Did Specter badger a witness with a made-up report?

[Pat Speer]

I found the Secret Service report on Tomlinson. It's on the NARA website. Specter wasn't bluffing. The report was by Roger Warner, from 12-5. As the report only describes one stretcher in the corridor, it seems possible Warner was confused by what Tomlinson was telling him. Or perhaps not. Perhaps this was done deliberately.

In any event, it's intriguing that within the Warren Commission's files regarding key persons there are investigative reports not included in the 26 volumes and not included in the 1000 plus commission documents available on the Mary Ferrell website. One wonders how many other little-read and rarely-cited reports are in these files.

[Malcolm Ward]

Well done Pat,I could not find it,although I probably only tried for a couple of hours due to family commitments.Still,I doubt if I would have found it.So you did very well.

[Pat Speer]

I'm not sure when--I believe it was within the last two years--but I discovered awhile back that someone at NARA had actually scanned some of the WC's records and made them available on their website. Most significantly, IMO, the records they chose to make available were not the Commission Documents long used by researchers, and available on the Mary Ferrell site, but the Warren Commission's Records Relating to Key Persons, IOW, the files used by the commission's staff while preparing for testimony or while investigating specific areas of inquiry, etc. The vast majority of these records are repeats of records in other files. The reports of the Parkland staff, for example, might be found in the files of three or more of the doctors, and a file on Connally. Some files, for that matter, were used as catch-all files, whereby a file on one doctor or witness might include the depositions and reports of a number of others. I'd glimpsed at a number of these files within the last year. I knew that within these files there were some letters regarding testimony, etc, that were previously unavailable. (Most of these, I suspect, are now available on Howard Willens' website). I didn't realize until yesterday, however, that there might be investigative reports within these files, that had not been published by the commission, or placed within the Commission Documents files.

And so...as time allows, I'm gonna speed through as many of these files as I can, to try to find some other lost gems. Most of the documents have a notation on them "CR 87" or "Commission Document 3" or some such thing, indicating where this document is contained within the Commission Documents. The 12-5 Secret Service report on Tomlinson has no such notation. It seems apparent, then, that if we speed through these files with an eye out for documents without such a notation, there's a good chance this document will be something largely (or perhaps entirely) unknown to the research community.

The truth is out there....er...in there...er, out there/in there.

P.S. I've decided to put the hard-to-find NARA files with previously unstudied reports I come across on my website, on a page called Hard to Find Stuff. The Tomlinson file can be found here: https://sites.google.com/a/patspeer.com/www2/tomlinson_darrell_c.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1

Edited October 23, 2014 by Pat Speer

[Gary Murr]

Hello Pat:

Curiously enough I had a discussion regarding these very points with Martha Murphy-Wagner a few years ago during one of my research trips to NARA. At that point in time I was trying to indicate to her that it was apparent to me, as a result of extensive searches I had conducted at Harold Weisberg's home, that he possessed documents acquired as a result of his lawsuit against the Federal Government that were not then present at NARA [and as visits since that time have confirmed are still not there]. I was further aware that Harold possessed copies of SS files, again acquired as a result of FOIA suits, that were not then, nor are now, resident at NARA. As the ARRB were to discover some SS materials relating to the assassination were periodically "destroyed" but my argument was that copies of the original CO-2 reports had to be preserved somewhere, yes? In particular I was interested in reports filed out of the Boston Field Office of the SS, reports issued as a result of actions undertaken by the ATF branch that included files I was pursuing relevant to the ammunition alleged to have been utilized in Dallas - 6.5mm manufactured by the Western Cartridge Company. I remain convinced that there is still valuable documentation "missing" from the NARA II repository. Like you I am also attempting to wade through the documents posted by Howard Willens, documentation which I am comparing to theoretically matching documents that exist in the J. Lee Rankin files. Unfortunately I did not copy all 70,000 pages of the Rankin documents - I believe I have roughly 10,000 - 15,000 pages altogether - but it is enough of a sampling to give me a look at what may be going on here. And one final word on the Weisberg collection online via Hood College. To me one of its most valuable assets are the files of the Dallas FBI Field Office that Harold acquired. And again because I have read and used these files extensively, there is documentation in here, in particular exchanges between the Dallas FO and FBI HQ in Washington that is useful from an evidentiary point of view - and again may or may not be present at NARA II.

Gary Murr

[Pat Speer]

I found another document in a Key Persons file that is little-known. It is a memo by Burt Griffin on an interview of L.D. Montgomery, in which Montgomery, the supposed discoverer of a brown paper bag in the sniper's nest, is reported to have told Griffin he found it on top of the box.

Well, this makes even less sense than his finding it on the floor, as in the "official" story.

https://sites.google.com/a/patspeer.com/www2/montgomery_l_d.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1

[Larry Hancock]

It also doesn't do to much good for the "official" version in the report itself including the nice little photo with dotted lines showing it on the floor....no bag you understand because the crime scene photos were just not totally comprehensive....but dotted lines added to fully document where it was found - except of course according to what Pat just found, that would be incorrect according to the officer who actually found it.....