INVESTIGATION OF THE ASSASSINATION
OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY
APPENDIX TO
HEARINGS
BEFORE THE
SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS
OF THE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
NINETY-FIFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
VOLUME XI
THE WARREN COMMISSION
CIA SUPPORT TO THE WARREN COMMISSION
THE MOTORCADE
MILITARY INVESTIGATION OF THE ASSASSINATION
MARCH 1979
Printed for the use of the Select Committe on Assassinations
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 1979
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Washington, D.C. 20402
Stock No. 052-070-04981-2
Page ii
SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS
LOUIS STOKES, Ohio, Chairman
RICHARDSON PREYER, North Carolina SAMUEL L. DEVINE, Ohio
WALTER E. FAUNTROY, STEWART B. McKINNEY, Connecticut
District of Columbia CHARLES THONE, Nebraska
YVONNE BRATHWAITE BURKE, HAROLD S. SAWYER, Michigan
California
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
HAROLD E. FORD, Tennessee
FLOYD J. FITHIAN, Indiana
ROBERT W. EDGAR, Pennsylvania
Subcommittee on the Subcommittee on the
Assassination of Assassination of
Martin Luther King, Jr. John F Kennedy
WALTER E. FAUNTROY, Chairman RICHARDSON PREYER, Chairman
HAROLD E. FORD YVONNE BRATHWAITE BURKE
FLOYD J. FITHIAN CHRISTOPHER J. DODD
ROBERT W. EDGAR CHARLES THONE
STEWART B. McKINNEY HAROLD S. SAWYER
LOUIS STOKES, ex officio LOUIS STOKES, ex officio
SAMUEL L. DEVINE, ex officio SAMUEL L. DEVINE, ex officio
(II)
Contents
Page iii
CONTENTS
Page
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
The Warren Commission . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Analysis of the support provided to the Warren Commission by the Central
Intelligence Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
Politics and Presidential protection: The motorcade 505
Possible military investigation of the assassination 539
(III)
Foreword
Page v
Foreword
(1)* During the course of its investigation, the committee conducted an
extensive examination and evaluation of the Warren Commission's investigation of
1964 and final report. As the most authoritative document ever produced on the
assassination of President Kennedy, the Warren Commission report stands as the
assassination must be weighed.
(2) The committee carefully examined the work of the Warren Commission, its
structure and operations, conclusion-drawing process, and production of a final
report. This staff report is in two parts. The first addresses the operations
and performance of the Commission. The second looks at the Commission's
relationships with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central
Intelligence Agency.
(3) The Commission's report sets forth the testimony of various key members of
the Warren Commission staff, as well as those members of the Commission who were
still living at the time of the committee's investigation. The former members
and staff of the Commission have, by and large, refrained from any substantive
comment on their past work on the Commission, during the 15 years since their
investigation took place. The following staff report based primarily upon their
testimony, sets forth a review and narrative of the Commission's work by those
most familiar with it at the time.
---------------------------
(v)
The Warren Commission
Page 1
THE WARREN COMMISSION
Staff Report
of the
Select Committee on Assassinations
U.S. House of Representatives
Ninety-fifth Congress
Second Session
March 1979
(1)
Contents
Page 2
CONTENTS
Paragraph
I. Operations and procedures --------------------------------------- (4)
Creation of the Warren Commission ------------------------------- (4)
Purposes of the Warren Commission ------------------------------- (22)
Organization of the Warren Commission --------------------------- (44)
Independent investigators --------------------------------------- (59)
Communication among the staff ----------------------------------- (71)
Interaction between the Warren Commission and the staff --------- (74)
Pressures ------------------------------------------------------- (88)
II. Relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal
Bureau of Investigation:
A. Perspective of the Warren Commission:
Attitude of the Commission members ----------------- (113)
Attitude of the Commission staff ---------------------- (144)
Predispositions regarding the agencies -------------- (144)
Attitude of the staff toward the investigation ------ (152)
Initial staff impressions of the agencies ----------- (160)
Attitude of the staff during the course of the
investigation -------------------------------------- (163)
Dependence on the agencies: Staff views ------------- (183)
B. Attitude of the FBI and the CIA toward the Warren Commission:
General attitude -------------------------------------- (188)
The FBI ----------------------------------------------- (188)
The CIA ----------------------------------------------- (205)
Examples of attitudes and relationships --------------- (216)
Introduction --------------------------------------- (216)
Inadequate follow-up --the Odio-Hall incident ------ (218)
Unreasonable delays -------------------------------- (228)
Misleading testimony ------------------------------- (238)
Withheld information ------------------------------- (240)
Attachment A: The Warren Commission ---------------------------- (278)
Attachment B: Monthly progress of the Warren Commission
investigation ------------------------------------------------- (279)
Attachment C: Days worked by Warren Commission staff--1964 --(280)
Attachment D: Transcript of the executive session testimony of Arlen
Specter, W. David Slawson and Wesley Liebeler before the House Select
Committee on Assassinations, November 8, 1977 ----------------- (281)
Attachment E: Transcript of the executive session testimony of W. David
Slawson and Wesley Liebeler before the House Select Committee on
Assassinations November 15, 1977 --------------------------------- (282)
Attachment F: Transcript of the executive session testimony of Judge
Burt W. Griffin and Howard P Willens before the House Select
Committee on Assassinations November 17, 1977 --------------- (283)
Attachment G: Transcript of the executive session deposition of J. Lee Rankin by
the House Select Committee on Assassinations,
August 17, 1978 ----------------------------------------------------- (284)
Attachment H: Transcript of the depostion of Howard P. Willens by
the House Select Committee on Assassination, July 28, 1978 ---- (285)
Attachment I: Letter and attachments from Judge Burt W. Griffen
to G. Robert Blakey, November 23, 1977 --------------------------- (286)
Attachment J: Letter from Howard P. Willens to G. Robert Blakey,
December 14, 1978 ---------------------------------------------------- (287)
(2)
Operations and Procedures
Page 3
I. OPERATIONS AND PROCEDURES
CREATION OF THE WARREN COMMISSION
(4) On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated and Vice President
Johnson became President. President Johnson was immediately faced with the
problem of investigating the assassination. On November 23, 1963, J. Edgar
Hoover forwarded the results of the FBI's preliminary investigation to him. This
report detailed the evidence that indicated Lee Harvey Oswald's guilt. (1) On
November 24, 1963, Hoover telephoned Presidents Johnson aide Walter Jenkins and
stated:
The thing I am concerned about, and so is Mr. Katzenbach* is having something
issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin. Mr
Katzenbach thinks that the President might appoint a Presidential Commission of
three outstanding citizens to make a determination. I countered with a
suggestion that we make an investigative report to the Attorney General with
pictures, laboratory work, and so forth. Then the Attorney General can make the
report to the President and the President can decide whether to make it public.
I felt this was better because there are several aspects which would complicate
our foreign relations, if we followed the Presidential Commission route. (2)
(5) Former Attorney General Katzenbach told the committee* that there were a
number of factors that led to his belief that some kind of statement regarding
the absence of a conspiracy should be issued without delay. Katzenbach recalled:
I think*** speculation that there was conspiracy of various kinds was fairly
rampant, at that time particularly in the foreign press. I was reacting to that
and I think reacting to repeated calls from people in the State Department who
wanted something of that kind in an effort to quash the beliefs of some people
abroad that the silence in the face of those rumors was not to be taken as
substantiating it in some way. That is, in the face of a lot of rumors about
conspiracy, a total silence on the subject from the Government neither
confirming nor denying tended to feed those rumors. I would have liked a
statement of the kind I said, that nothing we had uncovered so far leads to
believe that there is a conspiracy, but investigation is continuing; everything
will be put out on the table.(3)
----------------------
(3)
Page 4
4
(6) Katzenbach further stated:
I had numerous reports from the Bureau of things that were going on. Again, I
cannot exactly tell you the time frame on this, but there were questions of
Oswald's visit to Russia, marriage to Marina, and the visit to Mexico City, the
question as to whether there was any connection between Ruby and Oswald, how in
hell the police could have allowed that to happen.
Those were the sorts of considerations at least that we had during that period
of time, I guess. The question as it came along as the result of all those
things was whether this was some kind of conspiracy, whether foreign powers
could be involved, whether it was a right-wing conspiracy, whether it was a
leftwing conspiracy, whether it was the right wing trying to put out the
conspiracy on the left wing or the lef wing trying to put the conspiracy on the
right wing, whatever that may have been.
There were many rumors around. There were many speculations around, all of which
were problems. (4)
(7) Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach also indicated his desire to have
"everyone know that Oswald was guilty of the President's assassination."(5) On
November 25, 1963, Katzenbach write a memorandum to Presidential aide William
Moyers in which he stated:
It is important that all of the facts surrounding President Kennedy's
assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in the United
States and abroad. That all the facts have been told and that a statement to
this effect be made now.
1. The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not
have confederates who are still at large; that the evidence was such that he
would have been convicted at trial.
* * * * * * * * * *
3. The matter has been handled thus far with neither dignity nor conviction;
facts have been mixed with rumor and speculation. We can scarcely let the world
see us totally in the image of the Dallas police when our President is murdered.
I think this objective may be satisfied and made public as soon as possible with
the completion of a thorough FBI report on Oswald and the assassination. This
may run into the difficulty of pointing to inconsistency between this report and
statements by Dallas Police offcials; but the reputation of the Bureau is such
that it may do the whole job. The only other step would be the appointment of a
Presidential commission of unimpeachable personnel to review and examine the
evidence and announce its conclusion. This has both advantages and
disadvantages. I think it can await publication of the FBI report and public
reaction to it here and abroad.
I think, however, that a statement and the facts will be
Page 5
5
made public property in an orderly and responsible way; it should be made now;
we need something to head off public speculation or congressional hearings of
the wrong sort.(6)
(8) Recalling that memorandum, Katzenbach stated:
Perhaps I am repeating myself, but everybody appeared to believe that Lee Harvey
Oswald had acted alone fairly early. There were rumors of conspiracy. Now,
either Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone or he was part of a conspiracy, one of the
two, or somebody else was involved.
If he acted alone and if that was in fact true, then the problem you had was how
do you allay all the rumors of conspiracy. If he, in fact, was part of a
conspiracy, you damned well wanted to know what the conspiracy was, who was
involved in it, and that would have given you another set of problems.
The problem that I focused on for the most part was the former one because they
kept saying he acted alone. How do you explain? You have to put all of this out
with all your explanations because you have all of these associations and all of
that is said, you put out all the facts, why you come to that conclusion. I say
this because the conclusion would have been a tremendously important conclusion
to know.
If some foreign government was behind this, that may have presented major
problems. It was of major importance to know that. I want to emphasize that both
sides had a different set of problems. If there was a conspiracy, the problem
was not rumors of conspiracy. The problem was rumors. Everything had to be gone
into.(7)
(9) On November 25, 1963--the same date as the Katzenbach memorandum President
Johnson directed the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation of all the circumstances surrounding the brutal assassination of
of President Kennedy and the murder of his alleged assassin." (8)
(10) Then, 2 days later, Senator Everett M. Dirksen proposed in Congress that
the Senate Judiciary Committee conduct a full investigation. Congressman Charles
E. Goodell proposed that a joint committee composed of seven Senators and seven
Representatives conduct an inquiry. In addition to the proposed congressional
investigations, Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr announced that a court of
inquiry, authorized by Texas law, would be established to investigate the
assassination. In his oral history, Leon Jaworski described the creation of the
Texas Court of Inquiry:
I saw Lyndon Johnson within a few days after he assumed the Presidency. Waggoner
Carr had been *** [interruption]*** heard was that naturally the
President--President Johnson--was tremendously concerned over what happened in
Dallas from the standpoint of people understanding
Page 6
6
what really happened. Here and in Europe were all kinds of speculations, you
know that this was an effort to get rid of Kennedy and put Johnson in, and a lot
of other things. So he immediately called on Waggoner Carr who was attorney
general of Texas. Waggoner Carr, follwing President Kennedy's funeral, appeared
on all the networks and made an announcement to that effect.(9)
(11) On November 29, 1963, Walter Jenkins wrote a memorandum to President
Johnson, which stated:
Abe [Fortas] has talked with Katzenbach and Katzenbach has talked with the
Attorney General. They recommend a seven man commission--two Senators, two
Congressmen, the Chief Justice, Allen Dulles, and a retired military man
(general or admiral). Katzenbach is preparing a description of how the
Commission would function***.(10)
(12) This memorandum also included a list of possible members of the Commission
and asked Johnson if they were satisfactory. This list was in fact apparently
satisfactory since all of the people noted were appointed to the Commission.
(13) Former Attorney General Katzenbach told the committee:
I doubted that anybody in the Government, Mr. Hoover or the FBI or myself or the
President or anyone else, could satisfy a lot of foreign opinion that all facts
were being revealed and that the investigation would be complete and conclusive
and without any loose ends.
So, from the beginning, I felt that some kind of commission would be desirable
for that purpose***that it would be desirable *** for the President to appoint
some commission of people who had international and domestic public stature and
reputation for integrity that would review all of the investigations and direct
any further investigation.(11)
(14) On the same day, President Johnson told Hoover that, although he wanted to
"get by" on just the FBI report, the only way to stop the "rash of
investigations" was to appoint a high-level committee to evaluate the
report.(12) That afternoon President Johnson met with Chief Justice Earl Warren
and persuaded him to be chairman of a commission to investigate the
assassination. Johnson explained his choice of Warren by stating,"*** I felt
that we needed a Republican chairman whose judicial ability and fairness were
unquestioned."(13) Although Warren had previously sent word through a third
party that he opposed his appointment as chairman,(14) President Johnson
persuaded him to serve. In "The Vantage Point," President Johnson stated he told
Warren:
When this country is confronted with threatening divisions and suspicions, I
said, and its foundation is being ricked, and the President of the United States
says that you are the only man who can handle the matter, you won't say "no"
will you?(15)
Page 7
7
(15) In his memoirs, Earl Warren stated that on November 29, 1963, Katzenbach
and Solicitor General Archibald Cox met with him and attempted to persuade him
to chair the Commission. Warren refused. He related:
***about 3:30 that same afternoon I received a call from the White House asking
if I could come to see the President and saying that it was quite urgent. I, of
course, said I would do so and very soon therafter I went to his office. I was
ushered in and, with only the two of us in the room, he told me of his proposal.
He said he was concerned about the wild stories and rumors that were arousing
not only our own people but people in other parts of the world. He said that
because Oswald had been murdered, there could be no trial emanating from the
assassination of President Kennedy, and that unless the facts were explored
objectively and conclusions reached that would be respected by the public, it
would always remain an open wound with ominous potential. He added that several
congressional committees and Texas local and State authorities were
contemplating public investigations with television coverage which would compete
with each other for public attention, and in the end leave the people more
bewildered and emotional than at present. He said he was satisfied that if he
appointed a bipartisan Presidential Commission to investigate that facts
impartially and report them to a troubled Nation that the people would accept
its findings. He told me that he had made up his mind as to the other members,
that he has communicated with them, and that they would serve if I would accept
the chairmanship. He then named them to me. I then told the President my reasons
for not being available for the chairmanship. He replied, "You were a soldier in
World War I, but there was nothing you could do in that uniform comparable to
what you can do for your country in this hour of trouble." He then told me how
serious were the rumors floating around the world. The gravity of the situation
was such that it might lead us into war, he said, and, if so, it might be a
nuclear war. He went on to tell me that he had just talked to Defense Secretary
Robert McNamara, who had advised him that the first nuclear strike against us
might cause the loss of 40 million people.
I then said, "Mr. President, if the situation is that serious, my personal views
do not count. I will do it." He thanked me, and I left the White House.(16)
(16) In his oral history, Warren related a similar version of the meeting.(17)
(17) In his appearance before the committee, former President and Commission
member Gerald R. Ford, also recalled the appointment of Chief Justice Warren as
chairman. He testified:
I believe that Chief Justice Warren accepted the assignment from President
Johnson for precisely the same reason that the other six of us did. We ere asked
by the President to undertake this responsibilty, as a public duty and service,
Page 8
8
and despite the reluctance of all of us to add to our then burden or operations
we accepted, and I am sure that was the personal reaction and feeling of the
Chief Justice.(18)
(18) In "The Vantage Point", President Johnson presented two considerations he
had at the time. He believed the investigation of the assassination should not
be done by an agency of the executive branch. He stated, "The Commission had to
be composed of men who were beyond pressure and above suspicion."(19) His second
consideration was that the investigation was too large an issue for the Texas
authorities to handle alone.(20)
(19) Apparently, Earl Warren also did not want Texas to conduct the court of
inquiry that had been announced earlier by Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr.
In his oral history, Leon Jaworski discussed Warren's attitudes and actions
regarding the court of inquiry:
I came on to Houston, and then I began to get calls from Katzenbach and from Abe
Fortas telling me that they were having a Presidential Commission appointed to
go into this matter. This would be to keep Congress from setting up a bunch of
committees and going in and maybe having a McCarthy hearing or something like
that. The next thing I knew they were telling me, "Leon, you've got to come up
here." This was Katzenbach and Fortas both. "Because the Chief (Chief Justice
Warren, who had accepted the appointment from the President) doesn't want any
part of the court of inquiry in Texas. And I said, "Well, as far as I can see
it, there's no need in our doing anything that conflicts-- let's work together."
He said, "Well, he doesn't want any part of Waggoner Carr, the attorney general
down there, because he said it would just be a political matter." He said, "He
respects you and so***
In and event I then went up to Washington, and I had the problem of working this
matter out. I must say that Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach was a great help;
Solicitor General Archie Cox was of great help. Those two promarily and Waggoner
Carr and I worked with them--Katzenbach saw the Chief Justice from time to time,
bringing proposals to him from me; the Chief Justice was willing to talk to me
without Carr present--I could'nt do that. It finally evolved that--from all
these discussions, there finally evolved a solution that we would all meet. We
did meet in the Chief's office, and the Chief addressed all his remarks to me
and ignored Waggoner Carr, but I would in turn talk to Carr in his presense and
direct the question to him and so on. What we did is agree that we would not
begin and court inquiry, but that we would be invited into hearings; would have
full access to everything.(21)
(20) After this meeting, Leon Jaworski related to President Johnson that the
matter of the Texas court of inquiry had been resolved
Page 9
9
satisfactorily. The President appeared to have been pleased with the result.
Jaworski stated:
When we got through with that, I called Walter Jenkins and told him that we
thought we had solved it properly, and that I ought to have a word with the
President. He said, "By all means. The President is waiting to hear from
you."*** I went on over there and he was in the pool; he came immediately to the
edge of the pool and shook hands with me. Then I told him what had happened, and
that we had worked it out and had worked it out in great shape, and we were
going to work together, and everybody was happy and shook hands and patted each
other on the back and so on. And that even the Chief Justice had warmed up to
Waggoner Carr before the conference broke up. Then Lyndon Johnson looked at me
and he said, "Now, Leon, you've done several things for me--many things in fact
for me. Now, it's my time to do something for you." I said, Mr. President, there
is nothing I want. I don't want you to do anything for me." And so he looked at
me and he said, "All right, I'll just send you a Christmas card then."(22)
(21) On the evening of November 29, 1963, President Johnson issued Executive
Order No. 11130 that created the President's Commission on the Assassination of
President Kennedy, hereinafter the Warren Commission. The Commission was
composed of seven people:
Hale Boggs--Democratic Representative from Louisiana;
John Sherman Cooper--Republican Senator from Kentucky, former Ambassador to
India;
Allen W. Dulles--former Director of the CIA;
Gerald R. Ford--Republican Representative from Michigan;
John J McCloy--former U.S. High Commissioner for Germany and former president of
the World Bank;
Richard B. Russell--Democratic Senator from Georgia, and Earl Warren, Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court.
PURPOSE OF THE WARREN COMMISSION
(22) The purpose of the Warren Commission, as stated in Executive Order No.
11130, were:
To examine the evidence developed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and any
additional evidence that may hereafter come to light or be uncovered by Federal
or State authorities; to make such further investigation as the Commission finds
desirable; to evaluate all the facts and circumstances surrounding such
assassination, including the subsequent violent death of the man charged with
the assassination, and to report to me its findings and conclusions.
(23) Although this may be an accurate statement of some of the purposes of the
Warren Commission, there were indications that there wee additional tasks that
it was to perform.
(24) It is apparent from some of the statements previously quoted that many
members of Government were concerned about convincing
Page 10
10
the public that Oswald was the assassin and that he acted alone.(23) In addition
to the memoranda, referred to earlier, on December 9, 1963, Katzenbach wrote
each member of the Warren Commission recommending that the Commission
immediately issue a press release stating that the FBI report, which had been
submitted to the Warren Commission that same day, clearly showed there was no
international conspiracy and that Oswald was a loner.(24)
(25) The Commission did not issue the requested press release. Although in their
testimony several of the Warren Commission staff members indicated they were not
aware of these memoranda, (25) it is apparent that this purpose was clearly in
the minds of some of the people who were in contact with the Warren Commission
and the members of the Warren Commission could not have been unaware of the
pressure.
(26) Another purpose of the Warren Commission, which was at least apparent to
Chief Justice Warren and to President Johnson, was the quashing rumors and
speculation. President Johnson was conserned that the public might believe his
home State of Texas was involved in the assassination. He was also aware of
speculation about Castro's possible participation. President Johnson expressed
his consern in "The Vantage Point":
Now, with Oswald dead, even a wounded Governor could not quell the doubts. In
addition, we were aware of stories that Castro, still smarting over the Bay of
Pigs and only lately accusing us of sending CIA agents into the country to
assassinate him, was the perpetrator of the Oswald assassination plot. These
rumors were another compelling reason that a thorough study had to be made of
the Dallas tragedy at once. Out of the Nation's suspicions, out of the Nation's
need for facts, the Warren Commission was born. [Italic added](26)
(27) On January 20, 1964, at the first staff meeting of the Warren Commission,
Chief Justice Warren discussed the role of the Commission. A memorandum about
this meeting described Warren's statements:
He (Warren) placed emphasis on the importance of quenching rumors, and
precluding further speculation such as that which has surrounded the death of
Lincoln. He emphasized that the Commission had to determine the truth, whatever
that might be.(27)
(28) At this meeting, Warren also informed the staff of the disscussion he had
had with President Johnson, including the fact that the rumors could lead to a
nuclear war which would cost 40 million lives. (28) Both the Chief Justice and
President Johnson were obviously concerned about the rumors were not quashed.
(29) World reaction to the assassination, and its coverage in the media, may
have reinforced this concern. An editorial on November 23, 1963, in the New York
Times stated that President Johnson "must convince the country that this bitter
tragedy will not divert us from
Page 11
11
our proclaimed purposes or check our forward movement." On November 24, 1963,
the New York Times reported that Pravda was charging right-wingers in the United
States of trying to use the assassination of President Kennedy to stir up
anti-Soviet and anti-Cuban hysteria. The same article stated:
The Moscow radio said Oswald was charged with Mr. Kennedy's slaying after 10
hours of interrogation, but there was no evidence which could prove this
accusation.
(30) On November 25, 1963, Donald Wilson, acting director of the United States
Information Agency, submitted a memorandum to Bill Moyers that discussed world
reaction to Oswald's slaying. This memorandum went through each major city and
summarized newspaper articles that had appeared regarding Oswald's death. A Tass
dispath released after Oswald was killed concluded:
All the circumstances of President Kennedy's tragic death allow one to assume
that this murder was planned and carried out by the ultrarightwing, fascist, and
racist circles, by those who carried out by those who cannot stomach any step
aimed at the easing of international tensions, and the improvement of
Soviet-American relations.(29)
(31) On the same day, the New York Times stated in an editorial:
The full story of the assassination and its stunning sequel must be placed
before the American people and the world in a responsible way by a responsible
source of the U.S. Government *** The killing of the accused assassin does not
close the books on the case. In fact, it raises questions which must be answered
if we are ever to fathom the depths of the President's terrible death and its
aftermath. An objective Federal commission, if necessary, with Members of
Congress included, must be appraised of all and tell us all. Much as we would
like to obliterate from memory the most disgraceful weekend in our history, a
clear explanation must be forthcoming. Not in a spirit of vengeance, not to
cover up, but for the sake of information and justice to restore respect for
law.(30)
(32) An editorial in the Washington Post stated:
President Lyndon Johnson has widely recognized that energetic steps must be
taken to prevent a repetition of the dreadful era of rumor and gossip that
followed the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. A century has hardly
sufficed to quiet the doubts that arose in the wake of that tragedy.(31)
(33) On November 27, 1963, the New York Times reported a Tass dispatch that
severly criticized the Dallas police. On the same day the Washington Post
reported that Castro had accused American reactionaries of plotting the
assassination to implicate Cuba. The Times also reported that the general
feeling in India was that Oswald had been a "tool" and silenced
Page 12
12
by "enemies of peace." (32) Throughout the world, identical sentiments were
being voiced, probably impressing Johnson with the fact that something had to be
done.
(34) The Testimony of several staff members of the Warren Commission supported
the conclusion that the Warren Commission had multiple purposes. Staff members
testified that the purpose of the Warren Commission was to ascertain the facts
of the assassination and to submit a report to the American people.(33) The
staff was however, also aware of Chief Justice Warren's fellings. Staff counsel
David Slawson stated:
His [Warren's] idea was that the principal function of the Warren Commission was
to allay doubts if possible. You know, possible in the sense of being
honest.(34)
Staff counsel Arlen Specter described his reaction to Warren's concern about
rumors by stating:
*** that was a matter in our minds but we did not tailor our findings to
accommodate any interest other than the truth.(35)
Staff consel Norman Redlich believed that the objective of allaying public fears
was "a byproduct of the principal objective which was to discover all the
facts."(36)
(35) While their statements reflected that staff members were concerned with
getting at the truth, there was an additional motive for finding the truth.
Staff consel Bert Griffin stated:
I think that it is fair to say, and certainly reflects my feeling, and it was
certainly the feeling that I had of all my collegues that we were determined, if
we could find something that showed that there had been sommething sinister
beyond what appeared to have gone on.*** (37)
Slawson stated:
I think it is hard to remember 13 years ago what the timing of all these things
was but among the staff members themselves, like when I talked to Jem Liebeler
and Dave Belin and Bert Griffin particularly we would sometimes speculate at to
what would happen if we got firm evidence that pointed to some very high
official. It sounds perhaps silly in retrospect to say it but there was even
rumors at the time, of course, that President Johnson was involved. Of course,
that would present a kind of frightening prospect, because if the President or
anyone that high up was indeed involved, they clearly were not going to allow
someone like us to bring out the truth if they could stop us. The gist of it was
that no one questioned the fact that we would still have to bring it out and
would do our best to bring out just whatever the truth was. The only question in
our mind was if we came upon such evidence that was at all credible how would we
be able to protect it an bring it to the proper authorities? (38)
Page 13
13
(36) Although the staff members' promary concern was the truth, the memers of
the Warren Commission, and not the members of its staff, were the final
decisionmakers with regard to what exactly went into the report. There was some
testimony that indicated Earl Warren's concern about rumors did affect the
writing of the report. When asked why some statements were made that were more
definitive than the evidence, Slawson stated:
I think because Earl Warren adamant almost that the Commission would make up its
mind on what it thought was the truth and then they would state it as much
without qualification as they could. He wanted to lay at rest, doubts. He made
no secret of this on the staff. It was consistent with his philosophy as a
judge.(39)
Slawson also stated:
I suppose he did not think that an official document like this ought to read at
all, tentatively, it should not be a source of public speculation if he could
possibly avoid it. (40)
(37) Staff counsel Wesley J. Liebeler, when asked about some of his critical
memoranda that he wrote regarding the galley proof of the final report, stated:
I think also part of the problem was, as I said before, a tendency, at least in
the galleys of chapter IV, to try and downplay or not give equal emphasis to
contrary evidence and just simply admit and state openly that there is a
conflict in the testimony and the evidence the Commission could conclude
whatever the Commission could conclude. (41)
Liebeler also stated:
Once you conclude on the basis of evidence we had that Oswald was the assassin,
for example, taking that issue first, then obviously it is in the interest of
the Commission, and I presume everyone else, to express that conclusion in a
straightforward and convincing way.***(42)
(38) Former President Ford stated that there were in fact differences between
the proposed language of the report's conclusions as drafted by the staff and
what the Commission finally approved. Ford recalled that one such difference
pertained to the wording of the Commission's conclusion about possible
conspiracy:
There was a recommendation, as I recall, from the staff that could be summarized
this way. No. 1, Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin.
No.2, the Commission has found no evidence of a conspiracy, foreign or domestic.
The Commission, after looking at this suggested language from the staff decided
unanimously that the wording should be much like this, and I am not quoting
precisely from the Commission staff, but I am quoting the substance:
No. 1, that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin. No. 2, the Commission has found
no evidence of a conspiracy, foreign or domestic.
Page 14
14
The second point is quite different from the language which was recommended by
the staff. I think the Commission was right to make that revision and I stand by
it today.(43)
(39) In his appearance before the committee, former Commission member John J.
McCloy stated that he had come to hold a different belief regarding the
possibilty of a conspiracy than he had at the time of the Commission's probe in
1964. He stated that he had come to believe there was in fact some evidence
outweighed the Commission's conclusion. McCloy said:
Insofar as the conspiracy issue is concerned, there hs been so much talk about
that. I don't think I need to dwell on it any longer. I no longer feel we had no
credible evidence or reliable evidence in regard to a conspiracy, but I rather
think the weight of evidence was against the existence of a conspiracy (44)
(40) The late Senator Richard B. Russell, the senior member of the Warren
Commission selected from the Congress, voiced much stronger feelings regarding
the possibility of conspiracy before his death in early 1971. In a television
interview reported by the Washington Post January 19, 1970, he stated that he
had come to believe that there had in fact been a conspiracy behind the
President's murder. With respect to Lee Harvey Oswald, Senator Russell stated,
"I think someone else worked with him." He also stated that there were "too many
things" regarding such areas as Oswald's trip to Mexico City, as well as his
associations, that "caused me to doubt that he planned it all by himself."
Russel believed the Warren Commission had been wrong in concluding that Oswald
acted alone.
(41) J. Lee Rankin, the Commission's general counsel, recalled that toward the
end of the Commission's investigation, he encountered serious difficulty in the
process of coordinating the staff's writing of the report:
The one factor that I did not examine with regard to the staff as much as I
would from my having had this experience was their ability to write and most of
them had demonstrated a considerable ability to write and most of them had
demonstrated a considerable ability to write in Law Review or other legal
materials by their record but my experience taught me that some people are
fluent in writing and others while they are skilled at it have great difficulty
in getting started and finishing and getting the job completed. I don't know
just how I would have tried to have anticapated that problem and worked it out
but it became a serious difficulty for me in my work as general counsel. Looking
back on it I would have much preferred that I had not only all the skills that I
did in the staff but the additional one that as soon as we had completed the
investigation they would go right to work and write a fine piece in which they
described their activities and the results.(45)
(42) Although the Executive order authorized the Warren Commission to conduct
further investigations if the Commission found it desirable,
Page 15
15
Chief Justice Warren did not believe further investigation beyond what the
investigative agencies had provided would be needed. He stated at the first
execution session of the Warren Commission:
Now I think our job here is essentially one for the evaluation of evidence as
distinguished from being one of gathering evidence, and I believe 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 investigation of the matter, the FBI,
the Secret Service, and others that I may know about at the present time.(46)
In fact, the Warren Commission did rely extensivly on the investigative agencies
rather than pursuing an independent investigation. (The effects of this reliance
is discussed in another section of this report.)
(43) The evidence indecated, therefore, that the Warren Commission not only had
as its purposes those stated in the Executive order but it also had additional
purposes that may have affected the conduct of the investigation and the final
conclusions. The desire to establish Oswald's guilt and thus to quash rumors of
a conspiracy may have had additional effects on the functioning and conclusions
of the Warren Commission.
ORGANIZATION OF THE WARREN COMMISSION
(44) The Warren Commission investigation was divided into six areas, with two
attorneys assigned to each. Area I was "Basic Facts of the Assassination";
Francis Adams and Arlen Specter were the two lawyers were Joseph Ball and David
Belin. Area III was "Lee Harvey Oswald's Background" to be handled by Albert
Jenner and Wesley J. Liebeler Area IV, "Possible Conspiratorial Relationships"
was given to William Coleman and W. David Slawson. Area V was "Oswald's Death,"
and Leon Hubert and Burt Griffin were assigned to it. Area VI was "Presidential
Protectin." Samuel Stern was assigned was assigned to this area. The General
Counsel of the Commission, Lee J. Rankin, was to assist Stern. Norman Redlich
worked on special projects. He drafted the procedural rules for the Commission,
prepared for the Marina Oswald testimony, and worked with Ball, Belin and
Specter on the investigation of the assassination itself. He also attended as
many Commission hearings as possible and reviewed and edited the drafts of the
report. Howard Willens assisted Rankin in organizing the work, staffing the
Commission, reviewing the materials received from the investigative agencies,
and requesting further information where necessary.
(45) The organization of the Warren Commission staff is important because it, in
fact, determined the focus of the investigation. Four of the areas (I, II, III,
and IV) were concerned primarily with Oswald--his activities on November 22,
1963, and his background. Only one area, representing one-sixth of the available
personnel, was devoted to the investigation of Ruby's role. This area was also
framed in terms
Page 16
16
of Oswald--it was called "Lee Harvey Oswald's Death." No area specifically
focused on the investigation of pro- or anti-Castro Cuban involvement, organized
crime participation, or even the investigative agencies' role in the
assassination. The area of domestic conspiracy was considered as part of Area
III, "Lee Harvey Oswald's Background," which again focused the issue of
conspiracy on Oswald.
(46) Former President Ford testified that he had been critical of Chairman
Warren's selecting a general counsel without first consulting the other members
of the Commission. Ford stated that he beieved Warren was attempting to place
too much control over the Commission in his own hands:
After my appointment to the Commission, and following several of the
Commission's organizational meetings, I was disturbed that the chairman, in
selecting a general counsel for the staff, appeared to be moving in the
direction of a one-man commission. My views were shared by several other members
of the Commission.
The problem was resolved by an agreement that all top staff appointments would
be approved by the Commission as a whole.(47)
(47) In his testimony, Howard Willens explained the rationale for the
organization of the staff:
I believe the rationale is readily stated. In order to begin and undertake a
project of this dimension, there has to be some arbitrary allocation of
responsibilities. There is no way to do it that eliminates overlap or possible
confusion but this was an effort to try to organize the work in such a way that
assignments would be reasonable clear, overlaps could be readily identified, and
coordination would would be accomplished among the various members of the
staff.(48)
(48) The staff members who testified before the committee generally believed the
organization was effective. Specter stated, "Yes, I think the categories were
adequate to finding the truth."(49) Redlich said, "The procedures and the
organization were an important part in introducing the end result which I
thought was professional and thorough investigation of the assassination."(50)
Only Griffin expressed dissatisfaction with the organizational structure:
GRIFFIN. As far as I was concerned, I did not feel that it operated in a way I
felt comfortable.
STAFF COUNSEL. How would you have done it differently?
GRIFFEN. Let me first of all preface it Hubert and I began to feel after a
couple of months that perphaps there was not a great deal of interest in what we
were doing, that they looked upon the Ruby activity, based upon information that
they saw as being largely peripheral to the questions that they were concerned
with. We did have a disagreement, pretty clear disagreement, on how to go about
conducting the investigation and I think that again was another reason why
perhaps I would say the operation was not as effective as I would have liked to
have seen it (51)
Page 17
17
(49) The pay records of the Warren Commission staff indicate that several of the
senior attorneys did not spend much time working on the investigation, and the
testimony of staff members supported this fact. Arlen Specter stated:
I would prefer not to ascribe reasons but simply to say some of the senior
counsel did not participate as extensively as some of the junior counsel. (52)
He added:
It is more accurate to say I ended up as the only counsel in my area.(53)
(50) When asked if the senior cousels devoted much time to the investigation,
Slawson stated:
A few did not. The majority of them did--and I think contributed very valuably.
They did not, with a couple of exceptions, spend as much time as the younger men
did, especially as the investigation wore on. Some of them, I understand, were
hired with the promise that turned out not to be the case.(54)
(51) Howard Willens stated, when asked about the accuracy of the chart
describing the pay records:
I think in the roughest terms this gives a fair picture of the days spent during
the period by members of the staff. I think that with reference to my earlier
comment you should note that several of the senior counsel felt that their
primary responsibility was to work in the investigative stages of the
Commission's work.(55)
(52) The failure of the senior attorneys to participate fully is attributed to
the impression they had that their role on the Commission did not require their
working full time and that their participation would only be needed for 3 to 6
months. Griffen supplied another reason for at least one senior cousel's leaving
early:
A third reason was, however, that Hubert was disenchanted with some of the
things that were going on in that he didn't feel he was getting the kind of
support that he wanted to get, and he expressed to me a certain amount of
demoralization over what he felt was unresponsiveness that existed between
himself and particulary Mr. Rankin.(56)
(53) Some of the staff members testified that the staff were qualified people
and that there were a sufficient number of lawyers to conduct the investigation.
The testimony also indicates, however, that there was some dissatisfaction and
that the failure to work full time on the part of the senior counsels probably
affected the investigation. When Redlich was asked if the staff, not
participating full time affected the work, he stated:
Any time someone is not able to spend full time it had that effect. It means
that that work which might have been done during the course of that full-time
work gets picked up by
Page 18
18
others *** I don't think on balance any of that had a permanent harmful effect
because I believe that the entire staff taken as a whole, managed to conduct
what I consider to be a thorough inquiry. Obviously, as anyone who has conducted
an investigation knows, you always would like to have everyone there all the
time. That was not possible during a substanntial portion of the Warren
investigation.(57)
(54) Slawson responded to the same question:
As I said before, I felt overworked and I think many of the staff members felt
the same way. I think the main problem was one of the great underestimation of
the size of the task at the time. As I said, we were told, we were telephoned
and asked to come in; it would be 3 to 6 months. It is my recollection they said
it would be only 3 to 6 months on the outside and of course we ended up taking
about 8. There was a reluctance, once we were there, to admit--again this is a
matter of once you have made a decision you don't like to admit you were
wrong--but people did not like to admit that we probably needed more help and
more time.(58)
(55) The pay records indicated that from the diddle of January to the end of
September, Francis Adams, a Commission counsel, worked a total of 16 8-hour days
and 5 additional hours. Adams held one of the single most important positions
with the Commission, serving as senior attorney in the area of basic facts of
the assassination. Arlen Specter, when asked if this affected his performance,
stated:
I don't think it did although it would have been helpful if my senior counsel,
Francis Adams, had an oppurtunity to participate more extensively.(59)
(56) J. Lee Rankin told the committee:
There is one member that you can see that did not attend hardly at all and I
certainly should have gotten rid of him really.*** That was Francis Adams and he
really didn't contribute anything.(60)
(57) Lieber also indicated he did not work closely with the senior attorney in
his area, Albert Jenner. He stated:
My recollection is that during the early part of the Commission's work that Mr.
Jenner was concerned, I believe he was interested in becoming president of the
American Bar Association and I believe he spent some time on that issue.(61)
(58) While describing the organization of the work in his area, Liebeler stated:
It was difficult for Mr. Jenner and me to work out a general relationship on
that question at that time. Since I was a so-called junior staff member at that
time, Mr. Jenner was not, I was quite unsure when I started as to how to handle
the problem. I finally just decided to do my own thing and basically went ahead
and did most of that original work, myself. Mr. Jenner and I never actually
worked very closely together. He worked on projects and I worked on
projects.(62)
Page 19
19
INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATORS
(59) As stated earlier, the Warren Commission staff was primarily composed of
attorneys, with a few assistants drawn from other agencies of the Government. It
had no independent investigators, but relied primarily upon Government agencies
to supply leads and perform a large majority of the field investigation.
(60) The Commission's former general counsel, J. Lee Rankin, told the committee
that he believed it would have been difficult to assemble an independent
investigative staff. Rankin recalled:
Well, I gave some thought to that and I finally conluded that I would lose more
than I would gain, that the whole intelligence community in the Government would
feel that the Commission was indicating a lack of confidence in them and that
from then on I would not have any cooperation from them; they would universally
be against the Commission and try to trip us up.(63)
(61) J. Lee Rankin told the committee that the decision not ot have the
Commission employ its own investigators:
* * * was a decision of the Commission, although I recommended that kind of a
procedure because I described various possibilities of getting outside
investigators and that it might take a long period of time to accumulate them,
find out what their expertise was, and whether they could qualify to handle
sensitive information in the Government, and it might be a very long time before
we could even get a staff going that could work on the matter, let alone have
any progress on it.(64)
(62) Slawson stated:
We had special people assigned from CIA, FBI, and Secret Service who were with
us more or less full time, especially the Secret Service who were
investigators.(65)
(63) There was one indication that the Warren Commission used some independent
experts for the examination of the physical evidence. Slawson stated:
I think that some of the areas of investigation such as that headed by Dave
Belin, which was the immediate circumstances of the shooting in Dallas, employed
private investigators at various points to cross-check and give an independent
evaluation.(66)
(64) Redlich stated:
My recollection is that in ballistics I believe we used someone from the
government of Illinois, either handwriting or fingerprinting. I am not sure it
was not someone from the New York City Police Department.(67)
(65) There was also some indication that the staff would have preferred to have
had independent investigators. Spector said:
If [in] organizational structure you include the personnel available, I think
that everyone would have much preferred to
Page 20
20
have had a totally independent investigative arm to carry out the investigative
functions of the Commission, but I believe the Commission concluded early on,
and I was not privy to any such position from my position as assistant counsel,
that it would be impractical to organize an entire investigative staff from the
start so that use was made of existing Federal investigative facilities * * *
there would be an observation [among the staff] from time to time how nice it
would be if we had a totally independent staff.(68)
(66) When asked if any consideration was given to hiring independent
investigators, Redlich replied:
I have no clear recollection of that. Certainly during the time of the
investigation from time to time staff members talked to Mr. Rankin about what it
might have been like if we had had a completely independent staff. I think that
we reached the conclusion then, with which I still agree, that while using the
existing investigatory arms of the United States had certain disadvantages, on
balance it was still the right decision to make. There were certain tradeoffs
*** I don't think there was any happy, completely happy solution to that
dilemma.(69)
(67) John McCloy stated that he did not believe the Commission suffered from an
insufficient investigative capacity:
* * * it is not true we didn't have our own investigative possibilities. There
was a very distinguished group of litigating lawyers [on staff] that we called
on *** We had a very impressive list and they did great work. So it is not true
we relied entirely on the agencies of the Goverment.(70)
(68) Former President Ford told the committee that he believed the Commission's
decision not to employ an investagative staff was correct:
It is my best judgment that the procedure and the policy the Warren Commission
followed was the correct one and I would advocate any subsequent Commission to
follow the same.
For the Warren Commission to have gathered together an experienced
[investigative] staff, to get them qualified to handle classified information,
to establish the organization that would be necessary for a sizable number of
investigators, would have been time-consuming and in my opinion would not have
answered what we were mandated to do.
It is my, it is my strong feelings that what we did was the right way. We were
not captives of, but we utilized the information from the in-house agencies of
the Federal Government * * *.(71)
(69) Ford also told the committee:
The FBI, and I use that as an example, undertook a very extensive investigation.
I don't recall how many agents but they had a massive operation to investigate
everything. The Commission with this group of 14 lawyers and some additional
Page 21
21
staff people, then drew upon all of this information which was available, and
we, if my memory serves me accurately, insisted that the FBI give us everything
they had. Now that is a comprehensive order from the Commission to the Director
and to the FBI. I assume, and I think the Commission assumed, that athat order
was so broad that if they had anything if they had anything it was their
obligation to submit it. Now if they didn't, that is a failure on the part of
the agencies, not on the part of the Commission. (72)
(70) In his testimony, Burt Griffin supplied anther explanation for the
Commission's decision to rely upon the investigative agencies:
* * * there was a concern that this investigation not be conducted in such a way
as to destroy any of the investigative agencies that then existed in the
Government. There was a genuine fear expressed that this could be done. Second,
it was important to keep the confidence of the existing investigative agencies,
and that if we had a staff that was conducting its own investigation, that it
would generate a paranoia in the FBI and the other investigative agencies which
would not only perhaps be politically disadvantageous, it would be bad for the
country because it might not be justified but it might also be
counterproductive. I think there was a fear that we might be undermining *** My
impression is that there was genuine discussion of this at a higher level than
mine.(73)
COMMUNICATION AMONG THE STAFF
(71) The testimony of the staff members indicated that there generally was no
problem of communication among the areas. Specter stated that the information
was "funneled" by Rankin and he had no reason to believe the process was
unsuccessful. (74) Willens described the procedures for facilitating the
exchange of information:
One way of dealing with the separate areas within which the lawyers were dealing
was to make certain that all the materials that came in the office were reviewed
in one central place and that any material that bore even remotely or
potentially on an area. It was frequently the case that materials in our
possession were sent to three or four areas so that each of the groups of
lawyers could look at the same material from that group's perspective and decide
whether it had any relevance in the part of the investigation for which those
lawyers were reponsible. I continued this function throughout the Commission and
always erred on the side of multiple duplication so as to make certain that the
members of the staff in a particular area did get the papers which I thought
they needed. Another way of coordinating among the staff was by the circulation
of summary memoranda, which happened on a regular basis throughout the
Commission's work * * * The third way of coordinating among the staff was
perhaps more informal and related primarily to the ease with which the members
Page 22
22
of the staff could get together to discuss a problem in which more than one area
had particular interest.(75)
(72) Griffin also commented the communication between the staff members:
We had very few staff meetings of a formal nature. We did have two or three,
maybe four or five. The bulk of the communication was on a person-to-person ad
hoc basis. There were some memos, I believe, passed back and forth. (76)
He expressed some dissatisfaction with the communication he and Hubert had with
Rankin:
I suppose that it would not be fair to say that we did not have direct access to
Rankin. I cannot say at any point when we tried to see Rankin that we couldn't
see him. I don't recall any situation where we were formally required to go
through someone else to get there. There was no doorkeeper in a certain sense.
All of those communications that were in writing that went to Rankin went
through Howard Willens, but as a practical matter, and I am not sure entirely
what the reasons are, Hubert and I did not have a lot of communication with
Rankin. We really communicated with him personally infrequently. We had certain
amount of communication at the beginning. I do remember at the outset Hubert and
I had a meeting with Rankin in which we discussed the work of the mission that
we had, but I would say that by the first of April we had relatively little
communication with Rankin. That is, we might not speak to Rankin maybe more that
once every 2 weeks. Mr. Rankin is a formal person. Hubert and I did not feel
comfortable in our relationship with him. I point this out because I think our
relationship with Rankin was different than some of the other staff members. I
think a number of them would genuinely say, and I would believe from what I saw,
that they certainly had much better communication than we did. Whether they
would regard it as satisfactory I don't know.(77)
(73) The staff also indicated that they would communicate informally in the
evenings. Specter stated:
There was a very informal atmosphere on the staff so that there was constant
contact among all the lawyers both during the working day and those of us who
were around the evenings. We would customarily have dinner together, the virtual
sole topic of conversation was what each of us was doing. So there was a very
extensive exchange albeit principally informal among members of the staff as to
what each was doing. (78)
INTERACTION BETWEEN THE WARREN COMMISSION AND THE STAFF
(74) In his testimony, Howard Willens stated that the majority of the
communication between the staffmembers and the Warren Commission members was
through Rankin. Direct contact with members of the Warren Commission was
minimal:
Page 23
23
Apart from those occasional meetings with the Chief Justice most of the staff's
dealings with the members of the Commission occurred on a sporadic and limited
basis.(79)
(75) Norman Redlich stated:
However, in terms of informal relationship between the staff and the Commission
in the sense of the staff being present at the Commission meetings in a formal
way, that did not exist. I was not present at any meeting of the commission. I
was not privy to any formal meetings of the commission. Mr Rankin was the
official line of communication between the Commission and the staff.(80)
(76) Burt Griffin stated:
I had almost a total lack on contact with the Commission members. I have some
thoughts in retrospect now about some of the perceptions, total conjecture but
based on other things that have happened, but at the time I did feel senator
Russell was genuinely concerned about conducting the investigation. (81)
(77) Redlich also indicated that some of the staff were not satisfied with their
relationship with the members of the Warren Commission:
I believe that perhaps some members of the staff would have preferred to have
had a more direct ongoing formal relationship with the Commission. (82)
(78) Arlen Specter described the relationship with the members of the Warren
Commission as "Cordial, somewhat limited." (83)
(79) There is at least one exception to this formal relationship between staff
members and the Commission. W. David Slawson indicated he often met with Allen
Dulles:
Allen Dulles and I became fairly close I think. He had aged quite a bit by the
time he was on the Warren Commission and was also sick. I have forgotten, he had
some kind of disease that made one of his legs and foot very painful. So he was
not effective sometimes but when he was he was very smart and I liked him very
much. Because of my particular assignment of course he spent a lot of time with
me. We talked informally quite a bit. (84)
(80) In spite of this lack of contact between the staff and the Commission
members, some of the staff members believed that the Commissioners were
reasonably well informed and the interaction was satisfactory. Arlen Specter
thought the Commissioner were generally well informed about the facts of the
case. (85) When asked if the Commissioners were informed, Redlich responded:
I think some of them were tremendously well informed. the Chief Justice was
extremely well informed. I believe that former President Ford was extremely well
informed. Mr. Dulles attended a great many hearings. I believe that on the broad
areas of the Commission's inquiry the Commission was informed. They were
obviously not as informed of some
Page 24
24
of the specific enormous factual data in connection with the assassination as
was the staff. I have never known a staff that thought that group that it worked
for was as well informed as the staff was, and the Warren Commission was no
exception. (86)
(81) Wesley Liebeler, discussing a statement he was alleged to have made
regarding the Warren commission, stated:
What I had intended to convey to Mr. Epstein (the author of a book on the
Commission) was the idea that in terms of developing the investigation, the
direction in particular of the investigation, and in drafting the report, the
Commissioners themselves were not directly involved, and they were not. (87)
(82) Despite Liebeler's statement that the commissioners were not involved in
writing the report, the drafts of the report wee in fact circulated among the
Commission members for their review, suggestions and approval. The Commissioners
made comments and criticisms at this point and the drafts wee rewritten to
conform with their desires. (88)
(83) The Warren Commission had no formal sessions from June 23, 1964 to
September 18, 1964. This was the period during which the final report was
written. Had the commissioners participated to a greater extent during the
investigative stages and had they had more interaction with the staff members,
there might have been additional discussion and comments about the content of
the report might have been substantially different. Additional issues might have
arisen. For example, in his testimony, Specter stated:
* * * the Commission made a decision as to what would be done which was not
always in accordance with my own personal view as to what should be done, for
example, the review of the X-rays and photographs of the assassination of
President Kennedy. I thought that they should have been observed by the
Commission and by me among others perhaps having responsibility for that area
and I said so at the time. (89)
(84) John McCloy told the committee that he had also voiced objections over
Chief Justice Warren's decision not to have the commission view and evaluate
these materials during the investigation:
I think we were a little lax in the Commission in connection with the use of
those X-rays. I was rather critical of Justice Warren at that time. I thought he
was a little too sensitive of the sensibilities of the family. He didn't want to
have put into the record some of the photographs and some of the X-rays there.
(90)
(85) During the final stages of the Warren Commission, the Commissioners were
almost evenly divided on the question of whether the single-bullet theory was
valid. To resolve this conflict, the Commissioners had the report worded in such
a way that was no conclusive answer. The report stated:
Page 25
25
Although it is not necessary to any essential findings of the Commission to
determine just which shot hit Governor Connally, there is very persuasive
evidence from the experts to indicate that the same bullet which pierced the
President's throat also caused Governor Connally's wounds. However, Governor
Connally's testimony and certain other factors have given rise to some
difference of opinion as to this probability but there is no question in the
mind of any member of the Commission that all the shots which caused the
President's and Governer Connally's wound were fired from the sixth-floor window
of the Texas School Book Depository. (91)
(86) Of the controversy over the single-bullet theory, John Sherman Cooper
recalled:
We did have disagreements at times in the Commission and, I as I recall, I think
the chief debate grew out of the fact or the question as to whether there were
two shots or three shots or whether the same shot that entered President
Kennedy's neck penetrated the body of Governor Connally.
I must say, to be very honest about it, that I held in my mind during the life
of the Commission that there had been three shots and that a separate shot
struck Governer Connally. (92)
(87) Had the Commissioners been close to the investigation and more aware of the
questions and issues regarding the ballistics evidence, they might have agreed
to examine the photographs and X-rays. Instead, probably because of the time
problem, the issue was resolved by the use of agreeable adjectives, rather than
by further investigation.
PRESSURES
(88) The Warren Commission was created on November 29, 1963. By the end of
January 1964, the staff of the Warren Commission had been completely assembled.
The hearings began on February 3, 1964, and were completed on June 17, 1964. The
summer of 1964 was spent writing and editing the report. On September 24, 1964,
the Warren report was submitted to President Johnson. The Warren Commission,
therefore, lasted a total of 10 months, with approximately 3 to 4 months spent
on the investigation itself and the remaining months, as previously stated, on
writing the report and organizing the staff.
(89) Time and political pressures were much in evidence during the course of the
Warren Commission and may have affected the work of the Commission. While some
staff members testified that there was no time pressure others indicated that
time was a concern and was inextricably combined with political pressures.
(90) There definitely was a desire to be prompt and the complete the
investigation as soon as possible. Specter stated:
* * * The attitude with respect to time perhaps should be viewed in November of
1977 as being somewhat different from 1964 to the extent that the Commission was
interested in a prompt conclusion of its work. It did not seek to sacrifice
completeness for promptness. When the Commission started its job there was no
conclusion date picked. My recollection
Page 26
26
is that it was discussed in terms of perhaps as little as 3 months, perhaps as
much as 6 months. As we moved along in the investigation there were comments on
attitudes that we should be moving along, we should get the investigation
concluded, so that the scope of what we sought to do and the time in which we
sought to do it had as its backdrop an obvious attitude by the Commission that
it wanted to conclude the investigation at the earliest possible date.(93)
(91) Specter also stated:
It is hard to specify the people or Commissioners who were pushing for a prompt
conclusion, but that was an unmistakable aspect of the atmosphere of the
Commission's work.(94)
(92) When asked if there was enough time, Willens responded:
I think the time was sufficient to do the work of the Warren Commission. I
cannot deny that the work could have gone on for another month or two or six.
(95)
(93) In spite of the desire for promptness, Specter and Redlich also believed
there was still enough time to complete their work. (96) At one point in his
testimony, Slawson stated this:
* * * although at times I was afraid there wouldn't be. There was time pressure
on all of us. I think that all members of the staff were bothered and somewhat
resented the fact that we were pushed to work at such a rapid pace, but we
resisted any attempts to make us finish before we felt we were ready to be
finished. When the report came out neither I, and I don't think anybody else,
felt that there was anything significant that we had not been able to do in the
time.*** But the amount of paper that we had to go through to do our job well
was tremendous *** I had so many documents to get through and try to understand
and try to put together. They continued pouring in from the ongoing
investigation after that. There weren't that many of us. So we had more than
enough to do, I would say. (97)
(94) Later, when asked about some of the problems with the footnotes of the
report. Slawson indicated one effect that time pressure had on the work of the
Commission:
I took, and I think everyone else did, as much care as we could. But the time
pressure was severe. With the mass of material that we had I am sure that errors
of numbering, and perhaps what footnote A should have had, footnote B did, and
vice versa, occurred. I don't think that the kind of crosschecking that normally
goes into a good professional publication, for example, ever went into this (98)
(95) Griffin also indicated some concern about the amount of work that had to be
done within the short period of time:
*** But Hubert and I, we had a completely, we had a scope of investigation that
was as great as all the other people put together, because we were investigating
a different
Page 27
27
murder. We had two people who were investigating a conspiracy from one man's
point of view and we had a security question, how did he get into the basement,
and so forth. (99)
(96) In his testimony before the committee, former general counsel J. Lee Rankin
gave his perception of the time factor:
Well, we had pressures from the beginning of the time element because the
country was anxious to know what had happened and whether there was any
conspiracy involved. I was assured by the Chief Justice that it would only take
me 2 or 3 months at the outside in this job and that is all the time I would be
away from my law practice, and properly, but also to get back to my other work
and, on the other hand, the first meeting we had with the staff, I told them
that our only client was the truth and that was what we must search for and try
to reveal, and I think we adhered to that, that we never departed from that
standard, any of the Commission or myself or the staff. (100)
(97) Rankin recalled further:
I didn't think there was any pressure. There was an expression by some members
of the Coommission that it would be better if the problem of the assassination
and whether any conspiracy was involved and what had happened, who the assassin
was, as the Commission found, all of those questions were not injected into the
various political conventions, but there was no indication at any time that we
should try to get it out for any such purpose and not adequately make a report
or investigate whatever sources we were able to find.(101)
(98) In an interview with the committee, John McCloy stated that while he
believed the Commission had been falsely accused of a "rush to judgment" in its
investigation, he did in fact believe there had been "a rush to print." In his
public appearance before the committee, McCloy stated:
We had no rush to judgment. We came to a judgment. There were some questions of
style in regard to the preparation of the report that I would like to have had *
* * another crack at to make it a little more clear * * *
*** I had a feeling at the end we were rushing a little bit the last few days to
get to print rather than to arrive at any conclusions. We had already arrived at
the conclusions. (102)
(99) Chief Justice Warren stated in his oral history that there was no deadline,
as illustrated in the following exchange:
Q. You never did feel a deadline pressure so that you hurried your work?
A. No, sir, we did not.
Q. You were just going to get through whenever you finished.
A. Absolutely not [sic], there was no deadline of any kind for us, no deadline
of any kind.(103)
Page 28
28
(100) When asked if the fact that it was an election year affected the Warren
Commission, Warren replied:
WARREN. This wasn't an election year that we did this, was it? This was in 1963.
Q. No, it was November 30, after Kennedy was shot---
WARREN. Of 1962?
Q. Of 1963. And then Johnson had to run in 1964.
WARREN. My gosh, I guess that's right.
Q. It must not have been much of a factor.
WARREN. No, no, really it was no factor. It was no factor at all, no factor at
all.(104)
(101) Chief Justice Warren also stated:
The White House never gave us an instruction, never, never even looked at out
work until I took it up to the President. Never commented---
Q. The President never made suggestions?
WARREN. Never once in any way, shape, or form. In fact we didn't talk to him
about it.(105)
(102) The staff members of the Warren Commission did not perceive the question
of time exactly in the same way as Chief Justice Warren did. Slawson stated:
His [Warren's] main motivation in wanting the work done, and which he repeated
several times to different members of the staff, was that he wanted the truth
known and stated to the public before the Presidential election of 1964 because
he didn't want the assassination in any way to affect the elections. I am not
sure at all how he thought it would, but he didn't want any possibility of it.
That was his principal reason for having it finished. (106)
(103) Griffin stated that initially the report was to be completed by the
Democratic National Convention, which was in the summer of 1964:
It was also indicated at the outset that the hope was that the report would be
completed prior to the Democratic National Convention, that essentially had been
indicated by the White House, that it was the President's feeling.(107)
(104) Later in his testimony, Griffen stated:
Let me say it was never communicated to us that it was the Commission that
wanted to curtail things. There were two communications that were made as to
where this pressure was coming from. The most prominent one was the White House,
that there was a general, unspecified reference to the fact that the White House
wanted this report out before the convention. That was said to us many, many
times. I think the convention was in June.(108)
Griffen also indicated another deadline developed during the course of the
Warren Commission:
Second, just by way of human interest, color, perhaps another date began to be
set because the Chief Justice had a
Page 29
29
trip scheduled to go to Europe and the hope was that it could be bompleted
before he went on his trip to Europe.(109)
(105) Willens explained the concern about the election and the convention in the
following way:
In part the concern was media concern. There were numerous conversations with
media representatives who were apprehensive about being scooped by the report
being published at a time when their facilities were being allocated to covering
some other major political event. That obviously was not a decisive concern but
it was something that was brought to the attention of the Commission and various
other officials as the Commission's report seemed to be working toward its
conclusion. The concern about the election may be difficult to understand now.
At the time there were ugly rumors and apprehensions regarding the work of the
Commission and the nature of the conspiracy that may have occured to have caused
the assassination of President Kennedy. It was feared, perhaps without
justification, that the report might become a campaign issue if it had not been
published in advance of the election***. the other concern was that if it were
postponed until after the election it would be assumed it had been repressed so
as to avoid disclosures that might affect the candidacy of the President.(110)
(106) In this instance, it was clear that the concern for quashing rumors and
speculation, discussed earlier in this report, affected the timing of the Warren
Commission's work. It was a political concern in that President Johnson did not
want the issues raised by the assassination to be raised at election time. The
rumors, therefore, had to be quashed, and they had to be quashed prior to the
election.
(107) In addition to the concern of completing the report either prior to the
election or the convention, there were other political concerns that arose
during the course of the Warren Commission. Griffin expressed some of these
concerns of the Warren Commission.
I felt then, and I still feel, despite a lot of misgivings that I had, that the
purpose was genuine purpose, to find the truth behind the assassination. I do
think, however, that there were major political considerations that dictated how
this work was conducted. The time frame that was set initially for the work was
a political consideration. This investigation was carried on during a period
when everyone was vividly aware of the results of the 1950's when Senator
McCarthy held a prominent position. There was a great deal of concern that we
not conduct an investigation that would have overtones of what people called
McCarthyism. So that a lot of decisions that were made in terms of how we
proceeded I think were made against that kind of background. (111)
(108) Another concern, which was discussed earlier in this report, was that of
convincing the public that Oswald was the lone assassin. When asked if they were
aware of the December 9, 1963, Katzenbach memorandum to the members of the
Warren Commission requesting a press release stating that Oswald was the
assassin, Redlich, Specter, and
Page 30
30
Griffin all replied they had never heard of it. (112) When asked if they were
aware of Hoover's November 24, 1963, phone call to the White House in which
Hoover discussed "convincing the public that Oswald was the real assassin,"
Leibeler and Slawson stated they were not aware of that conversation.(113) Only
Howard Willens indicated that he was aware of these sentiments immediately after
the assassination.(114) Four members of the staff who testified stated there was
no preconceived belief among the staff members that Lee Harvey Oswald was the
assassin or that the goal of the Warren Commission was to convince the public
that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin. (115) Although Slawson testified that
"Everybody was of course a possible suspect,"(116) he also stated that the
concern to convince the public that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin may have
played a role in his area of investigation, particularly with some of the
obstacles he encountered dealing with foreign governments.(117)
(109) Cooper stated that he did not believe that external pressures or outside
considerations played any part in the Commission's work, recalling:
We were not pressured in any way by any person or by any organization. We made
our own decisions, as the President had asked us to do, and as we determined to
do on the basis of what we thought was right and objective.(118)
(110) During an executive session meeting of the Commission on June 4, 1964,
Gerald R. Ford had voiced strong concern over potential outside pressure that he
believed may have been directed at the Commission. Nevertheless, at the time of
his testimony, Ford said he did not believe that any such pressure had in fact
affected the conclusion reached during the investigation:
I have no recollection of that particular June 4 meeting or any pressure that
the Commission received for any definitive conclusion. As other members of the
Commission, I think, will testify, we had a unanimous vote as to the fact that
Lee Harvey Oswald committed the assassination and all other decisions of the
Commission were also unanimous.
There was no pressure. We operated as a unit of seven members who fortunately
all agreed. (119)
(111) Although it was clear that political concerns did exist, it was difficult
to ascertain exactly how these pressures affected the Warren Commission. The
pressure to maintain the respectability and legitimacy of the agencies, along
with the pressure to complete the investigation prior to the election, probably
interacted to cause the Warren Commission to rely almost entirely upon the
investigative agencies. The political concern of completing the report prior to
the election or the convention influenced the commission to define severely the
time frame in which there job was to be completed. The time pressure may have
caused the Warren Commission to brush over issues that were important, i.e., the
Ruby investigation. Despite these possibilities, however, some staff members did
not believe that the pressure affected their work.
(112) Redlich stated that his greatest regret was that the majority of the
American public apparently believed that various pressures had
Page 31
31
in fact influenced the conclusions of the Warren Commission. (120) He indicated,
however, that he believed there were other factors that have influenced the
widespread nonacceptance by the public of the Commission's conclusions:
I think there are simply a great many people who cannot accept what I believe to
be the simple truth, that one rather insignificant person was able to
assassinate the President of the United States. I think there are others, who
for reasons that there are less pure have consciously tried to deceive. I think
that since there is a residue of public sentiment that finds it very hard to
accept the conclusion, that becomes a further feeling, for those who have found
it in their interest, to pursue the attacks on the Commission.
I do not mean to imply that all of the critics of the Commission have bad
motives. I think that there is n this country, fortunately, a healthy skepticism
about government.
I believe that that was certainly true during the Watergate period. The
assassination is a complex fact, as you will see when you investigate it. It was
not an easy thing to investigate. Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald were two
people with most unusual backgrounds. They did a variety of things.
That they should meet in the basement of the Dallas Police station and one shoot
the other is something that does strain the imagination.
I think it is very unfortunate that the Warren Commission has been subject to
the kinds of attack that it has. We did what we felt was completely honest
professional and thorough task.
I have done a lot of things in my public service in my life. I regard my service
on the Warren Commission as an extremely important, perhaps the most important
thing that I have done, because I believe I was instrumental in putting before
the American people all of the facts about the assassination of President
Kennedy.
That significant numbers of Americans don't believe it remains to me a source of
great disappointment.(121)
Relationship Between the Warren Commission and the FBI and the CIA
Page 31
II. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE WARREN COMMISSION AND THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF
INVESTIGATION AND THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
A. PERSPECTIVE OF THE WARREN COMMISSION
Attitude of the Commission members
(113) The initial attitude of the Warren Commission members toward the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was one of trust and a willingness to rely on it.
As the investigation progressed, however, the members expressed some
dissatisfaction with and distrust of the Bureau. Nevertheless, nothing was ever
done to redirect the investigation or improve the Commission's relationship with
the Bureau.
(114) The Warren Commission initially avoided using the facilities of the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), but eventually did so, though reluctantly.
They did not ask them to do much beyond answer
Page 32
32
specific request for information. The members were generally satisfied with the
performance of the CIA.
(115) There were 36 request for information from the Commission to the CIA on
file at the National Archives. Of these, 10 dealt with publication of the Warren
report, 7 with Lee Harvey Oswald's activities in the Soviet Union, 4 with Lee
Harvey Oswald, and 2 with the Soviet Union. There was one request each for
information on Jack Ruby and Cuba, the Oswald information allegation, the de
Mohrenschildts, President protection, Yuri Nosenko, and the photograph shown to
Mrs. Marguerite Oswald by FBI Special Agent Odum. Four of the requests were
still classified.
(116) The manner in which the Warren Commission members perceived the
investigative agencies and their relationship to those agencies is reflected in
the transcripts of the executive sessions of the Commission.
(117) The Commission met for the first time on December 5, 1963. Chief Justice
Earl Warren, who chaired the Commission, expressed his initial attitude toward
the Commission's task and their relationship to the agencies:
Gentlemen, this is a very sad and solemn duty that we are undertaking, and I am
sure that there is not one of us but what would rather be doing almost anything
else that he can think of than to be on a commission of this kind. But it is a
tremendously important one. *** Now, I think our job here is essentially one for
the evaluation of evidence as distinguished from being one of gathering
evidence, and I believe that at the outset at least we can rely upon the reports
of the various agencies that have been engaged in investigation of the matter,
the FBI, the Secret Service, and others that I may not know about at the present
time.(122)
(118) Chief Justice Warren went on to say that he did not believe that the
Commission needed independent investigators or the power of subpena.(123) He was
overruled by the other Commission members on the question of obtaining subpena
power.(124) Congress passed a joint resolution on December 13, 1963, granting
the Commission that power.(125) The Commission never did hire its own staff of
investigators.
(119) Even at this first meeting, some Commission members expressed concern
about some actions by the FBI. There had been numerous stories leaked to the
press attributed to FBI sources while the Commission was still awaiting the
first FBI report. Senator Russell asked rhetorically:
How much of their findings does the FBI propose to release to the press before
we present the findings of this Commission?(126)
(120) The Commission met again on December 6, 1963. At this meeting, the
Commission members kept wondering what the FBI was doing and if the CIA knew
anything about the assassination. Allen Dulles informed the Commission that he
had been in touch
Page 33
33
with the CIA and dis tributed a pamphlet that the CIA had written on the
reaction of the foreign press to the assassination.(127) Commissioner McCoy
asked Warren if he had been in touch with the CIA, and the following exchange
took place:
CHAIRMAN. No; I have not, for the simple reason that I have never been informed
that the CIA had any knowledge about this.
Mr. McCLOY. They have.
CHAIRMAN. I'm sure they have, but I did not want to put the CIA into this thing
unless they put themselves in.
Mr. McCLOY. Don't we have to ask them if we're on notice that they have?
CHAIRMAN. We have to do it with all of them. *** We have not done it with any of
them yet because we have not been in that position *** I think we have to ask
them.(128)
(121) The Commission received the FBI's report on the assassination on December
9, 1963. It met again on December 16,1963. At this meeting, the FBI was
criticized for several things. The members were upset because there was nothing
in the FBI report that had not already appeared in the press. (129) They were
also upset because some parts of the report were "hard to decipher."(130)
Representative Boggs thought the report left "a million questions."(131)
(122) It was at this meeting that the Commission members decided that they could
not rely solely on the FBI report, but would have to do their own analysis of
the raw data on which the report was based.(132) Chief Justice Warren admitted
that he had been too optimistic at the first Commission meeting.(133) The
members also considered that they may have been wrong in not hiring their own
staff of investigators. General Counsel Rankin put it this way:
The Chief Justice and I finally came to the conclusion, after looking at this
report, that we might have to come back to you and ask for some investigative
help, too, examine special situations, because we might not get all we needed by
just going back to the FBI and other agencies because the report has to look for
in order to get the answers that it wants and it's entitled to. We thought we
might need some investigative staff.(134)
(123) Rankin went on to say that the main reason they might need an independent
staff of investigators was that there would be some areas that the Commission
had to deal with that were "tender spots" for the FBI.(135) As will become
apparent, the Commission did not go much beyond the agencies in investigating
the anticipated "tender spots."
(124) The Commission had finally gotten in touch with the CIA. The Agency had
told them, as reported by Warren, that it did not have a big report to make, but
did have some "communications" to present to the Commission.(136) They would do
this when Rankin let them know that the Commission was ready. Dulles said that
the CIA had
Page 34
34
not seen the FBI report and that it would really help them in its work if it had
access to it.(137) He also suggested that the CIA could be very helpful in
certain areas, such as Oswald's sojourn in the Soviet Union, where it had
expertise.(138) Essentially the Commission would have to evaluate the CIA's
evidence on that matter and would have to get the FBI's information to the CIA.
This problem led to a general discussion of the relationship between the various
Government agencies. The following exchange occured:
Mr. DULLES. We can expedite the CIA report, I know, because I can give them, or
the FBI can pass to them these exhibits about Oswald being in Russia. This is
going to be a pretty key business, the analysis of those reports.
CHAIRMAN. Haven't the CIA any contact with the FBI?
MR. DULLES. I don't think they'll do it because the FBI has no authority to pass
these reports to anyone else without this Commission's approval.
Mr. McCLOY. The CIA knows everything about it. I don't know how they know it but
John McCone knows everything.
Mr. DULLES. He has not seen the reports because I've checked with people
yesterday at great length. I have no authority to give it to them and he has not
seen the exhibits that we now have, that describe Oswald while he was Russia.
CHAIRMAN. I see no reason why we should not give John McCone a copy of this
report and let him see it. He can see mine if he wants to...
Mr. DULLES. I can make mine available. I wouldn't want to do it without approval
of this Commission.
Senator RUSSELL. I have never been able to understand why it is that every
agency acts like it's the sole agency in the Government. There is very little
interchange of information between the departments in the United States
Government. The entire view is that they are a separate closed department, and
there is not interchange of information.(139)
(125) The problem of a lack of communication and cooperation between the parts
of the Federal investigative bureaucracy bothered the Commission. At one point
Chief Justice Warren suggested:
* * * perhaps we ought to have a thorough investigation * * * as to the
relationship between the FBI and the Secret Service and the CIA in connection,
not only with this matter, but in matters of this kind so that we can do
something worthwhile in the future. (140)
(126) Such a thorough investigation was never done. The Commission eventually
asked the various agencies for recommendations on how to improve communications
among them so as to protecht the President better in the future.(141)
(127) The problem of trying to investigate areas that wee "tender spots" with
the agencies was brought dramatically to the Commission's attention on January
22, 1964. On athat day, Chief Justice Warren had called a special meeting to
advise the Commission that Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr had information
that Lee Harvey
Page 35
35
Oswald may have been an informant for the FBI. No more tenderer spot would ever
come to the Commission's attention.
(128) General Counsel Rankin first explained the allegation to the Commission.
They then speculated about what mission the FBI could have been using Oswald
for. (142) The discussion then turned to the implications of the allegation. The
discussion then turned to the implications of the allegation. The pressure that
the Commission was under to come out in support of the FBI's conclusions,
coupled with the implications of this allegation, stunned the Commission:
Mr. RANKIN. I thought first you should know about it. Second, there is this
defector to that is somewhat an issue in this case, and I suppose you are all
aware of it. That is that the FBI is very explicit that Oswald is the assassin
or was the the assassin, and they are very explicit that there was no
conspiracy, and they are also saying in the same place that they are continuing
their investigation. Now in my experience of almost 9 years, in the first place
it is hard to get them to say when you think you have got a case tight enough to
convict somebody, that that is the person that committed the crime. In my
experience with the FBI they don't do that. They claim that they don't do that.
Second, they have not run out of all kinds of leads in Mexico or in Russia and
so forth which they could probably *** they haven't run out all the leads on the
information and they could probably say--that isn't our business. *** But they
are concluding there can't be a conspiracy without those being run out. Now that
is not (normal) from my experience with the FBI***. Why are they so eager to
make both of those conclusions *** the original report and their experimental
report, which is such a departure. Now that is just circumstantial evidence, and
it doesn't prove anything about this, but it raises questions. We have to try to
find out what they haven't said that would give any support to the story, and
report it to you***.
When the Chief Justice and I wee just briefly reflecting on this we said if that
was true and it ever came out and could be established, then you would have
people think that there was a conspiracy to accomplish this assassination that
nothing the Commission did or anybody could dissipate.
Representative BOGGS. You are so right.
Mr. DULLES. Oh, terrible.
Representative BOGGS. Its implications of this are fantastic, don't you think
so?
CHAIRMAN. Terrific.
Mr. RANKIN. To have anybody admit to it, even if it was the fact, I am sure that
there wouldn't at this point be anything to prove it.
Mr. DULLES. Lee, if this were true, why would it be particularly in their
interest--I could see it would be in their interest to get rid of this man but
why would it be in their interest to say he is clearly the only guilty one? I
mean I don't see that argument that you raise particularly shows an interest***.
Page 36
36
Mr. RANKIN. They would like to have us fold up and quit.
Reprensentative BOGGS. This closes the case, you see. Don't you see?
Mr. DULLES. Yes, I see that.
Mr. RANKIN. They found the man. There is nothing more to do. The Commission
supports their conclusions, and we can go on home and that is the end of it.
Mr. DULLES. But that puts the burden right on them. If he was not the killer,
and they employed him, they are already it, you see. So your argument is correct
if they are sure that this is going to close the case, but if it don't close the
case, they are worse off than ever by doing this.
Representative BOGGS. Yes, I would think so. And of course, we are all even
gaining in the realm of speculation I don't even like to see this being taken
down.
Mr. DULLES. Yes. I think this record ought to be destroyed. Do you think we need
a record of this?(143)
(129) On January 24, 1964, Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr, Dallas County
District Attorney Wade and Assistant District Attorney William Alexander flew to
Washington, D.C., to meet with General Counsel Rankin and Chief Justice
Warren.(144) At this meeting, the Texans set out the basis of the informant
allegations.
(130) On January 27, 1964, the Commission met to decide how to deal with the
rumor that Oswald had been an FBI informant. The first method discussed was
asking the Attorney General to check into the rumor. Rankin reported that the
officials at the Justice Department were reluctant to take that approach:
* * * it is the feeling of the department, not the Attorney General because he
is not there, but Mr. Katzenbach, and Mr. Miller, the Assistant Attorney General
in charge of the criminal division, that such a request might be embarrasing,
and at least would be difficult for the Attorney General, and might, if urged
while we would get the information we desired, make very much more difficult for
him to carry on the work of the Department for the balance of his term.(145)
(131) Rankin next suggested that he talk to J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the
FBI. He would explain that the Commission desired to put the rumor to rest.
(146) He would inform the Director that a statement from him would not be
sufficient and that the Commission desired "whatever records and materials they
have that it just couldn't be true."(147) Rankin would also seek Hoover's
permission to do an independent investigation should that prove necessary in
putting the rumor to rest. (148) Rankin said:
We do have a dirty rumor that is very bad for the Commission, the problem and it
is very damaging to the agencies that are involved in it and it is very damaging
to the agencies that are involved in it and it must be wiped out insofar as it
is possible to do so * * *.(149)
(132) Chief Justice Warren was not completely happy with this approach.(150) He
saw that they had a choice between investigating the rumor and then approaching
the Bureau, or just letting the
Page 37
37
Bureau handle it. He reported that he and Rankin had argued about the approach
and that Rankin had thought it "the better part of cooperation" to ask the FBI
first.(151) Warren said that he rather dislikes the idea of going to them
without investigating the rumor first.(152) Senator Russell was worried that if
a statement was elicited from the FBI before an investigation, then a subsequent
investigation would appear to be an attempt to impeach the FBI.(153)
Representative Boggs echoed Russell's concern when he said:
If you get a statement from responsible officials in that agency and then you
say, "Well we are not going to take this statement on face value, we are going
to go behind it," this could become a matter of grave embarrassment to
everybody. (154)
(133) The discussion then turned to the problem of proving or disproving the
rumor, as well as how to approach the problem:
Senator RUSSELL. If Oswald never had assassinated the President or at least been
charged with assassinating the President and had been in the employ of the FBI
and somebody had gone to the FBI they would have denied he was an agent.
Mr. DULLES. Oh, yes.
Senator RUSSELL. They would be the first to deny it. Your agents would have done
the same thing.
Mr. DULLES. Exactly * * *.
Senator COOPER. If you have these people up (from Texas) and examine them the
FBI will know that.
Mr. RANKIN. They already know about this apparently * * * I just don't think
that they (Texas officials) are going to come out and say they fabricated this,
if it is a fabrication. It is too serious for that.
Representative BOGGS. Of course, we get ourselves into a real box. You have got
to do everything on Earth to establish the facts one way or the other. And
without doing that, why everything concerned, including everyone of us is doing
a very grave disservice * * *.
Senator COOPER. * * * before you asked Mr. Hoover you present us with all the
proof to the contrary, because as you say, if he presents all this proof to the
contrary, then the situation changes a little bit. It would appear to him that
you are trying to impeach his testimony * * *.
Mr. McCLOY. Do we have a statement from Mr. Hoover that this man was not an
agent? Was that communicated in the record?
Mr. RANKIN. Yes * * *.
Mr. McCLOY. I would like to examine again this relationship between the
Department of Justice and the FBI. Just who would it be embarrassing for the
Attorney General of the United States to inquire of one of his agencies whether
or not this man who was alleged to have killed the President of the United
States, was an agent. Does the embarrassment supersede the importance of getting
the best evidence in a situation as this?
Page 38
38
Mr. RANKIN. Well, I think it is a question of whether we have to put him into
that position in order to get the job done, because there is in my opinion, not
any question but what there will be more friction, more difficulty with his
carrying out his responsibilities, and I think we have a very real problem in
this Commission in that if we have meetings all the time and they know what it
is about *** and we are meeting rather rapidly here in the last few days, and
they can guess probably what it is about, certainly after the meeting with the
Texas people***.
Senator COOPER. *** In view of all the rumors and statements that have been made
not only here but abroad, I think to ask the President's brother, the dead
President, to do this, it wouldn't have any backing in it. It would have no
substance in his purpose but some crazy people would translate it from his
official postion to a personal position. It may sound farfetched but he would be
implying as a person that something was wrong. You can't overlook any
implications.
Mr. McCLOY. I think that would perhaps be an element in the thing, but it still
wouldn't divert me from asking this man who happens to be the Attorney General
whose sworn duty is to enforce justice, to ask him just what is within his
knowledge in regard to such a serious thing as this. It is [an] awkward affair.
But as you said the other day, truth is our only client *** I think we may have
to make this first step, that the Senator speaks about, but I don't think that
we could recognize that any door is closed to us, unless the President closes it
to us, and in the search for truth***.
Mr. RANKIN. I don't see how the country is ever going to be willing to accept it
if we don't satisfy them on this particular issue, not only with them but the
CIA and every other agency***.
Mr. DULLES. Since this has been so much out in the public, what harm would be in
talking to Hoover without waiving any right to make any investigation in the
public***. There is a terribly hard thing to disprove, you know. How do you
disprove a fellow who was not your agent? How do you disprove it?
Representative BOGGS. You could disprove it, couldn't you?
Mr. DULLES. No.
Representative BOGGS. I know, ask questions about something--
Mr. DULLES. I never knew how to disprove it.
Representative BOGGS. Did you have agents above whom you had no record
whatsoever?
Mr. DULLES. The record might not be on paper. But on paper we would know and you
could say this meant the agent and somebody else could say it meant another
agent.
Representative BOGGS. Let's take a specific case; that fellow Powers was one of
your men.
Page 39
39
Mr. DULLES. Oh, yes, he was not an agent. He was an employee.
Representative BOGGS. There was no problem in proving he was employed by the
CIA.
Mr. DULLES. No. We had a signed contract.
Representative BOGGS. Let's say Powers did not have a signed contract but was
recruited by someone in CIA. The man who recruited him would know, wouldn't he?
CHAIRMAN. Wouldn't tell it under oath?
Mr. DULLES. I wouldn't think he would tell it under oath, no. *** He ought not
tell it under oath. Maybe no tell it to his own Government but wouldn't tell it
any other way.
Mr. McCLOY. Wouldn't he tell it to his own chief?
Mr. DULLES. He might or might not. If he was a bad one then he wouldn't.
Representative BOGGS. What you do is you make out a problem if this be true,
make our problem utterly impossible because you say this rumor can't be
dissipated under any circumstances.
Mr. DULLES. I don't think it can unless you believe Mr. Hoover, and so forth and
so on, which probably most of the people will.
Mr. McCLOY. Allen, suppose somebody when you were head of the CIA came to you,
another Government agency and said specifically, "If you will tell us," suppose
the President of the United States comes to you and says, "Will you tell me, Mr.
Dulles?"
Mr. DULLES. I would tell the President of the United States anything, yes; I am
under his control. He is my boss. I wouldn't necessarily tell anybody else,
unless the President authorized me to do it. We had that come up at times***.
Mr. RANKIN. If that is all that is necessary, I think we could get the President
to direct anybody working for the Government to answer this question....
Mr. DULLES. What I was getting at, I think Mr. Hoover would say certainly he
didn't have anything to do with this fellow.(155)
(134) Warren said he thought the problem had to be approached from both sides,
it would have to be checked out with Hoover and independently (156)
(135) Dulles said that he could not imagine Hoover hiring anyone as stupid as
Oswald. The following exchange then occurred:
Mr. McCLOY. I wouldn't put much confidence in the intelligence of all the agents
I have run into. I have run into some awfully stupid agents.
Mr. DULLES. Not this irresponsible.
Mr. McCLOY. Well, I can't say that I have run into a fellow comparable to Oswald
but I have run into some very limited mentalities both in the CIA and the FBI.
[Laughter.]
Page 40
40
CHAIRMAN. Under agents, the regular agents, I think that would be right, but
they and all other agencies do employ undercover men who are of terrible
character.
Mr. DULLES. Terribly bad characters.
Senator RUSSELL. Limited intelligence; even the city police departments do it.
CHAIRMAN. It takes almost that kind of a man to do a lot of this undercover
work.(157)
(136) As well as worrying about putting the Oswald informant allegation to rest,
the Commission worried about angering J. Edgar Hoover:
Mr. RANKIN. Would it be acceptable to go to Mr. Hoover and tell him about the
situation and that we would like to go ahead and find out what we could * * *.
Then if he reacts and says, "I want to show you that it couldn't be," or
something like that, beforehand, what about that kind of approach?
CHAIRMAN. I don't believe we should apologize or make it look that we are in any
way reticent about making any investigation that comes to the Commission. But on
the other hand, I don't want to be unfriendly or unfair to him***.
Mr. RANKIN. What I was fearful of was the mere process will cause him to think
that we are really investigating him.
CHAIRMAN. If you tell him we are going down there to do it, we are investigating
him aren't we?
Mr. RANKIN. I think it is inherent.
CHAIRMAN. If we are investigating him, we are investigating the rumor against
him, we are investigating him, that is true.(158).
(137) The reason the Commission had to worry about antagonizing Hoover was that
the Commission was almost totally dependent on the FBI for a large part of its
investigation. This became apparent later in the meeting when several members
expressed their concern over that dependence. It came up in the context of the
discussion of a problem related to the informant allegation and the way to deal
with the FBI. The problem was the strange circumstances that seemed to surround
FBI special agent James P. Hosty:
Mr. McCLOY. What have they done? * * * I would think the time is almost overdue
for us being as dependent as we are on FBI investigations, the time is almost
overdue for us to have a better perspective of the FBI investigation than we now
have * * * We are so dependent upon them for our facts that it might be a useful
thing to have [Allen Belmont, one of Hoover's assistants] before us, or maybe
just you talk to him, for example, to follow up on Hosty.
Mr. RANKIN. Part of our difficulty in regard to it is that they have no problem.
They have decided that it is Oswald who committed the assassination, they have
decided that no one else is involved, they have decided that no one else is
involved, they have decided * * *.
Senator RUSSELL. They have tried the case and reached a verdict on every aspect.
Page 41
41
Representative BOGGS. You have put your finger on it.(159)
(138) It was clear to the Commission at this point that they had two
alternatives in light of the FBI's preconceptions and the Commission's
dependence on the FBI. They could either, in Russell's words, "just accept the
FBI's findings and go and write the report * * * or else we can go and try to
run down some of these collateral rumors * * *."(160) There was general
agreement within the Commission that they had to go beyond the FBI's word on the
informant allegation. They finally voted to let Rankin approach Hoover in the
manner he thought best.(161)
(139) On the same days as the above described meeting, January 27, 1964, the
Warren Commission received a letter from Hoover. It said, in part:
Lee Harvey Oswald was never used by this Bureau in an informant capacity. He was
never paid any money for furnishing information and he most certainly never was
an informant of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In the event you have any
further questions concerning the activities of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation in this case, we would appreciate being contacted directly.(162)
(140) Rankin discussed the rumor with Hoover the next day, January 28, 1964.
Hoover assured him that all informants were known to FBI headquarters and that
"Oswald had never been an informant of the FBI."(163)
(141) On February 6, 1964, Hoover submitted an affidavit to the Commission that
stated that a search of FBI records showed that Oswald had never been an
informant.(164) On February 13, 1964, Hoover sent over 10 additional affidavits
from each FBI agent who had had contact with Oswald.(165) On February 27, 1964,
special agent Robert Gemberling submitted an affidavit that explained the
omission of special agent Hosty's name from the transcript of Oswald's
notebook.(166) Assistant Director Alan Belmont testified before the Commission
on May 6, 1964. J. Edgar Hoover on May 14, 1964.(167)
(142) Even though the Commission had decided that the informant allegation had
to be approached from both ends, there is little indication that they pressed
the investigation into the source of the allegations much beyond talking to the
newspaperman who first reported them.(168) According to testimony before this
committee, the Commission had the Internal Revenue Service do an audit of
Oswald's income on the assumption that had he been an informant, the IRS would
discover unaccounted income. (169) The Commission did not investigate Hoover or
the FBI, and managed to avoid the appearance of doing so. It ended up doing what
the members had agreed they could not do: Rely mainly on the FBI's denial of the
allegations.
(143) The question of whether Hoover and John McCone should testify before the
Commission was considered at a Commission meeting on April 30, 1964.(170)
Senator Cooper insisted that it was proper to call the heads of the agencies to
testify on the informant allegation. (171) It was decided to call them to
testify although some Commission members were still reluctant to get involved in
a confrontation with Hoover.(172) At this meeting, Rankin also expressed his
satisfaction
Page 42
42
with the CIA's and FBI's handling of the Mexico City investigation: "I think
that the CIA and FBI did a remarkably good job down there for us."(173)
Attitude of the Warren Commission staff
Predisposition regarding the Agencies
(144) The testimony of Warren Commission staff members before this committee
indicated that, before working on the Commission, they were in general favorably
disposed to the Federal investigative agencies. Some had had prior encounters
with either the FBI or the CIA. With two exceptions, they had been favorably
impressed with what they had seen.
(145) Wesley Liebeler testified that he had once been interviewed by an agent of
the CIA:
Q. Had you prior to going to work for the Warren Commission had any prior
experience with any of the Federal agencies, investigative agencies, FBI, CIA?
A. I was interviewed by a CIA agent once when I was younger.
Q. Did you form any impressions about them?
A. I was favorably impressed.(174)
Liebeler indicated that, other than this, he had had no other contacts with the
agencies prior to working for the Commission and that he had no predisposition
toward them.
(146) Arlen Specter testified that he had had no prior contact with the CIA and
no preformed opinion about the agencies:
I had had no prior contact with the Secret Service that I can recollect, or the
CIA. So I really had no predisposition. I had an open mind.(175)
(147) Specter had had experience with the FBI in his capacity as an assistant
district attorney in Philadelphia, prior to joining the Warren Commission staff
as a junior counsel:
With respect to their capabilities, speaking for myself, I had experience with
the FBI and had found them to be able investigative personnel in my prior
contacts.(176)
(148) W. David Slawson testified that he was, if anything, favorably disposed
toward the CIA:
* * * I don't think I had any predisposition other than the general public
awareness of these agencies. I suppose I had a little bit more than the average
person's knowledge about the CIA, very slightly. My recollection is that the CIA
when I was in college recruited people, I mean they came on, they sent down
people who would talk to students just like any other prospective employer. I
don't know if they still do that or not. I knew one or two people in the class
ahead of me who by all accounts went to work for the CIA and it was something I
briefly considered myself. I decided to go on to graduate school and physics and
I never explored the CIA thing. But they had seemed to hire high caliber people
out of my college. I was favorably disposed there(177)
Page 43
43
(149) Norman Redlich had a skeptical attitude toward the FBI when he joined the
Warren Commission staff as an assistant to J. Lee Rankin:
As a professor of constitutional law I regarded myself as a civil libertarian. I
had regarded the FBI and its activities during the 1950's in the cold war period
as being one which had been repressive of free speech. So I did not come to
Washington with the view that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was a model
that I should choose to follow. I had had no direct experience with it * * * I
had no particular feeling about the CIA. (178)
(150) Burt Griffin brought a very skeptical opinion of the abilities of the FBI
to the Warren Commission staff:
I had worked with the FBI for 2 years when I was an assistant U.S. attorney. I
didn't have a political view of them but I frankly didn't think they were very
competent. I felt then, and I still feel, that they have a great myth about
their ability but that they are not capable by their investigative means of ever
uncovering a serious and well planned conspiracy. They would stumble upon it. I
think their investigative means themselves may be self-defeating. I never found
them very creative, very imaginative.
My attitude toward them was that I thought they were honest. I didn't think in a
sticky situation that I would have great faith in them.(179)
(151) Griffin's skepticism did not extend to the CIA with whom he had had no
prior contact: "I guess I for one trusted them, I think."(180)
Attitude of the staff toward the investigation
(152) Whether it was because of, or in spite of, their predispositions toward
the Federal investigative agencies, the Warren Commission staff members who
testified before this committee believed they brought a healthy skepticism to
the investigation. Norman Redlich commented on the staff's orientation toward
the agencies:
* * * I would not characterize our position as being one of extreme belief or
extreme disbelief. I would call it one of healthy skepticism.(181)
(153) Arlen Specter testified that the staff had to take such an attitude
because some of the agencies' actions were subjects of the Warren commission's
investigation:
We were concerned about some of the agencies from the point of view that their
own activities were subjects of investigation. So that was always a matter of
concern.(182)
(154) W. David Slawson testified that, in spite of his predisposition toward the
Central Intelligence Agency, he maintained an objective attitude toward them: "I
understood immediately that part of my assignment would be to suspect everyone.
So included in that would be the CIA and FBI.(183)
Page 44
44
(155) Burt Griffin testified that Norman Redlich's political view of the FBI
gave Redlich a strong desire to prove them wrong:
I think that at that point my recollection of conversations, for example, with
Norman Redlich, were that he took a political view of the FBI. He saw them as a
conservative agency which was determined to pin this on someone who was of a
different political persuasion. I think he started out with a strong motivation
along that line, to prove that they were wrong.(184)
(156) Other testimony also indicates that the staff had a strong desire to find
the truth regardless of the consequences and to state that the Federal agencies
were wrong if the investigation showed that. Burt Griffin testified about the
desire to prove the FBI wrong:
I think that it is fair to say, and certainly reflects my feeling, and it was
certainly the feeling that I had of all of my colleagues, that we were
determined, if we could, to prove that the FBI was wrong, to find a conspiracy
if we possibly could.
I think we thought we would be national heroes in a sense if we could find
something that showed that there had been something sinister beyond what
appeared to have gone on.(185)
(157) W. David Slawson testified that the staff often speculated about the
possibility of finding a high-level conspiracy. He said that, if they found one,
they were determined to bring the truth out:
We would sometimes speculate as to what would happen if we got firm evidence
that pointed to some very high official. * * * Of course that would present a
kind of frightening prospect because if the President or anyone else that high
up was indeed involved they clearly were not going to allow someone like us to
bring out the truth if they could stop us.
The gist of it was that no one questioned the fact that we would still have to
try to bring it out and would do our best to bring out just whatever the truth
was. The only question in our mind was if we came upon such evidence that was at
all credible how would we be able to protect it and bring it to proper
authorities.(186)
(158) Slawson testified that this speculative suspicion included people in the
investigative agencies or foreign governments. He indicated that the Warren
Commission staff was determined to get the truth out even if it would lead to an
international incident:
When I said higher-ups I would include the people high up in the organization,
the FBI and CIA too. Everybody was of course a possible suspect.(187)
* * * * * * *
I don't think that the American Government would have ever or would today stand
by and upon proven charges that their President had been killed at the order of
some other
Page 45
45
government, would just allow it to go by. They would either insist that the
people in that government be prosecuted or if they weren't I suppose we would
invade. So we thought we might be triggering a war with Cuba. But again that was
something that the chips would have to fall where they may.(188)
(159) At least one Warren Commission staff member had the impression that this
attitude, at least as it applied to the investigative agencies, was not shared
by the higher-level staff members or the Commission member. Burt Griffin
testified that:
* * * there was also a concern that this investigation not be conducted in such
a way as to destroy any of the investigative agencies that then existed in the
Government. There was a genuine fear expressed that this could be done.
Second, that it was important to keep the confidence of the existing
investigative agencies, and that if we had a staff that was conducting its own
investigation, that it would generate a paranoia in the FBI and other
investigative agencies which would not only perhaps be politically
disadvantageous, it would be bad for the country because it might be justified
but it might also be counterproductive.
I think that there was a fear that we might be undermining * * * my impression
is that there was genuine discussion of this at a higher level than mine. (189)
Initial staff impressions of the Agencies
(160) The Warren Commission staff had its first contact with the FBI when it
received the summary and investigative reports prepared for the Commission. In
general, the initial impression of the staff was that the documents were not
good. Two of the staff members who testified before this committee indicated
that they got the impression that the FBI had already made up their mind about
the results of the investigation. Burt Griffin said:
Q. Is it fair to say from your perceptions that the FBI and agencies of the
Government at that period were convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone
assassin?
A. Right.(190)
(161) W. David Slawson had much the same impression:
The FBI had prepared a thick file which to their mind disposed of the case, it
seemed like. Although my own involvement was not nearly as much with the FBI as
it was with the CIA, I nevertheless read the FBI file which was a good way of
getting yourself introduced to the whole general case.
I think it appeared to me, as it did to many people on the staff to be a
competent document. But it also was self-serving, and you could not read that
and think that the FBI had ever made any mistakes or there was any serious
possibility that they had.
So, we knew that particularly with the FBI, but I just assumed it was the case
with anybody, it is human nature, that once having committed themselves on any
statement
Page 46
46
about what happened, they would be defensive about it and not want to admit that
they were wrong, and also that they all had a strong interest in not being
blamed for not having adequately protected the President.(191)
(162) Norman Redlich was not very impressed by the initial FBI documents:
I thought the FBI report was a grossly inadequate document. In fairness to the
Bureau they apparently decided to produce something very quickly, but based upon
what I feel I know and remember about the facts of the assassination, I think it
was a grossly inadequate document.(192)
Attitude of staff during the course of the investigation
(163) Generally, the attitudes that the staff members brought to the
investigation remained unchanged during the course of their work. Arlen Specter
testified that:
I thought they were good before they started. I thought they sent the very best
in the course of the investigation. I thought they had some very good men. I did
not deal with any of the note destroyers or allegations of that. I worked with
the technicians. * * * I suspected the ones we saw on the Commission were not
typical of the FBI, they were really good.(193)
(164) Burt Griffin's initial impression of the FBI also remained essentially the
same:
I felt that it-the FBI-is a big bureaucracy and most of the people I felt within
the FBI functioned like a clerk in any other big organization, and they try to
do their job and they try to not get in hot water with the boss and get egg over
their face, and sometimes they have a couple of bosses, we being one and
somebody else being another.(194)
(165) Griffin's trust of the CIA may have been altered somewhat by the delayed
response to his request for information on Jack Ruby.(195) He said "I was
skeptical but I won't go so far as to say I distrusted them."(196)
(166) Norman Redlich testified that he was generally satisfied with the work of
the Federal agencies:
Once the decision was made that the investigatory arms of the Federal Government
were going to be used by the Commission my overall judgment of the way that
those investigatory arms performed was extremely favorable.
I believe that they were completely responsive to the requests of the Commission
for investigative work.(197)
He also commented:
We came with not preconceived notion. * * * At the conclusion of the inquiry I
was of the opinion that we had had the full cooperation of the agencies of the
United States Government.(198)
Page 47
47
(167) This conclusion somewhat belied Redlich's initial political view of the
FBI. Realizing this, he explained:
I came with the feeling that maybe there were two FBI's. Maybe there is the FBI
that works at a professional law enforcement level; that was the group I dealt
with, that was the group for which I came away with a very healthy respect.
Maybe there was another FBI which dealt with political matters which I had
nothing to do with, and which undoubtedly accounted for my prior negative
feelings about their work.
Time after time as I worked with their experts I found they were fair, cautious,
and did not try to overstate the case. (199)
(168) Redlich's testimony indicated that there was at least one instance when he
was dissatisfied with the FBI's response to the Commission:
I was disturbed over that [the omission of FBI Special Agent James P. Hosty's
name from a transcription of the contents of Oswald's notebook provided to the
Commission by the FBI]. I immediately reported it to Mr. Rankin * * * We wrote
to the FBI a rather strong letter expressing our dismay about the fact that the
transcript was not complete and asking an explanation for it * * * On the same
day we sent the letter to the FBI there then came to us an explanation saying
that the reason they had not sent it was that they were sending us only the
material that would be addressed to leads and their own agency would not be a
lead * * * In any event the explanation still left me annoyed over the fact that
it had been left out and I remain annoyed to this day.
Q. Was it pursued further when you got a reply that they were only excepting
that they felt would be a lead?
A. I think the decision was made at the time that, while we were really not very
happy with the reply, we couldn't really disprove it. That was not, as I recall,
pursued beyond that point.
Q. Is it fair to say that the matter was then dropped?
A. To the best of my recollection, yes, sir.(200)
(169) Other evidence indicated that the omission of Special Agent Hosty's name
from the transcript of oswald's notebook affected the whole staff. Rankin called
a staff meeting on February 11, 1964, to discuss the allegations that Oswald had
been an FBI informant and the Hosty incident. A memorandum for the record
prepared by Howard P. Willens on February 12, 1964, described the staff's
reaction to the Hosty problem:
Some members of the staff thought that the significance of this omission was not
particularly great and that no further action should be taken at this time. Most
of the members of the staff, however, thought that the omission of the Hosty
information was of considerable importance and could not be ignored by the
Commission. There was discussion as to
Page 48
48
the possibility of the adverse effect on the relationship with the FBI if this
matter were brought to its attention. The thought was expressed that pointing
this omission out to the FBI might in fact produce more accurate reports by the
FBI in the future. I suggested that the group consider the possibility of
addressing a letter to the FBI which would request an explanation from the
Bureau regarding this matter. The majority of the members of the staff present
at the meeting did agree with the proposal that something of this sort be done
in the near future.
At the end of the meeting Mr. Rankin suggested that the members of the staff
consider all the facts of this problem more fully.(201)
(170) Burt Griffin testified about this incident before this committee:
GRIFFIN. I recall the Hosty incident * * *
Q. What effect, if any, did that have on the relationship between the staff and
the Bureau?
A. I think it established in our minds that we had to be worried about them * *
* I think we never forgot the incident. We were always alert, we were concerned
about the problem * * * There was a staff meeting about it, as I recall. One of
the few staff meetings I have a general recollection of at this point seems to
me was one that Rankin called in which we were all brought in on this, and we
were all told about the problem and once it had been discovered there was a
discussion about whether our discovery should be revealed to the FBI and how
should we proceed with it.
Q. Would it be fair to characterize the incident then as perhaps producing a
more healthy skepticism on the part of the staff and less trust of the Bureau?
A. I think that is right * * *
Q. Would it be fair to say that the incident, far from adversely affecting the
quality of your investigation, may have heightened it?
A. No, I don't think that is true.
Q. If it made you more skeptical and more probing would it help the
investigation?
A. No, I don't think it did. The reason I say that is that I think it basically
set the standard for the kind of judgment that was going to be made about how we
were going to deal with these problems, and the decision made there was that
there was not going to be confrontation, they were to be given an opportunity to
explain it. So the decision was really, as I recall, to go back and give them an
opportunity to clean up their act rather than to carry on a secret investigation
that might be designed to lay a foundation for our further impeachment of
them.(202)
(171) J. Lee Rankin, the former general counsel to the Warren Commission who
headed the investigation, gave his perception of the Bureau's relationship with
the Commission during his testimony before the committee:
Page 49
49
Q. How would you characterize the Commission's relations with the Federal Bureau
of Investigation?:
A. Well, they were fairly good at first and then as we became more critical at
times and the Hosty incident came up and the question about Oswald and the
Director being required to swear personally about whether Oswald had any
connection with the FBI and our asking the Secret Service from time to time to
investigate things the FBI had already investigated and go back over their
tracks, it didn't warm up much at least on a friendly basis.
Q. Did it at any time become an adversary relationship?
A. Well, I went to see Mr. Hoover before we finally put out our report and I had
known him when I had been with the Department of Justice for 6 years and always
had cordial relations but he was pretty feisty when I saw him, any friendship we
had had in the past was not very apparent then.
Q. Did you think at that time that you were getting the full cooperation of the
Bureau?
A. Well, I thought so to this extent. I thought they would never lie about
anything and that if we had any difficulty it might be that they would not bore
in as hard as we would like to have them but I thought we could tell that and
insist on either following it up which we did a great many times by sending them
back to do it again and to do it more thoroughly, or putting the Secret Service
to do it, and they resented that so much that they were a little more careful
after that about trying to be more thorough and so forth. But to have them just
lie to us, I never anticipated that.
The things that have happened in the Bureau in the last few years have been
revealed in the press and so forth. I never thought the Bureau was capable of
that. When I was with the Department of Justice I never thought they were
capable of it and I didn't think agents would do such things. So I was rather
sanguine about that and I don't think the country believed the FBI would do such
things.(203)
(172) Recalling the climate of government in 1963 and 1964, Rankin went on to
state that he then firmly believed that any information that Director Hoover and
the FBI provided to the Commission was completely accurate and truthful, a
belief he no longer maintains. Rankin recalled:
It was a time then I am sure all the Commissioners and I certainly believed that
Mr. Hoover would not do that unless it was the truth and all of the things that
have come out in these later years about Mr. Hoover and the Bureau and various
personnel had not been made known to me or the public or the Commissioners so it
is quite different looking at it from this day than from then.(204)
(173) Recalling FBI Director Hoover's seemingly unchallengeable power in 1964,
and occasional FBI actions that irritated the Warren Commission, J.Lee Rankin
told the committee, "Who could protest against what Mr. Hoover did back in those
days?"(205)
Page 50
50
(174) Rankin told of his feelings upon discovering several years ago that FBI
personnel in Dallas had secretly destroyed a letter that Lee Oswald had sent to
FBI Agent James Hosty shortly before the assassination, a destruction of
evidence which occurred several hours after the accused assassin was shot to
death by Jack RUBY. Recalling the disclosure of this incident and its coverup by
FBI personnel, Rankin Stated:
I think there is considerable significance. In the first place, Hosty was doing
quite a bit of work on the inquiries that the Commission made and if we had
known that he had destroyed any kind of materials relating to the investigation
or his activities we would not have allowed him to do anything more that we knew
of in connection with work for the Commission. There is an implication from that
note and its destruction that there might have been more to it and that the
Bureau was unwilling to investigate whatever more there was and never would get
the information to us. Now that is just a guess. There is, of course, not
credible proof and so we really don't know how much more there was to the
incident and especially what could have been found out about it if it had been
examined closely upon the event.(206)
(175) Slawson's initial predisposition toward the CIA was reinforced by his
experiences on the Warren Commission staff:
Q. After working with the CIA your initial impression remains substantially the
same, you thought you could trust them and rely on them?
A. Yes. I came to know one man particularly well, Rayman Rocca, and I came to
like him and trust him both * * * My impression overall was very favorable of
him. I thought he was very intelligent and tried in every way to be honest and
helpful with me.(207)
Slawson testified that, if anything, rocca was overzealous in trying to be
helpful:
The only drawback I can think of--not really a drawback I suppose for someone in
CIA--is that he was a little overly suspicious. He obviously disliked Castro
immensely. He was very emotional on the subject.(208)
(176) On June 6, 1964, Slawson wrote a memo to Rankin regarding a telephone
conversation that he had had with Rocca. The memorandum relates that Rocca had
pointed out that a book had been published in England approximately 2 months
before the assassination of President Kennedy.(209) It contained the allegation
that rightwing groups in the United States were planning to kill President
Kennedy. The memorandum goes on to relate:
He--Rocca--drew to my attention the fact that the publishing time of this
particular book appears to have been almost exactly when Castro was supposed to
have made his remark in the Cuban Embassy in Brazil * * * to the effect that
"Two can play at this game."(210)
Page 51
51
(177) When asked about this memorandum, Slawson testified that:
My only recollection at this time is that Rocca was drawing my attention to the
fact that Castro might well have been involved. Of course he had presumably
drawn my attention to this before but he was just doing what he did with me a
lot, trying to work with me to put two and two together.(211)
(178) Slawson also testified that Rocca had informed him of the CIA's
involvement with anti-castro Cuban exiles:
My best recollection at this time is that I did in several conversations with
Rocca discuss the CIA involvement in anti-Cuban activities. I was presumably
told that they had been involved of course in the Bay of Pigs invasion. I
remember discussing informally that involvement with a CIA operative in Mexico
City. Also their involvement with anti-Castro Cuban groups in the United
States.(212)
(179) Slawson said further that he considered it his job to suspect everyone,
including the CIA and FBI.(213) He also testified that he was very suspicious of
the anti-Castro Cuban exiles:
My theory was that perhaps, one, the anti-Castro Cubans we knew were very angry
with Kennedy because they felt they had been betrayed with the Bay of Pigs.
Oswald on the other hand was identified publicly with Castro, he was pro-Castro.
So, we felt that if somehow the anti-Castro Cubans could have got Oswald to do
it or done it themselves but framed Oswald, either way, somehow put the blame on
Oswald that they would achieve two objectives that they presumably wanted. One
was revenge on Kennedy and the second would be to trigger American public
opinion strongly against Castro and possibly cause an invasion of Cuba and
overthrow of Castro, and of course these people would be able to go back to
their homes in cuba and not have to live under the Castro government. As I say,
this made a lot of sense to me and I think it was a hypothesis held in mind for
quite a while to see if the facts would fit it. Ultimately they didn't.(214)
(180) When asked whether he had ever questioned the reliability of the
information he received from the CIA because of its involvement with the
anti-Castro Cubans, or rocca's bias against Castro, slawson responded:
No. In a sense everything I tried to take into consideration, so everything was
a cause for questioning. But in terms of coming to a conclusion in my own mind
about the reliability of the information supplied us, no, I concluded that
Rocca's strong anti-Castro feeling did not bias or did not prevent him from
being an honest investigator. I think he was and I am still convinced that he
was. On the other hand of course it affected his judgment.(215)
(181) When asked whether he had ever considered the possibility of CIA
involvement as part of his anti-castro cuban theory, Slawson responded:
Page 52
52
No. I don't think that I entertained very long the possibility that Rocca or
anybody else I had known in the CIA was involved in anyway in killing Kennedy *
* *. The possibility that the anti-Castro Cubans contained people who were
ruthless or desperate enough to kill Kennedy in order to serve their own end I
felt was a very real one. Apparently from all I knew they contained a lot of
desperate ruthless people. I did not have that feeling about the CIA. Now I
tried to keep an open mind so that any place I came upon evidence that would
point toward somebody I would investigate it and that included the CIA as a
possible nest of assassins.
My judgment of their character and so forth was far different I think from the
judgment I made of the anti-Castro Cuban conspiracy groups in the United
States.(216)
(182) Slawson also testified before this committee that he was not aware of the
CIA attempts to kill Castro(217) that the CIA had plotted with underworld
figures to assassinate Castro from 1960 to 1963, with an official in the Cuban
Government to assassinate Castro.
Dependence on the agencies: staff views
(183) Slawson testified that the Warren Commission was "inescapably dependent
upon the CIA especially for some aspects of the investigation."(218) While this
bothered him somewhat, there was nothing that could be done about it:
There is really no way I can imagine and certainly there is no way at the time I
could imagine that anyone could carry on an investigation of foreign
intelligence operations other than through the CIA. That simply is the body of
expert opinion on that sort of thing and capability that exists in the United
States. So, if a major suspect is the CIA itself * * * an investigation like the
Warren commission would find it very, very difficult to ascertain that. That is
just inevitable. This I think occurred to me at the time, too, but there wasn't
much that could be done about it.(219)
(184) Slawson said that the staff tried to overcome this dependence as best it
could:
We would talk about how we might escape from the dependency * * * . One was
occasionally hiring an outside expert to give an independent evaluation or
assessment or something * * * . Second was cross-checking the papers passed back
and forth between jurisdictions. The third would be just keeping an eye and ear
out for any odd bits of information that would come in not through the agencies.
(220)
(185) Liebeler testified before this committee that he did not believe the
Warren Commission was dependent on the agencies:
I never had the feeling that we relied on the Government agencies for our
information. when we started with a bunch of FBI files, but we reviewed those so
that we could conduct
Page 53
53
our own investigation. We did take the testimony of many, many witnesses. We had
the reports of the examination of the physical evidence verified by outside
sources, we did not rely on the FBI. So as to the basic facts of what happened
in Dallas on that day not only did we not rely on the FBI work but the fact is
that the Commission came to assume somewhat different conclusions that the FBI
came to.
There was a preliminary FBI report that solved the problem as to what happened.
Our conclusions were somewhat different from that. I don't think we relied on
the FBI to the extent that people think we did.(221)
(186) Redlich testified that "The Commission used as its principal investigatory
arm the Federal Bureau of Investigation."(222)
(187) James Malley, who served as the FBI's liaison to the Warren Commission,
recalled that the amount of assistance being rendered to the Commission declined
during the latter stage of the investigation:
The majority of reports that were being sent to the Warren Commission, after
probably the middle of the summer, 1964, was rather innocuous reports of
miscellaneous allegations and so on that were continuing to come in. (223)
B. ATTITUDE OF THE FBI AND THE CIA TOWARD THE WARREN COMMISSION
General attitude
The FBI
(188) Once the Warren Commission was created,* J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of
the FBI, accepted his responsibility to respond to the Commission's requests for
information or investigations. Hoover designated Inspector James J. Malley as
liaison with the Commission. Hoover also informed Assistant Director Alan
Belmont that he would be personally responsible for every piece of paper that
went to the Warren Commission."(225) During the course of the Warren
Commission's existence, Belmont briefed Hoover daily on the various aspects of
the Commission's work.(226)
(190) The evidence indicates that Hoover viewed the Warren Commission more as an
adversary than a partner in a search for the facts of their assassination.
Hoover often expressed his belief that the Commission was "seeking to criticize
the FBI."(227) According to a former assistant director of the FBI, Hoover was
afraid that the Commission would discover gaps in the FBI's investigation:
Hoover did not want the Warren commission to conduct an exhaustive investigation
for fear that it would discover important and relevant facts that we in the FBI
had not discovered in our investigation, therefore, it would be greatly
embarrassing to him and damaging to his career and the FBI as a whole.(228)
___________________________________
Page 54
54
(191) The committee's investigation indicated that Hoover's fears were not
entirely unfounded. It had evidence suggesting that Hoover was receiving reports
on the Commission's activities from one of the Commission members.
* * * Our President (Gerald R. Ford) was one of our (FBI) members of the
Congressional stable when he was in Congress. It is to him and others we would
go when we want favors handled, and, of course, we were always willing to
reciprocate. All right, he became a member of the Warren Commission and he was
"our man" on the Warren Commission and it was to him that we looked to protect
our interest and keep us fully advised of any development that we would not
like, that mitigated against us, and he did. All this I know.(229)
(192) Hoover's fears evidently led him to attempt to limit the Warren
Commission's investigation:
(Hoover) did show marked interest in limiting the scope or circumventing the
scope of (The Warren Commission investigation) and taking action that might
result in neutralizing it.(230)
(194) According to Sullivan, Hoover's principal method in attempting to limit
the Warren Commission's investigation was leaking information to the press:
The main action * * * was to leak to the press the FBI investigation believing
that this would tend to satisfy everybody and perhaps the authorities would
conclude that an investigation of great depth and scope would not be
necessary.(231)
(195) Hoover also circumvented an independent investigation of a specific
allegation by the Warren Commission by another means:
* * * this then is how the FBI reacts to this allegation before the Commission
began investigating it. Hoover covered himself by starting an "investigation" of
the reports that Oswald had been an FBI informant, attempting to discredit the
sources, and he made it clear to the Commission that he would prefer, thank you,
to be approached directly in the unlikely event that any question remained.
(232)
(196) James Malley, the FBI official assigned by Director Hoover to serve as
liaison to the Warren Commission, told the committee that he was not aware of
any negative feelings Hoover had toward the Commission:
I could only give you my reaction when I was called into his office after I
returned from Dallas and what he told me that time. There was certainly no
criticism. I was told that the Warren Commission had been established. I was the
liaison representative, and he wanted full and complete cooperation with them
and no information whatsoever withheld from them. Give them everything.(233)
Page 55
55
(197) Malley described the FBI's relationship with the Warren Commission as:
Strictly a business relationship. No friendliness, no unfriendliness. Just
strictly, you have your work to do, we have ours. If we want something from you,
we will call you and ask for it. If we want further explanations, we will get
them from you. There was never any animosity shown, that I am aware of. (234)
(198) Malley further stated that he had:
No knowledge of what Mr. Sullivan was talking about when he says the Director
was opposed to the creation (of the Commission) and so on * * *. And I never
personally heard him object to the Warren Commission in any way, shape, or
form.(235)
(199) Malley further stated that he would not necessarily trust any statements
that former assistant FBI director William Sullivan made about the assassination
investigation and Director Hoover's role in it. (236) Speaking of Sullivan, the
man in charge of the FBI's investigation into the question of a possible
conspiracy, as well as Lee Oswald's background and association, Malley stated,
"I would not trust him."(237) Malley told the committee that he believed that
former Assistant Director Sullivan, who died in 1977, might lie about the
Bureau's work on the assassination investigation, portraying it in a false light
or negative fashion. (238) Malley suggested that Sullivan may have fabricated
various recollections about the assassination investigation and Hoover's
direction of it and further stated that he believed Sullivan was capable of
committing perjury about these matter.(239) Malley stated that he would "not
necessarily" believe any Sullivan statements made under oath.(240)
(200) Hoover's fear of criticism also lead, in at least one instance, to a
divergence between the Bureau's public statements, including those to the Warren
Commission, and the beliefs of their own officials:
The Bureau by letter to the Commission indicated that the facts did not warrant
placing a stop on (Oswald's) passport as our investigation disclosed no evidence
that Oswald was acting under the instructions or on behalf of any foreign
government or instrumentality thereof. Inspector feels it was proper at that
time to take this "public" position. However, it is felt that with Oswald's
background we should have had a stop on his passport, particularly since we did
not know definitely whether or not he had any intelligence assignments at that
time.(241)
(201) Former Attorney General Katzenbach stated that FBI Director Hoover refused
to send a Bureau official to the first meeting of the Warren Commission, despite
Katzenbach's specific request that an official accompany him. Katzenbach
testified that this placed him in a position where he could not competently
brief the Commission on the continuing FBI investigation, since he was not
familiar with its course: He testified:
Page 56
56
This is the kind of thing you get from Belmont to Tolson, Hoover, knowing
Hoover's opposition to the Commission, not really wanting to have anything to do
with it and also thinking it fairly funny having me sitting over there and not
knowing what was going on.
The reason I wanted the Bureau there was I wanted somebody telling me what was
going on. I did not know.(242)
(202) Katzenbach recalled that Director Hoover and his senior aides were then
the only men in the Government who were truly familiar with the investigation of
the President's death:
Nobody else knew. I did not know what was going on. nobody in the Government
knew what was going on other than very short conclusionary statements which you
got from liaison people, from the director himself.
I did not know who they were interviewing or why they were interviewing, what
they uncovered.(243)
(203) Former Attorney General Katzenbach told the committee he believed the FBI
would have been deeply troubled if it had come across evidence about the
assassination that contradicted the Bureau's initial conclusions about Lee
Harvey Oswald being a lone assassin:
I would have thought they would have no particular problems in running down a
lot of alleys they had not run down if it did not develop any information that
was flatly contrary to their conclusions.(244)
The former Attorney General stated, however, that had the FBI come across
evidence that clearly contradicted its official conclusions about President
Kennedy's murder, he would not be completely sure what would have happened to
such evidence:
What would have happened if they came across that kind of information, God only
knows. What the reverberations of that talking about minor embarrassment--in
really uncovering something that would have changed some result they had
reported, God only knows.
I think people's heads would have rolled and they would have swallowed hard and
done it. I think my view at the time would have been that in a matter as
important as the assassination of a President, I think the Bureau would have
swallowed and taken it and found some graceful way out. Explaining why they had
come to the wrong conclusion would have been a fairly high-powered neutron bomb
in the Bureau, questioning any basic conclusion that they had come to.(245)
(204) Rankin similarly stated that he would be apprehensive about how Hoover and
the FBI would have reacted had they found concrete evidence that disproved their
earlier conclusions about the assassination:
* * * if they had found something like that, I am sure that if we had received
it, it would be only after Mr. Hoover had examined it carefully himself and
didn't dare withhold it
Page 57
57
from us. now that is looking from now rather than at the time that we didn't
think he would deliberately lie.(246)
The CIA
(205) At one level, it appears that the CIA's relationship with the Warren
Commission was exemplary. At another, that relationship was questionable. Dulles
suggested on december 11, 1963, that the CIA would be very useful to the
Commission in areas in which the Agency had expertise, such as Oswald's sojourn
in the Soviet Union.(247) The commission did use the CIA in this manner. Most of
the Commission's requests for information from the CIA dealt with the Soviet
union or Oswald's activities while he was outside the United states.(248)
(206) The CIA's initial investigation, which was completed in december 1963, was
conducted by an officer from the CIA's Western Hemisphere Division.(249) When
the Warren Commission requested information after that, James Angleton, Chief of
the Counterintelligence staff, asked that his unit be given responsibility for
further research and investigation.(250) Richard Helms, Deputy Director of
Plans, granted Angleton's request.(251) Angleton designated one of his
subordinates, Raymond Rocca, the "point of record" for coordinating research for
the Commission.(252)
(207) Rocca and the three other CIA staff members who worked with him on this
task were experts in Soviet affairs.(253) The Church committee, which reviewed
this group's work, had concluded:
The CIA staff exhaustively analyzed the significance of Oswald's activities in
the Soviet Union, but there was no corresponding CIA analysis of the
significance of Oswald's contacts with pro-Castro and anti-Castro groups in the
United States * * *. All of the evidence reviewed by this committee suggests
that these investigators conducted a thorough, professional investigation and
analysis of the information they had.(254)
(208) The evidence suggests that the internal structure of the CIA may have
prevented, or at least impaired, its ability to be of the utmost help to the
Warren Commission. The Commission staff's contact with the CIA was primarily
through Richard Helms. It was also in contact with Thomas Karamessines, Helms'
assistant, and with the "point of record" officer.
(209) In his appearance before the committee, Richard Helms stated that as a
general rule the CIA waited to receive a specific inquiry from the Warren
Commission before they would pass information on.(255) Helms recalled the
Agency's relationship with the Commission in this way:
Mr. HELMS. At the time that the Warren Commission was formed, the agency did
everything in its power to cooperate with the Warren Commission and with the
FBI, the FBI having the lead in the investigation. It was the agency's feeling
that since this tragedy had taken place in the United States, that the FBI and
the Department of Justice would obviously have the leading edge in conducting
the investigation, and
Page 58
58
that the agency would cooperate with them in every way it was possible, and the
same applied to the Warren Commission.(256)
(210) Helms, though the main contact with the Commission, apparently did not
inform it of the CIA plots to assassinate Castro because he did not think they
were relevant to the commission's work and he was not asked about them. (257)
There is also an indication that his testimony before the Commission was
misleading.(258)
(211) Generally, the evidence seems to indicate that the CIA was reluctant or
unable, due to internal structuring, to provide the Commission with certain
information. There are also indications that the Commission did not ask the
right questions. Further, most of the contact with the Agency, other than that
through Helms, was through the "point of record" officer who, although he was
aware of the CIA's involvement with anti-Castro Cubans, did not know about the
CIA's assassination plots against castro. At the same time, people within the
Agency who knew of the plots, such as members of the branch responsible for
Cuban affairs, the Special Affairs staff, knew of the plots but were never in
contact with the Warren Commission.(259)
(212) One example of the Warren Commission's not asking the right questions can
be found in Helm's testimony before the Church committee.(260) Another is the
fact that out of the 36 requests for information to the CIA on file at the
National Archives, only one, the Ruby request, concerned Cuba directly.(261)
(213) In summary, the CIA acted in an exemplary manner in dealing with the
Warren Commission regarding its narrow requests for information. In another
area, that of Cuban involvement and operations, the CIA's actions might well be
described as reluctant.
(214) In his testimony before the committee, Richard Helms stated that he
believed the CIA had done as much as possible to assist the Commission:(262)
I thought we made a major effort to be as cooperative and prompt and helpful as
possible. But in recent years I have been through enough to recognize that you
can't make a flat statement against anything, so I don't know. Maybe there were
some places where it wasn't as prompt as it should have been. but I am not in a
position to identify them.(263)
(215) Later in his testimony, Helms again noted that he had * * * learned in
recent years that one must never make a flat statement about anything, so there
may have been certain cases in which they did not get information promptly. But
I believe our effort was to give it to them as promptly as possible.(264)
Examples of attitudes and relationships
Introduction
(216) The evidence indicates that the Warren Commission was almost totally
dependent on the Federal investigative agencies for the facts and heir primary
analysis.(265) The evidence also indicated that the FBI viewed the Warren
Commission as an adversary and the CIA dealt with the Commission with
reservations. In instances where
Page 59
59
the agencies supplied the Warren Commission with information, followup
investigation was often requested. In at least one instance, this followup
investigation was not done to the satisfaction of the Commission staff. There
are indications in at least two instances there may have been unreasonable delay
on the part of the agencies in meeting the Warren Commission's requests. There
is also an indication that a senior CIA official may have given misleading
testimony.
(217)If the agencies did not supply the facts in the first instance, or if the
facts did not come to the Warren Commission's attention independently, then no
followup was possible. The evidence indicates that facts which may have been
relevant to, and would have substantially affected, the Warren Commission's
investigation were not provided by the agencies. Hence, the Warren Commission's
findings may have been formulated without all of the relevant information.
Inadequate followup--Odio-All incident
(218) As the Warren Commission was nearing the end of its investigation, there
were some areas which it believed had not been investigated to its satisfaction.
One of these was the testimony of Mr. Sylvia Odio. She had stated before the
Commission that a "Leon Oswald" had visited her on, or around, September 25,
1963, in Dallas. On August 28, 1964, Rankin wrote to Hoover requesting further
investigation into Odio's story. The letter said, in part:
It is a matter of some importance to the Commission that Mrs. Odio's allegations
either be proved of disproved. *** In view of our time schedule we would
appreciate receiving a report as soon a possible.(266)
(219) On September 21, 1964, 3 days before the Warren report was delivered to
President Lyndon B. Johnson, Hoover sent Rankin a reply to the August 28, 1964,
letter. It reported that the FBI had located Loran Eugene Hall on September 16,
1964, at Johnsondale, Calif, and that Hall had said he visited Odio in September
1963, accompanied by a William Seymour and a Lawrence Howard. The letter went on
to say.
Hall stated that William Seymour is similar in appearance to Lee Harvey Oswald
and that Seymour speaks only a few words of Spanish. In connection with the
revelations of Hall, you will note that the name Loran Hall bears some phonetic
resemblance to the name Leon Oswald.(267)
The letter related that the FBI was continuing its investigation into this
matter and hoped to obtain a photograph of Hall to show Odio. Hoover promised to
report any other developments promptly.
(220) The Warren report, issued 3 days after it received the above-mentioned
letter, said:
On September 16, 1964, the FBI located Loran Eugene Hall in Johnsondale, Calif.
Hall had been identified as a participant in numerous anti-castro activities. He
told the FBI that in September of 1963 he was in dallas, soliciting aid in
connection with anti-Castro activities. He said he had visited Mrs. Odio. He was
accompanied by Lawrence Howard, a Mexican-American from East Los Angeles, and
one William
Page 60
60
Seymour from Arizona. He stated that Seymour is similar in appearance to Lee
Harvey Oswald; he speaks only a few words of Spanish, as Mrs. Odio testified one
of the men who visited her, did. While the FBI had not yet completed its
investigation into this matter at the time the report went to press, the
Commission has concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was not at Mrs. Odio's apartment
in September of 1963.(268)
(221) This committee found no evidence to indicate that the FBI continued its
investigation of this incident after the Warren report was issued. This incident
has remained controversial because of occurrences between September 16, when
Hall was first interviewed by the FBI, and September 21, when Hoover reported
the results to Rankin. on September 18, 1964, the FBI interviewed William
Seymour. He denied having ever visited Odio. On September 20, 1964, the FBI
interviewed Lawrence Howard, who also denied having ever visited Odio.
(222) On that day, a Sunday, Loran Hall was reinterviewed; he recanted his
original story. Hall had first been interviewed on September 16, 1964, by FBI
Special Agent Leon Brown. Brown was then stationed at the Bakerfield, Calif,
resident agency of the FBI. He received his work assignments, and reported to,
the Los Angeles FBI field office.(269) Brown testified before this committee
that he had no specific recollection of the interviews of Loran Hall.(270) He
also said that he had no specific memory of the events leading up to those
interviews.(271) He assumed they would have been a matter of routine assignment:
I am guessing and I have to suppose that this is the way it must have happened,
that I received a phone call from my Los Angeles office and probably from the
supervisor who handled the case, this particular case, in the Los Angeles office
at that time.(272)
Brown testified that he would have been given the background information for the
interview during this phone call.(273)
(223) The interview report shows that the report was dictated on Thursday
September 17, 1964. Brown testified that, even though he had no independent
recollection of these events, he assumed he had dictated the report on that date
and sent the dictabelt to the Los Angeles office for transcription. (274) The
report was typed on September 23, 1964. This would be in line with what Brown
testified were Bureau procedures: an interview report had to be typed within 5
working days after the date of the interview.(275)
(224) Brown reinterviewed Loran Hall on Sunday, September 2, 1964. He thought
the reason for the second interview was to get a picture of Hall. (276) He
testified that he had taken a picture of Hall on the 16th, but that it had not
turned out. (277) He did not recall any instructions he received to perform the
second interview, but he thought the reason was probably to obtain a
photograph.(278) Brown also testified that he had no independent recollection
that Hall told the two different stories at the two interviews:(297) He said:
Page 61
61
Had I not seen [the interview reports], I think that I would have been able to
tell you that I drove to Kernville [Hall's residence' one day back in 1964 and
interviewed somebody in connection with the assassination, and then again went
back the next day or two to get a picture, which failed to come out; and that
was it.(280)
(225) Brown's second interview of Loran Hall was on september 20, 1964. The
report shows that it was dictated on september 21, 1964. Brown testified that he
assumed that the dictabelt would have been sent to the Los Angeles office on
that day (281) This report was also typed September 23, 1964. Brown could not
explain why this report was expedited or why the first one was not typed until
the same day or the second one:
The only thing that comes to my mind is that they may have been trying to get
everything transcribed to complete an investigative report * * *. There may have
been some urgency to get the report, investigative report, put together and in
the mail.(282)
(226) This committee tried, but was unsuccessful, to determine the circumstances
leading up to the interviews of Loran Eugene Hall and the transmittal of the
results of those interviews to the Warren Commission by way of FBI headquarters
in Washington, D.C.
(227) Liebeler was the Warren Commission staff attorney responsible for the
investigation of Odio's allegations. He testified before this committee that
there was only one area of the Commission's investigation that he was not
satisfied with:
Q. The Sylvia Odio incident was never resolved to your satisfaction, was it?
A. No, not really.(283)
Unreasonable delays
(228) The Ruby information request. On February 24, 1964, Highboard and Griffin,
two Warren Commission staff lawyers, wrote a memorandum entitled "Jack
Ruby--Background, friends, and other Pertinent Information." This memorandum was
directed to Richard Helms, Deputy Director for Plans, Central Intelligence
Agency. A draft cover letter said, in part:
I would appreciate your forwarding to this Commission copies of all records in
your files which contain information about Jack Ruby or the persons mentioned in
part C of the enclosed memorandum.(284)
Some of the people included in part C of the memorandum were Eva Grant, Earl
Ruby, Ralph Paul, George Senator, Barney Baker, H.L. Hunt, Lamar Hunt, Louis J.
McWillie, and Barney Ross.
(229) The cover letter was not sent. The routing slip attached to the cover
letter explains;
This letter and the memorandum prepared by Messrs. Highboard and Griffin was not
sent. The Memorandum was delivered by hand to representative of CIA at a meeting
on March 12, 1964.(285)
Page 62
62
(230) The routing slip was dated March 14, 1964, and was initialed by Howard P.
Willens. Judge Griffin, in his testimony before this committee, said that he had
no idea why there was a 3-week delay in transmitting the memorandum to the
CIA.(286)
(231) A CIA internal memorandum for the record memorializes the March 12, 1964,
meeting between the CIA and Warren Commission staff. It records the transmittal
of the Highboard and Griffin memorandum on Ruby:
The Commission, Mr. Rankin said, would be interested in any information held by
the CIA on Jack Ruby. Mr. Rankin said the Commission staff had prepared a
roundup on Ruby, a copy of which he handed to Mr. Helms. He said he would
appreciate any file reflections or comments that CIA analysts might make on this
material. Mr. Rankin and members of his staff then discussed Ruby's confirmed
trip to Havana in 1959. The Commission has received information from an
unspecified source that Ruby was in Havana again in 1963 under a Czech passport.
Mr. Rankin asked whether CIA could provide any assistance in verifying this
story. Mr. Helms replied that CIA would be limited in its possibility of
assisting, [deleted].(287)
(232) On March 19, 1964, Rankin sent a letter, drafted by Willens, to Helms. It
reminded Helms of the memorandum on Ruby that had been handed to him on March
12, 1964. It went on to say:
At that time we requested that you review this memorandum and submit to the
Commission any information contained in your files regarding matters covered in
the memorandum, as well as any other analysis by your representatives which you
believed might be useful to the Commission.
As you know, this Commission is nearing the end of its investigation. We would
appreciate hearing from you as soon as possible whether you are in a position to
comply with this request in the near future.(288)
(233) This committee's examination of the Warren Commission records in the
National Archives reveals no further written communication on the subject until
September 15, 1964. Then, 9 days before the Warren report was submitted to
President Johnson, the Commission received a memorandum on the Ruby request. It
was written by Helms' assistant, thomas H. Karamessines and referenced the May
19, 1964, letter from Rankin to Helms. Karamessines' memorandum said, in part:
This memorandum will confirm our earlier statement to the Commission to the
effect that an examination of Central Intelligence Agency files has produced no
information of Jack ruby or his activities. The Central Intelligence Agency has
no indication that Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald were associated, or might have
been connected in any manner.
The records of this Agency were reviewed for information about the relatives,
friends, and associates of Ruby named in your summary of his background. Our
records do not reflect any information pertaining to these persons.(289)
Page 63
63
(234) There is some indication that the CIA notified the Warren Commission
orally of this prior to the time of the above-quoted memorandum. An early draft
of the Warren report chapter on conspiracy, which was written before September
1964, said: "The CIA has no information suggesting that Jack Ruby was involved
in any type of Cuban or other foreign conspiracy."(290)
Judge Griffin concluded from this that:
* * * we had received oral communications from the CIA telling us that they had
no information and that we ultimately insisted on their putting their oral
communications to us in writing. That, I believe, is why the CIA letter came so
late.(291)
(235) CIA item 250, dated March 5, 1964. On November 23, 1963, the CIA sent
three reports and supporting documents to the Secret Service. (292) The Warren
Commission first learned of these reports on January 8, 1964, a letter from
Rankin to McCone, Director of Central intelligence, requested copies of the CIA
materials in the possession of the Secret Service. A CIA internal memorandum
dated March 3, 1964, which dealt with this request, said, in part:
We have a problem here for your determination. [Staff officer] does not desire
to respond directly to paragraph 2 of that letter [of February 12, 1964] which
made levy for our material which had gotten into the hands of the Secret Service
since November 23 * * * Unless you feel otherwise [staff officer] would prefer
to wait out the Commission on the matter covered by paragraph 2.(293)
(236) On March 9, 1964, Willens reported a discussion with Helms about the
request for the Secret Service materials. (294) He reported that Helms had
indicated that the CIA had "certain unspecified problems" in complying with the
request. Helms maintained that some of the information in the Secret Service's
possession had already been made available to the Commission and that the rest
of it was irrelevant matters or things "that had not checked out." Helms said
that he would not be acceptable, and they would discuss it at their next
meeting.(295)
(237) Willens, Helms and other members of the CIA and Warren Commission staff
met on March 12, 1964. At this meeting, a deal was struck whereby a Warren
Commission staff member could review the CIA file on Oswald to insure that the
summaries provided to the Commission adequately reflected the contents of the
CIA file.(296) Such an inspection was performed by Warren Commission staff
member Samuel Stern on March 27, 1964. In a memorandum dated March 27, 1964, to
Rankin, Stern reported that "There was no item listed [in the CIA index] that we
have not been given either in full text or paraphrased."(297) Three days prior
to Stern's review of the CIA file on Oswald, the CIA had provided the Warren
Commission with copies of the documents provided to the Secret Service on
November 23, 1963. (298)
Page 64
64
Misleading testimony
(238) Richard Helms, the Deputy Director for Plans, CIA, testified before the
Warren Commission along with John McCone, Director of Central Intelligence, on
May 14, 1964. Helms said that the CIA could find no indication that anyone in
the Agency even suggested a contact with Lee Harvey Oswald:
On Mr. McCone's behalf, I had all our records searched to see if there had been
any contacts at any time prior to President Kennedy's assassination by anyone in
the Central Intelligence Agency with Lee Harvey Oswald. We checked our card
files and our personnel files and all our records.
Now, this check turned out to be negative. In addition I got in touch with those
officers who were in positions of responsibility at the times in question to see
if anybody had any recollection of any contact having even been suggested with
this man. This also turned out to be negative, so there is no material in the
Central Intelligence Agency, either in the records or in the minds of any of the
individuals, that there was any contact had or even contemplated with him.(299)
(239) There is a CIA internal memorandum dated November 25, 1963, that seems to
contradict Helm's testimony: CIA item 173A. The memorandum says, in part:
It makes little difference now, but [deleted] had at one time an [deleted]
interest in Oswald. As soon as I had heard Oswald's name, I recalled that as
[deleted] I had discussed--sometime in summer 1960--with [deleted], the laying
on of interview[s] through [deleted] or other suitable channels. * * *
I was phasing into my next cover assignment [deleted] at the time. Thus, I would
have left our country shortly after Oswald's arrival. I do not know what action
developed thereafter. * * *
It was partly out of curiosity to learn if Oswald's wife would actually
accompany him to our country, partly out of interest in the Harvey story.(300)
Withheld information
(240) CIA item 298, dated May 12, 1964.--A CIA internal memorandum for a "staff
employee," dated May 12, 1964, deals with the Warren Commission's desire to take
testimony from the Deputy Director of Plans Richard Helms:
The DDP wishes to have from you a short but comprehensive memorandum which
highlights the basic issues or positions entered into by the Agency in its
dealings with the Commission. For example, Rankin views as to how improvements
might be made in protecting the President's life. Further, they will probably
ask questions regarding the possibilities that a conspiracy existed. Such
general questioning certainly
Page 65
65
necessitates that the DCI (Director of Central Intelligence, John McCone) be
made aware of the positions taken during previous interviews. I raised with
[staff employee] the nature of the recent information which you are processing
which originated with the [deleted] source. I informed him that in your view
this would raise a number of new factors with the Commission, that it should not
go to the Commission prior to the Director's appearance unless he have first had
some preliminary reaction or made sure that the Director if fully aware of its
implications since it could well serve as the basis for detailed questioning.
The DDP stated that he would review this carefully and make a decision as to the
question of timing.(301)
(241) The Sourwine/Tarabochia incident.--In June 1963, a group of private
citizens attempted a raid on Cuba. The purpose was, allegedly, to bring two
Soviet missile technicians who wanted to defect out of Cuba. They would have
then testified before the Senate Internal security Subcommittee that the Russian
missiles were still in Cuba. The operations failed.
(242) James Sourwine, counsel to the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, was
involved in financing the operation which had come to be know as the Bayo-Pawley
raid.
(243) The committee saw evidence that the CIA knew of Sourwine's involvement.
(244) Two Warren Commission internal memoranda indicate that Slawson was in
contact with Sourwine and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. The
subcommittee informed Slawson that it had access to an informant in the Cuban
Embassy in Mexico City.(302) Sourwine informed Slawson that the source was known
to Al Tarabochia, an anti-Castro Cuban associated with the subcommittee.
Sourwine refused to divulge the identity of the informant to Slawson or to put
him in direct contact.(303) He did agree to pass questions to their informant
and relay the answers to the Commission.(304)
(245) Slawson testified before this committee that the Commission did not use
the informant, even though it had considered using the person as an independent
check on the information about Mexico City that the Commission was receiving
from the CIA and FBI.(305)
Slawson testified:
Q. Whatever became of the possibility of using informants?
A. Nothing. * * * I talked to Mr. Sourwine * * * But he and Senator Eastland
were not willing to give us access to the claimed contact they had and nothing
came of the request that we have them for information from that. There was no
further communication.
Q. What was your final opinion about this incident?
A. My final opinion, and to my recollection, it was also J. Lee Rankin's, was
that Sourwine and Eastland were trying to use this alleged contact as a way of
finding out inside information about the Warren investigation which they could
use for their own political purposes.(306)
Page 66
66
(246) Slawson also testified that, although he did not have a specific
recollection of it, he would have probably discussed this with both the FBI and
CIA:
Q. What, if any, information did the CIA provide you concerning Tarabochia and
Sourwine?
A. I am sure it was to the effect that they didn't know anything about the
contacts. That was probably just the end of it.
Q. Do you recall whether or not the CIA provided you any information about
Sourwine or Tarabochia concerning raids in Cuba?
A. I understand the question as whether the CIA supplied me with any information
about raids in Cuba in connection with Sourwine and Tarabochia. My answer is
no.(307)
(247) Electronic surveillance of Marina Oswald.--The FBI tapped Marina Oswald's
telephone and bugged her living quarters from February 29, 1964, to March 12,
1964.(308) According to testimony before this committee, two reports were
written from these sources. FBI Special Agent Robert Gemberling, a supervisor in
the Dallas field office during this period, testified that he saw these reports,
but that they contained nothing pertinent to the investigation of the
assassination:
* * * the reports were written by another agent. I did have occasion to see
them. There was no information gleaned from either of these unusual sources that
had a bearing on the Assassination or a possible conspiracy and so forth.(309)
(248) Gemberling also testified that it was his understanding that this
information was not transmitted to the Warren Commission.(310) Gemberling's
understanding was borne out by the testimony of Warren Commission staff members
before this Committee. Nevertheless, the committee learned that the results of
the surveillance which was in fact requested by the Commission, were given to
the Commission and senior staff members.
(249) CIA Plots to Assassinate Castro: Agency contacts with the Commission who
knew of the CIA-Mafia plots.--On December 11, 1959, Dulles, then Director of
Central Intelligence, approved four recommended actions against Cuba that were
set forth in a memorandum submitted by J.C. King, chief of the Western
Hemisphere division. One of the recommendations called for the elimination of
Fidel Castro.(311)
(250) In September 1960, Richard Bissell, then Deputy Director of Plans for the
CIA ordered Sheffield Edwards, then Chief of the CIA's Office of Security, to
develop a plan to kill Castro.(312) Dulles was briefed about this plan, which
included the use of underworld figures, in September 1960 by Bissell and
Edwards.(313)
(251) On May 7, 1962, Attorney General Robert Kennedy was briefed on the
CIA-Mafia plots by Sheffield Edwards and Lawrence Huston, the CIA general
counsel.(314) He was told the plots had been terminated.(315)
(252) On May 9, 1962, Attorney General Kennedy informed Hoover of the CIA-Mafia
plots.(316)
Page 67
67
(253) The evidence indicates that Richard Helms, the CIA Deputy Director for
Plans and main contact with the Warren Commission, knew of these plots, at least
as of May 14, 1962. On that date, he was briefed on the May 7, 1962, meeting
with Kennedy. (317) At this time, Helms decided not to brief the Director of
Central Intelligence, John McCone.(318)
(254) McCone learned of the plots on August 16, 1963, when he was briefed by
Helms. (319) McCone was led to believe that the plots had been terminated in May
1962.(320)
(255) Agency contacts with the Commission who knew of the AMLASH plot.--Evidence
developed by the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations
indicates that the CIA was plotting with an official in Castro's government to
assassinate Castro in 1963. That official was code named AMLASH. The evidence
also indicates that the only person who knew of these plots and was in contact
with the Warren Commission was richard Helms.(321)
(256) Agency contacts with the Commission who did not know of the plots.--The
evidence developed by the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental
Operations indicates that Raymond Rocca, the CIA "point of record" officer, did
not know of the assassination plots.(322) The CIA desk officer who supervised
the initial CIA investigation into the assassination testified before the Senate
Select Committee that he did not know about these plots until they became public
knowledge in 1975.(323)
(257) Evidence that indicates that the Commission was not informed of the
plots.--The evidence indicates that the Warren Commission was never informed of
the CIA plots to assassinate Castro. It is, of course, now impossible to
determine why Dulles, Robert Kennedy and Hoover did not inform the Commission.
Helms testified before the Senate select committee that he did not do so because
he was not asked about them and because he did not consider them relevant to the
Commission's work.
Q. * * * you were charged with furnishing the Warren Commission information form
the CIA, information that you thought was relevant?
A. No sir, I was instructed to reply to inquiries from the Warren Commission for
information from the Agency. I was not asked to initiate any particular thing.
Q. * * * in other words if you weren't asked for it you didn't give it?
A. That's right, sir.(324)
(258) The testimony of the Warren Commission staff members before the Senate
Select Committee indicates that they never learned of the CIA plots to
assassinate Castro.(325) The testimony of members of the Warren Commission staff
before this committee also indicate they never learned of these plots.(326)
(259) Relevancy of the information about the plots to the Commission's
investigation.--The CIA's point of view was expressed by Richard Helms in
testimony before the Senate select committee that he did not believe the
information about the plots was relevant to the Warren Commission's
investigation.(327) The AMLASH case officer testified to the same effect.(328)
Page 68
68
(260) Other CIA officials disagreed with this in their testimony before the
Senate select committee. The disk officer who conducted the initial CIA
investigation of the assassination, and who did not know of the plots, thought
the plots would have been relevant to his inquiry:
Q. Did you know that on November 22, 1963, about the time Kennedy was
assassinated, a CIA case officer was passing a poison pen, offering a poison pen
to a high level cuban to use to assassinate Castro:
A. No, I did not.
Q. Would you have drawn a link in your mind between that and the Kennedy
assassination?
A. I certainly think that that would have been--become an absolutely vital
factor in analyzing the events surrounding the Kennedy assassination.(329)
(261) The chief of the counterintelligence branch of the CIA's Cuban task force,
who know of the plots but was not in contact with the Warren Commission, also
thought that the information would have been relevant to the Commission's
investigation: "I think it would have been logical for them to consider that
there could be a connection and to have explored it on their own."(330)
(262) The CIA analyst who acted as the "point of record" for the CIA research
for the Warren Commission, in a memo he prepared for the record in 1975,
expressed "concern about the Warren Commissions findings in light of this new
information."(331)
(263) Helms testified that he had never informed the Warren Commission of the
CIA-Mafia assassination conspiracies and did not then believe such information
was relevant.(332) He stated that he believed the significance of the Agency's
use of gangsters to try and assassinate President Castro has been considerably
exaggerated and, further, that he has difficulty in the semantics of discussing
assassination and other forms of violence.
Mr. HELMS. In retrospect, Mr. Dodd, I would have done a lot of thing very
differently. I would like to point out something since we are so deeply into
this. When one government is trying to upset another government and the
operation is successful, people get killed. I don't know whether they are
assassinated or whether they are killed in a coup. We had one recently in
Afghanistan. The head of the Afghanistan Government was killed. Was he
assassinated or killed in a coup? I don't know.
These semantics are all great. I want to say there is not a chief of state or
chief of government in the world today who is not aware of the fact that his
life is in jeopardy. He takes every possible protection to guard himself. The
relevance of one plot or another plot and its effect of the course of events I
would have a very hard time assessing, and I thing you would, too.
Suppose I had gone down and told them and said, yes; you know we tried to do
this. How would it have altered the outcome of the Warren Commission proceeding?
Page 69
69
Mr. DODD. Wasn't that really for the Warren Commission to determine?
Mr. HELMS. I think that is absolutely correct, but they did not have that chance
apparently.(333)
(264) Later in his testimony, Helms expressed considerable irritation over the
committee's questioning about his actions in withholding such information from
the Warren Commission. Helms finally remarked:
Mr. HELMS. I think it was a mistake, no doubt about it. I think we should have
shoved the whole thing over. I would have backed up a truck and taken all the
documents down and put them on the Warren Commission's desk.(334)
(265) With respect to the Warren Commission staff's point of view, those who
testified before this committee all thought the CIA plots to kill Castro would
have been relevant to the work. They disagreed on how it would have been
relevant, but all agreed they should have been informed.
(266) Slawson, the staff member who investigated the possibility of foreign
conspiracy, testified that he did not know of the plots. In a memorandum to
Rankin on September 6, 1964, Slawson wrote:
Throughout our investigation the CIA has been sending us memorandums. The CIA
made no attempt to withhold any information from the Commission that it believed
was pertinent.(335)
(267) Slawson testified before this committee that the "it" in the above quote
referred to the CIA.(336) He also testified that he did not know of the plots
but believed that that knowledge would have been relevant to his investigation:
Q. * * * it was your impression as of September 6, 1964, near the end of the
investigation, that the CIA had made no attempt to withhold any information form
the Commission that the CIA believed was pertinent?
A. That is right.
Q. Did the CIA, or anyone, say, between the CIA and you, ever tell the Warren
Commission members about the CIA assassination plots on Castro?
A. No; not to my knowledge.
Q. Do you believe that would have been pertinent to your work?
A. Yes.(337)
(268) Slawson testified that he did not think to would have made him do anything
much differently than he had because he thought he had done everything he could
have. (338) But he also testified that knowledge of the plots would have made
him look harder at the possibility that Castro may have been involved.(339) He
also said that, had he know at the time the information had been withheld, he
might have been a little less likely to accept the CIA's determination of what
was pertinent.(340)
Page 70
70
(269) Arlen Specter testified that information of the plots should have been
made available to the Commission and that the determination as to its pertinency
should have been up to the Commission:
I think that if there had been information known to the Commission about a
possible assassination effort of Castro by the CIA, that the Commission would
have looked into it. I would have followed those facts to see if there was any
connection with the Kennedy assassination.(341)
(270) Redlich also thought the information would have affected the Commission's
investigation. If nothing else, it would have led the Commission to look more
closely into Oswald's Cuban connections:
I think that it would have affected it * * * How I am not completely sure * * *
Although I am cognizant of the fact that the Warren Commission at least to the
best of my recollection, did look into every Cuban connection that Oswald head,
it is possible that this additional fact might have led to further inquiry.(342)
(271) Speaking of the CIA-Mafia assassination conspiracies against Fidel Castro,
and other such information withheld from the Warren Commission, Rankin stated:
Certainly if we had had that it would have bulked larger, the conspiracy area,
the examination and the investigation and report, and we would have run out all
the various leads and probably it is very possible that we could have come down
with a good many signs of a lead down here to the underworld.(343)
(272) Former Attorney General Nicholas deB. Katzenbach told the Committee that
he believed the CIA's and FBI's withholding of information regarding the
existence of the CIA-Mafia plots from the Warren Commission constituted a
serious failure to provide relevant evidence:
I think given that information, you would have pursued some lines of inquiry
probably harder than you might have otherwise pursued them.
I have no reason to believe one way or the other it would have changed the
result or turned it around or anything of that kind. I have no information on
that. It is simply I believe if I had been a member of the Warren Commission, I
would have believed that to be relevant information which would require
investigation.(344)
(273) Katzenbach further stated that he particularly faulted former CIA Director
Dulles for withholding knowledge of the Agency murder plots involving the
underworld from his fellow Warren Commission members:
Perhaps naively but I thought that the appointment of Allen Dulles to the
Commission would insure that the Commission had access to anything that the CIA
had. I am
Page 71
71
astounded to this day that Mr. Dulles did not at least make that information
available to the other commissioners.(345)
(274) After reviewing the published findings of the Senate Intelligence
Committee regarding the CIA-Mafia assassination conspiracies of the early
1960's, Rankin testified that he believed the Agency is probably still
concealing information about the plots from the Congress:
My impression of the materials that I have been furnished by you with regard to
the report of the Senate committee in its investigation is that there is a
considerable amount being withheld and there may be a lot of false testimony in
some of the information furnished in connection with what they describe as the
eight assassination attempts.
To me as a lawyer in my experience in life for a good many years, I have the
impression that where they felt that you had some other information or the
Senate Committee had some other information like an Inspector General's report,
or other things that they could not avoid, you got something out of them, and
there is a vast amount that they either are not telling or they are telling
their own version of the way they want it to look, and I would not rely on any
of it. I don't mean that you have not gotten some material but I don't think you
have gotten all of it by any means.(346)
(275) Former Attorney General Katzenbach stated that he had been surprised to
learn that the FBI had also known of the CIA-Mafia assassination plots and had
also withheld the information from the Warren Commission. In discussing his view
of the Bureau's role in concealing such information, Katzenbach stated:
We were unaware then of any Mafia plots. I would not really have gone through my
head that that would have been a matter. It never would have occurred to me that
the FBI would cover up anything. If you ask me the question, if the FBI failed
to do something it should have done, would they have covered that up? My answer
to you is, even then, would have been yes, they probably would; not covering up
information that somebody else was guilty or something of this kind, but if the
bureau made any mistake or anything for which the public could criticize the
Bureau, the Bureau would do its best to conceal the information from
anybody.(347)
(276) Wesley Liebeler did not think the information itself would have been
particularly pertinent, but he did agree that it would have had an affect on the
investigation:
I think that if I had known at the time that I would have been concerned to find
out more directly whether the CIA had any information that might provide the
Commission with leads on these other issues that we were looking at or issues
that we never turned up. In my mind the fact, if it is a fact, that the CIA was
trying to arrange the assassination of Mr. Castro at the time, the withholding
of that fact by itself I
Page 72
72
don't think is particularly significant to anything the Commission did.
What I am saying is the fact that the CIA was attempting, if it was, to
assassinate Castro, I don't understand what that has to do with Oswald or the
Warren Commission investigation or anything of that sort. I think that the
question of whether the CIA withheld evidence that would have provided leads to
the Commission that might have connected Oswald to presumably Cuban contacts
that we were not able to connect him with ourselves, that clearly would have
been significant. The fact that the CIA was apparently attempting to assassinate
Castro, might have provided a motive for them to withhold information if indeed
they did, but the fact that they were trying to assassinate Castro had nothing
to do with the issue.(348)
(277) Liebeler's doubts about the relevancy of the information itself were not
shared by Griffin, the staff member who worked on the investigation of Jack
Ruby. Judge Griffin testified that the Commission did not really investigate the
possibility that organized crime had been involved in the assassination because
there was no connection between organized crime and Oswald. Judge Griffin
thought that the information about the CIA plots would have led the Commission
to investigate more the Cuban/Mafia/CIA connections and, consequently, a
possible connection between Ruby, organized crime, anti-Castro groups and
Oswald:
Q. * * * you clearly raise questions about Ruby's possibly becoming involved in
purchasing Jeeps for Castro, which is a political activity on which the CIA
would have some information or they would be derelict in their duty?
A. Absolutely. * * *
Q. Would you have known the name Meyer Lansky in 1964?
A. Yes. That kind of information would not have significantly affected our
decision unless we knew of two things, at least unless we knew that the Mafia,
the underworld types, were being used by the CIA in connection with
international Cuban activities. If we had known that the CIA in anyway was
utilizing underworld people in connection with any kind of Cuban activity, that
might have said more for us--most particularly if we had, of course, known that
there was an effort on some part of the people in our Government to assassinate
Castro. * * *
Oswald was the person who assassinated the President. There was no showing that
Oswald had any connection with organized crime. Therefore, there was no reason
to think that, simply because Ruby was involved in organized crime, that that
would have been linked to the assassination of the President.
We needed to fill that in, in some way, but that is why the Cuban link is so
important. If we had known that the CIA wanted to assassinate Castro, then all
the Cuban motivations that we were exploring about this made much, much more
Page 73
73
sense. If we had further known that the CIA was involved with organized criminal
figures in an assassination attempt in the Caribbean, then we would have had a
completely different perspective on this thing.
But, because we did not have those links at this point, there was nothing to tie
the underworld in with Cuba and thus nothing to tie them in with Oswald, nothing
to tie them in with the assassination of the President.(349)
Submitted by:
G. ROBERT BLAKEY,
Chief Counsel and Staff Director;
GARY T. CORNWELL,
Deputy Chief Counsel;
KENNETH D. KLEIN,
Assistant Deputy Chief Counsel;
MICHAEL EWING,
DAN L. HARDWAY,
LESLIE H. WIZELMAN,
Researchers.
Attachment A
Page 74
74
(278) Attachment A: The Warren Commission
Attachment B
Page 75
75
(279) Attachment B: Monthly Progress of the Warren Commission Investigation
Page 76
76
Attachment B: cont.
Page 77
77
Attachment B: cont.
Attachment C
Page 78
78
(280) Attachment C: Days worked by Warren Commission Staff
Attachment D
Page 79
79
(281) Attachment D: Executive Session Testimony of Arlen Specter and Dean Norman
Redlich
SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING
--------
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1977
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE ASSASSINATION
OF JOHN F. KENNEDY OF THE SELECT
COMMITTEE OF ASSASSINATIONS,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met at 10:25 a.m., pursuant to notice, in room 2237, Rayburn
House Office Building, Hon. Richardson Preyer (chairman of the subcommittee)
presiding.
Present: Representatives Preyer, Stokes, Fauntroy, Devine, McKinney, and Sawyer.
Staff members present: G. Robert Blakey, Marion Wills, Vivian McPherson, Dorothy
Kuhn, Jacqueline Hess, Kenneth Klein, Elizabeth Berning, Gary Cornwell, James
Wolf, Jeffrey Facter, Jan Schlichtman, Michael Goldsmith, Mitchell Mars, Robert
Morrison, Larry Stickler, Clarence Day, and William Cross.
Mr. PREYER. The committee will come to order. The Chair recognizes Elizabeth
Berning, the clerk of the committee, who will read for the record those members
who are officially designated to be on the subcommittee today pursuant to
committee rule 12.3.
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Chairman, besides yourself and Mr. Sawyer, Mr. Mckinney is
substituting for Mr. Thone. Mr. Fauntroy is substituting for Mrs. Burke, and Mr.
Devine will be substituting for Mr. Dodd.
Mr. PREYER. Thank you. I would like to entertain a motion at this time that
today's hearing and 1 subsequent day of hearing be held in executive session,
since on the basis of information obtained by the committee the committee
believes the evidence or testimony may tend to defame or degrade people and
consequently section 2(K) (5) of rule 11 of the rules of the House and committee
rule 3.3(5), require such hearings be in executive session.
Is there a motion to that effect?
Mr. SAWYER. I so move.
Mr. PREYER. You have heard the motion. The clerk will call the role.
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Stokes.
[No response.]
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Devine.
[No response.]
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Preyer.
(79)
Page 80
80
Mr. PREYER. Aye.
Ms. BERNING. Mr. McKinney.
Mr. McKINNEY. Aye.
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Fauntroy.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Aye.
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Thone.
[No response]
Ms. BERNING. Mrs. Burke.
[No response]
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Sawyer.
Mr. SAWYER. Aye.
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Dodd.
[No response]
Ms. BERNING. From Ford.
[No response]
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Fithian.
[No response]
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Edgar.
[No response]
Ms. BERNING. There are four ayes.
Mr. PREYER. The motion is carried and at this time the committee will go into
executive session.
Mr. Specter, it is a pleasure to have you with us.
Mr. SPECTER. Nice to be here, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PREYER. Off the record.
[Discussion off the record.]
Mr. PREYER. On the record.
Under our procedures, Mr. Specter, I will ask that you stand and be sworn.
Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you will give the subcommittee in this
matter will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help
you God.
Mr. SPECTER. I do.
Mr. PREYER. Will the clerk give Mr. Specter a copy of our rules?
Let the record show that Mr. specter has received a copy of the rules of the
committee.
House Resolution 222 mandates the committee "to conduct a full and complete
investigation and study of the circumstances surrounding the assassination and
death of President John F. Kennedy including determining whether the existing
laws of the United States concerning the protection of the President and the
investigating jurisdiction and capability of agencies and Departments are
adequate in their provisions and enforcement, and whether there was full
disclosure of evidence and information among agencies and departments of the
U.S. Government and whether any evidence or information not in the possession of
an Agency or Department would have been of assistance in investigating the
assassination and why such information was not provided or checked by that
Agency or Department and to make recommendations to the House if the select
committee deems it appropriate for the amendment of existing legislation or the
enactment of new legislation."
The Chair will recognize Mr. Klein at this time.
Page 81
81
STATEMENT OF ARLEN SPECTER
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. Chairman, before the questioning begins, may I note for the
committee that in scheduling my appearance today I have a conflict to be in
Reading and was very hopeful of being out by 11 or at least by 11:30. I realize
that the time is not something that can be determined with absolute precision
but I did want to call your attention to a problem.
My appearance was scheduled last week on rather short notice and I do want to
cooperate and be available when the committee wanted me so I am here today but I
wanted to note that circumstance. I am advised by counsel that I will have an
opportunity to review my testimony for purposes of correcting some inaccuracy in
transcription and that I am not limited in any way form commenting on what I say
here today. I just want to be sure.
I have no had an opportunity to read the committee rules which are rather
voluminous which I have received.
Mr. PREYER. The chair can assure you, mr. Specter, that there won't be any
problem in that connection. You will be free to comment in any way you choose.
Mr. SPECTER. Thank you, sir. Mr. PREYER. We appreciate your problem. We will
certainly do the best we can to accommodate you.
Mr. SPECTER. Thank you.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Klein.
Mr. KLEIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Specter, what was your position prior to taking a position with the Warren
Commission?
Mr. SPECTER. I was assistant district attorney in Philadelphia, Pa.
Mr. KLEIN. How many years of investigative and prosecutorial experience did you
have before working with the Warren commission?
Mr. SPECTER. I was assistant district attorney from October 1959 until January
of 1964 when I became assistant counsel to the Commission. I served in the U.S.
Air Force Office of Special Investigations form 1951-53. I practiced law in
Philadelphia from the fall of 1956 until October of 1959 which might have some
bearing on your question about investigative experience.
Mr. KLEIN. Prior to being hired by the Warren Commission what was said to you
about the goals of the Warren Commission and about what your function would be
as staff counsel?
Mr. SPECTER. The goals of the Warren commission, as I understood them, were to
find out the facts and the truth relating to as assassination of President
Kennedy. I was to function as one of the lawyers on that job.
Mr. KLEIN. After serving as staff counsel on the Warren Commission in your
opinion what were the real objectives of the Warren Commission investigation?
Mr. SPECTER. To find the truth about all the facts relating to the assassination
of President Kennedy?
Mr. KLEIN. I would like to suggest some other possible objectives and you can
comment on them. Was it as objective of the Warren Commission to allay public
fears?
Page 82
82
Mr. SPECTER. No, sir. At least not to the extent that they conflicted with the
facts.
Mr. KLEIN. Was it an objective of the Warren Commission to try to prevent an
international crisis?
Mr. SPECTER. no, sir.
Mr. KLEIN. Was it an objective of the Warren Commission to allow a smooth
transition in national leadership?
Mr. SPECTER. No, sir. We were not unmindful of international concern about the
fats relating to the assassination of President Kennedy but none of the
considerations which you have just mentioned was in any way a consideration
which would influence the activities of the Commission or my activities as
assistant counsel for the Commission.
Mr. KLEIN. Are you saying that these factors could have been present but that
they would not have caused you to deviate from what you saw as your primary
objective, which was to find out what happened?
Mr SPECTER. That is correct, they would not cause us to deviate. When Chief
Justice Warren addressed the staff in an early session, as I recall, though this
goes back a long way, the Chief Justice commented about great international
concern about the facts of the assassination. So that was a matter in our minds
but we did not tailor our findings to accommodate any interest other than the
truth.
Mr. KLEIN. To the extent that they were consistent with finding the truth, then
they might have been part of the objectives of the Warren Commission?
Mr. SPECTER. I don't really think they they were part of the objectives of the
Warren Commission. I believe that the Commission received its mandate from the
President to find the facts on the assassination and that was it, pure and
simple.
Mr. KLEIN. In your opinion were the operating procedures and organizational
structure of the Warren Commission conductive to achieving the objectives of the
Warren Commission as you have stated those objectives.
Mr. SPECTER. Yes; I think they were within the context that the Commission came
together without having any prior organizational structure and not having any
independent investigative staff.
There was a concern for promptness in our determination but subject to the
general circumstances of the Commission's organization I would say that the
procedures were conducive to finding the truth.
Mr. KLEIN. And also the organizational structure, was that conducive to finding
the truth? by that I am not talking about the way it was divided up in different
categories but the categories themselves?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes; I think the categories were adequate to finding the truth. If
by organization structure you include the personnel available, I think that
everyone would have much preferred to have had a totally independent
investigative arm to carry out the investigative functions of the Commission but
I believe the Commission concluded early on, and I was not privy to any such
position from my position as assistant counsel, that it would be impractical to
organize an entire investigative staff from the start so that use was made of
existing Federal investigative facilities.
Mr. KLEIN. In the beginning of your last answer did you say there was some
agreement that if it would have been practical they should have had their own
investigators?
Page 83
83
Mr. SPECTER. No; there was no agreement that I know about. The most that I can
say on that subject would be that speaking from my own perspective that when the
lawyers would discuss the procedures from time to time, and that is why I
include this comment within the scope of your question on procedures, there
would be an observation from time to time how nice it would be if we had a
totally independent staff. The consequence of that kind of observation or wish
was that none was to be provided and the necessities to move forward with
promptness led the Commission to conclude and this is only my inference, that it
was going to function within existing Federal investigative agencies.
Mr. KLEIN. You had no input into that particular decision?
Mr. SPECTER. I did not.
Mr. KLEIN. looking at the type and mix of the personnel, were they conducive to
achieving the objectives?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes; I think the Commission recruited qualified people to carry on
the job with respect to those were designated as assistant counsel.
Mr. KLEIN. Is it true that some of the senior counsel, because of their busy
schedules and their prior commitments, were not able to fully participate in the
investigation?
Mr. SPECTER. I would prefer not to ascribe reasons but simply to say some of the
senior counsel did not participate as extensively as some of the junior counsel.
Mr. KLEIN. Did that in any way affect achieving the objectives?
Mr. SPECTER. I don't think that it is although it would have been helpful if my
senior counsel, Francis Adams, had had an opportunity to participate more
extensively. I respond with respect to Mr. Adams because that is the are a I
worked on and that is what I can comment about relatively and most directly.
Mr. KLEIN. In your opinion did the Warren Commission have any initial factual
assumptions regarding the following areas: First, the identity of the assassin?
Mr. SPECTER. I think we did not have any initial assumptions. We read the
newspapers like anyone else did before any of us became associated with the
Commission but our job was to find the assassin. So we did not have any
prejudgment on that question.
Mr. KLEIN. As to the reliability, trustworthiness, and competency of the
investigative agencies which assisted the Commission?
Mr. SPECTER. We were concerned about some of the agencies from the point of view
that their own activities were the subject of investigation. So that was always
a matter of concern.
With respect to their capabilities, speaking for myself I had had experience
with the FBI and had found them to be able investigative personnel in my prior
contacts. I had never had prior experience with the Secret Service as I
recollect it but I had no reason to doubt their competency, except the President
was assassinated.
Mr. KLEIN. At the initial phases of the investigation you said you were aware of
the agency's possible involvement. What are you referring to?
Page 84
84
Mr. SPECTER. The Secret Service had the responsibility to protect the President
and they did not protect the President. So their procedures were obviously a
subject of investigation. The FBI had certain responsibilities in the field of
Presidential protection so that their activities were subject to scrutiny by the
Commission.
Mr. KLEIN. With regard to any initial factual assumptions that the Warren
Commission might have had, were there any regarding possible repercussions from
the various conclusions that might have been reached?
Mr. SPECTER. No, sir. That is speaking of any knowledge that I had about the
situation.
Mr. KLEIN. In your opinion what effect, if any, did the organization and
procedures have on the end result?
Mr. SPECTER. I think that the organizations and procedures were reasonably
calculated to produce reasonably accurate results, given the scope of the
investigation, the general time frame that the Commission had established. I
might say at the outset that in response to that question that my view is that
the Commission's conclusions have withstood the test of time to this point. I
believe the single bullet conclusion is sound, I believe Oswald was the
assassin.
With respect to an issue as to whether there was a conspiracy, the most that the
Commission could do was to survey all the evidence and based on the absence of
any evidence shoeing a conspiracy to conclude that there was no evidence of a
conspiracy. It is obviously impossible to prove a negative the same way that a
positive is proved. I have been concerned about some of the disclosures with
respect to the allegation about the FBI destroying a note from Oswald. I have
been concerned about the issue of CIA involvement in assassination plots against
Castro, and I have said publicly in the past, and I repeat today that I think
those specific leads ought to be inquired into.
I was hopeful that the Senate committee that was in this field 2 years ago would
have done that. I would be hopeful that this committee would do that. I did not
have a direct role in the areas relating to the investigation on conspiracy but
I have no reason to believe that there was a conspiracy. My own personal
observation is that had there been a conspiracy that it would most probably have
come to light prior to today given the institutions of our American democracy
and the wide-ranging investigations which have been made in this field.
I think as long as there is any indication that official agencies of the
Government like the FBI destroyed evidence or that the CIA was involved, at
least allegedly involved in the assassination plot against Castro, had any
effect on the assassination of President Kennedy, I think those are matters that
ought to be inquired into, but my own personal thought is that it will not
result in the change in the findings of the Commission. To come back to your
question, my view is that the Commission did a good job and that the
Commission's work has withstood the test of time and a great seal of scrutiny
and an enormous number of questions and a prodigious number of debates.
I think the questioning is all very healthy in a democratic society and I don't
think it is likely to put an end to any questions today, tomorrow, or in the
future, considering the fact that the Lincoln assassination is still under
investigation, and I have responded to questions
Page 85
85
over the years since the first questions were raised with Mr. Epstein's book and
thereafter, and I am glad to respond to the questions and I think the
Commission's work was good work.
Mr. KLEIN. Did you experience any restrictions on your investigation or on the
writeup of your investigation due to the organization and work procedures that
were used by the Warren Commission?
Mr. SPECTER. While I do not think it was the organizational procedures
themselves which imposed any restrictions on my work, the Commission made
decisions as to what would abe done which was not always in accordance with my
own personal view as to what should be done, for example, the review of the
X-rays and photographs of the assassination of President Kennedy. I thought that
they should have been observed by the Commission and by me among other perhaps
having responsibility for that are an I said so at the time.
I did not recollect the memorandum which you have made available to me today
where I pressed to have that done. I have said that publicly before. There were
some other areas where if I had been making the final decision for the
Commission I would have pursued investigative matter somewhat differently.
Mr. KLEIN. What are the areas?
Mr. SPECTER. Well, the concerns that I had, I would have questioned President
Johnson and Mrs. Johnson before the Commission and I prepared a long list of
questions to that effect. You have made them available to me. I have not seen
them since I worked with the Commission. I would have questioned Mrs. Kennedy
much more extensively than the abbreviated questioning which took place of Mrs.
Kennedy. Those items I would have done differently. I do not think they would
have affected the conclusions of the Commission at all but I think in the
interests of a full record and comprehensive examination of key witnesses at the
scene that such inquiries would have been preferable to the abbreviated
questioning of Mrs. Kennedy or the statements submitted by President Johnson and
Mrs. Johnson.
Mr. KLEIN. In the case of the questions that were not submitted, why in your
opinion weren't they submitted? Why weren't they asked?
Mr. SPECTER. As to Mrs. Kennedy, I believe that Attorney General Robert Kennedy
was very protective of her evidence because of the fact that the questioning was
held, as I recollect it, in her apartment and only the Chief Justice was present
with Mr. Rankin and it was very brief.
With respect to why President Johnson wasn't questioned, I suppose it is because
he was the President and didn't want to be questioned.
Mr. KLEIN. Were you ever told why he wasn't questioned?
Mr. SPECTER. No. I thought he should have been questioned and I submitted a long
list of questions and I recommended that he be questioned. Since I was assistant
counsel and he was the President I thought that was enough.
Mr. KLEIN. You never got anything back explaining why the decision was made not
to question him?
Mr. SPECTER. I don't believe so.
Mr. KLEIN. What procedures existed, if any, to allow staff members to keep
abreast of work being done by other staff members?
Page 86
86
Mr. SPECTER. As I recollect it, some of the written reports were circulated so
that we could read the interim reports and the final reports of the members of
the staff. There was a very formal atmosphere on the staff so that there was
constant contact among all the lawyers both during the working day and those of
us who were around the evenings, we would customarily have diner together, the
virtual was a very extensive exchange albeit principally informal among members
of the staff as to what each was doing.
Mr. KLEIN. What procedure existed to assure that staff members would receive all
information relative to the areas they worked with respect both to internal
documents or information from sources outside the Commission?
Mr. SPECTER. As I recollect it, the information was funneled to the individuals
in the various areas through Mr. Rankin who served as the conduit in many
directions, from the outside to the Commission, from the outside to the lawyers,
from the lawyers to the Commission, from the Commission to the lawyers, so that
when information would come in which would bear, for example, on area one, which
was my area, I would customarily receive it from Mr. Rankin, perhaps through Mr.
Eisenberg who was his executive assistant, and perhaps Mr. Willins who did a
great deal of the liaison work.
Mr. KLEIN. Was this procedure successful in you opinion? Do you feel that you
received all the information that should have gotten to you?
Mr. SPECTER. I have no reason to think that it was unsuccessful in any respect.
Mr. KLEIN. As a Warren Commission staff counsel what was your particular area of
responsibility?
Mr. SPECTER. My area was area one which involved the activities of the President
from the time he left the White House until he returned after his death to the
White House, with a principal focus on examination of the medical evidence, the
trajectory of the shots as they related to medical evidence. I would say that is
a brief description to the area of responsibility for area one.
Mr. KLEIN. Were their any changes in your duties as the investigation proceeded?
Mr. SPECTER. I was asked to take on certain other responsibilities such as the
questioning of witnesses, Oswald's capability as a marksman, I was asked to be
the Commission representative at the polygraph examination of Jack Ruby as a
result of my having been present at part of his testimony in Dallas. Without
reviewing the voluminous record in detail I think that comprehends generally
what my assignments were.
Mr. KLEIN. What was the relationship of the staff counsel with the Commission?
Mr. SPECTER. Cordial, somewhat limited.
Mr. KLEIN. Was there any exchange of ideas, free exchange of ideas between staff
counsel and the Commission?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes. The Commissioners would come to headquarters from time to
time. When they would there were occasional conversations, initiated principally
by the Commissioners but in some
Page 87
87
instances by staff counsel. There were exchanges before and after sessions.
There were exchanges on trips. I made a trip with Chief Justice Warren from
Washington to Dallas and back to Washington where there were quite a number of
exchanges.
President Ford, then Congressman Ford, was present on that trip. I recollect
exchanges with him on that particular occasion. In terms of the setting which
would enable you to talk there were exchanges.
Mr. KLEIN. In your opinion were the Commissioners well informed about the facts
of this case?
Mr. SPECTER. I think generally, yes.
Mr. KLEIN. Will you tell us approximately how long you worked for the Warren
Commission?
Mr. SPECTER. I recollect that I started sometime in early January 1964 and I
worked through to early June when I submitted my report and I worked principally
a 5-day week, occasionally less if I had some other responsibilities. I had some
carryover cases as assistant district attorney. Then I helped out intermittently
on the areas I identified, Oswald's capability as a marksman, taking some
testimony and going to Dallas with the Ruby polygraph as I recollect in July
1964. I am sure there are records which list every day because we were paid on a
daily basis.
Mr. KLEIN. From January to July did you consider this a full-time job?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes; subject to doing some other things but I considered it my
principal occupation, my principal responsibility.
Mr. KLEIN. In your areas of investigation which you have told us about, were you
able to reasonably explore and resolve all the viable questions?
Mr. SPECTER. I think that I was, and we were subject to the limitations that I
have already articulated for you about the X-rays and photographs and perhaps
the testimony from President and Mrs. Johnson and fuller testimony from Mrs.
Kennedy.
Mr. KLEIN. Did you have enough time to investigate the areas you were
responsible for?
Mr. SPECTER. I think that we did. The attitude with respect to time perhaps
should be viewed in November of 1977 as being somewhat different from 1964 to
the extent that the Commission was interested in a prompt conclusion of its
work. It did not seek to sacrifice completeness for promptness, but it was very
cognizant of the desirability of promptness. When the Commission started its
job, there was no conclusion date picked.
My recollection is that it was discussed in terms of perhaps as little as 3
months, perhaps as much as 6 months. As we moved along in the investigation,
there were comments or attitudes that we should be moving along, we should get
the investigation concluded, so that the scope of what we sought to do and the
time in which we sought to do it had as its backdrop an obvious attitude by the
Commission that it wanted to conclude the investigation at the earliest possible
date.
Mr. KLEIN. From whom in particular did these comments come, about moving along
and getting the investigation done?
Mr. SPECTER. It is not possible some 13 years later to identify specific
comments but that was an attitude from the Chief Justice Warren who
Page 88
88
was a fine administrator and an extraordinary person that I think did a superb
job on the Commission. I do not mean to suggest that his interest in expediting
the investigation in any way reflected an attitude on his part to have
shortcuts, but we worked to get with it and we worked hard to get it done.
Mr. KLEIN. Did you feel that you were able to do everything that you wanted to
do in the areas that you were investigating?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes; subject to the limitations that I have already described to
you. There was a fair amount of independence exercised by some of us on the
staff that exhibited itself in perhaps small ways. In questioning some of the
witnesses in my area, I would ask questions which I recognized would be unlikely
to draw very specific answers but which I thought were important for the record,
questions such as:
To the best of your ability to recollect, what was the lapse of time within the
first shot and second shot; to the best of your recollection, what was the
elapse of time between the second shot and third shot? To the best of your
ability to recollect, what was the distance traveled from the first shot to the
second shot?
These questions, and I have not reviewed the transcript before coming here today
because the parameters you and I discussed was to be on procedure and not on
substance and there is not time to review the substantive work in the course of
a few days between the time you asked me to appear here and the time I am here,
but I make references to those portions of the questioning, as I recollect it,
and there was an overriding feeling that many of those questions could not
produce sufficiently specific answers to warrant the questions.
There was an attitude on my part, and I think on the part of other lawyers, we
were going to ask the questions for the record.
If some of the Commissioners thought we went too slow, so be it. I recall the
Chief Justice starting the questioning of Mrs. Connally after I questioned
Governor Connally, saying that the questioning would be brief. I proceeded with
the questioning in a way I thought was adequate, but I was mindful of the fact
that the Chief Justice who would have conducted the questioning differently if
he had been the questioner.
Mr. KLEIN. Were any political pressures applied to prevent you from thoroughly
considering all the issues in your area of responsibility?
Mr. SPECTER. No.
Mr. KLEIN. In your opinion, did you have adequate support with respect to
research and with respect to investigators in your area?
Mr. SPECTER. I think we did although I must say that as I watched CBS's seek
major analysis of our work and they talked about various scientific devices that
can be applied to the film, I watched those TV shows with the great and personal
attention to see if they had found some procedures and techniques that were not
present in 1964 or perhaps some procedure and techniques that were present in
1964 that I didn't know about or when we discussed the triangulation of
photographs which you and I talked about in my office during a brief interview
the week before last, I wondered if there were some techniques that might have
been applied that we didn't apply. But within the scope of what my knowledge was
at the time and what techniques were called to my attention, I believe that we
had adequate backup facilities.
Page 89
89
Mr. KLEIN. Were you told that you could have free rein as far s techniques
performed in your area of responsibility?
Mr. SPECTER. I don't believe anybody ever said, "You have free rein." But when a
suggestion would be made it was always dealt with as if we had free rein to make
whatever suggestion we chose. In the context of specific requests some tugs were
pulled. There was some reluctance to having onsite tests in Dallas in late May
1964. A number of us on the staff were very insistent upon that. It was not too
big a battle. We got the tests.
Mr. KLEIN. How did you come to the conclusion that a single bullet hit both
President Kennedy and Governor Connally?
Mr. SPECTER. Is that a procedural question or substantive question?
Mr. KLEIN. You don't have to go into specific facts but tell us how you came to
that conclusion.
Mr. SPECTER. That conclusion was reached because of the evidence which showed
that the bullet entered the back of the President's neck and did not strike any
solid subject in the President's body and exited from the front of his throat,
creasing his tie where a tear was found in his tie, and from the lineup of the
President's body and the position of Governor Connally and the position of the
limousine, that a bullet existing from the President's throat with the velocity
calculated would be ballistic evidence showing that the bullet found on the
stretcher, believed to be Connally's , and the large fragments in the front seat
of the limousine conclusively having come from the weapon identified as being
Oswald's, which have us our basis for calculating velocity, that such a bullet
would have had to have struck either someone else in the car or the car itself,
and the evidence shoed that the car itself was not struck, and Governor Connally
was seated immediately in front of President Kennedy, which led to the inference
that the bullet most probably struck Governor Canaille. The wounds on Governor
Canaille were consistent with the bullet which had a slight yaw on it and the
tests performed on the anesthetized goats were consistent with a bullet losing
substantial velocity in tumbling through Governor Connally's chest and
consistent with passing through Governor Connally's wrist backward and then,
velocity almost spent, lodging in Governor connally's left thigh. So the facts
that we found were all consistent with the single bullet conclusion.
But the most persuasive evidence was the alinement of the President, the
trajectory of the bullet and the necessity for the bullet to have hit either
someone or someone in the car in the absence of having struck the car.
Mr. KLEIN. As you sit here today do you believe that President Kennedy and
Governor Connally were hit by one bullet?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes, sir.
Mr. KLEIN. What experts ere consulted in determining this?
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. Klein, that is definitely substantive.
Mr. KLEIN. I am not asking for names. I am asking what types of experts were
consulted?
Mr. SPECTER. Well, we consulted, we took testimony from doctors in Parkland
Hospital who worked on the President and Governor and autopsy surgeons and from
Colonel Finck who was an expert although
Page 90
90
not, as I recollect it, I am not sure as I say this, whether he was at the
autopsy or not, I believe he was but I am not sure, and from some experts at
Edgewood Arsenal.
I don't recall others but I have not reviewed the report with a view to being
able to recite the experts who were consulted.
Mr. KLEIN. Do you recall Commission exhibit 399 which has been called the
"pristine bullet"?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes; I do.
Mr. KLEIN. Are you fully satisfied that exhibit 399 is the bullet that went
through the President and the Governor?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes; I am, the President's neck and the Governor.
Mr. KLEIN. In your opinion in Commission exhibit 399 had been discovered on the
President's stretcher and not on Governor Connally's stretcher would the single
bullet theory, have any validity?
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. KLEIN, you are going far beyond procedure, far beyond what we
talked bout before.
Mr. KLEIN. I don't see this as calling for a particular---
Mr. SPECTER. It requires some recollection and some thought. You asked if the
bullet was found on the President's stretcher? The thoughts that are running
through my mind at the moment are what proximity Governor Connally had to the
President's stretcher so that the bullet which ended up in his thigh, whether or
not that could have been moved or ended up on the President's stretcher or what
the personnel at Parkland might have done with the bullet as it came from the
Governor's body or from his clothing, that is a question that would require a
good bit or more thought than I would care to give it on the spur of the moment.
That was not a question that you and I discussed.
Mr. KLEIN. That is right. That particular question we did not discuss.
Mr. SPECTER. I believe the evidence is very persuasive that the bullet did not
come from President Kennedy's stretcher. I say that only from recollection
because I believe that all of the linens were taken from President Kennedy's
stretcher after he died and the controversy as to which stretcher it came from,
I think it in no way came form the President's stretcher as I recollect the
evidence. It is a long time ago and it was involved.
Mr. KLEIN. In your opinion if the single bullet theory was not valid could there
still have been only one shooter.
Mr. Specter. Yes.
Mr. KLEIN. Do you agree that the alleged murder weapon, the Mannlicher-Carcano
rifle, has not been fired twice in less than 2.3 seconds?
Mr. SPECTER. My recollection is that the investigation showed that the shots he
fired were within 2.3 seconds so that three shots would be fired in 4.6 seconds.
Mr. KLEIN. Do you think there was enough time from your viewing of the film and
other evidence you saw, enough time so that the Governor and the President could
have been hit by two bullets and that Oswald would have had enough time to fire
his rifle in that space of time?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes; it is entirely possible that President Kennedy was struck in
the neck by a bullet which was fired before President
Page 91
91
Kennedy went behind the tree and that Governor Connally was struck by a bullet
while the President and the Governor were behind a sign, so that the single
bullet conclusion in my judgment is not all dispensable to the single assassin
theory. I don't think that is the way it happened.
I don't think the single bullet theory, that is to say I do not think that they
were struck by separate bullets with respect to the President's neck wounds and
the wounds on governor Connally but I think they could have been struck by
separate bullets, all fired by Oswald.
Mr. KLEIN. Do you recall that Mr. Darrell C. Tomlinson was the man who found the
bullet, exhibit 399 in Parkland Hospital?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes.
Mr. KLEIN. Do you recall at what point in the development of the bullet theory
you first spoke to Mr. Tomlinson?
Mr. SPECTER. You mentioned his testimony yesterday, so I read the testimony on
the train. The first and only time I talked with Mr. Tomlinson is when I took
the deposition. I talked to him briefly before I took the deposition and when I
took the deposition.
Mr. KLEIN. Do you recall at what point in time, in relation to then the one
bullet theory was formulated, you decided that one bullet hit the President and
the Governor?
Mr. Specter. That is another question which you didn't discuss with me before
and that is a question which requires a fair amount of reconstruction.
Mr. KLEIN. I did mention this question to you yesterday.
Mr. SPECTER. You mentioned to me you were going to ask me about Tomlinson and
when I first talked to him but not about when the single bullet theory was
formulated.
The answer to the last question that you have asked as to when the single bullet
theory evolved required a very careful reconstruction of the time sequence,
principally starting with the interviews with Commander Humes and his testimony
and the evidence which evolved, the Gregory testimony and the Gregory Humes
report. That is not a question that can be answered on the spur of the moment.
That will require a very careful reconstruction of the time sequence where that
evidence was uncovered.
Mr KLEIN. Were you the Warren Commission's staff member most directly concerned
with the autopsy findings?
Mr. SPECTER. I think so. I think others doubtless read the reports and were
conversant with it but I say that I believe I was, based on the fact that I took
the testimony of Boswell and Humes.
Mr. KLEIN. You testified that you spoke to the autopsy doctors?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes, sir, before I took their testimony.
Mr. KLEIN. Did you speak to any other forensic pathology experts?
Mr. SPECTER. On this case?
Mr. KLEIN. On this case.
MR. SPECTER. Prior to the time I did my work on the Warren Commission?
Mr. KLEIN. Yes; in relation to this.
Mr. SPECTER. There have been a lot of discussions about this case over the
course of the past 13 years. But to deal with the question as
Page 92
92
to whether I talked to any other forensic pathologist prior to coming to the
conclusions in writing my section of the draft report, I believe that I did not.
Mr. KLEIN. You also testified that you did not have an opportunity to review the
photographs and the X-rays pertaining to the President's wounds?
Mr. SPECTER. I certainly have.
Mr. KLEIN. Could you explain the reasons given to you as to why you could not
view those X-rays and photographs?
Mr. SPECTER. I do not know here again that anybody ever said what the reasons
were. I do know that I wanted to see them and there is a memorandum, which I
just looked at this morning, which I am very delighted to see in the files,
about my pressing to see it.
Reconstructing the reasons as best I can at this point, I believe it was, and I
have said this publicly before, an attitude on the part of the Kennedy family
that it might be possible that the photographs and X-rays would get into the
public domain and the photographs would defile the memory and image of President
Kennedy as a vibrant young leader and it would be ghoulish to show him in the
picture with half his head blown off. That was the reason why I was not
permitted to see them, as a speculation or a feel for the situation.
Mr. KLEIN. Mr. Chairman, I would ask that these documents be marked as committee
exhibits.
Mr. PREYER. Did you want the one dated April 30th marked exhibit 1---
Mr. SPECTER. Are those the papers you gave me today?
Mr. PREYER. Without objection the two exhibits will be marked was exhibits 11
and 12 and entered into the record at this point.
[The following exhibits 11 and 12 were received in evidence.]
JFK EXHIBIT No. 11
[MEMORANDUM]
APRIL 30, 1964.
To: Mr. J. Lee Rankin.
From: Arlen Specter.
Subject: Autopsy photographs and X-rays of President John F. Kennedy.
In my opinion it is indispensable that we obtain the photographs and X-rays of
President Kennedy's autopsy for the following reasons:
1. The Commission should determine with certainty whether the shots came from
the rear.--Someone from the Commission should review the films to corroborate
the autopsy surgeons' testimony that the holes on the President's back and head
had the characteristics of points of entry. None of the doctors at Parkland
Hospital in Dallas observed the hole in the President's back or the small hole
in the lower portion of his head. With all of the outstanding controversy about
the direction of the shots, there must be independent viewings of the films to
verify testimony which has come only from Government doctors.
2. The Commission should determine with certainty whether the shots came from
above.--It isd essential for the Commission to know precisely the location of
the bullet wound on the President's back so that the angle may be calculated.
The artist's drawing prepared at Bethesda (Commission exhibit No. 385) shows a
slight angle of declination. It is hard, if not impossible, to explain such a
slight angle of decline unless the President was farther down Elm Street than we
have heretofore believed. Before coming to any conclusion on this, the angles
will have to be calculated at the scent; and for this, the exact point of entry
should be known.
3. The Commission should determine with certainty that there are no major
variations between the films and the artist's drawings.--Commission exhibits
Nos.
Page 93
93
385, 386 and 388 were made from the recollections of the autopsy surgeons as
told to the artist. Some day someone may compare the films with the artist's
drawings and find a significant error which might substantially affect the
essential testimony and the Commissions' conclusions. In any event, the
Commission should not rely on hazy recollections, especially in view of the
statement in the autopsy report (Commission exhibit No. 387) that:
"The complexity of these fractures and the fragments thus produced tax
satisfactory verbal description and are better appreciated in photographs and
roentgenograms which are prepared."
When Inspector Kelly talked to Attorney General Kennedy, he most probably did
not fully understand all the reasons for viewing the films. According to
Inspector Kelly, the Attorney general did not categroically decline to make them
available, but only wanted to be satisfied that they were really necessary. I
suggest that the Commission transmit to the Attorney General its reasons for
wanting the films and the assurance that they will be viewed only by the
absolute minimum number of people from the Commission for the sole purpose of
corroborating (or correcting) the artist's drawings, with the films not to
become a part of the Commission's records.
JFK EXHIBIT No. 12
[Memorandum]
MAY 12, 1964.
To: Mr. J. Lee Rankin.
From: Arlan Specter.
Subject: Examination of autopsy photographs and X-rays of President Kennedy.
When the autopsy photographs and X-rays are examined, we should be certain to
determine the following:
1. The photographs and X-rays confirm the precise location of the entrance wound
in the back of the head depicted in Commission exhibits 386 and 388.
2. The photographs and X-rays confirm the precise location of the wound of
entrance of the upper back of the President as depicted in Commission exhibits
385 and 386.
3. The photographs and X-rays confirm the precise area of the President's skull
which was disrupted by the bullet when it exited as depicted in Commission
Exhibit 388.
4. The characterisitcs of the wounds on the President's back and on the back of
his head should be examined closely in the photographs and X-rays to determine
for certain whether they are characteristic of entrance wounds under the
criteria advanced by Doctors Finck, Humes, Boswell, gregory, Shaw, Perry and
Carrico.
The films and X-rays should be viewed in conjunction with Commission exhibit 389
(a photograph of the frame of the Zapruder film immediately before the frame
showing the head wound) and Commission exhibit 390 (the frame of the Zapruder
film showing the head wound) to determine for certain whether the angle of
declination is accurately depicted in commission exhibit 388.
I suggest that we have a court reporter present so that we may examine Dr. Humes
after the X-rays and photographs are reviewed to put on the record:
1. Any changes in his testimony or theories required by a review of the X-rays
and films, and
2. Corroboration of the portions or all of his prior testimony which may be
confirmed by viewing the photographs and X-rays.
Mr. KLEIN. Mr. Specter, you have before you a copy of the memorandum dated April
30, 1964, to Mr. Rankin from Arlen Specter and the memorandum dated May 12,
1964, to Mr. Rankin from Arlen Specter.
Mr. SPECTER. I have two such memoranda you gave me shortly before I testified
today.
Mr. KLEIN. Have you had an opportunity to read those memoranda?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes; I did.
Mr. KLEIN. Do you recall writing them?
Page 94
94
Mr. SPECTER. Very vaguely. I have no doubt that I did write them. But in direct
response to your question do I remember writing these memoranda, very vaguely.
Mr. KLEIN. Is it fair to say that the memorandum of April 30 expresses your
opinion that in order for the Commission to determine with certainty that the
shots came from the rear, that the shots came from above, and that there are no
variations between the films and the artist's drawings that it would be
necessary to obtain the autopsy X-rays and photographs?
Mr. SPECTER. As you phrase the question permit me to read the memorandum please.
Your question was necessary, indispensable?
Mr. KLEIN. To the Commission in order to determine with certainty.
Mr. SPECTER. The thought running through my mind, why I wanted to read it, is
whether it was indispensable or only desirable. Let me pause a moment and reread
it.
I believe that it was necessary for the Commission to determine with certainty
the direction of the shots, which is what is said here on No. 1, that "The
Commission should determine with certainty whether the shots came from the rear"
and No. 2, "The Commission should determine with certainty whether the shots
came from above," and also 3, "The Commission should determine with certainty
there are no major variations between the films and the artist's drawings."
I believe that it was highly desirable for the X-rays and photographs to be
viewed to corroborate the testimony of the autopsy surgeons. I was overruled on
the request that I made to see them in drafting my own portion of the report.
My own feel for the situation at this moment, with what has been publicly
disclosed, that their have been independent viewings of the photos and X-rays,
is that they do corroborate the testimony of the autopsy surgeons. I did not
doubt the veracity of the autopsy surgeons when they testified because I believe
they are truthful men. I also felt that they would not be motivated to lie
because they didn't know whether the photos and X-rays were going to be viewed
that should have been done.
I do not think that the X-rays and films were indispensable for the Commission
to reach the conclusion because it had a final judgment to make on what evidence
it would hear.
Mr. KLEIN. Do you now disagree with part of this memorandum--
Mr. SPECTER. No, sir, I don't disagree with any part of the memo.
Mr. KLEIN. "--in my opinion it is indispensable that we obtain the photographs
and X-rays of President Kennedy's autopsy for the following reasons:" You say
now it wasn't indispensable?
Mr. SPECTER. Well, I think from my own personal point of view that the
investigation should not have been closed and the conclusion should not have
been reached and I did not want to come to final conclusions without seeing the
X-rays and photographs. So from my point of view, indispensable is not too
strong a word. As I reread this memo from 13-plus years ago, I was pushing the
Commission to let me see the photos and X-rays. But I cannot say that the
Commission was
Page 95
95
derelict in its duty in coming to a conclusion as to what it wanted to see other
than my own thoughts on the subject.
Mr. KLEIN. In your opinion as the staff member most directly concerned with the
autopsy findings were you able to adequately investigate this aspect of the case
without seeing those X-rays and photographs and having them evaluated by an
independent forensic pathology expert?
Mr. SPECTER. I can only repeat what I have already said to you on that subject.
I considered it something that I wanted to do. Having been overruled on an
opportunity to look at the photos and X-rays, I then functioned with the
evidence which I had.
Mr. KLEIN. I understand that, I understand you went along, the decision was made
and you accepted that, but in your opinion could you adequately investigate that
area without having the X-rays and photographs evaluated?
Mr. SPECTER. I think there was sufficient factual basis for me as an
investigator to reach a conclusion on the evidence which I had which is what I
did. I then came back to analyze some of the credibility of Boswell, Humes, and
finck, and I believe that they were honest and I concluded that their testimony
was a sufficient factual basis for the conclusions I wrote in my recommendation.
Mr. KLEIN. Is it fair to say that when you evaluated their credibility, you
considered whether they were telling the truth as opposed to whether they were
telling the truth as opposed to whether they could have made a technical error
which you would not be able to know, not having seen any of the autopsy
photographs?
Mr. SPECTER. I based it on their honesty and also on their ability to observe
and upon the records which they had an opportunity to make. All those factors in
my judgment justified my conclusion that their recounting of the facts was
correct.
Mr. KLEIN. Are you aware that the doctors themselves had not seen the X-rays and
photographs at the time they spoke to you?
Mr. SPECTER. I believe that is in the record. I believe that they testified to
that effect, but I do not know that because I have not reviewed it.
Mr. KLEIN. Were you aware that the FBI report issued on December 9, 1963, and
the supplementary FBI report issued on January 13, 1964, both stated that the
first bullet that hit the President did not exit from his body?
Mr. SPECTER. You and I discussed that when we met the week before last, and I do
believe that the FBI report so stated but I have no firm recollection of that at
this time.
Mr. KLEIN. Do you have any recollection as to whether you were able to resolve
this discrepancy, considering that the FBI reports came out after the doctor's
autopsy report had been written? Do you have any recollection of that?
Mr. SPECTER. My recollection is that we investigated it and the conclusion we
came to was that the FBI report was written based upon the comments made in the
course of the autopsy before the autopsy surgeons knew there had been a bullet
hole in front of the President's neck, so their early speculation was that the
bullet penetrated the back of President Kennedy's neck, and they speculated, we
believe, that the bullet was forced out under pressure by external heart
massage. When
Page 96
96
they proceeded with the autopsy examination and found the path through the
President's neck and talked to Dr. Perry, saw the bullet hole in the throat,
that conditional speculation was rejected, but it found its way in the FBI
report.
But that is largely reconstruction, largely speculation, on my part, I say that
to this committee in an effort to shed what light I can on a possible
explanation of it.
Mr. KLEIN. Do you recall whether you were satisfied with the explanation?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes; I was satisfied that the bullet which entered the back of the
President's neck went all the way through and exited in front of his neck. It
was not forced out by external heart massage.
Mr. KLEIN. As you sit here today, do you think it would be useful to form a
panel composed of the top forensic pathologists in this country and to allow
them to review the medical report and write a report telling of their findings?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes; I think this would be useful. There is enough public question
about the whole subject so that considering all the other matters which were
inquired into, that that would come very high on the list of priorities. I would
certainly not only have no objection but would welcome that kind of review.
Mr. KLEIN. What predispositions, if any, did you have toward the intelligence
agencies--I refer to the FBI, CIA, and the Secret Service--prior to working for
the Warren Commission?
Mr. SPECTER. As I testified earlier, my experience with the FBI had been that
they were competent investigators. I had had no prior contact with the Secret
Service that I can recollect, or the CIA. So I really had no predisposition. I
had an open mind.
Mr. KLEIN. As to the FIG with whom you did have some prior contacts, did your
opinion of them change during the course of the investigation?
Mr. SPECTER. I thought that the people who worked with the Commission from the
FBI were very able people. They sent us, I suspected, their very best. I
suspected the ones we saw on the Commission were not typical of the FBI, they
were really good. I am talking about the men on the investigation.
Mr. KLEIN. As to them your opinion didn't change?
Mr. SPECTER. I just stated the specifics. I thought they were good before they
started. I thought they sent the very best in the course of the investigation. I
thought they had some very good men. I did not deal with any of the note
destroyers or allegations of that, I worked with the technician.
Mr. KLEIN. Will you describe the attitude of the Warren Commission toward each
of the intelligence agencies; that is, how did the Warren Commission view them
and how in your opinion did these agencies view the Warren Commission?
Mr. SPECTER. I have really no ideal how the agencies viewed the Warren
Commission. I can tell you that I thought the Secret Service men were a good
group and were trying to be helpful, the ones I questioned. I have already
testified about the FBI people, and my contacts with the investigative agencies
were limited to having technical assistance in those areas and questioning the
Secret Service people at the scene.
Page 97
97
I did not get involved in areas on foreign travel, foreign contacts, or CIA at
all.
Mr. KLEIN. Looking at the individual agencies you might have worked with, was
there any kind of feeling for how higher-ups of these agencies viewed the Warren
Commission?
Mr. SPECTER. I really have no basis to testify about how those agencies viewed
the Warren Commission except from the contact I had with the specific agencies,
and they were courteous and very cooperative on matters where I dealt with them.
Mr. KLEIN. Was there a general attitude that the Warren Commission had toward
the intelligence agencies?
Mr. SPECTER. I really have no basis to testify on that.
Mr. KLEIN. No remarks, no memos, you might have seen that would reflect whether
there was some kind of attitude "We can trust these people," "We can't trust
these people," or anything like that?
Mr. SPECTER. I really was not privy to any such material during the course of my
work for the Warren Commission. The one thought which comes to my mind is on
Jack Ruby's polygraph examination. My suggestion was to have an independent
agency do the polygraph. It ended up with the FBI, a very able fellow. Most of
the time we figured the polygraph was never going to be taken. There were
objections from Ruby's lawyers. That is the only item that comes to my mind as
to the Commission's response to the other Federal agencies.
Mr. KLEIN. Do you know if the intelligence agencies intentionally withheld any
information from the Warren Commission?
Mr. SPECTER. Nothing which came to my attention that information was withheld.
Mr. KLEIN. Were you aware that FBI agent Hosty's name was not initially given to
the Warren Commission in the list of notebook entries, Oswald's notebook
entries?
Mr. SPECTER. I have a vague recollection about that but I had no responsibility
for that area and did not become involved in it.
Mr. KLEIN. You have no direct knowledge as a member of the Commission of any
international withholding of information form the Warren Commission?
Mr. SPECTER. I have no direct knowledge and came into contact with no evidence
of any withholding of information by any Federal Agency from the Warren
Commission that I can recollect.
Mr. KLEIN. The only knowledge that you did have is from the newspapers? Is that
what you're saying?
Mr. SPECTER. That is all.
Mr. KLEIN. To your knowledge, did any of these intelligence agencies ever
intentionally delay providing the Warren Commission with any information?
Mr. SPECTER. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. KLEIN. To your knowledge, did any intelligence agency ever intentionally
provide the Warren Commission with false or misleading information?
Mr. SPECTER. Not to my knowledge.
Page 98
98
Mr. KLEIN. do you recall what the procedures ere to obtain information from the
intelligence agencies?
Mr. SPECTER. As I recollect it, a request would be made by assistant counsel and
it would be funneled through Mr. Rankin He would make the request, he would get
the information back and disseminate it to assistant counsel.
Mr. KLEIN. Are you aware of any problems that were experienced in obtaining
information from intelligence agencies?
Mr. SPECTER. I do not recollect having any problem, myself. I would only have
the haziest thought in mind that some of the other lawyers may have made
requests which mr. Rankin or others may have raised some questions about but it
could not specify any such instance and could rally only testify about my own
activities. I recollect no instances where I asked for anything that I did not
get from any intelligence agencies. I again point out that the area I worked on
did not turn information from Federal agencies.
Mr. KLEIN. Did you testify to the fact that you read about CIA training troops
in Cuba and that wasn't given to the Warren Commission?
Mr. SPECTER. I did not testify about reading CIA training in cuba. I testified
there were press reports that CIA may have been involved in an attempt to
assassinate Castro.
Mr. KLEIN. Excuse me. You testified that you read press reports that the CIA may
have been involved in attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro. Have you ever read
or heard that the CIA had been training troops to invade Cuba?
Mr. SPECTER. I don't recall whether I have ever heard about that. It might have
in the newspapers at some time. Certainly I have no recollection of having heard
about that prior to the time the Warren Commission work was concluded.
Mr. KLEIN. Do you have any knowledge or have you ever heard information to the
effect that an FBI agent in Dallas destroyed a note given to the FBI by Lee
Harvey Oswald a short time before the assassination?
Mr. SPECTER. Only what I read in the newspapers many months ago.
Mr. KLEIN. If that were true, in your opinion would knowledge of this
information have affected the Warren Commission investigation in a significant
way?
Mr. SPECTER. I think that the Warren Commission would have wanted to have known
all about that. To that extent it would have been significant.
Mr. KLEIN. Would it have affected the investigation in terms of assignments, in
terms of actual investigation that was done?
Mr. SPECTER. Speaking for myself, if I had known that an agent for the FBI had
destroyed a note of Oswald's I would have wanted to know every aspect of that
destruction, who did it, who authorized it, and those people would very
definitely be suspect in my mind and I would not give them any responsibility
for any investigation that I was part of. How far it went in the FBI I do not
know. I give my personal view. What the Commission would have done I can only
speculate
Page 99
99
about. I wouldn't do business with anybody who was a party to an incident of
that kind.
Mr. KLEIN. Certain avenues might have been opened if this information had been
turned over?
Mr. SPECTER. I can't answer that question more fully than I have.
Mr. KLEIN. Regarding the assertion that the CIA was involved in the attempt to
assassinate Castro, if that information had been given to the Warren Commission
would that have affected the investigation.
Mr. SPECTER. I started off volunteering as I did early on that the question
about the assassination attempt on castro and the FBI destruction of the note
are two questions which concerned me enormously as a citizen and events which
the Commission would have known about and questions which I hope this committee
will get to the bottom of.
Mr. KLEIN. What I am asking is not only looking at it from the point of view of
the reliability of the agencies for not giving that information but looking at
it from the point of view of the course of the investigation, would that have
been affected? Do you have any opinion as to whether the course of the
investigation would have been affected had this information been known?
Mr. SPECTER. I think that if there had been information known to the Commission
about a possible assassination effort on Castro by the CIA, that the Commission
would have looked into it. It would have followed those facts to see if there
was any connection with the Kennedy assassination.
I say that. That is an obvious sort of conclusion. Neither of those two matters
bears on the scope of the investigation which I was responsible for.
Mr. KLEIN. Do you have any opinion as to what motivated the intelligence
agencies to withhold information from the Warren Commission.
Mr. SPECTER. Only the rankest speculation, a private citizen's speculation.
Mr. KLEIN. In your opinion did the fact that prior to the information of the
Warren Commission the FBI had already issued a final report in which they
concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin affect the investigation
in any way?
Mr. SPECTER. Mr Klein, you are going far from procedure which is what I came
here to testify about. Let me try to deal with the question. I think that the
Commission set out to make an independent determination as to who the assassin
was. I cannot say that the identification of the news media of Oswald as the
assassin, the identification by the FBI, did not have some imprint, however
moderate, on my own thinking. I do know that the FBI report said that the first
bullet hit the President's neck, the second bullet hit the Governor, the third
bullet the President's back. I find the fact to the contrary.
Mr. KLEIN. In your opinion were the FBI agents you worked with, open to the
proposition that the FBI report could have been wrong when it concluded that
Oswald was the lone assassin?
Mr. SPECTER. I do not recall discussing the FBI report or having any interest in
what the FBI had to say.
Mr. KLEIN. In the investigation that they were performing for you, did you ever
have the feeling that in their minds the question was already resolved?
Page 100
100
Mr. SPECTER. I do not recollect being concerned with what was in their minds. I
was focusing on what I thought the facts showed. I do recall asking some of
their people questions relating to the probabilities of the one bullet theory
and some of their agents agreed with them. So to the extent the FBI agents
disagree with the early FBI report.
Mr. PREYER. I might ask one or two procedural questions Mr. Specter, for my own
understanding. As I understand it, the organization was set up so that there
were senior counsel. Were there four senior counsel?
Mr. SPECTER. There were six senior counsel, counting Mr. Rankin as one of the
senior counsel.
Mr. PREYER. Each one had a junior counsel working with him?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes, sir.
Mr. PREYER. You were junior counsel to Mr. Adams?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes, sir.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Adams is a very distinguished lawyer and obviously was a very
busy one. Is it really fair to say you ended up as the only counsel in my area.
Mr. PREYER. Did Mr. Adams come to do anything?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes. Mr. Adams was with the Commission on a number of occasions. We
did consult on some of the work of the Commission, but it was necessary for him
to become inactive at a fairly early stage, but he did some things.
Mr. PREYER. He was present at interviewing some of the witnesses, hearing
testimony?
Mr. SPECTER. I do not recollect his being present, interviewing witnesses. That
was something we didn't do a great deal of. The record will show, I believe, he
was present when the autopsy surgeons were questioned, but I have not reviewed
the record.
Mr. PREYER. He was in on the early stages but was not able to do much after the
first months, say?
Mr. SPECTER. I would say that he worked beyond the first month but precisely
when he discontinued his activities I am not sure. I think that would be
reflected on the Commission payroll because he was paid on a per diem basis. I
would be sure he would not have put in for per diem if he was not active.
Mr. PREYER. On the question of testimony of witnesses I understand that the
Commission and the staff, more accurately I should say the staff, took direct
testimony of 94 witnesses and interviewed some 300 witnesses or 400. When you
took the direct testimony of witnesses, were Commission members ever present or
was this all done by the staff?
Mr. SPECTER. There were two procedures. One was when the testimony was before
the Commission itself in which event at least one Commission member would have
had to be present. There was a second procedure which we denominated for
depositions where there was no Commissioner present, where verbatim testimony
under oath was taken. There were other procedures, for example, where we took
affidavits.
There were a number of way to acquire the evidence.
Page 101
101
Mr. PREYER. On the question of having enough time, I believe Mr. Rankin in May
instructed the lawyers to complete their summary of the case by June 1. I
believe you are the only one who had your work completed by that time?
Mr. SPECTER. I think that is right.
Mr. PREYER. Thank you. I want to say I think the memos in the file reflect very
credibly on you and very favorably on your diligence and efforts to produce a
complete investigation.
Mr. SPECTER. Thank you.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Stokes.
Mr. STOKES. I have no questions, Mr. Chairman, at this time.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Devine.
Mr. DEVINE. No questions, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Fauntroy.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Specter, in response to questions from counsel as to what the objectives of
the Commission were as you recall, you gave rather categorical answers on your
view that the objective was not to allay public fears, was not to prevent an
international crisis, and was not to allow a smooth transition in national
leadership You then stated that there was concern for promptness in your
determination. What reasons were given for the promptness in your determination
and by whom?
Mr. SPECTER. I is hard to specify the people or Commissioners who were pushing
for a prompt conclusion, but that was an unmistakable aspect of the atmosphere
of the Commission's work. As I noted a few moments ago, Mr. Rankin set a date of
June 1 for completion of our draft reports. I do not recollect at this time that
there had been an earlier date or not. As I testified earlier, it was originally
thought that the investigation might terminate in as little as 3 months.
The Chief Justice was a very strong force on the Commission and was interested
in receiving periodic reports or documents showing the progress of the
Commission work. So that all of us knew that it was a goal to work with the
staff but at the same time to do a thorough job. No one ever said sacrifice
thoroughness for speed.
Mr. FAUNTROY. But promptness for promptness' sake, not for any other objective
or reason that you recall?
Mr. SPECTER. When I say promptness, I mean that the Commission had been given a
job by the President, it was an important job, but the most important aspect of
our job was to find the truth and do a thorough investigation. If there had been
any fact which had been uncovered which would have been inconsistent or which
had promoted an international incident, I can tell you categorically I would not
have stood by subvert any fact, and I don't think anybody else on the Commission
would have. The Chief Justice was a man of tremendous stature and tremendous
presence in the work of this Commission, as were Senator Russell, Senator Cooper
and Congressman Ford, Congressman Bogs, Mr. McCloy, Mr. Dulles. But the Chief
Justice was an overriding strong force and had a presence and a stature of
tremendous integrity.
That was what we were doing. The Chief Justice told a story, which has been in
the press. When the entire staff came together he told how
Page 102
102
President Johnson had finally persuaded him to take on the chairmanship of the
Commission and how he had first been approached by two of the other members of
the Justice Department and turned the matter down. The President said to the
Chief Justice--and I presume you gentlemen have had access to this, as I
recollect it, and it has been a long time ago--he said to Chief Justice Warren,
"Would you put on your country's uniform in time of national emergency if your
Commander in Chief asked you to do so?"
The Chief Justice said, "I would." President Johnson said, "Well, you Commander
in Chief is asking you to do so." The Chief Justice said, "OK; I will do it."
He had been unwilling to do it earlier for Judge Roberts in the Pearl Harbor
matter, but when President johnson told him that way, he said he would do it.
Chief Justice Warren had an international reputation. There were lots of rumors
that we were all concerned about whether Oswald had anything to do with the Fair
Play for Cuba Committee and whether Oswald's travels in Russia had anything to
do with it. But the people who were there, from the youngest lawyer all the way
up to the Chief Justice were dedicated to finding the truth. i can speak about
that unequivocally so far as I am concerned.
I have that view of everybody who worked on the Commission.
Mr. FAUNTROY. I share your respect for Chief Justice Warren, although I still
don['t get a feel for the desire for promptness in your determination. You don't
recall any reasons for that?
Mr. SPECTER. The best I can tell you is that they were periodic comments in the
media about when is the Commission going to finish its work? Everybody had
things they wanted to return to. We were a temporary agency. Mr. Russell wanted
to get on with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which was very much current.
Everybody had other things they wanted to do. We had a Presidential mandate to
finish the report. When they gave me deadlines I really did not question too
much about it. I went to work to meet the deadline.
Mr. FAUNTROY. I was very much impressed with the memos which you sent to your
chief counsel and found the indispensable nature of the determination that you
felt the Commission should make very reasonable. I would like for you to review
with us again what reasons were given to you as a responsible person for this
area of the investigation for not having access to the X-rays and the pictures?
Are there any reasons beyond those which I heard you give in respect to the
sensitivity of the family?
Mr. SPECTER. That was the only reason which was ever alluded to for not seeing
X-rays and photographs.
Mr. FAUNTROY. The fear that you would not protect, you as the person responsible
for determination with respect to the validity of the---
Mr. SPECTER. I would not say so much me personally. I don't think anybody
thought I was going to take them to the Washington Post. But there was a feeling
that if they got into the hands of the Commission staff members that there would
be a material risk that they would get into the public domain. I do not
understand to this day what role Burke Marshall has on the photograph and X-rays
or what the status of them is at the present time.
Page 103
103
I was discussing with Mr. Klein, and I perhaps should not digress since I am so
anxious to go, what the status was with respect to your seeing them, or your
pathologist. It seems to me, and I have the greatest respect for the Kennedy
family, but the Kennedy family always have had too much authority over X-rays
and pictures as they relate to tangible pieces of evidence in this case. I feel
strongly about that to this minute as I did back in 1964.
Mr. FAUNTROY. finally, Mr. Chairman, I do not want to prolong this, but you also
experienced some frustrations apparently with respect to your desire to question
both Mrs. kennedy and President Johnson and while you indicated you have some
very specific questions you felt would have assisted you in the conduct of the
investigation, your failure to be able to ask those questions did not in your
judgment substantially affect the conclusions which you reached?
Mr. SPECTER. I think the conclusions would have been the same, but Mrs. Kennedy
was the closest person to the victim, President Kennedy. I thought she should
have been questioned. My view is that no witness is above the reach of the law
to provide evidence. Every man's testimony is available to the court or to a
proceeding here or in a court room or in any sort of judicial or congressional
determination.
I don't think Mrs. Kennedy was above that one iota, nor President Johnson. I
don't think President Johnson had anything to do with the assassination of
President Kennedy but I do not think that would have been an inappropriate
question to ask him notwithstanding the fact that he was the President.
I looked those over on the train this morning, whether he knew of any
conversation or any event that in any way bore of the assassination of president
Kennedy, I think those questions should all have been asked.
Mr. FAUNTROY. I take it you do have your notes of the questions that you would
have asked had you had the opportunity?
Mr. SPECTER. As a result of Mr. Klein's efforts, I have been furnished copies of
them. i did not retain any files of them when i left the Commission staff. I
always wondered what happened to the questions I suggested asking President
Johnson. I was glad to get a copy of them 10 days ago.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Thank you, mr. Chairman.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. McKinney.
Mr. McKINNEY. When we were arguing on the floor of the House as to whether or
not this committee should be reestablished, Mrs. Boggs probably made the only
speech that carried the day when she said that Hale, in particular, and Jerry
Ford and a few others had a great deal of difficulty in drafting the final
language of the Commission report to state that from the evidence the all had
been shown or that had been put before them it was their conclusion. She alluded
to the fact that Hale had a great many doubts as to the adequacy of the
information that they were receiving.
Was it a pervasive sort of feeling on your part that you felt it was too fast
and not thorough enough?
Mr. SPECTER. No, sir, I did not think it was too fast or there was not enough
thoroughness. I thought that we functioned under a mandate of promptness but we
had an opportunity to do a reasonably
Page 104
104
thorough job. I don't think Mrs. Boggs participated as much in the work of the
Commission as some of the other Commissioners did but that is all a matter of
record because the record notes with precision when each one came. I never heard
any suggestion that Mrs. Boggs was in any way questioning any of the materials
that were being furnished to the committee.
Mr. McKINNEY. I don't think it was questioning that materials as much as it was
the adequacy of the information, the amount of information, the things they
didn't know. One thing that disturbed me is that, right after the assassination
the Attorney General wrote to the President and suggested very strongly that
everything be done to make sure that the conspiracy theory be ruled out and that
Lee Harvey Oswald was the only assassin. He also wrote on December 1963 to the
Warren Commission recommending that they immediately issue a press release
stating what the FBI conclusion of the case was, which was that there was no
international conspiracy and that Oswald was a loner.
How much of a handicap was that? Here you have the Attorney General of the
United States turning around and telling a Commission, which is supposed to
investigate a murder, this is who did it and they didn't do it? Did that disturb
you as an investigator?
Mr. SPECTER. I never knew the Attorney General did that. You are saying that
Attorney General Kennedy in 1963 in December told the Warren Commission to issue
some tentative finding?
Mr. McKINNEY. On December 9, 1963 he wrote each member of the Warren Commission
recommending that the Commission issue a press release stating the FBI report
clearly showed there was no international conspiracy and Oswald was a loner.
That did not get down to your level?
Mr. SPECTER. I was not on the Commission at that time. I did not join them until
january. I think it was inappropriate for the Attorney General to do that, if I
might state a citizen's opinion. I am happy to note that the Commission didn't
do it.
Mr. McKINNEY. I just wondered again how much of a pervasive force it was.
Mr. SPECTER. I don't know that anybody would have paid any attention to his
having said that. The things that bothered me were his protection of his
sister-in-law and whatever hand he had in keeping X-rays and photos from us.
What he ad to say or what he wanted to push to do, I never heard of any
involvement that Robert Kennedy had on trying to influence the Commission.
Mr. McKINNEY. you are back with Katzenbach?
Mr. SPECTER. Kennedy was Attorney General. He was Deputy Attorney general.
Mr. McKINNEY. Would you assume that the Deputy Attorney General would write a
letter to some of the most powerful men in the Nation without the Attorney
General knowing that?
Mr. SPECTER. Knowing Mr. Katzenbach I wouldn't doubt it.
Mr. McKINNEY. Thank you very much.
Mr. SPECTER. I don't think they would be influenced much by what Mr. Katzenbach
would say.
Mr. McKINNEY. I have to go back. I was younger than and was easily impressed.
Chief Justice Warren is one of my folk heroes. He was a
Page 105
105
very powerful individual. I find it very difficult to think that the Deputy
Attorney General would write a letter of that type to a Presidential Commission.
In fact I find it very difficult that the Attorney General would write one
without even the President knowing it. Because what you are doing is writing to
the Chief justice of the United States of America, the most powerful Senators
and most powerful Representatives and a Commission set up to find the facts and
you have the top legal entity in the United States of America writing a letter
saying this is what the conclusion is and this is who did it and this is who
didn't do it.
Mr. SPECTER. I had not known it was done. My own speculation would be that the
Chief justice would have been offended by it.
Mr McKINNEY. If I were President, I would have fired the Attorney General within
the next 10 minutes.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Sawyer.
Mr. SAWYER. I have one question. When you were asked a question about your
judgement or thinking as to why these investigative agencies may have withheld
information form the Warren Commission you said you only had the wildest type of
private citizen's speculation. I would like the advantage of what your
speculation is as a private citizen, if you have one.
Mr. SPECTER. I think the FBI in destroying the Oswald not, if it did so--I only
know it is an allegation--would have been offensive, and had it come to light
would have raised a question as to whether had they acted on it they could have
prevented the assassination. I have a grave concern as a private citizen about
what goes on with the CIA and what happens with plea bargaining with Mr. Helms
and what is going on in the CIA.
I have grave questions about the President of the United States engaging in plea
bargaining with Mr. Park. I have grave concerns as a private citizen about those
subjects and I think that considering the interest of national security that our
public welfare would be promoted by having some hard answers to those questions.
Mr. SAWYER. Thank you. That is all I have, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PREYER. Thank you. Do you have any further questions?
Mr. KLEIN. Yes, mr. Chairman. I have one more important area to go into and then
I will conclude.
Mr. Specter, to your knowledge did the Chief Justice and any of the
Commissioners or any of the Warren commission staff members have any knowledge
prior to the release of the Warren report that the CIA had anything to do with
attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro?
Mr. SPECTER. I have no knowledge of anyone's knowledge about that.
Mr. KLEIN. To your knowledge did the Chief Justice, any of the Commissioners, or
any of the Warren staff members receive information of any nature prior to the
release of the Warren Commission pertaining to the CIA involvement in attempts
to assassinate Fidel Castro.
Mr. SPECTER. Not to my knowledge but I am having a hard time distinguishing the
last question from the former question.
Mr. KLEIN. Simply if there were any documents that you have any knowledge of
that might have pertained in some way to CIA involvement in a attempt to
assassinate Castro Do you know of any?
Page 106
106
Mr. SPECTER. I don't know of any documents relating to what the CIA may have
done with respect to Fidel Castro. Nor do I have any knowledge, myself, of
anything about that or that anybody on the Commission knew anything about it. I
again hasten to add that my area was far removed in terms of what I had direct
contact with.
Mr. KLEIN. Again in that same area, to be specific, prior to the issuance of the
Warren report were you ever present with the Chief justice or any of the
Commissioners or any of the Warren Commission staff when the subject of an
intent to assassinate Fidel Castro was discussed?
Mr. SPECTER. No.
Mr. KLEIN. To your knowledge did the Chief Justice, any of the Commissioners or
any of the Warren Commission staff members receive information of any nature
prior to the release of the Warren report pertaining to attempts to assassinate
Fidel Castro?
Mr. SPECTER. No to my knowledge.
Mr KLEIN. Did you ever receive any indications from Chief Justice Warren, any of
the Commissioners, any of the Warren Commission staff counsel or anyone else
that there were areas of intelligence agency activities which the Warren
Commission should avoid investigating?
Mr. SPECTER. Nothing of that sort were ever called to my attention.
Mr. KLEIN. I asked you whether you had ever received such indications. To your
knowledge did anyone else connected with the Warren Commission investigation
ever receive any indications from the Chief Justice, a Commissioner, a staff
member or anyone else, that they were to avoid areas of intelligence activity?
Mr. SPECTER. No one ever told me to avoid any such areas of intelligence
activities and I have no knowledge of any one telling anyone else to avoid any
such area.
Mr. KLEIN. At the time the Warren report was released were you satisfied with
the thoroughness of the investigation?
Mr. SPECTER. Subject to the limitations that I have testified about, yes.
Mr. KLEIN. Subject to the limitation?
Mr. SPECTER. Subject to the limitations I have testified about.
Mr. KLEIN. Are you satisfied, as you sit here today do you think it was
successful?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes.
Mr KLEIN. Other than what you have told us is there anything else you think
should have been done differently?
Mr. SPECTER. Not that I can think of. Focusing on the fact I first talked to you
a seek ago Thursday, I got a call from you last week to come here today to talk
about procedure. You called yesterday, you were going to ask me two specific
questions, so that my review of this matter is limited to a great many other
activities in the intervening several days.
Mr. KLEIN. Is it correct that I also told you that we would speak about the same
things we spoke about during our 2-hour interview in your office; is that
correct?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes. I think the scope of your questions has been substantially
broader. A lot of it has gone into the question of substance
Page 107
107
but I am glad to cooperate to the extent that I can, again saying that my
ability to respond is limited. We had some very bulky records which I had access
to and familiarity with a long time ago.
Mr. KLEIN. Did you then or do you now disagree with any of the major conclusions
reached by the Warren Commission?
Mr. SPECTER. No.
Mr. KLEIN. Will you describe was pressures, if any, existed to complete the
investigation before the election? Was that specifically ever mentioned, the
election?
Mr SPECTER. I think that there may have been some talk about it in the
newspapers or some question about whether the deadlines were going to be
extended beyond November but nobody ever said to me "We have to get this done
before the election." i had my report in early June and the election was not a
matter of concern to me. Nobody made it a matter to me, not that particular
election.
Mr. KLEIN. Were there any pressures not to criticize the FBI or the Secret
Service?
Mr. SPECTER. No, sir.
Mr. KLEIN. As you sit here today--
Mr. SPECTER. Not that I think about.
Mr. KLEIN. As you sit here today, do you think there is a need to reinvestigate
the assassination of the President?
Mr. SPECTER. I think on the specific areas that I have discussed it would be
useful I have no objection to a total reinvestigation of the assassination
because I think it is a healthy thing in a democracy to investigate whenever
there is any public concern. I think that it is unlikely that a reinvestigation
would be fruitful except on the specific leads. I want to emphasize I have no
objection to having all the working over, including all of my work.
Mr. KLEIN. In your opinion why is the Warren Commission subject to so much
criticism?
Mr. SPECTER. Because it is the most fascinating subject in town, this town, any
town. Because the question of the murder of a President, with all the power of
the Presidency, is a question that is of overwhelming interest. The Lincoln
assassination survives until today, as I said earlier.
The aura of intrigue, what goes on behind closed doors, even like this executive
session, is of interest to people everywhere. So I think it is a natural thing.
And it is fascinating to have been a part of it. Aside from the volume of letter
I get all the way from high school student to media inquiries and the burden of
refreshing my recollection, I think it is fun, it is interesting to have been
part of it.
Mr. KLEIN. Other than what you have testified to, is there anything else you can
think of that the Select Committee on Assassinations can contribute to this
matter.
Mr. SPECTER. No. I would hope that the committee will go into two areas that are
of concern to me and beyond that the committee doesn't need my views or
suggestions as to what it should do. I would have only one other thing which
wasn't asked of me that is tangentially relevant that that is that it may be
that while I did not see the photographs and X-rays, others did. I was concerned
about the question after the Commission concluded and once wrote to the Chief
justice about that subject.
Page 108
108
Precisely when I couldn't tell you. I think he responded to me. We had some
meetings about it afterward. I think he may have seen the X-rays. I did not. Nor
would it have changed any testimony I have given about my interest in seeing the
photos and X-rays.
Your questions have been phrased in terms of what I did and what I knew and what
I saw and that is really all I can comment about.
Mr. KLEIN. Thank you very much. I have no further questions, mr. Chairman.
Mr. DEVINE. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask a question if I may.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Devine.
Mr. DEVINE. As an attorney you know that opinion evidence is admissible from an
expert. I think you are fully qualified as an expert, having been so deeply
involved in the Warren Commission investigation. For the purpose of the record I
would ask you your opinion, if you have an opinion, no. 1, whether or not there
may have been a conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination and, No. 2, whether in
your opinion Lee Harvey Oswald was a sole operator?
Mr. SPECTER. In my opinion and judgment Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole assassin,
the sold person to pull the trigger. I think the evidence is conclusive on his
having pulled the trigger. I think the single bullet conclusion is correct. In
my opinion I do not think that there was a conspiracy. I think that certain
materials were withheld from the Warren Commission that we talked about here
today.
My own best estimate of it is that they would not have been relevant to the
issue of conspiracy and I think that had there been a conspiracy, given the
milieu of life in America, that it would have come to light before this time. So
my opinion is that there was no conspiracy.
Mr. Devine. Thank you very much.
Mr. PREYER. Thank you. Mr. Specter, under our rules, rule 3.6 of the committee,
the witness is offered a chance to explain or amplify his testimony at this
stage for 5 minutes. You have in effect been given that several times. If there
is anything further you would like to say you are given the opportunity.
Mr. SPECTER. I only would like an opportunity to read the 1 hour 40 minutes of
testimony which I have given uninterrupted, as the record will show, to be sure
it is transcribed accurately and that I have no second thought about what I have
said, responding as best I could to the questions.
Mr. PREYER. Yes. We will be happy to grant you that privilege or right. If there
are areas in which you may not have anticipated being questioned and you would
like to amplify on it more, of course we would welcome any further testimony or
written statement.
Mr. SPECTER. Thank you.
Mr. PREYER. Thank you very much. The committee will recess until 2 o'clock
today.
[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m. the meeting was recessed, to convene at 2 p.m. the
same day.]
AFTERNOON SESSION
Staff members present: G. Robert Blakey, g. Cornwell, M. Wills, E. Berning, K.
Klein,, J. Hess, J. Facter, J. Schlichtmann, L. Wizelman, S. Brady, L. Matthews,
W. Cross, R. Morrison, and D. Miller.
Page 109
109
Mr. PREYER. The committee will come to order. We will resume our hearings. Our
witness this afternoon is Dean Norman Redlich. We welcome you to the committee,
Dean Redlich. We appreciate your being here in this bad weather today. If you
will first be sworn.
So you solemnly swear that the testimony you now are about to give will be the
truth, the whole truth and nothing but their truth, so help you God.
Mr. REDLICH. I do.
TESTIMONY OF DEAN NORMAN REDLICH
Mr. PREYER. We appreciate your being here with us, Mr. Redlich. We will ask Mr.
Klein if he will begin the questioning.
Mr. KLEIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PREYER. Excuse me. In accordance with our results the committee will ask Ms.
Berning, our clerk, if she will deliver a copy of the rules of the committee to
Dean Redlich.
Mr KLEIN. Sir, what was your position prior to taking your job with the Warren
Commission?
Mr. REDLICH. I was a professor of law in the New York University School of Law.
Mr. KLEIN. What investigative and or prosecutional experience did you have prior
to taking that position with the Warren Commission?
Mr. REDLICH. I had no investigative experience and no prosecutorial experience.
Mr KLEIN. Prior to being hired by the Warren Commission what was said to you
about the goals of that Commission and about your function as a staff member?
Mr. REDLICH. Prior to the time I was hired?
Mr KLEIN. When whoever spoke to you about coming to work for the Warren
Commission.
Mr. REDLICH. When Mr. Rankin first spoke to you about coming to work for the
Warren Commission.
Mr REDLICH. When Mr. Rankin first spoke to me about working for the Commission
he indicated that he wanted me to assist him, to work in certain special areas,
and I believe he indicated that he wanted me to concentrate primarily on the
factual aspects of the assassination, itself.
Mr. KLEIN. In your opinion what were the real objectives of the Warren
Commission?
Mr. REDLICH. Perhaps I can best answer that by repeating what Mr. Rankin said
when he convened the staff of the Warren Commission for the very first meeting
of us a complete staff which, as I recall, occurred toward the middle or the end
of January 1964. He said, "Gentlemen, your only client is the truth." those were
his opening words of that talk. I think our objective was to find all of the
facts which we could relating to the assassination of president Kennedy and the
subsequent murder of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Mr. KLEIN. Was it an objective of the Warren commission to allay public fears?
Mr. REDLICH. I never considered that as an objective. That was not put to me
other than in the context of the fact that there were a great many doubts about
what happened, there was great concern bout what happened, and of course to the
extent that we could find all of the truth about the assassination, we would be
allaying public fears. I
Page 110
110
always felt that that was a byproduct of the principal objective which was to
discover all the facts.
Mr KLEIN. Was it an objective of the Warren Commission to prevent international
crisis?
Mr. REDLICH. I don't believe so. I believe it was the objective of the Warren
Commission to learn all of the facts about the assassination, including any
questions with regard to possible conspiracy. If the learning of all the facts
resulted in the allaying of public fears and easing of international strains,
that, as I indicated, would be a byproduct of what our central mission was. Our
central mission was not to prevent a crisis or allay fears.
Mr. KLEIN. Was it an objective of the Warren commission to allow a smooth
transition in national leadership?
Mr. REDLICH. I don't recall that ever being mentioned as an objective.
Mr. KLEIN. In your opinion were the operating procedures and organizational
structure of the Warren Commission conducive to achieving the objectives of the
Commission as you saw them?
Mr. REDLICH. I think they were, yes.
Mr. KLEIN. How were they conducive to achieving the objectives of the
Commission?
Mr. REDLICH. We were all committed to the pursuit of all lines if inquiry. There
were no restrictions that I can ever recall placed upon me in terms of questions
which I could ask or lines of inquiry that I personally could pursue. The
Commission, as you know, was organized into certain areas of inquiry. I was not
part of any of those specific areas of inquiry. In each of those areas of
inquiry there was a senior counsel and a younger counsel. The commission used as
its principal investigatory arm the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to some
extent the Secret Service.
I believed then, and I believe now, that the method of inquiry that we conducted
was an objective one. We came with o preconceived notion. Our only objective was
to find all of the truth. At the conclusion of that inquiry I was of the opinion
that we had had the full cooperation of the agencies of the U.S. Government.
Mr KLEIN. You stated that the investigation was divided up into a number of
areas of investigation. Were the particular areas that were chosen conducive to
achieving the objective of solving this case and finding the truth?
Mr. REDLICH. I believe that they were. I believe that those seemed to be at the
time a natural way to divide the work. Obviously there might be some overlap.
One might possibly look at the subject by retrospect and conceive of different
ways or organization. I don't believe that there is any single one method of
organization that is the best one. That seemed to us at the time as a logical
division and I believe that it worked reasonably well.
Mr. KLEIN. Was the type and mix of the personnel hired conducive to achieving
the objective of the Warren Commission?
Mr. REDLICH. I think it was. I think the staff was an excellent one. I was proud
to be a part of it. I remain that was today.
Mr. KLEIN. Certain senior lawyers were not able to denote a good deal of time to
this investigation. Is that correct?
Mr. REDLICH. that is right.
Page 111
111
Mr. KLEIN. Do you think that affected the investigation?
Mr. REDLICH. Any time someone is not able to spend full time it had that effect.
It means that that work which might have been done during the course of that
full-time work gets picked up by others. In that sense even the fact that during
the first several months I was teaching at New York university School of Law and
was commuting back and forth, and it wasn't until May that my semester ended,
that fact of course would have an effect. I don't think on balance any of that
had a permanent harmful effect because I believe that that entire staff, taken
as a whole, managed to conduct what I consider to be a thorough inquiry.
obviously as anyone who has conducted an investigation knows, you always would
like to have everyone there all the time.
That was not possible during a substantial portion of the Warren investigation.
Mr KLEIN. Despite the fact that some of these personnel did not play the part in
the investigation that had been planned for them, do you think that the Warren
Commission had a sufficient number of experienced lawyers to conduct the
investigation?
Mr. REDLICH. Yes; I do.
Mr. KLEIN. Did the Warren Commission in your opinion have any initial factual
assumptions in the following areas: first, as to the identity of the assassin?
Mr. REDLICH. We had no preconceived belief that Lee Harvey Oswald was guilty We
started out, of course with a person, Lee Harvey Oswald, who had worked in the
Texas School Book Depository and had been killed by Jack Ruby, and with regard
to him there had already been considerable amount of investigation. But this was
not the case where one started and looked at the entire world and said let us
find out from the entire world population who is the assassin. Lee Harvey Oswald
was a suspect, a dead suspect but a suspect. I think that we had no prior
commitment at all to the concept that, one, he fired shots; two, that he fired
all the shots; or three, that there was any lack of or presence of a conspiracy.
Mr. KLEIN. Were there any initial assumptions regarding the existence of a
conspiracy, and as far as there were, what particular groups might have been
involved?
Mr. REDLICH. There were no preconceived notions, preconceived conclusions about
conspiracy, Early in the investigation several possibilities emerged as possible
sources of conspiracy. It was obvious that one had to look at the possibility of
a foreign conspiracy. Lee Harvey Oswald had been to the Soviet Union. He had
made an effort to go to Mexico He apparently had tried to go to Cuba. So, one
had to look at the possibility of a foreign conspiracy. One had to look at the
possibility of a domestic conspiracy.
There was a great deal of talk at the time about a conspiracy from the left, a
conspiracy form the right. But there was no preconception about whether there
was a conspiracy or if there were one, which one.
Mr. KLEIN. You referred to preconceived conclusions. I am more interested in
whether there were any assumptions that might not have reached the stage of
being a conclusion but which were regarded as prime areas for the Warren
Commission to follow in answering the question of whether there was a
conspiracy?
Page 112
112
Mr. REDLICH. I don't think those assumptions were any more specific than the
ones I just outlined. lee Harvey Oswald was a person who had been to the Soviet
union. one thing that one had to look at was the question of a conspiracy from
that source. He was a person who was making an effort to go to cuba and he had
been involved in the Fair play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans. So one had to
look at that possible source.
There was a great deal of talk in the press at that time about a rightwing
conspiracy, allegations about oil people, the so-called feeling of hate in
dallas. Then there was the fact that Oswald was killed in the basement of the
Dallas jail by Jack Ruby. So, one had to look at the question of whether Ruby
was somehow involved in this. I think all of that was at the threshold level of
inquiry.
We did not have any fixed assumptions about which of these was more likely or
not likely. I don't mean by my answer to limit the possible assumptions. There
may have been others that I have left out in my answer.
Mr. KLEIN. Do you think that the organization of the Warren Commission into five
investigative areas gave sufficient leeway for adequate investigation of all of
these possible areas of conspiracy, some of which you mentioned?
Mr. REDLICH. I believe that it did; yes.
Mr. KLEIN. Did the Warren Commission in your opinion have any initial factual
assumptions regarding the reliability, trustworthiness, and competency of the
investigative agencies which were working for you?
Mr. REDLICH. As nearly as I can tell, I and my colleagues came with a
professional lawyer's degree of skepticism. We made a decision early that in
regard to any expert testimony, fingerprints, handwriting, ballistics, a whole
separate set of experts were to be consulted. I think that we did not have any
preconceived notion of either believing everything to disbelieving everything. I
believe that we felt a responsibility to conduct our own inquiry which we were
conducting in the manner I have described to you.
But I would not characterize our position as being one of extreme belief or
extreme disbelief. I would call it one of healthy skepticism.
Mr. KLEIN. Dean Redlich, you were speaking about using different sets of
experts. To your knowledge, were any experts in the ballistics or autopsy field
or any field used other than experts employed by Federal agencies?
Mr. REDLICH. My recollection is that in ballistics I believe we used someone
from the government of Illinois, either handwriting or fingerprinting. I am not
sure it was not someone from the New York Police Department. I believe that in
all cases we used experts from other governments.
I am not going back 13 1/2 years on recollection. I think perhaps we may have
used the Post Office Department in connection with handwriting?
Mr. KLEIN. Were any initial factual assumptions that the Warren commission had
regarding the possible repercussions of the various conclusions that might have
been reached?
Mr. REDLICH. By repercussion, could you clarify that, please?
Page 113
113
Mr. KLEIN. If a particular conclusion was reached, for example that some foreign
government had a part in the assassination, then there would be certain
repercussions which might follow from that. Were there any assumptions that the
Warren commission had regarding that kind of repercussion?
Mr. REDLICH. I would have to say at any level of the Commission activity that I
am familiar with the answer is no. I think for the record I should indicate that
you have been using the term 'Warren Commission." I assume you are talking about
that which I knew as a staff member. I never was present at any meeting of the
Commission, itself. All relationships between the staff and the Commission
itself were through Mr. Rankin.
Mr. KLEIN. Did the organization procedures used have an effect on the end
result, in your opinion?
Mr. REDLICH. The procedures and the organization were an important part in
introducing the end result, which i\I thought was a professional and thorough
investigation of the assassination.
Mr. KLEIN. Did you feel any restriction on the investigation or writeup due to
the organization or procedural setup?
Mr. REDLICH. I recall no such restrictions.
Mr. KLEIN. What exactly were your responsibilities, sir?
Mr. REDLICH. I was probably the second staff person hired. When I came to the
Warren Commission, which was some time in mid-December, the only other staff
person who was there as I recall was Mr. Willens. Initially, Mr. Rankin wanted
me to work on special projects. One of the first things I did, for example, was
to draft a rule of procedures for the Commission. Then I was given an assignment
which tended to dominate the first 6 or 7 weeks of my work with the Commission.
The Commission made a decision that the first witness to be questioned would be
Marina Oswald.
I was given the assignment of helping to prepare Mr. Rankin for the examination
of Marina Oswald which was going to have to be very extensive. In the course of
that I started to read all of the investigatory reports that had come to us from
the FBI and the Secret Service with a view toward seeing how anything in those
reports could bear upon any questions that we might ask Marina Oswald. Since she
knew so much about Lee Harvey Oswald's background, not only in terms of what she
herself was witness to but what he may have told her about his background, and
since a great deal of that was in the investigatory reports, I had to go through
all of those investigatory reports with a view toward working with Mr. Rankin
and helping to prepare him for that questioning.
When that was done--I may be exaggerating the kind of compartmentalization of my
work but I will give it to you the best I can recall--when that was done I
tended to spend a great deal of my time working with those lawyers who were
working in the area of the investigation of the assassination, itself. That was
Arlen Specter, David Belin, and Joseph Ball. Because Mr. Rankin was anxious for
me to work with the lawyers in that area, see what approaches they were taking,
the witnesses they were questioning, I tended to concentrate, not exclusively
but I tended to concentrate, in those areas although the actual work of the
investigation in the sense of questioning witnesses
Page 114
114
was done primarily by Mr. Ball, Mr. Belin, Mr. Specter, Mr. Eisenberg.
Another assignment I had was that Mr. Rankin was most anxious for me to be
present at as many Commission hearings as possible so that there would be
someone working with him who had the opportunity to have as broad a range as
possible of the testimony that was at least being presented in formal hearings
before the Commission.
Then as the work of drafting took place as drafts were prepared which went to
mr. Rankin and then to the Commission, I was involved in the normal staff work
of reviewing drafts suggesting changes, editing work on the report. I stayed
with the Commission right up until the Friday that the report was submitted to
the President. I left at 1 a.m. that Friday to go teach a class at 9 a.m. in the
morning.
Mr. KLEIN. In your opinion, what was the relationship of the staff counsel to
the Warren commission?
Mr. REDLICH. That would vary from Commissioner to Commissioner. The staff
counsel were there and available at all times if any member of the Commission
wanted to ask questions. Some of them availed themselves of that. Former
President Ford was present at a great many hearings. He would talk to the staff
members before or after. The Chief Justice was an ever present person at the
Commission, and I can't emphasize that too much. His role was heroic in my
judgment. He was there at 8 a.m. We held hearings early in the morning so that
he could go back and preside over court. He would come back when the Court
recessed for the day. Those of us who were there had an opportunity to discuss
matters with the Chief Justice. However, in terms of informal relationship
between the staff and the Commission in the sense of the staff being present at
the Commission meetings in a formal way, that did not exist. I was not present
at any meeting of the Commission. I was not privy to an formal meetings of the
Commission. Mr. Rankin was the official line of communication between the
Commission and the staff.
We learned of Commission decisions particularly as they reworked various drafts
of chapters toward the end but we did no sit down with the Commission in a
formal way.
Mr. KLEIN. Was there ample opportunity for individual staff members to
communicate ideas to the Commissioners as a group or as individuals?
Mr. REDLICH. I think perhaps individual staff members may have had different
views on that. I felt from my point of view that any position I may have had was
being communicated through Mr. Rankin to the Commission in such manner as he saw
fit. I believe that perhaps some members of the staff would have preferred to
have had a more direct ongoing formal relationship with the Commission. We did
see the Commissioners as they would come and preside or be present at hearings,
but I think some members of the staff would have preferred a closer working
relationship.
Mr. KLEIN. In your opinion were the Commissioners well informed on the facts of
this case?
Mr. REDLICH. That was a very complex case. I think some of them were
tremendously well informed. The Chief Justice was extremely well informed. I
believe that former President Ford was extremely well informed. Mr. Dulles
attended a great many hearings.
Page 115
115
Senator Russell had very extensive Senate commitments, as you know. I believe
that on the broad areas on the Commission's inquiry the commission was informed.
They were obviously not as informed of some of the specific enormous factual
dates in connection with this assassination as was the staff. I have never known
a staff that thought that the group that it worked for was a well informed as
the staff was, and the Warren Commission was no exception.
Mr. KLEIN. How long did you work for the Warren Commission.
Mr. REDLICH. I came in mid-December, somewhere between December, somewhere
between the 19th and 20th of December, I believe, and I left about 1 a.m. on a
Friday, I am not sure whether it was September 22, somewhere in there, of the
Friday that the Commission went to the White House and presented the report to
the President. I then, as I recall, made one trip back to Washington where I had
an appointment to meet an archivist to go over the papers in my office. he
walked into the office and I said to the archivist, "I will make a simple deal
with you. If you can get it arranged you can have all of it." With that I turned
my back and left with the same fountain pen that I came with.
Mr. KLEIN. Did you consider it a full-time job during the time you worked with
the Warren Commission?
Mr. REDLICH. No. As I indicated earlier, from December until the end of January
I was working as full-time as one could possibly, as I recall. I did not have
classes at the time. That gave me an opportunity to get familiarized with the
investigation. then once classes began--it was a 14-week semester--I would
shuttle back and forth. I did work on weekends in New York but I was in this
pattern of shuttling back and forth. When classes ended, which was early in May,
i went back to spending the predominant portion of my time in Washington and
considered that certainly a full-time job up until the time I left.
Mr. KLEIN. Mr. Chairman, I have no further questions on the objectives of
organizational procedure.
Mr. PREYER. I might have a couple of questions I am sure the other members may
have a few questions also.
You mentioned that the Chief justice was ever present and that he was very
active and that you would hold meetings at 8 o'clock in the morning. Were these
staff meetings or Commission meetings?
Mr. REDLICH. Commission meetings, sir. As I recall the court convened at 10. I
believe that we started, I know that we had hearings prior to the time the court
convened and my best recollection is that they started at 8.
Mr. PREYER. How often would these meetings be held? let me put it this way. Were
these formal Commission meetings or meetings to hear the testimony of a witness?
Mr. REDLICH. They were meetings to hear the testimony of a witness.
Mr. PREYER. These were not full formal Commission executive sessions?
Mr. REDLICH. No, sir. If I conveyed that impression, that is wrong.
Mr. PREYER. I believe I have made a note that you said he was there every day. I
assume you mean every day that there was a meeting that he was likely to be
there, not that you met him.
Page 116
116
Mr. REDLICH. Certainly the impression I have, as I look back over that period
with the perspective of 13 years, if that the Chief Justice was a constant
presence. By every day I certainly did not include Saturdays and Sundays but I
think in terms of working days he was a constant presence at the Commission. I
would not say it was every single working day. I would just say he was a
constant presence.
Mr. PREYER. Would there usually be two Commission members to hear testimony of
witness? Did you have any rule about that?
Mr. REDLICH. Mr. Preyer, I don't recall the precise rule. There were generally
one or two other Commissioners present at the time testimony was taken. In
addition to the staff attorney who conducted the inquiry, in the beginning it
was Mr. Rankin and then it moved to other staff attorneys, and then I tried to
be present when I could.
Mr. PREYER. As Mr. Rankin's special assistant were you personally acquainted
with him before this?
Mr. REDLICH. Yes, sir. I had met Mr. Rankin in the summer of 1961 when he had
left the Solicitor General's office. He had been Solicitor General under
President Eisenhower. He had left the Solicitor General's office in 1961 and had
come to New York City. In the summer of 1961 a workshop for professors of
constitutional law was held at New York University Law School and Mr. Rankin,
former Solicitor General, was invited to participate in that workshop. That is
where I met Mr. Rankin. I had previously met Chief Justice Warren on the
occasion of his coming to our law school.
Mr. PREYER. I was going to ask if you had known the Chief Justice. Did you know
President Johnson by any chance?
Mr. REDLICH. No; I had never met President Johnson. I never met him during the
entire investigation.
Mr. PREYER. You mentioned that you attended the first staff meeting and that Mr.
Rankin stressed very strongly the truth was the only client that you had, that
you should not form any conclusion before you heard the evidence. I believe that
meeting was on January 20, 1964. I understand that the Chief Justice attended
that meeting or came in a little later on in the meeting. Do you recall anything
that he may have said to the staff at that time?
Mr. REDLICH. As I recall, he used the "unturning of every stone" inference. He
said that he wanted to leave no stone unturned in pursuing this inquiry. While
those are the only specific words I recall, the tenor of his remarks was
completely supported by Mr. Rankin. I very vividly recall the phraseology of Mr.
Rankin.
Mr. PREYER. This was a period that I think you brought out in which there were
conspiracy theories floating around in the air. You mentioned the rightwing
conspiracy theory. Did he say anything about one objective being to preclude
further speculation or quenching rumors?
Mr. REDLICH. I cannot say for sure whether he specifically mentioned that. I
think that he indicated that we hoped that a full, complete, and thorough
investigation by bringing all the facts before the American people would have
the effect of putting to rest some of these fears and speculations many of which
were completely self-contradictory, and I know that I had hoped that this
national tragedy was one which hopefully would not poison the life of this
country if the facts were such as to indicate that there were no conspiracy.
But it was solely in the context that the great service we could perform would
be to bring out all the facts. If those facts were that of a
Page 117
117
a conspiracy and that conspiracy had international implications or domestic
implications, that would be the price of learning the truth. The aim was to
produce all the facts. That is my recollection of the Chief Justice's remarks.
May I add by the was of completeness, sir, it was either at that meeting or
perhaps some other meeting in which the Chief Justice related President
Johnson's urging him to take the chairmanship of the Commission. The Chief
Justice was very reluctant to do it. Then I remember another quotation, the
Chief Justice said he was confronted with a fact and not a theory and when
confronted with that fact he had to say yes. I believe he quoted the President
as saying "Your country requires you to put back on your uniform," and anyone
who knows Earl Warren knows that he was in intensely patriotic man.
He said he ended up accepting an assignment which he initially had been
disinclined to accept.
Mr. PREYER. thank you.
Mr. Devine.
Mr. DEVINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dean, without meaning to put words in your mouth do you think the Congress has
assigned this select committee a kind of dead end task in that I take it from
your remarks you feel that the Commission under which you served did a very
complete, thorough, and honest job and the conclusions they reached were
accurate and that will be the ultimate conclusion that this committee is going
to have to reach? Or do you have other thoughts?
Mr. REDLICH. I have thought a lot about that, sir. I think that while I may have
had reservations about the necessity of this committee, since I believe that the
facts remain in my judgment, at least on the basis of everything I know,
incontrovertible that Lee Harvey Oswald fired all the shots that killed
President Kennedy and wounded Governor Canaille, and since I have not learned of
anything as a private citizen that would cause me to question the Commission's
conclusion that there was no credible evidence in support of a conspiracy, I
would have had reservations about the necessity of this committee.
However, I think this committee has been formed and I would not regard its work
as a dead end cause, for whatever reason, doubts exist among the American people
concerning the facts of the assassination. I may have my own judgment as to how
those doubts arose but I think that is really irrelevant. The fact is that those
doubts are there. With those doubts there I think that perhaps this committee
has a useful, very useful, constructive role to play in terms of perhaps dealing
with those doubts. Now I do not want to convey the impression to you that I am
saying that you have only one conclusion that you can reach. Your conducting an
investigation under your responsibility. My opinion is that you will reach the
same conclusion that we reached. But if you do I do not think that that would
mean that this committee did not perform an enormously important public function
and I hope the committee would not feel that way.
Mr. DEVINE. To put it another way then, assuming but not deciding, assuming that
we did reach a conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole assassin without a
conspiracy, the committee could indeed perform a useful service by perhaps
explaining away or coming to
Page 118
118
some conclusion on the rumors and unanswered questions that seem to exist in the
public mind?
Mr. REDLICH. I think that would be one very significant contribution. I think
also that facts have apparently come to the surface concerning the response of
different investigatory agencies to the Warren Commission, itself. I believe
that this committee is looking into that, and should. I think the question of
how the various agencies of the Government, including the Warren Commission,
itself, performed the very important job that it had is clearly within the
purview of this committee.
So that while I guess I would have preferred, as someone would spent 9 months of
his life working on this Commission, that we did not find ourselves engaged in
an activity which was perceived by the country to be a complete reinvestigation
of the assassination, putting that view aside, I think the committee has a very
important role to play for the reasons you have indicated.
Thank you very much.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Stokes.
Mr. STOKES. I have no questions, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Sawyer.
Mr. SAWYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dean, when you were serving on the staff of the Warren Commission did there art
any time come to your attention, directly or indirectly, that there had been
this alleged CIA involvement in an attempt to assassinate Castro?
Mr. REDLICH. I have no recollection of that, sir. To the best of my recollection
the answer to your request is no. I just do not recall any discussion about any
CIA attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro.
Mr. SAWYER. Was there any suggestion that the so-called anti-Castro wing of the
Cuban group here might have had any involvement in connection with the
assassination? Was that ever explored?
Mr. REDLICH. That part of the inquiry was really handled more by Mr. Jenner and
Liebeler. I do recall a great many discussions about Oswald's possible Cuban
connection. There were witnesses, as I recall, who claimed that Oswald was
linked to anti-Castro Cuba. There was also the possibility that Oswald could
have been linked to pro-Castro Cuba. While I was not involved in that aspect of
the investigation, I believe the Commission and its staff attempted to track
down everything that it could about Oswald's relationship with anybody that
related either to the pro-Castro side or the anti-Castro side.
But we did not, to the best of my recollection, look specifically at the
question of any link between a threat to assassinate or a plot to assassinate
Premier Castro and the assassination of President Kennedy.
Mr. SAWYER. Was there any investigation made or did any information come to your
attention with respect to Ruby's possible connection with organized crime?
Mr. REDLICH. I recall that there was some discussion about--I was no personally
involved in the Ruby investigation. There were a great many allegations about
Jack Ruby. He had a rather unusual background. Included among those, as I
recall, were some allegations linking him to organized crime. But I have not
clear recollection of the nature of that investigation.
Page 119
119
Mr. SAWYER. Was there information coming to the Commission about the alleged
combination of the CIA and some of the Mafia in connection with some of these
raids on Cuba?
Mr. REDLICH. I have no knowledge of that.
Mr. SAWYER. You have no recollection?
Mr. REDLICH. No; I do not. I am not saying it didn't happen.
Mr. SAWYER. The Commission as far as you know didn't get into that?
Mr. REDLICH. As far as I can recollect, no. But I was really not in that
particular area of the investigation in a direct way.
Mr. SAWYER. Did the Commission as far as you know get into the question of how
Officer Tippit identified Lee Harvey Oswald when he was allegedly killed by Lee
Harvey Oswald. Did you get into that at all?
Mr. REDLICH. No one really knows what happened when Officer Tippit drove up to
Lee Harvey Oswald on that street in dallas. We did look at the police report
that went out on the radio to see whether someone listening to those reports in
a police care would have had reason to pull over and stop a man looking like Lee
Harvey Oswald. The report goes into that in considerable detail. The
descriptions that went out on the police radio describing a man of Oswald's
build, although they were not incidentally at that time describing Oswald
themselves, the reports that went out on the radio were based upon eyewitness
description at the assassination. f Oswald himself was arrested not for the
assassination of President Kennedy, he was arrested because of the killing of
police officer Tippit and was found in the theater.
So we don't really know whether there was any identification of Oswald by Tippit
other than the fact that Tippit apparently moved up to Oswald in the car and
then Oswald shot him.
Mr. SAWYER. Did you have any information with respect to the alleged destruction
or concealment of information by the FBI that was your investigative arm, as I
understand?
Mr. REDLICH. The only incident of that kind that I can recall coming to my
attention related to an address book. In the course of sending us all of Lee
Harvey Oswald's possessions the FBI sent to us the address book which was found
either in Oswald's room or on his physical body at the time he was arrested, and
they also sent over a written transcript of everything that was in that address
book. Although I have not had prosecutorial experience, I am a lawyer and I sat
down and decided to go through the address book page by page and compare it with
the transcript of what was in it. In the course of doing that I found that there
had been left out of the transcript certain data, and here I cannot be
completely precise as to what was left out, but as I recall it was the name of
Agent Hosty and possibly his license number or possibly phone number. It had
something to do with Agent Hosty. That had been left out. Agent Hosty had been
an FBI agent who had some contact with Oswald after he had come back to Dallas.
I was disturbed over that. I immediately reported it to Mr. Rankin. i am sure
that Mr. Rankin immediately reported it to the Chief Justice because I believe
the three of us talked about it. We then waited several days, it may have been a
longer period but we waited to see
Page 120
120
whether the FBI would furnish this additional data, and it didn't come. Then we
wrote to the FBI a rather strong letter expressing our dismay about the fact
that the transcript was not complete and asking an explanation for it. I
believe, and I have no way of checking the specific dates, but my best
recollection is that on the same day we sent the letter to the FBI there then
came to us an explanation saying that the reason they had not sent it was that
they were sending us only the material that would be addressed to leads and
their own agent would not be a lead. I believe that would be the explanation
although I am not sure.
In any event the explanation still left me annoyed over the fact that it had
been left out and I remain annoyed to this day.
Mr. SAWYER. Was it pursued further when you got a reply that they were only
excerpting that that they felt would be a lead?
Mr. REDLICH. I think the decision was made at the time that, while we were
really not very happy with the reply, we couldn't really disprove it. That was
not, as I recall, pursued beyond that point.
Mr. SAWYER. Is it fair to say that the matter was then dropped?
Mr. REDLICH. To the best of my recollection, yes, sir.
Mr. SAWYER. Can you tell me why the decision was made that the people primarily
concerned on the staff were not allowed to see the X-rays or the photos of the
autopsy and who made the decision?
Mr. REDLICH. To the best of my recollection, sir, that decision was made by the
Chief Justice, himself. I was not present at any meeting of the Commission, so I
don't know that it was brought up at any Commission meeting. I believe the Chief
Justice himself held that the publication of the autopsy film and the X-rays
would be a great disservice to Mrs. Kennedy, the Kennedy family.
Mr. SAWYER. I am not talking about publication. I am talking about a member of
the staff that had primary responsibility and, or the Chief Justice himself to
look at these, not the public.
Mr. REDLICH. I can only surmise but I think the Chief Justice believed, based on
all of the evidence that we had, including the testimony of the autopsy doctors,
all of the physical evidence I think the Chief Justice, rightly or wrongly,
concluded that he preferred for those firms not to be viewed.
Now I would say that I know, because I have been shown today a memorandum form
mr. Specter, Mr. Specter I know had strongly felt, that that was a wrong
decision. I think that there may have been another factor, sir, although I don't
recall discussing it with the Chief Justice. I think the Chief Justice really
wanted everything that was going to be viewed by the Commission to be part of
the record. I think the Chief Justice felt rather strongly that he did not want
the American people to say that a fact should be assumed as true just because
Chief Justice Warren or anyone else saw it.
I think that he did not want those films to be viewed and form a basis for the
conclusion of the Commission unless that could be part of the record. Now the
Chief Justice is not here so I am just giving you may best recollection.
Certainly, sir, by retrospect in light of all of the discussions about those
films it might have been a wiser course of
Page 121
121
action to have allowed those films to have been viewed. But those films are of
course there now. I think by retrospect it would have been the wiser course of
action to have permitted those films to be viewed.
I remember Mr. specter's memorandum, and i would say it is a persuasive
memorandum. I happen to agree that the films themselves, while they ere
important sources of evidence, I think that the evidence that the Commission did
have before it amply supported the conclusion. But by retrospect I think that
some arrangement should have been worked out for those films to be seen.
Mr. SAWYER. Perhaps the most controversial aspects of this or one of the most
controversial is the single bullet theory. Here was positive evidence or
potential positive evidence tending to go to that part of the inquiry that you
refused to look at it even in camera. That I don't understand. I don't
understand what was the nucleus of that decision.
Mr. REDLICH. I can only respond to that by saying that what appears to you in
retrospect, by the perspective of 1977, as being a crucial bit of evidence, did
not appear that crucial at that time. While I agree with Mr. Specter that the
film should have been viewed, I believe quite strongly that if one looks at all
of the evidence that was there at the time, and there was a great deal of that--
Mr. SAWYER. Why not look at all the evidence? That is what you are saying?
Mr. REDLICH. I think the reasons for that were the reasons that the Chief
Justice gave and I think they are linked. One was the question of publicity; and
secondly, it was his feeling that what the commission was going to look at
should be in the record. Now we may disagree with that. I am not saying that it
was necessarily the correct decision.
I don't think those films are crucial to the single-bullet theory.
Mr. SAWYER. The single-bullet theory is not a newly cropped up argument. That
was an argument that was raised within the staff. According to Mr. Specter,
there was some debate and philosophical argument on how this could happen. If
you have the evidence that can either make it or break it, let us say, to refuse
to look at it--you know, no one would try a jury case without introducing the
facts that are available. That is what I don't understand.
Mr. REDLICH. Mr. Sawyer, I don't believe those films would make or break the
single-bullet theory.
Mr. SAWYER. You don't know because you didn't look.
Mr. REDLICH. I think that the commission would have been criticized for not
looking at them, but I believe that looking at those films which would either
confirm or not confirm what the doctors themselves said, who conducted the
autopsy; I think we are forgetting the fact that we had the testimony of the
three doctors who conducted the autopsy and who had themselves seen the firm.
Now, the single-bullet theory was a very complex formulation. If you have heard
from Mr. Specter, you have heard it from a person who knows a great deal about
it. I am not disagreeing with you that the films were an important bit of
evidence. You have asked me why and I can only say to you, one, I did not make
the decision; and secondly, I am giving you my best recollection why the
decision was made.
Page 122
122
Mr. SAWYER. My recollection is that there is a dispute between the testimony of
the autopsy diagrams and the diagrams of the location of the bullet that entered
the President's neck or back and they seem to be disagreeing with their own
diagram made at the time, as I recollect.
Mr. REDLICH. There is no doubt about their testimony that the bullet entered the
President's back and another bullet entered the base of the head. They testified
in detail about the track of the bullet. The pictorial diagram which they
prepared I think was not consistent with their testimony.
Mr. SAWYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am sorry to have taken so much time.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Fauntroy.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The question that I have may not bear directly on procedures and the structure
of the staff and the Commission to undertake the investigation. Inasmuch as we
are into investigation, I would simply like to ask if at any time you were able
to read a transcript or hear a tape recording of the interviews held with Mr.
Oswald after his arrest?
Mr REDLICH. I do not recall any tape recordings. We had as a witness before the
Commission the Dallas police officer who questioned Lee Harvey Oswald. I believe
that he did not use a tape recorder. That is my best recollection. He himself
did not. So, were had his report of the interview with Oswald. We then had the
FBI agents' and possibly Secret Service, I am not sure, reports of their
interviews with Oswald. We then had the agents who had interviewed Oswald and
they testified before the Commission.
I also believe that the Dallas police officer who questioned Oswald also was
interviewed by an FBI agent, and we had the results of that interview.
Mr. FAUNTROY. but you recall at no time a verified account of what Mr. Oswald in
fact said?
Mr. REDLICH. If you mean an actual transcript, sir--
Mr. FAUNTROY. A transcript of some sort.
Mr. REDLICH. I do not have any recollection of that.
Mr. FAUNTROY. You were comfortable with the procedural fact that your had FBI
agents and police officers who outlined to you what they recalled from their
interrogation of Mr. Oswald?
Mr. REDLICH. Yes. To the best of my recollection, everyone who questioned Oswald
was questioned by the Commission or the staff, as I recall.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DEVINE. May I ask one question, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Devine.
Mr. DEVINE. In connection with what Mr. Sawyer brought up, on the Hosty omission
from the transcript, was that the only omission you found in your comparison
analysis of the notebook and the transcript?
Mr. REDLICH. That is my recollection, sir.
Mr. DEVINE. That is the only one/
Mr. REDLICH. Yes. I would have to actually look at the letter that we wrote to
the Bureau because that contains whatever else there was, but that is my
recollection now.
Mr. DEVINE. The only deletion so far as you know?
Page 123
123
Mr. REDLICH. As far as I can remember it. If the letter to the Bureau goes
beyond that, my recollection is faulty.
Mr. DEVINE. The Hosty thing stands out in your mind?
Mr. REDLICH. The Hosty thing clearly stands out in my mind. I am reluctant to
say categorically that is all there was. I was asked the question about what was
concealed at the time I was there. I have read in the papers about a letter that
was given to agent Hosty that was supposed to have been destroyed, but we knew
nothing about that at the time.
Mr. DEVINE. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PREYER. Thank you.
Mr. Klein, we have covered your next area for you.
Mr. KLEIN. Yes; I think so, Mr. Chairman, but I will try to go around the area.
Mr. FAUNTROY. go right through them. Just go straight on through if you don't
mind.
Mr. KLEIN. Dean Redlich, in the areas in which you participated in the
investigation and you have told us what those areas were, do you believe that
you were reasonably able to explore and resolve all the viable issues?
Mr. REDLICH. Yes, sir.
Mr. KLEIN. Did you have enough time to fully investigate those areas?
Mr REDLICH. I believe we did.
Mr. KLEIN. Did you experience any political pressures applies in any of those
areas which prevented you from thoroughly considering all the issues?
Mr. REDLICH. No, sir.
Mr. KLEIN. In your opinion in each of the areas that you participated in the
investigation, did you have adequate support with respect to research needs and
investigators?
Mr. REDLICH. Yes. Once the decision was made that the investigatory arms of the
Federal Government were going to be used by the Commission my overall judgment
of the way that those investigatory arms performed was extremely favorable.
I believe that they were completely responsive to the requests of the Commission
for investigative work.
Mr. KLEIN. Is it fair to say that in your opinion you had the time and the
support, the facilities, to complete the full investigation in each of the areas
in which you worked?
Mr. REDLICH. Yes, sir. When I left on that Friday morning, I was satisfied in my
mind that we had done a complete and thorough job and that we were no under
political pressure and that if I felt that we had not done a thorough job I
would have been arguing vigorously to keep the investigation going. I did not so
argue. I thought that we had done what we had set out to do the preceding
December.
Mr. KLEIN. One area you testified you worked in was the facts of the
assassination. Can you tell us how the single-bullet theory evolved?
Mr. REDLICH. I can't recall any specific moment in which someone said that this
is the way it was. We were studying the film very carefully. By we I mean Mr.
Specter, Mr. Belin, Mr. Eisenberg, myself, Special Agent Shaneyfelt, who was a
photography expert for the
Page 124
124
Bureau. We were studying the films carefully to see the positions of President
Kennedy and Governor Canaille. We had the ballistic testimony which was that the
bullet that was found on the stretcher and the fragments that were found in the
care had been fired from the rifle on the sixth floor of the Texas School book
Depository to the exclusion of all other weapons. We had the autopsy document.
There was examination of clothing. There was no had evidence at all that any
bullet had come from any other source. Now a question that was troublesome was
that as one looked at Governor Canaille's position in the care and realizing the
time within which it took to fire bullets from the rifle, if Governor Connally
was hit at a certain frame, and I forget the number, but a certain frame based
upon his body position, and if president Kennedy was hit at a certain frame
based upon our observation of the film, and if those frames were so close
together that one person physically could not have squeezed off the two bullets,
we would had a situation where all of the known facts that we had--remember,
there were no facts that we had that the bullets had come from any place other
than the sixth floor window--we would have had a situation where the facts
simply would have presented an irreconcilable conflict.
New since Governor Connally was in front of President Kennedy one hypothesis
which started to emerge, and I repeat I can't tell you when it emerged, but one
hypothesis that started to emerge, and it would have been logical to have
emerged with Arlen Specter, one hypothesis was that the same bullet struck both
men.
Then the question became one of testing that hypothesis--that was done in
several ways--the question of whether one bullet could have gone through
President Kennedy's neck and emerged, going at such a speed as to have done the
damage that it did. There was testimony from witnesses answering that question
in the affirmative.
A critical question of course was whether the two men were so alined at the time
that President Kennedy was shot in the neck that the bullet could have hit
Governor Connally. that was one reason that the reenactment in Dallas was
staged. The care was placed at the point where, based on the films and what we
could see in the background, the car was at the time that we believed the
President had been hit with the first bullet. I was in the School Book
Depository at the time of reenactment.
Then we had a camera set up on the rifle, itself, through the sights to see
whether at that particular moment the two bodies were in alinement. They were in
alinement.
The single-bullet theory has somehow emerged in discussion as if it were
unrelated to all the other facts. The point I am simply making is the fact that
the bullet which went through President Kennedy's neck also was the same bullet
that entered Governor Connally's back was completely consistent with all of the
evidence that we had at that time.
Mr. KLEIN. You spoke about the time required to fire the alleged murder weapon
twice and you spoke about the point at which hit appears the President was hi
and the point at which hit appears the Governor was hi. With that in mind, in
your opinion, if the single-bullet theory is not valid, that is if there were
two separate bullets
Page 125
125
which hit the Governor and the President, could there still have been only on
shooter?
Mr. REDLICH. The only way I can answer that question is to say to you that if
the single-bullet theory is not valid we would had to have gone back and
reevaluated all our other facts. I am not prepared to say that that means that
there necessarily had to be two assassins. i can only say that all of the facts
that we have were consistent with the single-bullet theory. If that turned out
to be wrong, if somebody said that didn't happen that way, it was conclusive
that it didn't happen, I cannot tell you what the results of a complete
reevaluation of all the facts would have been.
Mr. KLEIN. Are you familiar with Commission exhibit No. 399, the so-called
"pristine bullet"? Do you recall that? Again we are speaking about the
single-bullet theory My question is are you completely satisfied as you sit here
that Commission exhibit No. 399 is the bullet that went through both Kennedy and
Canaille?
Mr. REDLICH. Assuming 399 is the bullet that was found on the stretcher at
Parkland Hospital, the answer is yes.
Mr. KLEIN. I believe that the conclusion of the Warren Commission was that 399
was found on a particular stretcher. Are you in a agreement with that
conclusion?
Mr. REDLICH. I am. I was simply being cautious, not having the report in front
of me and not knowing what 399 was.
Mr. KLEIN. If I tell you that 3999 was the bullet that the Warren Commission
concluded was found on Connally's stretcher, then you are completely satisfied
that that bullet went through both Kennedy and Connally?
Mr. REDLICH. Yes, sir, I am.
Mr. KLEIN. Based on your knowledge of the single-bullet theory, I will pose a
hypothetical. That is, if Commission exhibit No. 399 was not on Connally's
stretcher but if it were on Kennedy's stretcher, in your opinion would the
single-bullet theory have any validity? That is, if the Warren Commission was
incorrect when the concluded that exhibit 399 had been on Connally's stretcher?
Mr. REDLICH. I am trying to understand the point As you know from the testimony
of nurses, there was some question of where the bullet--as to the question of
the stretcher, I can only reiterate I am completely persuaded that a bullet went
through President Kennedy, the base of his neck, went through his body with a
downward trajectory, emerged at the base of his tie. Then proceeded with a
slight yaw and entered their right side of Governor Connally, hit his ribs, as I
recall, emerged through his belly, did the damage to his wrist and then was
lodged in his thigh and that one bullet did those things.
I am also convinced that a second bullet entered that back of President
Kennedy's head and blew out the right side of his head, killing him. now the
question of the bullet ending up on particular stretchers is something that I am
not quite sure I understand the thrust of. I can tell you what my conclusion is
as precisely as I just did. If somebody found that bullet on President Kennedy's
stretcher I would have to start to look to see where it came from, what
happened.
Obviously if that "pristine bullet' only went through President Kennedy, then it
would be at variance with the conclusion that I
Page 126
126
just described to you. But that is because I believe that the two men were
alined and based upon what that bullet had to go through, hit President
Kennedy's back, the absence of bone tissue, the fact that it was probably
emerging at almost the speed as when it entered, leads me to the conclusion that
it had nowhere else to go other than to hit Governor Connally.
Mr. KLEIN. Moving on, the second area that you testified you were involved in
was the investigation of Marina Oswald--is that correct?
Mr. REDLICH. Yes, sir.
Mr. KLEIN. Mr. Chairman, at this time I would ask that these two documents be
marked as exhibits.
Mr. PREYER. The documents will be marked as JFK exhibit No. 13. Without
objection it will be entered into the record at this time.
[JFK exhibition No. 13 was received; entered in the record, and follows:]
JFK EXHIBIT No. 13
Page 127
127
Mr. KLEIN. [Handling this document, which is a memorandum dated February 28,
1964, to Dean Redlich.] Do you recognize that memorandum?
Mr. REDLICH. I do recall it; yes, sir.
Mr. KLEIN. Have you had an opportunity to review that memorandum earlier today
in my office?
Mr. REDLICH. Yes, sir.
Mr. KLEIN. Do you recall writing that memorandum?
Mr. REDLICH. I believe I wrote that. I am not denying that I wrote it.
Mr. KLEIN. I would direct your attention to page 2 of the memorandum, the second
paragraph, the second sentence. I quote:
We cannot ignore, however, that Marina Oswald has repeatedly lied to the Secret
Service, the FBI, and this Commission on matters which are of vital concern to
the people of this country and the world.
Will you explain what you were referring to in that sentence please?
Mr. REDLICH. I have been thinking about that, Mr. Klein. This memorandum was
written in February 1964, shortly after Mr. Martin testified. As the committee
will notice, the purpose of this memorandum was to explain to the Commission why
I had pursued a line of inquiry with regard to Mr. Martin, a line of inquiry
which presented Mrs. Oswald in a less than favorable light. My explanation was
that we had an obligation to pursue all possible motives. One of the motives
could have been that Mrs. Oswald, through the kind of person that she was, drove
Lee Harvey Oswald to the assassination. I am not saying that was the motive. I
am saying that was a possibility. Therefore, I took the position in this
memorandum that Mrs. Oswald, that the nature of her character, the kind of
person that she was, was relevant to the scope of the inquiry.
In the course of that, I wrote this sentence.
Now I have tried to recollect any specific matter that i may have had in mind,
and I have to say that I do not recollect anything specific. It may have been,
and one would have to go back into the investigatory report, it may have been at
first she may not have told the truth in connection with the attempted killing
of General Walker. It may have been. I am really just surmising she may have
been asked if Oswald had ever engaged in violence, and she may have at first
said "No" and then brought out the fact about the General Walker shooting.
I can only recall that I prepared a lengthy memorandum, and I hope it is in the
files because if I had that I could answer your questions, that it was a lengthy
memorandum that I prepared which was the basis for her questioning. As I say, I
worked for about 5 or 6 weeks to develop a series of questions. Now I give to
Mr. Rankin a lengthy document which had a proposed series of questions, and to
each one of those questions I indicated the testimony that she had given at
various times, because she had been interviewed many times.
I indicated the testimony that she had given, the instances where it was in
conflict, and indicated the kind of questions that I thought should be asked
when she came before the Commission. This, of course,
Page 128
128
refers to the Secret Service and to the FBI. I believe that most of what I was
referring to in this sentence would have related to the answers that she would
have given to those agencies.
If you can find that document, i will be happy, if you called it to my
attention, to try to be specific on the answer. As of now I have no clear
recollection of any particular event other than the possibility of the Walker
one, and there was also the possibility that she may have original denied that
there was any other act of violence or any threat of violence whereas he had in
fact at one point told her that he was going to kill Mr. Nixon, which came out
later.
Mr. KLEIN. Unfortunately, we have not been able to locate many documents which
should be in the Archives. I do not have and have not read the document which
you are referring, but let me ask you this. As you sit here today, is it your
recollection of your investigation of Marina Oswald that this sentence is
basically correct, or was there any kind of change in your attitude toward her
credibility?
Mr. REDLICH. I would say that at the time I wrote this letter on February 28,
this statement is correct. I would not have written it if I did not think it was
correct. now I also say that at the time our investigation was over, I was
satisfied that whatever light she could throw on the assassination that was
relevant to our inquiry she had given us, and that there was no need to pursue
any further questioning of her. She was questioned again, I believe; I believe
in Dallas. It is possible that some of the areas might have been cleared up at
that point or cleared up in subsequent interviews that we may have asked the FBI
to conduct with her. So that this statement at the time I wrote it I must have
believed was correct, and if I could find that document, it would give you the
details of it.f
At the time we concluded our investigation, I did not feel that Marina Oswald
could have cast any additional light on the critical questions that were before
the Commission.
Can I just amend that answer slightly, Mr. Klein? Let me say that I felt that
any additional questioning of Marina Oswald was not going to cast additional
light. No one can really be sure whether someone possesses information. I think
the only thing I felt reasonably sure of, and still do, was that any further
questioning of her was not going to produce anything more than we knew.
Mr. KLEIN. I am just trying to understand your last statement. Is it your belief
that with proper time and investigative resources that Marina Oswald could shed
further light on the investigation?
Mr. REDLICH. I have no way of judging that. Fortunately, we live in a society
where there are limits on the extent to which one tries to pry information from
the mind of a human being. There may have been aspects about Mrs. Oswald's life,
of what she perceived to be of a personal nature, which she would not have
wanted to have discussed. Whether those could cast light on his motives one can
only speculate.
As you know, the Warren Commission reached the conclusion that there was no
evidence of a conspiracy. We tried to indicate several possible motives. Proving
negatives is always a very difficult thing to do. Whether Mrs. Oswald has
information in her mind that might be useful to this Commission I would doubt,
but I would not
Page 129
129
categorically say that any person does not have information in one's mind except
what I say about myself. I do not.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Will counsel yield, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Fauntroy.
Mr. FAUNTROY. I earlier indicated the fact that Mr. Oswald was dead dictated
what structures and procedures you had to follow, and that, while the absence of
any verbatim account of what he had to say did not disturb you unduly,
obviously, from your statement here, you did have some specific things in mind
which, of course, you obviously, after 13 years, can't recall specifically, and
counsel has advised us that we don't have access to the memorandum or writing
that might have refreshed your memory on those, I just wondered, inasmuch as
Mrs. Oswald is still available to us, if it would job your memory to think a
minute about what we might ask her, that you might have asked her had you had
the affirmative response to your memo?
Mr. REDLICH. The reason I find it difficult to answer that is that you must
understand that that sentence would have been completely consistent with Mrs.
Oswald's having told certain things to the FBI on one occasion, and then saying,
"I didn't tell you the truth that time, this is the truth." It would have been
consistent with her having told the FBI something on one occasion and then
coming before the Warren Commission, saying, "This is not the truth, that was
not." So, at the time I wrote this sentence it should not be interpreted as
meaning the I thought there were then a great many unanswered questions about
her.
I did think there were some because I did state later in the memorandum that "We
will be questioning Ruth and Michael Paine and possibly be reexamining Marina
Oswald." To my best recollection I did feel that we should reexamine Marina
Oswald and that happened I believe in July of the investigation. What I am not
sure of at this moment is whether after her testimony before the Commission
staff and whether after her subsequent questioning by agents of the FBI, if in
fact we asked them to do it and I am not sure about it, whether after all of
that, I still feel that I have doubts about what she told us. That is why I find
it hard to answer your question in the affirmative.
She is obviously a very important person in understanding Lee harvey Oswald and
possibly his motives. She was with him a great deal of the time. Her testimony
is very relevant as to whom he knew, whom he spoke to. I simply am unable to
tell you now whether I felt that we had anything less than the truth from her at
the time we finished in December 1964.
I must have felt that we did at the time I wrote this memorandum in February
1964.
Mr. FAUNTROY. But it is accurate to say that at the conclusion of the
Commission's work you were satisfied that your questions about the possible
motives for Oswald having their origin in the character of Marina Oswald, his
wife, were satisfied?
Mr. REDLICH. The Commission reached no conclusion on motive. my own personal
opinion is that I could not reach a conclusion on motives.
Page 130
130
I think it is possible that the personal, and this is my own persona; judgment
on this, sir, that the personal relationship between the two of them could have
been a factor. I am a lawyer and not a psychiatrist and I don't know whether
someone with psychiatric training would have a different view of this. The most
I would say is that that could have been a factor. But there could have been
other factors. It could have been a man who wanted to demonstrate that he was
really an important person, quite apart from his wife. He could have been a man
who had an intense dislike of authority.
He could have been a man who, based on his Marxist writings, had an intense
dislike of anything in the capitalistic system. I could have been any one of a
multiplicity of motives. I think that is something that people will speculate
about for along time to come.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Klein.
Mr. KLEIN. Dean Redlich, in the area of autopsy you have given extensive
testimony already; are you aware that the FBI report issued on December 9, 1963,
and the supplementary FBI report issued on January 13, 1964, both stated that
the first bullet to hit the President did not exit from his body? Are your aware
of that?
Mr. REDLICH. Yes, sir, I do recall that.
Mr. KLEIN. During the course of the investigation were you able to account for
the discrepancy between the FBI report and the autopsy report, considering that
the autopsy report was written before the FBI report was written?
Mr. REDLICH. I believe that we satisfied ourselves that what happened was that
the FBI agents who were present at the autopsy were recalling their recollection
of what was being said and the doctors were examining various hypotheses during
the time of the autopsy, and that accounted for the FBI report saying one thing
and the doctors saying another.
I thought the FBI report was a grossly inadequate document. In fairness to the
Bureau they apparently decided to produce something very quickly, but based upon
what I feel I know and remember about the facts of the assassination, I think it
was a grossly inadequate document.
Mr. KLEIN. When you say it was a grossly inadequate document is that in all
respects or are you just talking about the autopsy?
Mr. REDLICH. I think the way it handled the autopsy, I believe--let me put it to
you this way, Mr. Klein. If all we had before us was the FBI report about the
assassination, the unanswered questions about the assassination would have been
legion and they would have come from very responsible sources, because the thing
that we were talking about earlier, the single-bullet theory, the explanation of
the totality of the facts of what happened, was simply not in the FBI report.
It took us a long time to work it up. I don't want to be critical in terms of
the time they had available to them but I think that this Government owed much
more to the American people than the FBI report that was presented to the
Commission, and we certainly did not use that as any type of basis for our
investigation.
Mr. DEVINE. If the gentleman will yield at that point, was not that FIB report a
preliminary report? Had i been a complete report there would have been no need
for an examination?
Page 131
131
Mr. REDLICH. What I was suggesting was that if that had been the final work,
that FBI report had been the final word, I think perhaps long before 1977 there
would have been a need for this committee, sir, because a great many questions
that I believe we answered were left unanswered by the Bureau's report. That may
have simply been a matter of--
Mr. DEVINE. Is it your understanding that was a final report from the FBI to a
preliminary report?
Mr. REDLICH. I am not sure of that. That was a report that I believe may have
been done for the President at the time and then given to us. Then I would have
to look at the report. I think you have raised a very good question. I would
have liked to look at the report again to see what they said about it. I would
say that report, just standing on its four corners, was in my opinion not an
adequate explanation of the assassination. In fairness to the Bureau, it may
well never have been intended to be a definitive report of the assassination and
if that is true, then my comments have to be judged in that light.
Mr. DEVINE. Then it was less than a month following the assassination, was it
not?
Mr. REDLICH. I think so.
Mr. DEVINE. Thank you.
Mr. KLEIN. Mr. Redlich, what present predispositions did you have toward the
intelligence agencies, such as the FBI and the CIA, prior to working for the
Warren Commission?
Mr. REDLICH. As a professor of constitutional law I regarded myself as a civil
libertarian. I had regarded the FBI and its activities during the 1950's in the
cold war period as being one which had been repressive of free speech. So I did
not come to Washington with the view that the Federal Bureau of Investigation
was a model that I should choose to follow. I had had no direct experience with
it. I had felt that the Bureau had been part of what I perceived to be a most
unfortunate period in the history of civil liberties in the United States.
I had no particular feeling about the CIA or the Secret Service.
Mr. KLEIN. Will you describe the relationship of the Warren Commission to each
of the intelligence agencies. How in your opinion did the Warren Commission view
the agencies and how did the agencies view the Warren Commission? Mr. REDLICH. I
can say very little about the CIA because I had virtually no contact with it,
perhaps no contact with it. That was handled by Mr. William Coleman and David
Slawson, to some extent Willens. Now as far as the FBI is concerned, I thought
that we had a good relationship notwithstanding my extreme annoyance over the
Hosty matter. As I look at the totality of the work the did over this 9 or 10
month period there is nothing that we asked them to do that they didn't do and
do promptly.
While there were certain instances where I thought they made mistakes, that was
our problem to evaluate their work. But as far as cooperation was concerned,
while, as you know, the Bureau had fairly rigid rules about who wrote letters to
whom, and the letter that came from the Bureau was signed by Mr. Hoover, the
Bureau I found to be a very cooperative agency.
The Secret Service we did not ask to do that much. Whatever we asked them to do,
mainly in connection with some work in connection
Page 132
132
with the reconstruction of the assassination in Dallas, I found them to be
cooperative. I would say that notwithstanding my predisposition, which I already
mentioned to you, before I came to Washington, I left Washington with the
feeling which I incorporated in letters that I wrote to Mr. Hoover, with the
feeling of respect for the FBI.
I came with a feeling that maybe there were two FBI's. Maybe there is the FBI
that works as a professional law enforcement level; that was the group I dealt
with, that was the group for which I came away with a very healthy respect.
Maybe there was another FBI which dealt with political matters, which I had
nothing to do with, and which undoubtedly accounted for my prior negative
feelings about their work.
Time after time as I worked with their experts I found they were fair, cautious,
and did not try to overstate the case. They were not trying to convict Lee
Harvey Oswald ex post facto, they were a very professional organization.
Mr. KLEIN. You testified as to the Hosty notebook. Other than that to your
knowledge did any of the intelligence agencies ever intentionally withhold any
information from the Warren Commission?
Mr. REDLICH. To my knowledge as of September 1964 or my knowledge not?
Mr. KLEIN. As of September 1964.
Mr. REDLICH. As of September 1964 my best recollections that it was only the
Hosty matter.
Mr. KLEIN. As you sit here today do you know of any such information?
Mr. REDLICH. As I sit here today I have read reports that Lee Harvey Oswald
delivered a letter to Agent Hosty in Dallas which Agent Hosty destroyed. I think
that is inexcusable. Now the question of what blame one attributes to the Bureau
depends one what Agent Hosty did. Whoever to turnout that people in high
positions of authority in the Bureau knew about that and didn't tell us, then I
would be very chagrined about that and it would certainly lead me to qualify my
statement that they had cooperated in every way.
If it was only Agent Hosty or some immediate superior I think that is a subject
of condemnation but I would not condemn the entire Bureau.
Now the other aspect that I have read in the press is that the CIA and the FBI
and Mr. Dulles are supposed to have known of a plot to assassinate Premier
Castro. I think that should have been brought to the attention of the
Commission.
Mr. KLEIN. The information that you just testified to relating to the note that
was not received and the attempt to assassinate Premier Castro, in your opinion
had this information been given to the Warren Commission would it have affected
the investigation?
Mr. REDLICH. Let us take them one at a time.
The note to Hosty. How it would have affected the investigation would have
depended--perhaps I don't understand your question. Do you man the existence of
the note or the fact that Hosty destroyed it?
Mr. KLEIN. I mean if you had known that the note existed would the investigation
have proceeded along different avenues than it ultimately went?
Page 133
133
Mr. REDLICH. That one I think would not have had too great affect on the inquiry
for this reason. As I recall, at some point in the investigation, perhaps in the
questioning of Ruth Paine, It was brought out that Lee Harvey Oswald had gone
down to the Dallas Police Department [sic] and had threatened to blow the
headquarters up or words to that effect. At least that is my recollection. To
the extent that the letter would have confirmed that fact it would have been
additional evidence.
But the relevant fact that Lee Harvey Oswald was capable of violence is
something that the Bureau, if my recollection is correct about the Ruth Paine
Testimony, would have known about, because she testified that Oswald had gone to
the FBI headquarters in Dallas and threatened to blow it up. So that that would
have only been relevant in evaluating the performance of the FBI in not turning
over Oswald's name to the Secret Service.
If I am right that the Bureau had that information, then I think the fact that
they would have had the information in the form of a letter would not have
materially affected the investigation.
Mr. KLEIN. On that point your answer is based on the testimony that you read in
the newspapers that was given by agent Hosty saying that the letter was a threat
by Oswald to blow up the FBI building. is it fair to say that your answer is
predicated on accepting agent Hosty's explanation of that was in the letter and
that the Warren Commission might have been able to further investigate the
letter and affirm whether or not that was in fact what the letter said? Was that
an avenue of investigation that might have been open to the Warren Commission?
Mr. REDLICH. Yes; we would have had the letter. We would have been able to
compare the letter with what I recall was Mrs. Paine's testimony. That would
have been relevant to the question of Oswald's propensity to violence which
would have been relevant in terms of the FBI failure to report it to the Secret
Service because we had a lot of other evidence of Oswald's propensity to
violence at that time the investigation was made.
Mr. KLEIN. When you say that the letter that was destroyed--would not have
affected your investigation you are accepting Agent Hosty's 1976 testimony as to
what the letter said. I am saying that had you known at the time of the
investigation that a letter existed then do you think that that might have led
to an investigation and who knows what would have been found as to what the
letter actually said?
Mr. REDLICH. I am sorry, Mr. Klein, I did not understand your question. you are
quite right . Not having the letter we don't know what the letter said. If the
letter had said something different from what Agent Hosty said in 1977, then we
might have had a different investigation.
Mr. KLEIN. Further along that line, had you known the letter existed in 1964
when you investigated this case, then there would have been a lot of avenues
that you might have gone to, to try to find out what this relationship was.
Again, not necessarily accepting what Agent Hosty said the letter said.
Mr. REDLICH. That would depend entirely on what the letter said. I can only
speculate on that.
Page 134
134
Mr. KLEIN. To your knowledge, did any of the intelligence agencies ever
intentionally delay providing the Warren Commission with any information?
Mr. REDLICH. If they did it was not something that I recall.
Mr. KLEIN. To your knowledge did any of intelligence agencies ever intentionally
provide the Warren Commission with false or misleading information?
Mr. REDLICH. Again I would say that as of September 1964 I would answer to my
knowledge no. If the alleged facts are true that there was a plot to assassinate
Premier Castro, and Mr. Hoover and Mr. McCone said that they had given us all
the information that was relevant to this assassination, then sitting here today
I would say that those statements were not accurate.
Mr. KLEIN. As you sit here today do you have an opinion as to what might have
motivated the intelligence agencies to either withhold information or provide
false information?
Mr. REDLICH. You are asking a general question. The only information that I have
any knowledge about, which his what I learned through the press, relates to the
Hosty letter and the assassination plot in regard to Castro. I can only
speculate about that.
Mr. KLEIN. What would your speculation be?
Mr. REDLICH. Do you want my speculation?
Mr. KLEIN. Yes.
Mr. REDLICH. My speculation might be that the FBI could conceivably have
been--not the FBI but the Agent Hosty or someone in the Bureau might have felt
that a letter in their possession threatening to blow up the Dallas headquarters
of the Bureau would have been construed as, and put the Bureau on notice that
Lee Harvey Oswald was a person who was dangerous and therefore they should have
reported him to the Secret Service. In fact you will recall that the Warren
Commission did criticize the FBI in its report for not reporting Oswald to the
Secret Service.
Now I think that a possible reason is that they may have felt that this would
put the Bureau in a bad light. On the question of the assassination one can only
speculate that they may have had reasons that they perceived to be national
security in mind. They may have felt that if this were brought to the Commission
it might have led to certain areas of investigation which they perceived to be
matters of great national security. I can only guess about that and I really
have no knowledge.
Mr. KLEIN. In your opinion did the fact that prior to the formation of the
Warren Commission the FBI had issued its December 9 report and January 13 report
which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin, did that fact in
any way affect the investigation of the Warren Commission?
Mr. REDLICH. No .we did not accept that conclusion. We started with a completely
clean slate.
Mr. KLEIN. In your opinion while working for the Warren Commission, were the FBI
agents who worked for you adverse to, or were they open to, the proposition that
the Bureau might have been wrong when it concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was
the lone assassin.
Mr. REDLICH. I can't really analyze what was in the minds of the individual
agents. It is rare for people in or out of Government to be
Page 135
135
happy with the thought that something they worked on was wrong. I think that the
Bureau personnel was probably no exception to that. On the other hand I found
that in my working with them on questions of film analysis, I didn't have a
sense of working with a group of people who were resisting what the Commission
was done. I had a sense of a group of people who were trying to help us with
that we were doing.
Mr. KLEIN. Is it possible that the FBI, having already conducted its own
investigation and reached a conclusion, wanted to tailor the Warren Commission
investigation to conform to that conclusion?
Mr. REDLICH. I don't believe that is possible.
Mr. KLEIN. To your knowledge was any consideration given to hiring independent
investigators?
Mr. REDLICH. I have clear recollection of that. Certainly during the time of the
investigation from time to time staff members talked to Mr. Rankin about what it
might have been like if we had had a completely independent staff. I think that
we reached the conclusion then, with which I still agree, that while using the
existing investigatory arms of the United states had certain disadvantages, that
on balance it was still the right decision to make. There were certain
tradeoffs.
We got the benefit of what I still believe to be a highly efficient,
cooperative, vast investigative apparatus which cooperated. The tradeoff was
that it could be said that we were using the very agencies of the United States
who might have some stake in a preordained result. I don't think there was any
happy, completely happy, solution to that dilemma.
I am satisfied that it was the right decision.
Mr. KLEIN. As you sit here today, if you had to make that decision at this time
you would make the same decision? I am saying if this were 1963, knowing what
you know, would you make the same decision to use FBI agents as investigators?
Mr. REDLICH. I still think I would make the same decision. The only
qualification I would give to that would involve information that this committee
may know that I don't know and that is what one has learned about the extent to
which the FBI may have withheld information. Now based upon what I now know,
which is limited to the Hosty matter, I am not prepared to conclude that that
decision was erroneous.
Mr. KLEIN. Just one other question in this area which I had asked before but we
did not actually get to it. If the Warren Commission had known about the CIA
plot to assassinate Premier Castro would that have affected the investigation
and, if so, how?
Mr. REDLICH. I think it would have affected it, Mr. Klein. How I am not
completely sure. I think that an important fact like that might perhaps have led
to additional inquiry as to whether the Cuban Government might have known about
it, whether in some way the Cuban Government might have tried to retaliate.
Although I am cognizant of the fact that the Warren Commission, at least to the
best of my recollection, did look into every Cuban connection that Oswald had,
it is possible that this additional fact might have led to further inquiry. I
also think that it might have affected Oswald's motive or at least affected our
conclusion with regard to Oswald's motive quite apart from conspiracy. For
example if it could be shown that Oswald knew about
Page 136
136
the proposed plot to assassinate Castro, then the Commission could have
concluded that this was an additional motive that Oswald might have had. I would
doubt that the Commission would have concluded this was the sole motive, but
this could have been an additional motive. From my investigatory experience with
the Warren Commission, I think that we would have started an investigation.
Where that would have led I couldn't tell you.
Mr. KLEIN. Mr. Chairman, I have only a few more questions which are of a
conclusory type, so I would now yield of anybody else has any questions in the
areas we have covered.
Mr. PREYER. I think Mr. Blakey has a few questions.
Mr. BLAKEY. Dean Redlich, I would like to see if I could pin down for the record
a couple of matters or at least one general matter that has been raised here by
a number of questions. I wonder if you will bear with me if I ask you a couple
of related questions.
Let me direct your attention to the period of time during which you worked on
the Warren Commission and ask you to your knowledge did the Chief Justice have
any information while he was serving with the Warren Commission concerning any
involvement of any of the U.S. intelligence agencies in alleged plots or
attempts against Cuba or to assassinate Fidel Castro?
Mr. REDLICH. To my knowledge, the Chief Justice had no such knowledge. I knew of
no such knowledge that the Chief Justice may have possessed.
Mr. BLAKEY. To your knowledge, did any other Commissioner have any such
information while he was serving on the Warren Commission?
Mr. REDLICH. To my direct knowledge, Mr. Blakey, no. I, of course, have read
about Mr. Dulles, but I have no direct knowledge.
Mr. BLAKEY. at the time you were serving on the Commission?
Mr. REDLICH. While I was serving I had no such knowledge.
Mr. BLAKEY. To your knowledge, did any staff members have any such information
while he was serving with the Warren Commission?
Mr. REDLICH. To my knowledge; no, sir.
Mr. BLAKEY. In retrospect was there any conduct on the part of the Chief Justice
from which you could have or which you in fact did infer that he did have such
knowledge?
Mr. REDLICH. No, sir.
Mr. BLAKEY. In retrospect was there any conduct on the part of any other
Commissioner from which you could have or you did infer that he had such
knowledge?
Mr. REDLICH. no, sir.
Mr. BLAKEY. In retrospect, was there any conduct on the part of the staff
members from which you could have or did infer that he had such knowledge?
Mr. REDLICH. To the best of my knowledge, no, sir.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did you see any document while you were serving on the Commission
from which you could have or did infer that the Chief Justice, any other
Commissioner, or any staff member had such knowledge?
Mr. REDLICH. I recall no such document.
Page 137
137
Mr. BLAKEY. Were you ever present at any discussions from which you could have
or did infer that the Chief Justice, any Commissioner, or any staff member had
such knowledge?
Mr. REDLICH. I recall no such conversation.
Mr. BLAKEY. Were you ever instructed by anyone while you were serving on the
Warren Commission not to pursue any line of inquiry?
Mr. REDLICH. No; except I think that the Chief Justice was unhappy about the
questions I was asking Mr. Martin which led to that document which had nothing
to do with Cuba.
Mr. BLAKEY. Is that the only instance where either the Chief Justice or a
Commissioner or a staff member superior to you directed you or expressed
disapproval of a line of inquiry that you were pursuing?
Mr. REDLICH. To the best of my recollection; yes, sir.
Mr. BLAKEY. Were you ever instructed by anyone, the Chief Justice, a
Commissioner, or superior staff members or anyone else, not to pursue any line
of inquiry because the inquiry might endanger national security?
Mr. REDLICH. No, sir.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did anyone ever suggest to you while you were serving with the
Commission that such matters should not be explored?
Mr. REDLICH. No, sir, just to be completely on the record, and I know this is
irrelevant but I assume in answering all your questions we are making an
exception to my questioning of Mr. Martin. That related to some incident that
occurred between Marina Oswald and somebody in Moscow before she met lee Harvey
Oswald, which, as I recall, involved a diplomat, but it was a purely personal
encounter. That was really a matter of taste and a feeling that this might cause
embarrassment between the United States and that government relating to this
personal encounter. But it was a purely private matter and quite unrelated.
The only reason I was pursuing the line of inquiry was for the reason I stated;
namely, to find out what we could about Marina Oswald as a person.
Mr. BLAKEY. You have no knowledge that anyone associated with the Commission
knew or had reason to know of the assassination plot?
Mr. REDLICH. That is correct. That is my testimony.
Mr. BLAKEY. To your knowledge the existence of those assassination plots was
never used by any member associated or any person associated with the Commission
to limit your investigation in any way?
Mr. REDLICH. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. BLAKEY. Thank you. I appreciate your testimony.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Stokes.
Mr. STOKES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dean Redlich, I am quite concerned about the memorandum that you wrote to Mr.
Rankin. It was obviously written to him as a result of some very strong feelings
you had regarding the matters contained in the memorandum. Is that true?
Mr. REDLICH. With regard to that memorandum I felt that it was important to
examine everything that we could about the kind of person Marina Oswald was. I
did feel strongly that we should do that. That is why I wrote the memorandum in
February of 1964, which was shortly after she testified.
Page 138
138
Mr. STOKES. Let me for a moment refer to this specific language in the
memorandum. You say, "This Commission has undertaken not only to determine who
fired the shots that killed President Kennedy but to study all evidence which
might lead to an explanation for why the crime was committed." Now, to the best
of your recollection when the final report was prepared, did you then feel that
the report that was prepared and issued as a Warren Commission report had
complied with that part of the mandate as you understood it?
Mr. REDLICH. Yes, sir, I do, understanding my answer does not mean that I ever
felt in this memorandum that the mandate of the Commission report was to reach a
single conclusion with regard to plot.
I was always possible to reach an alternative conclusion once we had negatived
the evidence of conspiracy.
Mr. STOKES. As to that aspect of it in which you referred to studying all
evidence and that which had prompted you to write this memorandum, did you feel
that the final report then contained all evidence so that you could feel with
sureness that the report did reflect those concerns you had?
Mr. REDLICH. Yes, sir.
Mr. STOKES. Has anything occurred or transpired in this interim period which
would now make you feel any differently?
Mr. REDLICH. I would like to answer that question with a little bit of
elaboration. There is nothing that I know of, sir, which leads to question the
Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald fired all the shot that
killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally. Based upon anything I
have read, ad I am not privy to anything other than that, it is still my best
opinion that the conclusion of the Commission that there is no evidence Lee
Harvey Oswald conspired with any group, either foreign or domestic, in the
performance of those acts is still a valid conclusion. Based upon anything else
that I know I believe that the conclusion of the Warren Commission that it could
not ascribe a particular motive to the assassination is still one which I
support.
Mr. STOKES. Obviously, Marina Oswald was your area, you spent a great deal of
time preparing for her examination, and on this particular occasion it was your
concern about the Commission having full and complete and incisive data relative
to her so that they might come to a proper conclusion relative to her testimony.
I am concerned then about that part of your memorandum where you say, "We cannot
ignore, however, that Marina Oswald has repeatedly lied to the Secret Service,
the FBI and this Commission on matters that are of vital concern to the people
of this country." You told us earlier today that she testified before the
Commission on many occasions.
You refer in here to some further reexamination of her. Is that correct and I
did I quote you correctly?
Mr. REDLICH. She testified for I believe 4 or 5 days in february of 1964. Then
she was questioned again by a staff member, I believe Mr. Liebeler. She was
questioned both before February and after by FBI agents. This memorandum was
written basically at the conclusion of her Commission testimony in February.
Page 139
139
Mr. STOKES. did she ever reappear before the Commission for further
reexamination?
Mr. REDLICH. I don't believe that she did. I have no recollection of her
appearing before the Commission. I do recall that Mr. Liebeler, I think it was,
questioned her in Dallas. I believe that on other occasions we may have asked
the FBI to interview her on specific matter as further leads came to light.
Mr. STOKES. In terms of the Commission's final report how would you characterize
their reliance upon Marina Oswald's testimony? Would you say that they relied
upon it not at all or slightly or they relied upon it heavily?
Mr. REDLICH. I think on balance when all of the evidence is--the testimony of
Marina Oswald by itself was in my judgment not strongly submitted to the
Commission's basic conclusions, because with regard to all of the physical
evidence, the ownership of the rifle, the ownership of the revolver, that was
developed quite apart from Marina Oswald's testimony. Marina Oswald knew of no
contacts that Oswald might have had with other people.
She told us, for example, that the Fair Play For Cuba Committee was one person.
We have no evidence at all that it was anything other than one person.
Everything that one looked int, the event in New Orleans, confirms that. A great
deal of Marina Oswald's life with Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas was confirmed by
Ruth hyde Paine with whom she lived. So that I think that on balance Marina
Oswald's testimony was less significant by the time we were through than might
have appeared at the time we started our investigation when she was of course a
very important factor.
Now once one gets into the question of negatives, it is always possible that
Oswald could have met someone and Marina might have known about it and Marina
did not tell us. That is possible. But their has been no other evidence of any
such contact.
I don't believe that the Commission really relied on Marina Oswald for its
conclusion or for its two basic conclusions, the identity of the assassin and
the nonexistence of evidence of a conspiracy. I do not believe that Marina
Oswald was the basis for those conclusions.
Mr. STOKES. But you did feel, and you did feel very strongly, that knowledge of
the real character of Marina Oswald was important to the Commission if they were
to be able to properly understand and to construe the motives that possibly lay
behind Lee Harvey Oswald's assassinating the President, did you not?
Mr. REDLICH. Yes, sir, and I still believe that.
Mr. STOKES. Let me ask you this. Knowing all that you know about Marina Oswald,
from all that you studied and prepared and from all the testimony that she have
all he agencies and to the Commission, would you believe her oath?
Mr. REDLICH. I would regard marina Oswald, based upon everything that I knew at
the time we were finished with our investigation, i would find her a credible
witness. Now whether I would believe everything she would testify about the
intimacies of her personal relationship with her husband, I don't know how to
answer that. I think that it is very hard for me to form my judgment about that,
ask a woman about the relationship with her husband of a purely personal nature.
Page 140
140
I think that any commission, and this committee also, that relied entirely on
the testimony of a person without corroborating testimony of other witnesses or
other facts is running the risk that that person might not have been a credible
witness. But I am not prepared to say on balance that Mrs. Oswald is not a
credible witness.
Mr. STOKES. Thank you.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Devine.
Mr. DEVINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have one question that follows what our staff director and chief counsel asked
you. Do you have any knowledge that the Kennedy family requested the Chief
Justice not to go into the X-ray and photographic and other related medical
evidence, that that was the reason that was not pursued avidly by the staff and
by the Commission?
Mr. REDLICH. Mr. Devine, at this point it is hard for me to differentiate what
effect that might have had or a variety of things that one has read in the past
14 years. I also notice that there is reference to the Kennedy family in the
Specter memorandum which has been placed in the record. My impression, and I
cannot be more precise than that, my impression was that the Kennedy family was
concerned about the publicity, about a public display of the President's skull
in those pictures.
The chief Justice was very sensitive to that. He felt that that family had
undergone just tremendous trauma, and he was very sensitive to that, perhaps by
retrospect overly sensitive. but he was very sensitive to it. Now, I don't
believe that it would be fair to the Kennedys, at least on the basis of anything
I know of, to conclude that it was because of their directly saying to the Chief
Justice that we wanted it this way, that it was done this way. I have no
information of that kind.
I believed that the Chief Justice shouldered the responsibility for it. I think
one reason that he made the decision, perhaps a main reason, was his concern
about their sensitivity. I believe it would not be fair to the Kennedy family to
conclude that they were in any way directing him, telling him that this was the
course of action.
Mr. DEVINE. You have no personal knowledge that such a request was made by the
family to him, is hat correct?
Mr. REDLICH. I have no personal knowledge of it.
Mr. DEVINE. I want to thank you for your very candid testimony. It must be
strange for a dean of a law school to be in such a position. I notice also from
your biography we should wish you a happy birthday next Saturday.
Mr. REDLICH. Thank you very much. You must be good investigators.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Sawyer.
Mr. SAWYER. I just have one question. It seems more from your curiosity than the
search for relevant information, but in your memorandum you allude to the
actions of Marina Oswald in Washington. I am not aware of what that was. Can you
enlighten me at all?
Mr. SAWYER. I have the disability of not knowing that about which I am asking. I
am not aware of it. Maybe counsel will enlighten me.
Page 141
141
Mr. REDLICH. I would like the record to show that I am prepared to answer the
question.
[Counsel consults with Mr. Sawyer.]
Mr. SAWYER. I find out that it is nothing biologically unusual. I withdraw the
question.
That is all I have, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. REDLICH. With regard to the transcript, do I understand that I will be given
an opportunity to look at my testimony to see whether, with all due respect to
the expert transcriber, he has recorded accurately what I have said?
Mr. PREYER. You may have that privilege.
May I ask you two unrelated questions, one following up Mr. Stokes. Have you
read Marina Oswald's new book or the book about her?
Mr. REDLICH. No. I have managed to go on to do a lot of interesting things in my
life since 1964 by avoiding those things.
Mr. PREYER. So you would not know whether it is consistent with what she might
have testified before you.
Were you or any member of the staff that you know of aware of the letter which
Deputy Attorney Katzenbach wrote to all the members of the Commission on
December 9, I believe it was, urging them to issue a press release to the effect
that Oswald was the lone assassin and showing that there was no international
conspiracy involved? Did you know anything about that?
Mr. REDLICH. this is the first I have heard about that.
Mr. PREYER. You did not send a copy of that letter to any member of the staff?
Mr. REDLICH. No. At that time I don't think there was a staff.
Mr. PREYER. I guess that is right, December 9.
Mr. REDLICH. I think Mr. Rankin was just appointed that day.
Mr. DEVINE. You were not on board that day?
Mr. REDLICH. I was not on board. I was called by Mr. Rankin a day or two after
his appointment was mentioned.
Mr. PREYER. On January 20, was Mr. Katzenbach present at that meeting?
Mr. REDLICH. no, sir.
Mr. PREYER. Think you.
Do you have a few conclusory questions?
Mr. KLEIN. Yes; it do, Mr. Chairman.
Dean Redlich, can you describe what pressures, if any, existed to complete this
investigation before the election?
Mr. REDLICH. We didn't want to be there forever. I think there were the normal
pressures to try to finish the job. But we did not sense any pressure in terms
of the elections other than I do recall discussions to the effect that if the
warren report was not done, the whole assassination could have become an
election issue. I do want to be firm on one point, as I come to the end of my
testimony, and I feel strongly that the committee should understand this.
It is my firm judgment that if at any time the members of the staff had come to
Mr. Rankin or the Chief Justice and said, "We regard this investigation as
incomplete. We need more time," I am firmly of the opinion that regardless of
the elections, regardless of any other factors we would have had more time. I
think the Chief justice was not interested in winding up this investigation
without all the facts being disclosed.
Page 142
142
I think that you will undoubtedly find as you complete your work that there
comes a point t which some of you reach the conclusion that you ought to get the
job done and publish a report. In that sense there is an internal pressure that
builds up to finish it.
It was not something that was imposed externally.
Mr. KLEIN. One final question why has the Warren Commission in your opinion
received so much criticism?
Mr. REDLICH. I think there are simply a great many people who cannot accept what
I believe to be the simple truth, that one rather insignificant person was able
to assassinate the President of the United States. I think there are others who
for reasons that are less pure have consciously tries to deceive. I think that
since there is a residue of public sentiment that finds it very hard to accept
the conclusion, that becomes a further feeling, for those who have found it in
their interest, to pursue the attacks on the Commission.
I do not mean to imply that all of the critics of the Commission have bad
motives. I think that the is in this country, fortunately, a healthy skepticism
about Government.
I believe that was certainly true during the Watergate period. The assassination
is a complex fact, as you will see when you investigate it. It was not an easy
thing to investigate. Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald were two people with most
unusual backgrounds. They did a variety of things.
That they should meet in the basement of the Dallas police station and one shoot
the other is something that does strain the imagination.
I think it is very unfortunate that the Warren Commission has been subject to
the kinds of attack that it has. We did what we felt was a completely honest
professional and thorough task.
I have done a lot of things in my public service in my life. I regard my service
on the Warren Commission as an extremely important, perhaps the most important,
thing that I have done, because I believe I was instrumental in putting before
the American people all of the facts about the assassination of president
Kennedy.
That significant numbers of Americans don't believe it remains to me a source of
great disappointment. I hope that this committee can cure that.
Mr. KLEIN. Thank you.
Mr. PREYER. Thank you very much, dean Redlich. actually pursuant to our rules,
rule 3.6, we have to offer the witness 5 minutes for free-flying discussion or
any statement he wishes to make at the end of his testimony. If you wish to take
an additional 5 minutes we are delighted to offer it to you at this time.
Mr. REDLICH. I respectfully decline the offer.
Mr. PREYER. If you do wish to amplify your testimony or submit any further
statement or evidence after you read over your testimony the committee of course
will be happy to have you.
We appreciate very much your being down here. I hope you have better luck on the
metroliner going back to New York tonight.
Mr. REDLICH. Thank you, sir.
Mr. PREYER. The committee stands adjourned until tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock.
[Whereupon, at 4:55 p.m. the committee adjourned, to reconvene at 10 a.m.,
Wednesday, november 9, 1977.]
Attachment E
Page 143
143
(282) Attachment E: Executive Session Testimony of W. David Slawson and Wesley
Liebeler.
SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING
----------
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1977
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE ASSASSINATION
OF JOHN F. KENNEDY OF THE SELECT
COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to notice, in room 2359, Rayburn House
Office Building, Hon. Richardson Preyer (chairman of the subcommittee)
president.
Present: Representatives Preyer, dodd, Devine, McKinney, and Fauntroy.
Staff members present: G. Cornwell, E. Berning, M. Wills, L. Wizelman, D.
Hardway, M. Mars, R. Genzman, B. Lawson, J. Facter, K. Klein, J. Hess, W. Cross,
and G. Robert Blakey.
Mr. PREYER. The committee will come to order. The Chair recognizes Ms. Berning,
the clerk of the committee, to read for the record the names of those Members
who officially are designated to be on the subcommittee today pursuant to
committee rule 312.3.
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Chairman, you and Mr. Dodd are regular Members of the
subcommittee. Mr. Stokes will be substituting for Mr. Sawyer. Mr. McKinney will
be substituting for Mr. Thone. Mr. Fauntroy will be substituting for Mrs. Burke.
Mr. PREYER. Thank you.
Mr. McKINNEY. Mr. Chairman, i move that we go into executive session for today's
hearing and one subsequent day of hearing be hold in executive session since on
the basis of information obtained by the committee, the committee believes the
evidence or testimony may tend to defame or degrade people, and consequently
section 2(K) (5) of rule 11 of the Rules of the House and committee rule 3.3
(5), require such hearings be in executive session.
Mr. PREYER. You have heard the motion. i will ask the clerk to call the roll.
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Preyer.
Mr. PREYER. Aye.
Ms. BERNING. Mr. McKinney.
Mr. McKINNEY. Aye.
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Fauntroy.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Aye.
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Dodd.
[No response.]
Page 144
144
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Stokes.
[No response.]
Ms. BERNING. Three ayes.
Mr. PREYER. The motion having carried, this hearing will be in executive session
for the remainder of the hearing.
Our first witness today is Mr. Slawson. I will ask Mr. Slawson if he will please
come forward to the witness table, if you will be sworn.
Mr. Slawson, did you solemnly swear the evidence you are about to give before
this subcommittee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,
so help you God?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes. Mr. PREYER. Thank you, Mr. Slawson. We appreciate very much
your being here today.
I understand that a copy of the committee rules have been given to your prior to
your appearance here today.
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. PREYER. Before beginning the questioning the Chair will make a brief
statement concerning the subjects of the investigation.
House Resolution 222 mandates the committee "To conduct a full and complete
investigation and study of the circumstances surrounding the assassination and
death of President John F. Kennedy, including determining whether the existing
laws of the United States concerning the protection of the President and the
investigatory jurisdiction and capability of agencies and departments are
adequate in their provisions and whether there was full disclosure of evidence
and information among agencies and departments of the U.S. Government, and
whether any evidence or information not in possession of an agency or department
would have been of assistance in investigating the assassination, and why such
information was not provided or collected by that agency or department and to
make recommendations to the House if the select committee deems it appropriate
for amendment of existing legislation or the enactment of new legislation."
Mr. Cornwell, you may now begin your questioning of the witness.
TESTIMONY OF W. DAVID SLAWSON, ASSISTANT COUNSEL, THE WARREN COMMISSION
Mr. CORNWELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Slawson, basically we would like to ask you questions today concerning your
knowledge and perceptions of the workings of the Warren Commission, questions
dealing with its organization, the state of mind of the Warren Commission staff
attorneys, the nature of any problems which the Warren Commission faced in
conducting its investigation and hopefully questions which will perhaps give us
an insight into what, if anything, we can contribute to the problems which were
faced by you and which have been debated over the years since then.
Simply as a matter of background will you first tell the committee prior to your
being hired at the Warren Commission what was your professional experience?
Mr. SLAWSON. I was an attorney in private practice in Denver, Colo. That really
was the sum of my professional experience at that point
Page 145
145
in 1964 when I received the telephone call. I graduated from law school in 1959.
I had been in practice that entire time.
Mr. CORNWELL. What had been the nature of your practice?
Mr. SLAWSON. General corporation and business law with an emphasis on antitrust
work.
Mr. CORNWELL. Who first contacted you with respect to possible employment at the
Warren commission?
Mr. SLAWSON. I have really forgotten. I think that it was Howard Willens but I
did not know him at the time. i was a stranger who telephoned me, to my
recollection.
Mr. CORNWELL. If you recall what was the nature of that first conversation?
Mr. SLAWSON. He introduced himself as a staff member of the recently formed
Warren Commission and said that I had ben recommended highly to him by Tom
Ehrlish, a classmate of mine at Harvard. At the time I think I remember he was a
special assistant to George Ball, subsequently went into law school teaching,
became a dean at Stanford. In any event he asked me if I would be interested in
coming back for 3 to 6 months, I think was the time estimate. I thought I was
interested but of course I would have to check it with my employers at the law
firm and call him back. I did check with them and they approved of my going. I
called him back.
As I recollect I was on my way in about 2 days.
Mr. CORNWELL. When did you first begin work at the Commission?
Mr. SLAWSON. This was January. I don't remember the exact date.
Mr. CORNWELL. At the time you considered and ultimately did accept the offer for
employment at the Warren Commission what, if anything, did you know about the
nature of the investigation at the time?
Mr. SLAWSON. I think just about nothing. I can't remember whether the New York
Times published a front page article on the general organization that the Warren
Commission contemplated for its staff before i received the call or shortly
afterwards. In any event I do remember reading the New York Times article before
I got to Washington and thinking on the way which one of the five or six
sections I would want to be employed in. as I turned out the first day they
offered me was the one I thought I would be most interested in, so that was a
very happy coincidence.
Mr. CORNWELL. Was there anything in the New York Times article which you can new
recall other than a general description of the organization of the staff?
Mr. SLAWSON. No; not that I can recall.
Mr. CORNWELL. Then when you arrived on the job what discussions did you have at
that time and with whom concerning the scope of what would be your
responsibility?
Mr. SLAWSON. As I recollect, I showed up on the morning at the building that
they had set aside for the Warren Commission, reported to J. Lee Rankin, and of
course introduced myself to him. He just after a few brief words said that the
area of interest that they thought about for me was the foreign area and would I
be interested in that. That, as I said earlier, was the one I most wanted to get
into and of course I said yes, and there was no further discussion on that.
Page 146
146
I can't remember when I learned that my senior lawyer working with me would be
William Coleman. I would have been at that time or later. In any event I was
assigned to the office, introduced to the other staff members who were there and
began working.
Mr. CORNWELL. With respect to statements made to you concerning the fact that
you would be working in the foreign area what did they describe to you would be
the objective of your work?
Mr. SLAWSON. Two things. The possibility of foreign conspiracy, foreign
involvement. I have reread part of my old memos and I notice I used the words
"foreign involvement' because it was a broader term. I have forgotten whether
that was the way it was first given to me. And second, a simple narrative of
everything that Lee Harvey Oswald or anyone else connected with him, like
Marina, did while they were abroad.
Mr. CORNWELL. Were there any statements made to you initially concerning the
fact that the staff was in any way restricted or confined to anything narrower
than the general assignment, that you were to investigate the possibility that
the assassination had been related to a foreign conspiracy?
Mr. SLAWSON. No; I don't think so.
Mr. CORNWELL. What was your understanding at this point in time either from
statements made to you during the hiring process or from any other source, if
there was any, concerning the reasons that the Warren Commission had been
formed?
Mr. SLAWSON. I can't remember any particular statements other than those I have
just related to you. of course, the whole country knew that it was to
investigate the assassination of the President and determine the facts as to
what happened and who was responsible so far as we could.
Mr. CORNWELL. To ask the question in reverse, would it be accurate to state that
you had been given no specific information and had no impressions concerning the
question of why it was that a special Presidential Commission was formed, as
possibly contrasted to other alternatives for investigating the same event?
Mr. SLAWSON. I had no special instructions or information on that.
Mr. CORNWELL. What, if anything, can you recall rom, say, the very early staff
meetings concerning the objectives of the investigation?
Mr. SLAWSON. The only thing that I can remember other than what I have already
told you which was that it was to be as deep and broad an investigation as we
felt necessary to ascertain the truth, there was some talk at the beginning
within the staff and I believe there were, I can't remember, outside
comments--they may have been from newspapers or something, I don't know--to the
effect that since Lee Harvey Oswald was obviously a prime suspect and since he
was dead and therefore would not be subject to forma trial procedures, that
perhaps we should appoint some portion of the staff, or perhaps even the
Commission itself, as a defense, in other words, run a mock adversary proceeding
at some point.
We talked about that possibility at some length and I think very seriously
considered it and ultimately decided not to follow it. I can't remember all the
reasons why. Part of it was practical, it just did not seem a feasible thing, in
effect to have the prosecution and the defense
Page 147
147
working together within the same building and using the same investigatory
agencies. It just did not seem to be something that would work very will.
Mr. CORNWELL. You mentioned in your answer just then that you had told us that
the objective was to state the truth. I believe perhaps in our informal
conversations you went into more detail on the subject matter than you have
given the committee. What can you recall specifically of such conversations?
Mr. SLAWSON. I think it is hard to remember 13 years ago what the timing of all
these things was but among the staff members themselves, like when I talked to
Jim Liebeler and Dave Belin and Bert Griffin particularly we would sometimes
speculate as to what would happen if we got firm evidence that pointed to some
very high official. It sounds perhaps silly in retrospect to say it but there
were even rumors at the time, of course, that President Johnson was involved. Of
course that would present a kind of frightening prospect because if the
President or anyone that high up was indeed involved that clearly were not going
to allow someone like us to bring out the truth if they could stop us.
The gist of it was that no one questioned the fact that we would still have to
bring it out and would do our best to bring out just whatever the truth was. The
only question in our mind was if we came upon such evidence that was at all
credible how would we be able to protect it and bring it to the proper
authorities.
Mr. CORNWELL. Where did such conversations occur when you speculated about the
possible repercussions of findings that you might ultimately come across?
Mr. SLAWSON. Mostly at dinner at night. We should typically work late, again I
can't remember but I would say 9 or 9:30, and then break for dinner and go to
some restaurant nearby together and have drinks and sometimes we would kind of
relax at the end of the day there. That would be most of the time.
During the office hours, of course, that kind of speculating wasn't so common.
We were each busy with our separate tasks.
Mr. CORNWELL. Were there conversations like that of the possible repercussions
from the nature of your investigation which went to matters other than the
possible uncovering of evidence that President Johnson could have been involved?
Were there other types of things you considered?
Mr. SLAWSON. When I said higher-ups I would include the people high up in the
organization, the FBI and CIA tool Everybody was of course a possible suspect.
If it had been say, a CIA conspiracy or some group within the CIA, then
everything I said about Johnson would apply to them too. Anybody who was
ruthless and determined enough to carry out the assassination of their President
obviously would not stop at killing somebody else to cover up their tracks.
Mr. CORNWELL. What about the question of whether there was any similar
speculation in the field of the possible repercussions in international
relations, particularly your field?
Mr. SLAWSON. Well, that reminds me that later on, I think this kind of thing
probably came up in the spring of 1964, March, April, around there, my end of
the investigation went into following up some possible
Page 148
148
leads. I have forgotten their nature but they were very speculative but we ere
following them up as best as we could about the anti-Castro Cubans. My interest
in that possibility I think was especially strong because it seemed to me on the
motivation side to make sense.
My theory was that perhaps, one, the anti-Castro Cubans we knew were very angry
with Kennedy because they felt they had been betrayed with the Bay of Pigs.
Oswald on the other hand was identified publicly with Castro, he was pro-Castro.
so, we felt that if somehow the anti-Castro Cubans could have got Oswald to do
it or done it themselves but framed Oswald, either way, somehow put the blame on
Oswald, that they would achieve two objectives that they presumably wanted. One
was revenge on Kennedy and the second would be to trigger American public
opinion strongly against Castro and possibly cause an invasion of Cuba and
overthrow of Castro, and of course these people would be able to go back to
their homes in Cuba and not have to live under the Castro government. As I say,
this made a lot of sense to me and I think it was a hypothesis held in mankind
for quite a while trying to see if the facts would fit it. Ultimately they
didn't.
Mr. CORNWELL. You focused on that area of inquiry and considered the possible
motives that would be connected with that group. Did you likewise consider the
possible international repercussions of investigations directed in that area?
Mr. SLAWSON. Sure. What you meant by that of course there would be an
international repercussion that the United States would invade Cuba bur if it
turned out that our investigation showed that Castro was involved, which of
course is another line of inquiry we followed through as thoroughly as we could,
this would I think probably have triggered at the very least the downfall of the
Cuban Government.
I don't think that the American Government would have ever or would today stand
by and upon proven charges that their President had been killed at the order of
some other government, would just allow it to go by. they would either insist
that the people in that government be prosecuted or if they weren't I suppose we
would invade. So we thought we might be triggering a war with Cuba. But again
that was something that the chips would have to fall where they may.
Mr. CORNWELL. You told us initially in our conversations that possible
repercussions of finding evidence of officials of the United States being
involved were discussed during conversations among various members of your staff
at your level including Redlich and Rankin.
Mr. SLAWSON. That is right.
Mr. CORNWELL. Would that also include the international repercussions you have
just told us about?
Mr. SLAWSON. With Redlich, yes. With Rankin also yes but more briefly. Rankin,
you remember, was the boss of the whole operation. Consequently I had far fewer
informal discussions with him. He was my superior. Also he was married and had
his family here and whereas most of the rest of us, I wasn't married at the time
and those that were had left their families someplace else, so we spent alot
more time together at meals and stuff than with Redlich and Rankin.
Page 149
149
Mr. CORNWELL. Did you discuss it with any members outside the staff?
Mr. SLAWSON. No.
Mr. CORNWELL. Did you discuss it with any members of the Warren Commission?
Mr. SLAWSON. That I can't remember. The only one I might have would have been
Allen Dulles. Allen Dulles and I became fairly close, I think. He had aged quite
a bit by the time he was on the Warren Commission and was also sick. I have
forgotten, he had some kind of disease that made one of his legs and foot very
painful. So he was not effective sometimes, but when he was he was very smart
and I liked him very much. Because of my particular assignment, of course he
spent a lot of time with me. We talked informally quite a bit. That may have
included, probably did include, these kinds of conversations, but I really don't
remember specifically.
Mr. CORNWELL. Prior to going to work for the Warren Commission, did you have any
experience at all with Federal agencies, any of them?
Mr. SLAWSON. No. Well, if you don't count Army experience. I was in the Army
before I went to law school. I spent about a third of my time at a scientific
research center.
Mr. CORNWELL. Did you from that or any other source have any initial impressions
about the Federal agencies, FBI, CIA, about what their predisposition might be
toward this case, about their competency or anything else you can tell us about?
Mr. SLAWSON. No; I don't think I had any predisposition other than the general
public awareness of these agencies. I suppose I had a little bit more than the
average person's knowledge about the CIA, very slightly. My recollection is that
the CIA when I was in college recruited people, I mean they came on, they sent
down people who would talk to students just like any other prospective employer.
I don't know if they still do that or not. I knew one or two people in the class
ahead of me who by all accounts went to work for the CIA, and it was something I
briefly considered myself.
I decided to go on to graduate school and physics, and I never explored the CIA
thing. But they had seemed to hire high-caliber people out of my college. I was
favorably disposed there. I understood immediately that part of may assignment
would be to suspect everyone. So included in that would be the CIA and FBI.
Mr. CORNWELL. As soon as you began your work, what facts did you uncover which
may have given you an indication of the extent to which the Warren Commission
could rely on the Federal agencies?
Mr. SLAWSON. As soon as you began your work, what facts did you uncover which
may have given you an indication of the extent to which the Warren Commission
could rely on the Federal agencies?
Mr. SLAWSON. In general, I think the impression was a good one, the extent to
which we could rely. I remember I was almost overwhelmed with the amount of
information that every agency was pouring into us. That seemed to me a good sign
that everyone was trying their best to give us all the information they could. I
also, though, quickly became aware that some agencies, presumably all of them,
were anxious not to appear in a bad light at all. Although I don't think that I
thought that any of them were actually withholding information from us, I did
think that some were trying to put the information they gave us in the best
possible light, shading things in their own favor. The State Department and the
Immigration and
Page 150
150
Naturalization Service, for example, had a whole host of every complicated,
legally complicated dealings with Oswald and Marina. It was my job to go back
through all that and see whether it had been done properly or whether there may
have been some evidence of something improper.
Maybe they let Oswald come back in the country when they shouldn't or something
like that. I think there was a lot of typical bureaucratic mixups. It is hard
for these people to explain it later; they were embarrassed. I don't think any
of it after reflection, I am sure none of it after reflection, showed
conspiratorial involvement, but I think it did show a lot of bureaucratic
mistakes.
Mr. CORNWELL. After working with the CIA, your impression remains substantially
the same; you thought you could trust them and rely on them?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes. I came to know one man particularly will, Raymond Rocca, and I
came to like him and trust him both. The only drawback I can think of--not
really a drawback, I suppose, for someone in the CIA--is that I thought he was a
little overly suspicious. He obviously disliked Castro immensely. He was very
emotional on the subject. As I said, I would be surprised if a member of the CIA
specializing, as I think he had been in Cuban activities didn't feel that way.
My impression overall was very favorable of him. I thought he was very
intelligent and tried in every way to be honest and helpful with me.
Mr. CORNWELL. I assume you relatively quickly after beginning work realized the
basic findings, at least in the general sense, that the FBI had reached in a
relative short period of time after the assassination. Would you have recognized
the possibility then that there was perhaps an agency predisposition to attempt
to bolster those findings?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes; with the FBI especially, I think. The FBI had prepared a thick
file which to their mind disposed of the case, it seemed like. Although my own
involvement was not nearly as much with the FBI as it was with the CIA, I
nevertheless read the FBI file, which was a good way of getting yourself
introduced to the whole general case.
I think it appeared to me, as it did to many people on the staff, to be a
competent document. But it was also self-serving, and you could not read that
and think that the FBI had ever made any mistakes or there was any serious
possibility that they had.
So, we knew that particularly with the FBI, but I just assumed it was the case
with anybody, it is human nature, that once having committed themselves on any
statement about what happened, they would be defensive about it and not want to
admit that they were wrong, and also that they all had a strong interest in not
being blamed for not having adequately protected the President. We spent a lot
of time--although this was not my particular area--in trying to ascertain
whether the Secret Service, the FBI, and CIA in particular but also the State
Department and Immigration and Naturalization Service, had done what they should
have to see that the President was protected against possible attack and, of
course, Oswald in particular.
Mr. CORNWELL. I would like to show you what has been marked for identification
as exhibit 22, if I might, Mr. Chairman.
Page 151
151
Do you recognize that document?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. have you had a chance to review it prior to coming here?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes; although not very thoroughly. It turned out to be even longer
in detail than I remembered it.
Mr. CORNWELL. For identification, it is a document which initially had a stamped
"Top Secret" at the top, which has been crossed out. There is no date on it, and
it reads at the top "Introduction." You prepared the document?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes; I should add that I did the first draft and Bill Coleman then
went over it with me. I don't remember what changes we made together, but we did
make some. Then it went into the Commission, presumably through channels, which
would be J. Lee Rankin.
Mr. CORNWELL. Would it be fair to state that the memo included the kind of
problems you encountered in effecting an investigation of the foreign
conspiracy?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Might we introduce the document into the record and then ask the
witness some questions about it?
Mr. PREYER. Without objection, exhibit 22 is admitted into the record.
[The document referred to, marked JFK exhibit No. 22 and received for the
record, follows:]
JFK EXHIBIT No. 22
One of the basic purposes of the Commission's investigation of the assassination
of President Kennedy is to determine whether it was due in whole or in part to a
foreign conspiracy. The Investigation conducted by the section of the staff
responsible for the foreign aspect of the Commission's work leads to the
conclusion that there was no foreign involvement. Nevertheless, there is
evidence which points toward a possible conclusion of foreign involvement which
we think should be brought to the attention of the Commission for its
independent evaluation.
The foreign countries most suspected in the public's mind are the Soviet Union
and Cuba. The Chinese communists and even Madame Nhu's wing of Vietnam, however,
might also be suggested.1 Likewise, the possible involvement of expatriated
anti-Castro Cubans, whether resident in the United States or in one of the South
or Central American nations, is worth considering.
Firm evidence of a foreign conspiracy is obviously very hard to come by, since
there naturally is the greatest attempt by the country involved to prevent
discovery. Investigations that are dependent upon information voluntarily
furnished by the foreign government involved, such as have already been
undertaken with the Soviet Union and Cuba, are obviously not very helpful in
uncovering evidence of this type, because the foreign government will try to
furnish only that evidence which it believes to be nonincriminating.
Nevertheless, even this kind of evidence can be of some use in assessing whether
a foreign conspiracy existed. This is because, first, the furnishing of the
evidence, despite appearances, is not quite "voluntary." In a case of the
magnitude of this one, and in which the widely known facts already disclose
important links with the Soviet Union and Cuba, these governments are under
considerable pressure to render reasonable cooperation to the Government of the
United States. If they do not, they risk having public opinion swing strongly
against them and conclude
_________________________________
Page 152
152
JFK EXHIBIT No. 22 cont.
that they are afraid to cooperate because the evidence will indeed incriminate
them. Second, once these governments conclude that they will furnish some
evidence to the Commission, the difficulties of falsifying the evidence they
give are considerable. They must realize that the Commission already possesses a
great deal of data against which the new evidence will be tested, and that the
CIA has additional facilities for this purpose which will be placed at the
disposal of the Commission. Moreover, if even only a small part of the evidence
furnished is found to have been fabricated, the entire body of new evidence will
become suspect; and if this should happen, the adverse public opinion effects
previously mentioned would again come into play. For these reasons, we have
concluded that, on balance, it was worthwhile to ask the governments of the
U.S.S.R. and Cuba to furnish the Commission with whatever evidence they could.
(It should also be pointed out that there is another reason why the Governments
of Russia and Cuba have been asked to furnish evidence. The Commission is
primarily interested in ascertaining the truth, not just in "pinning the rap" on
someone, and therefore the two foreign governments mentioned must be regarded
not only as objects of investigation, but also as parties who have a right to be
heard. They therefore should be given basically the same opportunity to present
evidence as has been accorded to the hundreds of other individuals and
institutions which have come into contact with Lee Harvey Oswald in one way or
another.)
Obviously, despite the fact that voluntarily obtained evidence is not completely
useless even in judging whether a foreign conspiracy is involved, the most
valuable evidence for this purpose is that obtained through informers, ordinary
witnesses, electronic and mechanical spying devices and other means available to
American intelligence and investigatory agencies which are not dependent upon
the consent of the government being investigated. The bulk of this memorandum
will deal with this kind of evidence.
We think this separate memorandum for the Commission and the General Counsel
appropriate because the material covered in the final report to the public will
necessarily be somewhat more restricted. A good deal of the information
contained herein is Secret or Top Secret and therefore cannot be disclosed to
the American public at this time. In most instances this is not because of the
information itself but because of the necessity of protecting the method or
source for obtaining it. In other words, in the final report we can set forth
the facts, but we will not be able to demonstrate the reliability (or lack of
reliability) of these facts by showing their source. Moreover, in some cases
even the information itself must be withheld from the public. for example, the
fact that a Russian MVD employee may secretly have tried to warn Oswald not to
come to Russia, if disclosed, might result in the employee being severly
punished or even executed. Similarly, even disclosing the information gained
form certain wiretapping facilities would necessarily disclose the existence of
the facilities, where the nature of the information is such that we could not
have learned it except through these facilities.
I. Some General Considerations
A. "Foreign Involvement" defined
We have intentionally chosen the words, "foreign involvement," to describe the
problems with which we are concerned in this memorandum. The words were chosen
because they are extremely broad, covering everything from a comparatively
innocent arrangement for propaganda purposes, such as, for example, an agreement
whereby Oswald might have served the propaganda purposes of the Castro
Government in New Orleans and Dallas in exchange for that government paying his
printing expenses plus some small additional compensation, to the most serious
kind of conspiratioial connection, as would be the case if a foreign power had
ordered Lee Oswald to kill John F. Kennedy. By "foreign involvement," however,
we do mean something more concrete than simply emotional or ideological
influence. The Commission already possesses evidence, and indeed so does the
general public, that Oswald considered himself a Marxist and that he sympathized
wholeheartedly with the Castro regime: he openly spread pamphlets in its behalf
on the streets of New Orleans and he took its side in radio and television
debates. These facts have already been established, and they will be assumed,
rather than discussed, in this memorandum. The question to be treated here is
whether there was some reasonably close working relationship involving Oswald
and a foreign power or at least a group of men based in a foreign country.
Page 153
153
JFK EXHIBIT No. 22 cont.
Page 154
154
JFK EXHIBIT No. 22 cont.
Page 155
155
JFK EXHIBIT No. 22 cont.
Page 156
156
JFK EXHIBIT No. 22 cont.
Page 157
157
JFK EXHIBIT No. 22 cont.
Page 158
158
JFK EXHIBIT No. 22 cont.
Page 159
159
JFK EXHIBIT No. 22 cont.
Page 160
160
JFK EXHIBIT No. 22 cont.
Page 161
161
JFK EXHIBIT No. 22 cont.
Page 162
162
JFK EXHIBIT No. 22 cont.
Page 163
163
JFK EXHIBIT No. 22 cont.
Page 164
164
JFK EXHIBIT No. 22 cont.
Page 165
165
JFK EXHIBIT No. 22 cont.
Mr. CORNWELL. First, when was the document written?
Mr. SLAWSON. I can't remember exactly but my guess would be early June but that
is just a guess.
Mr. CORNWELL. I might simply note that the document does have X's in it which
apparently occurred in connection with declassification of the document. Would
it be fair to state that as of June 1964 you had done a considerable amount of
work in the area of determining whether there was foreign conspiracy?
On page 1 of the memo you describe the fact that firm evidence of a foreign
conspiracy obviously very hard to come by, and go on to note that at least one
of the principal investigative avenues would be information acquired from the
various foreign countries that might be suspected of being involved and that
such information would obviously not be very helpful because a foreign
government will try to furnish only that evidence which it believes to be
nonincriminating, at least that was a substantial possibility. Is that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. That is correct although I think that the emphasis in the
introduction you are quoting from was only explaining why
Page 166
166
that kind of evidence could not be relied upon as your primary evidence. We did
have other kinds of evidence. I was trying to explain at this point in the memo
that we would not be relying upon evidence furnished by the country itself
insofar as we could possibly avoid doing so.
Mr. CORNWELL. You go in that vein to note further on page 2 that one way to test
the accuracy of the information which would be provided by the foreign
government would be through the CIA and its facilities. Is that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. That is correct. Incidentally that reminds me that in response to
an earlier question of yours, one way we had of checking the accuracy of
information American organizations like the CIA or the FBI was to check them
against each other. The jurisdictions of the various investigatory agencies at
the time would have fairly firm limits. For example, the CIA would do mostly
overseas things, the FBI would do mostly domestic criminal activities. The State
Department and Immigration and Naturalization Service had their respective
jurisdictions. So, when a person like Oswald or Marina would pass from one
jurisdiction to another, come from a foreign country or vice versa, the agencies
would pass information back and forth, notifications accompanied by documents.
In our getting the records of these in every case possible I would match them up
to make sure that the disclosure to the Warren Commission from a particular
agency included everything it should, judged by what the other agencies had
given us, having heard form that agency in times past.
Mr. McKINNEY. You spoke earlier of their defensiveness of the fact that they
might be accused of not having done a good job. Was there any particular
conversation or discussion on their defensiveness for not really having told the
Secret Service or for just sort of letting the most amazing thing to me. They
were tracking him and yet with the President coming into dallas, here is this
guy.
Mr. SLAWSON. There was no discussion of that, or rather no aspect of this
defensiveness that I could see in the documents that were passed prior to the
assassination.
They were all official bureaucratic type documents, very impersonal.
Mr. CORNWELL. There was no suggestion in any of those documents, say from the
CIA, when Oswald would come in from a foreign country, that the Secret Service
perhaps should watch this guy or the FBI watch him?
Mr. SLAWSON. I can't really remember that, Mr. McKinney, whether there was or
not. The usual notification would have no suggestion as to what the agency ought
to do at all. I would simply be that "Notification is hereby given that such and
such, Lee Harvey Oswald or somebody, had contacted the Cuban Embassy in Mexico
City, et cetera, and presumably returned to the United States shortly
thereafter." Then it would be left up to the FBI to do what they would with
that.
Mr. McKINNEY. Thank you very much. Thank you, counsel.
Mr. CORNWELL. In your mind would there have been a particularly severe problem
with your area of international conspiracy because of the fact that there was
really only one agency, the CIA, that had any access to information which would
reveal that?
Page 167
167
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes. There is really no way I can imagine and certainly there was
no way at the time I could imagine that anyone could carry on an investigation
of foreign intelligence operations other than through the CIA. That simply is
the body of expert opinion on that sort of thing and capability that exists in
the United States. So, if a major suspect is the CIA itself in some kind of
foreign involvement, it might be, say, taken over or infiltrated by the Cuban or
Russian Government, an investigation like the Warren Commission would find it
very, very difficult to ascertain that. That is just inevitable.
This I think occurred to me at the time too but there wasn't much that could
beckon about it.
Let me add there I think there are two major defenses there: One, I think and I
still think that the likelihood of any large number of people in a major
Government organization trying to kill their own President is very small. I
think most people are loyal. The other is that anything that large would almost
certainly spill over someplace in the public view. We had all sorts of people of
course looking into this. I think the chances of its ever being successfully
hidden for a long time were infinitesimally small.
Mr. CORNWELL. Nevertheless it was still your impression, I gather from your memo
and your previous statements, that here were really only two primary sources of
possible information in your field of responsibility, and that is, what a
foreign government might supply, which obviously had its drawbacks and what the
CIA provided you.
Mr. SLAWSON. That is right.
Mr. Cornwell, remember, I did talk and hear about the questionableness of any
information supplied by a foreign government, about the possibility of its being
involved, burt we did have information from foreign governments that might lead
you to suspect either foreign governments were involved. there is no more reason
why that would by suspect than any information generally. For example, we had a
communication from the West German Government intelligence service, I remember,
which we investigated. As I recollect, if it had worked out, it would have
implicated the Soviet Union. There is no reason why we should suspect that.
Mr. CORNWELL. Mr. Chairman, may I have an exhibit marked for identification as
No. 23. It is a memorandum dated September 6, 1964. I show it to the witness and
ask you, mr. Slawson, if you recall that document?
Mr. SLAWSON. I read this last night when your staff supplied it to me. I in a
very general way recollect it, that is all.
Mr. CORNWELL. I deals generally with the question of the type of information
that had been supplied to the Warren Commission by the CIA. Is that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. May we have this document entered into the record so that we may
ask questions concerning it?
Mr. PREYER. Without objection exhibit 23 is entered into the record.
[The document referred to, marked to, marked JFK exhibit No. 23 and received for
the record, follows:]
Page 168
168
JFK EXHIBIT No. 23
Mr. CORNWELL. The first two sentences in the memorandum read, "Throughout our
investigation the CIA has been sending us memoranda. The CIA made no attempt to
withhold any information form the Commission that it believed was pertinent."
Not meaning to be facetious but just for clarification, the "it" that is
referred to, in other words, "that it believes was pertinent," down that refer
to the CIA or to the Commission?
Mr. SLAWSON. I suppose it meant the CIA. I am just trying to interpret my own
writing the same as you are but I think that is what I would have meant.
Mr. CORNWELL. The way it reads then in substance is that it was your impression
as of September 6, 1964, near the end of the investigation, that the CIA had
made no attempt to withhold any information from the Commission that the CIA
believed was pertinent?
Mr. SLAWSON. That is right.
Mr. CORNWELL. Did the CIA or anyone, say, between the CIA and you ever tell the
Warren Commission members about the CIA assassination plots on Castro?
Mr. SLAWSON. No, not to my knowledge.
Mr. CORNWELL. do you believe that would have been pertinent to your work?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. What would you have done in respect your area if you had been
proved that information?
Mr. SLAWSON. That is hard to recollect at this point. It certainly would have
increased my suspicion of the possibility that the Cuban Government was
involved, for obvious reasons. I cannot, however, think of anything that I would
have done any differently. The reason for my conclusion is that I think I
followed up every lead as thoroughly as I could in any event. I already had
reasons of suspecting the Cuban Government as I had reasons for suspecting the
anti-Castro Cubans. So I would have been, I think, doing the same things I did
with perhaps a greater suspicion in my mind.
Nevertheless it was pertinent.
Page 169
169
Mr. CORNWELL. Would you have had with that information any cause to request
records which you did not otherwise seek?
Mr. SLAWSON. No, not that I can think of. That is a difficult question for me to
answer now because I can't remember in any kind of detail at all what my request
for records was what records I got.
Mr. CORNWELL. Did you ever seek records concerning the general issue of
assassination plots?
Mr. SLAWSON. By the CIA?
Mr. CORNWELL. Against Castro or anyone?
Mr. SLAWSON. No, I can't recollect that I did. Our requests for information form
the CIA were rarely specific. The request was made initially that they give us
all information in any way pertinent to the assassination investigation. Mr.
CORNWELL. Leaving to their discretion the decision as to what was pertinent?
Mr. SLAWSON. Well, I suppose inevitably, yes, because there are mountains of
information in the CIA and a request like that has to leave it to some extent to
their discretion as to what is pertinent. Anything that came out I would talk to
the CIA about it and if I had any specific requests those of course would be
forwarded.
Mr. CORNWELL. Would it be fair to state that if you had received that
information you at least might have altered your willingness to rely upon their
judgments as to what was pertinent?
Mr. SLAWSON. I don't know how to answer that. You see, I never received a "no"
from the CIA to any request for information. I mean a no in the sense of not a
willingness. Lots of times of course they would say "We don't know anything
about that" or "We can't find out for you." So I don't think my attitude would
have been any different. I would have had a different set of considerations in
mind. I probably almost certainly would have talked to them more thoroughly
about, well, did castro know the\at you were trying to kill him?
And when did he know? Things like that, trying to work out some possible link
between Lee Harvey Oswald and Cuba or anybody else who might have been
implicated in the killing.
Mr. CORNWELL. May we have a memorandum dated June 4, 1964 form Mr. Slawson to
Mr. Rankin marked for identification as exhibit No. 24, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PREYER. All right.
Mr. CORNWELL. You have had a chance to review that prior to coming here?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Do you recall that document?
Mr. SLAWSON. Again in a general way, yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Basically the document concerns a telephone conservation between
you and Mr. Rocca of the CIA and among other things discusses the general
subject matter of assassination plots of page 2, is that correct?
Mr. CORNWELL. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. May we have that document entered into the record, Mr. Chairman,
so that we may ask the witness specific questions?
Mr. PREYER. Without objection it is so ordered and will be entered into the
record.
Page 170
170
[The document referred to, marked JFK exhibit No. 24 and received for the
record, follows:]
JFK EXHIBIT No. 24
JUNE 4, 1964.
To: J. Lee Rankin, Howard P. Willens, Norman Redlich.
From: W. David Slawson.
Subject: Telephone conference with Mr. Rocca of Central Intelligence Agency.
About a week or two ago I telephoned Mr. Rocca and drew his attention to
the fact that my examination of the documents furnished to us by the Russian
Government, excluding the medical documents, which had not arrived at that
time, showed that a high percentage of the signatures other than the Oswalds
was said to be illegible by the State Department translators. I asked Mr. Rocca
that the CIA examination of these documents specifically take this observation
into account and comment on it. I said that my opinion, as a layman, was that
the high percentage of illegible signatures might have been intentional, in
order to prevent the CIA from checking back on actual persons and places when
it sought to authenticate these documents. However, I also wondered whether
the alleged illegibility was in some cases simply a reflection of the
translators
reluctance to work too hard. Mr. Rocca said that he would bring this matter to
the attention of those who were analyzing the documents.
Commission document No. 1011, which is the CIA report on the Soviet docu-
ments, came to my desk today. It does not comment on the matter mentioned
above. I telephoned Mr. Rocca to ask him about this. His reply was that he had
interpreted my request as simply that the CIA translators do their best to read
and translate all signatures. I repeated that we were not so interested in that
as
we were in the general analysis of what if any significance could be attributed
to the higher percentage of illegible signatures. I told him that since talking
to him
the first time I had made a personal check and found that out of the 9
signatures
appearing on the non-medical documents 8 were illegible or at least stated to be
illegible by the translators. (Actually the percentage is even higher. Two of
the
documents which contained illegible signatures contain two illegible signatures
each, so the ratio is actually 10 to 1 rather than 8 to 1.)
Rocca said that he now fully understood my concern and would bring it to
the attention of the "higher ups." I told him that we would be happy to make a
formal request if this was desirable, and he said that perhaps it would be, but
he did not think so. He said that he would ask for a formal request from us
later if he or others at CIA thought it was necessary. He told me that the CIA
translators had commented that the illegibility of the signatures was the usual
think in Russian documents. He said that he got the impression from talking to
them that this is a recurring problem. Apparently the average Russian official
has so many documents to sign that his signature soon becomes a scrawl. How-
ever, Rocca did not purport to be an expert on this, and he agreed with me
that a more formal analysis is called for.
(I note here for the record that the following documents contain at least one
illegible signature each: 1A, 3A(1), 3A(2), 5A(3), 6A, 7A, 9A, and 1B, 3A(1)
and 4A(3) contain two illegible signatures each. The following documents con-
tain no signatures at all other than Marinas or Lee Oswalds: 2A, 4A, 5A, 2B,
3B, 4B. The single legible signature other than an Oswald signature is con-
tained on document 8A. The foregoing includes only the non-medical documents.
There are so many signatures in the medical documents that I have not tried
to itemize them, but it can be seen by a glance through them that they also
contain a high percentage of illegible ones.)
While on the telephone with Rocca he brought up the New York Times article
on conspiracy theories contained in the Times of June 1, 1964. he made
specific reference to the book by a London newspaper man by the name of Den-
nis Eisenberg mentioned in the Austrian newspapers. This book was published
about 2 months before the assassination and contained an assertion that the
right wing elements in America were at that time planning the assassination
of Kennedy. He said that the CIA has already put procedures in motion to
get the book and to obtain further information about the author. The New York
Times, as you are probably already aware, describes this as a "striking coinci-
dence." Rocca believes that this may be correct but, of course, cannot be sure.
He
drew to my attention the fact that the publishing time of this particular book
appears to have been almost exactly when Castro was supposed to have made
Page 171
171
JFK EXHIBIT No. 24 Continued
his remark in the Cuban Embassy in Brazil (or to the Brazilian Embassy in Cuba,
I have forgotten at this point) to the effect that "Two can play at this game."
According to the Miami newspaper which published this allegation, Castro was
referring to the Bay of Pigs invasion and subsequent guerrilla activities
financed by the CIA which had resulted in the deaths of many Cuban citizens.
Rocca said that either he or Mr. [deleted] could report to us on the results of
the inquiry on Eisenberg, either formally or informally. He asked me whether we
wanted to make a formal request for such a report. I replied that I did not
think it was necessary in view of the fact that I now know that CIA was looking
into the matter and would give us a report. I told him that I would make a memo
of our conversation and might remind him of it at a later time if we had not yet
heard from him or [deleted].
Mr. CORNWELL. On page 2 the last paragraph reflects that while on the telephone
rocca brought up a New York Times article on conspiracy theories contained in
the Times of June 1, and made specific reference to a book by a dennis Eisenberg
published about 2 months before the assassination and containing an assertion
that the right wing element in America were at that time planning the
assassination of Kennedy.
The particular part of that paragraph I would like to ask you about is a couple
of sentences further down. There it reads that Mr. Rocca drew your attention to
the fact that the publishing time of this particular book appears to have been
almost exactly when Castro was supposed to have made his remark in the Cuban
Embassy in Brazil to the effect that, "two can play at this game." Would it be
fair to say that simply on the face of that, one possible inference was that
Rocca was deliberately suggesting to your that it was right wing plots to
assassinate him that had perhaps come to his attention and prompted his
statements about two being able to play at the game?
Mr. SLAWSON. I have no such remarks. My only recollection at this time is that
Rocca was drawing my attention to the fact that Castro might well have been
involved. Of course he had presumably drawn my attention to this before but he
was just doing what he did with me a lot, trying to work with me to put two and
two together.
Mr. CORNWELL. Specifically with respect to your notation that he draw attention
to the coincidence of the dates between this book and Castro's statement, would
it have been possible that he was attempting to mislead you and suggest that it
was right wing plots as opposed to CIA plots that had prompted castro's
statements?
Mr. SLAWSON. I don't know. That suspicion I don't think occurred to me at the
time. It is hard for me to characterize that now.
Mr. CORNWELL. If you and Mr. Rocca had conversations such as this concerning
assassination plots, Castro's statements, can you tell us, based upon your
experience there at the time, any reason why the CIA would have withheld from
you information concerning their intimate knowledge and association with these
plots?
Mr. SLAWSON. Based on my experience at the time why the CIA might have withheld
information from me of their involvement in plots against Castro?
Mr. CORNWELL. Yes.
Mr. SLAWSON. If your question is directed toward my putting myself back in 1964,
my answer is that I had no inkling that the CIA was involved in those plots and
therefore that speculation never entered my mind. If your question is directed
toward my thinking now, the answer
Page 172
172
would be that, yes, they would have an interest in not disclosing it because
they were ashamed of it. They must have felt that it was not a proper thing for
them to have done. Otherwise, I don't see why they would not have disclosed it
to the members of the Warren Commission.
Of course it would have been highly secret but they disclosed other information
to us which they felt was also highly secret. For example, the Nosenko affair
was highly secret information. To a limited extent I was given information about
sources abroad by sources which were highly secret. I was permitted to follow
out that information insofar as I felt I needed to in order to assess the
credibility of information obtained. As I say, that was very secret stuff too.
I think the fact that they did not trust us would not have been a reason because
they did trust us with highly confidential information.
Mr. CORNWELL. The very last sentence of the memo reads, "According to the Miami
newspaper which published this allegation Castro was referring to the Bay of
Pigs invasion and subsequent guerrilla activity financed by the CIA which
resulted in the death of many Cuban citizens."
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Did you discuss in light of that report with Mr. Rocca whether or
not the CIA had been involved? Did you ask him for more information?
Mr. SLAWSON. My best recollection at this time is that I did in several
conversations with Rocca discuss the CIA involvement in anti-Cuban activities. I
was presumably told that they had been involved of course in the bay of Pigs
invasion. I remember discussing informally that the involvement with a CIA
operative in Mexico City. Also their involvement with anti-Castro Cuban groups
in the United States. I don't know how you exactly draw the line between that
and an attempt to kill Castro personally. Anyway I never in my own mind crossed
over that line and no one ever crossed over it voluntarily in talking to me.
Mr. CORNWELL. Were there any other areas that, since termination of your work,
have now come to light which you would consider pertinent to the job you had and
yet apparently at the time the CIA did not consider pertinent or otherwise
withheld?
Mr. SLAWSON. No, I don't think so, except this one.
Mr. McKINNEY. Could I ask a question about the way you were thinking? If you had
known then of the attempts by the CIA to encourage people to kill Castro and
probably their actual involvement would it not have been a legitimate thought
that that might have triggered the assassination of the President?
Mr. SLAWSON. Sure, that would have been the immediate suspicion.
Mr. McKINNEY. And probably the immediate suspicion of may of the other members,
not that the CIA did it but they had triggered it by their involvement. So it
would really have changed their thinking?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes; I think I should have added that. that was involved in what I
did say, they were ashamed of it and particularly they might have been very
fearful that they would be blamed for the assassination of Kennedy even though
they of course had not ordered it but they had triggered it in the sense that
they instigated the Cuban Government to do it.
Page 173
173
Also, and I don't think I thought of this at the lime, but in retrospect an
agency that sanctions an attempt to kill somebody else's head of state is not
good position to be outraged when ours is killed.
Mr. MCKINNEY. I was going to go there but went there on your own.
Mr. CORNWELL. Do you recall the information that the CIA provided you concerning
Kostikov, the man that, Oswald perhaps misdescribed in the Russian Embassy?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. An employee of the KGB in Mexico City?
Mr. SLAWSON. That is right.
Mr. CORNWELL. Did the possibility that Kostikov was a member of division 13,
among other things apparently at least including nation, ever came to your
attention?
Mr. SLAWSON. My recollection is that I was told that Kostikov was probably a
very, certainly a very high ranking official in the KGB and perhaps the highest
ranking such official in the Western Hemisphere. I don't remember whether he was
placed in any particular division which would include assassinations or not. But
my recollection is that his job would include that among other things. In other
words, he was high enough up that he might not even have been within a
particular division but had several divisions under his control insofar as they
operated in the Western Hemisphere, the Western Hemisphere being the northern
part of the Western Hemisphere including the Caribbean.
The CIA told me that Mexico City was a kind of spy headquarters so to speak for
lots of countries, like Istanbul used to be in detective thrillers, the spies
always met at Istanbul. Supposedly Mexico City was somewhat in truth like that
in the early 1960's and late 1950's.
Mr. CORNWELL. What was your understanding based on what the CIA told you at the
time concerning the nature of the contacts between Kostikov and Oswald?
Mr. SLAWSON. This was not a matter of the CIA telling me so much as it was a
prime objective of our joint investigation. Obviously this was a crucial thing.
I mean if we could be certain that we knew everything that went on between
Kostikov and Oswald we could have disposed one way or another of the Russian
involvement it seems to me, almost certainly. We had some highly reliable
sources of information about what was said. The CIA had some background
information on Kostikov, not a lot.
I mean they had what I just told you about him, and we had other bits of
circumstantial information as to who was probably in the Russian Embassy on or
about the same time as Oswald was. We tried to put it all together and I worked
with the CIA on that. We came up basically with the conclusions that are in this
report including parts of the report which are not here which I don't remember
either but there are obviously many, many pages that are out of this, which
presumably had things giving in more detail the background of my conclusions.
Mr. CORNWELL. As I understand, your best memory is that the CIA did not mention
division 13 in connection with Kostikov?
Page 174
174
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes; that is my recollection. As I say I don't think it bears the
significance of any withholding of information because they certainly made clear
to me that Kostikov was a very important and that his importance was such that
it probably would include assassinations if any were being carried on through
the KGB in this part of the world and the CIA had taken great care m educating
me in the general technique of the KGB in carrying out foreign assassinations. I
spent a long time studying a file that the CIA gave me on a KGB foreign assassin
who had defected in Western Europe in the 1950's. I have forgotten his name but
the CIA had a big file on him which, as far as I know, I read everything they
gave me, trying to educate myself on what kind of patterns of conduct to look
for, how would the Russians carry on an assassination abroad, if they had done
so here.
Mr. CORNWELL. Directing your attention back to exhibit 22, one of the things
which you discuss in there as I understand it is the question of what type of
relationship Oswald may have had with a foreign government. In other words,
distinguishing between a relationship which might have involved the distribution
of propaganda, on the other hand an active role as an assassin for them, that
sort of thing. I take it from that that it would have been deemed relevant by
you if you had received the information, it would have been a relevant fact of
his control or work in division 13, in other words, his relationship to possible
assassination work by the Russian Government. Is that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORWELL. I did not see this in the part of the memo, exhibit 22, but can you
tell me whether there exists any indication that Kostikov
had responsibility for assassinations?
Mr. SLAWSON. No; in my reviewing it last night I did not come across anything of
that nature either although I think that the parts the memo that are shown here
do include my statement that he was a KGB official, KGB employee.
Mr. CORNWELL. We may not have all of your memos but will you tell us, to the
best of your memory did the fact that Kostikov may
have worked with or had responsibility for assassinations appear anywhere in the
Warren Commission report?
Mr. SLAWSON. I don't remember this either. I think the Warren Commission report
does reflect that Kostikov was a KGB employee and I think, but I am not sure at
this point, certainly not sure, that the Warren report also reflects the fact
that of course the KGB had cartied out assassinations elsewhere in the world. In
Western Europe I think we attributed one at least to them. So, to me that
presumably was. sufficient.
Mr. CORNWELL. If the possibility that Kostikov was associated with,
assassinations appears neither in your memos nor in the Warren Commission report
is your memory still the same that the CIA nevertheless gave you that
information?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes; but I want to repeat myself for emphasis. My recollection or
impression of Kostikov was that he was more important than that. He was high
enough up so that he was the central director so to speak for KGB activities in
the Caribbean area which as I say was a very important area because it was a
kind of spy clearinghouse and presumably an assassination clearinghouse too.
Page 175
175
The principal objective of my work in Mexico was to find out what had gone on
between Oswald and this very important KGB operative. Obviously it was a
suspicious circumstance.
Mr. CORNWELL. Mr. Chairman, may we mark two memoranda, dated February 21 and
March 27, 1964, for identification as exhibits 25 and 26.
Mr. PREYER. Those documents may be marked for identification.
Mr. SLAWSON. I should add that as far as I was able to ascertain with the help
of the CIA the fact that Kostikoy was called down to see Oswald when Oswald
showed up at the Russian Embassy was probably not as significant as one might
think because apparently he would have been called down to see any
out-of-the-ordinary person, anyone that might have intelligence significance,
any secret significance to the Russians.
Mr. CORNWELL. If I could direct your attention to exhibits 25 and 26, you have
had a chance to review prior to coming here, is that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Basically both memos refer to a similar subject matter and that is
the possibility of obtaining some information concerning Oswald's contact in
Mexico City through a man named Al Tarabochia.
Mr. SLAWSON. That is correct.
Mr. CORNWELL. May we enter both of those exhibits in the record so that we may
ask the witness specific questions concerning them.
Mr. PREYER. Without objection exhibits 95 and 526 are admitted into the record.
[The documents referred to, marked JFK exhibits 25 and 26 and received for the
record, follow:]
JFK EXHIBIT No. 25
[ Memorandum ]
FEBRUARY 21, 1964.
To: Howard Willens.
From: David Slawson.
Subject: The possibility of a new informant in Mexico City.
During the conference in your office on Thursday, February 20, we discussed [he
use of sources of information in Mexico City other than the CIA and the FBI. We
decided that rather than attempting piecemeal utilization of such other sources,
we would first gather information as to the existence of such other sources and
then try to use them in a coordinated manner, with full consultation among all
the agencies concerned.
I therefore am bringing to your attention the existence of a possible informant
for this purpose.
On pages 4-5 of Commission No. 351, which appears to be a portion of a
memorandum of a telephone call from Alan Schwartz of the State Department to
William McManus, of the Senate Internal Security Committee, it is stated that a
man named "AI Tarabochia" claims to have a good contact who has connections at
the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City. Mr. Tarabochia wants to know if the contact
should inquire about Oswald's true purpose while at the Embassy there. The
context indicates that this Tarabochia is an anti-Castro Cuban. Otherwise, I
know nothing about him. If we want to explore the possibilities of using this
informant, we should probably contact Mr. William McManus and get more detail
from him.
I mentioned all this to you a few days ago, and you told me that you believed
our files contained a letter from Senator Eastland or his staff on the general
subject. The best efforts of Ruth Shirley have been unable to locate such a
letter.
Page 176
176
JFK EXHIBIT No. 26
[Memorandum]
MARCH 27, 1964.
To: J. Lee Rankin,
From: W. David Slawson.
Subject: Senate Internal Security Subcommittee; Possible Use of Their Mexican
Informant.
On Tuesday, March 17, 1964 I called Mr. J.G. Sourwine, counsel for the Senate
Internal Security Subcommittee. I referred to a memorandum in a file which
William McManus, formerly with Mr. Sourwine's staff, had sent to the Commission
on January 28, 1964, in which there was a reference to an "Al Tarabochia," a man
known to the subcommittee who, in turn, claims to know someone who has access to
confidential information about the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City. I told Mr.
Sourwine that the Commission would like to utilize this informant and that for
this purpose we would like either to be told his name or given other means by
which we could make contact with him. Mr. Sourwine asked me why we wanted to use
the informant, This question struck me as strange, since the reasons must have
been obvious, but my reply was that we of course had. knowledge that Oswald had
been in Mexico not too long ago before the assassination and that he had made
contacts with the Cuban Embassy, so we naturally wanted to find out as much as
possible about these contacts. Mr. Sourwine said he would take the matter up
with Senator Eastland.
That afternoon Mr. Sourwine called back and asked that I send him copies of the
memorandum from Mr. McManus, since he could not find this memorandum in his
files. He said he would like the memorandum if possible by the following morning
because he was having a conference with Senator Eastland around noon time and
could then present the whole problem to him for an early solution. I therefore
sent Mr. Sourwine a letter dated March 18, enclosing a copy of the memorandum in
question, and had it hand delivered to him on the morning of March 18.
I heard nothing further from Mr. Sourwine and therefore I telephoned his office
on Thursday morning, March 26. He was not there. He returned my call that
afternoon and the conversation went roughly as follows:
He apologized for the delay, saying that he had been unable to reach Senator
Eastland about this matter because the Senator had been so busy and sometimes,
out of town. However, he had just seen Senator Eastland and their decision was
that although they wanted to cooperate in every way with the Commission, they
did not feel that they could disclose their informant to us. He said that they
would be happy to give us a letter to this effect, signed by the Senator. Mr.
Sourwine added that they would be happy to convey to the informant any specific
questions we had and convey back his answers to those questions. Mr. Sourwine
also added that Mr. Tarabochia's reluctance to disclose the identity of his
informant was "understandable." I agreed and said words to the effect, "Am I to
understand then, that it is Mr. Tarabochia's reluctance to disclose the identity
of the informant which is the basis for Senator Eastland's refusal to do so?"
Mr. Sourwine replied, "No; the decision is the
Senator's, not Mr. Tarabochia's."
I said that I was not authorized to give a decision at the present time, that
the decision on something of this importance would have to be made by Mr. Rankin
or the Commission itself. I added that it was my opinion that if we did decide
to forward questions through Mr. Sourwine that they would be of the most general
nature, rather than specific. Mr. Sourwine replied that general questions might
be hard to handle. I asked Mr. Sourwine whether his informant could handle a
question such as, "Give us all the information you have on what the Cuban
Embassy knows about Oswald, his visits to the Embassy, and anything else which
might relate to the assassination of President Kennedy." Mr Sourwine's reply was
that although such a question was very broad, it probably could be handled. He
then repeated his willingness to give us a signed letter from Senator Eastland.
We closed off the conversation by my saying that he should do nothing whatever
on this matter until hearing further from me or Mr. Rakin. Mr. Sourwine agreed.
In view of the subcommittee's reluctance to give us direct access to their
informant, I recommend that we convey to Mr. Sourwine the very general kind of
questions that I mentioned during the telephone conversation and hope that we
get as much information as possible from the informant. Forwarding specific
Page 177
177
questions to the informant would carry the strong disadvantage of disclosing the
informant and to everyone who worked with him, the particular problems that were
worrying us and the particular areas in which we felt we were deficient in our
knowledge.
Mr. CORNWELL. First, would it be accurate to state that the sub-
stance of the two memos is that the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee
contacted the Warren Commission with respect to offering information through an
informant?
Mr. SLAWSON. I cannot remember whether they contacted us or whether I came upon
the reference in a memorandum--well, it says here in exhibit 25, page 1, "A memo
of a telephone call from Abba Schwartz to William McManus." You see, I had
copies of every Government agency's memorandum and correspondence of every kind
that had anything to do with the assassination. So, the State Department
presumably would have sent us a copy of this. So, in going through that I may
have noticed the statement and, of course, then wanted to get in touch with this
contact, myself.
I don't remember how it first came to our attention.
Mr. CORNWELL. Whatever became of the possibility of using this informant?
Mr. SLAWSON. Nothing. The contacts to the best of my recollection were made as
stated in these two memorandums. I talked to Mr. Sourwine. I think but I am not
sure that I followed up a telephone call with a personal conference with him in
his office. But he and Senator Eastland were not willing to give us access to
the claimed contact they had, and nothing came of the request that we gave them
for information from that.
There was no further communication.
Mr. CORNWELL. What was your final opinion about this incident?
Mr. SLAWSON. My final opinion and to my recollection, it was also J. Lee
Rankin's, was that Sourwine and Eastland were trying to use this alleged contact
as a way of finding out inside information about the Warren investigation which
they could use for their own political purposes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Did you discuss the Tarabochia and Sourwine contacts with Rocca or
anyone else in the CIA?
Mr. SLAWSON. I don't remember the occasion of doing so, but I certainly must
have. I would probably have discussed this with both the CIA and the FBI.
Mr. CORNWELL. What, if any, information did the CIA provide you concerning
Tarabochia and Sourwine?
Mr. SLAWSON. I am sure it was to the effect that they didn't know anything about
the contacts. That was probably just the end of it. Their standard procedure
would be not to make any comment on a Congressman or his motive. They would have
said, "We don't how anything about this Tarabochia" and that would have been the
end of it.
Mr. CORWELL. In the course of consideration of raids and that sort of thing in
Cuba, did the subject matter of one raid, which I guess is popularly known as
the Bavo-Pawley raid, come to your attention?
Mr. SLAWSON. That name does not mean anything to me; no. It does not mean
anything to me now.
Page 178
178
Mr. CORNWELL. Do you recall whether or not the CIA provided you any information
about Tarabochia or Sourwine concerning raids in Cuba?
Mr. SLAWSON. I understood the question as whether the CIA supplied me with any
information about raids in Cuba in connection with Sourwine and Tarabochia. My
answer is no.
Mr. CORNWELL. Directing your attention again to exhibit 22, on page 3 you
discuss not only the problem that we asked you questions about earlier, and to
what extent you could conduct an effective investigation, but on the bottom of
page 3 you note that there are also problem with the fact that a good deal of
the information cannot be disclosed to the American public and you note that
there are two reasons for that. One, that much of what CIA might provide could
come from particularly sensitive methods or sources which would be impossible to
disclose; and second, that in fact in some cases the information itself could
not even be disclosed, and you cite as an example on page 4 the fact that a
Russian MVD employee may secretly have tried to warn Oswald not to Come to
Russia, if disclosed, might result in employes being severely punished or
executed. Will you provide to the Committee any examples where those types of
considerations ultimately restricted your ability to tell the American public
why reached certain findings or to provide it in the information you acquired?
Mr. SLAWSON. I can recollect several situations like that, but to this day some
of them, so far as I know, are still sensitive. There was a highly placed
source, a source highly placed in a particular foreign government, from which we
got information indicating noninvolvement of that government. The information
was in the nature of the surprise expressed by members of that government and
apparently genuine shock at the news of Kennedy's assassination which would of
course tend to show they were not involved. But even to state what that
government was and any information in great detail would lead to possible
identification of the course because there were only apparently so many people
present when these things were observed.
So that would be one such situation. Other ones were, while other one I have in
mind was similar, we were not able to use other information which again tended
to exonerate the government involve because the information was spoken by
certain foreign officials time and place where, if they knew we had it, they
could tell pretty well how we got it. Then the comment I made right here in the
memo on page 4 or someplace further on, about the Russian MVD employee there the
reasons would be to avoid retaliation against an individual they might have
harmed him and still might. One thing that has bothered me about the public
disclosure of some of this information in that these people are presumably still
alive in Russia.
Mr. CORNWELL. At least there were a number of examples where these kinds of
concerns did result in exactly what you predicted, other words, failure to
disclose the information to support your conclusion?
Mr. SLAWSON. That is right.
Page 179
179
Mr. CORNWELL. What about the Nosenko example? What were the reasons for
ultimately not disclosing the information that Nosenko had provided?
Mr. SLAWSON. There were two basic ones. One, I never did understand thoroughly;
but to get to the first one we did not disclose it because it seemed so very
self-serving by the Russians, that to even appear to rely upon it in our
conclusion that was basically exonerating the Russian involvement in the
assassination we thought would be bad because we in fact were not relying upon
it. As I said in the memo, the coincidence was too much, the first major
defector in many years should come across after the assassination and have
information that tended to show that the Russians were not at all involved. I am
still suspicious of it. I still think that Nosenko was probably a plant, which
does not go to say it was not true, but it means that you can't rely upon it.
The second reason was that the CIA told me and told Bill Coleman, it is my
recollection, and other people on the Commission staff, that their procedures to
test the authenticity of Nosenko would be compromised if the Russians were to
how what Nosenko told us. They said that authenticating and evaluating Nosenko
was of extreme importance to them.
He was the most important potential source of information they had obtained in
years about the Russians. So, we didn't want to hurt their investigation.
Mr. CORNWELL. May we mark for identification a memorandum dated July 17, 1964,
as exhibit 28, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. PREYER. We will mark that for identification.
Mr. CORNWELL. Do you recall that memo, Mr. Slawson?
Mr. SLAWSON. I recall it from reading the file last night. Except in very
central way I assume it is the one I wrote. I don't recall any details.
Mr. CORNWELL. I am sorry that I don't have a copy of it here but
apparently there was a memo dated July 15, shortly before this one, from you to
Mr. Rankin, explaining a list of your proposed references to what would be
quoted as "A confidential Soviet Union source, the reliability of which has not
been established." In the foreign conspiracy, in the Russian section of the
report, in detailing about five areas which you had planned to discuss and
following that memo I take it was the July memo 2 days later, would it be fair
to state that at the point in time when this memo was written the Warren
Commission was going through the process of determining whether or not they
could disclose the information that Nosenko had provided?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes, that would be my recollection.
Mr. CORNWELL. May we have this exhibit admitted as part of the record, Mr.
Chairman?
Mr. PREYER. Without objection the exhibit is entered into the record.
[The document referred to, marked JFK exhibit 28 and received for the record,
follows:]
Page 180
180
JFK EXHIBIT No. 28
[Memorandum]
JULY 17, 1964.
To: William T. COLEMAN.
From: W. David Slawson.
Attached is Howard Willens' re-draft of our Foreign Conspiracy draft. I have not
had time to read it in detail yet, but with a few exceptions he seems to have
accepted our arguments and our plan of organization. There are three major
exceptions: First, all references to the "secret Soviet Union source" have been
omitted. I attended a conference with the CIA on this and now agree that we
should not question this source. Willens can fill you in on the reasons why.
Indeed, the argument based upon Oswald's being permitted to marry Marina has
been omitted because the CIA claims it has information of many cases in which
spies were married to nonspies. Third, the argument based upon Oswald's general
character and his way of life in the United States has been omitted here and
will be reinserted at a point where it will apply to not only the foreign
conspiracy, but also the [deleted] conspiracy and a tie-in with Ruby.
In case I do not get to talk to you on the telephone before I leave, I have read
your Mexican draft. It is very good. If you get a chance, speak to Willens and
see whether he wants a xerox copy now or whether he wants to wait for
footnoting. I made a very few changes while I was reading it, but have not
attempted as yet a real editing job. I am in full agreement with the substance
and the conflicting evidence. These, so far as I am concerned, require change.
Mr. CORNWELL. Directing your attention to the memo, would it be fair to state
that in the third sentence in the first paragraph we have a record of the fact
that a decision as of July 17 had been made that all references to the secret
Soviet Union source have been omitted, which then coincides with Mr. Willen's
redraft of your foreign conspiracy draft? In other words is this the point in
time when the Warren Commission made the decision not to---
Mr. SLAWSON. I am not sure. There were several levels, of course. This would be
a reflection at this point, July 17, that Howard Willens, who of course is not
the Commission itself, had made this decision tentatively that we were to take
out references to a secret Soviet Union source. This was my reforming Coleman of
it but this, like all decisions of importance, presumably would have gone up. In
other words, Willens would have sent in his redraft of the foreign conspiracy
portion of the report which I had written with his explanation of any changes.
This would have to go to Lee Rankin and Lee Rankin would have made any comments
or whatever that he might have had and that in turn might have gone to the full
Warren Commission for decision.
Mr. CORNWELL. Then the answer is, ultimately, the initial decision, which at
this point had been made by Mr. Willens, was finally adopted by the Commission?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Now in addition to the problems we have already, discussed
concerning the sheer difficulty of conducting an investigation in the foreign
conspiracy field and the problems with writing a final report which could
describe fully the results of your investigation, were there any other obstacles
in connection with your assignment? For instance, start with the question of
time. Was there enough time to adequately conduct the investigation?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes, there was, although at times I was afraid that wouldn't be.
There was time pressure on all of us. I think that all members of the staff were
bothered and somewhat resented the fact that we were being pushed to work at
such a rapid pace but we
Page 181
181
resisted any attempts to make us finish before we felt we were ready to be
finished. When the report came out neither I, and I don't think anybody else,
felt that there was anything significant that we had not been able to do in the
time.
Mr. CORNWELL. When we discussed the same subject matters informally as I recall
you made statements to the general effect that everyone had too much to do.
Mr. SLAWSON. That is right.
Mr. CONWELL. Would you explain the sense in which you made the statement?
Mr. SLAWSON. Well, I have since learned I think that this is the nature of any
kind of special program. You probably feel overworked yourself in this. But the
amount of paper that we had to go through to do our job well was tremendous. I
spent I think about the first month simply absorbing information. I don't think
I issued a single significant request the first month I was back there. I had so
many documents to get through and try to understand and try to put them
together. They continued pouring in from the ongoing investigation after that.
There weren't that many of us. So we had more than enough to do I would say.
Mr. CORNWELL. One reason I ask the question, if I could direct your attention
again to exhibit 22, at page 7 you discuss the possibility of the Soviet Union
having assassins abroad to carry out work for them. Near the bottom of the main
paragraph on that page you note that once you accept this fact, the possibility
that their network, if it exists, included Lee Harvey Oswald, must be fully
explored, indicating that at least at that point you felt additional
investigation was warranted. Is that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. Not necessarily. My recollection is that I was stating here--well,
the memo tends to confirm my recollection that I was here speaking of what on
page 6 I call the "overall relevance of political motive" and giving the
background to the readers of this memorandum which was the members of the
Commission that when I said that must be fully explored I meant that I was going
to explore them as fully as I could in this memo and that they as members of the
Warren Commission should fully explore them in their own minds in order to come
to a conclusion.
In addition, I would have meant that insofar as that exploration on my side was
not complete, I was going to continue pursuing it. We did have portions of that
kind of exploration which went up almost to the last minute before publication.
Mr. CORNWELL. At least the investigation had not anywhere near been completed at
this point, is that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. Not quite, no. I would say a great deal of it had been done. This
was written in early June I think. I suppose some thing like two-thirds or
three-fourths of this investigation had been completed by that time.
Mr. CORNWELL. The initial employment arrangement that you described contemplated
3 to 6 months, is that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. That is right.
Mr. CORNWELL. Is it also true that you understood Earl Warren wanted a final
draft of everything by June?
Page 182
182
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes. At one point I remember he was expecting us to be completed by
the following Monday, whatever date that would be, some time in June or May. Lee
Rankin was on his way home for the weekend and turned to Howard Willens and
said, "you had better tell the chief it won't be done next Monday."
Mr. CORNWELL. Do you know what his reaction was?
Mr. SLAWSON. No, except he didn't like it. His main motivation in wanting the
work done, and which he repeated several times to different members of the
staff, was that he wanted the truth known and stated to the public before the
Presidential election of 1964 because he didn't want the assassination in any
way to affect the elections. I am not sure at all how he thought it would but he
didn't want any possibility of it.
That was his principal reason for having it all finished.
Mr. CORNWELL. Whom did you get this information from?
Mr. SLAWSON. About Warren?
Mr. CORNWELL. Yes, sir.
Mr. SLAWSON. From my recollection right from the Chief Justice himself. He did
not deal with us on an individual basis frequently but enough so that everybody
I think who had a significant role on the staff had conferences with Earl
Warren.
Mr. CORNWELL. Again with respect to the same memorandum, exhibit 22, the very
last page of it concludes that, "The facts that we already know are certainly
sufficient to warrant additional investigation," again in the same context, is
that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes. Let me back up and see what this was in connection with. This
is the anti-Castro Cuban movement I am commenting on, yes. We had done a good
deal of investigation by this time but on that one we were still going forward
insofar as we could.
Mr. CORNWELL. So, the investigation in fact as you suggested was not complete by
June and in fact it continued throughout the summer, is that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. That is right.
Mr. CORNWELL. Sylvia Odio, one of the more publicized issues in the last 15
years, was interviewed in July after you wrote this memo. Isn't that accurate?
Mr. SLAWSON. That is right.
Mr. CORNWELL. In fact, as I recall, you had some information about the
investigation in your field, even going up to within 36 hours the publication
date of the report, isn't that accurate?
Mr. SLAWSON. Thirty-six or 72 or something. It was a matter of fractions of a
day. That is correct.
Mr. CORNWELL. Will you tell the committee what that incident related to?
Mr. SLAWSON. That is another one that I cannot get into detail but
we had--well, to go back to the beginning, as I said earlier, a major part of
our investigation into the Mexico trip by Oswald was as to what transpired
between him and Kostikov at the Russian Embassy and what transpired between him
and the people he spoke to in the Cuban Embassy, I can't pronounce the name,
Asque or somebody the Cuban Embassy that he apparently spoke to and also Sylvia.
Turado de Duran.
Page 183
183
This information we had and were able to obtain by further investigation led us
to the conclusion that if Oswald had done only what he apparently had done at
the Cuban Embassy, which was to apply for an intransit visa to Cuba so that he
could visit Cuba in transit to the Soviet Union, that certain kinds of documents
would have been made out that would have borne certain people's signatures
including Oswald's.
We did not have those documents. We thought if we could get them or copies of
them and if we could authenticate them that would be good evidence that in fact
Oswald's contact with the Cuban Embassy was indeed innocent as far as the
assassination is concerned. It did concern these other things. So, some time in
the spring of 1964 we put through a request to the Swiss Government which had
diplomatic relations with Cuba for all the Cuban documents relating to Oswald
although I don't think we named anyone in particular.
Eventually copies did come back but they did not get back to us until fairly
late in the summer. My recollection is that the reason was that there was a lot
of friction between Castro and us at that time. I think they turned off the
water at Guantanamo Naval Base or something like that and they were not in the
mood to cooperate.
Nevertheless, they finally got them through the Swiss. When they came in,
although they appeared to be authentic I would like to have had some additional
information as to whether certain peoples' signatures were really their
signatures. I told this to the CIA, probably to Rocca, I can't remember who
exactly. He said, "Well, we may be able to get that for you. We will try." They
did finally get it within a fraction of a day or so before publication deadline.
I was able to say in the Warren report then that this particular bit of
information had been reasonably well authenticated but without saying how it
was.
Mr. CORNWELL. This particular routine was very important to you, was it not?
Mr. SLAWSON. The working out of what Oswald had done in Mexico and trying to
authenticate as far as we could?
Mr. CORNWELL. Yes.
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. In fact when you first were telling me earlier when you first
focused on that issue there were conversations concerning whether or not you
would be permitted to go forward with the investigation in that area, isn't that
true?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes. The request to the Castro government, request to the Cuban
Government through the Swiss went up through channels to Earl Warren and his
first response was no. The reason he gave was that he did not want to rely upon
any information from a government which was itself one of the principal
suspects.
The CIA and I nevertheless came to the conclusion that any information that we
could get we ought to get. We would worry about trying to authenticate it after
we got it. As I told you, I simply disobeyed orders and went ahead and made the
request through the State Department--it had to come from Dean Rusk, I remember
we got his signature--to the Swiss Government and we got the information. Then
of course I had to tell the Chief Justice that we got it and I pretended
Page 184
184
that I had misunderstood his previous statement. I think that is the only time I
disobeyed orders.
Mr. CORNWELL. It was not only his first impression, it was his only impression
that you should not have pursued this particular information?
Mr. SLAWSON. Once we got the information he was angry and said something to the
effect "I thought I told you we didn't want it." I said,
"I am sorry, I didn't understand it that way. But he accepted the fact that we
had it. I would never have thought he wouldn't. He did not make any attempt to
suppress it.
Mr. CORNWELL. Would it be fair to state then that this particular transaction
was a matter that you felt strongly enough about to in fact, disobey Earl
Warren's orders and pursued and finally the information came in within hours
before the final publication on September 28 the report.
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Were there any other areas like this where maybe, you just didn't
make the deadline, you wanted to very badly to investigate, and you were not
able to get within hours of the final publication?
Mr. SLAWSON. No.
Mr. CORNWELL. With respect to the question of whether or not the investigation
was adequate, would you tell us what the composition of the staff was, the
Warren Commission staff, and whether or not there were enough lawyers whether or
not they all produced?
Mr. SLAWSON. As I said before, I felt overworked and I think many of the staff
members felt the same way. I think that the main problem was one of the great
underestimations of the size of the task at the time. As I said, we were told,
we were telephoned and asked to come in, it would be 3 to 6 months. It is my
recollection they said it would be only 3 to 6 months on the outside and of
course we ended up taking about 8.
There was a reluctance, once we were there, to admit--again this is a matter of
once you have made a decision you don't like to admit you were wrong but people
did not like to admit that we probably needed more help and more time.
The following incidents will illustrate this. When we first got there it turned
out the secretarial help we had was mostly incompetent. Also
we had one fewer typewriter for our own use than there were staff members. That
struck a lot of people as silly. In any event I made a complaint. We eventually
got enough typewriters.
Several of us complained about the secretarial help. I was in Lee Rankin's
office talking to him at the time. He had previously put through a call to
McGeorge Bundy at the White House and Bundy's call back came while I was there.
Bundy said "What do you want." Lee Rankin told him about the secretaries. Bundy
said, "Just hold." Apparently picked up another phone and called the Defense
Department and he got back on the line, "I just told the Defense Department to
have--I have forgotten the number--but 20 of the best secretaries over there
tomorrow morning," and they did. From that point on we had good secretaries. But
it took, you know, pressure that high up to get us the resources we needed.
There were things all along the line we had to complain we want more of this or
we want something done here and there.
Page 185
185
Mr. CORNWELL. With respect to the investigation of the basic number of people
who did the investigation for the Warren Commission, was there anybody besides
lawyers there to do the work. Did you have any investigative staff?
Mr. SLAWSON. We had special people assigned from CIA, FBI, and Secret Service
who were with us more or less full time, especially the Secret Service who were
investigators. I think that time of the areas of investigation such as that
headed by Dave Belin, which was the immediate circumstances of the shooting in
Dallas employed private investigators at various points to crosscheck and give
an independent evaluation.
In other words, people who were not themselves FBI agents.
Mr. CORNWELL. Did Dave Belin employ those people?
Mr. SLAWSON. Not with his own money but he chose them. He and Bill Ball worked
together had chosen them. In my area we did not because of the difficulties, as
I told you earlier. There is no place in the world you can go and buy a spy
investigator.
Mr. CORNWELL. Were there any problems with the selection of senior lawyers?
Mr. SLAWSON. I am not quite sure of the thrust of your question. I of course was
not privy to the selection of staff counsel. I was one of those who was
selected.
Mr. CORNWELL. I mean who did not do the work?
Mr. SLAWSON. A few did not. The majority of them did and I think contributed
very valuably, they did not, with a couple of exceptions, spend as much time as
the younger men did, especially as the investigation wore on. Some of them I
understand were hired with the promise that only a few weeks work would be
required of them. Of course that turned out not to be the case.
Bill Coleman, who was the one I worked most closely with, I have forgotten the
exact amount but it was in the week was all that he was
told he had to contribute. He ended up contributing much, much more than that.
Even then in the middle part of the investigation he was coming down only 1 day
a week. But then toward the end he came down again and stayed for a long period
of the. Of course in the beginning he stayed permanent time.
Mr. McKINNEY. May I ask a question here. As the investigation went on, at the
dinners among senior counsel or anyone else did you ever discuss or feel
uncomfortable about your tremendous dependence on existing governmental
agencies? You were really sort of processing papers, did that bother you?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes, it did. We would talk about how we might escape from the
dependency. Apart from the things that I have already mentioned in three
different categories, one was occasionally hiring an outside expert to give an
independent evaluation or assessment something. I was not able to do it in my
particular area but Dave Berlin, for example, did do it.
Second was cross-checking the papers passing back and forth between the
jurisdictions.
The third would be just keeping an eye and ear out for any odd bit of
information that would come m not through the agencies.
Mr. McKINNEY. The CIA had been somewhat discredited by the time this
investigation started by a sort of bumbling with the Bay of
Page 186
186
Pigs. It seems to me there was a large question of their intelligence gathering
capability after that particular diasaster. We also had the Cuban missile crisis
and so forth. There was a very strong cry in Washington that perhaps our
intelligence gathering forces were not as good as they should be.
I wonder if this disturbed you any?
Mr. SLAWSON. My recollection is that it did not. I did not view the Bay of Pigs
as reflecting so badly upon the CIA's intelligence gathering operations as it
did upon their judgment as to what kind of operation might be successful.
Mr. McKINNEY. That is a fine line you are drawing.
Mr. SLAWSON. It is. I will admit it is. To illustrate what I mean, not to tell
you that I am right, I think there is no question but that had President Kennedy
been willing to back up an invasion of Cuba, then
of course we were much stronger than Cuba, we could have toppled the Cuban
Government. The bad judgment came in thinking that the United States would be
willing to go that far overtly.
Mr. McKINNEY. One last question. We have since learned that an organization
which I find hard to pin down, called Army Intelligence, had its muddy little
fingers in a great many things from inside, actually spying on American citizens
within the continental borders of this country as well as being involved in
covert and overt activities outside. Has Army Intelligence ever been contacted
by the Warren Commission?
Mr. SLAWSON. My recollection would be yes because we contacted every armed
service and that would include specifically their intelligence operations.
Mr. McKINNEY. Did they ever admit to any Cuban activities that you know of?
Mr. SLAWSON. Not that I remember, no. My recollection of the Army
Intelligence--I think it was called Army Security Agency in those days--was that
we got information from them about Oswald's record and activities in the Marine
Corps.
I take that back, it could not have been Army Security. It could have been Navy
Security. In any event it was an Armed Forces security.
Mr. McKINNEY. But not on the subject matter of Cuba?
Mr. SLAWSON. Not to my recollection, no.
Mr. CORNWELL. I have a couple of additional areas but would the committee like
to ask questions on what we have been over so far?
Mr. PREYER. I might ask one or two questions.
Incidentally, Mr. Slawson, I see among your qualifications that you are a summa
cum laude from Amherst, magna cure laude from. Harvard Law School, which should
impress a Yale man like Mr. Kinney here.
You mentioned that you spent a considerable amount of time with Mr. Dulles and
that you worked with him. Of course he was one member of the Commission that had
more expertise in this area.
What was the nature of your meetings with him? Did you have any of these
informal late evening sessions after dinner and a few drinks and talk about the
state of the world as you mentioned you had with the other lawyers?
Page 187
187
Mr. SLAWSON. No. The discussions were some of them informal but they all
occurred right in my office at the Warren Coramission building and during the
afternoon or morning. He, as I mentioned, was somewhat a sick person at the
time. I don't recollect his ever being there past 6 or 7 o'clock in the evering,
something like that. He would become too tired generally to stay on any longer.
Mr. PREYER. Do you happen to know whether he was able to attend most of the
Warren Commission meetings or not? Did his illness prevent him from being active
on the Commission?
Mr. SLAWSON. No, I think his illness did not prevent him. In fact, I think the
record will show that he probably had the best attendance record of anyone. We
had a rule that testimony that was to be presented to the Commission, as opposed
to testimony just to a staff member, could only be given if at least one
Commission member was present. Of course there had to be someone there. I think
more of those sessions that member was Allen Dulles than anybody else.
Mr. PREYER. Did you talk over with him your theory or the hypothetical example
of the anti-Castro Cuban involvement in the assassination?
Mr. SLAWSON. Presumably I did, yes. I don't remember the exact conversations but
that would have been the kind of things I talked over with him.
Mr. PREYER. Did he ever at any time during those conversations mention anything
about the assassination plots on Castro that the CIA was undertaking?
Mr. SLAWSON. No.
Mr. PREYER. He had been a Director of the CIA of course. Do you know when he was
last Director of the CIA?
Mr. SLAWSON. No, I don't. I believe he was the immediate past Director at the
time but I am not even sure of that.
Mr. PREYER. Perhaps you are going to get into this area, Mr. Cornwell. I want to
get the witness' view about the possibility of Oswald being an FBI informant.
Are you planning to go into that?
Mr. CORNWELL. You can go right ahead if you would like.
Mr. PREYER. Since you dealt with Oswald's actions in Russia I would just like to
get your views on the possibility of his being an FBI informant. He did seem to
be able, he and his wife, to move back and forth in Russia with a minimum of
bureaucratic delay in getting passports and that sort of thing. I wondered if
you looked into that or had any suspicions in that area or came to any
conclusions in that area?
Mr. SLAWSON. I did look into the possibility that his moving into Russia,
getting a passport to travel abroad and his coming back out of Russia with
Marina when he decided to come back to the United States, had been suspiciously
quick or anything else suspicious about how they were handled and ultimately
concluded that they were not suspicious, that the obtaining of the passport in
particular to go abroad was well within the normal time for obtaining a passport
from the place he obtained it which I think was New Orleans. All these places
are foggy in my mind now.
In any event, we got the statement of procedures from the particular Passport
office concerned and also from Washington passport office. We followed up the
timing. We did not just accept the State Department's
Page 188
188
word but we got a list of how long it had taken other people, just a random
selection of citizens, about the same time for the same passport application,
places to get their passports, and compared them, and his obtaining his, as I
said, was just routine in terms of time.
Coming back, it was more difficult to assess whether there was anything
improperly quick or otherwise improper about Oswald's return because there you
are not dealing with a routine thing. Of course it is not routine for someone to
defect and then come back from the Soviet Union.
Nevertheless, my recollection was that there had been something like 20 people
that that had happened to, a surprising number at the time.
Insofar as I could, I studied all those other cases to make comparisons. The
conclusion there was that there was nothing odd about the Oswald case. As I say,
that is a soft conclusion because they were all unique cases in a sense. You
could not make any statistical study out of the 20.
Mr. PREYER. I have just one other question. Do you know at this time whether or
not Raymond Rocca knew of the assassination plot against Castro at the time you
were dealing with him?
Mr. SLAWSON. I certainly did not know at the time because I did not know there
were such plots. Even to this day I don't know whether he did know. I either
read or had someone tell me, and I can't remember which, in the last couple of
years that in their opinion, Rocca did not know it, that the CIA had
deliberately chosen people to work with the Warren Commission staff who were not
aware of these plots in order that they could pick people who could be sincerely
ignorant of it.
Mr. PREYER. Thank you. I have no further questions.
Mr. Devine.
Mr. DEVINE. No questions, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PREVER. Any further questions, Mr. McKinney?
Mr. McKINNEY. No, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Cornwell, how much longer do you think you will need to question
the witness? The question is whether we should recess for lunch at this time or
try to finish?
Mr. CORNWELL. I would say at least 30 minutes, perhaps a little longer.
Mr. PREYER. Perhaps we had better break for lunch and resume at o'clock. Will
that be all right, Mr. Slawson?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes; that will be OK. I have plane reservations at 5:30.
Mr. CORNWELL. Which airport?
Mr. SLAWSON. Dulles.
Mr. PREYER. I don't anticipate there will be any problem making that plane.
Mr. CORNWELL. Not for Mr. Slawson. There are two witnesses from California today
,both of whom are trying to catch that same plane. For Mr. Slawson at least
there is no problem.
Mr. PREYER. We will recess until 1:30 today.
[Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the subcommittee was recessed until 1:30 p.m.]
Page 189
189
AFTERNOON SESSION
Staff members present: G. Robert Blakey, G. Cornwell, W. Wizelman, D. Hardman,
R. Genzman, E. Berning, M. Wills, W. Cross, J. Facter, J. Wolf, K. Klein, and L.
Matthews.
Mr. PREYER. The Chair recognizes Mr. Cornwell.
TESTIMONY OF W. DAVID SLAWSON RESUMED
Mr. CORNWELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Slawson, we have discussed up to this point many of the papers that you
wrote while you were a Warren Commission staff attorney and the problems that
you faced which in large part are reflected on the face of these memoranda.
What happened to the fruits of your investigation and particularly the fruits as
they were reflected in such memoranda at the time that the final Warren
Commission report was written?
Mr. SLAWSON. To the best of my knowledge, I never destroyed anything and they
were left either in my desk or in files at the Warren Commission building and
were subsequently put in some kind of security classification and sent off to
the Archives.
Mr. CORNWELL. What I really had in mind, although I appreciate the answer, was
what transition occurred in putting the results of your investigation into a
final report, the public report?
Mr. SLAWSON. My recollection of that, and the memos that I have refreshed my
recollection on tend to confirm this, is that Bill Coleman and I handed in our
reports to Howard Willens, not reports but our drafts for inclusion in the
Warren report to Howard Willens, and Howard redrafted to some extent, made
comments and would send us back a copy. We would either approve or state our
objections. Then when we reached agreement, it would go from Howard to J. Lee
Rankin and from him, usually with very little further change, to the Commission
itself.
But this whole process took considerably more than a month toward the end and
the Commission might frequently send things back for redrafting or shortening or
more elaboration and so on. Of course it was their job to put the whole report
together in a meaningful and clear fashion.
In other words, we might see something again or it might come down and somebody
else would be given the task of putting it together with two or three other
staff members' input.
Mr. CORNWELL. I would like to ask you some questions about what type of changes,
if any, were made in the rewrite processes. Perhaps, again because there has
been some period of time, we might proceed to do that by looking at your papers
and, if you would, let us begin looking at exhibit 22 which is basically a large
document.
For purposes of comparison, I will hand you a copy of the Warren Commission
report so that we will know what page we are talking to. It is the official
version as opposed to the McGraw-Hill publication. I believe the only changes
are in page numbering between those two versions. As a reference we will refer
to that one and those pages in the official report.
Page 190
190
With respect to pages 1 and 2 of your memo, page 1 is the concept that: "Firm
evidence of foreign conspiracy is obviously very hard to come by", the kind of
concepts you discussed earlier. The concept page 2 that one method which you
could use was the CIA but in essence there weren't really too many additional
sources for comparison of what you got from foreign governments other than the
CIA.
I would like to ask you to compare those concepts with what appears in the
Warren Commission report at page 243, which would be 225 in the McGraw-Hill
publication. Near the top of that page we of course do find the statement in the
first full--I am looking at the McGrawHill version, it is at the top of my page
statement that "The Commission faced substantial difficulties in determininng
whether anyone conspired with or assisted the person who committed the
assassination."
However, on the following page the concept is somewhat different or at least I
ask you whether or not it is.
Mr. SLAWSON. Which part?
Mr. CORNWELL. Pages 244 and 245 of the official version.
Mr. SLAWSON. At the very bottom of 244 "In considering the question of foreign
involvement"?
Mr. CORNWELL. Yes, sir. The language:
In considering the question of foreign involvement, the Commission has received
valuable assistance from the Department of State, the Central Intelligence
Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other Federal agencies with
special competence in the field of foreign investigation.
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Taking those passages, would it be fair to state that the nature
of the difficulties that you faced in the foreign investigative field were
substantially minimized by comparison in the Warren Commission report from the
way you described them in your internal memos?
Mr. SLAWSON. No; I don't think they were minimized. I think the right words
would be just simply "not discussed." The report, as read it, is giving a kind
of "thank you" to these various agencies their help and then just saying we are
not going to disclose anything that is from a confidential source of
information, but aside from that, the Commission will disclose everything that
it relied upon, and I think that needs to be emphasized, that Earl Warren in
particular tried to be scrupulously honest that way.
He would not in his own mind and in the deliberations of the Commission that I
heard about, rely on anything that he felt he could not disclose to the public,
for example, the Nosenko stuff.
Mr. CORNWELL. Directing your attention to page 374 which is page 350 in the
McGraw-Hill version, the concluding paragraph reads:
Based upon the investigation reviewed in this chapter, the Commission concluded
that there is no credible evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was part of a
conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy. Examination of the facts of the
assassination itself revealed no indication that Oswald was aided in the
planning or execution of his scheme. Review of Oswald's life and activities
since 1959, although productive in illuminating the character of Lee Harvey
Oswald (which is discussed in the next chapter), did not produce any meaningful
evidence of a conspiracy. The Commission discovered no evidence that the Soviet
Union or Cuba were involved in the assassination of President Kennedy. Nor did
the Commission's investigation of Jack Ruby produce any grounds for believing
that Ruby's killing of Oswald was part of the conspiracy.
Page 191
191
Would you agree with that?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL, It states the conclusion with considerably less doubt than the
view that you expressed in your memos.
Mr. SLAWSON. There is an emphasis gained in the official report by repetition.
This goes on and on essentially saying everything in thefirst sentence and then
repeating it in detail thereafter and that makes it sound more positive than it
would otherwise literally be.
No; I think I agree that this is accurate in that I, too, concluded that there
was no credible evidence. In other words, there is lots of evidence we count as
evidence, as we had to in the processes of investigation, everything that came
in that if true would point toward a conspiracy. But our investigation in no
case has led to the conclusion that that evidence was accurate. So, I think the
flat statement there was no credible evidence is absolutely accurate.
Mr. CORNWELL. The first statement then in your view, "no credible evidence" is
accurate. What about the remaining repetitious concepts, "no indication"?
Mr. SLAWSON. Literally of course that is not true. There was some indication. I
would read that as implicit in the word "credible," there is no credible
indication.
Mr. CORNWELL. The next concept, "no evidence," in the concept of that, "nor any
grounds, in the final statement, "no evidence" again. As repeated the sentence
would be a slight overstatement?
Mr. SLAWSON. I would put it differently. If you interpret the word "evidence" as
meaning something that points toward the involvement of these people, if you
conclude that the thing is true, then of course these statements are flatly
wrong. It all has to go back to the credibility of the weight of the evidence.
Mr. CORNWELL. Directing your attention to page 98 of the large document, exhibit
22, I would like you to compare the language at the top:
Unfortunately, however, although the means of investigation at our disposal in
Mexico have in our opinion been stretched to the utmost, there still remain gaps
in our knowledge of what Oswald did while he was there.
The paragraph concludes:
The final answer to the meaning of the Mexico trip therefore will probably never
be given.
I would like you to compare that language, if you would, to the report at page
305, which is page 282 in the McGraw-Hill version.
Mr. SLAWSON. 305 in my version?
Mr. CORNWELL. 305. Particularly the language that---
The investigation of the Commission has produced considerable testimonial and
documentary evidence establishing the precise time of Oswald's Journey, his
means of transportation, the hotel at which he stayed in Mexico, and a
restaurant at which he often ate. All known persons whom Oswald may have met
while in Mexico, including passengers on the buses he rode, and the employees
and guests of the hotel where he stayed, were interviewed. No credible witness
has been located who saw Oswald with any unidentified person while in Mexico
City.
There is perhaps no flat statement that there were no gaps, as you indicated in
your memo and your knowledge of that trip, but there is no statement--
Mr. SLAWSON. There I would have to say, I would not have written the report that
way, frankly. I think it would have been better to make
Page 192
192
frank recognition that we could not account for every hour of Oswald's time by
any means in Mexico.
Mr. CORNWELL. On the same subject, if I could, I would like you to compare your
perhaps more candid statement that "the final answer to the meaning of the
Mexican trip will probably never be given", with the language in the final
Warren Commission report which appeared on page 299 of the official version and
279 of the McGraw-Hill version, or 278 and 9 which reflects:
The Commission undertook an intensive investigation to determine Oswald's
purpose and activities on his Journey, with specific reference to reports that
Oswald was an agent of the Cuban or Soviet Governments. As a result of its
investigation, the Commission believes it has been able to reconstruct and
explain most of Oswald's actions during this time.
That again at least in tone is different from your concept of the evidence in
that field, is that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes; in tone. I don't feel as strongly about this one as did the
one before. The statement in the report "as a result of this investigation, the
Commission believes that it has been able to reconstruct and explain most of
Oswald's actions during the time," if you mean "most" in terms of most of the
time that is wrong. If you mean most in terms of probable actions, I think we
did. Although that is somewhat question begging because you never know what is
significant unless you know what it is.
Mr. CORNWELL. With respect to page 83 of your original memo, there you discuss
the meaning of Oswald's letter to the Russian Embassy. Your characterization of
it near the bottom of page 83 is that "the letter undoubtedly constitutes a
disturbing bit of evidence and will probably never be fully explained." Then you
conclude by stating that "We think that the letter constitutes no more than a
desperate, somewhat illiterate and deranged attempt to facilitate his family's
return to the Soviet Russia."
I would like you to compare that with page 287 of the McGraw-Hill reprint or
page 310 of the official version, particularly the last half of the paragraph
concerning what Marina Oswald could add to that problem, which concludes by
stating." * * * it becomes apparent that Oswald was intentionally beclouding the
true state of affairs in order to make his trip to Mexico sound as mysterious
and important as possible."
In other words, the language "It becomes apparent," or let me ask you, would
that be different from your concept that the import of this letter probably
never will be fully explained?
Mr. SLAWSON. Again, I would not have chosen the word "apparent." I would have
nut in there "probable." I think that is in effect my conclusion but I wouldn't
have stated it that strongly.
I think some place in my memo I make a statement to that effect. I think I used
the word "obfuscate." Anyway it is the same thing.
Mr. CORNWELL. I would like to ask you to look at the concept at the bottom of
page 3 and top of page 4 of your main memo, exhibit 22, and also perhaps in the
same light, the memo of yours which we have had admitted as exhibit 28 which
discusses in the first instance generally the problems with reporting everything
you had learned in the final report and in the second instance. exhibit 28, if
you could look at that, a particular application of that principle.
Page 193
193
Mr. SLAWSON. You mean references to the secret Soviet Union source having been
omitted?
Mr. CORNWELL. Yes, sir. If you would, compare the problem which you have
discussed facing, and the need in some instances to withhold information because
the very information could perhaps give away sources and methods, with the
language on page 945 of the official version of the Warren Commission report
which appears at page 226 of the McGraw-Hill reprint. Does it not state there
that "the Commission has concluded in this report all information furnished by
these agencies which the Commission relied on in coming to its conclusions or
which tended to contradict those conclusions." Then in fact clarifying that in
the next sentence by stating, "Confidential sources of information as contrasted
with the information, itself, have in relatively few instances been withheld.
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes; it conflicts in a way, but I think what the writer in the
official report is trying to say is although in some instances there was
information as opposed to just sources of information, but actual substantial
information which was not disclosed, the Commission was able to come to its
conclusions without relying upon that. My recollection is that Earl Warren tried
very hard to do that.
There were very few things that couldn't be disclosed of a substantive nature.
Nosenko's statement, the only one I can think of offhand and the "information
from a highly placed source in a foreign government" that I referred to this
morning in my testimony, for example, tended to support the conclusions, not to
contradict them, the conclusions in the report. Therefore the Commission in the
report is being truthful when it says that it has concluded all information
furnished by those agencies which the Commission relied upon to make its
conclusions or which tended to contradict those conclusions.
In other words, it did not have to include the information from highly placed
source in the foreign government, for example, because it did not contradict the
conclusions here.
Mr. CORNWELL. If I could direct your attention to page 98 of exhibit 22, between
98 and 102, you discuss information concerning the testimony by Mr. Pedro
Guiterrez Valencia which in pertinent part concerns the possible payment of sums
of money to Oswald in Mexico City which he says he observed. Is that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Would you compare your discussion of Mr. Guiterrez Valencia's
observations as set forth in that memo with page 659 of the official version or
page 588 of the McGraw-Hill reprint, particularly that page the discussion of
what is labeled "Speculation"--"Oswald came back from Mexico City with $5,000"
and the following statement, "Commission finding"--"No evidence has ever been
supplied or obtained to support this allegation."
Would not the testimony of Guiterrez Valencia support that allegation?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes, it would. Again the Commission report has to be read as
meaning no evidence that they believe. Otherwise it is not true.
Mr. CORNWELL. Of course as you may recall back in volume 24 of the official
version, there as a reprint of Mr. Guiterrez Valencia's testimony
Page 194
194
but it would appear on the face of what we have been able to determine from the
main volume that this testimony does not exist.
Mr. SLAWSON. This should not have been written the way it was. But I could have
been as much at fault as anybody in putting these things together. I didn't
write this part of the report. On the other hand, I am sure it was shown to me,
so I would say I am probably as much at fault as anyone.
Mr. CORNWELL. Again, with respect to exhibit 22 at pages 6 and 7 you discuss the
possibility that Oswald might have been an agent for the Cuban or Soviet
Government, and particularly on pag 6 you state "his circumstances and character
do fit the criteria for an 'agitator,' propagandizer, or even assassin, for the
Cuban Government. It follows therefore that bits of evidence pointing toward his
being an agent for one of the latter purposes must be taken seriously."
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Is that an acknowledgement that there were both circumstances and
character traits, and bits of evidence which pointed toward those possibilities?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes, sure. Those presumably were those that I came to discuss later
in the same memo.
Mr. CORNWELL. Would that then be a somewhat different picture than is painted at
page 374 of the official version or 350 of the McGrawHill reprint which states
that "there is no credible evidence that Oswald was part of a conspiracy * * *
no indication that he was aided * * * no meaningful evidence of conspiracy * * *
no evidence that the Soviet Union or Cuba were involved in the assassination"?
Mr. SLAWSON. I can only repeat what I said before, that page 374 is the
Commission's conclusion as to what the credible evidence was. Whereas the stuff
on page 6 of my memo is a statement of evidence at the point where we had not
yet made up our mind what the credible evidence was.
As I said earlier this was somewhere between two-thirds and three quarters of
our investigation had been done but the remainder remained to be done.
Let me put it another way. I would say the Commission report is like a jury
verdict whereas the memo you are reading from is like an investigator's brief or
report or even a prosecutor's report although not quite. I certainly was not
giving only the evidence in favor of a conspiracy. but I had a more deliberative
adoption of suspicion in the memo. I think it was proper at that point.
Mr. CORNWELL. The memo does indicate you do have evidence indicating those
concepts?
Mr. SLAWSON. That is right.
Mr. CORNWELL. Where the Commission report said there was no evidence indicating
those concepts; is that right?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Directing your attention to exhibit 93, which is the memorandum
that relates to the footnote supplied by the CIA. In the last two sentences in
the first paragraph you note:
Generally speaking we will publish all information on which the Commission
relied in coming to its conclusions and all the information which tends to
counteract those conclusions. Sources of information will frequently be
withheld, but the information supplied by those sources will in almost all cases
be published.
Page 195
195
Would it be fair to state that your concepts of the fact that you could only
make those statements in terms of "generally speaking" and "in almost all cases"
do not appear in the Commission report when they describe the fact that all
information furnished is published?
Mr. SLAWSON. That is right. It is not the same. I was quite aware at the time I
wrote this memo presumably that I was speaking only in generalitics and
probabilities. But I think that probably was my recognition that the decision
was not mine to make.
Mr. CORNWELL. In fact, your preliminary view of this was in fact implemented,
was it not? and what really happened in the end was just as you predicted, that
all information was perhaps generally set forth and maybe even in all cases but
not universally?
Mr. SLAWSON. It is hard to know because at the sessions at which the Commission
made their final decision, staff members were not present. Those were executive
sessions. So we on the staff--I never did find out exactly what the Commission
relied on. All I knew is that we gave them all the information we had plus our
own evaluation of the evidence and evaluation of what conclusions should be
drawn from it.
Finally we read the report like any member of the public did. I forget the exact
time I left Washington. I left 24 hours sooner than most staff members did
because I broke down and got the flu at the last minute from exhaustion. My law
firm also wanted me to get home.
In any event there was a week or week and a half as I remember between the time
I left Washington and the time the final report was published. I did not get a
copy until the public did.
Mr. CORNWELL. At least the examples you gave us today of the areas in which you
decided the information could not be published, it was in fact not published?
Mr. SLAWSON. That is correct.
Mr. CORNWELL. The report is rather voluminous; is that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. It was prepared under, I take it, rather severe pressure in the
final moments of your work?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Apart from the kind of thing we have just been
comparing which I suppose we might describe as a change, at least a change in
tone from your view of the strength of the evidence and the severity of problems
to the way the report reads, were there other problems in the preparation of the
final report concerning the question of its accuracy?
Mr. SLAWSON. No, not that I can recollect.
Mr. CORNWELL. Let me show you one document and see if it will perhaps refresh
your memory.
May we mark, Mr. Chairman, a memo dated, September 22, 1964 from Mr. Slawson to
Mr Willens, subject "Pending Matters" for identification as exhibit 30?
Mr. PREYER. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Would it be fair to state, Mr. Slawson, that the memo was prepared
September 22, approximately 6 days prior to the Publication of the Warren
Commission report, and dealt with the kinds of publication problems you were
facing at that time?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Page 196
196
Mr. CORNWELL. May we have exhibit 30 admitted into evidence, Mr. Chairman, so
that we may ask the witness specific questions on it?
Mr. PREYER. Without objection, exhibit 30 is admitted into evidence.
[The above referred to document, exhibit 30, was admitted into,
evidence.]
JFK EXHIBIT No. 30
SEPTEMBER 22, 1964.
To: Howard Willens.
From: W. David Slawson.
Subject: Pending matters.
1. Additional or substitute authority from FBI. Reference is made to footnote
563, page 307 of chapter VI. The FBI was simply unable to get to us in time a
comprehensive list of the Hotel del Comercio guests who have been located and
questioned. Consequently, in addition to the authority already cited, I have
inserted a phantom CE number which can be filled in with something. I believe I
have fudged the text sufficiently so that almost anything can be fitted in. (CE
3074)
2. The cite checkers tell me that CE 2123 and in particular, attachment 5
thereto, does not have a translation with it. This was translated but before
leaving I was unable to locate the translation. It is not particularly important
for substantive purposes but obviously the translation should be located.
3. CIA oral clearance has been given for the references to Oswald's staying at
the hotels in Helsinki, CE 2676 (portions thereof) which is footnote 479 of
appendix 13. This should be coming through soon.
4. Just before he left Bert Jenner said he cleared with Stu Pollak that we
should check with State Department as to whether they had any information George
de Mohrenschildt's walling trip in Central America in 1960. I asked Dick Frank
for this information. The local State Department files contain nothing. He has
cabled consulates in Central America to look in their files and will report when
he gets their reports.
5. The material which Dean Rusk promised to send over in his testimony has not
yet been formally made an exhibit as was agreed during the course of his
testimony. This material is contained primarily in CD 1462, CD 1462-A, and CD
1462-B, and somewhat in CD 1135. Sally Hennigan has these documents and is
familiar with the material.
6. Mrs. Henningan has tried to catch as many FBI documents as possible that have
security classification and that I have made into exhibits. She has made a
running list.
7. When I leave I will take with me all my personal materials I will of course
take nothing that has anything dealing with Commission business. I think it
would be a good idea to leave all by materials approximately where they are,
throwing nothing away until enough time has elapsed that you are sure I will not
have to be called back for anything. After that, of course, it is up to you what
you do with all my stuff. I imagine it will be thrown away. In my own filing
system I have made no distinction between classified and unclassified material
so the only thing to do with my previous drafts in the black notebooks, for
example, if the Commission wants to keep this sort of material, would be to put
it in a classified file.
W.D.S.
Mr. CORNWELL. The very first paragraph reads:
Additional or substitute authority from FBI. References made to footnote 563,
page 307 of chapter VI, the FBI was simply unable to get to us in time a
comprehensive list of the Hotel del Comercio guests who have been located and
questioned. Consequently in addition to the authority already cited, I have
inserted a phantom CE number which can be filled in with something. I believe I
have fudged the text sufficiently so that almost anything can be fitted in.
What was the phantom CE number?
Mr. SLAWSON. A phantom CE number was a number that had not yet been taken by
anything, so that when the presumed report came in they could give us that
number and then have the FBI report cluded in the final volume, assuming it came
in in time.
This was apparently done by me because I had to leave before it could come in.
Page 197
197
Mr. CORNWELL. There have been public criticisms of the Warren Commission which
concern the general subject matter of the accuracy of footnotes and the
suggestion that the text did not always coincide with the footnotes. Does your
experience, being there at the time this process was being undertaken, indicate
that those criticisms were correct, and if so, to what extent?
Mr. SLAWSON. I took, and I think everyone else did, as much care as we could.
But the time pressure was severe. With the mass of material that we have I am
sure that errors of numbering, and perhaps what footnote A should have had,
footnote B did, and vice versa, occurred. I don't think that the kind of
crosschecking that normally goes into a good professional publication, for
example, ever went into this.
Mr. CORNWELL. What is your impression as to why there were the kinds of changes
in tone in the statements? Why did those occur?
Mr. SLAWSON. I think because Earl Warren was adamant almost that the Commission
would make up its mind on what it thought was the truth and then they would
state it as much without qualification as they could. He wanted to lay at rest
doubts. He made no secret of this on the staff. It was consistent with his
philosophy as a Judge.
The Brown v. Board of Education decision you remember was unanimous. I think he
was at great pains to make sure it was.
At one point in the report it didn't have anything to do with foreign conspiracy
so I only was tangentially involved in it--but the question of whether two shots
out of the probable three that were fired hit Kennedy, the question was whether
or not the first shot came before the first two or between these two or
afterward. A great deal of time was spent on that, getting a unanimous opinion
from all the Commissioners, I remember that one in particular, and all because
Earl Warren felt it was best that they make up their mind as to what they
thought the truth was and then try to settle it.
Mr. CORNWELL. Apart from, I guess what you basically are describing as a
personality trait of Earl Warren and what you have previously told us concerning
his desire not to have the question of the assassination become an issue in the
national election and therefore keying his time schedule to accomplish that, was
there any other motive that you perceived being in existence at the time coming
perhaps from Earl Warren, or even from a higher level which would have caused
the kind of changes in tones that
we are viewing here, particularly with respect to your area of expertise, the
foreign area?
Mr. SLAWSON. No; I think that was it. You characterized it as a personality
trait of Earl Warren. It was. I think it was almost a very consciously adopted
philosophy of his. His idea was that the principal function of the Warren
Commission was to allay doubt, if possible. You know, possible in the sense of
being honest. lie thought that it was. I suppose he did not think that an
official document like this ought to read at all tentatively, it should not be a
source of public speculation if he could possibly avoid it.
On the other hand, he always assumed that we would publish the background
information on which we drew our conclusions so that if anybody wanted to check
our conclusions they could. Of course people have.
Page 198
198
Mr. CORNWELL. If I could ask you to look at exhibit 27. Mr. Chairman, may we
have marked for identification exhibit 27 which is a document reading at the top
"February 1964" and is a memorandum from Mr. Slawson to Mr. Willens styled
"Letter to the Russian Government".
Mr. PREYER. We will mark that for identification.
Mr. CORNWELL. You have previously reviewed that memo overnight is that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Would it be fair to state that that memo concerns the subject
matter of how to seek, and what extent information should be sought, from the
Russian Government?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. May we have that document admitted as part of the record, Mr.
Chairman?
Mr. PREYER. Without objection the exhibit is admitted in the record.
[The above referred to document, JFK exhibit No. 27, was received in the
record.]
JFK EXHIBIT No. 27
[Memorandum]
To: Mr. Howard P. Willens. FEBRUARY 1964.
From: Mr. W. David Slawson.
Subject: Letter to the Russian Government.
BACKGROUND
Lee Oswald spent almost three years in Russia. Almost our sole sources of
information on these years are his own writings and correspondence and Marina's
testimony. We are therefore preparing a letter to be sent to the Russian
Government asking for additional information.
On 21 January 1964 the CIA sent us a draft of such a letter. The State
Department has commented that in its opinion the CIA draft would probably have
serious adverse diplomatic effects. The State Department feels that the CIA
draft carries an inference that we suspect that Oswald might have been an agent
for the Soviet Government and that we are asking the Russian Government to
document our suspicions. The State Department feels that the Russians will not
answer a letter of this kind at least not truthfully, and that it will also do
positive harm in that they will take offense at our sending it to them. The
State Department proposes instead that we send a very short and simple request
for whatever information the Russians may have.
RECOMMENDATIONS
My inclination at the present time is that the State Department's recommended
approach is probably preferable to the CIA's. However, I would modify the State
Department approach slightly by following the general request with a few-very
few--specific questions. These questions would be restricted to areas that were
both important to us and not such as to give material offense to the Russians. I
think that including a few specific questions might even be beneficial in that,
if we were careful in the choice of and drafting of these questions, we might
successfully convey to the Russian Government the impression that at the present
time at least we were inclined to regard Oswald as neurotically and personally
motivated in killing the President rather than being motivated by anything
connected with the Russian Government. In other words, properly chosen and
drafted specific questions might serve to allay suspicion rather than arouse it.
With the foregoing general criteria in mind, I would propose including specific
questions such as the following:
We would like to have:
1. Copies of all documents and records in connection with any hospitalizations
and other medical examinations and treatments of Lee Harvey Oswald and of Mrs.
Marina Oswald during her adult life, including:
Page 199
199
(1) His treatment in October 1959 in Moscow when, according to his own diary, he
Was found unconscious in his hotel room by Intourist Grade Rima Shirokova after
an attempted suicide.
(2) Any examinations or treatments made of Marina Oswald on or about October
1961 when, according to Lee Harvey Oswald's diary, Marina Oswald was treated for
nervous exhaustion.
2. The results of any physical examinations, psychological tests or
psychological examinations made at any time on Lee Harvey Oswald or Marina
Oswald.
3. Copies of all communications to and from Lee Harvey Oswald with any organ or
commission of the Russian Government in relation to his entering Russia and
seeking permission to reside there and in relation to his seeking Russian
citizenship during late 1959 and thereafter.
4. Copies of all correspondence to and from Lee Harvey Oswald with any organ or
commission of the Russian Government in reference to Oswald's efforts to leave
Russia and return to the United States.
5. Copies of all correspondence to and from Marina Oswald in reference to her
attempts to leave Russia and accompany her husband to the United States.
6. Copies of the file on Lee Harvey Oswald kept by the Soviet Consulate in
Mexico City.
7. Copies of any records showing drunkenness, violence, disorderly conduct or
other abnormal behavior on the part of Oswald, whether or not criminal.
You will note that I have not asked in the foregoing questions (except for "No.
6 and No. 7) for co. pies of internal memoranda minutes, etc., as does the CIA
draft.
The following questions might be asked, but I am inclined to think that they are
not important enough to warrant probably offending the Soviet Government by
including them:
1. In the file furnished to the United States Government by the Soviet
Government covering the correspondence between the Russian Embassy in
Washington, D.C., and Lee Harvey Oswald and Marina Oswald. there is a letter
dated July 9, 1952 from N. Reznichenko, Chief of the Consular Section, to Marina
Oswald and a letter dated August 15, 1962 to N. Raznichenko from Marina Oswald.
Both letters refer to a "Form Card No. 118," and the letter dated August 15,
1962 states that the Form Card has been filled out and is enclosed. If possible,
we request that a copy of this Form Card be furnished to us at this time.
2. A description of Oswald's job in the Minsk Radio and Television factory, plus
copies of all employment records, union records and other job-related activities
of Lee Harvey Oswald.
3. A statement as to why Lee Harvey Oswald was not granted Russian citizenship
status by the Russian Government. Or, if Oswald was offered such citizenship and
he refused, copies of all correspondence to and from Oswald on this subject.
The CIA draft includes certain inquiries on Oswald's ownership of weapons the
Soviet Union. The CIA draft does not go on to ask about his membership in the
Minsk gun club, which would seem logically to follow in this context. David
Belin has told me that he no longer regards the issue of Oswald's marksmanship
as of primary importance and that therefore, although he would welcome whatever
additional evidence we might obtain from the Russian Government as to Oswald's
skill with firearms, he does not feel that this is a high-priority item. In my
opinion, the only other reason we might want to ask questions in regard to
Oswald's firearms and/or hunting activities in the Soviet Union is to find out
whether the gun club and these activities were some sort of cover-up for
sabotage or espionage training. Certainly, if such was the case, the Russians
will not admit it nor will they furnish us any evidence from which we can
document such a conclusion on our part. Consequently, because trying to get
information as to a "cover-up" is hopeless and because the marksmanship angle is
not crucial, I recommend that we not question the Russian Government on the
subject of Oswald's firearms and/or hunting activities in Russia.
Mr. CORNWELL. Let, me ask you, in connection with the preparation of this
document, do you recall a roughly contemporaneous meeting between yourself and
Mr. Dulles concerning the subject matter?
Page 200
200
Mr. SLAWSON. No, I don't. That doesn't mean I don't recollect it. That means I
recollect there was not one.
Mr. CORNWELL. The subject matter, I suppose, in the memo concerns a balancing of
your desire, and apparently the CIA's desire, to request specific information
from the Russian Government, with the State Department's apprehension about the
possibility of antagonizing them. Is that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. No. I would state the balance slightly differently. The attempt on
my part and the CIA's, I think, was simply to obtain information in a way that
would be most likely to get true information and complete information. The State
Department, I think, was also concerned with that, but in addition concerned
with not giving great offense to the Russians. As I say on page 1 of the
document, No. 27, "The State Department feels that the Russians will not answer
a letter of this kind at least not truthfully, and it will also do positive harm
in that they will take offense at our sending it to them."
I apparently read the State Department's response as saying, "You people are not
going to help yourselves by this kind of letter as well as do some harm by
creating a minor international incident."
Let me direct your attention to the very last page, page 5. That page seems to
concern a very specific request which the CIA had suggested and that was with
respect to Oswald's ownership of weapons in the Soviet Union.
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. The request was dropped, is that accurate?
Mr. SLAWSON. My only recollection is what I read here but certainly that is what
I seem to be saying in this memo.
Mr. CORNWELL. It was dropped in part because, I gather. David Belin had told you
that he, no longer regarded the issue of Oswald's marksmanship as of prime
importance, is that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. That is correct.
Mr. CORNWELL. This memo was prepared in February 1964?
Mr. SLAWSON. That is correct. I know it was fairly early on and that is what it
says, February 1964. So presumably that is right.
Mr. CORNWELL. You conclude based upon that information from
Mr. Belin that consequently, I recommend that we not question the Russian
Government on the subject of Oswald's firearms and/or hunting activities in
Russia". Is that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. I think so, yes. That seems to come through here.
Mr. CORNWELL. Did David Belin speak to you or Mr. Dulles about the problems in
this area?
Mr. SLAWSON. I don't know. I would guess that probably what happened here is
that Dave Belin did not speak to Dulles directly, but Belin and I probably
spoke, or Belin and Coleman or Joe Ball. who was also working with Dave Belin,
and it was on the basis of those, conversations that this memo was written.
Mr. CORNWELL. I am sorry, I don't have it to show you, but our research reflects
that there was another memo in the files reflecting the fact that you had a
conversation with Mr. Dulles on or about January 31, shortly prior to the
preparation of this memo concerning the subject, matter of the memo. But you
don't recall the conversation?
Mr. SLAWSON. I don't recall the conversation. Presumably of course there was
one.
Page 201
201
Mr. CORNWELL. Did Mr. Belin ever change his view as to the relevance or
necessity of obtaining this type of information?
Mr. SLAWSON. Not to my recollection, no. There is possibly a misunderstanding
between us on this point. My recollection of what I meant when I said Dave Belin
is telling me he no longer regards the issue of Oswald's marksmanship as of
primary importance is not whether Oswald's good or bad marksmanship is not
important but he had apparently found other evidence indicating that Oswald
could have become a sufficiently good marksman by what happened in this country
or what had happened in the Marine Corps before he went to Russia, so that it
was no longer of primary importance whether or not he had gun training in
Russia.
Mr. CORNWELL. In other words, your understanding was that he was willing to
forego any inferences that could be derived from getting Oswald's handling of
guns in Russia?
Mr. SLAWSON. For his purposos, which is Oswald's marksmanship, yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. It is your memory that he never changed that view?
Mr. SLAWSON. I have no memory on it one way or another.
Mr. CORNWELL. Did you ever secure the information about the Minsk Gun Club?
Mr. SLAWSON. I don't remember. We of course did get a reply from Russia with
quite a few documents in it. My recollection now is that they were mostly
medical documents. We had a lot of stuff from the Botkinskaya Hospital and
various communications between Oswald from Minsk and the Russian Government and
the American--no, just the Russian Government in Moscow in connection with his
seeking permission to leave and taking Marina with him and that was about all.
My recollection is that there would have been nothing on this Minsk stuff, the
gun club stuff.
Mr. CORNWELL. In the McGraw-Hill edition on page 180 there is a section styled
"Oswald's Rifle Practice Outside the Marines". One of the sentences under that
reads, "While in Russia Oswald obtained a hunting license, joined a hunting club
and went hunting about six times, times, as discussed more fully in Chapter VI."
On page 182 in the conclusion part of that chapter, there is a sentence that
reads, "Oswald's Marine training in marksmanship, his other rifle experience,
and his established familiarity with this particular weapon show he possessed
ample capability to commit the assassination."
At pages 251 and 252 there are statements that "Oswald's membership in the
hunting club while he was in the Soviet Union has been a matter of special
interest to the Commission." It appears I assume from that that the Commission
did draw inferences from the Minsk Gun Club routine in connection with the
question of Oswald's marksmanship. Would that be correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. No, I don't think so. There was certainly nothing in his being in a
gun club in Russia that would detract from his marksmanship. As I recollect it,
Dave Belin felt that you didn't need to posit any special training by Oswald in
Russia in order to account for the fact that he was probably a good enough
marksman to have hit Kennedy from the position, et cetera.
Page 202
202
Mr. CORNWELL. Do you recall Mr, Liebeler earlier raising the issue near the
publication date that in fact the Minsk Gun Club data in-dicated use of shotguns
and not rifles at all?
Mr. SLAWSON. No, I don't recollect that. Now that you mentioned it that would
seem to me probably, even at the time. I have hunted, myself, a little. I have
always used a shotgun. I never have gone after deer. My recollection of the sort
of hunting that he probably did in Russia was for birds.
Mr. CORNWELL. What inference do you think is appropriate to draw from this chain
of events? The fact that the possible inference from the Minsk Gun Club event
could relate to the issue of marksmanship, the fact that the information was not
sought because of international relations considerations, and the fact that
nevertheless the Warren Commission makes statements on the subject matter and
draws the inference which was initially contemplated?
Mr. SLAWSON. I don't draw the chain of conclusions I think you are there. The
first two parts of what you read me from the McGraw-Hill edition of the report I
think were from the rumor section, weren't they?
Mr. CORNWELL. Let me hand you the McGraw-Hill volume and leg you look at the
same pages. I read from page 180.
Mr. SLAWSON. Right, OK. While in Russia Oswald went hunting six times and
discussed chapter 6.
Mr. CORNWELL. The next page I read from was 182.
Mr. SLAWSON. "OK Oswald's marine training in marksmanship, his other rifle
experience and his established familiarity with this particular weapon show that
he possessed ample capability to commit the assassination."
The first one I read obviously does refer to his hunting in Russia 182 doesn't.
Mr. CORNWELL. And the final one I read from was 251-252.
Mr. SLAWSON. Once he was accepted as a resident alien in the Soviet Union,
Oswald was given considerable, benefits:' excuse me, "Oswald's membership in the
hunting club while he was in the Soviet Union has been a matter of special
interest to the Commission."
I don't know, what can I say? They did at one point, the first, of three things
I read, include his experience, his presumed experience as
a hunter in Russia, as something that would help to explain his being an
adequate marksman to kill the President, yes. I mean I don't think that that is
being inconsistent even if you assume that the Commission at the time they wrote
that had in mind my statements back in this memo which is, of course, a lot to
assume.
This memo to Howard Willens about the letter to the Russian Government was a
procedural matter to which the Commission members had access and probably saw
but I doubt that they saw it when the final time came to write the report.
Mr. CORNWELL. One inference which might be drawn for purposes of discussion from
the chain of events is that tile Warren Commission would, if necessary, have
opted for the alternative of writing up its preconceived or initially conceived
inference, which in this case would be David Belin's conclusions on the
marksmanship issue, rather than take a chance on disrupting delicate foreign
relations.
What I want to ask you is, is that a proper inference, as to something that you
experienced more widely than this one instance or is it example of an abnormal
situation as that time?
Page 203
203
Mr. SLAWSON. Let free try to reconstruct what I assume to be the Commission's
thinking process going, into that.
We had pretty good evidence that Oswald had been a member of a hunting club at
some time in Russia. The best evidence we had was simply Marina's statement he
was. I think we had a statement from other people testifying before the
Commission that when he came back at some point or other he might have mentioned
to them he was in a gun club in Russia.
There wasn't really much doubt about that. Therefore, it seems to me it is
perfectly fair to mention that when someone says, was this man good enough
marksman, among other things you could mention is that he enjoyed hunting, he
was familiar with guns. Even if it was only a shotgun, nevertheless there is
some correlation, I assume, between how good you were with a shotgun and with a
rifle on a moving target.
Now what we presumably would have gotten, what we hope we would get from the
Russians on the gun club or hunting club was more than that. This is why finally
we decided there is no way to get it. What we were most suspicious about or the
worst possibility that might have happened was that this was some kind of
coverup for training of assassins. I think that is why the State Department
thought the Russians would take offense at it. If that is so, you can be certain
the Russians would not have come back with a document of "Yes, here is the
method of training assassins here." So' it would have been an exercise in
futility to ask the Russians to come across with that kind of information.
Mr. CORNWELL. So, the short answer I guess is that you don't draw the inference
that I suggest might be possible because you felt it was an explainable chain of
events based upon what evidence was necessary, is that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes. For marksmanship purposes I think it was perfectly proper and
honest for the Warren report to refer to the Minsk Gun Club. But at the
beginning of the investigation I was interested in it not primarily for that
reason but for the reason that it might have been a coverup for something more
sinister.
Mr. CORNWELL. Are there any other examples where the possibility of wanting to
avoid sensitive areas of international relations, diplomatic relationships,
prevented you from securing the kind of evidence that you would have liked or
that you felt was necessary?
Mr. SLAWSON. There was one other area that may have involved that among other
things. Sylvia Turada de Duran, who was the clerk at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico
City, was taken into custody by the Mexican police very soon after the
assassination and questioned, my recollection is, for about 3 days. All this
happened before the Warren Commission was formed. We got a report from the
Russian police and that report is in this memo, No. 22.
We would have liked to questioned her further. When I say we, members of the
staff, Coleman and myself and Howard Willens thought it would be a good idea
too. But when I talked to the CIA about it and later when we went down to Mexico
City I remember talking to officials. I believe we even talked to the Mexican
officials at the time, one of them being Echevarria who later became President.
He was Minister of Security when we went down there. The upshot of
Page 204
204
all those conversations was that she had suffered a nervous breakdown, possibly
because of the arrest and questioning, and that she was in hiding and only her
husband knew where she was and he would not let her speak to anyone in
connection with this.
Nevertheless, the CIA told me that they might be able to persuade her husband to
permit us to question her, even including possibly flying her back to
Washington. But it would be very difficult---well, Earl Warren decided not to
follow up on that if she was not willing to come willingly. He did not want to
apply pressure on her. Insofar as I understood his reasons for that, they were
partly feeling that we ought not to put pressure on her, the American Government
did not want to involve itself further at that point.
But primarily he just felt he did not want to put severe pressure on an
individual and I think he was ashamed that already interrogation had caused her
to have a nervous breakdown. He did not want to get involved in anything
remotely like torture.
Mr. CORNWELL. I am sorry I don't have a copy of it to show you. We have ordered
it but not yet received it. But it has been reported to us by our research staff
that in the L.B.J. Library in Austin there is a memo prepared by, or reflecting
a conversation between, Mr. Hoover and the White House, Walter Jenkins. The
conversation reflects that Hoover made the following statement: "The thing I am
most concerned about, and Mr. Katzenbach, is having something issued so that
they can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin," the conversation
occurring November 24, 1963, 2 days after the assassination. Furthermore, Mr.
Hoover also stated: "Mr. Katzenbach thinks the President might appoint a
Presidential Commission of three outstanding citizens to make a determination. I
counterted with the suggestion that we make an investigative report to the
Attorney General with pictures, laboratory work, et cetera. And then the
Attorney General can make the report to the President and the President can
decide whether to make it public."
The final sentence in the memo reads, the final statement by Mr. Hoover:"I felt
that, in other words, the investigation by the FBI was better because there are
several aspects which would complicate our foreign relations if we followed the
Presidential Commission route."
First, let me ask you, would this concern, that apparently was discussed between
the head of the FBI and the White House 2 days after the assassination, of
convincing the public that "Oswald is the real assassin" and "avoiding
complicating our foreign relations," would that, was that concept known to you
at the time?
Mr. SLAWSON. No; not other than as it is reflected in memos like this number 27.
Mr. CORNWELL. Would that type of concern at those levels have been consistent
with the obstacles you encountered in attempting to secure various types of
evidence in the foreign conspiracy field?
Mr. SLAWSON. No; I suppose it would not be. There is an obvious conflict. You
are following evidence wherever it leads logically. Occasionally you are going
to ruffle people and that obviously includes foreign heads of state and
diplomats and so on.
Mr. CORNWELL. I am not sure I phrased the question or you understood the way I
meant it, but that concern, would it have been
Page 205
205
consistent with the obstacles you encountered, of Earl Warren's desire not to
have Duran come back, not to go to the Swiss to get information from the Cubans;
the other examples we discussed?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes; that may have played a larger role in the consideration than I
thought at the time.
Mr. CORNWELL. Finally, let me ask you, do you know specifically what was meant
by the words "several aspects," in other words, the concept, "I felt this was
better because there are several aspects [in other words] of potential
investigation which would complicate our foreign relations- Specifically what
areas were they concerned about?
Mr. SLAWSON. That was Hoover speaking, is that right?
I can only guess of course but presumably Hoover had information even at that
early date that Oswald had been down to Mexico and spoken to the Cuban and
Russian Embassies. Of course he knew that Oswald had been a defector to Russia
and would return. I assume therefore that he was thinking of the Cuban and
Russian Governments but probably in particular the Cuban Government. Obviously
Cuba would have known about Oswald's Fair Play for Cuba activities. We have FBI
reports on that. So I would guess we had in mind especially Cuba but also.
Russia. He thought that probably this evidence indicated some possible
involvement with those countries and that it would be bad public relations, bad
international diplomatic relations, to arouse suspicion.
Mr. CORNWELL. To what extent, if any, do you believe it would have been possible
if the CIA, and of course from the memo we can assume the FBI, were aware of
these considerations--to what extent could they have tailored their report to
you to be sure that even though the Presidential Commission was formed, that you
did not "tip whatever boat" it was that they were worried about?
Mr. SLAWSON. Well, if the two agencies worked together on that, their ability
would have been considerable. If they worked separately they still would have
had some ability to do that. I testified this morning we were inescapably
dependent upon the CIA especially for some aspects of the investigation. Looking
back though, remember the CIA was on my side in getting that authenticating
information from Russia. They wanted me to do it. My recollection is that I did
not discuss with them the fact that Earl Warren had told me not to, but the CIA
was also willing to help us persuade Mrs. Duran's husband to get her to come
back. They were on the side, in other words of going ahead in spite of ruffling
international relations.
Mr. CORNWELL. You testified earlier that you and Mr. Rocca had had conversations
concerning CIA's involvement with anti-Castro groups, is that correct?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. I believe you told us that your understanding of his personality
was that he was very much opposed to Castro?
Mr. SLAWSON. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. What inference do you draw or did you draw if you compared those
facts with your considerations of the anti-Castro Cuban motive matter that you
also told us about? In other words, you considered as part of your investigation
that the anti-Castro Cubans would have had a motive for the assassination? You
told us that Mr.
Page 206
206
Rocca admitted the CIA's close connection with the anti-Castro Cubans. You told
us that Mr. Rocca himself had personally the same type of feeling the
anti-Castro Cubans would have.
Mr. SLAWSON. Against Castro, right.
Mr. CORNWELL. Did that cause you to question the rehability of the information
you were receiving from the CIA?
Mr. SLAWSON. No. In a sense everything I tried to take into consideration, so
everything was a cause for questioning. But in terms of coming to a conclusion
in my own mind about the rehability of the information supplied us, no, I
concluded that Rocca's strong anti-Castro feeling did not bias or did not
prevent him from being an honest investigator.
I think he was and I am still convinced that he was. On the other hand of course
it affected his judgement. I think he would probably to this day think that
maybe there is a substantial possibility at least that Castro had something to
do with it.
Mr. CORNWELL. But you did not draw the inference that because of similiarity of
motives that the CIA may have been wittingly or otherwise involved in the type
of activity you hypnotized, the anti-Castro setup of Oswald, and therefore would
be tailoring the information that he was providing to you on those subject
matters?
Mr. SLAWSON. No. I don't think that I entertained very long the possibility that
Rocca or anybody else I had known in the CIA was involved in any way in killing
Kennedy.
Mr. CORNWELL. Perhaps I overphrased the question. I did not mean Rocca, as much
as information coming from CIA on the subject matter which was funneled to you.
Mr. SLAWSON. I guess I am having trouble getting the crux of your question
because the possibility that the anti-Castro Cubans contained people who were
ruthless or desperate enough to kill Kennedy in order to serve their own end I
felt was a very real one. Apparently from all I knew they contained a lot of
desperate ruthless people. I did not have that feeling about the CIA. Now I
tried to keep an open mind so that any place I came upon evidence that would
point toward somebody I would investigate it and that included the CIA as a
possible nest of assassins.
My judgment of their character and so on was far different, I think, from the
judgment I made of the anti-Castro Cuban conspiracy groups in the United States.
Mr. CORNWELL. I have one final question. Do you have any knowledge of the use of
any electronic surveillance after the assassination in order to acquire
information concerning what caused it in the first instance?
Mr. SLAWSON. Wait. Use of electronic surveillance after the assassination in
order to---
Mr. CORNWELL. Secure evidence of the manner in which the assassination may have
been planned and carried out.
Mr. SLAWSON. Here or abroad?
Mr. CORNWELL Here.
Mr. SLAWSON. No.
Mr. CORNWELL. What about abroad? I take it by your answer you do not feel free
to discuss that?
Page 207
207
Mr. SLAWSON. No; I don't. That is one of those areas that I was cautioned very
strongly not to disclose and I have not been released from it.
Mr. CORNWELL. I have no further questions.
Mr. PREYER. Thank you. Are there any questions from the panel? Mr. Devine.
Mr. DEVINE. No questions, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Dodd.
Mr. DODD. No questions, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McKINNEY. I have one brief question. It interests me as to how we got from
what you did and what everyone else did to what you have sitting in front of
you. Who dictated or put it together or typed it or what?
Mr. SLAWSON. It was obviously a group project but the principal authors I think
were Howard Willens, Norman Redlich and Al Goldberg, all of them staff members.
That is my recollection.
Mr. McKINNEY. If I were working with you and you and I were working with Coleman
and we do our affidavit and we sent it off somewhere and you are back in Denver
at that point, you don't even see the final result.
Mr. SLAWSON. That is right.
Mr. McKINNEY. From what I know of the Commission they met sporadically as a full
group. From having tried to wade through what counsel has given us on these
reports and the Warren Commission report itself, what I have taken as a very
objective document historically from my point of view, has suddenly become a
very. subjective document. Someone took Dave Slawson's stuff and rewrote it and
said here it is. Is that a fair judgment on my part?
Mr. SLAWSON. I don't know how to assess how subjective. In matters of tone it
obviously is. I still think an attempt was made to keep it objectively accurate.
Yet, I did cut loose at a certain point and I have done all I can and I just
hope that everything comes out the way it should, and come back to private life.
Mr. McKINNEY. Let me ask you a personal question. You practice law in Colorado
and pick up and read this thing. You spent 16-hour days and were living from a
hotel in Washington, I assume, and working for a greater cause. Did you read
this with a sense of disappointment, satisfaction, questioning, or just what the
hell can you expect?
Mr. SLAWSON. Generally one of satisfaction. First, it may sound odd to say so
but to this day I have never read it from cover to cover.
Mr. McKINNEY. Fine. I don't think anyone really has. Some of our researchers
here I think cut it up in sections.
Mr. SLAWSON. I read parts of it in the beginning. Then I turned parts which were
my own particular expertise to see what happened to them. My recollection is
that my first reaction was a sense of disappointment, I think mostly
egotistical, they were shorter than they should have been. I thought my sections
were more important. I did not see anything inaccurate in them. Mr. Cornwell
pointed out this one thing about the $5,000, for example. That slipped by me
until you pointed it out a few minutes ago. That is a minor inaccuracy but it is
an inaccuracy. I just did not see it at the time. So my answer is generally I
was quite satisfied.
Page 208
208
Mr. McKINNEY. I think it is a general historical opinion among 200 million
Americans that this is something that was very objectively, done by a group of
our most distinguished leaders. That is why I ask the question about what they
had done to your work.
Mr. SLAWSON. This was a somewhat new experience to me too. I had been on a
student law review and seen my work edited by someone else and not come out
exactly the way I put it in but I never had been on thing approaching this with
the number of people involved and the emotional and personal pressures that
everyone felt. At first I was surprised at how little control all of us on the
staff had over what was finally going in. Then I quickly realized this is the
way it had to be, what we would expect, and to my knowledge nothing was
falsified, but the general shape and tone of the document was going to be
something, that others did.
Mr. McKINNEY. One last personal opinion since you have been kind. One of the
reasons that I argued for this committee being established was that I felt that
the Warren Commission was under extremely undue pressure No. 1, one of the most
popular leaders assassinated. Because assassinations are extremely politically
motivated Europe, historically they have been aimed at starting something doing
something. There was good historical information that the Europeans were
concerned we might be becoming a bit of a banana republic, all of those
pressures plus the election and everything else. Do you feel we have a better
chance of getting at the truth now than did under pressure?
Mr. SLAWSON. No. To be truthful, I think the historical moment. has passed. For
good or bad history is not going ,to get much more than we have right there.
Mr. McKINNEY. Thank you very much.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Slawson, we certainly appreciate your being here today and your
very straightforward testimony. We will excuse you at this time. I hope you have
ample time to avoid the rush hour traffic to, Dulles and will make your flight
without any problem. Thank you again.
Mr. SLAWSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am glad to have been of help.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Liebeler. if you are ready to proceed we will swear you at this
time. Do you solemnly swear the testimony you are about to give will he the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?
Mr. LIEBELER. I do.
Mr. PREYER. Thank you. Mr. Liebe]er. I understand that the committee rules have
been given to you and a copy of those are before you.
Mr. LIEBELER. That is correct, yes.
Mr. PREYER. At this time I will make a brief statement concerning the subject of
the investigation.
House resolution 222 mandates the committee "to conduct a full and complete
investigation and study of the circumstances surrounding the assassination and
death of President John F. Kennedy, including determining whether existing laws
of the United States concerning the protection of the President and the
investigatory jurisdiction and capability of agencies and departments are
adequate in
Page 209
209
their provisions and enforcement, and whether there was full disclosure of
evidence and information among agencies and departments of the U.S. Government,
and whether any evidence or information not in the possession of an agency or
department would have been of assistance in investigating the assassination, and
why such information was not provided or collected by that agency or department,
and to make recommendation to the House if the select committee deems
appropriate for amendment of existing legislation or enactment of new
legislation." Mr. Cornwell is recognized to begin the questioning of the witness
at this time.
TESTIMONY OF WESLEY LIEBELER, ASSISTANT COUNSEL, WARREN COMMISSION
Mr. CORNWELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Leibeler, basically what we want to
do is ask you some questions about the manner in which the Warren Commission's
investigation was conducted, the state of mind you and your fellow staff
attorneys may have had in pursuing your work and the nature of any problems
which you encountered in the process.
Before I do that, as a matter of background will you tell the committee what
your professional experience was prior to joining the Warren Commission?
Mr. LIEBELER. I graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1957 and
went immediately thereafter to the New York firm of Kater, Ledger & Milburn
where I worked primarily in corporate litigation until the time I joined the
staff of the Warren Commission.
Mr. CORNWELL. Who first contacted you with respect to employment as staff
counsel for the Warren Commission?
Mr. LIEBELER. You mean from the Commission?
Mr. CORNWELL. Yes, sir.
Mr. LIEBELER. My recollection is that it was either Mr. Rankin or Howard
Willens. I am not sure which I think it was Willens who called me first.
Mr. CORNWELL. Had anyone contacted you prior to that?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Who was that?
Mr. LIEBELER. Kenneth Damm of the University of Chicago law firm.
Mr. CORNWELL. What was the nature of the discussion with him?
Mr. LIEBELER. He told me I might expect a call from either Mr. Willens or Mr.
Rankin and told me that Mr. Willens had called his colleague Mr. Oakes asking
for a recommendation for someone for Commission staff and that Mr. Oakes and Mr.
Damm, both of whom were classmates of mine, decided they should recommend that
Mr. Willens contact me. I did receive a call from Mr. Rankin as they suggested I
might.
Mr. CORNWELL. Will you describe for us in whatever sense you now recall it the
nature of your first conversation with either Mr. Willens or Mr. Rankin, whoever
it was that called you.
Mr. LIEBELER. I was simply asked if I would be interested in working on the
staff of the Warren Commission. I said I would be. Mr. Rankin
Page 210
210
or Mr. Willens asked me if I would come to Washington the next day or the day
after and talk to. them about it, and I agreed to do that and I did that.
Mr. CORNWELL. Upon arriving in Washington, whom did you speak to there?
Mr. LIEBELER. Mr. Willens and Mr. Rankin.
Mr. CORNWELL. What Conversation occurred at that time?
Mr. LIEBELER. After talking with me and meeting me and observing me, Mr. Rankin
asked me if I would be willing to join the Commission staff. I told him I would
think about it and let him know in a few days. I did that, and I agreed
subsequently to join the start.
Mr. CORNWELL. Were you told anything at that time about the purposes of the
investigation?
Mr. LIEBELER. I don't recall.
Mr. CORNWELL. Either through those conversations or through some other public or
other source of information, what was your understanding as to the reason that a
Presidential Commission had been formed as opposed to perhaps some other manner
of dealing with the fact of the assassination?
Mr. LIEBELER. I don't have any recollection of my thoughts on that at that time
except that my general notion was at that time and throughout the time I worked
with the Commission that we were to ascertain the facts surrounding the
assassination to the extent that was: possible and to report on them to the
American people in the form of report of some kind.
Mr. CORNWELL. Do you recall any conversations on that subject matter with any
particular persons in the very early stages of your work?
Mr. LIEBELER. No; not specifically on that subject.
Mr. CORNWELL. Do you recall any staff meetings at which the subject matter of
the Commission's objectives were set forth and provided to you?
Mr. LIEBELER. I do not. I am under the impression there had been a staff meeting
when that question was discussed but that occurred, as I recall, prior to the
time I came to Washington.
Mr. CORNWELL. When approximately did you begin work?
Mr. LIEBELER. Some time near the end of January 1964.
Mr. CORNWELL. Had you prior to going to work for the Warren Commission had any
experience with any of the Federal agencies: investigative agencies, FBI, CIA?
Mr. LIEBELER. I was interviewed by a CIA agent once when I was much younger.
Mr. CORNWELL. Did you form any impressions about them?
Mr. LIEBELER. I was impressed with them.
Mr. CORNWELL. Apart from that?
Mr. LIEBELER. No; no contact.
Mr. CORNWELL. When you first went with the Warren Commission to begin work, what
was the nature of the assignment that was given to you as far as subject matter?
Mr. LIEBELER. I was assigned to work in the area of possible motivation that Lee
Oswald might have had for having been involved in the assassination, and there
was an outline of the work assignment that existed at the time that I came to
work which I recall discussing with Mr. Willens at the time I received that
assignment.
Page 211
211
Mr. CORNWELL. To what extent if any did your assignment involve questions of
conspiracy or possible conspiracy?
Mr. LIEBELER. Well, it did involve both that question and the question of
possible psychological condition of Oswald. My basic responsibility and that of
Mr. Jenner, who was working also in this area, was to derermine to the extent we
could anyone with whom Oswald had contact in any way in the United States prior
to the time of the assassination. That did involve, of course, the question of
whether or not he, had been involved with anyone in a possible conspiracy to
assassinate the President.
The question of conspiracy which involved persons out of the country was outside
of our area.
Mr. CORNWELL. Was there anyone else besides you and Mr. Jenner who were assigned
responsibility with respect to investigating possible involvement of persons in
a conspiracy within the United States?
Mr. LIEBELER. I think that the whole Ruby issue would be involved in that also.
Mr. Griffin and Mr. Hubert were assigned to that area, the Ruby area. Of course,
the question came up during their work as to whether there had been any prior
contact between Oswald and Ruby or contact with either of them, between them
either directly or indirectly. Mr. Slawson was also involved to some extent in
this question of domestic conspiracy because the domestic contacts and at least
the Cuban and possible Mexican contacts ran into each other in the sense that we
were trying to run down the possible contacts that had been alleged between
Oswald and the Cuban groups, both in New Orleans and in Dallas, and that related
at some point in time to Oswald's trip to Mexico which Mr. Slawson was primarily
responsible for because Slawson was involved to some extent but not primarily.
Other than that, I don't recall anybody was specifically assigned to that
question.
Mr. CORNWELL. What contribution did Mr. Jenner make with respect to the
investigation of Oswald's background and His conspiratorial relationships?
Mr. LIEBELER. The record will show that Mr. Jenner conducted testimony before
the Commission, itself. He took a large number of depositions in Dallas and New
Orleans. And subsequently my recollection is that he worked on a draft of some
material that related to the Oswald involvement with the so-called Russian
community in Dallas. My impression was that he worked primarily on this in the
drafting process.
Mr. CORNWELL. When did you leave the Warren Commission?
Mr. LIEBELER. After the work was finished, some time I believe in October 1964.
Mr. CORNWELL. When did Mr. Jenner leave?
Mr. LIEBELER. He stayed until the end also I believe, close to the end.
Mr. CORNWELL. Did you consider your assignment there a full-time job?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes. sir.
Mr. CORNWELL. How many hours a week did you work?
Mr. LIEBELER. The pay records will show what I charged the Government for. Mr.
Rankin sometimes didn't believe there were that,
Page 212
212
many hours worked. There were in fact many more. It was a 7-day-a-week job for
large periods of time.
Mr. CORNWELL. Was that also true with respect to Jenner.
Mr. LIEBELER. In the latter part of the work of the Commission Mr. Jenner put in
a lot of hours working on Commission matters. During the early stage of the
investigation his participation was somewhat less.
Mr. CORNWELL. During what period of time was it somewhat less?
Mr. LIEBELER. My recollection is that when I started to work the first thing I
had to do was read a very large number of basically FBI reports and trying to
organize the material within my general area in such a way that I could decide
what additional evidence had to be developed and whose depositions had to be
taken. It was difficult for Mr. Jenner and I to work out a general relationship
on that, question at the time. Since I was a so-called junior staff member at
that time, Mr. Jenner was not, I was quite unsure when I started as to how to
handle the problem. I finally just decided to do my own thing and basically went
ahead and did most of that original work, myself. Mr. Jenner and I never
actually worked very closely together. He worked on projects and I worked on
projects.
Mr. CORNWELL. I don't think you actually ever answered the last question which
was when was it that the changeover occurred between Mr. Jenner's part-time
activity and his full-time.
Mr. LIEBELER. My recollection is that during the early part of the Commission's
work that Mr. Jenner was concerned, I believe he was interested in becoming
president of the American Bar Association and believe he spent some time on that
issue. I suppose that the record will show when the Bar Association convention
was held which is usually in the summer sometime. His interest rose sharply
after the convention and he participated to a greater extent in the work of the
Commission.
Mr. DODD. I presume he was not elected then?
Mr. LIEBELER. No.
Mr. CORNWELL. Mr. Chairman, may we mark for identification a memorandum dated
August 27, 1964 from Mr. Liebeler to Mr. Willens and Mr. Redlich as exhibit 31?
Mr. PREYER. Exhibit 31 will be marked for identification.
Mr. CORNWELL. I show you that exhibit and ask you if you have had a chance to
review that prior to coming here?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes. I have. .
Mr. CORNWELL. Would it be fair to state that memorandum deals generally with the
subject matter of the adequacy of the work in the field of conspiracy as of
August 27, 1964?
Mr. LIEBELER. This memo was written following a particular conference between
Mr. Willens and Mr. Redlich and myself in which some very specific questions
were discussed. It talks in general terms about the conspiracy question. It was
motivated or it was a function of really a couple of particular issues that had
arisen at that time.
Mr. CORNWELL. Conspiracy and what else?
Mr. LIEBELER. Well, they were parts of the conspiracy question in the sense that
they involved the way the FBI and the staff had handled the fact of at that time
a large number of unidentified palm prints
Page 213
213
and fingerprints on the cartons found in the School Book Depository.
Mr. CORNWELL. With that statement, Mr. Chairman, may we admit exhibit 31 in
evidence and may I ask specific questions?
Mr. PREYER. Without objection, exhibit 31 is admitted into the record.
[The. document referred to, marked JFK exhibit No. 31 and received for the
record, follows:]
JFK EXHIBIT No. 31
[Memorandum ]
AUGUST 27, 1964.
To: Howard P. Willens. Norman Redlich.
From: Wesley J. Liebeler.
Subject: Conspiracy.
It has not been my practice to write memoranda for the record. I am constrained,
however, by remarks made to me by both of you within the last two days
concerning my responsibilities in respect of the investigation of a possible
conspiracy, to state the following:
1. Both of you have recently made statements. in response to my criticism of the
present state of affairs concerning conspiracy which indicate your belief that I
am somehow responsible for same.
2. Those remarks are apparently based on the proposition that the question of a
domestic conspiracy at least (ex-Ruby) was to be handled by those responsible
for the so-called area III outlined in the "Tentative Outline of the Work of the
president's Commission." While that has also been my general understanding for
some time, examination of that outline indicates that the responsibility for the
question of conspiracy is fragmented into several areas.
3. As I advised you both this morning, however, I personally cannot be held
responsible for the present condition of the work on conspiracy Both of you, Mr.
Jenner and I conferred in my office sometime late in June at which time it was
agreed by all of us I would assume responsibility for the section on personal
motive (Chapter 7) and that Mr. Jenner would devote himself to certain questions
relating to the possible existence of a domestic conspiracy. I understand he has
been working on that since our conference.
4. By the middle of July it was thought that Chapter 7 was in such condition
that I could work on other things. I was sent to New Orleans and Dallas to take
depositions which, together with preparation and editing, took more than two
weeks of my time. Since then I have been revising Chapter 7 and working on
footnotes for it. I also wrote the section in Chapter 4 relating to the Irving
Sports story and footnoted it.
5. I am more than willing. if able, to accept my full share of responsibility
for the work of this staff. I cannot, however, leave myself in the position
implied by the above-described oral statements made by both of you which I hope
you both will admit, upon reflection, are false and unfair.
6. You have asked me what I think should be done at the present time in
reference to our work on conspiracy. I gave you some of those suggestions orally
this morning. After conference with Mr. Griffin. Mr. Slawson and I spoke with
Mr. Rankin about that subject this afternoon. Mr. Rankin has asked me to set up
a conference with representatives of the FBI to discuss the fingerprints on the
cartons and the palmprint problems. I will cover both subjects in memoranda to
Mr. Rankin tomorrow. My comments on Marina Oswald will follow.
WESLEY J. LIEBELER.
Mr. CORNWELL. Paragraph 1 of the memo states that, "Both of you have recently
made statements, in response to my criticism of the present state of affairs
concerning conspiracy which indicate your belief that I am somehow responsible
for same ;" In paragraph 3, "As I advised you both this morning, however, I
personally cannot be held responsible for the present condition of the work on
conspiracy."
What was the problem with the state of the work and the present condition of the
work on conspiracy? What it was as of August 27, 1964?
Page 214
214
Mr. LIEBELER. My recollection of that is that no one, no one person, had taken
the responsibility of drafting a chapter of the report or a portion of the
report dealing with that question separately from the ways in which it was more
tangentially treated in the other work in the report. Part of the reason for
that was that I had spent a fair amount of time, as this memo indicates,
drafting what eventually became chapter 7 of the report which; while it looked
at the question of the contacts that Oswald had had in the United States and his
part in the assassination, it was really more of a psychological profile of
Oswald rather than the kind of work it became clear that we did have to do which
became chapter 6 of the report and which as I recall at that time was lagging
behind the other work.
It was not in the same condition of development as the other work was. Chapter 7
was done and it had been done for some time. What eventually became chapter 6
was not that far along. I don't recall what condition it was in but I know it
was not as far advanced as the other work of the staff. May I add that that
question, if it becomes really pertinent, could be dealt with to some extent by
looking through the files and finding the draft and noting the development. of
what became chapter 6.
Mr. CORNWELL. In a couple of places in the memo you phrase your criticism of the
present state of affairs in terms of the work on conspiracy, both in paragraph 3
and again in paragraph 6. Does that reference refer only to the work in drafting
the conspiracy chapter, or in fact were you dissatisfied on that. date with the
general work in unscrambling the facts and determining whether there had been a
conspiracy?
Mr. LIEBELER. I think the basic thrust of the memo was addressed to the problem
of pulling the material together in a draft more suitable for inclusion in the
report. There were, however, at that time still some open questions that had not
been satisfactorily dealt with in my mind. There was some question at that point
in time as to whether or not we were going to be able to get additional
investigations conducted that would satisfy myself as to the problems that
existed in my mind at that time. As I say, that, question was the question that
was discussed at this meeting and that is what led to this, if I may
characterize it, somewhat intemperate memo.
Mr. CORNWELL. Can you now recall any of the specifics of the types of
investigative work found lacking as of August 27?
Mr. LIEBELER. The two specific questions that were discussed in the meeting with
Mr. Willens and Mr. Redlich I believe, if I have the sequence straight in my
mind, were the questions I referred to before, about the existence of
unidentified fingerprints and palm prints on the boxes in the window in the
School Book Depository and the question of the treatment of the palm print that
had allegedly been lifted from the underside of the rifle barrel and identified
as Oswald's. I have no independent recollection of the sequence of events but I
know that it was about that time that this meeting occurred. By looking at some
of the other memoranda I can refresh my recollection that it was almost exactly
at that time, I believe it was that meeting I referred to in my memo of August
27.
During the course of the conversation I had argued to Mr. Redlich that the
record could not be left in the condition it was in. There
Page 215
215
had been no serious attempt to identify these other prints, as to the prints on
the carton, and there was a serious question as to the chain of evidence as
regards the palm print on the rifle barrel which I thought should be resolved.
Mr. Redlich did not want to conduct any investigation into those matters. That
led to a vigorous exchange between us. Mr. Rankin was later informed of that
exchange and he, after discussing the matter with me, agreed to bring the FBI
people back and discuss with them the continuance of the investigation, and it
was done.
Mr. CORNWELL. May we mark for identification, Mr. Chairman, memorandum dated
September 4 from Mr. Liebeler to Mr. Rankin
Mr. PREYER. That may be marked for identification.
Mr. CORNWELL. Mr. Liebeler, have you had a chance to review that document prior
to coming here today?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, I have.
Mr. CORNWELL. Would it be fair to state that that document relates generally to
the subject matter of an attached first draft of a proposed conspiracy chapter
and also certain recommendations concerning Marina Oswald?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes. It appears that I attached to this memo a first draft of a
proposed section for the conspiracy chapter dealing with certain specific
questions.
Mr. CORNWELL. May we at this time admit that document in evidence, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PREYER. Without objection it is admitted into evidence.
[The document referred to, marked JFK exhibit. No. 32 and received for the
record, follows:]
JFK EXHIBIT No. 32
[ Memorandum ]
SEPTEMBER 4, 1964.
To: Mr. Rankin.
From: Mr. Liebeler.
I attach a first draft of a proposed section for the Conspiracy Chapter dealing
with the testimony of Sylvia Odio, Evaristo Rodriguez. Dean Andrews and with the
fact that one of the persons who helped Oswald distribute FPCC literature in New
Orleans on August 16, 1963 has never been identified. Perhaps this draft can
serve as a guide in questioning Marina Oswald, which I understand that you and
Senators Cooper and Russell plan to do this coming weekend. While I have
recommended that Marina Oswald be deposed at length concerning certain conflicts
which have appeared in her testimony and other matters of interest to various
members of the staff, in the absence of such an examination I recommend that
Marina Oswald be questioned about the following:
1. All the circumstances surrounding her departure from New Orleans on September
23, 1963 with Mrs. Ruth Paine. As I have previously advised you, I spoke with
Marina Oswald on the telephone on August 26, 1963 concerning, in part, that
subject. Marina Oswald told me then that her husband had told her that he
planned to leave New Orleans on the day immediately following the departure of
Marina and Mrs. Paine. Oswald also told her, Marina said, that she should expect
to receive an unemployment compensation check at Mrs. Paine's address. He said
that cheek would be sent from Texas to his post office box in New Orleans and
forwarded from there to Mrs. Paine's address. That would indicate that Oswald
did not intend to remain in New Orleans until he received the cheek himself. It
would also indicate that he had sufficient funds to go to Mexico City without
waiting for the cheek.
All of this, of course, relates to Oswald's activities between September 23.
1963 and the time he crossed the border into Mexico sometime in the afternoon of
September 26, 1963. I have previously discussed with you the apparent pattern of
his movements in New Orleans which is indicated by the fact that he apparently
traveled a total of approximately six miles through the city of New Orleans to
Page 216
216
cash his unemployment compensation check when he could have done so by traveling
only ten blocks. The details of that situation are set forth in the attached
draft. Marina Oswald should be questioned about all aspects of that situation.
2. In connection with the above Marina Oswald should be asked questions,
designed to elicit any information or suspicions that she might have concerning
the possibility that Oswald was in Dallas in late September, 1963 after he left
New Orleans and before he went to Mexico. This subject, of course, involves the
possibility that he may have made the acquaintance of some Mexicans or Cubans in
New Orleans prior to the time Marina Oswald left that city. In that connection
it should be noted that Sylvia Odio testified that the men that came to her
apartment said they had just come from New Orleans and that they were on a trip.
3. Odio's testimony relates to some extent to that of Evaristo Rodriguez in that
both persons described the unidentified person accompanying the person thought
to be Oswald as having a bald spot on the forepart of his hairline. Rodriguez
testified that Oswald [was] in the Habana Bar in New Orleans sometime during
August 1963, near the time Oswald was involved with his fracas with Bringuier,
i.e., August 9, 1963. Marina Oswald should be questioned closely as to how her
husband used his time during that period. For example, he was kept in jail for
the night of August 9-10, 1963. Was Marina surprised when he did not come home
or did she know where he was? Did he stay out late on other occasions? Did she
see any indications that he was associating with other people? Did she see any
evidence that he was drinking at all during this period?
I think Marina Oswald should be told upon her deposition that we have evidence
that Oswald was associating with Cubans and Mexican type individuals and that
she should be pressed vigorously on these points.
4. Marina Oswald should be questioned concerning the unidentified individual who
helped Oswald distribute FPCC literature on August 16, 1963. Oswald may have
told her, for example, that he had paid one or more individuals to help him.
distribute that literature. Marina may also have seen pictures of these other
people helping him.
5. In connection with the testimony given by Dean Andrews. Marina should be
questioned closely as to whether or not Oswald even consulted an attorney in New
Orleans. She should be questioned what he told her about what he was doing to
obtain a reconsideration of his undesirable discharge. She should be questioned
what, if any, conversations they had about her becoming an American citizen. She
should also be asked whether Oswald ever expressed any concerns over his own
citizenship status. You might even ask her if she has ever heard of Clay
Bertrand.
6. In short, I would like to have you question Marina Oswald, in detail,
concerning any knowledge that she might have of any Cuban or Mexican contacts.
that Oswald may have had in the United States prior to the time he left for
Mexico City. In that connection Marina should be asked what she knows about
Oswald's apparent attempt to infiltrate Bringuier's organization in New Orleans.
She has already testified that a Cuban came to their apartment in August of 1963
seeking information about Oswald's FPCC activities. My recollection is that
Oswald was suspicious of that person and thought him to be either an anti-Castro
individual or a representative of some intelligence agency. Oswald may have told
Marina about his contacts with Bringuier in connection with the visit of the
above mentioned Cuban.
She should also be questioned about any contacts of that sort that Oswald may
have had after his return from Mexico City as well as any conversations she
might have had with Oswald concerning a possible renewal of his FPCC activities.
In connection with the possibility that Marina may be familiar with the person
who helped Oswald distribute FPCC literature on August 1963. I attach Pizzo
Exhibits 453A and 453B. The unidentified individual is marked with an inked
arrow in Pizzo Exhibit 453A. He is located in the center of the picture and
appears to have some leaflets in his hand. That individual is marked with an
inked numeral 3 in Pizzo Exhibit 453B in which he appears in the far left hand
corner of the picture. These photographs should be shown to Marina Oswald to see
if she can identify any of the individuals depicted therein.
Mr. CORNWELL. Does the first sentence of that memo which reads:
I attach a first draft of a proposed section for the conspiracy chapter dealing
with the testimony of Sylvia Odio, Evaristo Rodriguez, Dean Andrews and
Page 217
217
with the fact that one of the persons who helped Oswald distribute FPCC
literature in New Orleans on August 16, 1963 has never been identified.
Does that indicate that it was your draft of the chapter which was attached?
Mr. LIEBELER.. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. That means that you ended up writing the conspiracy chapter which
was at issue m the earlier memo now exhibit 31, that correct?
Mr. LIEBELER. No; it means that I prepared the first draft dealing with the
questions that I described in that first sentence.
Mr. CORNWELL. The conspiracy work then that was at issue in exhibit 31 was
broader than that or different than that?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes; it was a broader issue than that but it included the problems
that I discussed in the first sentence of exhibit 32. The discussion related to
the question of drafting the entire chapter. I refer to the fact that on
September 4 I produced a draft of part of the section, it was agreed that I
should go ahead and draft some of that chapter, which I did.
Mr. CORNWELL. Why was it at this relatively late date--the report was finally
published on September 28, is that correct?
Mr. LIEBELER. I don't remember.
Mr. CORNWELL. At any rate, Why was it at this late date you were ultimately
given the assignment to write the chapter when it was not an issue in your field
of responsibility.
Mr. LIEBELER. I think there are two reasons for that. One, I had finished the
chapter that became chapter 7 and that I was the person in the best position to
draft this section of the conspiracy report because I had taken the testimony of
the people who were involved in these questions listed in the first sentence of
exhibit. 30 and, of course, before taking that testimony had prepared myself to
do so and was more familiar with that area. than probably anyone else on the
staff.
Mr. CORNWELL. By this time at least, however, Mr. Jenner was free from his
campaign and was able to work on drafting the conspiracy chapter too, is that
correct?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes; that is true.
Mr. CORNWELL. May we mark for identification, Mr. Chairman, one page out of a
book marked "Inquest," as exhibit 33.
I show you what has been marked as exhibit 33, being a photocopy of one page of
the book "Inquest." That publication purports to quote you in connection with
the work of the Warren Commission. I might state that that particular segment of
the book relates to the Commission members work as opposed to staff work. It
states, "Wesley Liebeler, when asked what the Commission did re lied in one word
'nothing.'" Let me ask you two questions.
Does the book quote you accurately and if so what was the meaning of the
statement?
Mr. LIEBELER. I have no recollection making the statement to Mr. Epstein but I
don't deny that I made it.
Mr. CORNWELL. What was the nature of the Warren Commission's work as you
perceived it and viewed it during your tenure as staff counsel?
Mr. LIEBELER. I think Mr. Willen's characterization on this same page is a more
accurate characterization. What I had intended to
Page 218
218
convey to Mr. Epstein was the idea that in terms of developing the
investigation, the direction in particular of the investigation, and in drafting
the report, the Commissioners themselves were not directly involved, and they
were not.
Mr. CORNWELL. So, your general view then would be that similar to what is
reported in the document Mr. Willens said and that is that the Commissioners
were not in touch with the investigation all times?
Mr. LIEBELER. As further explained in my previous testimony, yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Mr. Chairman, with respect to that last exhibit. I think the
testimony perhaps speaks better than the exhibit, so I will not offer it,
myself, into evidence.
I would ask that we mark exhibit 34 for identification, which is an August 28,
1964 memorandum from Mr. Liebeler to Mr. Rankin.
Mr. PREYER. It may be so marked.
Mr. CORNWELL. Have you had a chance to review exhibit 34 prior to coming here,
Mr. Liebeler?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, sir.
Mr. CORNWELL. Is it accurate to state that that is a memorandum written in
connection with issues which were pending in August of 1964 concerning the palm
print about which you have previously testified?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. May we admit exhibit 34 in the record, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. PREYER. Without objection, exhibit 34 is entered into the record.
[The document referred to, marked JFK exhibit No. 34 and received for the
record, follows:]
JFK EXHIBIT No. 34
[Memorandum]
AUGUST 28, 1964.
To: J. Lee Rankin.
From: Wesley J. Liebeler.
Messrs. Griffin and Slawson and I raise questions covering the palmprint which
Lt. Day of the Dallas Police Department testified he lifted from the underside
of the barrel of the K-1 rifle on November 22, 1963. That story is set forth on
pages 7-10 of the proposed final draft of Chapter IV of the Report, copies of
which are attached.
We suggest that additional investigation be conducted to determine with greater
certainty that the palmprint was actually lifted from the rifle as Lt. Day has
testified. The only evidence we presently have on that print is the testimony of
Lt. Day himself. He has stated that although he lifted the palmprint on November
22, 1963, he did not provide a copy of the lift to the FBI until November 26,
1963 (9 R 260-61). He also testified that after the lift he "could still see
traces of the print under the barrel and was going to try to use photography to
bring off or bring out a better print." Mr. Latona of the FBI testified with
respect to the lift of the palmprint, that "evidently the lifting had been so
complete that there was nothing left to show any marking on the gun itself as to
the existence of such--even an attempt on the part of anyone else to process the
rifle" (Id. at 24).
Additional problems are raised by the fact that:
(1) Mr. Latona testified that the poor finish of the K-1 rifle made it absorbent
and not conducive to getting a good print;
(2) None of the other prints on the rifle could be identified because they were
of such poor quality;
(3) The other prints on the rifle were protected by cellophane while the area
where the palmprint had been lifted was not, even through Lt. Day testified that
after the lift the "[palm] print on gun was their best bet, still remained on
there," when he was asked why he had not released the lift to the FBI on
November 22, 1963.
Page 219
219
We should review the above circumstances at our conference with Agent Latona and
Inspector Malley. The configuration of the palmprint should be reviewed to
determine, if possible, whether or not it was removed from a cylindrical
surface. The possibility that the palmprint or evidence of the lift was
destroyed while the rifle was in transit should be reviewed with them. The exact
condition of the rifle at the time it was turned over to the FBI Dallas office
should be ascertained. Agent Latona should be asked if he can think of any
explanation for the apparent conflict in the above testimony.
We should also:
(1) Determine whether or not Lt, Day had assistance when he worked with the
prints on the rifle. If he did, we should obtain statements from those who
assisted him.
(2) Lt. Day should be asked why he preserved the fingerprints on the rifle,
which were sufficiently Clear to make positive identification, and yet did not
preserve the palmprint, which was clear enough for that purpose.
(3) Lt. Day should also be asked why he removed only the palmprint and should be
requestioned covering his recollection that he saw the palmprint still on the
rifle after he made the lift.
(4) Lt. Day should be asked if he took any photographs of the palmprint on the
rifle after the lift. He may have done so, since he did photograph the less
valuable fingerprints, and the palmprint on the rifle, according to his
testimony, was still the best bet for identification. It is also significant
that Lt. Day stated that he was going to attempt to get a better print through
use of photography.
Mr. CORNWELL. This was a memorandum. is it correct, Mr. Liebeler, that you wrote
in connection with the consideration by staff particularly Mr. Rankin, of
whether additional investigation should be conducted on the palm print about
which you previously provided some information?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, sir.
Mr. CORNWELL. Why was a memo like this written? What was the purpose of it?
Mr. LIEBELER. The purpose was to outline the kind of investigation that Mr.
Griffin and Mr. Slawson and I thought should be conducted into this question.
Mr. Rankin requested us to indicate to him, since we had pressed for an
additional investigation, the kind of investigation that we thought should be
conducted.
Mr. CORNWELL. So this. was in response to a specific request from Mr. Rankin for
this memo?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes. Mr. Rankin requested this memo but he requested the memo only
after Mr. Griffin and Mr. Slawson and I had raised this question about the
condition of the record as regards the palm print.
Mr. CORNWELL. That had become a rather heated subject matter, is that correct,
at that point ?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, it certainly had.
Mr. CORNWELL. Were there generally problems of this nature encountered by the
staff concerning matters which they felt required investigation and Mr. Rankin
and Mr. Redlich did not?
Mr. LIEBELER. No.
Mr. CORNWELL. This is a very unusual event in your experience, is that correct?
Mr. LIEBELER. My recollection is that it was only these two items that this
question ever came to a head on.
Mr. CORNWELL. The rest of the time such matters would be handled orally, is that
correct?
Mr. LIEBELER. For the most part it wasn't a question. For the most part the
individual staff members were free to take the deposition of
Page 220
220
anyone they wanted to take, subject to Mr. Rankin's approval, which was never
withheld and there was never any question raised about it or to ask the FBI or
other agencies to conduct additional investigation and that would be done by
drafting a letter for Mr. Rankin's signature and forwarding it to Mr. Willens
who would then presumably advise Mr. Rankin on the question.
I do not recall any case in which any previous recommendations that I had made
in the form of requests to the FBI or other agencies were ever questioned or
resisted and in fact since both in this case and in the palm print case I did
eventually prevail on this issue I am able to state there is not a single case
that any of my recommendations as to investigation were denied, that I can
recall.
Mr. CORNWELL. Was that, to your understanding and within your ability to observe
the workings of the Warren Commission, true with respect to other staff counsel?
Mr. LIEBELER. As a general proposition, yes. The only issue in which the
question came up in another context, as I recall it, was when Griffin and Hubert
were trying to establish how Ruby got in the basement of the police station, and
there was also another issue involved with Griffin in which I believe he was
advised to move on to other questions, only because, as I understand it, of the
fact that there were other questions that had to be dealt with and it did not
seem likely that these issues could be clearly resolved.
Mr. CORNWELL. In other words, your testimony as I understand it is basically
that there was no atmosphere of restriction upon the investigation as the people
who were actually doing the work saw it, in other words, people at your level
were across the board given relatively free rein to follow the investigation
where it led them in an attempt to secure the necessary evidence?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, sir.
Mr. CORNWELL. May we mark for identification, Mr. Chairman, memorandum dated
September 2, 1964, from Mr. Liebeler to Mr. Willens as exhibit 35.
Mr. DODD. Mr. Chairman, may I interrupt at this point? Are we getting copies of
these or should we have them?
Mr. CORNWELL. You should have copies of all of these.
Have you had a chance to review that memorandum prior to coming here?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, sir.
Mr. CORNWELL. Would it be fair to state that the subject matter of that
memorandum is the discovery of property remaining in the possession of Marina
Oswald as of August 26, 1964?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, sir.
Mr. CORNWELL. May we admit that. exhibit as part of the record, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. PREYER. Without objection, the exhibit is admitted into the record.
[The document. referred to, marked JFK exhibit No. 35 and received for the
record, follows:]
Page 221
221
JFK EXHIBIT No. 35
[Memorandum]
SEPTEMBER 2, 1964.
To: Mr. Willens.
From: Mr. Liebeler.
Re: Relevant property remaining in possession of Marina Oswald as of August 26,
1964.
I forward a proposed letter to the FBI along lines which I suggested in a
conference with you and Mr. Redlich on August 27, 1964 and generally in accord
with conversations between Inspector MaHey, Mr. Rankin, Mr. Griffin and myself
held on August 28, 1964.
I have previously expressed my opinion that it reflects adversely in the
thoroughness of this investigation that Marina Oswald still had in her
possession on August 26, 1964, material pertinent to our work, the existence of
which material was not known to the FBI, this Commission, or any other
investigative agency.
As indicated in the report of Special Agent Heitman dated August 27, 1964, at
Dallas, Tex., Marina Oswald discovered the materials mentioned in that report on
or about August 17 or 18, 1964. They had been in a small brown suitcase that had
been in her possession at Ruth Paine's residence. Marina Oswald told Agent
Heitman that she remembered that she had the materials in question when I asked
her in a telephone conversation on August 26, 1964, about Oswald's plans
following her departure for Irving, Tex., with Ruth Paine on September 23, 1963.
The proposed letter seems indicated under the circumstances.
Mr. CORNWELL. The first sentence in the second paragraph reads:
I have previously expressed my opinion that it reflects adversely in the
thoroughness of this investigation that Marina Oswald still had in her
possession on August 26, 1964, material pertinent to our work, the existence of
which material was not known to the FBI, this Commission, or any other
investigative agency.
What type of material was that, or was at issue there?
Mr. LIEBELER. My recollection is that there was a map of Mexico City on which
had been made marks and notations of various kinds, a stub of a bus ticket
covering transportation, I believe from Mexico City to Dallas, Tex., and a
television guide in Spanish relating to the broadcast of television stations in
Mexico City during the period of time, as I recall, that Oswald was in Mexico
City.
Mr. CORNWELL. Would it be fair to state that this material then would have had
an obvious relevance to many of the issues that the Warren Commission was in the
process of considering?
Mr. LIEBELER. I think so.
Mr. CORNWELL. It was not obtained by you, the FBI apparently or the Warren
Commission until approximately 30 days prior to the date the Warren Commission's
report became public?
Mr. LIEBELER. That is correct.
Mr. CORNWELL. Was this in your view, based on your knowledge of what transpired
at the time and your ability to reflect back on those events, typical or
atypical of the FBI's investigation of this matter? I am talking about the
assassination.
Mr. LIEBELER. I don't think it was typical of the FBI's work as a general
proposition. It certainly was not typical of the work that the FBI did in
response to the request that we made that they conduct their own investigation.
I have no direct knowledge of the quality of the Bureau's work prior to the time
that the Commission began to operate although that is reflected to a
considerable extent of course in the reports that we did receive from the
Bureau.
Page 222
222
Obviously those reports cannot reflect sins of omission on the part of the
Bureau.
Mr. CORNWELL. What explanation did you receive in connection with this
discovery?
Mr. LIEBELER. From the FBI?
Mr. CORNWELL. Yes, sir.
Mr. LIEBELER. I did not ask the FBI for an explanation and they never offered me
one.
Mr. CORNWELL. The reason I ask the question is I suppose there might be some
chance that the evidence had been fabricated and did not even exist in November
1963. Is that corret? Did you even ask to see if they had checked this location
earlier and found nothing?
Mr. LIEBELER. I don't recall making that request. I have a problem here to some
extent because this memorandum says that I am forward ing a proposed letter to
the FBI and I don't have that letter in front of me and I don't know what I
said, I have no recollection of what it said. My recollection of my position at
this time was that, I believe I had the feeling at that time that this whole
question of the property inventory, if any, and the question of the way the
Bureau handle the obtaining and forwarding of this property to the Commission
should be looked at but it is not a strong recollection and I would like to see
the letter if we have it.
Mr. CORNWELL. I apologize for the fact that we don't have it here today.
Mr. LIEBELER. If I may say, if this information or piece of paper had been in
the possession of the Commission or the FBI prior to the time that they were
obtained, it would have made the investigation into Oswald's trip to Mexico a
great deal easier. But I don't believe there was anything in this information
which was inconsistent with the conclusions that had been reached on that issue
independent of the papers.
Mr. CORNWELL. I did not mean to suggest necessarily that the FBI had fabricated
the evidence. I meant to ask you whether or not the possibility had occurred to
you that Marina Oswald had fabricated the evidence and decided to give it to
the, FBI at this late date?
Mr. LIEBELER. My recollection is that these papers had notes on them that were
written in Lee Harvey Oswald's handwriting. I am not certain of that but I think
that is the case and that would handle that question.
Mr. CORNWELL. Was there, in your view, enough time to adequately complete the
investigation in your field of responsibility?
Mr. LIEBELER. I would have to answer yes to that question with one exception
that I can think of. I did not have any other investigation or line of
investigation that I wanted to pursue and I don't know that anyone else on the
staff did either by the time we finished drafting our report except for the fact
that the FBI was still trying to either corroborate or discredit, to determine
the truth or falsity of some testimony that had been given by Sylvia Odio to the
effect that Oswald had been in her apartment in Dallas some time in either
September or October 1963.
Mr. CORNWELL. Was Sylvia Odio's testimony initially within your field of
responsibility?
Page 223
223
Mr. LIEBELER. It is hard to answer that question. Her FBI reports were there and
we all knew about them and they were the subject of continued discussion between
Mr. Griffin and Mr. Slawson and myself because they related to work that all
three of us were doing. It was really never decided who would take the primary
responsibility for developing that problem until it finally fell on me because I
happened to be in Dallas to take other testimony and so the three of us agreed
that I would take her testimony.
Mr. CORNWELL. Essentially because you were there?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, and the fact that it was a question that was within this
whole general area and one that I was familiar with and I had discussed with
these other two gentlemen.
Mr. CORNWELL. The Sylvia Odio incident was never resolved to your satisfaction,
was it?
Mr. LIEBELER. No, not really.
Mr. CORNWELL. Directing your attention again to exhibit 32, the memo written on
September 4, which we have previously admitted into evidence, would it be fair
to state that as of that late date there were still in your mind a long list of
areas about which more information was needed for Marina Oswald?
Mr. LIEBELER. My recommendation in this letter was that she be asked about these
questions, yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. In fact the staff has been rather concerned with what they thought
was the superficial questioning of her from the very beginning, as far back as
February, is that not true?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, that is true.
Mr. CORNWELL. In addition to the pressures I guess we would say complete the
investigation and get the report out in the matters that at least you felt
required further attention even in September 1964, was there any problem with
the rewrite processes, the processes of preparing the final report as of that
date?
Mr. LIEBELER. I certainly thought so for a number of reasons.
Mr. CORNWELL. Mr. Chairman, may I mark for identification exhibit 36, a
memorandum dated September 6, 1964, by Mr. Liebeler reading "Memorandum
Regarding Galley Proofs of Chapter IV of the Report."
Mr. PREYER. The exhibit may be marked for identification.
Mr. CORNWELL. Have you had a chance to review that document prior to coming
here?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, sir.
Mr. CORNWELL. Would that in part at least, reflect your concern with the rewrite
processes?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. May we admit that document into the record, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. PREYER. Without objection the exhibit is admitted into the record.
[The document referred to marked JFK exhibit No. 36 and received for the record,
follows:]
Page 224
224
JFK EXHIBIT No. 36
[Memorandum re Galley Proofs of Chapter IV of the Report]
SEPTEMBER 6, 1964
From: Wesley J. Liebeler.
I set forth below comments on the galley proofs of chapter IV of the report, a
copy of which I obtained from Mr. Redlich on September 4, 1964. Other comments
and suggestions are set forth in the margin of the galley itself.
PURCHASE OF THE RIFLE BY OSWALD
1. On galley page 30, query if the name "Hidell" was stamped on the membership
application blanks of the New Orleans branch, FPCC.
2. The text near the top of page 30 gives the impression that the name Hidell
was stamped on all of the New Orleans Chapter's printed literature. It was not.
Oswald stamped his own name on some of it.
OSWALD'S PALMPRINT ON THE RIFLE BARREL
1. Query if the palmprint provides additional evidence of ownership of the rifle
as is stated. The most it does is show that Oswald had possession of the rifle
at some time. It does not show that he owned it.
2. Second paragraph states that Lt. Day determined the wood, SR wooden stock was
too rough to take prints "from visual examination." Day does not say that in his
testimony. While it is a minor point, he just said that he noted it was too
rough. For all I know he may have reached that conclusion by feeling the stock.
3. It may be noted here that the conclusion for the section on rifle ownership,
that appears on galley page 32, states that the presence of the palmprint on the
rifle shows that Oswald "had disassembled it." That conclusion is not warranted
from the existence of the palmprint on the rifle. The conclusion that Oswald
handled the rifle while it was disassembled is justified.
4. The palmprint section must be changed to reflect the latest findings of the
FBI that the palmprint had to have been lifted from the barrel because of the
marks that appear on the lift that correspond to those on the rifle barrel
itself.
FIBERS ON THE RIFLE
1. I think this section is written a little too strongly considering the record.
For example, there is no footnote after the statement that the Commission found
no credible evidence that Oswald used the rifle between September 23 and the
assassination. Furthermore, even if he did not "use" it, he might very well have
handled it at some time during that period. Also, Stombaugh was not able to
estimate the period of time within which the fibers were placed on the rifle,
but much of the language in the section is designed to bring one to the
conclusion that they were put there on the day of the assassination, even though
that is not said.
2. In the last sentence of the section, it is not the Commission's conclusion
that provides proof, it is the fact that the fibers most probably came from
Oswald's shirt. Also, does that show that he "owned" the rifle, or just that he
or someone that wore the shirt had handled the rifle at some time?
PHOTOGRAPH OF OSWALD WITH RIFLE
1. It is interesting to note that the conclusion to the ownership section, on
page 32, states that "a photograph taken in the yard of Oswald's apartment
showed him holding this rifle." That statement appears in the conclusion in
spite of the fact that Shaneyfelt specifically testified that he could not make
a positive identification of the rifle that Oswald was holding in the picture,
and in spite of the fact that the Commission was not able to conclude, in the
discussion of this subject on page 31, that Oswald was holding the assassination
weapon in the picture.
RIFLE AMONG OSWALD'S POSSESSIONS
1. I do not believe there is any real authority for the proposition that Oswald
sighted through the telescopic sight on the porch in New Orleans. Marina Oswald
first said she did not know what he did with the rifle out on the porch, and
then
Page 225
225
was led into a statement which might be thought to support the instant
proposition. It is not very convincing.
2. On the top of page 32. it is stated that Ruth and Michael Paine "both noticed
the rolled-up blanket in the garage throughout the time that Marina Oswald was
living in their home. I am sure the record will not support that statement, a
rather important one, too. I recall that there was a period of time before the
assassination that neither of them saw the blanket. I have always had the
opinion that there was a gap in the proof as to the rifle being continuously in
the garage, one that probably could not be filled. It cannot be filled by
ignoring it. The conclusion is even worse when it states that "the rifle was
kept among Oswald's possessions from the time of its purchase until the day of
the assassination." I do not think the record provides any real evidence to
support that broad statement. The fact is that not one person alive today ever
saw that rifle in the paine garage in such a way that it could be identified as
that rifle.
THE CURTAIN ROD STORY
1. The report states that Frazier was surprised when Oswald asked for a ride on
November 21, 1963. I am not able to find anything in the record to support that
statement.
2. The last paragraph of this section is misleading when it attempts to show the
falsity of the curtain rod story by stating that Oswald's room at 1026 North
Beckley had curtains, and does not take account of the fact that Frazier
specifically testified that Oswald said he wanted the curtain rods to put in an
apartment. This takes on added significance when we remember that Oswald was
talking about renting an apartment so that his family could live in Dallas with
him. That aspect of the problem should be specifically treated if we are going
to mention the fact that his roominghouse had curtains.
THE LONG AND BULKY PACKAGE
1. The last sentence states: "Frazier could easily have been mistaken when he
stated that Oswald held the bottom of the bag cupped in his hand, or when he
said that the upper end was tucked under the armpit." On the very next page of
the galleys, in the discussion of the prints that appeared on the paper bag, it
is stated that the palmprint was "found on the closed end of the bag. It was
from Oswald's right hand in which he carried the long package as he walked from
Frazier's car to the building."
I am advised that the palmprint is right on the end of the bag, just where it
would be if Oswald had carried it cupped in his hand. If we say in the
discussion of prints that that print was put on the bag when he carried it to
the TSBD (which we don't quite do) and if the print is where it would be if he
carried it cupped in his hand, then we must face up on the preceding page and
admit that Frazier was right when he said that that is the way Oswald carried
it. If the print story is right and the implication left there as to when the
print was put on the bag is valid, Frazier could not have been mistaken when he
said Oswald carried the bottom of the bag cupped in his hand.
SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE LINKING RIFLE AND OSWALD TO PAPER BAG
1. The section on fibers in the bag is very thin. The most that can be said is
that there was a possibility that the fibers came from the blanket. The FBI
expert would not even state that such was probable.
CONCLUSION
1. I am at a loss to know why the fact that Oswald apparently failed to turn out
Ruth Paine's garage light is mentioned in the conclusion.
PALMPRINTS AND FINGERPRINTS ON CARTONS AND PAPER
1. The problem of all the unidentified prints has already been discussed. The
FBI has been requested to conduct additional investigation to attempt to
identify those prints. The results of that investigation must be incorporated in
the report.
2. This section emphasized the freshness of one palmprint on one carton. That
palmprint was the only one of 28 prints that could be developed by powder as
opposed to a chemical process. As a result it was held to have been placed on
the carton recently, within from 1 to 3 days prior to the time it was developed.
"The
Page 226
226
inference may be drawn from the present language of this section that all of the
other prints, which could be developed only through a chemical process because
the cartons had already absorbed them, must have been older than the palmprint.
Thus, it could be argued that Oswald's other prints had to have been placed on
the cartons at least a day before they were developed and perhaps as much as 3
days before. While there may be some reason within the realm of fingerprint
technology why that is not so, it does not appear in the report.
Under those circumstances, the presence of Oswald's other prints, which must be
treated pari passu with the prints of others on the cartons, seems to have very
little significance indeed. This relates to the prints on one of the Rolling
Readers cartons near the window, the existence of which is emphasized by stating
that they "take on added significance" because of the work being done on the
sixth floor. The report also states that the Commission placed "great weight on
the fingerprint and palmprint identifications." I don't think we should say that
in any event. We certainly should not until we deal with the problem of the
apparent age of Oswald's other prints and the presence of all those unidentified
prints.
3. The report states that it is "significant that none of the prints on the
cartons could be identified as the prints of a warehouse employee." It also
states that those employees "like Oswald, might have handled the
cartons"--presumably in the ordinary course of business. It is significant. But
not necessarily to the point that the report tries to make. The fact that only
Oswald's prints appeared on the cartons could show that he was the sole
warehouse employee that handled them--in the ordinary course of business. The
fact that Oswald was the only employee whose prints appeared on the cartons does
not help to convince me that he moved them in connection with the assassination.
It shows the opposite just as well.
4. It is also difficult to tell just what happened to all of the cartons or who
developed what prints. While it appears that all four cartons were forwarded to
the FBI, some confusion is created by the later statement that the right
palmprint on the box on the floor next to the three near the window was also
sent to the FBI. Why was that necessary if the carton had already been sent? The
use of the passive voice in the second sentence of the second full paragraph on
page 35 of the galleys leaves open the question of who developed the prints
EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION OF ASSASSIN
1. There is a duplication of a long quote from Brennan's testimony that also
appears at page 15 of the galleys, the first page of chapter 3. It does not seem
to be needed in both places. If left the way it is, the form as to omitted
material should be standardized.
2. Following that quote it says that Brennan's description "most probably" led
to the radio alert sent out to police in which the assassin was described. Can't
this be more definite? One of the questions that has been raised is the speed
with which the assassin was described, the implication being that Oswald had
been picked out as a patsy before the event. The Dallas police must know what
led to the radio alert and the description. If they do we should be able to find
out. If they do not know, the circumstances of their not knowing should be
discussed briefly.
3. On page 36 it says that at 1:29 p.m. the police radio reported that the
description of the suspect in the Tippit shooting was similar to the description
which had been given by Brennan in connection with the assassination. On page 46
it is stated that it was unlikely that any officer said anything like "Kill the
President, will you?" The reason given is that the officers did not know "that
Oswald was a suspect in the killing of the President." But they very likely had
heard the police radio note that the description of the two were similar and
they may have drawn their own conclusions. The statement on page 46 should be
taken out or qualified.
4. There should be a picture of the inside of the Texas School Book Depository
sixth floor showing the low window sills and a reference to that picture in
connection with the discussion of Brennan's testimony that he saw the man
standing.
5. Query if we need such a long paragraph on Euins testimony merely to conclude
that it is inconclusive as to the identity of the man in the window.
6. In the last sentence of the second to the last paragraph in the section it
says that Altgens picture was taken about 2 seconds "after the shot which
entered the back of the President's neck." We should say after that shot was
fired or heard or something. The sentence is not a good one as it now stands.
Page 227
227
1. I do not think the description of the Baker-Oswald sequence is sufficiently
clear. I am confused as to how many entrance doors there are to the vestibule,
even though after a close reading there appear to be only two, the one
connecting to the second floor landing and the one connecting to the lunch room.
It is also not clear whether Baker saw Oswald through the window in the
vestibule/landing door, or whether that door was still open as is implied by
Baker's testimony. Mention of the window previously, however, implies Baker saw
Oswald through the window. It does not seem likely that Oswald would still have
been visible through the window if the door had already closed, although that
depends on how fast the door closes, which is something I would like to know.
What kind of a stairway is it that someone coming up can see nothing at the top
of the lanking? Truly may in fact have seen Oswald if the latter had just come
down the stairs from the third floor as Truly was coming up from the second.
I think additional effort should be made with the writing and a picture of the
view coming up to the second floor and a diagram or other pictures of the
lanking and vestibule area would be a good idea.
2. The first sentence in the third from the last paragraph on galley page 38
leaves a false inference concerning Oswald's presence on the sixth floor. It
should be rewritten along the following lines: "The fact that Oswald could not
have come down in the elevators, the only other possible means of descent, is
shown by thier movements after the time Baker and Truly tried to use them to go
up in the building."
3. In the same paragraph, the statement that both elevators occupy the same
shaft is not clear. It would be better to say: "both elevators, which operate
adjacently in the same shaft,"
4. Last paragraph on page 38 (galley), the testimony of the employees as set
forth in that paragraph is also consistent with Oswald having been in Ethiopia
at the time of the assassination, or with his having used the elevators to get
down from the sixth floor. Since those employees did not see either Oswald or
Dougherty, their testimony says nothing on the point under discussion. The whole
paragraph should be cut.
5. The next two paragraphs, the first two on galley page 39, are a complete
mystery to me. When I left the bottom of page 38 I was looking for additional
testimony showing that Oswald came down the stairs and not the elevator. After
two paragraphs of excellent analysis I am convinced that Victoria Adams either
came down the stairs before or after Oswald did and it is clear that that is so
because we know that Oswald came down the stairs and not the elevator. I do not
understand, however, how the fact that Victoria Adams came down the stairs
before or after Oswald did shows that Oswald came down the stairs. If the idea
is to show that Adams was not on the stairway when Oswald was I am not convinced
by the analysis or speculation in these two paragraphs. Furthermore, if that is
the idea it is not clearly set forth. How about a first sentence like: "Victoria
Adams testified that she came down the stairway, within about 1 minute after the
shots, from the fourth floor to the first floor where she encountered two
depository employees--Bill Shelley and Billy Lovelady. If Miss Adams was on the
stairway at that time, the question is raised as to why she did not see Oswald
.... "
6. In the conclusion: I do not see how the commission can possibly state that
"fingerprint and palmprint evidence establishes that Oswald arranged the cartons
in the window." That evidence establishes that at some time Oswald handled one
of the three cartons in the window, as suggested above, probably prior to the
assassination by at least 1-3 days. That evidence establishes with equal
validity that perhaps about 20 other persons "arranged the cartons in the
window."
OSWALD'S MOVEMENTS AFTER LEAVING DEPOSITORY BUILDING
1. The description of Oswald's bus ride sequence is very confusing and wholly
unable to stand by itself without a map. Even if we include a map, which I
assume we will, the text should be clear enough to stand by itself. The basic
problem is that there is no indication of the relationship of various
intersections to each other. It should be simple enough to set forth the
relationships between St. Paul and Elm, Field and Elm, and Poydras and Lamar.
Page 228
228
2. There also seems to be a mistake in description of direction. I don't see how
Oswald could walk west on Elm and board a bus that was heading back in the
direction of the depository and which was also travel west. Somebody had to have
gone east (Oswald.)
3. The second to the last full paragraph on galley page 40 is not very clear as
to what all those buses actually do and what they are supposed to do. I have set
forth suggested clarifying changes in the margin of the galley.
4. On galley page 41 the terms "lineup" and "showup" are used interchangeably.
It should be one or the other throughout. I have always thought it was lineup.
5. There are direct quotes in the first paragraph on galley page 42 for which
there are no footnotes. It is my understanding that there are to be footnotes
for each direct quote and that there is to be uniformity on this point
throughout the report.
DESCRIPTION OF THE SHOOTING
1. References here to what the Dallas police radio ordered Tippit to do should
be qualified to indicate that a transcript of a recording of the radio
communications indicates the material being set forth. This should be done at
least until we have cleared up the problems with the transcript and recordings,
if we have not already done so.
2. There are no footnotes at all in the last paragraph of this section.
EYEWITNESSES
1. There is more confusion between lineups and showups at the top of galley page
43.
2. As to any attempt to explain Mrs. Markham's description (so-called) of Oswald
as having bushy hair by showing the world a picture of Oswald "taken at the time
of his arrest." I suggest that even the slowest of readers would imagine that
their hair might be in an uncombed state--which is the suggested explanation of
the bushy condition--after they had fought with a dozen policemen in an attempt
to resist arrest. In fact Pizzo exhibit 453-C, the evidence for this
proposition, shows Oswald with cuts and bruises on his face. I don't think Mrs.
Markham's testimony needs much comment and neither does her statement to Lane.
Any attempt such as is presently in the report will merely play into Lane's
hands and make the Commission look naive.
3. Query statement that Markham's identification was mostly from his face. I
think she was all over the lot on that one.
MURDER WEAPON
1. Why don't we take a sentence or two and explain why the bullets fired from
the revolver were smaller than the barrel? There is no way to tell from this
report now and an obvious question is raised as to why.
2. There is an unclear sentence in the middle of the third paragraph of this
heading which states: "Also, the bullets were mutilated." Which ones?
3. The paragraph dealing with the number of shots fired and the manufacture of
the cases and the slugs seems to me to be an exercise in pedantry, and possibly
subject to error. Is it not possible that a Winchester-Western slug could have
been fired from a Remington-Peters case? Even if not, why leave ourselves open
to question when it does not really matter how many shots were fired, as between
four or five.
4. The last paragraph of this heading needs some footnotes, either in or out.
OWNERSHIP OF THE REVOLVER
1. The first sentence refers to "this type of revolver." I think it would be
better to say "the type of revolver that was used to kill Patrolman Tippit."
OSWALD'S JACKET
1. The second paragraph of this heading needs some footnotes.
2. There are inconsistencies in the description of Commission exhibit 162. The
same problem occurred above, when an exhibit was described sometimes as
"exhibit---" and at others as "Commission exhibit ---." A little thing, but why
not do it right,
Page 229
229
3. This conclusion to this heading reaches the crushing result that "Oswald
disposed of his jacket as he fled from the scene of the Tippit killing." I
submit that that is really not the conclusion we worked toward. Why not : "Those
facts strongly support the finding that it was Lee Harvey Oswald who killed
Patrolman Tippit and then fled through the parking lot adjoining Jefferson
Boulevard, disposing of his jacket as he did so."
OSWALD'S ARREST
At first I was surprised to learn that Johnny Calvin Brewer knew that a
patrolman had been shot when Oswald walked by his place of business, less than
eight blocks from the point of the Tippit killing which Oswald apparently left
as fast as he could.
2. Then I was surprised to learn that the police radio did not send out
information about the suspect being in the Texas Theater until 1:45 about 30
minutes after the police first learned of the Tippit killing from Benavides over
Tippit's radio. What were Oswald and Brewer doing during this 30 minutes? Oswald
was strangely inactive during this period, considering all that he had done the
45 minutes following the assassination.
3. While I know that I will be thought mad to suggest that some editing be done
on this chapter, consider the following sentence that appears on galley page 46:
"As Oswald, handcuffed, was led from the theatre, he was, according to McDonald,
'cursing a little bit and hollering police brutality.'" There are only 5 commas
in that sentence. How about: "McDonald testified that Oswald was 'cursing a
little bit and hollering police brutality' as he was led handcuffed from the
theatre."
Here compare the note above concerning page 36 that the police radio had noted
the similarity of the descriptions between the man wanted for the assassination
and the man wanted for the Tippit killing, by the time Oswald was arrested at
the theater. It could be, therefore, that some of the officers suspected that
the man they were arresting was wanted in connection with the assassination.
STATEMENTS OF OSWALD DURING DETENTION
1. There are entirely too many subheadings under this general heading. None are
really necessary. We reach the sublime when we have one whole heading for one
short, four sentence paragraph. They should all be cut out and the whole
discussion comprehended under the above general title.
2. In the paragraph on denial of rifle ownership appears the statement "small
bore .22 rifle." That is redundant, since I presume we do not mean to
distinguish from large bore .22 rifles. It should probably just read: ".22
caliber rifle."
3. The second to last sentence in that paragraph needs a footnote.
SHOOTING OF MAJ. GEN. EDWIN A. WALKER
1. There is no footnote after the sentence concerning the 15-year-old boy who
saw two men leave the area.
Same after the statement that a friend of Walker gave information to the police
about' the two men snooping around. Also that statement is not correct. Walker
gave the information to the police.
3. No footnote after statement re results of private investigation.
4. No footnote after statement that the note was in the "Book of Useful Advice."
5. The second full paragraph on page 48 assumes a lot of knowledge about
Oswald's movements and about the Paines that the reader had not gotten anywhere
yet, except in the first chapter narrative. A few extra words as suggested in
the margin of the galley might improve things considerably. Furthermore, the
first sentence needs a footnote, as does the entire next paragraph, which has
not one footnote to its name.
6. In the paragraph on photographs, a footnote is needed after the first
sentence. The second sentence must be changed because at present it implies that
Oswald told Marina about the notebook or rather showed it to her when he
returned the night after the attack. She stated in her testimony in July that
she did not see what was in the notebook until 3 days after the attack and there
is nothing in her early testimony that I know about to support the PropoSition
now in the report.
7. Statement that Oswald apparently destroyed the notebook should be changed in
order to reflect fact that he did destroy it, and at the suggestion of his wife.
Page 230
230
8. Second to last sentence in photographs section must be changed to indicate
that Oswald did not bury his rifle in some bushes, but rather that he may have
hidden it there.
9. Query usage of "ballistics" in first paragraph of "Firearms Identification"
section. Same as to last paragraph thereof.
10. Under "Corroboration by Marina Oswald" we learn for the first time about a
postponement of the attempt to kill Walker. There is no mention of from when,
what the circumstances of the postponement were, what happened to the rifle in
the meantime, et cetera. It should be set forth, since there is no mention of it
above, as I recall.
OSWALD'S RIFLE CAPABILITY
1. The purpose of this section is to determine Oswald's ability to fire a rifle.
The third word at the top of page 50 of the galleys, which is apparently meant
to describe Oswald, is "marksman." A marksman is one skilled at shooting at
mark; one who shoots well. Not only do we beg the question a little, but the
sentence is inexact in that the shot, which it describes, would be the same for
marksman as it would for one who was not a marksman. How about: the assassin's
shots from the easternmost window of the south side of the Texas School Book
Depository were at a slow-moving target proceeding on a downgrade virtually
straight away from the assassin, at a range of 177 to 266 feet."
2. The last sentence in the first paragraph on galley page 50 should indicate
that the slope of Elm Street is downward.
3. The section on the nature of the shots deals basically with the range and the
effect of a telescopic sight. Several experts conclude that the shots were easy.
There is, however, no consideration given here to the time allowed for the
shots. I do not see how someone can conclude that a shot is easy or hard unless
he knows something about how long the firer has to shoot, that is, how much time
allotted for the shots.
4. On nature of the shots--Frazier testified that one would have no difficulty
in hitting a target with a telescopic sight, since all you have to do is put the
crosshairs on the target. On page 51 of the galleys, however, he testified that
shots fired by FBI agents with the assassination weapon were "a few inches high
and to the right of the target * * * because of a defect in the scope."
Apparently no one knows when that defect appeared, or if it was in the scope at
the time of the assassination. If it was, and in the absence of any evidence to
the contrary one may assume that it was, putting the crosshairs on the target
would clearly have resulted in a miss, or it very likely would, in any event. I
have raised this question before. There is a great deal of testimony in the
record that a telescopic sight is a sensitive proposition. You can't leave a
rifle and scope laying around in a garage underfoot for almost 3 months, just
having brought it back from New Orleans in the back of a station wagon, and
expect to hit anything with it, unless you take the trouble to fire it and sight
the scope in. This would have been a problem that should have been dealt with in
any event, and now that it turns out that there actually was a defect in the
scope, it is perfectly clear that the question must be considered. The present
draft leaves the Commission open to severe criticism. Furthermore, to the extent
that it leaves testimony suggesting that the shots might not have been so easy
out of the discussion, thereby giving only a part of the story, it is simply
dishonest.
5. Why do we have a statement concerning the fact that Oswald's Marine records
show that he was familiar with the Browning automatic rifle, .45-caliber pistol
and 12-gage riot gun? That is completely irrelevant to the question of his
abilility to fire a rifle, unless there is evidence that the same skills are
involved. It is, furthermore, prejudicial to some extent.
6. Under the heading "Oswald's Rifle Practice Outside the Marines" we have a
statement concerning his hunting activities in Russia. It says that he joined a
hunting club, obtained a license and went hunting about six times. It does not
say what kind of a weapon he used. While I am not completely familiar with the
record on this point, I do know for a fact that there is some indication that he
used a shotgun. Under what theory do we include activities concerning a shotgun
under a heading relating to rifle practice, and then presume not to advise the
reader of the fact?
7. The statements concerning Oswald's practice with the assassination weapon are
misleading. They tend to give the impression that he did more practicing than
the record suggests that he did. My recollection is that there is only one
specific time when he might have practiced. We should be more precise in this
Page 231
231
area, because the Commission is going to have its work in this area examined
aery closely.
8. On the top of galley page 51 we have that statement about Oswald sighting the
telescopic sight at night on the porch in New Orleans. I think the support for
that proposition is thin indeed. Marina Oswald first testified that she did not
know what he was doing out there and then she was clearly led into the only
answer that gives any support to this proposition.
9. I think the level of reaching that is going on in this whole discussion of
rifle capability is merely shown by the fact that under the heading of rifle
practice outside the Marine Corps appears the damning statement that "Oswald
showed an interest in rifles by discussing that subject with others (in fact
only one person as I remember it) and reading gun magazines."
10. I do not think the record will support the statement that Oswald did not
leave his Beckley Avenue roominghouse on one of the weekends that he was
supposedly seen at the Sports Drome Rifle Range.
11. There is a misstatement in the third paragraph under rapid fire tests when
it says "Four of the firers missed the second shot." The preceding paragraph
states that there were only three firers.
12. There are no footnotes whatsoever in the fifth paragraph under rapid fire
tests and some rather important statements are made which require some support
from someplace.
13. A minor point as to the next paragraph--bullets are better said to strike
rather than land.
14. As I read through the section on rifle capability it appears that 15
different sets of three shots were fired by supposedly expert riflemen of the
FBI and other places. According to my calculations those 15 sets of shots took a
total of 93.8 seconds to be fired. The average of all 15 is a little over 6.2
seconds. Assuming that time is calculated commencing with the firing of the
first shot, that means the average time it took to fire the two remaining shots
was about 6.2 seconds. That comes to about 3.1 seconds for each shot, not
counting the time consumed by the actual firing, which would not be very much. I
recall that chapter 3 said that the minimum time that had to elapse between
shots was 2.25 seconds, which is pretty close to the one set of fast shots fired
by Frazier of the FBI.
The conclusion indicates that Oswald had the capability to fire three shots with
two hits in from 4.8 to 5.6 seconds. Of the 15 sets of 3 shots described above.
only 3 were fired within 4.8 seconds. A total of five sets, including the three
just mentioned were fired within a total of 5.6 seconds. The conclusion at its
most extreme states that Oswald could fire faster than the Commission experts
fired in 12 of their 15 tries and that in any event he could fire faster than
the experts did in 10 of their 15 tries. If we are going to set forth material
such as this, I think we should set forth some information on how much training
and how much shooting the experts had and did as a whole. The readers could then
have something on which to base their judgments concerning the relative
abilities of the apparently slow firing experts used by the Commission and the
ability of Lee Harvey Oswald.
15. The problems raised by the above analyses should be met at some point in the
text of the report. The figure of 2.25 as a minimum firing time for each shot
used throughout chapter 3. The present discussion of rifle capability shows that
expert riflemen could not fire the assassination weapon that fast. Only one of
the experts managed to do so, and his shots, like those of the other FBI
experts, were high and to the right of the target. The fact is that most of the
experts were much more proficient with a rifle than Oswald could ever be
expected to be, and the record indicates that fact, according to my recollection
of the response of one of the experts to a question by Mr. McCloy asking for a
comparison of an NRA master marksman to a Marine Corps sharpshooter.
16. The present section on rifle capability fails to set forth material in the
record tending to indicate that Oswald was not a good shot and that he was not
interested in his rifle while in the Marine Corps. It does not set forth
material indicating that a telescopic sight must be tested and sighted in after
a period of nonuse before it can be expected to be accurate. That problem is
emphasized by the fact that the FBI actually found that there was a defect in
the scene which caused the rifle to fire high and to the right. In spite of the
above the present section takes only part of the material in the record to show
that Oswald was a good shot and that he was interested in rifles. I submit that
the testimony Delgado that Oswald was not interested in his rifle while in the
Marines is at
Page 232
232
least as probative as Alba's testimony that Oswald came into his garage to read
rifle--and hunting--magazines.
To put it bluntly that sort of selection from the record could seriously affect
the integrity and credibility of the entire report.
17. It seems to me that the most honest and the most sensible thing to do the
present state of the record on Oswald's rifle capability would be to write a
very short section indicating that there is testimony on both sides of several
issues. The Commission could then conclude that the best evidence that Oswald
could fire his rifle as fast as he did and hit the target is the fact that he
did so. It may have been pure luck. It probably was to a very great extent. But
it happened. He would have had to have been lucky to hit as he did if he had
only 4.8 seconds to fire the shots. Why don't we admit instead of reaching and
using only part of the record to support the propositions presently set forth in
the galleys. Those conclusions will never be accepted by critical persons
anyway.
GENERAL COMMENT
1. The above was written without having the footnotes to the chapter, a
considerable disadvantage when one would like to check the accuracy and
precision of statements made in the text.
2. The placement of footnotes is not consistent within the chapter, nor with the
general rule that there are to be footnotes after all direct quotes. Many times
there are no footnotes where it appears to me that there should be.
3. Form as to omitted material should be checked. The form of citations to the
appendix is not consistent with chapter 3 or internally.
4. I for not to mention that some question might be raised when the public
discovers that there was only one person who saw Oswald kill him. All the rest
only saw subsequent events. Mrs. Markham is nicely buried there, but I predict
not for long.
Mr. CORNWELL. Who prepared chapter IV initially? Who first drafted that?
Mr. LIEBELER. Mr. Ball and Mr. Belin.
Mr. CORNWELL. Did you at the time work closely enough with Mr. Ball and Mr.
Belin where you would have both become familiar with the facts within their area
and also the quality of their work?
Mr. LIEBELER. That question has two parts. I was certainly familiar with the
facts of their area because I had read most or all of the same FBI reports that
they had read in outlining their area of investigation in my own efforts to
prepare my own investigation.
I think I can say I had been able to form a judgment as to certain kinds of
their work. But I was not in a position to judge the quality of their written
work because I had never looked at it closely or examined it.
Mr. CORNWELL. Based on that last answer you would not be able to tell us whether
or not their rough draft of this chapter in and of itself was a competent
professional polished piece of work?
Mr. LEIBELER. No, I would not. I don't recall that I even ever read it.
Mr. CORNWELL. What basically, however, was the nature of the problems that you
found with the galley proofs, the rewrite of chapter IV?
Mr. LIEBELER. Well, my memo September 6 speaks to that question. It involves
problems ranging from matters of form and location, of footnotes to the problem
that I thought was important at the time and that was that I thought that the
text of that chapter was written in the sense that it made statements that could
not really be supported by the nature of the underlying evidence.
Mr. CORNWELL. Let us simply very briefly go through that memo. I would like to
ask you if you believe today your criticisms were
Page 233
233
accurate? For instance on page 3 you very cryptically note near the bottom that
a gap in the proof cannot be filled by ignoring it with respect to certain
portions of the galley proof. On page 21----
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you want to take these one by one or do you want to lump them?
Mr. CORNWELL. We can simply look at them in bulk if you would like, whichever
way you prefer.
Mr. LIEBELER. The reference on page 3 as to the question of whether or not it
could be definitively established that the rifle that Oswald had ordered and
received and was used to assassinate the President had actually been in the
Paine garage the entire period of time after the Oswald return from New Orleans
until the time of the assassination. I took the position that that could not be
directly proved and I think that that position was correct. I still think that
it is correct.
Mr. CORNWELL. On page 21 you note at the top: "The present draft leaves the
Commission open to severe criticism. Furthermore, to the extent that it leaves
testimony suggesting that the shots might not have been so easy out of the
discussion, thereby giving only a part of the story, it is simply dishonest?"
Was that your view of the report in its galley proof form
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, that was my view of the galley proofs as they existed at that
time on tiffs issue of the Oswald capability as a rifleman and the accuracy of
the rifle.
Mr. CORNWELL. Also on page 21, bottom of paragraph 6, did you conclude that it
was misleading to place information concerning the shotgun, possible use of the
shotgun, under the heading of "Rifle practice" and then not advise the readers
of the true facts of the distinction
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, I did.
Mr. CORNWELL. You note on page 93 near the bottom of the page that there was
insufficient material provided on which the readers could base their judgment.
Was that also a criticism that you felt was justified with respect to that final
report?
Mr. LIEBELER. On that specific issue, yes, from the speed and the way the rifle
could be fired.
Mr. CORNWELL. In paragraph 16, on page 24, at the very bottom, did you feel that
the process of selecting what facts and information to rely upon seriously
affected the integrity and credibility of the entire report?
Mr. LIEBELER. I used the words that it could do that. I believed that then as to
the galleys, and I think that was a problem that we had in writing it and
difficulties we had about that. The problem became apparent to me when I went
through my own chapter after I had drafted it and wrote the footnotes for it.
After I drafted my chapter, it had been rewritten and gone through several
drafts, other people had changed it and things had been changed around over a
period of time. It is absolutely impossible for a process like that to occur
without ending up with sentences and statements in the report that simply you
cannot find support for in the footnotes, in the testimony and the underlying
evidence. It was an extremely painful process to go through all that evidence
and try to conform as closely as possible the statements in the text to the
actual evidence that was in the record.
That was part of the problem. I think also part of the problem was, as I said
before, a tendency, at least in the galleys of chapter IV, to
Page 234
234
try to downplay or not give equal emphasis to contrary evidence just simply
admit and state openly that there is a conflict in the mony and the evidence
about this question, but after reviewing the evidence the Commission could
conclude whatever the Commission conclude. I thought that would have been a
better way to do it.
Mr. CORWELL. What was done with all of your comments, the work product that you
obviously spent a good deal of time preparing here
which we have now marked as exhibit 36?
Mr. LIEBELER. I typed this memo, myself, so it was not distributed throughout
the Commission files in the ordinary form, with different colored copies going
to different places. My recollection is that I put a copy of it on Mr. Redlich's
desk when I came back from Vermont that weekend and gave Mr. Willens a copy and
I believe gave Mr. Rankin a copy. There was really no response to it for a
considerable period of time. Then after the chapter had come back in page proof
I reviewed it again. Mr. Redlich had already returned to New York. I was
dissatisfied with the condition of the chapter even at that point. I went into
Mr. Rankings office and told Mr. Rankin that I thought there were problems. So
Mr. Rankin said, I believe, get the memo and the proofs and the page proofs, and
we sat down, the two of us, and started going through the chapter. Mr. Willens
came in and observed what was going on and, it is my surmise, as a result of
subsequent events he went out and called Mr. Redlich in New York and in the time
it took Mr. Redlich to get from N.Y.U. to the airport and down to Washington,
Mr. Redlich appeared in Mr. Rankin's office.
Mr. CORNWELL. It was Mr. Redlich's rewrite you were critizing, is that correct?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes. So, Mr. Redlich and Mr. Rankin and Mr. Willens and I then
spent the rest of that day and long into the night going over this memorandum
and the page proofs and my recollection is that we considered and discussed all
the issues that were raised here, and probably more as well.
Mr. CORNWELL. Apart from considering what action was taken.
Mr. LIEBELER. The record will show that. I don't recall. My general
recollection, my general impression was that my performance against Mr. Redlich
was like UCLA's football team usually is against USC. But it really was not
quite that bad. I won some and some of the changes were made. And some were not.
There is a difference between the page proofs and final report and galley
proofs, there is no question about that.
Mr. CORNWELL. There is some difference?
Mr. LIEBELER. Some difference, yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. May we mark for identification, Mr. Chairman, as exhibits 37, 38,
39, 40, and 41, memos respectively dated September 14,
from Mr. Liebeler to Mr. Willens, concerning chapter Vl; memo dated September
15, Mr. Liebeler to Mr. Willens concerning suggestions set forth in a letter
from David A. Rothstein: memo of September 15, from Liebeler to Willens
regarding a letter from Dr. Rome; a memo of September regarding chapter VI, and
a memo dated September 16 regarding chapter VI.
Mr. PREYER. All of these exhibits are marked for identification only.
Page 235
235
Mr. CORNWELL. Have you had a chance to review each of those exhibits prior to
coming here today?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Would it be fair to state that each of those exhibits relates also
to your findings with respect to errors and overstatements, incorrect
statements, which existed in the galley proofs and that you discovered during
the rewrite process?
Mr. LEIBELER. No.
Mr. CORNWELL. Or suggested additions to the report?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, I think that is correct. but of course they will speak for
themselves. But that is a generally correct characterization of them.
Mr. CORNWELL. May we then submit each of those exhibits into the record, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. PREYER. Without objection the exhibits are admitted into the record.
[The documents referred to, marked JFK exhibits No. 37, 38, 39, 40, and 41 and
received for the record, follow:]
JFK EXHIBIT No. 37
[Memorandum]
SEPTEMBER 14, 1964.
To: Mr. Willens.
From: Mr. Liebeler.
The following are some general comments on that portion of chapter VI dealing
with conspiracy beginning with "investigation of Other Activities" on galley
237.
1. We have not conducted sufficient investigation to state that there is no
evidence that FPCC and ACLU were aware that they were authorized to receive mail
at P.O. Box 6225, or that mail was ever addressed to them there.
2. Same as to statement re three post office boxes being used for surreptitious
receipts of messages. I would delete the whole idea.
3. The sentence re investigation of aliases preceding footnote 714 in the
galleys is much too broad.
4. Query statement at top of page 238 that Oswald "commonly" used Hidell as name
of others--he also used that name to get the rifle and revolver.
5. What investigation has been conducted "with regard to persons using the name
of 'Lee.'" I think the statement following note 727 is too broad.
6. The sentence relating to chapter VII at the close of the discussion of
aliases should read "Oswald's creation of false names and fictitious
personalties is also treated in the discussion of possible motives set forth in
chapter VII."
7. Ownership of second rifle:
a. We cannot say that all of Oswald's transactions in connection with firearms
were undertaken under an assumed name, only his known transactions.
b. I think the degree of doubt about the authenticity of the repair tag is
overstated.
c. First sentence in first full paragraph on page 259 is too strong and should
be changed along the lines indicated in my copy of the galley.
d. The third sentence should also be qualified. The underlying report is not
that strong.
e. The last sentence in that paragraph is not supported by the TV films we got
from CBS. It should be deleted.
f. The second full paragraph has only one footnote. Furthermore, the last
statement is incorrect. Whitworth and Hunter do not now say Oswald drove down
the street and only Mrs. Whitworth said so before.
g. The statement that neither Mrs. Hunter nor Mrs. Whitworth could identify a
picture of Lee Harvey Oswald is not so. Mrs. Whitworth did do so at 11 H 272. My
draft stated that they could not "identify Lee Harvey Oswald standing with a
small group of other different looking people."
8. Rifle practise:
Page 236
236
a. Query if all the witnesses agree that the barrel had been shortened. (See
note 775.)
b. Do we have evidence on the question of whether or not Oswald's rifle spouts
fire. ( See note 777. )
c. What is our authority for the nonexistence of the Cedar Hills gunshop. (See
note 781. )
d. At note 794 Oswald could have been at Paine's and still have gone to the
rifle range. Add: "and did not leave there to go to the rifle range."
9. Automobile demonstration: I think it is Stemmons Freeway, not "Expressway."
10. Alleged activities with Cuban underground organizations:
a. The title is inappropriate because Andrews and Pena do not talk about
underground activities.
b. The title and the introduction are inappropriate because they strongly
suggest that Oswald was an anti-Castro. The implication runs through Odio's
testimony that he was an infiltrator. It would be better to start with a neutral
sentence like: "The Commission has also considered testimony of certain persons
that claim to have seen Oswald in the company of unidentified persons of Cuban
or Mexican background."
c. What is the authority for the statement that Mrs. Odio claims that both of
her parents are political prisoners of the Castro regime?
To go back for a moment to the second rifle section: In the third full paragraph
it states, "On November 24, Ryder and Greener discussed at length the
possibility" that Oswald had been there, but "Ryder did not mention the tag to
his employer." I know of no evidence that Ryder and Greener talked on the 24th.
If they did not, the next sentence must be changed or cut.
The next sentence is a good example of what happens in the "rewrite" process. It
says incorrectly, that on November 25 Ryder told the FBI that Greener did not
remember the tag, although he had not called the tag to Greener's attention. The
original sentence said, correctly, that Greener "did not remember the
transaction represented by the repairtag..."
The next sentence says the FBI was directed to Ryder by anonymous phone calls.
Not so. They were directed to the Irving Sports Shop and would very likely have
talked to Greener, but he could not be found by the agent on November 25, 1963,
when he went to the shop.
Back to Odio:
d. Check correct name of JURE.
e. The paragraph on bus transportation starting "There is no firm evidence"
should be completely rewritten. I do not think there is "convincing evidence"
that Oswald was on the buses as stated. One sentence says he was apparently one
of four passengers bound for a point beyond Texas. The next suggests that he
bought a ticket in Houston for Laredo, which is in Texas. The McFarland
testimony is given too much weight. I don't think Mexican immigration records
show the time of day he crossed the border. Slawson told me he got the time of
crossing from the scheduled arrival of the bus. Now we are using it to show that
since he crossed at that time he had to be on the bus.
f. Since we have no direct evidence that Oswald boarded bus 5133 in Houston, the
first sentence of the next paragraph ("Hence, the only time...,) should be
changed. That also obviates the necessity that he had to go from New Orleans to
Dallas and thence too Houston.
There really is almost no evidence at all that he left Houston on that bus-- and
there is really no reason why we should suggest there is. The point can be made
without saying that and to seem to rely on really weak evidence is to invite
trouble.
g. Again---later in the same paragraph--more reliance on the McFarlands. Their
affidavit is very weak--we should not fight it.
h. Then the single ticket from Houston to Laredo again--which probably could not
have been Oswald if he were one of the four heading for points Laredo.
i. Also the assumption that the Twiford call was a local call. Why
speculate--make the arguments--he probably would not have called at all if he
were not in Houston or going to be in Houston.
j. The conclusion that the evidence is persuasive that Oswald was not Dallas on
September 25 is too strong.
Page 237
237
k. The story of Father McGhann (sp.?) is overemphasized. We should state that
Odio never told anyone else that Eugenio had been one of the men with Oswald.
How can we conclude that McGhann would not have become confused when he was
apparently in a rest home of some sort and we have never seen or spoken to him?
1. Since we have never taken testimony from Odio's other two friends on which
people could base judgement as to their veracity, we should not rely too heavily
on their statements, about which they have never been cross-examined.
m. The first two full paragraphs on galley 242 should come out. The
"inconsistencies", if any, are minor. Furthermore, Sylvia's testimony is
actually misrepresented when it is stated that she and her sister felt Oswald
"looked familiar" when they saw his picture after the assassination. Sylvia
testified that she was sure it was Oswald.
The paragraph about the psychiatrist is quite unfair. It states that Odio "came
forward" with her story, whereas she did not come forward at all and was quite
reluctant to get involved at all. Her story came to the attention of the FBI
through a third person. The hearsay statements of "friends," concerning their
personal opinion of a witness are thin stuff indeed. The whole paragraph is poor
and should come out.
The Odio analyses should be based primarily on the apparent likelihood that LHO
was elsewhere. These are problems. Odio may well be right. The Commission will
look bad if it turns out that she is. There is no need to look foolish by
grasping at straws to avoid admitting that there is a problem.
11. Oswald not U.S. agent:
a. Did CIA. note his FPCC activities in New Orleans?
b. Why mention fact that LHO's name was not given to Secret Service--leave --to
chapter VIII.
c. Should not say Mrs. O. did not give any basis for her belief LHO was a U.S.
agent--better to say any reasonable or credible basis. We should also add that
the Commission has thoroughly considered all of her statements; that she was not
foreclosed from giving any evidence she had and the Commission concluded that
there was no real basis for her position.
d. Why do we mention the Ruby deal here--how does that relate to LHO's being a
U.S. agent?
e. Have we really seen the full CIA file on Oswald? Do we need a footnote to the
last sentence in the first full paragraph on galley 243?
f. Who is going to attest that they have reviewed the complete Bureau files
dealing with the Oswald investigation?
12. Oswald's finances:
a. The second paragraph is a little expansive. It certainly needs more than one
footnote in any event.
b. Last sentence in fourth paragraph is ungrammatical.
c. Please let's take out "cheap and shabbily furnished" and other stuff of that
sort! See galley and my previous comments on the draft for my suggestions.
d. I think we should cut the description of Oswald's wardrobe to the statement
that it was also very modest.
e. The first full paragraph on galley 244 should be rewritten and shortened. I
think the discussion of finances is too long and detailed. It is also too
apparently precise to be readily believable.
f. To be somewhat facetious: If we are going to explain the other assistant in
the FPCC distribution as a hired hand, we had better provide for him in the
third full paragraph on 244.
g. We fall back into the first name treatment for Marina Oswald again.
h. Where do we get the hotel expenses of $1.28 per day on the Mexican trip?
i. If Oswald did not cash his unemployment check at Hutch's Market, why do we
mention it? I think it was cashed at an A&P store.
j. The whole discussion of Huchison's testimony should be limited to one
paragraph in the rumors section.
k. Why do we fail to mention the Cuban or Mexican that one of the Western Union
employees said was with the man Hambian thought was Oswald?
l. We should be more specific about the "other cities" in which WU has searched
their records.
Page 238
238
JFK EXHIBIT No. 38
[Memorandum]
SEPTEMBER 15, 1964.
To: Mr. Willens.
From: Mr. Liebeler.
Pursuant to suggestions set forth in a letter dated September 13, 1964, from Dr.
David A. Rothstein of the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, I suggest the
following following additions to chapter VII.
1. The second sentence in the second full paragraph on galley 67 should be
omitted and the following should be substituted:
"Irving Sokolow, a Youth House psychologist, reported that:
"The Human Figure Drawings are empty, poor characterizations of persons
approximately the same age as the subject. They reflect a considerable amount of
impoverishment in the social and emotional areas. He appears to be a somewhat
insecure youngster exhibiting much inclination for warm and satisfying
relationships to others. There is some indication that he may relate to men more
easily than to women in view of the more mature conceptualization. He appears
slightly withdrawn and in view of the lack of detail within the drawings this,
may assume a more significant characteristic. He exhibits some difficulty in
relationship to the maternal figure suggesting more anxiety in this area than in
any other."
The footnote remains the same except for the deletion of an indication that the
quote appears at page 1. Since CE 1339 is a short document no page numbers need
be indicated. The third sentence of the paragraph under discussion should then
commence a new paragraph which otherwise would remain the same.
2. On galley 71 a new paragraph should be inserted immediately following the
first full quoted paragraph at the top of that galley. Since the material that
Dr. Rothstein recommends that we add continues right on from the present
paragraph at the top of galley 71, no indication of omitted material is
necessary. The material to be added is as follows:
"This should answer your question, and also give you a glimpse of my way of
thinking.
"So you speak of advantages. Do you think that is why I am here? For personal,
material advantage? Happiness is not based on oneself, it does not consist of a
small home, of taking and getting. Happiness is taking part in the struggle,
where there is no borderline between one's own personal world, and the world in
general. I never believed I would find more material advantages at this stage of
development in the Soviet Union than I might of had in the U.S."
The asterisks should then be left in as they are in the galley because there is
omitted material following the above quote and the quote starting "I have been a
pro-Communist .... "'the footnote remains the same.
3. Dr. Rothstein thinks we should indicate the approximate date of Marina's
"liberation" by de Mohrenschildt. That could be done very simply by adding the
words "sometime in early November 1963" following the word "apartment" in the
sentence following footnote 250 in galley 74.
4. Dr. Rothstein thinks it is an overstatement to say that Oswald had never been
able to obtain from his wife that respect. etc. He suggests, and I agree, that
the second sentence in the paragraph following footnote 410 read: "Oswald had
difficulty in obtaining from his wife .... "
5. The doctor thinks that the fourth sentence in the paragraph following
foot-note 477 is too strongly worded. The sentence should be changed to read:
"He had not been able to establish lasting, meaningful relations...." While Dr.
Rothstein has also made other worthwhile suggestions, I do not think they can be
included at this point without seriously disrupting the present state of our
galleys on chapter VII. I think the ones set forth above should be included
however since they are worthwhile changes and can be readily made without
disrupting the galley.
Page 239
239
JFK EXHIBIT No. 39
[Memorandum]
SEPTEMBER 15, 1964.
To: Howard 5. Willens.
From: Wesley J. Liebeler.
Subject: Letter of Dr. Howard P. Rome, dated September 13, 1964.
Dr. Rome has sent a 12-page analysis of Oswald's reading disability which I
recommend be included in the report as a Commission exhibit.
I also recommend that reference to the disability be set forth in the text by
inserting the following as a new paragraph following the second full paragraph
on galley 68:
"This misspelling of names, apparently on a phonetic basis, is cited by a
psychiatrist consulted by the Commission as an example of a reading-spelling
disability from which Oswald appeared to suffer. Other evidence of the existence
of such a disability is provided by the many other misspellings that appear in
Oswald's writings, portions of which are quoted below. The psychiatrist has
suggested the existence of this disability also stated his opinion that the
frustration which may have resulted from it gave an added impetus to his
(Oswald's) need to prove to the world that he was an unrecognized 'great man.'"
If the above is agreeable, it can be added by shifting only two footnote
numbers.
JFK EXHIBIT No. 40
[Memorandum]
SEPTEMBER 15, 1964.
To: Howard P. Willens.
From: Wesley J. Liebeler.
Subject: Chapter VI.
I set forth below my comments on the first part of chapter VI:
1. I do not think we should speak of "Proving a negative conclusion" as we now
do in the second full paragraph on galley 189 since that might be thought to
imply a prejudgment of the issue. It would be better, I think, to speak of the
difficulties in developing evidence of any well executed conspiracy.
2. The last sentence in the third paragraph says that all of Oswald's known
writings or other possessions which might have been used for code or other
espionage purposes have been examined either by the FBI or the National Security
Agency of both. The sentence does not indicate the purpose for which those
writings were examined by those agencies. Even though it may be clearer by
implication that they were examined to discover any code messages that might be
in them, if that is the case I think it should be so stated.
3. The last sentence in the fifth paragraph of galley 189 says that the
Commission has also considered whether any connections existed between Oswald
and "those groups which, shortly before the assassination, were responsible for
the propagation of hostile criticism of President Kennedy." I would assume that
reference to right-wing group is intended, but that is not entirely clear since
there were certain other groups that propagated hostile criticism of President
Kennedy both shortly before the assassination and at other times. The Militant,
the Journal of the Socialist Workers Party. was extremely critical of the
Kennedy administration. I think that if right wing groups are intended by the
sentence, that should be specifically stated and there should be no inference
that other groups such as the Socialist Workers Party did not propagate hostile
criticism President Kennedy. While that inference is, I am sure, not intended,
it might be drawn from present sentence.
4. The next paragraph, relating to the Ruby discussion, should indicate that the
Commission has considered the possibility that Jack Ruby was part of a
conspiracy to kill Lee Harvey Oswald. That is not mentioned in the present
paragraph and is or at least should be a part of the discussion on Ruby.
5. It is a minor point, but we always refer to the window from which the shots
were fired as the southeast corner window or a window in the southeast corner of
the building. It would appear it would be more precise to say that the window
the eastern most window on the south side of the building or at least indicate
that clearly at the beginning and state that the window will thereafter be
referred to simply as the southeast corner window.
Page 240
240
6. Another small point and perhaps one simply of taste, the stringing together
long clauses separated by semi-colons does not seem to be good writing
technique. Periods are generally preferable since they make the sentences
shorter and actually make the material easier to read and follow.
7. The second paragraph under the heading "Selection of Motorcade Route refers
to Dealy Plaza without any explanation of what it is. This has probably been
done above. A short clause, however, describing it as the park area between.
Ella and Commerce Street immediately east of the triple underpass might be a
good idea.
8. The second sentence in the third paragraph under the heading "Oswald's.
Presence in the Depository Building" is ungrammatical.
9. Another detail, but the word "company" following "Depository" in the fifth
paragraph of this section is abbreviated "Co." It should be spelled out, I
think, as should Texas and other such words as that.
10. The last paragraph in this section indicates that the Trade Mart was
selected as the luncheon site on November 14, 1963. The newspapers did not
indicate a final selection until November 16, 1963, if my recollection is
correct. While these two things are not necessarily inconsistent we should be
sure that the Trade Mart was actually first selected as the luncheon site on
November 14.
11. In the last paragraph of the section entitled "Bringing Rifle into Building"
it is stated that "neither women saw the paper bag or paper tape out of which
the bag might have been constructed" it would be better to state, I think: "both
women testified that they did not see the paper bag .... "
12. Under the caption "Accomplices at the Scene of the Assassination", I am
still not able to understand, as set forth in paragraph 4, why the Commission
considered probative in considering whether Oswald moved the cartons to the
window, the fact that none of the warehouse employees who might have customarily
handled the cartons left prints which could be identified. It may in fact be
probative in considering that question, but if I am not yet able to understand
why, after considering the question at some length, I have reason to believe
that the public will have similar difficulties in understanding the reasons why.
If it is in fact probative, it should be a relatively simple matter to set forth
briefly the reasons why it is.
13. Query whether the prints were identified as those of an FBI "Agent".
Inspector Malley told me that they were the prints of a clerk in a Dallas office
who wrapped the boxes to be forwarded to Washington for fingerprint
identification.
14. The next paragraph still bears the marks of a discussion that was
appropriate before the fingerprints had been identified as those of an FBI agent
or clerk and a member of a Dallas Police Department. I do not think the
sentences set forth at footnotes 45-47 are really appropriate or necessary any
longer, since the great bulk of the fingerprints have in fact been identified.
The rest of that paragraph should also be rewritten to reflect more clearly the
fact that most of the prints have been identified.
15. The discussion starting at the bottom of galley 191 and continuing through
to the end of the section of accomplices at the scene is highly repetitive of
material set forth in chapter IV. It would seem to me that the rather extensive
treatment in chapter V could be substantially reduced by references back to
chapter IV. Actually this makes about the third time that some of this stuff has
been set forth. First to support the proposition that the shots came from the
eastern most window, on the south side of the TSBD. Second, to deal with the
identification and now the question of conspiracy. It should be shortened in
chapter VI considerably. If the Rowland material is new, of course it should be
retained.
16. Under the section captioned "Oswald's Escape," in the discussion of the
testimony of Earlene Roberts concerning the police car, it is stated that "the
Commission has established that there was no police vehicle in the area of 1026
North Beckley at about 1 p.m. on November 22." I do not think that statement is
supported by the evidence we have and even if it appears to be so supported it
is entirely too broad and leaves open too much possibility of error. It would be
much better to say that investigation has produced no other evidence that there
was any police car in the area of 1026 North Beckley, etc.
17. The last sentence on the section of Oswald's Escape is too broad when it
states that investigation has produced no evidence that Oswald had pre-arranged
plans for a means to leave Dallas after the assassination or that any other
person was to provide him assistance. There is no footnote. I do not think we
Page 241
241
can make those broad statements concerning investigations that have been made
without supporting them in detail.
18. The statement in this section "Background of Lee Harvey Oswald"' that study
of the period from his birth ,"in 1939 to his military service from 1956 to
1959, has revealed no evidence which even plausibly suggests that Oswald was
associated with any type of sinister or subversive organization during that
period, is too broad and is inaccurate. There is testimony that Oswald wanted to
join the Communist Party during the period that he lived in New Orleans from
1954 to 1956. That evidence does plausibly suggest that he might have been
associated with a sinister or subversive organization.
There is also evidence that he wrote to the Socialist Party and while this may
not be so strong a suggestion as the fact that he wanted to join the Communist
party, it is worthy of note.
There is also testimony by Delgado, one of his Marine Corps associates, that he
was greatly interested in Cuba, discussed going to Cuba and in fact contacted
the Cuban consulate m Los Angeles during the time he was stationed at Santa Ana
The period covered by the above statement includes the time that Oswald was in
Japan during which he might have contacted members of some communist
organization there. If that ever happened, it would be highly unlikely that we
would have any evidence about it. De Mohrenschildt said that Oswald had told him
that he had met some communists in Japan and that they got him excited and
interested and that is one of the reasons he went to the Soviet Union.
19. While it is probably of little consequence, I do not think it is necessary
for the Commission to justify its investigation into the possible existence of a
conspiracy involving the Soviet Union by stating that it does not suggest that
the rulers of the Soviet Union believed that their political interest would be
advanced by the assassination of President Kennedy. The facts in that regard
speak for themselves.
20. At the top of galley 195 I do not understand the point about investigation
concerning the possibility that Oswald was sent to Minsk unusually soon after he
arrived. The statement appears without any warning and immediately raises the
question whether or not he was sent to Minsk sooner than might be expected on
the basis of information about other defectors. Perhaps the thought would be
better expressed only in terms of investigation concerning the possibility that
he was expected in the Soviet Union or had developed an undercover relationship
without specific reference to the possibility that he had been accepted or sent
to Minsk unusually soon.
21. The last sentence in the third full paragraph on galley 195, which states
that the CIA has (which is, incidentally spelled out and is not abbreviated as
is done in other places) contributed data on the normal practices and procedures
of Soviet authorities in handling American defectors, would seem to require a
footnote. That would be so if the CIA material is set forth in the record. If it
is not, that fact should probably be indicated.
22. The sentence following footnote 151 is slightly ungrammatical in that the
word "nor" following the first clause, should be "or." Furthermore, the last two
sentences of that paragraph could be omitted and a sentence along the following
lines substituted: "Oswald's arrogant and secretive character does not seem
inconsistent with a suicide or reigned suicide attempt or with his failure to
mention it to others."
23. The sentence which runs from the bottom of galley 195 and ends at the top of
196, dealing with the allegation that those who spoke with Oswald speculated
that he may have received some instructions from the Soviet authorities, appears
to need a footnote. In that connection, query whether there is any authority for
the proposition set forth at footnote 169 that Oswald had read "communist
literature without guidance while in the Marine Corps and before that time."
24. Reference is made in galley 196 to a 2 1/2 month period that Oswald had to
wait for disposition of his application after he arrived in the Soviet Union.
The beginning of the section at the top of page 195 says the period was "almost
3 months."
25. Back to footnote 110; the material set forth at footnote 209 indicates that
Oswald used 2200 rubles to pay his hotel bill whereas the material at 110 says
that he apparently did not pay his hotel bill at all after November 30, 1959.
The statement at 110 means that he did not pay his hotel bill by himself, but
that it was paid for out of funds provided to him by the Russian Government.
Page 242
242
26. The material at footnote 225 should reflect the latest testimony of Marina
Oswald concerning her knowledge of Oswald's job. It should probably also say
that Marina Oswald has testified that Oswald told her he operated a lathe, etc.
As the statement now reads it might appear that she had first hand knowledge of
what he was actually doing, which in fact she did not.
27. In the sentence following footnote 245 seems to bega a question that should
be discussed in this chapter. The sentence says that it seems unlikely that
Soviet authorities would have permitted Oswald to marry and oviet authorities
would have permitted Oswald to marry and take his wife to the United States if
they were contemplating using him "alone as an agent." One of the questions at
hand is whether they did contemplate using him as an agent, either alone or
together with Marina Oswald. The sentence as it presently stands, without any
discussion of the possibility that Marina Oswald was an agent, seems to be
circular.
29. At footnote 257 it says that Oswald unexpectedly appeared in Moscow on July
8, 1961. The following sentence states that Marina Oswald flew to Moscow "also
without Soviet sanction." There has been no indication that Oswald's trip to
Moscow was without Soviet sanction. Since it was, I believe, that should be
indicated. If it was not, the "also" should be taken out in connection with
Marina's statement. The first sentence in the next paragraph, of course,
indicates that Oswald's travel was apparently without permission, but that
should probably be indicated in the preceding paragraph at some point.
30. I think the information set forth in the several extensive quotes from the
CIA and State Department could be summarized in a much shorter form thus cutting
the length of the chapter.
31. The sentence at footnote 270 uses Marina Oswald's first name only, something
we have generally decided not to do and have not done in other places.
32. In the sentence following footnote 279, I believe the MVD colonel's name is
misspelled. It should be Aksenov--A-k-s-e-n-o-v, or at least it was so spelled
in Marina Oswald's latest testimony before the Commission.
33. At footnote 286 note should be taken of Mrs. Oswald's latest testimony. My
recollection is that she testified that she was not aware of any interviews that
Oswald had prior to his departure from the Soviet Union.
34. The last sentence on galley 199 which speaks of the Commission's awareness
of "both interviews" and states that the way in which American authorities
learned about those conferences affords additional evidence that they carried no
subversive significance raises the question in my mind of how many other
conferences Oswald and his wife may have had of which the Commission has no
knowledge. That is a question that can never be satisfactorily dealt with. It is
certainly raised, however, by the sentence just referred to which perhaps should
be rewritten to avoid raising that question. Perhaps the Commission should face
the proposition that it cannot really determine what the Oswalds did in the
Soviet Union. Then, in the absence of any other evidence of a conspiracy
involving the U.S.S.R. or Marina Oswald, the Commission has concluded that there
were no such conferences and if there were they were not related in any way to
the greatly subsequent event of the assassination.
35. The fourth sentence following the quote on top of galley 200 is very unclear
and should be rewritten. Furthermore, the footnote with respect to that quote
(No. 288) seems to be in the wrong place.
36. In the section on the Russian-speaking community, a little rewriting could
be done. In addition the second sentence in the second paragraph which says that
Oswald spent a "reasonably pleasant period during his grammar school years in
Ft. Worth" should be changed simply to indicate that he went to gram-mar school
in that city. It is questionable that there is authority to support the
proposition that his stay there was "reasonably pleasant."
37. I do not understand the material set forth following the first sentence of
the second paragraph, particularly the statement that there is no evidence that
he had been in touch with any of his former "acquaintances" when he was in the
Soviet Union. All that material could be stricken and the first sentence of the
second paragraph could become the first sentence of the third paragraph. Another
sentence could be added following that first sentence to indicate that Oswald's
brother and mother lived in the Ft. Worth area. We could then go directly to the
statement that upon his arrival Oswald did not know any memrbers of the
Russian-speaking community.
Page 243
243
38. I do not believe it would be correct to state that it is not surprising that
Oswald initiated contacts with the Russian group "in search of persons with whom
his non-English speaking wife could converse." We have already seen in chapter
VII that Oswald was not concerned about his wife's contacts with others. He
apparently did not wish her to have them. He resented her Russian-speaking
friends. There was testimony that he prevented her from learning English so that
he could continue to practice his own Russian. The most likely reason for
Oswald's contact with the Russian-speaking community was his desire to speak
Russian himself. I do not think the statement here which seems to evidence a
touching concern for his wife is consistent with the picture that has been
painted of Oswald in chapter VII.
39. My recollection of the events by which Paul Gregory came to be tutored in
Russia by Marina Oswald is different from that which is implied by the third
paragraph. They were not consecutive. I believe that Gregory was out of town for
some time during that summer and did not begin the Russian lessons until
sometime after he returned in the fall of the year. The inference to be drawn,
from the present structure of the sentence is that they begin almost at once,
perhaps within a week after the conversation between Max Clark and Oswald. I'm
perhaps within a week after the conversation between Max Clark and Oswald. I'm
quite sure that that is not correct. That inference is supported by the next
sentence which starts "sometime later in August" which clearly indicates that
the Russian tutoring lessons occurred sometime in early August, which I do not
believe to be the case.
40. I think we could do without the detailed descriptions of Bouhe and Meller,
and simply say that the Oswalds went to a dinner party where they met George
Bouhe and Mr. and Mrs. Meller, other members of the Russian community.
41. The sentence at footnote 324 is somewhat misleading in that it implies that
Oswald was looking for work in Dallas all during the time that Marina Oswald
stayed with Elena Hall. That is not correct, since Oswald began work at
Jaggers-Chiles-Storall almost immediately after he moved to Dallas in about the
middle of October whereas it appears that Marina Oswald stayed with Elena Hall
until late October or early November, as it says in the next sentence.
42. Query if it can be stated that "a quarrel" led to the November separation of
the Oswalds, in view of George De Mohrenschildt's testimony about how he went
and took Marina away. It would be simpler to state that the Oswalds were
separated again in early November, 1962 during which time Marina Oswald spent
approximately 2 weeks with Anna Meller and Mrs. Ford.
43. I would not be prepared to state that the severing of the relationship
between the Oswalds and members of the Russian-speaking community was caused
primarily "by personal animosity engendered by Oswald." I think it can be just
as clearly said that the animosity was "engendered" by George Bouhe and other
people who tried to take Marina Oswald away from her husband and who thrust
their "help" on Oswald when he had clearly indicated that he did' not want it.
This subject is actually more appropriate for treatment in chapter VII where it
has in fact been treated. It would be sufficient to say that relationships
between the Oswalds and other members of the Russian-speaking community were
terminated for personal reasons and let it go at that.
44. At the bottom of the paragraph that ends with footnote 327, Marina Oswald is
referred to by her first name and Mrs. Ford's first name is incorrectly used, it
is not "Kairina" but it is Katherine or "Kstya." Also the stars should be taken
out of footnote 327 in accordance with policy not to use them in material quoted
in the text itself. The next paragraph that ends with footnote 327 may be
reduced to one sentence which would state that far all practical purposes there
was no further contact between the Oswalds and the Russian community following
Oswald's departure for New Orleans in the spring of 1963. The material that is
now set forth is repetitive of material in chapter VII and greatly repetitive of
material in the appendix. It is not necessary for the support of the conclusions
of the conspiracy chapter.
45. The last full paragraph on galley 227 now starts to repeat materials that
have been set forth in the first paragraph of that section. It has already been
stated that Oswald came to Fort Worth on his return from Russia for reasons that
had nothing to do with the presence of the Russian community in that city and
there is no reason is repeat it now. Additionally, Marina Oswald is again
retorted to by her first name as she is also at footnote 337.
46. The whole section of the Russian-speaking community could be tightened very
much and should be severely edited and rewritten. The accuracy and precision of
the statements set forth should also be improved considerably.
Page 244
244
47. Marina Oswald is again referred to by her first name only at footnote 341
and at several other places throughout the discussion that follows.
48. Query whether we have evidence to support the proposition that "particularly
Marina" visited the de Mohrenschildts. I am not aware of the fact that Marina
Oswald visited them on any great number of occasions without her husband being
present.
49. After reading the remaining section on de Mohrenschildt I am constrained to
remark that it really is essential that this material be substantially shortened
and cleared up in every sense. It is very bad as it now stands and there is
really no reason for all this to be in the text.
50. The first sentence in the second full paragraph states that the opening of
the closet door "inadvertently" exposed Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. Point
1: There is no footnote at the end of the sentence. Point 2: I do not know what
evidence there is that the exposure of the rifle was inadvertent. Point 3: I do
not know what evidence there is that that which was exposed, inadvertently or
otherwise, was Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.
51. The two paragraphs dealing with the rifle episode do not indicate the
conflict in the testimony as to when the remark was made. My recollection is
that someone testified that de Mohrenschildt made the remark as soon as he
walked in the door. That does not appear in the discussion presently in the
galley.
52. The paragraph which includes footnotes 391 and 392 is unnecessary. It is
personally offensive to de Mohrenschildt. I do not think it is at all necessary
to establishing the fact that de Mohrenschildt was not involved with the
assassination, to describe him as "immature" and an "admirer of the opposite
"eccentric" or anything else.
I think the discussion of de Mohrenschildt and also of Paine should be rewritten
and substantially shortened if not altogether deleted from chapter VI. I am
unable to understand why such extensive time and space is devoted to de
Mohrenschildt and Paine when Marina Oswald herself the most obvious place to
look for possible co-conspirator, is not discussed at all.
53. I'm not setting forth comments on the Paine material in the hope that will
be substantially rewritten or deleted from chapter VI. I cannot resist; however,
noting the paragraph which includes footnotes 431-433. I am particularly struck
by the sentence that "Oswald obtained a room in Dallas, where he found
employment, but spent weekends with his family at the Paine home." I will always
have visions of Oswald and the other TSBD employees packing their books in that
long, narrow room at 1926 North Beckley. More seriously, however, the last
sentence of the paragraph includes the statement "by the time the agents again
came to Mrs. Paine's home." That clearly implies that there was more than one
agent present at both interviews. My recollection is that Hasty was by himself
on one of the occasions.
54. So far I have not found anything in chapter VI concerning William Kirk
Coleman's story of two men who drove out of the area behind Walter's house
immediately after the shot was fired at the general.
55. I have given all of my galleys to Stuart Pollack together with copies of
this and other memoranda which I have given to you on chapter VI.
JFK EXHIBIT No. 41
[Memorandum]
To: Howard P. Willens. SEPTEMBER 16, 1964.
From: Wesley J. Liebeler.
Subject: Chapter VI.
The following comments relate to the discussion of Oswald's political activities
upon his return to the United States which starts at about the middle of galley
230.
1. In the first paragraph of the discussion of the Communist Party, ,et cetera,
the T on the word "the" in The Worker should be capitalized.
2. The term "as a matter of course" at footnote 505 implies the existence of
evidence beyond that which exists in the record. In order to support that we
would have to have evidence as to what the ordinary course of action would
Page245
245
be on the part of the Communist Party in response to a letter such as that sent
Oswald. Since we do not have that evidence I do not see how we can say that
their response was "as a matter of course".
3. The same point might be made about the statement in the next paragraph that
the organization was not especially responsive. In order to state that we would
have to know how responsive they generally were in other situations. Since we do
not, I do not see how we can make the statement.
In the sentence following footnote 510 it would be better to say that Johnson
testified that he did not receive the letter until after the assassination,
instead of making the flat statement, since the only evidence we have on that
question is Johnson's testimony. This same point was raised in a discussion
concerning chapter VII with Mr. Rankin and Mr. Redlich and it was agreed by all
that the qualified statement would be preferable.
5. The next sentence says that Oswald wrote the Communist Party and the Hall
Davis Defense Committee enclosing samples of his photographic work. He did write
the Hall Davis Defense Committee but I believe the other letter enclosing
samples of his photographic work was to The Worker and not to the Communist
Party, although my recollection is not precise on that point.
6. The first sentence in the last paragraph on galley 230 should be qualified by
stating "Johnson testified that the files of the Communist Party * * *" Once
again Johnson's testimony is the only evidence we have and the qualified
statement would be preferable.
7. The sentence preceding the sentence covered by footnote 518 should have
footnote. In any event the nature of the evidence indicating that the files of
the Young Socialist Alliance contain no reference to Oswald should be indicated.
If it is somebody's testimony we should state that so-and-so testified that the
files contained no such reference.
8. The Militant should have an initial capital T on the article in its name.
9. The sentence following footnote 523 says that the Commission has questioned
persons who knew Oswald during every phase of his adult life and that one of
them gave any indication that Oswald maintained a surreptitious relationship
with any organization. There is no footnote in support of that sentence and the
next sentence goes on to an entirely different subject. Obviously a footnote is
needed.
10. The last sentence in the discussion of Communist Party, et cetera,
activities says that there is no reason to believe that any material has been
withheld by any of the organizations under discussion. I would omit that last
clause ending the last sentence as follows: "The material that has been
disclosed is in all cases consistent with other data in the possession of the
Commission." There is no reason for the Commission to go on and make a statement
that could very well arouse political controversy, especially when it does not
contribute in any material way to the discussion.
11. The first sentence in the discussion on Fair Play for Cuba Committee
indicates that Oswald "purportedly" acted on behalf of the FPCC. I do not know
that qualification should be stated. He obviously acted on behalf of FPCC in the
sense that he was encouraged by the national organization in many of the
activities in which he engaged.
12. The sentence preceding footnote 527 should be omitted since it simply does
not seem to fit here.
13. The sentence preceding 529 is incorrect since Oswald did not ask the
national organization for the circulars as described nor did he distribute them
on at least three occasions. He had his "Hands off Cuba" materials printed in
New Orleans at his own expense.
14. I would say that the FPCC chapter in New Orleans appeared to have been
entirely fictitious.
15. The sentence following footnote 533 states when the national office learned
of Oswald's unauthorized activities, it terminated its correspondence with him."
Technically they terminated correspondence with him with their last letter, at
which time they did not know of his "unauthorized activities." In any event the
sentence implies a causal connection between the two events which cannot under
any circumstances be justified by the testimony presently in the record. The
most that can be said is that V.T. Lee later testified that he was disappointed
with Oswald, even though there is really no reason I see why he should have been
at that time and that Lee did not write any letters after a certain date. I know
of no way in which a causal connection may be established between
Page 246
246
those propositions. In any event a footnote for the sentence or the thoughts
expressed differently is necessary.
16. The reference to chapter VII in parentheses following footnote 534 should be
moved up to the preceding sentence which should read "in fact these letters
which are discussed in greater detail in chapter VII, contained * * *."
17. At the very bottom of galley 231 a footnote is needed for a reference to Mr.
Steele's testimony that he never saw Oswald before and never saw him again after
the distribution of FPCC leaflets on August 16, 1963.
18. I would add language at the top of galley 932 to indicate that a search had
been made for the individual who helped Oswald and Steele distribute literature
but that he has not yet been found. A parenthetical expression preceding the
word "but" at the top of that page as follows would be appropriate: "in spite an
extensive search for him,".
19. While the discussion of groups hostile to President Kennedy is generally,
well written, it is too long and contains material that has not the slightest
conceivable relevance to the possible existence of a conspiracy to assassinate
the President or to any other possible issue in this investigation. In addition,
I suggest that the quote from Oswald's undated letter of November 1963 to the
Communist Party be omitted, as it is set forth in chapter VII. If it is left in
the two quotes should be made identical in form, which they are not now.
20. Some footnotes are needed in the second paragraph following the quote.
Mr. CORNWELL. Again, Mr. Liebeler, what we have now admitted into the record is
a rather voluminous quantity of additional comments concerning the galley proofs
and the nature of the final report. What, if anything, was done with your
comments in all of these memos?
Mr. LIEBELER. I am not able to answer that question from my own recollection. I
have not gone through all of the memos to see which of the suggestions were
adopted and which were not. But I have done that with respect to two of them.
Exhibit 39 and exhibit 38, I find that for the most part the recommendations
made in these memos are reflected in the final report.
Mr. CORNWELL. Which two memos again were those?
Mr. LIEBELER. Exhibits 38 and 39.
Mr. CORNWELL. Again did the implementation of your suggestions in those cases
require lengthy discussions or were they inaccurate based on the memorandum
itself?
Mr. LIEBELER. Since I don't have any recollection of them I assume they were
adopted without any difficulty. I don't have any recollection that there was any
difficulty with any of these suggestions
Mr. CORNWELL. You implied earlier by your analogy, to UCLA and USC that you lost
more of those suggestions than were adopted, that correct?
Mr. LIEBELER. I only said that about that conference in Mr. Rankin's office with
Mr. Redlich and Mr. Willens on chapter IV.
Mr. CORNWELL. Does that analogy apply to the rest of the memos?
Mr. LIEBELER. I don't think so. I have not had time to go through these other
memos and see whether the changes were reflected in the report or not. I have no
recollection whether they were or not, but that can easily be done if somebody
wants to do it.
Mr. CORNWELL. Let me ask you this. What if any motive was there: for the general
tone of the galley proofs that you found repeated fault, with in these memos?
Why was it written the way it was? Was it simply inadvertence. Was it pressure
in an attempt to get the report together under a too restrictive deadline, or
was there some other reason, the kinds of problems you found?
Page 247
247
Mr. LIEBELER. I think there are different reasons in different cases. I have the
impression from looking at these memos that the problem that I am addressing
here in chapter VI and chapter VII are a little different than the problems I
addressed in exhibit 36 which related to chapter IV. It appears to me that the
kinds of problems raised in exhibits 37 through 41, I, believe are more of the
kinds of problems that will just come up on reviewing a draft or a set of
galleys that will just creep into the work for the most part, whereas chapter IV
was a little different question. I did say I thought there was overwriting to a
great extent.
Mr. CORNWELL. The overwriting concept, of overstating the degree proof, was one
of the problems discussed with respect to chapter IV, is that correct?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Let us look at the September 14 memo which I believe is exhibit
37. On page 9 do you not state that:
We cannot say that all of Oswald's transactions in connection with firearms were
undertaken under an assumed name, only his known transactions.
b. I think the degree of doubt about the authenticity of the repair tag is
overstated.
d. The third sentence should also be qualified. The underlying report is not
that strong.
e. The last sentence in that paragraph is not supported by the TV films we got
from CBS.
On the next page 3, under item 10, b., "The title and the introduction are
inappropriate because they strongly suggest that Oswald was an anti-Castro."
On page 4 under "Odio," item e., "The paragraph on bus transportation starting
'There is no firm evidence' should be completely rewritten. I do not think there
is 'convincing evidence.'"
On page 5, "The McFarland item is given too much weight."
Down there further, under paragraph f., "The point can be made without saying
that and to seem to rely on really weak evidence is to invite trouble."
Item J. "The conclusion that the evidence is persuasive that Oswald was not in
Dallas on September 95 is too strong."
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes; all these things are here, that is correct.
Mr. CORNWELL. The same kind of comments in chapter VI then that we found in
chapter IV?
Mr. LIEBELER. There are some of them in here. This memo has many of them in
here. My impression as I said before is I still have that impression that there
was not the severe problem in these other chapters that there was in chapter IV.
Obviously, that problem I thought was there in all of them, and I raised these
questions about it.
Mr. CORNWELL. Did you receive any impression that the reason for writing the
report, as you found it, overly strong, and of course in context that means I
guess that the sole assassin in theory was stronger, the lack of a conspiracy
may have been overstated? In that sense was it prompted by any consideration of
the national or possible international repercussions of this report?
Mr. LIEBELER. I have no way of knowing that or answering that question. I think
that the kind of thing that we observe here as much as anything else reflects a
basic difference in judgment between some
Page 248
248
the other people on the staff who drafted these portions of the report about
which I am commenting and myself. In some cases l think that the memos indicate
that simply mistakes were made and that they should be corrected and I assumed
that they were. I am almost certain that they were.
But that could be probed by looking at the report. I don't think there is any
"explanation" for it other than the difference in attitude and approach between
different people.
Mr. CORNWELL. May we mark for identification as exhibit 42, Mr. Chairman, a memo
dated September 16 from Mr. Liebeler to Mr. Rankin, subject matter: "Quote from
New Orleans Times-Picayune September 19, 1963 concerning Fidel Castro's speech."
Mr. PREYER. That may be marked for identification only.
Mr. CORNWELL. Have you had a chance to review that memo prior to coming here?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, sir.
Mr. CORNWELL. Would it be fair to state that that is one additional memo
concerning the same general subject matter of what should and should not be
included in the final report?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. May we admit that document into the record?
Mr. PREYER. Without objection, it is admitted into the record.
[The document referred to, marked JFK exhibit No. 42 and received for the
record, follows:]
JFK EXHIBIT No. 42
[Memorandum]
SEPTEMBER 16, 1964.
To: Mr. Rankin.
From: Mr. Liebeler.
Re: Quote from New Orleans Times-Picayune of September 19, 1963, concerning
Fidel Castro's speech.
We previously discussed the possible inclusion in chapter VII of the quote from
the New Orleans Times-Picayune of September 19, 1963, concerning Fidel Castro to
the effect that U.S. leaders would not be safe themselves if U.S. promoted
attack on Cuba continued. You and Mr. Redrich took the position that we could
not include the quote unless there was some evidence that Oswald had actually
read that particular newspaper. I stated that the material was relevant and the
possibility that Oswald had read it, should be discussed. I was not, however, at
that time able to indicate any other situation in which materials had been
discussed on the possibility that Oswald had read it, in the absence of any
specific proof that he had.
I now note, however, in reviewing the galleys of chapter Vl that an extensive
discussion of the "Welcome Mr. Kennedy" advertisement and the "Wanted for
Treason" handbill are included. The following statement appears in connection:
"There is no evidence that he [Oswald] became aware of either the 'Welcome Mr.
Kennedy' advertisement or the 'Wanted for Treason' handbill, though neither
possibility can be precluded."
Our discussion of the possible inclusion of the Castro quote had obvious
political overtones. The discussion set forth in chapter Vl concerning the
"Welcome Mr. Kennedy" advertisement and the "Wanted for Treason" handbill have
similar overtones. One of the basic positions that you have taken throughout
this investigation is that the groups on both ends of the political spectrum
must treated fairly. I have agreed with that proposition in general, even though
have disagreed at times on specific applications of it.
It appears clear to me, however, that if we are precluded from including the
quote from the New Orleans newspaper concerning Castro's speech on the grounds
that we have no evidence that Oswald actually read it, even though we do know
Page 249
249
he read a great deal, the same must be true of the "Welcome Mr. Kennedy"
advertisement and the "Wanted four Treason" handbill. The discussion in chapteer
Vl actually admits that the "Welcome Mr. Kennedy" advertisement in the November
22, 1963, Dallas Morning News probably did not come to Oswald's attention. Under
those circumstances, it would seem to me that fairness indicates either the
deletion of the discussion of the advertisement and the handbill that is now set
forth in chapter VI or the inclusion of the Castro statement in chapter VII.
Mr. CORNWELL. Would it be fair to state, Mr. Liebeler, that on the first page of
that document you outline to Mr. Rankin two different types of newspaper or
articles, one of which would reflect a possible threat against the President by
Mr. Castro, and another set of articles which would indicate possible threats by
rightwing groups in the United States?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, sir.
Mr. CORNWELL. Would it be fair to state that on page 2 you go on to state that:
Our discussion of the possible inclusion of the Castro quote had obvious
political overtones. The discussion set forth in chapter VI concerning the
"Welcome Mr. Kennedy" advertisement and the "Wanted for Treason" handbill have
similar overtones. One of the basic positions that you have taken throughout
this investigation is that the groups on both sides of the political spectrum
must be treated fairly. I have agreed with that proposition in general although
we have disagreed at times on the specific application of it.
In other words, would it be fair to state that in substance you found an example
where the report was to allow the inclusion of evidence if it reflected a
possible right wing conspiracy, but it would be. more sensitive to the problem
if you included evidence concerning possible Castro conspiracy?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes; I think that is a correct statement, and I am prepared to
offer, if you wish it, an explanation as to why that sort of thing occurred.
Mr. CORNWELL. Yes, sir.
Mr. LIEBELER. I have the very definite impression that the Chief Justice was
extremely sensitive about some of the things people in Texas and in Dallas
particularly had said about him. There was considerable discussion about putting
anything in the report or conducting any kind of investigation into the
newspaper ads that had been taken in Dallas prior to the time that President
Kennedy went to Dallas and about some handbills that had been distributed down
there.
I took the position that there was no conceivable relevance between that
activity and President Kennedy's assassination. As this memo reflects, one of
the legal formulations of that issue became a part of the question of whether
there was any evidence to suggest that Oswald had ever seen these newspaper
stories or knew about the handbill, and if he had not, of course, there would
not be any foundation at all for saying anything about it. This memo is an
attempt to quite frankly either get the rightwing stuff out or put the Castro
stuff in but not put the rightwing stuff in and keep the Castro stuff out.
In fact, this particular article from the Tirnes-Picayune I do not believe was
discussed in the report, but I may be wrong about that. I have not been able to
find any reference to it. There is a considerable discussion, however, on pages
414 and 415 of the report about
Page 250
250
the possibility that Oswald was motivated by sympathy for the Castro regime and
other Communist materials that he read and was familiar with, so that that
question was discussed in the report even though the specific article was not.
The other material about these rightwing people was also included in the report.
Both of them went in although not the specific Castro thing as near as I can
tell. The reference to the New Orleans article was not included in the report.
Mr. CORNWELL. I wonder if part of your last answer inferred a particularly close
relationship between Mr. Redlich and Mr. Rankin on the one hand and Chief
Justice Earl Warren on the other. In other words, you seem to be suggest that
Earl Warren's feeling about the rightwing attitude in Texas may have had an
effect upon the decision or at least the preliminary decision to include the
rightwing articles and omit the Castro articles.
Mr. LIEBELER. I don't have the impression that it had anything to do with
omitting the Castro article. I have the rather clear impression that the Chief
Justice requested that the investigation into the rightwing activities be
conducted. I know that for a fact because they asked me to do it. I didn't do
it. I wouldn't do it.
Mr. CORNWELL. Do you believe based on your experiences there that this type of
selection process, and the process by which many of the points of evidence were
overstated, was the result of Rankin's and Redlich's views of what Earl Warren
wanted? Did this last exhibit represent a typical occurrence or an isolated
occurrence?
Mr. LIEBELER. It wasn't the only time the question came up. That is certainly
true. It seems to me there are two questions here though. This business of
overwriting, as I characterized it, I don't have any reason to believe that that
had any relationship to the Chief Justice's views on any of the issues. I didn't
have any reason to believe that. I have no knowledge that would lead me to
believe that. Mr. Redlich and I have quite profoundly different views of the
world on political questions, and that led to disagreements over this matter on
several occasions.
Mr. CORNWELL. I am sorry I don't have it here to show you, but I would like to
read for you what our research department says is the contents of a memorandum
they have reviewed in the L.B.J. Library in Austin. Tex. The memo purports to
reflect J. Edgar Hoover's statements to White House aide Walter Jenkins on
November 24, 1963. It states Mr. Hoover's apparent thinking.
The thing I am most concerned about and so is Mr. Katzenbach, is having
something issued so that we can convince the public that Oswald is the real
assassin. Mr. Katzenbach thinks that the President might appoint a presidential
Commission of three outstanding citizens to make a determination. I countered
with the suggestion that we make an investigative report to the Attorney General
with pictures, laboratory work, et cetera, and the Attorney General can make the
report to the President and the President can decide whether to make it public.
I felt this was better because there are several aspects which would complicate
our foreign relations if we followed the Presidential Commission route.
Were you aware of any belief at the level of the FBI, the head of the FBI, the
Justice Department, the White House, perhaps Earl Warren, during the operation
of the Warren Commission that the public needed to be convinced that Oswald was
the real assassin and
Page 251
251
that there were sensitive areas that had to be avoided in connection with
foreign relations?
Mr. LIEBELER. No. I did not get that impression. I don't think anybody on the
staff of the Commission thought it was their job to convince anybody that Oswald
was the assassin. I think they felt their job was to find out who was the
assassin. For better or worse we came to the conclusion, which I felt was
correct, that Oswald was the assassin and that is what the report said. I don't
have the feeling that there was ever any constraint placed on any investigation
that I was involved in or anyone else that I know of on the Commission staff,
either for reasons of the kind to which you now allude or for any other reason
that didn't make sense in the context of the development of the work of the
Commission.
I want to put that exception in because there were persons who felt that Griffin
was spending too much time trying to find out how Jack Ruby got in the basement
and things like that. On this other issue there was no such thing involved.
Mr. CORNWELL. In other words, your answer, as I understood it, is that you
observed no restrictions upon your investigation or that of your fellow staff
attorneys which you then or now would construe as being the product of this type
of attitude?
Mr. LIEBELER. That is correct.
Mr. CORNWELL. Let me ask you, however, whether or not in your view it would have
been possible for the facts to have been supplied to the Warren Commission by
the investigative agencies in a manner to accomplish this type of constraint?
Could they have tailored what they provided you in your view to accomplish that?
Mr. LIEBELER. In my view that could have been done by the Central Intelligence
Agency. I do not believe that could have been done by the FBI.
Mr. CORNWELL. On what basis do you make the distinction?
Mr. LIEBELER. The FBI provided us with a piece of information and interview, the
FBI reports. Those witnesses, those persons who were interviewed by the FBI were
available to us. We took their depositions ourselves. The work the FBI did on
the physical evidence, the ballistics work, the fingerprint work, the fair and
fibers work, that sort of thing, in many, if not in all cases, were checked by
independent criminal laboratories. We did not rely solely on the statement of
the Federal Bureau of Investigation in that regard.
I do not believe because of those considerations that the Bureau could have
essentially done that. It is true that apparently there were things that some
people in the Bureau knew that they did not tell us but don't think that any of
those things had anything to do with the basic facts of the assassination.
As to the CIA, however, it is much more difficult. It was much more difficult
for us to verify statements received from them. So, I think as result of those
factors it might have been possible in the case of the CIA. I want to emphasize,
however, that I do not believe that was the case. But I think it might have been
possible. I think the basic problem, the basic area where it could have been a
possibility is that if the-- we were faced with a number of leads that led to
various kinds of Cuban individuals and Cuban groups that Oswald was claimed to
have
Page 252
252
associated with or been seen with. The Odio thing and a series of contacts in
New Orleans, several in New Orleans.
In those cases it was very difficult or impossible to follow them down in the
sense you could say absolutely with a high degree of certainty that there was
nothing to them. It is possible I suppose that the CIA may have had information
in its files reflecting its own activity and concerns with Cuba that, if
provided to us, might have helped us keep up with some of these other things
that we were pursuing on our own and with the help of the FBI. As I say, I have
no reason to believe that is the case.
Mr. CORNWELL. Would that attitude, which would appear on the face of that one
memorandum which I just read, have been consistent with what you observed to
have happened during the rewrite process?
Mr. LIEBELER. Are we referring to exhibit 42?
Mr. CORNWELL. No. I am referring to the memorandum I read you a moment ago
concerning what appears to have been Mr. Hoover's feeling that they needed to
convince the American public that Oswald was the assassin and to avoid several
aspects which might complicate foreign relations. Was that consistent with what
was happening in the rewrite process?
Mr. LIEBELER. I don't know. Once you conclude on the basis of the evidence we
had that Oswald was the assassin, for example, taking that issue first, then
obviously it is in the interest of the Commission, and I presume everyone else,
to express that conclusion in a straightforward and convincing way. Now the
question, I think, that perhaps Mr. Redlich and I differed on from time to time
was what was the most convincing way? Do you write the thing in a conclusionary
sense or do you say: Well, here are the problems. And after looking at all this
evidence and taking account of the conflicting evidence and differences, the
Commission has concluded that this is the result.
If you were just going to publish the report ired get rid of all the other
evidence obviously you can state it in any kind of conclusionary fashion you
want. But If you know that people are going to be looking at this work for years
and years to come, as it has turned out they are, then it seemed to me the most
convincing way to do it was to lay everything right out there and say, "Here are
the problems, you don't have to look for them, the Commission looked at them and
after considering them this is the conclusion we came to."
Mr. CORNWELL. One final exhibit, Mr. Chairman. May I have marked for
identification a document or a memorandum dated April 15, 1964, from Mr.
Goldberg to Mr. Rankin as exhibit 43?
Mr. PREYER. It may be marked as exhibit 43 for identification purposes.
Mr. CORNWELL. Did you have a chance to review that document prior to coming
here?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, sir.
Mr. CORNWELL. Is it fair to say that the subject of that memo concerns a
possible request from all the members of the staff for a historical memorandum
outlining the nature of their work, the major problems they encountered, and
soliciting their evaluation of the work of the Commission from various
standpoints?
Mr. LIEBELER. That is what it says.
Page 253
253
Mr. CORNWELL. May we admit that for the record, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. PREYER. Without objection, it is admitted into evidence.
[The document referred to, marked JFK exhibit No. 43 and received for the
record, follows:]
JFK EXHIBIT No. 43
APRIL 15, 1964.
Memorandum for: Mr. J. Lee Rankin.
From: Mr. Alfred Goldberg.
Subject: Historical memoranda by staff members.
Pursuant to our conversation of yesterday, I suggest that the members of the
Commission staff be asked to prepare, prior to their departure from here, an
account of their experiences with the Commission. Attached is a suggested draft
of a memorandum to the staff.
April 15, 1964.
Memorandum to: All members of the staff.
From: J. Lee Rankin, General Counsel.
Subject: Historical memoranda by staff members.
It is more than likely that this Commission will be the subject of future
historical, legal, and political studies. We have an opportunity, and also an
obligation, to help create as complete a record as possible of the work of the
Commission. At some time, shortly before your departure from here, will you
please prepare an account of your contribution to the work of the Commission. It
would be helpful if you would also analyze and evaluate the work of the staff
and the Commission in general. Please be as specific and comprehensive as
possible. You may find the check list below of some assistance in preparing your
memoranda.
1. How did you become associated with the Commission?
2. How were your functions and area of activity decided?
3. What actions did you take to carry out your assignment?
4. What were the major problems you encountered in carrying out your assignment?
5. What is your evaluation of the work of the Commission from the following
standpoints?
a. Organization;
b. Administration;
c. Planning of work;
d. Policies;
e. Investigative support;
f. Hearings and depositions;
g. Organization and preparation of reports;
h. Validity of findings.
Mr. CORNWELL. Prior to the time that I showed you that document in anticipation
of your testimony here had you seen it?
Mr. LIEBELER. Not to my recollection.
Mr. CORNWELL. Was it to your knowledge, circulated among the staff and were
those requests ever made?
Mr. LIEBELER. I don't believe so. I don't believe they were ever made.
Mr. CORNWELL. Did you ever write any memorandum of that nature, in other words,
a memorandum giving your views on those subject matters?
Mr. LIEBELER. Not directly.
Mr. CORNWELL. Do you have any information which could give us an insight into
why that memorandum was never distributed among the staff, if it was not?
Mr. LIEBELER. Well, I think if I had been in Mr. Rankin's position I would
probably not have sent it out either.
Mr. CORNWELL. I have no further questions.
Mr. PREYER. Are there questions by members? Mr. Fauntroy.
Page 254
254
Mr. FAUNTROY. Not at this time.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Devine.
Mr. DEVINE. No questions.
Mr. PREYER. Mr. Dodd.
Mr. DODD. I have just two questions really. You stated in regard to the rifle,
the palm print, and I think on the boxes as well you had a bit of disagreement
over whether or not those prints ought to be--was it verified or checked out? I
wasn't sure what you meant. They had actually been run already once. There was
some question of the absorption because of the wood. Had there already been a
test on them?
Mr. LIEBELER. If I may, I will explain exactly what happened in both of those
cases, it won't take very long.
I think particularly the point on the rifle barrel may be worthwhile. The Dallas
Police Department had gotten to the rifle. Very shortly thereafter they sent it
to the FBI for fingerprint analysis. The FBI reported there were no prints on
the rifle. Four days later the Dallas Police Department forwarded to the FBI a
lift of a palm print that they said had been taken from the underside of the
rifle barrel. When they were asked, as they were, why they had waited 4 days to
send this lift to the FBI or had not told the FBI that they had made this lift
from the rifle, their reply was that even though the print had been lifted, that
that lift had not removed the latent print from the underside of the rifle
barrel and it was still there.
Well, the problem was that the FBI never found it there. It occurred to us that
it was possible that in fact the palm print never came from the rifle. We only
had the say-so of the Dallas Police Department to that effect and we weren't
satisfied with that. We wanted the FBI to establish, if they could, whether that
palm print in fact came from that rifle or not. At the time this question was
raised no attempt whatever had been made to deal with that problem. Now after
the discussion that Mr. Willens and Redlich and I had that was referred to in
the testimony Mr. Rankin invited to his office the chief FBI fingerprint expert,
Inspector Mally of the FBI, who was liaison with the Commission and I think Mr.
Slawson and Mr. Griffin and Mr. Willens and Mr. Redlich and Mr. Rankin met with
them. I suggested to Mr. Latona, their fingerprint expert, that there might be
some distortion in the lift because it had been taken from a cylindrical
surface, sort of a Mercator projection is here, put your hand on a light bulb
and take the lift and lay it flat, it might distort the lift from what it might
have been on the surface.
Latona went back and looked at the lift. He found that there were indications in
the lift itself of pits and scores and marks and rust spots that had been on the
surface from which the print had been lifted, and happily they conformed
precisely to a portion of the underside of the rifle barrel and the FBI so
reported to us. As far as I was concerned that conclusively established the
proposition that, that that had come from that rifle.
Mr. DODD. To your knowledge why would not the FBI have been able to detect it?
Mr. LIEBELER. I have no explanation of that.
Mr. DODD. There have been all sorts of allegations about the numbers of various
weapons kicking around. I don't know, this has been one of
Page 255
255
the pieces of evidence they have used to corroborate the critics that allege---
Mr. LIEBELER. Not any more. There is nothing you can say about it. It clearly
came from that rifle.
Mr. DODD. Why did Mr. Rankin object so strongly to going through that fairly
simple process to make that determination? Did he ever give an explanation why?
Mr. LIEBELER. It wasn't clear that it was going to be that simple when we
started out. That was an idea that sort of occurred to us as we went along. Our
first approach was to think of how we could question the Dallas Police
Department about what happened, why they had not forwarded the print with the
rifle. This being late in the day, whenever it was, late August or September,
Mr. Rankin was not terribly enthusiastic about having a couple of Commission
lawyers go down to Dallas and start questioning the Dallas Police Department
quite frankly cause it would have raised all kinds of questions at that time as
to what in the hell was going on, what are we doing going down and taking
depositions from the Dallas Police Department months after the report was
supposed to be out?
I had some sympathy with that view and halfway thought we would have pushed
that, we would have done that had it not been for the Bureu's ability to deal
with that problem in another way and much more effective way.
Now on the cartons the problem there was that Oswald's prints had been
identified on those cartons, they were cartons containing books that were in the
corner of the window from which the shot had been fired and there were, I don't
know, 20 or 25 or 28 other prints on the cartons that had never been identified.
No serious attempt in my mind had ever been made to identify them. I first was
troubled by the fact that at one point the draft of the report said that the
Commission great weight on the fact that Oswald's prints were on those cartons.
I had some difficulty with that proposition in view of the fact that we had not
identified these other prints and really had not made any attempt to do so.
Mr. DODD. What eventually happened to that?
Mr. LIEBELER. What eventually happened was at that same conference--I was given
the gift of tongues or something. As I walked out of the conference I heard
someone say to Inspector Mally, "By the way, Inspector Mally, you might consider
the possibility that those prints were put on those boxes by FBI agents." I
looked around the room to see who had the temerity to suggest that and I found I
said it myself. Unconsciously, I didn't realize I was saying that. Inspector
Mally did consider that possibility and it turned out to be correct.
Mr. DODD. All those prints did come from the FBI people?
Mr. LIEBELER. They came from an FBI clerk in the Dallas office and from a
detective in the Dallas Police Department except for one print that was never
identified.
Mr. DODD. Also the palm prints on the gun that was FBI?
Mr. LIEBELER. That was Oswald's, yes.
Mr. DODD. I did want to ask you why you thought Gerald Ford was the best
Commission member but I thought that was irrelevant.
Mr. McKINNEY. It is irrelevant now.
Page 256
256
Mr. PREYER. Mr. McKinney.
Mr. McKINNEY. Just a question I have asked everybody appearing before the
committee. It concerns the lack of communication between the CIA and the FBI
over Oswald, the fact Oswald was a known defector from the United States. The
CIA's debacle of the Bay of Pigs which we discussed with Mr. Slawson, none of
our agencies at that particular time were in very good repute. There was a
question as to our intelligence gathering ability after the Bay of Pigs and
after the Cuban missile crisis and one thing or another.
The FBI had problems. Do you feel as a junior counsel on this a little nervous
about the fact that you had to depend, for all your information to essentially
come from governmental agencies that had somewhat clearly goofed at least as far
as keeping each other apprised of what Lee Harvey Oswald was at?
Mr. LIEBELER. I never had the feeling that we relied on Government agencies for
our information. When we started we started with a bunch of FBI files, but we
reviewed those so that we could conduct our own investigation. We did take the
testimony of many, many witnesses. We had the reports of the examination of the
physical evidence verified by outside sources, we did not rely on the FBI. So as
to the basic facts of what happened in Dallas on that day not only did we not
rely on the FBI work but the fact is that the Commission came to assume somewhat
different conclusions than the FBI came to.
There was a preliminary FBI report that solved the problem as to what happened.
Our conclusions were somewhat different from that. I don't think we relied on
the FBI to the extent that people think we did.
Mr. McKINNEY. Do you feel there was not enough time?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, to write the report. What we had planned to do originally-Mr.
Rankin spoke to me about this in June or July--was that after the report was
drafted, put into the condition it was eventually released in, he wanted two or
three people and I was quite flattered by the fact that he asked me to be one of
them to stay on and rewrite the whole report and polish it up. We simply never
had time to do that. I was unhappy about that.
In terms of the investigation with the one exception that I mentioned I did not
think that time was a particular problem.
Mr. PREYER. I have a couple of questions. One of the most troubling incidents is
the Sylvia Odio incident where apparently there was so much unanimous agreement
that she is a credible witness. Yet, some of her testimony seems rather
improbable, measured against some of the other known facts. Do you have any
suggestion, calling on your gift of tongues, that would give us any thoughts on
how we might corroborate her testimony or challenge it? I assume one thing, if
we could find out whether Oswald
was in Dallas on that date it would be an important fact. But do you have any
thoughts on how, if you had the time now and an opportunity--you mentioned you
did not think you had gotten at the bottom of that--what would you do now to try
to get to the bottom of it . What could we do?
Mr. LIEBELER. The first thing I would do is review the FBI on that question that
I understand came into existence subsequent to the publication of the report and
then I think I would want to find out, if I knew how to do it, whether the CIA
has any information or had any information
Page 257
257
about any of the people who were involved in that sequence of events. I don't
believe that the committee will be able to eliminate the possibility that Oswald
was in Dallas at that time any better than we did. We tried to do that. We had
his location pinpointed rather well.
The FBI conducted an extensive investigation quite late in the game to see if
they could produce any additional information about his whereabouts in New
Orleans before he went to Mexico, unsuccessfully. While it would have involved
travel by automobile or by airplane I think he could have been in Dallas at that
time. I personally do not believe he was but he could have been.
Mr. PREYER. Did you ever talk to Ms. Odio personally?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, sir, I took her testimony.
Mr. PREYER. What is your impression of her credibility after you subjected her
to questioning?
Mr. LIEBELER. I think she believes that Oswald was there. I do not think she
would lie about something like that. But I also have the impression both from my
own observations of the woman and from some knowledge of her background obtained
from the FBI, that I would not regard her as a reliable witness on this
question. I will be happy to discuss that at greater length. The staff I am sure
will follow up on that matter.
She was having certain psychologist and other problems at the time. I just don't
think she accurately reported on what happened.
Mr. PREYER. I might ask one other question in another area. I understand that
several of the Warren Commission members had a long day session with a number of
psychiatrists and psychologists dealing in your area of what were the motives of
Oswald and there has been some criticism that the Warren Commission report
treated that day's findings in a somewhat selective manner. Do you have any
comment about that? Were you at that all-day meeting?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, I was. My understanding and recollection of that was that
that session was sort of a working session and a transcript was made of it and
it was not published in the underlying hearings. I think it is available in the
archives. I have seen a copy of it since then. I know it is available somewhere.
I think that some people st the time thought we were getting a little too far
into this business of trying to psychoanalyze a man who none of us had even
seen. In the 13 years that have passed since that time I think that too now. I
did not think it then but I do now.
Mr. PREYER. There was more question of the weight of the evidence to why you
didn't come down very hard on that.
Mr. LIEBELER. That is right. Unlike some people we are not able to observe
Members of the United States Senate st a distance and characterize the nature of
their psychology.
Mr. FAUNTROY. I have two questions, Mr. Chairman. That is that there has
recently been published a book called "The Making of an Assassin" by Ms.
McMillan, referring to a 13-year-long writing of an account of the man through
interviews with his wife Marina. I have not had an opportunity to read it, only
reviews of the book. It suggests motives that may have emerged from that rather
exclusive interviewing of Mrs. Oswald. Are you familiar st all with that work?
Mr. LIEBELER. No; I haven't seen it. I have not read the reviews of it or
anything.
Page 258
258
Mr. FAUNTROY. My second question is, is it not your testimony that the
reservations that you had about the character of the Commission report, the
language, the writing, additional questions that have been raised since, new
information has come to light since, all these things notwithstanding, you feel
that the Warren Commission was accurate beyond question?
Mr. LIEBELER. I think that the Commission's conclusion as to the identity of the
assassin and as to the facts that occurred in Dallas on that day, that is to say
there was only one person killing the President and it was Oswald and he used
that rifle and so on, are correct beyond any doubt, beyond any plausible doubt.
It is not possible to reach the conclusion that Oswald did not have contacts
with other people, the knowledge of which would be relevant to this matter,
about which the Commission did not learn, and the Commission of course never
stated that there was no conspiracy. It only stated that it had not been able to
develop evidence that suggested the existence of a conspiracy.
I debated this issue with Mark Lane at UCLA and many other critics. I don't have
any reason to doubt the basic conclusions in the report including the conspiracy
question, and even this business of the FBI supposedly destroying a note that
Oswald left at the office and that sort of thing does not cause me to have any
questions about that. To me it is perfectly clear what was going on in the
Bureau at that time.
It was clear to most of us st the time.
Mr. FAUNTROY. So that your view is that he acting alone killed Kennedy?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, sir.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McKINNEY. Was it ever discussed by you or by others that there was a
possibility that Lee Harvey Oswald could have been a CIA agent or informant or
FBI informant?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, sir.
Mr. McKINNEY. Did you think it would have been possible for the CIA and the FBI
to keep this information sway from the Commission?
Mr. LIEBELER. No.
Mr. McKINNEY. Why?
Mr. LIEBELER. I think that that is the kind of issue on which it is quite
conceivable that the only persons who would have knowledge of it if that were
true would be Oswald who is dead and a very few, presumably as many as only one,
but very few people within these organizations and I think that it is quite
conceivable that if they wanted to withhold that information they could do so
and we would not have any direct way of finding out. One of the ways that the
Commission did approach that question was to examine Oswald's financial history
and do a financial audit of it which hopefully would have, if there had been
unaccounted revenues that he had spent, that would have lent credibility to the
proposition that he had been in the employ of these agencies on the assumption
that he was not doing it for nothing. The Internal Revenue Service people that
worked for the Commission were able to account for all of the expenditures out
of the income that he received or was known to have received during this period
of time.
Page 259
259
Mr. McKINNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. CORNWELL. Mr. Chairman, may I ask one additional question
Mr. PREYER. Yes.
Mr. CORNWELL. What is your view with respect to the question of whether or not
the withholding by the CIA from the Commission of information concerning the
assassination plots did or did not substantially affect the factfinding process?
Mr. LIEBELER. I don't understand the question.
Mr. CORNWELL. Do you think it was significant? Would there have been things that
the Commission would have done had it possessed that information?
Mr. LIEBELER. What information?
Mr. CORNWELL. About the CIA assassination plots against Castro.
Mr. LIEBELER. Fidel Castro?
Mr. CORNWELL. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. I think that if I had known that at the time that would have been
concerned to find out more directly whether the had any information that might
provide the Commission with leads on these other issues that we were looking at
or issues that we never turned up. In my mind the fact, if it is a fact, and I
don't have direct knowledge of that but I take it to be a fact, that the CIA was
trying to arrange the assassination of Mr. Castro at the time, the withholding
of that fact by itself I don't think is particularly significant to anything
that the Commission did.
What I am saying is the fact that the CIA was attempting, if it was, to
assassinate Castro, I don't understand what that has to do with Oswald or the
Warren Commission investigation or anything of that sort. I think that the
question of whether the CIA withheld evidence that would have provided leads to
the Commission that might have connected Oswald to presumably Cuban contacts
that we were not able to connect him with ourselves, that clearly would have
been significant. The fact that the CIA was apparently attempting to assassinate
Castro, might have provided a motive for them to withhold information if indeed
they did, but the fact they were trying to assassinate Castro had nothing to do
with the issue.
It seems to me that relates to the motivation of the CIA in a separate matter.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Mr. Chairman, may I ask one more question? Throughout the course
of your testimony you indicated there were some leads that you would like to
have pursued had you had more time and that there were still some questions,
albeit minor, apparently in your mind about those leads. I wonder if you could
identify for me any outstanding question that you now have that you would like
to have pursued although that pursuit would have led you, as you have conduded,
to the same conclusion which the Commission reached, that Oswald, acting alone,
without conspirators, killed Mr. Kennedy?
Mr. LIEBELER. I think the only question that would satisfy that description is
the one that the chairman has a]ready referred to and that is the Odio incident,
at least from the standpoint of what the Commission staff would have done.
Because on these other questions we did all we could think of to do, to try to
connect these allegations up to Oswald, and were not able to.
Page 260
260
So in terms of the feeling that I had at the time that we didn't have time
enough to follow these leads up that would only have been true with respect to
the Odio incident. Now as far as what this committee might do or would want to
do, I wouldn't think that would be confined simple to the Odio thing. I think if
you obtain materials that we did not get, for example, if that could occur, that
it could be that material in the files could relate to others than Ms. Odio.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PREYER Thank you. We appreciate very much your testimony. You were just
about the last man off the beach here, weren't you Were there three of you left
that mostly did the final writing?
Mr. LIEBELER. I don't know. There were more than that. Mr. Griffin and Mr.
Slawson but Redlich was there almost to the very end and did an enormous amount
of work on the report.
Mr. PREYER. The senior members began to drop off before the end?
Mr. LIEBELER. Many of them did. Mr. Jenner stayed on until the end. Mr. Ball did
a large amount of work. Mr. Hubert also. I understand the fact that many of
those senior members had advised Mr. Rankin that they really couldn't work full
time when they were asked to come to the Commission.
Mr. Adams was the most prominent amongst those.
Mr. PREYER. Your testimony has been very helpful. We appreciate very much your
being here with us.
Mr. LIEBELER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PREYER. Pursuant to our rules the witness is offered 5 minutes at the
conclusion of the questioning to make any statement that he cares to make about
the case or to amplify any of his remarks in any way. The Chair would like to
offer you your 5 minutes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Unfortunately I am going to accept part of that time.
My testimony and I am sure the testimony of other staff members and the files of
the Commission obviously show the existence of very strongly held views on
various issues and vigorous. exchanges on those views. As I tried to indicate,
however, all of the investigation that I wanted conducted was conducted. Much of
the disagreement was about how the report should be written and, as I have said,
my views on that issue prevailed sometimes and sometimes they did not and that
is exactly what one would expect in that kind of situation.
As to the basic facts of the assassination relating to questions of the
President's wounds, source of the shots and identity of the assassin, the
physical evidence alone shows without doubt that Oswald was the assassin and
that he fired from the sixth floor the school book depository. The Commission
pursued to the extent that it could all plausible leads suggesting the
involvement of persons other than Oswald and it could not establish any facts
that would seriously suggest the existence of a conspiracy to assassinate the
President.
The staff was highly motivated and competent with no inclination or motive not
to pursue the issues to the truth. The work of the staff of the Commission was
not perfect.
Page 261
261
When Compared to the criticisms that have been made of our work or corn. pared
to the product of other human institutions and not to some ideal of perfection,
we might ask ourselves, or you might ask yourselves whether you would have been
likely to have done better at the time and when thought of in that way and when
compared to those standards I think the Commission's work will pass muster very
well.
As I have said, I have never doubted the nature of the conclusions of the report
and I do not doubt them now. In spite of what has happened since the publication
of the report I think that eventually it will stand the test of time. Thank you
very much.
Mr. PREYER. Thank you. We appreciate your comments and testimony.
The committee will recess until 10 o'clock in the morning.
[Whereupon, at 5:20 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned, to reconvene at 10 a.m. on
Wednesday, November 16, 1977.]
Page 262
262
Blank Page
Attachment F
Page 263
(283) Attachment F: Executive session testimony of Judge Burt W. Griffin and
Howard P. Willens.
SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1977
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE ASSASSINATION
OF JOHN F. KENNEDY OF THE SELECT
COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met at 10:00 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 2359, Rayburn
House Office Building, Hon. Louis Stokes (chairman Of the Select Committee on
Assassinations) presiding.
Present: Representative Stokes, Fauntroy, Dodd, and McKinney. Professional staff
members present: G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel; J. Facter, J. Wolf, K. Klein,
E. Berning, L. Wizelman, D. Hardaway, M. Mars, R. Genzman, A. Hausman, R.
Morrison, D. Kuhn, and J. Hess.
Chairman STOKES. The meeting will come to order.
At this time the Chair will recognize Ms. Elizabeth Berning, clerk of the
committee, to read for the record those members officially designated to be on
the subcommittee today pursuant to committee rule 12.13
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Preyer and Mr. Dodd are regular members. Mr. Stokes will be
substituting for Mr. Sawyer. Mr. McKinney will be substituting for Mr. Thone.
Mr. Fauntroy will be substituting for lirs. Burke.
Chairman STOKES. At this time I will recognize Mr. Fauntroy as chairman of the
subcommittee in the absence of the designated chairman, Mr. Preyer.
Prior to recognizing Mr. Fauntroy for that purpose, we should have a motion that
the subcommittee go into executive session for today's hearing and one
subsequent day of hearing since, on the basis of information obtained by the
committee, the committee believes the evidence or testimony may tend to either
defame or degrade people, and consequently section 2(k) (5) of rule 11 of the
rules of the House and committee rule 3.3(5) require such hearings to be in
executive session.
Mr. McKINNEY. I so move.
Chairman STOKES. It has been properly moved that the committee go into executive
session. The clerk will call the roll.
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Stokes.
Chairman STOKES. Aye.
(263)
Page 264
264
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Sawyer. [No response.]
Ms. BERNING. Mr. McKinney.
Mr. McKINNEY. Aye.
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Fauntroy.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Aye.
Ms. BERNING. Mr. Dodd.
[no response.]
Ms. BERNING. Three "ayes," Mr. Chaiman.
Chairman STOKES. Then at this time the subcommittee is officially in executive
session and members of the public are asked to remove themselves.
The Chair at this time will recognize Mr. Fauntroy for the purpose of acting as
subcommittee chairman.
Mr. FAUNTROY [presiding]. The Chair welcomes as our first witness today Mr. Burt
W. griffin. Mr. Griffin, if you will stand we will swear you at this time.
Do you solemnly swear that the testimony which you are about to give will be the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Judge GRIFFIN. I do.
TESTIMONY OF BURT W. GRIFFIN
Mr. FAUNTROY. I understand, Mr. Griffin, that the committee rules have been
given to you prior to your appearance today.
Judge GRIFFIN. That is correct.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Let me begin by saying that the House Resolution
222 mandates the committee "to conduct a full and complete investigation and
study of the circumstances surrounding the assassination and death of President
John F. Kennedy, including determining whether the existing laws of the United
States concerning the protection of the President and the investigatory
jurisdiction and capability of agencies and departments are adequate in their
provisions and enforcement, and whether there was full disclosure of evidence
and information among agencies and departments of the U.S. Government, and
whether any evidence or information not in the possession of an agency or
department would have been of assistance in investigating the assassination, and
why such information was not provided or collected by that agency or
department... and to make recommendations to the House... if the select
committee deems it appropriate for the amendment of existing legislation or the
enactment of new legislation."
To begin our questioning the Chair will yield now to our Chief Counsel, Mr.
Blakey.
Mr. BLAKEY. Judge Griffin, I would like to extend my thanks to you for coming
today and also the thanks of the staff. It is a pleasure to see you again. We
appreciate your taking time from your very busy trial schedule to come here and
share with us your thoughts and observations.
We would also like to thank you on the record for taking time to talk with Ms.
Jacqueline Hess and myself on November 4 in Cleveland.
Page 265
265
The Chairman of the full committee, Mr. Stokes, whom I am sure you know quite
well, also asked me to express to you his regrets. He apparently came a little
earlier and had to leave because of a previous commitment.
Mr. Chairman, I thought it might be appropriate at this point to insert in the
record and also for the benefit of the committee some of the background and
biography material on Judge Griffin.
Judge, I wonder if you would let me read several things for you and indicate
whether they are correct. You were born in Cleveland in 1932, received your B.A.
degree with honors from Amherst College in 1954, your L.L.B. degree from Yale
Law School in 1959 where you were the co-editor of the Law Journal.
In 1959 and 1960 you were a law clerk to Judge George T. Washington of the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and from 1960 through 1962 you
were Assistant U.S. Attorney in the northern district of Ohio.
You joined the law firm in Cleveland of McDonald, Hopkins Hardy.
Is that all correct?
Judge GRIFFIN. That is correct.
Mr. BLAKEY. Then in 1964 you were Assistant Counsel to the Warren Commission. Is
that correct?
Judge GRIFFIN. That is correct.
Mr. BLAKEY. After your term of duty with the Warren Commission ended you
returned to be associated with the firm of McDonald, Hopkins & Hardy.
Subsequently you served as the director of the Legal Aid Society in Cleveland
and of the Office of Economic Opportunity legal service program, and finally, on
January 3, 1975, you were appointed judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the
County of Cuyahoga, Cleveland, Ohio.
Judge GRIFFIN. That is correct, except that I was elected.
Mr. BLAKEY. Turning then to your assignment with the Warren Commission in 1964,
would you tell the committee how you were hired?
Judge GRIFFIN. I was first contacted by a man named David Filvaroff, a staff
member of the Justice Department. I believe he worked, but I am not certain, in
the Deputy Attorney General's office. He is a man I had known when I was
practicing law in Cleveland, Ohio. He had been contacted by others in Washington
to suggest names of people who might be appropriate to serve as counsel to the
Commission. He contacted me and asked me if I would be interested in serving. I
told him that I would be.
He suggested I send a resume to J. Lee Rankin with some kind of cover indicating
that I talked with Mr. Vilaroff. I did that. My recollection is at that point I
received a telegram back from Mr. Rankin.
I may have had a brief telephone conversation with him, but I can't be sure
about that. My contacts were primarily with Mr. Filvaroff.
Mr. BLAKEY. What were you told about the goals of the Warren Commission?
Judge GRIFFIN. I was told that our goal was to attempt to determine what the
facts were behind the assassination of president Kennedy.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did you have any conversations with Chief Justice Warren?
Page 266
266
Judge GRIFFIN. Prior to being hired 9.
Mr. BLAKEY. Yes.
Judge GRIFFIN. No.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did you have any conversation with Mr. Rankin?
Judge GRIFFIN. Prior to being hired?
Mr. BLAKEY. Yes.
Judge GRIFFIN. I can't recall whether I had a brief telephone conversation with
him or not. If so, it wasn't a matter of any substance.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did you have any conversations with Mr. Willens?
Judge GRIFFIN. I never met Mr. Willens until I actually joined the staff.
Mr. BLAKEY. After you came on the staff, what were you told about the goals of
the Warren Commission?
Judge GRIFFIN. I should correct this. I have no recollection of conversation
with Mr. Willens. It is possible I did but I certainly don't remember at this
point.
Mr. BLAKEY. After you came with the Commission what were you told about the goal
of the Warren Commission?
Judge GRIFFIN. Essentially what I have just said. I was assigned a particular
area to investigate.
Mr. BLAKEY. Who specifically talked with you? Do you recall any conversations
with the Chief Justice?
Judge GRIFFIN. Not at the outset. I have really no distinct recollection of the
particular individual I talked with. I have a general recollection at the time I
arrived I simply met Rankin, and having had the bulk of my conversations with
Howard Willens. I really can't be at all accurate about that.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did the Chief Justice actually express to you or the other members
of the staff as far as you know what he wanted the Commission to do?
Judge GRIFFIN. We had a staff meeting at some point relatively early in our
work. It wasn't in the sense of a formal opening session at which the Chief
Justice appeared and said, "Here is your mission." My recollection is that we
appeared and we, the staff members, began working at different times, and we
were given instructions through Howard Willens and perhaps directly from Lee
Rankin, I don't recall. We were into our work by the time we first met the Chief
Justice. But we did at one point, it is my recollection, have a staff meeting at
which the Chief Justice made an appearance. My most vivid recollection is
occasions when I had lunch with the Chief Justice which was simply more of a
social-working basis.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did he express at that time to you the hopes of the Commission?
Judge GRIFFIN. I don't recall these discussions as being much beyond the normal
kind of chit-chat that would take place at lunch.
Mr. BLAKEY. When did you go to work here in Washington?
Judge GRIFFIN. When did I first begin? Your records would be more accurate than
my recollection. We discussed this in Cleveland. I was under the impression that
I began the 8th of December. That date sticks in my mind. Your record seems to
indicate it was the latter part of January when I actually began working. I
would defer to the
Page 267
267
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, I might note that the material prepared by the staff
does indicate that Judge Griffin worked, based on the pay records, from February
1, 1964 through September 26, 1964, and that he worked 225 days out of a
possible 308 which makes him, next to Mr. Rankin, probably the hardest working
single attorney. The averge attorney, worked only 159 days. The chart on which
those figures are based will be introduced in the record this afternoon.
Judge Griffin, I wonder if you would give us some idea of the scope of your
assignment.
Judge GRIFFIN. I was assigned with Leon Hubert, who recently died, to
investigate what I think we called at that point area 5, which had to do with
Jack Ruby and the means and method and motivation for the killing of Lee Oswald,
and the question of whether Jack Ruby was involved in any kind of conspiracy to
assassinate the President.
Mr. Hubert had the title of Senior Counsel, and I had the title of Junior
Counsel. I think the committee is probably familiar with the
organization format that was used.
Mr. BLAKEY. Can you give us some indication of how the Commission was organized?
Judge GRIFFIN. Well, on a staff basis Lee Rankin was the General Counsel of the
Commission. Howard Willens was his Chief Administrative Assistsnt. There were 12
of us who were divided up in six areas. We had two lawyer teams consisting of
what was conceived of as being a senior lawyer and a junior lawyer.
I might mention the one thing I do remember at the outset was a little bit about
what was anticipated would be the length of time that we would serve. It was
indicated to all of us that we would serve from 3 to 5 months. It was also
indicated at the outset that the hope was that the report would be completed
prior to the Democratic National Convention, and that was a target, it was my
understanding, that essentially had been indicated by the White House, that it
was the President's feeling. Obviously, I had no conversations with the
President on this.
As time went on other staff people came on, but initially it was orgsnized in
this format I just outlined. Various people came on, including Norman Redlick,
and it may be true that Norman Redlick was already at work when I arrived,
functioning in a kind of special capacity in which he was not responsible for
any exclusive area but was involved in helping out on various aspects,
particularly the Oswald investigation. He really played no role of any substance
that I can recall in the Ruby end.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, I might indicate for the record that the pay idea
indicates that Mr. Hubert worked 115 days out of a possible 308.
What was your relationship with Mr. Hubert?
Judge GRIFFIN. Mr. Hubert and I had a very good relationship. The reason for the
difference in the amount of time Mr. Hubert worked and the amount of time I
worked had to do with three things: one was that he was given the expectation
that he would not have to give up more than 5 months out of his private
practice. I believe at the time he had both a private practice and he was on the
faculty of Tulane Law School.
Page 268
268
There also developed a personal situation that it became important for many
family reasons for him to go back early. A third reason was, however, that
Hubert was disenchanted with some of the things that were going on in that he
didn't feel he was getting the kind of support that he wanted to get, and he
expressed to me a certain amount of demoralization over what he felt was
unresponsiveness that existed between himself and particularly Mr. Rankin.
Of course the fourth factor was that Hubert basically felt that when he left
that we had gone as far as we could go. He stayed through the period when the
investigation was completed but the writing portion and the drawing together
portion was really left in my hands after he left.
Mr. BLAKEY. You have given us some indication of what our responsibilities were.
I wonder if you could outline in general terms what the responsibilities of the
areas were.
Judge GRIFFIN. You want me to enumerate just the labels that were put on those
areas as I recall them?
Mr. BLAKEY. Yes.
Judge GRIFFIN. My recollection is not going to be as good as the written record.
My recollection is that Arlen Specter and Frank Adams were to be responsible for
the rather narrow question of the shots that were fired at the President. But I
think it was actually beled in a different way, that Joe Ball and Dave Bellin
were responsible for tracing Oswald's conduct in the period immediately
surrounding the assassination, athough I am not sure whether their work was
separated from Specter's in such a way that Specter took the few hours leading
up to the assassination and Belin and Ball took the period from the point of the
assassination until Oswald was shot.
Jim Lebeler and Albert Jenner had responsibility for trying to determine what
Oswald's motive was which involved them heavily in developing a live history of
Oswald. Dave Slawson and Mr. Coleman were responsible for the question of
whether or not Oswald was involved in a conspiracy, I believe the limited
question of whether they were involved in a foreign conspiracy.
It may be that Belin and Ball were concerned with whether he was concerned in a
domestic conspirscy. Again my recollection is not good on this.
Mr. Stern, Sam Stern, was responsible for the question of Presidential
protection. I don't recall whether he had a senior lawyer working with him. My
recollection is that he did not, he was the only one that did not.
Mr. BLAKEY. What was the relationship or interrelationship among the various
areas? Were there staff meetings, interchange of memos?
Judge GRIFFIN. We had very few staff meetings of a formal nature. We did have
two or three, maybe four or five. The bulk of the communication was on a
person-to-person ad hoc basis. There were some memos, I believe, passed back and
forth. Again, I think the records would be more accurate on that than my memory.
Mr. BLAKEY. What was your relationship with Mr. Willens and Mr. Rankin and the
Commission? Did you have direct access, for example, to Mr. Rankin?
Judge GRIFFIN. I suppose that it would not be fair to say that we did not have
direct access to Rankin. I cannot say at any point when we
Page 269
269
tried to see Rankin that we couldn't see him. I don't recall any situation where
we were formally required to go through someone else to get there. There was no
doorkeeper in a certain sense.
All of those communications that were in writing that went to Rankin went
through Howard Willens but as a practical matter, and I am not sure entirely
what the reasons are, Hubert and I did not have a lot of communication with
Rankin. We really communicated with him personally very infrequently. We had a
certain amount of communication at the beginning. I do remember at the outset
Hubert and I had a meeting with Rankin in which we discussed the work of the
mission that we had, but Iwould say that by the first of April we had relatively
little communication with Rankin. That is, we might not speak to Rankin maybe
more than once every 2 weeks.
Mr. Rankin is a formal person. Hubert and I did not feel comfortable in our
relationship with him. I point this out because I think our relationship with
Rankin was different than some of the other staff members. I think a number of
them would genuinely say, and I would believe from what I saw, that they
certainly had much better communication than we did. Whether they would regard
it as satisfactory I don't know.
Mr. BLAKEY. What was your relationship to the Commission itself?
Judge GRIFFIN. I don't recall other than sitting in on the taking of testimony
once in which Norman Redlick was involved. We never had any direct contact or
formal appearance before the Commission.
Mr. BLAKEY. Looking back, would you say that the organizational structure of the
Commission was effective to achieve its goals?
Judge GRIFFIN. Are you asking me a question about structure or are you asking me
a question about operation?
Mr. BLAKEY. I would say how it actually operated.
Page 270
270
Letter from J. Lee Rankin to Richard Helms
Page 271
271
Judge GRIFFIN. As far as I was concerned, I did not feel that it operated in a
way I felt comfortable.
Mr. BLAKEY. How would you have done it differently?
Judge GRIFFIN. Let me first of all preface it. Hubert and I began to feel after
a couple of months that perhaps there was not a great deal of interest in what
we were doing, that they looked upon the Ruby activity, based upon information
that they saw as being largely peripheral to the questions that they were most
concerned with.
We did have a disagreement, pretty clear disagreement, on how to go about
conducting the investigation, and I think that again was other reason why
perhaps I would say the operation was not as effective as I would have liked to
have seen it.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my questions in the of his assignment
and the organization. I do have some other questions but I thought it might be
useful, if the committee wants to ask anything at this point, to yield.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Thank you.
Mr. Dodd, do you have a question?
Mr. DODD. I want to be careful I don't get into something you are going to go
into.
Mr. BLAKEY. Basically his assignment and the organization.
Mr. DODD. There has always been some debate as to exactly what the purpose of
the Warren Commission was, what was in the minds of the Chief Justice, the
President, in regard to the various memos that went back and forth.
You stated earlier that you cannot recall having any meetings ahead of time with
any people.
Judge GRIFFIN. Yes.
Mr. DODD. What was your feeling, to the best of your recollection, as to what
the purpose of the Warren Commission was?
Judge GRIFFIN. I felt then, and I still feel, despite a lot of misgivings that I
had, that the purpose was a genuine purpose, to find out the truth behind the
assassination. I do think, however, that there were major political
considerations that dictated how this work was conducted. The time frame that
was set initially for the work was a political consideration. This investigation
was carried on during a period when everyone was vividly aware of the results of
the 1950"s when Senator McCarthy held a prominent position. There was a great
deal of concern that we not conduct an investigation that would have overtones
of what people called McCarthyism. So that a lot of the decisions that were made
in terms of how we proceeded I think were made against that kind of background.
Mr. DODD. That was your impression from speaking to the various people who were
in charge?
Judge GRIFFIN. I have no question about that.
Mr. DODD. I notice the Chief Justice's opening remarks to the Commission
referred to their job as not one of collecting evidence but one evaluating
evidence. That is a vast distinction in terms of a Commission that is
investigating an assassination.
Judge GRIFFIN. I think that as a staff member we saw our role as collecting
evidence, that is, that wherever there appeared to be gaps in
Page 272
272
information that had been provided to us by the investigative agencies we had an
obligation to try to get beyond those gaps. And where there were contradictions,
then to find further evidence that would resolve those contradictions.
However, we did not have an investigative staff. We had lawyers who were taking
testimony and functioning as lawyers, but we did not have people on our own who
were out conducting initial interviews with witnesses. That was done, and I
think both Mr. Rankin and Mr. Willens could speak much more authoritatively on
this than I can, but it was my understanding that that was done because there
was also a concern that this investigation not be conducted in such a way as to
destroy any of the investigative agencies that then existed in the Government.
There was a genuine fear expressed that this could be done.
Second, that it was important to keep the confidence of the existing
investigative agencies, and that if we had a staff that was conducting its own
investigation that it would generate a paranoia in the FBI and the other
investigative agencies which would not only perhaps be politically
disadvantageous, it would be bad for the country because it might not be
justified but it might also be counterproductive.
I think there was a fear that we might be undermining. Again, I think you should
talk to Willens and Rankin about this. My impression is that there was genuine
discussion of this at a higher level than mine.
I am trying to get a flavor for the atmosphere of the Commission as you walked
in on February 2 in term of presumptions and perceptions.
Judge GRIFFIN. I think that it is fair to say, and certainly reflects, my
feeling, and it was certainly the feeling that I had of all of my colleagues
that we were determined, if we could, to prove that the FBI was wrong, to find a
conspiracy if we possibly could.
I think we thought we would be national heroes in a sense if we could find
something that showed that there had been something sinister beyond what
appeared to have gone on. I think that everyone that worked on the staff level
that I was working at, and I think Howard Willens, with whom I had enough
communication, I think, to be able to pass a judgment on him, and the only
reason I did not mention others is I did not have the communication.
Mr. DODD. Was that junior counsel concept because of your being the younger guys
there? Did you sense there was a different attitude at the top? I appreciate
your candor. I can get a sense of what you are saying. Did you believe that that
feeling you had about going out to maybe uncover something far more sinister was
in contradiction to what the senior counsel and the members of the Commission
themselves felt?
Judge GRIFFIN. No; first of all, as far as the senior counsel, Hubert Ball,
Jenner, I don't think there was any difference in perspective. I think that
designation that was originally set forth vanished very quickly as working
relationships developed among people, and it turned out who was doing the work,
senior and junior did not mcan a tiring. In fact, they abolished the label. It
does not show up in the report in the final listing of people, and they
recognized that.
I think that a number of us, I have no doubt the people I had close
communication with, who were essentially Belin, Slawson, to some
Page 273
273
extent Lebeler, Norman Redlich for a substantial period of time, were determined
to prove that the FBI was wrong, and determined to root out---
Mr. DODD. Wrong in what way
By the way, if I am getting into something you will be inquiring into I will
hold up.
Mr. BLAKEY. You are going into it very well. Don't let me stop you.
Mr. DODD. Is it fair to say from your perceptions that the FBI and agencies of
Government at that period of time were convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald was a
lone assassin?
Judge GRIFFIN. Right.
Mr. DODD. That was clearly coming from the FBI and the agencies?
Judge GRIFFIN. I think at that point my recollection of conversations, for
example, with Norman Redlich were that he took a political view of the FBI. He
ssw them as a conservative agency which was determined to pin this on someone
who was of a different political Dersuasion. I think he started out with a
strong motivation along that line to prove that they were wrong.
I had worked with the FBI for 2 years when I was an assistant U.S. attorney. I
didn't have a political view of them but I frankly didn't think they were very
competent. I felt then, and I still feel, that they have a great myth about
their ability but that they are not capable by their investigative means of ever
uncovering a serious and well-planned conspiracy. They would only stumble upon
it. I think their investigative means themselves may be self-defeating. I never
found them very creative, very imaginative.
My attitude toward them was that I thought they were honest. I didn't think in a
sticky situation that I would have great faith in them.
Mr. DODD. I don't want to editorialize, but you have these feelings: Redlich is
suspicious of them for political reasons; you are suspicious of them because of
their inability to cope with a situation of this magnitude.
Judge GRIFFIN. Rankin did not trust the FBI, either.
Mr. DODD. Yet you are sitting here and you are evaluating, all you are really
doing is evaluating the evidence that they are handing you, with all of your
suspicions.
Judge GRIFFIN. We did have other agencies. We had a countercheck on them. We
were getting to a certain extent parallel investigations from the Secret
Service. We were also getting information back from the Dallas Police
Department. A lot of people who were being interrogated by the FBI were being
interrogated by other agencies, even the Post Office Department. So that in a
lot of things there were ways of having checks.
I think in terms of the scientific information there was a definite effort not
to rely on the FBI. As I recall, the Commission did utilize in the ballistics--I
don't want to be held to what fields, but it may be in the fingerprint and
ballistic areas that they did rely and deliberately went to find people
independent of the Federal Government. I think there were some experts from
Illinois, as I recall, involved.
Mr. DODD. I am trying to develop the relationship between what is listed as
junior counsel and senior counsel in terms of perceptions as you go into this.
Again I realize you did not have time to contact them
Page 274
274
on a day-to-day basis to draw concrete conclusions, but you may have. I may
prejudice your response by my questions.
In terms of the Commission members themselves, the Chief Justice, President Ford
and so forth, how did you relate their perceptions in starting out as opposed to
what you told me the reactions were from Redlich, Rankin, yourself, and others?
Judge GRIFFIN. I had almost a total lack of contact with the Commission members.
I have some thoughts in retrospect now about some of the perceptions, total
conjecture but based on other things that have happened, but at the time I did
feel that Senator Russell was genuinely concerned about conducting an
investigation.
Mr. DODD. Concerned about what?
Judge GRIFFIN. Genuinely wanted to conduct an investigation. Senator Russell
genuinely wanted to conduct an investigation as distinguished from simply an
evaluation. I may be overstating that, and I say this because he hired a woman
named Alfredda Scobey after a couple of months of Commission work to come in and
actually do a countercheck on the staff.
It would be difficult for me to reconstruct exactly what was happening that
motivated him to do that, but after a while there became within the staff some
differences of opinion and some feeling that we were not going far enough. I do
recall that at the time Scobey came on, there was expressed through her
communications with others that Russell really wanted to make sure that there
weren't going to be any stones unturned.
Mr. DODD. I am just talking about that initial period as you come into this
position and your feeling and perceptions about what the Commission members
actually felt, the Katzenbach memo.
Judge GRIFFIN. I am not familiar with the Katzenbach memo.
Mr. DODD. The memo that Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach sent to Lyndon
Johnson on November 26, or so I think it was, some 4 or 5 days after the
assassination, saying he thinks it is important that there be an investigation
to determine that in fact Lee Harvey Oswald was--the clear implication of the
memo was to set aside the uneasy feelings that everyone had and let us establish
once and for all that Lee Harvey Oswald did this thing.
Mr. McKINNEY. He also sent a similar letter to each Commission member at a later
date.
Mr. DODD. You have from the Justice Department a clear perception that the
President seemed to agree with it.
Judge GRIFFIN. Maybe I can in part answer it in this way, in addition to saying
I have no idea what was in their minds, but I think it is important to say that
if they had a point of view about this difference from the one I expressed that
was a staff point of view, it was never communicated to the staff. We had no
knowledge that we were being restrained in any way from conducting the kind of
investigation that we wanted to conduct.
If the investigation began to be limited in the method in which we proceeded
beyond the start limitations that we had--that is, the areas we went into and
how far we went--I think it may have reflected the point of view that I did hear
attributed to the Chief Justice, that in his 20 years as district attorney in
Alameda County. he never had seen
Page 275
275
a criminal homicide investigation that was as thorough as this; and if we had
not found anything that would show any more than already seemed to be the
conclusions, there was not anything there to be found.
I recall as pressures began to be put on to move away from investigation and
into drafting the report, it was really based on this concept, that what we had
going here was a classical investigation into murder, and we had gone far beyond
what anybody who had ever had any experience would do, and we had not found
anything.
Mr. DODD. I have taken more time than I should have.
I thank the chairman.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Mr. McKinney.
Mr. McKinney. You have covered most of my ground anyway.
Judge, I was interested and was going to follow through on the Commission item.
No. 1, I would agree with you on Senator Russell because he expressed his
outrage several times at the lack of communication between Federal agencies.
It seems to me that we have two fators here. I just want to get your
interpretation on whether I am correct or not. In reading the transcript of the
Commission's meetings, time, let's get it over with, Katzenbach letters, we have
to put the Nation to rest, so on and so forth, your statement that this has been
the most complete investigation, let us get it over with, we have to get the
report out, then we have all of you coming in.
It seems to me that there is a great disparity between the Commission and the
junior staff, but you did not actually feel that?
Judge GRIFFIN. Let me say it was never communicated to us that it was the
Commission that wanted to curtail things. There were two communications that
were made as to where this pressure was coming from. The most prominent one was
the White House, that there was a general, unspecified reference to the fact
that the White House wanted this report out before the convention. That was said
to us many, many times. I think the convention was in June.
Second, just by way of human interest, color, perhaps, another date began to be
set because the Chief Justice had a trip scheduled to go to Europe, and the hope
was that it could be completed before he went on his trip to Europe.
Mr. McKINNEY. I may have to leave before you finish because I have a trip to
Boston.
Judge GRIFFIN. Mr. McKinney, it is difficult for the general public to
understand that these human factors play a major role in a lot of these
decisions.
Mr. McKINNEY. Let me ask you a question I have asked each witness on the
subject. When you arrived here, the CIA was not what you would call in the best
of repute; it had fallen apart on the Bay of Pigs, it had fallen apart on the
Cuban missile crisis, it had fallen apart on the Berlin Wall. The FBI was going
through its personality problems in severe fashion at that time. When you got
here, did you become appalled with the amount of work you had to do in the time
you were given, and the fact that you were really going to review Agency
material?
Judge GRIFFIN. Yes. I don't know whether I would say appalled, but we were very
concerned about it, very anxious about it.
Page 276
276
Mr. Mc KINNEY. For instance, I am appalled that we have to do what we are
supposed to do in 2 years. My question is probability or possibility after the
slow start we had.
Judge GRIFFIN. Let me answer that, however, from the standpoint of what Hubert
and I were doing. I don't know how the others felt. I think Arlen Specter, for
example, may have felt comfortable with the time period. But Hubert and I, we
had a completely, we had a scope of investigation that was as great as all the
other people put together because we were investigating a different murder. We
had two people who were investigating a conspiracy from one man's point of view,
and we had a security question, how did he get into the basement, and so forth.
Hubert and I particularly felt that way. It may not have been valid for
everybody else.
Mr. McKINNEY. I think Mr. Dodd has covered most of my material so I have no
further questions.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Counsel may continue.
Mr. BLAKEY. I would like to continue with the relationship between the Warren
Commission and both the CIA and FBI.
Mr. Griffin, you have given us some indication of what the relationship between
the Commission and the Bureau was, and an indication of what the attitude was
between the Commission staff and the Bureau. What did you perceive the attitude
to be between the FBI and the Warren Commission?
Judge GRIFFIN. I didn't have any real factual basis for making any judgements
about it. My perception just grew out of my past experiences. I felt that it is
a big bureaucracy and most of the people I felt within the FBI functioned like a
clerk in any other big organization, and they try to do their job and they try
to not get in hot water with the boss and get egg over their face, and sometimes
they have a couple of bosses, we being one and somebody else being another.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did you have any day-to-day contacts with field agents?
Judge GRIFFIN. Very limited. Day to day, I did not. I think, in fact I know that
Norman Redlich worked closely with a couple of agents, but I did not.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did you have any day-to-day contact with seat of government
agencies?
Judge GRIFFIN. What do you mean by seat of government?
Mr. BLAKEY. Here in Washington, as opposed to field agents Dallas or New
Orleans.
Judge GRIFFIN. Did I personally?
Mr. BLAKEY. Yes.
Judge GRIFFIN. Everything basically went out from us by way of written
memorandum.
Mr. BLAKEY. I would like to outline for you an incident that occurred that may
be illustrative of the relationship between the Warren Commission and the
Bureau, and ask you if you recall it and then comment on it.
Robert B. Gimberling, who was a special agent of the FBI, acted as coordinator
of the FBI's investigation in Dallas. Gimberling's report dated December 23,
1963, which was submitted to the
Page 277
277
Warren Commission on January 13, 1964 and labeled as CD205, contained a
transcription of Oswald's address book but omitted the name, address, telephone
number, and car license number of Special Agent James B. Hosty. This is
Gimberling's report dated February 11, 1964 submitted to the Warren Commission
on February 24, 1964 and labeled CD385, which, however, contained the remaining
contents of the address book including the Hosty entry.
Judge GRIFFIN. Right.
Mr. BLAKEY. Gimberling submitted the Commission an affidavit dated February 25,
1964, explaining the original omission. Special Agent John T. Hosty, who
reviewed the similar transcript submitted a similar affidavit. Both affidavits
explained that the omission reflected Gimberling's instructions to the effect
that Kesler was to extract all names and telephone numbers the identity of which
were unknown to her with any other lead information.
On this basis Special Agent Hosty's name was said to have been excluded because
it was neither upknown nor lead information.
Do you recall that incident?
Judge GRIFFIN. I recall the Hosty incident. I don't recall that memorandum.
Mr. BLAKEY. What effect, if any, did that incident have on the relationship
between the staff and the Bureau?
Judge GRIFFIN. I think it established in our minds that we always had to be
worried about them.
Mr. BLAKEY. Do you think it led to any increased or decreased, or about the
same, skepticism toward the investigation.
Judge GRIFFIN. I think it increased. I think we never forgot that incident. We
were always alert, we were concerned about the problem.
Mr. BLAKEY. Was it discussed at the time among the staff attorneys?
Judge GRIFFIN. Yes, it was. There was a staff meeting about it, as I recall. One
of the few staff meetings I have a general recollection of at this point seems
to me was one that Rankin cal]ed in which we were all brought in on this, and we
were all told about the problem and once it had been discovered there was a
discussion about whether our discovery should be revealed to the FBI and how
should we proceed with it.
Mr. BLAKEY. Would it be fair to characterize the incident then as perhaps
producing a more healthy skepticism on the part of the staff and less trust of
the Bureau?
Judge GRIFFIN. I think that is right.
Are you trying to contrast it to my earlier statement?
Mr. BLAKEY. Not necessarily. Would it be fair to say. that the incident far from
adversely affecting the quality of your investigation may have heightened it.
Judge GRIFFIN. No, I don't think that is true.
Mr. BLAKEY. If it made you more skeptical and more probing would it help the
investigation?
Judge GRIFFIN. No, I don't think it did. The reason I say that is that I think
it basically set the standard for the kind of judgement that was going to be
made about how we were going to deal with these problems, and the decision made
there was that there was not going to be confrontation, they were going to be
given an opportunity to explain
Page 278
278
it. So the decision was really, as I recall, to go back and give them
opportunity to clean up their act other than to carry on a secret investigation
that might be designed to lay a foundation for our further impeachment of them.
Mr. BLAKEY. Let me outline for you another incident and ask you to comment on
it.
Sometime approximately 9 weeks before the assassination it is said that Lee
Harvey Oswald left a note at the Dallas office of the FBI for Agent James B.
Hosty. The receptionist who took the note has testified that its contents were
as follow: "Let this be a warning I will blow up the FBI and the Dallas Police
Department if you do not stop bothering my wife."
Agent Hosty acknowledges, or has acknowledged, in testimony receiving the note
on the same day. He remembers it, however, as saying, "If you have anything you
want to learn about me come talk to me directly. If you don't cease bothering my
wife I will take appropriate action and report this to proper authorities."
Hosty put the note in his workbox and that on the evening of November 24, 1963,
he was instructed by his superior, Gordon Shanklin, who was the SAC in Dallas,
to destroy the note and the memorandum he wrote discussing the note and his
contact with Lee Harvey Oswald. Hosty destroyed both of them.
When Hosty testified before the Warren Commission on May 5, 1964, at that time
he made no mention of the note or its destruction because, he said he had been
instructed by the FBI, the seat of government personnel, not to volunteer any
information.
Were you aware of that incident in 1964?
Judge GRIFFIN. No.
Mr. BLAKEY. Had you known of it in 1964 do you think it would have made any
difference in how you conducted the investigation?
Judge GRIFFIN. I don't know. I don't know how committed those who made policy
were to the idea of avoiding confrontation.
Mr. BLAKEY. Let me ask you one further matter in this regard.
Judge GRIFFIN. Let me say this: I think that the dynamics of Commission, if
there had been a second incident involving Hosty, the dynamics of the staff
would have brought tremendous pressure out of the staff not to give Hosty a
second chance and the Bureau a second chance on this. I don't know how it would
have been resolved.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Griffin, you have indicated that you had general jurisdiction
over Oswald's death and therefore Jack Ruby.
Judge GRIFFIN. Don't put it that way. It makes me sound like a conspirator.
Mr. BLAKEY. Were you aware that the Bureau had administratively designated Ruby
as a PCI--by PCI I mean a potential criminal informant--during the period March
to October 1959?
Judge GRIFFIN. We were aware, it is my recollection at this point, and documents
would be more accurate than my recollection--my recollection is that we were
aware that Ruby had been contacted by the FBI and it had been hoped that he
could provide them with information, that there were as many as six or seven
contacts with him that produced any information.
I can't say I had any familiarity with the label PCI.
Page 279
279
Mr. BLAKEY. If you had known that administrative designation had been placed on
Ruby would it have made any difference on how you handled your investigation of
him and his activities?
Judge GRIFFIN. I don't know whether we would have then looked upon this as
some--I don't know whether that would have given heightened importance to it or
not. I don't know that labeling might have made a difference. It might or might
not have.
Mr. BLAKEY. Let me turn now and ask you some questions about the relationship
between the Warren Commission and the CIA. How would you characterize the
general relationship between the Commission and the Agency? How would you
characterize it?
Judge GRIFFIN. I don't know that I am in a position to say that. The only direct
contact I ever remember with the CIA was at a meeting. It is my recollection
that Helms and another person who was designated as the liaison person were at a
meeting with us. They were introduced and the discussion took place about what
the formal relationship ought to be or the nature of the relationship, how we
communicated with the CIA.
After that I never spoke, to my recollection, with anyone from the CIA.
Mr. BLAKEY. You indicated what the attitude of the staff was toward the FBI.
Would you characterize for us what the attitude of the staff was toward the CIA?
Judge GRIFFIN. You know, this is a very impressionistic thing I am going to say.
If anybody on the staff has a different view their view is more accurate than
mine, but my impression is that I for one trusted them. I guess I for one
trusted them, I think.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did you have much contact with agency personnel other than this one
meeting where you met with Mr. Helms and Mr. LaRocca?
Judge GRIFFIN. After their failure to respond to us in the inquiry that Hubert
and I directed toward them, and after they finally did respond with basically an
answer that they didn't have any information that we didn't have already, I was
skeptical but I won't go so far as to say I distrusted them.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if we could have the Clerk mark four specific
items, a note of March 14, 1964 with the initials HPW on it; a memo of February
24, 1964, Hubert and Griffin to Helms, re Ruby background; three, a letter from
Rankin of May 19, 1964 to Helms, re Ruby, and a memo from Mr. Karamessines of
September 15, 1964 to Mr. Rankin, re Ruby, as JFK exhibit No. Will the Clerk
show the exhibit to the witness?
Mr. Griffin, are you familiar with these materials?
Judge GRIFFIN. Yes, I am.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if we can incorporate the material in the
record at this point so I can ask some questions of the witness.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Without objection it is so ordered.
[The documents referred to, marked JFK exhibit No. 62 and received for the
record, follow:]
Page 280
280
JFK EXHIBIT No. 62
Page 281
281
[Memorandum]
FEBRUARY 24, 1964.
To: Richard Helms, Deputy Director for Plans, Central Intelligence Agency.
From: Leon D. Hubert and Burt W. Griffin, Staff Members, President's Commission
on the assassination of President Kennedy.
Subject: Jack Ruby--Background, Friends and other pertinent Information.
A. BACKGROUND ON JACK RUBY
Jack Ruby was born on about March 25, 1911, in the United States, the fifth of
eight living children of Joseph and Fannie Rubenstein. Three other children are:
Hyman Rubenstein, born December 1911, in Poland; Ann Rubenstein Volport, born
June 1904, Poland; Marion, a.k.a. Marlan, Rubenstein Carroll, born june 1906, in
United States; Eva Rubenstein (Magid) Grant, born in United States, 1909; Sam
Rubenstein) Ruby, born December 1912 in United States; Earl (Rubenstein) Ruby,
born April 1916 in the United States; and Eileen Rubenstein Keminsky, born July
1917 in United States. Jack and his brothers, Sam and Earl, were known by the
name Rubenstein until that name was legally changed by each of them in
approximately 1947 or 1948.
Ruby's father, Joseph, was born in Sokolov, Sedlits Province, Poland on February
2, 1871. He served in the Russian Army Artillery from 1893 to 1898. He married
Fannie (Turrell) Rutkowski in 1901. Fannie was born in 1875, one of seven
children of a reportedly prosperous Polish physician.
At least two of Fannie's sisters together with her parents remained in Poland.
One brother reportedly came to the United States. Joseph also had at least one
brother who came to the United States. We have no evidence as to any other
family members of either Joseph or Fannie who remained in Europe. Nor have we
any information concerning family ties maintained with relatives or friends in
Europe.
Jack Ruby spent his early life in Chicago, quitting school at approximately
sixteen, and beginning to work thereafter as a ticket scalper and peddler of
cheap merchandise. In 1933, he traveled to Los Angeles and remained there and in
San Francisco until sometime in 1937. His sister, Eva, accompanied him to San
Francisco and lived with him for most of the time that he was there. Both worked
as sellers of subscriptions for daily newspapers in San Francisco. Jack also had
employment selling a horse race "tip sheet" and linoleum. Jack was known both by
his Chicago and West coast friends as "Sparky" Rubenstein.
Jack Ruby returned to Chicago sometime in 1937 and was employed for undetermined
periods of time by the Stanley Oliver Co. and the Spartan Co. we have no further
information concerning those companies. He also continued to engage in ticket
scalping, the sale of cheap merchandise, and the sale of punch boards. The punch
board operation involved traveling throughout New England and the Eastern
Seaboard including Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
Sometime between 1937 and mid-1940, Ruby was employed as an organizer and in
other undisclosed capacities for the Waste and Material Handlers Federal Union
in Chicago. Paul Dorman later became head of this union. At the time of Ruby's
association with the union, the President was jack Martin, another principal
figure was an attorney, Leon Cooke. Cooke was shot by Martin in an argument in
December 1939, and died as a result thereof in January 1940. Shortly thereafter,
Ruby left the union.
Jack Ruby served in the United States Army Air Force from May 1943 to February
1946. He was stationed the entire time in the United States, obtained the rank
of Private First Class, and has Army Serial Number 36666107.
After leaving military service, he was employed for approximately one year with
Earl Products Co., a Chicago based business jointly owned with his brothers,
earl and Sam Ruby. His brothers became dissatisfied with him because he
allegedly was not devoting full time to that business. As a result, they bought
out his interest in 1947. We do not have precise information as to what Jack
Ruby was doing while he was also employed with Earl Products; however, he is
rumored to have frequented and been employed at various Chicago area night clubs
in the capacity of a bouncer or other minor functionary.
In early 1947, he went to Dallas, Texas, to manage the Singaport Supper Club, a
business in which his sister, Eva Grant, was engaged. He returned to Chicago
sometime in the late summer or early fall of 1947. At about this same time, he
became the subject of a narcotics investigation along with his brother, Hyman,
Page 282
282
and Paul Roland Jones Both Hyman and Jack disclaimed any knowledge of Jones'
activity in narcotics and were not prosecuted. Jones was prosecuted and
convicted by federal authorities.
Sometime in late 1947, after having been interrogated by Narcotics Agents Ruby
returned to Dallas and established permanent residence. He continued to operate
the Singapore Supper Club with Eva until sometime in 1948 when she moved to
California and alone lot an undisclosed period thereafter. At some undisclosed
point, Ruby changed the name of the Singapore Supper Club to the Silver Spur. He
no longer operates that club. He eventually purchased the Vegas Club and
operated it with Eva after early 1959. In 1960, he purchased the Sovereign Club,
changed the name to the Carousel Club, and continued to operage it and the Vegas
Club until his arrest on November 24, 1963. Both the Vegas Club and the Carousel
Club have been put under management other than the Ruby family since Ruby's
arrest.
Ruby is considered to be a highly emotional person. He speaks with a lisp, has
been described as soft spoken, is generally well mannered and well dressed, but
is given to sudden and extreme displays of temper and violence. He is known to
have brutally beaten at least 25 different persons either as a result of a
personal encounter or because they were causing disturbances in his club. The
normal pattern is for Ruby to attack his victims without warning, and few of the
beatings of which we have knowledge seem to be the result of prolonged
arguments. After many of these assaults, Ruby is known to have apologized to the
victim.
Ruby is known to have a strong affection for dogs and a great pride in physical
fitness. He has owned as many as seven dogs at one time, and one person has
stated that he cared more for his dogs then he cared for people. At various
times during his life, he is known to have worked out regularly at the YMCA or
other gymnasiums, and he is reported to have owned and kept in his apartment a
set of barbells during recent years. He neither smokes, nor drinks, and curses
rarely.
He is said to have effeminate mannerisms and is alleged by some to be
homosexual. However, there is no direct evidence of any homosexual behavior.
Although he has never been married, he is known to have dated and at one time
was known as a "ladies man." In recent years, some of the women toward whom he
has shown interest have indicated that he had perverted attitudes toward sex.
One male witness describes an occasion when he masturbated one of his dogs and
apparently derived great pleasure from it.
Ruby's friends and close associates are detailed more fully in a subsequent
section. To generalize, it can be said that, while living in Dallas, Ruby has
very carefully cultivated friendships with police officers and other public
officials. At the same time, he was, peripherally, if not directly connected
with members of the underworld. The narcotics episode mentioned above concerning
Paul Roland. Jones is representative. Ruby is also rumored to have been the
tip-off man between the Dallas police and the Dallas underworld, especially in
regard to enforcement of the local liquor laws. Ruby is said to have been given
advance notice of prospective police raids on his own club and other clubs.
However, it must be emphasized that such allegations are in the rumor category.
Ruby apparently did not permit prostitution to be carried on in his clubs;
nonetheless, his associations with stripteasers and cheap entertainers brought
him into constant contact with people of questionable reputation. Ruby operated
his business on a cash basis, keeping no record whatsoever--a strong indication
that Ruby himself was involved in illicit operations of some sort.
When it suited his own purposes, he did not hesitate to call on underworld
characters for assistance. For example, shortly prior to the assassination of
President Kennedy, Ruby was involved in a dispute with the American Guild of
Variety Artists (AGVA) concerning the use of amateur stripteasers in Dallas.
Ruby claimed that AGVA was permitting his competitor to pursue amateurs but
denying him that privilege. When he was unable to Ruby called Barney Baker, a
Chicago hoodlum who was reputedly a muscle man for Jimmy Hoffa and had been
released from prison in June 1963, to ask Baker to give him assistance in his
dispute with AGVA. For the same purpose, Ruby also called Frank Goldstein, a San
Francisco gambler, who was a friend of his sister, Eva Grant.
Ruby is not known to have been politically active. He is reported to have been a
Democrat and an admirer of President Kennedy and President Roosevelt, however,
the evidence on this is not sufficiently reliable to warrant a firm conclusion.
Page 283
283
Prior to World War II, he was a member of a vigilante group which physically
interfered with meetings of the German-American Bund in an area of Chicago known
as White City. Ruby's group was known as the Dave Miller gang, but we have no
evidence to indicate whether this group was simply made up of aggressive young
men who were looking for trouble and were from the Jewish neighborhood in which
Ruby lived or whether it was an organized group with a strong political basis.
He is not known to have engaged in any political activities in Dallas. At the
time of his arrest, Ruby was found in possession of various radio scripts issued
by H.L. Hunt, a prominent American right wing extremist. There is insufficient
evidence as to how these radio scripts came into Ruby's possession, their
content and Ruby's reaction to them to be able to pass judgment on the
relationship of ruby to any right wing groups.
In about 1959, Ruby became interested in the possibility of selling war
materials to Cubans and in the possibility of opening a gambling casino in
Havana. He was in contact at that time with a friend, Lewis J. McWillie.
Insufficient evidence is available on that episode to evaluate Ruby's connection
with any Cuban (anti-Castro or pro-Castro) groups. Ruby is also rumored to have
met in Dallas with an American Army Colonel (LNU) and some Cubans concerning the
sale of arms. A Government informant in Chicago connected with the sale of arms
to anti-Castro Cubans has reported that such Cubans were behind the Kennedy
assassination and was financed by Jewish interests.
Religiously, Ruby is Jewish. He was not a regular attender at the Synagogue,
although he did attend the services on high holidays. We have no information as
to whether or not Ruby observed any particular Jewish customs in his home or was
active in Jewish lay organizations. Nonetheless, it is established that Ruby was
very sensitive to anti-Semitism and to his position in Dallas as a Jew.
On balance it may be said that Ruby's primary interest in life was making money.
He does not seem to have had any great scruples concerning the manner in which
he might do so; however, he has usually been careful to avoid prosecution by law
enforcement authorities. This care did not necessarily involve avoiding
violations of the law although there is no evidence that he did commit any
flagrant legal violations. His primary technique in avoiding prosecution was the
maintenance of friendship with police officers, public officials, and other
influential persons in the Dallas community. Ruby appears to be the kind of
person who could be persuaded by another person whom he respected (either
because of that person's friendship, influence, power, prestige or wealth) to
become involved in any activity which was not obviously contrary to the interest
of the United States. No one who knows Ruby has indicated that he was
politically sophisticated, and some have commented that he was devoid of
political ideas to the point of naivete. It is possible that Ruby could have
been utilized by a politically motivated group either upon the promise of money
or because of the influential character of the individual approaching Ruby. If
he is a deviate, blackmail is also possible.
B. THE FOLLOWING GROUPS AND PLACES WERE SIGNIFICANT IN LOOKING FOR TIES
BETWEEN RUBY AND OTHERS WHO MIGHT HAVE BEEN INTERESTED IN THE
ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY
1. The Teamsters Union. Ruby's old union, the Waste Handlers in Chicago, is now
a part of the Teamsters. Ruby had a contact with Barney Baker, reputed to be
close to Hoffa. Ruby also frequented the Cabana Motel in Dallas, alleged to have
been built with Teamster money.
2. The Las Vegas gambling community. Ruby was particularly close to Lewis J.
McWillie of Las Vegas.
3. Persons involved in the promotion of fad items. Ruby himself was attempting
to sell an item known as a "twist board." in the fall of 1963 and has often-been
involved in the sale of gimmick-type items.
4. Persons connected with cheap nightclub entertainment.
5. The Dallas Police Department.
6. The Dallas news media, with particular emphasis on entertainment columnists
and persons employed at radio station KLIF.
7. The following geographical areas:
a. Chicago
b. Denver
c. Milwaukee
Page 284
284
d. Minneapolis
e. New York
f. Los Angeles
g. San Francisco
h. New Orleans
i. Gulf Coast areas (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida)
8. Places frequented by Ruby in Dallas:
a. Adelphus Hotel
b. Cabana Motel
c. Egyptian Lounge
d. Sol's Turf Bar.
e. Bull Pen Drive-in.
f. Vegas Club.
g. Carousel Club.
C. THE FOLLOWING PERSONS SEEM, AT THIS WRITING, TO BE THE MOST PROMISING SOURCES
OF CONTACT BETWEEN RUBY AND POLITICALLY MOTIVATED GROUPS INTERESTED IN SECURING
THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY
1. Family members
a. Eva Grant, born and reared in Chicago, 1909 to 1933. Lived in San Francisco
1933 to 1937 and 1948 to 1959. Known to be in Chicago August 1937 and January
1938. Lived in Dallas approximately 1942 to 1948 and 1959 to present. Married
about 1930 to Hyman Magid, divorced about 1932. One son, Ronald Dennis Magid,
born 1931. Married Frank Grant, aka Frank Granovsky, in San Francisco, 1936.
Lived with him about six months, divorced about 1940. Friendships with Frank
Goldstein, San Francisco gambler and Paul Roland Jones, convicted in Dallas
about 1948 for narcotics violations. While living in Dallas, engaged in export
and import of raw material and managed night clubs.
b. Earl Ruby, born, Chicago, about April 1916, lived in Chicago until 1961. U.S.
Navy 1942 to 1944. Sold punch boards on East Coast with brother Jack in early
1940's. Owner and manager of Earl Products, 1944 to 1961. Nervous breakdown
1961. Moved to Detroit and opened Cobo Cleaners in 1961. Telephone records show
telegram of undisclosed nature to Havana, Cuba, April 1, 1962, telephone call to
Ansan Tool Manufacturing Company, 4750 North Ronald, Chicago, Illinois, owned by
Anrei and Mario Umberto, and to Dominico Scorta, 102 West Grant, Chicago,
Illinois. Also calls to Welsh Candy Company. Nature of telephone calls in all
cases unknown, no further investigation of the call as yet has been initiated.
c. Anna Volpert, sister of Jack Ruby, born June 1904 in Poland. Remained in
Chicago until early 1930's. Sometime after 1937 but before 1939 moved to
Youngstown. Ohio. Resided in Youngstown, with husband until 1959. Husband was
engaged in a company known as National Home Improvement Company.
2. Close friends
a. Andrew Armstrong, Ruby's Man Friday at the Carousel Club. Resident of Dallas,
background unknown, Negro.
b. Ralph Paul. Resident of Arlington, Texas, born New York City. About 55 years
old, came to Dallas about 1948. Owns Bull Pen Drive-in Restaurant in Fort Worth.
Co-owner with Ruby of the Carousel Club.
c. George Senator, reommate of Jack Ruby. Background unknown.
3. Other associates and employees
a. Barney Baker, Chicago hoodlum. Reported muscle man for Jimmy Hoffa. Requested
by Ruby in mid-November of 1963 to assist him in dispute with AGVA.
b. Karen Bennett Carlin, employed by Ruby as strip-teaser under name of Little
Lyn. Borrowed $5 from Ruby on Saturday night, November 23, telephoned Ruby
Sunday morning, November 24, and says she requested him to send her $25. Mrs.
Marguerite Oswald (mother of Lee Oswald ) believes that she knew a Carol Bennett
when she (Mrs. Oswald) was employed as a waitress in Dallas. Mrs. Oswald claims
that Carol Bennett was the daughter of a Dallas hoodlum who was murdered in a
gangland slaying. No information as to whether or not Karen Bennett Carlin and
Carol Bennett are the same person or are related.
c. Bruce Carlin, husband of Karen Bennett Carlin.
d. Curtis Laverne Graford, aka Larry Craford. About 22 years old, itinerant
laborer. Worked for Ruby at the Carousel Club from about October 31, 1963 to
November 23, 1963. Became close confidant of Ruby. Fled Dallas area Saturday,
November 23. Located in rural part of Michigan, November 28.
Page 285
285
e. Robert Cravens, age unknown. Resident of Los Angeles. Friend of Ruby's. Came
to Dallas about October 1, 1963, to operate a show at the Dallas State Fair
called How Hollywood Makes Movies. Called Ruby in November 1963 with respect to
the sale of some lumber. No other information concerning Cravens.
f. Leopold Ramon Duces, life was threatened by a person suggesting that the same
group that would kill Duces had been responsible for getting rid of Kennedy,
Name "Leopoldo" had been mentioned by others who claim that Ruby was associated
with an anti Castro group in the procurement of arms. Name "Leopoldo also
mentioned by a woman in Dallas who claims she was introduced to a a "Leon
Oswald," description fitting Lee Harvey Oswald, in October 1963 by anti-Castro
Cuban leaders.
g. FranK Goldstein, age unknown. San Francisco gambler. Friend of Eva Grant.
Requested by Ruby in November 1963 to assist him in his difficulties with AGVA.
h. Sam Gordon, west coast resident Friend of Ruby from childhood in Chicago.
Reportedly purchased sixty-first home run ball from Mickey Mantle. General
background and connections unknown.
i. Alex Gruber, resident of Los Angeles. Friend of Ruby. Visited him in Dallas
in November 1963. Received telephone call from Ruby on Friday after the
assassination of President Kennedy.
j. Thomas Hill, name found in Ruby's notebook. Official of John Birch Society.
Resides in Massachusetts.
k. H. L. Hunt and Lamar Hunt, may be same person. Name Lamar Hunt found in
notebook of Ruby. Ruby visited his office on November 21. Hunt denies knowing
Ruby. Ruby gives innocent explanation. Ruby found with literature of H.L. Hunt
after shooting Oswald.
l. Lewis J. McWillie, operates Las Vegas gambling casino. Formerly employed
gambling casino in Havana. Ruby visited him in Havana. Ruby also purchased a gun
for McWillie and had it mailed to McWillie in Las Vegas. Ruby and McWiLlie give
innocent explanations of their relationship.
m. Barney Ross, former professional prize fighter. Former narcotics addict. Long
time friend of Ruby from Chicago days. Ruby visited him at least once a year and
telephones him two or three times a year.
n. Amesi and Mario Umberto, owners of Ansen Tool Manufacturing Company Chicago.
In telephone communication with Earl Ruby.
o. Billy Joe Willis, musician employed by Ruby at Carousel Club. Lives in
Irving, Texas, across the street from Mrs. Ruth Paine (Friend at whose home
Marina Oswald resided).
MAY 15, 1964.
Mr. RICHARD HELMS,
Deputy Director for Plans,
Central Intelligence Agency,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR MR. HELMS: At a meeting on March 12, 1964, between representatives of your
Agency and this Commission, a memorandum prepared by members of the Commission
staff was handed to you which related to the background of Jack L. Ruby and
alleged associates and/or activities in Cuba. At that time we requested that you
review this memorandum and submit to the Commission any information contained in
your files regarding the matters covered in the memorandum, as well as any other
analysis by your representatives which you believed might be useful to the
Commission.
As you know, this Commission is nearing the end of its investigation. We would
appreciate hearing from you as soon as possible whether you are in a position to
imply with this request in the near future.
Sincerely,
J. LEE RANKIN,
General Counsel.
Memorandum for: Mr. J. Lee Rankin, General Counsel, President's Commission on
the Assassination of President Kennedy.
Subject: Information Concerning Jack Ruby (aka Jack Rubenstein) and his
Associates.
1. Reference is made to your memorandum of 19 May 1964, requesting that this
Agency furnish any information in its files relative to Jack Ruby, his
activities and his associates.
Page 286
286
2. This memorandum will confirm our earlier statement to the Commission to the
effect that an examination of Central Intelligence Agency files has produced no
information on Jack Ruby or his activities. The Central Intelligence Agency has
no indication that Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald ever knew each other, were
associated, or might have been connected in any manner.
3. The records of this Agency were reviewed for information about the relatives,
friends and associates of Ruby named in your summary of his background. Our
records do not reflect any information pertaining to these persons.
THOMAS H. KARAMESSINES,
Acting Deputy Director For Plans.
Mr. BLAKEY. Judge Griffin, let me direct your attention to the date on the
memorandum prepared by yourself and/or Hubert, February 24, 1964, and the date
and the routing slip that has Mr. Willens' initials, March 12, 1964.
Do you know why there was a 16-day delay in Mr. Willens' communicating this
material to the CIA?
Judge GRIFFIN. No, I don't.
Mr. BLAKEY. Was it usual or unusual for him to do something by direct
communication as opposed to mail? The note ,of course, indicates that the
proposed letter which accompanied the memorandum was not sent, rather that it
was physically handed to the representative.
Judge GRIFFIN. I don't know what their procedure was or, indeed, whether they
used couriers rather than mail. I really don't know how things went out.
Mr. BLAKEY. Let me direct your attention as well to the fourth item, the memo of
Mr. Karamessines of September 15, 1964 to Mr. Rankin. I take it this is the
answer to the oral request of Mr. Willens of March 12, 1964.
Do you know why it took from March to September, some 7 months, to answer the
questions raised in your memorandum of November 24?
Judge GRIFFIN. I can only speculate.
Were you ever told why it took that long?
Judge GRIFFIN. Never.
Mr. BLAKEY. Was this kind of delay typical in getting a response from a
Government agency?
Judge GRIFFIN. I don't believe we ever had a delay of this magnitude about
anything else.
Mr. BLAKEY. Could it have been that kind of delay that would have been a factor
contributing to your inability to make the deadlines that were being set for you
by the Chief Justice and others in your investigation of Jack Ruby?
Judge GRIFFIN. No. You are really asking me the question that goes back to some
other memos that aren't in the record at this point, and what happened to the
investigations that Hubert and I had suggested be conducted, and why they
weren't conducted.
Mr. BLAKEY. We will get to some of that later on. I am wondering now about the
relationship between the Agency and your own concerns.
Judge GRIFFIN. The reason it took us so long to do the job was that it was a
tremendous amount of work. That was the starting point. The other question about
why we weren't allowed--I won't say we weren't allowed--why we got the reaction
we did get with respect to certain of our suggested investigations, whatever
underlies the delay
Page 287
287
in this memorandum may underlie--may, I am not certain--may underlie some of
that.
I suspect that within the whole vast apparatus of investigation that was going
on it went far beyond the Commission, but even within the commission different
considerations may have affected different people who made decisions. What
affected Howard Willens might be very different from what affected Lee Rankin or
what affected the Chief Justice.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, I would like to turn from the relationship between the
Warren Commission and the Bureau and Agency and ask some specific questions
about the character of the investigation itself.
Judge, you previously testified in response to questions by Congressman Dodd and
Congressman McKinney that you were under certain political pressures, and I
don't mean political pressure in a pejorative sense, a desire to allay public
fears, perhaps to work at a smooth transition in national leadership.
Certainly this would be in the context of the political conventions. Let me ask
you some specific questions in regard to a perhaps less attractive motivation,
for limiting your investigation. I hope you will bear with me if I ask you a
series of questions which may sound like strike force attorney asking hard
questions of a witness.
To your knowledge did the Chief Justice have any information while he was
serving with the Warren Commission concerning any volvement of U.S. intelligence
agencies in plots against Cuba or to assassinate Fidel Castro?
Judge GRIFFIN. I have no direct knowledge on that.
Mr. BLAKEY. That he had knowledge.
Judge GRIFFIN. I have no direct information.
Mr. BLAKEY. Do you have any indirect information?
Judge GRIFFIN. Nothing that would be information. I only have my speculations.
Mr. BLAKEY. To your knowledge, did any other commissioner have such information
while he was serving with the Warren Commission?
Judge GRIFFIN. I have no knowledge that anybody would have. All I have is
speculations.
Mr. BLAKEY. The point of time that I am directing your attention to is while you
were serving on the Warren Commission.
Judge GRIFFIN. Right.
Mr. BLAKEY. To your knowledge did any staff member have any such information
while he was serving with the Warren Commission?
Judge GRIFFIN. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. BLAKEY. In retrospect was there any conduct on the part of the Chief Justice
from which you could or did infer that he had such information?
Judge GRIFFIN. Tell me again what information you are asking me about.
Mr. BLAKEY. This goes to whether the Chief Justice or other people in leadership
capacity were aware of any involvement of U.S. intelligence agencies in plots
against Cuba or to assassinate Fidel Castro.
The question now is whether in retrospect there was any conduct on the part of
the Chief Justice from which you could have or did infer that he had such
information.
Page 288
288
Judge GRIFFIN. The only statement that he made in retrospect from which my
inference--there are two statements from which one could make any kind of
inference about what he knew about national security problems. One was his
statement to us that we did not handle this in a responsible way, and I think my
characterization has to be against the background of the fear of McCarthyism;
that we didn't handle what we found in a responsible way, we could trigger a
thermonuclear war.
I remember that phraseology thermonuclear war, being used. I don't know whether
I heard the Chief Justice say that directly or was told it by Mr. Rankin he had
said that.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did he ever explain to you or did anyone else explain to you what he
meant by "handle in a responsible way"?
Judge GRIFFIN. I am certain this all came up in the context of protecting
confidences, not leaking things to the press and maintaining the internal
security of our own investigation. That is the area in which you have to review
that.
The other thing was the statement that I was quoted in the press as making, that
there might be materials that the Commission had which couldn't be revealed for
some extended period of time. I don't remember whether it was 50 years or what
the period of time was. Frankly, that statement also surprised me, even at the
time, because there was nothing that I saw in my judgment that couldn't have
been revealed the minute we concluded our report, with one exception, which I
always understood, which had to do with the autopsy photographs, had nothing to
do with national security but had to do with personal factors surrounding the
Kennedy family. But I never saw any investigative information that in my view
justified any secrecy whatsoever.
Mr. BLAKEY. In retrospect was there any conduct on the part of any other
Commissioner, that is, other than Chief Justice Warren, from which you could
have or did infer that that Commissioner had such information?
Judge GRIFFIN. Not at the time.
Mr. BLAKEY. In retrospect was there any conduct on the part of any staff member
from which you could have or did infer that he had such information or she had
such information?
Judge GRIFFIN. ,No, not at the time, nor is there any conduct that I can think
of that would fall in that category.
Mr. BLAKEY. While you served with the Commission did you see any document from
which you could have or did infer that the Chief Justice or any other
Commissioner or any staff member had such information?
Judge GRIFFIN. Never.
Mr. BLAKEY. Were you ever present during a discussion from which you could have
or did infer that the Chief Justice or any other Commissioner, or any staff
member, had such information?
Judge GRIFFIN. No.
Mr. BLAKEY. Were you ever instructed by anyone, including the Chief Justice or
any other Commissioner or any staff member, while you were serving on the Warren
Commission, not to pursue any area of inquiry?
Judge GRIFFIN. I was never instructed not to pursue an area of inquiry. Some of
the ways we went about opening up areas of inquiry,
Page 289
289
since we had limited. resources and were under time pressures, required
permission, permission to subpena witnesses to travel, and we needed to clear
all requests for information to an agency through the administrative hierarchy
of the Commission.
I don't recall, I can't at this point remember if any specific inquiry that we
ever sent to an agency was blocked within the Commission. But there were areas
of investigation and methods of investigation we wanted to pursue that were
turned down.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did anyone ever suggest to you that certain matters should not be
explored as opposed to instructing you not to do it?
Judge GRIFFIN. In a substantive sense, no, that was never done. It all had to do
with the method of investigation.
Mr. BLAKEY. Let me turn now from the general question of political pressure and
talk to you a little bit about the time pressures that you were under at that
time.
Mr. Chairman, I wonder if we could have the clerk mark the memo of Hubert and
Griffin, dated May 14, 1964, re the adequacy of the Ruby investigation, as JFK
exhibit No. 63.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Without objection.
Mr. BLAKEY. Would the clerk show the memo to the witness.
Judge GRIFFIN. I have a copy of it.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if we can have that memo incorporated in the
record at this point in order that I can ask some questions based on it.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Without objection it is so ordered.
[The document referred to, marked JFK exhibit No. 63 and received for the
record, follows:]
JFK EXHIBIT No. 63
[Memorandum]
MAY 14, 1964.
To: J. Lee Rankin.
From: Leon D. Hubert, Jr. Butt W. Griffin.
Subject: Adequacy of Ruby Investigation.
1. Past Recommendations.--In memoranda data February 19, February February 27,
and March 11, we made various suggestions for extending the investigation
initiated by the FBI in connection with the Oswald homicide. Shortly after March
11, 1964, we began preparation for the nearly 60 depositions taken in Dallas
during the period March 21-April 2; after we returned from Dallas we took the
deposition of C. L Crafard (two days) and George Senator (two days) worked on
editing the depositions taken in Dallas and prepared for another series of 30
other depositions taken in Dallas during the period April 13-17. On our return
from Dallas we continued the editing of the Dallas depositions, prepared the
Dallas deposition exhibits for publication, and began working on a draft of the
report in Area V. As a consequence of all of this activity during the period
March 11-May 13, we did not press for the conferences and discussions referred
to in the attached memoranda. The following represents our view at this time
with respect to appropriate further investigation.
2. General Statement of Areas Not Adequately Investigated.--In reporting on the
murder of Lee Oswald by Jack Ruby we must answer or at least advert to these
questions:
(a) Why did Ruby kill Oswald;
(b) Was Ruby associated with the assassin of President Kennedy;
(c) Did Ruby have any confederates in the murder of Oswald?
It is our belief that although the evidence gathered so far does not show a
conspiratorial link between Ruby and Oswald or between Ruby and others,
nevertheless evidence should be secured, if possible, to affirmatively exclude
that:
Page 290
290
(a) Ruby was indirectly linked through others to Oswald;
(b) Ruby killed Oswald, because of fear; or
(c) Ruby killed Oswald at the suggestion of others.
3. Summary of Evidence Suggesting Further investigation.--The following facts
suggest the necessity of further investigation:
a. Ruby had time to engage in substantial-activities in addition to the
management of his Clubs. Ruby's night club business usually occupied no more
than five hours of a normal working day which began at about 10:00 a.m. and
ended at 2:00 a.m. It was his practice to spend an average of only one hour a
day at his Clubs between 10:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. Our depositions were confined
primarily to persons familiar with Ruby's Club activities. The FBI has
thoroughly investigated Ruby's night club operations but does not seem to have
pinned down his other business or social activities. The basic materials do make
reference to such other activities (see p. 27 of our report of February 18), but
these are casual and collateral and were not explored to determine whether they
involved any underlying sinister purposes. Nor were they probed in such a manner
as to permit a determination as to how much of Ruby's time they occupied.
b. Ruby has always been a person who looked for money-making "sidelines." In the
two months prior to november 22, Ruby supposedly spent considerable time
promoting an exercise device known as a "twist board." the "twist board" was
purportedly manufactured by Plastellite Engineering, a Fort Worth manufacturer
of oil field equipment which has poor credit references and was the subject of
an FBI investigation in 1952. We know of no sales of this item by Ruby; nor do
we know if any "twist boards" were manufactured for sale. The posibility remains
that the "twist board" was a front for some other illegal enterprise.
c. Ruby has long been close to persons pursuing illegal activities. Although
Ruby had no known ideological or political interests (see p. 35 of our report of
february 18), there is much evidence that he was interested in Cuban matters. In
early 1959, Ruby inquired concerning the smuggling of persons out of Cuba. He
has admitted that, at that time, he negotiated for the sale of jeeps ot Castro.
In September 1959, Ruby visited Havana at the invitation of Las Vegas racketeer,
Louis J.
McWillie, who paid Ruby's expenses for the trip and who was later expelled from
Cuba by Castro. McWillie is described by Ralph Paul, Ruby's business partner, as
one of Ruby's closest friends. Ruby mailed a gun to McWillie in early 1963. In
1961, it is reported that Ruby attended three meetings in Dallas in connection
with the sale of arms to Cubans and the smuggling out of refugees. The informant
identifies an Ed Brunner as Ruby's associate in this endeavor. Shortly after his
arrest on November 24, Ruby named Fred Brenner as one of his expected attorneys.
Brunner did not represent Ruby, however. Insufficient investigation has been
conducted to confirm or deny the report about meetings in 1961. When Henry Wade
announced to the Press on November 22, 1963 that Oswald was a member of the Free
Cuba Committee, Ruby corrected Wade by stating "Not the Free Cuba Committee; the
Fair Play for Cuba Committee. There is a difference." The Free Cuba Committee is
an existing anti-Castro organization. Earl Ruby, brother of Jack Ruby, sent an
unexplained telegram to Havana in April 1962. We believe that a reasonable
possibility exists that Ruby has maintained a close interest in Cuban affairs to
the extent necessary to participate in gun sales or smugggling.
d. Bits of evidence link Ruby to others who may have been interested in Cuban
affairs. When Ruby's car was seized on November 24, it contained various
right-wing radio scripts issued by H.L. Hunt and a copy of the Wall Street
Journal bearing the mailing address of a man who has not yet been identified. In
May 1963, Earl Ruby, operator of a dry cleaning business, is known to have
telephoned the Welch Candy Company (owned by the founder of John Birch Society).
The purpose of the call is unknown. Jack Ruby's personal notebook contained the
Massachusetts telephone number and address of Thomas Hill, former Dallas
resident, working at the Boston headquarters of the John Birch Society. Although
it is most likely that all of those bits of circumstantial evidence have
innocent explanations, none has yet been explained.
e. Although Ruby did not witness the motorcade through Dallas, he may have had a
prior interest in the President's visit. A November 20 edition of the Fort Worth
Telegram showing the President's proposed route through Fort Worth, and the
November 20 edition of the Fort Worth Telegram showing the President's proposed
route through Fort Worth, and the November 20 edition of the Dallas Morning News
showing the President's route through Dallas, were found in Ruby's car on
November 24.
Page 291
291
f. On November 16 Jack Ruby met at the Carousel Club with Bertha Cheek, sister
of Mrs. Earlene Roberts, manager of Lee Oswald's rooming house. Mrs. Cheek said
that she and Ruby discussed her lending Ruby money to open a new night club.
Ruby was not questioned about this matter. On November 20, 1963, a woman who may
be identical to Earlene Roberts, was reported to be in San Antonio at the time
of President Kennedy's visit, The possible identification of Mrs. Roberts in San
Antonio has not been checked out. In addition, the link formed by Mrs. Roberts
between Oswald and Ruby is buttressed in some measure by the fact that one of
Ruby's strippers dated a tenant of the Beckley Street rooming house during the
tenancy of Lee Oswald. We have previously suggested the theory that Ruby and
Mrs. Cheek could have been involved in Cuban arms sales of which Oswald gained
knowledge through his efforts to infiltrate the anti-Castro Cubans. Our doubts
concerning the real interest of Mrs. Cheek in Jack Ruby stem from the fact that
one of her four husbands was a convicted felon and one of her friends was a
police officer who married one of Ruby's strip-tease dancers. We have suggested
that Ruby might have killed Oswald out of fear that Oswald might implicate Ruby
and his friends falsely or not in effort to save his own life. We think that
neither Oswald's Cuban interests in Dallas nor-Ruby's Cuban activities have been
adequately explored.
g. Ruby made or attempted to make contacts on November 22 and 23 with persons,
known and unknown, who could have been co-conspirators. Ruby was visited in
Dallas from November 21 to November 24, 1963 by Lawrence Meyers of Chicago.
Meyers had visited Ruby two weeks previously. Ruby also made a long distance
call shortly after the President's death to Alex Gruber in Los Angeles. Gruber
had visited Ruby about the same time as Meyers in early November. Both Gruber
and Meyers give innocent explanations. Meyers claims he was in Dallas enjoying
life with a "dumb but accommodating broad." Gruber claims Ruby called to say he
would not mail a dog that day, as he had promised to do. Finally between 11:35
p.m. and 12 midnight, Saturday, November 23, Ruby made a series of brief long
distance phone calls culminating with a call to entertainer Breck Wall at a
friend's house in Galveston. Wall claims Ruby called to compliment him for
calling off his (Wall's) act at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas. Background checks
have not been made on these persons.
h. In short, we believe that the possibility exists, based on evidence already
available, that Ruby was involved in illegal dealings with Cuban elements who
might have had contact with Oswald. The existence of such dealings can only be
surmised since the present investigation has not focused on that area.
i. We suggest that these matters cannot be left "hanging in the air." They must
either be explored further or a firm decision must be made not to do so
supported by stated reasons for the decision. As a general matter, we think the
investigation deficient in these respects:
(1) Substantial time-segments in Ruby's daily routine from September 26 to
November 22 have not been accounted for.
(2) About 46 persons who saw Ruby from November 22 to November 24 have not been
questioned by staff members, although there are FBI reports of interviews with
all these people.
(3) Persons who have been interviewed because of known associations with Ruby
generally have not been investigated themselves so that their truthfulness can
be evaluated. The FBI reports specifically do not attempt evaluation. The
exception has been that where the FBI has been given incriminating evidence
against Ruby, it has made further investigation to determine whether others
might also be implicated with Ruby. In every case where there was some evidence
implicating others, those other persons were interviewed and denied the
incriminating allegations. Further investigation has not been undertaken to
resolve the conflicts.
(4) Much of our knowledge of Ruby comes from his friends Andrew Armstrong, Ralph
Paul, George Senator, and Larry Crafard. Investigations have not been undertaken
to corroborate their claims-
4. Specific Investigative Recommendations.
a. We should obtain photos of all property found on Ruby's person, in his car,
or at his home or clubs, now in possession of the Dallas District Attorney. We
already have photos of Ruby's address books, but no other items have been
Photographed or delivered to the Commission. These items include the H. L Hunt
literature and newspapers mentioned in paragraphs 3d and 3e.
b. We should conduct staff interviews or take depositions with respect to Ruby's
Cuban activities of the following persons:
Page 292
292
i. Robert Ray McKeown.--Ruby contacted McKeown in 1959 in connection with the
sale of jeeps to Cuba. The objective of an interview or deposition of McKeown
would be to obtain information on possible contacts Ruby would have made after
1959 if his interest in armament sales continued.
ii. Nancy Perrin.--Perrin claims she met with Ruby three times in 1961
concerning refugee smuggling and arms sales. She says she can identify the house
in Dallas where meetings took place. Perrin now lives in Boston. Ruby admits he
was once interested in the sale of jeeps, at least, to Cuba.
c. We should obtain reports from the CIA concerning Ruby's associations. the CIA
has been requested to provide a report based on a memorandum delivered to them
March 12, 1964 covering Ruby's background including his possible Cuban
activities, but a reply has not been received as yet.
d. We should obtain reports from the FBI based on requested investigation of
allegations suggesting that Earlene Roberts was in San Antonio on November 21.
e. The Commission should take the testimony of the following persons the reasons
stated:
i. Hyman Rubenstein, Eva Grant, Earl Ruby.
All are siblings of Jack Ruby. Hyman is the oldest child and presumably will be
the best witness as to family history. He talked to Jack on November 22,
reportedly visited Jack the week before the assassination, and participated in
Ruby's twist board venture. Eva lived with Jack for 3 years in California prior
to World War II, induced Jack to come to Dallas in 1947, and managed the Vegas
Club for Jack in Dallas from 1959 to 1963. Earl was a travelling salesman with
Jack from 1943.-1943, a business partner 1946-1947, and made phone calls before
November 22, 1963 and afterwards which require explanations.
ii. Henry Wade.--This person can testify to the development of the testimony by
Sgt. Dean and Det. Archer against Ruby and of seeing Ruby on November 22 in the
Police Department building.
iii. Jack Ruby.
f. We should take the depositions of the following persons for the reasons
stated:
i. Tom Howard.--This person is one of Ruby's original attorneys, and is reported
to have been in the police basement a few minutes before Oswald was shot and to
have inquired if Oswald had been moved. He filed a writ of habeas corpus for
Ruby about one hour after the shooting of Oswald. He could explain these
activities and possibly tell us about the Ruby trial. We should have these
explanations.
ii. FBI Agent Hall.--This person interviewed Ruby for 2 1/2 hours on November 24
beginning at approximately 12 noon. His report is contradictory to Sgt. Dean's
trial testimony. He also interviewed Ruby on December 21, 1963.
iii. Seth Kantor.--This person was interviewed twice by the FBI and persists in
his claim that he saw Ruby at Parkland Hospital shortly before or after the
President's death was announced- Ruby denies that he was ever at Parkland
Hospital. We must decide who is telling the truth, for there would be
considerable significance if it were concluded that Ruby is lying. Should we
make an evaluation without seeing Kantor ourselves?
iv. Bill DeMar.--This person claims to have seen Oswald at the Carousel Club
prior to November 22, and this rumor perhaps more than any other has been given
wide circulation. Should we evaluate De Mar's credibility solely on the basis of
FBI reports?
g. The FBI should re-interview the following persons for the purposes stated:
i. Alex Gruber.--To obtain personal history to establish original meeting and
subsequent contacts with Ruby; to obtain details of visit to Dallas in November
1965, including where he stayed, how long, who saw him, etc. The FBI should also
check its own files on Gruber.
ii. Lawrence Meyers. (Same as Gruber.)
iii. Ken Dowe.--(KLIF reporter). To ascertain how he happened to first contact
Ruby on November 22 or 23; (Ruby provided information to KLIF concerning the
location of Chief Curry), and whether KLIF gave any inducements to Ruby to work
for it on the weekend of November 22-24.
iv. Rabbi Silverman.---To establish when Silverman saw Ruby at the Synagogue and
obtain names of other persons who may have seen Ruby at the Synagogue on
November 22 and 23. Silverman states that he saw Ruby at the 8 p.m. service on
November 22 and at the 9 a.m. service on November 23; but
Page 293
293
both of these services lasted at least two hours and we do not know whether Ruby
was present for the entire services. Silverman (and others) could "place" Ruby,
or fail to do so, during crucial hours.
v. Mickey Ryan.--(Same as Gruber plus employment in Dallas.)
vi. Breck Wall.--This person was an entertainer at the Adolphus Hotel, Dallas,
at the time of President Kennedy's assassination. Ruby called him in Galveston
at 11:47 p.m. Saturday, November 23, 1963. He also visited Ruby at the County
jail. A background check should be conducted as to this person.
vii. Andrew Armstrong, Bruce Carlin, Karen Bennett Carlin, Curtis LaVerne
Crafard, Ralph Paul, George Senator.
These six persons were deposed at length because of their friendship with Ruby,
familiarity with Ruby's personal and business life, and contacts with Ruby on
November 22, 23, and 24. In general, each has presumed to have had no knowledge
of Ruby's activities during those three days.
Andrew Armstrong was very active in the operation of the Carousel and worked
closely with Ruby for 18 months. His deposition covers Ruby's activities and
emotional state generally and particularly several hours on November 22 and 23.
A background check should be conducted as to this person and selected parts of
his testimony should be checked out to test his veracity.
Karen and Bruce Carlin were the recipients of a $25 money order bought by Ruby
approximately 5 minutes before Ruby shot Oswald. Marguerite Oswald testified
that she believed she knew Karen Carlin. Background checks should be conducted
on the Carlins.
Crafard fled Dallas unexpectedly on Saturday morning November 23. Although we
tend to believe his explanation, we believe a background check on him plus
verification of some of his activities on November 23 are warranted.
Paul is Ruby's business partner. A background check should be conducted as to
him and his telephone calls during November should be checked out. George
Senator, Ruby's roommate, alleged by Crafard to be a homosexual, claims not to
have seen Ruby except at their apartment Sunday morning and for a few hours
early Saturday morning. Senator's background and own admitted activities on
November 22, 23, and 24 should be verified.
5. Other areas of Ruby Investigation which are not complete.
a. Various rumors link Ruby and Oswald which do not appear to be true; however,
the materials we have are not sufficient to discredit them satisfactorily. Such
rumors include:
i. Communist associations of Ruby;
ii. Oswald's use of a Cadlilac believed to belong to Ruby;
iii. After the depositions of Nancy Parrin, Robert McKeown, and Sylvia Odio have
been taken, further investigation may be necessary with respect to Ruby's Cuban
associations.
b. Ruby's notebooks contain numerous names, addresses, and telephone numbers.
Many of these persons have either not been located or deny knowing Ruby. We
believe further investigation is appropriate in some instances; however, we have
not yet evaluated the reports now on hand.
c. We have no expert evidence as to Ruby's mental condition; however, we will
obtain transcripts of the psychiatric testimony at the Ruby trial.
6. Other Investigative Suggestions.--We have suggested in earlier memoranda that
two sources of evidentiary material have been virtually ignored:
a. Radio, TV and Movie Recordings. Two Dallas radio stations tape recorded every
minute of air time on November 22, 23, and 24. We have obtained these radio
tapes for all except a portion of November 24, and the tapes include a number of
interviews with key witnesses in the Oswald area. In addition, the tapes shed
considerable light on the manner in which Dallas public officials and federal
agents conducted the investigations and performed in public view. We believe
that similar video tapes and movie films should be obtained from NBC, CBS, IBC,
UPI, and Movietone News, and relevant portions should be reviewed by staff
members. Wherever witnesses appear on these films who have been considered by
the Commission in preparing its report, a copy of such witnesses' appearance
should be made a part of the Commission records by introducing them in evidence.
If one person were directed to superintend and organize this effort, we believe
it could be done without unreasonable expenditures of Commission time and in
money.
b. Hotel and motel registrations, airline passenger manifests, and Emigration
and Immigration records.
Page 294
294
Copies of Dallas hotel and motel registrations and airline manifests to and from
Dallas should be obtained for the period September 26 to December 1, 1963.
Similarly, Emigration and Immigration records should be obtained for the period
October 1, 1963 to January 1, 1964. We believe that these records may provide a
useful tool as new evidence develops after the Commission staff at the present
time. But, for example is is likely that in the future, persons will come
forward who will claim to have been in Dallas during the critical period and who
will claim to have important information. These records may serve to confirm or
refute their claims.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Griffin, do you recall the circumstances that led you and Mr.
Hubert to prepare this memorandum?
Judge GRIFFIN. In a general sense I do; yes. I don't remember the specific
catalytic event but I remember where we were.
Mr. BLAKEY. Were you asked sometime in May to finish your work by June 1?
Judge GRIFFIN. I don't remember the date but we were given a deadline which we
felt we couldn't meet, whatever that date was.
Mr. BLAKEY. Was this memorandum prepared in response to a request?
Judge GRIFFIN. At the same time as that kind of pressure was coming, whether it
was specifically in direct response to a request I don't know, but for practical
purposes that is right.
Mr. BLAKEY. I wonder, Judge Griffin, if I could direct your attention to page 2
of the memorandum and ask you to focus on paragraph 3a. In general terms you
indicate that there was a need for further investigation and you observe that
the FBI has thoroughly investigated Mr. Ruby's night club operations but does
not seem to have pinned down his other business or social activity. Is that
correct?
Judge GRIFFIN. Yes.
Mr. BLAKEY. In the period of time after this memorandum was written that is
between May and July and August when the investigation wound down, did the
Bureau subsequently pin down these other activities?
Judge GRIFFIN. I don't think they did. The question in part is whether they did
any more as a result. What was Mr. Rankin's response to this memo? I don't know
whether we got a written response to this or not. I don't have any recollection
of really pursuing this. I have a general recollection of a conversation, I
don't remember who it was with, in which we were not told we could not do any of
these things but we were told not to go off the deep end, and so forth, and we
were in a sense given a light to go ahead but they still made clear to us that
we had these deadlines. So I don't know what we did to follow that up.
Mr. BLAKEY. Let me direct your attention now to page 9 of the memorandum, to
paragraph c, which then continues over on page 3 and also paragraph f, on page
3, which continues over on page 4.
Judge GRIFFIN. Right.
Mr. BLAKEY. In which you generalIy indicate that Mr. Ruby had been close to
persons pursuing various legal activities. You note, for example, in September
1959, Mr. Ruby visited Havana at the invitation of a man named Louis J.
McWillie, whom you characterized as a Las Vegas racketeer. You also indicate
that Mr. Ralph Paul had indicated that Ruby considered Mr. McWillie one of his
closest friends.
Judge GRIFFIN. Right.
Page 295
295
Mr. BLAKEY. You comment:
In addition we believe that a reasonable possibility exists that Ruby has
maintained a close interest in Cuban affairs to the extent necessary to
participate in gun sales or smuggling.
Now reading over page 4, paragraph f:
We think that neither Oswald's Cuban interests in Dallas nor Ruby's Cuban
activities have been adequately explored.
This of course was written as of May 14. In the period of time after May 14 in
your judgment did the Bureau subsequently adequately explore these Cuban
matters?
Judge GRIFFIN. In fairness to the Bureau I don't think they had much of a
request to explore them. There were some requests made to them for
investigation. We did not pursue these matters in a manner I felt at the time,
or ever have felt, was satisfactory.
Mr. BLAKEY. Let me direct your attention now to page 3 of the memorandum,
specifically paragraph d, in which you generally indicate that there is some
possible connection between Ruby and various rightwing groups. Particularly you
mention H. L. Hunt, and raise the possibility of some connection between Mr.
Ruby and the John Birch Society.
Judge GRIFFIN. Yes.
Mr. BLAKEY. In your judgment in the period of time following May did the Bureau
adequately explore these possible rightwing connections?
Judge GRIFFIN. Again, I have to answer that in terms of what we requested them
to do. At this point I don't recall what we requested with respect to H. L.
Hunt. With respect to Earl Ruby, Hubert and I explored Earl Ruby's connection
with Ruby to a very limited extent but we never requested any followup.
We took his deposition on May 14, 1964, and asked him some questions about the
Welch Candy Co. We did push a request for information on Thomas Hill. My
recollection on that is that the Bureau did everything we asked them to do.
Whether they could have done more about it and didn't, that I don't know.
Mr. BLAKEY. I call your attention to page 4, specifically paragraph g, and note
that you indicate that Mr. Ruby had a visit from one lawrence Meyers from
Chicago, you comment on the relationship between Mr. Meyers and Mr. Alex Gruber
of Los Angeles and conclude: "Background checks have not been made on these
persons."
Subsequently did the Bureau do background checks to your knowledge of Mr. Meyers
and Mr. Gruber?
Judge GRIFFIN. I don't know. Again I am not certain whether were requested that.
I will say that I don't know whether there was anything put in writing, any
written response to this memo. Your records I think would reveal that. It is
quite possible that based on your conversations with those who received this
memo that Hubert and I decided that we had to make--in fact, I know we did
this--after we had talked about this we decided we had to make some choices
about where we could go, because we had a lot of resistance to these things. We
felt that we couldn't expose ourselves to too many dead ends things that looked
like wild goose chases.
Page 296
296
I am fairly coriclent that although we may never have been told not to do
certain things, that we made the decision probably ourselves that we should go
for the things that we thought might have the best chance of a payoff and avoid
any further hassle with others in the Commission over our view on how to conduct
the investigation.
Mr. BLAKEY. Let me last direct your attention to page 4 and specifically to
paragraph h, and quoting from the record:
In short, we believe that the possibility exists, based on evidence already
available, that Ruby was involved in illegal dealings with Cuban elements who I
might have had contact with Oswald. The existence of such dealings can only be
surmised since the present investigation has not focused in that area?
In your judgment did the investigation in succeeding months adequately focus on
that area?
Judge GRIFFIN. No.
Mr. BLAKEY. Judge Griffin, I wonder if I could direct your attention to the
final report of the Commission, a copy of which is on the desk in front of you,
to your right, and ask you to look at page 365 in the official report, and page
340 in the New York Times edition.
Looking now at page 365, the Commission discusses at page 365 in the official
report and page 340 of the New York Times report, Ruby's background and
associates and it says:
In addition to examining in detail Jack Ruby's activities from November 21 to
November 24, and his possible acquaintanceship with Lee Harvey Oswald, the
Commission has considered whether or not Ruby had ties with individuals or
groups that might have obviated the need for any direct contact near the time of
the assassination. Study of Jack Ruby's background, which is set out more fully
in appendix XVI, leads to the final conclusion that he had no such ties.
Judge GRIFFIN. Let me understand what that first sentence is there. "The
Commission has considered whether or not Ruby had ties with individuals or
groups that might have obviated the need for any direct contact near the time of
the assassination."
Ties to some intermediate group that might have wanted to assassinate the
President?
Mr. BLAKEY. In the context of your memorandum of May were you raising the
question whether Ruby had illegal dealings with Cuban elements who might have
had contact with Oswald? Do you believe that the succeeding months of
investigation from May through September adequately explored those dealings so
that this conclusion "leads to the final conclusion that he had no such ties,"
could have been
Judge GRIFFIN. If this phrase individual or groups that might have obviated the
need," if that is read to mean any Cuban groups or any people interested in
dealing with Cuba, I would say no, I would not agree with that last sentence
that you read.
I must say I don't know what the first sentence means.
Mr. McKINNEY. Does that not simply mean that there could have been contact
between Ruby and Oswald without physical contact?
Judge GRIFFIN. I know it means that. The question is whether someone had in mind
some group that we knew had contact with Oswald. If that is meant to say that we
could reach a conclusion that someone that we knew had direct contact with
Oswald also had direct contact with Ruby, then this sentence about the firm
conclusion is probably
Page 297
297
correct, that we could conclude that based upon someone that we know at that
time that had a direct contact, we could say yes, he didn't have any direct
contact we knew about, but how about the people we don't know about?
Mr. BLAKEY. I would like to know your feeling in May that there might be a
relationship between Oswald and Ruby through Cuban elements, and your suggestion
in May that that possible connection should be adequately explored.
Judge GRIFFIN. Right.
Mr. BLAKEY. I am raising the question that I understand that you thought it was
not adequately explored.
If it was not, I am wondering how the Commission could have concluded on page
365 in the official report and on page 340 in the New York Times report that
there were no such ties.
Judge GRIFFIN. Because I think that this report throughout was really written
from a very narrow perspective when general terms were used and they really
meant someone we already knew a group we already knew had contact with Oswald.
The question was could we find that Ruby had contact with any of those specific
individuals or groups, groups not meaning every Cuban in the country but a
specific known group that Oswald had made contact with.
Mr. BLAKEY. In the context of that answer, let me direct your attention to page
370 of the official report and the New York Times report on page 346. Reading
now from page 340 of the official report and page 348 of the New York Times
report, there is an indication of information on a relationship between Ruby and
Louis J. McWillie, who you mentioned in your memorandum of May 5; and then in
the next designated paragraph, paragraph designated "Possible Underworld
Connections," let me direct your attention to the two concluding sentences:
Ruby has disclaimed that he was associated with organized crime activities, and
law enforcement agencies have confirmed that denial.
Judge GRIFFIN. I suppose that statement on its face is true, that Ruby has said
that he didn't have organized criminal activity and law enforcement agencies
have said yes; he is not associated with organized criminal activities.
Mr. FAUNTROY. The law enforcement agencies said that?
Judge GRIFFIN. That is right. I think that is a true statement.
Mr. BLAKEY. On page 801 of the official report and page 707 of the New York
Times edition, I quote now from the last paragraph, headed "Underworld Ties."
This is from the appendix generally dealing with Mr. Ruby's background:
Based on its evaluation of the record, however, the Commission believes that the
evidence does not establish a significant link between Ruby and organized crime.
Both State and Federal officials have indicated that Ruby was not affiliated
with organized criminal activities, and numerous persons have reported that Ruby
was not connected with such activity.
Judge GRIFFIN. Right. I think the key words are "significant link" and that
question was: Where did Ruby stand in the organized criminal hierarchy? Was he a
big fish, little fish, or was he on the
Page 298
298
periphery? It is not an attempt to say that he did not have lots of friends and
associates and couldn't perhaps get things done and that they might not call
upon him.
Mr. DODD. Counsel, that is clearly what it says. I don't know how you can
possibly reach any other conclusion from that statement that he was not
associated or affiliated. To say that that statement indicates he was not
significantly involved, I think, is not a fair appraisal of it.
Judge GRIFFIN. The question is what you mean by "significant."
Mr. BLAKEY. Do you think a normal person, an average American lay reader to whom
this report was directed, in reading that, would have led to believe that Ruby
was not associated in any way with organized crime?
Judge GRIFFIN. Let me say this: If anybody who reads the whole appendix there,
which lays out all what his associations were--if you just read the last
sentence, if you don't read all the other associations that are laid out but if
you read one or two pages we have on this and you look at the footnotes, you
will see it is actually one page, guess-it goes in his past history, so this
entire appendix covers a good many pages of laying out what his specific
associations were going all the way back to the 1930's and early 1940's in
Chicago.
I don't think anybody who could read this and have all of this information that
is in here would have any doubt that there were lots and lots of associations
that he had with underworld types and one could fairly characterize him in a
kind of way as a fringe person the underworld.
Unfortunately, for various reasons, this report is loaded with code words such
as "the Commission found no evidence" and this one significant link." It is an
attempt by the Commission to say to the lie that:"Yes; the average person would
read this and, if you read it the newspapers, you would think there is a lot of
stuff here, but we are exercising a professional evaluation and we don't think
this is significant."
Mr. BLAKEY. In your professional judgment, did you explore the relationship
between Ruby and McWillie, and possible connections with organized crime
figures?
Judge GRIFFIN. If we were conducting an investigation that really was a
no-time-limit, no-stops investigation into whether there could have been a
conspiracy to assassinate the President that involved underworld, and if we had
had one bit of information at that point that was significant that would show
that the underworld might had a motive or might have been connected with someone
else who a motive to assassinate the President, my answer would be that this was
not adequate.
But at the point that we stopped this investigation, we didn't know anything
about the so-called Mafia connections with the CIA, we knew nothing about the
assassination attempts in the Caribbean. The thing we could see in the
underworld types were that they were to make some money selling guns to Cuba,
and that did not seem to justify the next conclusion, that they therefore wanted
to the President.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did you know in 1964 that it was at least alleged that McWillie was
manager of the Tropicana Casino?
Page 299
299
Judge GRIFFIN. I think that is all in the record.
Mr. DODD. Did you say earlier you were familiar with this memorandum from the
Central Intelligence Agency dated, I think, September 17, 1964, in which the CIA
states emphatically that they have no information on Jack Ruby or his
activities?
Judge GRIFFIN. Including Louis McWillie, for example. His name was in a memo
that they were responding to. Louis McWillie's name was given to them by us
along with a lot of other people. Understand that we got that memo 8 or 9 days
before the report was published. That report was already in galley proof, and
the galleys--probably the page proofs--were being read at the time this report
came back from the CIA.
Mr. DODD. In your memo of May 14, 2 or 3 months before that, clearly raise
questions about Ruby's possibly becoming involved in purchasing jeeps for
Castro, which is a political activity on which the CIA would have some
information or they would be derelict in their duty?
Judge GRIFFIN. Absolutely.
Mr. BLAKEY. Were you also aware after May 1960 he took a job at the casino that
was allegedly owned by Meyer Lansky?
Judge GRIFFIN. I don't know whether we knew that.
Mr. BLAKEY. Would you have known the name Meyer Lansky in 1964?
Judge GRIFFIN. Yes. That kind of information would not have significantly
affected our decision unless we knew two things, at least unless we knew that
the Mafia, the underworld types, were being used by the CIA in connection with
international Cuban activities. If we had known that the CIA in any way was
utilizing underworld people in connection with any kind of Cuban activity, that
might have said more for us--most particularly if we had, of course, known there
was an effort on some part of the people in our Government to assassinate
Castro.
Mr. BLAKEY. You know it?
Judge GRIFFIN. We did not know it.
Mr. BLAKEY. You knew that Ruby had some connection with the underworld?
Judge GRIFFIN. That is all we knew.
Mr. BLAKEY. You knew he was trying to sell jeeps to Castro?
Judge GRIFFIN. In 1959--incidentally, we had rumors on that which we could never
confirm from anyone.
Mr. BLAKEY. You were suspicious enough?
Judge GRIFFIN. We were suspicious.
Mr. BLAKEY. You knew the guy had underworld connections, you knew he had
political activities in a foreign country?
Judge GRIFFIN. We took the depositions of all of the people who gave us that
information. We requested further information from the CIA. We got their
September 15 memo. We got nothing to start with from them. We were being told to
write the report. We got no further information.
I can't tell you in any kind of detail what we requested of the FBI. I feel
fairly certain that we were making requests to the FBI up to the point that we
got nothing back. At that point we had nothing link it in with.
Page 300
300
Mr. BLAKEY. Would any of these other names be familiar with you: Jake Lansky?
Would that name mean anything to you?
Judge GRIFFIN. Sure.
Mr. BLAKEY. Gerald Catens, Would that name mean anything to you in 1963?
Judge GRIFFIN. Yes; that would not have told us anything that we did not already
believe about Lansky anyhow.
Mr. BLAKEY. Would the name David Cellini mean anything to you?
Judge GRIFFIN. No; it would not mean anything to us.
Mr. BLAKEY. Eddie Levinson, who was alleged to own the Riveria Casino?
Judge GRIFFIN. No.
Mr. BLAKER. Does the name Trafficante mean anything to you?
Judge GRIFFIN. No.
Mr. BLAKEY. Raoul Gonzales or Benny Fernandez?
Judge GRIFFIN. I think the answer would have to be no; it did not mean anything
to us.
Mr. BLAKEY. The reason I raise this with you, Judge Griffin, to move off the
question of a possible CIA or Mafia connection as a motive: Were you aware in
the 1960's the Department of Justice, under Robert Kennedy, had what some people
say was a vigorous organized crime drive?
Judge GRIFFIN. Yes.
Mr. BLAKEY. Would the death of the President have possible undermined Robert
Kennedy's political support in the Government.
Judge GRIFFIN. You are asking me to speculate now on that? Or did we think about
that question? I don't think we thought about it, didn't think about it.
Mr. BLAKEY. As a matter of fact, did Robert Kennedy remain in the Department of
Justice after the President's assassination, under President Johnson?
Judge GRIFFIN. He was elected Senator from New York.
Mr. BLAKEY. In point of fact, he left the Department of Justice, did he not?
Judge GRIFFIN. I will say categorically that by Hubert and me that possibility
was not seriously explored. I think what you are saying is the possibility that
someone associated with the underworld would have wanted to assassinate the
President; isn't that right?
Mr. BLAKEY. To undermine the organized crime program.
Judge GRIFFIN. You see, the difficulty with making that leap was that--I am
satisfied everyone who investigates this will have the same conclusion--that
Oswald was the person who assassinated the President. There was no showing that
Oswald had any connection with organized crime. Therefore, there was no reason
to think that simply because Ruby was involved in organized crime, that that
would have been linked to the assassination of the President.
We needed to fill that in, in some way, but that is why the Cuban link is so
important. If we had known that the CIA wanted to assassinate Castro, then all
of the Cuban motivations that we were exploring about, this made much, much more
sense. If we had further known that the CIA was involved with organized criminal
figures in an assassination attempt in the Caribbean, then we would have had a
completely different perspective on this thing.
Page 301
301
But, because we did not have those links at this point, there was nothing to tie
the underworld in with Cuba and thus nothing to tie them in with Oswald, nothing
to tie them in with the assassination of the President.
Mr. BLAKEY. Let me direct your attention back to what has been marked as JFK
exhibit No. 63, your memorandum of May 14. Beginning on page 5 and following,
there are the names of a number of people that you suggest either should be
interviewed by the staff or from whom depositions should be taken or that the
Bureau should reinterview in the field.
Judge GRIFFIN. Right.
Mr. BLAKEY. I don't find McWillie among those people. Is there any reason why he
was omitted that you can recall now?
Judge GRIFFIN. It may be that we had pursued this is a request mostly for
background information on these people. We identified McWillie very early as a
somebody who might be a key link. It may be that at the time we wrote this memo,
we had gotten everything we felt we could get out of the FBI, that we could not
make a productive request to the FBI, so that we were now focusing on other
people in an effort to see if they somehow linked back in. I think that is
probably why McWillie was left out.
Mr. BLAKEY. If you knew then what you know today about the relationship between
McWillie and such figures as Meyer and Jake Lansky and Trafficante and other
organized crime figures who apparently were heavily involved in Cuban gambling
and the fact that those Cuban gambling syndicates had a relationship with the
CIA in an effort to overthrow Premier Castro, do you think you would have more
vigorously pursued McWillie?
Judge GRIFFIN. It is not simply McWillie.
Mr. BLAKEY. And all organized crime, the Cuban connection?
Judge GRIFFIN. I frankly think that if anybody on the staff level that I dealt
with had had this information, the memos that Hubert and I were
generating--which I expressed my unhappiness about the response to---I don't
think they would have been handled in that way.
Now, whether above the staff level that I was dealing with, other people had
information which produced a much higher-up decision not to go forward in this
area, I don't how.
I have said to Mr. Blakey in our private conversation in Cleveland that it
frankly is not conceivable to me that Allen Dulles did not know about everything
we are talking about here. I personally would not believe it if he came here and
denied it to my face. I a]so don't believe the President didn't know about this.
Now, how much was then communicated on to the Chief Justice how specific the
communications might have been, my own speculation, like any other citizen's,
reflecting my own involvement in this, is that I think the Chief Justice had to
be told something pretty convincing in order to get him to take this job.
I don't know how much detail they would have given him but he must have
genuinely believed that there was a national security question involved here,
not simply a McCarthyism kind of question.
From my own perspective at this point, I have a stron belief, without any more
information than I have a]ready expressed, that at least
Page 302
302
Allen Dulles, if not one or two or her people somewhere in the Commission
hierarchy had some information about the importance of the Cuban problem that
wasn't communicated to us.
Mr. DODD. Given that fact, would it not be fair, then, to assume--given the fact
you had a group of energetic, young attorneys who were anxious to uncover this
thing and, by your own statement earlier, to prove the FBI wrong--that you would
have to conclude that soma of the key staff people then would also have to be
privy to that information?
Judge GRIFFIN. No; I don't know where the "key" goes.
Mr. DODD. What happened to this memo of yours? This is a damn good memo, May 14.
Hell, these are exactly the kind of questions we are wrestling with. Had someone
asked those questions, talked to people who are no longer with us at this point,
we would not be sitting here possibly today. You had 2 to 3 weeks, less than
that, before the Commission folded its tent?
Judge GRIFFIN. No; this was in May and the report came out in September.
Mr. DODD. Your last hearings were held in June?
Judge GRIFFIN. Right.
Mr. DODD. June 3 was the date. You had May 14 to June 3, less than 3 weeks?
Mr. FAUNTROY. They responded in September.
Judge GRIFFIN. You see, in order to understand their response, have to take into
account what they were learning outside of the Oswald area--
Mr. DODD. You have touched on some pretty sensitive points in this memo by fluke
or otherwise. I think you scared some people.
Judge GRIFFIN. I don't think they were by fluke. I am trying to be totally
straightforward with you because I have strong feelings about this in terms of
the possibilities that we had in this area. I didn't write this memo for flimsy
reasons.
Mr. DODD. I know that.
Judge GRIFFIN. Nothing that has happened since I wrote this memo substantially
changes my view about this. So I obviously feel that somewhere along the line
somebody pulled the rug out from under us. But I am not willing to jump to the
conclusion that it knowingly took place within the staff. Some of this relates
to the field.
You see people on a day-to-day basis. It is hard for me to believe that Howard
Willens and Dave Slawson and the other people whom I worked with on this thing
knew anything significant that I didn't know. I am strongly inclined to believe
at that level they didn't know any more than I did.
Mr. DODD. What happened to this memo? You asked the question. On page 4 you say:
"We think neither Oswald's Cuban interests Dallas nor Ruby's Cuban activities
have been adequately explored." I can see people at the CIA just flipping out,
knowing now what they knew then.
Judge GRIFFIN. CIA never saw this memo, but they saw another one.
Mr. DODD. How do you know they didn't see it?
Judge GRIFFIN. That is true; they may have.
Page 303
303
Mr. DODD. What I am getting at is that these are some pretty good questions and,
knowing what we know now, I can see where this could have caused some serious
what happened to the memo? What happened to the response?
Judge GRIFFIN. I don't know whether we got a written response back. I can only
answer that in a kind of general way. I am trying to recall 13 years ago. I made
some notes on my memo, my copy of this, as to what I recall happening. In some
cases we went ahead and took testimony. In other cases my notes reflect--at some
point I will be happy to share my notes on all of these; these are my personal
recollections I made on this--that I think we did what I indicated to Mr.
McKinney we did.
We were told, in response to this memo, basically that we still had to start to
write, that we had certain deadlines to meet, but we knew they kept getting put
back, given the list of people that we wanted to depose and we could do it. "If
you want to get some other stuff out to the FBI, okay, but remember they are
getting pretty sick of this investigation at the FBI." It was this kind of
quality of dialog that was taking place over this memo.
I believe that what happened was that, against that context of things, Hubert
and I went back and we looked at this memo and we decided: What do we have in
here that we could get something on in a reasonable period of time and let us
try to get that, let us put our energies in that direction because we know we
have to start producing copy for them at some point; we have to start writing.
We made decisions based on that kind of thing.
Mr. DODD. I can see that.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if I could turn to a slightly different area
and inquire of Judge Griffin whether there were pressures other than time, for
example, resource pressures. I wonder if, in that context, I could ask the clerk
to mark a Hubert-Griffin memo of April 4, 1964:, to Howard Willens as JFK
exhibit No. 64.
I wonder if the clerk will show it to the witness. Are you familiar with that?
Judge GRIFFIN. Yes, I am.
Mr. BLAKEY. I wonder, Mr. Chairman, if I can have that document placed in the
record so that we can ask some questions of the witness based on it.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Without objection, it is so ordered.
[The document referred to, marked JFK exhibit No. 64 and received for the
record, follows:]
JFK EXHIBIT No. 64
[ Memorandum ]
APRIL 4, 1964.
To: Mr. Howard Willens.
From: Leon D. Hubert and Burr W. Griffin.
1. You will recall that after the staff meeting on Friday, we stayed on with Mr.
Rankin to discuss the matter of giving us assistance in area V. Three subareas
are involved:
a. A checkout of names, telephone numbers, addresses, et cetera found in Ruby's
Papers. (See area "E")
b. A checkout of all rumors relative to possible associations between Ruby and
Oswald; and between Ruby and the gangster element. (See area "F")
Page 304
304
c. An analysis of telephone calls by Jack, Eva, and Earl Ruby and by Paul.
2. Mr. Rankin told us to get Mr. Lenbrandt (Chief Justice Warren's guard) to do
this work. Because of the press of time and because we did not really put our
minds to it at the moment, we failed to say to Mr. Rankin that each subarea will
require a man working full time for a month. There is no possibility that this
work can be properly done so as to be useful in writing a report even if it had
a deadline date of June 15.
3. In connection with the above and for the other reasons stated below, we do,
not think the Ruby aspect of the case should be included in the Commission's
report.
a. To do an acceptable job on Ruby, it would be necessary to make public
statements concerning his character, his background, the possibility that he was
lying about his entry into the basement, his motivation and state of mind, et
cetera.
Ruby's conviction is refused and our report is in any way hostile to Ruby, the
Commission could be justly criticized for issuing a report which impaired his
right to a fair trial. On the other hand, if the report gave support to Ruby's
already stated version, the prosecution would be justified in criticizing us.
e. Aside from this, is it proper for a Commission of the high rank and prestige
of this Commission to comment extensively about a person whose case is on appeal
and will surely get to the U.S. Supreme Court?
2. We think that the Commission's report could very properly state that
conclusions relative to any aspect of Ruby or his activities are considered
improper because of his pending appeal and that a report will be made later.
Mr. BLAKEY. Let me direct your attention to paragraph 2 and note that you are
referring in that paragraph to a previous request for assistance in checking the
names and telephone numbers and addresses found in Ruby's papers and your
comment that--
* * * because of the press of time and because we did not really put our minds
to it at the moment, we failed to say to Mr. Rankin that each subarea will
require a man working full time for a month. There is no possibility that this
work can be properly done so as to be useful in writing a report even if it had
a deadline date of June 15.
I think that that was written in the context of April, where you were speaking
of a May deadline. Is that an accurate reflection of your feeling at that time
that you were on the staff?
Judge GRIFFIN. This is more than that. It was also a statement that this fellow
Lenbrandt, who was the guard for the Chief Justice, did not strike us as the
kind of person we needed for this job. Not only numbers; we didn't want somebody
who had a regular job guarding the Chief Justice and part time would go out and
gather information for us.
Mr. BLAKEY. Let me ask you, then, a general point. As you know, the conclusion
of the Warren Commission was that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin of the
President. Are you satisfied with that conclusion?
Judge GRIFFIN. Yes, I am. There is no doubt about that.
Mr. BLAKEY. The central conclusion from many people's point of view was that
there was no evidence found of a conspiracy to assassinate the President. Are
you satisfied with that conclusion?
Judge GRIFFIN. I am satisfied that that statement is true.
Mr. BLAKEY. Are you satisfied with the investigation that led to that
conclusion?
Judge GRIFFIN. I am not.
Mr. BLAKEY. What would you have done differently in the are pursuing the
conspiracy allegation or the conspiracy possibility And, in the context of
asking you that question, I wonder, Mr. Chairman,
Page 305
305
if I could ask the clerk to mark a memo dated February 24, 1964, from Hubert and
Griffin to Willens in connection with the suggested collection of phone data as
JFK exhibit No. 65 and I wonder if the clerk will show it to the witness.
Are you familiar with that memo?
Judge GRIFFIN. Yes, I am.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, I would ask that that memorandum be incorporated in
the record at this point in order that I can ask some questions about it.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Without objection, it is so ordered.
[The document referred to, marked JFK exhibit No. 65 and received for the
record, follows:]
JFK EXHIBIT No. 65
[Memorandum]
FEBRUARY 24, 1964
Mr. Howard P. Willens.
From: Mr. Leon D. Hubert and Mr. Butt W. Griffin.
Subject: Further Telephone Records to be Obtained for the Commission.
In furtherance of your conversation with Mr. Griffin on February 20 and our
Joint memorandum of February 19, the following steps are suggested to be taken
as soon as possible for obtaining and preserving telephone records which may be
pertinent to the work of this commission.
Some of the suggestions may impose burdens upon private parties which are not
justified by the possible results to be obtained. If so, they should be rejected
and the reason for such rejection recorded in order to assure future critics
that such efforts were carefully considered.
Paragraphs 1, 2, and 3 seek telephone numbers of phones "reasonably available"
to Ruby plus records of calls placed from phones under Ruby's direct control.
Paragraph 4 seeks telephone numbers of all phones reasonably available to
certain persons.
Paragraph 5 seeks only phones listed to or under the control of certain people.
Paragraphs 6 to 10 are designed to lay a basis for further investigation.
1. The FBI should immediately obtain the telephone numbers, names of subscriber,
location and type of service of all phones reasonably available to Jack Ruby.
"Reasonably available" should include, but not be limited to, subscriber and pay
telephones at the All Right Parking Garage, Adolphus Hotel, the Egyptian Lounge,
Phil's Delicatessen, Cabana Motel, Sol's Turf Bar, Dallas City Hall and Jail,
Dallas Morning News, Radio Station KLIF, together with any pay phones within
reasonable walking distance of said places or any other places which Ruby
frequented. Numbers and information concerning phones "reasonably available" to
Ruby in Dallas may be obtained by personal contact with subscribers or the
telephone company. Information as to phones available outside Dallas should not
involve contact with nonresidents of Dallas.
2. The FBI should immediately obtain with respect to Jack Ruby, for the period
August 1 to November 25, 1963, copies of all original telephone company records
bearing upon the dates, time, length of call, calling number, billing number,
person calling and number called with respect to all telephone calls (including
local calls) utilizing any telephone listed to Jack Ruby or any of his Clubs,
including pay phones on or near the premises. If the telephone company has no
records which would provide information concerning local calls, the FBI should
so state.
It is unnecessary at this point to obtain call records from all phones
"reasonably available to Ruby" since analysis of calls from such phones would be
impossible without further information. However, we contemplate that if we
establish a list of suspected intermediaries between Ruby and Oswald, it would
be valuable to check telephones "available" to Ruby against calls to the
"intermediaries." In addition, it may be valuable to examine records of
telephones listed to or used regularly by suspected intermediaries" for calls to
phones "available" to Ruby.
3. With respect to all records requested in paragraph 2, the FBI should indicate
in its report what telephone company personnel were questioned, the questions
Page 306
306
asked and the answers received, in all investigations which were conducted, so
that it may be determined that the records obtained are complete and accurate.
We believe that the method of searching for records must be detailed since
telephone information forwarded so far has been spotty and inaccurate.
4. To the extent not already provided, the FBI should be requested to obtain for
the Commission a list of all telephones (but not call records) reasonably
available to the following persons since March 1, 1963:
Andrew Armstrong, 3821 Dickson Circle, Apartment C, Dallas, Tex.
Karen Bennett Carlin, aka Karen Bennett Karlin, aka "Little Lynn," 3609
Meadowbrook, Fort Worth, Tex.
Bruce Carlin, aka Brue Karlin, 3809 Meadowbrook, Fort Worth, Tex. Marion (aka
Marian) Rubenstein Carroll, 1044 W. Loyola, Chicago, Ill. Eileen Rubenstein
Kaminsky, 6724 N. Ta. Iman, Chicago, Ill.
Lewis J. McWillie, Las Vegas, Nev.
Hyman Rubenstein, 1044 W. Loyola, Chicago, Ill.
Sam (Rubenstein) Ruby, 11616 Jamestown Road, Dallas, Tex.
Earl (Rubenstein) Ruby, 29925 Woodland Drive, Southfield, Mich.
Eva Rubenstein (Magid) Grant, 3929 Rollins, Dallas, Tex.
Ralph Paul, Arlington, Tex. c/o Bert Bowman, Copeland Road, Arlington Road,
Arlington, Tex. (home); Podnuh's Restaurant, Arlington, Tex. (access); John W.
Jackson, 1602 Browning, Arlington, Tex. (access); Bull Pen Drive-in, 1936 East
Abram, Arlington, Tex. ( business ).
Anna Rubenstein Volpert, 1044 W. Loyola, Chicago, Ill.
The date March 1 is chosen because it establishes a safe margin for inquiry
prior to Oswald's trip to New Orleans. With respect to each of the above
persons, the FBI should provide numbers, to the extent possible, not only of
home telephones but nearby pay phones, telephones of any businesses in which the
individual is employed, telephones of business partners or other similar close
business associates, telephones of friends and relatives visited frequently, and
telephones at restaurants and other businesses which the individual is known to
frequent, For each telephone the FBI should indicate the type of service (pay
phone, subscriber phone, limited service telephone), name of subscriber,
location of phone, and reason for concluding the phone was accessible to the
individual under investigation. This information should be obtained primarily by
examining records which will not involve personal contact with persons outside
of the telephone companies and without communicating the names of suspects to
persons outside the FBI. We realize that such a means of investigation will not
provide a complete answer to questions, but we believe other modes of inquiry
would be unwise at this time. As to each individual under investigation, the FBI
report should indicate what sources were checked and what other information as
to possibly accessible phones might be available by direct contact with
individuals.
5. The FBI should obtain from a telephone company records check the personal,
family and business phones of the following persons during the period March 1,
1963 to present:
Barney Baker, 5900 Sheridan Road. Chicago. Ill. (home); Chicago Loop Auto
Refinishing Co., Inc., 3216 South Shields Ave., Chicago, Ill. (business).
Curtis LaVerne Crafard, aka Larry Crafard (including phones available to him on
his "flight from Dallas to Michigan").
Sam Gordon, 755 Crescent Drive. Palm Springs, Calif.
Alex Gruber, 5222 W. Olympic, Los Angeles, Calif. (WE. 5-1082).
Frank Goldstein, 640 Teresita Boulevard, San Francisco, Calif. (JU 7-7674) ( S U
1-7343).
Lawrence Meyers. 3950 N. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Ill. (home); Ero Mfg. Co.
714 West Monroe, Chicago, Ill. (business).
Roy William Pike, aka Mickey Ryan, 2344 Connecticut Lane, Apt. C, Dallas, Tex.
Anesi Umberto, Chicago. Ill.
Mario Umberto, Chicago, Ill.
Abe Weinstein. 11028 Westmore Circle, Dallas. Tex.
6. The FBI should confer with the appropriate officials of telephone companies
in Chicago, Dallas, Detroit. New York. San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New
Orleans to determine what means, if any, are available for obtaining information
as to incoming long distance telephone calls to any particular number if the
name of the caller is unknown. It is conceivable, for example, that connecting
or trunkline telephone carriers may have automatic recording devices which
record the
Page 307
307
calling exchange and the dialed number with respect to calls which they
transmit. Or, it may be that most telephone companies in large cities are now so
fully automated that such information is contained on their IBM cards and these
IBM cards could be run through a computer or other device for every telephone
subscriber in the area so that such information could be derived mechanically
without undue expense or personal effort. Information as to city or telephone
company from which a long distance call originated could conceivably be
meaningful in light of other data which we have.
7. The FBI should confer with telephone company officials of each company
serving Jack Ruby and the persons listed in paragraph four and five to ascertain
if that company has any means of providing information, concerning local calls
to or from the phones of those persons. Even if no records are maintained by
such companies in the ordinary course of business, it may be that certain
electronic, mechanical or other entries are routinely made either by telephone
transmitting equipment or in connection with business records ordinarily
maintained by the telephone company so that by careful examination of such data
information concerning local telephone activity on a particular telephone could
be obtained. To whatever extent information can be obtained concerning local
telephone activity, the Agent should report to the Commission the nature of the
information which can be obtained and the means by which it would be obtained.
This data should be secured without mentioning particular names or telephone
numbers.
8. The FBI should obtain a list of all telephone companies and the chief
executive officer serving the following areas:
Texas; Nevada; Los Angeles, Calif.; San Francisco, Calif.; Chicago, Ill.;
Detroit, Mich.; and adjacent suburbs in the Detroit metropolitan area, including
Southfield, Mich.; Boston, Mass., and adjacent suburbs, including Belmont,
Mass.; New York metropolitan area, including suburban Long Island, Connecticut
and New Jersey; Miami, Fla.; Washington, D.C. and adjacent suburbs; New Orleans,
9. Mr. Rankin should address a letter to the chief executive of each of the
telephone companies mentioned in Datagraph eight requesting that such companies
not destroy until June 1, 1964 any records they may have with respect to
telephone service of all subscribers. The letter should request that the source
of this policy not be disclosed.
Retention of records on a blanket basis would preserve security as to the
thinking of the Commission and will afford the maximum assurance that telephone
records will be preserved with respect to persons not yet suspect. We realize
that blanket retention may be so burdensome or expensive as to make our request
seem unreasonable. If there is any suggestion along these lines, a conference to
work out a reasonable system should be suggested.
10. As soon as possible after the Ruby trial and after consultation with the
Commission, the FBI should obtain copies of original telephone records uncovered
as a result of the investigations requested in paragraphs four and five. These
records should be analyzed to determine possible links to Ruby or Oswald.
Thereafter, if deemed advisable, records of phones "reasonably available" to
Ruby would be analyzed for possible calls to phones reasonably available to
suspected intermediaries between Ruby and Oswald.
Mr. BLAKEY. Judge Griffin, as I look over this memorandum, basically what it
suggests is that the Commission obtained telephone toll records of a number of
phones to which Mr. Ruby had access and a number of people, including, for
example, Barney Baker of Chicago, Lawrence Meyers of Chicago, with an effort., I
take it, to see if there had been commnunication between these people.
Judge GRIFFIN. Right.
Mr. BLAKEY. I notice, for example, on page 2 of the memo we have Lewis J.
McWillie of Las Vegas, Nev. You comment in the second paragraph of the memo that
"Some of the suggestions may impose burdens upon private parties which are not
justified by the possible results to be obtained. If so, they should be rejected
and the reason for such rejection recorded in order to assure future critics
that such efforts were carefully considered."
Page 308
308
Mr. FAUNTROY. Will counsel yield for a moment? I am looking exhibit No. 65 and
its length. I wonder what your recommendations would be with respect to a break.
Mr. BLAKEY. I think I have only about three or four questions and I would
suspect we can conclude in the next 10 minutes.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Fine.
Judge GRIFFIN. I don't have a pressing engagement; I can stay if there is any
desire for that.
Mr. BLAKEY. There is a necessity for a lunch break. We have witness due at 2,
Judge Griffin. If you will bear with us I think we can finish it.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Proceed.
Mr. BLAKEY. Do you recall what happened as a result of this memorandum?
Judge GRIFFIN. I generally recall. I made some notes on my copy. In the numbered
paragraphs that follow from here with paragraph 1 which relates to simply
obtaining telephone numbers and locations of telephones without the actual
underlying calls that were made from it, a request was made for what with
respect to Jack Ruby. I can tell you the extent to which we got returns on it.
We got some of that information.
I also think, with respect to paragraph 2, we did get that. That was the
original telephone company records for telephones that were listed to Jack Ruby
or any of his clubs. We got that.
With respect to the request in paragraph 3, whether the FBI reported to us in
the fashion that we requested I don't know or even if we made a followthrough on
that request.
With respect to paragraph 4, my recollection is that much of that, that
information on the specific telephones of the individuals named there, telephone
listings to their names, I believe that was given to us.
We were suggesting here going beyond simply their names and getting numbers
reasonably available, which required some thought and investigation. I don't
believe that was done but I am not certain.
In paragraph 5, 212 am not certain in paragraph 5 whether we got those telephone
company records.
In paragraph 6, I think this is the one requesting a freeze on telephone company
records. I will have to read that again. My notes reflect, as I read it prior to
coming here, that I concluded that that was not done, paragraph 6.
In paragraph 7, I don't recall--I do remember internal conversations with other
staff members about whether that kind of thing was feasible--in other words,
getting information on local calls as opposed to long-distance calls that might
somehow be utilized by us. I know we never directly had a conversation with
telephone company people: to find out whether there was anything that we might
use that could trigger some information for us. With respect to No. 8, it is my
recollection that that was not done, but I am not entirely positive on that.
With respect to No. 9, I would definitely state that that was not done; Although
the records could prove me wrong, I am virtually certain no request to freeze
records was made to telephone companies.
No. 10, my recollection is that it probably wasn't done but I am not certain
about that.
Page 309
309
Mr. BLAKEY. You testified that you were not satisfied with the adequacy of the
investigation of conspiracy. Would your failure to follow through this telephone
toll call records request be an example of an area where you were not satisfied
with the conduct of the investigation.
Judge GRIFFIN. That is right.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my questions. I would like to express
my gratitude to Judge Griffin for coming and spending so much of his time with
us, taking precious time away from his trial calendar, and my own personal
thanks. I appreciate it, Judge. I have no more questions, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FAUNTROY. I would like to add to your thanks that of myself and that of the
committee for your kindness in giving us so much time, Mr. Griffin.
Are there any concluding questions, Mr. Dodd?
Mr. DODD. I really have found your testimony most interesting, Judge. I hope by
some of my questions you did not glean anything more than my really trying to
determine exactly the frame of mind in which you dealt with it at that
particular time. I am sympathetic to outside influence, schedules, all kinds of
things that came to bear on it at that time.
Judge GRIFFIN. May I also say to you, Mr. Dodd, and the committee, that I do not
feel any sense of purpose in trying to defend what we did for the sake of
defending it. To defend it against inaccuracies, yes. For approximately 2 years
now I have been trying to conunumcate with various people in the Congress about
my personal feelings which have gone back almost 2 years, that an investigation
of the sort that your committee is conducting should be conducted.
I simply want to say to the committee that I am happy to cooperate and assist
the committee in any way they think I can be useful.
Mr. DODD. I appreciate that. I am sure we will probably be in more contact with
you than you care to hear from us on some of the information we have.
I have one question in my own mind and my ignorance is really responsible for
the question. What was Ruby's motivation that came out of the trial for killing
Oswald? I had heard he had great affection for the President and so forth. Was
that carried through in the trial?
Judge GRIFFIN. That was his defense. Are you also asking me to comment on what I
think his motive was?
Mr. DODD. You got to know this fellow pretty well after poring backover his
life. I wondered if you had turned up any kind of evidence that he had a deep
affection for Kennedy.
Judge GRIFFIN. I don't think his motivation had anything to do with that.
Strangely enough, I do think it was tied in with his feelings about
anti-Semitism.
Mr. DODD. Would you explain that?
Judge GRIFFIN. I only say this based on the assumption that we don't link him
into some kind of a conspiracy. That is an open question as far as I am
concerned. But based on the evidence that we have, that, I think, seems to be
the most reliable; at the time that the President was assassinsted, he was
already very much upset about the fact that someone had placed a black-bordered
advertisement in the Dallas
Page 310
310
Morning News suggesting that the President was a traitor and it was signed by a
man whose name-was listed as Bernard Weissman.
As we trace Ruby's activities from that point when he was in the Dallas Morning
News office and learned that the President had been shot and the reactions of
people there and following this on through, it did seem to me that there was a
very consistent pattern that showed that Ruby was emotionally involved in the
possibility that the assassination of the President was an attempt to discredit
the Jews, that this ad which had a Jewish name on it was somehow linked in
Ruby's mind to a group, unknown group, that might have wanted to assassinate the
President and pin it on the Jews.
He tried to search for Weissman. He found there was no Weissman listed in the
Dallas phone book. He checked with his rabbi and found that there was no
Weissman in the small Jewish community by this name in Dallas.
He virtually did not sleep. He was on a drug, which was really a reducing pill
but has a narcotic effect, called Preludin. Put this together with Ruby's
personality end his penchant to be in the limelight and all these other things;
Ruby was in a frame of mind by Sunday morning that in some way, as he said to an
arresting officer immediately after the arrest, "I want to show the world a Jew
had guts."
Now, that does not preclude that someone might not have utilized him in that
frame of mind but to me that explains what happened to him.
I have left out a lot of details on this but I feel that was the basic thread,
behind his emotional state at this time.
Mr. DODD. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FAUNTROY. You have made reference, in response to questions from counsel, on
instructions which were given you that the staff has to conduct the
investigation in a responsible way and that the consequences of irresponsible
investigating might be that a thermonuclear war might be precipitated.
Judge GRIFFIN. Right.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Do you recall what your reaction to that formulation was?
Judge GRIFFIN. My reaction basically was that if unsubstantiated or only
suspicious but not really solid evidence were developed that this was motivated
by a foreign government, whether it be the Russians or Cubans or anybody else,
that then political forces would be set afoot in the United States, much as
heard in Spanish-American War, that could have forced the country into some kind
of retaliatory attack upon someone.
I did not understand this as a statement that we should not find then formation
or that we should conceal the information if we found it. I always understood
it, in the context that we should try to get what we could possibly find out. If
it led to these kinds of consequences, then we had to be very careful about how
it was handled within the Commission.
That was the reason that the Commission was structured the way it was, with
important members from both Houses of Congress. The hope was that if this kind
of information which could trigger a demagog such as we were concerned with, the
kind of McCarthyism
Page 311
311
of the 1950's, that it could be handled in a responsible way within the
political process. That is what I always felt it to mean. I still feel it was
intended to mean that.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Mr. Griffin, pursuant to our rules, at the conclusion of the
questioning, we offer the witness 5 minutes to explain or amplify his testimony.
That offer is made to you at this time.
Judge GRIFFIN. I would like to decline the offer. I would like to have the
privilege to reflect on what has happened here and perhaps send you something in
writing in lieu of any kind of oral statement to you.
Mr. FAUNTROY. I would be very happy to accede to that request.
Judge GRIFFIN. I again want to compliment the committee for conducting this
investigation. I have read your rules. I feel that if these rules are adhered
to, that this will be a responsible investigation. Conceivably you could be in
the same situation that we were in and you will have to wrestle with the same
problems. I wish you good luck if you do.
Mr. DODD. We might find ourselves on that side of the table 10 years from now.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Thank you for that wish and for that compliment. The committee
will recess until 2 o'clock.
[Whereupon, at 12:55 p.m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 2 p.m.]
AFTERNOON SESSION
[The subcommittee reconvened at 2:40 p.m., Hon. Walter E. Fauntroy presiding.]
Professional staff members present: Chief Counsel G. Robert Blakey, E. Berning,
M Wills, R. Genzman, M. Mars, D. Hardway, L. Wizelman, J. Hess, K. Klein, W.
Cross, J. Wolf, and A. Purdy.
Mr. FAUNTROY. The committee will come to order.
Pursuant to our meeting of this morning, the executive session will continue.
At this time I will swear our witness.
Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give will be the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you
Mr. WILLENS. I do.
TESTIMONY OF HOWARD P. WILLENS
Mr. FAUNTROY. Will the witness state his name and address for the record,
please.
Mr. WILLENS. Howard P. Willens, W-i-l-l-e-n-s, 4242 Mathewson Drive NW.,
Washington, D.C. 20011.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Thank you. We are very pleased to have you before the committee. I
do understand that you have the committee rules provided you, and you had them
prior to your appearance today.
Mr. WILLENS. Yes, I have, Congressman.
Mr. FAUNTROY. The Chair would like to state for the record and for the witness
that House Resolution 222 mandates the committee "to conduct a full and complete
investigation and study the circumstances surrounding the assassination of John
F. Kennedy, including determining whether the existing laws of the United States
concerning protection of the President and the investigatory jurisdiction
Page 312
312
and capability of agencies and departments are adequate in their provisions and
enforcement, and whether there was full disclosure of evidence and information
among agencies and departments of the U.S. Government, and whether any evidence
or information not in the possession of an agency or department would have been
of assistance investigating the assassination and why such information was not
provided or collected by that agency or department--and to make recommendations
to the House--if the select committee deems it approprimate for the amendment of
existing legislation or the enactment of new legislation."
The questioning of the witness may now proceed.
Mr. BLAKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. WILLENS, I would like to thank you on behalf of myself and the staff for
taking time from your very busy practice to come and share with the committee
your thoughts and observations about the work of the Warren Commission, and also
to thank you for taking time on October 31 to sit and talk with me in your
office for several hours about these issues.
Please be assured that the committee appreciates your time, which is obviously
not chargeable to a client except perhaps the public interest.
Mr. Chairman, I thought it might be appropriate at this time to put some
biographical data of the witness in the record.
I wonder, Mr. Willens, if I could read some of it and you could indicate whether
it substantially is accurate. You were born in 1931;
you received a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Michigan, an LL.B.
from the Yale Law School in 1956.
After a short tour in the Army, you became associated with Kirkland, Ellis,
Hodson, Chaffetz & Masters in Washington, D.C., until 1961, when you went with
the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice as second assistant to
the Assistant Attorney General.
Following your service with the Warren Commission, you have served as Executive
Director of the President's Commission on Crime in Washington, D.C., and I
understand that you are now a member of the firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering,
Washington, D.C. Is that substantially correct?
Mr. WILLENS. Yes, Mr. Blakey.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Willens. I wonder if you would indicate to the committee how you
came to be associated with the Warren Commission?
Mr. WILLENS. On December 17, 1963, the Deputy Attorney General of the United
States, Mr. Katzenbach, inquired of the Assistant Attorney General in charge of
the Criminal Division, Herbert J.Miller, Jr., whether I would be available to
assist the Chief Justice and Mr. Rankin with respect to their Commission
responsibility.
Mr. Miller reported that request to me and, after some discussion, we reached
the only conclusion that seemed appropriate under the circumstances, which is
that I would be available to assist in any way that the Chief Justice and Mr.
Rankin desired.
Accordingly, I called Mr. Rankin and had an appointment with him on December 17
and, following that, a short meeting with the Chief Justice. After those
conversations, it was decided that I would assist the Commission as liaison with
the Department of Justice and in doing
Page 313
313
the other work that was necessary to begin the Commission's work; and on
approximately December 20, 1963, I began to work, on a fulltime basis, to assist
Mr. Rankin with the work of the Warren Commission. I remained in that capacity
until late September 1964, when the report was completed.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Willens, what were you told by those who asked you to come with
the Commission what the goals of the Commission would be?
Mr. WILLENS. It was made very clear to me, in personal conversations with both,
Mr. Rankin and the Chief Justice, that they saw the Commission's responsibility
as being solely to obtain all the facts that were relevant to the assassination
of President Kennedy and to report those facts fully to the President and to the
people of the United States.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did you have any discussions with Mr. Katzenbach over what the
Commission ought to do?
Mr. WILLENS. I talked with Mr. Katzenbach at the outset of this assignment and I
had occasional conversations with him during the course of my duties with the
Warren Commission. Mr. Katzenbach gave me no instructions except to perform to
the best of my ability and to help the Commission to do the best possible job
that it could.
There were, at the time the Commission was formed; as you know from the record,
some differing views as to how to handle the report of the FBI investigation
that had been produced in early December and was going to be transmitted to the
Commission. This was one of the many issues that developed in December 1963; I
was aware that Mr. Katzenbach had views as to whether the Warren Commission
should or should not issue a press release summarizing the conclusions reached
by the Federal Bureau of Investigation with respect to the assassination.
This is an issue which had been discussed within the Department of Justice to my
knowledge before I went with the Warren Commission and was an issue that was
addressed in the earl? days by the Commission itself.
Mr. BLAKEY. What did Mr. Katzenbach want done?
Mr. WILLENS. I believe it was the view of Mr. Katzenbach at the time that it
would be in the public interest to make some sort of public statement
summarizing the conclusions of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is hard
to recapture 14 years later the sense of bewilderment, and trauma that prevailed
at the time; but there was a very substantial feeling held by very responsible
people that there was an important public interest that could be served by
making public at the earliest possible date some of the conclusions that had
resulted from the investigation conducted to that point by the FBI.
The Commission, as you know from the public record reached a contrary conclusion
and decided that its mission and the public interest did not warrant a premature
press release with respect to the conclusions of the FBI.
The Commission decided that. it should conduct its own investigation, that it
should review the underlying materials and that it should not make any public
statement, regarding its findings until it was satisfied as to what the facts
did disclose.
Page 314
314
Mr. Willens, let me shift our discussion somewhat from your assignment and the
goals of the Commission to the organization of the Commission itself. To your
knowledge, was the organizational chart of the Commission ever prepared by the
Commission?
Mr. WILLENS. I do not recall any organizational chart being prepared of the kind
you have made available to me.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if it would be possible to have the clerk
mark as JFK exhibit No. 66 an organizational chart prepared by the staff.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Without objection.
Mr. BLAKEY. I wonder if the clerk could show JFK exhibit No. 66 to the witness.
Mr. Chairman, I wonder if we can incorporate that chart into record at this
point in order that I may ask the witness some questions about it.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Without objection, is so ordered.
[The document referred to, marked JFK exhibit No. 66 and for the record,
follows:]
Page 315
315
JFK EXHIBIT No. 66
Page 316
316
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Willens, I have in the past shown you a copy of this chart. I
wonder if now you would look at it and indicate whether, in your judgment, it
accurately reflects the organization of the Warren Commission.
Mr. WILLENS. There are several errors on this chart, none of which perhaps
amounts to matters of substance. If it would be of assistance, will point out
some of those errors.
Mr. BLAKEY. It will be of help.
Mr. WILLENS. First I think it is incorrect to have Messrs. Ely, Laulicht, and
Pollak listed as junior counsel. They were employed by the Commission for
limited periods of time and did have specialized assignments, some of which fell
into the areas indicated.
Nonetheless, the title of "junior counsel" was reserved to those on the line
above their names and they should properly be included under the category of
"Others" assisting the Commission.
Second, the description of Arthur K. Marmor as a historian from the Air Force is
incorrect. Mr. Marmor, as the report makes clear, was on loan from the State
Department. It was Mr. Goldberg who was a historian from the Air Force and that
characterization should be properly assigned to him.
The third name on this list, as on others, is misspelled. It must be Mosk. There
are references in the materials to Overholser which would make clear what his
anticipated function was to be. He was at that time associated with St.
Elizabeths Hospital.
Mr. Shaffer, who was a former associate of mine, would probably take issue with
the characterization of his duties as clerical and administrative.
Mr. BLAKEY. Where would you place him in the general organization chart?
Mr. WILLENS. Mr. Shaffer belongs where you put him; as a matter of fact, he did
assist me with a wide variety of investigative and supervisory responsibilities.
Mr. Barson, who is described as a CPA, is from the IRS and was an agent from the
Philadelphia office of the Internal Revenue Service who was made available to us
on a loan basis in order to conduct the project of a reconciliation of Oswald's
expenditures and income.
Under the column entitled "Liaisons," this is the first occasion I have ever
heard of a Mr. Davis, but that is not to say that he didn't do the job that is
mentioned here. The liaison with the State Department was the Legal Adviser's
Office, as indicated further on the list.
The name of Yrmlisky is most certainly a misspelling and is probably incorrect.
It may be a reference to Mr. Yrmalisky. Our principal liaison with the
Department of Defense was Mr. Nederlander.
With respect to the CIA, I think it is more accurate to describe Richard Helms
as the liaison with the Warren Commission. Mr. Rocca and Mr. Karamessines served
as his deputies and assistants in that capacity. With respect to the Justice
Department, show that Mr. Katzenbach designated Herbert J. Miller, Jr., to serve
as liaison with the Commission and there is correspondence to that effect.
Apart from those comments, Mr. Blakey, I think that the chart is essentially
correct.
Page 317
317
I should point out that technically Mr. Redlich, Mr. Goldberg, and myself did
not exercise any line responsibility over other members of the staff. We were
each serving as an assistant to Mr. Rankin and fulfilled those missions that Mr.
Rankin assigned us. From an organizational chart standpoint, therefore, the
three of us should be indicated as coming out sideways from Mr. Rankin so as to
make clear that we did not have and do not claim to have had a supervisory
responsibility over other members of the staff.
Mr. BLAKEY. The basic division of the work of the Warren Commission in the five
substantive areas, and subsequently a sixth I take it, was as a result of a
memorandum that you wrote. Is that correct?
Mr. WILLENS. One of the assignments I undertook in my first few weeks with the
Commission was to make a recommendation to Mr. Rankin as to how the work of the
Commission might be organized. I did write a memorandum in either late December
or early January that proposed an organization very close to that reflected on
this chart. That was reviewed by Mr. Rankin and presented subsequently to the
Commission and did serve, with some amendment, as the organization through which
the Commission staff performed its duties.
Mr. BLAKEY. I wonder if you could share with us at this time your rationale in
dividing the basic work of the Commission into five areas as designated on this
chart.
Mr. WILLENS. I keep thinking of six areas, as is reflected on the chart. I
believe the rationale is readily stated. In order to begin and undertake a
project of this dimension, there has to be some arbitrary allocation of
responsibilities. There is no way to do it that eliminates overlap or possible
confusion but this was an effort to try to organize the work in such a way that
assignments would be reasonably clear overlaps could be readily identified and
coordination would be accomplished among the various members of the staff.
It did seem to me and others who reviewed this chart that the various areas here
did lend themselves to separate treatment, at least at the outset, when our
principal task was to marshal the investigative materials that were made
available to the Commission, try to identify those areas that needed additional
investigation and to outline those questions that had to be addressed by the
staff and the members of the Commission.
Area No. 1 with respect to the basic facts of the assassination seemed to carve
out an analytical and descriptive area that related to the trip to Texas, the
planning for that trip, the security precautions involved on that trip, the
facts of the assassination in Dallas, and the subsequent treatment of the
President at the hospital.
With respect to the identity of the assassin, it seemed that one of the
principal undertakings of the Commission; of course, was to identify the
assassin or assassins and to examine all the evidence that bore on that issue.
It did seem to be an acceptable issue that would require separate staff
attention.
Area No. 3 was to deal with Lee Harvey Oswald's background. There has been some
question raised as to how the Commission could assign staff members to
investigate Lee Harvey Oswald's background at a time when it had not yet decided
who the assassin or assassins were and whether Lee Harvey Oswald was one of the
assassins.
Page 318
318
I find that a fairly naive criticism of the work. We were not operating on a
blank tablet. We did have in front of us not only a summary report of the FBI
but very extensive evidence, including physical evidence indicating that Lee
Harvey Oswald was, at the very least, a prime suspect in the matter. We did feel
that some initial investigation into his background and into possible
relationships of interest and relevance to the Commission's work was warranted.
The fourth area as reflected on this chart deals with the possible conspiracy.
This was, of course, the second principal question that the Commission had to
wrestle with just as your committee may have to wrestle with it.
Originally this area was defined more precisely as involving the foreign
affiliations or possible involvement of foreign countries in the assassination.
It was that area that Mr. Coleman and Mr. Slawson were primarily responsible
for.
As we proceeded into the investigation toward the writing of the report we
included in this area those findings that related to the possibility of domestic
conspiracy involving Oswald, domestic conspiracy involving Ruby as well as the
possibility involving foreign conspiracy.
Area No. 5 was to deal with the detention and death of Lee Harvey Oswald. That
again seemed, at the outset, to be on the whole, a separate area that warranted
immediate and thorough attention by staff members with that as a prime
responsibility.
We did feel, in terms of the sixth area, of course, that the Presidential
protection area was perhaps one of the Commission's most important undertakings
because it was perhaps the only area where the Commission could make some
contribution to the future so as to prevent future assassinations.
As the chart indicated, Mr. Stern was assigned to that area. It was contemplated
that Mr. Rankin himself would serve the function of senior counsel in that area.
Mr. BLAKEY. I wonder if you could comment, Mr. Willens on the process of
communication between these areas as they were broken up. How did it facilitate
the sharing of information and ideas.
Mr. WILLENS. I mentioned that one of my responsibilities in the early weeks was
to assist in organizing the work of the Commission. Another responsibility was
to assist Mr. Rankin in the staffing of the Commission. A third responsibility
bears directly on your question, Mr. Blakey. It was my responsibility to review
the materials that had been received from the investigative agencies,
particularly the and the CIA, and to request all further information that would
be relevant to the Commission's inquiry from those two agencies plus a dozen or
more other Federal agencies that might have some information of relevance to the
investigation.
One way of dealing with the separate areas within which the lawyers were dealing
was to make certain that all the materials that came in the office were reviewed
in one central place and that any materials that bore even remotely or
potentially on an area within the Commission's work were sent to that area.
It was frequently the case that materials in our possession were sent to three
or four areas so that each of the groups of lawyers could look at the same
material from that group's own perspective and decide
Page 319
319
whether it had any relevance in the part of the investigation for which those
lawyers were responsible.
I continued that function throughout the Commission and always erred on the side
of multiple duplication so as to make certain that the members of the staff in a
particular area did get the papers which I thought they needed.
Another way of coordinating among the staff was by the circulation of summary
memoranda, which happened on a regular basis throughout the Commission's work.
One of the early work products that was requested of the members of the staff
was a summary memorandum that attempted to assess the investigative materials in
their area, to identify investigative leads that should be pursued, to identify
any policy or other issues that should be addressed by Mr. Rankin or the
commission and to make proposals for it he taking of testimony by the Commission
or staff.
As those memoranda were produced in February and subsequently, they were
circulated and available to the members of the staff so that the investigation
could, in each area, take advantage of what the other lawyers had discovered and
were proposing to do.
A third way of coordinating among the staff was perhaps more informal and
related primarily to the ease with which the members of the staff could get
together to discuss a problem in which more than one area had a particular
interest. There was rarely a day that went by that we did not have lawyers from
more than one area sitting down with respect to an investigative request, a list
of proposed witnesses, or a proposed line of questioning, to decide what should
be pursued in order to further the area's interest that each lawyer or lawyer
group might have.
This was subsequently formalized, of course, when we did have witnesses
appearing before the Commission when the members of the staff would be canvassed
for their suggestions as to what questions should be addressed to the particular
witness.
So those are several of the ways we developed to try to coordinate our work and
to make as certain as we could that nothing of importance be swept between the
cracks.
Mr. BLAKEY. What was the relationship between the junior and senior staffs?
Mr. WILLENS. The relationship was one of professional collegiality. The
designations of senior and junior may seem overly formal and hierarchial. In
most areas there quickly developed a close personal relationship between the
senior counsel and junior counsel and they worked together as a team. That was
obviously more successful in some areas than in others as you would anticipate.
Mr. BLAKEY. What was the relationship between the staff and the Commission?
Mr. WILLENS. By this time you have probably heard a fair amount on that subject
and I am sure you have had your own personal experience here on tiffs committee
that can serve as a benchmark.
No staff ever feels that the commission or committee for which it works is as
knowledgeable as the staff. At the same time members of the Commission staff I
think were sufficiently sophisticated and experienced to realize that the
members of the Commission had multiple
Page 320
320
responsibilities and were men of considerable experience in public life and
could bring to the work of the Commission a perspective that some of the members
of the staff might not share.
The principal liaison between the Commission and the staff was through Mr.
Rankin. Mr. Rankin was the General Counsel of the staff and was the person to
whom the Commission looked with respect to the work of the staff. He was the
principal staff member who attended all the sessions of the Commission although
there were other members of the staff who did participate in the taking of the
testimony before the Commission on a fairly regular basis.
Apart from those occasional meetings with the Chief Justice most of the staff's
dealings with the members of the Commission occurred on a sporadic and limited
basis. There were several members of the Commission, for example, Mr. McCloy and
Mr. Dulles, who took a very active interest in the work of the Commission and
frequently did have the opportunity to meet with individual members of the staff
to discuss a particular problem or area in which the Commission member was
interested. Otherwise the interaction was primarily through Mr. Rankin and by
the flow of paper between the staff and the Commission.
The flow of paper is best demonstrated by the records that I am sure you have
reviewed and I think will demonstrate the effort of the staff to keep the
Commission fully informed of the progress of the investigation as it was being
handled by the staff.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did Chief Justice Warren come around the office and discuss the
investigation with the staff?
Mr. WILLENS. That happened on occasion, yes. The Chief Justice, thought was
carrying an enormous burden with respect to full participation in the work of
the Court at the same time that he was serving as Chairman of the Commission.
Some members of the staff, including myself, did have occasional meetings with
the Chief Justice and he did participate in some meetings with other agencies
that were of particular interest to him and of importance to the Commission. I
do not want to mislead you and suggest that he was constantly available for
consultation by the staff because he certainly was not. He did deal on a very
regular basis though, to my knowledge, with Mr. Rankin and Mr. Rankin was very
conscientious in making certain that members of the staff knew precisely what
the Chief Justice did want to have done.
Mr. BLAKEY. You have indicated that. Mr. Dulles was around the staff offices on
some occasions?
Mr. WILLENS. Yes.
Mr. BLAKEY. Would you share with us what he indicated he thought the Commission
ought to do in those conversations?
Mr. WILLENS. I don't remember any general conversations with Mr. Dulles that are
responsive to that question. Mr. Dulles did have a particular interest in the
possibility of a foreign involvement in the matter and was available for
consultation with me or with other members of the staff who had some
responsibility for pursuing the allegations and materials on that issue. As the
record will reflect he did participate in some of the meetings and the Central
Intelligence Agency in connection with that Agency's assistance to the
Commission.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did he have any particular area of foreign involvement in which he
showed particular interest ?
Page 321
321
Mr. WILLENS. No.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did he ever express any concern about posible Soviet involvement?
Mr. WILLENS. The question of Soviet involvement was, of course, one that was
squarely before the Warren Commission. Certainly the fact that the assassin of
President Kennedy was someone who had expatriated or tried to expatriate himself
in the Soviet Union and spent several years there could only be a matter of the
greatest suspicion and require the Commission's best attention. It is an area
that is very difficult to investigate. Mr. Dulles and the other members of the
Commission's work to Oswald's Soviet residence and his marriage to a citizen of
the Soviet Union and they were very interested in all facets of the
investigation bearing on this and exploring it as fully as possible.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did he ever express any concern about possible Cuban involvement?
Mr. WILLENS. There also was a similar interest in exploring that, articularly
with the Mexico trip coming so shortly before the assassination. There were from
the beginning of the Commission's investigation allegations before the
Commission and staff that Oswald had been motivated in one way or another in the
assassination by his dealings with respect to Cuba. Our record will indicate
that several investigative leads were pursued with respect to Oswald's
relationships with pro-Castro groups and anti-Castro groups and various theories
were advanced as to what his motivation might have been. One of these theories
was that he was prompted by the desire to retaliate against the United States
for its attempted invasion of Castro's Cuba in 1961.
Mr. BLAKEY. Let me shift the focus of our concern, Mr. Willens, from the
organization of the Warren Commission to the question of staff selection,
itself. Did you participate in the selection of the other members of the staff?
Mr. WILLENS. I participated in the selection of several members of the staff to
the extent that Mr. Rankin asked me to canvass the available applicants, to
develop other applications for positions with the Commission and to make him a
series of recommendations on the subject. I did do that during late December or
early January.
Mr. BLAKEY. What criteria were employed in the selection of staff members?
Mr. WILLENS. It is particularly with respect to the senior staff that I have
fairly limited knowledge. Some of the members of the senior staff were selected
before I became associated with the Commission. I know that there was an
interest to have among the senior staff men of considerable legal experience,
some record of public service and demonstrated independence of judgment. The
Commission was interested in having as senior counsel men who, although they
might not be able to work on a full-time basis, nevertheless would bring to the
work of the Commission a seniority, a wisdom and a demonstrated experience that
would help to advise the Commission with respect to its mission and provide
support in gaining public respect for the product of the Warren Commission.
I think that in many respects the senior been unfairly criticized over the years
for not devoting themselves
Page 322
322
full time to the work of the Commission. If I could just make two points on that
issue I will make the following:
First, several of the senior counsel did work very hard, specifically Messrs.
Ball, Jenner, and Hubert. I know y. ou have some work records with respect to
those. I want to state with respect to those three men that they did at various
times during the work of the Commission work every bit as hard as the younger
members of the staff.
Second, and perhaps more importantly is the fact that none of the senior counsel
had been asked in my view to work on a full-time basis with the Commission. Each
of them did have many responsibilities and I think in those cases with which I
am familiar they made that fact known to Mr. Rankin and the Chief Justice. So it
is I think somewhat unfair in retrospect to state that they should be falted for
doing only what they were asked to do, namely make available as much time as
they could to the work of the Commission. That may have been a mistake but it is
not a mistake that I think can be fairly assigned to the senior lawyers
themselves.
Mr. BLAKEY. What criteria were used in the selection of the junior counsel?
Mr. WILLENS. In respect to the junior counsel we were concerned with some
diversity of experience in practice and in the criminal field in particular. We
were interested in lawyers of some considerable intellectual attainment as could
be measured by their academic achievements and by their early years in practice.
We were also interested in some diversity of views and some geographical
representation.
It seems clear from the hindsight of 14 years that we erred seriously in not
having several women among the staff.
I think with those criteria in mind that we did find a group of lawyers who had
the characteristics that I emphasized, independence of mind, some considerable
experience, including some with extensive trial experience, diversity of views,
and some modicum of geographical diversity.
Mr. BLAKEY. What accounts for the heavy predominance of Yale backgrounds? As a
teacher at Cornell, I am compelled by my academic associations to ask that
question.
Mr. DODD. As a Congressman from Connecticut, I may object to the question.
Mr. WILLENS. I am glad to find some support from members of the committee before
I invoke any privileges on that point. They always told us when I was at law
school that Yale produced more law professors than any other single law school.
In this case several of the people to whom I turned for recommendations and to
see whether they would be themselves available for work with the Commission were
people I knew through the Yale Law School affiliation. I did turn in some
instances to people who graduated from Harvard. At least in one case I recall he
reciprocated by recommending someone from the Yale Law School.
I do concede that there is here a predominance of lawyers from Yale and Harvard
in the hope that that won't be held against the Commission.
Mr. BLAKEY. At least not by those on the committee associated with Yale.
Page 323
323
You raised, Mr. Willens, the question of the time devoted to the work the
Commission by the staff. I think it might be appropriate at this time to ask the
Chairman if he will have the clerk mark as JFK exhibit No. 67 a chart prepared
by the staff based on the pay record of the Commission. Mr. Chairman, would you
ask the clerk to mark that as JFK exhibit No. 67?
Mr. FAUNTROY. Without objection, that may be done.
Mr. BLAKEY. I will ask that the clerk also show the chart to the witness.
Mr. Chairman, I wonder if it would not be appropriate at this time to
incorporate the chart in the record in order that I may ask the witness some
questions with reference to the chart.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Without objection, it is so ordered.
[The document referred to, JFK exhibit. ,No. 67 and received for the record,
follows:]
Page 324
324
JFK EXHIBIT No. 67
Page 325
325
Mr. BLAKEY. I wonder, Mr. Willens, if you will indicate whether that chart in at
least general outline reflects your own memory of the relative balance of work
by the various lawyers who were on it on a per diem basis? I would not expect
you, after some 13 years, to remember the number of days.
Mr. WILLENS. I find it difficult to relate these figures to my recollection of
the performance of individual lawyers in terms of the amount of time they spent.
It has been my experience, in private practice at least, that lawyers differ
widely in their assessment of how much time they spend on matters and how
valuable their time is. I think in the very roughest terms this gives a fair
picture of the days spent during the period by members of the staff. I think
that with reference to my earlier comment you should note that several of the
senior counsel felt that their primary responsibility was to work in the
investigative stages of the Commission's work. In their view the particular
contribution they could make would be in the review of investigative materials,
the decisionmaking process with respect to additional lines of investigation,
the taking of te.stimony, either before the Commission or by deposition, and the
presentation of the results of their investigative work in a first draft report
to be reviewed within the Commission staff.
With that view in mind I think you will understand why some of the senior
counsel put in substantially more time in the period from February through June
30 than in the following months of July, August, and September, when the
principal work being done within the Commission staff was to write the report
and to conduct those additional investigations that seemed to be required and
were prompted by the ongoing process of depositions and testimony before the
Commission.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, I think it might be appropriate to note for the record
at this point the chart covers the pay periods from February 1 through September
26, that it indicates a range of days devoted to Commission work from 308 by Mr.
Rankin to 16 by Mr. Adams. It indicates that the average time devoted to the
Commission was approximately 159 days and that of the senior counsel, only Mr.
Jenner exceeded that average.
I think we ought also to note, in fairness to Mr. Willens, himself that the
chart omits him and no one should construe that as an indication that he did not
work for the Commission.
I am correct, am I not, Mr. Willens, in indicating that your salary during this
time was paid by the Department of Justice and it probably true that you put in
at least as much time as Mr. Rankin on the work of the Commission?
Mr. WILLENS. It is true that I was on the payroll of the Department of Justice
st the time. During this period from December 20, 1963, to about September 22,
1964, I worked almost exclusively on the work of the Warren Commission. There
were a few weeks when I had to send the majority of my time at the Department of
Justice because the other deputy to the Assistant Attorney General was on
military leave. With that principal exception and some occasional trips back to
the Department, mine was nearly a full-time job. It may be that I would have
worked on this measure somewhat less than Mr. Rankin hut it was in my view a
full-time job.
Page 326
326
Mr. BLAKEY. You have indicated, Mr. Willens, that the original understanding
among the senior counsel was that they would devote their time to the Commission
approximately 3 to 6 months during the investigatory stage. Do you think their
absence during the period of time during which the evidence was ultimately
evaluated and reduced to the Commission report was an absence that was missed?
Mr. WILLENS. Let me declare I don't know what was the original understanding
that each of the lawyers had with Mr. Rankin or the Chief Justice. It is my
impression that they probably thought the duty would not be more than 6 months
but they undoubtedly said they would give as much time as they could to the
undertaking.
With respect to the emphasis on the investigative stage, it is my recollection
that most of the senior counsel felt that was the area where they could make the
most substantial contribution.
During the rewriting process, hot, ever, we did go back to the senior counsel
with the revised drafts that related to the portions of the investigation with
which they had the most familiarity. We did request their continuing comments on
drafts of the report where they had interrogated the witness, or in which we
knew they had a particular interest. That did precipitate as you would expect,
during the months of August and September some considerable debate among all the
members of the staff and presumably within the Commission as to how best to deal
with the investigative materials and what kind of support existed for the
various findings that were being tentatively proposed for the Commission's
consideration.
I think, Mr. Blakey, they were available to be called upon in the latter stages
of the Commission's work and the fact they were not there on a full-time basis
did not serve to handicap the Commission's completion of its work.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, 1 would like to turn at this time to raise with the
witness some questions about pressures under which they obviously labored.
Mr. Willens, you indicated that the general goals, as stated to you by those who
were ultimately responsible for the Warren Commission, was to find the truth. I
wonder if you will indicate for the record whether there were also any
additional political pressures on the Commission, and I don't use the word
political in a pejorative sense. For example, were you told or was the
impression conveyed to you that one role that the Commission might play would be
to allay public fears or to make possible a smooth transition of national
leadership or to allay international concerns or even indeed to so conduct the
investigation that it might not have about it the character of a witch hunt? I
suppose the answer would be either some of the above, none of the above, or one
of the above?
Mr. WILLENS. I understand the thrust of the question. Mr. Blakey although I
would object in a deposition to its being multiple or compound.
There undoubtedly were concerns that the Chief Justice and members of the
Commission had with respect to the undertaking that, the President had asked
them to assume. It is hard to recapture today the sense of public turmoil that
existed at the time with respect to the assassination and the concerns that were
being expressed as to what
Page 327
327
impact the assassination might have on the foreign relations of the United
States. At no time did anyone tell me that the work of the Commission was to be
less than complete because of some need to allay rumors or to make a transition
more expeditious.
I was after all an employee of the Department of Justice.
I was personally responsible to the Deputy Attorney General and to the Attorney
General of the United States. No one could seriously maintain that the
Department of Justice headed by Attorney General Kennedy had any interest in
this investigation other than the most thorough and honest canvassing of all the
available facts.
Now having said that, it is certainly true that the Commission did not feel it
had an endless period of time within which to complete its work. It was not a
leisurely undertaking. We did not have a charter that permitted us or encouraged
us to proceed at a leisurely pace. We were under an obligation to complete the
work as quickly as we conscientiously could. There were certainly disputes
within the staff and among the Commission as to how rapidly the work could be
completed. As those differences developed, however, the staff repeatedly
expressed its views strongly to Mr. Rankin and to the members of the Commission
that the investigation could not be completed on any anticipated timetable and
we repeatedly emphasized that when there was additional work to be done that
additional time had to be afforded.
In every instance where the staff made clear that additional time was required
the Commission acquiesed in that conclusion and agreed that the final product
should be, only that kind of report that was satisfactory to the members of the
staff and to the members of the Commission.
Mr. BLAKEY. Let me ask you some specific questions in order that the record
might be clear, Mr. Willens.
Did Attorney General Kennedy ever express to you directly or indirectly any
desire on his part that the investigation come out in any particular fashion?
Mr. WILLENS. No.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach ever express to you directly
or indirectly his desire that the investigation come out in any particular
fashion?
Mr. WILLENS. No.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did the Chief Justice ever express such a desire to you.
Mr. WILLENS. No.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did Mr. Dulles ever express such a desire to you?
Mr. WILLENS. No.
Mr. BLAKEY. Did you ever learn directly or indirectly that President Johnson or
any member of the White House staff desired that the investigation come out in
any particular fashion?
Mr. WILLENS. No.
Mr. BLAKEY. You indicated that there was some concern or some thought expressed
about allaying people's fears or smooth transitions or international
considerations. Did the staff itself ever discuss these concerns?
Mr. WILLENS. I do not recall any discussions among the staff that focused on
those particular concerns. The staff, as you have gathered from your interviews
and testimony, was composed of a number of
Page 328
328
fairly articulate and forceful individuals. They were of the definite view that
they had one assignment with respect to the Commission and that was to conduct a
full investigation and report those findings that could be supported by the
facts. There were obviously in the investigation of foreign possibilities
discussions about the impact that a particular mode of investigation might have
on a foreign government if it were discovered.
There was considerable attention given to the communications that were to be
addressed to foreign governments. But I think that is to be expected and doesn't
relate to any limitation on the staff that flowed from a concern about adverse
impact on foreign relations.
Mr. BLAKEY. More particularly, was there ever any pressure put on the Commission
to your knowledge or the Commission staff to have the Commission's conclusions
agree with those that have already been reached by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation?
Mr. WILLENS. No; there was no pressure emanating from the Commission or any
other source on the staff to encourage the staff to reach conclusions that were
identical or comparable to those of the FBI.
Mr. BLAKEY. Was there any pressure on the Commission or staff from outside the
Commission or outside the staff to have the Commission reach a result consistent
with that already reached by the Federal Bureau of Investigation?
Mr. WILLENS. I am not aware of any.
Mr. BLAKEY. We have already discussed in the record the letter of Attorney
General Katzenbach sent on December 9, 1963, to the Warren Commission asking the
Commission to issue a press release stating that the FBI report clearly show
that there was no international conspiracy and that Oswald was a loner. How
would you construe that letter?
Mr. WILLENS. I do not have the letter in front of me.
Mr. BLAKEY. I am talking about the general impact of that letter. Would it be
fair to characterize that as pressure on the Commission or the Commission staff
by releasing the FBI report at that early point in time, at least implicitly
indicating agreement with its conclusions?
Mr. WILLENS. First of all, there was no Commission staff at the time that the
letter was written. As I indicated earlier, the Commission concluded not to
publish any press statement affirming the findings of the FBI. The Commission
was of the view that it had a separate responsibility under the President's
order to conduct its own investigation and make its own findings. Many of the
members of the Commission were skeptical regarding the FBI investigation and
wanted to review the raw materials and conduct additional investigation before
they reached any conclusions that could be publicly stated with any degree of
confidence by the members of the Commission themselves.
The Commission did include as you know, four Members of Congress and they were
particularly sensitive to the public concern that was precipitated by the
investigation and by the assassination of President Kennedy and they undoubtedly
were under pressure from their constituents to make the findings public. But in
each case they decided that the work of the Commission required more extensive
work and consideration than the FBI had been able to give the matter in
Page 329
329
what after all had been a very limited period within which the Bureau could
investigate the assassination.
What I have said is not to fault the Bureau for their initial product the
Commission report does take exception to some major issues. The FBI report was
prepared under enormous strain and was done so at the direction of the President
and in my view in order to make certain that some of the facts with respect to
this could be developed rapidly so that the President and the other leaders of
the Government could decide what actions were appropriate.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Willens, you have, as have some of the other witnesses appearing
before the committee, mentioned the general problem of time and perhaps tune as
a pressure. Let me st this point review with you some of the key dates in the
time between November and September from the assassination to the release of the
report. After have done that I would like to ask you some general questions on
that.
The President was, of course, assassinated on the and of November, 1963.
President Johnson created a Commission on November 29. The Commission's first
meeting occurred on December 5. On December 5, the FBI submitted its four-volume
summary report, just 17 days after the assassination. On December 16, Mr. Rankin
was sworn in as General Counsel. On December 20, the FBI report from which the
summary report was composed began arriving at the Commission offices. On January
10, the Commission's organization was completed. On January 13, the
supplementary report was received by the Warren Commission. On January 20, the
first staff meeting occurred.
February 3 marks the beginning of the hearings conducted by the Commission,
March 14 the date of the Ruby trial. In March the beginning of field
investigation by the Commission. The month of April is a month in which
approximately half of the depositions were taken. In May Mr. Rankin informed the
Commission staff members that they should have their investigation completed by
June 1. On June 1 only Mr. Specter had finished his draft. On June 17 the Warren
Commission announced that its hearings were completed.
On June 27, the Commission announced that its report would not be released until
after the Republican National Convention on July 13. In July most of the senior
lawyers left. Primarily Mr. Liebeler, Mr. Griffin, and Mr. Slawson remained. In
August the report was written in part but the deadlines were extended to
September and of course on September 24, the first galley proofs arrived. On
September 24, the report was submitted to the President. On September 28, it was
released.
A summary of these dates would indicate that the actual FBI investigation, at
least initially, extended from November 22 to December 9, a period of 17 days.
There were approximately 5 months between the organization of the Commission and
the completion of some drafts, approximately 2 to 4 months were spent in writing
and rewriting the Commission's report and approximately 3 1/2 months were spent
by the Commission engaging in field investigations.
In retrospect do you believe that that time schedule as generally outlined was
adequate to do the work?
Page 330
330
Mr. WILLENS. I think the time was sufficient to do the work of the Warren
Commission. I cannot deny that the work could have gone on for another month or
two or six. The question of how much time was one that had to be reassessed from
month to month as we pursued the investigation and looked at those remaining
lines of investigation that could be explored. There inevitably are going to be
loose ends of one kind or another that are going to be left. undone at the end
of any major criminal investigation. I think that the way you have described the
timing, based on the records of the Commission, is substantially accurate.
The only question I would raise for your consideration is whether it is accurate
to describe the FBI investigation as limited to the early portion, to the 17-day
period you are talking about, and whether you have fairly taken into
consideration the fact that as soon as the Commission staff began work in
mid-January or thereabouts there begin to result a series of investigative
requests to the FBI, CIA, and other investigative agencies which built on the
investigation already conducted and was a very important component of the
overall investigation.
I would also point out that the investigative work did continue through July and
August and in some respects into September. You will find in the records of the
Commission a substantial volume of important investigative requests that were
sent to the FBI and other agencies during those months as it became clear from
the testimony of witnesses or from other investigative reports that some leads
should be further explored before any Commission findings were arrived at.
Those may be only caveats, Mr. Blakey, and are not directly responsive to your
question but I do think it is important to recognize that essentially the
Commission had from mid-January to mid-September to do its work and it is
certainly true that during that 8 month period most of the investigation was
done during the first 5 months of that period and most of the writing was done
during the last 3 months of that period.
Obviously there was some writing and assembly of investigative materials during
the early months. One of the principal assignments given the lawyers was to
absorb what they had assigned to them in their area and to propose a factual
narrative or analysis that would inform the members of the Commission what was
known and what was unknown. There was a constant stream of summary memorandums
that were produced by the staff and then the taking of depositions was a very
major and important part of the Commission's factfinding and it was
concentrated, as you say in the months from mid-March through May or
thereabouts, with some significant number of depositions taken I believe in June
and July.
Nonetheless the record is clear as to what time was available and the record is
awfully clear what was done. It is up to you to assess whether what was done was
fairly and efficiently done in light of the time available.
Mr. BLAKEY. MY. Chairman, that concludes my questions in the area of Mr.
Willens' assignment, the organization of the Warren Commission, the selection of
the staff, the staff's general performance,
Page 331
331
and possible pressures under which it operated. I have some additional questions
in the area of procedures, the methods of investigation, relationship of the
agency, and the writing of the report. But it might be appropriate now for the
committee to ask questions at least in those first areas, if it so desires.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Mr. Dodd.
Mr. DODD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Willens, I have become very impressed with the fact that the members of the
Commission staff and otherwise were working in a relatively short time frame. I
don't think I was fully aware of the fact that this really took only a few
months from the very beginning until the first drafts were done, a little less
than a year for the entire job. I guess I was under the impression it was a
longer period of time. I don't know why. Chief Justice Warren started the
investigation at the first meeting and I could quote him but I will just
paraphrase his remarks, mentioned specifically that he perceived his job as
Chairman of the Commission and the job of the Commission as one to evaluate
evidence rather than conduct an investigation. Now it may just be semantic here
but I thought it was rather significant at the outset that he seemed to make the
distinction that the Commission was not to serve as an investigative body but
really as an evaluator of accumulated evidence. I wonder if you might comment on
that in terms of, one, did we see sort of evolutionary process that the
Commission went through from that being the original ideas and then as the work
developed it became more an investigative agency, not an agency but an
investigative body, rather, or did it in fact maintain its original framework of
an evaluator of evidence.
Mr. WILLENS. I think that is an interesting question, Congressman Dodd.
I think that there was no question that many members of the Commission and
certainly all of the staff knew that there was a very substantial amount of
investigative work to be done, that this was indeed an investigative Commission,
with a Presidential charter that had a most important set of crimes to
investigate and report. There was at the same time some reticence among some
members of the Commission because of the fact that the Commission was an unusual
kind of factfinding agency and was not a court with the responsibility for
finding facts through the adversary processes. I think there certainly was some
concern as to what kind of factfinding agency the Commission should be. I
believe though that any reservation on that score was set aside as soon as it
became clear to the members of the Commission as to the scope of the
investigation that was necessary in order to resolve the many unanswered
questions that were raised by the investigative materials that were turned over
to the Commission.
I think the members of the Commission and the staff also became increasingly
aware as the public rumor mill began to operate, of the sensitivity of their
mission and the need to deal with these various rumors and allegstions in the
public domain, and that in order to do so effectively it was necessary to check
out those various allegations to see whether they had any factual foundation or
whether they lacked any factual foundation.
Page 332
332
If there was any reservation, in short, to begin with, I think it was cured in
the early months of the Commission's work and that the Commission members and
staff like recognized that they were inevitably conducting a mammoth
investigation, using the Federal agencies and using their independent staff in
order to find out all the facts that were relevant to the assassination of
President Kennedy and the murder of Oswald.
Mr. DODD. Within the 4 days after the assassination, and I don't recall your
response to Mr. Blakey's question with regard to your awareness of the
Katzenbach memo regarding the directive so to speak of the Commission, that is,
to lay to rest the growing concern, both nationally and internationally, with
the ramifications of the assassination, and to establish that once and for all
that Lee Harvey Oswald was acting alone, you maintained your employee-employer
relationship with the Justice Department throughout the entire investigation, is
that correct?
Mr. WILLENS. Yes.
Mr. DODD. Your salary and everything came from the Justice Department? You never
were paid at all by the Coramission itself as a salaried employee of the
Commission?
Mr. WILLENS. That is correct.
Mr. DODD. Were you consciously aware at all, either as a result of direct or
indirect communication from Mr. Katzenbach, that he had this feeling or was that
a misstatement of his thinking with regard to the Commission's duties at the
outset?
Mr. WILLENS. Before I became officially associated with the Commission I was
aware of the fact of an FBI report and the issue whether or not some public
statement should be made on the subject. As I recall there were some who felt
that the entire FBI report should be made public. There were others who thought
it should not be. but that some form of summary should be made public.
There was a third group who felt nothing should be made public until the
Commission had been created and had undertaken its job. I sympathize with those
who felt at the time that some public statement would have been a useful gesture
if it could have allayed public concern and unrest. I think that was a
well-motivated, understandable desire. If the national interest could have been
furthered in such a way, I am sure most people considering the issue would have
come out that way. In fact, they did not because they concluded no simple public
statement could really resolve the uncertainties until all the facts had been
developed, and everyone accepted the fact that the FBI could not possibly be
asked to develop all the facts regarding the assassination within a week or even
3 weeks or a month.
Mr. DODD. I am not clear as to when you were assigned the liaison
responsibilities. Do you recall the date of that?
Mr. WILLENS. I did go over to the Connnission on December 17, 1963. In the
period between the assassination and December 17 I have some knowledge, very
limited, regarding the FBI investigation and the issues that were being
discussed within the executive branch regarding the appointment of the
Commission and the making of a public statement with respect to the
assassination.
Mr. DODD. The reason I ask that, I don't have any reason to believe you
necessarily were aware of this or not, maybe you were, on November
Page 333
333
21, 1963, and again on December 2, 1963, Mr. McCone---that was when Lyndon
Johnson was President discussed with him various questions surrounding Cuba. He
met again on the second with Mr. Bundy. Mr. McCone met with both L.B.J. and
Bundy and discussed Cuba again. In light of the fact that we now know that prior
to 1963 the Central intelligence Agency, with certain members of organized crime
along with the apparent knowledge of the President, were involved in an effort
to assassinate or to do away with Mr. Castro, in some way bring about a change
in that government down there, do you think it possible that the Attorney
General, then Attorney General Robert Kennedy, being knowledgeable, assuming he
was knowledgeable of those particular circumstances, would be somewhat reluctant
to have the kind of full-blown investigation that could possibly surface certain
pieces of evidence at that time that would have shed a poor light on his
brother's administration and that therefore there might very well have been a
degree of reluctance to have the kind of fullblown investigation that was
contemplated and sought after by some?
His brother in fact was dead. Nothing that the Commission could do would bring
him back. There was a lot of personal hurt there, and why open up Fandora's box,
particularly when you are dealing with someone who is parading around as having
connections with a Free Cuba or Fair Play for Cuba Committee or a lot of the
issues that would surface as a result of that kind of full-blown investigation
when there were some rather strong ties to Cuba?
Mr. WILLENS. I do not believe that is possible. I know from my conversations
with the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General that no effort was
ever made to influence me with respect to the scope or the thoroughness of the
investigation. I was told nothing about what to do but to do my best work to
assist the Commission in completing its investigative assignment and reporting
its findings in a coherent and persuasive report.
Mr. DODD. You mentioned before that there were no political pressures in
response to Mr. Blakey's question, to terminate the Commission's work. Yet a
note I have someplace indicates that at a meeting that you had with the Chief
Justice in June of 1964, at the time you informed him it was going to take a
little longer than originally had been expected, the Chief Justice apparently
lost his temper a little bit or became annoyed. I guess--I don't know what the
proper description is of that meeting, but he became quite upset with the fact
that you were not going to get the work done as planned. The Chief Justice had
earlier stated:
Other than obviously wanting to get the job done, which is obviously something
we are all interested in, I certainly would like to see this job done, but my
primary concern is that it be done right.
I am curious as to whether or not the Chief Justice expressed at that time or
prior to or thereafter, that while he would like to see it done he wanted the
kind of thorough and complete job that should be done, given the significance of
the event. I am concerned why there seemed to be this tremendous concern with
the time element when you consider it was an assassination of a President.
Mr. WILLENS. I understand that question, Congressman. I think that one
explanation that I have for this and in retrospect is that none of us,
Page 334
334
including the Commission or staff had any real comprehension at the beginning of
the Commission's assignment as to exactly how long it would take.
Mr. DODD. Although the Chief Justice did set June 1 as the date from the very
first meeting?
Mr. WILLENS. I think that is probably right. Yet I am sure he would concede it
was an absolutely arbitrary date. It did not bear any necessary relationship to
the scope of the mission or the number of people on board or the obstinancy of
the investigative agencies whatever that might develop during the course of
those 5 months that he thought it would take. I must say I probably thought at
the outset when I went over to the Commission that although I did not know how
long it would take I probably thought it would take 6 months. I knew it would
take some time to get organized. I knew it would take some time to conduct
investigations. I knew it would take substantial time to write a report.
I think in my own mind I underestimated the time it took to do all of those
things. I think what came home to the Chief Justice and to other members of the
Commission beginning in late May and June was that the job really was more
complicated and more controversial than any of us had assumed. I think the Chief
Justice was very discouraged by that report to him in June of 1963 that the
deadlines he had hoped could be met were not any longer realistic ones because
of the need to conduct additional investigation and because of the difficulty in
putting together draft sections of the report that were coherent, and defensible
and ready to be reviewed by the members of the Commission.
To some extent the Chief Justice undoubtedly felt like every chairman does of a
commission or committee, that is, he felt that he was a prisoner of the staff or
limited by the staff's willingness or ability to complete a particular
assignment on the schedule that the Chairman had set. Staffs uniformly tried to
do that. Then, when they were unable to do that, their obligation was to come
forward and say why they were unable to meet the timetable and propose a
different timetable.
I want to be certain that you do understand that as the deadline was constantly
put off there were of course events during that year of a political nature that
would undoubtedly bbe in the minds of the media and other persons who were
concerned about when our report would come out. There were certainly times when
it was discussed whether the report should come out after or before the
Republican Convention. There was certainly concern about whether the report
would come out in advance of the 1964 election.
Mr. DODD. I have heard everyone say that. I have tried to imagine. I am certain
that at the time the President must have been extremely anxious as the
investigation was proceeding that he be kept abreast of what was turning up.
Having a somewhat passing familiarity with Johnson he never let anything happen
that he did not keep apprised of it at all times. He must have been terribly
nosey about what the Commission was coming up with. I say that with all due
respect to the President of the United States. He had that reputation. Assuming
nothing startling was coming up the original FBI report-seemed to be holding
true as far as the investigation, why was it so important that it be done before
a political convention or fall election if there was nothing startling in the
report other than what we already assumed was true anyway?
Page 335
335
Mr. WILLENS. In part the concern was a media concern. There were numerous
conversations with media representatives who were apprehensive about being
scooped by the report being published at a time when they or their facilities
were being allocated to covering some other major political event. That
obviously was not a decisive concern but it was something that was brought to
the attention of the Commission and various other officials as the Commission's
report seemed to be working toward its conclusion. The concern about the
election may be difficult to understand now. At the time there were ugly rumors
and apprehensions regarding the work of the Commission end the nature of the
conspiracy that may have occurred to have caused the assassination of President
Kennedy.
It was feared, perhaps without justification, that the report might become a
campaign issue if it had not been published in edvidence of the election.
Mr. DODD. If that was the issue why not wait until after the campaign?
Mr. WILLENS. That is right. The other concern was that if it were postponed
until after the election it would be assumed it had been repressed so as to
avoid disclosures that might affect the candidacy of the President. Now having
said all that, it was clear to me in September as we were in the final stages of
this, that if the staff had concluded that the report should not be published it
could have been free to recommend the Commission, and the history of the
relations with the staff of the Commission is that the staff certainly did make
its views known to Mr. Rankin and through him to the Commission.
That was not done because although them were differences among the staff with
respect to specific outstanding matters I think it was the consensus of the
staff that the work had been completed and we prepared to produce the report.
Mr. DODD. l wondered if there was any serious doubt between the people over the
timeliness of the report, given some of the outstanding questions that lingered
in some peoples minds anyway on the Commission.
Mr WILLENS. I think the record will reflect a certain increase in the pace of
memo writing as August and September approached and it was a very constructive
and positive process because those memoranda detailing problems with the
chapters and with the nature of the investigation forced everyone on the staff
and the members of the Commission to pause in their deliberations and decide
whether or not in fact the investigation was sufficiently completed to justify
making findings and including them in a proposed report.
I have no quarrel in abstract or with the benefit of hindsight with the concerns
that were expressed by members of the staff regarding the adequacy of the
investigation or the sufficiency of the draft sections of the report. It was not
a majority view still that the publication of the report should be deferred
because of the outstanding matters. In every case the outstanding matter was
resolved before the report was finally completed and published.
Mr. DODD. I have over extended my time. Let me just ask one other question here.
Again reviewing the synopsis of the various meetings that the Commission had, at
one of the first meetings, if not the first
Page 336
336
formal meeting, you had been on board 3 or 4 days about this time, around
December 20, the Chief Justice began a meeting by emphasizing that rumors should
be quenched or squelched. He was talking about rumors. I am curious if you can
recall what the rumors were? Is there something other than rumors about what the
committee was doing or not doing? Was that really what it was about?
Mr. WILLENS. I think the reference there was intended to refer to the various
allegations in the foreign press and in some segments of the domestic press
regarding foreign or domestic conspiracy, either of left-wing nature, right-wing
nature, any variety you could identify. I think it is to those rumors that the
Chief Justice was referring in a way that suggested that these were matters of
great public moment that had to be investigated by the Commission and resolved
hopefully as speedily as possible.
Mr. DODD. I would think though, and again I will editorialize a bit and ask you
to comment on it, if I were a young attorney and sitting there at a meeting with
the Chief Justice of the United States who is sitting here, and he then
announces that we want to squelch any of these rumors that are going around
about conspiracies involving other people, I wouldn't necessarily want to
suggest that we ought to go seeking out conspiracies, but certainly there was
some evidence there that deserved looking into beyond a homicide investigation,
particularly when you are talking about the assassination of a President of the
United States. I wonder if you, although still a young man, 14 years ago even a
young man, can state what was the reaction of a group of young attorneys who
were looking at the Chief Justice who said he wants to squelch these rumors.
Was there not a tendency to express the desire you wanted to examine thoroughly
some things you might find important to proceed on? What was the reaction of a
group of young people in a room like that with the Chief Justice saying
something like that?
Mr. WILLENS. First of all none of the members of the staff including me were at
that meeting. That is not to evade your question because that statement has been
made publicly on more than one occasion. The staff was not influenced by any
desire of a single member of the Commission to squelch rumors at the cost of
conducting a full and honest investigation. As young as we were, we were given a
very substantial public responsibility and no person, member of the Commission
or not, was going to stand in the way of any of us completing our
responsibility. That was certainly the way I felt about it and I had a
particularly personal sense of involvement in this investigation. It was also
the view that was shared by my colleagues. You have now seen sufficient of them
to know that they are a talented, aggressive and independent group of lawyers.
Fourteen years ago they were, shall we say, perhaps less wise and even more
aggressive and articulate and ambitious that they are today when they have all
been mellowed by the years. They were drawn from private life.
They had no motivation in this except to do the best job possible. They knew, as
this committee investigation demonstrates, that their work was going to be
scrutinized in detail for decades to come. With all due respect to the Chief
Justice, if we differed with him regarding the attitude to be taken with respect
to the investigation we pursued our
Page 337
337
own views of what to be done and it was in that vein that the stuff did its
work.
Mr. DODD. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appologize taking so much time.
Mr. FAUNTROY. It is quite all right. I am anxious to get into the other matters.
We do want to proceed to that. I just have one related question.
Mr. Willens, is it your testimony that at no time prior to December 17, 1963, or
subsequent to the initial call to you, were you aware of a sentiment which had
been expressed to Walter Jenkins as early as 2 days after the assassination, a
sentiment that had been conveyed by Mr. Katzenbach to Mr. Bill Moyers 4 days
after the assassination, that there was a need to convince the public that
Oswald was the real assassin and that he acted alone? At no time were you aware
of that feeling on the part of Mr. Katzenbach?
Mr. WILLENS. No; that is not my testimony, Congressman. I was aware that there
was such a feeling held by some people in the department including Mr.
Katzenbach. I was aware that how to deal with the matter and whether to appoint
a Commission and whether to make public statement were issues that were being
much debated within the executive branch. I was not a party to any of the
meetings in which any of these issues were discussed. I was, however, one of the
few people who was aware of the issues being discussed and the fact of the FBI
investigation and of the probability that a Commission would be appointed.
Mr. FAUNTROY. That sentiment was not expressed to you in the conversations
subsequent to the 17th and prior to your going on board
Mr. WILLENS. I think that once a decision had been made to handle the public's
need via a Presidential Commission, that the attitude changed significantly as
to the pressure or urgency of quelling public rumors or convincing the public
that Lee Harvey Oswald was a sole assassin. It may be that after the FBI report
was produced and examined by responsible authorities that they concluded that no
quick public statement could serve the needs of the country in ascertaining the
facts and eliminating uncertainty which was not warranted by those facts.
So once a decision was made I believe to appoint a Presidential Commission I
think there was a concession by most-of the people involved that public
elaboration of this should be deferred until the Commission completed its work.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Counsel, will you proceed now?
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Willens, let me direct your attention to the general issue of
procedures and methods of investigation conducted by the Commission. As I am
sure you are aware, the simple question in any investigation is not so much what
you do as what you don't do. In this context I would ask that the Chairman
direct the clerk to mark as JFK exhibit No. 68 a memorandum of February 27,
1964, from Mr. Hubert to Mr. Rankin. And ask that it be shown to the witness.
Mr. FAUNTROY. The clerk is so directed.
Mr. BLAKEY. Are you familiar with that memorandum, Mr. Willens?
Mr. WILLENS. Yes; a copy of tiffs memorandum was made available to me in advance
of the hearing.
Page 338
338
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, I would ask that the memorandum be incorporated in the
record at this point so that I may ask Mr. Willens some questions based on it.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Without objection, it is so ordered.
[The document referred to, marked JFK exhibit No. 68 and received for the
record, follows:]
JFK EXHIBIT No. 68
[Memorandum]
FEBRUARY 27, 1964.
To: Mr. J. Lee Rankin, General Counsel.
From: Leon D. Hubert, Jr.
1. I have given some thought as you know (see my memos of February 19 relative
to particular problems) to what policy should be developed as to future
investigations by the Commission; but this memo concerns broader aspects of the
same problem. I wish to pass them on to you not for the record, but so that this
memo may be used as a point of departure for discussion. Let me say further,
that if this general problem has already been considered by the Commission,
please simply disregard this memo.
2. As I see the whole picture to date, these has been an intensive investigation
starting November 22 but diminishing in intensity as time has passed. I think
this diminution has occurred because the normal and usual techniques have been
nearly exhausted. This investigation has produced a great mass of material which
has proved useful for deductive and inductive reasoning.
3. However, the fact is that so far, the Ruby materials on hand are not
sufficient either to exclude the possibility of a conspiracy or to warrant a
conclusion that there was none.
4. In regard to the investigation to date, as what I choose to call the "first
effort," I now pose the following problems:
a. Is there to be a "second effort," aside from the taking of testimony by the
Commission? I think there should be.
b. If so, then a decision should be made as to the degree of intensity of that
effort, and a policy arrived at, at least in the nature of establishing a set of
norms, as to how far it should go. I realize that to some extent each aspect of
the "Second effort" will be sui generis; but norms would help.
5. I suggest that in arriving at the norms consideration should be given to
whether most of the people of this country (say 75 percent) living and yet to be
born, will accept a cessation of investigation at any given point (discussed
below), and also whether other investigators of this or another generation will
accept cessation at the same point. I believe they will, if it is demonstrated
that continuation of investigation was not justified because the possible result
was too remote and tenuous to warrant the expenditure of the required time and
funds. I have in mind as an example one of the matters I have submitted to you
to wit: Suppose 500,000 people left the country after .November 22; they are
remotely suspect because presumably a culprit would want to get out of the
United States. Now, if we were reasonably certain of finding the President's
assassin or a conspirator, the notion and particular critics would readily
accept the work, time and money involved in sifting through this vast material;
and moreover would be critical of the fact that the work was not done; and this
irrespective of the cost. However, if the chances of finding anything of value
were extremely remote, I think there would be acception of cessation of this
particular line of investigation effort.
6. I suggest that the problem of deciding when to stop in any area or simple
episode depends upon the rules of diminishing returns: but where lies the line
of demarcation creates a real problem. I suggest that each advisor in his own
area can make Iris judgment and pass it to you for acception, rejection or
modification. But then you must pass it to the Commission because the problems
are so grave that only they should make the decisions; and as indicated above, a
set of norms would be helpful, since most decisions for cessation will fall into
one of three or four norms and could be disposed of by stating that cessation
was decided upon by application of the conditions of a stated normOther
cessations, not falling within a norm, would have to be dealt with specifically.
Page 339
339
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Willens, the memorandum of Mr. Hubert to Mr. Rankin generally
raises the question of character of the investigation and the general issue of
when not to conduct investigations. I note that it generally describes the
picture of the investigation as indicating it was rather intensive in the period
of time immediately following November 22. I am referring to paragraph 2. But
that it diminished in intensity its time passed. Mr. Hubert ascribed that
diminishing intensity primarily to the exhaustion of the normal and usual
techniques of investigation.
He then commented in paragraph 3 that the Ruby materials on hand were not
sufficient either to exclude the possibility of a conspiracy or to warrant a
conclusion that there was none. He raised then the general issue in paragraphs 5
and 6 about the question really of diminishing returns. How much expenditure of
time and effort should the Commission make in pursuing allegations of one kind
or another.
I will ask you in the context of that memorandum whether you were aware in
February of discussions like this about how far you should go and what the
general position of Mr. Rankin and the Commission was in response to memorarda
of this character?
Mr. WILLENS. Yes; I can respond to that question in a general way. It was of
concern to all the members of the staff to have some sense of what kind of
investigative effort was contemplated by the Commission. There was an
uncertainty, as reflected in Mr. Hubert's memorandum, as to exactly what kind of
investigation the staff was authorized to request. In other areas there was no
uncertainty and the lawyers there produced investigative requests as quickly as
they had mastered the materials and came forward with some coherent requests to
address to the FBI and the CIA or one of the other agencies.
This memorandum has to be looked at particularly in the context of its date. It
was shortly after the date of this memorandum, which is February 27, 1964, that
the Commission authorized an extensive program of depositions by the staff. The
significance of that fact is sometimes overlooked. It was the fact of
depositions by the staff and the permission to conduct investigation following
up on deposition testimony that constituted essentially the second effort that
is described here by Mr. Hubert. I don't think it is fair to say that the
investigation had diminished at the time that Mr. Hubert wrote this memorandum.
The initial assignment of the staff though, as I said earlier, once they arrived
on duty, was to master the materials in their area and to propose a second
effort of investigation consisting of specific requests of investigative
agencies, consisting of identifying those witnesses which should be called
before the Commission or deposed by members of the staff and identifying any
further issues in their area that they thought required the attention of the
Commission. As of late February 1964 these memoranda were coming in from members
of the staff and being reviewed by Mr. Rankin. Professor Redlich and myself, and
decisions at that point were being made about an overall program of
investigation which was responsive to the staff analyses that could be presented
for approval to the Commission.
The records of the Commission will reflect that in early March the Commission
did receive a memorandum over Mr. Rankin's signature outlining a proposed course
of investigation which was adopted without reservation by the members of the
Commission.
Page 340
340
Mr. BLAKEY. In light of your answer, Mr. Willens, I wonder, Mr. Chairman, if the
clerk could be requested to mark as JFK Exhibit No. 69 a memo of March 25, 1964,
of Mr. Willens to Mr. Rankin, responding I think in part to the general subject
raised by Messrs. Hubert and Griffin.
Mr. FAUNTROY. The clerk is so instructed.
Mr. BLAKEY. I wonder if the clerk could also be instructed to show the
memorandum now marked JFK Exhibit No. 69 to the witness.
Mr. FAUNTROY. The clerk is so instructed.
Mr. BLAKEY. Are you familiar with this memorandum, Mr. Willens.
Mr. WILLENS. Yes, I am.
Mr. BLAKEY. I wonder, Mr. Chairman, if you would direct that that be
incorporated in the record in order that I might ask some questions of the
witness based on this document?
Mr. FAUNTROY. Without objection, it is so ordered.
[The document referred to, marked as JFK Exhibit No. 69 and received for the
record, follows:]
JFK EXHIBIT No. 69
[Memorandum]
MARCH 25, 1964.
For Mr. J. Lee Rankin, General Counsel.
From: Howard J. Willens.
The attached is one of the specific investigative requests proposed by Messrs.
Hubert and Griffin which requires, in my view, further consideration. I am
opposed to sending out this request, without further documentation, for the
following reasons:
1. I think that we should develop this type of information only if we have some
specific allegation regarding travel or contacts by an identified person at a
particular time and place which appears possibly relevant to our inquiry. If
sufficient information has not been developed in the course of the extensive
investigation already conducted to meet this requirement, then I think the
probabilities of the additional inquiry yielding information of value are too
slight to justify the extensive inquiry proposed. As Messrs. Hubert and Griffin
have recognized in their several prior memoranda, this is a problem of balancing
considerations. One consideration which looms increasingly large in my opinion
is the tentative target date for the completion of this investigation. This is
not to state that any meaningful allegation should not be investigated because
of time factors. I do feel, however, that the attached does not appear to be
based on a meaningful allegation and therefore our limited time and effort
should not be expended by projects, such as this, which do not promise to yield
very much.
2. If Messrs. Hubert and Griffin were to demonstrate that the materials
currently in their possession raise an allegation meeting the above criteria,
then think the way to check the allegation out is to ask the FBI to review the
relevant files in the Department of State. Only after this is done should we
request original documents from State, in my opinion, unless there is a special
reason why the original document is necessary.
Mr. BLAKEY. As I read JFK exhibit No. 69, Mr. Willens, the general issue being
raised is not so much the technique of investigation, for example, depositions,
as we saw reflected in a previous memorandum, but rather the nature of
allegations that should be pursued. I am not so much concerned with the specific
allegation reflected on the memorandum that were attached to this memorandum but
rather the general issue of what kinds of allegations should be followed up. I
take it by reading paragraph 1 that what you were suggesting to Mr. Rankin was
that on the whole allegations that were not m some way supported, to be
Page 341
341
called meaningful allegations, should probably not be followed out and I will
quote now the second to the last sentence in paragraph 1.
One consideration which looms increasingly large in any opinion is the tentative
target date for the completion of this investigation. This is not to state that
any meaningful allegation should not be investigated because of time factors. I
do feel, however, that the attached does not appear to be based on a meaningful
allegation and, therefore, our limited time and effort should not be expended by
projects such as this, which do not promise to yield very much.
I wonder if you could comment on this, Mr. Willens? Did the Commission accept
this recommendation that there should be some distinction between meaningful and
nonmeaningful allegations and if so what criteria were employed in determining
the difference between meaningful allegations and I take it unmeaningful
allegations?
Mr. WILLENS. I do not know whether this issue was ever presented to the
Commission in the terms that the memorandum defines the question. I believe my
memorandum, JFK exhibit No. 69, is in essential agreement with Mr. Hubert's
memorandum of February 27, JFK exhibit No. 68, to the extent that it indicates
that there is a balancing process which must be undergone in deciding which
investigative request to send out to the agencies and which allegations should
be pursued.
Hubert was one of the members of the staff who did address this issue in general
terms. I do not remember the specific investigative request that JFK exhibit No.
69 was addressed to but I do believe, and continue to believe, that there are
limitations on investigative resources available either to the Warren Commission
or presently to this committee and that judgment has to be exercised as to how
best to use those investigative resources. My effort in this memorandum was to
suggest that any allegation should be checked out if you could tie an allegation
to a particular person or a particular time and place. My concern at the time
was with overly general and vague investigative requests that would deny us
access to investigative resources for other more specific lines of investigation
and would promise to produce very little of value.
On any specific investigative request I am sure there could have been
conflicting views. My general reaction is that I approved almost all
investigative requests coming from the staff without any question whatsoever. My
recollection is, however, that there were numerous occasions when I raised the
question with a staff member as to the utility of the particular request, the
particular objective that he had in mind, and the extent to which there might be
other ways of obtaining the necessary information.
Usually we were able to resolve those differences of view without any
difficulty. If we were not able to do so they were presented to Mr. Rankin for
his final decision as to whether the investigative request would or would not go
out. I think it is fair to say that the records will reflect many more
investigative requests coming from Messrs. Hubert and Griffin which prompted
debate than there had been from other areas and that prompts, I am sure, some of
the rhetoric in this memo and other memoranda that you have undoubtedly seen or
will see suggesting that we ought to sit down and try to work this out.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if we could have the clerk directed to show
the witness what has already been marked and admitted into the record, JFK
exhibit No. 65.
Page 342
342
Mr. FAUNTROY. The clerk is so directed.
Mr. BLAKEY. It is a memorandum of February 24, 1964, from Messrs. Hubert and
Griffin to Mr. Willens. Do you recall this memorandum, Mr. Willens?
Mr. WILLENS. I did not recall it until a copy was recently made available to me.
I am now familiar with it.
Mr. BLAKEY. We have had testimony in the record that as a result of this
memorandum some of the suggestions for developing telephone numbers and phone
call records were followed and that others were not. Generally the broader scope
of the request, for example, as represented in paragraph No. 9 that there be a
general freezing of phone call records was not implemented and that an effort
was not made to ascertain all of the reasonably available phone and phone call
records to some of the parties identified in the record. I wonder if you could
share with the committee, if you recall, your reasons or Mr. Rankin's reasons
for not pursuing the telephone call records suggested here by Mr. Hubert and Mr.
Griffin?
Mr. WILLENS. I do not have any specific recollection or discussions regarding
this memorandum. My recollection does coincide, however, with the testimony that
you have summarized. My recollection is that the broad-based request here was
not implemented by a letter to the FBI but that throughout the remaining months
of the investigation some of the specific inquiries suggested here with respect
to telephone calls and telephone records were made and reports produced
regarding those requests. I think that the reason the broader requests were not
taken is anticipated very neatly by Mr. Hubert's and Mr. Griffin's second
paragraph which I quote, "Some of the suggestions made impose burdens on private
parties which are not justified by the possible results to be obtained. If so,
they should be rejected and the reason for such rejection recorded in order to
assure future critics that such efforts were carefully considered."
I believe that the broad requests were not accepted by Mr. Rankin or by me for
this very concern. I do not know whether the records show any written statement
of our reasons as Mr. Hubert and Mr. Griffin suggest would be appropriate. I
agree with that suggestion and I think my custom was to make notes with regard
to the disposition of some of the matters in dispute such as this one but I do
not have a recollection of so doing in this precise case. I am confident that I
would not have made a decision of this kind without consulting with Mr. Rankin
and discussing the matter fully with him. It was a]so his practice that if I
made my recommendation to him that was contrary to the views expressed by other
members of the staff that he would typically have them in to discuss the matter
with them so that he could make a final disposition of the matter, having heard
all points of view.
That was his practice. I do not know whether it was followed in this precise
case but I suspect that it would have been.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Willens, there are obviously only a limited number of ways in
which conspiracy allegations can be pursued. There was not available to the
Commission sophisticated electronic surveillance techniques that would deal with
the formation of the conspiracy. It is doubtful that physical records would be
in existence or that the
Page 343
343
Commission had access to search warrant authority to seize them. Basically all
you could do was to engage in field interrogation and depositions. I wonder why
you would have foregone the opportunity to examine long distance call records in
pursuit of the conspiracy allegation? Had you done so and you had developed a
pattern of preassassination communications between some of the individuals
identified subsequently by Messrs. Griffin and Hubert, who were associated with
Mr. Ruby and perhaps even with Mr. Oswald, it might have been possible to pursue
these associations and precipitate Commission interogation based on those calls?
Would it be a fair characterization that by failing to do this you lost, and
probably permanently, the ability to pursue, however, tenuous, some of the
associations?
Mr. WILLENS. I would not accept that characterization. If your investigation
discover that it did have those consequences then I think that is an important
conclusion for you to report. The Commission did have the subpena power, it
could have subpenaed records if it had elected to do so. It had close liaison
with the Texas law enforcement officials and undoubtedly they had some authority
to pursue these matters if they wanted to or if we suggested to them that might
be useful.
There was a very extensive investigation into the Ruby area involving his
relationships with many of the people identified in this memorandum. I think it
is shortsighted to look at this memorandum alone without looking at all the
subsequent investigative requests in the Ruby area and make a judgment on the
basis of that kind of inquiry as to whether the Ruby investigation was adequate.
In that connection, I think you should look at the exchange of memoranda, which
you have not supplied me, of June 1, 1964, whereby I requested Mr. Hubert and
Mr. Griffin to inform me of any outstanding investigative requests for any
additional investigations they wanted to have made in order to satisfy
themselves of the adequacy of the Ruby investigation.
They responded in a memorandum of the same date reporting they were satisfied
with the adequacy of the investigation and there would be presented to me within
the next few days all the investigative requests that would be required in order
to assist them in the preparation of their report. Those memoranda do reflect a
clear and on the record communication between us with respect to the adequacy of
the investigation and the proper disposition of their investigative requests.
In subsequent months they did submit additional investigative requests and those
were almost without exception honored.
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, I think it might be appropriate that the staff be
directed at this point to obtain those memoranda and that the Clerk be directed
to incorporate them in the record at this point. [For copies of these memoranda,
see IV JFK Hearings at 559-60.]
Mr. FAUNTROY. The staff is so directed.
If Counsel will yield, I would like to raise one question with Counsel. Do we
have documentation dealing with the rejection and the reasons for rejection of
the specific requests noted in document exhibit No. 65?
Page 344
344
Mr. BLAKEY. Not to my knowledge. I will make an effort to see to it as our
investigation continues, that if that document is developed that it be made
available to the committee.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Without objection.
Mr. DODD. Along that same line of questioning, we saw the May memo I think from
Mr. Griffin to Mr. Hubert as well in which they outlined a rather detailed
request for certain information. I am curious, you are looking at 7 or 8 days
later, the June 1 memo that you are talking about that I have not seen yet,
there must have been something that ensued between May 24 and June 1. It is a
rather detailed, long memo requesting a bit of leeway in terms of investigating
further allegations surrounding Jack Ruby. I would be curious as to what
transpired between May 24 and June 1. Do you recall at all? Are you familiar
with the May 24 memo?
Mr. BLAKEY. May 14
Mr. WILLENS. I think I have seen that memorandum although it is not one of those
in front of me at the moment. Yes, it was about that time, Congressman Dodd,
that we were trying to make certain that we were completing the investigative
stage of the matter and proceeding to the preparation of the report. It so
happens, with all due respect to my colleagues, that the lawyers in this
particular area were somewhat slower in producing an acceptable draft section of
the report than was true of their associates in other areas.
That prompted some concern and discussion by Mr. Rankin and me and Professor
Redlich with them. It became clear that a lot of these investigative requests
were, shall we say, detracting from their effort to understand, assimilate and
analyze what, in fact, was already available to the Commission. So, the
memorandum from me to them of June 1, 1964, was designed to make certain on the
record that we had before us all investigative requests that they thought at
that time were necessary to provide them with the necessary material on the
basis of which they could write their assigned portions of the report.
Now there were differences of view from time to time between me and all members
of the staff. There were many differences of view among the members of the staff
and I often was in a position of trying to moderate those disputes and
accommodate the different interests the members of the staff. It was my
responsibility to help the Commission complete its investigation and complete
the writing of the report and to do so consistently with the standards that I
set fer the staff.
So there were many discussions with Mr. Hubert and Mr. Griffin individually and
together and many of them were participated in by Mr. Shaffer or by Mr. Redlich
or by Mr. Rankin. I believe when it was all said and done they did a superior
job is pressing with the investigation and producing their sections of the final
report.
On or about June 1, however, there was a point at which we were trying to assess
where we were in light of the fact--coincidentally June 1 was the anticipated
publication date of the report based on earlier hopes---and we were trying to
assess where we were in terms of our investigation, how long it would take to
complete the report, so that Mr. Rankin would have some informed basis on which
to advise the members of the Commission as to the progress of the Commission's
work. I believe it is that process that precipitated the memorandum
Page 345
345
of June 1 and it had a very healthy effect because it did elicit from Mr. Hubert
and Mr. Griffin a barrage of limited, sound investigative requests that went out
without dispute.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Mr. Willens, this memorandum of May 14 is a source of great
concern to us, dealing with the adequacy of the Ruby investigation. You are
saying to us that the memorandum of June 1 will satisfy us, as it did you, that
the concerns raised here and not responded to in terms of investigative
direction, were adequately dealt with?
Mr. WILLENS. That is right, Congressman. By May 14 we had received a series of
memoranda outlining proposed investigative requests in the Ruby area. Many of
them were the subject of some differences of view although in almost each
instance some investigation did go forward in response to the request from Mr.
Hubert and Mr. Griffin. Having received the May 14 memorandum, and I believe by
that time a preliminary draft prepared by Mr. Hubert and Mr. Griffin with
respect to their assigned portion of the report, we were concerned as to the
extent to which the investigation was completed in their area and the extent to
which their report could be reviewed and submitted to the members of the
Commission.
It was at that time that I felt it would be useful to confront the problem
straight out and to elicit from them all investigative requests which in their
judgment were necessary to insure that the investigation was an adequate one.
There is a responsive memorandum to the effect that if their investigative
requests were sent forward they would consider the investigation to be a
sufficient one.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Counsel.
Mr. BLAKEY. Public Law 8-202 which came from Joint Resolution 137 of the 88th
Congress, sighted by the President on September 13, 1963, in subparagraph (B)
authorized the Commission to issue subpenas and in subparagraph (E) provided
immunity for those who testified before the Commission if they claimed the
privilege and were compelled to testify. The start has been unable to find any
indication that any witness testifying before the Commission felt it necessary
to claim the privilege of self incrimination and consequently be granted
immunity. Should we draw from that the inference that it was the policy decision
made not to call any witness before the Commission whose testimony could only be
secured on grant of immunity?
Mr. WILLENS. No, I don't think you can draw that conclusion. I have a
recollection of one or two witnesses who advised the Commission or the staff
that they might invoke their constitutional privilege under the fifth amendment.
I do not recall their names or whether in fact they were subsequently deposed
and elected not to claim the privilege. I have a recollection that one of the
people I am thinking of was associated with one of the rightwing groups but I am
not sure that is the case. I am sure the record will reflect what happened.
I agree with your recollection that no witness did in fact invoke the fifth as I
recall and there were no instances where immunity was granted. There were on at
least one or two occasions discussions of that possibility within the staff, I
believe. I do not recall any discussion of a general policy not to utilize the
authority available to the Commission under the statute.
Page 346
346
Mr. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, I have a number of questions in the area of the
general relationship between the Commission and the agencies, both the FBI and
the CIA, and also having to do with the writing of the final report. In view of
the late hour and the indulgence of the witness now to what amounts to almost 3
hours of questioning, I wonder if it might not be appropriate to adjourn now and
ask him to return at a later point in time when perhaps all of us can be
refreshed, and while we might impose on him again, nevertheless at least let him
be fresh when we are doing it?
Mr. FAUNTROY. I have no objection to that.
Mr. DODD. After 3 days, l am ready.
Mr. BLAKEY. I would like at this time to extend again my appreciation to Mr.
Willens for taking time from his very busy practice to share with us his
thoughts and observations on the work of the Commission and say to him that I
personally look forward to the opportunity to talk to him again about these very
important matters.
Mr. WILLENS. I am available at your convenience, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Thank you. With that we will adjourn this session and reconvene at
the call of the Chair.
[Whereupon, at 4:50 p.m., the hearing was adjourned, subject to the call of the
Chair.]
Attachment G
Page 347
(284) Attachment G: Executive Session Deposition of J. Lee Rankin
EXECUTIVE SESSION DEPOSITION
THURSDAY, AUGUST 17, 1978
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE ASSASSINATION
OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY OF THE
SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS,
Washington, D.C.
Deposition of J. Lee Rankin, called for examination by counsel for the
committee, pursuant to notice, in the offices of the Select Committee on
Assassinations, House Annex No. 2, Second and D Streets SW., Washington, D.C.,
beginning at 10:50. a.m., before Annabelle Short, a notary public in and for the
District of Columbia, when were present: Gary Cornwell, deputy chief counsel;
Kenneth Klein, assistant deputy chief counsel; Michael Goldsmith, counsel; and
Michael Ewing, counsel.
Mr. KLEIN. The time is 10:59. on August 17, 1978. We are present in the House
Select Committee on Assassinations offices.
My name is Kenneth Klein and I am the assistant deputy chief counsel for the
committee and I have been authorized by the committee to take sworn depositions
under oath pursuant to House Resolution 222 and committee rule 4.
Would you please state your name, sir.
Mr. RANKIN. My name is J. Lee Rankin.
Mr. KLEIN. Miss Short, are you authorized in the District of Columbia to swear a
witness and to take a deposition?
Miss SHORT. Yes; I am a notary public in the District of Columbia.
Mr. KLEIN. Would you please swear the witness.
Whereupon, J. Lee Rankin was called for examination by counsel for the committee
and, having been first duly sworn by the notary public, was examined and
testified as follows:
BY MR. KLEIN:
Q. Mr. Rankin, is it correct that you are here voluntarily and not subject to
subpena?
A. That is correct.
Q. Have you been advised that you have the right to have a lawyer present at
this time?
A. Yes.
Q. Have you been given pursuant to our rules, a copy of Committee Rules and
House Resolutions 222, 433, and 760?
A. Yes.
(347)
Page 348
348
Q. Have you had an opportunity to look through the rules?
A. I have glanced through them. I have not read them in detail.
Q. And you are aware that if you want to read them, you can.
A. Yes. You gave me a copy and if I need to consult them at any time, I will.
Q. In particular have you had an opportunity to read rule 4?
A. Yes.
Q. I will state at this time that pursuant to our rules at the completion of
this deposition the stenographer will type up a transcript the deposition. The
original copy will be sent to you, you will be asked to read through it and make
any corrections and send the original back to us. If you desire a copy, it will
then be sent to you to keep for your records.
A. I do desire a copy.
Q. That will be done.
Sir, what was your position with the Warren Commission?
A. I was the General Counsel.
Q. Could you tell us how it came about that you were appointed to this position?
A. Yes. I was asked by Chief Justice Earl Warren by telephone whether I would
undertake the position and I told him I would have to let him know. He said that
he would like very much for me to do it that it would take only about 3 months
at the outside and I would have a staff to help me, could select the staff. I
responded, I think the same day, that I was willing to undertake the work or the
position. However, I said probably some of the other Commissioners would not
want me and therefore he better ask them and find out whether they were
interested in my doing the work. He said they have already done that and they
were unanimous in wanting me and to get down as soon as I could and get sworn in
and get started.
Q. Was there any talk at that time about the goals of the Commission?
A. No.
Q. Did there come a time when you did speak to Chief Justice Warren about the
goals?
A. No. The first day that I had not all the staff but a considerable part of it
together I had a meeting with the staff and told them that their only client was
truth and that is what they were here for was to search for the truth and to
have it as completely as possible and there were no other considerations. That
was my own decision as to what our responsibility was and our duty under the
Executive order of the President and 212 never had anybody on the Commission or
otherwise that indicated we had any other responsibility or duty.
Q. Did you ever specifically discuss goals with the Chief Justice?
A. Not as such. I discussed with him the fact that we were going to try to
examine every witness that we could secure that could give light in regard to
the assassination and that we would make every inquiry about who actually
committed it, whether there were any associates or assistants, whether there was
any conspiracy, all of the various activity in connection with it that we could
obtain information about and to make a written report as completely as possible
to the President and the American people about whatever we learned.
Page 349
349
Q. Who made the determinations as to the size and composition of the staff?
A. I made the decision as to the various areas of interest that had to be
considered and I then presented that proposal informally to the Chief Justice
and the members of the Commission. I don't think there was any formal action
approving but there was informal approval or consensus and we proceeded on that
basis.
Q. To clarlify what you just said, at the time you made this proposal of the
areas that you felt were necessary to investigate, had you at that time resolved
the composition and size of the staff or did that come subsequent?
A. That came subsequently in that we didn't know at that point the size of the
stenographical staff that we would require because that would depend upon the
amount of material that had to be typed and filed and photocopies and all of
that type of work. It was generally thought by me that there should be probably
a senior attorney and younger attorney for each of the respective areas and I
had that in mind at that time. I never had any indication from the Chief Justice
or any member of the Commission that we were to be limited on funds. I was to
exercise reasonable judgment and that we would receive the necessary support
from whatever parts of the Government that support was required by approval or
otherwise and that we were to be financed out of the President's funds since we
were a commission appointed by Executive order and all I had to do was properly
account for and see that none of the funds were spent for any improper or
illegal purpose.
There was a question at one time raised with the Commission about the problems
of whether we should try to get an independent investigative staff and I
examined the various possibilities that way and the availabilities in the
country and the time that it would take to try to secure such a staff and be
able to have any knowledge of its competency and ability and then get it working
on the job. It appeared to me, and I so advised the Commission, that it would be
a long time before we got any such staff put together that could handle all the
problems that were involved with the size of the investigation that we would be
engaged in and we had so many facilities from the Government that the President
had insured the Commission that it would cooperate fully with the Coramission
and that it seemed prudent to try to use the intelligence facilities that the
Government had at hand.
Q. As we understand it there were five basic areas of investigation.
I think they were the basic facts of the assassination, the identity of the
assassin, the background of Lee Harvey Oswald, the conspiracy investigation, and
the death of Lee Harvey Oswald. Is that a correct statement?
A. That is my recollection of it, yes.
Q. When you say that you made a presentation to the Commission pertaining to the
areas of the investigation, are these the areas that you presented to them at
that time?
A. Yes, that is as I recall it.
Q. Then if I understand you, with the five areas determined you made the
judgment that for each area there should be two staff counsel,
Page 350
350
a senior and a junior, and then went about picking the counsel to fit
these areas.
A. Yes.
Q. How did you go about determining the different areas that you
ultimately chose?
A. Well, they just seemed obvious.
Q. Well, I meant did you have any help doing it, for example? Did you read FBI
reports or was it just obvious, like you say?
A. Well, we had at that point the FBI's report about the assassination which as
I recall had been leaked or available to the press and we had that. We didn't
have the detailed materials of the FBI yet and so it seemed like that was a
reasonable analysis of the problem.
Q. As you recollect, once the staff was actually chosen there were no the
original five major topic areas, that they remained the same.
A. I think so.
Q. Who picked the staff members?
A. I did.
Q. Did you have a criteria that you used to pick them?
A. Well in the senior men I tried to get lawyers of very considerable experience
in various fields and some distribution geographically so that the country would
feel that various parts of the country were represented. In the younger men I
tried to get those who had indicated a considerable skill and ability in their
law school and other educational opportunities and men who had the reputation of
being industrious.
Q. In retrospect was it a good staff for the work that you had before you?
A. I found it to be generally a very good staff. I think probably the younger
members were of more assistance to me than some of the older members.
Mr. KLEIN. Let me state for the record the deputy chief counsel, Gary Cornwell,
has entered the room and is now sitting with us.
Mr. CORNWELL. Hello.
The WITNESS. Hello.
The one factor that I did not examine with regard to the staff as much as I
would from my having had this experience was their ability
to write and most of them had demonstrated a considerable ability to write in
Law Review or other legal materials by their record but my experience taught me
that some people are fluent in writing and others while they are skilled at it
have great difficulty in getting started and finishing and getting the job
completed. I don't know just how I would have tried to have anticipated that
problem and worked it out but it became a serious difficulty for me in my work
as General Counsel. Looking back on it I would have much preferred that I had
not only the skills that I did in the staff but the additional one that as soon
as we had completed the investigation they would go right to work and write a
fine piece in which they described their activities and the results.
By Mr. KLEIN:
Q. If I might show you this chart, it is entitled "Day's Work by the Warren
Commission Staff, 1964." Maybe you could take a look at that.
Page 351
351
Q. It was a long time ago but basically does it appear to be an accurate chart?
A. I would not have any knowledge of that. I never tried to develop such a
chart. I know that relatively it points out that some were more available and
more active than others.
Q. That was what I was going to ask you about. It appears from the information
that the committee has gathered that a number of the senior attorneys ultimately
took a lesser role in the investigation than might have been originally planned
for them. Would you have a comment on that and the problems that arose?
A. Well, that is true. The senior attorneys were all hired with the
understanding that they would be able to get away from time to time and take
care of their practice, otherwise I could not secure them at all, and I think
that was somewhat the problem of Mr. Ball. Mr. Jenner I think was quite
available and worked rather steadily. Mr. Hubert I think I became somewhat
disenchanted toward the end. Mr. Adams I think was interested in being on the
staff at first but never expected to put any work in on it---didn't.
Q. I think also Mr. Coleman was not present a great deal of the time.
A. Mr. Coleman we had problems with because he was a very active Black man who
had gone with a principal firm in Philadelphia and had too many clients and in
order to keep our commitment we said that he could keep his practice going so he
would not have it destroyed, while he was working with the Commission. He had
many activities he had to return to Philadelphia which was handy so they called
him back repeatedly because he was in demand by his firm to help. He never
indicated any lack of interest or purpose to try to help where he could.
Q. To what extent did the absence of a number of the senior counsel affect the
investigation?
A. I don't think it materially affected the investigation as far as its
thoroughness is concerned. It threw an unreasonable burden upon some younger men
in the various areas where senior men were supposed to have carried some of that
burden and those younger men did take on that responsibility and were competent
enough to carry it out.
Q. Do you think that the results or the method of investigation would have been
significantly different in any manner had either these senior attorneys or other
senior attorneys had a more active role in it? Might it have gone into other
areas using other techniques of investigation had senior attorneys been present
to a greater extent?
A. I think my thoughts about that would be entirely speculative. I didn't see
any adverse effect due to the fact that the younger men were so industrious and
they seemed to be quite thorough in their work.
Q. We discussed the five areas which the investigation was divided into and you
have told us how you determined the areas. What, if any, pre-dispositions did
you have after reading the FBI report when you were about to embark on this
investigation?
A. Well, I proceeded in the start of the investigation with the assumption that
the FBI report was merely what they thought about
Page 352
352
the situation and it didn't have any effect on what we did and I never was
caused to believe by any member of the Commission that we were to support it in
any way or to assume that it was either adequate or complete or correct.
Q. Upon beginning your investigation, what were your thoughts about Lee Harvey
Oswald and his role in this case?
A. I think I assumed that he must have been involved some way and that is all.
Q. Did you have any thoughts relative to a possible conspiracy?
A. I thought the most obvious possible conspiracy was either the Soviet in some
way or eastern European countries involved with the Soviet or possibly Cuba. I
also thought there could be a possibility of some kind of conspiracy within the
country. The most obvious seemed to be in the right wing in the country in light
of the President's more liberal attitude and so forth in his conduct of the
Government, but those were merely the obvious possibilities and we constantly
searched to see if we could find any sign regardless of who the leader might be
involved.
Q. Looking back are you satisfied with the investigation into the possible
conspiracies which you have mentioned?
A. Well, I am somewhat disturbed by what the Senate committee discovered about
the fact that they say in their report as I read it that there were at least
eight different activities of some kind. directed toward the assassination of
Castro in which the CIA was involved, their use of underworld people in
connection with it, and that that information was all available in the
Government and never disclosed to us that Castro had said that if the Kennedys
could engage in this kind of activities why others could, too, and the FBI
apparently from the information you have given me of the reports of the
committee had information to a considerable degree about these activities of the
CIA and didn't disclose them to us. It is very difficult to do anything
thoroughly with the people that are supposed to be cooperating with you and part
of the same government that you are involved in and should have their loyalty to
their country withholding information from you in the process.
Q. I want to go into this area with you in much more detail a little bit later
but would it be fair to say that due to the circumstances which you have just
discussed that your staff was not able to adequately investigate the conspiracy
aspect of this case?
A. Well, I can't say that because if we had had that information and if we had
done as thoroughly as I think we did in other areas that we knew about, we might
have run out of all the leads and found nothing there except what has been
apparently revealed to date to the Congress in their various committees showing
that there are all kinds of lines but nothing that really proves any kind of a
conspiracy existed. At least that is the way I read such materials I have seen
and read in the papers. What I am saying is that I cannot say that if we had had
all the information and had the opportunity that we should have had with a
complete disclosure to investigate thoroughly everything, every lead, that we
would have found a conspiracy and have been able to lay it out because I have
not found anybody to date that has produced any credible evidence that there was
such a conspiracy.
Page 353
353
Q. Basically I am not asking if you think that you would have found the
conspiracy, just whether if you found one or not you would have been able to
more adequately investigate the whole conspiracy aspect had you had the
information that you have mentioned.
A. Well, we certainly would have gone in the investigation that we made if we
had that information to every possible source that seemed reasonable or a remote
possibility as to any conspiratorial activity and we would certainly have
examined the whole range of our own Government's activity in assassinations.
Q. Looking back is it possible to adequately investigate the conspiraracy aspect
of this case without this type of information which you did not have at the
time?
A. Well, my problem with that is that I think your question assumes that there
was some kind of conspiracy at the end---
Q. No, it is not meant to make that assumption. Regardless of whether at the end
you would have found the conspiracy or not, can you say that it has been
adequately investigated without the kind of information that you did not have at
your disposal?
A. Well, we certainly could not investigate the things that were withheld from
us unless we just happened on to it in some way and apparently that was quite
skillfully withheld from many people in the Government and the press and
everybody else for a long period of years.
Q. As I say, we will get back to that area in a little while.
Would you describe for us the communication that existed between Chief Justice
Warren and yourself?
A. Well, I think that it was every day; practically every day. When the Court
was in session he would come over afterward or before and then he would have a
short period of time with me. I never dealt with him on the basis that he could
run the Commission by himself. I didn't conceive that my responsibility and he
didn't either in all my dealings with him. If there was a problem, often times
he would deal with the housekeeping aspects of the Commission and in broad terms
tell me to go ahead on certain matters or if they were small or if they were of
any importance he would take them up with the rest of the Commission. He never
gave me any instructions that were just his own.
Q. How knowledgeable was he with respect to the day-to-day operations of the
investigation?
A. Quite knowledgeable in that he asked me and I tried to report to him. He
would go around to various members of the staff and ask them how they were
getting along and so forth. He didn't try, that I know of, to inquire about how
their work was progressing in such way as to sort of look like he was checking
up on what I told him or anything like that but I tried to give him a daily
progress report of how things were moving and what was immediately ahead of us,
what hearings we should be involved in, how soon and all of that kind of
business.
Q. As to the substantive decisions with regard to the actual running of the
investigation, did you make most of those?
A. No, the substantive decisions were all made by the Commission. I would
recommend. I didn't have authority to execute on my own.
Q. What communication existed between the Commissioners and yourself?
Page 354
354
A. Well, sometimes the different Commissioners would ask me about certain
testimony in a hearing, they wondered what this meant or that meant individually
or they would make their own comments what they thought of it. Generally we had
a meeting and the Commission was told informally about how things were
progressing and if they had any doubts any one of them would say so and
generally they didn't. They didn't complain about anything and wanted to go
ahead and get done.
Q. How often did you meet with them, approximately?
A. I don't know. I think that is all of record, but I would have no idea.
Q. In your opinion were the Commissioners as a group knowledgeable about the
facts in this case?
A. Yes, they were. It has always been my opinion that in light of the
responsibilities they each had and the work that they were involved in in the
Government that they devoted much more thought and time to it than I ever
expected they could, and that is not revealed as much by the record as by the
fact of what happened because there were quite a few times that Senator Russell
was not able to attend the hearings, and he was so disturbed about that at one
time that he spoke io the Chief Justice and said maybe he should resign because
he was not able to perform his responsibility as he wanted to in accordance with
his concept of his obligations. The Chief Justice was disturbed about that and
spoke to me and asked me to see him, and particularly with the idea that if
Senator Russell resigned it might appear that there was disharmony in the
Commission and that he felt things were not being done properly, and therefore
that was the reason for his resignation and even though he would say otherwise
and try to make it as clear as possible, it still would be read into it by the
press and commentators and so forth.
So, I went to see him. I had always had a relationship with him personally, so
that he was completely frank with me. I went to his office and he told me about
the disturbance with the work he had, the Armed Services Committee and civil
rights and other things that he wes active with in the Congress and the Senate,
that he was attending the Commission hearings as much as he wished he could,
that he had difficulty reading the transcript because he had to read all these
other things every night and he hardly had enough time during the nights to get
this done.
I asked him whether there was anything about the way the Commission was being
run or anything that I was doing that was not satisfactory and he assured me
that he was entirely satisfied. in fact was pleased with what he saw, but he was
not participating enough. I told him about the problem that if he should leave
the Commission how it might be misunderstood by the country and by people
regardless of what he said, and he said: "Well, I recognize that. I don't want
to do it, but I have this problem."
I said, "Well, what if we supplied you a lawyer who would attend the hearings
just like you would and would read the transcript and try to make the digest for
you and keep you fully informed?
He said, "Well then I will stay on if you do that"
I said, "Well we will undertake to do that. So we did.
Page 355
355
Now that is an example. I think that they showed a familiarity with the record
of the hearings and the progress of investigation that I was impressed with.
When you consider what else they were doing it is just the most remarkable
thing. I often wonder why we would have a committee of personalities that were
so involved that they had before they were appointed to the Commission anything.
They had more than enough to do in all of their assignments but I recognized
that the President was very wise selecting someone that represented the various
constituencies that they did and shown competence in government and knowledge
over a long term of years. I just felt he was in the dilemma of picking someone
without those qualifications who had more time and, it has been my experience in
life, that some of the busiest perform the best.
Q. Were you totally satisfied with the performance of the Commission?
A. Yes. I had no problem in that regard at all.
Q. You have told us that you would present recommendations to the Commissioners
and then they would make the decisions. Were there instances where they rejected
your recommendations?
A. I don't recall any. I think that the only time we had a serious problem in
that regard was whether we should accept the assurances of the FBI about whether
Lee Harvey Oswald had been involved with the FBI as an agent that was concealed
by a number or some other method in their system and I think--well. I was
disturbed by it myself and so I may have caused some of the difficulty because
it presented serious problems to me and I related it to them and tried to
analyze it for them and they recognized those problems and then tried to
consider the alternatives and I think everybody finally concluded that J. Edgar
Hoover would not swear to a lie.
Q. In that case, did Choy overrule your recommendation or was there a
recommendation by you in that area or in that instance?
A. I thought that that was the best we could do, was to get that. The
Commissioners had some problems about my temerity in insisting that
J. Edgar Hoover come and swear to it. They thought that was almost less majeste
to treat Mr. Hoover that way, but I told them I thought the record would be
seriously incomplete without it and I didn't care whether he was angry with me
or the whole Commission because of it and that we should do it.
Q. Speaking of specific members of the Commission over the years a number of
them have--some publicly, some privately--made statements expressing a degree of
doubts to whether there might have been a conspiracy in this case. Specifically,
I speak of Senator Russell who made a public statement to that effect, and I
think that it has also been stated that Representative Boggs expressed some
doubts. Do you have any recollections of conversations you had with them or
statements they have ever made to you about their doubts with respect to a
conspicary in this case?
A. Well, the only doubts that any of them expressed that I recall were at the
time of the draft of the report about conspiracy, and I think that we tried to
be very careful to make the report clear that we had found no evidence of a
conspiracy. We did not ever c]aim that we had proved a negative so that a
conspiracy could not have occurred
Page 356
356
that we could not find any evidence on. When the Commissioners examined that
carefully, I think my impression was that they were all willing to accept that,
that that is something they would agree to and would not dissent from or want
any minority report and they so voted. They were unanimous on that.
Now whether or not from the other side they were assured that there was never
going to be discovered that there was a conspiracy, I think that is all they
were ever talking about and that is all they have ever expressed to me, that,
well, you have not proved that there was no conspiracy and we didn't claim that
they did.
Q. Do you have any comment to make on the statements that President Johnson is
quoted to have made after leaving the Presidency to the effect that he beieved
there was some kind of a conspiracy?
A. I would like to see the quotation. I don't beleve he ever said that. I don't
think he ever said that he thought there was a conspiracy. He may have said that
he was not satisfied that there was not a conspiracy. Do you have the quotation
on that?
Q. Perhaps if we take a break we can provide for you some notes we have from the
reporter Howard K. Smith who provided us notes of an interview that he had with
President Johnson in which I believe the President stated that he felt there was
a conspiracy. When we take a break, we will try and provide that for you.
A. Was this from a telecast or some notes that he had that he gave on
television?
Q. As I understand it, it is notes of an interview but it never appeared in any
televised program.
A. I would not have much confidence in it then. If he was not willing to put it
on the air, I would not believe it.
Q. Dealing with the Commissioners. I have showed you prior to taking this
deposition these two documents for the record. One is dated December 12, 1963,
to Mr. Mohr from Mr. DeLoach, subject: "Assassination of the President." The
second is dated December 17, 1963, again from Mr. Mohr to Mr. DeLoach, and that
states, subject: "Lee Harvey Oswald Internal Security."---the letter "R," and
then it says under that "The Presidential Commission."
You have had an opportunity to look through those documents?
A. I have.
Q. The memos indicate that Congressman Gerald Ford who was a Warren Commissioner
on at least two occasions went to speak with Mr. DeLoach and provided him with
information as to what was happening during internal Warren Commission meetings,
what opinions were being expressed by different Commissioners, general
information such as that, and Mr. DeLoach indicates that these meetings were
meetings between himself and Mr. Ford, and were to be kept in the strictest
confidence.
At the time that you were serving on the Warren Commission staff, did you have
any knowledge that Mr. Ford was meeting with Mr. DeLoach?
A. No; I had no knowledge of such meetings and I had no knowledge that they
occurred now. I don't accept those memorandums as the truth. I would like to
know what the former President of the United States says about the matter before
I would believe him,
Page 357
357
particularly in light of what has happened in the Bureau in recent years, and I
would like to see the memos associated with that and around it that may have
been withheld.
Q. Let me ask you this. You have had an opportunity to look at these memos, and
I will let you read them now if you like. The information attributed to Mr. Ford
describing Commission activities, to your recollection is the information
correct?
I have no personal knowledge of Warren Olney's being considered as General
Counsel for the Commission. I heard about it afterward, but that was what
somebody told me. And I don't know anything about this meeting when he says that
it purports to say that if former president Ford objected to Dulles and Boggs. I
don't know anything about that. I never heard about it until I read this memo so
I don't know what the facts are.
I don't think this memo of the 17th is accurate. I don't understand it the way
it reads because it is my impression now that there was not a question of
preliminary release. The FBI report had already been leaked at that point and so
it does not seem to me the Commission ever had the question of whether it was
going to release the report. Can you refresh my memory? Had it not been leaked
before the 17th of December?
Q. I am informed that it had been leaked prior to that.
A. I am sorry to interject that way, but I can't answer your question very well.
That was my impression. So the Commission didn't have the problem of whether
they would release it, it was already out, and it is a question of whether they
would repudiate it or say that that was a valid report, they would rely on, and
it certainly made it plain that they did not rely on it.
Q. Let me ask you this. Accepting your statement that you have no knowledge of
such meeting and do not accept these memos as being accurate, if there were any
meetings between any member of either the Warren Commission staff or any of the
Commissioners themselves in which that person provided information to the
Federal Bureau of Investigation relating to internal Commission matters, would
you consider that significant with regard to the conduct of the Commission's
investigation?
A. My problem would be what kinds of leaks were there--you certainly understand,
I am sure, and Congress would certainly understand--but I could not tell any
member of the Commission that they could not talk to whoever they pleased about
the work of the Commission. They were free agents, they were powerful men in the
Government, and my task was not to tell them, "I am telling you what the
Commission is going to do and don't you ever tell anybody," and so forth. I just
didn't conceive that I had any such right. On the other hand, if there was
information being furnished to the FBI that might alert them to ways of trying
to defeat the investigation, I would certainly be shocked and angry, and try to
do something about it.
Q. That is what I am referring to, that--as you have already stated in your
statement--the Commission was engaged in making certain decisions which affected
the FBI. For example, what to do about the allegation that Lee Harvey Oswald was
an FBI informant and what to do about the fact that Agent Hosty's name was not
in the list of
Page 358
358
names provided to you from the Oswald notebook, considering that the Commission
was engaged in making decisions regarding the FBI. Would your opinion be that
the FBI was being simultaneously formed of what the Commission was saying, the
decision making process, what the different opinions were of different members
of the Commission with respect to these questions pertaining to the FBI? Would
that be a problem with regard to the integrity of the Warren Commission
investigation?
A. Well, I think you are asking me to assume an awful lot that I am not sure
ever happened. You see, these memorandums don't show anything like that as I
read them. They are very preliminary from on December 12 and 17. Where are all
the other memorandums that show the other information that they got or did they
get any other I am assuming you are not withholding anything from me so if they
didn't get any more than this, this is not much of a leak. Do you follow me?
Q. Yes.
A. If they did get more, they are not telling us. On the other hand, try to
respond to your question, if what we were doing was leaked in such a way that
whenever we got something that might help the Commission with its investigation
but might reflect adversely on the FBI that was communicated to them so they
could try to do something to prevent us from getting it or hinder us in some
way, then I would have brought it to the Commission's attention and the
President himself if I had to. I would not have hesitated but I certainly would
not assume that from this memorandum.
Q. OK. I should state for the record that we do not at this time have any other
memorandums which we have not provided to you in this area. We are showing you
what we have.
A. I assumed that and I don't in any way reflect on you about it but the mere
fact that you got these two and no more would either presumably be the FBI does
not have any beyond that which is December 17 or that possibly they are lying
about it and I don't say they are, of course.
Q. Another Commissioner was Allen Dulles who had been the Director of the
Central Intelligence Agency prior to serving with the Commission. What effect,
if any, did Mr. Dulles' prior service with the Central Intelligence Agency have
on his ability to serve as a neutral member of the Warren Commission?
A. Well, we assumed at that time that he would be a substantial asset to the
Commission, that if there was any tendency of the not to cooperate fully or help
the Commission in the investigation that he would see that that did not continue
and help us to get everything available. It would appear now assuming, and I
don't know this, that Allen Dulles knew these things about the activities of the
CIA and with regard to assassinations that have been revealed by the Senate
committee that he helped to withhold the information or at least did not
disclose it, assuming he knew it, so as to assist us in our investigation?
Q. Looking back now on the various actions and statements by Mr. Dulles when he
was serving as a member of the Commission, do you recall him either pushing the
investigation in any directions or frying to restrict it from going into any
areas?
Page 359
359
A. My impression, looking back on it, is that he never at any time indicated any
reticence about investigating or searching for evidence as to conspiracy, either
domestically or foreign, that he was completely cooperative in considering any
material that we had and trying to follow it down and search out for the truth
on it.
Q. Was much use made of his prior Central Intelligence Agency experience in
determining what areas the investigation should go into and what techniques it
should utilize?
A. Not very much. We didn't want, or I didn't--l can't speak for the Commission
but I didn't want to be controlled by any member of the Commission as to the
areas we would go into. I felt that our duty was to be exhaustive in regard to
every possibility and didn't want to ask for any assistance that might be
something that I had to climb over later in the nature of suggestions that might
be opposing and so I didn't ask that type of suggestions from any Commissioner,
urging all the time that we investigate every place and never meeting any
objections to proceeding.
Q. According to Senate testimony Dulles personally authorized the Castro
assassination plots in the fall of 1960. With that in mind do you think that his
presence on the Commission and the fact that whenever informed the Commission or
the staff of his knowledge of this type of CIA activity--- do you think that
there were other areas that he in any way could have affected by his lack of
candor of the staff?
A. Well, in the first place I would not believe that Mr. Dulles did authorize
such action from anything that I have seen or that I have heard. My impression
of the materials that I have been furnished by you with regard to the report of
the Senate committee in its investigation is that there is a considerable amount
being withheld and there may be a lot of false testimony in some of the
information furnished in connection with what they describe as the eight
assassination attempts.
To me as a lawyer in my experience in life for a good many years have the
impression that where they felt that you had some other information or the
Senate committee had some other information like an Inspector General's report,
or other things that they could not avoid, you got something out of them and
there is a vast amount that they either are not telling or they are telling
their own version of the way they want it to look and I would not rely on any of
it. I don't mean that you have not gotten some material but I don't think you
have gotten all of it by any means.
Q. Could you clarify your last statement to us as far as who would be
manipulating the data to which you are referring?
A. I don't mean that this committee or the Senate committee are manipulating
anything. You are trying to get, I assume, the truth, just like I was in my
investigation but the witnesses, it appears to me from reading and having read
hundreds maybe thousands of records in my professional life, were not frank and
open about their disclosures and they have problems that you can readily
recognize about Personal liability for some of the things they were engaged in
and all of those things so that they have all kinds of possible motivation
Page 360
360
to not tell you the whole story and it seems to me it is replete with
possibilities of that kind.
Q. So you are suggesting that testimony to the effect that Allen Dulles was
personally responsible for the Castro assassination attempts does not convince
you that that was actually the fact?
A. That is true. Now just think. Allen Dulles is dead; he cannot say a word
about it, poor fellow. The fellow that did anything about it has to have
somebody to unload it on so he passes it up to the dead man. How convincing or
credible is that? That is the kind of record you run into all the time.
Look at Mr. Hoover. Everything that happened Mr. Hoover did. Anything now that
anybody living can point to, that is criticized. Maybe Mr. Hoover did do it, but
it is certainly an easy way out. Why should I believe that? In the experience of
life I think any jury would have difficulty with it. It could happen but when is
the memorandum, where is the paper?
You have got testimony of people who have every interest to point the finger at
somebody else instead of taking responsibility themselves I note that they
didn't say the president approved it. Why didn't they? Well, that would be going
pretty far but there is not any kind of paper to substantiate any of that stuff.
Q. Moving to another area would you tell us what you felt were the pressures
that were on the Commission, the Commission staff, in 1964?
A. Well, let me try to do it first with regard to the Commission. The Commission
had a general responsibility to the people to try to find the answers with
regard to who the assassin was; what Ruby had to do with it and whether there
was a conspiracy. It also had an obligation to do it as promptly as possible
because the entire country was disturbed by this and it had its impact in
foreign capitals throughout the world, too. A large part of the people, the
world, were greatly disturbed by President Kennedy's death and the disturbance
continued from there. Many people were unhappy about it and the fact that this
man with so many aspirations for the country, for the world, had had his life
terminated and I think the Commissioners felt a heavy responsibility in that
regard. The staff were involved in doing the work and I felt that they were
dedicated. I never found any of them, any single one, that indicated that he was
looking for something other than the truth and I was exerting pressure on them
all the time to get along with their work and not do any loafing or neglect
their responsibilities.
My experience in working with people and lawyers, too, is that they are not
always motivated to go to work 8 or 10 hours a day and do it every day without
some prodding. Days are different and how they feel about it and so forth. I had
to keep after them and I did and I always checked constantly about whether they
were getting the preliminary investigation, whether they had read the FBI
reports, Secret Service or other intelligence agencies and what they had done
about personal interviews, whether they were prepared to have a hearing and how
soon if they were not presently and I exert the pressure about that.
There was talk about trying to get the report out. I was told, as I told you,
that it would only take 3 months for my job in the first place
Page 361
361
and then we were going to try to get it out in 6 months and that seemed
obviously impossible soon after. I got there and then we were under the time
pressure to try to get it done within a year as a reasonable time. A great deal
of pressure came from the press and the public who wanted to get an answer to
some of these questions.
I felt that we were spending a considerable amount of money but one ever raised
that question except myself. On the other side of that question I told the Chief
Justice and then the Commission that I thought all of our appendixes should be
printed, all of the basic material we had and I asked the Printing Office what
it cost and they said something around $1 million or thereabouts. When I told
the Chief Justice that he was very much shocked. He said, "My, we can't spend
money like that."
I said: "Well, I think the report without it is not going to have the validity
that it will have if it is supported and people can check out what we did."
He said:"Well, that is up to the Congress. I don't know whether they will
approve anything like that or spend the money. You better go talk to the other
members of the Commission."
So I went first to Senator Russell and told him what I recommended strongly and
why. He said, "I agree with you." He said, "How much is it going to cost?" I
told him about $1 million and he said:"Go right ahead, don't worry about it. We
will get the money for you."
I said, "Well, what about my talking to Congressman Boggs and Congressman Ford
and Senator Cooper?"
"Don't worry about it. I wall talk to them. We will get the money. You go ahead
and do it."
I went back to the Chief Justice and we all agreed that is what we would do.
So I did exert considerable pressure about not dillydallying when we had gotten
down to a place where we had exhausted our various leads and getting started to
write. Like I told you before, some seemed to hang back about ever getting
started writing and they had good minds, their investigation was good, they saw
their materials but just write it out. Even to make a draft seemed to be hard
for some of them to do and finally we had to do the writing for some areas for
their materials and put it together and then rewrite it and so forth and have
them read it and make any suggestions or changes and corrections and so forth.
I feel that we probably could go on for 20 years with such an investigation and
keep on trying different leads but you know that is not practical in the
Government and I could not recommend anything like that. It seemed like we
should get to a place where we did the best we could with the leads we had and
the information we had and then report to the people and let them have a
judgment about what we did.
Q. At the time did you feel that you had adequate time to investigate the ease?
A. Yes: I did. I felt that we had done everything reasonable from the
information that we had obtained. The only area I was bothered about was the
conspiracy and then I was always fighting with that idea of trying to prove the
negative. I knew better. I knew that you
Page 362
362
can't. It was always possible and it is possible in the next 100 years that
somebody will come out and actually be able to show that there was some
conspiritorial action but that seems to me to be a question of proof. You have
to present the evidence that is credible and I don't think there has been any so
far.
Q. Looking back today with 20-20 hindsight, was the time devoted to the
investigation adequate?
A. Well, I think so. Certainly it would not have been adequate if we had gotten
this information that you have about the CIA's activity and FBI's knowledge of
it and so forth. I am sure there would have been quite a serious upheaval in the
Commission and the Government and everything if they had known that that
information was withheld and I am confident the President would have been active
in that area if he had known that.
Were there any political pressures applied to either the staff or to the
Commission?
Nobody was ever selected on the basis of political activity or background. I
didn't even know what party they belonged to or didn't belong to. Nobody ever
indicated ny political interest from the President on down. If you mean by
political whether there was an active interest in trying to get a report to the
people, there was that by all the Commissioners.
Q. What about a political pressure with respect to finishing the report by a
certain date prior to the election, prior to the convention?
A. Well, in my opinion--you are talking about November?
Q. Yes.
A. There was never any chance. Now maybe other people saw it differently but as
soon as I saw the size of the job, we could not meet that kind of a deadline.
Q. I mean November of 1964.
A. Yes. As I said, I was told it would only take 3 or 4 months when I came down
and as soon as I saw the size of the problems and the job and started outlining
the areas I knew that was unreasonable and I always thought if we could get it
done within about a year, by the end of 1964, that we would have accomplished a
great deal but I never had that as a target date. I think everybody on the
Commission wanted it done as fast as it could be done properly. They all had
more than enough to do without this.
Did the Chief Justice give you a date and say this is the date I want that
report finished by?
A. Well, he gave me a number of times, that we certainly ought to be able to get
this out in a couple of months now and then he gave me another couple months and
we went on that way. I would just tell him it is impossible, we have got too
much yet to do. We had to go through or I would not have had anything to do with
it, I would have resigned. We had to go through and run out our leads and
complete our various areas and feel that we had done all have reasonably could.
Q. We have, as I am sure you know, taken testimony from other members of the
staff.
A. I have not seen any of it.
Q. A number of them had testified to the effect that the Chief Justice had made
it clear to the staff that he wanted the report finished
Page 363
363
before the November election. Do you recall any admonitions from the Chief
Justice that it must be finished by that time?
A. Nothing like that. I think he did say that it would be better for the country
if they didn't have this problem about what our report was going to be before
the convention so that that would not be something that would be brought up and
be made a political issue or anything like that. I never thought there was any
prospect of that. I never indicated to them that they had to meet any such
deadline or anything like that, it was impossible. If you look at the progress
of our work at that point you know that we just weren't far enough along for
anybody to believe that could happen. I think it was just something to use as a
prod to push us along and try to make us get our work done.
Q. Let me refresh your recollection. The report was finished before the election
in fact. The election was in November of 1961 and the report was finished in
September of 1964. It was finished before the election but after the political
conventions.
A. I know it was after the conventions. When were they, in July?
Q. Yes. I am just wondering if you are mixing up the conventions with the
election.
A. September 24. When was the election? The election was November 4?
Mr. EWING. Yes.
BY MR. KLEIN:
Q. So in fact the report was completed before the election.
A. Yes.
Q. Now refreshing your recollection on that, do you recall whether there was
pressure to finish the report before the election which is in fact what
happened?
A. I don't remember if it was the election that was involved. I have strong
recollection that we were constantly exorted to get along with our work and get
it done. I don't remember talk about anything about the election being involved
but I do remember about the conventions that it would come up and be an issue
and controversy and one party against the other and so forth. At least it could
be talked about and so we ought to try to get it out before that and that was
impossible, and I told the Chief Justice. I don't think there was any pressure
because of that and I don't remember the discussion of the election as a date to
me with the staff but I know that I had to urge a number of them to start
writing and not just let it drift from day to day because we just could not have
that.
Q. With respect to pressure, was there any discussion between either yourself
and the Chief Justice or yourself and the Commissioners or yourself and the
staff members about the possible repercussions should your investigation
determine that there was a conspiracy involving some foreign country such as
Cuba or the Soviet Union?
A. Well, I think we had some discussions on this in the staff--I don't remember
the Commissioners--in which it was speculated about if we find a conspiracy with
the Soviet Union involved or Cuba and so forth, what is going to happen or
somebody in the Government. We said that is not our problem, we will find it and
tell the story no matter what happens, and they all agreed that was our job. We
could all
Page 364
364
speculate on what a mess it might make in foreign affairs or domestic.
Q. The knowledge of the grave repercussions, which could result---if, for
example, the Soviet Union were determined to have been involved--did that
knowledge affect the investigation in any manner at all?
A. I didn't observe that it did in any way. It seemed to me that maybe it is
because quite a number of our people were young but they were eager to get the
information and get it out and didn't care who it hurt or helped. Maybe that is
youth and a lack of recognition of all the hazards but I think they also
recognized that any withholding would be very damaging to any of the staff or
the Commission forever with the public; their reputations would be destroyed.
Q. Were there ever any discussions with the Chief Justice about possible
repercussions should the Soviet Union be involved?
A. No. I never had anything from him except find out what the truth was.
Mr. KLEIN. Maybe we should break for lunch now.
[Discussion off the record.]
Mr. KLEIN. Back on the record.
By Mr. KLEIN:
Q. Was the course of the investigation in any way affected by the feeling that
it was important to allay public fears and a smooth transition of government and
the possible thought that finding a single assassin who acted alone would
facilitate this?
A. Not to my knowledge in any respect, either by the commissioners or myself or
by the staff.
You have got so many things in there that I don't know what you are trying to
get at but you just got too many things in there, I can't separate them out.
Q. I will make it simpler.
Would you say that---
A. Allay public fears, of course there was an interest in the Commission
particularly and the staff, too, that the public learn the facts, whatever they
were, and the mere fact that they didn't have anyone to look to to get the whole
story seemed important with regard to the public being disturbed about the
situation. I assume that is why the President appointed a commission.
Q. Did you ever have an opportunity to speak with Robert Kennedy relevant to the
investigation?
A. No. My only contact with Robert Kennedy was when he made arrangements to have
the testimony of Mrs. John Kennedy and he went with us to take that testimony
and I think that appears in the record.
Q. Did you ever speak with President Johnson?
A. Yes, but I never discussed the assassination with him.
Q. Or the investigation?
A. I told him that we were going to come up there and deliver the report and
made the arrangements in that regard and that is all. He never tried to directly
or indirectly interfere or say anything that I knew of about the Commission's
activities.
Q. Showing you this document, which consists of a first page which is a
memorandum from Mr. Belmont to Mr. Evans, subject: Assassination of President
Kennedy, and the second and third pages are a
Page 365
365
memorandum from Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach, and the date on both
documents is November 25, 1963, have you had an opportunity to read the
Katzenbach memo?
A. Yes but I never saw that before. Mr. Ewing I guess gave me a copy to look at,
or you did today, I don't know.
Q. At the time, you were general counsel for the Warren Commission you had no
knowledge that Mr. Katzenback had written this memo on November 25, 1963?
A. I don't recall it at all.
Q. In this memo Mr. Katzenbach indicates that he believes that "the public must
be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin, that he not have confederates who are
still, at large, and that the evidence was such that he would have been
convicted at trial." The memo, as I said, is dated November 25, 1963.
Were you ever aware of any pressures either on yourself or on the commissioners
from the Department of Justice to put out a report this early saying that Lee
Harvey Oswald was the assassin?
A. No, there was not any such pressure. I know there was not. I don't recall
ever having a communication with Mr. Katzenbach or anybody from the Department
that they ever had such ideas.
Do you think that now upon learning of Mr. Katzenbach's beliefs in this
memorandum dated November 25, 1963, that this belief which the Deputy Attorney
General had in any way could have affected your investigation?
A. Well, I am sure it didn't and if anybody had given me that kind of a memo and
told me that was my job, I would never have taken it. I had gotten it after I
started, I would have resigned.
Q. You touched earlier on the subject of a decision not to hire independent
investigators and to rely on the existing Federal agencies.
A. Yes.
Q. Again using 20-20 hindsight, was that a good decision?
A. Well, I think it was a good decision without this element of dishonesty as
far as withholding information, evidence by CIA action and FBI, and so forth, as
they knew CIA action. Even with that I think the problem of trying to establish
an independent investigative staff is overwhelming and when you consider the
man-hours of the intelligence community of the Government that we used, I don't
know where they would be available in the country and I am sure that you would
not have the competency of the best men that the Bureau had when I knew it in
the Department of Justice and the assistance of the Secret Service and the Army
and all the various intelligence agencies. If you try to put that together, I
doubt whether you could find it in all the peace forces of the country and I
don't mean to denigrate them at all but when you take the number of people that
were used on this investigation and the man-hours and all it would take a
tremendous staff just in personnel let alone knowledge and ability of
investigations. Then we used, as is obvious I think from our report, various
members of the intelligence community from different agencies to check up on
each other and they resented that but I think it helped us.
Q. Were you aware whether there was any communication between the different
intelligence agencies which might have somewhat limited the effectiveness of
using one to check the other?
Page 366
366
A. No, I was not aware of anything like that. I did know that at times there
was--l heard that there was criticism by either generally the Secret Service
against the FBI for making them look bad about some investigation that was not
as complete as they had done but not anything that would be of the character of
trying to compare notes in advance or anything like that. I felt that there was
a deep resentment by the Secret Service against the FBI for making them look bad
and by the FBI against the Secret Service for vice versa.
Q. Was there ever any consideration to using the Federal agencies by hiring some
investigators of your own, sort of a combination, make use of the Federal
manpower but also have some independent investigators?
A. Well, I gave some thought to that and I finally concluded that would lose
more than I would gain, that the whole intelligence community in the Government
would feel that the Commission was indicating a lack of confidence in them and
that from then on I would not have any cooperation from them, they would
universally be against the Commission and try to trip us up.
Q. How would you characterize the Commission's relations with the Federal Bureau
of Investigation?
A. Well, they were fairly good at first and then as we became more critical at
times and the Hosty incident came up and the question about Oswald and the
Director being required to swear personally about whether Oswald had any
connection with the FBI and our asking the Secret Service from time to time to
investigate things the had already investigated and go back over their tracks,
it didn't warmup much at least on a friendly basis.
Q. Did it at any time become an adversary relationship?
A. Well, I went to see Mr. Hoover before we finally put out our report and I had
known him when I had been with the Department of Justice for 6 years and always
had cordial relations but he was pretty feisty when I saw him; any friendship we
had had in the past was not very apparent then.
Q. Did you think at that time that you were getting the full cooperation of the
Bureau?
A. Well, I thought so to this extent. I thought they would never lie about
anything and that if we had any difficulty it might be that they would not bore
in as hard as we would like to have them but I thought we could tell that and
insist on either following it up which we did a great many times by sending them
back to do it again and to do it more thoroughly or putting the Secret Service
to do it and they resented that so much that they were a little more careful
after that about trying to be more thorough, and so forth. But to have them just
lie to us, I never anticipated that.
The things that have happened in the Bureau in the last few years have been
revealed in the press, and so forth. I never thought the Bureau was capable of
that. When I was with the Department of Justice I never thought they were
capable of it and I didn't think agents would be such things. So I was rather
sanguine about that and I don't think the country believed the FBI would do such
things.
Q. Were their responses to your staff's requests timely?
A. Yes, I think they were remarkably good. I really felt ashamed at times with
that of the demands we put on them. It was beyond any
Page 367
367
reasonable requirements or rights that we had and we asked them to work very
long hours at times because we were trying to get something done when we thought
it was more available and might not be later, things of that type. I think they
could have said, "Look, we have been doing a tremendous amount for you and there
ought to be an end to this some time," but I never received that kind of
treatment even to last.
Let us recess for lunch.
[Whereupon at 1 p.m., a recess was taken until 1:20 p.m.]
AFTERNOON SESSION
Mr. KLEIN. We have just completed a short break for lunch and we will now
continue with questions to Mr. Rankin.
[Whereupon, J. Lee Rankin having previously been sworn by the notary public,
resumed the stand and testified further as follows:]
Q. You are aware of the fact that approximately 17 days after the assassination
the FBI had a report with their finding that the Harvey Oswald was the assassin
and that he acted alone, is that correct?
A. I am not sure about the time. I know it was shortly afterward.
Q. Considering that FBI was the primary investigative arm of the Warren
Commission, what, if any, effect did it have on your investigation that they had
already reached a conclusion as to who the assassin was?
A. Well, the principal effect it had on our people in the Warren Commission,
including the Commissioners was what they had already taken their position and
that we had to be careful about anything that they gave us.
Do you think it affected the incentive of the people working on this case to
properly investigate the areas which you had designated to be investigated?
A. Yes. I think that they all felt that we ought to just take them their report
and go on home but we didn't and we just kept piling it on them information that
we wanted from every place we had a lead.
Q. Do you think that this feeling had affected your investigation in any way?
A. Because we made them go back and do it where we thought was inadequate at all
and we made it plain to them that we would only accept a good workmanlike job.
It may have affected our investigation in that they did not do original work to
try to find out the intomarion that they would, if it was an open matter and
they were just working on it in that manner, don't know about that, I never saw
any sign of it but it is possible.
Q. For example, did you ever have the feeling that if you gave them a particular
assignment they would go as far as they had to go to fulfill your request that
they might not but that they might not if it were not for the fact that they had
already reached their conclusion?
A. I don't think so because I think everybody who worked on the investigation
from the Bureau realized that his job and his future
Page 368
368
depended upon the FBI's not being criticized because of the way he did his work
and I think they were so sensitive to that that it protected us in having them
to do a good job because if they slipped and we would point the finger at them
and Hoover would be on their back and discipline accordingly.
Q. On the other hand, if by following the leads you wanted them to investigate,
they did it with great enthusiasm and found information which led to a
conclusion different from the FBI report might that not also have led to great
embarrassment for the Bureau?
A. Yes, that is true, and if they had found something like that, I am sure that
if we had received it it would be only after Mr. Hoover had examined it
carefully himself and didn't dare withhold it from now that is looking from now
rather that at the time he didn't think he would deliberately lie.
Q. Were there ever any pressures from the Bureau to investigate certain areas or
not to investigate certain areas?
A. No. Whenever we got critical about anything that happened the Bureau's
investigation, it was obvious they didn't like it. It was distasteful job but we
put it back to them in such a way that they were on the spot and I never saw any
sign that they ducked out.
Q. Did you ever get any indications from the Bureau that a particular area
should be left alone or you should go easy in that area due to national security
ramifications?
A. The only thing that I got that impression at all about what this business
about whether or not Oswald had a number as an agent and the Bureau had a system
that I think is public now that some accents were identified by numbers or some
other system rather then their names and they expressed a fear that covers would
be taken off of good many of their agents if we went down the list and checked
every number out to see whether Oswald could be identified and in that process
we had to go through taking each number and finding out what really had that
assigned end then our whole start would know every covered agent that they had,
as you see. That did disturb them and that is why we finally were willing to
take J. Edgar Hoover's statement about that situation. I thought and the
Commission thought that they had a pretty serious point for us to brush aside
that we reveal all the covered agents that they had that are identified by
numbers to our whole staff and then expect it to not get out so as to destroy
some of it.
Q. You are referring to the fact that Hoover had some of his accents, I believe
about eight of them, sign affidavits saving that Oswald was not any kind of an
informant. Is that what you are testifying to?
A. Yes; and also what Oswald was not an agent.
Q. Yes. In retrospect---
A. You see, we could identify the fact that Oswald was not there on any of their
lists, that was easy, and so forth, hut when you got into these special numbers
then you had to go back and find out who is covered by that number so as to
conceal his identity and then you would have all of the special agents that were
so covered identified and revealed.
Q. Once again, looking upon that decision with 20-20 knowing what you know
today, do you think it was adequate to allow Hoover to present the Commission
with these affidavits rather than having some kind of independent investigation?
Page 369
369
A. Well, I think we still, even if we had the problem today, have the dilemma
that I have seen in the Government a number of times where, and I see it is
involved right now in various areas about the CIA and the FBI and intelligence
community whether you want to have a disclosure that is going to destroy any
usefulness as far as protecting the national security is concerned and weigh
that against what you might get out of it.
Q. Granted that it is a difficult problem, my question still would be looking
back on it would you have resolved it in the same manner knowing what you know
now?
A. I think I would have accepted it because I think the Commission would have
made me because I think fix the Government the tendency has been not to make
that revelation when it is thought that it might seriously damage the national
security.
Q. You are also aware from the materials that we have given you of the letter
allegedly written by Lee Harvey Oswald to FBI Agent Hosty which was subsequently
destroyed by Agent Hosty. Am correct that you are aware of this?
A. I am aware that there was such a letter and it was destroyed. I am not aware
of its contents because it seems conflicting in your memo as to what the
contents were, Apparently the receptionist thought she saw a precise contents
and Hosty and possibly others claim that they were different. What she saw
seemed to me was much more practical material than the recital of the others and
I am aware of what you showed me about that.
Q. What is the significance of the fact that the FBI did not inform the Warren
Commission of the letter or of its destruction?
A. I think there is considerable significance. In the first place, Hosty was
doing quite a bit of work on the inquiries that the Commission made and if we
had known that he had destroyed any of materials relating to the investigation
or his activities we would not have allowed him to do anything more that we knew
of in connection with work for the Commission. There is an implication from that
note and its destruction that there might have been more to it and that the
Bureau was unwilling to investigate whatever more there was and never would get
the information to us. Now that is just a guess. There is, of course, no
credible proof and so we really don't know how much: there was to the incident
and especially what could have been found out about it if it had been examined
closely upon the event.
Q. You are disturbed about the omission of information pertaining to this
letter?
A. Of course.
Q. A second incident relating to the FBI was the omission of Hosty's name from a
list which was provided to the Warren Commission of names appearing in Oswald's
notebook and I believe you were aware when you were serving on the Commission of
this commission, is that correct?
A. That is correct.
Q. What are your thoughts relative to that incident?
A. Well, we were very much disturbed about it at the time and it was only Mr.
Hoover's assurances about it that sort of made us accept it and that was an
entirely different climate. It was a time when I am
Page 370
370
sure all the Commissioners and I certainly believed that Mr. Hoover would not do
that unless it was the truth and all of the things that have come out in these
later years about Mr. Hoover and the Bureau and various personnel had not been
made known to me or the public or the Commissioners so it is quite different
looking at it from this day than from then.
Q. The omission becomes much more significant in light of other fats which have
become known to you?
A. Well it raises more questions. It does not prove anything. There is no
affirmative proof in it. You just wonder whether there are other reasons than
mere fact that it was not there.
Q. On a broader scale, the knowledge that you now have that has come out about
information omitted that was not provided you by the FBI, does this general fact
that this type of thing was going on and at the time you never saw it on the
broad scale to which it existed, does that bother you today as to how it
affected the investigation?
A. Well, it does in certain areas. It does in regard to the CIA assassination
activities and the fact that that was known to the FBI and that they concealed
it. Those I think are much more serious than any of these others because that
was an get of concealment and it raises the question of whether there are others
and whether the Bureau would make a good, thorough investigation of ordinary
matters but when it got into something that would involve considerations that
appear to be present in those withholdings they are governed by entirely
different standards. Even then we don't have anything out of it that shows that
there was a conspiracy and I assume that where our staff is checking out all the
possible leads on that, then if you had something that was concrete evidence you
would have been out with it long before this or somebody would and so it just
raises doubts about the way our Government has been conducted and the fact that,
it seems to be more important to people that they protect their particular
agency or Bureau than their own country. It does not prove that there was ever a
conspiracy. By that I mean conspiracy to kill president Kennedy. There may have
been a conspiracy as far as the Commission was concerned and what they were
going to do to it, and it has worked.
Q. Was the possibility ever considered that the Mafia might have been involved
in some manner in the Kennedy assassination?
A. Yes, I think that we examined that to a considerable extent regard to Ruby
because he had some background and I don't know; whether I can distinguish
between the underworld and the Mafia, whether it was--I think the Mafia is
limited to certain groups of the underground and not the whole underworld but
certainly he had some background with underworld connections and we tried to
follow out in the leads we had. It didn't seem to reveal anything as far as
conspiracy was concerned and except for his ability to kill Oswald, Ruby didn't
demonstrate any characteristics that you would consider particularly skilled or
the type of person that the Mafia would elect to be one of their men or
assistants or anything like that. So all of those things raised doubts about
that.
We also, or I realize and I think everybody did, the problem of trying to prove
anything with regard to activities in the Mafia and the
Page 371
371
that people don't live very long after they testify when they are connected with
the Mafia in any way.
Q. Were you made aware that the Bureau had extensive electronic surveillance,
wiretaps, on most major organized crime figures from 1959 to 1965?
A. I was not aware of that at all until maybe 2 or 3 years ago and then I heard
inquires about whether or not there were such wiretaps during the time I was in
the Department of Justice, it came to my attention. I had been assured by Mr.
Hoover and I had been in the resence of Attorney General Brownell when he
assured Mr. Brownell that there were no domestic wiretaps, the only ones were
foreign wiretaps within the Presidential power which were very limited and only
done upon the approval of the President or the Attorney General, excuse me. And
then I learned that it was a fact that the Department had departed from that
practice and gone ahead and put wiretaps on various personnel that they felt
were involved in organized crime and knew or I was confident that was after I
left the Government. That is how it came to my attention.
Q. The conversation you had with Mr. Hoover and Mr. Brownell, when did that take
place?
A. Well, I think it was 1956 or 1957, somewhere in there.
Q. And you said you learned later that they did have domestic wiretaps. When was
that that you learned that?
A. That was in 1971 or 1972.
Q. And in 1963 had you inquired whether they had any domestic wiretaps at that
time?
A. No, I had not. I thought it was illegal and I assumed that they were not
doing illegal acts.
Q. Let me make clear that the wiretaps that I am referring to were unlawful.
A. I always thought that they were and as a lawyer in my experience the
constitutional law and so forth and I just assumed that the Bureau didn't do
those things.
Q. Considering that they did exist and considering the nature of your
investigation which was not courtroom trial. had you been informed that the
Bureau had this electronic surveillance of organized crime figures, would you
have requested conversations recorded in 1963, possibly early 1963, of certain
figures?
A. Well. I don't know. That is highly speculative. I will tell you my problem
With that would be that I would have on the Commission the Chief Justice of the
United States in all of these other Government officials who would be involved
in using material that was in my opinion highly illegal, violation of people's
constitutional rights and whether I should put them in that kind of a position
knowingly would be a serious question. I don't think that their duties as
Commissioners would require that they step up and violate the Constitution. I
have not ever thought that a man in public office had a duty or a right to
violate the law in order to carry out his official position.
Q. My question actually would not involve them violating the law, it would
merely violate reading or listening to tapes which were taken in violation of
the law.
Page 372
372
A. They would be using the product and how could these men in public life
justify knowing that that was going on, asking for it and using it?
Q. On the other hand--
A. They stood against that all the way through in their whole life, they are
opposed to that type of thing.
Q. On the other hand, it might be that there were conversations relating
directly to the subject which you were investigating and which might very well
since no one knew what was in these types might very well have led to a solution
to many of the unanswered questions.
A. Yes; I think that is just like saying it would have been a good thing not to
have Castro around and, therefore, you should proceed to assassinate him
regardless of what was you are breaking.
Q. Turning to the Central Intelligence Agency, do you recall who the people were
st the Agency with whom you had direct contact in your investigation?
A. I don't.
Q. Do you recall speaking to Richard Helms at any time?
A. I know he testified. I am sure he testified.
Q. Do you know if this involvement was more than just testifying?
A. Well, I have, it seems to me, a recollection that he was an important figure
in our liaison with the CIA and either we were directed by Mr. McCone or someone
else but I think Mr. McCone to deal with him and he would have other people in
the CIA that we could then talk to and work with and so forth.
Q. How would you characterize the Commission's relationship with the CIA?
A. Well, it seemed to be very precise and regular, something like you are
dealing with another country. Like Ambassadors deal with each other.
Q. Was it an adversary relationship in any way?
A. Not in appearance. It is obvious they were now but from what you have learned
they were I think smooth about it. They were polished diplomats.
Q. That would be in as distinguished from your relations with the Bureau which
eventually did become strained, is that correct?
A. Yes, there were times when relations with the Federal Bureau of Investigation
could be characterized as kind of surly and we were partners of convenience
rather than enjoyment.
Q. And although the CIA might have been doing much the same witholding they
managed to do it in a friendly manner?
A. Yes; but I really don't think that the Bureau was withholding generally, and
to me what the CIA withheld is of major importance because of the nature of the
information and the size of it and the whole picture and their intimacy with it,
and the Bureau's withholding was of somebody else's activities and not as to
anything of that seriousness, I think, as far as I have been able to find so far
with regard to their own activities.
Q. When you referred to the CIA's withholding, you are referring to the fact
that there were plots to assassinate Fidel Castro?
A. Yes; according to the committee's report.
Q. And you as General Counsel of the Warren Commission were never told of any
such plots?
Page 373
373
A. That is correct; I never was.
Q. And to your knowledge was the Chief Justice ever informed of such plots?
A. Well, some of the material that I was given indicated that after the
Commission had made its report and I had left and all that, the Chief Justice
did receive some information from Drew Pearson and he promptly reported to the
President, I guess, and the President directed that the FBI investigate it, and
they reluctantly did without any thorougliness, without even giving background
material to the agents or the people that did the investigation, according to
this material that you gave me.
Q. But to the best of your knowledge during the course of the investigation, the
Chief Justice had no information pertaining to the assassination plots?
A. He never imparted any to me and I am confident that he never withheld
anything from me, so I am sure he would not have, and his reaction when he did
learn of it according to your memo is of reporting it promptly to the President
is characteristic of him.
Q. You have touched on this withholding by the CIA a number of times today. It
was in your opinion a very significant withholding?
A. Yes; I think so, and I think it was selfish, in their own interests in
accordance with the information I have which, of course, is not to my knowledge
just what you supplied me from your materials.
You are referring in this case to the materials from the Church committee?
A. That is right. And I think that the only construction you could put on it was
that if the country had been informed that they were engaged in this type of
assassination plots, that it was very possible that they had caused a reaction
from Cuba or from someone interested in Castro or connected with him that caused
the assassination of President Kennedy, or that they might have even been
engaged themselves in a plot against the President and that that was more
dangerous than withholding, and it is very possible the FBI had the some kind of
thinking that would be so damaging to the intelligence community and everything
that they did and wanted to do, that they didn't dare reveal it.
Q. Is there any question but that your investigation would have followed new
revenues had you been informed of what these plots were?
A. No; we certainly would have followed every lead down. I don't want to claim
that we would have found something you did find or that we could have broken
behind the underworld shield of keeping the other problems that are involved in
that, but least we ought to have had the opportunity to try.
Q. Had you known about these plots, might your investigation have focused more
on the Agency itself than it ultimately did?
A. Well, I don't know whether I could do better than the Congress has in trying
to find out what happens in the CIA.
Q. I am not really asking if you would have been successful but would not have
been directed more toward the Agency than it was?
A. I think that we would have been alerted to the type of thing that they were
capable of and would have tried to find out as much as we could from them but
probably also use all other possibilities to check
Page 374
374
them because I think the Commission would have come to the conclusion they could
not rely much on anything they did if they found out that they were involved in
the assassination plots against the heaxls of countries.
Q. Would their relationship with the underworld also have had effect on your
investigation?
A. I am sure that we would have had some effect that would be substantial from
learning about that relationship. It would cause us
to try to exhaust any possibilities there and also to follow up more on the
assumption with Ruby that there might have been some of their connections; that
is, the CIA's connections with the underworld that were involved there and the
fact that they were involved it seems to me would also compromise almost any of
their activities as far as we were concerned because it is easy to see how the
CIA could get itself in the position of being blackmailed with regard to law
enforcement or its activities by reason of that connection and obligations to
it.
Q. In determining whether there was any connection between Oswald who was known
to have certain Cuban affiliations and Ruby who was known to have some type of
underworld associations, might it have changed the course of your investigation
at least to focus, to that the CIA with their assassination plots was dealing
with the underworld and thereby connecting Cuba with the underworld, the two
areas in which Ruby and Oswald each had connections?
A. Well, I think we would have followed up on that and tried to ascertain the
extent of such connection, if any. I still see a difficulty in trying to connect
Oswald up with Ruby through the Cuban and underworld picture because it seems to
me it looked like it could be a possibility from this, but it does not look like
you ever get them connection, and Oswald is so foreign from most of Ruby's
world, including as far as we could determine that he never visited the place or
places that Ruby had, that it is very possible that we would have found this
came out to an empty picture, but at least we would have the opportunity to find
out.
Let me suggest a concrete, example. I have shown you this memo of February 24,
1964, to Mr. Willens from Mr. Hubert and Mr. Griffin and it concerns some
recommendations made by Mr. Griffin and Hubert with respect to freezing certain
telephone records.
A. Yes.
Q. New I will show it to you once more.
A. I am familiar with it. I think you ought to describe it a little more though,
how far ranging it is.
Q. It is certainly--well, there are a number of questions; I think there is
altogether 10 paragraphs, 10 sections. Ultimately some of these suggestions were
accepted and some were rejected as far as freezing the records.
A. Yes.
Q. Might---
A. But some of them are so involved so much and such large expense to all of the
telephone companies and everybody else that would have to do it that it just
seemed unreasonable to try to spend all that money without more justification
for it.
Q. Which is the point I am getting to which is that the object of this: memo was
to see if some connection could be established between Ruby
Page 375
375
and Oswald through their respective associates. Had you had some knowledge of
the CIA Mafia plots which at least offered a tentative possibility that the
Cuban area and the Mafia area might have some connection--
A. This was not just through their various associates. This was through the
telephone calls of the various associates.
Q. I understand.
A. Which is more limited. It also involves a more remote prospect, too.
Q. I understand. My basic question is might some of these recommendations which
were rejected have been looked at more carefully possibly even accepted if
knowledge of the CIA Mafia assassination plots were known to you?
A. Can you refresh my memory as to which ones were rejected?
Q. There were some specific associates or names that were rejected although at
this time I can't say which ones and I know the general recommendation that all
phone call records from a number of cities, Texas, Nevada, Los Angeles, San
Francisco, is all together 11 cities, that those would all be frozen might this
request have been looked at a different light? If more information were known
about the CIA's assassination plots.
A. Well, it might have made a difference. The one about freezing records--that
was 11 cities or some such number--is such a shotgun approach to the problem
that generally I didn't approve of that kind of activity because that can
involve unlimited expense and unlimited time and no assurance of any return
whatsoever. I tried to--l think we had had a followup on the more identifiable
and one step could be indicated as being prior associates and having some
information and knowing something about them. So I think that it could have had
an effect in that while we would not, I don't believe, approve anything so
general as that I would have I think been favorable to trying to go specifically
into what particular associates might be there that would have any prospect of
connection with Ruby or with this problem, or underworld and then go on to a
particular locality and forth based on more specific information.
Q. To your recollection did the CIA ever indicate to you, to the Chief Justice,
or to the Commission in general that you should not pursue a line of
investigation because of national security reasons?
A. They never did to me and they never did to any member of the Commission that
I know of.
Q. Did you ever have a feeling that the CIA was trying to encourage you to go in
a particular direction in your investigation?
A. No.
Q. Do you recall being informed by the CIA that they had information from a
Soviet defector relating to Lee Harvey Oswald in Russia?
A. Yes.
Q. I should inform you that our committee has top secret clearance and has been
provided with all materials relating to this defector that you would not be
revealing to us any information that we are not supposed to be receiving.
Do you remember the name of the defector?
A. No; I don't.
Page 376
376
Q. Does the name Nosenko---
A. No.
Q. Do you recall what you were told with respect to Nosenko?
A. No. I do feel that We heard there was a defector from the Soviet that could
give us some information about Oswald, we were very elated. It is ray
recollection now that it didn't pan out and we became very disappointed.
Q. Do you recall why it didn't pan out?
A. No. You would have to refresh my memory about that.
Q. Before I do that, let me ask you one question. Do you recall the substance of
what he had to say?
A. No; I am quite sure there was nothing about a conspiracy. Whether he was
supposed to have been an agent or something, I am not sure.
Q. Do you recall whether there was any discussion with the CIA representatives
as to whether Nosenko was a legitimate defector? As opposed to being a
dispatched KGB agent?
A. Well, it seems to me ray recollection that they were quite suspicious that he
might be dispatched to carry certain information to cause us to believe that
something probably didn't have any truth to it.
Q. Do you recollect any of these discussions?
A. No, but I think that is about the substance of it.
Q. Was there any consideration given to whether members of the staff or your
Commission should interview Nosenko?
A. I don't recall any. I don't know whether he was able to speak English or not.
I don't really recall that.
Q. I think that our records will reflect that at that time he did speak English
and had been interviewed in English by the Agency. Can you give us any reasons
as to why your people might not have wanted to interview him?
A. Well, I don't recall whether they wanted to or not. My own reaction is that
at that time we did not have doubts about the CIA and we had no one that
purported to have still in trying to determine who was a plant and who was not a
plant and, therefore, that we would be in kind of discipline act that we had no
experience with and we would be lost as far as any skills concerned in the
field.
Q. To your knowledge was any information gained from Nosenko incorporated into
the final report of the Coramission?
A. I don't recall any. See, when we discussed with the CIA people about the
problem of whether someone was being planted or a genuine defector and so forth
they purported to give us, maybe it was not valid but we accepted it at the time
detailed discussion of how you had know about things within the Soviet and
various matters that you could ask about during the periods of time and
activities and who was engaged in there and that whole background of vast amount
of material that would disclose whether somebody---what he really knew and what
he didn't know and what he failed to know that would reveal what his connections
were and whether he actually had the connection and experience in that whole
Soviet setup that would verify his story or would promptly show that some of it
was fixed that this was special knowledge and that we would be just children
trying to make inquiries and could be easily fooled.
Page 377
377
Q. Was any consideration given to the fact that although the CIA certainly would
be the experts on all information pertaining to Nosenko's background in the KGB
and his manner of defection but that members of your staff might very well have
superior knowledge as to Oswald and be able to make a more educated judgment on
the question of whether Nosenko was telling the truth about Oswald?
A. No; I don't think that is true that our people would be superior in that
regard. We didn't have enough information about Oswald at any time to be
informed in depth. He had certain things that we had gotten this period in the
Soviet, in this country and in the Marines but all of that was either not very
unusual or information that some of could have been planted on us by Oswald and
some of it with regard to his life before he went to the Soviet. You know, for
instance, incompetency in regard to language and communication and all of that,
his difficulty to explain as compared with some of his accomplishments and it
also puzzled us and I don't think that in the time that we studied we could
have--I think we have been very conceited to think that we were so experienced
that we would know more about him than someone who had spent time with him or
knew him from his activities I just don't think we would have sufficient skill
to compare what they might know within what happened in the Soviet and what we
knew. In fact, I think all of us felt we didn't know enough about what happened
within the Soviet and what was truth and what was manufactured for us and
whether he went to the Embassy for ulterior purposes or valid purposes, and all
of that kind of a problem, and we frankly told the people in the CIA we knew of
no way to break down behind that kind of a society and they didn't seem to be
able to either. They didn't have any information to give us as to how they could
get more accurate information about what Oswald did while he was there.
Q. Was it your belief that the CIA had any kind of expertise as far as Oswald
was concerned?
A. I always had the impression that they knew quite a bit about the history and
that they appeared to know about as much as we did about
his life. They knew a lot of his background material about how he grew up, and
his another"s problems and his problems and his Marine history and all that kind
of business, what we knew about in the Soviet.
Q. If I were to tell you that the person from the Agency who questioned Nosenko
about Oswald personally knew nothing about Oswald other than what he read in the
newspapers, would that greatly surprise you.
A. It would. Just as much as I, would this memo about the agents going to a
lawyer to ask about the conspiracy and not having any background testimony. If
you told me that the FBI had operated that way back at this time I would say it
can't be, they just don't do that, but it does reveal a lot though that they
would do anything like that purporting to think to be helping us and--that is
just ordinary homework.
Q. Were you under any impression as to whether the Agency was specifically
trying to check out any of the information given to them by Nosenko about
Oswald?
A. I got the impression that they were doing that and were going to do it
carefully.
Page 378
378
Q. I am distinguishing checking out information that Nosenko gave about Oswald
as opposes to checking out other types of leads provided by Nosenko.
A. Yes.
Q. Were you of the impression that---
A. I don't want to give the impression, however, that is they concluded that
whenever they, did conclude, as I recall, they did that he was not a valid
defector, that they would do much more than just try not to reveal that they
discovered him or found him out and go away but I don't think you can do very
much after that to try to learn anything from him.
Q. Would you be surprised to learn that on April 4 the Agency began what they
called hostile heterrogations of Nosenko and that the first time they questioned
him in depth about Oswald was not until July. When did they conclude that he was
not a valid defector.
Well, my point is that Nosenko came over in the begnnning of February of 1964,
he was questioned from February until April 4, and at that time he was not
confined, he was not in prison in any manner. Beginning on April 4, hostile
interrogations began although it is difficult to say at what point somebody did
not believe he was a legitimate conspirator. At that point he was confined, he
was imprisoned begining April 4 and up to that time he had not been questioned
in depth about Oswald.
Would that surprise you?
A. Well, it would not surprise me that they would not ask him about Oswald
before they had verified whether they thought he was a valid defector. We were
certainly interested in that and didn't care about a lot of fabrications
furnished us that had been planted---why they waited until July I don't know and
I could not tell without seeing more of what happened in that interval.
Q. What was the relationship of the State Department to the Commission?
A. Well, we thought it was friendly.
Q. Do you have any reason now to think it was otherwise?
A. Well, no; I don't. I always felt that by the nature of the things nothing
that anybody ever told me that the State Department would not be pleased if we
found that the Soviet was involved in the conspiracy to kill the President of
the United States or that Castro from Cuba was involved in any such conspiracy.
It just seemed to me that that would pretty much blow up foreign affairs and all
their former concepts and conclusions, and so forth, but that was just ray own
thinking, but I didn't think that had anything to do with what we were doing.
Q. With respect to that, was there put on your Commission or your staff by the
State Department to investigate certain areas?
A. No; there never was. Not to my knowledge, I never heard of any such thing.
Q. Do you recall the Commission making a request to the Soviet Government for
information about Oswald and his stay in Russia?
A. Yes.
Q. The materials received were documents of a public nature as opposed to, for
example, part of a KGB file, their own reports, their own
Page 379
379
surveillance. My question is, did the Department of State have any influence in
the type of documents you requested or type of documents you ultimately
received?
A. Not that I know of. I don't know that they just requested any certain
documents. On the other hand, I would not have been surprised that they didn't
have anything from the KGB if they asked for it and I would not be surprised
that they didn't ask for it knowing that they would not get it any more than I
would expect that we would give them anything from the CIA or the FBI that we
had.
Q. Do you know if the Department of State had any role in determining what type
of documents we should request?
A. don't think so. I think we asked them to ask for whatever they would give us
and we wanted as much as possible and I think we made that clear to them but I
do not know--we would not get any more than they wanted us to have.
Q. It is my belief that the request that was sent to the Soviet Government
specifically asked for documents that were of a public nature as opposed to
saying give us any files which you might have or your Government might have on
the surveillance. Do you recall any discussion on what should be requested?
A. I don't recall any discussion at this time.
Q. Do you recall the Commission taking up the question of whether the X-rays and
photographs taken at the President's autopsy should be seen by the Commission?
A. Yes; I remember that.
Q. And do you recall that the decision was made that the Commission staff would
not be allowed to see the X-rays and photographs?
A. Yes; I remember that.
Q. Could you give us your recollections of why that decision was made?
A. Well, basically there was I think it came from the Chief Justice who had
received the communication. He related from Robert Kennedy that the family would
either I don't know how it was expressed, either hope or urge or something
stronger than that, that the X-rays would not become a part of the official
record of the Commission so that they would have to be published which was our
public position at the time, anything we had published, and, therefore, the
American people and everybody else would remember the President as having all
these pictures and the terrible things that he had suffered from the
assassination.
Q. At the time did you agree with that decision that the staff should not even
be allowed to see the X-rays and photographs?
A. Yes; because they had the testimony of the doctors.
Q. With 20-20 hindsight knowing as you do the great controversy which has arisen
over what those X-rays and photographs show, was it a good decision not to allow
the staff to view them?
A. I think so. I think they had all the basic information that was involved. If
we had it in the record we would have printed them and think condemnation for
that would have been a great furor, too.
Q. Could not some kind of a compromise have been made where one possibility
might be to crop them in some manner, another might be to make a special
exemption where the staff at least has an
Page 380
380
opportunity to see them to question the doctors about them and not put them in
the record? Was that considered?
A. Well, I never considered any cropping and I never changed evidence in my
life.
Q. I don't mean cropping in terms of altering, I mean simply instead of showing
a picture of the President's head so that it would be recognized as being the
President it be cut in such a manner that you might see the wounds but not see,
say, the face or some distinguished feature of the hair but not in any way to
alter the evidence. I am not suggesting that.
A. Well, I never thought of that. I don't think it would work because everything
we took out would be the parts that people would say we were concealing and that
would be worse I think than what happened, what we did do. There was not
anything about the examination of the doctors that could have been added to in
my opinion by seeing the X-rays and nobody has come out with anything since
people have seen them in my opinion that reveals any new knowledge or any
failure to ask questions or anything that does not confirm what we had before.
Q. Let me suggest something to you.
A. Yes.
Q. By questioning the doctors since they were the only ones who had seen the
wounds you were restricted questioning with three doctors involved in the
autopsy, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. If these doctors had made some type of error, maybe not with regard to how
many bullet wounds but possibly the location, it would appear that there would
be no way that your Commission could have learned of it if the doctors had made
an error in that without looking at the photos and X-rays.
A. Well, I think that may be a possibility but it seems to me it is very remote.
The men that did the examination on the President of the United States were most
able men that were in that locality in that field and their knowledge was more
complete than anybody else's and as far as I know there has not been any
withholding there and everyone that has looked at them since has confirmed what
they said about it so it seems to me the net effect is that both the family and
the public have been spared kind of an exhibition.
Q. If I were to suggest to you that the men who performed the autopsy were far
from being as you testified the most competent that could have been obtained,
why in fact rather inexperienced in performing autopsies, might that affect your
answer?
A. Well, I think you would have to prove that before I would---
Q. Connected with the investigation itself your Commission had by law the right
to call a witness and if the witness invoked the fifth amendment privilege
against self-incrimination your Commission had the power to grant immunity, is
that correct?
A. That is correct.
Q. Am I also correct that no witness asked for immunity and it was never,
therefore, granted?
A. That is right.
Page 381
381
Q. Was there ever a policy decision that no witness would be called who would
request immunity?
A. No. We didn't have that problem. We would have to make that decision if any
witness had claimed or indicated that unless he was granted immunity he would
not testify but we never had the question raised.
Q. Do you recall members of the Commission going to Texas to speak to Jack Ruby?
A. Just one.
Q. Who was that?
A. The Chief Justice.
Q. And are you aware that Ruby in Texas requested that he be brought to
Washington?
A. Yes; I think that is true.
Q. Have you ever discussed with the Chief Justice why this request was not
honored?
A. I had forgotten about that. You will have to refresh my memory. Do we have
any record about that?
Did he continue to ask after or when we were down there, do you remember?
Q. This is a transcript of Jack Ruby speaking with the Chief Justice when the
Chief Justice and other members of the Commission---
A. One other member, Mr. Ford.
Q. Were you also present?
A. And myself.
Q. When the three of you went to Texas.
A. Yes.
Q. And that is the transcript that you are referring to that refreshed your
recollection?
A. Yes. He asked if we could not come back to Washington and the Chief responded
to him as the transcript says, he says we had no power to take him to Washington
and we had no way to take care of prisoners. I don't get the impression that he
went much further than that that is, Ruby. He seemed to recognize that that was
an answer and that he was not going back to Washington.
Q. Let me read to you just one statement by Ruby and I think he makes this point
a few times.
I may not live tomorrow to give any further testimony. The reason why I add
this, to this, since you assure me that I have been speaking sense by then, I
might be speaking sense by following what I have said, and the only thing I want
to get out to the public, and I can't say it here, is with authenticity, with
sincerity of the truth of everything and why my act was committed, but it can't
be said here.
It can be said, it's got to be said among people of the highest authority that
would give me the benefit of doubt. And following that, immediately give me the
lie detector test after I do make the statement.
That is from page 169 of the transcript.
Ruby seems to be indicating that he has something he wants to tell the
Commission but can't say it in Dallas. Do you have any recollection of that
conversation and why even though his statement was somewhat cryptic the
Commission would not have jumped at an opportunity to see if he did in fact have
anything to add?
Page 382
382
A. I remember the conversation now that you brought the transcript to my
attention. And I think that the Chief Justice and former President Ford and
myself all felt that he didn't have anything more to say, that he just wanted to
come back to Washington on the trip and they presented all kinds of problems for
us to get him back there and have protection as a prisoner and have jurisdiction
over him and take the jurisdiction away from the authorities down in Dallas and
it just seemed like it was one of those idle statements that he was making.
Q. Considering the report itself, how was it determined which witnesses to rely
on when the Commission came to its final conclusions?
A. I don't understand the question.
Q. The Commission presented conclusions in its final report.
A. Yes.
Q. In arriving at those conclusions it accepted certain testimony as being
credible and rejected other testimony. My question is, what criteria was used in
determining which testimony should be accepted and which rejected?
A. Well, each time, as I recall, the Commissioners would have a action as to a
witness from the transcript or from observing him or both when they did observe
and they quite readily arrived at the conclusion as to those that they could put
any credence in and those they could not. I don't remember any time that there
was any disagreement on that about any witness.
Q. In many instances the Commission reached firm conclusions with regard to the
testimony. The Commission has been criticized by certain critics as being a
brief for the Government position. Was there ever any kind of discussion as to
whether the Commission should come out with firm, definite conclusions as
opposed to portraying different possibilities, in other words, not rejecting
certsin testimony sort of possibly ending up with a more ambiguous report but
one that would have included testimony that was in some cases conflicting?
A. Oh, there was not any question but what the Commission treated with
conflicting testimony and it examined it, commented on it, and said why it
didn't accept some. There was discussion about conclusions and when there was
doubts a discussion was an agreement that the doubt should be revealed and I
think that is apparent in the report. I think if there had been any real
differences in judgment of the witnesses and their credibility and those that
were worthy of belief and the Commission between the staff and the Commission
would certainly come out in some way before or in the preparation of the report
or beforehand but there was not.
The only thing that the Commission didn't do was to speculate that so and so was
telling the truth, and we don't believe he was, why it might have turned out
this way. We didn't do that kind of thing but don't think anybody thought that,
is what we should do.
Q. Was there any kind of pressure on the Commission to come out with definite
conclusions, maybe not what the conclusions ought to be but there should be
definite conclusions regarding the facts of the assassination?
A. Not at all.
Q. For example, the Commission developed what has come to be referred to as the
single bullet theory. Would it have been acceptable
Page 383
383
for the Commission not to have reached a definite conclusion as far as how many
bullets there were and what individual bullets hit what person or was there some
kind of pressure that you have to decide how many bullets there were and what
each bullet did?
A. Only the fact. Facts don't leave you anything else as a conclusion. It forces
it.
Q. Recently polls have shown that a majority of the American people don't accept
the conclusion of the Warren Commission that Lee Harvey Oswald was the single
lone assassin of the President. Why do you feel that 14 years after the
Commission's report such doubts continue to exist?
A. Well, people don't have much confidence in government today anyway in any
level, you know, and that is the first problem. Then the attacks on the report
are probably 50 or 100 to 1 and there is no one going out and saying the report
is perfect, is right and so forth and every time someone makes an attack on it
that attack stands by itself and is not exposed to any cross-examination or
public report of the weaknesses in the claims and someone can say over in France
that he has got the conspirator, he will tell it to the President alone, and
that gets all kinds of publicity over in this country and nobody says how
foolish can you be, all those things. So how can you expect any other result?
People are entitled to their doubts and most of them have not read the report.
If you take a census of those that read the report and what their opinion is, it
might be more interesting than to have people that have never even looked at it
or cared. I think when you get through and you make your report you will find
that the public will be asking the question, what did you do for all this money?
And I don't think that will be any fairer than the other response.
Q. To your knowledge what percentage of all files relating to the President's
assassination were turned over to the Commission by the FBI? What percentage of
the FBI's files relating to the assassination did they turn over to you?
A. I have no knowledge.
Q. Were you under the impression you had 100 percent?
A. You mean today or then?
Q. Today.
A. I don't know that we thought we had 100 percent but I think we thought we had
100 percent of anything that could make any contribution.
Q. Well, you were making requests to them and I assume you were keeping track of
what your requests were and making sure you were getting answers.
A. That is right.
Q. Did you have any type of understanding as to whether you would be provided
with other files which didn't involve requests that you made but which did
involve the assassination in any way?
A. Yes. I had a direct understanding with J. Edgar Hoover that we would have
full cooperation. They supplied every assistance they could give to the
investigation.
Q. Well, let me phrase it another way. Was it your understanding that while the
Warren Commission was carrying on its investigation the Bureau was free to have
their own investigation?
Page 384
384
A. Yes. Very clearly, and if anybody came to them in any place in the country
and give them any information, and there were cases where they did in any office
about the assassination, they were free to take it and get the information and
when have it for their purposes and our purposes, too.
Q. The second part of that answer is what I am interested in and that is if some
information were given to the FBI and they investigated it, of course, if it
came out positive, then I expect that you would have expected to receive that
information; is that correct?
A. Well, no; I think that contributing to the investigation would be more than
just positive. We had innumerable inquiries that were never positive and they
just turned out to be duds but we wanted to know about them just the same.
Sometimes we had to know somebody was supposed to know all about a conspiracy
and know that it was nothing as well as anything else.
Q. I think you have jumped one step ahead of me. As the first point you would
expect to receive all information of any lead which turned out positive.
A. Yes.
Q. And as the second point which is what I was going to get to next, did you
have an understanding that of they received a lead, which they worked on and
even if it didn't come out positive but they spent considerable amount of time
on it that you would still receive information about that lead and about the
work they had done?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you have the same understanding with reward to the CIA?
A. Well, I thought we did. We, of course, didn't expect them to have any
domestic information and didn't anticipate they would have any volume like the
FBI because this is a domestic event, but wherever there was anything that would
bear on it in any way, positive or otherwise, we expect them to reveal it and
call it to our attention.
Q. This might be a difficult question or one that you don't want to answer, but
did any of the Commissioners appear to you to be significantly more informed
than the others or significantly less informed than the others?
A. Well, I think there were some gradations of the extent of their information,
but as I said before I really was surprised that all of them knew as much as
they did about it and tried to become informed affirmatively, tried, as I
observed, to become informed as much as possible, and I don't know whether you
knew Senator Cooper or not but he was not too articulate sometimes in the
Commission and so forth, but it was surprising how he would come up with
comments from time to time about the hearing he attended or some transcript that
he had read and so forth, and I found that was true with practically all of them
from time to time so that even though some of them didn't attend and I didn't
try to have them punch a clock or anything about when they came or whether they
would attend hearings and why they didn't attend a hearing, oftentimes I knew
they were on the floor, both Congressman Boggs and Congressman Ford, and I also
knew that the Senators were on the floor at various times just because of
reading the papers and so forth, and could not attend. Mr. Dulles
Page 385
385
was generally there; Mr. McCloy generally came. I think for a public body they
did remarkably well.
Q. What were the circumstances of Senior Counsel Leon Hubert, his disenchantment
with the Commission?
A. Well, it came to my attention that he and Mr. Griffin had some differences
and I was much impressed with Mr. Griffin's work and his thoroughness; sometimes
he was irritating to Hubert about it because he was so thorough and he didn't
want to pass any little detail, and I could understand both of their attitudes
but I recognized how important it was to have that thoroughness, particularly
when you were trying to develop facts and find out what they were in an
investigatory manner rather than work with them after they are developed, and
later it seemed to me Mr. Hubert wanted to be rather free to have any kind of
depositions or hearings wherever and whenever he wanted to, and we just weren't
that freewheeling. We had to make some plans and find out whether it was going
to contribute or why they thought it would contribute to the investigation so it
would have some justification for it. All those things seem to bother him.
Q. What was your reaction to the apparent leaking of that early FBI report?
A. Who could protest against what Mr. Hoover did back in those days?
Q. Did you have the feeling that it was an attempt to preempt the Commission?
A. I always thought it was an attempt, but I felt it never was going to
accomplish it because I was not going to get it.
Q. You talked a few times about money and how yourself and the Chief Justice
kept an eye on it. Do you recall or did you ever know what the total cost was of
the Warren Commission investigation?
A. No; I didn't. I don't think that figure is--I tried to work out a scheme of
getting a copyright on it for the Government and I got along pretty well with my
Commission on the idea for a while but then I had to present to the Congressmen
and Senators the problems that had developed early about the copyright laws and
the Government having copyright and the holding of information in the Government
by reason of it and that probably was not as a precedent, it was not a good
idea, but I anticipate that we would have sales of the report that could run
into several millions of dollars and get our money back, but I finally had to
give that up. I assume that it could have cost somewhere between $1 million and
$2 million. Did you see any figures on it?
Q. I have been informed by a member of our staff close to $2 million.
A. I think a large part of that was the publication cost because of the fact
that we had 20 or 21 volumes of appendixes as well as the report itself, and I
don't think the Government ever charged its cost for the publication.
Q. Looking again back with 20-20 hindsight, what mistakes did the Commission
make?
A. Well, it is clear that it made a mistake by believing that the FBI would not
conceal from it. It also made a mistake by believing that the CIA would not
withhold information from it. Those were obvious and they could have been
material, I don't know, it depends on how you think how material they are, but
certainly we would have done much more if we had had that information.
Page 386
386
I think if I had it to do today, I would not have had those X-rays published;
and if I had a choice between concealing or not showing part of the X-ray and
not showing any, I would have chosen not showing any because I think the moment
we started withholding anything whatsoever except secret or top secret
materials, that we would have no credibility. I think the report, the work that
was done, and the form of it and the quality language is comparable to the best,
and I think that 15 years is a pretty good period for it to stand up without any
serious retraction from it.
Q. Might it have been a mistake not to let Ruby come back to Washington?
A. No; I never thought Ruby wanted anything more than a trip and maybe an
opportunity to talk to the President or these Commission officials in this
setting, and if we had the information about connection to the Mafia and it had
led anyplace, then or if you had found something that led to some place, then I
could say, well, if we had gotten Ruby back here maybe he would have told us,
but unless you bring forth something that establishes Ruby had more to say, I
don't think it means anything.
Q. Of the five reasons one of them was devoted to conspiracy. Considering the
many, many, many problems that arise in trying to investigate conspiracy and the
many possibilities, in retrospect again with 20-20 hindsight might it have been
better to assign more resources than actually were assigned to investigate the
conspiracy possibilities?
A. Well, as I recall we really had a double concentration on that because of the
Cuban and the Soviet. It was not like one little patch, it was both and I think
that we really exhausted all that we had without this new material that you got
from the CIA and the FBI knowing about it. Certainly if we had had that it would
have bulked larger, the conspiracy area, the examination and the investigation
and report and we would have run out all the various leads and probably it is
very possible that we could have come down with a good many signs of a lead down
here to the underworld. Someplace in Cuba it got down to the end of that and we
could not get any more and that is all we could report, at least we would have
gone that far. We would have taken more personnel and more work and all the
rest. The same would be true it seemed to me as a whole area in the Government
that knew about these attempts at assassination, who was involved. It is an
ideal situation as I hope I--I was not unfair to your work in connection with
that but when I read those reports--it was not your committee but the Church
Committee's report-it was an ideal situation for them to just pick out any way
they wanted to tell the story and fit it in with the facts that had to be met
and then either blame the rest of it on somebody else or not tell any more or
polish it off. I don't think that could have happened back in 1964. I think
there would have been a much better chance of getting to the heart of it. It
might have only revealed that we are involved in all of these things and who is
involved in it and who approved it and all that. But I think that that would
have at least come out.
Q. Well, that is all I have right now.
A. As I told you before off the record, another member of our staff wanted to
speak to you a little bit but I wanted to afford you an
Page 387
387
opportunity now for the hours that we have spoken to say anything that you would
like to say.
A. Well, all I have to say is that up to date I have not found any proof in the
press or anyplace else that there was a conspiracy and had hoped that if
anything like that had to happen you would bring it all out, lay it on the table
and prove it beyond reasonable doubt but I assume that you have not got the
proof or any leads that you think are going to take you to that and I think that
the Commission did quite a remarkable job. I don't mean by that that I as
General Counsel did, I think the Commissioners have always said, felt that they
made the decisions, made the conclusions, and it was their work, and they ought
to be respected for it.
Q. Are you finished?
A. Yes.
Q. In that regard, I don't know whether I asked you earlier which is exactly
what were your responsibilities as General Counsel?
A. I was to see that a report got out and that all of the investigation was
completely thorough and exhausted and that we abided by the law in everything
that we did and that we had a very intelligent, intelligible report that could
be understood not only by the experts, but by the common people and that the
Congress and the whole Government and the American people would be pleased with
it. That was my assignment.
Mr. KLEIN. That is quite an assignment.
On behalf of the committee and myself also I would like to thank you very much
for sitting with us and talking with us.
The WITNESS. Pleased to do it.
By Mr. CORNWELL:
Q. I apologize first. I have been out of the room quite a bit and I just have a
few questions but they may have already been asked of you and if they have, I
apologize.
A. That is quite all right.
Q. During the early parts of your testimony you expressed the view based on your
experience that even though in one sense of the word a price is paid, a
sacrifice is made, for the choice of very active involved men to serve as Warren
Commission members, your opinion, based on your experience, is that nevertheless
oftentimes the busy people are best, on balance, simply because of their
experience, their talents, whatever. What I wanted to ask you was, accepting
that as being valid for the selection of Commission members, what is your view
the propriety of applying that principle to the Senior Counsel?
In other words, if you had that part of it to do over again, would you have
people on your staff who were hired with the agreement that they could follow
their private pursuits while they were also attempting to attend to Warren
Commission business?
A. I think I would. First with regard to the first part of your question about
the members of the Commission, I want to also add that it is the industry of
people that are busy that I also rely on. My experience in life is that people
that are very busy usually do well in anything that they undertake in addition,
while people that aren't busy, maybe never do anything very well, and so in that
compromise you get those benefits and you get the detriments that go with it.
Page 388
388
I also felt that these men on the Commission represented enough of the important
positions in the political life of our country so that, if anybody could be
believed by the people when they made a report those people who represent a
group that the public would tend to believe and especially being on both sides
of the aisle and the Chief Justice in his position and so forth. I thought that
would be helpful so I thought that was a skilled selection with benefits and
detriments all mixed up in the Commission.
Now with regard to the senior counsel, in recruiting all kinds of legal talent
over the years, some 40 years--more than that--I feel that
would be helpful to get men of more mature experience in the law to work with
younger men. They may not have the industry, they may not work as hard as the
younger men but they may have been over the ground and say, "Hey, look, we have
been over there, I have been over there, I have been over that, don't, waste
your time on that" and so forth. They may have tried cases before and know more
about witnesses, know about who is more believable than the younger man, and it
would be ideal to hire them. But if you get senior men of maturity in the
practice of law and they are available to hire, they probably have not got much
of a job and they may never have been successful in the practice, they may be
the failures and, therefore, you have to compromise there again. That is the
problem. So in my experience I found that I would rather have maybe an hour's
time of somebody like Bruce Bromley or Herbert Brownell or Nick Katzenbach with
a great depth of experience, who is a remarkable lawyer and is very thorough.
Few lawyers I know of are as thorough. He is somebody plodding about it,
sometimes tiresome but he never misses on some little point that may be
decisive. I don't mean these men who were senior counsel were all in that
catergory at all or any of them but generally I would prefer to have men of such
abilities.
Q. So if you had it to do over again you would opt for the same basic selection
process for the senior counsel that you used in 1964?
A. I probably should have--there is one member that you can see that did not
attend hardly at all and I certainly should have gotten rid of him really.
Q. Who was that?
A. That was Francis Adams and he really didn't contribute anything.
I had no Blacks except Coleman and I selected him because he was both a Supreme
Court law clerk and a fine record I think at Harvard. He was a clerk on the law
review and he was a member of one of the big firms in Philadelphia and where do
I get a Black that has that much background in those days? So I had to the only
way I could get him, he had just gone with that firm just 2 or 3 or 4 years or
something like that and he just could not afford to pull out and see what
happened to him. Then when I got him, he is a fine fellow, and he is a hard
worker and he has a fine legal mind but he had attracted a good amount of Black
business into this firm and they want whites all over the place waiting on them.
When they first got a Black man that they could take their law business to and
so they were constantly calling him back and nobody else to know that is not
true with a lot of firms. You know in Curvatt or Melbank Tweed of others they
have they can
Page 389
389
delegate up and down the line without any real difficulty as long as they keep
some supervision. But this was an entirely different problem but I could not--I
didn't think feel I should operate without ever asking a Black to be on and then
I didn't want just anybody and that was about--I could not name even two or
three in the country like that with that kind of a background.
Q. You were asked some questions and discussed at some length the question of
President Ford's relationship with the FBI?
A. Yes.
Q. I suppose that at least hypothetically anyone would recognize that in the
process of putting together an investigation of the magnitude that you all were
faced with various types of liaisons all of the agencies were necessary in order
to make the system work.
Did President Ford, to your knowledge, in any way perform such function with any
part of the FBI?
A. Not to my knowledge. I didn't know about it and I didn't mean to be critical
of this memo but I know that when the FBI writes memos when I was in the
Department and I understood this and I am sure you must see it, you have seen a
lot of the memos, they always write that the FBI way so whether or not President
Ford did what he said I would not believe unless President Ford said it or
somebody else rather than men in the Bureau, particularly in light of what has
happened in the last few years. I think it is too one sided.
Now former President Ford might have said something along this line, it might
look a lot more attractive to Mr. Hoover to have it in form where it says he
wants this to be very hush-hush between us, he is consulting, he is going to
keep right on giving us all the latest dope and here is a wonderful liaison that
this man has established with one of the members of the Commission but where are
all the other members? For the next so many 200 days or so? That is all I am
raising about.
Q. You may already have been asked this question but there were number of memos
written by the staff in the final days concerning the rewrite process. What was
the basic nature of the issues during that period? Was it hypothetically
something concerning some theory of persuasion? In other words, the way in which
you presented what in fact was a unanimous opinion or conclusion or on the other
hand was it in fact a dispute over what the facts were and then once you tell me
that, what was the source of the decision, who did it come from, who finally
decided how to solve those kinds of problems?
A. I finally decided any such issues and in all the cases that I now remember if
you can refresh my memory I will try to deal with them, they were only something
that I can consider an overstatement of what the evidence showed and then I said
it had to be cut back to the point that the evidence would sustain and then Mr.
Redlich worked on it, Mr. Willens with me rewriting and so forth and I never
said that it would be cut back until I had a hearing in which the person who had
letter written it or investigated, sometimes they didn't write, they never got
to the place where they would write it up, we had to take their materials and
write it up in a, few cases at the last because they just could not seem to
start to write but those that did write and those that had anything to say about
the draft that they wanted it differently
Page 390
390
stated were given a hearing at which they took the opposition that we thought
required to be cut down, they did that right in front of me and argued it out
and if they could convince their version went on the basis that they knew more
than anybody else but they had to be--they could not just talk it, they had to
produce the evidence. That is the way we worked.
Q. So it was simply a matter of conforming the choice of words to the actual
strength of the evidence?
A. That is right, and I didn't want any kind of an overstatement. I wanted
everything to be as precise as possible but I don't think there was any real
learning but if there was going to be any leaning it would be toward an
understatement rather than an overstatement.
Q. One particular contention in which this problem comes to our attention is the
Liebeler memorandums which were written after there were roughly polished drafts
and in some cases galley proofs and there are a number of different problems
that he focused on in those memorandums but a principal one was of the nature
you just described, what he felt according to the memorandums were
overstatements of the strength of the evidence on various points. You, I take
it, would have often found the same problem that Liebeler did.
A. That is right.
Q. And in what were the final drafts; is that correct?
A. Well, not often but that is the only thing that we did have any difficulty
about.
Q. Who prepared those drafts which created the problem of overstatements?
A. Usually the man working in the field. He would overstate it.
Now with regard to Mr. Liebeler you have to recognize that he was an extreme
conservative in a rather hot bed of liberals on our staff and he early became
disenchanged with some of the others, not really about the investigation but
they had a lot of crackpot liberal ideas as far as he was concerned and he had a
lot of crackpot conservative ideas, radical conservative as far as they were
concerned, and then when they would go to lunch they would go after each other
and they would come back and they would not be etble to talk to each other for a
couple of hours afterward while they were working sway and that just hung on and
so he got so that whatever he did they didn't think too much of and whatever he
saw of theirs he was always critical of.
I thought that I needed that in the staff so that I had some kind of a spectrum
in the kind of people and I didn't have just one outlook because I felt that
there was a considerable number of people in the country who were liberals that
didn't think that anyone like Oswald who was a professed Marxist could ever come
to the place of trying to kill President Kennedy who is a liberal. And there
were conservatives who thought that this was a liberal plot and to try to blame
the conservatives with it and they were both at each other's throats from all
our mail and everything all the time to try to show the others were involved in
some kind of a conspiracy and trying to plant this on the other crowd. So I
wanted to have at least an awareness of that frame of mind and approach on the
Commission at all times or in the staff and Liebeler was good for that, he
raised it constantly and it kept us from being blind to it. The fact that Oswald
tried to kill Walker and
Page 391
391
that he could try to even recruit himself into Walker's group was difficult for
both of the different factions to understand, how anybody---but it seemed to me
that was the key to Oswald's character. He wanted the limelight and if he could
not get it with the Marxist position he would get it with the Fascist position
or whatever would do it for him and so--- but that presented kind of a problem
to me about my staff working together and Liebeler tended to be critical and he
went so far as during the work of the Commission he grew a beam which was not in
the days of beards generally like they are now and it was a great beautiful
beard, all red, and it was--it irritated all these opposing groups. Another
thing that was bad about him and it irritated, I think, the Chief Justice some
but I always said, look, he has a right to have his hair the way he wants it and
if he wants a beard, he has a right to that, too. And so we forgot about that
but I think that it would have been hard for either one of them to write the
most polished, skillful report that could have stood up against the attack of
the others and so I had to act as a reference and determine that some of
Liebeler's positions were correct, supportable in the evidence and the other I
could not support why it had to go.
Q. People who have spent a good portion of their time analyzing and reanalyzing
the report over the years and have come to be known as critics have among other
things, criticized the report in part for overstating the evidence, especially
the strength of it as it might indicate there was no conspiracy. Was there any
pressure from the Chief Justice or the Commission members from a political
perspective in the good sense of the word, international relations or some other
sense to write the report that way, to try to be sure that the American public's
doubts and concerns could be washed away with the report?
A. None at all. It was a part that I watched very closely myself, that part of
the report, although I watched it all but I thought that that area was one that
was subject to attack and I thought that we had the task of trying to state
clearly what we did have and what we didn't and I think that is what we did.
Q. Why were there no public hearings ever held?
A. There was a public hearing, Mark Lane was there. That was the only one that
was ever asked for and he asked for it and some of the Commission members off
the record.
I said, look, we said we would give a public hearing to anybody that asked for
it and that is part of our rules and I don't want to be connected with a
Commission that does not do what it says. So we had it.
Q. Rephrasing the question, what I really wanted to ask you was why weren't
there more extensive public hearings or was it ever considered to wind up the
investigation with a series of public hearings at which the evidence could be
presented?
A. We never did give consideration of winding up with public hearings in which
evidence could be given. In looking at it now--and I think I can recall my
thoughts then, I would have been opposed to that because I wanted--I thought we
had two tasks. First, I thought when I first was asked to do this job I thought
we had an investigating job and I finally worked up to the proposition we had
not only an investigative job but a writing job and I wanted the writing to be
done with sufficient skill to be be a quality document and I thought that it
would
Page 392
392
not only be read by the American people and everybody up and down the line as
far as knowledge and experience and training is concerned but also by the world
and the press of the world and so I thought that newspaper accounts of what they
thought was important in the hearings would be destructive and I wanted to get
it consolidated in one place then I thought let them work on it as much as they
wanted to.
On the other hand, I strongly agreed that if anybody wanted a public hearing he
was entitled to it, that this was a matter of his own civil and personal rights
and while this was not a prosecution or a court hearing or anything that was the
right that I thought the Commission should grant.
Q. What, if any, impact do you think that decision that you all made has had on
the long-term acceptance of the report?
A. None. I don't think the public cares about the public hearing except that if
they had said it looks like a conspiracy here that would have stuck in people's
minds for the rest of the time no matter what was in the report.
Q. You don't think the public would have tended to believe your conclusions any
more if they had seen a number of the witnesses testify?
A. Well, you look at the areas of attack. One of them is a single bullet. You
tell me how you would present that so as to convince the American public that
one bullet went through two men in the way that did. I think it would take
considerable skill because it took a long time for the Commission to understand
that and they squirmed and squirmed to try to find some other rational
explanation and they could not find it and if you tell the American public in a
TV session, for instance, or public session that way that there is no
conspiracy, that you have not found any, that you have searched out this and
that, do you think that is going to convince them? That is not our problem. It
is not the fact of whatever is presented in the report, it is all those massive
things that come and someone comes from Paris and he says I will tell the
President alone, nobody else, who the conspirators are. I've got their names and
everything and that is believed in various places in the country.
Q. I understand.
I have one final subject to ask you about. We understand that the Chief Justice
as perhaps other members of the Commission was very reluctant to accept the job
and that several attempts were made to convince him. What, if any, arguments
were used in the process to try to brink him around?
A. I know there were. l know that he turned the job down when the President
first asked him to do it. I know that from his telling me and I know that he was
finally persuaded to do it by talking to the President in which the President
said it is not only important to the American people that you be the chairman
because you're believable but in all the capitals of the world where the story
is that our Government killed its own President I think you're about the only
person that they will believe. If you find that to be not the case and that
there was no conspiracy and he says that is terribly important to our country
standing its reputation throughout the world because he was firmly opposed to
the idea of either the Chief Justice or any member of the court being involved
in other activities.
Page 393
393
Q. Earlier you were asked questions about a memorandum which Walter Jenkins
wrote.
A. Yes.
Q. And in that particular a part of that memorandum which referred to several
aspects of a potential investigation which would complicate our foreign
relations. Do you have any knowledge of whether or not something along those
lines may have been said to the Chief Justice in order to get him to take the
job?
A. Well, the only thing that I know of was what he told me which was the effect
of his being chairman of such a Commission and that that would make whatever was
decided by the Commission believable when he knew of nobody else that would have
that credibility throughout the world.
Q. You, I believe, testified earlier that you had prior to us asking you the
questions about this memorandum no knowledge of the fact that Hoover had that
view; is that correct?
A. Yes; that is correct.
Q. And summarily, you told us that up until recent years you had no knowledge of
the assassination plots.
A. That is correct.
Q. Let me ask you then, let's assume that because of the lack of knowledge in
those two subject matters during the time whatever the Chief Justice might have
said to you might not have conveyed this impression :but now couch your
knowledge of those facts with your recollection of his conversations, did he
ever say to you which now looking back had in it an indication that he had
received such information himself that the President or perhaps Mr. Hoover or
someone else had explained to him there were particular aspects of the
investigation which were extremely sensitive and that he should take the job
because he could handle those problems?
A. No; not at all and I am convinced that my relationship with the Chief Justice
from my working with the Solicitor General with the court and from the first day
I acted as General Counsel that he would not have withheld that information from
me if he had had it and he would have insisted upon its investigation and I am
also convinced that what he did when he heard about that so typical of him I
think in 1967 that he said get busy and call the President and get this
investigated and he wanted it followed up which is the attitude throughout my
work with him on the Commission.
Mr. CORNWELL. I have no further questions. Thank you for taking your time.
Mickey Goldsmith has some questions for you.
The WITNESS. Fine.
[At this point, 4:10 p.m., the proceedings went into top secret session and is
contained in a separate transcript.]
CERTIFICATE OF NOTARY PUBLIC
I, Annabelle Short, the officer before whom the foregoing deposition was taken,
do hereby certify that the witness whose testimony appears in the foregoing
deposition was duly sworn by me; that the testimony of said witness was taken by
me in Shorthand to the best of my ability
Page 394
394
and thereafter reduced to typewriting; that said deposition is a true record of
the testimony given by said witness; that I am neither counsel for, related to,
nor employed by any of the parties to the action in which this deposition was
taken; and further that I am not a relative or employee of any attorney or
counsel employed by the parties thereto, nor financially or otherwise interested
in the outcome of this action.
ANNABELLE SHORT,
Notary Public in and/or the District of Columbia.
My commission expires November 14, 1980.
Attachment H
Page 395
395
(285) Attachment H: Deposition of Howard P. Willens.
EXECUTIVE SESSION DEPOSITION
FRIDAY, JULY 28, 1978
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE ASSASSINATION
OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY OF THE
SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS,
Washington, D.C.
Deposition of Howard P. Willens, called for examination by counsel for the
committee, pursuant to notice, in the offices of the Select Committee on
Assassinations, room 3501, House Annex No. 2, Second and D Streets SW.
Washington, D.C., beginning at 9:15 a.m., when were present: G. Robert Blakey,
chief counsel.
Mr. BLAKEY. We will go on the record.
Would you swear the witness.
Whereupon, Howard P. Willens, was ca]led as a witness by the committee and,
having been first duly sworn by the notary public, was examined and testified as
follows;
By Mr. BLAKEY:
Q. Mr. Willens, would you state your name and address for the record.
A. My name is Howard P. Willens, W-i-l-l-e-n-s. My home address is 4242
Mathewson Drive NW., Washington, D.C.
Q. Mr. Willens, I would like for the record to thank you for returning and
Sharing with us some of your time on what I know is a very busy schedule.
Let me recall for the record that you appeared before the Kennedy subcommittee
on November 17, 1977. At that time did you have occasion to read our rules?
A. Yes; I did.
Q. You know then that tiffs deposition is voluntary.
A. Yes.
Q. And that you have a right to counsel.
A. Yes.
Q. And a right to transcript, et cetera.
A. Yes.
Q. We appreciate your coming back and helping us out.
In your appearance on November 17, 1977, the committee discussed with you your
biography, your assignment with the Commission, the organization of the
Commission, staff selection, staff performance, the various pressures that were
present in the operation
Page 396
396
of the Commission, its procedures and methods of investigation. I understand you
had an opportunity now to review that testimony, is that correct?
A. Yes, I have reviewed the transcript.
Q. Is there anything that you would want to change or clarify or add to that
testimony other than grammatical corrections?
A. Yes. I have submitted for you certain minor editorial suggestions with
respect to that transcript. At the conclusion of today's deposition I would like
to make a brief statement for the record regarding the work of the Warren
Commission and this committee. It is my understanding that your rules permit
such a statement to be made by a witness and I am confident that in any event
you would afford me that courtesy.
Q. That presents no problem.
Mr. Willens, when you appeared before the committee on November 17 I showed you
what was then marked JFK exhibit No. 66 and is now marked Willens exhibit No. 1.
[Willens exhibit No. 1 was marked for identification.]
Page 397
397
WILLENS EXHIBIT NO. 1
Page 398
398
Q. I show you what has now been marked Willens exhibit No. 1. It is a retyped
version as you can see of JFK exhibit No. 66. Does that chart now accurately
reflect the broad organizational outlines of the Commission?
A. Yes; I believe this chart is a generally accurate portrayal of the
organization of the Commission.
Q. Thank you.
Mr. Willens, at page 8-108 of your testimony on November 17 I asked you about
the various possible pressures that operated on the work of the Commission.
Specifically I talked about the need perhaps to allay public fear, to bring
about a smooth transition in the National Government, issues of international
concern and the concen perhaps that the work of the Commission might become a
McCarthy type of witch hunt. You commented at that time generally on the
pressures that operated to shape the Commission's work. I wonder if I could ask
you specifically to comment on each of these four elements.
Did any outside source in any way put any pressure on you, and by you I mean the
Commission and the Commission staff to allay public fear?
A. I am not sure I understand the question, Professor Blakey. The concerns you
have listed were indeed concerns that were in the minds of many persons
following the assassination of President Kennedy. The question, it seems to me,
is not whether any one of these concerns in fact existed but whether it operated
in any significant way to influence the Commission and its staff to conduct an
investigation or reach conclusions differently than would be the case in the
absence of such a concern. Although I acknowledge the existence of this concern,
therefore, I do not believe that it operated to circumscribe our efforts in any
way that affected either the scope of the investigation or the substance of our
findings. Perhaps if you want to ask me a further more specific question
regarding this particular concern, I can be more responsive.
Q. Let me see if I understand your answer. Are you indicating that each of these
four concerns were at least present in 1963-64 in the general atmosphere in
which the Commission operated?
A. Yes, I believe so although I think your approach proceeding with them
individually is sound and it may be useful to continue doing that.
Q. Well, let me ask you specifically then. Can you recall any incident involving
an outside source in which an effort was made to pressure the work of the
Commission, and I don't use that in a pejorative sense, to act in such a way as
its work and its final report would allay public fear? Can you recall any
specific incidents in which that pressure was put on you?
A. No; I do not recall any incident involving an outside source that operated in
the way you have described.
Q. How about from inside the Commission, either the Commission itself or the
Commission staff? Can you recall any incident in which staff members or
Commission members expressed this concern and based on that concern made an
effort to shape the Commission's Work?
Page 399
399
A. No; I do not recall any such incident. There was a discussion widely in the
media at the time regarding this and the other concerns you have identified.
Speaking from my own knowledge alone I recall some occasional discussion among
members of the staff with respect to these widely publicized concerns. We
recognize these concerns and we respected their legitimacy. We did not, however,
believe that our investigation or findings should be influenced by them other
than trying to do the most conscientious and thorough investigation whose
conclusions hopefully would serve to allay some of the concerns you have
identified.
Q. What about the concern of effecting a smooth transfer of national power? Was
there any pressure outside the Commission on this question or based on this
consideration?
For example, did the White House or anyone associated with the White House ever
convey to the Commission a concern that its work go smoothly in order that the
transfer of power from President Kennedy to President Johnson would go smoothly?
A. I am not aware of any such a communication from the White House to
representatives of the Commission. I believe by the time the Commission in fact
was in the process of conducting its investigation that much of the earlier
concern regarding a smooth transition had been allayed by the developments of
the months of December and January. I am sure you recall, however, that there
were some allegations involving President Johnson that were before the
Commission and there was understandably among all persons associated with this
effort of a desire to investigate those allegations and satisfy the public, if
possible, that these allegations were without merit.
Q. Were you aware of any inside pressures stemming from this concern?
A. No.
Q. Were you aware of any pressures dealing with issues in international
relations that bore on the Commission from an outside source?
A. Of the various concerns you have mentioned, this is the one about which I
have the sharpest recollection. I do remember from discussions preceding my
designation to assist the Commission and subsequent to my beginning work with
the Commission involving this particular concern. As I mentioned in my testimony
before the subcommittee, there was considerable speculation and apprehension
arising from the fact that the apparent assassin of President Kennedy had lived
for several years in the Soviet Union and had married a citizen of the Soviet
Union. As a result of these and other facts there was considerable concern
whether the assassination was organized or promoted by any foreign power and
even if it had not been a part of a foreign conspiracy whether allegations to
that effect would have a detrimental impact on the relationships between the
United States and certain important foreign powers. Having said that, however, I
believe that this particular concern did not deter us from trying to conduct
such limited investigation as we could into the possibility of a foreign
conspiracy.
Q. In addition to the concerns stemming from Mr. Oswald's relationship to the
Soviet Union, was there any concern expressed from
Page 400
400
any outside source dealing with Mr. Oswald's at least expressed admiration for
the Cuban Government?
A. Yes. I would say really that there was almost an equal attention being given
to the hypothesis that Oswald's participation in the assassination was prompted
by or a part of a conspiracy originating in Cuba or with supporters of Cuba.
Q. Can you recall any specific incident involving an outside source bringing to
the Commission either the Soviet concern or the Cuban concern?
A. Well, these concerns were being pressed upon the Commission from several
different sources. First the investigative agencies and certain executive
departments, in particular the Department of State, were bringing to the
Commission their concerns with respect to these possible foreign entanglements
in the assassination. In addition, the media were full of allegations and
speculations regarding these possible foreign relationships with Oswald. Apart
from these as sources, I don't recall any more specific or pointed source that
either was necessary or did in fact serve to present these allegations or
concerns to the Commission.
Q. I believe the record would show that the two principal agencies that you
dealt with in an investigative capacity would be both the FBI and the CIA, is
that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. In general, how did the Commission perceive pressures from the FBI on the
question of international concerns? Was it to find a Soviet conspiracy or to
find a Cuban conspiracy or in the national interests to be careful in
investigating that an international incident occurred? I don't want to put words
in your mouth but you understand my question.
A. I do not remember any pressure from the FBI tending in either of those two
directions. For the most part I believe the record will reflect that the
investigation of the Commission directed at possible foreign entanglements was
conducted through the CIA rather than the FBI. On the other hand, the FBI
carried the major burden with respect to investigating, as I remember, Oswald's
affiliations with various Cuban groups to the extent those occurred within the
United States. So the FBI did have a substantial investigative commitment in
exploring that particular possibility of foreign enanglement. I do not remember
the FBI treating this particular area of investigative concern with any greater
or lesser concern or aggressiveness than characterized other areas in which the
Bureau carried the major investiative responsibility.
Q. What about the CIA, did they pull or tug you in any direction in this area?
A. It is hard to speak about the activities of the CIA now in view of the
disclosures that have been made during the past several years.
Q. I am really asking you from the perspective of one who was centrally involved
with the investigative agency or of putting requests to them and receiving them,
did you perceive at that time that the Agency was pulling or pushing the
Commission in any one particular direction?
A. I recall two reactions at the time. First, I remember that the Agency was
especially sensitive with respect to its investigative
Page 401
401
techniques and sources and that they certainly wanted to encourage us not to
make requests or more importantly make disclosures in the report that might
hamper the further utilization of their investigative sources and methods.
Second, my recollection is that some of the responsible officials at the CIA
were very experienced and aggressive investigators with a very, substantial
interest in satisfying themselves whether there was any illicit or
conspiratorial involvement by a foreign government in the assassination of
President Kennedy. In essence, my judgment at the time was that they were
thoroughly motivated to apply their best efforts to learn what the true facts
were regarding foreign involvement in the assassination although they recognized
that their ability to satisfy anyone on this score was rather limited.
Q. Specifically, did you perceive at any time on the basis of those people you
came in contact with at the agency that they were pressing or advocating a Cuban
based conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy?
A. No; I did not have an impression based on my contacts that they favored any
particular explanation of a foreign entanglement. I had rather the sense that
they considered almost every possibility of sufficient seriousness to be
explored by them, if not by us.
Q. In your judgment had they had that pet theory, do you think you would have
felt the pressure?
A. I think that they would have felt free to set forth their hypothesis to us if
they thought it might influence us or if they felt it was not being given
sufficient consideration by us. In retrospect though it is hard to recall any
very likely substantive discussions with CIA officials regarding their
hypotheses or the investigative avenues that we at the Commission would most
profitably pursue. I have the feeling now, and this is probably based on more
recent things, that the Agency was largely conducting its own inquiries separate
from those of the Commission and sharing with the Commission only such results
as they felt were absolutely required.
Q. You were the person on the Commission who had the greatest contact with the
investigative agencies, both in receiving and transmitting investigative
requests, weren't you?
A. I did have major responsibility in preparing and submitting investigative
requests to the investigative agencies. As I indicated earlier, I did typically
review proposed investigative requests, discuss them with the responsible staff
members and pursue any differences of views on the subject by presenting the
proposed request to Mr. Rankin for his final disposition. I did also meet at
regular intervals with representatives of the investigative agencies. Other
members of the staff, however, did have very substantial exposure and contact
with members of the investigative agencies, especially those members of the
staff engaged in some of the more technical work focusing on the physical
evidence.
Q. But apart from Mr. Rankin himself you would have been the only staff member
who had a perspective as broad as the Commission's mandate in dealing with the
various agencies, is that correct?
A. I think that is generally correct. My only caveat arises from my uncertainty
as to what Mr. Rankin and the Commission might have
Page 402
402
been doing independently with the agencies that I was not aware of.
Q. So at least then from your perspective if either the agency or the FBI was
trying to sell a pet theory of the Cuban involvement or the Soviet involvement,
do I understand you correctly that you were not aware of any particular selling
job being done on you?
A. That is correct. This line of questioning has been limited to theories
relating to foreign entanglement and I am purporting now to discuss whether
those agencies had any institutional interest in the investigation that they may
have been trying to protect or further by trying to influence the work of the
Commission.
Q. Mr. Willens, for example, it has been alleged at least in the press most
recently that the Cuban Government has taken the position that the CIA was at
that time attempting to lay the blame for the assassination on the Cuban
Government and I am asking these questions most pointedly to ascertain from you
who I would suppose to be one of the persons in a position to know or to have
felt that pressure if it existed in 1963-64. Do I understand you then to say
that if it existed you didn't see it?
A. In the sense of a strong and decided effort by the CIA to influence us to
believe there was a Cuban conspiracy, my answer is that
I do not recall any such pressure. I do recall the CIA personnel being keenly
interested in the possibilities of either a Soviet or a Cuban involvement in the
assassination. I recall also some considerable disquiet about the Oswald trip to
Mexico City shortly before the assassination.
I am not sure that the agency then or perhaps now feels that all the questions
with respect to that trip have been adequately resolved. To that extent I want
to suggest that they were committed to investigating these matters, I believe,
but that they did not have any special bias that came through to me at least in
conversations I had with officials of the Agency.
Q. I believe in your November 17, 1977 testimony you indicated that the
principal person through whom the Agency interacted with the Commission was Mr.
Helms, is that correct?
A. Yes; that is correct. He did have two deputies whose names were mentioned in
my earlier testimony who also participated in this effort.
Q. Can you recall anything in Mr. Helms' conduct that then you interpreted or
now that you might in retrospect interpret as an effort to sell Cuban-based
conspiracy to the Commission?
A. It seems now to be a matter of public record. The CIA in the years preceding
the assassination of President Kennedy had in place plans to explore ways of
assassinating Castro. It seems also to be a matter of public record that the
Agency did not in fact disclose these activities to representatives of the
Warren Commission or, to put it more precisely, I am not aware that any such
information was communicated to the Warren Commission.
Q. We can come back to that specific topic a little later.
A. Yes; but I am suggesting, and the reason I raise the question now is that
this failure would have cut against any effort by the CIA really to focus our
attention on involvement by the Cuban Government because it would have naturally
raised among representatives of the Commission a question as to the basis for
that hypothesis by the CIA and some further questioning regarding the
information in the Agency's possession relating to Cuba.
Page 403
403
Q. Did you perceive at the time any effort to push you away from looking into
possible Cuban involvement or a Soviet involvement by the Agency?
A. No. Let me just add that the record of the Commission's investigative
activities will show the kind of investigative reports that we received from the
CIA and it may be that this committee with the benefit of the last 14 years and
other techniques may conclude that the Agency did in fact communicate
information to us designed to minimize our concern about a foreign involvement.
Q. But at least you weren't aware in 1963 that there was an effort direct your
attention elsewhere?
A. I do not remember any such effort.
Q. All right. I have asked you the questions about outside pressures involving
the Agency. You mentioned the State Department. Can you recall any effort by any
of the people associated with the State Department; for example, Mr. Chayes
indicated to you concerns by the Department of State of an international
character?
A. My recollection is that the Department of State emphasized only the need to
deal with such allegations carefully and responsibly. As I recall, there was
considerable discussion regarding the substance and style of the communication
to be addressed to the Soviet Union relating to the work of the Commission.
Q. Can you tell us more about that specific contact and the role of the State
Department in shaping it?
A. I do not have a very specific recollection. My belief is that we consulted
with the State Department on more than one occasion regarding the kind of
inquiry to be addressed to the Soviet Union and the likelihood that any such
request would be honored by the Soviet Union.
Q. Can you recall the State Department's position on the likelihood that it
would be honored?
A. I believe that the Department of State had some preliminary indication that a
request for factual information with respect to Oswald from the Soviet Union
would be honored. Beyond that, however, I don't recall whether we were
encouraged not to ask particular questions or discouraged from the entire
effort.
Q. For example, do you recall making a distinction or discussing a distinction
between public record information and I suppose I would call it police
information? By public record information I mean a marriage certificate,
application for a visa. By police information I mean internal reports of the KGB
dealing with interviews or surveillance of Lee Harvey Oswald.
A. I don't remember that distinction but it certainly sounds now as though it
makes considerable sense and might well have been discussed.
Q. Do you recall in fact that the form of the request seemingly called for only
public record information?
A. I do not have that specific recollection of the request that was actually
made.
Q. Do you recall getting anything other than public record information with
signatures that you could not read?
A. No; I do not have a recollection of receiving anything other than the
material such as you have described.
Page 404
404
Q. Was it ever brought to your attention or to the other staff members or
Commission members st least to your knowledge that there existed police
information in the Soviet Union dealing with Lee Harvey Oswald?
A. I do not remember.
Q. Do you recall any situation in which Mr. Helms discussed with you--by you I
mean either the Commission or you being a staff member---that Lee Harvey Oswald
was apparently subjected to police surveillance in the Soviet Union and that the
Soviet Union had that information?
A. I do have a recollection of either knowing or assuming that to be the fact. I
do not recall what the source of my knowledge or assumption was. Of course Mr.
Helms may have had conversations with members of the Commission, in particular
Mr. Dulles, that explored the kind of problem in detail other than in any
conversation in which I participated.
Q. Can you recall anything of this character influencing the way in which the
State Department requested the request should be made?
A. I may not be reconstructing this appropriately. My sense is that we recognize
that only certain kinds of information could be obtained through formal
diplomatic channels and that other perhaps more relevant or meaningful
information could be obtained only through channels available to the CIA. We
were trying to utilize both avenues to the best effect. I believe that the CIA
had the responsibility for utilizing what sources and methods it had in those
days to obtain such information as it could.
Q. What I am really specifically worried about now is the form of the
Commission's request and certain responses of the Soviet Government seemingly
operated on the level of public information and l am wondering whether the
agency and/or the State Department influenced any way in which the Commission
asked for information formally from the Soviet Union so that only public
information was asked for and received.
A. I don't remember the considerations that went into so limiting the request
through formal diplomatic channels. I have a general recollection that we were
depending on the CIA to get any nonpublic information that might be available to
it. I have the recollection also that we thought it would be clearly
inappropriate in a formal diplomatic communication to inquire of the Soviet
Union whether Lee Harvey Oswald was an agent of the KGB. It seemed to us that
there was a certain futility involved in asking that kind of question through a
formal diplomatic note and I assume that the Department of State would have
strongly advised against so doing.
Q. All right. Just to round out this point on a slightly different aspect of it,
do you recall receiving either formally or informally from the agency any
information that the agency had obtained other than through formal diplomatic
channels on Lee Harvey Oswald from the Soviet Union?
A. Yes.
Q. Could you share that with me now?
A. Well, I think such materials as we obtained are in the records of the
Commission. I do not know whether they continue to be protected by a security
classification or not.
Page 405
405
Q. For the record, you ought to be aware that the committee has access to all
the information, both classified and not classified, that is made available to
the Commission or is currently in existence in the agency. My question really
was not designed to ask you to disclose classification information as much as to
comment whether you were aware and more specifically of the existence of any
Soviet defectors at about 1963-64 and any information that they may have had
bearing on Lee Harvey Oswald.
A. Yes; I was aware of the reports from the CIA with respect to a Soviet
defector whose knowledge with respect to Oswald was being evaluated by the
agency at the time and as to which the agency eventually offered some assessment
on which the Commission felt it could rely. I do have a recollection also that
there was other information originating from sources in addition to the defector
of a kind that may have included nonpublic information of the sort you are
referring to.
Q. Can you recall for us what the agency's position was at that time on the
quality and accuracy of information obtained from Soviet defectors about Lee
Harvey Oswald?
A. I cannot speak in terms of more than one defector. There may have been others
and it was my understanding then and is even more fully understood by me now
that the handling of defectors by the agency is a very sophisticated and
controversial line of work. It is my understanding now that there was a
considerable controversy regarding the credibility of the particular defector to
whom I am making reference.
I think the record probably has to stand as the best evidence of what their
ultimate assessment was. As I recall, they cautioned us against premature or
extensive reliance on the information coming from this particular defector but
that near the end of our work my recollection is that we were given reason to
believe that the defector had supplied some information that was confirmatory of
conclusions that the Commission might otherwise reach with respect to the
absence of Soviet involvement in any conspiracy.
Q. Did the Commission rely to any degree on that information? It of course does
not appear as such in the Commission's report and I would ask then as to whether
any reliance was placed on that in writing the final report although there are
no citations to the testimony of a Soviet defector either given formally or
informally to the Commission.
A. I really could not answer that question without reviewing the records of the
Commission and the deliberations with respect to the findings set forth in the
Commission report.
Q. Could you make a comment in a general way? I am not really worried about any
specific three lines in the Commission's report but rather that the general
orientation of the Commission toward its conclusions. For example, the
conclusion of no Soviet involvement or single assassin to the degree that the
defector's information tended to support no Soviet involvement or single
assassin, can you recall that defector's confirmation of those two theses played
a role or was a factor in the willingness of the Commission to decide either of
those two issues?
Page 406
406
A. It is my recollection that the Commission tried to resolve those two issues
without reliance on the information coming from the Soviet defector. However, I
believe that some members of the Commission and staff undoubtedly found some
small comfort in the fact that a defector did exist who was characterized as
possibly reliable by the CIA. whose statements did not contradict the findings
that the Commission was otherwise disposed to make.
I think you can be confident that if the Soviet defector had stated knowledge of
Soviet Union involvement in the assassination that the Commission would have
qualified its conclusions with respect to the two issues even more than was done
in the report as published. To that extent therefore, the existence of this
defector and the assessment at the time by the agency were relevant to the
Commission's conclusions.
Q. Following up this same line of inquiry and perhaps jumping ahead in what I
hope would be a very orderly discussion, nonetheless it seems to be appropriate
to raise it here, the Commission had available to it information stemming from
what was described as unusually reliable sources dealing with the Cuban
Government. Do you recall receiving a transmission from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation outlining that the Bureau had an unusually reliable source of
information closely connected to the Cuban Government whose information, if
believed, would tend to indicate that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone I am doing
my best to express this in indirect terms.
A. But your question refers to a transmission from the FBI, is that correct?
Q. To the Commission.
A. And by transmission do you mean something different than report?
Q. yes; a letter.
A. I have a recollection of a source described as confidential and reliable
being utilized in connection with the Cuban aspect of the Commission's
investigation. I do not have a recollection of that transmission or a reference
to a source from the FBI as opposed to the CIA but I may be mistaken in that
connection.
Mr. BLAKEY. Let me suggest that we take a 2-minute break and we can resume.
[Whereupon, a short recess was taken.]
By BLAKEY. We can go back on the record.
By Mr. BLAKEY:
Q. Mr. Willens, let me show you a copy of what has been previously marked as
Warren Commission Document 1359 which is a letter from Edgar Hoover, the
Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to the Honorable J. Lee Rankin
and ask if you would look at it, please.
I might also note that the dental has a JFK document No. 002734.
Have you seen that letter previously?
Page 407
407
Letter from J. Edgar Hoover to J. Lee Rankin
Page 408
408
Letter from J. Edgar Hoover to J. Lee Rankin
Page 409
409
A. I think so.
Q. The letter in the form in which it has been shown to you had certain sections
excluded because of their sensitive character. Nevertheless, do you recall the
letter as well as the contents that are excluded in the copy shown you?
A. I do not have any recollection of the comments which were attributed to Mr.
Castro in that communication but which are not contained in the letter as was
shown to me.
Q. Can you recall generally whether what Mr. Castro may have said that time
concerning the assassination of President Kennedy may have played any part in
the Commission staff or the Commission itself being willing to find the absence
of Cuban involvement or to affirm the probable validity of a single assassin
theory?
A. I do not recall that we had any evidence or investigative leads implicating
Mr. Castro personally or his government generally in the assassination. I am
assuming that the comments attributed to Mr. Castro in that communication were
not admissions that Mr. Castro or government officials acting at his direction
had been involved in any way with the assassination of President Kennedy.
Assurances of that kind were undoubtedly considered by the Commission staff and
members of the Commission in evaluating the overall investigation and reaching a
finding with respect to the possibility of Cuban involvement. My concern now, of
course, is that additional sources of information may have been available to the
investigative agencies with respect to this matter that were not fully exploited
and results made available to the Commission pertaining to such results bore
directly on the possibility of an informed conspiracy.
Q. Let me ask you the last of the four elements that I discussed with you
previously. Can you recall any outside or inside pressures or discussions that
reflect a concern that the Commission's effort might be a McCarthy-type witch
hunt?
A. I have the recollection that concerns of that kind were presented to the
Commission both through the media and through ather sources. I believe it is a
desire to prevent any such accusation that the Commission developed certain
procedures with respect to its proceedings to protect the rights of individuals
whose activities were being investigated by the Commission and to exercise
caution in the framing of conclusions with respect to what the evidence showed.
Q. Can you recall any specific discussions with specific people where the
question of a witch hunt came up? Not necessarily in those terms.
A. As our records reflect, there was considerable controversy early on in the
work of the Commission regarding the protection of Lee Harvey Oswald's rights as
a criminal suspect who could not be brought to trial. As you know, those
deliberations resulted in certain procedures and safeguards being put in place
to try to make certain that the Commission's conclusions with respect to Oswald
were based on a fair assessment of all the relevant evidence. That is the only
context in which I remember this particular issue coming up over any period of
time. From time to time there were published expressions of concern that the
Commission not prematurely or unfairly reach a conclusion that because Lee
Harvey Oswald had gone to Russia that there was a Soviet conspiracy. These
expressions of concern balanced the other expressions
Page 410
410
to the effect that the the Commission should not reach inappropriately any
conclusion that this was the product of a right wing conspiracy prompted by
conservative interests who were dissatisfied with the administration of
President Kennedy. We had assured a wide range of concerns and wide
conspiratorial theories and the proponents of each were pressing their theories
and trying to urge the Commission to reject an alternative explanation.
Q. Mr. Willens, let me show you what has been previously marked as Willens
exhibit No. 2 which is a memorandum from the then Deputy Attorney General
Nicholas deB. Katzenbach to Mr. Moyers in the White House dated November 25,
1963. I take it you have had an opportunity to see that before today, is that
correct?
Page 411
411
WILLENS EXHIBIT NO. 2A
Page 412
412
WILLENS EXHIBIT NO. 2A CONT.
Page 413
413
A. Yes; I have reviewed this memorandum in the course of preparing for my
testimony before this committee. I do not have a recollection of seeing this
memorandum at the time that it was prepared in 1963.
Q. Were you generally aware that memorandums of these kinds were circulating in
the Government at that time.
A. I was generally aware that Mr. Katzenbach was having conversations regarding
how best to deal with the assassination and what disclosures, if any, should be
made to the public with respect to the assassination.
Q. You did not know then of this memorandum in 1963 or 1964?
A. I do not recall seeing it at or about the time it was written. I do not
believe also that it came into the possession of the Warren Commission but I
might be mistaken in that regard.
Q. At page 8-112 of your testimony on November 17 we discussed a letter of Mr.
Katzenbach to the Chief Justice dated December 9, 1963. Let me show you a copy
of what has been marked as Willens and ask you whether you are familiar with
that letter.
You have seen that letter before today, this morning?
Page 414
414
WILLENS EXHIBIT NO. 2B
Page 415
415
WILLENS EXHIBIT NO. 2B CONT.
Page 416
416
WILLENS EXHIBIT NO. 2B CONT.
Page 417
417
A. Yes; I have seen that letter before my testimony here this morning.
Q. Were you aware of the letter in 1963 or 1964?
A. I was aware that the Deputy Attorney General officially sent to the
Commission copies of the FBI report. I do not believe that I participated in the
drafting of this letter at the Department of Justice although it is possible
that I was aware of its existence at the time even though I did not participate
in its drafting.
Q. Can you recall any member of the Commission discussing it?
A. I remember some very early conversations with Mr. Rankin and the Chief
Justice with respect to the question whether anything should be made public
about the assassination based on the work of the FBI. I think I was aware that
the Deputy Attorney General had expressed his views on this subject and that the
Chief Justice believed that no disclo-
sures should be made until the Commission had undertaken its inquiry. I think
this was one of the first policy issues presented to the Commission although I
was not at the meeting where it was discussed.
Q. Would it be fair to characterize this letter as an example of the kind of
outside pressures that were put on the Commission with an apparent design to
shape its work?
A. Well, I do have some difficulty with your use of the word "pressure." The
letter I think is an effort to inform the Chief Justice of a possible course of
action for his consideration and that of the other members of the Commission. It
was a question that had to be resolved because of the President's earlier
statement to the public that the results of the FBI inquiry would be made
public. Since that statement was on the public record there was obviously a need
to deal with it so as to either make a public statement as had been promised by
President Johnson or provide some satisfactory explanation as to why such a
public statement could not usefully be made at that time.
Q. Do you recall any staff discussions of the Katzenbach letter?
A. I do not recall discussions among the staff about the Katzenbach letter. By
the time the staff was assembled, more than a month had elapsed since the date
on that letter and the Commission in the interim had reached a conclusion that
there would be no public statement based on the FBI report. That was a
conclusion of the Commission with which I believe the staff was in general
agreement.
Q. At page 8-138 of your testimony of November 17 I showed you JFK exhibit No.
65 which was a memorandum from Mr. Hubert and Mr. Griffin to yourself dated
February 24, 1964, dealing with telephone records. At that time you raised a
question of the response that had been made to JFK exhibit No. 63 which was a
Hubert-Griffin memorandum to Mr. Rankin dated May 14, 1964, raising questions
about the adequacy of the Ruby investigation. You noted at that time that there
was also an exchange of memoranduras on June 1, 1964, between yourself and Mr.
Hubert and Mr. Griffin. In that context let me show you what has previously been
marked Willens exhibits Nos. 3 and 4. You have had an opportunity to see them
this morning, have you not?
[For copies of JFK 63 and 65, see supra testimony of Burt Griffin; and for
Willens Nos. 3 and 4; see IV HSCA-JFK Hearing, pp. 54860.]
A. Yes.
Page 418
418
Q. Are these the exchange of memorandums you referred to in your testimony of
November 17?
A. Yes.
Q. All right. Is there anything that you would like to add to your testimony of
November 17 in light of these two exhibits?
A. Yes; there is. I am disturbed by the fact that these documents have been
produced for the purpose of securing testimony at this late stage in this
committee's investigation. I was troubled by the thrust of your previous
interrogation with respect to the adequacy of the investigation by the Warren
Commission in the Ruby area where the responsible attorneys were Mr. Hubert and
Mr. Griffin.
I understand furthermore that the adequacy of this investigation has been the
subject of testimony that the committee has elicited from witnesses other than
myself before I appeared in November. The general thrust of the questioning was
to the effect that the investigation in this Ruby area was incomplete and that
limitations had been placed on the responsible attorneys by myself or Mr.
Rankin. I think that hypothesis is a thoroughly appropriate one for the
committee to investigate but that if you do explore this issue you have a
responsibility to put into the record and elicit testimony concerning all the
relevant documents pertaining to the issue.
The fact that the staff did not present these two documents to me or others at
an earlier date gives rise to some concern as to why that happened. There
certainly are two possibilities. First, it is possible that these documents had
not been found by the staff of this committee in the course of reviewing the
Warren Commission records in which event the adequacy of this committee's
investigation is suspect. Second, it is possible that the committee staff found
these materials but elected not to present them to me or other witnesses whose
testimony was being sought regarding the adequacy of the Ruby investigation.
If the second hypothesis is accurate, it suggests that the committee staff is
biased in its underlying approach, and is motivated by a desire to document
preconceived notions regarding the adequacy of the Warren Commission
investigation. I mention these possibilities not really to suggest that either
is supportable but only to demonstrate that this committee's work is subject to
challenge and error as the work of the Warren Commission and to that extent I
hope that when the committee staff and the full committee addresses this issue
of the adequacy of the Ruby investigation you will take into light the substance
of these memorandums and the fact that some of the earlier testimony you have
obtained and the documents that predate June 1, 1964, must be evaluated in light
of the subject of these particular memorandums.
Q. In addition to seeing these two memorandums today, were they forwarded by me
to you shortly after your appearance on November 17?
A. Yes: they were.
Q. Would that indicate that the staff has had access to these documents since
the end of November?
A. Yes; it certainly would indicate that you did ascertain their existence and
presumably you realized them since late November 1977.
Q. And that would mean that there are at least three hypotheses or possible ways
of interpreting that these documents would be shown to
Page 419
419
you now. The third would be that they were found shortly after your testimony
and perhaps in light of your testimony and that they have indeed shaped the
committee's investigation since that time and are being shown to you now in a
deposition taken to complete your testimony of November 17 in a spirit of
fairness and completeness.
A. Yes. I appreciate that fact but my concern really goes to the testimony of
other witnesses that have been presented to this committee. My concern is that
other witnesses may not have had their recollection refreshed by these
particular memoranda and accordingly may have testified based on the earlier
memoranda that the investigative efforts in the Ruby area were improperly
restrained by persons like myself acting in a reviewing capacity.
Q. And if you learned that there was an exchange of correspondence between the
committee staff and other witnesses periodically making an effort to bring each
witnesses' testimony up in light of the developing investigation, I take it you
would be willing to indicate that your concern was allayed.
A. That would be helpful to allay my concern; it would still leave open both of
the hypotheses that I have identified regarding the adequacy of the staff's
search for the relevant materials or the existence of possibly a bias with
respect to this investigation.
Q. Which in any case could not be finally determined until our record was read
as a whole at the conclusion of our investigation; isn't that correct?
A. That is correct.
Q. Let me concentrate a little more on where we were on November 17. We had just
begun, I think, to discuss the relationship between the various Federal agencies
and the Warren Commission. Let me specifically, if I may, call your attention
back to subjects we covered a little bit this morning but I want to cover in a
little more detail and that is the relationship between the Warren Commission
and the FBI.
How would you characterize the relationship between the Bureau and the Warren
Commission on the question of its general attitude toward being cooperative or
uncooperative?
A. I think the FBI honored its responsibilities of generally cooperating to its
fullest capability with the Commission's investigation.
Q. Would you characterize its responses as timely or untimely or none of the
above?
A. I believe that the Bureau on the whole responded in a timely fashion to the
request of the Commission. There were, as the records reflect, some
investigative requests that took longer than others to answer and there were
instances where the Bureau representatives and the Commission staff negotiated
with respect to particular requests that caused some special difficulty.
Q. Did you perceive at any time, based on your contacts with the Bureau, that
there was any kind of an adversary relationship between the Commission and the
Bureau?
A. The relationship was certainly not free of controversy. Let us be clear about
the fact that the Bureau had conducted a substantial investigation before the
Commission was completed and had reached certain conclusions regarding the facts
of the assassination. In particular the Bureau had concluded that Lee Harvey
Oswald was a single assassin,
Page 420
420
that the assassination had occurred in a particular way and that there was no
evidence of any conspiracy. It would be completely understandable for the FBI to
be concerned about the possibility that the investigation of the Warren
Commission would disprove one or more of the findings of the FBI and they were
undoubtedly sensitive to this possibility that did contribute from time to time
to a relationship that might be described as arm's length if not adversarial.
Q. You indicated, and quite properly, that when the Warren Commission came into
existence it found an investigation substantially underway and I take it that
you would probably agree with the characterization of that investigation as one
that was largely self-directed by the FBI. After the Warren Commission came into
existence would you care to indicate for the record the degree to which the
locus of the decisionmaking in that investigation shifted from Bureau officials
to the Warren Commission?
A. Yes. I think that is a useful perspective and I have two things to say about
it. First, the Bureau remained free to conduct whatever investigation it desired
with respect to the assassination. It certainly was not inhibited by the
Commission regarding such investigative efforts as it might have decided were
appropriate under the circumstances. Second the Commission staff did believe
that its initial job was to review the investigative materials and by that I do
mean the underlying materials rather than the summary FBI report and make such
additional investigative requests to the FBI as seemed warranted.
The records of the Commission will reflect during the several months beginning
in approximately February a substantial number of detailed investigative
requests were designed to elicit from the FBI specific responses to specific
questions that members of the Commission staff thought should be explored. In
that respect the Commission entered the picture as a new decisionmaker to direct
the Bureau's investigative effort in the sense that the Bureau was one of the
investigative arms available to the Commission to develop the pertinent facts.
Q. In fact, did the Bureau continue to conduct the investigation on its own
initiative?
A. I do not know to what extent the Bureau did not conduct the investigation
other than that specifically requested by the Commission. I have the sense that
our invest, igative requests were so extensive and numerous that it engaged in
substantial Bureau resources but I do not know whether in addition they
conducted other investigation.
Q. You cannot recall now receiving the product of investigative effort that you
had not requested after you came into existence and had begun to make requests
of your own?
A. Well, no, that is not entirely correct. I do have a recollection of
occasional communications from the Bureau that were unsolicited in the sense
that they contained facts or allegations coming to the attention of Bureau
agents or informants.
Q. But it would be your judgment, if I understand your testimony correctly, that
the basic initiative was being taken by the Commission and not the Bureau?
A. All I can speak about is the initiative undertaken by the Commission, and as
to that it seemed clear that one of the important steps in our investigation was
to master the investigative materials supplied to the
Page 421
421
Commission by the FBI and the other investigative agencies and to organize a
further investigative effort to look at leads that came to our attention.
Q. Let me turn your attention now to the question of whether any relevant
evidence was withheld from the Commission by the February investigation and show
you what has been marked as JFK exhibit No. 70. You have had an opportunity to
review that prior to your testimony, have you not? For the record it is a
memorandum dated February 12, 1964, of yourself summarizing a staff meeting in
reference to the allegation that Lee Harvey Oswald was an undercover agent for
the FBI, is that correct?
Page 422
422
WILLENS EXHIBIT NO. 5
Page 423
423
WILLENS EXHIBITS NO. 5 CONT.
Page 424
424
A. Yes; that is correct. I have had the opportunity to review this exhibit.
Q. How would you characterize this incident and its impact on the work of the
Commission?
A. Well, my recollection is refreshed by this memorandum and I do have the
recollection as indicated here that the omission of the Hosty information from
Oswald's address book was, and I quote, "of considerable importance and could
not be ignored by the Commission." End quote. I believe that was the predominant
staff sentiment at the time and we were generally upset by an incident which we
thought was some question on the readiness of the FBI to supply all information
forthrightly to the Commission.
Q. For the record, at this point let me kind of summarize some of what the Hosty
omission might be further described as. Mr. Robert P. Gemberging was a special
agent of the FBI who acted as a coordinator of the FBI's assassination
investigation. Gemberging's report dated December 23, 1963, submitted to the
Warren Commission on January 13, 1964, and labeled CD 205 contained a
transcription of Oswald's address book but omitted the entry of a name, office
address, telephone number and license number of Special Agent James P. Hosty.
His report dated February 11, 1964, submitted to the Warren Commission on
February 20, 1964, and labeled CD 385, however, contained the remaining content
of the address book including the Hosty entry. He Submitted to the Commission an
affidavit dated February 25, 1964, explaining the original omission. Special
Agent John T. Kesler who had reviewed the original transcription submitted a
similar affidavit. Both affidavits explained that the omission reflected
Gemberging's instruction to the effect that Kesler was to extract all names and
telephone numbers, the identities of which were unknown, together with any other
lead information. On this basis Special Agent Hosty's name was said to have been
excluded because it was neither unkown nor lead information.
What impact did this set of events in this meeting that you have had here have
on the trust between the staff and the Federal Bureau of Investigation?
A. I think it had an adverse effect on the relationship between the staff and
the Bureau that could be rehabilitated only over a fairly lengthy period of
time. That was healthy in the sense that it alerted the staff to the possibility
that the FBI might have institutional or other interests that were not fully
consistent with the objectives of the Warren Commission. To that extent I think
it caused the staff to exercise more initiative to review investigative reports
more carefully and to make certain that the investigation could be fairly
characterized when it was finally completed as an investigation by the
Commission and its staff rather than investigation by the FBI.
Q. It has subsequently become public that there was an apparent destruction of a
note delivered by Lee Harvey Oswald to the FBI. Let me read to you a short
description of that situation.
Sometime approximately 2 weeks before the assassination it is said that Lee
Harvey Oswald left a note at the Dallas office of the FBI Special Agent James P.
Hosty. The receptionist who took the note remembers its contents more or less as
follows:
Page 425
425
Let this be a warning. I would blow up the FBI and the Dallas Police Department
if you don't stop bothering my wife.
Special Agent Hosty has not acknowledged that he received the note on the same
day. Nevertheless, he remembers it as saying:
If you have anything you want to learn about me, come talk to me directly. If
you don't cease bothering my wife, I will take appropriate action and report
this to proper authorities.
Hosty says he put the note in his workbox. He also indicates that on the evening
of November 24, 1963, he was instructed by Gordon Shanklin, the special agent in
charge of the Dallas field office, to destroy the note and a memorandum he wrote
discussing the note and his contacts with Lee Harvey Oswald. Accordingly, Hosty
destroyed them.
Hosty testified before the Warren Commission on May 5, 1964, and during that
testimony he made no mention of the note or its destruction because he had been
instructed by the FBI not to volunteer information.
Had you been aware of this information in 1964, do you think it would have
affected the course of your investigation?
A. Are you talking about the Oswald note or are you talking about the knowledge
that the Oswald note had been destroyed by Mr. Hosty?
Q. Both.
A. If we had known about the Oswald note, I think it would have provided us
still further confirmation of the findings reached by the Commission with
respect to the adequacy of the liaison between the FBI and the Secret Service.
If the substance of the note was more or less as recalled by the receptionist,
it would have revealed a particular level of emotional intensity and capacity
for threatened violence that might plausibly have prompted the Bureau to be more
concerned about Oswald in light of the impending Presidential visit than was in
fact apparently the case. At the same time though the note itself would have
been largely confirmatory of facts already known to the Commission from the FBI
and other sources; namely, that the FBI did have a file on Oswald and numerous
contacts with him before the visit of President Kennedy to Dallas in November
1963.
With respect to the destruction of the note, I think it is clear that knowledge
of this fact would have prompted the most serious kind of criticism of the FBI
by the Warren Commission. I find that reported destruction of a note to be
inexcusable and the saddest possible commentary on the mentality that apparently
prevailed in those days at the FBI. I do not think our knowledge of either fact,
however, would have prompted any additional investigation with respect to the
substance of our inquiry that might have developed facts other than those that
were ultimately set forth in our report.
Q. Both of these incidents raise questions about the relationship between Lee
Harvey Oswald and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I am sure you are
familiar with the concern expressed by some that Lee Harvey Oswald far from
having an adversary relationship with the Bureau as the note destruction
incident might 'have indicated had instead an agent's relationship with the
Bureau.
Page 426
426
What significance do you think there would have been to the fact, assuming it
could be established, that Oswald may have been an informer or an undercover
operative for the FBI?
A. I don't think I understand the question.
Q. Suppose your inquiry into Oswald's background had demonstrated that he was an
informant for the FBI reporting on the activity of an organization such as Fair
Play for Cuba. Had that informant file not been more complicated than what I
described to you as being among the materials considered by the Commission,
would that (a) have affected your investigation or (b) assuming that nothing
additional was known, would that have affected your ultimate conclusions about
the assassination?
A. I certainly think that knowledge that Oswald was an informant of the FBI
would have affected our investigation. It would have raised serious questions
regarding the origin of that relationship between Oswald and the Bureau and any
knowledge by the Bureau regarding Oswald's propensity for violence or his plan
to assassinate the President. It would have raised 14 years ago an issue that is
very much in the newspapers today regarding the extent to which law enforcement
agencies find themselves acquiring information from informants who themselves
participate in criminal conduct, so at the very least it would have involved an
investigation addressed toward that kind of possibility arising from Oswald's
status as an informant of the FBI.
I cannot begin to speculate whether it would have resulted in any differing
conclusion of the Commission since by this time we are piling speculation upon
speculation since it remains my conviction that Oswald was not in fact an
informant of the FBI as that term is customarily used. In fact, the destruction
incident that we have just been reviewing cuts against any suggestion that
Oswald was an informant in my view because the Bureau would perhaps have engaged
in a more substantial reconstruction of the pertinent records if they had not
been trying to conceal any such relationship.
Q. Let me show you what has been previously marked as JFK Exhibit No. 71 which
is a letter dated November 14, 1977, from you to me and ask you if you are
familiar with it and its attachments?
Page 427
427
JFK EXHIBIT NO. 71
Page 428
428
JFK EXHIBIT NO. 71 cont.
Page 429
429
JFK EXHIBIT NO. 71 cont.
Page 430
430
JFK EXHIBIT NO. 71 cont.
Page 431
431
JFK EXHIBIT NO. 71 cont.
Page 432
432
JFK EXHIBIT NO. 71 cont.
Page 433
433
JFK EXHIBIT NO. 71 cont.
Page 434
434
A. Yes; I am.
Q. The letter and attachments speak pretty much for themselves. Nevertheless, is
there anything that you would like to add for the record at this time about the
newspaper article and your own previous letter which is an attachment to your
letter of November 14, 1977?
A. No.
Q. Let me turn your attention now to the relationship between the agency, the
CIA, and the Warren Commission. Would you generally characterize that
relationship as cooperative or uncooperative or none of the above?
A. I would describe it as cooperative.
Q. How would you describe their performance on the question on the issue of
time? Were they timely in their responses with you?
A. Yes; I think they generally were although I think there were one or two
investigative requests that were not responded to promptly.
Q. We previously talked about the possible adversary character of the
relationship between the Commission and the Bureau. Did a similar relationship,
however characterized, exist or come to exist between the Commission and the
agency?
A. I did not think so at the time although with the benefit of hindsight it
probably should have.
Q. We have also previously discussed the dynamics of the nature of the
investigation shifting to some degree from the Bureau to the Commission. Did a
similar process take place between the agency and the Commission?
A. I would not describe it in the same way. We made many fewer investigative
requests of the CIA than we did of the FBI and I certainly never had the
impression was necessary or useful in connection with conducting any inquiry
that it wished to with respect to the assassination.
Q. Did they in fact furnish a great deal of information to the Commission of
their own initiative that was not in response to the specific questions by the
Commission?
A. I recall very little information that was submitted by the CIA other than in
response to a specific Commission request.
Q. Let me show you what has been previously marked as JFK exhibit No. 62 which
is a series of items basically dealing with a request made by the Commission of
the Agency and on the top having a memorandum in your own handwriting apparently
dated March 12, 1964. You have had an opportunity before today to see these
documents, have you not?
[For a copy of JFK 62, see supra, testimony of Burt Griffin.]
A. Are you referring to all the materials that you have just handed me?
Q. No; I am primarily referring to the materials associated with your short
cover memorandum.
A. Yes, I have seen these before.
Q. Can you recall to whom the request in the Agency was given?
A. Well, as I see by reference to a letter dated May 19, 1964, from Mr. Rankin
to Mr. Helms that the memorandum of February 24, 1964, was delivered to Mr.
Helms at a meeting on March 12, 1964. That
Page 435
435
would coincide with any recollection of how we generally conducted business with
the CIA.
Q. But you had no specific memory of giving it to Mr. Helms?
A. No.
Q. Can you recall why the investigative request was apparently held for
approximately 16 days from the time the draft memorandum was given to you until
you recall it having been given to Mr. Helms?
A. No; I don't have a recollection of the reasons for the decision to handle the
matter at a meeting rather than by correspondence. I think we all anticipated
that the matter would require discussion with the CIA representatives and it may
be that we had a meeting with the for other reasons and decided simply to add
this to the agenda of such a meeting. I don't recall that there was any
particular controversy about any inquiry to the CIA for a review of files to
acquire what information they might have in those files relating to Ruby or
other persons whose names arose during the course of the Ruby investigation.
Q. If only this written record were examined, it would tend to indicate that it
took from approximately March to September for the Agency to respond to this
request. There is testimony before the committee that the written record does
not always adequately reflect the verbal communications. Does that square with
your memory?
A. Well, as I indicated, I did recall a few investigative requests that were not
responded to promptly by the CIA. This may have been one of those that I had in
mind. I am confident that the failure to respond more promptly was undoubtedly
brought to my attention either by Mr. Hubert or Mr. Griffin with the request
that some followup be made as to the reasons for the delay. I do not recall
personally, however, any conversation that I had with a CIA representative on
this subject.
Q. Assuming this written record is correct or approximately correct, would
delays of this magnitude have been typical of the Agency's response?
A. I don't believe that delays of that kind would have been typical. Also, I
think that the agency was more responsive to our request than this particular
written record would suggest. I am reasonably confident that if the agency had
any information in its files with respect to Ruby or other of the figures
mentioned in that memo they would have advised us orally before any written
response was made so as to give us the substance of our information before they
confirmed it in writing.
Q. You recall then that there was an extensive oral dialog between the agency
and the Warren Commission?
A. I would not describe it as extensive but there were certainly occasional
telephone conversations relating to investigative requests and I am surmising,
and that is all it is, that the CIA might well have informed us of the substance
of the September communication if my date is correct in oral form before they
confirmed it in writing. Much of the correspondence in September was designed to
confirm on the record information that had been previously communicated orally
so that a committee such as this would have a firmer factual record on which to
proceed than the clouded recollections of ancient staff members.
Page 436
436
Q. I do understand you correctly saying though that if one were only to come and
read the written record, one might come up with an impression of substantial
delays that in fact might have had impact on the work of the Commission where in
fact they did not because oral communications had been made. What I am really
getting at, Mr. Willens, is that, as I am sure you are aware of, critics have
analyzed the record of the Warren Commission and through a series of Freedom of
Information suits the forms of the CIA, and relying largely on the written
record and not the memory of ancient staff members, have sharply criticized the
agencies for not being responsive to the Warren Commission and I am trying to
get for our record your judgment whether that kind of criticism where it is
based only on the written record is wholly accurate or wholly fair.
A. No; I don't think it is wholly accurate because the written record provides
only a partial record of what actually transpired.
Q. Let me change the direction a little bit of my questions. Since 1964 it has
been public knowledge that the Central Intelligence Agency and certain organized
crime figures were involved, as you previously indicated, in efforts to
assassinate Premier Castro. Had you been aware of the relationship between
agency personnel and organized crime figures in this kind of activity, do you
think it would have affected the course of the Warren Commission's
investigation?
A. Yes; I think knowledge of that particular relationship might have prompted a
specific investigative request to the CIA to utilize those relationships and
sources to find out what Cuban involvement, if any, existed with the
assassination. It may have been that the CIA utilized these relationships and
sources independently and satisfied themselves that no evidence of Cuban
involvement could be developed through these relationships and sources.
I do not know what in fact they did on this subject. In response to your
question, however, if we had known of these relationships, we would have
requested that every effort be made to exploit these relationships and sources
and to report to the Commission the results of any such inquiries. I cannot
state now that that would have in any way changed the ultimate findings of the
Commission but it would have added another dimension to our investigative
effort.
Q. Let me take two possible examples of investigative decisions and let's see if
we cannot analyze them with some hindsight. Let me show you initially the
exhibit previously marked as JFK exhibit No. 65. I believe you had an
opportunity to review this memorandum previously.
On November 17 we discussed at least preliminarily the question of to what
degree the Commission reviewed various phone records. This memorandum raises
that general question. Had you known of the Mafia-CIA plots involving Premier
Castro, in retrospect now do you think you might have pursued an effort to trace
the telephonic communications through toll records to a greater extent than you
did?
A. I think that is possible but I think it probably would have been done on a
more focused basis than was proposed in this memorandum of February 24, 1964. We
are discussing now a course of investigation prompted by full disclosure by the
CIA of its relationships with
Page 437
437
organized crime figures in connection with a possible assassination of premier
Castro. If we had been confided in by the Agency, we might jointly have
concluded that certain extensive investigative efforts should be directed at
particular members of organized crime or particular time frames when those
persons might have been in Cuba or in communication with people in Cuba or in
some other way have had leads that would have permitted a focused and
potentially useful course of investigation. In other words, knowing of the CIA's
relationship with a handfull of organized crime figures with respect to a
potential Cuban assassination does not necessarily make appropriate a broad
scale review of all telephone records of all organized crime figures who might
have any relationship whatsoever with the assassination.
Q. Apart from the question of the CIA's relationship to organized crime figures
that might have prompted additional investigation, was it presented to you as an
active possibility that organized crime figures on their own might have been
involved in the assassination?
A. That was one of the main allegations that was reflected in the original
investigative material supplied by the FBI.
Q. Was it ever brought to your attention in 1963 or 1964 that the Federal Bureau
of Investigation had conducted extensive unlawful electronic surveillance of the
major figures involved in organized crime in the period of 1963, 1964?
A. I do not think so.
Q. You seem somewhat hesitant in answering me. Do you have a little bit of a
memory that you may have known about it or heard about it?
A. Well, there is so much that has come to light in the intervening 14 years
with respect to the FBI's techniques of electronic surveillance. Some of the
electronic surveillance that I did become aware of in my capacity as a
supervisory lawyer in the Criminal Division related to what I believe was
considered lawful electronic surveillance at the time but then again I have a
feel where you are the expert and so it is unfair to me that I have any
recollection here that is useful to you.
Q. Let me be a little more specific. The committee has had brought to its
attention that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had hot wire taps that were
at that time thought to be lawful under section 605 of the Federal
Communications Act where there was only interception and no public disclosure
but rather bugs--that is, electronic bugs---placed inside a home or an office,
that the Bureau had in existence somewhere between 75 and 100 bugs on the major
figures of organized crime specifically--the Costa Nostra in New York, Chicago,
Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Detroit and some on the west coast--that
hundreds of volumes of logs and notes based on the work of the investigative
clerks in listening to this existed within the FBI in 1963 and 1964.
Was either the existence of this program or the products of that program ever
brought to the attention of the Warren Commission?
A. I do not recall. I was aware that an extensive investigative program was
underway with respect to organized crime. I had every reason to believe that the
FBI and the Criminal Division which had responsibility for the overall
prosecutorial effort would bring to the
Page 438
438
attention of the Warren Commission any information developed by any source that
pertained to the work of the Warren Commission. I was aware also that the Bureau
would frequently submit investigative reports attributing information to
confidential but undisclosed sources. To that extent I was aware that there were
sources to which the Bureau attached a considerable confidence and importance
and so it maybe that those undisclosed and confidential sources were the means
by which information obtained through this program that you referred to was made
available to the Department of Justice or to the Warren Commission.
Q. To your knowledge was there any effort made by the Commission, by the
Department of Justice or the Bureau to survey that electronic surveillance to
determine whether there was any indication in it either direct or circumstantial
that any of the major figures of organized crime might have had motive,
opportunity, or the means to assassinate the President in Dallas?
A. I do not know whether any effort of that kind was made. I do not believe it
was made, if it was made at all, at the request of the Warren Commission because
I for one did not know that such a program was in effect at the time.
Q. Had you known it, would you have asked for that kind of survey to be made?
A. That certainly would have been a very reasonable and logical investigative
request to have made and it is my hope that in fact it was done by the Bureau
but I am confidental that you and the committee have information one way or the
other.
Q. Do you know of any informal communications between the Bureau and the
Commission that might have given on a confidential basis and not in a written
form the product of any such examination by the Bureau of this material?
A. No.
Q. OK.
A. The only other thing I can say on this general subject is that the Commission
did have substantial confidence in the Bureau's ability to investigate
allegations with respect to organized cringe figures. There were many
investigative reports submitted on this general subject as I recall and I think
the Commission was inclined to regard this particular kind of investigation as
something peculiarly within the competence of the FBI and to involve none of the
controversy that was associated with some of the other kinds of investigative
activities in which the Commission and the Bureau were jointly involved.
Q. Let me show you what has been previousy marked JFK exhibit Nos. 72 and 73.
Exhibit No. 72 is a memorandum dated April 1, 1964, from Mr. Slawson to Mr.
Rankin and exhibit No. 73 is a memorandum of April 24, 1964, from Mr. Slawson to
Mr. Rankin. Both of these memorandums deal with an allegation by John B. Martino
that Castro may in some way have been involved in the assassination of President
Kennedy.
You have had an opportunity before this morning to see these memoranda; is that
correct?
Page 439
439
[EXHIBIT NO. 72]
[EXHIBIT No. 73]
Page 440
440
EXHIBIT No. 73 cont.
A. Yes; I have a recollection of seeing these.
Q. There is no indication on either of these memorandums that they went to you
or through you. Do you recall seeing them in 1964?
A. Yes. It would be frequently the case that I would see such memoranda even
though I was not the addressee.
Q. These memoranda indicate that this particular allegation was handled only
through field interviews, that there was no effort being made to subpena Mr.
Martino and request from him an identification of the source to which he
attributes the allegation. There is nothing here or in any other records of the
staff of the Commission that indicates that a subpena was considered as a
possible investigative technique in addition or that a subpena might be employed
whether or not Mr. Martino would have a lawful grounds on which to refuse to
answer. I am thinking now of the fifth amendment or some other lawful privilege.
Do you think that had you known in 1964 of the allegations involving the agency
in efforts to assassinate Premier Castro that this kind of lead that was
followed only through field interviews might have been more vigorously pursued
by subpenas and immunity grants or other more potent investigative techniques?
A. I can do nothing more than speculate in response to that question and I am
reluctant to do so. This particular investigative lead was pursued as the
memorandum reflect through FBI interviews of the principal figures and the
reports of those interviews were reviewed by the responsible Commission
attorney. I obviously took no objection then and I do not take any objection now
to the conclusion reached here that no further investigation was required at the
time.
If we had known of agency sources or specialized capability with respect to
Cuba, any such allegation as this would have appropriately been the subject of
an investigative request to the CIA as well as pursuing the normal FBI avenue.
This is an example of a kind of an allegation that one might have transmitted to
the CIA and asked for them to conduct such investigation as seemed appropriate,
particularly with respect to the individuals here involved, the conversations
that allegedly took place regarding a Cuban involvement. We obviously did not do
so with respect to the CIA and I think it is probably what we would have done
had we known then some of the facts that we have discussed here earlier today.
Q. An examination by the staff of the Warren Commission materials and the Warren
Commission report itself, 492, does not indicate that Mr. Martino was called
before the Commission and deposed or even placed under oath for an affidavit. In
addition to asking you whether any additional investigative techniques might
have been employed through the agency, I would ask you to reflect and perhaps
speculate whether if you may have had a more concrete understanding that Premier
Castro may have had a motive to take revenge on President Kennedy for the CIA
plots, might you not have more vigorously pursued this allegation, for example,
by deposing him and placing him under oath or by calling him before the
Commission?
Page 441
441
A. I see nothing now that would have held out any greater promise of our
obtaining relative information. from Mr. Martino than was available at the time.
I do not attach quite the same significance as you do to taking a deposition of
a person under oath but there is one assumption underlying your questioning that
I think deserves some examinmation. You are assuming that really we were not
aware of the possibility that Premier Castro had a motive to participate in any
way in an assassination attempt on President Kennedy. That is clearly not the
case.
There was ample evidence in the historical record at the time that Premier
Castro might have felt that the United States and President Kennedy in
particular were trying to overthrow his government and that certainly would seem
to provide a sufficient possibility of a motive so as to justify exploration by
the Commission staff of any meaningful allegations as suggesting Cuban
involvement with Oswald in this assassination attempt. It was for that reason
that we did try to explore to the best of our ability those allegations that
came to our attention that suggested some Cuban or Cuban-related involvement. I
am confident that with the benefit of hindsight there were some of those
allegations that were investigated excessively and other allegations that were
not sufficiently investigated.
Q. Let me see if I cannot rephrase your answer and see if you will accept it.
Without the concrete knowledge of actual Government participation in the effort
to assassinate Premier Castro, it is your testimony that if you had sufficient
knowledge nonetheless of the possibility that the Commission in your judgment
adequately pursued that line of inquiry and that had you known concretely of the
assassination plots, it is unlikely that you would have done too many things too
terribly different.
A. Well, that is generally my position with the exception that we would have
specifically enlisted the assistance of the CIA on a regular basis on any
investigations relating to Cuba. I am confident if we learned of any indication
that Castro personally was aware of the United States sponsored efforts directed
at his assassination, then in that case we would have attached a higher
priority--perhaps the highest possible priority--to these allegations so as to
satisfy ourselves if we were able to regarding any involvement of the Cuban
Government.
Q. Mr. Willens, let me see if I cannot clarify and perhaps pin down precisely
what the status of your knowledge was as to the possession on the part of the
Commission or Commission members, Commission staff, of the Castro plots.
Specifically to your knowledge did the Chief Justice have any information while
he was serving on the Warren Commission concerning any involvement of any U.S.
intelligence agency in plots against Cubs to assassinate Fidel Castro?
A. I do not know.
Q. To your knowledge did any other Commissioner have any such information while
he was serving on the Warren Commission?
A. I do not know.
Q. To your knowledge did any staff member have any such information while he was
serving on the Warren Commission?
A. I believe not.
Page 442
442
Q. In retrospect was there any conduct on the part of the Chief Justice from
which you could have or might have inferred that he had such information?
A. No.
Q. In retrospect was there any conduct on the part of any other Commissioner
from which you could have or might have inferred that he had such information?
A. Not that I recall.
Q. In retrospect was there any conduct on the part of any staff member from
which you could have or might have inferred that he had such information?
A. Not that I recall.
Q. Did you see any document from which you could have or might have inferred
that either the Chief Justice or other Commissioner or any staff member had such
information?
A. No.
Q. Were you ever present during any discussions from which you could have or did
infer that the Chief Justice or other Commissioner or any staff member had such
information?
A. No.
Q. Were you ever instructed by anyone including the Chief Justice or any
Commissioner or any staff member or anyone else while you served on the Warren
Commission staff not to pursue any area of inquiry?
A. No.
Q. Were you ever instructed by anyone while you served on the Warren Commission
staff not to pursue any area of inquiry because the area might endanger the
national security?
A. No.
Q. Did anyone ever suggest to you that certain matters should not be explored
for any reason?
A. No.
Q. Did anyone ever suggest to you that certain matters should not be explored
for reasons of national security?
A. No.
Q. Let me change the subject if I might a little bit. I have only this one last
subject. l hope to get you out in time for lunch, assuming you either eat a late
lunch or eat quickly.
Let me ask a little bit about the writing of the final report and its processes.
Let me show you what has been previously marked as Willens Exhibit 5. I believe
you have not had an opportunity to see it previously. Nevertheless it purports
to indicate which staff member had primary responsibility for writing the
various chapters or rewriting the various chapters of the report. I wonder if
you would look at it and indicate whether that generally corresponds with your
memory?
A. No; it does not.
Q. Would you indicate for the record to what degree that exhibit does not
reflect the true facts?
A. This exhibit is in serious error with respect to almost everyone of the eight
chapters of the report. I do not know what the source of this exhibit was and I
don't know that it is worth your time or the committee's time to try to correct
it.
Page 443
443
Q. The source of the exhibit is from Epstein's book.
A. I suspected as much and that is just further confirmation of the substantial
errors that characterize Mr. Epstein's original work. One of the difficulties of
Mr. Epstein's review of this subject was that he interviewed only selected
members of the Commission staff and among those that he interviewed several,
including myself, elected not to talk to him about some matters that we regarded
as confidential to the work of the Commission.
Have you questioned other witnesses with respect to this exhibit
A. Do you regard this as something that is to be addressed in your committee
report?
Q. Not necessarily. Perhaps the best way to handle this would be if you want to
write me a short letter later in which you could indicate to the best of your
memory who had the primary responsibility to each of these sections, we could
incorporate it at the end of your testimony.
A. Why don't I take this exhibit under advisement then and see whether I can
supply helpful information to you with respect to it.
Q. All right.
A. I would just generally say that the exhibit underestimates the number of
people who contributed to the writing of the report and it overstates the
contributions made by certain individuals. It also reflects a lack of precision
as to the origin of the material that went into these various chapters. The
chapters as they finally emerge in the Commission report were the product of
considerable discussion and debate among the Commission's staff and the full
Commission. Eventually proposed drafts that were prepared by some staff members
were divided and found their way into several different chapters as we elected
to reorganize the report and this summary neglects to trace back to the original
drafters the individual subsections of individual chapters in the report. There
were approximately 20 members of the Commission staff who participated in a
substantial way in writing the Commission report.
If you let me consider it further, Mr. Blakey, to see if I can supplement that
brief statement with any more detailed statement, that might be useful.
Q. I might say this is the actual identity of individuals who wrote the
particular sections and it may well only be of historical interest and for some
inquiry. Someday in the future one may want to go back and figure that out. The
Committee is, however, very interested in processes and not so much the people
by which the material examined by the Commission ultimately found its way into
the particular form that it took in the Warren Commission report. As I am sure
you are aware, there has been considerable criticism of the Commission,
sometimes not so much on the substance of what it said but on its manner of
presentation and sometimes what it omitted. Consequently, the processes that are
in the Commission document are a matter that the committee is very vitally
concerned in so that if you would make an effort to reconstruct as best you can
that process and its personalization and individuals, I can assure you that that
letter's content would find a way into the committee's report.
Page 444
444
A. If you have specific questions about the process, why don't you address them
to me and I will see if I can answer them.
Q. Why don't we try some. Let me show you what has previously been marked as JFK
exhibit No. 74. This is a memorandum of your own to Mr. Rankin dated August 8
commenting on what I take it is a relatively mature version of chapter 4
entitled "The Assassin." Let me ask you a couple of questions about that
memorandum.
[EXHIBIT No. 74]
Date: August 8, 1964.
Memorandum to: Mr. J. Lee Rankin, General Counsel.
From: Howard P. Willens.
Subject: Chapter IV--Draft dated 7/21/64.
I think that this Chapter needs substantial revision. I suggest the following
comments for your consideration.
1. As a matter of general style, this Chapter is different from any of the other
chapters and should be brought into conformity. I have the following specifics
in mind:
a. The headings and subheading used in the table of contents and in the text of
the chapter should be phrases rather than sentences.
b. Marina Oswald and Lee Harvey Oswald are occasionally referred to as Marina
and Lee Oswald. I do not think that Marina Oswald should ever be referred to as
Marina and believe that Oswald should be referred to as Oswald or as Lee Harvey
Oswald.
c. I do not think that we need to use the prefix Mr. in the text of the Report.
d. For witnesses who have appeared before the Commission or members of the
staff, I believe we should use the past tense when referring to their testimony
rather than the present perfect, i.e., "testified" rather than "has testified".
e. In many sections of the chapter there is an inadequate introductory paragraph
setting forth the conclusions documented in the subsequent discussion. The
paragraphing in the chapter needs watching, since there is no consistent
handling of paragraph length.
2. In view of the importance of the chapter, I think that we can afford more
than a single long paragraph as an introduction to the overall chapter. This
would permit the Commission to speak in the introduction of the other evidence
considered in the chapter, but not relied upon, although I have other
suggestions to make regarding the handling of this material.
3. I still have a question about the validity of including as a minor finding
Oswald's capability with a rifle. I think our case remains the same even if
Oswald had limited or negligible capability with a rifle. In a way, we are
emphasizing an argument we don't particularly need, which prompts controversy
and may tend to weaken the stronger elements of our proof. I believe that this
material should be discussed somewhere, and probably in this chapter, but I
question whether it should be elevated to one of our eight major conclusions on
which the Commission relies. An alternative to consider might be to place the
question of Oswald's capability as a subheading to one of the first two major
conclusions.
4. I think that the first major section should be entitled solely "The
Assassination Weapon". The first subheading should be "Purchase of Rifle by
Oswald". The subsequent discussion should set forth the conclusion of the
Commission that Oswald purchased the rifle based on (a) handwriting analysis of
the rifle purchase documents, (b) Oswald's rental of P.O. Box 2915, (c) prior
use of alias Hidell.
5. On page 4 I do not see the significance of the first full paragraph, with the
exception of the first sentence. We know that Oswald lived in Dallas at the
relevent time and I do not believe it is significant that Oswald did not receive
from the box after he left Dallas for New Orleans on April 23.
6. The next major subhead should be the section beginning on page 8 dealing with
Oswald's palmprint. I think there should be some reference here to the fact that
palmprints are as good a basis for identification as fingerprints, plus an
appropriate reference to the appendix.
7. In the third line from the bottom of page 8 the meaning of the word "lifted"
is not clear to the lay reader. Similarly with the reference to the "powder" in
Page 445
445
the second line on page 9. The last sentence of the first full paragraph on page
9 might be combined with the prior statement on page 8 about the metal of the
rifle in a separate paragraph offered as explanation for the lack of other
prints on the rifle, assuming recent use. If there are any statistics or other
evidence on this point, I think they should be set forth and explained. This is
a more controversial matter than I believe we have considered.
8. The section on fiber analysis lacks a conclusion in the text as opposed to
the subheading. On page 10 in the second line, I do not think that the fibers in
the shirt he was wearing should be described as "similarly colored" at this
point.
9. With regard to the section beginning on page 10 we should consider
reorganizing the discussion as follows:
First paragraph covering Marina's testimony in pictures including dates, places,
number, etc.
Second paragraph.--Setting forth the Commission's conclusion that the pictures
were in fact taken with Oswald's camera at Neely Street, and are not
superimposed.
Third paragraph.--Dealing with the conclusion that the rifle in the picture is
Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle. If this reorganization is not adopted at the very
least there should be an introductory paragraph setting forth the conclusions
reached by the Commission regarding these pictures.
10. With regard to the last paragraph on page 13 I would consider mentioning the
name of the magazine. I also think some reference should be made to the fact
that the Commission has examined these pictures and reached certain conclusions
regarding the curvature of the stock problem and the scope situation. In short,
I think it is necessary to expand this discussion.
11. I am concerned by the lack of introduction to the section beginning on page
13A and the fact that the conclusions drawn here seem to be somewhat elusive. If
we are stating only that he was on the 6th floor 35 minutes before the shots
were fired, that is one thing. If we are going to rely on Brennan in part, then
we should state a conclusion at the beginning of this section which reflects our
analysis of the eyewitness testimony. I realize that the "access" point has a
colorful history going back several months, but I am not persuaded that it
contributes very much.
12. It might be desirable prior to examining the scientific evidence to have a
short section dealing with the site, setting forth the descriptive material now
contained on page 14 and including other material in the chapter discribing the
cartons which were used to construct a barricade from the rest of the floor.
13. There still is a little too much of the Ball-Belin approach in this for my
taste. For example, on page 14 I do not see why the reader has to know the
cartons were forwarded to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for chemical
processing, since subsequent testimony demonstrates that. Similarly, on page 15
the finding of the palmprint by Lt. Day is of no particular significance.
14. The conclusion sought to be drawn from this section seems to me to go too
far. I do not know why we place "great" weight on the fingerprint and palmprint
identification to prove he was at the window. The basic question is widen he was
at the window and when we come near to that question we back away from it.
Furthermore, we never do make an effort to refute the many other possibilities
for those fingerprints which are consistent with Oswald's innocence.
I would consider combining the section on the paper bag with the section on the
cartons. The section on the paper bag also lacks a topic sentence pointing out
the conclusion. I wonder why we have the description of the paper bag here since
it could be a sandwich bag and still be used to make the point that is involved
here. I question whether the whole section on carrying the rifle into the TSBD
should not be before this access--presence". That organization would permit us
to introduce the paper bag in the most appropriate context.
15. Much of the material in the first full paragraph of page 17 should be
relegated to the Appendix so far as I am concerned.
16. If we have any testimony as to the state of the southeast corner early in
the morning, I think it should receive greater emphasis in the text, since it
provides greater support for linking Oswald with the cartons and bag found in
the corner after the assassination.
17. In the section on eyewitness identification, we should make some reference
back to chapter 3 and Brennan's testimony there.
18. On page 21 the fact that another eyewitness identified Oswald in a way
similar to Brennan does not seem to me to help support Brennan's identification.
Page 446
446
I would eliminate this comparison here and perhaps make a reference to it later
on when the Tippit shooting is discussed.
19. Throughout the discussion of Brennan's testimony we should reaffirm his
testimony as to the source of the shots. On page 23 I think we go out of our way
to qualify the Commission's reliance on Brennan's testimony. I see no reason why
we should pick Brennan out as the subject for the second paragraph on page 23.
He is a good witness despite his declination to identify Oswald positively in
the police lineup. Why not place this paragraph at the end of the entire section
on eyewitness testimony. The record on Brennan speaks for itself. The last
sentence in this paragraph is obvious, since we have stated several times that
our findings that Oswald is the assassin is based on many different categories
of evidence.
20. It seems to me that the last paragraph on page 23B gives Fischer and Edwards
more weight than Brennan. At least they are blessed with the "consistent with"
characterization, which I think is overworked in his chapter.
21. I have substantial problems with the section beginning on page 24. I would
consider placing the first subsection, dealing with the rifle's location in the
Paine garage, in the first section of the chapter dealing with Oswald's
ownership and conditional possession of the rifle. I do not think that this
discussion here is necessary to the argument that he carried the rifle in on
Friday. Also the testimony discussed here is more relevant here to the
possession of the rifle than it is to the location of the rifle in the Paine
garage. The first of these two points is the more important conclusion and it
should be bolstered by all available evidence.
22. I do not follow the argument contained in the first full paragraph of page
24. We do not have to prove that Oswald never took the rifle out of the garage
in order to make the point that the garage was its usual storage place. I would
consider eliminating the paragraph entirely.
23. After the above relocation of the Paine garage section, I would consider
organizing this section as follows:
First conclusion.--The paper bag contained the assassination weapon.
Second conclusion.--Lee Harvey Oswald carried this bag to work.
(a) He made the bag from TSBD material;
(b) He had the opportunity to make the bag;
(c) He carried this bag on Friday;
(d) He had handled the bag.
Third conclusion.--He lied about the curtain rod story and the paper bag.
On reviewing this again I am persuaded once more that this entire section should
go before the section dealing with Oswald's presence in the window.
24. The discussion at the bottom of page 27 regarding disassembling seems to
have limited relevance. I would consider combining the paragraph with the one at
the end of this subsection.
25. On page 32 I question the relevance of the last sentence of the first full
paragraph dealing with the location of the bag. I do not see how this is
relevant to the conclusion that the bag contained the rifle. If this point is to
be made, I think it should be made as part of the general description of the
assassination scene as proposed in one of my earlier comments.
26. The third line on page 33, I do not think that the meaning of the word
"matched" is clear.
27. I think that the way that the Frazier-Randle testimony is handled on pages
38-40 may well be the best possible way. It does occur to me, however, that
under my proposed reorganization this testimony would be pertinent to the
conclusion whether the bag contained the assassination weapon. Perhaps the
organization should be changed so as to prove first that Oswald carried the
paper bag to work, and then turn to the question whether the bag contained the
assassination weapon. The Frazier-Randle testimony could then be set against the
scientific evidence as well as the other evidence bearing on this issue.
28. The characterization of the killing of Tippit on page 42 as a desperate act
of escape may be true, but I would like to discuss this further. Perhaps this
point could be made in the overall introduction or conclusion of the chapter
after all the other evidence is set forth.
29. On page 45 I would not begin the discussion of Tippit eyewitnesses with
Helen Markam. On page 46 I think we should have at least a paragraph on Helen
Markam's alleged description of Oswald as "short", stocky and bushy-haired.
30. The sentence at the bottom of page 59 is not necessary here in view of the
introductory paragraph which is contained in this subsection.
Page 447
447
31. The discussion at pages 60-64 gives me some difficulty. I do not see why we
have to proceed witness by witness in making the points to be made here. I would
suggest that the paragraphs might be along these lines.
a. Lee Harvey Oswald entered the theater at such and such a time.
b. Police officers were summoned to the scene and entered the building.
c. Lee Harvey Oswald was apprehended and in the source of this may have
attempted to kill the arresting officer.
d. Excessive force was not used by the Police officials.
32. I am still troubled by the location of the section dealing with the interval
of time between the assassination of President Kennedy and the murder of Officer
Tippit. Once we have found that he did both acts, what could have happened in
the interval which would be "inconsistent with" his having done this. In Other
words, once you prove that he did both acts what is the relevance of speaking of
the intervening events. If there is anything in the intervening events which
casts doubt on his committing either of the two acts, that is a different
matter. In that event, the activity during the intervening period would be an
element of evidence to be weighed in reaching the conclusion as to whether the
actor is guilty of the crime in question. That is not our case here. The end
result of this rambling may be the suggestion that this section be treated in
chronological fashion after the assassination of President Kennedy and prior to
the case against Oswald for the murder of Tippit.
33. Regardless of where it is located, I think that the full paragraph of the
section should state the basic conclusions regarding Oswald's movements during
this period of time. For example, the Commission concludes that Oswald went from
the 6th floor to the 2nd floor by the stairway, through the lunchroom and out
the front door of the building before 12:34 when the building was not closed
off. He then took a bus and a taxi, went to his apartment, and proceeded to the
site of the Tippit killing.
34. I do think that we should conclude that Oswald was in the process of flight
or at least that some of the events suggest that he was.
35. With the above recommendation in mind the testimony beginning at page 72
would be handled different. This testimony would be set forth and appraised on
the issue as to how and when Oswald descended from the 6th floor. In such a
discussion the Commission could rely on some witnesses and reject the testimony
of others, such as Victoria Adams.
36. On page 76, I think that we have to do something more with the Lovelady
picture. It occurs to me that we should probably do a paragraph or section
dealing with Oswald's known whereabouts at 12:30. In setting forth the limited
amount of evidence as to his whereabouts at this time we could reject the
allegation that the picture in question shows him standing in the doorway at the
time of the assassination.
37. With regard to the treatment of the General Walker shooting, I think that we
need a paragraph summarizing the investigation, or lack of it, conducted by the
Dallas Police Department after the Walker shooting. We also should set forth
briefly the fact that Walker initiated an investigation into the matter. Our
conclusion that Oswald was probably responsible builds of course on the fact
that it was an unsolved crime. We have to make some reference to the
investigation made by Keaster and Roberts, whose statements regarding Duff
should be made part of the record and have been collected by Liebeler.
38. I am of the mind now that there should be no other evidence section at the
end of the chapter. This means that we have to find a place for each of the
subsections. I think that the paraffin tests discussion should be set forth
early in the Report, after the discussion of Oswald's ownership of the rifle. It
could be set forth by the Commission in a frank statement that the Commission
has no scientific evidence as opposed to eyewitness and circumstantial evidence
that Oswald fired the rifle on November 22.
39. I would eliminate the section now labeled clothing identification and make
the point in the course of setting forth the testimony of the Tippit witnesses.
It is clear enough what the Commission relies upon and what it does not rely
upon and we do not need this section.
40. The Nixon attempt problem presents a more difficult problem. I would
consider discussing this under the case heading as the General Walker shooting
so as to cover all prior similar acts in one section. In the course of that
section we could state our evidence supporting the conclusion that he fired at
General Walker and why we believe he did not attempt to shoot Nixon. An
alternative
Page 448
448
to this would be to make referene to this incident only by a single sentence in
Chapter 4 and treat it more fully in Chapter 7, as an illustration of Oswald's
personality and treatment of his wife. I do not think it should be handled at
the end of this chapter.
41. The section drafted by Mr. Liebeler on the Irving sports shop story can be
handled earlier in the chapter dealing with the ownership of the rifle. I think
it is reasonable to set forth the evidence supporting the conclusion that Oswald
owned and handled this weapon and make the point also that the Commission has no
credible evidence that Oswald owned another rifle. It also might be worked in
where we state that the rifle was shipped with the scope already on.
For example, I note on page 2, paragraph 3, the memorandum employs words like
"case," "argument," "weaken." Aren't these the words appropriate to a brief, a
legal brief?
A. These are the words that come naturally to a lawyer reviewing a written
product. We thought it was important to have a fair and comprehensive treatment
of the evidence. We also thought it would be desirable to support the
Commission's conclusions in as useful and as persuasive a way as possible.
Q. It has been suggested by some that the Conunission's report was an fact not a
fair and objective analysis of the evidence but rather a brief in behalf of the
Government's position; to wit, the single assassin theory. I wonder if you would
comment on this.
A. I do not agree with that criticism obviously. I think there are several
examples in the report that could be allowed in a response to that critacism;
for example, the decision of the Commission not to rely on the eyewitness
testimony of Mr. Brennin.
Q. Let me explore that with you if I might. On page 3 of this memorandum,
paragraph 11, that very issue is raised and it is also raised on page 4,
paragraph 18, and page 5, paragraphs 19 and 20. How did the staff and the
Commission arrive at a decision in reference to Mr. Brennan's testimony? Would
you describe the processes that led you to handle Brennan in one way as opposed
to another?
A. Well, the process is not really very, very mysterious. There were initial
drafts of the report or assessment of the relevant evidence going back as early
as February and March of 1964. As we turned from the investigative stage of the
report to the writing stage of the report, the responsible attorneys would make
an initial cut at presenting the relevant evidence, evaluating it and supporting
their conclusions.
Q. In what sort of way?
A. In this particular case they were trying to use those standards that they
thought would be the likely product of a contested trial. They were sensitive in
this area in particular to the fact that there was no cross examination that
could be used to challenge the eyewitness testimony of a person such as Mr.
Brennan and there was a sensitivity to that concern supplemented by the fact
that other evidence seemed more credible that led the staff attorneys and
ultimately the Commission to conclude that some evidence should not be relied
upon and other evidence should be emphasized.
Q. Do I understand you correctly to be saving that where information or evidence
might have been subjected to sharp challenge in an adversary proceeding there
was an inclination of the Commission staff not to rely on it but to rely instead
on evidence that could not have been as sharply criticized or challenged?
A. That certainly was a general effort. I don't know how well it was achieved in
the overall report but I do know that it was of particular
Page 449
449
concern with respect to the evidence implicating Lee Harvey Oswald. This exhibit
that I have in front of me, JFK exhibit No. 74, reflects a process by which the
report ultimately emerged; it represents a detailed review by me of a proposed
draft including the substantive and organizational changes that I thought would
be useful.
I had the general responsibility of submitting my views with respect to any
portion of the report and I think I generally took advantage of that opportunity
and performed that responsibility. After such a memo would be prepared by me or
by Professor Redlich, customarily the drafts would be either rewritten by the
responsible attorneys or Mr. Redlich and I or in some instances Dr. Goldberg
would take the responsibility for incorporating the revisions into another
draft.
The drafts were generally commented upon by attorneys in other areas as well,
particularly the most sensitive parts of the report, so that as the redrafting
continued the use of a large number of staff members was taken into account. Mr.
Rankin had the final responsibility for the drafts that went forward to the
Commission and he looked primarily to Professor Redlich and myself to present to
him a draft with which both of us were in agreement.
Q. The committee has available to it in its record now testimony indicating that
there was some controversy over the general structure of the report, and now I
am referring to what the staff here has called the long-run/short-run report.
The short-run report was one that in relatively clear and black letter terms
made an effort ot resolve as sharply as possible most controversies presented to
the Commission appropriately qualified but nevertheless resolved. The long-run
version would have been a report that included with the language of the report
and its footnotes a great deal more of the ambiguity of the evidence and a
clearer and a franker recognition of the ambiguities in the testimony and the
unresolved questions.
I grant that neither of these two characterizations would fully or adequately
describe the document that was ultimately published. Nevertheless, they might
well represent tendencies in a draft. The testimony in the record tends to
indicate that the option taken by the Commission was the short-term. I don't use
that in a pejorative sense. That is, to write as clear and forceful and
determined a report as possible. The option of writing a report that contained
more ambiguity and more unanswered questions was not adopted. I wonder if you
would comment on that general description of the report and its tendencies.
A. Well, I don't accept those characterizations as having any relevance to this
end product. When the report came out it was regarded as being a lengthier and
more thoroughly documented report than most people had anticipated. There was a
considerable desire within the staff at least to prepare a report that would
deal substantially and usefully with all the important questions addressed in
the investigation.
The numerous appendixes attached to this report and the decision to publish
simultaneously the underlying evidence suggests to me a disposition quite
contrary to the suggestion that this was a short run product designed to avoid
controversy and overlook the ambiguities inherent in the investigation. The
report I think reflects the limitations
Page 450
450
of the Commission's efforts in important respects when it concludes as to the
existence of a conspiracy and only that. There is no evidence regarding such a
conspiracy and the significance of that conclusion has to be evaluated in light
of the investigation that was conducted up to that point by the Commission in
the various investigative agencies. I think as a qualified conclusion that was
appropriately made and that left others free, like this committee to explore
facts that have developed in the intervening years to re-examine that conclusion
and see whether it is still a legitimate conclusion or not.
I think the suggestion that the report should have reflected ambiguities and
hold open more serious questions is both unrealistic and not very useful. We
are, after all, dealing with a public report issuing over the signatures of
seven extremely experienced and prominent public figures. We are well accustomed
to the ambiguities of life and also the necessity of reaching conclusions
notwithstanding the existence of such ambiguities. They and the staff tried to
do so in an honest and complete way, and I am sure that we all anticipated that
criticism of whatever kind would come over the years and should be expected.
Q. Let me direct your attention to page 4, paragraph 13, of JKF exhibit No. 74.
There is a reference in the memorandum to the Ball-Belin approach. Do you recall
what that was?
A. This characterization was not intended to be a critical one. My recollection
is that the initial draft of this section of the report that was prepsred by Mr.
Ball and Mr. Belin devoted a considerable amount of space to tracing the chain
of custody of particular items of evidence, for example, in the way that you
would have to do if you were presenting the matter in court. That is completely
understandable in light of the considerable litigation experience of both of
them and particularly Mr. Ball.
My sense as someane who was trying to organize and present the material was that
the lay reader of this report did not need that kind of detail in a report that
already promised to be very long and ought to focus in on the issues of real
controversy. I think it is that which I had in mind by the reference here to the
Ball-Belin approach. That is more a difference in style than in substance and
reflects my views as to what kind of a report ultimately should be produced.
Q. Nevertheless I take it from your previous answers that trial-type standards
on custody and authentication were applied to the evidence that you ultimately
relied upon.
A. I would not want to go so far as to say that. I mean there was concern about
custody and authentication but even if there was some concern that does not
necessarily mean that the body of this report should contain a detailed recital
of the chain of custody of particular items of physical evidence if the writers
of the report are comfortable with the conclusion that the evidence that they
are relying upon was not tampered with during the relevant period.
Q. Let me make an effort to paraphrase you so I understand. You are saying that
the Commission staff in evaluating evidence if it didn't apply trial-type
standards on custody authentication at least only used that evidence that it was
comfortable with and then in writing the report did not necessarily set forth
the processes by which it came to
Page 451
451
arrive at a judgment that they were comfortable with; for example, whether the
rifle taken from the depository was indeed the rifle that Lee Harvey Oswald
bought or whether the rifle first found in the depository is indeed the rifle
ultimately examined by the ballistics people.
A. We certainly would not have relied on physical evidence where we had any
reason to suspect that there had been some substitution so as to make the
results of examining that evidence not reliable.
Q. The absence sometimes in the report of the detailed discussion of the
reasoning process that led you to decide that a particular rifle was identical
within a particular photograph that was authentic is not an indication what the
Commission staff did not explore those questions prior to relying on the
evidence.
A. That is correct, and I think that certainly is an option that that could have
been considered in writing the report; that is, to provide a more detailed
explanation of the reasoning process in general terms at least if not with
respect to each specific piece of evidence relied upon.
Q. Although I might be moved to comment that if your one-volume report lacked a
certain readership, then the two-volume report filled with the tedious record
systems entitled "Only to Lawyers" might have been even less well read.
A. I suppose we would have addressed that kind of issue the way we did the more
scientific questions that were considered in the appendixes but we did limit our
discussion of the quality of our evidence only to few very important items in
the report of the kind that we previously mentioned.
Q. What is included in the report is important. What is not included in the
report is sometimes important, too.
In that context let me show you what has been previously marked JFK exhibit No.
42. This deals with a question of a possible threat by Premier Castro to kill
President Kennedy and whether or not that threat might have come to the
attention of Lee Harvey Oswald. The memorandum addresses the issue of whether
that should have been reflected in the final report. The official report at page
414 and the New York Times report at page 390 in general terms discussed this
issue but at least to my reading do not explicitly adopt the suggestion that Mr.
Liebeler had made to Mr. Rankin in his memorandum on the 16th.
Do you think that had the Commission known of the CIA plots that this kind of
material might have found its way explicitly into the final report?
[EXHIBIT No. 42]
Date: September 16, 1964.
Memorandum to: Mr. Rankin.
From: Mr. Liebeler.
Reference: Quote from "New Orleans Times-Picayune" of September 19, 1963
concerning Fidel Castro's speech.
We previously discussed the possible inclusion in Chapter VII of the quote from
the New Orleans Times-Picayune of September 9, 1963 concerning Fidel Castro to
the effect that U.S. leaders would not be safe themselves if U.S. promoted
attacks on Cuba continued. You and Mr. Redlich took the position that we could
not include the quote unless there was some evidence that Oswald had actually
read that particular newspaper. I stated that the material was relevant and the
possibility that Oswald had read it should be discussed. I was not, however, at
that time able to indicate any other situation in which materials had been
discussed on the possibility that Oswald had read it, in the absence of any
specific proof that he had.
Page 452
452
I now note, however, in reviewing the galleys of Chapter VI, that an extensive
discussion of the "Welcome Mr. Kennedy" advertisement and the "Wanted for
Treason" handbill are included. The following statement appears in connection:
"There is no evidence that he [Oswald] became aware of either the 'Welcome Mr.
Kennedy' advertisement or the 'Wanted for Treason' handbill, though neither
possibility can be precluded."
Our discussion of the possible inclusion of the Castro quote had obvious
political overtones. The discussion set forth in Chapter VI concerning the
"Welcome Mr. Kennedy" advertisement and the "Wanted for Treason" handbill have
similar overtones. One of the basic positions that you have taken throughout
this investigation is that the groups on both ends of the political spectrum
must be treated fairly. I have agreed with that proposition in general, even
though we have disagreed at times on specific applications of it.
It appears clear to me, however, that if we are precluded from including the
quote from the New Orleans newspaper concerning Castro's speech on the grounds
that we have no evidence that Oswald actually read it, even though we do know he
read a great deal, the same must be true of the "Welcome Mr. Kennedy"
advertisement and the "Wanted for Treason" handbill. The discussion in Chapter
VI actually admits that the "Welcome Mr. Kennedy" advertisement in the November
22, 1963 "Dallas Morning News" probably did not come to Oswald's attention.
Under those circumstances it would seem to me that fairness indicates either the
deletion of the discussion of the advertisement and the handbill that is now set
forth in Chapter VI or the inclusion of the Castro statement in Chapter VII.
A. I can't say.
Q. Do you recall this particular controversy at all?
A. I remember seeing that memorandum. There were several such issues that were
raised in the last week's effort to conclude the writing of the Commission
report. People were working very hard. There was a keen sense of history
involved in preparing the report. There was apprehension of all kinds with
respect to our ability to complete a satisfactory report. There were numerous
instances where differences of views came to light with respect to what should
be contained in the report and how it should be stated.
Q. This is just one example.
A. This is just one example and reflects a very substantial contribution that
Mr. Liebeler made throughout the Commission's investigation to keep people's
attention focused or the need for fairness and political balance and to be
careful about matters of detail.
Q. Should any particular significance be attached to the omission in the final
report of explicit reference to the Castro threat?
A. I don't think so but I do not really recall very clearly now what, if
anything is included in the Commission report regarding this particular
hypothesis.
Q. You can, if you want to, examine this. I think on page 414 is the only
reference at least that I have been able to find. You have in this a general
section entitled "Entrance in Cuba" and you have a paragraph---I am reading now
from page 319 of the New York Times version. I think you have page 414 of the
official version.
A. I noticed on page 414 of the official version that there is a reference to a
substantial difference in political views between Cuba and the United States,
specifically the reference to a statement by Castro that Cuba could not accept a
situation where at the same time the United States was trying to ease world
tensions it also was increasing its efforts to tighten the noose around Cuba.
I note also a sentence from page 414 to this effect: "The general conflict of
views between the United States and Cuba was, of course,
Page 453
453
reflected in other medis to such an extent that there can be no doubt that
Oswald was aware generally of the critical attitude that Castro expressed about
President Kennedy."
On page 415 there is a sentence that reads as follows: "While some of Castro's
more severe criticisms of President Kennedy might have led Oswald to believe
that he would be well received in Cuba after he had assassinated the American
President, it does not appear that he had any plans to go there."
It seems to me that those sentences demonstrate the resolution of the
controversy raised by Mr. Liebeler's memorandum. The resolution seems to have
been a generalized reference to the kind of criticism that existed at the time
and that might have well come to Oswald's attention but without the need to
focus on particular embodiments that Castro criticism where there was no
evidence that Oswald did in fact see the specific newspaper item.
Q. That concludes my questions this morning, Mr. Willens. Let me say again I
appreciate your time and effort to come over and share with us your thoughts,
and I will look forward to reading your subsequent submission on the processes
that led to and were involved in the writing of the report. I would like at this
time to extend to you the opportunity to make any additional statement, that you
want to the record.
A. Thank you. It will be short.
I do want to summarize some of my views with respect to the work of the Warren
Commission and the review of that work by this committee.
First, I have not and do not oppose the work of this committee. It is certainly
most appropriate for an instrumentality of the Congress to evaluate the findings
of the Warren Commission in light of the technical developments and the
disclosures of the last nearly 14 years. In addition, anyone who serves the
public in any capacity, especially on a project as visible and historical as the
Warren Commission, must be prepared to have his or her work subjected to the
closest public scrutiny.
All I or anyone associated with the Commission can ask is that the Judgment this
committee ultimately renders be reasoned and fair. By reasoned I mean a process
of careful consideration of all the pertinent evidence and factors and the
framing of documented and balanced conclusions in light of the relevant evidence
and factors. By fair I mean the application of a mature and humane judgment that
recognizes that errors are inevitable and that the establishment of priorities
is necessary in any public endeavor. In particular I ask for some understanding
of the incredible public pressures operating upon the Commission and staff to
complete its work as the end of 1964 approached.
Second, I will not reiterate at any length my views regarding the ability or
integrity of the members of the Commission and staff. Any such opinions of mine
are obviously self-serving.
To the extent that the record of the Commission's work provides evidence of
conflicting viewpoints among staff members, two points might be made.
Page 454
454
First, the Commission had nothing to hide about the way it did its business. The
difficulties are reflected in the records of the Commission for all subsequent
interested parties to evaluate.
Second, such differences surely must be expected of a staff of reasonable,
mature and highly independent professionals. Nothing would have warranted
suspicion as much as a unanimity of views among the members of the Commission
staff.
Third, I hope the committee will have the courage to conclude publicly that the
Warren Commission was correct in its major. findings, if that is indeed its
conclusion. It will be an easy and attractive course to avoid such an assessment
by finding deficiencies in the way in which the Warren Commission did its work
and lamenting the passage of time that has made further investigation fruitless.
The public deserves more than this. If the findings of the Warren Commission are
soundly based on the evidence, this committee should so state but if the
opposite is the and the committee concludes that the Warren Commission was
essentially right, then the public deserves to be told this as well.
Last, as you approach public hearings I hope you will give careful thought to
the fairness of your presentation of the facts. If you have concluded that the
Warren Commission was deficient in its operating procedures, I hope you will
consider giving an opportunity to members of the Commission or staff to comment
on your findings or to testify in your public hearings. I offer this suggestion
not because of any vested interest in the findings of the Warren Commission but
in an age where governmental institutions are so persuasively distrusted it
seems only fair to make certain that all perspectives ere evaluated before
concluding that the Warren Commission or any other Government agency associated
with the assassination investigation of President Kennedy did anything less than
extend its best efforts to deal honestly with a most challenging public
assignment. Thank you for your courtesy.
Mr. BLAKEY. You're welcome.
[Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the deposition concluded.]
CERTIFICATE OF NOTARY PUBLIC
I, Annabelle Short, the officer before whom the foregoing deposition was taken,
do hereby certify that the witness whose testimony appears in the foregoing
deposition was duly sworn by me; that the testimony of said witness was taken by
me in shorthand to the best of my ability and thereafter reduced to typewriting
by me; that said deposition is a true record of the testimony given by said
witness; that I am neither counsel for, related to, nor employed by any of the
parties to the action in which this deposition was taken; and further that I am
not a relative or employee of any attorney or counsel by the parties thereto nor
financially or otherwise interested in the outcome of the action.
ANNABELLE SHORT,
Notary Public in and for the District of Columbia.
My Commission expires November 14, 1980.
Attachment I
Page 455
455
(286) Attachment I: Letter and attachments from Judge Burt W. Griffin to G.
Robert Blakey, November 23, 1977.
COURT OF COMMON PLEAS
COUNTY OF CUYAHOGA
CLEVELAND, OHIO 44113
BURT W. GRIFFIN
November 23, 1977
JUDGE
Mr. Robert Blakey
Chief Counsel
House Committee on Assassinations
House Annex #2
3rd and D Streets, S.W.
Washington, D.C.
Dear Bob:
When I returned home from Washington on November 17th my 14 year old son (thank
God for 14 year old sons) mentioned to me that he had been rummaging in our
attic and had found a stack of Warren Commission papers.
Lo and behold when he brought them down, they were xeroxed copies of nearly
every memo which I had written in 1964, together with some other inter-office
communications to me from other staff members. I now remember that these were
sent to me some months ago by Paul Hoch, a Warren Commission researcher in San
Francisco. I had never looked at them and merely stashed them away.
I have now reviewed all of them and am forwarding four for your consideration.
The enclosed papers, together with others which I have not sent, suggest four
important amendments to my testimony:
1. There are memoranda in the file showing that Leon Hubert was at work in
Washington for the Commission at least as early as January 14, 1964, and it is
my recollection that I began work before Hubert. Perhaps, you do not fully
understand the significance of the pay records which you have summarized.
2. There are a number of inter-office memos dated prior to May 1, 1964, which
show rather substantial amounts of communication from Hubert and me to others
working in the conspiracy area and vice-versa. Your staff people are probably
aware of these.
3. The June 1, 1964 mero that I have enclosed shaqs quite clearly that Hubert
and I told Willens "we believe the investigative requests now underway will
serve to correct all the matters specified in our memorandum of May 14th." In
light of
Page 456
456
Attachment I cont.
that statement, I don't see how I can now ecruplain about the followthrough on
the investigative matters requested in paragraphs four and five of the
memorandum (pages 5,6,7,8,9 & 10). Moreover, other letters bearing Rankin's
signature, which I have not sent to you, show the nature of the investigation
that we requested with respect to the specific matters set forth in those pages.
There are also, among the papers sent to me by Paul Hoch, a few other letters
prepared around June 1, 1964, with Mr. Rankin's signature, which were not sent
to the investigative agencies. Apparently we did do some compromising. But
obviously I was prepared to put in writing to Howard Willing my satisfaction
with the investigation we were doing, and I will not now attempt to put the
jacket on someone else within the commission staff.
4. On page 46 of an unpublished early draft of the conspiracy chapter, I wrote
as follows:
"The CIA has no information suggesting that Jack Ruby was involved in any type
of Cuban or other foreign conspiracy."
Since that draft was obviously written before the September 14th letter which
you showed me from the CIA, I have to conclude that we had received oral
communications from the CIA telling us that they had no information and that we
ultimately insisted on their putting their oral statements to us in writing.
That, I believe, is why the CIA letter came so late. This may not change your
conclusion about the CIA cooperation in connection with our requests for
information on Ruby, but it does flesh in some more detail on how they responded
to that request.
Do not hesitate to contact me if you wish to discuss these matters further.
Sincerely,
Burt W. Griffin
Judge
BWG/mjm
Enclosures
Page 457
457
Memorandum
Page 458
458
Letter
Page 459
459
Memorandum
Page 460
460
Commission Exhibit
Attachment J
Page 461
461
(287) Attachment J:Letter from Howard P. Willens to G. Robert Blakey, December
14, 1978.
Mr. G. Robert Blakey
Chief Counsel and Director
Select Committee on Assassinations
U.S. House of Representatives
3331 House Office Building, Annex 2
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Bob:
In the course of my deposition on July 28, 1978, I undertook to comment on the
enclosed exhibit purporting to identify the members of the Warren COm~LiSSiOn
staff that authored particular chapters of the report.
I am sorry for the delay in responding to your request that I review this
document. I had hoped to find the time to review materials that I am confident
exist reflecting the internal workings of the Commission staff regarding the
writing of the report. I have not been able to do so, however, and I am
therefore unable to inform you and the Committee on this subject with the
thoroughness and precision that I would like to.
Most importantly, this summary is seriously flawed and should not be relied upon
by the Committee for any conclusions whatsoever. Without resurrecting old
controversies with Mr. Epstein, it is a matter of public record that he
interviewed only a few members of the Warren Commission staff
Page 462
462
Attachment J cont.
and that only some of those interviewed responded to his questions with respect
to the authorship of various sections of the report. Accordingly, his summary
substantially overstates the contributions of some members of the staff,
understates the contributions of others, and does a disservice to the 20 or more
members of the staff that participated significantly in preparation of the final
report.
Although I had originally intended to do so, I have decided that it would not be
productive for me to try and recall the contribution made by each member of the
Commission staff to each chapter of the report. Any effort by me to do so
without refreshing my recollection with materials from the files of the
Commission would undoubtedly suffer from the same inaccuracies that I attribute
to Mr. Epstein's effort to do so.
As I am sure you know from your own experience now, any final report emanating
from a committee has numerous authors. Each chapter of the Warren Commission
report went through 6 or more substantial redrafts, with different persons
assuming editorial responsibility at different times. I am sure this will prove
to be the case also as your Committee completes its final report.
I hope that this letter is useful and that you understand my reticence in trying
to be more exact.
Sincerely,
Howard P. Willens
Enclosure
Page 463
463
Attachment J cont.
Who Wrote What
Chapter 1 - "Summary & Conclusions" - Norman Redlich
Chapter 2 - "The Assassination" - primarlily written by Redlich, although
Specter and Stern contributed.
Chapter 3 - "The Shots from the TSBD" - originally written by Specter and
submitted in June. The chapter was rewritten by Redlich.
Chapter 4 - "The Assassin" - originally written by Ball and Belin. In late June
the Re-editing Committee rejected this chapter. Redlich rewrote the chapter
which took him ten weeks.
Chapter 5 - "Detention and Death of Oswald" - Griffin and Laulicht submitted the
draft in August. Goldberg rewrote it.
Chapter 6 - "Investigation of Possible Conspiracy," Pollak wrote the section on
LHO's movements abroad and Slawson wrote the rest. Pollak then rewrote the
entire chapter. Goldberg rewrote the chapter again.
Chapter 7 - "LHO: Background and Possible Motives" - Liebeler wrote it
originally and Goldberg rewrote it.
Chapter 8 - "The Protection of the President" - Sam Stern wrote the first draft.
Howard Willens rewrote the chapter.
Rankin appointed Norman Redlich, Alfred Goldberg, Howard Willens, and himself as
a "Re-editing Committee."
Goldberg also wrote the Rumors Appendix
References
Page 464
464
REFERENCES
(1) Letter from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to President Lyndon B. Johnson,
Mar. 73, 1963 (JFK Doc. 015037).
(2) Memorandum to the files by Presidential Assistant Walter Jenkins, Nov. 24,
1963 (JFK Doc. 015038).
(3) Deposition of Nicholas deS. Katzenbach, Aug. 4, 1978, House Select Committee
on Assassinations, p. 46 (JFK Doe. 014569).
(4) Ibid., p. 8.
(5) Memorandum from Walter Jenkins to Bill Moyers, Nov. 25, 1963 (JFK Doe.
015038).
(6) Memorandum from Deputy Attorney General Nicholas deS. Katzenbach to Bill
Moyers, Nov. 2.5, 1963.
(7) See ref. 3, pp. 59-60.
(8) "Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson,
Book 1: Nov. 22, 1963 to June 30, 1964" (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government
Printing Office, 1965).
(9) Leon Jaworski interview, "Oral History Project," p. 21 (JFK Doe. 003411).
(10) Memorandum from Waiter Jenkins to President Lyndon B. Johnson, Nov. 29,
1963 (JFK Doe. 015039).
(11) See ref. 3, p. 9.
(12) Memorandum from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to Messrs. Tolson, Belmont,
Mohr, Sullivan, DeLoach, and Rosen, Nov. 29, 1963 (JFK Doe. 015040).
(13) Lyndon B. Johnson, "The Vantage Point" (New York: Popular Library edition,
1972), p. 26.
(14) Id. at p. 27.
(15) Ibid.
(16) "The Memoirs of Chief Justice Earl Warren" (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday &
Co., Inc., 1977), pp. 356-358.
(17) Chief Justice Earl Warren, "Oral History Project," pp. 16, 17 (JFK Doc.
003409).
(18) Testimony of Gerald R. Ford, Sept. 21, 1978, hearings before the House
Select Committee on Assassinations, 95th Cong., 2d sess. (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1979), vol. III, p. 578 (hereinafter referred to as
Ford testimony, Sept. 21, 1978, III HSCA-JFK hearings, 578).
(19) See ref. 13, p. 26.
(20) Ibid.
(21) See ref. 9, pp. 22, 23.
(22) Id. at p. 24.
(23) See ref. 6; see ref. 2.
(24) Memorandum from Assistant FBI Director Cartha DeLoach to Associate PSI
Director Clyde Tolson, Dec. 12, 1963 (JFK Doe. 015040).
(25) Executive session testimony of Norman Redlich, Nov. 8, 1977, hearings
before the House Select Committee on Assassinations, pp. 144, 74 (JFK Doc.
014665) (see attachment A, this staff report); executive session testimony of
Arlen Specter, Nov. 8, 1977, hearings before the House Select Committee on
Assassinations, pp. 57, 11 (JFK Doe. 014665) (see attachment A of this staff
report ).
(26) See ref. 13, p. 26.
(27) Memorandum to the files of Warren Commission staff member Melvin Eisenberg,
Feb. 17, 1964 (JFK Doe. 015041).
(28) Ibid.
(29) The New York Times, Nov. 26, 1963, p. 15.
(30) "The Whole Truth," The New York Times, Nov. 26, 1963, p. 36.
(31) The Washington Post, Nov. 26, 1963.
(32) "Indians Believe Oswald Was Only a Tool," The New York Times, Nov. 28,
1963, p. 33.
(33) See ref. 25, Redlich executive session testimony, p. 71; see ref. 25,
Specter executive session testimony, p. 52; executive session testimony of
Wesley Liebeler, Nov. 15, 1977, hearings before the House Select Committee on
Assassinations, p. 114 (JFK Doe. 014668) (see attachment B of this staff
report); executive session testimony of Howard P. Willens, Nov. 17, 1977,
hearings before the House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 85 (JFK Doc.
014694) (see attachment C of this staff report).
Page 464
465
(34) Executive session testimony of W. David Slawson, Nov. 15, 1977, Hearings
before the House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 88 (JFK Doc. 014668)
(see attachment B of this staff report).
(35) See ref. 25, Specter executive session testimony, p. 7.
(36) See ref. 25, Redlich executive session testimony, p. 71.
(37) Executive session testimony of Judge Burr W. Griffin, Nov. 17, 1977,
hearings before the House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 19 (JFK Doc.
014694) (see attachment C of this staff report).
(38) See ref. 34, Slawson executive session testimony, p. 10.
(39) Id. at p. 87.
(40) Id. at p. 88.
(41) See ref. 33, Liebeler executive session testimony, p. 143.
(42) Id. at p. 157.
(43) See ref. 18, Ford testimony, Sept. 21, 1978, HSCA-JFK hearings. (44)
Testimony of John J. McCloy, Sept. 21, 1978, hearings before the House Select
Committee on Assassinations, 95th Cong. 2d sess. (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1979), vol. III, p. 605 (hereinafter referred to as
McCloy testimony, III HSCA-JFK hearings, 605).
(45) Deposition of J. Lee Rankin, Aug. 17, 1978, House Select Committee on
Assassinations, p. 6 (JFK Doc. 014027) See attachment D of this staff report).
(46) Warren Commission executive session transcript, Dec. 5, 1963 (JFK Doc.
000493.
(47) See ref. 18, Ford testimony Sept. 21, 1978, III HSCA-JFK hearings 47.
(48) See ref. 33, Willens executive session testimony, p. 91.
(49) See ref. 25, Specter executive session testimony, p. 9.
(50) See ref. 25, Redlich executive session testimony, p. 79.
(51) See ref. 37, Griffin executive session testimony, p. 15.
(52) See ref. 25, Specter executive session testimony, p. 10.
(53) Id. at p. 48.
(54) See ref. 34, Slawson executive session testimony, p. 60.
(55) See ref. 33, Willens executive session testimony, p. 105.
(56) See ref. 37, Griffin executive session testimony, pp. 11-12.
(57) See ref. 25, Redlich executive session testimony, pp. 73-74.
(58) See ref. 34, Slawson executive session testimony, p. 58.
(59) See ref. 25, Specter executive session testimony, p. 10.
(60) See ref. 45, Rankin deposition, p. 96.
(61) See ref. 33, Liebeler executive session testimony, pp. 118-119
. (62) Ibid.
(63) See ref. 45, Rankin deposition, p. 43.
(64) Id. at pp. 97-98.
(65) See ref. 34, Griffin executive session testimony, p. 59.
(66) Ibid.
(67) See ref. 25, Redlich executive session testimony, p. 78.
(68) See ref. 25, Specter executive session testimony, p. 9.
(69) See ref. 25, Redlich executive session testimony, p. 129.
(70) See ref. 44, McCloy testimony, Sept. 21, 1978, III JFK hearing, 602.
(71) See ref. 18, Ford testimony, Sept. 21, 1978, III HSCA-JFK hearings, 583.
(72) Id. at 582.
(73) See ref. 37, Griffin executive testimony, pp. 17-18.
(74) See ref. 25, Specter executive session testimony, p. 9.
(75) See ref. 33, Willens executive session testimony, pp. 94-96.
(76) See ref. 37, Rankin deposition, p. 13.
(77) Id. at PD. 14--15.
(78) See ref. 25, Specter executive session testimony, pp. 16-17.
(79) See ref. 33, Willens executive session testimony, p. 97.
(80) See ref. 25, Redlich executive session testimony, p. 82.
(81) See ref. 37, Griffin executive session testimony, pp. 22-23.
(82) Id. at p. 82.
(83) See ref. 25, Specter executive session testimony, p. 18.
(84) See ref. 34, Slawson executive session testimony, p. 14.
(85) See ref. 25, Specter executive session testimony, p. 19.
(86) See ref. 25, Redlich executive session testimony, p. 83.
(87) See ref. 33, Liebeler executive session testimony, p. 127.
Page 466
466
(88) Edward J. Epstein, "Inquest" (New York: Viking Press, 1966), p. 131;
minutes of the Warren Commission executive session of Sept. 18, 1964 (JFK Doc.
000076).
(89) See ref. 25, Specter executive session testimony, p. 14.
(90) See ref. 44, McCloy testimony, Sept. 21, 197~, HI HSCA-JFK hearings, 607.
(91) "Warren Commission Report," p. 19.
(92) Testimony of John Sherman Cooper, Sept. 21, 1978, hearings before House
Select Committee on Assassinations, 95th Cong. 2nd sess. (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Government Printing Office 1979) vol.III, p. 600 (Hereinafter referred to as
Cooper testimony, Sept. 21, 1978, III HSCA-JFK hearings,).
(93) See ref. 25, Specter executive session testimony, pp. 20-21.
(94) Id. at p. 50.
(95) See ref. 33, Willens executive session testimony, p. 115.
(96) See ref. 25, Specter executive session testimony, p. 64; see ref. 25,
Redlich executive session testimony, p. 103.
(97) See ref. 34, Slawson executive session testimony, pp. 4950.
(98) Id. at pp. 86-87.
(99) See ref. 37, Griffin executive session testimony, p. 27.
(100) See ref. 45, Griffin executive session testimony, p. 100.
(101) Id. at p. 101.
(102) See ref. 44, McCloy testimony, Sept. 21, 1978, 111 HSCA-JFK hearings, 601.
(103) See ref. 17, p. 28.
(104) Id. at p. 26.
(105) Id. at p. 17.
(106) See ref. 34, Slawson executive session testimony, p. 52.
(107) See ref. 37, Griffin executive session testimony, p. 10.
(108) Id. at p. 26.
(109) Ibid.
(110) See ref. 33, Willens executive session testimony, p. 125.
(111) Id. at pp. 16-17.
(112) See ref. 25, R£dlich executive session testimony, p. 144; fn. 25, Specter
executive session testimony, p. 57; and fn. 37, p. 24.
(113) See ref. 33, Liebeler executive session testimony, p. 154; see ref. 34, p.
101.
(114) See ref. 33, Willens executive session testimony, p. 130.
(115) See ref. 34, Slawson executive session testimony, p. 11; see ref. 25,
iredlich executive session testimony, pp. 74-75; see ref. 33, Liebeler executive
session testimony, p. 154; see ref. 25, Specter executive session testimony, p.
11.
(116) See ref. 34, p. 11.
(117) Id. at pp. 101-102.
(118) See ref. 44, Cooper testimony, Sept. 21, 19T8, III HSCA-JFK hearings,
601-02.
(119) See ref. 18, Ford testimony, Sept. 21, 1978, III HSCA -JFK hearings, 589.
(120) See ref. 25, Redlich executive session testimony, pp. 146-147.
(121) Ibid.
(122) See ref. 46, p. 1.
(123) Id. at p. 2.
(124) Id. at p. 39.
(125) S.J. Res. 137, Public Law 88-202.
(126) See ref. 46, p. 8.
(127) See ref. 46, Dec. 19, :1963, p. 3 (JFK Doc. 000501).
(128) Id. at p. 12.
(129) See ref. 46, Dec. 16, 1963, p. 11 (JFK Doc. 000475).
(130) Id. at p. 12.
(131) Id. at p. 18.
(132) Id. at p. 14.
(133) Ibid.
(134) Id. at p. 43.
(135) Id. at p. 44.
(136) Id. at p. 9.
(137) Id. at p. 15.
(138) Id. at p. 13.
Page 467
467
(139) Id. at pp. 46-47.
(140) Id. at p. 22.
(141) Letter from J. Lee Rankin to Richard M. Helms, Mar. 16, 1964 (JFK Doc.
000094 and 003872); Memorandum from Richard M. Helms to J. Lee Rankin, May 6,
1964.
(142) "The Documents," The New Republic, Sept. 27, 1975, p. 28.
(143) Id. at p. 27.
(144) See Warren Commission executive session transcript, Jan. 27, 1964, p. 128
(JFK Doc. 000001).
(145) Id. at p. 137.
(146) Ibid.
(147) Ibid.
(148) Ibid.
(149) Id. at p. 139.
(150) Id. at p. 140.
(151) Id. at p. 141.
(152) Id. at p. 142.
(153) Ibid.
(154) Ibid.
(155) Id. at pp. 143-154.
(156) Ibid.
(157) Id. at p. 163.
(158) Id. at pp. 163-165.
(159) Id. at pp. 168--171.
(160) Id. at p. 177.
(161) Id. at p. 182.
(162) Memorandum from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to J. Lee Rankin, Jan. 27,
1964.
(163) XVII Warren report hearings, 814.
(164) See CE 835, Warren Commission report.
(165) See CE 825, Warren Commission report.
(166) See Committee Report II, D. 3(d).
(167) See Warren Report at pp. 484-490.
(168) Secret Service Doc. No. 767 (JFK Doc. 002769).
(169) See ref. 33, Liebeler executive session testimony, p. 169.
(170) See ref. 46, Apr. 30, 1964, p. 5851 (JFK Doc. 000496).
(171) Ibid.
(172) Id. at pp. 5885-5886.
(173) Id. at p. 5864.
(174) See ref. 33, Liebeler executive session testimony, p. 115.
(175) See ref. 33, Specter executive session testimony, p. 39.
(176) Id. at p. 11.
(177) See ref. 34, Slawson executive session testimony, pp. 15-16.
(178) See ref. 25, Redlich executive session testimony, p. 120.
(179) See ref. 37, Griffin executive session testimony, p. 20.
(180) Ibid., p. 35.
(181) See ref. 25, Redlich executive session testimony, p. 77.
(182) See ref. 33, Specter executive session testimony, p. 11.
(183) See ref. 34, Slawson executive session testimony, p. 16.
(184) See ref. 37, Griffin executive session testimony, p. 20.
(185) Id. at p. 19.
(186) See ref. 34, Slawson executive session testimony, p. 10.
(187) Id. at p. 11.
(188) Id. at p. 13.
(189) See ref. 37, Griffin executive session testimony, p. 18.
(190) Id. at p. 20.
(191) See ref. 34, Slawson executive session testimony, p. 18.
(192) See ref. 25, Redlich executive session testimony, p. 118.
(193) See ref. 33, Specter executive session testimony, p. 39.
(194) See ref. 37, Griffin executive session testimony, p. 28.
(195) See para. 228 ff. of the HSCA staff report on the Warren Commission.
(196) Id. at p. 35.
(197) See ref. 25, Redlich executive session testimony, p. 103.
(198) Id. at p. 72.
(199) Id. at p. 122.
Page 468
468
(200) Id. at p. 95.
(201) Memorandum for the record by Howard P. Willens, "Staff Reaction to Hosty
Problem," Feb. 12, 1964.
(202) See ref. 37, Griffin executive session testimony, pp. 30-32.
(203) See ref. 45, Rankin deposition, pp. 27-28.
(204) Id. at p. 53.
(205) Ibid.
(206) Id. at pp. 51-52.
(207) See ref. 34, Slawson executive session testimony, p. 17.
(208) Ibid.
(209) Memorandum from W. David Slawson to Raymond Rocca, June 6, 1964 (JFK Doc.
002539 and 002962).
(210) Ibid.
(211) Id. at p. 34.
(212) Ibid.
(213) See Darn. 154, 157 and 158, of the HSCA staff report on the Warren
Commission.
(214) See ref. 209, p. 12.
(215) Id. at p. 104.
(216) Id. at p. 105.
(217) See para. 268 of the HSCA staff report on the Warren Commission.
(218) See ref. 34, Slawson executive session testimony, p. 103.
(219) Id. at p. 24.
(220) Id. at p. 61.
(221) See ref. 33, Liebeler executive session testimony, p. 164.
(222) See ref. 25, Redlich executive session testimony, p. 72.
(223) Testimony of James R. Malley, September 20, 1978, 111 HSCA-JFK hearings,
444.
(224) See, e.g., infra para. 216-18.
(225) "The Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy;
Performance of the/intelligence Agencies," book V, final report, Senate Select
Committee to Study Governmental Operations with respect to intelligence, 94th
Cong, 2d sess. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976), p. 47
(S. Rept. 94-755) (hereinafter SSC, book V).
(226) Id. at p. 46.
(227) Ibid.
(228) See ref. 225, staff interview with William Sullivan, Senate Select
Committee to Study Governmental Operations, SSC, book V, pp. 78-79.
(229) Id. at p. 5.
(230) Id. at p. 85.
(231) Ibid.
(232) Ibid.
(233) See ref. 223, Malley testimony, p. 33.
(234) Id. at p. 41.
(235) Id. at p. 47.
(236) See ref. 223, p. 84.
(237) Ibid.
(238) Ibid.
(239) Ibid.
(240) Ibid.
(241) Memorandum of James H. Gale to Clyde Tolson, September 30, 1964, as quoted
in SSC, book V, p. 54 (see ref. 225).
(242) Testimony of Nicholas deB. Katzenbach. September 21, 1978, 111 HSCAJFK
hearings, p. 50.
(243) Id. at p. 47.
(244) Ibid.
(245) Id. at p. 53.
(246) See ref. 203, Rankin testimony, p. 48.
(247) See para. 124, IlSCA staff report on the Warren Commission.
(248) Ibid., Darn. 114 and 115.
(249) See ref. 225, SSC, book V, p. 57.
(250) Id. at p. 31.
(251) Id. at p. 57.
(252) Ibid.
Page 469
469
(253) Ibid.
(254) Id. at p. 38-59.
(255) Testimony of Richard M. Helms, September 22, 1978, IV HSOA-JFK hearings,
31.
(256) Ibid., p. 2021.
(257) See para. 259, HSCA staff report on the Warren Commission.
(258) Ibid., para. 256.
(259) See ref. 225, SSC, book V, pp. 57-60.
(260) See Data. 257, HSCA staff report on the Warren Commission.
(261) Ibid., Data. 115
(262) See ref. 255, Helms testimony, pp. 29-30.
(263) Ibid.
(264) Id. at p. 149.
(265) See para. 183-187 and 137, HSCA staff report on the Warren Commission.
(266) See CE 3045, Warren Commission report.
(267) See CE 3146, Warren Commission report.
(268) Warren report, p. 324.
(269) Executive session testimony of Leon Brown, House Select Committee on
Assassinations, p. 139 (JFK Doc. 008343).
(270) Id. at 138.
(271) Id. at 139.
(272) Ibid.
(273) Ibid.
(274) Id. at p. 141.
(275) Id. at p. 142.
(276) Id. at p. 144.
(277) Ibid.
(278) Id. at p. 143.
(279) Id. at p. 140.
(280) Id. at p. 144.
(281) Id. at p. 145.
(282) Ibid.
(283) See ref. 33, Liebeler executive session testimony, p. 133.
(284) Draft cover letter to a memorandum from Leon D. Hubert and Burt W. Griffin
to Richard M. Helms, "Jack Ruby--Background, Friends, and Other Pertinent
Information," Feb. 24, 1964 (JFK Doc. 001927).
(285) See ref. 284, attached routing slip.
(286) See ref. 37, Griffin executive session testimony, p. 37.
(287) CIA internal memorandum for the record on CIA meeting with Leon D. Hubert
and Burt W. Griffin, Mar. 12. 1964.
(288) Letter from J. Lee Rankin to Richard M. Helms, May 19, 1964.
(289) Memorandum from Thomas H. Karamessines to J. Lee Rankin, Sept. 15, 1964.
(290) Letter from Burr W. Griffin to G. Robert Blakey, Nov. 23, 1978 (JFK :Doc.
003477 ).
(291) Ibid.
(292) Letter from J. Lee Rankin to John McCone, Director of Central
Intelligence, Feb. 12, 1964.
(293) Internal memorandum, Central Intelligence Agency, Mar. 3, 1964.
(294) Memorandum from Howard P. Willens to 5. Lee Rankin, Mar. 9, 1964.
(295) Ibid.
(296) Memorandum for the record, Mar. 12, 1964; letter from Rankin to Helms.
Mar. 16, 1964, see ref. 141.
(297) Memorandum from Samuel Stern to 5. Lee Rankin, Mar. 27, 1964.
(298) See Warren Commission Doc. 674, National Archives.
(299) Warren Commission hearings, 129.
(300) CIA internal memorandum, Nov. 25, 1963, CIA item 173A.
(301) CIA internal memorandum, May 12, 1964, CIA item 298.
(302) Memorandum from David Slawson to Howard P. Willens, Feb. 21. 1964.
(303) Memorandum from David Slawson to 5. Lee Rankin, Mar. 27, 1964.
(304) Ibid.
(305) See ref. 302.
(306) See ref. 34, Slawson executive session testimony, pp. 42-43.
(307) Ibid.
Page 470
470
(308) Executive session testimony of Robert Gemberling, p. 85.
(309) Ibid.
(310) Id. at p. 86.
(311) Ibid.
(312) Id. at p. 93.
(313) Ibid.
(314) Id. at p. 104.
(315) Ibid.
(316) Id. at p. 132.
(317) Id. at p. 104.
(318) Ibid.
(319) Id. at p. 107.
(320) Ibid.
(321) Book V, Senate Intelligence Committee report, p. 70.
(322) Id. at p. 74.
(323) Ibid.
(324) Id. at p. 70.
(325) Ibid., pp. 67-68, 73.
(326) See para. 363, IlSCA staff report on the Warren Commission.
(327) Book V, Senate Intelligence Committee report, p. 71.
(328) Ibid.
(329) Id. at p. 72.
(330) Id. at p. 73.
(331) Id. at p. 74.
(332) See ref. 255, Helms testimony, pp. 151, 172.
(333) See ref. 255, Helms testimony, pp. 178-9.
(334) Id. at p. 183.
(335) Memorandum from David Slawson to ff. Lee Rankin, Sept. 6, 1964.
(336) See ref. 34, Slawson executive session testimony, p. 27.
(337) Ibid.
(338) Id. at p. 28.
(339) Ibid.
(340) Id. at p. 27.
(341) See ref. 25, Specter executive session testimony, p. 46.
(342) See ref. 25, Redlich executive session testimony, p. 132.
(343) See ref. 203, Rankin testimony, p. 91.
(344) See ref. 242, Katzenbach testimony, p. 23.
(345) Id. at p. 19.
(346) See ref. 203, Rankin testimony, p. 28.
(347) See ref. 242 Katzenbach testimony, p. 20.
(348) See ref. 33, Liebeler executive testimony, p. 171.
(349) See tel. 37, Griffin executive session testimony, pp. 38-61.
Analysis of Support Provided to the Warren Commission by the Central
Intelligence Agency
Page 471
471
ANALYSIS OF THE SUPPORT PROVIDED TO THE
WARREN COMMISSION BY THE CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Staff Report
of the
Select Committee on Assassinations
U.S. House of Representatives
Ninety-fifth Congress
Second Session
March 1979
(471)
Contents
Page 472
CONTENTS
Paragraph
I.
Foreword..................................................................................................................(1)
II. Organization of the CIA s investigation of President Kennedy's
assassination..................... (21)
III. The Warren Commission-CIA working
relationship............................................................(47)
A. Opinions of Warren Commission and CIA representatives regarding the
Warren Commission-CIA
relationship...............................................................(47)
B. The CIA's failure to disclose CIA anti Castro assassination plans to the
Warren
Commission..........................................................................................(60)
C. Agency's legal responsibility to protect sensitive sources and
methods-factors
affecting the CIA's response to Warren Commission
requests............................(69)
D. Warren Commission knowledge of CIA sensitive sources and
methods...................(88)
E. The photograph of an unidentified
individual......................................................(112)
F. Luisa
Calderon.....................................................................................................(133)
IV. Balance of the
evidence.....................................................................................................(163)
(472)
Foreword
Page 473
473
I. FORWORD
(1) The Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) performance in providing support to
the Warren Commission has been a source of public concern during the past 15
years. Critics have repeatedly charged that the CIA participated in a conspiracy
to suppress information relevant to the assassination of President Kennedy.
During 1976, these critics' assertions were the subject of official inquiry by
the Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations (SSC). The SSC, in
its report regarding "The Investigation of the Assassination of President John
F. Kennedy: Performance of the Intelligence Agencies," reached the following
findings:
The committee emphasizes that it has not uncovered any evidence sufficient to
justify a conclusion that there was a conspiracy to assassinate President
Kennedy.
The committee has, however, developed evidence which impeaches the process by
which the intelligence agencies arrived at their own conclusions about the
assassination, and by which they provided information to the Warren Commission.
This evidence indicates that the investigation of the assassination was
deficient and that facts which might have substantially affected the course of
the investigation were not provided the Warren Commission or those individuals
within the FBI and the CIA, as well as other agencies of Government, who were
charged with investigating the assassination. (1)
(2) The committee sought to examine in greater detail the general findings of
the SSC. It particularly focused its attention on the specific issue of whether
the CIA or any employee or former employee of the CIA misinformed or withheld
information relevant to the assassination of President Kennedy from the Warren
Commission. In addition, the Committee attempted to determine whether, if the
Warren Commission were misinformed or not made privy to information relevant to
its investigation, it was because of conscious effort by the Agency or its
employees.
(3) In investigating this matter, the committee reviewed a 1977 task force
report by the CIA (1977 TFR).(2) This report was highly critical of the SSC's
findings pertaining to the AMLASH operation* and asserted that the SSC's Final
Report conveyed the mistaken impression that the CIA had made a limited effort
to assist the Warren Commission. The 1977 TFR disagreed with this
characterization and noted that the "CIA did seek and collect information in
support of the Warren Commission. Additionally, it conducted studies and
submitted special analyses and reports." (4)
----------------------------------
(473)
Page 474
474
(4) In order to demonstrate further the scope of support provided by the CIA to
the Warren Commission, the 1977 TFR. contained a coraprehensive listing of
CIA--generated material made available to both the U.S. intelligence community
and the Warren Commission regarding the assassination of President Kennedy. In
this respect, the evidence supports the 1977 TFR, in which it is stated that:
This compilation [of CIA-generated material] is appropriate to consideration of
the extent of the CIA effort, to the extent that it reveals something of the
results of that effort. (5)
(5) In its examination of the Agency's comprehensive listing of CIA generated
material, the committee followed the organization of these materials by the 1977
TFR. The 1977 TFR detailed four interrelated categories of Kennedy assassination
material:
(6) (1) Agency information disseminated to the intelligence community (formal
and informal disseminations);
(7) (2) Material disseminated to the Warren Commission;
(8) (3) Information disseminated to the FBI et al. regarding rumors and
allegations regarding President Kennedy's assassination; and
(9) (4) Memorandum submitted by the CIA to the Warren Commission on rumors and
allegations relating to the President's assassination.
(10) In reviewing these categories, the committee concentrated its focus upon
those CIA materials that the 1977 TFR documented as having been made available
in written form to the Warren Commission.
(11) During the course of this study, additional Agency files were reviewed in
an effort to resolve certain issues that arose during the review of the 1977 TFR
materials. Where apparent gaps existed in the written record, files were
requested and reviewed in an effort to resolve those gaps. Where significant
substantive issues arose related to the kind and quality of information provided
the Warren Commission, files were requested and reviewed in an effort to resolve
those gaps. Where significant substantive issues arose related to the kind and
quality of information provided the Warrren Commission, files were requested and
reviewed in an effort to resolve these issues. * In the end, approximately 30
files comprising an approximate total of 90 volumes of material, were examined
and analyzed in preparation of this staff report.
(12) The evidence set forth here must be qualified. During the course of the
past 15 years, the CIA has generated massive amounts of information related to
the assassinat~on of President Kennedy. Certain documents requested by the
committee for study and analysis were not located. Whether these documents were
merely filed incorrectly or actually destroyed, gaps in the written record still
exist.
(13) Second, due to dissimilar standards with respect to the relevancy of
materials to the committee's investigation adopted by the CIA and the committee,
certain files requested by the committee for review were made available to the
committee in redacted form or were
--------------------------------
Page 475
475
withheld.* The evidence collected in this staff report is based on the evidence
available to the committee, which might not have been all the relevant evidence
to which the Agency had access.
(14) Due consideration, moreover, must be given to the role that oral
discussions and briefings between the Warren Commission and representatives may
have played in the supply of assassination-related information. The subject and
substance of these discussions and briefings may not always be reflected by the
written record reviewed in this study. Consequently, the committee conducted
interviews, depositions, and executive session hearings with key Warren Commi.
ssion staff and members and former or present CIA representatives in an effort
to resolve questions that were not addressed by the written record.
(15) This staff report examines the following subjects generated by the
committee's study in the following order:
(16) (1) The organization of the CIA's investigation of President Kennedy's
assassination;
(17) (2) The working relationship of the Warren Commission staff and those CIA
representatives concerned with Warren Commission inquiry;
(18) (3) The standards of investative cooperation that the Warren Commission
staff believed governed the quality and quantity of information supplied by the
CIA to the Commission
(19) (4) The CIA's responsibility for protection of its sensitive sources and
methods and the effects of the responsibility on the Warren Commission
investigation; and
(20) (5) The substance and quality of information concerning Luisa Calderon
passed on to the Warren Commission, the results of this committee's
investigation of Calderon and her significance to the events of November 22,
1963.
(21) The investigation by the committee of the CIA involved an extensive
analysis of some of its sensitive sources and methods. Because these sources and
methods are protected by law from unauthorized disclosure [see 505 U.S.C.
403(d)(3)], portions of this report have been written in a somewhat conclusory
manner designed to avoid referring explicitly to such sensitive sources and
methods. A classified staff report dealing explicitly with these sensitive
sources and methods is in the committee's files. (6)
Organization of the CIA's Investigation of President Kennedy's Assassination
Page 475
II. ORGANIZATION OF THE CIA's INVESTIGATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S ASSASSINATION
(22) In his executive session testimony before the committee, Richard Helms, the
CIA's deputy director for plans during 1963, described the Agency's role in the
investigation of President Kennedy's assassination as follows:
(23) This crime was committed on United States soil. Therefore, as far as the
Federal Government was concerned, the
-------------------------
Page 476
476
primary investigating agency would have been the Federal Bureau of Investigation
without any question. The role of the CIA would have been entirely supportive in
the sense of what material we are [sic] able to acquire outside the limits of
the United States with reference to the investigation. * * * For investigative
purposes, the Agency had no investigative role inside the United States at all.
So when I used here the word "supportive,"I meant that in the literal sense of
the term. We are [sic] trying to support the FBI and support the Warren
Commission and be responsive to their requests, but we were not initiating any
investigations of our own or, to my recollection, were we ever asked to. (7)
(24) On November 23, 1963, Helms had called a meeting of senior level CIA
officials to outline the Agency's investigative responsibility via-a-via the
assassination. (8) At that time, Helms placed John Scelso, a desk officer in the
Western Hemisphere Division and headquarter's Mexico branch chief, in charge of
the Agency's initial investigative efforts.* (9)
(25) Scelso testified before the committee that he was given charge of the
Agency's investigation on the basis of two considerations: (1) his prior
experience in conducting major CIA security investigations; and (2) the
observation of Oswald in Mexico (Scelso's headquarters responsibility) reported
to the CIA less than 2 months prior to the assassination. (13) Scelso also noted
that during the course of his investigative efforts, Helms did not pressure him
to adopt specific investigative theories nor reach conclusions within a set
period of time.**
(26) Scelso described in detail to the committee the manner in which he
conducted the Agency's investigation:
* * * practically my whole branch participated in the thing. We dropped almost
everything else and I put a lot of my officers to work in tracing names,
analyzing files.
---------------------------------
Page 477
477
We were flooded with cable traffic, with reports, suggestions, allegations from
all over the world, and these things had to be checked out. We were checking out
just dozens and dozens of people all the time.(17)
(27) Scelso stated during his testimony that CIA field stations worldwide were
alerted to the Agency's investigation "and the key stations were receiving tips
on the case, most of which were phony. We did not send out instructions saying
everybody participate in the investigation."(18) It was his recollection,
however, that throughout his tenure as coordinator of the Agency's
investigation, the Mexican branch was the only CIA unit directly involved in
investigatory activities related to President Kennedy's assassination.* (19)
(28) Scelso effectively coordinated a voluminous flow of cable traffic related
to the assassination. During the first half of December, he issued a summary
report that described Oswald's activities in Mexico City from September 26,
1963, to October 3, 1963. Scelso characterized the summary report as incomplete
by comparison to assassination related information then available to the FBI but
not provided to the CIA until late December 1963.**(20)
(29) Following issuance of this report, Helms shifted responsibility for the
CIA's investigation to the Counterintelligence Staff. (22) He testified that
this shift was a logical development because the investigation had begun to take
on broader tones. (23)
(30) Helms' reasoning was expanded upon by Raymond Rocca, chief of research and
analysis for the CIA's Counterintelligence Staff, who testified before the
Committee that the shift in responsibility described by Helms was caused in part
by the establishment of the Warren Commission. (24) Rocca added:
(31) It was entirely appropriate in the [initial] phase that he [Scelso] would
have that [responsibility for the Agency investigation.] But the minute you had
a commission set up outside, the line obviously had to be the Director, and from
the Director to his Chief of Operations overseas, because the spread involved
then all of the divisions. Here you had Mr. [Scelso] being asked to sign off on
cables that had to do with [other international concerns,] and it would have
seemed to me utterly administratively simply a hybrid monster. (25)
(32) James Angleton, chief of the Counterintelligence Staff supported Rocca's
belief that "the spread [of investigative responsibility] involved... all of the
[CIA] divisions. Angleton testified to this committee that the Agency's efforts
to gather and coordinate information related to the assassination underwent a
metamorphic transition. Initially, Angleton noted, the Director, Deputy
Director, Division Chiefs and Case Officers approached the Warren Commission's
requirements
---------------------------------
Page 478
478
piecemeal fashion. Eventually Angleton testified, the Agency was able to focus
its resources to avoid duplication of effort and provide
a system for the central referencing of assassination-related information as
such information was developed. (26)
(33) The record reveals that during this second phase of CIA information
collection efforts in support of the Warren Commission investigation, the
concentration of Agency resources slurred in emphasis from exploration of
Oswald's activities in Mexico City to his residency in the Soviet Union during
1959-60, and possible association with the Soviet intelligence apparatus. (27)
Rocca commented that during this phase, primary interest in support of the
Warren Commission was to pursue Soviet leads:
* * * on the assumption that a person who spends four years * in the Soviet
Union, under his circumstances, had to specific interest to Soviet State
security and their collateral authorities. (28)
(34) Rocca concluded that the areas on which the CIA tended to concentrate
concerned the Soviets:
(35) * * * because the people he [Oswald] was in touch with in Mexico had
traces, prior traces, as KGB people. They were under consular cover and
obviously could have been doing and were undoubtedly doing a consular job in
those earlier contacts. (29)
(36) Nevertheless, Rocca did indicate that Cuban aspects of the CIA
investigation were not ignored "because there was a lot of material that came
through and went to the Commission that concerned the Cubans." (30)
(37) Helms also testified that the possibility of Cuban involvement was a source
of deep concern within the Agency. (31) He added, however, that development of
information pertaining to Cuban knowledge of or participation in the
assassination was very difficult to obtain. (32)
(38) Angleton was in agreement with Rocca's analysis that during the second
phase of the Agency's effort the CIA concentrated its resources on exploring
possible Soviet influence on Oswald. (33) He indicated that in part, this simply
reflected inadequate CIA resources:
(39) I personally believe that the United States intelligence services did not
have the capabilities to ever come to an adjudication [of the Cuban aspect]. I
don't think the capabilities were there. (34)
(40) As noted above, the counterintelligence Staff was given responsibility in
late December 1963-early January 1964 for the coordination of CIA efforts to
assist the Warren Commission in its investigation. At that time, Raymond Rocca
was designated point of contact with the Commission.(35) Rocca's research and
analysis component was concerned with:
(41) analytical intelligence, analytical brainpower, which meant all source, all
overt source comprehension; a study of cases
--------------------------------
Page 479
479
that had ceased to occupy operational significance, that is, closed cases, to
maintain the ongoing record of overall qualiy and quantity of
counterintelligence being performed by the entire DDP operational component; * *
* the Deputy Director for Plans. (26)
(42) Rocca testified that assassination-related information generated by CIA
components was directed to his staff (as designated point of contact with the
Warren Commission) in the normal flow of day-to-day work.(37)
This information was then reviewed by Rocca or his assistants, who included
[Agency employee] (Soviet Expert), [Agency employee] (general research and
document search man for the U.S. intelligence community and its resources), and
[Agency employee] (who had transferred to the CIA from the FBI a number of years
prior to the assassination).(38) During the course of the Warren Commission
investigation, [this group] worked with those CIA divisions that were producing
substantive information related to the assassination.(39) Rocca and his group
effectively coordinated the large volume of cable traffic available to them
pertaining to the assassination.
(43) Rocca testified that even though the Counterintelligence/Research and
Analysis Unit was the Agency's point of reference with regard to the Warren
Commission, neither his staff nor the counterintelligence staff in general
displaced the direct relations of Helms or any other concerned Agency official
with the Warren Commission. (40) Rocca indicated that in some instances J. Lee
Rankin of the Warren Commission would go directly to Helms with requests; in
other instances, David Slawson, a Commission staff counsel, conferred directly
with [Agency employee] of Rocca's staff.* (41)
(44) The record reveals that on certain issues of particular sensitivity Rocca
was not permitted to act as the Agency's point of contact with the Warren
Commission. He testified that "compartmentalization was observed notwithstanding
the fact that I was the working level point of contact."(44) Rocca cited by way
of example the case of the Soviet defector Yuri Nosenko. Rocca testified that he
did not attend any of the Agency discussions pertaining to Nosenko's case. (25)
Rather, responsibility for the case was assigned to the Chief of Soviet Russian
Division, in addition to He]ms.
(45) Rocca described the counterintelligence Staff mail intercept program,
HT-Lingual, as a second example of an Agency matter about which he had no
knowledge nor input vis-a-vis the Agency's support role to the Warren
Commission. (47) Rather, Augleton and [Agency employee] handled the disposition
of this particular material. (48)
(46) In summary, it was Rocca's testimony that an internally decentralized
information reporting function, coordinated by the
-----------------------------------
Page 480
480
Counterintelligence staff, best characterized the organization of this second
phase of the Agency's investigative efforts to assist the Warren Commission.(49)
The Warren Commission-CIA Working Relationship
Page 480
III. THE WARREN COMMISSION-CIA WORKING RELATIONSHIP
A. OPINIONS OF WARREN COMMISSION AND CIA REPRESENTATIVES REGARDING THE WARREN
COMMISSION-CIA RELATIONSHIP
(47) The Warren Commission was created on November 29, 1963, by Executive Order
No. 11130. Pursuant to that order, the Commission was in part empowered "* * *
to evaluate all the facts and circumstances surrounding such assassination * *
*." In addition, the order made clear that "all executive departments and
agencies are directed to furnish the Commission with such facilities, services
and cooperation as it may request from time to time."
(48) The committee contacted both members of the Warren Commission staff and
those representatives of the CIA who played significant roles in providing,
CIA-generated information to the Commission. The general consensus of these
people was that the Commission and the CIA enjoyed a successful working
relationship during the course of the Commission's investigation.(50) William
Colenman, a senior staff counsel for the Warren Commission who worked closely
with Warren Commission staff counsel W. David Slawson on matters that involved
the CIA's resources, characterized the CIA representatives with whom he dealt as
highly competent, cooperative and intelligent.(51) Slawson expressed a similar
opinion regarding the Agency's cooperation and quality of work. (52)
(49) J. Lee Rankin, General Counsel for the Warren Commission, testified that
the Warren Commission and its staff were assured by the CIA that the Agency
would cooperate in the Commission's work. (53) John McCone, Director of Central
Intelligence at the time of President Kennedy's assassination and during the
Warren Commission's investigation, supported Rankin's testimony in this regard
by characterizing the CIA's work vis-a-vis the Warren Commission as both
responsive and comprehensive. (54) (McCone had been responsible for insuring
that all relevant matters were conveyed by the CIA. to the Commission.) (55)
McCone testified that:
(50) The policy of the CIA was to give the Warren Commission everything that we
had. I personally asked Chief Justice Warren to come to my office and took him
down to the vault of our building where our information is microfilmed and
stored and showed him the procedures that we were following and the extent to
which we were giving him--giving his staff everything that we had, and I think
he was quite satisfied. (56)
(51) Rocca likewise characterized the Agency's role as one of full support to
the Commission. He stated under oath that Helms had given the following
directive:
(52) All material bearing in any way that could be of assistance to the Warren
Commission should be seen by CI staff and R and A and marked for us. He issued
very, very
Page 481
481
strictly worded instructions--they were verbal in so far as know--that we were
to leave no stone unturned. (57)
(53) Rocca added that to his knowledge, Helms orders were followed to the letter
by all CIA employees. (58) He concluded that on this basis "the CIA was to turn
over and to develop any information bearing on the assassination that could be
of assistance to the Warren Commission? (59)
(54) A different view of the CIA's role regarding the supply of CIA's
information to the Commission was offered by Helms. Helms, who served as the
CIA's Deputy Director for Plans during the Warren Commission investigation, was
directly responsible for the Agency's investigation of President, Kennedy's
assassination and the establishment of CIA policy vis-vis the Warren Commission.
(60) He testified to the committee that the CIA made every effort to be as
responsive as possible to Warren Commission requests. (61) He added further
details regarding the manner in which the CIA provided its information to the
Commission:
(55) An inquiry would come over [from the Warren Commission]. We would attempt
to respond to it. But these inquiries came in individual bits and pieces or as
individual items * * * Each individual item that came along we took care of as
best we could. (62)
(56) It was Helms' recollection that the CIA provided information to the Warren
Commission primarily on the basis of the Commission's specific requests. He
said:
STAFF COUNCIL. In summary, is it your position that the Agency gave the Warren
Commission information only in response to specific requests by the Warren
Commission?
Mr. HELMS. That is correct.
I want to modify that by saying that memory is fallible. There may have been
times or circumstances under which something different might have occurred, but
my recollection is that we were attempting to be responsive and supportive to
the FBI and the Warren Commission. When they asked for something we gave it to
them.
As far as our volunteering information is concerned, I have no recollection of
whether we volunteered it or not. (63)
(57) Helms' characterization of fulfilling Warren Commission requests on a
case-by-case basis rather than uniformly volunteering relevant information to
the Warren Commission stands in direct opposition to Rankin's perception of the
CIA's investigative responsibility. Rankin was asked by staff counsel whether he
was under the impression that the Agency's responsibility was simply to respond
to questions addressed it by the Warren Commission. In response, Rankin
testified:
(58) Not at all and if anybody had told me that I would have insisted that the
Commission communicate with the President and get a different arrangement
because we might not ask the right questions and then we would not have the
information and that would be absurd. (64)
Page 482
482
(59) Slawson supported Rankin's position, testifying that Warren Commission
requests to the CIA were rarely specific. "The request was made initially that
they give us all information pertinent to the assassination investigation." (65)
B. THE CIA'S FAILURE TO DISCLOSE CIA ANTI-CASTRO ASSASSINATION PLANS TO THE
WARREN COMMISSION
(60) An unfortunate consequence of the Warren Commission's reliance on the CIA
to provide the Commission with all relevant material is reflected in the
subsequent exposure of the CIA's anti-Castro assassination plots and the
Agency's failure to provide this information. (66) Rocca indicated that he had
no knowledge at the time of the Warren Commission investigation of Agency
efforts to assassinate Castro. (67) Consequently, he was not in position to
communicate this information.
(61) The record also reveals that the CIA desk officer to whom Helms initially
gave the responsibility to investigate Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination
of President Kennedy had no knowledge of such plots during his investigation.
(68) Scelso testified that had he known of such assassination plots, the
following actions would have been taken:
(62) We would have gone at that hot and heavy. We would have queried the agent
(AMLASH) about it in great detail. I would have had him polygraphed by the best
operative security had to see if he had [sic] been a double-agent informing
Castro about our poison pen things, and so on. I would have had all our Cuban
sources queried about it. (69)
(63) As the record reflects, these plots were known to few within the CIA. Mr.
Helms' testimony regarding these plots reveals that some Agency employees
compromised the policy of its Director to supply all relevant information to the
Warren Commission. The following exchange between committee counsel and Helms
illustrates the extent of the Agency's compromise:
STAFF COUNSEL. Mr. Helms, I take it from your testimony that your position is
that the anti-Castro plots, in fact, were relevant to the Warren Commission's
work; and, in light of that, the Committee would like to be informed as to why
the Warren Commission was not told by you of the anti-Castro assassination
plots.
Mr. HELMS. I have never been asked to testify before the Warren Commission about
our operations.
STAFF COUNSEL. If the Warren Commission did not know of the operation, it
certainly was not in g position to ask you about it.
Is that not true?
Mr. HELMS. Yes: but how do you know they did not know about it? How do you know
Mr. Dulles had not told them? How was I to know that? And besides, I was not the
Director of the Agency and in the CIA, you did not go traipsing around to the
Warren Commission or to Congressional
Page 483
483
Committees or to anyplace else without the Director's permission.
STAFF COUNSEL. Did you ever discuss with the Director whether the Warren
Commission should be informed of the anti-Castro assassination plots?
Mr. HELMS. I did not, as far as I recall. (70)
(64) McCone testified that he first became aware of the CIA's antiCastro
assassination plots involving CIA-Mafia ties during August 1963.* He stated that
upon learning of these plots, he directed that the Agency cease all such
activities. (75) When asked whether the CIA desired to withhold information from
the Warren Commission about the Agency anti-Castro assassination plots to avoid
embarrassing the Agency or causing an international crisis, he gave the
following response:
(65) I cannot answer that since they (CIA employees knowledgeable of the
continuance of such plots) withheld the informotion from me. I cannot answer
that question. I have never been satisfied as to why they withheld the
information from me.(76)
(66) Regarding the relevancy of such plots to the Warren Commission's work
Warren Commission counsels Rankin, Slawson, and Specter were in agreement that
such information should have been reported to the Warren Commission.(77)
(67) Rocca testified that had he known of the anti-Castro assassination plots,
his efforts to explore the possibility of a retaliatory assassination against
president Kennedy by Castro would have been intensified.
------------------------------------
Page 484
484
He stated that: "a completely different procedural approach probably would and
should have been taken? (78)
(68) Scelso offered a highly critical appraisal of Helms' nondisclosure to the
Warren Commission:
STAFF COUNSEL. Do you think Mr. Helms was acting properly when he failed to tell
the Warren Commission about the assassination plots?
Mr. SCELSO. No, I think that was a morally highly reprehensible act, which he
cannot possibly justify under his oath of office, or any other standard of
professional public service. (79)
C. AGENCY'S LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT SENSITIVE SOURCES AND
METHODS--FACTORS AFFECTING THE CIA RESPONSE TO WARREN COMMISSION REQUESTS
(69) The length of time required by the CIA to respond to the
Warren-Commission's request for information was dependent on (1) the
availability of information; (2) the complexity of the issues involved in the
request; and (3) the extent to which the relevant information touched upon
sensitive CIA sources and methods. On the first two points, Helms testified that
when the CIA was able to satisfy a Commission request, it would send a reply
back. With respect to timing:
(70) ... some of these inquiries obviously took longer than others.
For example, some might involve checking aI file which in Washington. Other
inquiries might involve trying fo see if we could locate somebody in some
overseas country.
Obviously, one takes longer to perform than the other. (80)
(71) Under law, the Director of Central Intelligence has always been required to
protect sensitive sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure ([50 U.S.C..
403 (d) (3) ] ). As a result of this responsibility, in some instances the
Agency initially limited access by the Commission to CIA original source
materials. (81) J. Lee Rankin expressed the opinion that on occasion, the
Agency's effort to protect its sensitive sources and methods affected the
quality of the information to which the Warren Commission and its staff were
given access. (82)
(72) The committee was fully aware that traditional intelligence reporting
procedures do not normally include revealing sources and methods. Moreover,
Federal law obligates the CIA to protect. its sources and methods from
unauthorized disclosure. Had the Warren Commission investigation been conducted
under normal conditions, revealing sources and methods would not have been
expected, much less required. Nevertheless, it may be argued because the
circumstances of this investigation were extraordinary, no possible source of
relevant evidence should have been considered an unauthorized disclosure.
(73) The committee identified two related areas of concern in which the Agency's
desire to protect its sensitive sources and methods may have impeded the Warren
Commission's investigation. These were:
Page 485
485
(74) --- Initially not providing the Commission with original source materials
pertaining to Oswald's trip to Mexico;
(75) --- The Agency's reluctance to reveal the origin of a photograph an
unidentified man who had mistakenly been linked to Oswald.
(76) The CIA's concern over revealing the existence of sensitive sources and
methods was evident from the inception of the Warren Commission. Scelso
commented that "we are not authorized at first to reveal all our [sensitive]
operations."(83) He did, however, testify that:
(77) We were going to give them intelligence reports which derived from all our
sources, including [sensitive] sources, including the [sensitive sources] and
the information gotten from the interrogation of Silvia. Duran, for example,
which corresponded almost exactly with the information from the [sensitive
sources]. (84)
(78) Scelso's characterization is supported by examination of the background to
the first major CIA report furnished the Warren Commission, dated January 31,
1964 regarding Oswald's trip to Mexico City. (85) Much of the information
provided to the Warren Commission in tiffs report was based on sensitive sources
and methods, identification of which had been deleted completely from the
report.
(79) The CIA policy limiting Warren Commission knowledge of CIA sources and
methods was articulated as early as December 20, 1963, at which time a cable was
sent from CIA headquarters to a [foreign country] station. The cable stated:
(80) Our present plan in passing information to the Warren Commission is to
eliminate mention of [sensitive sources and methods] in order to protect [* * *]
continuing ops. Will rely instead on statements of Silvia Duran and on contents
of Soviet consular file which Soviets gave [State Department]. (86)
(81) The basic policy articulated in the December 20, 1963, cable, as it
specifically concerned the CIA's relations with the FBI, is also set forth in a
CIA memorandum of December 10, 1963. (87) In that memorandum, [an Agency
employee] of the CIA Counterintelligence Staff, Special Investigations Group,
wrote that he had been advised by Sam Papich, FBI liaison to the CIA, that the
FBI was anticipating a request from the Warren Commission for copies of the
FBI's materials which supported or complemented the FBI's five volume report of
December 9, 1963, that had been submitted to the Warren Commission Agency
employee with this report, which indicated that some U.S. agency was conducting
a sensitive operation abroad and asked him whether the FBI could supply the
Warren Commission with the source of this operation. The [Agency employee]
memorandum shows that he discussed this matter with Scelso. After a discussion
with Helms, Scelso was directed by Helms to prepare CIA material to be passed to
the Warren Commission. The [Agency employee] then made the following notation
regarding sensitive sources and methods:
Page 486
486
(82) He [Scelso] was quite sure it was not the Agency's desire to make available
to the Commission at least in this manner--via the FBI--sensitive information
winch could relate to sensitive sources and methods * * * [The] Agency desired
to establish some other policy with regard to meeting the needs of the
Commission.* (88)
(83) The CIA policy of eliminating reference to Agency sensitive sources and
methods is further revealed by examination of an Agency cable, dated January 29,
1964, sent from CIA headquarters to a CIA [unit]. (91) This cable indicated that
knowledge of Agency sources and techniques was still being withheld from the
Warren Commission, and stated that on Saturday, February 1, 1964, the CIA was to
present a report on Oswald's Mexico City activities to the Warren Commission
that would be in a form protective of the CIA sources and techniques.(92)
(84) On February 1, 1964, Helms appeared before the Commission. It is likely
that he discussed the CIA memorandum to the Warren Commission of January 31,
1964.** (93) On February 10, 1964, Rankin wrote Helms in regard to that CIA
memorandum.(94) A review of Rankin's letter indicates that as of his writing,
the Warren Commission had no information pertaining to CIA's [sensitive sources
and methods] that had generated the information on Oswald.
(85) Rankin inquired in the February 10, 1964, letter whether Oswald's direct
communication with employees of the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City (as seated in
paragraph 1 of the January 31 memorandum) had been obtained by [sensitive source
and methods] or by interview. Manifestly, had the Warren Commission been
informed of
-------------------------------
Page 487
487
the sensitive source and method, this inquiry by Rankin would not have been
made.
(86) Nevertheless, it was Rocca's recollection that during the time period of
January 1964-April 1964, Warren Commission representatives had visited the CIA's
headquarters in Langley, Va., and had been shown the original source materials
derived from sensitive CIA sources and methods.(95) Rocca, however, did not
personally make this material available to Commission representatives and was
not able to state under oath precisely the point in time at which the Warren
Commission first learned of these operations. (96)
(87) On February 19, 1964, the CIA responded to Rankin's inquiry of February 10.
(97) The Agency response indicated that Oswald had contacted the Soviet
consulate and was also interviewed at the consulate. Nevertheless, the Agency
still did not explicitly reveal the source of this information.(98)
D. WARREN COMMISSION KNOWLEDGE OF CIA SENSITIVE SOURCES AND METHODS
(88) During the period of March-April 1964, David Slawson drafted a series of
memorandums that, among other issues, concerned Warren Commission knowledge of
and access to the material derived from relevant CIA sensitive operations. CIA
headquarters had obtained the raw data generated by these sensitive operations
almost immediately after the assassination.(99) A review of these memorandums
tends to support the belief that the Warren Commission, through Messrs. Slawson,
Coleman and Willens, did not obtain access to CIA [original source] materials
until April 9, 1964. (100) On that date, Coleman, Slawson and Willens met with a
CIA [representative] who provided them with [raw data] derived from [sensitive
operations].* (89) It appears doubtful that the Commission had been given direct
access to this material prior to April 9. Nevertheless, by March 12, 1964, the
record indicates that the Warren Commission had at least become aware of the CIA
[sensitive operations] that had generated information concerning Oswald.(102)
Slawson's memorandum of March 12 reveals that the Warren Commission had learned
that the CIA possessed information concerning conversations between the Cuban
Ambassador to Mexico, Hernandez Armas, and Cuban President Dorticos.** The
Dorticos-Armas conversations, requested by the Warren Commission representatives
at a March 12 meeting with CIA officials, including Richard Helms, concerned
Silvia Duran's arrest and interrogation by the Mexican Federal Police.(104)
Helms responded to the Commission's request for access that he would attempt to
arrange for the Warren Commission's representatives to review this material.
(105)
(90) Another Slawson memorandum, dated March 25, 1964, concerned Oswald's trip
to Mexico. Slawson wrote that the tentative conclusions he had reached
concerning Oswald's Mexico trip were derived
----------------------------------
Page 488
488
from CIA memorandums of January 31, 1964, and February 19, 1964, and, in
addition, a Mexican Federal Police summary of interrogations with Silvia Duran,
her brother Ruben, husband Horacio, and a handfull of friends, conducted shortly
after the assassination. (106)
(91) Slawson said:
A large part of it [the summary report] is simply a summation of what the
Mexican police learned when they interrogated Mrs. Silvia Duran, an employee of
the Cuban consulate in Mexico City, and is therefore only is accurate as Mrs.
Duran's testimony to the police. (107)
(92) These comments indicate that Slawson placed qualified reliance on the
Mexican police summary. Moreover, there is no indication that Slawson had been
provided the [raw data] pertaining to Duran that had been obtained by means of
[sensitive CIA sour's and methods]. In fact, by virtue of Slawson's comments
concerning the Mexican police report, it would appear that the Warren Commission
as of March 25, had been provided little substantive information pertaining to
Silvia Duran. As Slawson revealed, the Commission had been forced to rely upon
the two memoranda that did not make reference to the [sensitive operations], and
a summary report issued by the Mexican Federal Police. Thus, the Agency had for
over 3 months precluded exposing [raw data] generated by its [sensitive
operations] to the actual review and analysis of the Warren Commission. (108)
(93) The evidence indicates that Slawson had not been given access to the [raw
data] pertaining to Duran that had been generated by CIA [sensitive operations.]
This is further suppored by his memorandum of March 27, 1964, in which he states
his conclusion that Oswald had visited the Cuban Embassy at least twice and
probably on three occasions. (109) This conclusion, he again wrote, was based
upon an analysis of Silvia Duran's testimony before the Mexican police. This
memorandum bears no indication that he had reviewed any [raw data] pertaining to
this issue.
(94) The record supports the judgment that as of April 2, 1964, the Warren
Commission, although aware of their existence had still not been given access to
the above-referenced series of [original source materials]. A memorandum of that
date by Coleman and Slawson posed one quedion to the CIA and made two requests
for information from the Agency: (110)
(95) (1) What is the information source referred to in the November 28 telegram
that Oswald intended to settle down Odessa;
(96) (2) We would like to see copies of the [raw data] in all cases where the
[raw data] refer to the assassination of related subjects;
(97) (3) We would especially like to see the [raw data] in which the allegation
that money was passed at the Cuban Embassy is discussed.(111)
(98) The question initially posed by (item 1) in the above-referenced memorandum
of April 2 concerns a [sensitive CIA operation].(112) Obviously, if Slawson
found it necessary to request the source of the
Page 489
489
information, he had not as yet been provided access to the original material by
the CIA.
(99) Item No. 2 of the above listing tends to show that the Commission had not
been given access to certain [sensitive raw data] concerning the assassination.
(300)
(100) Item. No. 3 of the above listing reveals that the [sensitive raw data]
pertaining to the Dorticos-Armas conversation of November 22, 1964, in which the
passing of moneys was discussed, had not, as of April 2, been provided to the
Commission, despite the Commission's having specifically requested this
information at a March 12, 1964, meeting between Commission representatives and
Agency representatives. (113)
(101) On April 3, 1964 Coleman and Slawson expressed their concern about getting
complete access to all materials relevant to Oswald's Mexico City trip:
(102) The most probable final result of the entire investigation of Oswald's
activities in Mexico is a conclusion that he went there for the purpose of
trying to reach Cuba and that no bribes, conspiracies, etc. took place.
(103) * * * In order to make such a judgement (that all reasonable lines of
investigation that might have uncovered other motivations or possible
conspiracies have been followed through with negative results), we must become
familiar with the details of what both the American and Mexican investigatory
agencies there have done. This means reading their reports, after translation,
if necessary, and in some cases talking with the investigators themselves.
[Emphasis added.](114)
(104) Nevertheless, as the record tends to show, Coleman's and Slawson's desire
for a thorough investigation was subject to the limitations imposed by the CIA's
concern for protecting its sources and methods from disclosure. Given the
gravity and significance of the Warren Commission's investigation, the Agency's
initial withholding of original source material from the Commission staff may
have impeded its ability to reach accurately reasoned conclusions with respect
to Oswald's activities while in Mexico City.
(105) On April 8, 1964, Slawson, Willens, and Coleman flew to Mexico City,
Mexico, to meet with the representatives of the State Department, FBI, CIA, and
the Government of Mexico.(115) The group was met by U.S. Ambassador Freeman.
Claire Boonstra of the State Department, Clark Anderson of the FBI and a [CIA
representative]. (116) That same day, the [CIA representative] made available
the [raw data] concerning Oswald and Duran that the Agency had [collected].
(117) In addition, he provided the group with photographs for the time period
covered by Oswald's visit. (118) David Slawson wrote:
(106) * * * The [CIA representative] stated at the beginning of his narrative
that he intended to make a complete disclosure of all facts, including the
sources of Iris information, and that he understood that all three of us had
been cleared for Top Secret and that we would not disclose beyond the
Page 490
490
confines of the Commission and its immediate staff the information we obtained
through him without first clearing it with his superiors in Washington. We
agreed to this.(119)
(107) [CIA representative] described to the Commission staff members the CIA's
course of action directly following the assassination, indicating that his staff
immediately began to compile dossiers on Oswald, Duran and everyone else
throughout Mexico whom the CIA knew had had some contact with Oswald. (120) He
revealed that all known Cuban and Russian intelligence agents had quickly been
put under surveillance. Slawson concluded:
(108) The [CIA representative's] narrative plus the material we were shown
disclosed immediately how incorrect our previous information had been on
Oswald's contacts with the Soviet and Mexican (sic) Embassies.* Apparently the
distortions and omissions to which our information had been subjected had
entered some place in Washington, because the CIA information that we were shown
by the [CIA representative] was unambiguous on almost all the crucial points. We
had previously planned to show the [CIA representative] Slawsons reconstruction
of Oswald's probable activities at the embassies to get the [CIA
representative's] opinion, but once we saw how badly distorted our information
was we realized that this would be useless. Therefore, instead, we decided to
take as close notes as possible from the original source materials at some later
time during our visit.(121)**
(109) It may be that the "informational distortions" that Slawson notes were
merely the product of Slawson's mistaken analysis of the CIA material provided
to him. The record does reflect that Slawson had reviewed the CIA's January 31
memorandum that accurately summarized all of the [raw data] in question. (123)
Nevertheless, is the result of his direct review of the active [raw data]
derived from the original source material, Slawson was able to clarify
substantially his analysis of Oswald's activities while in Mexico City. (124)
(110) It may be argued therefore that the CIA's reluctance to provide the Warren
Commission with its original source material may have hampered the efficiency of
the Commission's investigation of Oswald's Mexico City activities. In the
process, the CIA's reluctance conflicted with President Johnson's Executive
order that the executive agencies:
(111) * * * furnish the Commission with such facilities, services and
cooperation as it may request from time to time.(125)
E. THE PHOTOGRAPH OF AN UNIDENTIFIED INDIVIDUAL
(112) On November 23, 1963, an FBI Special Agent showed guerite Oswald a
photograph of a man. (126) This photograph had been supplied to the FBI on
November 22 by the CIA. (127) It had
---------------------------------
Page 491
491
been obtained in early October 1963 and at that time had been linked by some
[Agency employees] to Lee Harvey Oswald. (128) The subject of the photograph,
however, bore no resemblance to Lee Harvey Oswald.
(113) On February 10, 1964, Marguerite Oswald testified before the Warren
Commission and recounted the circumstances under which she was shown the
photograph. (129) Mrs. Oswald testified that she believed this photograph to
have been of Jack Ruby. (130)
(114) Thereafter, on February 12, 1964, J. Lee Rankin wrote to Thomas
Karramesines, assistant deputy director for plans (DDP), requesting both the
identity of the individual in the photograph and an explanation of the
circumstances by which the photograph had been obtained by CIA. (131)
(115) On that same day, in a separate letter, Rankin wrote to McCone regarding
materials that the CIA had disseminated since November 22, 1963, to the Secret
Service, but not to the Warren Commission. He requested copies of these
materials, which included three CIA cables concerning the photograph of the
individual originally identified by some [Agency employees] as Lee Harvey Oswald
and thereafter shown by the FBI to Oswald's mother. (132)
(116) John Scelso testified about the reasons why the CIA did not explain to the
Commission the origin of the photograph:
(117) We did not initially disclose to the Warren Commission all of our
[sensitive] operations. In other words, we did not initially disclose to them
that we had [such operations] because the November photo we had [of the
unidentified man] was not of Oswald. Therefore it did not mean anything, you
see? (133)
STAFF COUNSEL * * * So the Agency was making a unilateral decision that this was
not relevant to the Warren Commission. (134)
Mr. SCELSO. Right, we were not authorized, at first, to reveal all our
[sensitive] operations. (135)
(118) On March 5, 1964, Rocca wrote in an internal memorandum to Helms that "we
have a problem here for your determination." (136) Rocca first outlined
Angleton's desire not to respond directly to Rankin's request of February 12
regarding the CIA material forwarded to the Secret Service since November 23,
1964.(137) Rocca then stated:
(119) "Unless you feel otherwise, Jim would prefer to wait out the Commission on
the matter covered by paragraph 2 [of the above-referenced February 12 letter to
McCone requesting access to CIA reports provided the Secret Service after
November 22, 1963]. If they come back on this point he feels that you, or
someone from here, should be prepared to go over to show the Commission the
material rather than pass it to them in copy. Incidentally, none of these items
are of new substantive interest. We have either passed the material in substance
to the Commission in response to earlier levies or the items refer to aborted
leads, for example, the famous six photographs which are not of Oswald ...".
(138)
Page 492
492
(120) On March 12, 1964, representatives of the Warren Commission and the CIA
conferred regarding the February 12 request for the materials forwarded to the
Secret Service by the Agency. (139) The record indicates that the Commission at
the March 12 meeting pressed for access to the Secret Service materials. (14O)
Rankin wrote to Helms on March 16 that it was his understanding that the CIA
would supply the Commission with a paraphrase of each report or communication
pertaining to the Secret Service materials
with all indications of your confidential communications techniques and
confidential sources deleted. You will also afford members of our staff working
in this area an opportunity to review the actual file so that they may give
assurance that the paraphrases are complete. (141)
(121) Rankin further indicated that the same procedure was to be followed
regarding any material in the possession of the CIA prior to November 22, 1963,
which had not as yet been furnished Because it concerned sensitive sources and
methods. (142)
(122) Helms responded to Rankin's March 16 letter on March 24 with two separate
communications. (143) The initial letter of response provided the Commission
with a copy of the October 10, 1963, CIA dissemination to the FBI, State
Department, Immigration and Naturalization Service and Navy Department (and to
the Secret Service on November 22) regarding Lee Harvey Oswald and his presence
at the Soviet Consulate in Mexico City. The response revealed that on October
23, 1963, the CIA had requested from the Navy two copies of the most recent
photograph of Oswald in order to check the identity the person believed to be
Oswald in Mexico City.(144) The CIA stated that it had determined at some
unspecified time that the photograph earlier obtained by a [sensitive source] *
and shown to Marguerite Oswald on November 22, 1963, was not Lee Harvey
Oswald.(145) The Agency explained that it had checked the photograph against the
press photographs of Oswald generally available on November 1963. (146)
(123) The second letter from Helms revealed that on November 23 1963,
immediately following the assassination, and on November 23, 1963, three cabled
reports were received at CIA headquarters regarding photographs of an
unidentified man who had visited the Cuban and Soviet Embassies during October
and November 1963.(147) Paraphrases of these cables, which did not reveal
sensitive sources and methods, were attached to the second letter.(148) The
Agency wrote that the subject of the photograph referenced in these cables was
not Oswald. It was further stated that:
(124) In response to our meeting of 12 March and your memo of 16 March, we will
arrange for Mr. Stern and Mr. Willens to review at Langley the original copies
of these three disseminations to the Secret Service and the cables on which they
were based, as well as the photographs of the unidentified man. (149)
---------------------------
Page 493
493
(125) On March 26, William Coleman wrote in a memorandum for the record:
(126) The CIA directed a memorandum to J. Lee Rankin (Commission Document No.
631 ) in which it set forth the dissemination of the information on Lee Harvey
Oswald. I realize that this memorandum is only a partial answer to our inquiry
to the CIA dated March 16, 1964 and I know that the complete answers will give
us the additional information we requested. (150)
Coleman went on to state:
As you know, we are still trying to get an explanation of the photograph which
the FBI showed Marguerite Oswald soon after the assassination. I hope that
paragraph 4* of the memorandum of March 24, 1964 [CD 631] sent Mr. Rankin by the
CIA is not the answer which the CIA intends to give us as to this inquiry. (151)
(127) The following day, as agreed by Warren Commission and Agency
representatives, Samuel Stern of the Commission visited headquarters in Langley,
Va. (152)
(128) Sterns' memorandum of his visit reveals that he reviewed Oswald's file
with Rocca.(153) Stern indicated that Oswald's file contained those materials
furnished previously to the Warren Commission by the CIA. (154) The file also
contained:
(129) Cable reports from the CIA of November 22 and 23, 1963, of a person who
had visited the Cuban and Soviet Embassies during October and November [sic]
1963; and reports on these cables furnished on November 23, 1963 by CIA to the
Secret Service. (155)
(130) Stern noted that these messages were accurately paraphrased in the
attachments to CD 674 provided the Warren Commission on March 24, 1964. (156)
Stern also reviewed the October 9, 1963, cable from a CIA unit to CIA
headquarters reporting Oswald's contact with the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City.
(157) In addition, Stern examined the October 10, 1963 cable from CIA
headquartersjhkjh¢ reporting background information on Oswald.(158) Stern
recorded that these messages were accurately reported in the CIA's January 31
memorandum to the Warren Commission reporting Oswald's Mexico City trip. (159)
(131) Last, Stern noted that Rocca provided him for his review a computer
printout of the references to Oswald-related documents located in the Agency's
electronic data storage system. (160) He stated "there is no item listed [ . . .
] which we [the Warren Commission] have not been given either in full text or
paraphrased." (161)
(132) Thus, by March 27, a Warren Commission representative had been apprised of
the circumstances surrounding the mysterious photograph.**
-------------------------
Page 494
494
F. LUISA CALDERON CARRALERO
(133) The committee devoted considerable attention to the following memorandum
that was obtained as a result of a review of the Oswald file:(163)
(134) Subject: Comments of Luisa Calderon Carralero
1. A reliable source reported that on 22 November 1963, several hours after the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Luisa Calderon Carralero, a Cuban
employee of the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, and believed to be a member of the
Cuban Directorate General of Intelligence (DGI), discussed news of the
assassination with an acquaintance. Initially, when asked if she had heard the
latest news, Calderon replied, in what appeared to be g joking manner, "Yes, of
course I knew almost before Kennedy."
2. After further discussion of the news accounts about the assassination, the
acquaintance asked Calderon what else she had learned. Calderon replied that
they [assumed to refer to personnel of the Cuban Embassy] learned about it a
little while ago. (135) Rocca, in response to a 1975 Rockefeller Commission
request for information on a possible Cuban conspiracy to assassinate President
Kennedy, wrote regarding Calderon's comments:
(136) Latin hyperbole? Boastful ex post facto suggestion of foreknowledge. This
is the only item in the [sensitive operation] coverage of the Cubans and Soviets
after the assassination that contains the suggestion of foreknowledge or
expectation.* (165)
(137) Standing by themselves, Luisa Calderon's cryptic comments may not have
merited serious attention. Her words may indeed have indicated foreknowledge of
the assassination but may equally be interpreted without such a sinister
implication. Nevertheless, the committee determined that Luisa Calderson's case
merited serious attention in the months following the assassination.
------------------------------
Page 495
495
(138) Luisa Calderon's name first surfaced in connection with the assassination,
on November 27, 1963, in a cable sent by then-Ambassador Mann to the State
Department. (166)
(139) In that cable, Mann stated:
. . . Washington should urgently consider feasibility of questing Mexican
authorities to arrest for interrogation: Eusebio Azcue, Luisa Calderon and
Alfredo Mirabal. The two men are Cuban national and Cuban consular officers.
Luisa Calderon is a secretary in Cuban Consulate here. (167)
(140) This cable does not state the basis for arresting Calderon.1 Nevertheless,
the CIA's copy of this cable bears a handwritten notation on its routing page.
That notation states: "Info from Amb Mann for Sec. Rusk re:... persons involved
with Oswald in Cuban Embassy." Mann went on to state in urgent terms:"They may
all quickly be returned to Havana in order to eliminate any possibility that
Mexican government could use them as witnesses." (169)
(141) According to CIA files, Calderon made reservations to return to Havana on
Cubana Airlines on December 11, 1963, less than 4 weeks after the assassination.
(170)
(142) Calderon, Azcue and Mirabal were not arrested nor detained for questioning
by the Mexican Federal Police.2 Nevertheless, Silvia Duran, a friend and
associate of Calderon's and the one person believed to have had repeated contact
with Oswald while he was in Mexico City, was arrested and questioned by the
Mexican police on two separate occasions.
(143) During her second interrogation, Duran was questioned regarding her
association with Calderon. There is no indication in the reinterrogation report
accounting for the questioning of Duran about Calderon. (173) The information
regarding Duran's interrogation was passed by CIA to the Warren Commission on
February 21, 1964, more than 2 months after Calderon had returned to Cuba. (174)
(144) During May 1964, information from a Cuban defector tying Luisa Calderon to
the Cuban Intelligence apparatus was reported to the CIA. The defector, [A-h],
was himself a Cuban intelligence officer who supplied valuable and highly
reliable information to the CIA regarding Cuban intelligence operations. (175)
At that time, Joseph Langosch, Chief of Counterintelligence for the Special
Affairs Stafff, 3 reported the results of his debriefing of the Cuban defector,
[A-1]. Langosch's memorandum stated that [A-I] had no direct knowledge of Lee
Harvey Oswald or his activities but was able to provide items of interest based
upon the comments of certain Cuban intelligence service officers. (176)
Specifically, [A-1] was asked if Oswald was known
-----------------------------
Page 496
496
to the Cuban intelligence services before November 23, 1963. [A-l] told
Langosch:
Prior to October 1963, Oswald visited the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City on two or
three occasions. Before, during; and after these visits, Oswald was in contact
with the Direccion General De Intelligencia (DGI), specifically with Luisa
Calderon, Manuel Vega Perez, and Rogelio Rodriguez Lopez. (177)
(145) Langosch thereafter wrote that Calderon's precise relationship to the DGI
was not clear. As a comment on this statement, he set forth the CIA cable and
dispatch traffic that recorded her arrival Mexico during January 1963 and
departure for Cuba within 1 month after the assassination.(178)
(146) On May 7, 1964 Langosch recorded additional information had elicited from
[A-1] regarding Oswalds possible contact with the DGI. (179) Paragraph 3 of this
memorandum; stated in part:
(147) a. Luisa Calderon, since she returned to Cuba has been paid a regular
salary by the DGI even though she has not performed any services. Her home is in
the Vedado section where the rents are high. b. Source [A-1] has known Calderon
for several years. Before going to Mexico, she worked in the Ministry of
Exterior Commerce in the department which was known as the "Empresa
Transimport." Her title was Secretary General of the Communist Youth in the
department named in the previous sentence. (180)
(148) On May 8, Langosch further disclosed [A-1's] knowledge of the Oswald case.
(181) He paraphrased [A-1] knowledge of Calderon as follows:
(149) I thought that Luisa Calderon might have had contact with Oswald because I
learned about 17 March 1964, shortly before I made a trip to Mexico, that she
had been involved with an American in Mexico. The information to which I refer
was told to me by a DGI case officer... I had commented to (him) that it seemed
strange that Luisa Calderon was receiving a salary from the DGI although she
apparently did not do any work for the Service. (The case officer) told me that
hers was a peculiar case and that he himself believed that she had been
recruited in Mexico by the Central Intelligence Agency although Manuel Pineiro,
the Head of the DGI, did not agree. I recall, (the case officer) had
investigated Luisa Calderon. This was because, during the time she was in Mexico
the DGI had intercepted a letter to her by an American who signed his name OWER
(phonetic) or something similar. As you -know, the pronunciation of Anglo-Saxon
names is difficult in Spanish so I am not sure of how the name mentioned by [the
Cuban case officer] should be spelled. It could have been "Howard'; or something
different. As I understand the matter, the letter from the American was a love
letter but indicated that there was a clandestine professional relationship
between the writer and Luisa Calderon. I also understand from (the case officer)
Page 497
497
that after the interception of the letter she had been followed and seen in the
company of an American. I do not know if this could have been Oswald .... (182)
(150) On May 11, 1964, Rocca wrote a memorandum to Helms regarding the
information Langosch had elicited from [A-1].(183) Rocca proposed that:
The DDP in person or via a designee, preferably the former, discuss the [A-1]
situation on a very restricted basis with Mr. Rankin at his earliest convenience
either at the Agency or at the Commission headquarters. Until this takes place,
it is not desirable to put anything in writing. (184)
(151) On May 15, 1964 Helms wrote Rankin regarding [A-1s] information about the
DGI, indicating its sensitivity and operational significance. (185) Attached to
Helms' communication was a paraphrased accounting of Langosch's May 5
memorandum.(186) In that attachment, the intelligence associations of two Cuban
diplomatic employees, Manuel Vega Perez and Rogelio Rodriguez, were set forth.
Nevertheless, that attachment made no reference whatsoever to Luisa Calderon.
(152) Howard Willens of the Warren Commission requested, as a followup to the
May 15 memorandum access to the questions used in Langosch's interrogation of
[A-1].(187) On June 18, 1964, an [agency employee] of Rocca's
Counterintelligence Research and Analysis Group took the questions and [A-1's]
responses to the Warren Commission's office for Willens' review. The only
mention of Calderon Willens found in the May 5 memorandum was as follows: "The
precise relationship of Luisa Calderon to the DGI is not clear. She spent about
six months in Mexico from which she returned to Cuba early in 1964:."(188)
Willens was not shown Langosch's memoranda of May 7 and May 8, 1964, that
contained much more detailed information on Luisa Calderon, including [A-1's]
report of her possible association with Lee Harvey Oswald and/or American
intelligence.* (189)
(153) The evidence indicates that the CIA did not provide a report of Calderon's
conversation of November 22 to the Warren Commission. Consequently, even though
the Warren Commission was aware that Calderon reportedly had connections to
intelligence work, as did other Cuban Embassy officers, the vital link between
her background and her comments was never established for the Warren Commission
by the CIA. The agency's omission in this regard may have foreclosed the
Commission's actively pursuing a lead of
great significance.
(154) In an effort to determine the manner in which the CIA treated the Calderon
conversation, this committee posed the following questions to the CIA:
(155) 1. Was the Warren Commission or any Warren Commission staff member ever
given access to the [raw data] of Calderon's
-------------------------------
Page 498
498
conversation dated November 22, 1963? . . . If so, please indicate when this
report was provided to the Warren Commission or its staff, which CIA official
provided it, and which Warren Commission members staff reviewed it.
(156) 2. Was the Warren Commission or any member of the Warren Commission or any
Warren Commission staff member ever informed orally or in writing of the
substance of the above-referenced conversation of November 22, 1963? If so,
please indicate when and in what form this information was provided, and which
CIA official provided it.(190)
(157) The CIA responded by memodandum:
Although the Mexican unit] considered the conversation of sufficient possible
interest to send a copy to headquarters, the latter apparently did nothing with
it, for there appears to be no record in the Oswald file of such action as may
have been taken. A review of those Warren Commission documents containing
information provided by the agency and still bearing a Secret or Top Secret
classification does not reveal whether the conversation was given or shown to
the Commission.* (191)
(158) The available evidence thus supports the conclusion that the Warren
Commission was never given the information nor the opportunity by which it could
evaluate Luisa Calderon's significance to the events surrounding President
Kennedy's assassination. Had the Commission been expeditiously provided with
this evidence of her intelligence background, association with Silvia Duran, and
her comments following the assassination, it may well have given more serious
investigative consideration to her potential knowledge of Oswald and the Cuban
Government's possible involvement in a conspiracy to assassinate President
Kennedy.
(159) Two difficult issues remain that were raised by the evidence. First, why
did the Agency not provide the Calderon conversation to the Warren Commission?
Second, why did the Agency not reveal to the Warren Commission its full
knowledge of Calderon's intelligence background, her possible knowledge of
Oswald and her possible connection to the CIA?
(160) The first question can be explained in neutral terms. It is reasonably
possible that by sheer oversight, the report of conversation was filed away and
not recovered or recollected until after the Warren Commission had completed its
investigation and published its report.**
(161) As for the Agency's failure to provide information concerning Calderon's
intelligence background, the record reflects that the Commission was rarely
informed that Calderon may have been a member of the DGI.(193) The memoranda
that provided more extensive examination of her intelligence background were not
made available for the Commission's review. Significantly, the May 8 memorandum
written by Joseph Langosch following his debriefing of [A-1] indicated that
--------------------------
Page 499
499
[A-1] and a second Cuban Intelligence officer believed Calderon to be a CIA
operative. (194) Nevertheless the evidence would seem to indicate that this
information was not provided the Warren Commission because there was no basis in
fact for the allegation.
(162) The committee sought to determine whether Calderon had any possible
association with the CIA. Agency files reviewed and interviews with Agency
personnel reveal no connection between Calderon and the CIA.(195)
Balance of the Evidence
Page 499
IV. BALANCE OF THE EVIDENCE
(163) As this staff report indicates, the Warren Commission and the CIA
struggled with serious issues bearing on President Kennedy's assassination and
the protection of national security. In most, instances, the evidence indicates
that the CIA acted in a responsible and professional manner. Nevertheless, the
evidence does show at least three separate instances of deficiencies in the
reporting of information to the Warren Commission. (164) The first instance--the
Agency's failure to report the anti-Castro assassination plots to the Warren
Commission has been explained in terms of the Commission's failure to request
this information (implicit in this logic is the argument that the plots were not
relevant to the Commission's investigation). The evidence, however, shows that
these plots were in fact highly relevant and should, therefore, have been
reported to the Warren Commission. Moreover, as the Commission was apparently
unaware of the plots, it presumably was not in a position specifically to
request this kind of information.
(165) The second instance--stemming from the CIA's legal responsibility to
protect its sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure resulted in delayed
access by Warren Commission staff members to original source materials. Although
the CIA exhibited high standards in reporting to the Warren Commission
information derived from sensitive sources and methods, the evidence indicates
that the Commission's investigation might have been added had such sources and
techniques been directly available.
(166) Finally, the evidence shows that Luisa Calderon;s comments expressing
possible foreknowledge of President Kennedy assassination should have been
reported to the Warren Commission. Her known association with Cuban diplomatic
personnel in Mexico City and reported association with the DGI add to the force
of the facts. Had her comments been reported to the Warren Commission, they
might have merited the Commission's serious attention. In this regard, the
Commission did not have the opportunity to make its own judgement.
Submitted by:
CHARLES M. BURKE,
Research Attorney
References
Page 499
REFERENCES
(1) The Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy:
Performance of the Intelligence Agencies, book V, final report, Senate Select
Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence, 94th
Congress, 2d session (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976),
pp. 6-7 (Senate Report 94-755) (hereinafter cited as SSC, book V).
Page 500
500
(2) CIA Classified Document 1977 Task Force Report, Introduction to tab E
(hereinafter cited as 1977 TFR).
(3) See ref. 1, SSC, book V, pp. 67-75.
(4) See ref. 2, 1977 TFR.
(5) Ibid.
(6) Classified Staff Report, "HSCA Investigation of CIA Support to the Warren
Commission," Dec. 10, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (JFK
classified document 015036).
(7) Executive Session Testimony of Richard Helms, Aug. 9, 1978, House Select
Committee on Assassinations. pp. 17-18 (JFK classified document 014719)
(hereinafter Helms Executive Session Testimony).
(8) See ref. 1, SSC, book V, p. 25.
(9) Deposition of John Scelso, May 16, 1978, House Select Committee of
Assassinations, pp. 111-112 (JFK classified document 014728) (hereinafter Scelso
Deposition): see ref. 6, Helms Executive Session Testimony, p. 10.
(10) Deposition of [Agency Employee], June 20, 1978, House Select Committee on
Assassinations, pp. 7 and 52 (JFK classified document 014735); see ref. 9,
Scelso Deposition, p. 80.
(11) Id. at p. 52.
(12) Id. at pp. 52-53.
(13) See ref. 1, SSC, book V, p. 25; see ref. 9, Scelso Deposition, pp. 111-112.
(14) See ref. 9, Scelso Deposition, p. 112.
(15) Deposition of Raymond Rocca, July 17, 1978, House Select Committee on
Assassinations, p. 9 (JFK classified document 014718 ) (hereinafter Rocca,
Deposition).
(16) Ibid.
(17) See ref. 9, Scelso deposition, p. 131.
(18) Id. at p. 133.
(19) Id. at p. 134.
(20) Id. at pp. 114-115; CIA report by John Scelso to chief/counterintelligence,
Dec. 13, 1963.
(21) See ref. 9, Scelso deposition, p. 114.
(22) Ibid., Scelso deposition, p. 136; see also ref. 15, Rocca deposition, in
which Rocca stated that responsibility shifted from Scelso to CI staff on
January 12, 1964.
(23) See ref. 6, Helms executive session testimony, p. 14; see also Scelso
deposition. p. 138.
(24) See ref. 15, Rocca deposition, pp. 12-13.
(25) Id. at p. 12.
(26) Deposition of James Angleton, Oct. 5, 1978, House Select Committee on
Assassinations, pp. 76-77 (JFK classified document 014720 (hereinafter Angleton
deposition); see a]so ref. 15, Rocca deposition, p. 23.
(27) Id. at pp. 32-33 and 44: see ref. 6, Helms executive session testimony, p.
23.
(28) See ref. 15, Rocca deposition, pp. 32-33.
(29) Id. at p. 33.
(30) Id. at p. 44.
(31) See ref. 6, Helms executive session testimony, p. 21.
(32) Id. at p. 138.
(33) See ref. 26, Angleton deposition, p. 86.
(34) Id. at p. 93.
(35) Ibid.
(36) See ref. 15, Rocca deposition, p. 7; see also ref. 26, Angleton deposition,
p. 77.
(37) Id. at pp. 16-17.
(38) Id. at p. 17.
(39) Ibid.
(40) Ibid.; Rocca testified that neither CI staff nor his staff displaced the
CIA's Soviet Division (represented by [Agency employee] Chief of the Soviet
Russian division and his assistant, [Agency employee] in its contact with the
Commission; nor did counterintelligence/research and analysis displace Scelso in
his contact with the Warren Commission).
(41) Id. at p. 36.
(42) See ref. 15, Rocca deposition, pp. 17-18. See ref. 26, Angleton deposition,
p. 78.
Page 501
501
(43) Id. at p. 81.
(44) See ref. 15, Rocca deposition, p. 18
(45) Ibid.
(46) Ibid.
(47) Id. at pp. 19-20.
(48) See ref. 9, Scelso deposition, p. 113, in which Scelso stated that counter
Intelligence staff, including [Agency employee], was repository of HT-Lingual
intercepts; but see also deposition of [Agency employee], HSCA, July 20, 1978,
pp. 83-84 (JFK classified document 014735), in which [Agency employee] stated
that he did not know whether the Warren Commission had knowledge of the
HT-Lingual program because it was not his responsibility to provide the
Commission with material derived from the HT-Lingual program.
(49) See ref. 15, Rocca deposition, p. 10; ref. 26, Angleton deposition, pp. 75,
80; see also CIA document, Raymond Rocca memorandum for the record, April 1,
1975, re: Conversation with David W. Belin, April 1, 1975; in which it is stated
that Helms remained the senior official in charge of the overall investigation,
with counterintelligence staff acting as a coordinator and depository of
information collected.
(50) See ref. 15, Rocca deposition, p. 18; see also ref. 6, Helms executive
session testimony, pp. 9 and 24.
(51) Staff interview of William Coleman, Aug. 2, 1978, House Select Committee on
Assassinations.
(52) Executive session testimony of W. David Slawson, Nov. 15, 1977, House
Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 17 (JFK document 008625) (hereinafter
Slawson executive session testimony); see also JFK exhibit 23, hearings before
the Select Committee on Assassinations, U.S. House of Representatives, 95th
Cong., 2d sess. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979), vol.
p. 190 (herein after HSCA-JFK hearings).
(53) Deposition of J. Lee Rankin, August 7, 1978, House Select Committee on
Assassinations, p. 4 (JFK Classified Document 014874) (hereinafter Rankin
Deposition); see also deposition of John McCone, August 17, 1978, House Select
Committee on Assassinations, p. 9 (JFK Classified Document 014729) (hereinafter
McCone deposition ).
(54) See ref. 53, McCone deposition, p. 5.
(55) Id. at pp. 5-6.
(56) Id. at p. 9.
(57) See ref. 15, Rocca deposition, p. 14.
(58) Id. at p. 24.
(59) Id. at p. 26.
(60) Id. at p. 23.
(61) See ref. 6, Helms executive session testimony, p. 10.
(62) Id. at pp. 10-11.
(63) Id. at p. 34.
(64) See ref. 53, Rankin deposition, p. 4.
(65) See ref. 52, Slawson executive session testimony, p. 29.
(66) See ref. 1, SSC, book V; see also Alleged Assassination Plots Involving
Foreign Leaders. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with
Respect to Intelligence Operations, S. Rep. No. 94-465, 94th Cong., 1st sess.
(Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975 (hereinafter cited as
SSC. Alleged Plots).
(67) See ref. 15, Rocca, p. 50.
(68) See ref. 9, Scelso deposition, pp. 73 and 142-143.
(69) Id. at p. 166.
(70) See ref. 6. Helms executive session testimony, pp. 30-31.
(71) Memorandum to Director of Central Intelligence, re: Sam Giancana,
from Richard Helms. August 16, 1963, in SSC Alleged Plots, p. 107 (see ref. 66).
(72) Id. at pp. 107-108.
(73) Ibid.
(74) CIA Inspector General's report, p. 70.
(75) See ref. 53, McCone deposition.
(76) Ibid.
(77) See ref. 53, Rankin deposition, pp. 61-63; ref. 52, Slawson executive
session testimony. p. 27; executive session testimony of Arlen Specter. November
8, 1977, House Select Committee on Assassinations. pp. 45-46 (JFK document
013094) (hereinafter Specter executive session testimony); but see also
executive
Page 502
502
session testimony of Wesley Liebeler, November 15, 1977, House Select Committee
on Assassinations, p. 71 (JFK Document 008625) (hereinafter Liebeler executive
session testimony).
(78) See ref. 15, Rocca deposition, p. 45.
(79) See ref. 9, Scelso deposition, p. 153.
(80) See ref. 6, Helms executive session testimony, p. 25.
(81) See ref. 9, Scelso deposition, p. 158.
(82) See ref. 53, Rankin deposition, pp. 22-23; see ref. 9, Scelso deposition
158.
(83) Ibid.
(84) Ibid.
(85) CIA FOIA Document No. 509-803.
(86) Classified CIA Document, December 20, 1963, DIR. 90466.
(87) CIA memorandum for file, December 20, 1963, CI Soft File.
(88) Ibid.
(89) CIA FOIA Document No. 474-191.
(90) Ibid.
(91) CIA FOIA Document No. 498-204.
(92) Ibid.
(93) CIA FOIA Document No. 509-803; CIA FOIA Document 498-204.
(94) Letter from J. Lee Rankin to Richard M. Helms, February 10, 1964 (JFK
Document 003872 ).
(95) See tel 15, Rocca deposition, P. 89.
(96) Ibid.
(97) Letter from Richard M. Helms to J. Lee Rankin, February 19, 1964, CIA FOIA
Document No. 553-808A.
(98) Ibid.
(99) See classified staff study, "Lee Harvey Oswald, the CIA and Mexico City,"
House Select Committee on Assassinations, pp. 178-185.
(100) Warren Commission classified document, memorandum of W. David Slawson,
April 22, 1964, p. 22.
(101) Staff interview with W. David Slawson, August 11, 1978, House Select
Committee on Assassinations, p. 3 (JFK Document 010623).
(102) Warren Commission classified document, memorandum of W. David Slawson,
Mar. 12, 1964.
(103) CIA FOIA Document No. 509803.
(104) Warren Commission classified document, memorandum of W. David Slawson,
Apr. 22, 1964, pp. 3, 19, and 45-46.
(105) Warren Commission classified document, memorandum of W. David Slawson,
Mar. 12, 1964, p. 6.
(106) Warren Commission classified document, memorandum of W. David Slawson,
Mar. 25, 1964, p. 20.
(107) Ibid.
(108) See refs. 73-75 and accompanying text in this report.
(109) Warren Commission classified document, memorandum of W. David Slawson,
Mar. 27, 1964, p. 2.
(110) Warren Commission classified document, memorandum of William Coleman and
W. David Slawson, Apr. 2, 1964.
(111) Ibid.
(112) Warren Commission classified document, memorandum of W. David Slawson,
Apr. 21, 1964, p. 1.
(113) Warren Commission classified document, memorandum of W. David Slawson,
Mar. 12, 1964.
(114) Warren Commission classified document, memorandum of William Coleman and
W. David Slawson, Apr. 3, 1964, p. 11.
(115) Warren Commission classified document, memorandum of W. David Slawson,
Apr. 22, 1964, p. 1.
(116) See ref. 100, Slawson memorandum, pp. 9-10.
(117) Ibid.
(118) Ibid.
(119) Ibid.
(120) Ibid.
(121) Id. at p. 24.
(122) Warren Commission classified document of W. David Slawson, Apr. 1964.
(123) See ref. 100, Slawson memorandum, pp. 52-54.
Page 503
503
(124) Id. at p. 24.
(125) Executive Order No. 11130, Nov. 29, 1963.
(126) Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President
Kennedy (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964), p. 364
(hereinafter cited as the Warren Report).
(127) CIA classified document, Mar. 24, 1964, DDP4-1555, Warren Commission
document 64.
(128) Ibid.
(129) Warren Report, Vol. I, p. 153.
(130) Ibid.
(131) Letter from J. Lee Rankin to Thomas Karramesines, Mar. 12, 1964 (JFK
Document 003872 ).
(132) Letter from J. Lee Rankin to John McCone, Mar. 12, 1964 (JFK Document
003872 ).
(133) See ref. 9, Scelso deposition, p. 158.
(134) Ibid.
(135) Ibid.
(136) CIA FOIA document No. 579-250.
(137) Ibid.
(138) See ref. 26, Angleton deposition, pp. 131-132, in which Angleton stated
that the only reason for not providing the Warren Commission with access to
(these materials) was due to the Agency's concern for protecting its sources and
methods.
(139) Letter from J. Lee Rankin to Richard Helms, Mar. 16, 1964 (JFK Document
003872); Warren Commission classified document, memorandum of W. David Slawson,
Mar. 12, 1964.
(140) Warren Commission classified document, memorandum of W. David Slawson,
Mar. 12, 1964.
(141) Letter from J. Lee Rankin to Richard Helms, Mar. 16, 1964 (JFK Document
003872 ).
(142) Ibid.
(143) CIA FOIA document No. 622-258 (hereinafter CD 631); CIA classified
document FOIA 621-259 (hereinafter CD 674).
(144) See ref. 143, CD 631.
(145) Ibid. (See also testimony of Marguerite Oswald, I Warren Commission
Hearings, 152.)
(146) Ibid.
(147) See ref. 143, CD 674.
(148) Ibid.
(149) Ibid.
(150) Warren Commission classified document, memorandum of William Coleman, Mar.
24, 1964.
(151) Ibid.
(152) Warren Commission classified document, memorandum of Samuel Stern, Mar.
27, 1964.
(153) Ibid.
(154) Ibid.
(155) Ibid.
(156) Ibid.
(157) Ibid.
(158) Ibid.
(159) Ibid.
(160) Ibid.
(161) Ibid.
(162) Affidavit of Richard Helms, Aug. 7, 1964, XI Warren Commission Hearings,
469-470.
(163) This memorandum paraphrased the original source materials. See JFK Exhibit
F-518, HSCA-JFK hearings.
(164) CIA document memorandum regarding Luisa Calderon conversation, undated
1979, p. 1.
(165) CIA classified document, memorandum of Raymond Rocca, May 23, 1975, p. 15.
(166) CIA FOIA document No. 138-598.
(167) Ibid.
(168) See ref. 1, SSC, Book V, pp. 28-30 and 40-43.
Page 504
504
(169) Ibid.
(170) CIA classified document, Apr. 26, 1965.
(171) CIl FOIA document No. 717-312, attachment C.
(172) CIA FOIA document No. 98-137, CIA FOIA document 34-595.
(173) CIA FOIl document No. 559-243.
(174) Ibid.
(175) CIA classified document, memorandum of Joseph Langosch, June 23, 1964.
(176) Ibid.
(177) Ibid.
(178) Ibid.
(179) CIA FOIA document No. 687-295, attachment 2.
(180) Ibid.
(181) Ibid., attachment 4.
(182) Ibid.
(183) CIA FOIA document 687-295.
(184) Id. at p. 2.
(185) CIA FOIA document 697-294.
(186) Ibid., attachment.
(187) CIA FOIA document 739-316.
(188) Ibid.
(189) Ibid.
(190) Classified letter from HSCA to CIA, August 28. 1978.
(191) CIA classified document, memorandum regarding Luisa Calderon conversation,
Aug. 28, 1978, p. 8.
(192) See ref. 53, Rankin deposition, pp. 18-19.
(193) CIA classified document, memorandum of Joseph Langosch, May 5, 1964.
(194) CIA FOIA document No. 687-295, attachment 4.
(195) See ref. 6, Helms executive session testimony, p. 136: see ref. 15, Rocca
deposition, p. 148; classified staff summary of interview of former CIA
employee, Joseph Langosch, Aug. 21, 1978, House Select Committee on
Assassinations (JFK classified document): classified staff summary of interview
with CIA employee, Aug. 11, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (JFK
classified document 014740). Further details analyzing this issue are set forth
in the classified HSCA staff report upon which this study is based. Classified
staff report, "HSCA Investigation of CIA Support to the Warren Commission,"
House Select Committee on Assassinations, Dec. 10, 1978 (JFK classified document
015036).
(196) See ref. 2, 1977 TFR, p. 10.
Politics and Presidential Protection the Motorcade
Page 505
505
POLITICS AND PRESIDENTIAL PROTECTION:
THE MOTORCADE
Staff Report
of the
Select Committee on Assassinations
U.S. House of Representatives
Ninety-fifth Congress
Second Session
March 1979
(505)
Contents
506
CONTENTS
Paragraph
Summary......................................................................................................(1)
I. The origins of the plan for President Kennedy
to visit
Texas.............................................................................(10)
II. The process of the selection of dates for
the trip and the planning of the
itinerary...................................(16)
III. The Texas Christian University appearance..............................(22)
IV. The political controversy surrounding the
selection of a speech site for the President's
appearance in
Dallas.................................................................(30)
V. The role of the Secret Service in the resolution of
the selection of the speech site and the motorcade route............(36)
VI. The publication in Dallas newspapers of the motorcade route (52)
VII. The residual role of the Secret Service in motorcade plannng:
(a) The Main Street-Houston-Elm turn...............................(60)
(b) The Protective Research Section....................................(64)
(c) Physical protection along the motorcade route..............(80)
(506)
Summary
Page 507
507
SUMMARY
(1) It has been suggested that the selection of a motorcade route that resulted
in the passage of President John F. Kennedy's open limousine at low speed
immediately below the Texas School Book Depository Building in Dallas, Tex., and
in the closest possible proximity in Dealey Plaza to the grassy knoll, was
probably no mere coincidence; that the use of a motorcade and the selection of
its route was more likely controlled by the conspiracy that planned the
President's death; and that the Secret Service, since it had responsibility for
protecting the President, may have been more than simply a negligent bystander
in the decisionmaking process.(1) The list of suggested conspirators who
allegedly arranged this aspect of the assassination ranges from the Secret
Service itself, to right-wing businessmen, and even includes the Governor of
Texas, John B. Connally (2)--the Governor, perhaps, being an innocent dupe,
since it is unlikely (in the extreme) that he would have wittingly arranged to
have shots fired the limousine in which he and his wife were also to ride.
(2) The results of the committee's investigation of these allegations are
described in this start report. In summary, the evidence indicates that
political considerations dictated that there would be a motorcade, and what its
route would be, and that the Secret Service's protective responsibilities were
subordinated to those political considerations. The committee found no evidence
of conspiracy in the processes that led to the use of the motorcade or the
selection of its route.
(3) The political considerations that apparently led to those two fortuitously
critical decisions were traditional Democratic Party politics and, as such, were
characterized by a struggle between liberal and conservative wings of the party:
between the conservative wing of the party in Texas led by Gov. John B.
Connally, and liberal elements, including Texas Senator Ralph Yarborough, but
primarily, of course, centering around the President himself. In the end,
ironically, it was the tension and compromise between the two views that
produced the fatal motorcade route. If either side had been able to dictate its
desires without compromise, the assassination might never have occurred.
(4) On one hand, Governor Connally, who was asked by the President to arrange
the trip as a means of broadening and strengthening his support among
conservatives in Texas, selected the Dallas Trade Mart, a new and attractive
convention hall on the Stemmons Freeway, for the luncheon site. It had the
attribute of appealing to the conservative business element, but the drawback of
limiting the number of guests that could be accommodated.
(5) The President, on the other hand, believed that his availability the people
by motorcade was a major factor in his successful campaign for the
Presidency,(3) and since his schedule in Dallas did involve a major public
speech before a large audience, but included
(507)
Page 508
508
only a "limited" speaking engagement before a "select group" at the Trade Mart,
the President felt even more strongly that a motorcade should be used to broaden
his exposure. (4) Both Governor Connally and Frank Erwin, executive secretary of
the Texas State Democratic Committee, objected to the staging of a downtown
motorcade.(5) Connally opposed the motorcade because the strain placed on
Kennedy of "exuding enthusiasm" would have been excessive: especially in view of
his tight schedule, and because he considered it a possibility that an
embarrassing picket or sign might be held up before the" President during the
motorcade.(6) Erwin objected to a downtown motorcade because it exposed the
President unnecessarily to the possibility of an embarrassing incident provoked
by the right-wing element: in Dallas.(7) Supporters of right-wing extremist
leader Gen. Edwin: Walker were feared, (8) since Lyndon Johnson and Adlai
Stevenson, in 1960 and 1963, respectively, had been publicly assaulted by
radical conservatives in Texas. (9) The memory of these occurrences was still
vivid, and many Connally associates were still concerned that the image of
Dallas would be tarnished by an incident in which the President would be
publicly embarrassed.(10) Erwin was so concerned about this aspect of the trip
that when he first heard that the President had been harmed, his first thought
was that a right-wing extremist had been responsible.(11) In the end, President
Kennedy's wishes prevailed, and there was a motorcade.(12) Its route was a
simple by-product of the decision to hold the luncheon at the Trade Mart. (13)
(6) Two luncheon sites had initially been considered:the Women's Building at the
fair grounds which was located in the central southern part of the city,(14) and
the Dallas Trade Mart, which was located on Stemmons Freeway to the west and
north of Dealey Plaza. (15)
(7) The Secret Service initially preferred the Women's Building for security
reasons,(16) and the Kennedy staff preferred it for political reasons. (17) If
the Women's Building had been selected, the Presidential motorcade would have
entered Dealey Plaza on Main Street west of Dealey Plaza and traveled eastward
on Main Street, traversing the Plaza briefly, at high speed,(18) without taking
any turns in or around the Plaza. (19) Such a west-to-east route through Dealey
Plaza on Main Street would have decreased the probability of the occurrence of
the assassination for two reasons. First, the Presidential limousine would have
presented a more difficult target at which to shoot because it would have been
moving more quickly and would have been positioned one block farther away (to
the south) from the assassins' locations than it was when the assassination
occurred on Elm Street.(20) Second, the President,, who rides in the right rear
of the limousine in accord with military protocol, would have been positioned so
that Mrs. Kennedy would have been seated between him and any gunfire emanating
from the Texas State Book Depository (TSBD) and the grassy knoll.(21)
(8) Nevertheless, in this case the President deferred to the Governor: the
Women's Building was rejected. and the Trade Mart was selected. (22) The result,
then, was the deployment of the motorcade westward through downtown Dallas and,
in turn, the inclusion of the turn, northward from Main Street onto Houston
Street and then
Page 509
509
westward from Houston onto Elm Street, which placed the limousine directly in
front of the line of fire.
(9) The Secret Service was in fact, a bystander in the process; its protective
functions were subordinated to political considerations. The committee found no
evidence indicating that a conspiracy affected either the President's decision
to incorporate a motorcade into the Dallas itinerary, or the Governor's decision
to insist on a Presidential appearance at the Trade Mart or the Secret Service's
acquiescence in those controlling decisions.
The Origins of the Plan for President Kennedy to Visit Texas
Page 509
I. THE ORIGINS OF THE PLAN FOR PRESIDENT KENNEDY TO VISIT TEXAS
(10) Governor John B. Connally of Texas indicated that the idea of a
Presidential visit to Texas arose first in the spring of 1962, during the Texas
gubernatorial campaign. (23) Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson approached
Connelly with the information that the President wished to come to Texas for the
purpose of fundraising.(24) Connelly was not interested at that time in
attempting to coordinate such a trip for various reasons. First, he was in the
midst of a campaign for Governor, was running against an incumbent. and his
initial showing in voter polls had been poor.(25) Second, he became involved in
a statewide campaign for the general election after winning the primary and he
had doubts about the capacity of his organization both to do justice to a
Presidential visit and simultaneously to run an effective campaign. (26)
Nevertheless, since Connally won the gubernatorial election and apart from Vice
President Johnson, was the Texan who was closest to the administration, the Vice
President continued to remind him about the President's interest. (27) Connally
continued to hesitate to commit himself to a specific time for the Presidential
visit. As Governor, he had to prepare a legislative program for his first
session with the Texas State Legislature, which was scheduled to convene on
January 20, 1963. That session was to last 120 days. Nevertheless, upon its
completion, Connelly became willing to undertake the organization of a
Presidential visit. (28)
(11) It was his understanding from the beginning that the President wanted to
raise money.(29) It also became apparent that the President wished to shore up
his sagging popularity in a State that he considered, with Massachusetts, to be
one of the two primary political objectives for the Presidential campaign of
1964.(30) In 1960. Kennedy had carried Texas by the small margin of 46,000
votes, despite Johnson, a Texan was his running mate. (31)The President's
legislative program had net fared well in the first year of his Presidency, and
the President was concerned about the 1964 election. For these reasons, a visit
to Texas had assumed great importance. (32)
(12) Connally believed that, for specific reasons, the President wished to come
to Texas under Connally's auspices rather than under the auspices of Vice
President Johnson or on his own. Since a Governor of a State is the titular head
of his party and sets the political tone of his State, neither Kennedy or
Johnson would have considered it politically advisable to visit a State without
the political support of the Governor. (33) And in Connally's opinion, Kennedy
had another, more narrowly focused reason for wanting to come to Texas. Connally
had
Page 510
510
developed a base of support among the moderates and conservatives in the Texas
Democratic Party.(34) The President hoped to obtain political benefit by
associating with Connally, the leader of the modcrate and conservative interests
whose support Kennedy needed in Texas. (35) The liberal wing of the party still
supported Kennedy; but the moderates and conservatives thought of Kennedy as
anti-business. (36) The President mentioned this to Connally and said that it
disturbed him because he had no intention of dismantling the free enterprise
system. (37) Kennedy wanted to talk with and, he hoped, to appeal to the people
who had not supported him in the Presidental campaign of 1960. (38)
(13) The first important meeting between the President and the Governor took
place in El Paso, Tex., in June. 1963.(39) Kennedy suggested August 27 as a
possible date for the visit because that was the Vice President's birthday. The
Governor objected since inclement Texas weather at that time of year resulted in
the absence of many Texans from the State for vacations. (40) Apart from the
President's suggestion that four or five fundraising dinners be held in the
major Texas cities, no final decision was reached regarding the date for the
trip or the itinerary. (41) Nevertheless, the decision to make the trip was
considered final as of this time. (42)
(14) From June to early October 1963, the Governor and the Vice President
intermittently discussed the objectives and format of the trip. (43) Johnson
advised Connally that the President felt that four or five fundraising dinners
would constitute an acceptable program. The Governor expressed the opinion that
it would be a mistake so to organize the visit, Johnson responded by saying that
that was what the President wanted and Connally had better have "a real good
reason" for objecting. (44)
(15) In early October the President and Governor Cormally met in the Oval
Office. Connally told Kennedy that a Presidential visit consisting of four or
five consecutive fundraising dinners would be considered by Texans as a
financial rape of the State. (45) On the basis of Connally's discussions of the
matter with political leaders in the State, the Governor's recommended course of
action was that the President meet with moderate and conservative business and
political leaders who had not supported him in 1960 and that he attempt to
convert them in nonpolitical settings. The President agreed. (46)
The Process of the Selection of Dates for the Trip and the Planning of the
Itinerary
Page 510
II. THE PROCESS OF THE SELECTION OF DATES FOR THE TRIP AND THE PLANNING OF THE
ITINERARY
(16) The specific dates of the trip had been resolved prior to this October
meeting. Presidential advance man Jerry Bruno stated that although he was given
formal notice of the Texas trip on October 21 by Presidential Appointments
Secretary Kenneth O'Donnell,(47) he believed the President and O'Donnell had
developed long range plans prior to the 11 State conservation tour in late
September.(48) No dates for Texas were mentioned at that time, but the September
26, 1963. issue of the Dallas Morning News printed an article stating that on
November 21 and 22, 1963, the President would visit several Texas cities.
Page 511
511
(17) Connally made it clear to the President that it would be Kennedy who would
pick the dates of the trip. (50) Although in testimony Connally stated he had no
specific recollection of having in, own prior to October that November 21 and 22
were the selected dates for the Texas visit, he did acknowledge that he must
have known. (51)
(18) Governor Connally was careful to emphasize that the purpose of the
Presidential visit was not to resolve differences within the Democratic Party of
the State of Texas. (52) Appointments Secretary O'Donnell had advanced this view
in his testimony before the Warren Commission. According to O'Donnell:
There were great controversies existing. There was a party problem in Texas that
the President and Vice President felt he could be helpful, as both sides of the
controversy were supporting President Kennedy, and they felt he could be a
bridge between these two groups, and this would be helpful in the election of
1964. I think that is the major reason for the trip. (53)
As Governor Connally stated:
. . . this (the complaints that Texas liberals were not being permitted to
participate in the planning of the trip or to obtain tickets to the various trip
functions) raised the question that has since been discussed in great length
that the President came to Texas to resolve the differences in the Democratic
Party in Texas. Nothing could be further from the truth. The two individuals who
were most involved in the split in the Party were Senator Ralph Yarborough and
Vice President Johnson, and both of them were in Washington, D.C. This is where
the trouble was.
The trouble arose basically over Federal patronage and Federal appointees and
Vice President Johnson was trying to get every Federal appointee he could get,
and so was Senator Yarborough...
And indeed if the President was interested in resolving that difficulty, he had
Vice President Johnson right across the street in the Old Executive Office
Building, he had Senator Yarborough right here on the Hill, and he could have
gotten them together in 10 minutes. But that wasn't the purpose of his trip to
Texas at all, it had nothing to do with it.
The Governor stated that Texas was basically a one-party State where political
differences had divided liberal from conservative elements for many decades and
where, throughout the Governor's political career, recurrent conflict between
the two forces was considered a normal state of affairs. The Govenor, recalling
an incident during which fist fights broke out within the Texas delegation on
the floor of the Democratic Party Convention in Chicago in 1940, stated that the
President was too astute a politician to attempt to resolve the differences in
the Democratic Party in the State of Texas.(55)
(19) The Governor stated that an early consensus was achieved about concluding
the trip with a major fundraising dinner in Austin, an event that would have
allowed the Texas Legislature a chance to meet the President. (56) The Governor
understood at this point that
Page 512
512
the visit would involve a single day. (57) To make the most of time available,
the Governor suggested to the President that he visit San Antonio,, Houston,
Fort Worth, Dallas and Austin all day.(58) This itinerary is confirmed by Bruno,
Kennedy's advance man, who met with Walter Jenkins, described as "Vice President
Johnson's right-hand man," on October 24. Bruno's notes record that he and
Jenkins discussed "....the proposed stops for the trip were San Antonio, Houston
overnight, Fort Worth. Texas Christian University, and a fundraising dinner in
Austin."(59) Although the luncheon in Dallas was omitted from Bruno's original
note, Dallas was always included.(60)
(20) The passage quoted above, because of its reference to an overnight stop,
indicates that the l-day tour planned by Governor nelly was modified to include
a testimonial dinner for Congressman Albert Thomas of Houston on the evening of
November 21, 1963. (61) Congressman Thomas chairman of the Appropriations
Committee was considered one of the most powerful members of the House. He
enjoyed the support of both conservatives and liberals in his Houston
Congressional District.(63) As a result of his terminal illness, and in
appreciation of his distinguished career in public service, a testimonial dinner
was being given for him. This occasion, along with the President's close
relationship with Thomas, resulted in a Presidential decision to extend the span
of his visit, adding the afternoon and evening of November 21 to the 1-day trip
already planned for the 22nd.(64) The San Antonio visit to inspect the new
Aerospace Medical Center at Brooks Air Force Base was rescheduled for Thursday.
(65) Originally, the President had planned to remain overnight in Houston, then
fly to Fort Worth on the following morning in order to receive an honorary
degree from Texas Christian University, and then fly to Dallas for a midday
luncheon.(66) site for the luncheon had been selected as of Bruno's arrival in
Texas on October 28. (67) As late as October 30, Bruno visited Houston to
finalize plans for the President's appearance at the Thomas dinner and to
examine the accommodations for Kennedy and his party at the Rice Hotel. (68) The
overnight stop at Houston was changed to overnight stop at Fort Worth when
Kennedy accepted an invitation to the Houston dinner. (69) In the meantime, TCU
had decided not to award the President an honorary degree. (70) That change was
made on November 1.(71) A breakfast with the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce was
substituted on November 1 for the canceled honorary degree ceremony. (72)
(21) Since the Governor personally emphasized the scheduling of
a luncheon in Dallas.(73) and because that suggestion dovetailed conveniently
with the President's insistence on the staging of a motorcade through downtown
Dallas,(74) the final sequence of cities to be visited was established without
opposition from any person when the overnight stop was changed from Houston to
Fort Worth.(75). It was then decided that on November 21 Kennedy would dedicate
the Aerospace Medical Center at Brooks AFB in San Antonio.(76) This would
precede the President's appearance at the Albert Thomas testimonial dinner,(77)
the event around which the Texas trip was built. (78) In Fort Worth, a
prebreakfast speech in
Page 513
513
front of the Texas Hotel(79) and Kennedy's breakfast appearance before the
Chamber of Commerce filled the time gap caused by the cancellation of the
ceremony at TCU. (80) The Dallas luncheon and the fundraising dinner at the
Governor's mansion in Austin completed the schedule for the day. (81) It was the
Governor's opinion that Austin was the best city in the State for a major
fundraising affair because it was the Texas capital. (82)
Texas Christian University Appearance
Page 513
III. TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY APPEARANCE
(22) In his testimony before the committee, Governor Connally did not specify
whose idea it was to have the President appear at Texas Christian
University.(83) Advance man Jerry Bruno first learned of the TCU appearance when
Connally associate Walter Jenkins mentioned it in their first meeting on October
24.(84) The itinerary presented to Bruno by Jenkins represented Connally's
preferences. (85) Jenkins told Bruno that Connally had proposed the trip, and
from this Bruno inferred that Connally had proposed the itinerary. (86)
(23) Nevertheless, Bruno's interpretation does not establish the fact that the
honorary degree was Connally's idea originally, because Jenkins did not assert
this, and Bruno's notes of the meeting do not record any specific information on
the point. (87)
(24) The minutes of the meeting of the Board of Trustees of TCU held on November
1, 1963, did not mention this question. Those minutes record only that,
"Concerning a special item presented by Chancellor E. Sadler on the
recommendation of the University Council", the University would "tender its
facilities to the Governor of Texas and the City of Fort Worth . . . for the
purpose of extending a warm invitation to the President of the United States to
speak on the TCU campus during his visit to Texas in November. Motion passed."
(88) This language permits the inference that it was Chancellor Sadler's idea to
invite the President, but no specific identification of the original proponents
of the TCU appearance is made.
(25) A resolution of the question is offered by TCU trustee Sam P. Woodson, Jr.,
who was present at the November 1, 1963, trustees' meeting. (89) Although he was
not able to produce any documentation to support his recollection, Woodson
recalled that in late October 1963, the Governor contacted Chancellor Sadler and
proposed that the President be awarded an honorary degree. Woodson's
understanding at the time was either that the President "wanted an excuse to
come down to Texas" or that the Governor "in some sense wanted to provide the
President with such an excuse."(90) He recalled also that the chancellor thought
it was appropriate and decided to introduce the matter to the board. (91)
(26) Woodson's explanation of the reasons for the board's decision not to confer
the degree is as follows:
(27) University procedure required that candidates for honorary degrees be
nominated from within the university and be evaluated by both the faculty senate
and the student senate, this provided opportunities for approval or disapproval
individual cases.(92) In Kennedy's case, because of the belief that the Governor
was trying to
Page 514
514
manipulate the board at the expense of democratic university procedures,(93) it
was decided that normal procedures should be maintained because they protected
the university from awarding degrees to recipients who had not been scrutinized
by all concerned interests.(94)
(28) On the other hand, some Board members felt that it would be disrespectful
to the Office of the President to turn the President down. In such a unique case
as this, no precedent that would be harmful to the university's procedures would
be established.(95) Woodson himself voted in favor of the award on these grounds
and believed that the trustees would have approved the award if there had been
time for the proposal to go "through channels". (96)
(29) Bruno stated that no consideration of an alternative program at TCU was
given by the Presidential staff. The embarrassment to the President, were it to
become known that he had been turned down for an honorary degree, eliminated the
possibility of an appearance at TCU for some other purpose. (97) It is ironic
that if the honorary degree ceremony at TCU had been held, especially with a
subsequent reception of some kind, logistical complications might have delayed
the President's arrival in Dallas and thereby interfered with the scheduled
occurrence of the mid-day motorcade. If such a delay had occurred, the
opportunity might have been lost for an assassin to take advantage of certain
conditions that promoted Kennedy's assassination. Such conditions included the
physical absence of many employees from their places of employment (such as the
TSBD) during the midday lunch hour, and the presence of large crowds on the
streets immediately after the shooting.* (98)
The Political Controversy Surrounding the Selection of a Speech Site in Dallas
Page 514
IV. THE POLITICAL CONTROVERSY SURROUNDING THE SELECTION OF A SPEECH SITE FOR THE
PRESIDENT'S APPEARANCE IN DALLAS
(30) The decision to send the motorcade in an eastward or westward direction
along Main Street was dependent upon the prior selection of site for the
President's luncheon speech. (103)
(31) In Dallas, Governor Connally arranged (104) for the cosponsorship of the
luncheon by several prominent civic organizations: the Dallas Citizens' Council,
the Dallas Assembly, and the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest.(105)
Connally indicated that such groups were chosen because they could give the
occasion a nonpolitical flavor.
(32) Connally's understanding of the political function of the trip--to permit
the President an opportunity to meet with the constituency in Texas whose
support would be indispensable during the 1964
------------------------------
Page 515
515
Presidential campaign, the moderate and conservative business and financial
interests--led him to conceive of the Dallas visit in limited terms. The
President would arrive in Dallas, proceed directly to the Trade Mart, the city's
prime commercial center, deliver a speech to the leadership of Dallas' business
community, and leave the city. (106A) Frank Erwin, the executive secretary of
the Texas State Democratic Committee, believed that Connally's introduction
might well convince that leadership that the President was "OK" and "could be
trusted" with the Presidency. (107) For Connally, the Trade Mart was the
appropriate setting for the Presidential speech. Architecturally it had the
style and flair of the Kennedys themselves. The building was new, convenient to
reach from the Stemmons Expressway, and generally impressive. (108)
(33) Frank Erwin, who assisted Connally through the process of planning the
Presidential visit, commented on Connally's relationship with big business and
financial interests in Texas. In Erwin's opinion there was no possibility that
the conservative, affluent supporters of Connally would have wanted to mix at a
public occasion of any kind with the various elements in the liberal wing of the
party. (109) Erwin stated his belief that even such high-ranking persons as the
liberal Senator Ralph Yarborough of Texas and the president of the AFL-CIO were
not welcome at social and political functions sponsored by Connelly's
conservative supporters.(110) The appearance of such liberals would have led to
a walkout by the conservative Connally associates. Hence, the State democratic
committee, of which Erwin was Executive Secretary, insisted that the luncheon be
held at the Trade Mart. (111)
(34) The Kennedy staff, on the other hand, preferred the Women's Building, which
they saw as providing a better forum for contact with liberal elements in the
party. Politically, the large size of the Women's Building would have allowed
4,000 people to be admitted and would therefore have benefited Kennedy by
permitting his liberal constituents to participate in the luncheon. (112) In
their view, that location, in conjunction with a motorcade, would have enhanced
their ability to reach the poor, the middle class, labor, and ethnic minorities.
(113)
(35) The route necessitated by the Kennedy staff's preference for the Women's
Building would have led eastward along Main Street toward the fair grounds,
which lay to the southeast of the Main Street business district. (114) The
motorcade's access to the western end of Main Street on the western side of
Dealey Plaza would have been provided by a cloverleaf exit that led into the
Plaza from the expressway, just west of the Dealey Plaza triple overpass. (115)
After passing through the overpass, the motorcade would then have continued, at
what Bruno stated was the President's customarily high rate of speed to or 50
miles per hour--into Main Street within Dealey Plaza. (116) The distance on Main
Street from the bottom of the triple overpass to the point where crowds would be
gathered (at the Houston Street intersection) would have been crossed at that
speed. Deceleration of the motorcade would have commenced when the crowds were
reached. (117)
The Role of the Secret Service in the Selection of the Speech Site and Motorcade
Route
Page 516
516
V. THE ROLE OF THE SECRET SERVICE IN THE RESOLUTION OF THE SELECTION OF THE
SPEECH SITE AND THE MOTORCADE ROUTE
(36) On November 4, 1963, Gerald Behn, special agent in charge (hereafter SAIC)
of the White House detail of the Secret Service, telephoned Forrest Sorrels, the
SAIC of the Dallas field office, stating that the President would probably be
visiting Dallas "about November 21" and that two buildings had been suggested
for a luncheon site. (118) One was the Trade Mart, which according to Behn's
Information had about 60 entrances and 6 catwalks suspended above the floor area
where the luncheon was planned. The second was the Women's Building at the fair
grounds, whose structure and appearance Behn did not, according to Sorrels,
describe in equally complete detail.(119)
(37) On that same day, Sorrels made a survey of both locations and reported back
to Behn by telephone. He stated that he and Special Agent (Hereafter SA) Bob
Steuart of the Dallas office had visited the Trade Mart and the Women's
Building. Sorrels reported that the Women's Building was preferable from the
standpoint of security because the building had only two entrances at either
end, each of which was large enough to permit only one car to pass through.
(120) Nevertheless, Sorrels told Behn that the Women's Building "was not
satisfactory for that [Presidential] type of function" because of its low
ceilings, exposed air-conditioning, and highly visible steel suspension
supports. As for the Trade Mart, Sorrels told Behn that because of the many
entrances and exits in the Trade Mart, there would be a problem of acquiring
sufficient manpower to cover all areas securely. (121)
(38) Sorrels did not say that the Trade Mart would be impossible to secure
because he felt that the necessary precautions could be undertaken. (122)
(39) Prior to November 5, Bruno had returned from Dallas with photographs of the
Trade Mart's interior to show Behn. These photographs revealed, in full detail,
the catwalks suspended above the floor. (123) Bruno was concerned about the
catwalks because of an incident involving Ambassador Adlai Stevenson. (124)
Other members of the President's political staff were also well aware that,
while visiting Dallas during October 1963, Stevenson had been insulted and spat
upon by right-wing extremist hecklers. (125) Bruno was concerned that someone
could use the catwalks as a vantage point from which to embarrass the President.
(126)
(40) After Behn met with Bruno and Ken O'Donnell, Behn announced on November 5
that he favored the Women's Building. (127) According to Bruno, Behn was in
charge of trip security. Therefore, Behn had instructed O'Donnell that the
Women's Building was his selection. Bruno stated that O'Donnell personally
confirmed this version of the course of events. (128) Behn, in his testimony
before the committee, stated that O'Donnell held the power to make the ultimate
decision, that Behn himself lacked such power, and that O'Donnell simply
informed Belin that the Trade Mart was the final selection and ordered him to
secure it.(129) Regardless of where ultimate power resided, a consensus was
reached between Behn and O'Donnell. Because of the catwalks and many entrances,
Behn announced to Bruno
Page 517
517
in Washington, D.C., on November 5 his decision favoring the Women's Building.
(13O) It was Bruno's impression at this time that the report from the Dallas
field office was neutral, since the local office was capable of securing either
place. (131)
(41) For Bruno, the input of the Dallas field office was of secondary import. It
has been his impression from working with Belin that he was the Secret Service
official who had power, as SAIC of the White House detail, to make final
decisions in matters of security. (132) The basis for this assertion by Bruno
was that Bruno had personnally accompanied and observed Behn during the advance
work for the entirety of the President's 11-State conservation tour that had
begun on September 24, 1963. He and Behn had looked at every stop on that tour.*
(133)
(42) In accordance with standard operating procedure in the Secret Service, a
special agent from the White House Detail went to Dallas to advance the trip and
arrange for the President's security once the speech site and motorcade route
were selected. (134) In this case, the White House Detail advance agent was
Winston G. Lawson. (135) Lawson testified before the Warren Commission that he
arrived in Dallas on November 12, and that on the morning of November 13 he
visited the Trade Mart with Dallas SAIC Forrest Sorrels, Dallas SA Robert
Steuart, and with Jack Puterbaugh, an advance man serving the Democratic
National Committee and the White House. (136) Lawson gave Behn a positive report
on the Trade Mart because of factors that Sorrels did not mention: (1) the
Mart's internal security system, which barred entry to everyone but lessees of
commercial space and their customers; (2) the absence of a kitchen at the
Women's Building: and (3) the obstruction of proper TV coverage by the Women's
Building interior. (137) Lawson agreed with Sorrels that the interior decor at
the Women's Building was unseemly for a President.(138)
(43) The Warren Commission obtained no testimony or other information from Behn
or Bruno about the controversy over speech site selection that was initially
resolved, according to Bruno, by the selection of the Women's Building. (139)
Hence, the Warren Commission evaluated Lawson's and Sorrels' testimony without
reference to Bruno's perspective. Bruno's perception as of the period between
November 6 and 12 was that:
We got word that the local Secret Service agents there had looked at the site
[Trade Mart] and this is coming from Governor Connally, and they saw no reasons
not to go there. (140)
(44) Apparently, by "local agents," Bruno was referring to Sorrels and the
special agents under his supervision in the Dallas field office. Bruno stated
that the local agents in Dallas had decided to withdraw
--------------------------------------
Page 518
518
their earlier objections to the Trade Mart, and instead recommended it. If any
local agent did in fact make such recommendations despite Behn's prior decision
on November 6 favoring the Women's Building, this would have presented a clear
case of a subordinate agent contradicting the SAIC of the White House detail.
(141) Bruno insisted that this in fact took place:
Jerry [Behn] got word that the local agents claim that they could secure it [the
Trade Mart] and we were going to have to go with that. (142)
(45) Apart from Bruno's assertion, the committee found no record of any such
communication from any local agent. Sorrels was not asked by the Warren
Commission whether he made any recommendations to Behn, or had any contact with
Belin about speech site security, after November 4; nor did Sorrels inform the
Committee that any such contact between himself and Behn took place. Hence, it
is largely speculative as to whether Sorrels or any Dallas agent had any impact
subsequent to Behn's November 6 selection of the Women's Building. (144)
Further, Lawson could not recall for the Warren Commission whether his oral
report of November 13 was made to Behn or to one of his assistants. (145) Lawson
had "no idea" whether Belin had made any recommendations. (146) Lawson was not
sure how much weight his opinion carried in such situations. All he knew was
that the decision about the motorcade was made in Washington, and that, he
assumed that it was made by the White House. (147) His statement to the
committee added to his Warren Commission testimony only the information that the
selection of the speech site and motorcade route involved Behn and O'Donnell "at
very least." (148)
(46) Bruno's explanation of how the matter was finally resolved is found in his
journal in the entries of November 14 and 15, 1963:
November 14-- The feud became so bitter that I went to the White House to ask
Bill Moyers, then Deputy Director of the Peace Corps, and close to both Connally
and Johnson, if he would try to settle the dispute for the good of the President
and his party. On this day, Kenney O'Donnell decided that there was no other way
but to go to the mart.
November 15--The White House announced that the Trade Mart had been approved. I
met with O'Donnell and Moyers who said that Connally was unbearable and on the
verge of cancelling the trip. They decided they had to let the Governor have his
way. (149)
(47) If Bruno's assertions are true, the role of the Secret Service is clear:
Although security considerations were taken into account, in the end political
considerations prevailed. The determinative factor was the desire of President
Kennedy and Mr. O'Donnell not to place the President in the untenable position
of appearing unable to lead the party in solving party disputes and of appearing
weak in the South.(150)
(48) Moyers' recollection about these matters was less than clear. He could not
recall whether it was ever questionable that a motorcade
Page 519
519
could occur in Dallas. (151) He could not recall whether there had been a debate
about the selection of the speech site.(152) He could recall no discussion with
Governor Connally about the site for the president's luncheon,(153) but instead
said his discussions involved -"who was participating and the necessity of
cooperation." (154) In fact, he could not remember whether he had even visited
Dallas. (155)
(49) Moyers did confirm one aspect of Bruno's November 14-15 entries, however.
He stated that the Presidential staff would overrule the Secret Service-when
"overriding political considerations were paramount."(156) O'Donnell would
listen to the Secret Service, but not always accept their suggestions. (157)
None of the President's political advisers "ever let [the Secret Service] have
the last word" 'because the advisers' interest in the President's political
welfare out-weighed security factors.(158) Moyers characterized the reaction of
the Secret Service when being overruled as that of "good soldiers," that "loyal
to their obligation, but they accepted the fact that the President of the United
States is also the chief political figure of our society."(159) This seems
consistent with Bruno's statement that, when faced with the political dilemma of
how to react to Connally's insistence on the Trade Mart, the President and
O'Donnell made a decision based on political concerns. (160) The Secret Service
was powerless to that point, much less to intervene.
(50) In his testimony before the committee, Governor Cormally recalled that the
issue of having a motorcade was not resolved until the week of the
assassination, ss Bruno had stated.(161) But with respect to the problem of
choosing a speech site, Connally stated that he was largely ignorant of any
controversy. (162) Connally's version of the decisionmaking process was that
whenever such problems could not be resolved on the staff level, he would "just
make a decision we are going to do thus and so," or sometimes "call somebody at
the House and get it worked out." (163) With respect to the interrelationship
between the speech site and the motorcade route, Connally did acknowledge that
"if the Women's Building had been chosen, the motorcade could have gone another
route and probably would have."(164)
(51) Bruno indicated that Moyers was asked to visit Texas on behalf of the
President to settle the conflict over the speech site and motorcade route. (165)
Moyers indicated that both O'Donell and Kennedy asked him to smooth over the
differences between different Democratic Party factions. (166) Moyers at first
objected on the grounds that as Department Director of the Peace Corps, his
presence in Texas would involve that agency in partisan politics. The President
overrode Moyers' objection by saying that Moyers, a Texan with close personal
and professional ties to Vice President Johnson and good professional relations
with Connally, should go to Texas and permit the President worry about the Peace
Corps. (167)
The Publication in Dallas Newspapers of the Motorcade Route
Page 519
VI. THE PUBLICATION IN DALLAS NEWSPAPERS OF THE MOTORCADE ROUTE
(52) One function Moyers performed, as a representative of the President, was to
insist that the motorcade route be published. (168) Moyers coordinated the
President's visit to Texas from Austin. He
Page 520
520
worked the Dallas situation by phone through his Dallas representative, Ms.
Elizabeth Harris.(169) He had chosen Ms. Harris because she was a Dallas native,
had been married to a prominent Dallas person, and had been an associate of
Moyers in the Peace Corps. (170)
(53) Moyers stated that the only "major decision" he made with respect to Dallas
was that:
. . . some 24 hours before the President arrived, there was a dispute as to
whether or not to print in the newspapers the route, arid Betty Harris called me
. . . and said they were not going to print the route of the . . . [motorcade]
procession and I said, "Oh, yes they are. He's not coming down here to hide.
He's coming down here to get a public reaction, and the decision is to print the
route of the President's procession," and I don't know what Betty did after
that, but the route was printed. (171)
Moyers later amended his recollection of when this decision occurred.
I think it was the second night before his--preceding his arrival... and we were
printing the route in the other papers, and I couldn't see why an exception
should be made in Dallas. (172)
(54) Moyers was in contact with the Secret Service at this time, and was aware
of the security implications of printing the motorcade route.
He recalled asking the Secret Service agent stationed with him Austin, whom
Moyers characterized as having been "in charge of Dallas trip," whether there
was any reason why the route should be printed. Moyers believed the agent agreed
with him that the route should be published. (173)
(55) In Dallas, Ms. Harris was working directly with the Connally
representatives and the Secret Service. Her conception of the "basic problem",
as she defined it for Moyers over the telephone, was that the conservative city
fathers of Dallas did not want to do anything,: for the liberal Democrats, who
were led by Senator Ralph Yarborough. The two groups were fighting both about
the distribution tickets for the luncheon and also about the publicity to be
given about the motorcade. The conservative faction wanted it to look like
Kennedy was not popular in Dallas, and hence frowned upon publication of the
route because that would draw crowds. (172) The matter of popularity was of
special significance because at that time the polls reflected a decline in the
President's popularity on the national political scene. (175)
(56) Ms. Harris distinctly recalled a meeting that occurred on either the Monday
or Tuesday prior to the assassination. She described as a "confrontation
meeting" that was attended by Governor Connally Robert Strauss (a Connally
associate), Sam Bloom, a Dallas advertising man in charge of publicity for
Connally, and Winston Lawson of the Secret Service, whom she described as
"totally neutral". (176) She recalled that she took one side of the argument
regarding publication of the motorcade route and that Sam Bloom Strauss took the
other.(177) During this meeting, she used "pressure"--an appeal for the status
and prestige of the office of the Presidency--to persuade Bloom to publish the
route not on Friday morning, November 22, but a few days earlier. (178) Her
purpose in having
Page 521
521
it published ahead of time was to help "get the crowd out."(179) Hence, the
route was published in the Dallas Times Herald on Wednesday afternoon and the
Dallas Morning News on Thursday morning. (180)
(57) Ms. Harris' perception of the role of Secret Service Agent Lawson during
the controversy was that he seemed concerned primarily about route selection
because of the time factor and only secondarily about the security factors.
(181) Lawson did not seem to "get too much into the political aspect;" "he was a
nuts and bolts man" who worked closely with the local police "to make sure that
all of the arrangements were as his superiors in Washington wanted to have them.
(182)
(58) Ms. Harris and Lawson were not oblivious to the threat of right-wing
extremism. They did not consider it when planning the publicity and motorcede
route. Ms. Harris stated that, in the case of the Adlai Stevenson incident, "he
had been spat upon . . . I was aware of that. We knew that." (183) As to the
Edwin Walker assassination attempt, "We did know he had been shot at;" "Lawson
and I were very well aware of it because I saw Lawson quite often and we worked
late . . . . I knew that he was working with Curry on getting a fix ou the known
troublemakers." (184) But nothing Ms. Harris learned about right-wing extremism
caused her to reduce the pressure she put on Bloom to publish the route earlier
than November 22:
You got (sic) to remember that in 1963, it was very hard for anybody to
recognize that anything worse than a spitting incident would occur. I was
extremely anxious and Moyers and I frequently discussed this. We wanted to bend
over backwards to avoid another Stevenson episode because it had gotten
tremendous publicity, and we felt it would not at all be in the interests--in
Kennedy's interests for a thing like that to happen. Except for the kooks that
might go out with a gun, I can't say that it ever occurred to any of us that
there was-that death would occur. We were worried about appearances.(185)
(59) Before the Warren Commission, Lawson stated that at a meeting in Dallas on
November 18, he announced that the routes had been finalized "unless it was
changed later." (186) This remark implied that he did not have control over the
final determination of the route, and that such a decision might well be made by
civilian political persons. (187) He recalled (from reading the paper the
following day) that the route was published on November 19; but at the time he
did not know who announced it. (188) It thus seems clear that communication with
the Secret Service about publication of routes was minimal.
The Residual Role of the Secret Service in Motorcade Planning
Page 521
VII. THE RESIDUAL ROLE OF THE SECRET SERVICE IN MOTORCADE PLANNING
(A) THE MAIN STREET-HOUSTON-ELM TURN
(60) As the Dallas SAIC, Forrest Sorrels told the Warren Commission, he selected
the Main-Houston-Elm turn through Dealey Plaza because it was the "most direct"
route to the Trade Mart. (189)
Page 522
522
Sorrels' questioning by Warren Commission staff counsel Samuel M. Stern,
however, prevented a total picture of motorcade route logistics from emerging.
Stern asked Sorrels why the expressway was proached from the Elm Street ramp
instead of from Main Street just beyond the triple overpass at the westen
boundary of Dealey Plaza. Sorrels explained that the size and cumbersomeness of
the motorcade, along with the presence of a raised divider separating the Elm
Street lane from the Elm Street lane at the foot of the ramp up to the
expressway, deterred him from trying to route the motorcade under and through
the overpass on Main Street. Such a route would have assigned the drivers in the
motorcade the almost impossible task of making a reverse S-turn in order to
cross over the raised divider to get from the Main Street lane into the Elm
Street lane. (190) However, this question-and-answer process failed to make
clear that the Trade Mart was accessible from beyond the triple overpass in such
a way that it was not necessary to enter the Elm Street ramp to the expressway.
The motorcade could have progressed westward through Dealey Plaza on Main
Street, passed under the overpass, and then proceeded on Industrial Boulevard to
the Trade Mart. (191)
(61) George L. Lumpkin, assistant police chief in Dallas in 1963, was consulted
by the Secret Service about the motorcade aspect of security planning. (192)
Lumpkin explained that the alternate route, continuing straight on Main through
and beyond Dealey Plaza and thereby reaching the Trade Mart on Industrial
Boulevard, was rejected because the neighborhood surrounding Industrial
Boulevard was "filled with winos and broken pavement." (193) Additionally,
Lumpkin stated that Kennedy wanted exposure and that there would have been no
crowds cn Industrial Boulevard. (194)
(62) Advance Agent Lawson informed committee investigators that he had nothing
to do with the selection of the Main-Houston-Elm turn before November 14, since
only Main Street, not Dealey Plaza, had been selected for the motorcade at that
time. He did not specify the exact date on which the turn was selected nor did
he identify the person selecting the turn.(195) Sorrels stated that he and
Lawson did drive the entire route together, but did not specify when this
occurred. (196)
(63) Sorrels' Warren Commission exhibit No. 4 suggested that both men drove the
entire route on November 18. (197) It is not certain that both men knew about
the turn earlier than this date.
(B) THE PROTECTIVE RESEARCH SECTION
(64) In making a determination as to whether the advance agents for the Texas
trip, as well as local field agents, were duly informed of any potential
problems that might occur, a thorough review of the function of the Secret
Service Protective Research Section was conducted. The Protective Research
Service (PRS) was meant to function both as repository of information about
threats to the security of Secret Service protectees and as a provider of such
information to agents in all types of assignments. It acquired and made
available information received from its own agents and from other sources. (198)
(65) In 1963, information acquired from any source external to the
Page 523
523
Secret Service, when presented informally to a local Secret Service office, was
relayed by the local office of PRS headquarters in Washington. (199) What was
not set forth in the Warren Commission report was a description of how threat
information was processed and analyzed by PRS and of how the results of its
analysis were communicated to local field offices. Lawson's Warren Commission
testimony suggested that the Washington, D.C. office would ordinarily provide
agents with information about Presidential trips within that city, and that PRS
seldom provided advance agents with threat information before their departure.
But nothing more specific was given.
(66) Roy Kellerman was the special agent in charge of the Texas trip. Since that
assignment required him to travel with Kennedy, (201) he was removed from active
investigation in Dallas concerning evidence that suggested danger to the
President. Nevertheless, his testimony is important due to his account of
breakdowns in Presidential security during the Texas visit.
(67) Secret Service procedure required an inquiry to be made of the PRS about
one week before a trip was assigned. Kellerman testified that he received the
assignment to coordinate the Texas trip on November 17, 1963, and that by custom
the check with PRS was made a week ahead of that date (on or about November 10).
(202) Kellerman was not sure who made the check but believed it was either
Gerald Behn, Chief of the Secret Service White House Detail, Floyd Boring,
Assistant Chief, or one other agent whose name he could not recall. (203) He
further stated that he received no information, and that he considered this
"unusual." (204) By comparison, Winston Lawson, advance agent for Dallas, knew
of his role in the Dallas trip no later than November 8, (205) 9 days before
Kellerman, his supervisor who ostensibly had the overall responsibility, (206)
began to undertake basic trip planning.
(68) On November 8, Lawson checked with PRS at the Executive Office Building,
learning that there were no active subjects in the Dallas area and that no JFK
file existed. (207) Further comparison discloses that by November 13, Lawson was
in Dallas and in contact with local Secret Service Agents' Sorrels and John Joe
How]ett, with whom he met concerning protective investigations of local anti-JFK
suspects. (208)
(69) Kellerman also testified about an inquiry in Dallas which was conducted
prior to November 22, in order to locate anti-JFK subjects. When asked
specifically about right-wing individuals, scurrilous literature, and extremist
groups known to be in Dallas, he claimed virtually total ignorance. (209) He
insisted that no one told him anything about an investigation of threat
information submitted to the Secret Service in Dallas on November 21 and 22 by
the FBI. (210) Additionally, Kellerman observed that it was strange that among
five cities in one State and despite the anti-Adlai Stevenson demonstration in
Dallas on October 1963, no information about suspects was forthcoming and
nothing had been given him. (211)
(70) The Secret Service final report for the November 21 trip to Houston
mentioned two active subjects. (212) Both individuals had made specific threats
in Houston. (213) Nevertheless, Kellerman was not questioned about Houston.
(214)
Page 524
524
(71) However, without being questioned about the San Antonio leg of the Texas
strip, Kellerman did recall the receipt of PRS information prior to November 21
regarding anti-Presidential picketing that did in fact occur in San Antonio on
that date. (215)
(72) The importance of Kellerman's testimony is that, as the one agent who was
in direct contact with Kennedy and his innermost circle of advisers, and who was
therefore ideally placed to relay information: that provided cause for alarm, he
was effectively sealed off from the information that he needed to perform with
maximum protective effort.
(73) As regards SAIC Sorrels' role, both Sorrels and Howlett cooperated with the
special services bureau of the Dallas Police Department, the police in Denton,
Tex., Felix McKnight of the Dallas Times-Herald, and the FBI.(216) The FBI was
interested in a Ku Klux Klan suspect from a neighboring area. (217) Additionally
on November 21, Dallas field office FBI agent James Hosty informed the local
Secret Service office of a handbill accusing Kennedy of being a traitor. (218)
(74) The results of these investigations indicated that there were no. known,
periodically checked PRS subjects; that no formerly institutionalized persons
were out on release; and that neither the-DPD nor the Secret Service could link
anyone with the "traitor" handbill. (219)
(75) White House Detail agent Lawson's position was that, the responsibility for
any investigation was that of the PRS or Sorrels, and was not his.(220) Although
Secret Service procedure allowed him to investigate or not, on the basis of
discretion, he did not because he knew that the Service preferred to have the
local agents, who have to work with the police on a daily basis, maintain
liaison and conduct investigations.(221) Secret Service procedure would not,
necessarily require him to receive information solely from the local office. It
could come from Washington PRS as well. In his opinion, the handbill presented
no "direct threat" to John Kennedy. (222)
(76) When interviewed by the committee, Sorrels stated that in November 1963 all
known PRS subjects within the jurisdiction of the Dallas field office were in
mental hospitals. Hence, he was surprised when he heard about the circulation of
the "JFK--Wanted for Treason" handbills. His reaction was to determine who the
printer was, bring him in and interview him. (223) Sorrels stated that the
standard procedure for the White House Detail advance agents and the field
office SAIC was to become familiar with the entire threat profile before
endeavoring to contact the local police department. (224)
(77) When interviewed by the committee, Lawson said that as White House Detail
agent, his duties were limited to shift work and advances, and that in effect,
he was not encouraged to participate in the process of investigating threats at
the local level and referring them back to PRS. (225) Lawson's only recollection
concerning PRS procedures was that when PRS received information about a threat
subject from a local agent or a White House detail agent making an advance. the
subject was given a file number. "In the old days." files consisted of a folder
containing 3 by 5 cards and PRS had the job of coordinating a what were called
"collateral" investigations in the same or an adjacent district. (226) At no
time while he was in Dallas did
Page 525
525
Lawson receive information about threats to the President made in other regions.
(227)
(78) White House Detail SAIC Gerald Behn described to the committee the
procedures in use in PRS at tiffs time. He disclosed the great extent to which
the PRS was the central focus of protective operations. Information from the
field about, active or potential threats to the President were referred to PRS
directly from the local office before they were referred to the Chief of the,
White House Detail. The SAIC of the White House Detail (Behn) would receive
reports from the field only from White House Detail advance agents. He and the
SAIC of the PRS (Robert I. Bouck) would then discuss the matter with the overall
Chief of the Secret Service, Mr. James Rowley. (228)
(79) Behn did not recall whether PRS distributed information to Winston Lawson
the October 1963 heckling and harassment of Adlai Stevenson in Dallas, Tex. Nor
could he recall whether any information was distributed prior to the, November
21 Texas trip about Dallas area right-wing extremist Edwin Walker. Behn
specifically stated, as to the availibility to him of information about both
Walker and Stevenson, that "no one in PRS passed it on." (229) When asked if he
himself warned any agents about either one of those subjects, he said that he
did "not remember any discussion with any agent? (230)
(C) PHYSICAL PROTECTION ALONG THE MOTORCADE ROUTE
(80) In reviewing the performance of the Secret Service, consideration must be
given io the Dallas Police Department also, since the agency defined and
supervised the functions of the police during Kennedy's visit. The activities of
the Secret Service, in collaboration with the DPD, covered many areas of
security apart from PRS activities.
(81) Arrangements made by the Dallas police included provisions for traffic
control to contain the crowd; followup assignments for each officer directing
him, to subsequent stations after the motorcede has passed his post; assigning
at least two officers to each intersection, one to cover traffic primarily the
other to control the crowd: and the stationing of officers at all over- and
underpasses. (231) The Secret Service notified the DPD frequently about their
joint responsibility for crowd control and crowd observation, but no followup
instructions were made in writing nor did Lawson as the Dallas advance agent,
make any written checklist of such instructions. Lawson indicated that it was
not normal for there to be such written directions. (232)
(82) At Love Field, the DPD put men on the roofs of buildings surrounding the
landing area. Detectives mingled with the crowd, while officers patrolled both
sides of a chain-link barricade fence. One of the two service roads linking two
general public areas were closed off for motorcade use. The danger from rooftops
was not great, since no building faced the side of the plane where the President
disembarked. The next most adjacent building was only one story and was
blanketed by crowds. Nevertheless, officers were placed on top of this building
as well as on the ones adjacent, but there was no check made of offices
providing vantage points overlooking the area where the President's plane would
land.
Page 526
526
(83) Advance agent Lawson testified in 1964 that the Secret Service did not
check buildings along a motorcade route except under three circumstances:
Presidential inaugurations, visits by a king or a president of a foreign
country, or when the motorcade route has been known for years. (234)
(84) Some question remains concerning the conduct of Sorrels and Lawson as to
possible violation of the guideline compelling inspection of buildings when a
mororeade route has been standard for years. (235) Sorrels stated categorically
to the Warren Commission that Main Street was the best choice for parades in
that it went through the heart of the city, flanked on either side by tall
buildings which maximized the opportunity for large numbers of people to see the
parade. He added that this route was used for a Presidential motorcade in 1936,
when President Roosevelt traversed Main Street from east to west, just as
Kennedy's motorcade would have done had the Women's Building been selected.
(236)
(85) Lawson testified that standard Secret Service operating procedure required
agents to watch all windows, but he could not recall giving the instructions to
watch them.(237) He stated that Sorrels' obligation to watch windows was greater
than his own. His duties, while stationed in the lead car immeditely in front of
the Presidential limousine, included looking directly to the rear at the
President in order to coordinate the motorcade's speed and maintain radio
contact with Dallas Chief of Police Jesse Curry about adherence to schedule.
(238) Although Lawson may have looked at the Depository Building, he was doing
too many things at once to notice it.(239)
(86) Sorrels, riding in the lead car, did not have the same supervisory duties
as Lawson end was in fact freer to observe windows. He recalled observing the
facade of the Depository, but recalled nothing unusual; hence, he did not study
it intently. (240)
(87) Lawson readily admitted that windows posed an added danger in a narrowing
area that required the motorcade to slow down, especially given the President's
"usual" action of standing up to wave.(241)
(88) Lawson further testified that on the morning of November 22, he received a
call from Kellerman in Fort Worth asking about weather conditions in Dallas and
whether the bubble-top on the President's car would be used or not. During that
call, Dawson was told the bubble-top was to be on if it was mining, and off if
it was not.
(89) The final decision in this matter was made by Bill Moyers. Moyers had been
on the phone to Ms. Harris, informing her that the President did not want the
bubble. He told Harris to "get that Goddamned bubble off unless it's pouring
rain."(243) Shortly thereafter the weather began to clear. Ms. Harris approached
Sorrels about the bubble-top and together they had the special agents remove the
glass top.(244)
(90) Dallas Police Department Capt. Perdue W. Lawrence was assigned, on the
basis of his familiarity with escort security, to be in charge of traffic
control for the motorcade. (245) He recalled that he received this assignment on
November 19. (246) His immediate superior was Deputy Chief Lunday, head of the
traffic division, who was in turn commanded by Assistant Chief Char]es
Batchelor.(247)
Page 527
527
Lawrence testified that approximately 2 days before the President's arrival, he
discussed with Lunday and Batchelor the stationing of motorcycle escorts. At
this meeting, no Secret Service agents were present. They agreed to use 18
motorcycles. Some of these were to be positioned "alongside" the Presidential
limousine. (248)
(91) Dallas Police Department documents indicate that at a meeting between Chief
Curry, Deputy Chief R.H. Lunday, and Captain Lawrence on November 19, it was
agreed that a motorcycle escort should be used, "with men on either side of the
motorcade [sic], with five at the rear, four motorcycles immediately ahead, and
three motorcycles to precede the motorcade by about two blocks."
(92) Lawrence was subsequently invited to a DPD/SS coordinating meeting held on
November 21. At 5 p.m. he was told to report to the meeting. (250) It was here
that a change in motorcycle escort plans occurred. The coordination meeting,
according to DPD documents, was attended by Curry, Batchelor, Deputy Chiefs
Lumpkin, Stevenson, Lunday, and Fisher, Captains Souter, Lawrence, and King,
Inspector Sawyer, and Secret Service agents Sorrels, Lawson, and David Grant.
The meeting touched on various topics, however, particular emphasis was given to
the use of motorcycles as Presidential escorts. (251)
(93) Lawrence's account of the change that was introduced by the Secret Service
is as follows:
. . . I heard one of the Secret Service men say that President Kennedy did not
desire any motorcycle officer directly on each side of him, between him and the
crowd, but he would want the officers to the rear. (252)
. . . when it was mentioned about these motorcycle officers alongside the
President's car, he (the S.S. agent) said, "No, these officers should be back
and if any people started a rush toward the car, if there was any movement at
all where the President was endangered in any way, these officers would be in a
position to gun their motors and get between them and the Presidential car . . .
(253)
(94) Comparison reveals that the DPD document that describes the November 21
meeting is vague in contrast to Lawrence's explicit assertion that the Secret
Service changed the "alongside" distribution of motorcycles to a rearward
distribution. The DPD document for November 21 stated:
Lawrence then said there would be four motorcycles on either side of the
motorcede immediately to the rear of the President's vehicle. Mr. Lawson stated
that this was too many. that he thought two motorcycles on either side would be
sufficient, about even with the rear fender of the President's car. Lawrence was
instructed to disperse the other two along each side of the motorcade to the
rear. (254)
(95) In contrast to Lawrence's testimony, this document indicated that the
alteration by the Secret Service of motorcycle distribution concerned the number
of motorcycles, not their physical locations in relation to the Presidential
limousine. Still, the DPD and Lawrence
Page 528
528
versions do corroborate one another in that they indicate a reduction of
security protection in terms of number and placement of officers.
(96) Lawson's testimony in 1964 was that it was his understanding that the
President had personally stated that he did not like a lot of motorcycles
surrounding his limousine because their loud noise interfered with conversations
taking place within the limousine. For this reason the four motorcycles were
positioned "just back" of the limousine. (255) Lawson stated to the committee
that he had "no recall of, changing plans" (i.e. for motorcycles) at the Dallas
Police Department/Secret Service organizational meeting of November 21. (256)
(97) There are several instances of failure by the motorcycle officers to adhere
to Lawson's final plan involving two cycles on each side and to the rear of the
Presidential limousine. (257)
(98) Officer Marion L. Baker confirms the original Lawrence testimony as to the
alteration by the Secret Service of a prior DPD plan. Baker had originally been
instructed to ride right beside Kennedy. He was later informed by his sergeant
that nobody was to ride beside the car, but instead the officers were to fall in
beyond it. They received these instructions about 5 or 10 minutes before the
motorcade left Love Field.(258)
(99) As to actual deployment of the cycles, DPD officers Billy Joe Martin and
Bobby W. Harris were assigned to ride immediately to the left and rear of
Kennedy's limousine.* (259) Martin stated that he rode 5 feet to the left and 6
to 8 feet to the rear of the back bumper. (260) He indicated that he saw Hargis
to his right as he left Houston for Elm.(261)
(100) Hargis, too, rode to the rear left side of the limousine and remained even
with its bumper rather than move "past" the President's car. He testified that
as he turned left onto Elm Street, he was staying right up with Kennedy's car
though crowd density prevented him from staying right up next to it.
Nevertheless, because of the thinning out of the crowd by the triple overpass.
Hargis stated that he was right next to Mrs. Kennedy when he heard the first
shot. (262)
(101) Officers M.L. Baker and Clyde A. Haygood were assigned to the right rear
of the Presidential limousine. (263) The activity of both indicated again a
departure from standard maximum security protection. Haygood, for example,
admitted that although he was stationed to the right rear of Kennedy's car, he
was generally riding several cars back(264) and offered no explanation for this.
Haygood testified before the Warren Commission that he was on Main Street at the
time of the shooting. (265)
(102) Baker stated that in addition to being instructed by his sergeant not to
ride beside the President's car, he was also instructed by him to fall in beyond
the press car. (266) Baker interpreted this assignment as an order to place
himself about six or seven cars behind Kennedy.(267) Baker was on Houston Street
at the time of the first shot.(268) Haygood and Baker were too far from the
presidential limousine to afford Kennedy any protection. They were in no
position
--------------------------------
Page 529
529
to rush forward to intercept danger had there been a street-level incident, yet
the forward interception capability of the motorcycles was the basic rationale
for Lawson's November 21 rearward deployment of the motorcycles. (269)
(103) Kellerman who rode in the right front seat of the Presidential limousine
testified before the Warren Commission that there were two motorcycles on each
side of the rear wheel of the President's car. (270)
Nevertheless, he was not asked either about the reason for that positioning or
whether the two motorcycles on the right side were there at the time of the
shooting.
(104) The Secret Service`s alteration of the original Dallas Police Department
motorcycle deployment plan prevented the use of maximum possible security
precautions. The straggling of Haygood and Baker, on the right rear area of the
limousine, weakened security that was already reduced due to the rearward
deployment of the motorcycles and to the reduction of the number of motorcycles
originally intended for use.
(105) Surprisingly, the security measure used in the prior motor cades during
the same Texas visit show that the deployment of motorcycles in Dallas by the
Secret Service may have been uniquely insecure. The Secret Service Final Survey
Report for the November 21 visit to Houston stated that in all motorcade
movements, "six motorcycles flanked the Presidential limousine and an additional
33 motorcycles were used to flank the motorcede and cover the
intersections."(271) There is no mention in the Fort Worth Secret Service Final
Report about the deployment of motorcycles in the vicinity of the Presidential
limousine. (272)
(106) The Secret Service knew more than a day before November that the President
did not want motorcycles riding alongside or parallel to the Presidential
vehicle. (273) If the word "flank"' denotes parallel deployment, and if in fact
such deployment was effected in Houston, then it may well be that by altering
Dallas Police Department Captain Lawrence's original motorcycle plan the Secret
Service deprived Kennedy of security in Dallas that it had provided a mere day
before in Houston. (274)
(107) Besides limiting motorcycle protection, Lawson prevented the Dallas Police
Department from inserting into the motorcade, behind the Vice-Presidential car,
a Dallas Police Department squad car containing homicide detectives. For the
Secret Service, the rejection of this Dallas Police Department suggestion was
not unusual in itself. Lawson testified before the Warren Commission that-with
the exception of New York City motorcades, it was not the Secret Service's
standard practice to insert a police homicide car into a motorcade. (275) He did
not remember who recommended either its insertion, its proposed placement, or
its cancellation. (276)
(108) On November 14, 1963, Lawson met with Dallas SAIC Sorrels and Dallas
Police Department Chief Jesse Curry and "laid out the tentative number of
vehicles that would be in the parade and the order in which they would be."(277)
Curry stated at the organizational meeting on November 21 that he "thought we
had planned that Captain Fritz [Chief of DPD Homicide] would be in the motorcade
behind the Vice President's car."(278) Sorrels spoke up at that point
Page 530
530
and stated that "nothing was discussed on that."(279) Lawson explained that a
car with Secret Service agents would follow the Vice President's car and added
that the protective detail would like to have a police car bring up the rear of
the motorcade. (280) Curry then structed Deputy Chief Lunday to take care of the
matter. (281)
(109) Lawson was asked by the committee why, in his preliminary survey report of
November 19,(282) he made no mention in the sequenced list of motorcade vehicles
of the DPD homicide car that Curry believed on November 14 to have been included
and whose absence Curry protested at the meeting of November 21. He answered
that "the DPD could have put it [a DPD car] in on their own"; that "he could not
recall who took it out"; that he was "not sure it was scheduled to be there";
and that "he didn't know who canceled the DPD car because he didn't know who
decided to include it."(283)
Submitted by:
G. ROBERT BLAKEY,
Chief counsel and Staff Director.
GARY T. CORNWELL,
Deputy Chief Counsel.
BELFORD V. LAWSON III,
Staff Counsel.
References
Page 530
REFERENCES
(1) Scott, Peter Dale, Government Documents and the Kennedy Assassination
(unpublished draft), House Select Committee on Assassinations, chapter I, page
12 (JFK document No. 000814).
(2) Ibid.; chapter III, page 32 (Secret Service); chapter II, pages 1-12
(rightwing businessmen); chapter III, pages 28, 31, 34, 35 (Governor John B.
Connally). See also outside contact (with anonymous phone caller), August 17,
1978, pages 1-2 (JFK document No. 010827).
(3) Deposition of Jerry Bruno, August 18, 1978. House Select Committee on
Assassinations, pages 27-28 (JFK document No. 014025).
(4) Testimony of Kenneth O'Donnell, May 18, 1964, hearings before the
President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964) (hereinafter referred
to as Warren Commission Hearings); volume 7, page 443.
(5) Staff Interview of Frank Erwin, July 29, 1978, House Select Committee on
Assassinations, page 13 (JFK document 010696). See also testimony of John B.
Connally, September 6, 1978, hearings before the House Select Committee on
Assassinations, 95th Congress, 2d session (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government
Printing Office, 1979), volume I, page 28 (hereinafter referred to as Connally
testimony), September 6, 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, 28.
(6) Ibid., HSCA-JFK hearings. 29.
(7) Staff interview of Frank Erwin, July 29, 1978, House Select Committee on
Assassinations, page 10 (JFK document No. 010696).
(8) Id. at p. 10.
(9) Id. at p. 10. See also testimony of Kenneth O'Donnell, May 18, 19644, Warren
Commission hearings, volume VII, page 444.
(10) Bruno deposition, August 18, 1978, House Select Committee on
Assassinations, page 13 (JFK document 014025). See also deposition of J. Eric
Jonsson, July 26, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations, page 17 (JFK
document No. 014022).
(11) Staff interview of Frank Erwin, July 29, :1978, House Select Committee on
Assassinations, page 10 (JFK document No. 010696).
(12) Testimony of Kenneth O'Donnell, May 18, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
volume VII, page 443.
(13) Id. at p. 443.
(14) Map of Dallas, Tex., copyright by Rand McNally, House Select Committee on
Assassinations JFK document No. 014976).
Page 531
531
(15) Ibid.
(16) Staff interview of Frank Erwin, July 29, 1978, House Select Committee on
Assassinations, page 9 (JFK document No. 010696). See also deposition of Jerry
Bruno, August 18, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations, pages 34-35
(JFK document No. 014025). See also, testimony of Dallas Field Office SAIC
Forrest Sorrels, May 7, 1964, Warren Commission hearings, volume VII, page 335.
(17) Bruno deposition, August 18, 1978, House Select Committee on
Assassinations, page 31 (JFK document No. 014025). See also testimony of Kenneth
O'Donnell, May 18, 1964, Warren Commission hearings, volume VII, page 443.
(18) Bruno deposition, August 18, 1978, House Select Committee on
Assassinations, page 41 (JFK document No. 014025).
(19) Id. at pp. 40-41.
(20) Ibid.
(21) Connally testimony, Sept. 6, 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, 51.
(22) Testimony of Kenneth O'Donnell, May 18, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. VII, p. 443. See also Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978, HSCA, p. 48 (JFK
Document No. 014025).
(23) Connally testimony, Sept. 6, 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, 11.
(24) Id. at pp. 11, 12, 13.
(25) Id. at p. 11.
(26) Id. at p. 12.
(27) Id. at p. 12.
(28) Id. at pp. 12-13.
(29) Id. at pp. 11, 12, 13.
(30) Id. at p. 13.
(31) Id. at p. 13.
(32) Id. at p. 13.
(33) Id. at p. 14.
(34) Id. at p. 13.
(35) Id. at pp. 13, 16.
(36) Id. at p. 13.
(37) Id. at p. 14.
(38) Id. at p. 16.
(39) Id. at p. 16.
(40) Id. at p. 15.
(41) Id. at p. 15.
(42) Id. at pp. 15, 16. See also affidavit of Clifford Carter, May 20, 1964,
Warren Commission hearings, vol. VII, p. 475.
(43) Id. at p. 16.
(44) Id. at p. 16.
(45) Id. at pp. 16, 17.
(46) Id. at pp. 16-17.
(47) Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978, HSCA, pp. 4-5 (J.F.K. Document No.
014025). See also notes of Jerry Bruno, Dec. 13, 1977, HSCA, p. 1 (JFK Document
No. 004074).
(48) Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978, HSCA, pp. 5, 6 (JFK Document No. 014025).
(49) Connally testimony, Sept. 6, 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, 19-20. See also JFK
Exhibit No. F-17.
(50) Id. at p. 24.
(51) Id. at p. 24.
(52) Id. at p. 18.
(53) Testimony of Kenneth O'Donnell, May 18, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. III, pp. 441-442.
(54) Connally testimony, Sept. 6, 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, 18.
(55) Id. at p. 18.
(56) Id. at p. 25.
(57) Connally testimony, Sept. 6, 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, 26.
(58) Id. at p. 26.
(59) Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978, HSCA, p. 11 (JFK document No. 014025). See
also typewritten notes of Jerry Bruno, Dec. 13, 1977, p. 1 (JFK document No.
004074).
(60) Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, p. 11. See also
handwritten notes of Jerry Bruno, Sept. 7, 1978, p. 1 (JFK document No. 011337).
Page 532
532
(61) Connally testimony, July 6, 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, 26.
(62) Id. at p. 26.
(63) Ibid.
(64) Ibid.
(65) Ibid.
(66) Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978, HSCA, p. 11 (JFK document No. 014025).
(67) Typewritten notes of Jerry Bruno, Dec. 13, 1977, HSCA, pp. 1, 2 (JFK
document No. 004074).
(68) Id. at p. 4.
(69) Connally testimony, Sept. 6, 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, 26.
(70) Id. at p. 26.
(71) Typewritten notes of Jerry Bruno, Dec. 13, 1977, HSCA, p. 8 (JFK document
No. 004074).
(72) Id. at p. 8. See also Connally testimony, Sept. 6, 1978, I HSCA-JFK
hearings; 26.
(73) Connally testimony, Sept. 6, 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, 26.
(74) Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978, HSCA, p. 12 (JFK document No. 014025).
(75) Typewritten notes of Jerry Bruno, Dec. 13, 1977, HSCA, p. 8 (JFK Document
No. G04074). See also Connally testimony, Sept. 6, 1978, I HSCA-JFK heatings,
26.
(76) Connally testimony, Sept. 16, 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, 26.
(77) Ibid.
(78) Ibid. See also testimony of Kenneth O'Donnell, May 18, 1964, Warren
Commission hearings, vol. VII, p. 442.
(79) Connally testimony, I HSCA-JFK hearings,
(80) Id. at p. 29. See also typewritten notes of Jerry Bruno, Dec. 13. 1977,
HSCA, p. S (JFK document No. 004074); Connally testimony, I HSCA-JFK hearings,
26, 29, 32.
(81) Connally testimony, Sept. 6, 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, 24-25, 26.
(82) Id at p. 25.
(83) Id. at p. 26.
(84) Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978, HSCA, p. 11 (JFK document No. 014025). See
also typewritten notes of Jerry Bruno, Dec. 13, 1977, HSCA, p. 1 (JFK document
No. 004074).
(85) Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978, HSCA, p. 15 (JFK document No. 14025).
(86) Id. at p. 15.
(87) Typewritten notes of Jerry Bruno, Dec. 13, 1977, HSCA, pp. 1, 3, 7, 8 (JFK
document No. 004074).
(88) Minutes of the Board of Trustees of Texas Christian University, June 1,
1978, HSCA, p. 208 (JFK document No. 008813).
(89) Id. at pp. 6, 8.
(90) Staff interview of Sam P. Woodson, Jr., May 10, 1978, HSCA, p. 5 (JFK
document No. 013381).
(91) Id. at p. 5.
(92) Id. at p. 6.
(93) Id. at p. 6.
(94) Ibid.
(95) Ibid.
(96) Ibid. See also staff interview of Frank Erwin, July 29, 1978, HSCA, p. (JFK
document No. 010696).
(97) Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978, HSCA, p. 22 (JFK document No. 014025).
(98) Testimony of Buell W. Frazier, Mar. 11, 1964, Warren Commission hearings.
vol. II, p. 233. See also Warren Commission Exhibit 698; JFK exhibit F-13.
(99) Connally testimony, Sept. 6. 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, 49.
(100) Ibid. See also JFK exhibit F-17.
(101) Connally testimony, Sept. 6, 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, 49-50.
(102) Typewritten notes of Jerry Bruno. Sept. 7, 1978, HSCA, p. 9 (JFK document
No. 011337).
(103) Staff interview of Winston Lawson, Jan. 31, 1978, HSCA, p. 5 (JFK document
No. 007066).
Page 533
533
(104) Connally testimony, Sept. 6, 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, 26.
(105) Deposition of J. Eric Jonsson, July 26, 1978, HSCA, pp. 443 (JFK document
No. 014022).
(106) Connally testimony, Sept. 6, 1978. I HSCA-JFK hearings, 27 (statement of
the basic plan), 28 (objection to a lengthy downtown motorcade).
(106A) Staff interview of Frank Erwin, July 29, 1978, HSCA, pp. 2-7, 9 (JFK
document No. 010696).
(107) Staff interview of Frank Erwin, July 29, 1978, HSCA, p. 5 (JFK document
No. 010696).
(108) Connally testimony, Sept. 6. 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, 51.
(109) Staff interview of Frank Erwin, July 29, 1978, HSCA, p. 7 (JFK document
No. 010696).
(110) Ibid.
(111) Id. at p. 9.
(112) Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978, HSCA, p. 31 (JFK document No. 014025).
(113) Id. at p. 32.
(114) Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978, HSCA, pp. 39-40 (JFK document No.
014025).
(115) Id. at p. 39.
(116) Id. at pp. 41-42.
(117) Id. at pp. 41-42.
(118) Testimony of Forrest Sorrels, May 7, 1969, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. VII, p. 334.
(119) Ibid.
(120) Id. at p. 335.
(121) Ibid.
(122) Staff interview of Forrest Sorrels, Mar. 15, 1978, HSCA, p. 2 (JFK
document No. 007062).
(123) Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978, HSCA, p. 35 (JFK document No. 014025).
(124) Id. at p. 30.
(125) Deposition of Ms. Elizabeth Forsling Harris, Aug. 16, 1978, HSCA, p. 25
(JFK document No. 013152).
(126) Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978. HSCA, p. 30 (JFK document No. 014025).
(127) Typewritten notes of Jerry Bruno, Dec. 13, 1977, HSCA, p. 8 (JFK document
No. 004074). See also Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 197S, HSCA, pp. 34-35 (JFK
document No. 014025).
(128) Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978, HSCA, p- 35 (JFK document No. 014025).
(129) Executive session testimony of Gerald Behn, Mar. 15, 1978, HSCA, pp. 73,
74 (JFK document No. 014670).
(130) Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978, HSCA. p. 35 (JFK document No. 014025).
See also typewritten notes of Jerry Bruno, Dec. 13, 1977, p. 8 (JFK document No.
004074).
(131) Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978, HSCA, p. 36 (JFK document No. 014025).
(132) Id. at pp. 34, 35.
(133) Testimony of Winston Lawson, Apr. 23, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. IV, pp. 318, 319. See also staff interview of Winston Lawson, Jan. 31,
1978. HSCA, pp. 1-5 (JFK document No. 007066).
(134) Ibid.
(135) Lawson testimony, Apr. 23, 1964, Warren Commission hearings, vol. IV, p.
319.
(136) Id. at pp. 322, 336.
(137) Lawson testimony, Warren Commission hearings, vol. IV, p. 337.
(138) Id. at p. 337.
(139) For the basis of Bruno's belief that the Women's Building was initially
selected as the final choice, see footnotes 127, 128, 130, supra. The omission
of the Warren Commission to obtain exhibits or to take testimony either from
Behn or from Bruno is documented at Warren Commission hearings, vol. XV, pp.
755, 757, 815.
(140) Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978, HSCA, pp. 36, 37 (JFK document No.
014025).
Page 534
534
(141) Id. at p. 36.
(142) Id. at p. 37.
(143) Testimony of Forrest Sorrels, May 7, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. VII, pp. 335-341. See also staff interview of Forrest Sorrels, Mar. 1978,
HSCA, pp. 2-3 (JFK document No. 007062).
(144) See footnotes 127-131, supra.
(145) Testimony of Winston Lawson, Apr. 23, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol IV, p. 337.
(146) Id. at p. 337.
(147) Id. at pp. 337, 338.
(148) Staff interview of Winston Lawson, Jan. 31, 1978, HSCA, p. 5 (JFK document
No. 007066).
(149) Typewritten notes of Jerry Bruno, Sept. 7, 1978, IlSCA, p. 9 (JFK document
No. 011337).
(150) Bruno deposition, Aug. 18, 1978, IlSCA, p. 49 (JFK document No. 014025).
(151) Deposition of Bill Moyers, Aug. 16, 1978, HSCA, p. 26 (JFK document No.
014018).
(152) Id. at p. 26.
(153) Id. at p. 28.
(154) Id. at p. 28.
(155) Id. at pp. 25, 29.
(156) Id. at p. 32.
(157) Id. at p. 33.
(158) Ibid.
(159) Ibid.
(160) See footnote 149, supra.
(161) Connally testimony, Sept. 6, 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, p. 49.
(162) Id. at p. 51.
(163) Ibid.
(164) Ibid.
(165) Typewritten notes of Jerry Bruno, Sept. 7, 1978. IlSCA, p. 9 (JFK document
No. 011337). See also Moyers deposition, Aug. 16, 1978, HSCA, D. (JFK document
No. 014018).
(166) Moyers deposition, Aug. 16, 1978, HSCA, p. 6 (JFK document No. 014018).
(167) Ibid.
(168) Id. at pp. 22-23.
(169) Id. at p. 22.
(170) Id. at pp. 22, 23.
(171) Id. at p. 23.
(172) Id. at p. 23.
(173) Id. at p. 24.
(174) Deposition of Ms. Elizabeth Forsling Harris, Aug. 16, 1978, HSCA, p. 11
(JFK document No. 013152).
(175) Connally testimony, Jan. 6, 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, 13.
(176) Deposition of Ms. Elizabeth Forsling Harris, Aug. 16, 1978, HSCA, p. 13
(JFK document No. 013152).
(177) Id. at p. 13.
(178) Id. at p. 14.
(179) Ibid.
(180) Id. at pp. 21-22.
(181) Id. at p. 22.
(182) Ibid.
(183) Id. at p. 25.
(184) Id. at p. 26.
(185) Id. at p. 25.
(186) Testimony of Winston Lawson, Apr. 23, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. VII, p. 341.
(187) Staff interview of Winston Lawson, Jan. 31, 1978, HSCA. p. 7 (JFK document
No. 007066).
(188) Id. at p. 7. See also Lawson testimony, Apr. 23, 1964. Warren Commission
hearings, vol. VII, pp. 340, 341; staff interview of Jack Puterbaugh, Apr. 14,
1978, HSCA, p. 3 (JFK document No. 008580).
Page 535
535
(189) Testimony of Forrest Sorrels, May 7, 1964. Warren Commission hearings,
vol. VII, p. 337.
(190) Id. at pp. 337, 338.
(191) Staff interview of George L. Lumpkin, Nov. 3, 1977, HSCA, p. 1 (JFK
document No. 003087).
(192) Id. at p. 1.
(193) Id. at p. 2.
(194) Id. at p. 2.
(195) Staff interview of Winston Lawson, Jan. 31, 1978, HSCA p. 3 (JFK document
No. 007066).
(196) Staff interview of Forrest Sorrels, Mar. 15, 1978, HSCA, p. 4 (JFK
document No. 007062).
(197) Sorrels Exhibit No. 4, Nov. 30, 1963, Warren Commission hearings, p. 2,
vol. XXI, p. 547.
(198) Executive session testimony of Robert I. Bouck, Nov. 17, 1977, HSCA, pp.
7-31 (JFK document No. 014609).
(199) Ibid. See also deposition (book II) of 1963 Secret Service Chief James
Rowley, Aug. 24, 1978, HSCA, pp. 8, 64 (JFK document No. 014026). A report from
a field office, if addressed to the office of the chief, would be delivered
either to PRS or to the office 0£ the head of protective operations.
(200) Lawson testimony, Apr. 23, 1964, Warren Commission hearings, vol. IV, p.
343.
(201) testimony of Roy Kellerman, Mar. 9, 1964, Warren Commission hearings, vol.
II, pp. 63, 105.
(202) Id. at pp. 106, 107.
(203) Id. at p. 107.
(204) Id. at p. 108.
(205) Testimony of Winston Lawson, Apr. 23, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. VII, p. 319.
(206) Testimony of Roy Kellerman, Mar. 9, 1964, Warren Commission hearings, vol.
Vl, p. 105.
(207) Testimony of Winston Lawson, Apr. 23, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. IV, p. 321.
(208) Id. at pp. 322, 323.
(209) Testimony of Roy Kellerman, Mar. 9, 1964, Warren Commission hearings, vol.
II, pp. 108, 109.
(210) Id. at p. 109.
(211) Ibid.
(212) Id. at pp. 109-111.
(213) Secret Service Final Survey Report (Presidential visit of Nov. 21, 1963 to
Houston, Tex.), Mar. 19, 1978, HSCA, p. 7 (JFK document No. 014979).
(214) Id. at p. 7.
(215) Testimony of Roy Kellerman, Mar. 9, 1964, Warren Commission hearings, vol.
II, pp. 108--112.
(216) Testimony of Forrest Sorrels, May 7, 1964, Warren Commission hearings, vol
VII, pp. 338, 339.
(217) Id. at p. 339.
(218) Id. at p. 339.
(219) Ibid. See also Warren Commission Exhibit No. CE 770.
(220) Testimony of Winston Lawson, Apr. 23, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. IV, p. 345.
(221) Id. at pp. 323, 345.
(222) Id. at pp. 323, 344, 345.
(223) Staff interview of Forrest Sorrels, Mar. 15, 1979, HSCA, p. 3 (JFK
document No. 007062).
(224) Id. at p. 3.
(225) Staff interview of Winston Lawson, Jan. 31, 1978, HSCA, p. 11 (JFK
document No. 007066).
(226) Id. at p. 11.
(227) Id. at p. 9.
(228) Staff interview of Gerald Behn, Jan. 30, 1978, HSCA, p. 4 (JFK document
No. 012998).
(229) Id. at p. 4.
(230) Id. at p. 5.
(231) Testimony of Winston Lawson, Apr. 23, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. IV, p. 326.
Page 536
536
(232) Id. at pp. 326, 327.
(233) Id. at pp. 339, 340.
(234) Id. at p. 333.
(235) Id. at p. 333.
(236) Testimony 0£ Forrest Sorrels, May 7, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. VII, p. 337.
(237) Testimony of Winston Lawson, Apr. 2.3, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. IV, pp. 328, 329.
(238) Id. at p. 331.
(239) Id. at p. 330.
(240) Testimony of Forrest Sorrels, May 7, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. VII, p. 343.
(241) Testimony of Winston Lawson, Apr. 23, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. IV, p. 330.
(242) Id. at p. 349.
(243) Deposition of Ms. Elizabeth Forsling Harris, Aug. 16, 1978, HSCA, p. 28
(JFK document No. 013152).
(244) Id. at p. 28.
(245) Testimony of Perdue Lawrence, July 24, 1964, Warren Commission hearIngs,
vol. VII, p. 581.
(246) Id. at p. 378.
(247) Id. at p. 579.
(248) Id. at p. 579.
(249) Stevenson Exhibit No. 5053, Nov. 30, 1963, Warren Commission hearings, vol
XXI, p. 567.
(250) Testimony of Perdue Lawrence, July 24, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. VII, p. 580.
(251) Stevenson Exhibit No. 5053, Nov. 30, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. XXI, pp. 589-571.
(252) Testimony of Perdue Lawrence, July 24, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. VII, p. 580.
(253) Id. at p. 581.
(254) Stevenson Exhibit No. 5053, Nov. 30, 1963, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. XXI, p. 571.
(255) Testimony of Winston Lawson, Apr. 23, 1964. Warren Commission hearings,
vol. VII, pp. 338, 339.
(256) Staff interview of Winston Lawson, Jan. 31, 1978, HSCA, p. 8 (JFK document
No. 007066).
(257) Testimony of Winston Lawson, Apr. 23, 1964, Warren Commission, vol. IV, p.
338. See also footnote 257, supra,
(258) Testimony of Marion L. Baker, Mar. 25, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. 111, p. 244.
(259) Staff interview of Billy Joe Martin, Sept. 27, 1977, HSCA, p. 1 (JFK
document No. 002393). See also staff interview of Billy Joe Martin, Jan. 17,
1978, HSCA, p. 1 (JFK document No. 014372). Martin confirms the Presidential
objection to the close positioning of motorcycles.
(260) Testimony of Billy Joe Martin, Apr. 3, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. VI, p. 290.
(261) Id. at p. 290.
(262) Testimony of Bobby W. Hargis, Apr. 8, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. VI, p. 294. See also staff interview of Bobby Weldon Hargis, Jan. 17, 1979,
HSCA, p. 1 (JFK document No. 14362). Crowd pressure removed Hargis from his
position and pushed him rearward. See also staff interview of Robert W. Hargis,
Oct. 26, 1977, Select Committee on Assassinations, pp. 1-2 (JFK document No.
003300).
(263) Testimony of Clyde A. Haygood, Apr. 9, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. VI, p. 297. Cf. staff interview of Clyde A. Haygood, HSCA, p. 1 (JFK
Document No. 002392).
(264) Testimony of Clyde Haygood, Apr. 9, 1964, Warren Commission hearings, vol.
Vl, p. 297.
(265) Id. at p. 297.
(266) Testimony of Marion L. Baker, Mar. 25, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. III, p. 244. See also staff interview of Marion L. Baker, Jan. 17, 1978,
HSCA, p. 1 (JFK document No. 014899). Baker corroborated Martin's account (see
footnote 259, supra) of the President's objection to close positioning of
Page 537
537
motorcycles and asserted that the President was responsible for Baker's position
near the press bus.
(267) Id. at p. 245.
(268) Id. at p. 245.
(269) See footnote 253, supra.
(270) Testimony of Roy Kellerman, Mar. 9, 5964, Warren Commission hearings, vol.
II, p. 70.
(271) Secret Service Final Survey Report (Presidential visit of Nov. 21, 1963,
to Houston, Tex.), Mar. 19, 1978, HSCA p. 6 (JFK document No. 014979).
(272) Secret Service Final Survey Report (Presidential visit of Nov. 22, 1963,
to Fort Worth, Tex.), Mar. 19, 1978, HSCA, p. 3 (JFK document No. 014980).
(273) Testimony of Clinton J. Hill, Mar. 7, 1964, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. II, pp. 136-137. See also testimony of Winston G. Lawson, Apr. 23, 1964,
Warren Commission hearings, vol. IV, p. 338.
(274) See footnote 271, supra.
(275) Warren Commission testimony of Winston Lawson, Apr. 23, 1964, Warren
Commission hearings, vol. IV, p. 334.
(276) Id. at p. 334.
(277) Stevenson Exhibit No. 5053, Nov. 30, 1963, Warren Commission hearings,
vol. XXI, p. 563.
(278) Id. at p. 570.
(279) Id. at p. 570.
(280) Id. at p. 570.
(281) Id. at p. 571.
(282) Warren Commission Exhibit No. 767, Warren Commission hearings, vol. XVII,
p. 596.
(283) Staff interview of Winston Lawson, Jan. 31, 1978, HSCA, pp. 7, 8 (JFK
document No. 007066).
Page 538
538
(Blank Page)
Possible Military Investigation of the Assassination
Page 539
539
POSSIBLE MILITARY INVESTIGATION OF
THE ASSASSINATION
Staff Report
of the
Select Committee on Assassinations
U.S. House of Representatives
Ninety-fifth Congress
Second Session
March 1979
(539)
Contents
Page 540
540
CONTENTS
Paragraph
Huff allegation .............................................................(1)
The committee's investigation ....................................... (2)
Huff interview and deposition ......................... (11)
Moffitt interview......................................... (22)
Roberts interview.......................................... (27)
Morgan Interview.......................................... (31)
Contacts with CID officers................................(33)
Morgan letter ............................................. (41)
(540)
Huff Allegation
Page 541
POSSIBLE MILITARY INVESTIGATION OF THE
ASSASSINATION
HUFF ALLEGATION
(1) In March 1977, the committee received information that the military had
conducted an investigation of Oswald after the assassination. The information
came in a letter from Gloria Deane Huff of Pinehurst, Idaho, who wrote that her
present husband, Larry Huff, had participated in one of the investigative teams
while in the military. (1) Mrs. Huff indicated that she wanted to bring this
information to the attention of the committee because, despite all the published
reports about the assassination and subsequent Government investigations, she
had never seen any information about the investigation in which her husband
participated. (2)
The Committee's Investigation
Page 541
THE COMMITTEE'S INVESTIGATION
(2) Pursuant to the information received from Mrs. Huff, the committee undertook
to verify the alleged investigation and any reports that may have resulted. The
committee requested pertinent files of the appropriate agencies* and interviewed
persons who would have had direct knowledge of such an investigation.
(3) The committee contacted Larry Huff at his home in Pineburst, Idaho, by
telephone on March 21, 1977. (3) At that time, he confirmed the substance of the
letter his wife had sent the committee. He additionally identified the
commanding officer, Lt. Gen. Carson A. Roberts, who, according to Huff, would
have been in charge of the investigative team at Camp Smith, Hawaii, which was
purportedly the base from which one investigative team originated. (4) Huff said
during the telephone interview that Lieutenant General Roberts served as
commander in chief of the fleet of the 1st Marine Brigade, Pacific Marine
Force.(5) According to Huff, the teams were dispatched to Japan and Dallas and
the report of the investigation was classified "Secret--For Marine Corps Eyes
Only."(6)
(4) On March 23, 1977, the committee wrote Lt. Col. Carl Miller of the Marine
Corps Liaison Office and requested all Marine Corps documents concerning the
assassination of President Kennedy; (7) the request was phrased broadly to
include any materials of such an investigation which might not be easily
identifiable. On June 6, 1977, the committee wrote Gen. Louis Wilson, Commandant
of the Marine Corps, and made a similar request.(8)
(5) The committee then sought to contact the individuals who were responsible
for compiling records of Oswald's military background. It
-------------------------------
(541)
Page 542
542
was believed that evidence or reports of such an investigation after the
assassination would have appeared in Oswald's file. The committee contacted Lt.
Col. Bill Brewer of the Intelligence Division of Marine Corps Headqurters on
August 1, 1977. (9) Brewer had been in charge of compiling the Oswald military
file for the use of the Warren Commission. (10) Brewer stated that the Warren
Commission had been interested primarily in records concerning Oswald's security
classification in the military and that his records check had only included
local records within the individual commands where Oswald had served and did not
include records that were classified secret or top secret. (11) He said his
office had no investigative jurisdiction.
(6) The committee has contacted Roy Elmquist of the Office of Naval Intelligence
on August 1, 1977. Elmquist stated that the only investigative request to the
Office of Naval Intelligence from the Marine Corps that had any bearing on
Oswald or the assassination concerned the death of Martin Schrand, who had
served at Cubi Point Naval Air Station in the Philippines at the same time
Oswald had in 1958 and who had died from a gunshot wound while on guard duty.
(13) Elmquist stated further that any other investigation pertinent to the
assassination would have been conducted by the FBI(14).
(7) On August 2, 1977, the committee wrote Capt. Donald Nielsen, the Assistant
Secretary for International Security Affairs of the Department of Defense, and
requested all material concerning Lee Harvey Oswald and the investigation of the
assassination of President Kennedy in the possession of the Naval Investigative
Service. (15)
(8) On February 15, 1978, in a phone conversation with committee staff, Huff
further identified the airplanes that he said were used in the investigation by
the military. He stated at that time that one plane flew from El Toro or Camp
Pendleton in California to Dallas in December ]963. (16) He said the plane was a
KC-130. The second plane had flown from Camp Smith, Hawaii, to Atsugi Naval Air
Station in Japan between December 7 and 22, 1963. (17) It was a C-54 plane with
serial No. 50855. (18) Huff identified the commander of the plane as Chief
Warrant Officer Morgan. (19)
(9) On March 9, 1978, the committee requested the following documents from the
Department of Defense:
1. Any and all records (including logs and crew lists) pertaining to or
concerning the flight of a C-54 military plane, serial No. 50855, which departed
Camp Smith, Hawaii on December 7, 1963 for Japan and returned on December 22,
1963.
2. Any and all records (including logs and crew lists) pertaining to or
concerning the flight of a KC-130 military plane which departed El Toro or Camp
Pendleton base in California the first weekend in December 1963 for Dallas, Tex.
3. Any and all records, including classified material, concerning or referring
to an investigation by the Marine Corps or the Air Force Office of Special
Investigations into the J.F.K. assassination. It is believed the investigation
took place at Atsugi Air Base, Japan, and the El Toro Marine Base, Santa Ana,
Calif., in December 1963. (20)
The committee also included in that request that Lt. Gen. Carson Roberts and
Chief Warrant Officer Morgan be made available for
Page 543
543
interview, or if either man is no longer a member of the military, that the
committee be provided with the last known address for each. (21)
(10) On April 19, 1978, the Department of Defense responded that the Air Force
had no records on Roberts or Morgan and that it had no flight records concerning
either military plane identified in the committee's request. (22) Regarding the
records of the alleged military investigation, the Department of Defense
responded that it had no record that the Air Force Office of Special
Investigations had conducted an investigation into the assassination of
President Kennedy in Japan or California in 1963. (23) The Department explained
that it believed the alleged investigation was being confused with an
investigation that was conducted on Oswald's half-brother, John Edward Pic. (24)
According to the Department, the Pic investigation records were destroyed
because no "derogatory information" (which presumably means information which
would have been relevant to the assassination investigation) was developed;
portions of that file relating to Oswald, however, were still on file and
available for review by the committee at the Pentagon. (25) In May 1978, the
Department of Defense provided the committee with the present addresses of
Lieutenant General Roberts(26) and Chief Warrant Officer Morgan,(27) who had
both retired from the military.
Huff Interview and Deposition
Page 543
HUFF INTERVIEW AND DEPOSITION
(11) Larry Huff was interviewed and deposed by the committee on May 8 and 9,
1978, to get further details of the investigation Huff related to the committee.
During the deposition in U.S. district court for the Eastern district of
Washington at Spokane, Wash., on May 9, 1978, Huff stated under oath that on
December 14, 1963, he departed Kaneohe Base in Hawaii in a C-54-T aircraft,
serial number 50855, for Wake Island, with Chief Warrant Officer Morgan as
pilot. (28) He stated that the plane continued from Wake Island to Tachikawa.,
Japan.(29) Huff stated that there were 10 to 12 CID military investigators on
that flight. (30) They disembarked at Tachikawa, Japan, which Huff identified as
the closest landing base to the base at Atsugi. (31)
(12) Huff stated that he would have received written orders for the flight the
day before from Major Rice, who was the commanding officer at Kaneohe Bay. (32)
Huff said that the orders from Rice normally originated from the command of the
Fleet Marine Corps of the Pacific at Camp Smith, over which Lieutenant Genera]
Roberts was commanding officer. (33) In the case of this flight, Huff did not
know for sure where the orders originated, but that they could also have come
from Marine Corps headquarters. (34).
(13) Huff explained that he had served as a navigator at Camp Smith and that his
normal responsibilities included transporting military crews. (35) He had
received no debriefing or special instructions for this flight; he said he
learned the purpose of the trip by the CID investigators through conversations
on the plane during the flight. Huff said that no other intelligence personnel
were present on the flight.
(14) During the deposition, Huff used a log he maintained during his career in
the military for the exact dates of the flights and other
Page 544
544
data about the plane. He made those logs available to the committee. The log
entry for December 14, 1963 states that a C-54 with serial No. 50855 flew from
Kaneohe Bay to Wake Island with Warrant Officer Morgan as pilot; the flying time
was 11.1 hours.(38) On December 15, the same plane continued from Wake Island to
Guam; it flew from Guam to Okinawa on December 16 and then to Tachikawa by way
of Hong Kong on December 20, 1963. (39)
(15) Huff stated in the deposition that he returned to Kaneohe Bay after leaving
the investigators in Japa.n to investigate Oswald's activities at Atsugi. (40)
He also said that he believed he returned to Japan to pick the CID team up later
in December 1963. (41) According to Huff's logbook and his testimony, he made
two trips from Tachikawa during that period, one on December 22, 1963 (which
presumably would have been the flight when Huff returned to Hawaii after leaving
the investigative team) and another on January 1964, from Kaneohe Bay to Iwakuni
and Atsugi in Japan; he returned from the latter trip on February 5, 1964. (42)
The trips in January had Captain Kruse as pilot of the plane, which was
identified as a VC 54-P, serial number 90392. (43)
(16) Huff stated in the deposition that the return flight from Japan to Kaneohe
Bay included the same team of CID investigators he had flown earlier.(44) On the
return flight, he had spoken with the investigators about their work in Japan
and was told they had spent the entire stay investigating Oswald. (45) Huff said
that during that flight he was allowed to read the report prepared by the
investigators.(46) He described the report as being typewritten, about 20
pages,(47) and classified "Secret, for Marine Corps Eyes Only." (48) Huff
recollected that the substance of the report dealt with interviews of
individuals and that it contained psychological evaluation of Oswald.(49) Huff
remembered the conclusion being that Oswald was incapable of committing the
assassination alone.(50) Huff said he read the report for about 30 minutes. (51)
(17) Huff was asked during the deposition what circumstances existed that would
have allowed him to see such a report.(52) He replied that it was not unusual
for him to have had access to it; he had been granted a secret clearance by the
military on March 5, 1956, which would have allowed him access to classified
materials.(53) Huff stated that he has never seen the report again nor heard any
reference to it. (54) He surmised that the report would be kept intelligence
files either at the Intelligence Division of Camp Smith or with the Commandant
of the Marine Corps in Washington, D.C.(55)
(18) Huff stated during the deposition that he did not recall the names of any
oF the CID team and that he had never flown with them before. (56) Besides the
captains of the two flights, Huff could not recall exactly who the other members
of the crew were. Nevertheless, he stated that he usually flew with a radio
operator named Ralph K. Fall and another navigator named Roy Gibson. (57)
(19) Huff also stated that soon after the assassination in November 1963, he had
received word of another investigative team which was to travel to Dallas to
investigate the assassination. Huff said in the deposition that he was at El
Toro Marine Corps Air Station in
Page 545
545
California on November 23, 1963. (58) His logbook entry for that period
indicates that Huff flew from Kaneohe Bay to El Toro on November 16 and 17 and
that he left El Toro and returned to Kaneohe Bay on November 23. (59) Huff said
that while at El Toro, he had had a conversation with George Moffitt, a friend
who was also a senior navigator at El Toro.(60) According to Huff, Mofitt told
Huff that he, Moffitt, had received orders to prepare a navigation team to
assist a flight going to Dallas to conduct an investigation. (61)
(20) Huff said he left El Toro soon after hearing this from Mofitt and never
heard any results or the outcome of that flight. He did not know if Moffitt
actually went along on the flight.(62) He identified Moffitt as a master gunnery
sergeant at El Toro. (63)
(21) When the committee interviewed Huff at his home on May 8, 1978, in
preparation for the deposition the next day, Huff give them a list of addresses
and phone numbers of military friends he had served with. (64) Huff explained
that the list had been mailed to him earlier that year in preparation for a
reunion being planned. (65) The list contained a cover letter outlining plans
for the reamion.(66) George Moffitt's address and phone number were included on
that list. (67) In an attempt to provide the names of other personnel from
Kaneohe Bay and Camp Smith, Huff stated additionally that Tom Allen was the
chief mechanic at Camp Smith and that Allen might be able to remember details
about the use of military planes at Camp Smith. (68) The list also contained an
address and telephone number for Tom Allen. (69) The Committee attempted to
locate Allen at that address but could not do so.
Moffit Interview
Page 545
MOFFIT INTERVIEW
(22) The committee did contact George Moffitt in California and arranged time
for in interview. When contacted by the committee, Mofitt stated that he wanted
to clear the interview with the interview with the military and have the
assistance of military counsel. (70) The interview took place on June 15, 1978,
in the Office of Legal Counsel at El Toro Marine Base. During that interview,
Moffitt stated that he worked as a navigator at El Toro with the rank of master
gunnery sergeant. (71)
When asked about his activities in November and December 1963. Moffitt stated
that he did not believe he had participated in a flight to Dallas.(72) Moffitt
stated he is certain that he never told Huff that he participated in either the
planning or execution of a trip to Dallas in connection with an assassination
investigation.(73) Moffitt said additionally that he had no information or
knowledge of anyone participating in such a military investigation following the
assassination. (74)
(23) Moffitt said he knew Larry Huff and that they were tog¢her at the time of
the assassination. (75) Mott said he knew the names of Chief Warrant Officer
Morgan, Major Rice, Tom Allen, Ralph Fall, and Captain Kruse, but that he could
not recall where he knew each of those men. (76) He recalled that Lt. Gen.
Carson Roberts was the commanding officer of the Fleet Marine Force operating
out of Camp Smith. (77) He said that at least one C-54 plane was detailed to
Roberts. (78)
Page 546
546
(24) Moffitt said that it would not be unusual for him to transport CID
personnel; (79) he had received a top secret clearance in 1961. (80)
(25) Moffitt said he did not know for sure if he traveled to or from Dallas in
November 1963 but that master logs maintained by the military would indicate the
record of such flights (81) In addition, Moffitt provided the committee with his
personal log book which he also maintained during his military career. (82) The
only entry by Moffit for November 1963 indicates a total flight time of 17.5
hours and a notation of "KO-130 F", presumably referring to a type of plane.
(83) The log book spans the period from August 1957 through 1964; however, the
period December 1962 through December 1963 only carries notations for the types
of plane, with no information regarding origins of flights or destinations such
as are made for all of the other months in the book. (84)
(26) Moffitt was asked by the committee during the interview if he knew of any
reason why Huff would give the information to the committee regarding an alleged
military investigation of the assassination contrary to the information being
given by Moffitt. Moffitt responded that he knew of no such reason and that he
had no reason to question Huff's credibility. (85) Moffitt explained that he and
Huff were good friends and that their relationship had included house sitting
for each other when one was sent overseas.(86) During the interview the Marine
Corps attorney who was present repeated the question of whether Moffitt knew of
any reason to doubt Huff's credibility and Moffit repeated that he did not. (87)
The Marine Corps attorney then repeated the question a second time; that time
Moffitt relied that he believed Huff had a mental problem in the past and
perhaps that was a reason to question Huff's credibility. (88) Moffitt did not
elaborate or offer any details about Huff's purported mental problem.
Roberts Interview
Page 546
ROBERTS INTERVIEW
(27) Lt. Gen. Carson A. Roberts was interviewed by a committee staff
investigator on May 25, 1978, at his home in Whispering Pines, N.C. Roberts had
retired from military service on March 1, 1964.(89)
(28) During the interview, General Roberts stated that he was in command of Camp
Smith at Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, at the time of the assassination in November 1963.
(90) He knew of no military flights nor investigations by military or civilian
personnel connected with the assassination of President Kennedy.(91) General
Roberts was asked specifically if he recalled any information about a flight of
CID investigators from Kaneohe Bay to Atsugi. Japan, to probe into the
background and associations of Lee Harvey Oswald.(92) General Roberts said that
he had no such knowledge, did not issue the orders for any such flight, and that
if such a flight or investigation had come to his attention, he would have
remembered it. (98) However, he also stated that it would be possible for such
orders to be issued from naval headquarters in Washington, D.C., and that he
might not necessarily have known about those orders. (94)
(29) When asked about the planes which were, under his personal command, General
Roberts consulted the log book he maintained during
Page 547
547
his military service which he then kept at his home. After reviewing the log, he
stated that a V-5-54-P model plane with serial No. 90392 was assigned to him at
the time of the assassination. (95) General Roberts said the log book indicated
that he did not participate in any flights from June 1963 to January 1964. (96)
He stated that it would have been unusual for his plane to have been used for
any missions without his knowledge. He explained also that he only maintained
records of flights on which he personally flew.(97)
(30) General Roberts told the committee investigator that log books and any of
official records concerning the plane would be sent to either Marine Operations
or to the Bureau of Aeronautics in Washington, D.C., when the plane was no
longer in use by the military.(98)
Morgan Interview
Page 547
MORGAN INTERVIEW
(31) Roger G. Morgan was interviewed by committee staff by telephone on November
7, 1978. He stated that he was a commanding officer of military transport
flights at Kaneohe Bar in Hawaii at the time of the assassination. (99) When
asked if he had flown a team of CID investigators to Japan in December 1963 in
connection with an investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy,
Morgan said that he would not normally have known who his passengers were on the
military transports, even if they had included a team of CID investigators.(100)
Further, his flight orders would not necessarily have included that
information.(101) Morgan also said that after so many years, he could not
remember such a flight or incident, but that he had no recollection of having
had anything to do with an assassination investigation. (102) Morgan was asked
if he would consult his personal flight logs to see if they shed any light on
any flights to Japan he might have participated in after the assassination.
(103) He then asked that the committee write him what specific information it
wanted from his log books and he would consult them for that.(104) The committee
sent a letter to Morgan on that same date requesting information about the
dates, crews and destinations of military flights on which he participated from
Kaneohe Bay to Atsugi or Tachikawa, Japan, in December 1963.(105)
(32) Morgan identified Lt. Gen. Carson Roberts as the Commander of the Pacific
Fleet at Kaneohe Bay at the time of the assassination. (106) He stated that Maj.
Don Rice was also an executive of Hcer at Kaneohe Bay at that time. (107)
Contacts With CID Officers
Page 547
CONTACTS WITH CID OFFICERS
(33) Based on that information from Morgan, the committee requested on November
9, 1978, that the Defense Department make Major Rice available for
interview.(108) On June 26, 1978, the committee had already requested that Major
Rice be made available based on the information provided by Larry Huff;(109)
however, the Defense Department had not been able to locate material
identifiable with Major Rice because the committee could not at that time
provide Rice's first, name.
(34) In a further effort to determine whether the military had in fact conducted
an investigation of Oswald or the assassination which
Page 548
548
might contain information not released previously, the committee requested that
the Department of Defense identify the chief CID officers who would have had
knowledge of or involvement in such an investigation. On June 19, 1978, the
committee requested in writing that the chief CID officers who were stationed at
El Toro Marine Base in California and Camp Smith in Hawaii in November and
December 1963 be made available for interview. (110) The committee also
requested that the chief CID officer for the Marine Corps for that period also
be made available to the committee.(111)
(35) Because Huff, Moffitt, Lieutenant General Roberts had all indicated their
belief that information concerning flights master logs for military air and
crews of military aircraft would be located in files permanently at Marine Corps
headquarters, the committee requested in writing to the Defense Department on
June 26, 1978, that it be provided access to "any and all master logs,
concerning or referring to military aircraft stationed at Camp Smith, Hawaii and
El Toro Marine Base in November and December 1963." (112)
(36) In a letter dated July 26, 1978, the Department of Defense provided
information concerning the number and type of military aircraft stationed at El
Toro and Kaneohe Bay in 1963. According to that letter, 15 model KC-I30F planes
were among the total aircraft stationed at El Toro from October through December
1963; those planes were further identified as Lockheed transport planes.(113)
Additionally, two model C-54P planes were stationed at Kaneohe Bay during the
same period. (114) Those planes are identified as Douglas Skymaster transport
planes. (115)
(37) In the July 26 letter, the Department of Defense stated that no master logs
for military aircraft could be obtained through Marine Corps headquarters, but
that the committee could request that information through the Washington
National Record Center of the General Services Administration. (116)
(38) In a memorandum dated July 14, 1978, the Department of Defense responded to
the committee's letter of March 19, 1978, requesting that CID personnel be
identified and made available for interview.(117)
(39) Based on the last known address provided by the Defense Department, the
committee was unable to locate retired gunnery sergeant H.E. Aubrey, who was
identified as the chief CID investigator st Camp Smith in November-December
1963.
(40) On November 6, 1978, the committee interviewed by phone Harold Flower, who
served as a CID officer at El Toro Marine Base at the time of the assassination.
Flower stated Howard Bearden was in command of the CID unit at that time;
Bearden was deceased. (118) Flower stated that to his knowledge, no
investigation of the assassinator of Oswald was conducted in his command. and he
had no knowledge of such an investigation. (119) Flower said that if the Office
of Naval Intelligence had conducted such an investigation out of El Toro, he
would have known about it. (120) Flower was also asked if it were possible that
such an investigation could have been conducted out of El Toro using civilian
investigation personnel who would not have necessarily been under the command of
his CID unit. Flower said that if the local FBI office had conducted an inquiry
at El Toro, he would
Page 549
549
have known about it, because he personally knew all of the Special Agents
stationed at the local FBI field office in nearby Santa Ana, Calif.(121) Flower
said that although he had heard that Oswald had been stationed at the Marine
Corps Air Facility at Santa Ana, he had no other knowledge of Oswald's military
background.(122) Flower stated additionally that the Air Facility at Santa Ana
bad its own CID unit, which would be the appropriate repository of information
about Oswald. (123)
Morgan Letter
Page 549
MORGAN LETTER
(41) On December 8, 1978, the committee received a letter from former CWO Roger
G. Morgan dated December 5, 1978. In the letter, Morgan said he had consulted
his personal log books of his military service as had been requested by the
committee. (124) Morgan stated in the letter:
My personal log books do reflect the fact that I was the commander of a flight
from Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii to Tachikawa AFB in Japan and return on the dates in
question.
The aircraft type was a C-54, assigned to Marine Aircraft "Group 13, Kaneohe
Bay, Hawaii. The aircraft bureau number was 50855. The names of other crew
members or passengers is not contained in these personal records, but could be
found in official records. (125)
Submitted by:
ROBERT BLAKEY,
Chief Counsel and Staff Director.
GARY CORNWELL,
Deputy Chief Counsel.
SURELL BRADY,
Staff Counsel.
References
Page 549
REFERENCES
(1) Letter from Gloria Huff, Mar. 8, 1977 (JFK document No. 01354S).
(2) Ibid.
(3) Staff outside contact report, Larry Huff, Mar. 21, 1977, HSCA (JFK
Document).
(4) Ibid.
(5) Ibid.
(6) Ibid.
(7) Letter to Lt. Col. Carl Miller, Mar. 23, 1977, HSCA (JFK document No.
013563).
(8) Letter to Gen. Louis Wilson, June 6, 1977, HSCA (JFK document No. 013562).
(9) Staff outside contact report, Aug. 1, 1977, HSCA (JFK document No. 015030).
(10) Ibid.
(11) Ibid.
(12) Ibid.
(13) Staff outside contact report, Aug. 1, 1977, HSCA (JFK document No. 015029).
(14) Ibid.
(15) Letter to Capt. Donald Nielsen, Aug. 2, 1977, HSCA. (JFK document No.
013564).
(16) Staff outside contact report, Larry Huff, Feb. 15, 1978, HSCA.
(17) Ibid.
(18) Ibid.
Page 550
550
(19) Ibid.
(20) See outside contact report, Nov. 9, 1978, for reference to letter to Harold
Brown, Secretary of Defense, Mar. 9, 1978, HSCA (JFK document No. 015048).
(21) Ibid.
(22) Staff outside contact report, Apr. 19, 1978, HSCA (JFK document No.
007369).
(23) Id. at pp. 6-7.
(24) Id. at p. 7.
(25) Ibid.
(26) Staff outside contact report. May 1, 1978, HSCA (JFK document No. 007656).
(27) Staff outside contact report, May 5, 1978, HSCA (JFK document No. 008120).
(28) Deposition of Larry Cecil Huff, May 9, 1978, HSCA, p. 7 (JFK document No.
014615).
(29) Ibid.
(30) Id. at p. 9.
(31) Id. at p. 7.
(32) Id. at p. 8.
(33) Ibid.
(34) Id. at p. 9.
(35) Ibid.
(36) Id. at p. 10.
(37) Id. at p. 15.
(38) Aviator's flight log book of Larry Huff (JFK document No. 013552).
(39) Ibid.
(40) See ref. 28, Huff deposition, p. 11
(41) Ibid.
(42) See ref. 38.
(43) Ibid.
(44) See ref. 28, Huff deposition, 12.
(45) Ibid.
(46) Ibid.
(47) Ibid., p. 13.
(48) Ibid.
(49) Ibid.
(50) Ibid.
(51) Id. at p. 15.
(52) Id. at pp. 13-14.
(53) Id. at p. 14.
(54) Id. at p. 15.
(55) Ibid.
(56) Id. at p. 9.
(57) Id. at p. 10.
(58) Id. at p. 16.
(59) See ref. 38.
(60) See ref. 28. Huff deposition, p. 16.
(61) Ibid.
(62) Id. at p. 17.
(63) Id. at p. 16.
(64) Letter from Roger E. Leblanc, June 15, 1977, with list attached (JFK
document No. 013551).
(65) Ibid.
(66) Ibid.
(67) Ibid.
(68) Huff interview, May 8, 1978, HSCA, p. 2 (JFK document No. 008531).
(69) Ibid.
(70) Staff outside contact report, June 14, 1978, HSCA (JFK document 010037).
(71) Staff interview of George Moffitt, June 15, 1978, HSCA, p. 1 (JFK document.
No. 10145).
(72) Ibid.
(73) Id. at p. 3.
(74) Id. at p. 2.
(75) Ibid.
Page 551
551
(76) Id. at p. 3.
(77) Id. at p. 1.
(78) Id. at p. 2.
(79) Ibid.
(80) Id. at p. 3.
(81) Id. at p. 2.
(82) Aviators flight log book of George Moffitt (JFK document No. 013554).
(83) Ibid.
(84) Ibid.
(85) See ref. 71, Moffitt interview, p. 5.
(86) Ibid.
(87) Ibid.
(88) Ibid.
(89) Staff interview of Gen. Carson A. Roberts, May 25, 1978, HSCA, p. 1. (JFK
document No. 009408).
(90) Ibid.
(91) Ibid.
(92) Id. at pp. 1-2.
(93) Id. at p. 2.
(94) Ibid.
(95) Id. at p. 3.
(96) Id. at p. 2.
(97) Id. at p. 3.
(98) Id. at p. 2.
(99) Staff outside contact report, Nov. 7, 1978, HSCA, p. 1 (JFK document No.
013020).
(100) Ibid.
(101) Id. at pp. 1-2.
(102) Id. at p. 1.
(103) Ibid.
(104) Ibid.
(105) Staff letter to Roger G. Morgan, Nov. 7, 1978, HSCA (JFK document No.
013080).
(106) Staff outside contact report, Nov. 7, 1978, HSCA, p. 2 (JFK document No.
013020).
(107) Ibid.
(108) Letter to Harold Brown, Secretary of Defense, Nov. 9, 1978, HSCA (JFK
document No. 015048).
(109) Letter to Harold Brown, Secretary of Defense, June 26, 1978, HSCA (JFK
document No. 015048).
(110) Letter to Harold Brown, Secretary of Defense, June 19, 1978, HSCA (JFK
document No. 015048).
(111) Letter to Harold Brown, Secretary of Defense, June 26, 1978, HSCA (JFK
document No. 015048).
(112) Ibid.
(113) Fact sheet from Department of Defense, July 26, 1963, tab A (JFK
classified document No. 103).
(114) Ibid.
(115) Ibid.
(116) Ibid., enclosure 2, p. 10.
(117) Memorandum to the House Select Committee on Assassinations from Judy
Miller, Office of the Secretary of Defense, July 14, 1978 (JFK document No.
009986).
(118) Staff outside contact report, Nov. 6, 1978, HSCA (JFK document No.
013005).
(119) Ibid.
(120) Ibid.
(121) Id. at p. 2.
(122) Ibid.
(123) Ibid.
(124) Letter from Roger G. Morgan to House Select Committee of Assassinations
staff, Dec. 5, 1978 (JFK document No. 013576).
BELOW SEE JFK PARADE IN 1960
