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What a Difference a Day Makes!


Jim Marrs

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Wouldn’t any criminal be delighted if he could have complete, secret and unsupervised control over all the evidence in his case for two full days? Wouldn’t the verdict in this criminal trial be a swift “not guilty” if he had the opportunity to “doctor” the evidence?

This is exactly the situation which occurred in the murder of President John F. Kennedy beginning the very night of the assassination. Although the proof of the disappearance and reappearance of the JFK evidence has been lying right in front of researchers since the fateful weekend, no one seems to have perceived the significance of the matter. However, at least one person with access to official federal government documents apparently recognized this significance and took steps to conceal it from the American public.

This issue began the evening of November 22, 1963, when Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry began receiving calls from Washington. As he related to Warren Commission member Allen Dulles (WC Vol. IV, p. 195), "We kept getting calls from the FBI. They wanted this (assassination) evidence up in Washington, in the (FBI) laboratory, and there was some discussion…"

Curry made it clear that “we felt this was a murder that had been committed in the county, city and county (sic) of Dallas, and that we had prior, I mean we had jurisdiction over this. The FBI actually had no jurisdiction over it, the Secret Service actually had no jurisdiction over it…

“(Homicide Capt. Will) Fritz told me, he says, "Well, I need the evidence here, I need to get some people to try to identify the gun, to try to identify this pistol and these things, and if it is in Washington, how can I do it?’"

But someone in Washington was most persistent. “We got several calls insisting we send this (evidence), and nobody would tell me exactly who it was that was insisting, "just say I got a call from Washington, and they wanted this evidence up there,’ insinuated it was someone in high authority that was requesting this, and we finally agreed as a matter of trying to cooperate with them, actually." Consistent rumors in Dallas have long been that the calls were made by Cliff Carter, then President Lyndon B. Johnson’s assistant.

On the basis of this pressure from Washington and against their better judgment, the Dallas police reluctantly released all of the assassination evidence to the FBI.

"…we finally, the night, about midnight of Friday night, we agreed to let the FBI have all (emphasis added) the evidence and they said they would bring it to their laboratory and they would have an agent stand by and when they were finished with it to return it to us,” stated Curry.

However, much of the evidence was never returned to Dallas. Curry told the Warren Commission on April 22, 1964, “Subsequently they photographed these things in Washington and sent us copies, some 400, I think 400 copies of different items. So far as I know, we have never received any of that evidence back. It is still in Washington, I guess. Perhaps the Commission has it.”

“Yes; the Commission is still working with it,” responded Commission General Counsel J. Lee Rankin.

What the Dallas authorities did receive was “very poor reproduction of some of these items on microfilm”, according to Fritz.

One of the items returned to the police was the Oswald rifle which, according to former FBI agent Richard Harrison, was taken to Miller Funeral Home on Monday, Nov. 25, for the purpose of placing Oswald’s dead hand on the weapon for “comparison purposes.” Funeral Director Paul Groody confirmed that FBI agents “fingerprinted” Oswald’s corpse and that he had to rush to get the black ink off the body’s hand before burial. (Jim Marrs, Crossfire, Carroll & Graf, 1989, p. 444.)

There is no doubt that the FBI received the assassination evidence late on the night of the crime. A document signed by J. Edgar Hoover himself stating that “No latent (finger) prints of value were developed on Oswald’s revolver, the cartridge cases, the unfired cartridge, the clip in the rifle or the inner parts of the rifle,” was dated November 23, 1963.

Yet the journey of this vital evidence apparently was unofficial and was never made clear to the public. The first official word on the transfer of assassination evidence came on Tuesday, Nov. 26, when both Dallas newspapers carried stories announcing that the evidence was to be turned over to federal authorities.

“The Dallas Police Department Tuesday prepared to turn over all evidence in the assassination case against Lee Harvey Oswald to the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” stated the Dallas Times Herald. “FBI agents Tuesday took control of all evidence gathered by Dallas police against accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on an agreement between Police Chief Jesse E. Curry and Dist. Atty. Henry Wade,” announced The Dallas Morning News.

The News went on to explain, “Curry went before reporters at noon Tuesday to make the announcement. The disclosure came after Curry held several morning conferences with top aides. The transfer of evidence from city police to federal control was completed four hours later.”

So now the FBI was officially on the case and officially in charge of the evidence. But what could have happened during the two days while the evidence was unofficially in their hands. Fabrication, substitution, elimination, alteration - anything could have been done to the evidence, with no effective “chain” of responsibility. Unlike 1963, today the FBI has come under suspicion of poor management of evidence at best and downright falsification of evidence at worst. Under Hoover’s iron control, it was have been an easy matter for certain ranking Bureau officials to do with the evidence whatever they pleased.

And evidence exists for just such speculation. For example, FBI document Dallas 89-43 dated Nov. 29, 1963, and first publicly released in 1968, stated brown wrapping paper in the Texas School Book Depository “was examined by the FBI Laboratory and found to have the same observable characteristics as the brown paper bag shaped like a gun case which was found near the scene of the shooting on the sixth floor…” This was incriminating evidence against Oswald, as he worked in the building and had access to the wrapping paper. However, in 1980, another document labeled Dallas 89-43 and dated Nov. 29, 1963, was found in the National Archives which was identical to the 1968 version except it stated the wrapping paper “was examined by the FBI Laboratory and found not to be identical with the paper gun case found at the scene of the shooting.”

Other such discrepancies have been brought forward, including the intimidation of witnesses by federal authorities, which prove to any objective researcher that severe questions remain concerning the validity of the government’s evidence in the assassination.

The fact that federal authorities had all the assassination evidence under covert control for two days could go far in explaining the contradictions and questionable conclusions of the official investigation. Apparently at least one person understood the gravity of this issue as there was an attempt to obscure it in the Warren Commission materials.

In 1992, the “confidential” deposition of FBI fingerprint expert James C. Cadigan was made public by the National Archives. In his April 30, 1964, testimony to Warren Commission attorney Melvin A. Eisenberg, the following exchange took place during routine questioning regarding fingerprint matters:

Mr. Eisenberg. Do you know why (Exhibit) 820 was not reprocessed or desilvered?

Mr. Cadigan. I could only speculate.

Mr. Eisenberg. Yes?

Mr. Cadigan. It may be that there was a very large volume of evidence being examined at the time. Time was of the essence, and this material, I believe, was returned to the Dallas Police within two or three days, and it was merely in my opinion a question of time. We have (sic) a very large volume of evidence. There was insufficient time to desilver it. And I think in many instances where latent fingerprints are developed they do not desilver it.

Mr. Eisenberg. Can you explain why the signature, “Lee H. Oswald” or “L.H. Oswald is apparent while the signature “A.J. Hidell” is not?

Mr. Cadigan. Different inks.

During this otherwise unremarkable questioning, Cadigan had inadvertently let the cat out of the bag. He had declared to one and all that the FBI had a “large volume” of assassination evidence some of which was then returned to the Dallas police. Later in his deposition, Cadigan made it absolutely clear when this evidence was being handled:

Mr. Cadigan. Initially the first big batch of evidence was brought into the laboratory on November 23rd of 1963 and this consisted of many, many items.

Mr. Eisenberg. `63?

Mr. Cadigan. November 23, 1963. It was a very large quantity of evidence that was brought in. There were several agent examiners available to evaluate this material. There were supervisory officials, there were representatives from our Internal Security Division, all of whom had an interest in this matter, and it was decided they wanted certain items treated for latent fingerprints. (WC Vol. VII, p. 435.)

So a virtual posse of FBI agents and officials swarmed over the assassination evidence all day Saturday and Sunday. Obviously this unpublicized and unmonitored access to all the evidence might caused a suspicious mind to question the validity of the evidence later used to establish Oswald’s guilt.

It is doubly suspicious that in Cadigan’s original deposition some unknown person scratched out his statement about being rushed to return the evidence to Dallas and scribbled “delete” in the margin. This same person marked out Cadigan’s statement that “I could only speculate” and wrote in “No, this is a latent fingerprint matter.”

Sure enough, in the version published by the Warren Commission, we read:

Mr. Eisenberg. Do you know why Exhibit 820 was not reprocessed or desilvered?

Mr. Cadigan. No, this is a latent fingerprint matter.

Mr. Eisenberg. Can you explain why the signature, “Lee H. Oswald” or rather “L.H. Oswald” is apparent, while the signature “A.J. Hidell” is not?

Mr. Cadigan. Different inks. (WC Vol. VII, p. 434.)

Why did someone commit a crime by illegally altering an official government deposition and why did the Warren Commission print an altered version of Cadigan’s statement. Were they unaware of the alteration? Or did someone recognize the significance of the assassination evidence being in the hands of the FBI with no publicity or accountability for two days?

Perhaps a study of the stenographic notes and tapes might reveal other alterations to the testimony of Cadigan and others. But don’t count on it. According to a notice on the cover sheet of Cadigan’s deposition, “Stenotype Tape, Master Sheets, Carbon and Waste turned over to Commission for destruction.”

While the assassination evidence is often ambiguous and contradictory and will certainly be in controversy for years to come, the handling of the evidence clearly points to manipulation and obfuscation at the highest levels of federal authority, a clear view of who was responsible for at least the demonstrable cover-up, if not the assassination itself.

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Why did someone commit a crime by illegally altering an official government deposition and why did the Warren Commission print an altered version of Cadigan’s statement. Were they unaware of the alteration? Or did someone recognize the significance of the assassination evidence being in the hands of the FBI with no publicity or accountability for two days?

In his book Harvey and Lee, John Armstrong claims that the evidence was secretly returned to Dallas on November 26, so that it could then be officially turned over to the FBI the same day, and taken again to Washington.

I say "claimed" because Armstrong cites no source, he simply states this as fact. But such a secret return is one possible explanation for the alteration in Cadigan's testimony. Cadigan described a rush to get the evidence returned to Dallas. Perhaps that was a secret return that he therefore shouldn't have mentioned.

Armstrong also states that in Cadigan's published WC testimony, "references to November 23 had been deleted." That is obviously not true, as Cadigan's published testimony makes clear that the evidence was turned over to the FBI on that specific date. All that was deleted was his reference to being in a rush to get the evidence returned to Dallas.

As discussed in the link below, WC assistant counsel Leon D. Hubert complained in a memo about the practice of editing the transcripts of depositions, with the deletion in Cadigan's testimony being one example. I suspect it was the FBI, and not the WC, that was doing this editing, with folks like Hubert unable to do anything about it.

http://jfkresearch.freehomepage.com/FBI_Sw...he_Evidence.htm

Ron

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But someone in Washington was most persistent. “We got several calls insisting we send this (evidence), and nobody would tell me exactly who it was that was insisting, "just say I got a call from Washington, and they wanted this evidence up there,’ insinuated it was someone in high authority that was requesting this, and we finally agreed as a matter of trying to cooperate with them, actually." Consistent rumors in Dallas have long been that the calls were made by Cliff Carter, then President Lyndon B. Johnson’s assistant.

Was there a link between this point and the claim that the assassination was part of an international conspiracy?

When interviewed by the Warren Commission on 8th June, 1964, Waggoner Carr, Texas State Attorney, claimed the following (1):

As I recall, it was around 8 or 9 o'clock at night on November 22, 1963, when I received a long-distance telephone call from Washington from someone in the White House. I can't for the life of me remember who it was. A rumor had been heard here that there was going to be an allegation in the indictment against Oswald connecting the assassination with an international conspiracy, and the inquiry was made whether I had any knowledge of it, and I told him I had no knowledge of it. As a matter of fact, I hadn't been in Dallas since the assassination and was not there at the time of the assassination. So the request was made of me to contact Mr. Wade to find out if that allegation was in the indictment. I received the definite impression that the concern of the caller was that because of the emotion or the high tension that existed at that time that someone might thoughtlessly place in the indictment such an allegation without having the proof of such a conspiracy. So I did call Mr. Wade from my home, when I received the call, and he told me very much what he repeated to you today, as I recall, that he had no knowledge of anyone desiring to have that or planning to have that in the indictment…

When Henry Ward, Dallas District Attorney, was asked about this by Allen Dulles he replied (2):

I talked to Jim Bowie, my first assistant who had talked to, somebody had called him, my phone had been busy and Barefoot Sanders, I talked to him, and he they all told that they were concerned about their having received calls from Washington and somewhere else, and I told them that there wasn't any such crime in Texas, I didn't know where it came from, and that is what prompted me to go down and take the complaint, otherwise I never would have gone down to the police station.

J. Lee Rankin: Did you say anything about whether you had evidence to support such a complaint of a conspiracy?

Mr. Wade: Mr. Rankin, I don't know what evidence we have, we had at that time and actually don't know yet what all the evidence was I never did see, I was told they had a lot of Fair Play for Cuba propaganda or correspondence on Oswald, and letters from the Communist Party, and it was probably exaggerated to me. was told this. I have never seen any of that personally. Never saw any of it that night. But whether he was a Communist or whether he wasn't, had nothing to do with solving the problem at hand, the filing of the charge.

In his book, Someone Would Have Talked, Larry Hancock argues that Cliff Carter phoned Henry Wade three times that Friday night (3). According to Wade, Carter said that “any word of a conspiracy – some plot by foreign nations – to kill President Kennedy would shake our nation to its foundation. President Johnson was worried about some conspiracy on the part of the Russians… it would hurt foreign relations if I alleged a conspiracy – whether I could prove it or not… I was to charge Oswald with plain murder.”

This is not surprising as Hoover also believed that there was a communist conspiracy at this time. This is illustrated by the phone calls that took place between Hoover and Johnson on 23rd and 29th November, 1963 (4) (5).

It was also Waggoner Carr who claimed that Lee Harvey Oswald was working as an undercover agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was receiving $200 a month from September 1962 until his death in November, 1963.

Notes

(1) Waggoner Carr, Warren Commission (8th June, 1964)

(2) Henry Wade, Warren Commission (8th June, 1964)

(3) Larry Hancock, Someone Would Have Talked, (2003) page 258

(1) Taped telephone conversation between J. Edgar Hoover and Lyndon Baines Johnson (10.01 on 23rd November, 1963).

(2) Taped telephone conversation between J. Edgar Hoover and Lyndon Baines Johnson (1.40 pm on 29th November, 1963).

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Why did someone commit a crime by illegally altering an official government deposition and why did the Warren Commission print an altered version of Cadigan’s statement. Were they unaware of the alteration? Or did someone recognize the significance of the assassination evidence being in the hands of the FBI with no publicity or accountability for two days?

In his book Harvey and Lee, John Armstrong claims that the evidence was secretly returned to Dallas on November 26, so that it could then be officially turned over to the FBI the same day, and taken again to Washington.

I say "claimed" because Armstrong cites no source, he simply states this as fact. But such a secret return is one possible explanation for the alteration in Cadigan's testimony. Cadigan described a rush to get the evidence returned to Dallas. Perhaps that was a secret return that he therefore shouldn't have mentioned.

Armstrong also states that in Cadigan's published WC testimony, "references to November 23 had been deleted." That is obviously not true, as Cadigan's published testimony makes clear that the evidence was turned over to the FBI on that specific date. All that was deleted was his reference to being in a rush to get the evidence returned to Dallas.

As discussed in the link below, WC assistant counsel Leon D. Hubert complained in a memo about the practice of editing the transcripts of depositions, with the deletion in Cadigan's testimony being one example. I suspect it was the FBI, and not the WC, that was doing this editing, with folks like Hubert unable to do anything about it.

http://jfkresearch.freehomepage.com/FBI_Sw...he_Evidence.htm

Ron

Ron... you are mistaken about Harvey & Lee not covering the sending of the evidence to Washington. Having proofread John's book three times before publication, I distinctly remember his detailed comparison of the lists of DPD evidence and the FBI list of returned evidence (John has both on microfilm, and

he examined all the records at the National Archives.). He also quotes Curry on the sending of the evidence, as I recall.

Don't ask me to quote page numbers...the book is about 1000 pages, and I do not have time to look it up. But I know he covered this, both with documents and research. I do not know how it is listed in the index. Try DPD, FBI, Curry, etc.

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Jack,

As you know, Harvey and Lee is a massive tome. (You proofread it three times? Cowabonga!) I haven't yet gotten past the Introduction. Here is what Armstrong says in the Introduction (pp. 2-3), with no footnotes or other source references with respect to this passage:

"Chief Curry turned the physical evidence over to the FBI and it was immediately taken to FBI headquarters in Washington, DC. FBI Agent James Cadigan told the Warren Commission about receiving the evidence (Oswald's personal possessions) on November 23rd . . . On November 26 the FBI secretly returned the physical evidence (Oswald's possessions) to the Dallas Police where it was 'officially' inventoried and photographed. When the Dallas Police received the evidence they were unaware that many of the items had been altered, fabricated, and/or destroyed. President Johnson soon announced the FBI was in charge of the investigation and, a short time later, Bureau agents arrived at Dallas Police headquarters.

"As television cameras recorded the historic event FBI agents collected the evidence, loaded it into a car, and drove away. The public was unaware that the FBI had secretly returned the same 'evidence' to the Dallas Police earlier that morning."

Per your suggestion that I check the index on this subject, I looked up "Cadigan," and found that Armstrong again discusses a secret return of evidence from Washington to Dallas on November 26: "On November 26 the 'hundreds of items' were returned to DPD headquarters so that an inventory could be created to show a 'chain of possession' from the DPD to the FBI" (p. 909). But again Armstrong cites no source for this. He cites only a source for the inventory that was created on November 26 and jointly initialed by FBI and DPD personnel (WC Exhibit 2003, pp. 263-288, Volume 24, pp. 332-344).

It can be logically argued that if evidence was turned over to the FBI on November 23, and again on November 26, there must have been a return of evidence sometime in between, if we're talking about the same items of evidence. I don't know that we are (I haven't gone that deeply into this), nor am I saying there was no such secret return, since it may help explain things, specifically Cadigan's deleted reference to a rush to return things. I'm just saying (based admittedly only on my reading of the Introduction and a subsequent passage near the end of the book) that Armstrong states there was such a secret return without documenting how he knows this secret.

Ron

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Jack,

As you know, Harvey and Lee is a massive tome. (You proofread it three times? Cowabonga!) I haven't yet gotten past the Introduction. Here is what Armstrong says in the Introduction (pp. 2-3), with no footnotes or other source references with respect to this passage:

"Chief Curry turned the physical evidence over to the FBI and it was immediately taken to FBI headquarters in Washington, DC. FBI Agent James Cadigan told the Warren Commission about receiving the evidence (Oswald's personal possessions) on November 23rd . . . On November 26 the FBI secretly returned the physical evidence (Oswald's possessions) to the Dallas Police where it was 'officially' inventoried and photographed. When the Dallas Police received the evidence they were unaware that many of the items had been altered, fabricated, and/or destroyed. President Johnson soon announced the FBI was in charge of the investigation and, a short time later, Bureau agents arrived at Dallas Police headquarters.

"As television cameras recorded the historic event FBI agents collected the evidence, loaded it into a car, and drove away. The public was unaware that the FBI had secretly returned the same 'evidence' to the Dallas Police earlier that morning."

Per your suggestion that I check the index on this subject, I looked up "Cadigan," and found that Armstrong again discusses a secret return of evidence from Washington to Dallas on November 26: "On November 26 the 'hundreds of items' were returned to DPD headquarters so that an inventory could be created to show a 'chain of possession' from the DPD to the FBI" (p. 909). But again Armstrong cites no source for this. He cites only a source for the inventory that was created on November 26 and jointly initialed by FBI and DPD personnel (WC Exhibit 2003, pp. 263-288, Volume 24, pp. 332-344).

It can be logically argued that if evidence was turned over to the FBI on November 23, and again on November 26, there must have been a return of evidence sometime in between, if we're talking about the same items of evidence. I don't know that we are (I haven't gone that deeply into this), nor am I saying there was no such secret return, since it may help explain things, specifically Cadigan's deleted reference to a rush to return things. I'm just saying (based admittedly only on my reading of the Introduction and a subsequent passage near the end of the book) that Armstrong states there was such a secret return without documenting how he knows this secret.

Ron

Perhaps you are correct that John did not properly footnote this topic. Remember, it took him 12 years to research and write this book... and he is just an amateur. Specifically to research THIS ONE SUBJECT, he purchased a MICROFILM READER (now stored at my house) to view the DPD reel of evidence and FBI reel of evidence and make detailed comparisons. Perhaps he should have said this in a footnote. Additionally he travelled to the Archives and LOOKED AT EVERY PIECE OF EVIDENCE. He determined that original DPD evidence was initialed in pencil on the back of each piece with a known Dallas policeman initials. He concluded that evidence NOT INTIALED had been substituted by the FBI. Perhaps he should have provided a list of the ADDED EVIDENCE.

I will relay your concern to John, and maybe he can add a footnote IF there is a second printing in the future. It is probably something that he was SO FAMILIAR WITH that he forgot to footnote it.

The return of the evidence was no secret. Marrs and others have written about it. In fact, TV footage of the sending of the evidence which John writes about has been known for years. The newsreel shows it being loaded in the basement of the Dallas jail. Very obvious in the TV footage is the MC rifle in a wooden crate. But it should have been footnoted.

I hope this answers your question.

Jack

Cowabunga...you must be a fan of Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob!

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John,

Was their a link between this point and the claim that the assassination was part of an international conspiracy?

I read in a book somewhere (it may have been Larry Sneed's No More Silence) that Assistant DA William Alexander bragged that he was the one who drew up the International Communist Conspiracy angle because he was tired of hearing the right wing get blamed for JFK's assassination.

In essence, he said, "Yeah, I did it, and I'm proud of it."

Steve Thomas

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