- Note - This historic article is a valuable tool
in understanding the immediate chicanery and enormous coverup activities
brought to bear on the JFK investigation in the immediate months following
his murder. - ed
-
-
- The official version of the assassination of President
Kennedy has been so riddled with contradictions that it is been abandoned
and rewritten no less than three times. Blatant fabrications have received
very widespread coverage by the mass media, but denials of these same lies
have gone unpublished. Photographs, evidence and affidavits have been
doctored
out of recognition. Some of the most important aspects of the case against
Lee Harvey Oswald have been completely blacked out. Meanwhile, the F.B.I.,
the police and the Secret Service have tried to silence key witnesses or
instruct them what evidence to give. Others involved have disappeared or
died in extraordinary circumstances.
-
- It is facts such as these that demand attention, and
which the Warren Commission should have regarded as vital. Although I am
writing before the publication of the Warren Commissionís report,
leaks to the press have made much of its contents predictable. Because
of the high office of its members and the fact of its establishment by
President Johnson, the Commission has been widely regarded as a body of
holy men appointed to pronounce the truth. An impartial examination of
the composition and conduct of the Commission suggests quite
otherwise.
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- The Warren Commission has been utterly unrepresentative
of the American people. It consisted of two Democrats, Senator Russell
of Georgia and Congressman Boggs of Louisiana, both of whose racist views
have brought shame on the United States; two Republicans, Senator Cooper
of Kentucky and Congressman Gerald R. Ford of Michigan, the latter of whom
is a leader of his local Goldwater movement and an associate of the F.B.I.;
Allen Dulles, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Mr.
McCloy, who has been referred to as the spokesman for the business
community.
Leadership of the filibuster in the Senate against the Civil Rights Bill
prevented Senator Russell from attending hearings during the period.
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- The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court,
Earl Warren, who rightly commands respect, was finally persuaded, much
against his will, to preside over the Commission, and it was his
involvement
above all else that helped lend the Commission an aura of legality and
authority. Yet many of its members were also members of those very groups
which have done so much to distort and suppress the facts about the
assassination.
Because of their connection with the Government, not one member would have
been permitted under U.S. law to serve on a jury had Oswald faced trial.
It is small wonder that the Chief Justice himself remarked that the release
of some of the Commissionís information ìmight not be in
your lifetimeî Here, then, is my first question: Why were all the
members of the Warren Commission closely connected with the U.S.
Government?
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- If the composition of the Commission was suspect, its
conduct confirmed oneís worst fears. No counsel was permitted to
act for Oswald, so that cross-examination was barred. Later, under
pressure,
the Commission appointed the President of the American Bar Association,
Walter Craig, one of the supporters of the Goldwater movement in Arizona,
to represent Oswald. To my knowledge, he did not attend hearings, but
satisfied
himself with representation by observers.
-
- In the name of national security, the Commissionís
hearings were held in secret, thereby continuing the policy which has
marked
the entire course of the case. This prompts my second question: If, as
we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national
security? Indeed, precisely the same question must be put here as was posed
in France during the Dreyfus case: If the Government is so certain of its
case, why has it conducted all its inquiries in the strictest
secrecy?
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- ************
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- At the outset the Commission appointed six panels through
which it would conduct its enquiry. They considered: (1) What did Oswald
do on November 22, 1963? (2) What was Oswaldís background? (3) What
did Oswald do in the U.S. Marine Corps, and in the Soviet Union? (4) How
did Ruby kill Oswald? (5) What is Rubyís background? (6) What
efforts
were taken to protect the President on November 22? This raises my fourth
question: Why did the Warren Commission not establish a panel to deal with
the question of who killed President Kennedy?
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- All the evidence given to the Commission has been
classified
ìTop Secret,î including even a request that hearings be held
in public. Despite this the Commission itself leaked much of the evidence
to the press, though only if the evidence tended to prove Oswald the lone
assassin. Thus, Chief Justice Warren held a press conference after
Oswaldís
wife, Marina, had testified. He said, that she believed her husband was
the assassin. Before Oswaldís brother Robert testified, he gained
the Commissionís agreement not to comment on what he said. After
he had testified for two days, the newspapers were full of stories that
ìa member of the Commissionî had told the press that Robert
Oswald had just testified that he believed that his brother was an agent
of the Soviet Union. Robert Oswald was outraged by this, and he said that
he could not remain silent while lies were told about his testimony. He
had never said this and he had never believed it. All that he had told
the Commission was that he believed his brother was innocent and was in
no way involved in the assassination.
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- The methods adopted by the Commission have indeed been
deplorable, but it is important to challenge the entire role of the Warren
Commission. It stated that it would not conduct its own investigation,
but rely instead on the existing governmental agenciesóthe F.B.I.,
the Secret Service and the Dallas police.
-
- Confidence in the Warren Commission thus presupposes
confidence in these three institutions. Why have so many liberals abandoned
their own responsibility to a Commission whose circumstances they refuse
to examine?
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- It is known that the strictest and most elaborate
security
precautions ever taken for a President of the United States were ordered
for November 22 in Dallas.
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- The city had a reputation for violence and was the home
of some of the most extreme right-wing fanatics in America. Mr. and Mrs.
Lyndon Johnson had been assailed there in 1960 when he was a candidate
for the Vice-Presidency. Adlai Stevenson had been physically attacked when
he spoke in the city only a month before Kennedyís visit. On the
morning of November 22, the Dallas Morning News carried a full-page
advertisement
associating the President with Communism. The city was covered with posters
showing the Presidentís picture and headed ìWanted for
Treason.î
The Dallas list of subversives comprised 23 names, of which Oswaldís
was the first. All of them were followed that day, except Oswald. Why did
the authorities follow many persons as potential assassins and fail to
observe Oswaldís entry into the book depository building while
allegedly
carrying a rifle over three feet long?
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- The Presidentís route for his drive through Dallas
was widely known and was printed in the Dallas Morning News on November
22. At the last minute the Secret Service changed a small part of their
plans so that the President left Main Street and turned into Houston and
Elm Streets. This alteration took the President past the book depository
building from which it is alleged that Oswald shot him. How Oswald is
supposed
to have known of this change has never been explained. Why was the
Presidentís
route changed at the last minute to take him past Oswaldís place
of work?
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- After the assassination and Oswaldís arrest,
judgment
was pronounced swiftly: Oswald was the assassin, and he had acted alone.
No attempt was made to arrest others, no road blocks were set up round
the area, and every piece of evidence which tended to incriminate Oswald
was announced to the press by the Dallas District Attorney, Mr. Wade. In
such a way millions of people were prejudiced against Oswald before there
was any opportunity for him to be brought to trial. The first theory
announced
by the authorities was that the Presidentís car was in Houston
Street,
approaching the book depository building, when Oswald opened fire. When
available photographs and eyewitnesses had shown this to be quite untrue,
the theory was abandoned and a new one formulated which placed the vehicle
in its correct position. Meanwhile, however, D.A. Wade had announced that
three days after Oswaldís room in Dallas had been searched, a map
had been found there on which the book depository building had been circled
and dotted lines drawn from the building to a vehicle on Houston Street,
showing the alleged bullet trajectory had been planned in advance. After
the first theory was proved false, the Associated Press put out the
following
story on November 27: 'Dallas authorities announced today that there never
was a map.'
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- The second theory correctly placed the Presidentís
car on Elm Street, 50 to 75 yards past the book depository, but had to
contend with the difficulty that the President was shot from the front,
in the throat. How did Oswald manage to shoot the President in the front
from behind? The F.B.I. held a series of background briefing sessions for
Life magazine, which in its issue of December 6 explained that the
President
had turned completely round just at the time he was shot. This too, was
soon shown to be entirely false. It was denied by several witnesses and
films, and the previous issue of Life itself had shown the President
looking
forward as he was hit. Theory number two was abandoned.
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- In order to retain the basis of all official thinking,
that Oswald was the lone assassin, it now became necessary to construct
a third theory with the medical evidence altered to fit it. For the first
month no Secret Service agent had ever spoken to the three doctors who
had tried to save Kennedy's life in the Parkland Memorial Hospital. Now
two agents spent three hours with the doctors and persuaded them that they
were all misinformed: the entrance wound in the Presidentís throat
had been an exit wound, and the bullet had not ranged down towards the
lungs. Asked by the press how they could have been so mistaken, Dr.
McClelland
advanced two reasons: they had not seen the autopsy report and they had
not known that Oswald was behind the President!
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- The autopsy report, they had been told by the Secret
Service, showed that Kennedy had been shot from behind. The agents,
however,
had refused to show the report to the doctors, who were entirely dependent
on the word of the Secret Service for this suggestion. The doctors made
it clear that they were not permitted to discuss the case. The third
theory,
with the medical evidence rewritten, remains the basis of the case against
Oswald at this moment.
-
- Why has the medical evidence concerning the President's
death been altered out of recognition?
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- ***************
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- Although Oswald is alleged to have shot the President
from behind, there are many witnesses who are confident that the shots
came from the front. Among them are two reporters from the Forth Worth
Star Telegram, four from the Dallas Morning News, and two people who were
standing in front of the book depository building itself, the director
of the book depository and the vice-president of the firm. It appears that
only two people immediately entered the building: the director, Mr. Roy
S. Truly, and a Dallas police officer, Seymour Weitzman. Both thought that
the shots had come from in front of the Presidentís vehicle. On
first running in that direction, Weitzman was informed by
ìsomeoneî
that he thought the shots had come from the building, so he rushed back
there.
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- Truly entered with him in order to assist with his
knowledge
of the building. Mr. Jesse Curry, the Chief of Police in Dallas, has stated
that he was immediately convinced that the shots came from the building.
If anyone else believes this, he has been reluctant to say so to date.
It is also known that the first bulletin to go out on Dallas police radios
stated that ìthe shots came from a triple overpass in front of the
presidential automobile.î In addition, there is the consideration
that after the first shot the vehicle was brought almost to a halt by the
trained Secret Service driver, an unlikely response if the shots had indeed
come from behind. Certainly Mr. Roy Kellerman, who was in charge of the
Secret Service operation in Dallas that day, and travelled in the
presidential
car, looked to the front as the shots were fired. The Secret Service has
had all the evidence removed from the car, so it is no longer possible
to examine it. What is the evidence to substantiate the allegation that
the President was shot from behind?
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- Photographs taken at the scene of the crime could be
most helpful. One young lady standing just to the left of the presidential
car as the shots were fired took photographs of the vehicle just before
and during the shooting, and was thus able to get into her picture the
entire front of the book depository building. Two F.B.I. agents immediately
took the film which she took. Why has the F.B.I. refused to publish what
could be the most reliable piece of evidence in the whole case?
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- In this connection it is noteworthy also that it is
impossible
to obtain the originals of photographs bearing upon the case. When Time
magazine published a photograph of Oswaldís arrestóthe only
one ever seenóthe entire background was blacked out for reasons
which have never been explained. It is difficult to recall an occasion
for so much falsification of photographs as has happened in the Oswald
case.
-
- The affidavit by Police Office Weitzman, who entered
the book depository building, stated that he found the alleged murder rifle
on the sixth floor. (It was first announced that the rifle had been found
on the fifth floor, but this was soon altered.) It was a German 7.65 mm.
Mauser. Late the following day, the F.B.I. issued its first proclamation.
Oswald had purchased in March 1963 an Italian 6.5 mm. Mannlicher-Carcano.
D.A. Wade immediately altered the nationality and size of the weapon to
conform to the F.B.I. statement.
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- Several photographs have been published of the alleged
murder weapon. On February 21, Life magazine carried on its cover a picture
of ìLee Oswald with the weapons he used to kill President Kennedy
and Officer Tippitt [sic].î On page 80, Life explained that the
photograph
was taken during March or April of 1963. According to the F.B.I., Oswald
purchased his pistol in September 1963. The New York Times carried a
picture
of the alleged murder weapon being taken by police into the Dallas police
station. The rifle is quite different. Experts have stated that no rifle
resembling the one in the Life picture has even been manufactured. The
New York Times also carried the same photograph as Life, but left out the
telescopic sights. On March 2, Newsweek used the same photograph but
painted
in an entirely new rifle. Then on April 13 the Latin American edition of
Life carried the same picture on its cover as the U.S. edition had on
February
21, but in the same issue on page 18 it had the same picture with the rifle
altered. How is it that millions of people have been misled by complete
forgeries in the press?
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- The authorities interrogated Oswald for nearly 48 hours
without allowing him to contact a lawyer, despite his repeated requests
to do so. The director of the F.B.I. in Dallas was a man with considerable
experience. American Civil Liberties Union lawyers were in Dallas
requesting
to see Oswald and were not allowed to do so. By interrogating Oswald for
48 hours without access to lawyers, the F.B.I. created conditions which
made a trial of Oswald more difficult. A confession or evidence obtained
from a man held 48 hours in custody is likely to be inadmissible in a U.S.
court of law. The F.B.I. director conducted his interrogation in a manner
which made the use of material secured in such a fashion worthless to him.
This raises the question of whether he expected the trial to take
place.
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- Another falsehood concerning the shooting was a story
circulated by the Associated Press on November 23 from Los Angeles. This
reported Oswald's former superior officer in the Marine Corps as saying
that Oswald was a crack shot and a hot-head. The story was published
widely.
Three hours later AP sent out a correction deleting the entire story from
Los Angeles. The officer had checked his records and it had turned out
that he was talking about another man. He had never known Oswald. To my
knowledge the correction has yet to be published by a single major
publication.
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- The Dallas police took a paraffin test on Oswaldís
face and hands to try to establish that he had fired a weapon on November
22. The Chief of the Dallas Police, Jesse Curry, announced on November
23 that the result of the test ìproves Oswald is the
assassin.î
The Director of the F.B.I. in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in charge of the
investigation stated: ìI have seen the paraffin test. The paraffin
test proves that Oswald had nitrates and gunpowder on his hands and face.
It proves he fired a rifle on November 22.î Not only does this
unreliable
test not prove any such thing, it was later discovered that the test on
Oswaldís face was in fact negative, suggesting that it was unlikely
he fired a rifle that day. Why was the result of the paraffin test altered
before being announced by the authorities?
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- ************
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- Oswald, it will be recalled, was originally arrested
and charged with the murder of Patrolman Tippitt [sic]. Tippitt was killed
at 1:06 p.m. on November 22 by a man who first engaged him in conversation,
then caused him to get out of the stationary police car in which he was
sitting and shot him with a pistol. Miss Helen L. Markham, who states that
she is the sole eye-witness to this crime, gave the Dallas police a
description
of the assailant. After signing her affidavit, she was instructed by the
F.B.I., the Secret Service and many police officers that she was not
permitted
to discuss the case with anyone. The affidavit's only description of the
killer was that he was a 'young white man.' Miss Markham later revealed
that the killer had run right up to her and past her, brandishing the
pistol,
and she repeated the description of the murderer which she had given to
the police. He was, she said, 'short, a little heavy, and had somewhat
bushy hair.' (The police description of Oswald was that he was of average
height, or a little taller, was slim and had receding fair hair.)
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- Miss Markham's affidavit is the entire case against
Oswald
for the murder of Patrolman Tippitt, yet District Attorney Wade asserted:
'We have more evidence to prove Oswald killed Tippit than we have to show
he killed the President.' The case against Oswald for the murder of
Tippitt,
he continued, was an absolutely strong case. Why was the only description
of Tippittís killer deliberately omitted by the police from the
affidavit of the sole eye-witness? Oswald's description was broadcast by
the Dallas police only 12 minutes after the President was shot. This raises
one of the most extraordinary questions ever posed in a murder case: Why
was Oswald's description in connection with the murder of Patrolman Tippitt
broadcast over Dallas police radio at 12:43 p.m. on November 22, when
Tippitt
was not shot until 1:06 p.m.? According to Mr. Bob Considine, writing in
the New York Journal American, there had been another person who had heard
the shots that were fired at Tippitt. Warren Reynolds had heard shooting
in the street from a nearby room and had rushed to the window to see the
murderer run off. Reynolds himself was later shot through the head by a
rifleman. A man was arrested for this crime but produced an alibi. His
girl-friend, Betty Mooney McDonald, told the police she had been with him
at the time Reynolds was shot, according to Mr. Considine. The Dallas
police
immediately dropped the charges, even before Reynolds had time to recover
consciousness, and attempt to identify his assailant.
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- The man at once disappeared, and two days later the
police
arrested Betty Mooney McDonald on a minor charge and it was announced that
she had hanged herself in the police cell. She had been a striptease artist
in Jack Ruby's nightclub, according to Mr. Considine.
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- Another witness to receive extraordinary treatment in
the Oswald case was his wife, Marina. She was taken to the jail while her
husband was still alive and shown a rifle by Chief of Police Jesse Curry.
Asked if it were Oswald's, she replied that she believed Oswald had a rifle
but that it didn't look like that. She and her mother-in-law were in great
danger following the assassination because of the threat of public revenge
on them. At this time they were unable to obtain a single police officer
to protect them. Immediately after Oswald was killed, however, the Secret
service illegally held both women against their will. After three days
they were separated and Marina has never again been accessible to the
public.
Held in custody for nine weeks and questioned almost daily by the F.B.I.
and Secret Service, she finally testified to the Warren Commission and,
according to Earl Warren, said that she believed her husband was the
assassin.
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- The Chief Justice added that the next day they intended
to show Mrs. Oswald the murder weapon and the Commission was fairly
confident
that she would identify it as her husband's. The following day it was
announced
that this had indeed happened. Mrs. Oswald, we are informed, is still in
the custody of the Secret Service. To isolate a witness for nine weeks
and to subject her to repeated questioning by the Secret Service in this
manner is reminiscent of police behavior in other countries, where it is
called brainwashing. The only witness produced to show that Oswald carried
a rifle before the assassination stated that he saw a brown paper parcel
about two feet long in the back seat of Oswaldís car. The rifle
which the police ìproducedî was almost 3 feet long. How was
it possible for Earl Warren to forecast that Marina Oswaldís
evidence
would be exactly the reverse of what she had previously testified?
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- After Ruby had killed Oswald, D.A. Wade made a statement
about Oswaldís movements following the assassination. He explained
that Oswald had taken a bus, but he described the point at which Oswald
had entered the vehicle as seven blocks away from the point located by
the bus driver in his affidavit.
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- Oswald, Wade continued, then took a taxi driven by a
Daryll Click, who had signed an affidavit. An inquiry at the City
Transportation
Company revealed that no such taxi driver had ever existed in Dallas.
Presented
with this evidence, Wade altered the driverís name to William
Whaley.
The driver's log book showed that a man answering Oswaldís
description
had been picked up at 12:30. The President was shot at 12:31. D.A. Wade
made no mention of this. Wade has been D.A. in Dallas for 14 years and
before that was an F.B.I. agent. How does a District Attorney of
Wadeís
great experience account for all the extraordinary changes in evidence
and testimony which he has announced during the Oswald case?
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- These are only a few of the questions raised by the
official
versions of the assassination and by the way in which the entire case
against
Oswald has been conducted. Sixteen questions are no substitute for a full
examination of all the factors in this case, but I hope that they indicate
the importance of such an investigation. I am indebted to Mr. Mark Lane,
the New York criminal lawyer who was appointed counsel for Oswald by his
mother, for much of the information in this article. Mr. Lane's enquiries,
which are continuing, deserve widespread support. A Citizen's Committee
of Inquiry has been established in New York, at Room 422, 156 Fifth Avenue,
New York. N.Y. (telephone YU9-6850) for such a purpose, and comparable
committees are being set up in Europe.
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- In Britain, I invited people eminent in the intellectual
life of the country to join a 'Who Killed Kennedy Committee,' which at
the moment of writing consists of the following people: Mr. John Arden,
playwright; Mrs. Carolyn Wedgwood Benn, from Cincinnati, wife of Anthony
Wedgwood Benn, M.P.; Lord Boyd-Orr, former director-general of the U.N.
Food and Agricultural Organization and a Nobel Peace Prize winner; Mr.
John Calder, publisher; Professor William Empsom, Professor of English
Literature at Sheffield University; Mr. Victor Golancz, publisher; Mr.
Michael Foot, Member of Parliament; Mr. Kingsley Martin, former editor
of the New Statesman; Sir Compton Mackenzie, writer; Mr. J.B. Priestley,
playwright and author; Sir Herbert Read, art critic; Mr. Tony Richardson,
film director; Dr. Mervyn Stockwood, Bishop of Southwark; Professor Hugh
Trevor-Roper, Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford University;
Mr. Kenneth Tynan, Literary Manager of the National Theatre; and
myself.
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- We view the problem with the utmost seriousness. U.S.
Embassies have long ago reported to Washington world-wide disbelief in
the official charges against Oswald, but this has scarcely been reflected
by the American press. No U.S. television program or mass circulation
newspaper
has challenged the permanent basis of all the allegationsóthat
Oswald
was the assassin, and that he acted alone. It is a task which is left to
the American people.
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