when you heard the broadcast during the morning or late evening hours of
the 23d-24th from Vienna, that that awakened in your mind so far as the school
at Minsk is concerned, some things that you had read prior to that time?
Mr. OLIVER. Oh, yes.
Mr. JENNER. Other than having read the memoirs you have mentioned and
hearing the broadcast to which you have referred, did you have any other source,
that is personal in nature, let us say, that there actually existed while Mr.
Oswald, Lee Harvey Oswald was there, or since or prior, a school for
international criminals in which sabotage, terrorism, and guerrilla warfare was
taught?
Mr. OLIVER. No personal
knowledge. I never attended the school.
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Mr. JENNER. I didn't mean
that, sir. What I am seeking to do is narrow down the source of your statement.
What I am seeking is sources and to determine whether there is any source of
information which this Commission has not itself investigated and should
investigate.
Mr. OLIVER. Again, my recollection will be vague. There was some
discussion several years ago among "Sovietoloists"--of a Russian--of a
report from Russian sources that this school had been closed.
Mr. JENNER. Was there a publication ?
Mr. OLIVER. I am virtually certain it must have been a publication; yes.
I believe it was mentioned in connection with some one of these stories that the
Russians were "mellowing" and so on.
Mr. JENNER. Mr. Unger, I
apologize to you, I should have stated for the record the fact that you are here
representing Doctor Oliver. Would you give the reporter your full name and where
you reside and practice law?
Mr. UNGER. Yes; John Unger,
in
Mr. JENNER. And you appear here as counsel for Dr. Oliver.
Mr. UNGER. Yes.
Mr. OLIVER. You will find that school also mentioned in the statement
that Congressman Ashbrook read into the Congressional Record on the pages cited
there.
Mr. UNGER. May I interject here that I think that what Dr. Oliver is
trying to do is to try to furnish you as many sources as possible for
information about the existence of the school in or near Minsk, because I was
told your conversation with me on the telephone, that you were not aware of that
information but I suspect what you are primarily concerned about is the
information he had of Lee Harvey Oswald attending that school.
Mr. JENNER. I want his sources for all the statements he has made. I was
about to get to that.
Mr. UNGER. Yes; and I take it
that he has answered that question as fully as he can when he told you about
this broadcast which he heard.
Mr. JENNER. You have heard
Mr. Unger's statement, Doctor. Do you accept that, that your sole source of
information as to Lee Harvey Oswald's having attended, as you state, in part 1
of your article, having attended this school, was the broadcast from Vienna the
night of November 23-24?
Mr. OLIVER. No; there was also the statement in Congressman Ashbrook's
article in the Congressional Record, as I recall. A further statement by
Congressman Ashbrook in an article, a short article, more or less summarizing
what he had read into the record, which appeared in a publication of the
Mr. JENNER.
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. What is that publication, sir?
Mr. OLIVER. I believe it was the
Mr. JENNER. Would you identify it for me, who publishes it?
Mr. OLIVER. The
Mr. JENNER. Doctor, I have a copy of the daily Congressional Record for
Wednesday, December 4, 1963, pages 22215 and 22216 (bound volume 109, part 18,
page 23331 ). I have marked it as Oliver Exhibit No. 3. I hand that to you.
Would you tell me if that is the Congressional Record source to which you made
reference ?
(The document referred to was marked Oliver Exhibit No. 3 for
identification. )
Mr. JENNER. It may help you that the footnote of your article refers to
page 22215 of the December 4 issue of the Congressional Record.
Mr. OLIVER. Yes; that is the statement by Congressman Ashbrook to which I
referred. I was, of course, referring particularly, to the statement about his
wife.
Mr. JENNER. About Oswald's wife?
Mr. OLIVER. Oswald's wife; yes.
Mr. JENNER I take it, then, that is the portion of the matter I quoted in
which it is stated that "He" meaning Oswald, "married the
daughter of a colonel in the Soviet military espionage system (and possibly also
in the secret police)."
Mr. OLIVER. I have since learned that that statement was somewhat
inaccurate.
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The
girl now known as Marina Oswald, as I understand it, lost her father when she
was about 2 years old. Her mother remarried and died when
Mr. JENNER. What is your source for that supposition?
Mr. OLIVER. That I base on a report from a man whose research I use a
great deal in my work, Mr. Frank Capell. Mr. Capell, is a private expert on
Communism and Communistic infiltration, who, I understand, has the cooperation
of many former intelligence officers of the Army and former members of the FBI.
Mr. JENNER.
When you say army you mean the
Mr. OLIVER.
Mr. JENNER. I
take it then that the sources of the statement which I have quoted from your
article, all portions of it, were, may I use the term, secondary sources, that
is, the broadcast you have mentioned, newspaper items, research reports of Mr.
Capell or either that you saw published or which he transmitted to you as the
case my be, which came to your attention?
Mr. OLIVER.
That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Here again your information was not, if I may use the term,
direct source, of your own?
Mr. OLIVER. No; in the sense that I never met Oswald, knew nothing of his
career.
Mr. JENNER. Or you never knew that this school existed other than as
reported through these secondary sources?
Mr. OLIVER. True, and of my own personal knowledge I do not even know
that
Mr. JENNER. You have never been there?
Mr. OLIVER. That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. Have you now given me all the sources of that statement to
which the Commission may turn its attention if it has not already done so?
Mr. OLIVER You are now referring to the marriage of Oswald to the
daughter of the Soviet Colonel ?
Mr. JENNER. I am referring to the whole sentence beginning, "He was
then trained", and ending "secret police."
Mr. OLIVER. Did I mention that the adopted father was her uncle, was the
uncle of
Mr. JENNER. I don't think you called him an adopted father. You mean in
the sense she went to live with him?
Mr. OLIVER. She went to live with him in the capacity of a daughter.
Mr. JENNER. All right. I lost your thought. Would you repeat? You did
mention something, you said ?
Mr. OLIVER. Did I mention that the colonel in the Soviet military
intelligence with whom
Mr. JENNER. I don't think you mentioned that.
Mr. OLIVER. I did not want to intrude any other implication into the
record.
Mr. JENNER. No; of course not. Here again the reference to him as her
uncle is in turn based on either a newspaper source or a news broadcast or some
other secondary source?
Mr. OLIVER. In this case I believe I am relying principally on research
done by Mr. Capell.
Mr. JENNER. All right. Also, as a source would be the daily Congressional
Record for December 4, 1963, page 22215.
Mr. OLIVER. It is, I think, relevant to the Commission's inquiries that
excerpts published from the diary of this man Oswald indicate two things: First,
that he was receiving a salary of approximately 700 rubles from the Russian
Government through a Red Cross--Russian Red Cross--cover; and, second, that he
was on terms of such intimacy with the colonel in the military intelligence that
he could boast of their drinking parties together.
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719
Mr. JENNER. Here, again, your statement is based on what?
Mr. OLIVER. On----
Mr. JENNER. Excuse me, may I amend my question by asking the source of
your information?
Mr. OLIVER. Principally certainly research reports from Mr. Capell. I
saw, of course, certain excerpts published in the newspapers.
Mr. JENNER. Recently?
Mr. OLIVER. But I am relying principally on Mr. Capell's research.
Mr. JENNER. You have reference, I assume, I don't know when it was
published, Oswald's autobiography? Did you see that?
Mr. OLIVER. Not with that title on it. I am thinking of newspaper reports
that quoted not more than two or three paragraphs.
Mr. JENNER. I see.
Mr. OLIVER. Containing excerpts from the diary.
Mr. JENNER. But you saw no such newspaper reports of excerpts at or prior
to the time you wrote and published this article, did you?
Mr. OLIVER. I believe not; no. I mentioned that as merely pertinent to
the scope of your inquiry, as you could find.
Mr. JENNER. Then you go on in your article and say, "In 1962 after
he had been trained for 3 years in
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER In connection with the previous sentence. What is your source
for the statement that he was a Communist?
Mr. OLIVER. A man who can----
Mr. JENNER. If you will forgive an interruption, Doctor.
Mr. OLIVER. Right.
Mr. JENNER. First, tell me the source, I have no objection to your
elaborating after you have given the source.
Mr. OLIVER. For the statement that he was a Communist agent, I rely on
what I regard as certain inference from, A, his training in this school; B, the
circumstance he was a man who had been accorded most extraordinary privileges in
Russia; C, that he had been permitted to marry and take with him the adopted
daughter of a man in the Russian intelligence service.
Mr. JENNER. Excuse me, sir, are you now using adopted in the technical
sense, that the uncle you have identified adopted her?
Mr. OLIVER I am using it loosely because I for that matter do not know
whether there is legal adoption in the Soviet.
• Mr. JENNER. I didn't want you to utter something that you perhaps did
not intend.
Mr. OLIVER No; I was merely reluctant to say "purported father"
because that would have another implication. D, that he had been permitted to
return to the United States by the Soviet with his wife; E, his activities in
the United States after his return, all of which were quite obviously in the
Communist interest. I believe that summarizes the principal points on which I
based my deduction. It is, of course, true that I had no personal knowledge that
he was a Soviet agent.
Mr. JENNER. Now, were the
sources of these points A through E, the news reports, Commission Exhibit 1015,
the Congressional Record, newspaper clippings, and other secondary sources of
that nature?
Mr. OLIVER. Together with, here also, reports from Mr. Capell.
Mr. JENNER. Do you have with you copies of any of the reports of Mr.
Capell that you considered ?
Mr. OLIVER. No; I do not.
Mr. JENNER. Do you have with you the sources that you considered in
connection with making of the statement we have now immediately quoted?
Mr. OLIVER. I beg your pardon, I did not hear your last words.
(The question, as recorded, was read by the reporter. )
719
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720
Mr. JENNER. That is, the sentence commencing at the bottom of page 13 of
Oliver Exhibit No. 2 and concluding at the top of the right-hand column.
Mr. OLIVER. I strongly imagine that most of the details regarding
Oswald's return to this country are to be found in the news clippings here.
Mr. JENNER. In Commission Exhibit No. 1015?
Mr. OLIVER. Right.
Mr. JENNER. And that is the source that you considered?
Mr. OLIVER. That and similar news clippings. I would not want to say they
were all in this collection.
Mr. JENNER. I don't wish to put those words in your mouth either, but
those are the sources upon which you base the statement?
Mr. OLIVER. Right.
Mr. JENNER Does that include the statement that he and his wife
"were brought to the
I am seeking here to emphasize only the point of your statement that they
were brought to the
Mr. OLIVER. They were brought in the sense that they were given passports
and that their passage was paid for with money from the State Department in the
sum of something less than $500 as I remember it.
Mr. JENNER. Monies advanced by the State Department. You are aware those
monies were repaid ?
Mr. OLIVER. I do not know whether they were repaid or not. I believe that
I have heard that they were never repaid. But that is something I certainly
would not say without a checking.
Mr. JENNER. Well, just for your information they were repaid by January
of 1963.
Mr. OLIVER. They were. May I further ask whether it is known from what
source they were repaid?
Mr. JENNER. Yes, sir; when the report is published this month you will
see it.
Mr. OLIVER. Very good.
Mr. JENNER. Your statement that he was brought back or permitted to come
back in open violation of American law is a statement of your opinion only, I
take it?
Mr. OLIVER. Of my opinion, based, I believe, on the import of legislation
intended to prevent the coming of known Communists to this country.
Mr. JENNER. It is your interpretation of Federal statutes and
regulations?
Mr. OLIVER That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Then you continue in your article in the right-hand column on
page 13, "Upon his arrival in this country Oswald took up his duties as an
agent of the conspiracy, conspiracy with a cap C, spying on anti-Communist Cuban
refugees, serving as an agitator for Fair Play for Cuba, and participating in
some of the many other forms of subversion that flourish openly in the defiance
of law through the connivance of the Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy."
Here again, I take it, your statement that he was an agent and he took up
duties as an agent of the conspiracy, was the same source you relied upon in
connection with the previous sentence that he was a Communist agent.
Mr. OLIVER. Yes. In the sense that, this spying on Cuban refugees could
scarcely have had any other purposes. Fair Play for
Mr. JENNER. This statement, in turn, is based on newspaper reports and
radio broadcasts or television broadcasts, as the case may be?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes. I should perhaps add, yes; that I heard a personal
account in, as I recall,
Mr. JENNER. Was that Carlos Bringuier?
Mr. OLIVER. Bringuier, I believe so, yes. And I also heard from the
publisher of the Independent American of an attempt by Oswald to obtain
employment on that newspaper.
Mr. JENNER. Would you identify that person, please?
Mr. OLIVER. The Independent American is a newspaper published by Kent
Courtney, or I should say edited by Kent Courtney, in
It is C-o-u-r-t-n-e-y.
720
Page
721
It is largely composed of reprints of editorials and other material from
conservative sources in the
Mr. JENNER. When you said you heard from the editor, is that gentleman
Mr. Courtney?
Mr. OLIVER. That is Mr. Courtney.
Mr. JENNER. And when you say you heard from him was that a conversation
or did he send you a copy of his piece or a copy of the article?
Mr. OLIVER. A conversation.
Mr. JENNER. A conversation. Have you seen any article or item he has
written or published in which he makes that statement in substance?
Mr. OLIVER. Not that I recall. If so, I saw it after the conversation and
I did not remember it separately.
Mr. JENNER. For your information, and Mr.
Unger's, Mr. Bringuier has been examined at very considerable length.
Mr. OLIVER. Mr.
whom?
Mr. JENNER. Mr.
Bringuier.
Mr. OLIVER.
Yes. Did he confirm what he told me?
Mr. JENNER.
Doctor, I will give you the pleasure of reading his testimony.
Mr. OLIVER.
Very good.
Mr. JENNER. A
part of your statement, which I have already quoted, is that Oswald engaged in
these activities "through the connivance of the Attorney General, Robert F.
Kennedy."
Upon what
source did you rely or base this statement that I have just quoted?
Mr. OLIVER. Primarily the failure to enforce a law of Congress which,
incidentally, has been held constitutional, requiring members of the Communist
Party to register and, also what seemed to me to be a very conspicuous absence
of any other legal measures against the Communist Party or its auxiliaries.
Mr. JENNER. Would you have the record show, Mr. Reporter, that the
witness is consulting with Mr. Unger. Do you wish to add anything now?
Mr. OLIVER. No. I take it that the references are to sources that I had
at my disposal at the time I wrote this article.
Mr. JENNER. Yes, sir.
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. It may be that you have repeated the statement subsequently,
and if you have any subsequent sources I wish to have them since the Commission
continues to function until it renders its report. That is, you may have
discovered something in the meantime that is of a more primary source than you
have indicated, which would, of course, be important to the Commission. If you
have discovered such a source since then would you please mention it.
Mr. OLIVER. I believe some confirmation of this statement will come out
later in the testimony.
Mr. JENNER. I see. At some subsequent point of your article?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. You go on to say, "In April of 1963 he was sent to
What is the source of your statement that he was sent to
Mr.
OLIVER That statement is based upon the consideration that it is extremely
improbable that a Communist agent would do anything of importance except under
orders from his superiors. The extremely rigid discipline to which Communists
are subjected in the neophyte stage is, I think, very lucidly set forth by Frank
Meyer in his "Molding of Communists," I believe.
Mr. JENNER. That is a book, is it, or an article?
Mr. OLIVER. A book by Mr. Meyer published several years ago.
Mr. JENNER. And in turn also, this reasoning of yours is based on the
assumption that Oswald was a Communist?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes
Mr. JENNER. You have mentioned neophyte. Would you for my edification if
none other, explain to me what is a neophyte Communist, as distinguished from
some other kind of Communist ?
721
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722
Mr. OLIVER. Well, I was simply using the term in its usual sense, with
reference to a person recently admitted to a cult or organization under
discipline. And Mr. Meyer makes the point that from the very early stages of a
person's membership in the Communist Party, he is accustomed to the kind of
discipline which would make it impossible for him, let us say, to marry or
divorce, to change jobs, to do anything of sufficient importance to affect his
usefulness as an agent without the permission of his superiors. I should say
nobody is going to take it for granted when I cite Frank Meyer's source that is
my only source of knowledge of Communist methods. Let me add that I have read a
great deal on the organization and operation of the Communist Party and all of
that necessarily goes into my reasoning on this subject.
Mr. JENNER. Then you proceed to, and I am quoting again, "The
failure does not reflect on the assassin's professional training: General Walker
happened to turn his head at the instant the shot was fired."
What is the source of your statement that General Walker happened to turn
his head at the instant the shot was fired ?
Mr. OLIVER Well, I believe it was published at the time, but there I rely
primarily on General Walker himself.
Mr. JENNER. Did General Walker tell you that himself ?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. You will be interested in reading his testimony. I take it
then it is the statement of General Walker and newspaper accounts?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. And those are your two sources?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. You proceed, "according to a
story that has been neither confirmed nor denied officially, at the time I
write, Oswald was arrested as a suspect but was released through the personal
intervention of Robert F. Kennedy and all inquiry into the attempted
assassination of a great American was halted."
And you have a
footnote. The footnote reads, "Reprinted in the Councilor, 228 Oil and
Do you have a copy of the Councilor to which you have referred in your
footnote ?
Mr. OLIVER. I do, I believe. Yes; you will find it at the bottom of page
1.
Mr. JENNER. May I mark this as an exhibit, please?
Mr. OLIVER. I should like that returned to me for my files.
Mr. JENNER. That will be easy because we can duplicate this on Xerox very
readily.
Mr. OLIVER. Very good. Incidentally, if you want a somewhat better
duplication you will find this in this American Eagle reprint, also.
Mr. JENNER. The Commission Exhibit No. 1015 that you have before you?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Would you identify that for me, please?
Mr. OLIVER. You will find it on the page, the rest of which consists of
excerpts from the
Mr. JENNER. And the date, or the heading at the top, boldfaced heading is
"Soviet Insinuations call for Query Oswald." On the bottom right-hand
side of the page appears what apparently is a news clipping.
Mr. OLIVER. It is from the Deutsche National Zeitung.
Mr. JENNER. We have been identifying, Mr. Reporter, a page in Commission
Exhibit No. 1015. Is that correct ?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right
Mr. JENNER. I have marked as Oliver Exhibit No. 4 the December 20, 1963,
issue of The Councilor volume 2, No. 3, published by Citizens Council of
Louisiana, Inc., for Americans everywhere, which Dr. Oliver has produced for me,
which I will return to him, or I will return it to you, Mr. Unger, as soon as we
have duplicated it.
Mr. OLIVER. Do you not have a file of the papers yourselves ?
Mr. JENNER. If we don't have it it will be a modern miracle. You are
asking for my personal knowledge. I must say I don't know.
Mr. OLIVER. Right
(The document referred to was marked Oliver Exhibit No. 4 for
identification. )
722
Page
723
Mr. JENNER. But if we don't have it, it will amaze me. I, in my work,
have not seen it.
I take it then that the Oliver Exhibit No. 4 and the portion of
Commission Exhibit No. 1015 which I have identified are the sources for your
statement that Oswald was arrested as a suspect in connection with the attempt
on the life of General Walker?
Mr. OLIVER. They are the sources for my statement that there was a report
that that had happened.
Mr. JENNER. All right. And that General Walker happened to turn his head
and for that reason he escaped death.
Mr. OLIVER. Well, as I have said, that was based partly on statements
made by General Walker.
Mr. JENNER. And in part on the Zeitung news report, of course?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Also, those two sources, I take it, are the source of your
statement that Oswald, "was released through the personal intervention of
Robert F. Kennedy."
Mr. OLIVER. That is part of the statement in the report that I am
quoting.
Mr. JENNER. In other words, that the source upon which you base that
statement was Oliver Exhibit No. 4, and its reproduction in whole or in part in
Commission Exhibit No. 1015?
Mr. OLIVER. And specifically the German text.
Mr. JENNER Which appears in?
Mr. OLIVER. In those.
Mr. JENNER. In exhibit--Commission Exhibit No. 1015.
Mr. OLIVER. I may add that at my request Mr. Frank Capell ascertained
that this article had actually appeared in the National Zeitung.
Mr. JENNER. I am seeking only the sources, whether confirmed by Mr.
Capell or otherwise. I now understand they consisted of Oliver Exhibit No. 4,
and the reproduction in whole or in part in German in Commission Exhibit 1015.
Mr. OLIVER. Of course, subsequently to the publication of my article,
confirmation of a kind became available in the reports from the committee
hearings reported by Mr. Henshaw in the National Enquirer.
Mr. JENNER. When you say committee hearings you mean the Commission
hearings.
Mr. OLIVER. The Commission hearings; yes.
Mr. JENNER. At the time you made the statement, I take it, you had no
other source than the two I have indicated plus confirmation from Mr. Capell
that the Zeitung article was published?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Would you identify more particularly the subsequent
confirmation reference you just made about Mr. Henshaw?
Mr. OLIVER. The chief of the
Mr. JENNER. If you have a copy of it I would appreciate having it.
Mr. OLIVER. Yes; for May 17, 1964, this article with which you are
doubtless familiar.
Mr. JENNER. The document to which Dr. Oliver has reference, we will mark
as Oliver Exhibit No. 5.
(The document referred to was marked Oliver Exhibit No. 5 for
identification. )
Mr. JENNER. It is entitled "National Enquirer, the World's Liveliest
Newspaper," volume 38, No. 36, May 17, 1964, and as submitted to me it
consists of pages 1--numbered 1 and 2, pages 15 and 18 and the reverse of those
two pages which happen to be unnumbered. I take it, Doctor, that this issue of
the National Enquirer dated May 17, 1964, volume 38, No. 36, was composed of
additional pages but that none of those additional pages contains any matter
upon which you relied in this connection,
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Then you go on to say, "In November, Oswald was sent
back to Dallas" and I take it your source of his being sent back by the
Communist group or conspiracy to which you have reference, was the same as you
testified
723
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724
you
relied upon in connection with your statement of his having been sent to
Mr. OLIVER. Right.
Mr. JENNER. And I continue the quote, "Where a job in a suitably
located building had been arranged for him." What did you intend to imply
by the statement that a suitably--"where a job in a suitably located
building had been arranged for him." Who arranged it and what is the source
of your information?
Mr. OLIVER. The statement that this building is suitably located is an
inference from the fact that it was, (a) on what proved eventually to be the
route of Presidential procession and, (b) that it was one of the very few
buildings to be found in any town in which a man on the upper floor could be
virtually certain of being unobserved because those upper floors were storage
spaces, and the storage spaces so arranged that there would be no clear view
from one end of the floor to the other.
Mr. JENNER. I take it the source of your information, that is upon which
you base the statement was again newspaper reports or----
Mr. OLIVER. Concerning the building and newspaper reports concerning the
arrangement of the job for him, newspaper reports plus reports from Mr. Capell,
I believe that is all.
Mr. JENNER. By whom had the job been arranged? What was your source as to
that?
Mr. OLIVER. It appears that the intervention which procured the job for
him is attributed to a Mrs. Paine. There were----
Mr. JENNER. Mrs. Michael R.; Ruth Paine.
Mr. OLIVER. Ruth Paine; yes. There were some earlier rumors concerning
the way in which he obtained the position, but I believe that at the time I
wrote those had been superseded by the knowledge that Mrs. Paine had--by the
report that Mrs. Paine had given him a very strong recommendation for the job.
Mr. JENNER. What are you advised as to how that took place, Doctor, and
when ?
Mr. OLIVER. As I recall, it took place 2 or 3 days after Oswald failed to
obtain a job in a printing firm whose name does not come to my mind at the
moment. He was refused a job there, as I understand it, because he naturally had
to present his social security papers which contained his correct name, and the
proprietor ascertained that Oswald had Communist connections and, therefore,
refused him the position. As I understand it, he got the position in the School
Depository, I believe 3 days later.
Mr. JENNER. What is the source of your information?
Mr. OLIVER. Here I believe I rely on Mr. Capell and some confirmation
from a number of people in and about Dallas with whom I discussed the matter.
However, as I recall, those discussions took place after I wrote the article. I
can't be quite certain but I believe they did.
Mr. JENNER. When you refer to Mr. Capell, I take it you are referring
to----
Mr. OLIVER. To Mr. Frank Capell.
Mr. JENNER Mr. Frank Capell, and in particular to releases or bulletins
or writings of his which came to your attention as distinguished from personal
conferences?
Mr. OLIVER. I would rely primarily on personal conferences. Mr. Capell is
the publisher of a periodical called the Herald of Freedom.
Mr. JENNER. The Herald of Freedom?
Mr. OLIVER. Right.
Mr. JENNER. Where is that published?
Mr. OLIVER. In Staten Island in
Mr. JENNER. Are you a subscriber to the Herald of Freedom, did you say?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes; I subscribe
to a considerable number of periodicals, in fact too many.
Mr. JENNER. I wouldn't doubt it.
Mr. OLIVER. But Mr. Capell does serve as a research consultant for me.
Mr. JENNER But at the time you made the statement as published in your.
article you were relying on what source and what source alone?
Mr. OLIVER. I would not say on any source alone. There were news reports
as to how Oswald had obtained his job. There were further the reports from
724
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725
Mr.
Capell and quite possibly some of these conversations with people in
Mr. JENNER. When you say people in
Mr. OLIVER. Most of them residents of Dallas whom I knew in one way or
another in speaking and so on, but none of them had any personal knowledge of
the assassination, so far as I know.
Mr. JENNER. My question related to your statement that he was sent in
Mr. OLIVER. Only what they had heard concerning the way in which he
obtained his employment; yes.
Mr. JENNER. Their sources, in turn, were newspaper reports and rumors and
things of that nature at large in the community.
Mr. OLIVER. I would think so; yes.
Mr. JENNER. Proceeding to page 14, I won't read all of the paragraph, it
begins at the bottom but you just glance at it, you refer to the fact that he
shot the President from ambush, and then he escaped and you surmised that he
would have reached Mexico but for some mischance and the intervention of Officer
Tippit, and you conclude that paragraph with a sentence, "He was
accordingly liquidated before he could make a complete confession." The
implication of that sentence is that he was killed, his death was procured by
some evil source, being, I take it, the Communist conspiracy or Communist Party
to which you have had reference. Am I correct about that?
Mr. OLIVER. That is what I regard as a reasonable inference from the
facts; yes.
Mr. JENNER. It was an inference that you drew.
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Now you state in the next sentence, "There are many
other significant data but I have stated the essentials." What other
significant data are there or were there at the time you made that statement. I
might interject as you are pondering that, to a learned man such as you, at the
word "data" as you used it meant your sources?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes; facts. It would be difficult for me at the moment to
remember and reconstruct completely what was in my mind, the list of data there.
Mr. JENNER. Give me the best; just do the best you can, sir.
Mr. OLIVER. However, I would have particularly taken into consideration
as significant data the various indications of contacts between Oswald and
Rubenstein, known as Ruby, the man who killed him, prior to the assassination.
That would include such matters as a statement made by a, should I say, the
announcer or director of a program called "Open End."
Mr. JENNER. Open End?
Mr. OLIVER. Open End, on a local
Mr. JENNER. When you say "club," you mean the Carousel Club?
Mr. OLIVER. Carouse Club, actually a striptease joint, that he had seen
Oswald in the club shortly before and as he later stated the day before the
assassination.
Mr. JENNER. Whom did you say this was that made this report?
Mr. OLIVER. This was a man named Bill Crowe.
Mr. JENNER. Crowe?
Mr. OLIVER. C-r-o-w-e.
Mr. JENNER. Where did you, see that report or how did you see it?
Mr. OLIVER That was reported in the press at the time. And was later
confirmed by a special interview with him that was published in the National
Enquirer.
Mr. JENNER. Do you have that issue of the Inquirer with you?
Mr. OLIVER. I do not but I
believe you will find a reference to it in the issue that I have given you
there.
725
Page
726
Mr. JENNER.
That is Oliver Exhibit No. 5?
Mr. OLIVER.
That is correct.
Mr. JENNER
Would you locate it for the record, please?
Mr. OLIVER.
Yes; "The Inquirer traced DeMar, and that is the stage name of this man
Rill Crowe to an
Mr. JENNER. Had
you read all of the article by, either by, or referring to DeMar from Oliver
Exhibit No.----
Mr. OLIVER Yes;
I did finish the excerpt.
Mr. JENNER.
What is the number of the Exhibit?
Mr. OLIVER. No.
5. And there were other indications of contacts between Oswald and Rubenstein
before the assassination.
Mr. JENNER. And
I take it your assumption was at the time you published the article that
Rubenstein himself was a Communist agent.
Mr. OLIVER.
That seemed a reasonable inference; yes.
Mr. JENNER. And
your source of that was the sources you have just indicated?
Mr. OLIVER.
Yes; plus, of course, the fact that he either executed or murdered Oswald.
Mr. JENNER Your
statement in the right-hand column that "It required a gunman from outside
to do the job," in which you are referring to Rubenstein, was based on
what, that is a gunman from outside.
Mr. OLIVER.
Well, Rubenstein was not a member of the
Mr. JENNER. I
see. Someone other than the member of the
Mr. OLIVER.
Yes.
Mr. JENNER. You go on in a subsequent paragraph to say, "As was to
be expected a few moments after the shot was fired in Dallas the vermin probably
in obedience to general or specific orders issued in advance of the event, began
to screech out their disease hatred of the American people and, long after the
facts were known to everyone, went on mechanically repeating, like defective
phonograph records, the same vicious lies about these 'radical right' until
fresh orders reached them from headquarters. But the significant fact is that
there were enough honest American newsmen, in the
"That is very encouraging."
Now, your statement "probably in obedience to general or specific
orders issued in advance of the event" I take it that is an inference or an
implication you drew from the sources of information already related to us.
Mr. OLIVER. Right, from the rapidity and the concert, both, of these
attacks on patriotic Americans.
Mr. JENNER Yes. This is a conclusion or a deduction on your own part of
conclusions you reached from the information sources you have indicated, is that
correct, sir?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right. I trust that the Commission will inquire into
the phenomenal rapidity with which the special bulletin of The Worker was
distributed in
Mr. JENNER. Yes, sir; but I would urge you to drop the future tense.
Mr. OLIVER. Very good. I am glad to see that it has been done.
Mr. JENNER. Then commencing on page 15 you say, "There were two
basic"-I am reading the first full paragraph--"There are two basic
reasons why the American people were shocked and grieved by the assassination.
Neither has anything to do with either the personal character of the victim or
the identity of the assassin." Do you find the place?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And then you relate (1) and (2). I take it that (1) and (2)
were conclusions and reasoning to which you resorted, is that correct, sir?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right. On the basis, of course, on my knowledge of
human history.
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727
Mr. JENNER. Your knowledge of human nature and history and the sources of
information you have already told us about?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Were there any others, that is sources?
Mr. OLIVER. No.
Mr. JENNER. Now, we will pass
to page 18. There is a column headed "Three Explanations". Do you find
it?
Mr. OLIVER. Right.
Mr. JENNER. It
reads in part, "Why was Kennedy murdered by the young Bolshevik? With a
little imagination it is easy to excogitate numerous explanations that are not
absolutely impossible. For example, (a) Oswald was a madman who acted all alone
just to get his name in the papers; (b) Oswald was a poor shot who was really
trying to kill Governor Connally or Mrs. Kennedy, and hit the President by
mistake; (e) the person killed was not Kennedy but a double and the real Kennedy
is now a guest aboard a flying saucer, on which he is heroically negotiating
with Martians or Saturnians to save The World, cap 'T', cap 'W'. With a little
time and a fairly wide reading in romantic fiction anyone can think of 60 or 70
fantasies as good or better than those that I have mentioned."
And the next
paragraph:
"On the
evidence, however, and with the consideration of human probabilities there are
only three explanations that are not preposterous, viz :"
To what did you
refer when you used the reference "On the evidence."?
Mr. OLIVER. On the evidence that I had already stated.
Mr. JENNER. You mean that which you have stated here in the course of the
testimony?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes; and also stated in this article. That is, the evidence
that has been stated; my testimony has related to the previous parts of this
article.
Mr. JENNER. That is pages 13 through 17 and up to this point on page 18?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. You were using the term
"evidence" in the general or loose sense?
Mr. OLIVER.
Yes, not in the sense of sworn testimony as a lawyer would use it.
Mr. JENNER.
Yes, not in the sense of primary sources, is that correct?
Mr. OLIVER.
Yes. Of course, we run into a curious question, the definition of primary
sources. There are many modern historians who would list the newspapers, for
example, as primary sources.
Mr. JENNER.
Depending on their use, yes.
Mr. OLIVER. As distinct from, let us say, textbooks which would be
secondary sources. I am here assuming primary sources means some direct positive
evidence other than the printed reports, et cetera.
Mr. JENNER. I don't wish to compromise you, of course. When I use the
term "secondary" or "primary" sources I am using it in a
sense that a lawyer uses it. Newspaper reports we would generally refer to as
secondary sources. We would have to go to the primary source on which the
reporter based his article in order to get something in evidence.
If we were trying to prove a general milieu, newspaper accounts as to an
atmosphere at a particular time or something of that nature they would be
admissible. But as to your sources here, I understand the term secondary sources
means newspaper reports, articles or even books on which you retired, as
distinguished from personal knowledge.
Mr. OLIVER. That is right. I just wanted to be sure this was no
misunderstanding of the term.
Mr. JENNER. I don't wish it misunderstood either. I am not going to read
your three suppositions, they are your conclusions rather than statements of
fact. I use the word supposition in the sense that I am thinking in terms that
they are your conclusions.
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Your conclusion first is, and I quote, "Kennedy was
executed by the Communist conspiracy because he was planning to turn
American."
What was it, your source of that statement?
Mr. OLIVER. Well, as I have indicated; what I called there the comforting
hypothesis that one heard so frequently since Kennedy's inauguration, and which
one still hears, that he had in his mind a secret plan, that his policies and
727
731-231 O-64--vol XV----47
Page
728
the
people with whom he surrounded himself in the opening years of his
administration were intended to provide a demonstration of their fatuity and
probable disloyalty--the fatuity of the measures and the probable disloyalty of
the many persons involved; that he was planning to execute, as I said here, a
volte-face and make a dramatic gesture and espouse a policy of national
independence instead of "interdependence."
Mr. JENNER. You follow the statement I have quoted, with this statement,
Doctor, "For this comforting hypothesis there is no evidence now
known." As of this moment is there any "evidence now known" to
you?
Mr. OLIVER. None that is known to me. So far as I know that is still
conjecture and what is sometimes called wishful thinking. I may say if there is
any evidence of it I should be very happy to hear it.
Mr. JENNER. Point No. 2 appears in the right-hand column, and I read,
"That the assassination was the
result of one of the rifts that now infrequently occur----
Mr. OLIVER. Pardon me, "not infrequently."
Mr. JENNER. Pardon me--"not infrequently occur within the management
of the Communist conspiracy whose satraps sometimes liquidate one another
without defecting from the conspiracy, such as Persian satraps."
Would you read the rest of it, you have a couple of words in there I am
not----
Mr. OLIVER. "Just as Persian satraps, such as Tissaphernes and
Pharnabazus made war on one another
without revolting or intending to revolt against the King of Kings."
Mr. JENNER. This point No. 2 is as in the case of point No. 1, a
rationalization on your part.
Mr. OLIVER. I would prefer to call it deduction on my part.
Mr. JENNER. I will accept the amendment.
You then say, "Now, it was generally suspected for some time before
the assassination that Khrushchev and Kennedy were planning to stage another
show to bamboozle the American suckers just before the election next
November."
What is your source, if any, for the statement that Khrushchev and
Kennedy were planning, as you put it, another show ?
Mr. OLIVER. The frequent reports of preparations for an invasion of
Mr. JENNER. Here again this was a statement of deduction on your part?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. From newspaper accounts and radio broadcasts and general
information that was abroad?
Mr. OLIVER. General information, rumors you pick up, what you are told by
various analysts and so on.
Mr. JENNER. Would you turn to 3 which appears on page 207 This is your
third deduction, I gather:
"That the conspiracy ordered the assassination as part of a
systematic preparation for a domestic takeover. If so, the plan, of course, was
to place the blame on the 'rightwing extremists' (if I may use the Bolshevik's
code word for informed and loyal Americans), and we may be sure that a whole
train of "clues" had been carefully planted to lead or point in that
direction as soon as Oswald was safe in Mexico."
What was the source of that statement in your article?
Mr. OLIVER. This again is deduction.
Mr. JENNER. From the sources you have already related in your testimony?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. You then in the right-hand column proceed to discuss
"two objections to this explanation" and interpolate, "but
neither is cogent".You continue on then with deduction again, do you, sir?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Based on the same
sources?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. I notice that three-quarters of the way down in the
right-hand column on page 20 you state, "For that matter, a potentially
serious and quite unnecessary mistake was made when the Communist Party's
official publication,
728
Page
729
The
Worker, yelled for the appointment of Earl Warren to investigate the
assassination' before (italicized) the appointment was made, or at least, before
the appointment was disclosed to the public.
I take it that statement was based on some news report?
Mr. OLIVER. On the actual publication in The Worker of this article
calling for the appointment of
Mr. JENNER. I know we have that.
Mr. OLIVER. I am sure you must have. It is a well-known publication.
Mr. JENNER. Yes. But the
statement I have just read was based upon that issue of The Worker to which you
have now made reference.
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. You made a deduction from that fact of publication?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Proceed to page 21. The lower right-hand corner of page 21
commences a paragraph the first few words of which or the first sentence of
which reads "Careful observers were aware of the feeling of crisis in
conspiratorial circles before the assassination."
On what was that statement based, or to be more accurate what was the
source from which you made that deduction, if it is one.
Mr. OLIVER. My conversations with fairly numerous observers of the
conspiracy and its operations in this country.
Mr. JENNER Are you using "conspiracy" in a general sense rather
than a particular conspiracy directed toward this event?
Mr. OLIVER. The Communist conspiracy as a whole; yes.
Mr. JENNER. You then go on to state what appears to be a statement of
fact or you represent it to be.
"In June of 1963 an experienced American military man made a careful
analysis of the situation at that time, and in his highly confidential report
concluded, on the basis of indications in Communist and crypto Communist
sources, that the conspiracy's schedule called for a major incident to create
national shock before Thanksgiving."
Who is that experienced American military man to whom you had reference?
( Conferring with counsel. )
Mr. OLIVER. The observer mentioned there is Col. Chesley Clark, retired.
Mr. JENNER.
Mr. OLIVER. C-l-a-r-k, of the American Air Force.
Mr. JENNER. Did he publish--this is a new name to me--did he publish
something on which you rely in making that statement?
Mr. OLIVER. This he told me not with a pledge that it was confidential,
but with the implication that I would not disclose his name in a publication. I
see no bar to disclosing it for the purpose of these hearings. If I may say, his
estimates were made entirely from, what should we say, experience in
psychological warfare and in reading the indications in the sequence of events
and the form the propaganda was taking, and that the obviously had not, so far
as I know, no inside information
Mr. JENNER. This conversation or conversations that you had had with
Colonel Clark, did it or they occur between the time of the assassination and
the time of the publication of your article ?
Mr. OLIVER. No, before the assassination, I am sure. I would say
perhaps--it is hard to recollect but I would say a month or 6 weeks before.
Mr. JENNER. I take it, I
don't even like to say this because I don't want you to take it wrong, certainly
there was nothing in Colonel Clark's statement to you, sir, that carried any
implication of any anticipation of a possible assassination of President
Kennedy?
Mr. OLIVER. No. Of a, however--it did astutely anticipate some event that
would create a national shock.
Mr. JENNER. When I say I hesitate to say it but I know what you would
have done, I think I know what you would have done, had there been any
implication, you would have alarmed the authorities.
Mr. OLIVER. There was no----
Mr. JENNER. I
am correct about that, am I not?
729
Page
730
Mr. OLIVER. You are correct about that. The nature of the event that
would create this shock was, of course, necessarily speculative.
Mr. JENNER. All right. Then you discuss the feeling of men like you, that
there was some crisis about to take place, and this feeling was communicated to
you by men like Colonel Clark and others ?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Who felt that the Communist conspiracy as you call it had
reached a point at which it needed some shocking event.
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Or as you say at the bottom of page 21 and the top of page
22, "The conspiracy's schedule called for a major incident to create a
national shock before Thanksgiving."
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. At the bottom of page 22, right-hand column, you say:
"In summary then, there is not a single indication that the conspiracy did
not plan and carry out the assassination of President Kennedy. On the other
hand, there is evidence which very strongly suggests that it did."
Would you please relate what evidence there was at the time you published
the article which "very strongly suggests that it did."
Mr. OLIVER. You begin with the fact that the assassin was a Communist and
added the strong probability, in my judgment, that he must have had accomplices,
very, very probably including Rubenstein.
Then the results which would have occurred but for the mischance of
Oswald's apprehension would have been very strongly in their favor. It is the
old doctrine of Sui Bono. In substance the considerations that I have stated in
the earlier part of the article indicating that (a) there undoubtedly was
Communist participation and (b) that the act was to their advantage.
Mr. JENNER. Here again then I take it that your use of the word
"evidence" in the portion I have quoted from your paper, at the bottom
of the right-hand column of page 22 is the use of the word in the loose sense or
the broad sense.
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. The broad sense meaning deductions from the sources you have
indicated in your testimony?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER Would you glance at page 23 with a view in mind of my
inquiring of you as to whether the statements made on that page likewise are
deductions based on the sources you have indicated heretofore in your testimony?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Is that likewise true of page 24?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. At the bottom of page 24, the right-hand column you say:
"The first expedient was primarily defensive. In a hasty and thus
far successful attempt to thwart an investigation by legally constituted
authorities, the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security and the attorney
general of the State of Texas, both of whom had already announced their
determination to conduct an impartial inquiry, an illegal and unconstitutional
'special commission' was improvised with the obvious hope that it could be
turned into a Soviet-style Kangaroo court. The best known members of this packed
'commission'," and then you give some vignettes of the various members of
the commission.
I am not seeking to probe into your thinking on the subject. You have a
right to think whatever you do think, and the right of free speech and
publication permits you to publish. As I told Mr. Unger yesterday I was seeking
only sources. What is the source of that statement?
Mr. UNGER. Pardon me, just a minute for
interjecting but what relevancy does that have on the inquiry into the death of
either President Kennedy or----
Mr. JENNER. It
has this relevancy. The doctor is implying in the statement I have quoted that
the creation of the Commission was part of a conspiracy, as he puts it, to
prevent effective investigation into the assassination of the President by the
Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security and the attorney general of the State
of Texas, with the appointment of a commission.
730
Page
731
Mr. OLIVER. Let
me confer for just a second.
(Conferring
with counsel.)
Mr. UNGER. We
think under the circumstances that that is beyond the right of the Commission to
inquire and beyond the scope of this hearing and, therefore, the witness on my
recommendation declines to answer.
Mr. JENNER. All
right. Was this statement other than deduction on your part?
Mr. UNGER.
Well, the same objection. I think if you were to just go through a list of other
than you would eventually arrive at the same objectionable conclusion. So we
object to that.
Mr. JENNER. All
right. What were your sources upon which you based this statement?
Mr. UNGER. Same
objection.
Mr. JENNER. Did
you have any sources other than the sources you have indicated in your testimony
up to the moment ?
Mr. UNGER.
Same objection.
Mr. JENNER. Was
the paragraph I read deduction only or did you have some source on which you
relied.
Mr. UNGER. The
same objection. Let me say for the record that, despite the hurt feelings of the
members of the Commission, I don't believe they have a proper right to inquire
into attacks that were made upon them. I can't see any relevancy at all to that.
Mr. JENNER. I do wish to say for the record that the Commission, no
member of the Commission, has any hurt feelings whatsoever with respect to this
article or any statement in it.
On page 26 you state:
"One writer has recently suggested that it
was the CIA that arranged the assassination of President Kennedy; I know of no
evidence to support that opinion. But obviously Mr. Dulles' CIA is open to
suspicion." Who is the writer to which you have reference?
Mr. OLIVER
(conferring with counsel). I do not recall. I wrote this, of course, in
December, I wouldn't want to recall now who said it. I have the impression that
this was in some one of the innumerable magazine articles about the
assassination of the President but I would not want to say which one.
Mr. JENNER. All
right. Did I gather from your response that your article was written in December
of 1963?
Mr. OLIVER. It
was--I did most of the work in that during the Christmas vacation which, of
course, would run into January.
Mr. JENNER. Well, except for the runover into January the article was
prepared by you in December, in the Christmas holiday period, school holiday
period which commences, well, usually around December 20 and runs over into New
Year's Day?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes; I very unwillingly sacrificed my holiday which I needed
for a quite different purpose. I do not exclude the possibility that I might
possibly have made some changes by telephone, but I do not recall any. I
wouldn't want to swear that I did not, however.
Mr. JENNER. I take it then that after you prepared the article during the
Christmas holidays you submitted it to American Opinion for publication?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes; sent it in.
Mr. JENNER. You may have made some telephone changes or editorial
modifications?
Mr. OLIVER. I would not want to swear that I had not, I do do that
sometimes.
Mr. JENNER. But they were not of a character that you can recall at the
moment?
Mr. OLIVER. No.
Mr. JENNER. Commencing in the right-hand column on page 26 you relate a
series of numbered paragraphs, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, to the conclusion of the
article on page 28. Do you have those?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Are those deductions rather than statements based on
newspaper or other sources of the nature and character you have already related?
Mr. OLIVER (conferring with counsel). Those are deductions.
731
Page
732
Mr. JENNER. May I call your attention to the footnote on page 27 which
reads:
"I
understand that full report on this and other known activities of
Rubenstein will probably appear in a future issue of the Herald of Freedom,
Mr. OLIVER. That is the Herald of Freedom to which I have already
referred as being a publication edited by Mr. Frank Capell.
Mr. JENNER. Do you happen to have this particular issue with you?
Mr. OLIVER. I believe I do. Yes; the issue, of course, was still in the
future at the time that I wrote----
Mr. JENNER. You indicate that clearly in your article.
Mr. OLIVER. And consequently the report is not as full as I had perhaps
anticipated.
Mr. JENNER. I take it when you say the issue was in the future that the
essential aspects of the issue had been communicated to you by Mr. Capell?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right. You will find the references to Rubenstein on,
I believe, pages 2 and 3 rather than the first page, if I recall
correctly.
Mr. JENNER. All right. We will mark as Oliver Exhibit No. 6, an issue of
the Herald of Freedom, volume 4, No.
12, January 17, 1964, and the reference, Dr. Oliver, that you have, would you
locate that for the record, please?
(The document referred to was marked Oliver Exhibit No. 6 for
identification.)
Mr. OLIVER. The reference to Rubenstein begins at the bottom of the
second column on page 2, and runs
into the first column on page 3, and then there are some addenda which are more
or 1ess pertinent to the subject although they do not mention Rubenstein. I had
anticipated a considerably fuller report of Rubenstein's activities.
Mr. JENNER. Is the issue of the Herald of Freedom volume 4, No. 12,
January 17, 1964, now marked Oliver Exhibit No. 6, one of the sources upon which
you relied in preparing your article, and one of the sources upon which you have
relied in taking your subsequent talks ?
Mr. OLIVER. No; the issue itself was not published until after I wrote
the article. The information contained in it as communicated to me by Mr. Capell,
with some additions, was the information on which I relied when I wrote that
footnote, and paragraph to which it is appended.
Mr. JENNER. You are a lecturer, are you not?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And you have--you have journeyed about the country during
which you have made lectures dealing with the subject matter of your
article in American Opinion and such additional matters as have come to your
attention since then?
Mr. OLIVER Yes.
Mr. JENNER. In making and
giving those lectures, have you relied on Oliver Exhibit No. 6 as one of your
sources?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. What other documents have you brought with you in addition to
those you have produced or identified upon which you relied in preparing your
article in American Opinion?
Mr. OLIVER Oh, I have a miscellaneous collection of such things as I
could find on short notice.
Mr. JENNER. Why don't you relate them into the record.
Mr. OLIVER. We are still on the subject of the article?
Mr. JENNER. Yes sir.
Mr. OLIVER. I have here a clipping from the Rocky Mountain News of this
month noting that the CIA has been found giving money to the J. M. Kaplan fund.
And many clippings like that. It would take--I have photostats, for example,
from reports of the Dies committee identifying Rubenstein, one or more persons
named Jacob or Jack Rubenstein, as active in Communist organizations. The most
significant one, of course, is the one in which a Jack Rubenstein appears as an
organizer in one of the Communist youth movements. If this man has given his age
correctly he would have been 19 at the time which would make him just right for
a youth movement.
Mr. JENNER Are you associating the Jack Rubenstein mentioned in that
732
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733
article
with the Jack Rubenstein who is now charged and been found guilty of the murder
of Oswald?
Mr. OLIVER. I am using that as the basis for my contention that that
should be investigated.
Mr. JENNER. In view of that could I see the article, please? I think we
had probably better identify it.
Mr. UNGER. Let me say a copy of Martin Dies' article is in the same issue
of American Opinion for March that you have already used as an Exhibit.
Mr. JENNER. Would you identify the page number ?
Mr. OLIVER. Let me look at it.
Mr. JENNER. Is that Oliver Exhibit No. 1 you are looking at?
Mr. OLIVER Oliver Exhibit No. 1 contains on pages 1 through 10 an article
by Congressman Martin Dies on the assassination in which he raised the question
of the identity of Jacob or Jack Rubenstein.
Mr. JENNER. Was that article available to you at the time you wrote your
article which was published in the same issue? That is part II.
Mr. OLIVER. Not the finished typewritten text of the article but the
contents of it; yes.
Mr. UNGER. Excuse me, can I interrupt for just a minute?
(Discussion off the record.).
Mr. JENNER. Referring to your article, did you rely on any source that we
may describe as being a confidential source as distinguished from public
sources, that is, various published matters?
Mr. OLIVER. In this entire
article?
Mr. JENNER. Yes, sir.
Mr. OLIVER. No; except as I have said, I had the estimate made by Colonel
Clark which could be regarded as semiconfidential.
Mr. JENNER. And you have so indicated already.
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Do you recall being interviewed either by telephone or
personally by an agent of the FBI on the 2d of September, 1964, that is last
week, I guess, wasn't it, or this week?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Last week.
Mr. OLIVER. September what?
Mr. JENNER. September 2.
Mr. OLIVER. That would be right; yes.
Mr. JENNER. It is reported to us you stated and I will quote "that
all of" I interpolate the pronouns "that all of his material used in
his articles was obtained by him from public sources and he added that he had no
confidential sources."
Mr. OLIVER. I believe that I was referring specifically to the speech
concerning which they inquired and not to the articles.
Mr. JENNER. That was the speech that you made on the evening of August 28
at the
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Do I properly infer from that response of yours that you had
sources, one or more, for your article, that was or were other than public
sources----
Mr. OLIVER. No; I merely am
trying to keep the record clear by stating the FBI people, I believe, spoke to
me only about the speech.
Mr. JENNER. I see. This report of the FBI, if directed to your article in
American Opinion would be equally applicable to it?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes. With, of course, the exceptions that I have already
mentioned, Colonel Clark, reports from----
Mr JENNER. With whatever exceptions you have already placed on record in
this examination.
Mr. OLIVER. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. The report of your
733
Page
734
police--and
it is just a matter of bookkeeping anyway." Did you make that statement in
the course of your speech to the
Mr. OLIVER. Not in that form, and not in all probability in the context
in which I am quoted there.
In the speech I referred to a book which I believe is on your desk
written by a Mr. Joesten, Joachim Joesten; entitled "Oswald: Assassin or
Fall Guy?" in which, in the course of many arguments intended to prove or
suggest that Oswald was "framed" by wicked American conservatives, he
makes much of Oswald's supposed connection with the CIA. In my speech I made the
point that if it were established that Oswald was in the employ of the CIA that
would not by any means exclude the possibility that he was also in the employ of
the Soviet and that therefore the argument in the book is completely fallacious.
I think I can tell you precisely what I did say.
Mr. JENNER. Thank you, sir. By the way, do you have a copy of that
speech? I spoke to your counsel and he thought you might have one.
Mr. OLIVER. I have my one copy and I may say that this speech consists of
39 and a little more typed pages including 2 or 3 inserts here and there----
Mr. JENNER. You might find that section dealing with this precise
subject.
Mr. OLIVER. And that the first 27 pages deal with questions of the
impression produced on the public mind by shownmanship.
Mr. JENNER. Excuse me, what do you mean by that, Doctor?
Mr. OLIVER. I mean the ease with which many people confuse actors with
the roles they play and so carry from a performance an impression that it has a
reality that it did not have.
Actually, I start out by pointing out that whenever anybody goes into a
theater to see Hamlet for example, he more or less consciously tells himself
that he is going into that theater to undergo an illusion. He knows perfectly
well the actors are not Hamlet, and the other characters are feigned--that in
real life the actors may not resemble the characters they impersonate at all,
and so on.
And then I took up the whole question of the socialist mentality as
exhibited in history. I made some comments on the letters of objurgation that I
had received, for I was still illustrating that mentality, and I spoke briefly
about the general suppositions of the people called "liberal
intellectuals." I did not begin to discuss the facts of the assassination
until late on page 27.
In other words, more than two-thirds of my speech dealt with these
general--of my pitch, dealt with these general considerations.
Now, the particular passage from which that quotation was taken begins on
page 26:
Mr. JENNER. Would you read it into the record, please?
Mr. OLIVER. This entire passage?
Mr. JENNER. Is it very long?
Mr. OLIVER. It is approximately three typewritten pages.
Mr. JENNER. Why don't you go ahead and read it.
Mr. OLIVER. "The second propaganda line is the one that I mentioned
in the February issue of American Opinion when I was not certain that the
Bolsheviks would dare to use the
"He was identified as a member of the Communist Party when he was
employed in our super secret 'intelligence' organization, the
734
Page
735
part
it operates by taking the facts that are publicly known and simply turning them
upside down. That way you see they will look just right to liberal
intellectuals."
Mr. JENNER. By the way, he uses--would he be classified as a liberal by
most people or does he claim to be?
Mr. OLIVER. I think he tries to give that----
Mr. JENNER. I am curious now.
Mr. OLIVER. My opinion is that of the people who read that book perhaps
75 percent will say to themselves this man is a great liberal, a believer in
civil rights, et cetera. And a champion of the underdog.
"It starts, for example, with the strange detour in the Presidential
procession that made Kennedy an easy mark for a marksman in the Book
Depository--to which, I believe, I was the first to draw attention. But the
author argues that a sweet little Communist like Oswald couldn't possibly have
known about it, much less had the target set up for him. Poor little fellow. The
detour must have been arranged so that the nasty rightwing extremists could
frame him for the assassination.
"And the book makes much of the possible activities of our Central
Intelligence Agency. This is designed for readers who have memories so poor that
they will not recall the long list of events from the fake invasion of Cuba
known as Operation Judas because it betrayed the anti-Communist Cubans into the
hands of Castro, to the recent assassinations in Vietnam in which our Central
Intelligence Agency with its army of 17 to 40 thousand faceless agents and the
billions of dollars with which you taxpayers supply it every year, has evidently
done the work of the Soviet Secret Police. It is designed for readers who will
not remember that a defector from the Soviet Secret Police has sworn that his
colleagues in the Central Intelligence Agency used your money directly to
subsidize, (a) the Soviet Secret Police; (b) the official Communist Party in
Italy; and (c) the official Communist Party in the United States."
I should interpolate that this is obviously a reference to Lieutenant
Colonel Goleniewski.
Mr. JENNER. Whom you have heretofore identified ?
Mr. OLIVER. Pardon me?
Mr. JENNER. Whom you have heretofore identified, or at least you made
reference to him earlier in the afternoon?
Mr. OLIVER. I do not recall that.
"On the contrary, the author of this incredible hogwash like the
authors of some other books recently published expects you to believe that the
CIA is a rightwing organization probably run by the John Birch Society. I do not
know whether Oswald was paid by the CIA, but I hear that there was testimony
before the
And I will interpolate here that that is a reference primarily to the
testimony of Ambassador Earl Smith before the Senate Internal Security
Subcommittee, and also a reference to the testimony of the elected president of
Cuba who was driven from Cuba by Castro, and there are some further indications
of some significance in at least the second edition of Nathaniel Weyl's
"Red Star Over Cuba," and still further indications in a recent book
that apologizes for the CIA's fiasco in Cuba and at the same time criticizes
them rather severely. I am sorry, the names do not come to my mind at the
moment; the authors are two newsmen, I believe, both of them with
Possibly one from the Times and one from the Herald Tribune. It is just a
vague impression.
"It is believed to have instigated and financed the Communist smear
against General Walker." I interpolate here and refer to the----
Mr. JENNER. When you say interpolate, you mean the source from which----
Mr. OLIVER. Yes, I am now interpolating from my speech, text of my
speech, to say in making that statement I was relying on the considerations that
the Central Intelligence Agency may be operating Inter-national Media, the
publishers of the "Oversexed Weekly," as it is generally called,
"Overseas Weekly" as it appears on the masthead, the three editions of
Drum in Africa, and some other publications. That is partly based on the
identity of a stockholder and officer of
735
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736
this
supposed corporation with an officer in the fictitious corporation that was set
up to cover Radio Swan.
Mr. JENNER. Cover what?
Mr. OLIVER. Radio Swan, which has since been admitted to be a CIA
operation.
I then continue, "They contrived and financed the assassination of
anti-Communists in other parts of the world, notably General Trujillo in the
That is based--I interpolate now,--that is based primarily on the
assertions of General Espaillat in his book "
I may say at the time of the assassination of General Trujillo I referred
from the facts that the only people who could have arranged it were either the
CIA or the Soviet secret police.
Then I continue. "And there seems to be no good reason for supposing
that it could not use your money to carry out assassinations in the Communist
interest in the country."
Mr. JENNER. The "it" is what, CIA?
Mr. OLIVER.. CIA.
Mr. JENNER. Is that a conclusion you reach or is that based--what is your
source of that statement?
Mr. OLIVER. Well, that is a conclusion that I reach primarily on the
grounds that if you carry out assassinations abroad you may carry them out at
home, and secondarily on the suspicions which obviously can be no more than
suspicions, concerning the death of Povl Bang-Jensen.
Mr. JENNER. I will ask you who is he, in my ignorance I will ask you if
you can identify him?
Mr. OLIVER. He is the member of the United Nations staff who attempted to
communicate to the Central Intelligence Agency the names of certain Soviet
agents in the United Nations who were, (A) willing to defect, in fact eager to
do that; and (B) willing to identify agents of the Soviet Secret Police in the
State Department and CIA. He is reported to have communicated his information in
confidence to an officer of the CIA and very shortly thereafter he met his death
in what was called a suicide although most improbably such. The CIA is reported
to have been shadowing him at the time of his death.
On those principal data, my statement here is an inference. If they can
assassinate General Trujillo in the
I continued. "But what Joesten's poisonous book is trying to tell
its readers--liberal intellectuals is that Kennedy was really assassinated by
the wicked Fascist police of Dallas, Texas, who then framed sweet little Oswald
to conceal their crime. And the author all but says outright that those awful
'Fascist' police are agents of the John Birch Society and General Walker."
I think that is sufficient.
Mr. JENNER. As I recall, I am not attempting to quote this, all I did was
make a cryptic note, somewhere, in what you have just read the substance is
"But I hear that he was" that is, that he was paid by the CIA. Would
you find that spot in your quote.
Mr. OLIVER. The exact quotation is, "I do not know whether Oswald
was paid by the CIA but I hear there was testimony before the
Mr. JENNER. And from what source, on what source did you base the
statement that you heard that there was testimony before the
Mr. OLIVER. Principally, although not exclusively, an article, again by
Henshaw in the National Enquirer at about the time that Earl Warren made his
statement that the findings would not be released during the lifetime of the
people then living.
Mr. JENNER. If you will pardon my correcting you, even that newspaper
account didn't say that the Chief Justice said that the findings of the
Commission would not be released.
Mr. OLIVER. That the "full truth" wasn't that it?
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737
Mr. JENNER. I think not. It will be quoted in the report. This occurred a
long time ago, and I have forgotten just what it was.
Mr. OLIVER. Yes, this is in the National Enquirer for March 3, 1964.
Mr. JENNER. Could I identify that and then return it to you when we have
made a copy?
That is either a photostat or a Xerox reprint that is marked Oliver
Exhibit No. 7. It is entitled--The particular article by John Henshaw,
"Washington Pipeline by John Henshaw," and then the heading is
"Moscow plotted JFK assassination--U.S. Government financed Oswald,"
place-lined Washington, D.C.
Does that summarily describe the exhibit?
Mr. OLIVER. Right.
Mr. JENNER. And that is your source?
Mr. OLIVER. That is my primary source, and I believe the first source;
the statement picked up elsewhere in the press. Of course this is supported.
Mr. JENNER. Is what, sir?
Mr. OLIVER. This is supported by the longer article by Mr. Henshaw that
has already been placed in the record as Exhibit No. 5.
Mr. JENNER. Oliver Exhibit No. 5?
Mr. OLIVER Wherein it is stated that the reason given either as an
explicit statement or by implication for intervening to prevent the Dallas
police from arresting Rubenstein and Oswald for the attempted murder of General
Walker was that they were agents of the Central Intelligence Agency--which you
see confirms the statement in the earlier report
Mr. JENNER. Now, the news item to which I referred, that is the
Mr. OLIVER. I may say that is typical of the kind of so-called journalism
practiced by the
Mr. JENNER. Would you identify the pages if they are numbered?
Mr. OLIVER. On typewritten page, beginning on typewritten page 12, going
through to approximately the middle of page 16 and including a little insert
13-A, I discussed the effect of theatrical performances on the human mind, and
the way in which illusions may be carried over from the performance to reality.
I begin by using a performance of Hamlet as an illustration, analyzing what
happens there. In the following paragraph I elaborate on the point that "A
great many naive and unreflective people do confuse actors with the roles they
play in the performances."
And I illustrate that with a story which I hope was amusing about an
acquaintance of mine who witnessed a brawl in a tavern between two men, one of
whom was convinced that an actress who played effectively the role of the pure
and virginal heroine must be pure and virginal herself.
I then went on and using a slightly different illustration but developing
the same point, I mentioned a television show about a character called Superman,
and what was told to me by a vice president of the corporation that wrote and
produced the show, to wit, that although this being was represented as a person
who could leap a hundred feet in the air, and could bend a railroad rail with
his hands, nevertheless many of the viewers thought that he was real and wrote
letters to him asking for his help. And I then went on.
Mr. JENNER. Shades of Orson Welles.
Mr. OLIVER. Except that I believe these letterwriters were not financed
so far as I know.
Mr. JENNER. I did not mean to imply that.
Mr. OLIVER. I then went on "As another example of the case with
which illusions are induced, let us take one detail in the really spectacular
show that was put on at the funeral of President Kennedy. That was a mass
performance which for sheer technical virtuousity certainly deserves to rank
with such spectacles in the cinema as Cleopatra and Ben Hur. Now, I made it a
point to talk to many people who had seen that spectacle on television, and I
737
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738
found
that all of them very firmly believed that the caparisoned horse named 'Black
Jack,' in the procession belonged to Mrs. Kennedy and was her favorite mount.
That is entirely false.
"As most of you may not know for the national press never reported
it, the headquarters detachment of our Army under orders from McNamara's office
began to rehearse for the funeral more than a week before the assassination, and
'Black Jack' was an old army horse who was selected at the time of the first
rehearsal for the role that he played in the real performance. Incidentally, he
was a horse who had never been broken to the saddle and consequently never
ridden by anyone. That is what was specifically said by the commander of that
detachment when he told his hometown newspaper about the rehearsals."
Perhaps I should add that I did not hear of that statement for several days and
by the time that I tried to reach him by telephone the commander had been
transferred to somewhere in Germany. I mention "Black Jack" and the
impression created on television merely as an example of the attention to detail
that makes great and impressive performances."
In other words, in my speech I am pointing out that the impression
conveyed to these many viewers whom I interviewed, and so far as I know, to all
viewers; was that this horse was the horse of Mrs. Kennedy, whereas it was an
army horse.
Mr. JENNER. Upon what source
did you rely in making the statement that the special detachment to which you
refer began to rehearse for the funeral a week before the assassination?
Mr. OLIVER. I relied primarily on the interview given by Captain Cloy to
the
Mr. JENNER. Do you have a copy of that?
Mr. OLIVER. On the 21st of February, 1964.
Mr. JENNER. May I mark it? We will have an exhibit number on it.
I have marked as Oliver Exhibit No. 8 a photostatic reprint of an article
headlined "A lot to remember, McComb Army officer big part in Kennedy
funeral" by Kenneth Tolliver, and in the center is written, I assume,
in--is that your handwriting, the black lettering?
Mr. OLIVER. Mrs. Oliver's, I believe, which picks up the words
"C1arion-Ledger" from the next reproduction.
Mr. JENNER. For purposes of
reproduction, it reads, "
(The document referred to was marked Oliver Exhibit No. 8 for
identification.)
Mr. OLIVER. This is a reproduction of the clipping.
Mr. JENNER. Would you show me where in that clipping it says in any
respect whatsoever that Captain Cloy made the statement that he and his unit
were rehearsing for the funeral of President Kennedy a week in advance of the
assassination ?
Mr. OLIVER. My first knowledge of the rehearsal came from a letter that I
received from someone in Arlington, or Alexandria, informing me that the Army
had rehearsed the funeral more than a week before the funeral, I think, I cannot
be sure.
Mr. JENNER. The funeral was on Monday, the 25th of November.
Mr. OLIVER. And I would not
say that I discounted the letter. I appreciated it, as I appreciate all efforts
to give me information. On the other hand, I did not follow it up partly because
I was very busy, and partly because I thought it entirely possible that what had
been witnessed was some other Army exercise that could easily have been mistaken
for a rehearsal of the funeral.
Consequently, I put it aside, and I am afraid I really dropped it from my
mind until I received this clipping from the Clarion-Ledger a number of days
after it had been published. I wouldn't want to say how many now.
Mr. JENNER. But you had it prior to your speech at the
Mr. OLIVER. Oh, yes; quite some time before that.
Mr. JENNER. And before you prepared the speech, part of which you have
read?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right. And that confirmed the statement that a
funeral had been rehearsed.
738
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739
Mr. JENNER. Yes; but not President Kennedy's.
Mr. OLIVER. But it turned out
to be that.
Mr. JENNER. The only point I am making, Doctor, is that you will notice
in the article that what Captain Cloy says is not what you state in your speech
he said, but rather that before the assassination his special unit had been
rehearsing for the anticipated possible funeral of President Hoover who was then
ill.
Mr. OLIVER. That is right. He said, "We were in a state of readiness
and had just finished a funeral rehearsal because there was grave concern for
President Hoover's health".
Mr. JENNER. That is not rehearsal for a funeral of President Kennedy a
week in advance either of the funeral or of the assassination, is it?
Mr. OLIVER. Capt. Richard C. Cloy states that the conduct of the
President's funeral is in accordance with orders that cover 160 pages. He
implies----
Mr. JENNER. Those are standing orders.
Mr. OLIVER. Presumably, and he implies that all funerals are conducted in
the same way. And he goes on to speak of difficulties that his men encountered
and how they performed, and that although his command was ready for the state
funeral, the actual site of the burial was not known until the day before the
ceremony, and so on. The point I was making was that the show was a rehearsed
show, and I do not believe that I say that on----
Mr. JENNER. I think if you will read it again, sir, there is a clear
implication, if not express statement on your part, that his unit began to
rehearse for the funeral a week ahead. Would you read that sentence again, or
that series of clauses?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes; "The headquarters detachment of our Army under
orders from McNamara's office began to rehearse for the funeral more than a week
before the assassination."
Mr. JENNER. Yes; now, that clear implication is that the unit was
rehearsing for President Kennedy's funeral because they knew there was going to
be a funeral.
Mr. OLIVER. Oh, no; that is not the implication. I certainly would not
imply that the unit knew it, because Cloy states specifically that they did not.
They were told that it was a rehearsal for the anticipated demise of President
Hoover.
Mr. JENNER. Is it in your
implication then, sir, in your speech, that somebody else or some agency,
somebody else connected with the Government of the United States or some agency
of the Government of the United States, including the Army, Navy, Air Corps,
Marines, wherever they may be, anticipated the assassination of the President a
week in advance and directed the unit to begin preparing for the funeral?
Mr. OLIVER. No; that is not my implication. If you raise a question it
would be an interesting one for you to investigate; yes.
Mr. JENNER. Well, we wish to investigate anything that you readily seek
to imply, and to some, at least, and frankly to me, that sentence that you have
just read carries the clear implication that President Kennedy's assassination
was anticipated by somebody in the Government service or Government-connected,
and the unit Captain Cloy's unit was told to begin rehearsing for a funeral, the
pretext being the funeral or possible funeral of President Hoover, whereas those
who directed it had specifically in mind the assassination of President Kennedy,
is that what you intended to imply?
Mr. OLIVER. That is not what I intended to imply in this passage here.
But it is certainly an inference that could be drawn from the facts; yes,
I mean it is a possibility.
Mr. JENNER. In fairness to yourself and others possibly involved, Doctor,
what did you intend to imply ?
Mr. OLIVER. I was primarily concerned in making the point that the
viewers suffered an illusion. That they had assumed this horse belonged to Mrs.
Kennedy, whereas he certainly did not. I further intended to imply there was no
conceivable connection between Mrs Kennedy and the horse, since she can't ever
have ridden it if nobody rode it.
Mr. JENNER. Did you intend to imply by that statement that the
assassination
739
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740
of
President Kennedy was anticipated and that the practice instructions issued to
Captain Cloy and his unit were in anticipation of, in fact, not the possible
death of Hoover but the assassination of the President of the United States?
Mr. OLIVER. That is not what I intended to imply. I did not intend to
exclude that possibility, of course.
Mr. JENNER. And the source and sole source of that sentence which you
have now read from your speech was the newspaper clipping from the Jackson,
Miss., Clarion-Ledger, of February 21, 1964, now identified as Oliver Exhibit
No. 8?
Mr. OLIVER. Except insofar as concerns the actual date. Cloy, you see,
says merely that they had just finished a rehearsal. The date as being a week
before either the funeral or the assassination, I got from this letter.
Mr. JENNER. What letter was that?
Mr. OLIVER. This was a letter that I had received some time in February,
probably early in February.
Mr. JENNER. But the line in your speech as of last week was based on the
material contained in Oliver Exhibit No. 8?
Mr. OLIVER. That letter and Oliver No. 8.
Mr. JENNER. Do you have the letter?
Mr. OLIVER. No; I do not.
Mr. JENNER. And the letter was from whom?
Mr. OLIVER. I do not recall the name.
Mr. JENNER. Do you have the letter on which you relied?
Mr. OLIVER. Probably. I have such a mass of undigested correspondence
that I probably have it some place in that mass. On the other hand, I may not,
because I recently searched for an entirely different letter and wasn't able to
find it. Possibly I just overlooked it.
Mr. JENNER. The letter was, I take it, from a person with whom you had
not sufficient contact so that you can recall his or her name.
Mr. OLIVER. So far as I know, it was a name unknown to me. It could
conceivably have been somebody that I met some time but, as I recall, there was
no allusion to such a meeting. It was simply offering information.
Mr. JENNER. Did that--I take it from what you said that the letter made
reference to the item that was about to be published which is now identified as
Oliver Exhibit No. 8?
Mr. OLIVER. So far as I know, the writer of the letter had no knowledge
of that interview at all.
Mr. JENNER. What did the writer of the letter say as you now recall?
Mr. OLIVER. The writer of the letter implied that the Army had rehearsed
for the funeral of Kennedy--that was the implication in the letter--as I say,
more than a week either before the funeral or the assassination, I am not quite
sure which word was used.
Mr. JENNER. Did you attempt to verify the statement made by a source
which was therefore unknown to you?
Mr. OLIVER. As I say, I simply put the letter aside and for all practical
purpose, I should say I forgot it until I received this clipping.
Mr. JENNER. Then for all practical purposes, Doctor, in making your
speech last week you relied on Oliver Exhibit No. 8.
Mr. OLIVER. Plus the letter for the date.
Mr. JENNER. For what date?
Mr. OLIVER. The date of the rehearsal.
Mr. JENNER. I see. Did you make any attempt to determine whether there
was such a person who purported to write you a letter?
Mr. OLIVER. As the writer of the letter, you mean?
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mr. OLIVER. No; I did nothing with the letter.
Mr. JENNER. You just put it aside?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes; as for Captain Cloy, I did ascertain that there was such
a person.
Mr. JENNER. How did you do that ?
Mr. OLIVER. By trying to
reach him by telephone.
Mr. JENNER. Where?
Mr. OLIVER. In
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of
Mr. JENNER. What did you do, make a long distance call down there?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And in making that call you were advised by whom that there
was or was not such a person ?
Mr. OLIVER. Well, I certainly was advised----
Mr. JENNER. Relate what you did on it.
Mr. OLIVER. What I did was place a person-to-person call to Captain Cloy,
giving his full name.
Mr. JENNER. Richard C.?
Mr. OLIVER. Richard C. Cloy, in McComb, Miss. And it seems to me there is
another item of information about him there which I was also able to use. Yes;
it states Captain Cloy's wife is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Burt, of
Mr. JENNER. You have never talked with Captain Cloy?
Mr. OLIVER. No; I had been unable to reach him. Very possibly had I been
willing to persist and spend the money for transoceanic phones, I could have
done so.
Mr. JENNER. I show you a
document I have marked Oliver Exhibit No. 9 which consists of pages A-4596, and
A-4597 of the Congressional Record of Thursday, September 3, 1964, which
consists of extension of remarks of Morris K. Udall, of the House of
Representatives, commencing on page A-4596, and running over to page A-4597. Are
you familiar with those newspaper reports that Representative Udall has placed
of record in the Congressional Record?
Mr. OLIVER. No; this is new to me. Congressman Udall is evidently much
upset.
Mr. JENNER. You have anticipated my question. I was going to ask, well, I
did ask if you were familiar with it. That is as you say new to you.
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. While you are looking at that, Doctor, I would like to mark
your speech with an Exhibit number, and in fairness so as to have the accurate
speech rather than the newspaper reports.
Mr. OLIVER. Very good. Of course this man is reporting in part.
Mr. JENNER. I beg your pardon?
Mr. OLIVER. Of course this man is reporting in part.
Mr. JENNER. You are now referring to Oliver Exhibit No. 9?
Mr. OLIVER. The first by Eric Cavallero. You will return that manuscript?
Mr. JENNER. Everything.
While you are browsing on Oliver Exhibit No. 9, I have before me a sheaf
of sheets, typewritten with longhand notations which I have marked Oliver
Exhibit No. 10, and I think you estimated they ran 39 pages plus a couple of A
pages.
(The document referred to was marked Oliver Exhibit No. 9 for
identification )
Mr. OLIVER. That is correct.
Mr. JENNER. There are some interlineations in longhand and some block
printing on various of the pages. Are those interlineations and block printing
in your handwriting?
Mr. OLIVER. Practically all of them. One or two of them may not be.
Mr. JENNER. Why don't you identify the ones that aren't.
Mr. OLIVER. This little----
Mr. JENNER. Page 7 in the lower left-hand corner is a notation reading
"This month August 1964" and that is the handwriting of whom?
Mr. OLIVER. Mrs. Oliver. That is, I am perfectly willing to accept the
responsibility for all of the handwritten notations that appear here.
741
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742
Mr. JENNER. All right.
Mr. OLIVER. The only exceptions are one or two corrections where in my
haste in typing I have inverted letters or things like that.
Mr. JENNER. Obvious typographicals?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. This is, sir, the typewritten speech?
Mr. OLIVER. Typewritten text from which I spoke.
Mr. JENNER. I am sorry, I mean typewritten text from which you spoke at
the
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER.Would you tell us where those places were ?
Mr. OLIVER.
Mr. JENNER. Can you give the dates, approximately?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes; I can give you the exact dates. I spoke in Tucson on
Monday, the 24th of August; San Diego, Tuesday, the 25th of August; Azuza,
Calif., Wednesday, the 26th of August; Glendale, Calif. Thursday, the 27th of
August; Santa Ana Friday the 28th of August; and Salt Lake City Saturday, the
29th of August. And the speech which I gave in all of those places was
substantially the same except that I did cut.
Mr. JENNER. The same as Oliver Exhibit No. 10?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes; I did occasionally cut when I saw that my time was
running a little long.
Mr. UNGER. I wish you would have done that today. We missed another
plane.
(The document referred to was
marked Oliver Exhibit No. 10 for identification.)
Mr. JENNER.
In your reference to Joachim Joesten's book, you had particular reference to
chapter 16, did you not?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes, I believe so. This is the one which takes up the
discussion of the CIA and the FBI, and tries to connect them with General Walker
and H. L. Hunt, and other persons.
Mr. JENNER. Do I now have all the sources to which you resorted in
preparing your article in the American Opinion, and the speech which is
identified as Oliver Exhibit No. 10?
Mr. OLIVER. I believe so; yes.
Mr. JENNER. Is it a fair statement that as to both of those your sources
were, to use your language, public sources in the sense of books, newspaper
articles, and--what would you call this kind of a thing .
Mr. OLIVER. Newspaper articles, or bulletins, and magazine articles.
Mr. JENNER. Magazine articles, and that you had no confidential source
other than if you want to describe Colonel Clark's talk with you as a
confidential source?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right. Except, of course, that I used the research
facilities of Mr. Capell particularly, as I have stated.
Mr. JENNER. Did you use his research facilities in the sense of his
library or rather did you employ bulletins issued by him or reports made to you
which he prepared using his own library?
Mr. OLIVER. Reports which he made to me chiefly by telephone, chiefly
because I needed them in a hurry.
Mr. JENNER. Yes; and your understanding was that he in turn based those
reports on research work that he did of public sources?
Mr. OLIVER. He has very elaborate files and many contacts.
Mr. UNGER. I should point out to you that Mr. Jenner said he based upon
public publications or files. That is not exactly correct, is it?
Mr. OLIVER. Mr. Jenner said that Mr. Capell based his.
Mr. UNGER. Yes; do you want that statement to stand?
Mr. JENNER. As far as you know. I will put it this way, sir. What were
Mr. Capell's sources so far as they are personally known to you, of your own
knowledge?
Mr. OLIVER They are Mr. Capell's ties which go back over many years, and
742
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743
Mr.
Capell's current files which include information that he obtains from former
intelligence officers and former members of the FBI. He has contacts with the
Cuban underground, in fact with several Cuban undergrounds, and various other
sources which enable him to obtain information which he believes to be reliable
and accurate. He will indicate to me the nature of the information that he has,
although over the telephone he will not usually disclose a source that he
regards as confidential.
Mr. JENNER. Do you have any other editions of his publication "The
Herald of Freedom" that is, in addition to Oliver Exhibit No. 6 upon which
you relied?
Mr. OLIVER. I have, in the sense that I relied on information from him,
much of which appeared in various copies of his periodical. I believe I have one
other issue here. Here is one dated the 6th of December, 1963.
Mr. JENNER. Upon which you also relied?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. That we will mark as Oliver Exhibit No. 11.
(The document referred to was marked Oliver Exhibit No. 11 for
identification.)
Mr. JENNER. It is the Herald of Freedom issue, volume 4, No. 9, dated
December 6, 1963. The first page of which is entitled "John Fitzgerald
Kennedy," the second page Lee Harvey Oswald, the third page Lee Harvey
Oswald, and at the bottom of the page Leon Rubenstein alias Jack Ruby. That is
continued onto the fourth page, and the final heading, "The truth shall
make you free," is on the fourth page. I take it you were relying upon the
materials appearing in pages 1, 2, 3, and about the third of the way down on
page 4.
Mr. OLIVER. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. I show you a tearsheet from the Chicago Daily News, dated
Wednesday, February 12, 1964, on which I have underlined in red pencil or red
ink, statements attributed by the author, the reporter who authored this
article, and ask you whether those staements fairly report claims, charges or
statements that you made?
Mr. OLIVER. No, they certainly do not fairly report what I said. They are
quoting from the article which is already in the record.
Mr. JENNER. That is American Opinion?
Mr. OLIVER. Yes, American Opinion.
Mr. JENNER. So that an accurate, truly accurate, representation of what
you did say or you did write is the two issues of American Opinion now
identified as Oliver Exhibits Nos. 1 and 2 ?
Mr. OLIVER. Precisely, and not what some malicious or careless journalist
might wish to excerpt from that article for the purposes of producing a
sensation or a scandal.
Mr. JENNER. Dr. Oliver, we had a kind of hard time getting hold of
Commission Exhibit 1015 and they are out of print, by the way. I would like to
know--are you what Mr. Surrey testified to as a---are you on the presubscription
list of the----
Mr. OLIVER. American Eagle Publishing Co.
Mr. JENNER. American Eagle Publishing Co.?
Mr. OLIVER. I may well be. I was or don't know whether there was or is a
presubscription list. But I suspect
that if there was or is one I may well be on it.
Mr. JENNER. Would you be good enough to tell me how you came by one?
(Discussion off the record.)
(The document was marked Oliver Exhibit No. 12. )
Mr. OLIVER. If you want to
know how I got my copy, General Walker sent it to me. Or I assume that he did;
anyway, it was sent to me.
Mr. JENNER. At least it arrived in the mail?
Mr. OLIVER. That is right. Here is the ad.
Mr. JENNER. The advertisement to which Mr. Unger made reference appears
in Oliver Exhibit No. 1, page 82.
Mr. UNGER. That is not the advertisement that I made reference to, and I
am not a subscriber to that magazine. I just got an ad through the mail for that
publication.
Mr. JENNER. All right. Now, I have no further questions. Mr. Unger, you
are at liberty to ask Mr. Oliver any questions you desire.
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Mr. UNGER. I understand that I have the opportunity to clarify any points
that are in confusion, but I think that the witness and counsel have brought
everything out admirably. I can't think anything that needs to be added.
Mr. JENNER. Thank you. I have no further questions.
Mr. OLIVER. I would like to----
Mr. JENNER. Is there something you would like to add, sir ?
Mr. OLIVER. Merely to point out that your opening statement of which I
have a copy here, confuses the article with the speech in the reference to the
rehearsal for the funeral which, of course, was not made in the article but was
made in the speech, and contains a very serious misstatement in saying that in
my article I charge that "President Kennedy's assassination was part of a
Communist plot engendered with the help of the Central Intelligence
Agency." I make no such charge.
Mr. JENNER. The charge you
make is contained in your speech. Whatever you say on that subject is contained
in Oliver Exhibit No. 10, your speech, is that correct, sir?
Mr. OLIVER. What I say on that subject is contained in the speech which
you have labeled No. 10.
Mr. JENNER. Are there any other sources for your speech or your article
to which we have not yet made reference?
Mr. OLIVER. There would probably be thousands of them if we consider the
first two-thirds of the speech in which I discuss socialism and so on
Mr. JENNER. Doctor, we are only concerned with the subject matter.
Mr. OLIVER. Of the assassination?
Mr. JENNER. Yes.
Mr. OLIVER No, we have covered only the kind of sources that we have
used.
Mr. JENNER. Mr. Reporter, I offer in evidence as Oliver Exhibits Nos. 1
through 12, the documents previously so marked.
(The documents heretofore marked as Oliver Exhibits Nos. 1 through 12,
were received in evidence.)
Mr. JENNER. All right, thank you, sir.
B.
M. Patterson
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744
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