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Arranged chronologically by date of session.

Transcripts of proceedings of the Commission for executive sessions of

December 5, 6, and 16, 1963

January 21, January 27, February 24, March 16, April 30, May 19

June 4, June 23, September 18, 1964.

The proceedings and minutes relate to the organization and administration of the Commission and the

conduct of its investigation.

President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed the President's Commission on the Assassination of President

Kennedy, commonly called the Warren Commission, by Executive Order (E.O. 11130) on November

29, 1963. Its purpose was to investigate the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy on

November 22, 1963, at Dallas, Texas. President Johnson directed the Commission to evaluate matters

relating to the assassination and the subsequent killing of the alleged assassin, and to report its findings

and conclusions to him.

On December 13, 1963, Congress passed Senate Joint Resolution 137 (Public Law 88-202) authorizing

the Commission to subpoena witnesses and obtain evidence concerning any matter relating to the

investigation. The resolution also gave the Commission the power to compel the testimony of witnesses

by granting immunity from prosecution to witnesses testifying under compulsion. The Commission,

however, did not grant immunity to any witness during the investigation.

The Commission acted promptly to obtain a staff to meet its needs. J. Lee Rankin, former Solicitor

General of the United States, was sworn in as general counsel for the Commission on December 16,

1963. He was aided in his work by 14 assistant counsel who were divided into teams to deal with the

various subject areas of the investigation. The Commission was also assisted by lawyers, Internal

Revenue Service agents, a senior historian, an editor, and secretarial and administrative personnel who

were assigned to the Commission by Federal agencies at its request. Officials and agencies of the state

of Texas, as well as of the Federal Government, fully cooperated with the Commission on its work.

From the first, the Commission considered its mandate to conduct a thorough and independent investigation.

The Commission reviewed reports by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Secret Service, Department

of State, and the Attorney General of Texas, and then requested additional information from

federal agencies, Congressional committees, and state and local experts. The Commission held hearings

and took the testimony of 552 witnesses. On several occasions, the Commission went to Dallas to

visit the scene of the assassination and other places.

The Commission presented its Report, in which each member concurred, to the President on September

24, 1964. The publication of the Report was soon followed by the publication of the 26 volumes of

the Commission's Hearings. The Commission then transferred its records to the National Archives to

be permanently preserved under the rules and regulations of the National Archives and applicable

federal law.

In the National Archives, the records of the Warren Commission comprise Record Group 272: Records

of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. The record group contains

about 363 cubic feet of records and related material. Approximately 99 percent of these records are

currently open and available for research. The records consist of investigative reports submitted by the

Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, and the Central Intelligence Agency; various kinds

of documents such as income tax returns, passport files, military and selective service records, and

school records relating to Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby; transcripts of testimony, depositions,

and affidavits of witnesses, correspondence; manuals of procedures of federal agencies; administrative

memorandums; records relating to personnel; fiscal records; agenda, proceedings, and minutes of Commission

meetings and minutes of staff meetings; exhibits; tape records, newspaper and press clippings,

and films; indexes; drafts and printer's proofs of the Report and Hearings of the Commission; a chronology

of events in the lives of Oswald, Ruby, and others, 1959-1963; records relating to the interrogation

and trial of Jack Ruby; and other records. Most of these records relate to the period of the investigation

of President Kennedy's assassination, November 1963 to September 1964, but some records of

earlier and a few later dates are included.

The Kennedy family donated the autopsy X-rays and photographs to the National Archives under an

agreement dated October 29, 1966. The agreement limits access to these materials to

* persons authorized to act for a Committee of Congress, a Presidential

commission, or any other official agency of the federal government having authority

to investigate matters relating to the assassination of President Kennedy or

* recognized experts in the field of pathology or related areas of science

and technology whose applications are approved by the designated Kennedy family

representative.

This record group is administered as part of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records

Collection, a research collection established by the National Archives in accordance with the President

John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. The collection also includes pertinent

records of Congressional committees and commissions, Executive branch agencies, and U.S. district

courts. An electronic database maintained by the collection staff contains document-level data on records

that were not available for research at the National Archives at the time that the law establishing the

collection was enacted, including records in agency custody destined for eventual transfer to the National

Archives. For additional information on the collection's holdings and access procedures, consult

the JFK Access Staff of the National Archives.

March 19, 1891. He graduated from the University of California with B.L. and J.D. degrees, and was

admitted to the California bar in 1914. Chief Justice Warren was attorney general of California from

1939 to 1943. From 1943 to 1953 he was Governor of California and in September 1953 was appointed

by President Eisenhower to be the Chief Justice of the United States.

B.L. degree from the University of Georgia in 1918 and his LL.B. from Mercer University in 1957.

Senator Russell commenced the practice of law in Winder, Ga., in 1918, became county attorney for

Barrow County, Ga., and was a member of the Georgia House of Representatives from 1921 to 1931.

He was Governor of Georgia from 1931 to 1933, was elected to the U.S. Senate in January 1933 to fill

a vacancy, and has been Senator from Georgia continuously since that date.

Centre College, Kentucky, received his A.B. degree from Yale College in 1923, and attended Harvard

Law School from 1923 to 1925. Senator Cooper has been a member of the House of Representatives of

the Kentucky General Assembly, a county judge and circuit judge in Kentucky, and is now a member of

the U.S. Senate, where he has served, though not continuously, for 12 years. He was a delegate to the

Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations, an advisor to the

Secretary of State in 1950 at meetings of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and Ambassador to

India and Nepal in 1955-56. He served in the 3d U.S. Army in World War II in Europe, and after the war

headed the reorganization of the German judicial system in Bavaria.

Tulane University with a B.A. degree in 1935 and received his LL.B. in 1937. He was admitted to the

Louisiana bar in 1937 and practiced law in New Orleans. Representative Boggs was elected to the 77th

Congress of the United States and in World War II was an officer of the U.S. Naval Reserve and of the

Maritime Service. He has been a Member of Congress since 1946 when he was elected to represent the

Second District, State of Louisiana, in the 80th Congress, and he is currently the majority whip for the

Democratic Party in the House of Representatives.

University of Michigan with a B.A. degree in 1935 and from Yale University Law School with an

LL.B. degree in 1941. Representative Ford was admitted to the Michigan bar in 1941. He was first

elected to Congress in 1948 and has been reelected to each succeeding Congress. He served 47 months

in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Representative Ford was elected in January 1963 the chairman

of the House Republican Conference.

degree from Princeton in 1914, his M.A. in 1916, his LL.B. from George Washington University in

1926, and LL.D. degrees. Mr. Dulles entered the diplomatic service of the United States in 1916 and

resigned in 1926 to take up law practice in New York City. In 1953 Mr. Dulles was appointed Director

of Central Intelligence and served in that capacity until 1961.

A.B. degree, cum laude, from Amherst College in 1916; LL.B. from Harvard, and LL.D. from Amherst

College. He was admitted to the New York bar in 1921 and is now a member of the firm of Milbank,

Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. He was Assistant Secretary of War from April 1941 to November 1945. Mr.

McCloy was President of the World Bank from 1947 to 1949 and U.S. Military Governor and High

Commissioner for Germany from 1949 to 1952. He has been coordinator of U.S. disarmament activities

since 1961.

GENERAL COUNSEL

University of Nebraska in 1928 and his LL.B. in 1930 from the University of Nebraska Law School.

He was admitted to the Nebraska bar in 1930 and practiced law in Lincoln, Nebr., until January 1953

when he was appointed by President Eisenhower to be the assistant attorney general in charge of the

Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice. In August 1956 President Eisenhower appointed

Mr. Rankin to be the Solicitor General of the United States. Since January 1961 Mr. Rankin has been in

private practice in New York City. He accepted the appointment as General Counsel for the President's

Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy on December 8, 1963.

ASSISTANT COUNSEL

College with an A.B. degree, and received his LL.B. degree from Fordham Law School in 1928.

Mr. Adams has acted as chief assistant U.S. attorney in New York, special assistant to the U.S. Attorney

General, and as an arbitrator for the War Labor Board. In 1954 and 1955 he served as police commissioner

of New York City. Mr. Adams is a member of the New York and Washington law firm of Satterlee,

Warfield & Stephens.

Creighton University in Omaha, Nebr., and his LL.B. degree from the University of Southern California

in 1927. Mr. Ball teaches criminal law and procedure at the University of Southern California. He

is a member of the U.S. Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

Mr. Ball is a member of the firm of Ball, Hunt & Hart, Long Beach and Santa Ana, Calif.

Michigan, where he earned three degrees with high distinction: A.B. (1951), M. Bus. Adm. (1953), and

J.D. (1954). At the University of Michigan he was associate editor of the Michigan Law Review. He is

a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Order of the Coif. He is a member of the law firm of Herrick,

Langdon, Sandblom & Belin, Des Moines, Iowa.

from the University of Pennsylvania in 1941 with an A.B. degree, summa cum laude, received his

LL.B. in 1946, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School and served as an editor of the Harvard

Law Review. From 1947 to 1948 he served as law clerk to Judge Herbert F. Goodrich, U.S. Court of

Appeals for the Third Circuit, and during the 1948-49 term of the U.S. Supreme Court, as law clerk to

Justice Felix Frankfurter. Mr. Coleman has served as a special counsel for the city of Philadelphia and

has been a consultant with the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency since January 1963. He is

a member of the law firm of Dilworth, Paxson, Kalish, Kohn & Dilks, Philadelphia, Pa.

Columbia College, A.B., summa cum laude, in 1956, and from Harvard Law School, LL.B., summa

cum laude, in 1959. Mr. Eisenberg is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and served as an editor of the

Harvard Law Review. He is associated with the law firm of Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler in

New York City.

laude, from Amherst College in 1954, and LL.B. from Yale University Law School in 1959. He was

note and comment editor of the Yale Law Journal. During 1959-60 Mr. Griffin served as law clerk to

Judge George T. Washington of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. From

1960 to 1962 Mr. Griffin was an assistant U.S. attorney for the northern district of Ohio, and since 1962

he has been associated with the firm of MacDonald, Hopkins & Hardy, Cleveland, Ohio.

Tulane University in 1932, and LL.B. from Tulane in 1934. He was associate editor of the Tulane Law

Review, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Order of the Coif. Mr. Hubert was assistant U.S.

attorney for the eastern district of Louisiana, 1934-46, and a professor of law at Tulane University,

1942-60. He has worked with the Louisiana State Law Institute on the revision of statutes and on the

codes of civil and criminal procedure. Mr. Hubert is a member of the law firm of Hubert, Baldwin &

Zibilich, New Orleans, La.

University of Illinois in 1930. He is a member of the Order of the Coif. In 1956 and 1957 Mr. Jenner

served as a special assistant attorney general of Illinois in the investigation of fraud in the office of the

auditor of public accounts of the State of Illinois. Mr. Jenner is a Commissioner on Uniform State

Laws, a member of the U.S. Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

and vice chairman of the Joint Committee for the Effective Administration of Justice. He is a

former professor of law at the Northwestern University School of Law. Mr. Jenner is a member of the

law firm of Raymond, Mayer, Jenner & Block, Chicago, Ill.

Macalester College, St. Paul, Minn., in 1953 and graduated, cum laude, from the University of Chicago

Law School in 1957. He was a managing editor of the University of Chicago Law Review and is a

member of the Order of the Coif. Mr. Liebeler is associated with the law firm of Carter, Ledyard &

Milburn, New York City.

magna cum laude, from Williams College in 1947, his LL.B., cure laude, from Yale Law School in

1950, and LL.M. (Taxation) in 1955 from the New York University School of Law. He is a member of

Phi Beta Kappa and the Order of the Coif, and was executive editor of the Yale Law Journal. Mr.

Redlich is Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law, and is editor in chief of the Tax

Law Review, New York University.

summa cure laude, from Amherst College in 1953, and M.A. from Princeton University in 1954. Mr.

Slawson received his LL.B., magna cum laude, from Harvard University in 1959. He is a member of

Phi Beta Kappa and was a note editor of the Harvard Law Review. Mr. Slawson is a member of the law

firm of Davis, Graham & Stubbs, Denver, Colo.

University of Pennsylvania in 1951, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and received his

LL.B.. from Yale Law School in 1956. He was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Mr. Specter was an

associate of the law firm of Dechert, Price & Rhoads in Philadelphia from 1956 to 1959, and from 1959

to 1964 he was an assistant in the Philadelphia district attorney's office. Mr. Specter is a member of the

firm of Specter & Katz, Philadelphia, Pa.

the University of Pennsylvania with an A.B. in 1949. In 1952 he received his LL.B., magna cum laude,

from Harvard Law School, and was developments editor of the Harvard Law Review. Mr. Stern served

as law clerk to Chief Judge Calvert Magruder, U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, during 1954-

55 and was law clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren during 1955-56. He is a member of the law firm of

Wilmer, Cutler & Picketing, Washington, D.C.

high distinction, from the University of Michigan in 1953 and his LL.B. from Yale Law School in

1956. Mr. Willens is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. He was

associated with the law firm of Kirkland, Ellis, Hodson, Chaffetz & Masters, Washington, D.C., until

1961, when he was appointed Second Assistant in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of

Justice.

STAFF MEMBERS

Philip Barson was born in Philadelphia, Pa, on May 2, 1912. He received his Bachelor of Science of

Commerce, from Temple University, Philadelphia, in 1934. Mr. Barson has been employed by the

Internal Revenue Service, Intelligence Division, Philadelphia, since September 1948, first as a special

agent and since 1961 has been group supervisor. Mr. Barson is a certified public accountant from the

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Edward A. Conroy was born in Albany, N.Y., on March 20, 1920. He attended Brooklyn Polytechnical

Institute and Benjamin Franklin University, Washington, D.C. Mr. Conroy joined the Internal Revenue

Service as a revenue officer in 1946. After acting as executive assistant to the assistant regional inspector,

Boston, Mass., Mr. Conroy became senior inspector in the Planning and Programing Branch of the

Internal Security Division, Inspection, of the Internal Revenue Service. He currently occupies that

position.

John Hart Ely was born in New York City on December 3, 1938. He graduated, summa cum laude,

from Princeton University in 1960, and from Yale Law School, magna cum laude, in 1963. He was note

and comment editor of the Yale Law Journal. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa and the Order of

the Coif. During the 1964-65 term Mr. Ely will serve as law clerk to Chief Justice Warren.

Alfred Goldberg was born in Baltimore, Md., on December 23, 1918. He received his A.B. degree from

Western Maryland College in 1938, and his Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University in 1950. After 4

years' service with the U.S. Army, Dr. Goldberg became historian with the U.S. Air Force Historical

Division and later Chief of the Current History Branch. In 1962-63 he was a visiting American fellow,

King's College, University of London, and since his return has been senior historian, U.S. Air Force

Historical Division. Dr. Goldberg is the author or editor of several publications on historical subjects

and is a contributor to Encyclopedia Britannica and the World Book.

Murray J. Laulicht was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on May 12, 1940. He received his B.A. in 1961 from

Yeshiva College, and received his LL.B. degree, summa cum laude, from Columbia University School

of Law in 1964. He was notes and comments editor of the Columbia Law Review. During 1964-65 Mr.

Laulicht will clerk for Senior Judge Harold R. Medina of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second

Circuit.

Arthur K. Marmor was born in New York City on December 5, 1915. He received a B.S.S. degree from

the College of the City of New York in 1937 and an A.M. degree from Columbia University in 1940. He

served in the U.S. Army in World War II. Mr. Marmor has been historian for the Departments of

Interior, Army, and Air Force, and Chief, Editorial Services Branch, Department of State. He has also

taught for the American University and the University of Maryland. Mr. Marmor has contributed to

numerous Government publications and has been in charge of the editing of historical and legal volumes.

At present he is a historian for the Department of the Air Force.

Richard M. Mosk was born in Los Angeles, Calif., on May 18, 1939. He graduated from Stanford

University, with great distinction, in 1960 and from Harvard Law School, cum laude, in 1963. Mr.

Mosk is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. During the 1964-65 term of the California Supreme Court Mr.

Mosk will clerk for Justice Mathew Tobriner.

John J. O'Brien was born in Somerville, Mass., on September 11, 1919. Mr. O'Brien received his

B.B.A. degree in law and business, cum laude, from Northeastern University, Boston, Mass. He rereceived

his M.A. degree in the field of governmental administration from George Washington University,

Washington, D.C., and in 1941 joined the Bureau of Internal Revenue. After service in the U.S.

Coast Guard, Mr. O'Brien resumed his work as an Internal Revenue Service investigator, and is currently

the Assistant Chief of the Inspection Services Investigations Branch, in the National Office of

Internal Revenue.

Stuart R. Pollak was born in San Pedro, Calif., on August 24, 1937. He received his B.A. degree from

Stanford University, with great distinction, in 1959, and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Mr. Pollak

obtained his LL.B., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1962, where he was book review

and legislation editor of the Harvard Law Review. During the 1963-64 term Mr. Pollak was law clerk to

Justices Stanley Reed and Harold Burton. Mr. Pollak is a staff assistant in the Criminal Division of the

U.S. Department of Justice.

Alfredda Scobey was born in Kankakee, III. She received her A.B. degree from American University,

Washington, D.C., in 1933, studied law at John Marshall Law School, Atlanta, Ga., and was admitted

to the Georgia bar in 1945. Miss Scobey did graduate study at the National University of Mexico, at

Duke University, and at Emory University, Atlanta. She practiced law from 1945 to 1949 in Atlanta and

since 1949 has been a law assistant in the Court of Appeals, Georgia.

Charles N. Shaffer, Jr., was born in New York City on June 8, 1932. He attended Fordham College in

1951 and received his LL.B. from the Fordham University School of Law in 1957. From 1958 to 1959

Mr. Shaffer was associated with the law firm of Chadburn, Parke, Whiteside & Wolff, New York City.

He was assistant U.S. attorney in the southern district of New York from 1959 to 1961 when he was

appointed Special Trial Attorney in the Criminal and Tax Divisions of the U.S. Department of Justice,

Washington, D.C.

Lloyd L. Weinreb was born in New York City on October 9, 1936. He received B.A. degrees from

Dartmouth College, summa cum laude, in 1957, and from the University of Oxford in 1959. He received

his LL.B., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1962. He was case editor of the

Harvard Law Review. During the 1963-64 term Mr. Weinreb was law clerk to Justice John M. Harlan.

Mr. Weinreb is a staff assistant in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Los Angeles, California -- September 17, 1996

Mr. Steve Tilley. Mr. Tilley has been from the beginning the Review Board's liaison at the National

Archives. He is the caretaker of the JFK Collection and he is going to provide for the Review

Board an update on the contents of the Collection. And in the past has provided very helpful information

for the Board. Welcome Steve and thank you.

National Archives, Caretaker of the JFK Collection.

MR. TILLEY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It's always a pleasure to appear before the Board.

The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 gave seven specific

responsibilities to the National Archives, but for the purposes of today's discussion I will touch on the

three that are the most important for the research public.

First, within 45 days of the statute being signed, the Archives was required to prepare and make

available standard identification forms used by all government offices in describing assassination records.

Furthermore, the Archives was required to insure the creation of a database for identification forms to

serve as an electronic finding aid to the Collection. This database has been available since the Collection

opened for research in August of 1993. It currently contains over 175,000 identification forms, and

as of last February is available for research via the internet. I have with me some blue book marks

which we have had published at the Archives and we've had them available out on the table and this

gives the internet address for the Collection for those who want to research it via the internet.

I want to emphasize that the database does not contain the actual text of documents. The database

consists of the record identification forms created by each agency as the documents were reviewed.

Secondly, the database has not been updated to reflect decisions made by the Review Board and other

changes in the status of some documents. The National Archives is currently working on that issue and

we hope to be able to start updating the database within a few months.

My second responsibility was to establish the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records

Collection. On December the 28th, 1992, the National Archives established the Collection by an announcement

published in the Federal Register on December the 21st of that year. This announcement

also solicited open assassination records from all federal offices for inclusion in the collection. As

established on that date the Collection consisted of open records already in the custody of the National

Archives including the Warren Commission, the Secret Service, the criminal division of the Department

of Justice, a portion of the CIA's 201 personality file on Lee Harvey Oswald and donated records

from several presidential libraries.

A third responsibility, which we shared with other government offices, was to identify, review and

make available to the public all assassination records that could be disclosed under the provisions of

the law within a 300 day review period. All records reviewed during this period were required to be

entered into the database and have a record identification form attached. At the end of the review period

the newly released records were made available, including the remainder of Oswald's 201 file, the first

portions of the CIA segregated collection of related assassination records, the records of the House

Select Committee on Assassinations and records of several DOJ components, although none from the

FBI.

The first records of the FBI were transferred in December of 1993 beginning with the headquarter

and field office files on Jack Ruby. Since then the FBI has transferred records relating to Lee Harvey

Oswald, Marina Oswald, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw, Sam Giancana, Marie DeLorenz, Carlos Marcellos,

Santos Trafficante, and many other individuals and subjects. We are scheduled to receive approximately

40 additional boxes of FBI records on Friday of this week. My understanding is that those

records particularly apply to Johnny Rosselli and additional files at the FBI are also under review.

The CIA made additional transfers of records in September and December of 1994 providing the

remaining portions of the segregated collection. The records transferred in September related primarily

to the CIA's work with the Cuban exile groups in the early 1960s, while the latter transfer of consisted

of the notes taken by HSCA staff members during its review of CIA documents. I must point out,

however, that only a portion of the Oswald 201 file and the notes of the HSCA staff members can be

searched in the database. The CIA has run into difficulty with their program for creating data disks and

we are waiting for the transfer of the remainder of these data disks for their records.

The Collection includes the assassination related records of the Church and Pike Committees.

While we have 41 boxes of Church Committee records, a review of the Committee's published report

and certain Committee documents indicates that there are additional assassination related records still

in the custody of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. There have been contacts with the staff

of the Committee to pursue this issue. The data disks of the records are still in our custody having been

recently transferred and we plan to add them to the database shortly. We have recently identified assassination

records among the records of several Congressional Committees already in our custody. The

records of the Senate Internal Securities Sub-Committee of the Senate Judiciary Committee contain

transcripts of executive session testimony and other documents relating to Ruth Paine, General Edwin

Walker and the Fair Play For Cuba Committee. The records of the House Unamerican Activities Committee

contain a variety of files on several individuals along with files on the Fair Play For Cuba

Committee.

The records of the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management

Field, known as the McClelland Committee, may contain assassination records. The index of these

records remains in the custody of the Senate Committee on Government Operations. But a sampling of

entries under Carlos Marcello and Santos Traficante produced references that indicate the probability

of assassination relation documents among the records of the Committee.

Finally the records of the Sub-Committee on Government Information of Individual Rights of the

House Committee on Government Operations, known as the ASZUG Committee, contain documentation

concerning access of records to the Warren Commission and the Kennedy autopsy materials. We

are working with the staffs of the various committees to add these relevant records to the Collection. In

the last year there have been some significant additions to the Collection. In 1995, the Secret Service

turned over the shift reports of the agents protecting the President for November, 1963. Earlier this year

the Service released records from the files of Chief James Reilly plus documents relating to the organization

of the Service for the years 1961 and '62.

In October '95 the State Department released additional documents from the passport office. In

April of this year NARA received one cubic foot, approximately 2,500 pages, of the Rockefeller Commission

and the staff of the Ford White House from the Ford Library. These documents were released

as a result of a review of the records of the Rockefeller Commission and the Ford White House staff by

a CIA team which spent a week at the library. The remaining records of the Commission are still under

review by the CIA and other agencies.

There are also acquired records donated by individuals under deeds of gift. The papers of Jim

Garrison and Edward Wegmann were donated to the Collection after the public hearing in New Orleans.

In July of this year motion picture film taken in Dallas on the November the 22nd, 1963, was

donated by Janet Veazey and Helen Sturgess Anderson.

A great deal of material remains under review by various agencies. The FBI continues to review

related documents and the criminal division of the Department of Justice is currently reviewing the

previously withheld portions of that office file on the assassination. We have yet to receive any records

from the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The Postal Service indicated last year they were almost ready to transfer a file on the investigation

of the sale of Oswald's rifle through the mail, but we have not received that file at this time.

Various components of the Department of Defense continue to locate and review documents related

to the assassination. For example, we recently located at NARA the files of the Secretary of the

Army related to Operation Mongoose. While these records were legally transferred to NARA in 1995,

when the Kennedy Act was signed into law in 1992, these records were in the custody of the Department

of the Army were not located.

A team of CIA and other reviewers recently visited the Kennedy Library in Boston to review the

National Security files related to Cuba and other related topics. We hope to receive the results of this

review in the near future.

And if I may answer a couple of questions that were raised previously in the hearing, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, all executive sessions transcripts of the Warren Commission are now released and

available. And also at this time all documents created by the staff of the Warren Commission are

available for research with no redactions. The remaining records of the Warren Commission that are

closed, are all created by other agencies and some of them are still going through that 30-day review

process. And I'm willing to answer any questions.

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Thank you, Mr. Tilley. Are there any questions for Mr. Tilley?

DR. NELSON: How many documents would you say are now there to be plowed through?

MR. TILLEY: It's hard to say.

DR. NELSON: A couple of million?

MR. TILLEY: A couple of million. A couple of million, yeah. We probably have more than 175,000

records in the database as we continue to add things. But of course the database only reflects the

documents that were reviewed since the passing of the statute. It doesn't reflect those documents which

were open which was a considerable amount of material. So we have a great number of documents

available.

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Thank you very much, Steve. Thank you for your continued help.

MR. TILLEY: Yes, sir.

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: It's been a very interesting and provocative hearing this morning with testimony.

I think the Review Board has certainly heard very good advice from quite a number of people. I

do want to particularly thank James Rankin, Wesley Liebeler and David Lifton for their donations of

records and physical material. That information will be very helpful to the American public.

We are going to hold the record open from this hearing for a period of time in case there's additional

testimony that anyone wishes to submit. What day will it be open --

MR. MARWELL: October 11th.

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: It will be open until October 11th. So, any additional testimony the Board

would be very pleased to accept.

There being no further business to come before the Assassination Records Review Board today, is there

a motion to adjourn?

DR. HALL: So moved.

DR. JOYCE: Second.

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: All of those in favor of adjourning say aye.

(Aye)

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Opposed?

(No response.)

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: It's carried. This meeting of the public hearing of the Assassination Records

Review Board is adjourned.

(Proceedings in the above-entitled matter concluded at 1:05 p.m.)

The three documents published in this book will be of great

interest to students of the assassination of President Kennedy, particularly those who have followed the

evolution of the controversy over the conclusions of the Warren Report. When the Report was released

in September, 1964, it was generally conceded that the findings of such a prestigious investigative

body would bear a stamp of authority that would insure their immediate, widespread, and lasting acceptance.

Undoubtedly authoritative, the Warren Report has been less than successful when judged by

the standard of credibility, rather than the credentials of its authors. In view of the controversy, rather

than the surrounding the conclusions of the Commission, it is a matter of considerable interest as to

exactly how the seven members of the Commission approached the task of investigating the murder of

former President of the United States, John F. Kennedy.

Shortly after the creation of the Commission by President Lyndon Johnson, the seven members

met in private executive session to discuss the problem of internal organization, and a large number of

details of the investigation. These details ranged from important policy questions such as how to deal

with the autopsy x-rays and photos of President

Kennedy to more lighthearted matters such

as who might be responsible for various news

leaks about their work which appeared from

time to time. Subsequent executive sessions

were held throughout the tenure of the Commission,

and a transcript was kept of these proceedings

and deposited with the U.S. National

Archives after the Commission disbanded. The

transcripts of the sessions in which the Commission heard the testimony of witnesses was published in

the 26 Volumes of Hearings and Exhibits in November, 1964, about two months after the publication of

the Warren Report. In contrast, the executive session transcript was only recently declassified from

“Top Secret” in February, 1968. It is published here for the first time.

The executive session transcript is a most unique historical document. here we have recorded the

conversations, frequently on a first name basis, between Chief Justice Earl Warren; Allen Dulles, former

head of the CIA; Senator Cooper, Senator Russell, Representative Boggs, Representative Ford and

John McCloy. The close perspective of the Commission at work that is afforded by this transcript is

revealing. For example, members of the Commission later denied the charge, leveled by its critics, that

the attitude with which the Commissioners approached their work mitigated against their finding evidence

of conspiracy. Specifically, it has been charged that the Commission’s primary purpose was to

reassure the nation and to prove that the assassination of President Kennedy was the non-political and

nonconspiratorial act of one lone deranged man. The transcript reveals numerous conversations which

can be cited to support this charge.

At the very first meeting of the Commission on December 5, 1963, John McCloy, truncating a

commonly used expression, said: “This Commission is set up to lay the dust, dust not only in the

United States but all over the world...everybody is looking for it to come forward promptly, unfortunately,

with an objective, comprehensive report which will lay all the dust...”

As soon as the Commission members took their oath of office during their meeting of Dec 16, 63,

Allen Dulles handed out paperback copies of a book about previous assassinations. Said Dulles: “It’s a

book written about ten years ago giving the background of seven attempts on the lives of the

President...It’s a fascinating book, but you’ll find a pattern running through here that I think we’ll find

in the present case. I hate to give you a paperback, but that’s all there is.” Said Chairman Warren:

“Paperback is good enough. Thank you very much.”

When Dulles again brought up the subject, stating that except for the Truman assassination attempt,

“...these other cases are all habitual, going back to the attack on Jackson in 1835.” McCloy cited

the Lincoln assassination and retorted: “THE LINCOLN ASSASSINATION WAS A PLOT.” Replied

Dulles: “Yes, but one man was so dominant that it almost wasn’t a plot.”

During the meeting of January 21, 1964, Dulles suggested that a member of the Commission’s

staff be assigned “the question of studying previous cases of assassination attempts against the head of

state particularly in the United States...There is a pattern that runs through that, you know. It is rather

interesting, I have been studying that a good bit myself...”

Dulles was not alone in looking to the past for precedent. at the December 16 meeting, Chairman

Warren made these remarks: “Gentleman, this came to mind a day or so ago, and that is this, in England

whenever they have a crisis they have a Royal Commission appointed, and they have had some great

reports made up. I thought it might be wise for us to ask the Library of Congress to get us a set of all

these Royal Commissions reports, back a good many years, including the most recent one, the Lord

Denning report.” McCloy then said: “It’s very

interesting the way he handled that.” And Warren

continued: “They have served a great purpose

in satisfying the public and I thought we

might learn something by getting them.”

The anecdotes just cited partially indicate

the extent of the Commission’s initial predisposition.

It is impossible in this brief introduction

to do justice to the entire transcript and the attitudes

that it reveals which guided the investigation.

It is perfectly clear that a conspiracy might

have been responsible for the death of President

Kennedy, and never even considered the possibility of a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the Commission

itself. it did not design its investigation so as to discover the former, if it existed, or to avoid the

pitfalls of the latter, if it existed.

Consider the fact that in the very first meeting, on December 5, 1963, the Chairmnof the President’s

Commission, Chief Justice Earl Warren, made the following statements and suggestions in his opening

remarks:

1) “...I am sure that there is not one of us but would rather be doing almost anything

else tha he can think of than to be on a commission of this kind...the very thought

of reviewing these details day by day is really sickening to me.”

2) “Now I think our job here is essentially one of gathering evidence, and I believe

that at the outset at least we can start with the premise that we can rely upon the

reports of the various agencies that have been engaged in investigating the matter,

the F.B.I., the Secret Service, and others...If we can’t rely on them I couldn’t think

of any investigators we can get to do it anyway.”

3) “...at the present time I do not feel that it would be necessary for us to have any

staff of investigators.”

4) “I am of the opinion also that it is not necessary for us to bring witnesse before us.”

5) “Having that view, I do not believe that it is necessary for us to have the power of

subpoena...”

6) “So I would hope we could hold our meetings and take any evidence or any statements

that we want in camera, and eventually make our report without any great

fanfare throughout the country.”

It is true that the Commission eventually called witnesses and did arm itself with the power of

subpoena. But the point is a that from the very beginning the man who headed this investigation viewed

these forensic tools as superfluous to the purpose of the Commission and the scope of its investigation.

Each of the documents published in this book is important in making a more informed judgement

of the work of the Warren Commission. Until now, they have been unavailable unless one made the

effort to order them from the U.S. National Archives. That process takes several months and, due to the

combined length of the documents, costs almost as much for a xerox copy as the entire 26 volumes of

the Warren Commission. It is hoped that the publication of these documents in this format will be a

small but useful addition to the growing library of critical materials about the Warren Report.

David Lifton

Los Angeles, California

July 31, 1968

Printed with permission.

Copyright © 1968 by David Lifton. All rights reserved.

First Sightext Publications Edition, 1968

24 Kennedy Assassination Chronicles Vol. 7, Issue 2, Summer 2001

cussed at a meeting scheduled for July 2, 1964 — of

which there seems to be no record.

Among the Comments made by the Commission:

i) The answer to the question “Did Oswald kill Officer

Tippit” would be an unqualified “yes”.

ii) Regarding Marina Oswald’s allegation that Oswald

threatened to kill Richard Nixon, “the Commission

questions whether the incident did, in fact, occur.”

iii) Dancing around what has since come to be known

as the “Second Oswald Theory”, the Commission

wished to state that “there is some evidence by reputable

people that Oswald practiced with his rifle during

October and November 1963, ... (but) ... other

circumstances tend to negate any such conclusion.”

The notion of an Oswald look-alike is not raised.

iv) To the question “Did Oswald have any accomplices

at the scene of the assassination?” the Commission

responded that “all of the evidence the Commission

has indicates that Oswald was alone at the scene of

the assassination.”

v) The Commissioners deal with the statement by

Deputy Sherrif Roger Craig that Craig saw a man

resembling Oswald run down the knoll beside the

Depository and get into a station wagon by concluding

that Craig was “mistaken” since Oswald was on

a bus at the time.

vi) In answering “What do the investigative agencies

conclude on the subject (of Oswald being a Foreign

Agent)?” the Commissioners responded that “the

agencies uniformly said that Oswald was a “loner.”

vii) The Commissioners “were unwilling to assign any

particular motive” to their conclusions regarding the

actions of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby.

A 9-page document found in the National Archives

[among the 40,000 private papers of Commission

General Council J. Lee Rankin donated by his family

in 1997 ???] details a meeting of the Warren Commissioners

on June 29, 1964 that is not listed by the

Archives as ever having taken place, (presumably because

there is no official transcript of this meeting). All

previously known meetings of the Commission Executives

were transcribed by a court reporter, which was

the standard procedure.

The minutes begin with a discussion of the unauthorized

publication of the diary of Lee Harvey Oswald

unanimously adopting a request for the FBI

to investigate the source of the leak.

It was agreed that the tentative date for delivering

the report to President Johnson be set to early August,

(the final report was ultimately delivered in late

September). The Commission also heard a report from

members Earl Warren and Gerald Ford of their interview

with Jack Ruby in the Dallas jail. Mention is made

of Ruby’s request for a polygraph exam; interestingly

no mention is made of his repeated requests to be taken

to Washington to testify, citing that his life was in danger,

as the Ruby transcripts demonstrate. (New York

Columnist Dorothy Killgallan later obtained an unauthorized

copy of the Ruby transcript, which was subsequently

published before the Warren Report was issued).

The Commissioners discussed the existence of

conspiracy-oriented writings that were being widely

circulated in Europe, especially a book by Thomas

Buchanan, and decided that the best way “to handle

these matters” was to evaluate them in an appendix to

the report entitled “Refutation of Rumors and Theories.”

The Commissioners then turned to a list of 72 conclusions

that the staff had reached in the writing the

draft of the Warren report for the Commissioners to

approve, disapprove or comment on. The first 65 were

Assassination Chronicles Vol. 7, Issue 2, Summer 2001 25

viii) Regarding the draft chapter on Oswald himself,

“the Commissioners commented that they thought

the Liebler draft was too soft and sympathetic about

Oswald and did not adequately present the strength

of his character which they considered to be “steely”

as evidenced by a number of Oswald’s acts.” (Author

Edward J. Epstein makes mention of a rewrite

There is no indication in the minutes of whether

or not a court reporter was present at the meeting. It is

known that at a previous Commission Executive session

of January 22, 1964, the Commissioners had requested

that the transcript of the meeting be destroyed.

The National Archives listed this meeting as having

occurred, but the record destroyed at the request of the

Commission. The existence of a transcript became

known, however, when Gerald Ford published excerpts

of the “destroyed” (and then still Classified) transcript

discovered that the original court reporter’s tape of this

meeting still existed in the National Archives, and after

a Freedom of Information lawsuit lasting almost 10

years, the transcript was released in the mid-1970s. It

series of books.

Although the official records indicate that the final

meeting of the Warren Commissioners in September

1964 consisted of minutes only, (no transcript just

as the June 29 meeting), the first page of the minutes of

with Earl Warren’s opening statement. Only at the

top of page 2 does the document turn into several pages

of minutes written by Commission Council J. Lee

Rankin. It was later confirmed in the Johnson Tapes

that at this September meeting Senator Richard Russell

initially wished to dissent from signing the Warren

Report (due to his disbelief of the Single Bullet Theory)

and yet Rankin’s minutes do not make reference to this

significant event.

In light of these Minutes of the final session starting

as a transcript, and not containing reference to

Russell’s dissent, it is not unreasonable to suggest that

there had indeed been a transcript made which was secretly

destroyed so that the lack of unanimity among

the Commissioners would not be on the record. One

then asks the question of why Rankin allowed the first

“transcript” page to remain intact, an obvious contradiction

of the “official” position that only minutes were

made. Rankin was certainly not a stupid man, and the

record indicates that he began his work for the Com-

mission with great idealism, wishing to bring in investigators

outside of the FBI, and to investigate possible

conspiratorial meetings in Mexico.

Rankin also expressed concern that the alignment

of wounds in the President’s back and throat would have

required a single bullet to turn upwards. Over a period

of time he become less vocal, as the Commission’s

agenda solidified. Perhaps, objecting to the revisionist

history taking place in the record of the final meeting

in September 1964, Rankin deliberately left a small

breadcrumb for future historians to find — a

breadcrumb almost certainly confirmed by the contents

of the 1993 released telephone recording between President

Johnson and Senator Richard Russell in which

Russell details the controversial events of that final

meeting.

26 Kennedy Assassination Chronicles Vol. 7, Issue 2, Summer 2001

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles Vol. 7, Issue 2, Summer 2001 27

28 Kennedy Assassination Chronicles Vol. 7, Issue 2, Summer 2001

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles Vol. 7, Issue 2, Summer 2001 29

30 Kennedy Assassination Chronicles Vol. 7, Issue 2, Summer 2001

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles Vol. 7, Issue 2, Summer 2001 31

32 Kennedy Assassination Chronicles Vol. 7, Issue 2, Summer 2001

LANCER was JFK's Secret Service Code name. Use of this formerly secret name

represents our efforts to make JFK assassination information available to everyone.

The historical research organization began in 1995, by Thomas A. Jones and Debra J.

Conway -- who are the owners. The purpose of JFK Lancer is to distribute information

and research on the events of the Kennedy presidency and assassination. We are an all

volunteer group.

We support research in several ways, making materials available to everyone whatever

contributors. We also publish research manuscripts and produce research videos. We are

independent of any other organization.

student -$600, to those who teach and study the assassination and presidency of JFK. We

work closely with JFK Resource Mail Order for research materials with an inventory of

documents, books, videos, and other materials available for mail ordering on every aspect

of the assassination case available.

and at the past conferences have had many of the most respected of the researchers from

around the world speak on the assassination and on President Kennedy’s policies. We

maintain a large listing of researchers available to speak at functions, on television or

radio, or to consult on your project. We ask no fees for this service and all contracts would

be between you and the researcher/speaker.

every topic, from former soldier of fortune Gerry Patrick Hemming on the CIA to

England's Matthew Smith on the “Single Bullet Theory.” Each year we also held a special

Remembrance Ceremony in Dealey Plaza.

and reports on JFK related matters. Another is to sign up for JFK News, an email service

these services are easily accessible through our main web site.

President Kennedy once said, “Documents are the primary sources of history; they

are the means by which later generations draw close to historical events and enter into

the thoughts, fears and hopes of the past.” To contribute factual, well-established information

a new organization formed to oversee the continuation of research through knowledge of

resource materials, people, and locations while making this knowledge accessible to

everyone. The JFK AOA organization is in support of regular declassification of government

documents which will be extremely beneficial to historians, educational facilities,

the media and other groups.

http:/.jfklancer.com/

Chronicles.html

tom@jfklancer.com

formatting, illustration or photo placement noted, accompanied by a copy on disk in ASCII format, or Emailed

in ASCII format. A copy of documents sited should accompany article and references to the Zapruder

film should state which version referenced.

noted. Photograph(s) should accompany article (can obtain from Lancer, manufacturer or book publisher)

and a copy on disk in ASCII format, or E-mailed in ASCII format.

(JPEG or GIFs may be emailed.) All photos should bear the photographer’s name and be numbered for

placement. (Please send with a self-addressed stamped envelope for return.) Copyrighted photos may be

used under “Fair Use Compliance” only with the proper owner sited.

submitted for the KAC may be also featured on our web site.

appropriate for our publication, we will then respond with suggestions. We discourage telephone

inquiries.

The best method for determining topics that would be of interest to KAC readers is to be one

yourself. Being familiar with the publication and its format is your best assurance for composing

an acceptable story. All manuscripts should include a final paragraph (50 to 75 words) giving

the author’s credentials. First-time writers are always welcome, but should not send their

queries via e-mail; please use traditional postal delivery with a self-addressed stamped envelope.

Typically, you will be notified of our intentions within three weeks.

We accept articles which summarize events of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy

and implications related to evidence.

previously, printed in other publications or on the internet. We may ask that you withhold publication

on the internet until after publication in KAC.You must request all permissions for

reprinting before submitting to KAC.

(and not in all caps). Also, the inclusion of subheads and sidebars add to an article’s readability

and are requested.

content, language usage, continuity, and references. Articles will be returned to you for changes

requested. Articles not spell-checked before submission to us will not be corrected but will be

put in our circular file. (we have enough problems!)

SUBMIT ARTICLES FOR PUBLICATION TO:

Robert Chapman, Senior Editor

6797 Satinwood Cove

Memphis, TX 38119

901-682-9670 tel.

editor@jfklancer.com

The editor’s primary responsibility is the supervision of the printed material produced by the institution.

The editor reads and, if necessary, corrects, rewrites or revises such material to insure that it is presented

in clear terminology, precise language and proper grammatical and stylistic form. The editor works with

the graphic designer to project the museum’s desired image, and will supervise all the mechanical processes

of production, from submission of manuscript to the printer to binding of the final product.

We hope you will join us in our efforts to make your research more widely available.

On the next few pages is a listing of our back issues with the table of

contents. Many articles are on our web site and others are highlighted here

in Adobe PDF format so you can read a sampling of articles we’ve published

throughout the years.

Please continue to support JFK assassination research by subscribing to

KAC and purchasing our back issues. You’ll find they are an important addition

to your reference library.

• NID 2000 Conference Review, Jim Fetzer

• NID 2000 Speakers and Awards

• Oswald and the Helsinki Hotel, Ian Griggs

• JFK Opposed Globalist, Jim Marrs

• The Spirit of the New Frontier, Kerry McCarthy

Plaza,Michael West.

• Harvey and Lee: In North Dakota: Correcting the record on the Aline Mosby Interview, W.

Tracy Parnell.

• Gov. Connally's Wrist Wound and CE-399: A complete account of the bullet fragments,

Clint Bradford.

• The Running Woman: Toni Foster. An exclusive interview with the Dealey Plaza witness

seen in the Zapruder film, Debra Conway.

• Was "Hidell" A Bartender? Wallace Milam

• The Failures of the ARRB, Doug Horne

• The Fourteen-Minute Gap, Rex Bradford

E. Kelly, Jr.

• If At First You Don't Succeed: Robert Blakey, the HSCA and the Return of the Single

Bullet Theory, Joe Biles

Mantik, M.D., Ph.D.

• Herbert Helps Out -- A Brief Rebuttal to the Christenberry Dicision, by Joe Biles

• A Fragment of Truth?, Joe Backes

• The Culture of the ARRB, Doug Horne

• In Politics and Policies of JFK and RFK: The McClellan Committee Investigation of

Organized Labor, Dr. Anthony Baltakis

Harvey Oswald, Angus Crane.

• With A Study of the Presidential Limousine, Doug Weldon

• Stewart Galanor, A History of the Medical Evidence, and The Grassy Knoll

• A Tribute To John F. Kennedy, Jr.

• William Harvey in Florida, 1963, Noel Twyman

• William Gaudet: Make Room for the Man at the Front of the Line, Nancy Wertz

• First Shot/First Hit Circa Z-190, Barb Junkkarinen

• Two Presidential Limousines: Did They Play A Role in the Assassination?, Mike Johnson,

with comments from Pamela McElwain-Brown

• First-Day Evidence and Dealey Plaza, Michael Parks

• Warren Commission Report Turns 35 Years Old, Martin Shackelford

• K.G.B. Told Tall Tales About Dallas, Book Review by Martin Shackelford

• Phone Transcript Between Acting AG Ramsey Clark and LBJ,

Transcribed by Debra Conway

• SWAT Snipers vs. Lee Harvey Oswald, Mark Anning and Eric Nelson Mark

• Continuation to First Shot/First Hit Circa Z-190, Douglas DeSalles, M.D.

• I Led One Life, Hal Verb

• A Visit to SAM 26000, James Sawa

• Conference Awards

• The Man in the Middle:Richard Case Nagell's View of an Evolving Conspiracy, Larry

Hancock

• An Examination of the Presidential Limousine in the White House Garage, Pamela

McElwain-Brown

• We Remember President Kennedy, Kerry McCarthy

• Three Phases of Assassination-Excerpt: Robert Kennedy and Phase I, Debra Conway

• Doug Horne-Specifics in the Files, Comments by John Kelin

• Why the JFK Assassination Still Matters, Bill Holiday

• The Unified Solution of the Shots Fired in Dealey Plaza: A breakdown of the sequence of

shots and their sources, Bill Truels

Saundra Spencer, former Navy Lab tech. William Law

Walko

the HSCA investigation.

Backes

Drago

Law

Doug Horne

Keynote Speech

Angus E. Crane

• JFK Information on the Internet, A close look at disinformation on McAdams' web page.

David Lifton

• What Have You Got There, Jack? A brief examination of Ruby's possessions at the time of

his arrest. Ian Griggs

• Jolly Green Giant, A personal look back at D.A. Jim Garrison's case against Clay Shaw,Art

Keven

• The Magic Fragment and Other Stories, Milicent Cranor

• Reasonable Doubts: The McCloy-Rankin Document

Former UPI reporter writes his memoirs and admits he knewof Casto plot to kill JFK, Debra

Conway

• The Plot's Vertical Convergence with U.S. Policy Divisions: The Fourth Decade Conference

Keynote Speech, Peter Dale Scott

• Tippit After the Murder, Bill Drenas

• The Secret Service Interviews,Vincent Michael Palamara

• Hope and Despair:Visiting the Dark Side Of Camelot, Debra Conway

• Cuban Missile Crisis 35 Years Ago

Roger S. Peterson

William Xanttopolis

The Researcher's Workshop, Debra Conway and John Kelin

Dallas and the JFK Lancer Conference: A Personal Memory, William Law

Evica

George Michael Evica

• Jim Garrison:In History and Film, George Michael Evica

• Trapped by Their Own Words: The Dallas Police, Jack White

• Stranger in a Strange Land: Kennedy in the Maelstrom, Jim Hargrove

• Richard Bissell: The Man Who Couldn't Kill Castro, Jane Sitko

• Understanding Silvia Odio: What the LaFontaines Don't Tell You, Steve N. Bochan

• The Chronicles Interview: Gaeton Fonzi, Part 1, Steve Bochan with Gordon Winslow

• Internet Resources: Searching R.I.F.'s on the Internet, Chris Courtwright

• Federal Register Updates:and Batch 4, Joe Backes

• James Files' Confession: A Letter from Files to Tom M. Hudson

• Student Contributor:"Eyewitness Account", Carrie Gallagher

• Pieces of the Jigsaw: Glimpses of the Real Lee Harvey Oswald, Martin Shackelford

• Speaking Out: Odio, LaFontaines, and Oswald

A Conversation With Gaeton Fonzi, Part Two: Steve Bochan, with Gordon Winslow

Elrod Talked And It's About Time: Raymond Carroll

• The Strange Allegations of Raymond Carnay, Chris Courtwright

Marina Oswald Porter

David Lifton

Robert Tannenbaum

• The JFK Case: What Does the Blood Tell Us? Sherry Gutierrez

• An ARRB Update, Joe Backes

• 20 Questions: Loose Ends in the JFK Assassination, Jerry Rose

• The Zapruder Film and the Language of Proof, James Fetzer

• The Zapruder Film and the President's Wounds, David Lifton

• Hemming Does Dallas, Charles Drago

• Student's Symposium, James Sawa and Glen Vasbinder

• Witnesses To History, Mark Oakes-Witnesses Panel

• The Paschall Film: Movement Behind the Fence, Greg Jaynes-Witnesses Panel

2:08pm 11/22/63, Brad J. Parker and Charles Crenshaw, M.D.

Edwards? Ian Griggs

34 Vol. 6, Issue 1 Spring 2000

1999 JFK LANCER BUS TOUR

Ken M. Holmes, Jr.

This year’s JFK Lancer Bus Tour was hosted by Bill Drenas.

Bill has written several very well researched articles on J. D. Tippit

including “Car #10 Where Are You” and has a background of

interviewing many witnesses. He is careful to question and record

the answers with the most accuracy. He has taken great pride in

the Tour for the past two years and goes into great detail to help

the researchers on the Tour to understand exactly where and what

happened.

The researchers boarded the 45-seat bus in Dealey Plaza near

the corner of Houston and Main streets. When all had boarded the

bus, Bill went to each person to introduce himself and shake hands

and help them to feel comfortable and welcome on the tour. Bill

told everybody that if they had

questions not to hesitate to ask.

While waiting for the bus to

depart, Bill pointed out the various

buildings in Dealey Plaza,

such as the Texas School Book

Depository, The Dal Tex Building,

The Dallas County Records

Building, The Criminal Courts

Building, The Old Red Courthouse,

The Terminal Annex

Building, and The Dallas Morning

News Building.

Because of a mix up at the

Bus Company, the bus had to

make a stop at the Dallas Grand

Hotel before the tour began so

that Tom Jones, who supervised

this year’s Bus Tour, could correct

a problem. Bill took this

opportunity to show points of interest

as we traveled east on

Commerce Street towards the

Hotel. First was the Greyhound

Bus Depot at Commerce and

Lamar Streets, where Oswald

boarded William Whaley’s cab after the assassination and rode to

Oak Cliff. Next was the Santa Fe Building, which housed the FBI

offices in 1963 and where Oswald delivered his note to agent James

Hosty shortly before the assassination. A short distance up Commerce

Street, Bill pointed out the former locations of Jack Ruby’s

Carousel Club, Enquire Shine and Press Shop, Nichols Brothers

Parking Garage, and Abe’s Colony Club all of which were important

in Jack Ruby’s life. Across the street from

these former locations is the Adolphus Hotel and a few blocks east

is the former location of Sol’s Turf Bar, a Ruby hangout.

While we waited outside the Dallas Grand Hotel, Bill informed

us that at the time of the assassination it was known as the Statler

Hilton Hotel and that Jack Ruby was often seen there trying to

promote his business. Bill also pointed out that diagonally across

Commerce Street at the corner of Harwood Street is the location

of Dallas Police Headquarters where Lee Harvey Oswald was interrogated,

detained and murdered. After the difficulty with the

Bus Company was corrected, we were able to depart on the Tour.

As we headed west on Main Street towards Dealey Plaza, Bill

pointed out that this was the exact route that President Kennedy’s

Limousine took down Main Street on 11/22/63. As the bus waited

for a traffic light on Main Street, Bill was able to show where on

Elm Street Oswald boarded Cecil McWatter’s bus on 11/22/63.

Because many of the buildings have been demolished, Bill was

able to point out most of the route that Oswald walked when he

got off the bus on Elm Street and walked down Lamar Street to the

Greyhound Bus Depot. As the tour bus crossed the Houston Street

Viaduct heading towards Oak Cliff, Bill explained that William

Whaley’s cab carrying Oswald on 11/22/63 took this same route.

Bill explained where the Gloco gas station was located at the south

end of this Viaduct, and told how officer J. D. Tippit was seen here

by five witnesses sitting in his squad car shortly before he was

murdered. The bus then passed Methodist Hospital where J. D.

Tippit was taken by ambulance and pronounced dead. Also near

Methodist Hospital was the location of the Dobb’s House Snack

Bar. Employees of the Dobb’s House stated that Oswald, Jack

Ruby and J. D. Tippit had all been customers there at different

times. Bill also showed us that Oswald’s rooming house is only a

little more than a block away from the snack bar.

The tour bus then stopped across the street from Oswald’s

rooming house at 1026 North Beckley Ave. and everyone got off

the bus to get a closer look and some took photographs. Bill explained

such details as when Oswald moved in, what room he lived

Dobb’s House Snack Bar

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles 35

in and his activities when he returned here after the assassination.

Of special interest was the bus stop where the rooming house manager

Earlene Roberts last saw Oswald standing after he left the

house at about 1:00 P.M. on 11/22/63. As the bus traveled south

on North Beckley, Bill pointed out that this is a possible route that

Oswald could have taken after he left his rooming house. Bill also

showed us the corner of North Beckley and West Neeley Street

and mentioned the controversy as to where Oswald actually left

Whaley’s cab.

The next stop was the former Mack Pate Garage where an

employee of the garage saw a red Ford Falcon and later identified

the driver as Lee Harvey Oswald. Bill explained the details of this

event, and told us that he has developed some new information

about this from a very reliable source and mentioned that some of

the documents regarding this incident might not be accurate.

The bus then stopped at East Tenth Street and North Patton

Ave. and everybody got off the bus. Bill then asked for volunteers

to help him. He then gave out brightly colored pieces of paper

with the names of the witnesses of the Tippit murder written on

them. Bill then instructed these volunteers exactly where to stand

to recreate the witness locations of the Tippit murder. I noticed

the crowd was amazed by this demonstration of the actual distances

that these witnesses were from the murder. I heard some

say that they now had a better perspective of an event that they had

only read about. Bill did a good job at explaining a very complicated

historical event, basically telling what each witness had seen.

He explained some of the discrepancies in the direction that the

Tippit assailant was reported to have been walking before the

murder. Bill explained the escape route of the assailant as we

walked the same route south on North Patton Ave. and also showed

the locations of Ted Callaway, Sam Guinyard and Warren Reynolds

as they observed the escape of the assailant. We then proceeded

west on East Jefferson Blvd.

Bill showed us the service station that the assailant ran behind,

and gave a description of the parking lot that was formerly at

the rear of this station.

Of special interest was the alleyway at the rear of this former

parking lot and the former Abundant Life Temple building. Bill

explained to us about early reports on the police radio after Tippit

was shot that had the assailant running down this alley and also

the police had searched the Temple. From this location we walked

east down the alley back to the bus. After we boarded the bus, Bill

showed us something very interesting. Many researchers have

questioned why the ambulance got to the Tippit murder scene so

quickly. Bill had the bus driver pull up to a point on North Patton

Street where you can see how close the distance from the Dudley

M. Hughes Funeral Home to where the ambulance was dispatched

from, to the Tippit murder scene was a distance of about two and a

half blocks.

The bus then passed by the library on East Jefferson where

the Tippit assailant was thought to have been hiding and then passed

through the intersection on Lancaster and Eighth, where Tippit

reported his position at 12:54 P.M. We also drove by the apartment

building where Kathy Kay, one of Jack Ruby’s dancers lived

and then proceeded to the apartment building that Jack Ruby lived

in at the time he murdered Oswald. This building had recently had

a severe fire and was heavily damaged.

As we headed west on West Jefferson Blvd. we passed by the

Texas Theater, the location of Oswald’s arrest. It is now closed.

Our next stop was the Top Ten Record Shop. Everybody got off

the bus and went in to see a unique piece of history. This shop is

basically the same as it was on 11/22/63. The shop’s owner, Mike

Polk, is a very friendly and warm man and allowed us complete

run of the store while Bill explained how J. D. Tippit ran in here

shortly before he was murdered and made a hurried phone call.

The same telephone that Tippit used is still mounted on the side of

the counter exactly where it was in 1963. We then visited two

former residences of Lee Harvey Oswald. First we stopped at 214

West Neeley Street, where the famous “backyard photos” were

taken. As we left the bus for a closer look a woman that is a current

resident of this house informed us that if anybody wanted to

go into the back yard and take photographs that there would be a

five-dollar admission charge. We then went around the corner to

the apartment at 604 Elsbeth Street where the Oswald’s lived before

they moved to West Neeley Street.

Bill told us an interesting story about the Oswald’s. When the

Oswald’s moved from Fort Worth to Dallas their friend Gary Taylor

had to rent a U Haul to move their belongings to

Elsbeth Street.

When they moved from Elsbeth Street to Neeley

Street the Oswald’s used a baby carriage to move their

belongings to the new apartment. It was now time to

return to the Dallas Grand Hotel. As Bill was concluding

his remarks several researchers had questions

to ask. Some gathered in the Hotel lobby to visit and

talk about the tour. Bill provided an excellent tour and

one that I highly recommend for next year.

36 Vol. 6, Issue 1 Spring 2000

When A Mysterious Death Is No Longer

Mysterious

by Mark K. Colgan

In Lake Lawn Park Cemetery, in Metairie, Louisiana a suburb of New Orleans, in a section called “The Patio,” find a mausoleum

labeled “South Corridor F.” Enter this mausoleum and turn so that you can view the inscriptions found on the right hand side.

Gaze at all of the names on tier “B.” This is the second row from the bottom. Find the crypt in the back corner, which has no

inscription. You are now looking at crypt 12. You are now standing in front of the final resting-place of one of the many mysterious

people to emerge in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. And yet in death, a final mystery was left to us to solve. “Who

is in Crypt 12,” you ask? None other than a star plucked from the sky some might answer. Others would, I think, answer differently,

because in this unmarked crypt is a person whom many questions were asked about during the Warren Commission’s hearings in

1964. It is here that the mortal remains of Janet Adams Conforto lies, though many of us know her better as “Jada.”

Over the last thirty-seven years since JFK’s assassination many people have wondered what happened to Janet. I too

wondered if she was alive or dead. I had read that she died mysteriously, yet no one offered any clues. I checked the

internet forums and no one really knew any facts, except that she reportedly died in 1979 or 1980. This information was

developed when her son was

contacted during the filming of the

Jada, a renowned stripper, and star of

a 1960’s burlesque motion picture,

I started with the Warren Commission

Exhibits. Several days of heavy

research followed by many days of

waiting explains most of the rest. The

clues that I gathered led me to the

following information that everyone can

now read.

800 number as I understood it would lead

me to what is called the “Master Death

File.” I will tell you that a I contacted a

very helpful lady, who turned out to be

the exception within our government,

who checked every combination of name

listed in the Warren Commission exhibits

for Jada. With this lady helping I found

nothing that told me Jada was dead. I

next called every state, county, or city

mentioned in the Warren Commission

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles 37

I first met Jada about a month

before the assassination. Bud

Shrake and I shared an apartment

on Cole Avenue that autumn, and

since we were both sportswriters,

Ruby considered us favored

customers. He invited us to the

Carousel one night, and Shake

came home with Jada.

We all became good friends,

and when Jo and I got married a

few weeks later, Jada gave us our

first wedding gift -- a two-pound

Girl Scout cookie tin full of illegal

weed she had smuggled across the

border in her gold Cadillac with the

letters JADA embossed on the

door.

Jada cleared customs with

100 of the two-pound tins in the

trunk of her car. She was accompanied

by a state politician (who knew

nothing about the load) and wore a

mink coat, high-heel shoes, and

nothing else. The first thing she did

at customs was open the door and

fall out, revealing more than the

customs official expected.

That was one of Jada's great

pleasures, driving around Dallas in

her mink coat and high heels, her

orange hair piled high and the coat

flaring open. It was a better act

than the one Ruby paid for.

exhibits with regards any of Jada’s marriages. With the exception of Georgia, nothing

was available over the phone. (If I had not mentioned that I was in charge of building

one of the Big Twelve school’s football stadiums I am not sure the guy who helped me

over the phone would have. So for his sake “Go Dogs.”) This happened on a Friday

leaving me with nothing more than the thought that I might learn Jada’s maiden name

when her third marriage license showed up in the mail.

I spent all day Saturday trying to find death records online over the Internet. I

was able to access the Death Master File through two online web pages. I then spent

countless hours trying every combination of name I could to track down Jada. I awoke

Sunday morning, (about 3:00am) with a new idea, I placed Jada’s birthdate in the

screen with no name as all I wanted was the people who were dead that were born on

that day. I then searched through 884 names. About half way through I found Janet

Mole, I knew this was her, even though I forced my way through the rest of the names.

Now, I do have to explain: In the Warren Commission Exhibits Janet Conforto nee

Mole is listed, I did not find out until much later that this is a French format meaning

The next day in the mail I found her wedding license with the name Mole listed.

This gave me a place of birth not only for her, but also for her parents and Mr.

Smallwood. This left only one last major hurdle. Where did she die? The Master Death

File lists everybody’s place of last residence if available. But that does NOT mean you

died there. The Master Death File did list a death payment being made, this read as

70179, which I took as a date, and that her death of 5-00-80 was when it was reported.

I was wrong. Because of this one item I searched through two years of the San Francisco

Examiner before giving up and looking for other options. 70179, I figured out

Orleans Times Piscayane Newspaper, I requested three months of papers, and found

her obit within 30 minutes of looking. That information lead me to New Mexico where

you now have the rest of the story.

38 Vol. 6, Issue 1 Spring 2000

Maiden Name: Janet Mole

Found in New Orleans Times Piscayne, May 16, 1980.

Listed as Jada in Obituaries.

Lakelawn Park Metarie Cemetery, New Orleans, LA

Patio section, South Corridor “F”, Tier “B”, Crypt 12

(crypt owned By Joseph Conforto)

1169 Market Street, San Francisco, CA (000) 626-3085

Trinity Plaza Apartments (415) 861-3333

Child, Edward M. Washington living at home)

Died January 20, 2000

Additional Information: Became U.S. Citizen November 6, 1958

Married John Ives Mole June 12, 1933.

1. Nick Bonney Married in California 1954 unconfirmed

2 Joseph Cuffari Married in Baltimore, Md. unconfirmed

3 Ralph C. Smallwood Married in Bainbridge, Ga. March 24, 1959 confirmed

4 Joseph Conforto Married in New Orleans, La. Approx. 1961 unconfirmed

5. ? Washington Unknown (name on obituary )

Edward M. Washington DOB ?

Additional information on Ralph C. Smallwood:

Born February 26, 1934

Died unknown

Occupation Jockey

Address 1041 Washington Street, Atlanta, Ga.

Mother’s Maiden Name Nora M. Baker

Mother place of birth Marrietta, Ga

Father’s name John S. Smallwood

Father place of birth Jefferson, Ga.

Janet’s residence at time of marriage

202 Georgia Ave. New Orleans La. No Occupation listed on application

New at JFK Lancer Online:

JFK Lancer is announcing the JFK

Alliance for Open Archives, a new

organization for JFK assassination

researchers. JFK-AOA is having a

now!.

John Newman at the "November in

Dallas" JFK Lancer Conference

Friday, November 19, 1999. Transcript

and hundreds of documents! Congratulations

to Joe Backes and Debra Conway

for putting this valuable resource online.

http://jfklancer.com/backes/newman/

newman_1.html

link to Planet JFK with our self-service

form.

http://www.jfklancer.com/programs/

links/links.html

Kennedy assassination article added

Ian Griggs from from Vol. 1, Issue 1,

A comprehensive study of photographs

showing Oswald with various firearms.

Source notes and photographs.

http://www.jfklancer.com/bymain.html

evidence from the assassination of

former President John F. Kennedy was

released today by the National Archives

and Records Administration. JFK Lancer

has scanned and placed this report at

http://jfklancer.com/fragreport.html.

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles Vol. 1 Issue 3, Fall 1995

Warren Commission member, Senator Richard Russell

Warren Commission member & former head of the CIA, Allen Dulles

Thanks to the brilliant, patient, audacious and exhaustive efforts of assassination researcher and

writer Harold Weisberg, the once “top secret” transcripts of variously held Warren Commission meetings

shortly after the Warren Commission was formed are in the public domain and can be examined

more closely.

For over thirty years a transcript of one of those “top secret” executive session meetings (January

22, 1964) has been in existence. This particular transcript dealt principally with an alleged “dirty rumor”

that Oswald had been an agent of some federal agency, notably the FBI. It was at the January

22nd executive meeting that Allen Dulles opined: “I think this record ought to be destroyed.” Another

Commission member, Hale Boggs, nervously restated the case when he said plaintively, “I don’t even

like to see this taken down.”

Five days after these jarring sentiments were expressed another meeting was held (Jan. 27, 1964)

expanding on the earlier meeting. This article, however, deals solely with the Jan. 22nd meeting. Those

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles Vol. 1 Issue 3, Fall 1995

interested in reading the contents of both the Jan.

22nd and the Jan. 27th meetings can refer to

Weisberg reprints the text of the Jan. 27th

meeting and the text is complete, but the earlier

meeting on Jan. 22nd is complete except for a total

of six redactions (deletions) in the text. The

obvious intention by the censors was to see to it

that these deleted words or group of words not be

revealed. As will be seen from this article, both

the deletions and the intentions of the censors can

now be revealed and understood once the deletions

are known. I believe I have “solved” these deletions

and the “mystery” of that January 22nd document

can be better understood. As I see it, the significance

of this revelation is that it moves the entire

JFK case a great step forward in demonstrating

that Oswald, indeed, was an agent of the U.S.

government.

It should be pointed out here that, as Weisberg

notes, the thirteen-page January 22 transcript was

not prepared until 1975 when the National Archives

located the reporter’s notes and sent these to the

Pentagon for transcribing. Weisberg, in fact, discovered

that all the records of the Jan. 22nd session

were ordered destroyed at the Warren

Commission’s behest. Fortunately for all of us,

Weisberg obtained a copy.

the Jan. 22nd meeting, refer to the following pages

for the redactions: two on page 478; one on page

482; one on page 483, and finally, two on page

485. We will take each of these in order so that

they can be readily followed.

The first of these is at the top of page 478

which contains the following:

A. (J. Lee Rankin, Warren Commission

General Counsel): “And Mr. Carr said

that they had used this saying before the

of these records to the Defense Counsel

being able to get the records and asking

the Court to rule that they couldn’t get

them.”

The deleted word or group of words are:

of 8 spaces.

“The matter” is a reference to the

alleged Oswald association

with some federal agency.”

Carr is Waggoner Carr, the Attorney General

of Texas. What is being discussed here is the “willingness”

of the FBI to release its files to the Ruby

defense. Those files would or would not contain

information as to Oswald’s alleged government

connections. It appears that a kind of political

gamesmanship is being played out here by the FBI,

suggested by Rankin in the above statement. One

might put it as: “Now you see it — now, you don’t!”

The second redaction on the same page (478)

occurs near the bottom and is more intriguing if

not totally revealing:

A. (J. Lee Rankin): “...Now Mr.

Jaworski, who is associated with the Attorney

General working on this matter

to Story about it but I did talk to Jaworski

and he said he didn’t think Wade would

say anything like this unless he had some

substantial information back of it, and

thought he could prove it, because he

thought it would ruin many in politics,

in Texas, to be making such a claim, and

then have it shown them that there was

nothing to it.”

Jaworski was the special counsel to Carr and

“Story” (immediately after the deleted word)

should be Storey (misspelled twice in this statement.)

Storey is Robert G. Storey, dean emeritus

of SMU Law School, assigned to Carr’s staff as

part of Carr’s Texas Court of Inquiry studying the

assassination. “The matter” is a reference to the

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles Vol. 1 Issue 3, Fall 1995

alleged Oswald association with some federal

agency.

The deleted word here is most probably:

Shanklin occupies ten spaces and is the best

candidate for this redaction for at least four possible

reasons. (Shanklin’s full name is J. Gordon

Shanklin and he was Special Agent-in-Charge of

the Dallas FBI office.)

The four principal reasons are:

1. Early on the afternoon of the assassination

Shanklin received a call in his Dallas office

from a Lt. Col. Robert Jones of the 112th

Military Intelligence Group which assisted the

Secret Service in security operations for the

JFK visit. Jones offered information linking

the name of the fictitious “A. J. Hidell” to Lee

Harvey Oswald. The information included

items on Oswald’s “defection” to Russia and

his Fair Play for Cuba activities in New

Orleans. Note here that none of this is referred

to by Rankin in the above statement.

2. As Weisberg also notes, Earl Warren, who

headed the Warren Commission, said (see

Texas people.” Thus, if Storey, Carr and

Jaworski make up some of these “Texas

people” it would make Shanklin an obvious

candidate for one of those “Texas people.”

As to the significance of why Shanklin’s

name being deleted, consider this: the Jan. 22nd

meeting was well before any testimony was taken

of witnesses, but the Warren Commission was trying

to maintain its posture as being free of any taint

of dependency for its facts. True enough, the services

of the FBI were called upon to help “investigate”

the murder. But the “solution” of the crime

had already been reached on the very day of the

assassination by Hoover and the U.S. government

through Katzenback, who agreed to this complicity.

It there were any doubts that the Warren Commission

members realized that their “independence”

had been dealt a death blow, read the transcript

of the once “top secret” Jan. 27th meeting.

That sorry record proves once and for all that the

jittery, nervous and frightened Commission members

were there to “rubber stamp” a solution which

even the more conscience-bound members did not

agree with but were forced to accept.

“...why...did the FBI and Katzenback

go along with this

...?”

We now come to the third deletion which begins

on page 481 and continues on page 482 of

however, offer its own puzzling aspects:

A . Rankin: “One of the strange things

that happened and it may have no bearing

on this at all, is the fact that this man

who is a defector, and who was under

observation at least by the FBI, they say

they saw him frequently, could walk out

out the next day with a passport that permitted

him to go to Russia. From my

observations of the cases that have come

to us, such passports are not passed out

with that ease.”

The deleted word here occupies five

Now why this one word was deleted could

perhaps best be explained by human error in that

the words “New Orleans” most likely should have

been redacted entirely. The “strange” phenomenon

alluded to by Rankin apparently refers to the ease

and alacrity with which Oswald obtained his passport.

In a footnote reference to this “strangeness”

Weisberg comments: “The unmistakable implication

is that Oswald’s relationship with the government

was such that his passport applications would

receive special treatment.”

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles Vol. 1 Issue 3, Fall 1995

The fourth redaction occurs on page 483 near

the top:

records. They are issuing hundreds

emphasis.)

The best candidate for this deleted word

The “it” in Dulles’ statement refers to the U.S.

State Department, and Dulles virtually gives the

game away on the matter of passport files when he

remarks that “They have their own particular system.”

It was not too difficult to figure out what this

deleted word (assigned) could be, because a little

later on Dulles refers to the fact that the Passport

Office will “wait until it is assigned there.”

One must be cautious and always weigh what

Dulles says about anything in this entire case. One

recalls, for instance, that in the January 27th meeting

Dulles uttered this real whopper: “We [CIA]

couldn’t investigate the Fair Play for Cuba Committee

in the United States.” (What about the CIA

list I have in my hands giving all the members of

the FPCC in 1962, Mr. Dulles?)

But there is an element of truth in Dulles’

statement. When Frances G. Knight, Director of

the Passport Office in the Department of State, testified

before the Warren Commission (WE5, 386)

she stated when asked by Commission member

Senator Cooper about what “division” in the Passport

Office “cleared” Oswald for his return to the

U.S. that she personally didn’t make that decision.

Yet she was its director!

Knight said that a group made up of “experienced

citizenship lawyers” reached that decision.

Under further prodding from Senator Cooper, she

said, and she emphasized that “both the Consul

(Richard Snyder)...and the citizenship

lawyers...were in agreement.”

reading of all the books and articles on the assassination

is any guide, these have never been identified!

The fifth deletion in the transcript appears on

page:

A. (Rankin): “Secondly, there is this factor

consideration, that is somewhat an issue

in this case, and I supposed you are all

aware of it.”

Here the most appropriate word that

“Security” as a “factor” covers a wide range

of “consideration,” of course, but one such concern

could be Oswald’s ties to the U.S. government

as a agent. To reveal this would obviously be

members were “well aware” of this political fact

Senator Richard Russell

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles Vol. 1 Issue 3, Fall 1995

— all you have to do is look at the political and

career backgrounds of some of the ones appointed

by President Johnson to serve on the Commission.

As to the sixth (and final) redaction in the transcript

there is this on page 485, about two-thirds

of the way down:

“What “pattern” for the future was being set by

the example of the Warren Commission in conducting

its sorry spectacle?”

A. (Rankin): “But they are concluding

that there can’t be a conspiracy without

with the FBI.”

Here, Rankin’s reference to “they” is the FBI

and his mention of “those being run out” is to the

“leads” they (the FBI) had that weren’t being followed

through on as the skeptical Rankin notes.

My choice of words for this deletion for

One can easily figure this out by noting that

on the very same page Rankin comments about

his experience with the FBI that “they don’t do

emphasis). Indeed, “pattern” is virtually a synonym

for “uniform prior experience.”

Why, then, did the FBI (with Hoover as its’

head) and Katzenback (representing the U.S. government

conspiracy” story and, thus, break the FBI’s longstanding

“pattern” of behavior?

Why indeed? Could it be because we really

never found out, as Senator Russell noted to

Weisberg, who Oswald really represented or that

the assassination event itself never happened the

way the Warren Commission (and other investigations)

determined? What “pattern” for the future

was being set by the example of the Warren Commission

in conducting its sorry spectacle? And is

that “pattern” continuing in other areas of political

life, even today?

Just before Senator Russell died (he had come

to the conclusion, as Weisberg proved for him, that

his own role on the Warren Commission had been

lied about) he made some revealing statements to

page 209), “Privately Senator Russell told me that

he was convinced that there were two areas in

which Warren Commission members had been

deceived by the Federal agencies responsible for

investigating the assassination of President

Kennedy. These two areas were: (1) Oswald’s background;

and (2) the ballistics evidence. The first

of these two areas was the principal subject discussed

at the January 27, 1964 Executive Session.”

On the second point raised by Russell, we now

have confirmation of Russell’s suspicions: the

record now shows that both LBJ and Russell did

not believe the single bullet theory. A copy of the

transcript of their discussion is available. There can

be no doubt that demolishing the single bullet

theory destroys the Warren Commission’s case of

no conspiracy and a single assassin. Thus, both

Weisberg and Russell have been confirmed and

vindicated in their evidence certainly with respect

to the ballistics evidence.

That Russell’s expression of his views on the

ballistics evidence would come before Weisberg

had access to the documented record should make

it clear that when it comes to Russell’s first point:

Oswald’s intelligence connections, we now have

a powerful argument that we never did find out

“the truth about Oswald.”

By way of comment, perhaps the most interesting

one would be to quote from Senator Russell’s

assistant’s letter to him of June 14, 1968, after reading

we agree with him [Russell], (not that he agrees

with me and others), that the single bullet theory

is impossible:

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles Vol. 1 Issue 3, Fall 1995

Campbell said of my books and work,

“His work is scholarly and evidences a tremendous amount of research. His basic approach

is not to try to prove that Oswald was innocent, although acceptance of his inferences, etc.,

lead to that conclusion.”

Campbell noted what must have been a sore point for Russell in saying that I was critical of the

I think it is obvious that not a single one of these redactions was justified and, with both releases

to me under FOIA, those redactions are outside the exemptions of that Act. Glad to see that Hal has

raised these questions and that you are calling them to public attention.

Harold Weisberg

26 Vol. 5, Issue 1 Spring 1999

Angus E. Crane

A pioneer of American literature, Washington Irving, noted that

“there rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability

of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles

of human nature.” Irving’s attestation of a poet’s grasp on the

universality of humanity perhaps inspires my confidence in the following

observation by the acclaimed novelist Henry James: “What is character

but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration

of character?” James, a literary artist who imbued his gallery of

fictional characters with the flesh and bone of living creatures, posed

these rhetorical questions to demonstrate the predictable nature and disposition

of the human personality. Certainly the authenticity of Henry

James’ art confirms his perspicacious understanding of the human soul.

Thus, his conclusion that character and incident are irrevocably intertwined

warrants serious consideration.

The Henry James concept that a personality’s conduct may be accurately

anticipated by established behavior patterns also forms the basis

for a ground-breaking and highly proficient crime-fighting tool known

as profiling. Even the words used by John Douglas, the father and architect

of modern behavioral profiling, to describe profiling seem strikingly

similar to those of Mr. James: Profiling operates “on the principle that

behavior reflects personality.” The criminal personality program Douglas

conceived and originated has spawned an internationally recognized

crime detection system that tracks recurring

links between behavioral traits

and personality types. Douglas has orchestrated

the evolution of a widely acclaimed

investigative tool employed by

such preeminent law enforcement agencies

as the Federal Bureau of Investigation

(“FBI”) and Scotland Yard.

Criminal personality programs

have earned their esteem with an unbroken

chain of successful results. Now

that the practical application of profiling has dispelled the reservations

of many skeptics, both state and federal courts are beginning to recognize

profilers as bona fide experts in criminal proceedings. Indeed, momentum

seems to be pushing the US legal system towards an expanded

use of profile evidence.

Given the sweeping possibilities of profiling, one finds it tempting

to ask whether adept profilers could settle the question of Lee Harvey

Oswald’s involvement in the execution of President John F. Kennedy.

Does Oswald’s demeanor and actions on November 22, 1963 match the

profile of a political assassin? The key to finding an answer rests upon

a personality profile of that rare oddball known as a political assassin.

As part of this theoretical inquiry, Oswald will be compared to the idiosyncratic

markings of an assassin. This experiment will help to dispel

the accusations that have besmirched his name for the past thirty-five

years.

A Profile of Political Assassins:

The Common Denominators’

Exclusion of Lee Harvey Oswald

Some of the most notorious and vicious criminals have been arrested,

tried, and convicted through the innovations of behavioral profiling and

criminal investigative analysis. Yet this proven crime fighter was not

even considered legitimate until the death of long-time FBI director,

J. Edgar Hoover. The Bureau likened the profile approach to black magic

or witchcraft. With Hoover’s demise, John Douglas began perfecting a

new and sometimes controversial technique called investigative profiling.

During his productive years with the FBI’s National Center for the

Analysis of Violent Crime, Douglas achieved sufficient success to win

his investigative profiling system the endorsement of top criminologists

everywhere. The respect and regard afforded John Douglas manifests

itself in legendary proportions. For instance, numerous novelists have

modeled their detectives and investigators upon the Douglas mystique.

Most notable among such tributes is the amazing likeness of Douglas to

Thomas Harris’s Jack Crawford, the

As an innovator in behavioral

science, Douglas has watched the

gradual silencing of his critics. He

reflects on when profiling was in its burgeoning stage: “What had been an

informal service without official sanction was developing into a small

institution. I took on the newly created title of “criminal-personality profiling

program manager” and started working with the field offices to

coordinate the submission of cases by local police departments.”

The Douglas profiling philosophy is comparable to a doctor’s diagnosis.

He states that by

“studying as many crimes as we could, and through talking to the

experts - the perpetrators themselves - we have learned to

interpret those clues in much the same way a doctor evaluates

various symptoms to diagnose a particular disease or condition.

And just as a doctor can begin forming a diagnosis after

recognizing several aspects of a disease presentation he or she has

seen before, we can make various conclusions when we see

patterns start to emerge.”

“To define is to

exclude and negate.”

Jose Ortega Y Gasset

Oswald under arrest

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles 27

Douglas has devised a scheme for interpreting the clues of the criminal

mind. The implementation of this scheme has produced profiles for

serial killers, rapists, spouse beaters, sexual murderers, assassins,

sadomasochists, pedophiles, and other deviants. Douglas firmly believes

that “the more behavior we have, the more complete the profile and analysis

we can give to the local police. The better the profile the local police have

to work with, the more they can slice down the potential suspect populations

and concentrate on finding the real guy.”

With tremendous success in the investigative arena, many local law

enforcers wanted to transfer their field success to the court room. State

and federal courts, however, barred admission of profile testimony based

on legal restraints set forth in federal and state rules of evidence. Some

prosecutors attempted to clear these legal hurdles in a rather unorthodox

manner to accommodate the complexities of a lust murderer case in Tennessee.

Before profile evidence was admitted by any court, resourceful prosecutors

indirectly took advantage of the emerging science. In prosecuting

a highly publicized murder case in Memphis, Tennessee, the District Attorney

sought the advice of John Douglas. Although Douglas would be

prohibited from presenting profile testimony, he was invited to observe

the proceedings for two purposes. First, if the defendant got into the

witness box, he would ingratiate himself with the jury through a deceptive

display of a meek and mild demeanor. In that event, Douglas could

coach the District Attorney on probing

beneath the defendant’s facade

with a prod guaranteed to provoke a

self-betraying outburst. The Douglas

technique worked liked clockwork.

The defendant lashed out with a fury

so vicious that his carefully crafted

persona of a gentle soul lost all credibility,

and his loss of composure

proved to be a turning point in the

trial that ended with his conviction.

Douglas served another role, too. The District Attorney feared that

the jury might acquit the accused murderer simply because a reasonable

or logical motive had not been proffered. Finding a motive acceptable to

the jury would be impossible unless the jurors could comprehend an almost

unfathomable moral degeneration that had obliterated all sense of

decency. Douglas educated the prosecution on the behavioral characteristics

of a “lust murderer.” Once the abnormalities manifested by a lust

murderer were divulged to the jury, many elements of the crime that confused

the panel emerged from the dark and slid neatly into place. While

the criminal profile was not officially admitted into evidence, the reliability

of the profile enabled the prosecution to convince the jury that in light

of personality types a motive behind such a heinous crime could be explained.

This indirect use of profile evidence signaled the inevitable toppling

of legal resistance to behavioral science in the courtroom. As illustrated

in the discussion below, the legal barriers no longer prohibit the introduction

of profile evidence. As these once formidable barricades crumbled,

John Douglas found himself seated on the stand as an expert.

The acceptance by US courts of profile evidence is continuing to

evolve and “whether such evidence will be admitted depends upon the

particular facts and issues of the case.” Unfortunately, the likelihood that

federal and state courts will reach a unified consensus on criminal profiles

appears remote. Of course, the US Supreme Court could resolve the

conflict by ruling on the issue. Even amid sharp divisions between federal

circuit courts, the Supreme Court has declined to settle the matter

with a definitive opinion. In fact, the Supreme Court has denied every

Petition for Certiorari presenting this controversy.

While the Supreme Court remains silent, federal circuit and district

courts, along with state courts, admit specific types of profile evidence on

substantive questions of fact. The majority of courts have also recognized

exceptions to the prohibition against profiling testimony, and the trend

among federal and state jurisdictions is to expand the use of exceptions.

In the legal decisions surveyed below, profiling proves to possess

ample persuasive powers to sway the ultimate outcome of a jury’s deliberations.

Before the convincing powers of profiling are permitted in front of a

jury, the court must determine whether profile testimony may be admitted

into evidence. Featured below is a brief examination of laws relevant to

deciding the admissibility of profile evidence.

The mere mention of common law spark some law professors

into a fiery and impassioned dissertation on the origin and meaning

of this ancient legal precedent. A simple definition will suffice here.

The common law is a collection of rules recognized since time immemorial

as the dictate of wisdom and experience. In the absence

of written law that is applicable to a singular situation, courts, even

today, may turn to the common law for guidance and direction in

reaching a decision.

The sanctity of common law

has been desecrated by America’s

seditious preference for legislation.

Early American jurists gave birth to

a new legal philosophy more attuned

to employing the court’s authority to

advance societal interests rather than

paying homage to ancient rules.

As part of the revolt against

traditional common law, American

courts dramatically reformed the legal

process for criminal suits. This system commanded the judiciary

to dispassionately adhere to procedures prescribed by statute

for conducting a trial and sentencing a convicted defendant. Inevitably,

the rules controlling the admissibility of evidence at trial were

formalized through codification. If the codified rules of evidence

failed to address the proffered evidence, a judge could resort to the

common law to support a ruling on admissibility. Recourse to the

common law during an Oswald trial seems highly improbable.

Previously the rules of evidence strictly limited admission of

character evidence. These limitations appeared to be carved in stone,

but the incorporation of Rule 413 and 414 into the Federal Rules of

Evidence grant courts greater flexibility in entertaining the merits

of character testimony. The rules also mark a departure from the

preclusion against propensity or profile type evidence. For instance,

the rules now allow a federal prosecutor to rely upon propensity

evidence to prove the defendant’s guilt of sex crimes. While the

rules do not entirely obliterate previous restrictions on propensity

type or character evidence, the break with tradition signals a growing

acceptance of profile evidence in criminal prosecutions.

To combat the legal community’s reluctance to lift the bar against

admission of certain types of psychological evidence, some state

legislatures have enacted into law specific code provisions that require

the judiciary to admit expert testimony based on social behavior

science. For example, the State of Illinois has revised its

evidentiary rule to expressly allow evidence of post-traumatic stress

syndrome in criminal sex cases. The State of Missouri’s legislature

passed legislation mandating that state courts admit testimony on

the battered woman syndrome when self-defense is an issue. Ohio

lawmakers have adopted similar language to its state code to permit

“This indirect use of profile evidence

signaled the inevitable toppling of legal

resistance to behavioral science in the

courtroom.”

28 Vol. 5, Issue 1 Spring 1999

testimony on battered woman syndrome.

The fact that states are boldly engaged in the enactment of formal

rules of evidence demonstrates the confidence vested in profiling.

The assertive invasion of judicial territory also symbolizes a

drive to liberate evidentiary rules from legal technicalities that preclude

behavioral sketches as evidence.

When an opinion from the field of psychology might determine

a defendant’s fate, the courts try to substantiate the reliability of the

scientific evidence proffered. Prior to the Supreme Court’s 1993

decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, federal and

state courts applied the Frye test to decide if the scientific formula

espoused found general acceptance in the relevant scientific community.

The Frye test did not measure the soundness of a formula,

but certified that the formula in question commanded the respect of

the expert’s colleagues. Courts’ application of the Frye test to different

factual scenarios resulted in the admission of evidence on 1)

rape trauma syndrome; 2) rapist profile; 3) child abuse accommodation

syndrome; 4) battered woman syndrome; and 5) and other

types of “soft sciences.”

The Daubert decision rejected the “general acceptance” test of

Frye in favor of a scientific validity standard. In others words, the

judge must ascertain whether the reasoning and methodology underlying

an expert’s proposed testimony is scientifically valid. Undoubtedly,

this more rigorous standard imposes a troublesome burden

upon courts. Despite Daubert’s mandate that courts flex their

scientific muscle, profile evidence continues to gain admission in

criminal proceedings.

To assist the surveillance of drug

couriers, a nationally recognized profile

has been created to reasonably narrow

the field of suspects. This profile consists

of characteristics and behaviors ordinarily

exhibited by drug couriers. Federal

and state courts acknowledge the

practicality of using profiles to fight the nation’s drug epidemic,

and, where allowed as evidence, conformity to a drug courier profile

significantly amplifies the potential for a conviction.

For example, in an Eleventh Circuit case, two customs agents

explained to the jury that the defendant’s packages were examined

when his actions mirrored the classic signs of a narcotics dealer.

The defense objected to the profile evidence. The court stipulated

that the profile evidence could not be used as substantive proof of

guilt, but was admissible to clarify the performance of the customs

officers. In this case, the defendant’s similarity to a typical drug

courier induced a verdict for possession with intent to distribute.

Consider the Seventh Circuit case where the government’s proof

of intent to distribute was supported solely by circumstantial evidence.

The prosecution established that the defendant possessed a

large assortment of telephone beeper numbers. This fact was augmented

by experts who stated that drug couriers routinely retain

numerous beeper numbers. The court held expert profile testimony

could be weighed by the jury as an indicator of guilt. Again, a

resemblance to a stereotypical drug courier resulted in conviction

for possession with the intent to distribute.

Both the defense and prosecution find profile evidence helpful

in cases surrounding abuse, battery, rape, or other crimes of violence.

The prosecution may find expert testimony on a victim’s

reaction pattern to be instructive. From the prosecution’s perspective,

such testimony helps remove doubt from the jury’s mind that

the victim fabricated her story. The defense may also utilize profiling

to demonstrate that defendant’s behavior stands diametrically

opposed to the accepted demeanor of a violent criminal.

A specific instance of a court embracing an abusive profile is

found in a Delaware Supreme Court case in which it held that evidence

of child rape patterns could be admitted. The defendant argued

that the alleged behavioral model of child molestation victims

lacked broad support among the professional community. The court

rejected the argument and concluded that the doctor’s specialized

knowledge helped the jury to understand some of the victim’s actions

that initially appear inconsistent with the object of sexual

molestation.

The Delaware decision finds support among jurisdictions

throughout the nation. One court effectively articulated the basis

for admitting victim profiles:

“[T]he purported common knowledge of the jury may be very

much mistaken, an area where jurors’ logic, drawn from their own

experience, may lead to a wholly incorrect conclusion, an area where

expert knowledge would enable the jurors to disregard their prior

conclusions as being common myths rather than common knowledge.”

Rape trauma syndrome may also be admitted into evidence to

establish lack of consent or refute consenusal intercourse. Courts

allow battered child syndrome to validate that certain types of bruises

and lacerations found on the victim emanate from beatings. The

courts also consent to admitting a batterer’s profile when the accused

introduces character witnesses on his behalf.

The discovery of a murdered prostitute’s body in 1987 prompted

police in Delaware to undertake their typical homicide investigation.

The inquiry became more complicated when a year later an

arrest for the 1987 murder still had not been made, and another

prostitute was slain in a similar fashion. Several months later, yet

another prostitute was added to the list of murder victims.

In the course of the investigation, police arrested Steve Pennell

who had displayed an unusual

interest in a female police

decoy parked along the

roadside. The officers

searched his vehicle and

found a blood stain along

with other clues that suggested

the motorist had been

engaged in foul play. The

available evidence plainly

implicated Pennell in the murder of one prostitute, but the prosecution

charged him with the murders of all three women.

At Pennell’s trial, the prosecution characterized the murders as

serial killings. In order to convincingly connect Pennell with all

three murders, John Douglas, Director of the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences

Unit, was introduced as an expert on serial killers. The trial

court accepted Douglas as an expert. Douglas imparted to the jury

his understanding and knowledge of serial killers. Specifically, he

testified that all three murder victims were slain by the same person.

Douglas’ opinion was extremely detrimental to Pennell as confirmed

by his conviction on all three counts.

On Appeal to the Supreme Court of Delaware, Pennell argued

that serial killing is not a proper topic for an expert. The Delaware

court justified the admission of Douglas’ opinion because any “specialized

knowledge that will assist the trier of fact to understand the

evidence or to determine a fact in issue” may be admitted as evidence.

The court further explained that Douglas’ extensive experience

with signature crimes and crime analysis was indeed specialized,

as mandated by Rule 702, and, if accepted by the jury, could

be helpful in determining whether all three murders had been committed

by the same person.

The Pennell decision effectively demonstrates the persuasive

impact profile evidence may have on a jury. Arguably, Douglas

alone convinced the jury that Pennell was guilty of the other two

murders. In support of this supposition, consider that Pennell also

argued before the court that the prosecution lacked sufficient evidence

on the two other murders. In refuting that argument, the court

itself relied upon profile testimony to justify the ultimate verdict:

“[T]he injuries sustained by DiMauro and Ellis were so strikingly

“Why does an individual want to kill

the nation’s leader?”

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles 29

similar that there was expert testimony to the effect that they were

inflicted by the same person.” .

In an Ohio rape case, profiling yet again proves the deciding

factor in the jury’s final judgment. The State of Ohio had been

terrorized during the 1980’s by a lunatic whom the press dubbed

the West Side Rapist. When Ronny Shelton was identified and arrested

on a charge of rape, the police suspected that he might be a

perpetrator of numerous sexual assaults. Not a shred of evidence

could be uncovered to link Shelton with the other crimes. John

Douglas compensated for the scarcity of evidence by presenting a

rapist profile.

Douglas traced the various crimes to one another and helped the

jury perceive Shelton’s modus operandi. By the time Douglas completed

his testimony, little doubt remained in the jury’s mind that an

unbroken trail leading from one

crime to another ended at Shelton’s

door. The jury returned a guilty

verdict on 49 counts of rape. Douglas

not only convinced the jury, but

the judge was swayed, too, as demonstrated

by his imposition of the

maximum sentence for each crime

committed. When the judge finished,

Shelton had been given the

longest sentence in the history of

Ohio - 3,198 years.

In a story that is becoming far too familiar, Mrs. Koss returned home

late one night and was physically struck by her husband upon entering

their shared bedroom. The next thing Mrs. Koss remembered was a noise.

What Mrs. Koss had forgotten was that she had shot her husband through

the head and killed him. The police arrested Mrs. Koss for homicide.

As part of her defense, Mrs. Koss sought to introduce expert testimony

on battered woman syndrome. The court permitted expert testimony

in support of the affirmative defense of self-defense. Based on the

profile evidence depicting the emotions and reactions of a battered woman,

the jury acquitted Mrs. Koss of murder and found her guilty of manslaughter.

Reliance upon profile evidence in this case saved Mrs. Koss from

prison time that she otherwise would have served under a murder charge.

The battered woman syndrome has been accepted as evidence in a

variety of other courts and has been the key to successfully protecting the

defendant from a murder conviction.

The Bible promises that in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall

all things be established. In keeping with that tradition of validation,

three profiles prepared by three different experts have been joined together

to attain a composite of traits irrevocably affiliated with a political

assassin. These three profiles arise from essentially three areas of expertise:

1) historical precedent and examples; 2) professional profiling techniques

employed by the FBI and other law enforcement organizations;

and 3) psychological analysis of an assassin’s social distortions in the

context of his crime. In addition, a summary of historical attacks upon

US Presidents enhance the credibility of the three profile composite by

revealing assassin characteristics that correspond with the composite.

Assassination researcher Lee Davis has explored and analyzed a

diverse spectrum of political assassinations that range from the 1793 stabbing

of Jean-Paul Marata, despised member of the French National Convention,

to the 1991 slayings of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Ministers

of India. Based upon an exacting examination of the perpetrators themselves,

Davis has designated the key attributes of a political assassin.

Supporting his conclusions with a plethora of historical evidence, Davis

paints a composite portrait that captures a persistent and repetitive figuration

that merges together to create the profile of a political assassin.

Whether labeled by royalty as regicide or legally defined as homicide,

the aberrations that distinguish an assassin from a garden variety

murderer start with the selection of the crime scene. Because most killers

prefer absolute anonymity, they secretly skulk about in dark alleys. Not

the assassin. As the Davis research documents, an assassin demands an

open and public arena. A spectacle before millions is preferred, but a

generous gathering of one hundred plus people will suffice.

In a community-like forum, the

political assassin’s next step is killing

a person of prominence. The target

may be a celebrity or a political leader,

but fame and renown are indispensable

ingredients for the victim. When

unreserved pandemonium arrests the

crowd’s attention, that previously elusive

elixir known as recognition

emboldens the assassin to step forward

and proclaim his message. This

declaration of belief or purpose contributes another feature to the assassin’s

make-up. The validity of the assassin’s message is irrelevant. Because

the end-goal of a political assassination is capturing an audience, the assassin

willingly assumes the role of martyr. Hence, the killer shows more

interest in reading his manifesto than escaping the scene of the crime.

This brand of murderer insists upon taking credit for his action.

Indeed, assassins are known throughout history for brazenly seizing center

stage and assuming blame for the horrendous execution of a world

leader. Interestingly, Davis concludes that the absence of these defiant

pronouncements of guilt signals a conspiracy. Specifically referring to

Lee Harvey Oswald, Davis asserts that Oswald’s denial of guilt, in contrast

to history’s catalog of other assailants, exhibit “classic patsy behavior”

that “give credence to the theories that the supposedly one-man-onegun”

assassination of John F. Kennedy was really a conspiracy.

The following behavioral patterns synthesize the essential elements

of Davis’ assassin profile: 1) a public 2) act of violence designed to kill 3)

a noted personality 4) in order to advance the personal, political, religious

cause 5) of an individual who seeks recognition for his crime and voluntarily

confesses guilt 6) and neglects an escape plan or alibi because the

assailant is 7) resigned to his ultimate destiny of incarceration or death.

The consummate authority on profiling, John Douglas, accumulated

extensive information from interviewing celebrity stalkers and political

assassins. Based upon his highly acclaimed expertise and unparalleled

experience, Douglas has sketched a political assassin profile. The

Douglas profile proved instrumental in locating and capturing a young

man threatening Ronald Reagan after John Hinckley’s failed assassination

attempt. Thus, the Douglas profile boasts a unique distinction of

independent collaboration through its application to a real-world situation.

Douglas finds similarities between political assassins and celebrity

stalkers. He noted that both the celebrity stalker and political assassin

target a person that assumes larger-than-life proportions. He also confirms

the assassin’s need for recognition. Douglas, however, believes

that the quest for attention stems from emotional deficiencies rather than

promotion of a sacred mission, and he even suggests that the deep rooted

sense of insignificance encourages a futile effort to transfer some of his

victim’s importance to himself. “The construct of a ‘cause’ for the killing”

and a declaration of that cause are crucial features to include in an

assassin’s portrait.

“In a community-like forum, the

political assassin’s next step is

killing a person of prominence.”

30 Vol. 5, Issue 1 Spring 1999

his breast. This assaulter has simply lost his grasp on reality, and his

comprehension of execution’s consequences is so tenuous that he unwittingly

greets death without complaint.

Clarke imparts his professional judgment on voluntary confessions

by asserting that “in every instance, the exercise of power in a public

manner generates the attention that had been denied in the past.” The

public setting opens the curtains to the stage upon which a statement of

purpose or motive will manifest itself.

Interestingly, Clarke concludes that Oswald fits the description of

his second category. In order to reach this conclusion, however, Clarke

ascribed motives to Oswald that do not exist in Oswald’s personal history.

Specifically, Clarke contends that Oswald killed Kennedy “in an attempt

to establish himself as a sympathetic figure to the only significant entities,

beyond his children, in his embittered life - his wife and his revolutionary

hero, Fidel Castro.”

Clarke’s premise is fallacious because it originates from pure speculation.

Clarke does not nor can he connect such emotional needs as the

propelling force behind Oswald’s supposed assassination of Kennedy. If,

like all other political assailants, Oswald sought to awaken Marina to a

greater awareness of his worth, why did Lee Harvey Oswald keep Marina

in the dark about his aim in executing a President? He apparently declined

to express his sentiments with the written word. Otherwise Marina,

Dr. Clarke, and the people would have knowledge of such a letter.

When Marina came to visit her husband in jail, why did not Lee take her

in his arms and dedicate his daring deed to the acquisition of Marina’s

sympathy and regard. Instead, Oswald assured Marina that he had not

shot Kennedy. Neither did Oswald avail himself of the opportunities to

speak to Fidel Castro or the world in general when live television cameras

were shoved in his face.

If Clarke is correct, Oswald purposely sabotaged his plans for glory.

Aborting his original objective and abstaining from the spoils of notoriety,

Oswald inverts the core behavioral patterns ascribed to an assassin.

Clarke offers no explanation for Oswald’s non-action.

Why does an individual want to kill the nation’s leader? Thus far,

attacks upon a President have not been personalis actio - an act against the

person. Rather, the assaults have been perpetrated because of the

President’s position or to retaliate for action he undertook in his official

capacity. Assassinations in the United States have consistently been triggered

by the assassin’s belief - personal, social, religious or political.

Certainly the following synopsis of American history confirms that political

murders follow a readily identifiable pattern.

In a single leap from Abraham Lincoln’s private box, John Wilkes

Booth, brandishing a dagger, landed on the stage of Ford’s Theater

and declared to the audience assembled to see An American Cousin,

“Sic semper tyrannis! [thus ever to tyrants]. The South is avenged.”

Booth, a familiar face to theater crowds, now stood upon the

stage fearless that his famed visage would be associated with the

The Douglas profile offers a glimpse into an interior life haunted

by overwhelming inadequacy. These socially retarded beings fear communication

with other people, so to compensate for a dearth of human

discourse, they engage themselves in vivacious dialogue and spirited debate.

This internal conversation may evolve into written harangues in

journals, diaries, manifestos, or letters. The importance of such compositions

should not be overlooked for they usually reveal the rudimentary

antecedents propelling the writer towards an act of savagery.

Sometimes through the senseless and incoherent scribbling, the

narrative will reveal a hunger for public recognition so intense it expels

an energy force that propels and hurls the future assassin towards a boundless

abyss. In the midst of these rumblings, Douglas discerns the instigation

of plans leading up to an assassination. As the assassination project

evolves, the assailant gradually prepares for that day by abdicating his

freedom and resigning any hope of escape at the murder scene. The densely

scripted pages also fantasize over the accolades from an admiring crowd

with such vividness that the assassin becomes numb to the harsh realities

of captivity and prison. In the acquiescence to incarceration or death, the

assassin embraces the inevitable need to confess and assume responsibility

before the world.

Granted this type of thinking seems incongruous for a criminal.

Undoubtedly, the assassin is a rare breed of criminal. To illustrate an

assassin’s distinct and separate class among criminals, contrast the Tylenol

poisoner who, like most outlaws, committed his crime clandestinely with

a political assassin who, unlike any other lawbreaker, committed his crime

openly to satiate his craving for publicity. Every step taken seems predestined

to deliver the aggressor under the spotlight on center stage with a

supporting cast played by an inquisitive news crew and the perennially

curious multitude.

Psychiatrists raise suspicions with the average citizen simply because

an opposing psychiatrist always seems more than happy to dispute the

professional findings of another doctor. Despite a mistrust that dates back

to Freud, the assassin profile created from field of psychology by Dr.

James W. Clarke should be given full consideration.

Consulting numerous professional sources and reconstructing the

lives of various American assassins, Dr. Clarke discerned certain patterns

among political assassins. Clarke further segregates assassins into categories.

This compartmentalization is rather misleading because, in the

final analysis, all of the assassins have fixed features in common.

Clarke distinguishes the categories by analyzing subtle differences

in motivation. For example, Clarke concludes that all assassins suffer

from frustration that evolves into violence, but the source of that frustration

may stem from personal or political antecedents. If, for instance, an

assailant’s aggravation stems from an oppressive political situation -

Collazo and Torresola (Truman’s attackers) illustrate this scenario - that

individual would be distinguished from someone whose discontent emanates

from personal problems. John Hinckley may be an appropriate example

of the personal problem category.

In the midst of a meticulous dissection of the intricacies of emotional

motivations, Clarke gleans a number of solid and reliable characteristics

common to all assassins. For example, Clarke recognizes that all

assassins claim a motive for acting out their aggression. Clarke’s research

also validates that the assassin’s target must be a figure of notoriety. Clarke

found that another shared characteristic emerges from an assassin’s surrender

to a fate of inevitable capture and likely death. All assassins in

Clarke’s categories seek acknowledgment for their actions.

While Clarke believes that the mental condition of an assassin may

alter the underlying impetus for relinquishing their freedom to law enforcement

officials, the element of capitulation and confession remain a

constant behavioral pattern. For example, one assassin may submit to

electrocution as attestation of political convictions. Another assassin may

be just as willing to sacrifice his life, but no glorious belief beats within

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles 31

act of violence that had just occurred. Booth displayed no inclination

to disguise himself. As an ardent Southern sympathizer, he

was in his moment of glory.

To guarantee that full credit was afforded him Booth took no

chances that fame would rob him of his due. He recorded in his

memorandum book that “our country owed all our troubles to him

[Lincoln], and God made me the instrument of his punishment.”

Still not completely confident that he would receive proper notices

for his act of courage, Booth penned a letter to the editor of the

Washington National Intelligencer. Unfortunately that epistle no

longer exists, for Booth asked an actor friend, John Matthews, to

deliver the sealed envelope to the newspaper. Once Matthews heard

that Booth had been implicated in Lincoln’s death, he opened the

envelope. After reading Booth’s confession, Matthews feared his

possession of such a document would incriminate him, so he burned

it. Although the contents of the letter were destroyed, Matthews

conveyed the substance of Booth’s admission to the public.

Charles J. Guiteau, an itinerant preacher with

political aspirations, began appealing to President

James A. Garfield for a political appointment as

Counsul to Paris. When his importunate petitions

did not cease, the White House had him banned

from the premises. Incensed by this political bluntness,

Guiteau sought solace through prayer. While

enraptured in devotional supplication, Guiteau, according

to his later trial testimony, was visited by

God, who instructed him to save the republic and

publicize The Truth - Guiteau’s autobiography -

by executing Garfield.

Guiteau fired several shots into Garfield on Saturday, July 2,

1881 at the Baltimore and Potomac Depot. A Washington, DC policeman

wrestled the assailant to the ground. To assure the officer

of his willingness to cooperate, Guiteau said: “It’s all right. Keep

quiet, my friend. I wish to go to jail. Now Arthur is President of the

United States. I am a Stalwart of Stalwarts.”

Among Guiteau’s possessions was a copy of his autobiography,

and a speech to the American citizens in which he bequeathed his

gun to the State Department Library and granted the New York

Herald publication and serialization rights for The Truth. Attached

to these items was a note from Guiteau explaining God’s hand in

Garfield’s assassination and disclaiming monetary greed as a motive

for his actions: “I am clear in my purpose to remove the President.

Two points will be accomplished. It will save the Republic,

was not written for money. It was written to save souls. In order to

attract public attention the book needs the notice the President’s

removal will give it.”

When the President died, Guiteau wrote to Garfield’s successor,

Chester A. Arthur: “My inspiration is a God send to you & I

presume you appreciate it. . . . It raises you from a political cipher to

President of the United States . . .” Moments before the hangman

slipped a noose around his neck, Guiteau harangued the crowd with

one last dissertation on his divine calling to slay Garfield.

In the late 1890’s and early 1900’s, Emma Goldman, an effective

agitator for American anarchy, stirred enough ferment within

an anonymous disciple, Leon Czolgosz (pronounced

“Colgosh”), to prompt the assassination

of the twenty-fifth President of the United States,

William McKinley. After his

arrest, Czolgosz told police: “I killed President

McKinley because I done my duty. I don’t believe

one man should have so much service and

another man should have none.” Czolgosz was

found guilty and sentenced to the electric chair.

Before he faced death by electrocution, Czolgosz

affirmed his manifesto for the gathered spectators:

“I killed the president because he was the

enemy of the people - the good working people.

I am not sorry for my crime.”

Theodore Roosevelt ascended to the Presidency

upon the death of William McKinley. Ironically,

Roosevelt’s means of ascension would serve as the

catalyst for a later attempt on his own life. During

the 1912 Presidential campaign, Roosevelt was in

Milwaukee, Wisconsin to deliver a speech before

a rally. Roosevelt stood up in his open automobile

to acknowledge the well-wishers when a man

stepped forward and shot him with a .38 Colt revolver.

The bullet penetrated Roosevelt’s overcoat,

a steel spectacles case, the fifty page manuscript of his speech, and

eventually lodged beneath his ribs. Dazed, but not critically

wounded, Roosevelt demanded that his assailant be brought before

him. After a penetrating examination by Roosevelt, John F. Schrank

was taken into custody.

Schrank, like Guiteau before him, had a visitation from beyond

the veil. The ghost of William McKinley appeared to Schrank and

denounced Roosevelt for complicity in his shooting. McKinley,

according to Schrank, demanded revenge and appointed Schrank as

his avenging angel.

Shortly before Franklin Roosevelt’s 1932 inauguration, Giuseppe

Zangara fired five shots at the president-elect’s open motorcade in

Miami, Florida. Quickly arrested, Zangara assured

the police that he did not hate Roosevelt

personally, but explained that “I hate all Presidents,

no matter from what country they come,

and I hate all officials and everybody who is

rich.” While Zangara failed to even wound the

President-elect, he did hit Chicago Mayor Anton

Cermak and other bystanders. While Cermak

was on the operating table, Roosevelt visited the

other gunshot victims. Cermak died on March

6, 1933. Zangara was charged with murder and

was eventually electrocuted.

White House renovations forced the Trumans to take up residence

a short distance from the Executive Mansion at Blair House.

On November 1, 1950, Harry Truman, after a particularly contentious

meeting with the CIA, needed a rest. He retired to his private

quarters at Blair House.

Outside Blair House, Puerto Rican patriots Oscar Collazo and

Griselio Torresola rushed towards a secret service

agent, positioned beneath the front entrance

canopy, from opposite directions. What could

have been a bloody assault was foiled because

Collazo had forgotten to release his weapon’s

safety trigger. An incongruously silent pistol eked

out a tiny click against the hammer. That almost

inaudible small noise sent Collazo into a panic. A

frenzied Collazo fumbled with his revolver, but

his attempts to correct his mistake triggered a comedy

of errors that featured misfired gun that hit a

guard in the leg.

The discharge of a bullet alerted the guards

stationed within Blair House, who charged out of their assigned

posts with guns blasting. Torresola and Collazo returned fire and

wounded several secret service agents and killed Leslie Coffelt, one

of Truman’s favorite officers. In the ensuing gun battle, Torresola

was killed. Collazo wounded himself at the outset.

With his compatriot slain, Collazo bravely declared the articles of

faith upon which the Puerto Rican Nationalist movement was instituted.

Ironically, Truman, a strong supporter of Puerto Rico’s autonomy,

appointed the first native Puerto Rican as governor of the

island. When confronted with these facts, Collazo defiantly asserted

that Truman was a symbol of the system and he was attacking the

system, not the man.

32 Vol. 5, Issue 1 Spring 1999

Twice within one month, Gerald Ford was the target of failed

assassination attempts. The first occurred on September 5, 1975 in

Sacramento, California. President Ford was walking between the

Senator Hotel and the state capitol where he was scheduled to deliver

a speech against crime. Across his path stepped Lynette

“Squeaky” Fromme, who pointed a colt .45 at his stomach. “The

country is in a mess. This man is not your president,” she proclaimed

as she pulled the trigger.

“Squeaky” was flustered that her effort had been foiled and explained

that she had simply “wanted to get some attention for Charlie

and the girls.” Fromme was a follower of cult leader Charles

Manson, who was imprisoned for the grisly murder of actress Sharon

Tate and others.

The Second attempt on Ford’s life

occurred on September 22, 1975, as

he emerged from the St. Francis Hotel

in San Francisco, California. Sara

Jane Moore was situated approximately

forty feet from President Ford.

She aimed her .38-caliber Smith &

Wesson at the President and fired.

“There comes a point when the

only way you can make a statement

is to pick up a gun,” she confided to

reporters. Precisely what statement her conduct was suppose to

declare is not certain, but at no time did Moore disclaim her action.

She pleaded guilty to attempted murder and was sentenced to life in

prison.

Ronald Reagan had been in office less than three months when

John Hinckley attempted to assassinate him. Hinckley’s motivation

for attacking the President is no more bizarre than the ghost of

a martyred president demanding vengeance, but Hinckley’s obsessive

attraction for a Hollywood movie star - Jodie

Foster - was rich in irony due to Reagan’s career

in Hollywood as a professional actor.

Hinckley had fallen in love with the child actress

Jodie Foster when she portrayed a 12-yearold

Foster ignored Hinckley’s overtures of love and

admiration. Enormously distressed by Foster’s

rejection, Hinckley was determined to gain the

attention and adoration of Jodie Foster by firing

six shots at President Reagan. Hinckley was immediately

apprehended. Prior to the shooting,

Hinckley wrote one last love letter to Jodie Foster

in which he swore his allegiance to her and as proof of his devotion

he would kill the President. After being sentenced to a mental

institution, Hinckley again iterated his motivation by describing his

action as the greatest love offering in history.

Creating a hypothetical trial for Lee Harvey Oswald is partially

justified by John Douglas, who engaged in an exhaustive study that employed

his profiling techniques to discover the true identity of Jack the

Ripper. Douglas applied the “same rules and strictures as a current investigation

. . .” Based on his immense skill and vast experience, Douglas

surmised that Jack the Ripper was in reality Aaron Kosminski, a Polish

immigrant and frequent resident of mental asylums. Douglas acceded

that he “can’t be sure that Aaron Kosminski was the Ripper. . . But

what I can state with a high degree of confidence is that Jack the Ripper

was someone like Kosminski.”

In similar fashion, the application of profile evidence to Lee Harvey

Oswald will authenticate his assertion of innocence and condemn the

Warren Commission’s conviction without due process.

Profiling can be compromised by subjectivity,

but cautious documentation from authoritative

sources limit the likelihood of bias slanting

the outcome. To amplify the impartiality and fairness

of this analysis, a composite of four profiles

has been consulted.

A comparison between these four profiles

demonstrate a consistent repetition in an assassin’s

conduct. By assembling the assassin criteria common

to all four profiles, a reliable composite

emerges to forge an investigative tool possessed

of unparalleled probity. The combined attributes show an assassin 1) violently

attacking a 2) famous or noted person 3) in order to attract notice

and attain a national platform to 4) announce the purpose behind the violent

assault (which necessitates the assailer being apprehended and acknowledging

responsibility). Lastly, the 5) assassin anticipates capture

or death and is resigned to it.

The admissibility of profile evidence actually depends upon the

intrinsic facts and issues of each case. Thus, legal precedents and trends

in case law only permit a reasoned forecast on the probable admission.

The non-existence of a bright line rule on profile evidence precludes reliability

in predicting court rulings.

The admission of personality sketches increases in likelihood when

the defense utilizes the special evidentiary exceptions provided by the

Federal Rules of Evidence. To strengthen the odds on admission of profile

evidence in the Oswald case, the following tactics should be employed:

Federal and state rules of evidence allow admission of scientific

evidence where such will assist the jury in determining a fact in

issue. The defendant should espouse, as a defense, the existence of

a conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy. By creating conspiracy as a

factual issue, profile evidence outlining the signature aspects of a

political assassination becomes admissible on a substantive issue.

Another factual issue centers around motive. Maintaining throughout

the trial the viability of factual issues to which profile evidence

might be relevant preserves the avenue through which profile evidence

can find admission.

The expert presenting the profile evidence must qualify by knowledge,

skill, experience, or training. Psychological profiles of political

assassins must be offered by a bona fide psychiatrist, criminologist or

someone with similar professional distinction in the field of behavioral

science.

Careful attention should be afforded the selection of venue.

Some critics discard tentative conclusions or calculated guesses as

unreliable and the product of a lazy mind. Some proponents of the fertile

hypothesis assert that such theoretical thinking accounts for the very knowledge

that has stimulated progress. Regardless of which school the reader

belongs, speculation on the capacity of profiling to manipulate an Oswald

verdict is simply that - speculation. A definitive answer remains elusive.

Nevertheless, certain incontrovertible facts establish a compelling

case for profiling obstructing any jury from rendering a guilty verdict.

Consider that juries today are obviously influenced by profile testimony.

Defendants have been exonerated and convicted by profile testimony.

Numerous legal precedents support introduction of profile testimony. A

competent presentation of the core components constituting an assassin’s

personality sketch effectively exculpates Oswald because his conduct following

his arrest on November 22nd fails to match a single trait identified

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles 33

by the four profile composite. Non-conformity to the assassin profile

also betrays the prosecution’s greatest weakness - absence of motive.

The most important element in any criminal proceeding and a feature

identified as an undeviating attribute of a political assassin is the

identification of the criminal’s purpose in violating the law. Motive, an

integral, indeed critical, factor for the prosecutor’s case, contributes to

courts and juries that piece of the puzzle that unfolds the rationalization

adopted by the criminal for committing an offense. John Douglas assures

his reader that “all crimes have a motive, all crimes make sense according

to some logic, though that logic may be a strictly internal one with no

relationship to any “objective” logic.” The prosecutor’s key to a conviction

remains inextricably entangled with selling the alleged motive to a

jury. Without that logical link with a crime, the case is fatally flawed, and

the jury remains shrouded in mystery.

hidden: “Look always on the motive, not the deed, The Shadow of

Shadows on the deed alone.” Certainly a variety of incentives propelled

assailants to attack American presidents,

yet the diversity in motive does not alleviate

the common denominator that

binds them all together - a bold statement

of purpose. Regardless of whether

the design behind their rash and violent

act is imperceptible, unreasonable, obscure,

or insensible, political assassins

articulate their intentions. They could

never be fulfilled by secretly disclosing

their diabolical deed to an intimate associate.

Political assassins yearn for a prominent platform, megaphones

if accessible, to present their explanation for altering history.

Many motives have been assigned to Oswald, but assignment, particularly

by conjecture, of a plausible motive cannot withstand scrutiny.

The motive must come from the assailant himself either verbally or in

writing. Oswald was subjected to hours of police grilling, yet at no time

during that interrogation did Oswald volunteer information even remotely

resembling a confession. Nor were those with Oswald able to coerce a

profession of guilt out of him. He was paraded in front of live television

cameras. International news coverage is the most high-profile forum ever

offered to a presidential assailant. Yet no proclamations were barked into

the staring lens of countless cameras. Instead, Oswald insisted upon his

innocence. “I emphatically deny these charges,” he shouted to reporters.

The unavoidable truth is that Oswald’s behavior does not fit the profile

of a political assassin. By failing to conform to the modus operandi of

past presidential assailants and international assassins, he defies the standard

classification of a political assassin. Oswald cannot legitimately be

classified as a political assassin. Carefully apply the profile features to

Oswald. First, Oswald did not openly shoot Kennedy. The gunman were

obscured.

Second, Oswald never at any time or place articulated a rationale for

killing the President of the United States. One of the essential elements in

establishing a prima facie case for political murder is a public declaration

of the perpetrator’s motive and purpose. Without a proclamation of

purpose or advancement of a cause, Kennedy’s murder lacks another quintessential

element of a political assassination. The death of a leader cannot

be labeled a political murder when an annunciation of purpose is absent.

The omission of a declared purpose also invalidates Oswald as a

candidate for political assassin.

Third, Oswald’s refusal to acknowledge any wrongdoing is far too

significant to be ignored. The lack of any confession is not merely a

distinction from all other Presidential assassination cases, before or since

Kennedy, it is an unprecedented break in the pattern of history. The poet

T.S. Eliot wrote that “history is a pattern.” History most definitely has a

pattern. Assuredly the role assigned to Lee Harvey Oswald by the Warren

Commission was meant to fit the pattern of other crazed American political

assassins. Oswald’s verbal refutation of allegations that he killed

Kennedy, however, clashes with the rhythm and flow of that pattern. When

the pattern of history is disrupted, a reevaluation is merited in order to

learn whether some unique variable modifies or explains the interruption

in consistency. Arnold Toynbee’s conviction that “there must be some

common element of regularity in human nature” further supports suspicion

when the pattern of predictable behavior is broken. As emphasized

again and again, not only did Oswald not confess, he insisted on his innocence.

Fifth, Oswald does not appear to be a person who graciously embraced

his fate and resigned himself to the death chair or life imprisonment.

Oswald showed definite signs of interest in the outcome of his

case. He plead before television cameras for legal counsel to come forward

to assist him. Oswald’s request for an attorney displays his fighting

spirit, not a quiet submission to fate as exhibited by other political assassins.

In reality, the only operable explanation tendered thus far is the

one Oswald himself provided: “I’m just a patsy.” Many resist such an

epilogue because its spells conspiracy.

Lee Harvey Oswald was denied

a trial in 1963. Had Oswald

survived Jack Ruby’s attack to face

charges of homicide, profiling evidence

would not have been available

in 1963 and 1964. Today, however,

the judiciary in virtually every jurisdiction in the United States has

resorted to the use of profile evidence in one form or another. Thus, in a

hypothetical trail of Lee Harvey Oswald today, profiling could join his

defense arsenal. Some may sneer at the mention of a theoretical day of

judgment and ask, “What difference does it make? He’s dead!” John

Douglas challenges these cynics. Perhaps as a rationale for devoting his

time and aptitude to solving the mystery of Jack the Ripper, Douglas reminds

his reader that “sometimes the Dragon wins.” In other words, sometimes

people get away with murder. By using the advantages of his profiling

expertise, Douglas reached back in time and identified with reasonable

certainty the real Jack the Ripper. By snatching away the Ripper’s

cloak of secrecy and exposing him as a brutal murderer, Jack the Ripper

did not, after all , get away with murder. From history’s seemingly eternal

vantage point, a promise looms on future’s horizon that the mysteries

that perplex us today may eventually be resolved.

As the debate rages on about Oswald’s guilt or innocence, profile

evidence can absolve him of Kennedy’s slaying. And by proving that

Oswald was not a lone gunman, the Dragon has been denied his scapegoat.

Without Oswald as a shield, an increased probability of detection

heightens the Dragon’s vulnerability and endangers the security of his

seclusion.

University Press, 1991), p. 112.

Drew Book/Scribner, 1997), p. 26.

Scribner, 1998), p. 252.

Drew Book/Scribner, 1997), p. 26.

5 Id.

Book/Scribner, 1995), p. 173.

7 Id. at p. 123.

Drew Book/Scribner, 1997), p. 26.

“Oswald’s refusal to acknowledge

any wrongdoing is far too

significant to be ignored.”

34 Vol. 5, Issue 1 Spring 1999

Scribner, 1995), p. 26.

10 Douglas works on the principle that behavior reflects personality and divides

the profiling process into seven steps: 1) evaluation of the criminal act; 2) evaluation

of the specifics at the crime scene or scenes; 3) analysis of the victim or victims;

4) evaluation of preliminary police reports; 5) evaluation of the medical

examiner’s autopsy protocol; 6) development of a profile with critical offender

characteristics; and 7) investigative suggestions predicated on construction of the

Lisa Drew Book/Scribner, 1997), p. 26.

Book/Scribner, 1995), p. 31.

Drew Book/Scribner, 1997), p. 251.

13 Id. at 246-255.

14 Id.

M. McLaughlin ed., 2d ed., 1977), 401.08[10].

16 Mark J. Kadish, “The Drug Courier Profile: In Planes, Trains, and Automobiles;

760 (Feb. 1997).

17 Id. at fn. 66.

18 For example, the Seventh Circuit addressed the issue of whether a drug courier

profile was relevant at trial. The court concluded that “the drug courier profile

testimony was relevant to the issue of proving the defendant’s guilt or innocence.”

19 Kadish, at 762-63.

20 Id. at 763-779.

Harvard University Press, 1977), pp. 7-8.

22 Id. at 9.

23 Id. at 9-10.

24 Id. at 9.

25 Fed. R. Evid. 413, 414.

26 Ill. Ann. Stat. ch. 725, para. 115-7.2 (Smith-Hurd Supp. 1994).

27 Mo. Ann. Stat. 563.033 (Vernon Supp. 1994).

28 Ohio Rev. Code Ann. 2901.06 (Baldwin 1993).

29 113 S. Ct. 2786 (1993).

131, 134 (N.Y. 1990).

35 Mark J. Kadish, “The Drug Courier Profile: In Planes, Trains, and Automobiles;

(1997).

36 Id. at 765- 779.

38 Id. at 553, 556.

49 Fed. Rule of Evidence 404(a).

51 Delaware Rule of Evidence 702.

52 Id. at 55.

53 Id. at 56.

Scribner, 1998), pp. 75-87.

to jury why defendant believed killing was necessary as self-defense); State v.

Kelly, 478 A.2d 364 (N.J. 1984)(expert testimony admitted to validate reasonableness

P.2d 312 (Wa. 1984)(expert testimony permittted to explain why defendant believed

she was in imminent danger at the time of the shooting.)

58 Id.

Scribner, 1998), p. 222.

60 Id. at 223.

61 Id. at 223.

New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 13-16.

63 Id.

64 Id. at 14.

65 Id. at 15.

66 Id.

67 Id. at 127.

209.

69 Id.

70 Id. at 228-229.

72 Id. at 24.

of Chicago Press, 1989), p. 49.

Co., Inc., 1970), pp. 33-36.

1968), p. 172.

76 Id. at 184.

Inc., 1992), p. 530.

812.

Time Life Books, 1994), p. 55.

81 Id.

82 Id.

Wing Books, 1993), pp. 651-52.

Book/Scribner, 1995), p. 366.

85 Id. at 367.

Drew Book/Scribner, 1997), p. 47.

Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 234.

88 The 1997 release of Agent Hosty’s handwritten notes of the Oswald interrogation

provide further substantiation of Oswald silence regarding a motive.

Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1971), p. 144.

University Press, 1974), p. 5.

Publishers, 1992), p. 60.

Book/Scribner, 1995), p. 364 - 67.

is General Counsel to the North American

Insulation Manufacturers Association in

Virginia. Prior to joining the NAIMA, Crane

was an environmental lawyer in Washington,

D.C. and was also appointed to an attorney

position for the Appellate Section of the United

States Department of Justice's Environment and

Natural Resources Division through the Attorney

General's Honor Law Graduate Program.

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles 17

I expressed interest in a staff position with the fledgling Assassination

Records Review Board (ARRB) in October of 1995, and followed by

submitting two formal resumes (one in private sector format, and a second,

as requested, in the approved government format) in November. After

many delays, and 5 telephone interviews between individual members of

the Review Board staff in Washington, D.C. and me in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii,

where I was working at the time, I was finally offered a position as

a Senior Analyst on March 17, 1995—St. Patrick’s Day, appropriately

enough. When I reported for work on August 7, 1995, I was placed on the

Military Records Team. I was fortunate enough during my three-yearsplus

at the ARRB to participate in many medical interviews and depositions

as well as successful efforts to digitally preserve and enhance the

autopsy photographs of President Kennedy. I was also involved in modest

and inconclusive efforts to study the authenticity of the autopsy x-rays

and photographs, and in sponsorship of a major effort by a consultant

(Kodak) to examine issues surrounding the authenticity of the Zapruder

film. Due to attrition within the mid-level management structure, I was

asked to serve as the Chief Analyst for Military Records for the last year

and a half I was at the ARRB. As a result I was privileged to be at the

center of efforts to declassify crucial and fascinating Cold War records on

U.S. Vietnam and Cuba policy during the Kennedy administration.

Working on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board

was not anything like I had imagined it would be before I went to work

there. I had been cautioned repeatedly during the extensive job interview

process that the ARRB was not chartered to “solve” or “reinvestigate” the

assassination. I was further admonished

that the mandate of the JFK Act

was simply to identify, locate, and open

assassination records (to the maximum

extent allowable within the terms and

conditions of the JFK Act), and to then

transfer them to a new permanent archival

collection (The JFK Records

Collection) at the National Archives.1

As I began my work at the ARRB I was

reasonably well read in the perplexing

and conflicting evidence in the case, and I strongly believed that the evidence

demonstrated the two official versions of what had happened could

not be true, and that therefore some kind of domestic conspiracy was responsible

for the death of President Kennedy. For someone approaching

the Kennedy Assassination from my perspective, working at the ARRB

proved to be a bizarre experience.

Why ‘bizarre?’ First, because while I had assumed that even though

some, or perhaps even a majority, of staff members would not agree with

me that there had been a conspiracy, they would at least have been hired

on the basis of having some fair amount of knowledge of the case, and

would also have an interest in it. I found out I was wrong. Many staff

members didn’t give much of a damn about the case one way or another,

and were apparently hired because they had little knowledge of the case,

and it was therefore assumed they would not bring a strong ‘bias’ with

them. Others were apparently hired because they were unemployed—

just out of graduate school or law school, or in-between jobs—and could

be “low-balled” from the standpoint of salary. To be sure, they all met the

required educational requirements for the staff positions for which they

were hired, but many were not well versed in the assassination, nor did

many of my colleagues initially have much of an interest in the subject

matter. Some, to their credit, subsequently developed an interest and became

self-educated ‘experts’ within their areas of responsibility, but they

were in a minority.

Second, I found it a bizarre experience because the 5 Board Members,

with one probable exception, were unfamiliar with the multiple and

serious conflicts in the evidence in the Kennedy assassination. They demonstrated

collectively by their lack of reading and lack of study over the 4

years of the ARRB’s existence that they were not interested in ‘catching

up,’ or learning anything substantive about the case.2 Of the maximum of

25 to 28 staff members employed at any one time, generally between onethird

to one-half of the staff population

believed the Warren Commission

had come up with the right conclusions.

At any given time, between

one-half to two-thirds of the staff

daily demonstrated not only a profound

overall ignorance of the

Kennedy assassination, but a strong

prejudice against any colleagues or

independent researchers who questioned

the Warren Commission’s conclusions.

Furthermore, they embodied through their behavior an appalling

lack of curiosity, and minds closed to new ideas.

Of course, there were curious people on the staff, and there were

staff members who felt as I did. Namely, there were some staff members

who felt that there were so many conflicts in the evidence in the Kennedy

murder that there was something terribly wrong with the conclusions of

both the Warren Commission, and the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

3 But this group was in a distinct minority.

The point here is not whether Board Members and staff members

were ‘biased’ one way or the other, for surely all of us were.4 Rather, the

point is that whereas a range of approximately 75-90 per cent of the American

people polled for the past couple of decades have believed there was

a conspiracy of some kind behind the assassination of President Kennedy,

this proportionality of belief systems was not represented by the makeup

of either the staff of the ARRB, or by the composition of the Board itself.

The belief systems represented by the staff and Board Members of the

ARRB were decidedly skewed, compared to those of the general public.

Jeremy Gunn, Head of Research and Analysis on the Staff, and General

Counsel for the bulk of the ARRB’s life-span, told me many times that

none of the Board Members believed there was a conspiracy to kill President

Kennedy. Gunn repeatedly cautioned me not to discuss any con-

The Culture of the ARRB

A Behind the Scenes Look by a Former Senior Staff Member

President Clinton meets with members of the

Review Board as they present their Final Report.

“Many staff members didn’t give much of

a damn about the case one way or

another, and were apparently hired

because they had little knowledge of the

case. . .”

Doug Horne

18 Vol. 5, Issue 1 Spring 1999

spiracy theories with the Board Members, no matter how well I thought

such a hypothesis was supported by evidence. It was directly implied that

this would not only have been politically incorrect, but dangerous, as

well—and by this I mean injurious to my professional standing on the

staff.

This strong bias by the core of the ARRB structure against the likelihood

of a conspiracy, or even against consideration of the possibility of a

conspiracy, sprang from two sources, in my opinion. First, the Board

Members themselves were nominated by professional societies5—the

conservative elites of academia that by their very nature always tend to

support the status quo, stability, and are part of the ‘establishment.’ [Any

study of the history of science, for example, readily reveals that the established

leaders of any given generation of the scientific ‘establishment’

rarely entertain radically new ideas with grace, and are extremely resistant

to new concepts that challenge the current orthodoxy established as

the ‘mainstream’ school of thought. More on this later.]

Second, the person chosen to serve as the founding Executive Director

of the staff, who had total control over staff hiring, was surely chosen

not only because of his worthy experience

as an archivist, administrator, and

historian, but also because his belief systems

were compatible with those of the

Board Members whom he would be

serving. For example, whereas I admittedly

came to the Kennedy assassination

Marwell, the founding Executive Director,

was not bashful about openly stating

this work as a simplistically written, sometimes inaccurately researched

apologia for the Warren Commission’s basic findings (‘old wine’ in a ‘new

bottle’). However, to David Marwell’s credit, he ultimately decided to

hire me to work on the staff, even though he knew that, contrary to his

own beliefs, I was persuaded that a domestic conspiracy was responsible

for the assassination of President Kennedy. (David Marwell and Jeremy

Gunn both stated on a number of occasions that they felt a wide divergence

of views on the staff was healthy.) I was in a distinct minority,

however.

At the time I joined the staff in August of 1995, I estimate that there

were only three other staff members, out of approximately 28, who were

widely read in the evidence of the case. Therefore, only about four people

out of twenty-eight on the staff had an open mind to the possibility of

conspiracy at the time they began employment. A handful of others—a

minority—became widely read in their areas of expertise over time. I

came to notice that the more widely read one became in the details of the

evidence, the more awareness one developed in how complex the Kennedy

assassination truly was, and about how few certainties there truly were in

this murder.

None of this means that there was any conspiracy at the ARRB to

hide the truth or suppress evidence in the Kennedy assassination. I never

saw any evidence that there was. Nor do I believe there was any such

conspiracy or cover-up at the ARRB. What it does mean is that anyone on

the staff who wanted to pursue any ‘quasi-investigative’ leads, or pursue

anything that smacked of ‘reinvestigation,’ was bucking against the current.

To continue the analogy discussed above, major paradigm shifts in

belief systems within mainstream elites generally are not originated by

the leadership of those elites. Rather, major paradigm shifts are almost

always proposed by ‘loners’ viewed as ‘mavericks’ within their own communities,

and are initially viewed as ‘heresy’ by the establishment before

being accepted by subsequent, new generations as the ‘new orthodoxy.’

The ‘old orthodoxy’ still defended by most of the mainstream historical

and establishment media elites in the United States are the Warren

Commission’s findings, and its bastard offspring, the HSCA report.6

Not only did the JFK Records Act timidly not empower the Review

Board to reinvestigate the assassination or reach conclusions, but the consensus

among both the Board Members and the majority of the staff was

that there was nothing out there to compel a reinvestigation anyway.

Anytime a staff member (such as myself) would propose that some investigative,

or re-investigative lead be followed-up on, it was an uphill fight

from the get-go. Such efforts had to be carefully couched with justifications

such as, “we are only trying to clarify the record”. (This was often

true, by the way.) These ‘clarification’ efforts had to be pursued incrementally,

in a piecemeal fashion, without expending too much at any one

time in the way of limited staff resources—resources that were officially

to be used only to identify, locate, review, open, and transfer assassination

records to the National Archives.

A good example of ‘limited reinvestigation’ at the ARRB was what I

came to call our efforts to ‘expand and clarify’ the medical record of President

Kennedy’s assassination. Jeremy Gunn and I had to obtain incremental

approval for each step that involved obtaining testimony under

oath—the 5 Board Members had to formally approve all depositions by a

majority vote. (Unsworn staff interviews

of witnesses, thankfully,

did not have to be approved by the

Board Members.) In the culture in

which we were working, presentation

to the Board of any kind of a

‘master plan’ for what looked like a

reinvestigation of the medical evidence

would not have been acceptable

in an environment where the

emphasis was on the search for existing

records.

So, for example, the first step taken by the staff with the Board in the

medical evidence area was a modest one—getting permission to depose

JFK autopsy pathologists James J. Humes and “J” Thornton Boswell, two

of the three pathologists at President Kennedy’s autopsy. Jeremy Gunn

approached David Marwell with the proposal and the rationale supporting

it.

Once David Marwell was persuaded the project was worthwhile and

could be supported within the structure of the Board’s mandate, it was up

to him to propose it to the Board Members and solicit a formal vote on

whether or not to depose the two former Navy pathologists.

I vividly remember the day of a Board meeting in the autumn of

1995 when Jeremy Gunn came to me, with his eyes lit up with excitement,

to tell me that the Board Members had just voted to allow the staff

to depose Drs. Humes and Boswell. It really was great news. I remember,

however, saying to Jeremy on that day, “That’s great, but I think we

should do the Dallas treating physicians first, don’t you, and then the

autopsy pathologists?” As a harbinger of weaknesses in our process and

methodology, Jeremy gave me what became his stock answer on this question

for the next two-and-one-half years: “Let’s wait until later. Maybe

we’ll have an opportunity to depose the Dallas doctors after we finish

with the autopsy pathologists. We can easily justify deposing the autopsy

pathologists now because they created so many official records central to

the case that require clarification. I would love to do the Dallas doctors

too, but let’s just wait until the appropriate time,” or words very similar to

these.

In this case, though, as in later efforts to “expand and clarify” the

medical record, the debate wasn’t always “over” just because the Board

Members had voted to conduct a deposition. In this instance, as in others

in the future involving medical issues, the decision by the Board to take

action only stimulated debate and dissension within the staff. On this

occasion, the staff member directly responsible to Jeremy Gunn for conducting

pre-deposition research, and assembling exhibits, attempted to

halt the depositions through personal lobbying of David Marwell. He

also dragged his feet on preparations, and exhibited little enthusiasm for

the project. Rather than halting the depositions agreed to by the Board,

“The belief systems represented by the

staff and Board Members of the ARRB

were decidedly skewed, compared to

those of the general public.”

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles 19

this activity merely earned the staff member his removal from the project,

and resulted in my promotion from “number two” to “number one”

research assistant to Jeremy Gunn in the medical evidence area.

This staff member said he opposed the deposition of Humes and

Boswell primarily on “constructionist” or “legal” grounds. He said that

this activity constituted reinvestigation of the Kennedy assassination, and

he opposed it because: (1) reinvestigation of President Kennedy’s murder,

he reminded us, was not a mission empowered to the ARRB in the

JFK Act; and (2) memories were so unreliable after 34 years, that all we

would do, he feared, was unnecessarily “muddy the existing record.” But

this same staff member also thought the Warren Commission “got it right,”

and was quite vocal about visciously attacking anyone on the staff who

disagreed with this belief of his. He was a master at the use of invective

and sarcasm, and would often use the nasty rhetorical question that was

“unanswerable” to terminate a conversation, rather than debate one point

of evidence with another. As it turned out, this split between staff members

who opposed “clarification” efforts on “constructionist” or “legal”

grounds, and those who were not satisfied with the messy state of the

evidence in the case and wanted to “clarify the record” whenever possible

by asking witnesses questions under oath, continued throughout the

lifespan of the ARRB. And I cannot recall one staff member who opposed

‘clarification of the record’—i.e., admittedly creating a new assassination

record by pursuing evidentiary leads and asking a broad range of

questions, often under oath—who was not either a Warren Commission

supporter, or just plain completely bored by, and disinterested in, the whole

subject of the Kennedy assassination.

Just so that the reader understands, I was the strongest advocate on

the staff in favor of using our powers

to depose witnesses (and subpoena

them if necessary) in an attempt to

“clarify the record.” I reasoned as follows:

what harm was there in this, since

the deposition transcripts and interview

reports would simply be deposited

(without comment) in the JFK Collection

before the ARRB shut down, for

the American people to review on their

own? I knew that the medical witnesses

to the treatment of President Kennedy and Governor Connally, and President

Kennedy’s autopsy, were getting up in years, and that two of the

Dallas physicians, Drs. Shaw and Jenkins, were already deceased. Why

not question all of the surviving medical witnesses, I often asked my colleagues,

before it was impossible for anyone to do so? Each American

would be free later, on his or her own, I reasoned, to decide which testimony

was credible or incredible, accurate or inaccurate, worthy of belief

or not worthy of belief. This strategy was consistent with the whole spirit

of the JFK Act, which was to place records in the National Archives and

to make them available for review by ordinary citizens, and scholars of all

stripes, so that each person could determine individually what the evidence

meant.

Although many of these medical witnesses had indeed been interviewed

or deposed in the past, a case could be made that they were often

not asked the appropriate questions, the appropriate follow-up questions,

or enough questions. This alone, I felt, justified conducting several depositions

from among both the Dallas treating physicians, and the Bethesda

autopsy participants. Besides, the ARRB, because of its studiously neutral

role in the whole process, was the perfect candidate to conduct the

most useful depositions of assassination witnesses. Not only would many

witnesses be more likely to agree to be questioned by a neutral government

body than by a private researcher, but with all of its legal talent, the

ARRB was much more likely to conduct impartial interviews and depositions.

A private researcher with a pet theory might either consciously, or

inadvertently, ask leading questions and forget (or avoid) asking others.

To me, deciding to maximize, rather than minimize, the number of

depositions taken by the ARRB, particularly in the area of the medical

evidence, which was so replete with contradictions and inconsistencies,

was therefore a “no-brainer.” In my view, it could do no harm, and would

only leave a valuable legacy behind as the ARRB shut down its operations.

There was no guarantee that such activity would satisfy “doubting

Thomases” like me by allowing us to “solve” the assassination, but that

was not the criterion by which the success of such an effort should be

judged, I reasoned. The real reason to conduct as many depositions as

possible of important witnesses was to get their best recollections, while

under oath, on record, before they passed away. It was that simple. Figuring

out what it all meant could (and would) come later.

Fortunately, the Board Members sided with my philosophy more often

than they did with that of the nay-saying, strict “constructionists” on the

staff who didn’t want us to do anything but locate and release pre-existing

records. There was great irony in this. The same Review Board that

didn’t know the details of the evidence in the assassination very well at

all, and that (according to Jeremy Gunn) didn’t believe there was a conspiracy

to kill President Kennedy, ended up approving ten individual depositions

of personnel who participated in (or simply witnessed) the Bethesda

autopsy, and one joint deposition of some of the Dallas treating physicians.

I believe there were flaws in how some of these depositions were

conducted by General Counsel Jeremy Gunn—some quite serious—but

the point here is that over time, Executive Director David Marwell proposed

to the Review Board that the depositions of ten Bethesda autopsy

participants be taken, and that each time such a proposal was made, it was

approved by the Board Members. The result was that the Board Members

approved all 10 proposals put to them to depose Bethesda autopsy witnesses,

and thus left a priceless gift

to history. (The Board Members also

approved depositions of some of the

Dallas treating physicians, but only

in response to an intense public lobbying

campaign by a frustrated JFK

research community. This episode

will the subject of a future article.)

On the other hand, not one Board

Member attended one medical witness

deposition, and to my knowledge

not one Board Member read the transcript of any medical deposition

during the lifespan of the ARRB. (No, I’m not kidding.) I was told by an

administrative staff member that about one month prior to the ARRB’s

sunset in September 1998, 3 of the 5 Board Members, however, did suddenly

ask for photocopies of all of the medical witness deposition transcripts.

So, is the ARRB glass half-full, or half-empty, in regard to the medical

evidence? It certainly depends upon one’s perspective. In the case of

the autopsy evidence, I would submit that the glass is two-thirds full, and

only one-third empty. In the case of the Parkland Hospital treating physicians,

I believe the Board Members (although very reluctantly, and for the

wrong reasons) made the correct decision to depose some Dallas treating

physicians. However, the task was so badly bungled in execution by so

many people, that the glass in that case is almost completely empty...but

more on that later. (I will dedicate a future article solely to the subject of

the Dallas doctors joint deposition conducted by the ARRB.)

Based upon what I saw as the Military Records Team Leader for a

year-and-a-half, and based upon what I heard about the CIA, FBI and

Secret Service records reviewed by the ARRB from my staff colleagues

for three years, the Board Members’ attitude and performance in regard to

their primary task of reviewing and releasing pre-existing assassination

records that the originating agencies (or other agencies) wanted to withhold

in whole, or in part, was simply outstanding. The Board Members

aggressively pursued the opening of all records to the maximum extent

allowable under the provisions of the JFK Act, consistently upholding the

JFK Act’s “presumption of immediate disclosure” by demanding that agencies

wanting to redact (or withhold) text provide ‘clear and convincing

“. . . not one Board Member attended

one medical deposition, and. . . not one

Board Member read the transcript of any

medical deposition during the lifespan of

the ARRB.”

20 Vol. 5, Issue 1 Spring 1999

evidence that the nation would be harmed’ before agreeing to any such

redactions.7 And the Board Members were not an easy sell, either. Their

standards of proof were quite stringent, and consistently so. There were

some staff members who felt the Board was occasionally overzealous in

favor of release of what had formerly been national secrets, but they were

in a minority.

It would be the ultimate irony if some of the work of the Review

Board or its staff ended up being the catalyst that “busted” the old paradigm

of the Warren Commission’s orthodoxy in the minds of our country’s

power elites. The bipartisan consensus in Congress that led to passage of

the JFK Act in 1992 was without a doubt driven by a certainty within the

House and Senate that “the government had nothing to hide,” and that

“opening up the files” would quash unmerited speculation and paranoia

that was having a corrosive effect on faith in our government’s institutions.

One primary reason the Board Members were so aggressive in opening

records is because they felt the concept of a conspiracy in the death of

JFK was nonsense. This idea—that a body of Honorable Men such as the

Warren Commission was either dishonest, or simply “got it wrong”—was

in fact offensive to them, and they all wanted to help restore faith in American

institutions of government by releasing as many records as possible.

They felt with great certainty these releases would support the Warren

Commission’s findings, and reveal many public suspicions about the assassination

to be without foundation. Put a bit more kindly, the Board

Members understood the corrosive effect of unwarranted Cold War secrecy

on public confidence in government, and wanted to do as much as

they could to restore some faith in American institutions. They felt they

might do this by proving that a government body (such as the ARRB) was

willing and able, if properly empowered, to release former secrets to the

light of day, and public scrutiny, regardless of what those records revealed

about the subject matter at hand.

Whether what Board Member Henry Graff called “the law of

unintended consequences” will apply to the legacy of the Review Board

remains to be seen. Board Member Kermit Hall opined in September

1998, at the Review Board’s “sunset” press conference at the National

Archives, that it will be at least 10 years before the legacy of the Review

Board can begin to be properly assessed. I agree. It will take some time

to reverse the mantra of officialdom, particularly when government

officials, mainstream historians, and news organizations who missed the

“story of the century” in the first place (due to gullibility and laziness)

now have 35 years’ worth of bureaucratic and editorial turf to protect.

Perhaps, in one of the great ironies of history, the work done by the

conservative-minded, “non-investigative” Assassination Records Review

Board has begun to help shift the rudder on the ship of history that interprets

and delivers the Kennedy assassination to the American people. In

my view, that ship is already “coming about” and slowly beginning to

reverse course, but mainstream historians and the ‘respectable’ media organs

still refuse to acknowledge what the public has known for years: the

simplistic conclusions presented by the Warren Commission in 1964, and

repackaged by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1979,

are not supported by the total body of evidence in the case—and no matter

how unsatisfying it may be to say so, the assassination of President

John F. Kennedy remains an unsolved murder.

ENDNOTES

the key provisions of the JFK Act.

2 The Board Members did receive numerous staff briefings that provided

‘context’ for key documents that were being examined; but these briefings were

always quite short, and narrow in scope. I was never aware of any proposal or

program to have the staff brief the Board Members on the essential evidence in

the Kennedy assassination. I think this was a great opportunity lost. The staff

could have prepared ‘prosecutorial’ and ‘defense’ briefs on ballistics evidence,

medical evidence, acoustics evidence, and neutron activation analysis, for

example...and the Board Members could have been educated, reasonably quickly

(i.e., during the first six months), in the basic evidence of the case. Since 4 of

the 5 Board Members had full-time jobs in the outside world, and the Board

Members only met an average of 2 or 3 days per month in Washington on Review

Board business, this approach may, in retrospect, have been the only way to ‘get

the Board up to speed.’ Hindsight is always ‘20-20.’ Perhaps the biggest

impediment to this concept was that it is never safe, or politically correct, to tell

the emperor he is not wearing any clothes. I specifically proposed to Jeremy

Gunn, on more than one occasion, that the Board Members receive a ‘big medical

briefing’ to acquaint them with the conflicts in the evidence in this area, but the

idea was abhorrent to Jeremy. He said they had little patience with the conflicts

in the evidence in the JFK murder, and had demonstrated great impatience with

him on more than one occasion when he had tried to discuss ambiguity or

incongruities in the medical evidence.

3 The Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone,

killed President Kennedy. The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded

that while Lee Harvey Oswald had indeed killed President Kennedy and

had been the sole individual to wound both the President and Governor Connally,

that an additional shot (i.e., a fourth shot) had been fired from the ‘grassy knoll’

in Dealey Plaza, and had missed the occupants of the limousine, and that therefore,

there had ‘probably’ been a conspiracy.

4 I never felt that ‘biased’ was the dirty word Jeremy Gunn seemed to think it

was. He often used to state, in the way of admonishment, that certain staff

members, or researchers, were biased, and used the term with such opprobrium

that being tagged by Jeremy Gunn as ‘biased’ was tantamount to having a social

disease. [Whenever he would use this label, the clear implication seemed to be

simply means they have an opinion. If an opinion is based upon the relative

weight one gives to different evidence, and a person can suspend his opinion (or

bias) when engaged in professional activity, then there is nothing wrong with

this. In fact, this kind of self-awareness is healthy. What I believe is dangerous

is the person who thinks he is above bias, but nevertheless demonstrates that he

is biased, on a regular basis, through his statements and behaviors.

5 President Clinton nominated, for the advice and consent of the Senate, the

choices of the American Bar Association (John R. Tunheim), the American Historical

Association (Anna Kasten Nelson), the Organization of American Historians

(Kermit L. Hall), the Society of American Archivists (William L. Joyce),

and a fifth nominee recommended by the White House staff, Henry F. Graff.

The process whereby four of the above nominees were recommended by their

respective professional associations was mandated by Section 7a(4)(A) of the

the Review Board be composed of 5 Board Members, but only named four

nominating bodies, so having the White House staff nominate the fifth member

seems to have been an equitable and non-preferential way of having achieved

balance, and avoiding undue influence, or the perception of undue influence, of

any particular group on the Review Board’s activities.

6 Notable exceptions have been ABC’s 1992 “20/20” television interview of

Dr. Charles Crenshaw, and the position on the assassination taken by presidential

armor of the establishment.]

7 The only allowable reasons for the withholding of information in assassination

records were enumerated by the Congress in Section 6 of the JFK Records

Collection Act of 1992, entitled “Grounds for Postponement of Public Disclosure

reasons were (and remain): (1) threats to the defense, military operations, or

foreign relations of the U.S., (2) the release of the name of a living person who

had provided confidential information to the government in cases where the

release today of that identity would cause a substantial risk of harm to that person,

(3) the release of information that would cause an unwarranted invasion of privacy

to an individual, where that invasion of privacy is so substantial that it outweighs

the public interest in its release, (4) the public disclosure of the assassination

record would compromise the existence of an understanding of confidentiality

currently requiring protection between a government agent and a cooperating

individual or a foreign government, and public disclosure would be so harmful

that it outweighs the public interest, or (5) the public disclosure of the

assassination record would compromise protective procedures currently utilized,

and public disclosure would be so harmful that it outweighs the public interest.

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles 35

Barb Junkkarinen

It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Tens

of thousands of words have been written about the JFK autopsy

photographs, and they have been the subjects of intense study by

government panels and researchers for years. Much has been

written about alleged touch up or outright fakery of the photos

and/or the wounds they are said to depict. I have seen discussion

claiming proof that the photos were taken in separate locations

because the stripe on the towel showing in other autopsy photos

does not show in this back of the head photo, below.

Photo 1 (above) is the most familiar version of the autopsy

photo purported to show an entry wound in the cowlick of President

Kennedy’s head. Despite the autopsy report, and the autopsists

themselves who spent hours working with the body, noting an entry

wound 1” to the right and slightly above the EOP, latter day panels

decreed that this photo shows that entry wound to be in the cowlick.

Is that bloody splotch in the photo at the cowlick…and furthermore,

is it the entry wound seen by the autopsists at all?

Anyone familiar with the various on-line discussion groups

knows that I have argued against that photo depicting an entry

wound in the cowlick for years. JFK did, indeed, have a prominent

cowlick. As can be seen in any number of photos taken of him in

life, his cowlick was located on his left side. If his head were a

box, his cowlick would essentially be at the left rear corner of the

box where top and back of box meet. Apologists will argue that

“the cowlick” means the typical cowlick area in general, not JFK’s

cowlick location specifically. Okay, I am open to that, the general

cowlick area would be anywhere along that line on a box where

top and back meet. But that isn’t what the photo shows either.

We can see gloved fingers under the scalp tissue at the top of

the photo, lifting and holding it in place. Humes and Boswell have

said that the scalp was completely loose and being held up over

the bone defect that lurked beneath. Dr. McClelland, of Parkland,

made that same observation after looking at the photos for the

NOVA television show in 1988. He noted that, “of course,” the

large hole in the rear of the head did not show in the photo because

the scalp was being held up over it. Okay, that’s reasonable. And

because they say the scalp was loose and being held up over the

back of the head, perhaps we can be somewhat forgiving in noticing

that “the wound” in the photo is obviously not right of the midline

(as reported in the autopsy protocol). And given this orientation of

the photo, we can take that and some backward flex of the neck

into account for a not quite accurate depiction of the wound on a

high/low perspective on the back of the head. But is there enough

latitude there to account for a full four-inch difference between

EOP and cowlick?

While great care must be taken in evaluating 3D objects in a

information can be gleaned by orienting this photo correctly and

making some basic observations. First, the photo must be turned

90 degrees to the left…JFK is on his side in this photo. There is no

stripe on “the towel” because the towel is not in the picture … that

is the autopsist’s shirt as can clearly be discerned in a less cropped

Note the nearly straight on perspective; look at his ear. Also

note that there is actually little backward flex in his neck. Pay

particular attention to the location of “the wound” in relation to

the top of JFK’s ear.

Over the last year, I have done what I refer to as the “string

test” on dozens of people and have challenged “cowlick supporters”

on the newsgroups to do the same. Simply take a piece of string

and run it around the back of your head from the top of one ear to

the top of the other. Make sure it is level on a horizontal plane.

Where does that string cross the back of your head in relation to

your EOP? Try it on several people. I have found that on most

people, the string crosses the back of the head just at the top of the

EOP or within 1/4 - 1/2” above it; on one person, it crossed 3/4”

Photo 1

Photo 2

36 Vol. 5, Issue 4 Winter 1999

the ears and EOP relative to the cowlick in these photos.

Now, again, look at Photo 2

and see where “the wound” falls in

relation to the top of JFK’s ear. And,

remember, loose tissue is being held

up over a void underneath. Between

that void and the loose relaxed tissue,

it is likely that that it could be pulled

up to an artificially high level, unlikely

that it would lay too low, and we can

also see in the photo that there is no

apparent slack in the scalp tissue low

down.

I contend that this autopsy

photo shows, without a doubt, that

what is purported to be “the wound”

is nowhere near what anyone would

consider to be the “cowlick area” …

on anyone.

Humes’ supposed recantation

of the location of the entry wound in the back of the head being

near the EOP has been much ballyhooed by apologists. Actually,

Humes never did that in the first place and was clearly confused

by what he was seeing in the photo. The splotch that was purported

to be an entry wound in the cowlick appeared too high to him. He

picked the white bleb at the hairline as what then must have been

the entry. He did later agree that the low white spot was no wound

and that the upper splotch must be the entry … but he never

conceded it was anywhere near the cowlick, in fact, he grumbled a

comment saying it wasn’t. The fact is that the only documentation

we have as regards statements from the autopsists on the location

of the entry in the back of the head are those in which they reaffirm

their original findings ….. 1” to the right and slightly above the

EOP.

In the same session with the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel

as Humes’ experience above, Boswell made a direct statement that

seems to have been largely overlooked. When Petty, commenting

about the splotch just off to the right of the ruler, commented, “What

is this opposite – oh, it must be, I can’t read it – but up close to the

tip of the ruler, there you are, two centimeters down –,” Boswell

replied, “That’s the posterior-inferior margin of the lacerated scalp.”

He was saying that the splotch they were calling the entry wound

wasn’t the entry at all, but was the rearmost point of a particular

tear in the scalp.

When asked by the ARRB to point out the entry wound on the

back of the head photo, Boswell was asked to measure, on the

photo, to the area he was pointing at. As denoted by the question

asked of him in response to his pointing out where the entry was,

what he pointed out, “….wound be approximately 3.5 cm at

approximately a 45-degree angle from that white spot…….And

that it’s in the direction towards the right ear.” was clearly not the

bloody splotch generally identified as the entry, nor was it a spot

visible in the photo at all. Boswell agrees with the statement just

made by the questioner, and the questioner then asks, “And the

point you are estimating that the entrance wound was located, is

that the location that was previously recorded as approximately

2.5 centimeters to the right and slightly above the external occipital

-–.“ Boswell replies, “Right.”

Boswell was noting that the entry wound was not visible in

the back of the head photo, well in keeping with that overlooked

statement he had made to the HSCA so many years before.

In Dallas last November, Doug Horne, who served on the

ARRB, shared with me that after hearing Boswell’s comments

while being deposed, they did some further computer study of

and asked Doug to reiterate what he told me in Dallas, and he has

given me permission to use his reply in its entirety. Doug’s letter

to me:

Barb,

During his ARRB deposition on Feb 13, 1996 Humes was asked

by us whether the red spot (in the “cowlick area”) or the “white spot”

(down low near the hairline) on photo # 42 [“back of the head” photo]

was the entry wound–the same choices the HSCA gave him. He

exhibited confusion when answering this question for the ARRB.

Initially he told us “the red spot”–the answer he gave the HSCA the

second time around (in 1978) during his public testimony; then, when

Jeremy probed a little bit to test the strength of his answer, Humes

changed his answer and said “the white spot” down near the hairline—

the original answer he gave the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel in

1977. His final conclusion for the ARRB, after he changed his mind,

was that the “white spot had to be it because the red spot was too

high,” or words to that effect. (I defer to the transcript, of course, for

completely accurate portrayals of what Humes said to us during his

deposition; I am going from memory here.)

[By the way, I do not consider the so-called “cowlick area” to

really be the cowlick, just because Andy Purdy characterized it as

the “cowlick” when he was working for the HSCA. I think JFK’s

cowlick was up really high, much higher than the “combed-back area”

in the autopsy photo of the back of the head. To me, it appears as if

someone has literally combed back, or parted, the hair to show the

red “lesion” for the photographer. That photograph was clearly taken

after the removal of the brain, because in the uncropped version of #

38 [“back wound photo” which includes a somewhat oblique view

of the back of the head], i.e., the transparency, the hands of two

different physicians are pulling or holding scalp in place from INSIDE

the cranium, which could only be done if the brain had been removed.

Whether it was taken during the middle of the autopsy, or after the

autopsy was completed and immediately before restorative

procedures, I do not know.]

When the ARRB deposed Boswell on Feb 26, 1996 we took a

different (i.e., better) approach with him when trying to make sense

out of the back wound photo that includes the back of the head (#

38). We asked Boswell if he saw the entry wound described in the

autopsy report ANYWHERE in that photograph. After careful

consideration, he calmly said, “no.” He identified the “red spot” as

the end of a long laceration, the white spot as some type of debris,

and said that the actual physical location of the entry wound that he

remembered would be located on transparency # 38 approximately

halfway between the “white spot” in the hairline, and the top of the

right ear! In the prints made from the transparencies you cannot see

anything in this area. However, in Rochester at Kodak’s research

lab, after transparency # 42 [the straight on photo of the back of the

head] was digitized on the world’s best scanner, the Kodak techs and

I (and later, Jeremy) looked at extreme blow-ups and enhancements

of extreme blow-ups of this area (between the white spot and the top

of the right ear) and lo and behold, there is a suggestion of a possible

puncture in this area (unclear because the hair is thick and there is

some shadow), clearly surrounded by a circular pattern of blood-

Photo 3

Kennedy Assassination Chronicles 37

spatter. This appeared to Jeremy and I to be a possible entry wound

surrounded by bloody back-spatter from the entry.

To summarize, we found photographic evidence of a possible entry

wound in photo # 42 (we used the Nov 10, 1966 Inventory List for

numbering) EXACTLY WHERE BOSWELL SAID IT REALLY

WAS ON THE BODY. You will recall that in front of the HSCA

Forensic Pathology Panel in 1977, both Humes and Boswell both

said “that’s no wound” in regard to the red spot, and somewhat

tentatively (by process of elimination, apparently) identified the white

spot as the entrance wound. After being pressured, Humes changed

his mind about what the red spot depicted in his public testimony in

1978, but clarified to the ARRB after his deposition (in writing—see

last page of transcript) that he always insisted, and still did in 1996,

that the entrance wound was low on the head, slightly to the right of

the EOP.

Later, the ARRB had Dr. Lee and Dr. DeMaio look at the enhanced

images of the possible “Boswell entrance wound” in photo # 42. Dr.

DeMaio, who was a vociferous Warren Commission supporter,

refused to consider that anything other than what the Warren

Commission concluded could have been true. He was a pretty closeminded

fellow. Dr. Lee, however, said that the enhanced area of

photo # 42 could indeed depict an entrance wound (or puncture), but

that the photo alone (without the body and better x-rays) was not

definitive.

We did not view the enlarged and enhanced images at Rochester

stereoscopically–only on a very high-quality computer monitor.

By the way, as enhanced from the transparency and magnified,

the “white spot” does NOT repeat NOT appear to be debris (fat or

brain tissue on the hair), as the HSCA said. It appears quite pink and

even red, with the substance of jellified brain tissue, and appears to

be oozing out of a puncture in the scalp near the hairline. The puncture

in the scalp even appears to be at the end of a “tunnel.” This seems to

be what is described as the entry wound in the Military Review of

January 1967!!!

Two punctures in the rear of the head???? I don’t know. That is

All such images are preserved in the Archives on JAZZ drives,

but are available for viewing only with the permission of the Kennedy

family.

_________________

Please feel free to use the above, but only if you quote it all 100%

without modification. No excerpts or paraphrasing, please!

Hope this helps,

Doug

Like the back of the head photo, one must first orient it

properly. JFK is on his side in this photo as well. From the creases

in his neck, we can tell that his head/neck is flexed back further in

this photo and that his shoulder is scrunched up a bit by the autopsist

Regardless of whether or not Gerald Ford relocated the wound

by changing the terminology, we can see that the wound in this

photo falls below what most would call the top of the

shoulder….where one would lay their hand to pat or tap someone

on the top of their shoulder, where one in that sort of uniform

would wear an epaulet. That in itself tells us something

to the top of the shoulder where one would pat, tap or wear an

epaulet. Also note that all of T1 and a good portion of T2 are

suprascapular, that is, above the shoulder blade.

According to the autopsists, the entry wound in JFK’s back

was measured to be 14 cm below the mastoid process and 14 cm

from the tip of the acromion

process. Neither of these are

fixed, unmovable points on the

flexing the neck backwards has

a profound effect on where 14

cm from the mastoid process will

fall. In this photo, without having

taken the ruler away from the

mastoid process between

measurements, it made over a 2”

difference. Likewise, 14 cm from

the tip of the acromion process

would vary with shoulder

position, but that particular

measurement has an additional

problem.

Researcher Bill Hamley

expressed puzzlement about that

measurement to me a couple of

years ago. He noted that 14 cm from the tip of the acromion process,

no matter which way one measured from that point, would not

seem to be

s u f f i c i e n t

distance on an

adult male to

reach a wound

1-1/2” from the

spine as the

H S C A

determined this

wound did. So,

Bill wrote to Dr.

Humes and

asked him if the

distance from

the acromion

process to the

wound was,

“ m e a s u r e d

Photo 4

Photo 5

Chart 1

38 Vol. 5, Issue 4 Winter 1999

In response to a newsgroup post asking me what I thought

about an evaluation done by Dr. Robert Artwohl some time

ago on the angles involved between JFK’s back and throat

wounds, I responded with the following. While the specific

situation is not applicable to the subject of this article, it does

point out the pitfalls in analyzing 3D objects in a 2D image.

I replied:

We cannot calculate what the angle was from any one

picture as Artwohl has apparently proffered.

Artwohl’s plane reference appears to be a line parallel to

the bottom of the picture. What relevance is that supposed to

have as regards the wounds on the body? His 21 degree angle

could only be relevant the way he has it set up, if the body and

camera were known to be perfectly aligned with one another.

That’s obviously not the case given the position of the body in

the picture.

When measuring angles from photographs, you are measuring

the projection of a 3D object on a 2D medium. Move

the medium and the angle relationship to the shadow changes.

You can demonstrate this by holding your index finger out as

the “line” between point A and point B. Take an index card

and place it behind your finger. Have a light source behind

you so that your finger casts a shadow onto the index card.

back, waggle one side edge closer, then the other, etc.)

behind your stationary finger. You will see the angle change.

The angle of your finger has not changed...because you are

changes relative to the edge of the card.

Without knowing the relationship between the plane of

the film and the object to be measured, the angle is meaningless.

Such an angle can be calculated from photographs, but it

requires photos of the same scale taken from different angles

with a fixed reference point common to all. A vertical scale

would need to be determined on a frontal photo and also on a

photo taken from the rear. A lateral photo is needed to determine

the thickness from front to back. Then, by using the vertical

difference between entry and exit and the thickness, one

can calculate the actual angle relative to the standard anatomical

planes.

Any angle not referenced to a standard such as the anatomical

reference planes is worthless.

Likewise, in the case presented in this article, we do not

know the angles, focal length, etc involved in taking this photo

pretty straight on; we can see that his outer ear is not being

viewed from either above or below but appears flat. But the

pitfalls as described in my response to the Artwohl evaluation

above remain a factor that has to be taken into consideration.

Photo 6

directly from the acromion process to the wound, at an angle, or

was the measurement taken in a straight line perpendicular to the

spine?” Dr. Humes actually replied! Dr. Humes highlighted, in

yellow, the words “or was the measurement taken in a straight line

perpendicular to the spine?” and initialed it. Now for the math.

Since 14 cm = 5.5”, and since we can see in the photo that the

wound is somewhat away from the spine (the HSCA determined

1-1/2”), that gives us 5.5” + 1.5” from the tip of JFK’s acromion

process to his spine. Double that for a width measurement (tip of

acromion process to tip of acromion process) and we have a 6 ft

tall, 170 pound president with a shoulder span of 14”. Doesn’t

sound likely, does it? My 5’2”, 120 pound son measures 14” from

tip of acromion to tip of acromion. Measurements on the average

sized adult males I have attacked with tape measure in hand yield

falls quite short of 1-1/2 inches from the spine on an adult male …

the gap in this photo is 2.7”. I encourage readers to try these

measurements themselves, but be very careful to measure from

the tip of the acromion … not the outside edge of the arm. Refer to

the “bones” chart to see how to locate the tip … and it can easily

be felt on the top of a person’s shoulder. If you have your finger on

the tip of their acromion process and have them gently swing their

arm, you should not feel the bone under your finger move. Kudos

to Bill Hamley for noting this problem with the measurement from

the tip of the acromion process!

Considered at face value, both the back of the head and back

wound photos yield valuable information when observed in their

proper orientation. In my opinion, there is no doubt that the splotch

proffered as the entry wound in the back of the head is a far cry

from the cowlick area. In addition, Boswell’s comments and

measurements in front of the ARRB, and the further study of the

transparency done by the ARRB, casts doubt on that splotch actually

being the entry wound at all. The back wound photo does not

anatomically show a wound at or above T1, and the 14 cm

measurement from the tip of the acromion process appears to make

no sense at all. In addition, in his comments on the back wound

photo to the ARRB, Boswell seems to identify the second spot

down in the photo as the back wound entry … not the top spot!

Now there is fodder for another article!

All HSCA/ Forensic Pathology Panel references can be found

in HSCA Volume 7. In meeting with the panel, comments by both

Humes and Boswell that pertain to the issues raised appear in more

than one location. I encourage readers to read it all. ARRB

references can be found in the transcript of Boswell’s deposition

to the ARRB.

Barb Junkkarinen

has been studying the assassination since 1980. She became

active in the research community and online in 1994. Her clinical

laboratory background makes the medical evidence a natural as

her main interest and focus.

The Assassination Chronicles Summer 1997 33

JFK assassination eye-witnesses, including the observations of at least one

Secret Service man in Dealey Plaza and several FBI agents present at the Bethesda

autopsy, placed the president's back wound exactly where the mute testimony of the

president's jacket and shirt indicated the wound was: six inches below the collar line.

The signed Naval autopsy sheet, including the placement and description of the back

wound, was verified by Admiral George Gregory Burkley, personal physician to the

president who directed the autopsy at Bathesda. Burkley filled out and signed John

F. Kennedy's official death certificate on November 23rd, 1963. He verified the

location of the back wound and signed the Kennedy autopsy sheet at Bethesda on

November 24th. That death certificate revealed the back wound to be, in the

Admiral's own words, at the president's "third thoracic vertebra."

The neck has seven CERVICAL vertebrae, and this observed and verified

wound was described as three THORACIC vertebrae lower than the neck itself

(photo 1). A wound in the back, exactly where the official autopsy sheet and the coat

34 JFK Lancer Productions & Publications

The Assassination Chronicles Summer 1997 35

WASHINGTON POST 7/3/97

As a member of the Warren Commission that investigated the 1963 assassination of President John F.

Kennedy, Gerald R. Ford suggested that the panel change its initial description of the bullet wound in Kennedy‘s

back to place it higher up in his body.

This change may have been intended to support the controversial theory that a single bullet struck Kennedy

from behind, exited his neck and then wounded Texas Gov. John Connally. The Warren Commission relied on it

heavily in concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald was Kennedy’s lone assassin, firing from the Texas School Book

Depository, above and behind the president

Ford’s handwritten editing, revealed in newly disclosed papers kept by the commission’s general counsel,

was accepted with a slight change.

The initial draft of the report stated: “A bullet had entered his (Kennedy’s) back at a point slightly below the

shoulder to the right of the spine.” Ford wanted it to read: “A bullet had entered the back of his neck slightly to

the right of the spine.”

The final report said: "A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of his spine."

"A small change", said Ford on Wednesday, one intended to clarify meaning, not alter history. "My changes

had nothing to do with a conspiracy theory," he said. "My changes were only an attempt to be more precise."

Harold Weisberg, a longtime critic of the Warren Commission's work, said: “What Ford is doing is trying to

make the single bullet theory more tenable. The official story is that the bullet hit no bone, but it did. They are

trying to make it seem that the bullet traveled downward, but it didn't." Weisberg and others have long held that

the wound in the front of Kennedy’s neck was an entry wound, not an exit wound.

A forensic pathology panel assembled by the House Assassinations Committee In the late 1970s concluded

otherwise, holding by an 8 to 1 vote that Kennedy was struck by only two bullets, each of which entered from the

rear. The panel found that one bullet "entered in the upper right of the back and exited from the front of the

throat” and the second, fatal shot “entered in the right rear of the head."

The papers showing Ford’s editing were made public by the Assassinations Records Review Board.

The document, a memorandum from McCloy to the Commission's chief counsel, J. Lee Rankin, contained a

critique of a draft of the Commission's final report. "I think too much effort is expended on attempting to prove

that the first bullet, which hit the president, was also responsible for all of Connally's wounds," McCloy wrote.

"The evidence against this is not fully stated." He added that a section of the report dealing with the possibility of

shots being fired at Kennedy's motorcade from an overpass was "not well done."

McCloy also questioned the Commission's account of a bullet found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital,

where Kennedy and Connally were taken after being shot. "The statement concerning the bullet which was found

on the stretcher is not particularly persuasive because there is no indication that the 'stretcher bullet' was in fact

the bullet which caused the [Connally] wrist wound," he wrote.

This is the second time in as many months that revelations about the inner workings of the Warren Commission

have worked against its official conclusions. The Dallas Morning News reported in July former President and

last surviving Commission member Gerald Ford edited a key sentence about a bullet that entered JFK's body. That

(photo 3) and shirt photo 4) placed it. Warren Commissioner Gerald Ford was one of the key people responsible

36 JFK Lancer Productions & Publications

A Warren Commission member expressed serious reservations about one of the panel's more

controversial conclusions, the theory that a single shot hit President Kennedy and Texas Gov. John

Connally, a long-secret document was revealed. The "magic bullet" theory was essential to the

commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone assassin.

Marked "confidential," the released document was a memorandum sent by commission member

John J. McCloy to the commission's chief counsel, J. Lee Rakin.It was dated June 24, 1964,

seven months after Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, and conveyed McCloy's critique of a draft of

the final Warren Commission Report.

Elsewhere, McCloy questions the commission's account that a bullet found on a stretcher at

Dallas' Parkland Hospital where Kennedy and Collaly were treated after being shot -- was the

"magic bullet."

The document recently released by the U.S. Assassination Records Review Board -- which

screens Kennedy assassination documents and releases those that will not endanger national security

-- also contains many other suggestions by McCloy on revising the draft report. Some of those

suggestions were adopted by the commission. But the commission did not revise the sections dealing

with the "magic bullet" theory. Nor did it revise other sections criticized by McCloy, dealing

The document recently released by the U.S. Assassination Records Review Board also contains

many other suggestions by McCloy on revising the draft report.

edit to the Warren Report, critics said, resulted in wording suggesting a bullet hit Kennedy

higher than it really did.

The SBT is central to the Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald alone fired

the shots that killed Kennedy and wounded Connally. The Commission declared there was

time for Oswald to fire no more than three shots and that he did, in fact, fire three times. One

shot was said to have missed the presidential limousine entirely. A second -- the fatal bullet --

was said to have struck Kennedy in the back of the head. That left just one more bullet, which

spawned the hotly-disputed SBT. The Commission said this bullet hit Kennedy in the lower

part of the back of his neck and went on to cause wounds to Connally's back, right wrist, and left thigh.

If the Commission had concluded separate bullets had struck Kennedy and Connally, it would have been

forced to conclude there was a fourth bullet. And since there had not been time for more than three shots, it would

have meant there was a second gunman.

The document was released recently by the Assassination Records Review Board and contains many other

suggestions by McCloy on revising the draft report. Some of those suggestions were adopted by the Commission.

But the Commission did not revise the sections dealing with the single, or "magic," bullet theory. According to

one tally, McCloy attended just 16 of 51 Warren Commission sessions and heard only 35 of 94 witnesses. He died

in 1989.

The Assassination Chronicles Summer 1997 37

©1995 by George Michael Evica

All rights reserved.

sion was quickly followed by (at least)

two later sessions concerned with a threatening

“dirty rumor”: that Lee Harvey Oswald

had been a paid asset, an “informer,” for the FBI.

Afterward, having been once-burned dealing with this topic,

the Commission (or at least its chair Chief Justice Earl Warren)

apparently intended to avoid any future backdraft as the Commission

faced four months of testimony often touching on that

same “dirty rumor.”

The fifth volume (5 H) of the Warren Commission’s 26

volumes of material is central to the topic of Oswald's possible

participation in U.S. intelligence activities. In Washington, Dallas,

and elsewhere, from May 6th, 1964, through September

6th, 1964, the Commission listened to representatives of the

FBI, including J. Edgar Hoover; the U.S. Army (on wound ballistics);

the CIA, including its Director and its Deputy Director

for Plans; Texas law enforcement officers on the state, county,

and city levels; the U.S. State Department, including the Secretary

of State; the Secret Service, including its Chief, James J. Rowley; and the Treasury Department, including

Treasury Secretary C. Douglas Dillon. The Commission also took testimony from Mark Lane, asked by Oswald’s

mother to represent the accused assassin; from the President of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson and

his wife; and from several prominent residents of Dallas, including Marina Oswald and Jack Ruby.

First on this distinguished list of witnesses was Alan Belmont, Assistant Director of the FBI, who testified

in Washington on May 6th, 1964. (5H 1-32)

After some preliminary questions and comments, Commission member Allan Dulles began the more serious

inquiry, asking Belmont about teletype operations connecting FBI offices; Dulles’ specific example was,

appropriately for an Oswald focus, the link between the New Orleans and Dallas FBI offices. (5 H 3)

Commission member John J. McCloy, also adopting an Oswald focus, asked about U.S. “defections: to the

Soviet Union. (5 H 4) Both McCloy and Dulles questioned whether the so-called Oswald FBI file had been

“closed” or “open.” (5 H-6) Within a half-hour of Alan Belmont being sworn in, two Commission members (for

whatever their reasons) had begun to explore important issues in the Oswald “dirty rumor” story.

Samuel A. Stern, Warren Commission staff assistant counsel, referred to an April 6th, 1964, FBI letter

prepared and reviewed by Belmont (signed by FBI Director Hoover) and sent to J. Lee Rankin, Chief Counsel of

the Warren Commission. (5H 6) Though its contents were not given at that moment in Belmont's testimony, the

letter did indeed summarize (according to the Bureau) the FBI's relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald. (5H 11)

The letter, dated May 4th, 1964, reportedly answered

“...a number of questions which the Commission posed

to the FBI." (5H 6). The letter, a response to a meeting

on May 4th, 1964, between Warren Commission staff

members and Belmont, briefly described 69 items contained

in the FBI's Oswald file. (17 H [CE 834] 804-

813). Earlier, the Warren Commission had written a

letter to the FBI

(dated March 26th,

1964) inquiring about

the FBI's knowledge

of Lee Harvey Oswald

before November

22nd, 1963; the

Bureau’s replies to the

Commission's thirty

questions posed by its

staff were delivered in

an FBI letter (dated

April 6th, 1964) with

a separate cover letter

signed by Director

Hoover; many of the

W a r r e n

Commission’s questions

asked for information

bearing directly

on the Oswald-as-agent question. (17H [CE 833]

787-803)

Earlier in the session, Commission Staff Assistant

Counsel Stern had established the Commission’s

primary focus: Lee Harvey Oswald. Belmont had commented:

“As the individual in charge of all investigative

operations, [I am responsible for] the Lee Harvey

Oswald investigation..., the same as any other investigative

case in the Bureau.” (5H 4)

Stern soon arrived at the hearing's crucial point:

Belmont’s “...examination of the investigation...of the

nature of the FBI interest in Oswald.” (5 H 6) Clearly,

Stern wished to examine through Belmont the key issue

of Oswald's rumored intelligence links. But Warren

interrupted Stern twice (5H 6, 7), attempting to shut

off Stern early in the session. (5H 7) In this exchange

(and later exchanges involving Rankin), apparently the

Warren Commission counsel (Rankin and Stern) and

Earl Warren demonstrated

quite different

agendas relative

to Lee Harvey Oswald

and U.S. intelligence.

But despite

Warren's objections,

Stern persisted in

exploring the Osw

a l d - a s - a g e n t

theme, querying

Belmont about both

the FBI's domestic

intelligence and

identification divisions

(on defection,

on Oswald's Marine

fingerprints, on

Oswald's correspondence,

and on the Albert Schweitzer College puzzle:

(5H 7). Though neither Stern nor any Commission

member (nor later, any Commission counsel) reportedly

pursued the topic, Stern elicited from Belmont that

the FBI had "set up" certain "connections with the State

Department passport file" on Oswald's (undefined) "activities"

and on Oswald's “...dealing with the [U.S.]

Embassy in Moscow.” (5H 7)

Belmont further asserted that the FBI had no interest

in Oswald when he returned from the Soviet

Union (5 H 8) and that Oswald was “not known” to be

connected to FBI “sources” in New Orleans (5 H 9)

Despite Warren’s interruptions and objections,

Stern (on behalf of Rankin and his Commission counsel

and staff) had been able to begin exploring hints of

Oswald’s possible intelligence connections.

Stern now introduced the Belmont summary of

the “HQ” FBI file on Oswald, its cover letter to Rankin

dated May 4th, 1964, and entered into the Commission’s

evidence as CE 834 (17 H 804-813). Stern established

that Belmont at that moment was in possession of the

actual FBI file. (5 H 11)

Stern asked Belmont about “...materials in that

[Oswald] file...for security reasons you would prefer

not to disclose....” (5 H 11) Belmont responded by defining

the file’s “security” materials: “The file contains

the identity of some of our informants in subversive

movements.” (5 H 11) Commissioners Warren, McCloy,

and Dulles and Commission Counsels Stern and Rankin

(at least) must have understood that the FBI’s “informants

in subversive movements” in the so-called Oswald

file had to include New Orleans and possibly

Dallas informants who had operated in side pro-Castro

organizations and whose identities might have led directly

to evidence establishing Oswald as a U.S. intelligence

asset. Stern cautioned Belmont: “I think that is

enough, Mr. Belmont, on that.” (5 H 11)

But is was not “enough” for Commissioner

McCloy (5 H 11), whose query of Belmont elicited a

response from Warren attempting to cut off any further

questioning of Belmont on security “matters” in the

FBI's Oswald file. (5 H 11) Though he complimented

Warren on his security-conscious behavior, Belmont

indicated that his chief J. Edgar Hoover had insisted

that Belmont be of “utmost help” to the Commission.

(5 H 11)

Belmont’s testimony strongly suggested that

1. The FBI (through Belmont) and Chief Justice Earl

Warren had earlier scripted the FBI’s offer of the

so-called Oswald file to the Warren Commission

so that Warren could reject it on ”security”

grounds but that

2. Commission counsel Stern and Rankin (unaware

of this probable FBI-Warren accommodation)

were working against Warren in order to accept the

FBI's seeming offer of the file.

After Stern elicited from Belmont that the FBI

file was “...available to the Commission...” (5 H 11),

Warren countered by establishing the “...security matter”

involving identified FBI informers was contained

in that allegedly complete file. (5 H 11) Belmont verified

that fact: “This file is as it is maintained at the

Bureau with all information in it.” (5 H 11) Justice

Warren responded: “With all information in it?” (5 H

11: italics added) Belmont answered: “Yes sir; this [the

file apparently in Belmont's hands or on the table in

front of him] is the actual file.” (5 H 11: italics added)

Warren commented: “I see.” (5 H 11)

Now Chief Counsel Rankin intervened, asking

Belmont if he would indeed leave that actual file in the

Commission's possession so that “...any of the Commissioners

[could]...examine it personally...” (5 H 11)

Obviously, Rankin intended to secure the purported

entire FBI Oswald file for his Commission staff.

Belmont agreed to leave the file. (5 H 11)

But Warren immediately interrupted with a confused

statement about nonexistent “conditions” and not

wanting “...information that involves our security...” (5

H 11) How the identity of FBI informers in New Orleans

or Dallas might compromise the security of the

United States (“our security”) was never made clear.

Warren then pushed his argument further, rejecting

the possession (and therefore the assumed use) of

any sensitive intelligence documents (5 H 11), opting

for only Belmont’s testimony. This rejecting of a reportedly

full intelligence file (on the accused assassin)

and relying solely on the sworn statements of an intelligence

officer helped to establish the Warren

Commission's antipathy toward any documentation of

Oswald's suspected intelligence links.

Warren concluded his argument with a muddled

statement in favor of “open” discussion as opposed to

reading and talking about sensitive documents “in privacy.”

(5 H 12)

Rankin was now apparently willing to give up almost

all of his ground if only to be allowed to examine

the FBI file; he promised that “...the [Commission] staff

will not examine it...” (5 H 12), a statement obviously

directed at Warren rather than Belmont. But Warren

countered that reading the FBI file was “one thing”

(whatever that meant), but for him, asking Belmont

questions about his summary of the Oswald FBI was

enough. (5 H 12) Finally, Warren defined his bottomline

position: “...I really would prefer not to have a secret

file...a file that contains [security] matters of that

kind in our possession.” (5 H 12)

Rankin now had little leverage except to air the

vexing “dirty rumor,” which he strongly hinted at in

his final major argument for accepting FBI's offer of

the “HQ” Oswald file. Though his impromptu statement

was garbled, Rankin obviously wanted the FBI

Oswald file available so that the Warren Commission

could, as he said, “...be satisfied that nothing was with-

held from it [the Commission] in regard to this particular

question. That was the purpose of the inquiry.” (5 H

12) Rankin’s two phrases, “this particular question" and

"the purpose of the inquiry,” clearly pointed to the

Commission’s continuing problem: the “dirty rumor”

of Oswald’s FBI link.

Allan Dulles accepted Warren’s lead, but McCloy,

apparently now looking at a copy of the actual FBI file,

interfered, indicating Belmont's “summary” was disturbingly

not “a complete description” of the file's contents

as McCloy examined it. (5 H 12)

Warren again tried to head off objections (5 H

12), but Rankin counterattacked, articulating the Warren

Commission’s strongest argument for independent

analysis of intelligence files, concluding: “...we did

want the [Warren Commission] record in such condition

that the Commission could say in its report, ‘We

have seen everything that they have.’ I think [this file]...

is important to the case.” (5 H 13)

Further, Commissioner McCloy remained dubious,

suggesting that the Commission might miss “...the

full impact of all the narrative...” in the file's FBI reports

on Oswald. (5 H 13) Both Belmont and Warren

then argued with McCloy, telling him that the Commission

already had possession of the particular FBI

records to which he referred. (5 H 13)

Clearly, Warren was blocking any curious Commissioner

from reading through actual files and actual

documents, whether those materials were in the possession

of the staff or not. For Warren, the question

seemed to be: Where would it all end?

Rankin persisted, trying to emphasize his (and

Stern’s) argument: the Warren Commission would be

in possession of “...everything...the FBI had [on Oswald]...[;]

this is their total file...so that...nothing [is]

withheld from you as far as the FBI is concerned. That

is...what we [the staff counsel] are trying to develop

this morning...” (5 H 13: italics added)

Dulles again supported Warren, speaking to a

separate issue involving the staff, allowing Warren to

close with his argument against sharing files with nongovernment

investigators: “...the same people who

would demand that we see everything of this kind would

also demand that they be entitled to see it, and if it is

security matters[,] we can't let them see it. It has to go

back to the FBI without their scrutiny.” (5 H 13: italics

added)

But Commissioner McCloy persisted in opposing

Warren, apparently looking at Belmont’s file summary

on telegrams from “the Embassy” and “Mexico,”

key issues that later would be relevant to both the socalled

Second Oswald story and CIA manipulation of

the “Oswald” in Mexico story. (t H 14) Warren, however,

triumphed, and Stern and Warren moved to admit

only the Belmont file “summary” (CE 834) into

the record. (5 H 14) One last time, Warren emphasized

his point: “There are no security matter [detailed]

in this [summary]?” (5 H 14)

Belmont then continued his testimony, asserting

that Oswald was neither an agent nor an informant for

the FBI (5 H 14-16 and 29), speaking at length but to

no productive purpose about the FBI, the Secret Service,

cooperation, and presidential security; about

Ruby and Communism; and, at least for the FBI, about

some minor matters (5 H 16-32).

On behalf of the Warren Commission, its chairperson

Chief Justice Earl Warren had successfully refused

to accept the FBI HQ file on Lee Harvey Oswald,

ultimately relying on the unsupported statements

of U. S. intelligence officers that Lee Harvey Oswald

was not an agent (or asset) of the U.S. intelligence community.

Later, circumstantial evidence and some of the

CIA's Oswald files would be made available to the

House Select Committee on Assassinations, strongly

supporting the argument that Oswald may either have

thought he was a U.S. intelligence agent or was, indeed,

an agent or asset of--and provocateur for--any of

several U.S. intelligence services, including the FBI,

CIA, NO, ATF, and at least one Senate subcommittee

investigating weapons traffic in the United States.

With clarity and political savvy of a master spin artist, the

34-year-old widow spoke to the writer, Theodore H. White, for

four hours, urging him to tell the world -- through LIFE magazine

-- that Kennedy was truly "a man of magic," that his

presidency was truly special, that the era was, to use the words

she borrowed from a Broadway musical, "one brief shining

moment that was known as Camelot."

A year after Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' death of cancer

at 64, the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston made public Mr.

White's notes [see next article] from that Nov. 29, 1963, interview

in which the romantic Camelot myth--one that would

remain fixed in the public's mind despite ensuing revelations of

chinks in the Kennedy armor -- was born.

The newly released papers include Mr. White's handwritten

notes from the interview and the typed manuscript of the

essay -- with editing marks by Mrs. Kennedy -- that appeared in

the Dec. 6, 1963, issue of LIFE. The writer donated the papers to

the Kennedy Library in 1969, stipulating that they remain sealed

until one year after her death. Called the "Camelot documents,"

they offer another small piece of the puzzle -- another glimpse

into the mind and soul of a private woman who, even in death,

has remained a source of endless fascination and mystery to so

many.

Perhaps most important, the papers reveal the extent to

which the sad, wan, yet tearless widow had a hand in shaping

the extraordinary Kennedy legacy. "She certainly wanted to take

control of history," said presidential historian Stephen E.

Ambrose, a critic of the rose-colored portrayals of the Kennedy

years, " and in so many ways she managed to do so."

Much of the substance of the Camelot interview appeared

in the LIFE essay, "For President Kennedy: An Epilogue." The

magazine held the presses that November night, at a cost of

$30,000 an hour for overtime, while Mr. White talked with Mrs.

Kennedy. He finally dictated his story to editors form the

telephone in the Kennedy kitchen at 2 a.m., with his interview

subject hovering nearby.

Mr. White, who died in 1986, revealed many more details

was her instrument in labeling the myth." The young widow

chose Mr. White because, as he would later write, he had been

"friendly," a journalist who wrote sympathetically and

admiringly of Kennedy, especially in his Pulitzer Prize-winning

She insisted he write the essay of LIFE, one of several

magazines Mr. White wrote for, because it had chronicled the

Kennedy magic before with layouts of the couple's 1953

wedding, the inauguration, the Kennedy children and even pets.

Reaching more than 7 million readers at the time, the magazine

played a key role in creating the images of public figures.

In the interview, the first of only a handful Jacqueline

Kennedy gave soon after her husband's death, she jumps back

and forth between graphic, poignant descriptions of the assassination

day and Camelot, her theme for the Kennedy legacy -- all

of her remarks were laced with what seems like extraordinary

devotion, admiration and love for her slain husband. On the

typed manuscript for the essay, which Mr. White composed in 45

minutes in a servant's room after the lengthy interview, Mrs.

Kennedy scribbled in an additional line after the Camelot quote:

"and it will never be that way again!" At the end of the essay,

she penciled in the sentiment again: "And all she could think of

was tell people there will never be that Camelot again."

Most of her discussion of Camelot appeared in the LIFE

article with the famous line from the song quoted more accurately

and her point that "it will never be that way again"

repeated twice.

Remarkable today, but perhaps not so 32 years ago, is the

extent to which Mr. White allowed himself to be used as a

vehicle for historical interpretation. Mrs. Kennedy not only read

over the manuscript and penciled in changes, but when editors

suggested to White that he had over-played the Camelot theme,

his "collaborator," overhearing the phone conversation, shook

her head. And she prevailed. White wrote in his memoir that

Mrs. Kennedy wanted him to "rescue Jack from all these `bitter

people' who were going to write about him in history. She did

not want Jack left to the historians."

No quiet moment until now to write up the Jacqueline

Kennedy notes. Of conversation on Friday, 29, November. She

was absolutely composed when I arrived (at about 8:30 in the

driving rain; and stayed and worked until 2 a.m.; and then drove

back in a Carey limousine).

There present were: Chuck Spaulding; Franklin D.

[Roosevelt] Jr.; and Dave Powers; and Pat Lawford; and perhaps

one or two others, plus service personnel. But left it that way.

The chief memory I have is of her composure; of her

beauty (dressed in black trim slacks, beige pullover sweater, her

eyes wider than pools): and of her calm voice and total recall.

We began by sitting down on the sofa and she leaned

forward and asked (I paraphrase because it is too long ago to

recall quotes) "What shall I say? What can I do for you?" It was

more as if she were asking me for help than anything else. I

listened and offered the thought that she continue from the

fragment of conversation we had had on the telephone in which

she'd said that now journalists Arthur Krock and Merriman

Smith and all those people were going to write about him as

history; and that was not the way she wanted him remembered.

How did she want him remembered--I suggested. But she

had a series of thoughts of her own and whether she took off

from the springboard I offered I don't know. This, however, is

what my notes recall:

"I'm not going to be the `Widder Kennedy' (and make

speeches like some people who talk about their family). When

this is over I'm going to crawl into the deepest retirement there

is. I'm going to live in the place I lived with Jack; I'm going to

live in Georgetown, I'm going to live on the Cape, I'm going to

be with the Kennedys; Bobby is going to teach Johnny. He's a

little boy without a father, he's a boyish little boy, he'll need a

man. That first night Bob McNamara he said he'd buy back our

old house in Georgetown. That was the first thing I thought that

night--where will I go? I wanted my old house back. Actually

Jack had said (when he was elected) why sell it? Maybe one day

we'll go back there. But then (she's referring to the night at

Bethesda) "I thought how can I go back there to that bedroom. I

said to myself--you must never forget Jack, but you mustn't be

morbid.

"There'd been the biggest motorcade from the airport; hot;

wild--like Mexico and Vienna; the sun was so strong in our face;

I couldn't put on sunglasses and then we saw this tunnel; and I

thought if you were on the left the sun wouldn't get into your

eyes.

They were gunning the motorcycles; there were these little

backfires; there was one noise like that; I thought it was a

backfire. Then next I saw Connelly grabbing his arms and

saying `no no no nonono,' with his fist beating--then Jack turned

and I turned--all I remember was a blue gray building up ahead;

then Jack turned back, so neatly; his last expression was so neat;

he had his hand out, I could see a piece of his skull coming off;

it was flesh colored not white--he was holding out his hand--and

I can see this perfectly clean piece detaching itself from his

head; then he slumped in my lap...Then Clint Hill, he loved us,

he was the first man in the car...we all lay down in the car and I

kept saying `Jack, Jack, Jack' and someone was yelling `he's

dead he's dead.' All the ride to the hospital I kept bending over

him saying `Jack, Jack can you hear me, I love you Jack.' I kept

holding the top of his head down trying to keep the...that long

ride to the hospital...these big Texan interns kept saying `Mrs.

Kennedy you come with us,' they wanted to take me away from

him. Dave Powers came running to me, my legs my hands were

covered with his brains...when Dave Powers saw this he burst

out weeping. From here down"(here Mrs. Kennedy made a

gesture about the level of the forehead above the eyes) "his head

was so beautiful. I'd tried to hold the top of his head down,

maybe I could keep it in...I knew he was dead...

"They came trying to get me; they tried to grab me; but I

said I'm not leaving. When they carried Jack in, Hill threw his

coat over Jack's head, and I held his head to throw the coat over

it. It wasn't repulsive to me for one moment--nothing was

repulsive to me--and I was running behind this big intern, I was

running behind with the coat covering it.

"I remember this narrow corridor. I said, "I'm not going to

leave him, I'm not going to leave him, I'm not going to leave

him'...was standing outside in the corridor...in ten minutes later,

this big policeman brought me a chair...and I watched them

going in, with saline solutions, with other things...I thought

maybe he isn't dead maybe he's going to live. I always remember

when Ambassador Kennedy had his stroke Jack said, don't let

that happen to me when I go...I saw them going in and maybe he

would live...and I said to myself, `I thought: I'll take care of him

every day of his life. I'll make him happy, but I knew he was

dead'...I just wanted to be with him when he died. Doctors are so

bossy, they boss you around. I remember his operation at

Columbia when I was supposed to be with him, we promised

each other, and they took him away and I didn't see him again

for hours and hours...and I said: They're never going to keep me

away from him again.

So I saw them going in and so I thought he's still

alive...then Doc Burkeley came towards me just shaking (with

sobs)...he said, `Mrs Kennedy you need a sedative'...I said, I

want to be in there when he dies...so Burkeley forced his way

into the operating room and said, `It's her prerogative, it's her

prerogative...' and I got in, there were about forty people there.

Dr. Perry wanted to get me out. But I said `It's my husband, his

blood, his brains are all over me.' Perry is a very tall, bald man.

But some of the doctors were gentle. The priest. This priest.

They kept trying to get a priest...there was a sheet over Jack, his

foot was sticking out of the sheet, whiter than the sheet...I took

his foot and kissed it. Then I pulled back the sheet. His mouth

was so beautiful, his eyes were open. They found his hand under

the sheet, and I held his hand all the time the priest was saying

extreme unction.

"You know when he was shot. He had such a wonderful

expression on his face. You know that wonderful expression he

had when they'd ask him a question about one of the ten million

gadgets they have in a rocket; just before he's answer; he looked

puzzled; and then he slumped forward.

I saw them put him in a coffin...he was naked...I guess

they just put his little body in...Burkeley was clutching me,

shaking me. I called Kenny O'Donnell...I said, you just go to get

me in there alone before they close that coffin. When we were

married I gave him a St. Christopher's medal, like a coin clip.

But Jack loses everything. When Patrick died last summer, when

the time came that we had to put him in the coffin we had to put

something that belonged to both of us...Jack said put in the Saint

Christopher's medal...but I couldn't put this medal in because it

hadn't been with us long enough, I'd just got it for the tenth

anniversary of our marriage to replace the other one, I couldn't

put anything in. So I said to Kenny O'Donnell you've got to get

me in. By this time my gloves had stiffened with his blood. I

gave one hand to this policeman and he pulled the gloves off.

And then I went in to say goodbye: there was no one there but

Kenny O'Donnell and I and a couple of white-coated men and

females in white...but I'd pulled off my gloves...and the ring was

all blood stained...So I

put the ring on" (Jack's

finger) "and it just

went down to here"

(she points to her

finger joint)..." and

then I kissed his

hand...then I went

outside into the hall

and I said to Kenny do

you think I did the

right thing...and

Kenny said you leave

it right where it is and

Kenny said yes. He

brought me the ring

back later from the

Bethesda Hospital.

This is the closet thing I have to a memory of him--it's a

man's wedding ring" (a plain gold band that she was twisting I

think?). " He bought it in a hurry in Newport just before we were

married. It wasn't even engraved to me when he gave it to me, I

had to put the date in later.

"That baby" (Patrick) "was so beautiful. You know Jack's

Irish mystique. When we buried him" (the baby) "I asked Jack,

`Just give me something for Patrick, to remember him; so he

found this one." She held out her hand (there was a ring with

emerald chips on it);"and so I have one for Jack and one for

Patrick.

"Everytime we got off the plane that day, three times they

gave me the yellow roses of Texas. But in Dallas they gave me

red roses. I thought how funny, red roses--so all the seat was full

of blood and red roses. Dr. Burkeley brought out the two roses

and said `I want you to have one.' At Bethesda I gave him back

one-- and Dr. Burkeley said -- this is the great treasure of my

life.

But there's this one thing I wanted to say. I'm so ashamed

of myself. Jack...everything he ever quoted was Greek or

Roman...no, don't protect me now...one thing kept going through

my mind the line from a musical comedy. I kept saying to

Bobby, I've got to talk to somebody, I've got to see somebody. I

want to say this one thing. It's been almost an obsession with

me. This line from the musical comedy's been almost an

obsession with me. At night before going to bed...we had an old

Victrola. He'd play a couple of records. I'd get out of bed at night

and play it for him when it was so cold getting out of bed. It was

a song he loved, he loved `Camelot.' It was the song he loved

most at the end...on a Victrola ten years old...it's the last record,

the last side of' Camelot,' sad `Camelot.'...'don't let it be forgot

that for one brief shining moment there was Camelot.'

"When I came home I looked for it again. I wanted to say,

`There'll be other great presidents; and the Johnsons have been

simply

wonderful to

me. Do you

know what I

think of

history. The

more I used

to read of

history, the

more I

thought -- when something is written down,

does that make it history? -- the things they

say? But Jack loved history so. But history to

me was about Jack. But history made him

what he was...this lonely sick boy.

History made him what he was...he sat

and read history...scarlet fever...this little boy

in bed so much of the time...all the time he

was in bed this little boy was reading history,

was reading Marlborough, he devours the

Knights of the Round Table and he just liked

that last song...and then I thought I mustn't

think that bad way...if history made Jack that

way, made him see heroes then other little

boys will see...men are such a combination of

bad and good...and what is history going to see in this except

what Merriman Smith wrote, that bitter man...then I thought

history is what made Jack; he was such a simple man; he was so

complex too. He had that hero idealistic side but then he had that

other side, the pragmatic side; his friends were all his old

friends; he loved his Irish Mafia.

"...History..., everybody kept saying to me to put a cold

towel around my head" (and wipe the blood off: she is referring

to the swearing-in scene at the plane, when Johnson is sworn in

at the plant at Love Field and she was beside him)..."later, I saw

myself in the mirror; my whole face spattered with blood and

hair...I wiped it off with Kleenex. History. I thought no one

really wants me there" (HERE MY NOTES ARE UNREADABLE).

" Then one second later I thought, why did I wash the

blood off? I should have left it there, let them see what they've

done...If I'd just had blood and caked hair when" (they took

pictures of swearing in). "Then later I said to Bobby what's the

line between histrionics and drama. I should have kept the blood

on.

"McNamara changed the name at the Cape [Canaveral].

Jack was so interested in the Saturn booster. All I wanted was

Jack's name signed on the side of the nose of the booster

somehow no one would even notice. McNamara said that wasn't

dignified. But then he changed the name of the Cape itself so

that everything that goes to the sky goes from there.

"But I can't see changing the name of something like Sixth

Avenue [in New York City]. I don't want to go out on a Kennedy

driveway to a Kennedy airport to visit a Kennedy School -- that's

what Ethel said. And besides: I've got everything I want, I have

that flame [in Arlington National Cemetery] and I have the

Cape. Those were the only two things I cared about. I care about

the flame. Sometimes you drive across that bridge and see that

Lee mansion all lit up, that's one of the first things Caroline

learned to recognize. I wanted that flame and I wanted Cape

Kennedy. I don't care what people say. I want that flame, and I

wanted his name on just that one booster, the one that would put

us ahead of the Russians...that's all I wanted.

I'm never going to live in Europe. I'm not going to `travel

extensively.' Why that's a desecration. I'm going to bring up my

son. I want him to grow up to be a good boy. I

have no better dream for him. I want John-John

to be a fine young man. He's so interested in

planes; maybe he'll be an astronaut or just plain

John Kennedy fixing planes on the ground.

"I'm not going around accepting plaques. I

don't want medals for Jack. I don't want to be

seen by crowds. The first time I minded the

crowd was when I went out with the Irish Mafia

to the grave. The new president is interesting.

The new 1st lady is interesting -- that's who they

should be paying attention to her now.

"Caroline -- she held my hand like a

soldier, she's my helper; she's mine now. But he

(John-John) is going to belong to the men now.

Caroline asked me what kind of prayer should I

say? And I told her to say either 'Please God take

care of Daddy' or 'Please God be nice to Daddy.'"

"Let the skeptics snort about Camelot, but there was

something during the Kennedy years that was magic. Jackie was

more of that than anyone admitted for a long while. She

smoothed the rough Kennedy edges. As much as anyone in those

heady days, she grasped the epic dimensions of the adventure.

No small portion of the glamour of the Kennedy stewardship

that lives on today came from her standards of public propriety

and majesty."

NOVEMBER IN DALLAS 2000

CONFERENCE VIDEOS

• Otis (Karl) King: Dallas Events

• Anna Marie Kuhns Walko: ZR/Rifle Program and the 112th Intelligence

• Ian Griggs, Oswald and the Helinski Hotel

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• Gregory Burnham, Larry Hancock, Craig Roberts

• Carol Hewett

• Michael Bell, JFK In The Balance

• Kerry McCarthy, The Spirit of the New Frontier

• George Michael Evica

• Stephen Tyler: What Do We Know

• Stephen Roy: David Ferrie, the Man and the Myth

• Carol Hewett: A Legal Review of the Clay Shaw Trial

• Karyn Harcourt, David Mollering, Gregory Burnham

• Debra Conway: Too Many Agents on the Knoll

• Michael Parks: Altgens, Zapruder and Dealey Plaza Plats

• Noel Twyman, David Mantik, Peter Dale Scott

• Dr. Ronald C. Jones

• Rex Bradford: In Their Own Words

• Ian Griggs: Kathy Kay,

• Michael Parks: Gems from the Dallas Archives,

• Jamie Sawa: Air Force One, Then and Now

• Debra Conway and Mary Ferrell: Awards Presentation

• Debra Conway: Year in Review

• Peter Dale Scott: Banquet Address

• Jerry Rose: Banquet Closing

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