Duke Lane

Found an interesting story in Donald Freed´s book, Death in Washington. He claims that Jimmy Carter told Andrew Young that he was convinced that there had been a conspiracy to kill JFK and Martin Luther King. He said that when he became president he was going to appoint Ted Sorenson as Director of the CIA and that he was going to carry out a full investigation into the two deaths. However, the Senate refused to accept Sorenson and he was forced to nominate Stansfield Turner instead. He did what he could but was given the runaround by the CIA´s top officials.

For what it's worth:

In 1977 Jimmy Carter nominated him as Director of Central Intelligence, but the nomination was sunk by Senators bearing grudges from earlier years; and by senators who believed that Sorensen would reform the CIA, something not viewed favorably by many; that Sorensen was a pacifist and unequipped to handle the responsibilities of the position; that he did not have the necessary foreign policy experience; and that Sorensen had acted inappropriately in using some sensitive White House files in drafting his book, Kennedy. Despite the fact that these fears were unfounded or exaggerated, Sorensen's nomination was foiled, in part because President Carter refused to support his nominee, and Sorensen withdrew, knowing that his appointment would be rejected.

Oy! I'll keep my comments short:

The following was an article that was published in the May 1999 Issue of the Fourth Decade.

The Glaze Letters

William Weston

May 1999

Among the boxes forming the sniper's nest were four that had twenty-eight identifiable prints. Traceable to Oswald were two palmprints and one fingerprint. Twenty-four prints were made by two law enforcement officials, but one palmprint could not be identified. The unmatched print might mean an accomplice. Or maybe someone was innocently moving boxes from one place to another. [1] To settle the matter, the FBI needed a set of prints from everyone employed at the Texas School Book Depository - a total of sixty-nine people. It was a simple procedure, quick and easy, and no one should have had any complaints about disruptions or delays. Notwithstanding, the agency ran smack into an unexpected wall of resistance. In a letter to the Warren Commission, J. Edgar Hoover tried to explain why the Bureau failed to do its job.

Mr. Roy S. Truly, Warehouse Superintendent, who has been very cooperative with this Bureau in the past, strongly objected to the printing of all employees as he felt it would seriously handicap the work of his firm. Mr. Truly stated there are about twenty employees who would have had occasion to handle the cartons in question and he desired the printing to be limited to this group. [2]

As a result of these objections, the FBI was forced to modify its demand according to the limitation imposed. How could this happen? How could a mere warehouse manager dictate to a law enforcement agency as powerful as the FBI what it could, or could not do, in the investigation of a crime as serious as the assassination of the President? Were Hoover's agents always so timid with people who refused to cooperate?

Since the FBI had a habit of looking only where told to and discovering only those things that were acceptable to The Director, and since the only TSBD employee under any sort of suspicion was the late short-timer, Lee Oswald, I can see how they would have so quickly acquiesced to Truly's "demand." After all, it was less work for them ... and to what end anyway?

One indicator of this is that not all TSBD building personnel were TSBD company personnel, Truly had no real "say" over what the folks at, say, Scott Foresman did or didn't do with respect to fingerprinting; that would have been left to the supervisor of each company that leased space within the building.

Too, you will recall from my earlier missive that of the 69 people who worked in the building, 47 of them were women (not high on the suspect list) and 23 of them were men, one of whom was dead at that point. So in effect, Truly asked the FBI to exclude two men. Should I guess that they were perhaps himself and TSBD VP O.V. Campbell?

Suddenly, Truly's (and TSBD's) "clout" become less significant, doesn't it.

Why then should the FBI meekly tolerate a slap in the face from someone at the Book Depository? Did the warehouse manager have some clout that even Hoover had to respect? If so, it is difficult to understand where this clout came from. The innocence of anyone working in that particular building was far from certain in the eyes of suspicious investigators.

QED. Incidentally, what investigators were "suspicious" of anyone other than a man already dead?

In any reconstruction of what was happening with the stairs and elevators, it is obvious that Shelley and Lovelady must have seen the escape of one of the assassins. About a minute or two after Truly and Baker went up the stairs, a witness on the street saw a man in a dark sportcoat running out the back door. This man was no doubt the same one seen at a fifth floor window standing next to a man armed with a rifle. After the shooting ended, the man in the dark sportcoat took an elevator down to the ground floor, while at the same time Truly and Baker were going up the stairs. As the culprit headed for the back door, he would have had to pass Shelley and Lovelady in order to exit the building. [15]

Maybe it was still "obvious" back in 1999, but it isn't anymore. At the very least it is not proven.

Not long after Oswald left the scene, Shelley told Truly that Oswald was missing. (How he came to this conclusion was never publicly disclosed.) A roll call of warehouse employees was made, and it was determined that Oswald was indeed absent. Truly notified Police Captain Will Fritz, who immediately thought that it was "important to hold that man." [19]

The above noted actions seem to indicate that Shelley was very close to the conspiracy, if not actually participating in it.

First, "only" Oswald was missing. Then, researchers thought it "odd" that Givens wasn't noted as "missing" as well. Now we know that Jack Cason was not there, either, and never apparently remarked upon.

Assuming that the police really had arrested [shelley] and charged him with the assassination, they certainly would have had ample cause. For one thing, they would have known that Shelley was in charge of a work crew that spent the entire morning on the same floor where the sniper's nest, rifle, and empty cartridges were found. Secondly, the accused assassin had named Shelley as the one who told him he could leave. Thirdly, the police knew about the Nash Rambler story as early as 5:00 in the afternoon, when Roger Craig reported it to them. Finally, Shelley might not have been entirely candid in how he came to realize that Oswald was missing. No doubt Shelley was asked a lot of questions, and it is possible that he was kept in custody until he gave some satisfactory answers. Admittedly, there is no record of Shelley being arrested, but that does not necessarily mean Glaze was wrong. Missing evidence could just as easily be due to the systematic destruction of anything contrary to the official version.

How does the Rambler provide "ample cause" for Shelley's supposed detainment? Oswald did not say that Shelley told him to leave, only (and then we "know" this only by hearsay) that he'd talked with him outside, and that Oswald himself had thought there'd be no more work that day, so left (we've since seen that he was not the only one who did ... tho' the rest were women).

We all know what happens when you ASS-U-ME. An assumption based upon a story told by someone who got it from a woman who "abruptly disappeared" immediately before his own notes did, that nobody vouches for working with them ... and then not finding arrest records and saying they could be "missing ... just as easily" due to destruction as the more likely fact that they never existed in the first place?!? How far can one stretch to reach a "fact" anyway?

... According to statements made to the police and to the Warren Commission, Shelley was born in Gunter, Texas in 1925. During World War Two, he worked "a little bit" in defense plants. On October 29, 1945 at the age of nineteen or twenty he began working for the Book Depository. Eighteen years later, in 1963, he was holding the position of assistant manager of the "miscellaneous department." ... Even if we can assume that he really had been an intelligence officer during World War Two, it does not seem possible that he could have joined the CIA afterwards. The agency did not even come into existence until two years after Shelley got his job at the Book Depository.

Oops, I asked too soon! Some of us can reach far! Why should we "assume" that Shelley was an "intelligence officer during World War Two" when in 1945, "at the age of nineteen or twenty he began working for the Book Depository?" We would then have to assume that he became an "intelligence officer" at the ripe young age of ... what? 15? 16? Maybe 17 so he at least got to see some service?

It would thus appear that we have an irreconcilable situation; Shelley could not have been in the CIA before his employment at the Book Depository. Yet I believe that a seemingly irresolvable problem might on closer examination yield a solution that brings a deeper understanding of the truth. Let us take a different approach. Let us suppose that the job at the Book Depository was concurrent with a career in the CIA. If we can assume that is true, then the Book Depository itself must have been a front for CIA activities.]

The "irreconciliable situation" is how the heck did Shelley get to be CIA or an "intelligence officer" before he was barely old enough to have graduated high school?!? A "prodigy" perhaps? That explains him working in a freakin' warehouse for 30 years then!

We don't "reach," we leap! We cannot "assume that is true." That's irreconciliable too, even as an assumption.

If CIA operators had been working inside the building in which the Book Depository was located, they would have not been on unfriendly ground. The property itself was owned by a wealthy, right-wing Texas oilman named D. H. Byrd. He was also a colonel in the Civil Air Patrol, which included among its members Lee Harvey Oswald and David Ferrie. That Ferrie and Oswald knew each other was proven in a 1993 Frontline special on Oswald, in which former cadets Tony Atzenhoffer and Johnny Ciravola displayed a picture showing Ferrie and Oswald at a cadet campout near New Orleans. What is not so well known is that the two men also knew Colonel Byrd. Atzenhoffer told this author that Byrd was the "head honcho" of the Civil Air Patrol in Louisiana and Texas, and that he came to Moissant Airport to give speeches on special occasions, such as orientation sessions for new cadets. [21] Since there is no question that CAP members Ferrie and Oswald were associated with the CIA, it would only be logical to assume that their commander was too.

This is almost too astounding to comment on. Clearly you know nothing of Byrd or the CAP or any of its protocols, least among which is the "orientation sessions for new cadets," something that would rarely if ever include a visit from the Regional Commander or National Board Member, which Byrd was at the time of LHO's membership in the organization, and certainly nothing so important as to require his even being informed of, much less his attendance at. That Oswald and Ferrie may well have know of Byrd is not so surprising, but to assume (there's that word again!) that Byrd therefore knew them too ...?!?

Amazing. Simply amazing.

SO YOU PREFER TO DISBELIEVE 59 WITNESSES WITHOUT READING WHAT THEY SAID?

Incredible!

Jack

I'll have to look it up if I have time, but I think there were 59 persons who testified that the limo came to a stop. Typical is Hugh Betzner, who said "I WALKED DOWN TOWARD WHERE THE LIMO HAD STOPPED".

...I just looked it up. It is a Vince Palamara article in MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, 119-128.

Were all 59 mistaken? I suggest that you read Palamara's list before continuing.

Jack

Many thanks to Bernice Moore for taking the time to type in all of the quotes of the 59 witnesses in the "Delay on Elm Street" article in Murder in Dealey Plaza. I've glanced at samples of what is in MIDP and find these are faithful reproductions. I've added ellipses to some of the longer quotes, and underlined what the witnesses said about the limousine and/or motorcade for my analysis below. Some of the ellipses and comments are in the original (or may be Bernice's?).

I'm going to retract my statement that "the 59 witnesses are wrong" and say that it is merely one writer and "authority" on this issue who was mistken. (Jack, I'll trade you the phone number of your crack dealer for my remedial reading instructor's!)

I've gone through the quotes referenced and rearranged them as summarized here and quoted in full below. I've kept their "witness number" with their names so anyone can review what is said here with the book (which you have one, if you're clearly a "real researcher!").

This is what they said:

Said the limousine stopped - 14, two of whom reported it as others' observations, not as their own (net: 12)

Said the limousine slowed - 18, two of whom reported it as others' observations, not as their own (net: 15)

Said the motorcade stopped or slowed - 13.

Said the limousine sped up after the shots - seven

Did not specify according to above - seven

That's a total of 59, less the four who merely reported on other people's observations, for a net total of 55. This, as we will see, is not "59 witnesses who say the limousine stopped" as Jack White posited, but rather 12 who did (plus two who said other people said that it did ... and those other people may already be quoted ...?), or less than 25% of the people who offered a direct opinion (12/55=21.81%).

(I am taking everyone in sum total, that is, not accounting for whether it was said "on the record" - i.e., under oath - or in an informal setting, or whether it was said contemporaneously or several years after the fact.)

Note that some of these people may have said more than one thing, for example that the limo stopped, then accelerated after the shooting. In that case, they are listed under "limo stopped," and not under "limo sped up." If they only said that the limo sped up, or that it was already going slow and sped up, they are under "sped up." If they were unsure - e.g., "looked like it slowed down or stopped," this is not a positive statement as to stopping, so it is under "slowed down." Ditto, "paused" is not clear that it "stopped."

If they stated that the motorcade stopped, they are listed under the "motorcade" section because they did not specifically mention the limo or "the President's car" or anything like that, merely the "parade." (For example, one witness, L.P. Terry (#36), said "the parade stopped in front of the building." Since we know that the limo did not stop "in front of the building," it is a clear reference to the follow-up cars and busses, i.e., the rest of the parade and not the limo specifically.)

If they contradicted themselves (e.g., said one thing in 1963 and another in 1975), they are categorized under what they said earliest.

I may edit this somewhat based upon where someone was at the time, for example a motorcycle cop who was maybe still on Main Street could not have personally observed the limo do much of anything. I have added locations when known.

I don't think that anyone has disputed that the limousine slowed down and that the brake lights came on. The question is whether it stopped and, consequently, the Z-film has been faked. Well, we now know that 59 witnesses did not say the limo stopped, and out of them only 13 might actually have made this observation personally, or less than 25%. (Some of them really didn't say anything at all in this respect.)

If anyone thinks that, based upon what's in MIDP, my evaluation of their statements should change - i.e., what category they're in - let me know and maybe I will.

Said the limousine stopped (personal observation):

4) DPD motorcycle officer James W. Courson (one of two mid-motorcade motorcycles) — "The limousine came to a stop and Mrs. Kennedy was on the back. I noticed that as I came around the corner at Elm. Then the Secret Service agent [Clint Hill] helped push her back into the car, and the motorcade took off at a high rate of speed." ["No More Silence" by Larry Sneed (1998), p. 129];

6) Clemon Earl Johnson---"You could see it [the limo] speed up and then stop, then speed up, and you could see it stop while they [sic; Clint Hill] threw Mrs. Kennedy back up in the car. Then they just left out of there like a bat of the eye and were just gone." ["No More Silence" by Larry Sneed (1998), p. 80];

10) DPD Earle Brown — The first I noticed the [JFK's] car was when it stopped ... after it made the turn and when the shots were fired, it stopped." [6 H 233];

11) DPD motorcycle officer Bobby Hargis (one of the four Presidential motorcyclists) — "At that time [immediately before the head shot] the Presidential car slowed down. I heard somebody say 'Get going.' I felt blood hit me in the face and the Presidential car stopped almost immediately after that." [6 H 294; "Murder From Within" by Fred Newcomb and Perry Adams (1974), p. 71; 6/26/95 videotaped interview with Mark Oakes & Ian Griggs: "That guy (Greer) slowed down, maybe his orders was to slow down slowed down almost to a stop." Like Posner, Hargis feels Greer gave Oswald the chance to kill Kennedy.];

13) DPD James Chaney (one of the four Presidential motorcyclists) — stated that the Presidential limousine stopped momentarily after the first shot (according to the testimony of Mark Lane; corroborated by the testimony of fellow DPD motorcycle officer Marion Baker: Chaney told him that " at the time, after the shooting, from the time the first shot rang out, the car stopped completely, pulled to the left and stopped. Now I have heard several of them say that, Mr. Truly was standing out there, he said it stopped. Several officers said it stopped completely." [2 H 44-45 (Lane)---referring to Chaney's statement as reported in the "Houston Chronicle" dated 11/24/63; 3 H 266 (Baker)];

14) DPD motorcycle officer B.J. Martin (one of the four Presidential motorcyclists) — saw JFK's car stop "just for a moment." ["Murder From Within" by Fred Newcomb & Perry Adams (1974), p. 71];

33) Alan Smith---" the car was ten feet from me when a bullet hit the President in the forehead the car went about five feet and stopped." ["Chicago Tribune", 11/23/63, p. 9; "Murder From Within" by Fred Newcomb & Perry Adams (1974), p. 71];

34) Mrs. Ruth M. Smith — confirmed that the Presidential limousine had come to a stop. [CD 206, p. 9; "Murder From Within" by Fred Newcomb & Perry Adams (1974), p. 97];

35) TSBD Supervisor Roy Truly---after the first shot " I saw the President's car swerve to the left and stop somewheres down in the area [it stopped] for a second or two or something like that I just saw it stop." [3 H 221, 266];

39) Billy Lovelady---"I recall that following the shooting, I ran toward the spot where President Kennedy's car had stopped." [22 H 662];

42) Peggy Burney — she stated that JFK's car had come to a stop. ["Dallas Times Herald", 11/24/63; "Murder From Within" by Fred Newcomb & Perry Adams (1974), p. 97; interestingly, during the 11/20/93 C-SPAN "Journalists Remember" conference, Vivian Castleberry of the Dallas Times Herald made the claim that her first cousin, Peggy Burney, was Abraham Zapruder's assistant "and was next to him when he shot his famous film. She called and said, 'Vivian, today I saw the President die.'"!---See Sheldon Inkol's article on this conference in the January 1994 "Fourth Decade"];

50) Bill Newman---after the fatal head shot "the car momentarily stopped and the driver seemed to have a radio or phone up to his ear and he seemed to be waiting on some word. Some Secret Service men reached into their car and came out with some sort of machine gun. Then the cars roared off "; "I've maintained that they stopped. I still say they did. It was only a momentary stop, but" ["Crossfire" by Jim Marrs (1989), p. 70; "Murder From Within" by Fred Newcomb & Perry Adams (1974), p. 96] "I believe Kennedy's car came to a full stop after the final shot." ["JFK: Breaking The Silence" by Bill Sloan (1993), p. 169] "I believe it was the passenger in the front seat [Roy Kellerman]---there were two men in the front seat---had a telephone or something to his ear and the car momentarily stopped. Now everywhere that you read about it, you don't read anything about the car stopping. And when I say "stopped" I mean very momentarily, like they hit the brakes and just a few seconds passed and then they floorboarded [sic] and accelerated on." [11/20/97 videotaped interview with Bill Law, Mark Row, & Ian Griggs, as transcribed in "November Patriots" by Connie Kritzberg & Larry Hancock (1998), p. 362] "One of the two men in the front seat of the car had a telephone in his hand, and as I was looking back at the car covering my son, I can remember seeing the tail lights of the car, and just for a moment they hesitated and stopped, and then they floorboarded [sic] the car and shot off." ["No More Silence" by Larry Sneed (1998), p. 96];

Said the limousine stopped (reported observation):

2) ABC Reporter Bob Clark (rode in the National Press Pool Car - one of two, nine and ten vehicles behind JFK) — Reported on the air that the limousine stopped on Elm Street during the shooting [WFAA/ ABC, 11/22/63];

8) NBC reporter Robert MacNeil (rode in White House Press Bus, in the first press bus, 12 vehicles behind JFK, still on Main Street at the time) — "The President's driver slammed on the brakes — after the third shot " ["The Way We Were, 1963: The Year Kennedy Was Shot" by Robert MacNeil (1988), p. 193];

Said the limousine almost stopped, or slowed (personal observation):

3) UPI White House Reporter Merriman Smith (rode in the same car as Clark, above, 8 cars behind limo, still on Houston St) "The President's car, possibly as much as 150 or 200 yards ahead, seemed to falter briefly" [uPI story, 11/23/63, as reported in "Four Days", UPI, p. 32];

7) Malcolm Summers — "Then there was some hesitation in the caravan itself, a momentary halt, to give the Secret Service man [Clint Hill] a chance to catch up with the car and jump on. It seems to me that it started back up by the time he got to the car "["No More Silence" by Larry Sneed (1998), p. 104];

12) DPD D.V. Harkness — "I saw the first shot and the President's car slow[ed] down to almost a stop I heard the first shot and saw the President's car almost come to a stop and some of the agents [were] piling on the car." [6 H 309];

15) DPD motorcycle officer Douglas L. Jackson (one of the four Presidential motorcyclists) — stated " that the car just all but stopped just a moment." ["Murder From Within" by Fred Newcomb & Perry Adams (1974), p. 71];

18) Secret Service Agent Sam Kinney (driver of the follow-up car behind JFK's limo) — indicates, via his report to Chief Rowley, that Greer hit the gas after the fatal head shot to JFK and after the President's slump to the left toward Jackie. [18 H 731-732]. From the HSCA's 2/26/78 interview of Kinney: "He also remarked that 'when Greer (the driver of the Presidential limousine) looked back, his foot must have come off the accelerator' Kinney observed that at the time of the first shot, the speed of the motorcade was '3 to 5 miles an hour.'" [RIF#180-10078-10493; author's interviews with Kinney, 1992-1994];

20) Secret Service Agent John Ready (follow-up car) — "I heard what sounded like fire crackers going off from my post on the right front running board. The President's car slowed" [18 H 750];

27) Mrs. Phil (Marilyn) Willis---after the fatal head shot, "she stated the Presidential limousine paused momentarily and then sped away under the Triple Underpass." [FBI report dated 6/19/64; "Photographic Whitewash" by Harold Weisberg (1967), p. 179];

37) Ochus V. Campbell — after hearing shots, "he then observed the car bearing President Kennedy to slow down, a near stop, and a motorcycle policeman rushed up. Immediately following this, he observed the car rush away from the scene." [22 H 845];

38) Peggy Joyce Hawkins — she was on the front steps of the TSBD and " estimated that the President's car was less than 50 feet away from her when he was shot, that the car slowed down almost coming to a full stop." ["Murder From Within" by Fred Newcomb & Perry Adams (1974), p. 97];

41) Postal Inspector Harry Holmes (from the Post Office Annex, while viewing through binoculars) "The car almost came to a stop, and Mrs. Kennedy pulled loose of him and crawled out over the turtleback of this Presidential car." [7 H 291]. He noticed the car pull to a halt, and Holmes thought: "They are dodging something being thrown." ["The Day Kennedy Was Shot" by Jim Bishop (1967), p. 176];

43) David Broeder--"The President's car paused momentarily, then on orders from a Secret Service agent, spurted ahead." ["Washington Evening Star", 11/23/63, p. 8];

44) Sam Holland — stated that the Presidential limousine slowed down on Elm Street. [taped interview with Holland conducted in April, 1965];

46) Mrs. Herman (Billy P.) Clay---"When I heard the second and third shots I knew someone was shooting at the President. I did not know if the President had been hit, but I knew something was wrong. At this point the car President Kennedy was in slowed and I, along with others, moved toward the President's car. As we neared the car it sped off." [22 H 641];

51) Charles Brehm---"Brehm expressed his opinion that between the first and third shots, the President's car only seemed to move some 10 or 12 feet. It seemed to him that the automobile almost came to a halt after the first shot. After the third shot, the car in which the President was riding increased its speed and went under the freeway overpass and out of sight." [22 H 837-838];

52) Mary Moorman---"She recalls that the President's automobile was moving at the time she took the second picture, and when she heard the shots, and has the impression that the car either stopped momentarily or hesitated and then drove off in a hurry." [22 H 838-839];

54) James Leon Simmons---"The car stopped or almost stopped." [2/15/69 Clay Shaw trial testimony; "Forgive My Grief Vol. III" by Penn Jones, p. 53; "High Treason" by Groden & Livingstone (1990 Berkley Edition), p. 22];

Said the limousine almost stopped (reported observation):

1) Houston Chronicle Reporter Bo Byers (rode in White House Press Bus) — twice stated that the Presidential Limousine "almost came to a stop, a dead stop"; in fact, he has had nightmares about this. [C-SPAN, 11/20/93, "Journalists Remember The Kennedy Assassination"; see also the 1/94 "Fourth Decade": article by Sheldon Inkol];

31) Dallas Morning News reporter Mary Woodward (Pillsworth)---" Instead of speeding up the car, the car came to a halt."; she saw the President's car come to a halt after the first shot. Then, after hearing two more shots, close together, the car sped up. [2 H 43 (Lane); DMN, 11/23/63; 24 H 520; "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" 1988]. She spoke forcefully about the car almost coming to a stop and the lack of proper reaction by the Secret Service in 1993. [C-SPAN, 11/20/93, "Journalists Remember The Kennedy Assassination"; see also the 1/94 "Fourth Decade": article by Sheldon Inkol];

Said the motorcade came to a stop or slowed (did not specify limousine):

5) DPD motorcycle officer Bobby Joe Dale (one of two rear mid-motorcade motorcycles, positioned in front of the first press bus, 12 vehicles behind JFK, still on Main Street at the time) — "After the shots were fired, the whole motorcade came to a stop. I stood and looked through the plaza, noticed there was commotion, and saw people running around his [JFK's] car. It started to move, then it slowed again; that's when I saw Mrs. Kennedy coming back on the trunk and another guy [Clint Hill] pushing her back into the car." ["No More Silence" by Larry Sneed (1998), p. 134];

9) AP photographer Henry Burroughs (rode in Camera Car #2) — (eight cars behind the limo, still on Houston St) "we heard the shots and the motorcade stopped." [letter, Burroughs to Palamara, dated 10/14/98];

16) Texas Highway Patrolman Joe Henry Rich (drove LBJ's car) — stated that "the motorcade came to a stop momentarily." ["Murder From Within" by Fred Newcomb & Perry Adams (1974), p. 71];

26) Phil Willis — "The [Presidential] party had come to a temporary halt before proceeding on to the underpass." [7 H 497; "Crossfire" by Jim Marrs (1989), p. 24];

30) Dallas Morning News reporter Robert Baskin (rode in the National Press Pool Car, 8 to 9 cars behind limo, still on Houston or Main (there was no "the" National Press Pool Car, there were three — stated that " the motorcade ground to a halt." ["Dallas Morning News", 11/23/63, p. 2; "Murder From Within" by Fred Newcomb & Perry Adams (1974), p. 71];

36) L.P. Terry — "The parade stopped right in front of the building [TSBD]." ["Crossfire" by Jim Marrs (1989), p. 26];

40) An unnamed witness---from his vantage point in the courthouse building — stated that "The cavalcade stopped there and there was bedlam." ["Dallas Times Herald", 11/24/63; "Murder From Within" by Fred Newcomb & Perry Adams (1974), p. 97];

45) Maurice Orr — noted that the motorcade stopped. [Arch Kimbrough, Mary Ferrell, and Sue Fitch, "Chronology", unpublished manuscript; see also "Conspiracy" by Anthony Summers, pages 20 & 23];

47) Mrs. Rose Clark---"She noted that the President's automobile came almost to a halt following the three shots, before it picked up speed and drove away." [24 H 533];

53) Jean Hill---"The motorcade came to almost a halt at the time the shots rang out and I would say it [JFK's limo] was just approximately, if not---it couldn't have been in the same position, I'm sure it wasn't, but just a very, very short distance from where it had been. It [JFK's limo] was just almost stunned." [6 H 208-209; Hill's testimony on this matter was dramatized in the Oliver Stone movie "JFK" (1991): "The driver had stopped-I don't know what was wrong with that driver." See also "JFK: The Book of the Film" (1992), p. 122. Therein is referenced a March 1991 conversation with Jean Hill.];

55) Norman Similas---"The Presidential limousine had passed me and slowed down slightly." ["Liberty" Magazine, 7/15/64, p. 13; "Photographic Whitewash" by Harold Weisberg (1967), p. 233];

57) Presidential aide Dave Powers (rode in the follow-up car)---" At that time we were traveling very slowly At about the time of the third shot, the President's car accelerated sharply." [7 H 473-475]. On 11/22/88, Powers was interviewed by CBS' Charles Kuralt. Powers remarked about the remorse Greer felt about not speeding up in time to save JFK"s life and agreed with Kuralt that, if Greer had sped up BEFORE the fatal head shot instead of afterwards, JFK might still be alive today [CBS, 11/22/88---this is a very dramatic and compelling short interview]. If that weren't enough, the ARRB's Tom Samoluk told me that, during the course of an interview he conducted in 1996 in which the Board was in the process of obtaining Powers' film, Powers said that he agreed with my take on the Secret Service!;

58) Texas Senator Ralph Yarborough (rode in LBJ's car) — "When the noise of the shot was heard, the motorcade slowed to what seemed to me a complete stop (though it could have been a near stop) After the third shot was fired, but only after the third shot was fired, the cavalcade speeded up, gained speed rapidly, and roared away to the Parkland Hospital."; " The cars all stopped. I put in there [his affidavit], 'I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings but for the protection of future Presidents, they [the Secret Service] should be trained to take off when a shot is fired." [7 H 439-440; "Crossfire" by Jim Marrs (1989), p. 482; see also "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" 1988: "The Secret Service in the car in front of us kind of casually looked around and were rather slow to react."];

Said the limousine sped up after the shots:

19) Secret Service Agent Clint Hill (follow-up car, rear of limo) — " I jumped from the follow-up car and ran toward the Presidential automobile. I heard a second firecracker-type noise SA Greer had, as I jumped onto the Presidential automobile, accelerated the Presidential automobile forward." [18 H 742; Nix film; "The Secret Service" and "Inside The Secret Service" videos from 1995];

21) Secret Service Agent Glen Bennett (follow-up car)---after the fatal head shot "the President's car immediately kicked into high gear." [18 H 760; 24 H 541-542]. During his 1/30/78 HSCA interview, Bennett said the follow-up car was moving at "10-12 m.p.h.", an indication of the pace of the motorcade on Elm Street [RIF#180-10082-10452];

24) Secret Service Agent William "Tim" McIntyre (follow-up car) — "He stated that Greer, driver of the Presidential limousine, accelerated after the third shot." [RIF#180-10082-10454: 1/31/78 HSCA interview];

28) Mrs. John (Nellie) Connally (rode in JFK's limo) — JFK's car did not accelerate until after the fatal head shot. [4 H 147; WR 50; "Best Evidence" by David Lifton (1988), p. 122];

29) Texas Governor John Connally (rode in JFK's limo and himself a victim of the assassination) — "After the third shot, I heard Roy Kellerman tell the driver, 'Bill, get out of line.' And then I saw him move, and I assumed he was moving a button or something on the panel of the automobile, and he said 'Get us to a hospital quick' at about this time, we began to pull out of the cavalcade, out of line." [4 H 133; WR50; "Crossfire" by Jim Marrs (1989), p. 13];

32) AP photographer James Altgens — "He said the President's car was proceeding at about ten miles per hour at the time [of the shooting] Altgens stated the driver of the Presidential limousine apparently realized what had happened and speeded up toward the Stemmons Expressway." [FBI report dated 6/5/64; "Photographic Whitewash" by Harold Weisberg (1967), p. 203] "The car's driver realized what had happened and almost if by reflex speeded up toward the Stemmons Expressway." [AP dispatch, 11/22/63; "Cover-Up" by Stewart Galanor (1998), Document 28];

59) First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (rode in the Presidential limousine)---"We could see a tunnel in front of us. Everything was really slow then [immediately after shooting] And just being down in the car with his head in my lap. And it just seemed an eternity And finally I remember a voice behind me, or something, and then I remember the people in the front seat, or somebody, finally knew something was wrong, and a voice yelling, which must have been Mr. Hill, "Get to the hospital," or maybe it was Mr. Kellerman, in the front seat.We were really slowing turning the corner [Houston&Elm] I remember a sensation of enormous speed, which must have been when we took off those poor men in the front" [5 H 179-181]

Did not specify fully:

17) DPD J.W. Foster — stated that " immediately after President Kennedy was struck the car in which he was riding pulled to the curb." [CD 897, pp. 20, 21; "Murder From Within" by Fred Newcomb & Perry Adams (1974), p. 97];

22) Secret Service Agent " " Johns (V.P. follow-up car) — "I felt that if there was danger [it was] due to the slow speed of the automobile." [18 H 774]. During his 8/8/78 HSCA interview, Johns said that "Our car was moving very slowly", a further indication of the pace of the motorcade on Elm Street [RIF# 180-10074-10079; Altgens photo];

23) Secret Service Agent Winston Lawson (rode in the lead car) — "I think it [the lead car on Elm Street] was a little further ahead [of JFK's limo] than it had been in the motorcade, because when I looked back we were further ahead." [4 H 352], an indication of the lag in the limo during the assassination.;

25) Mrs. Earle ("Dearie") Cabell (rode in the Mayor's car, positioned 4 cars behind the limo, taking turn onto Elm St.) — the motorcade "stopped dead still when the noise of the shot was heard." [7 H 487; "Accessories After the Fact" by Sylvia Meagher (1967), p. 4; "Murder From Within" by Fred Newcomb & Perry Adams (1974), p. 71];

48) Hugh Betzner---"I looked down the street and I could see the President's car and another one and they looked like the cars were stopped then the President's car sped on under the underpass." [19 H 467];

49) John Chism---after the shots he saw "the motorcade beginning to speed up." ["Crossfire" by Jim Marrs (1989), p. 29];

56) Presidential Aide Ken O'Donnell (rode in the follow-up car)---" If the Secret Service men in the front had reacted quicker to the first two shots at the President's car, if the driver had stepped on the gas before instead of after the fatal third shot was fired, would President Kennedy be alive today? [as quoted in Marrs' "Crossfire", p. 248, based off a passage from O'Donnell & Powers' book "Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye"] On page 40 of O'Donnell's book "Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye", the aide reports that "Greer had been remorseful all day, feeling that he could have saved President Kennedy's life by swerving the car or speeding suddenly after the first shots." Indeed, William E. Sale, an airman first class aircraft mechanic assigned to Carswell AFB and who was stationed at Love Field before, during, and after the assassination, stated that "when the agent who was driving JFK's car came back to Air Force One he was as white as a ghost and had to be helped back to the plane *[undated Sale letter, provided to the author by Martin Shackelford];

So there ya have it. Does this prove the Z-film a "hoax" or "altered" with regard to the limousine stopping or not based upon 59 witnesses' statements "all" saying it stopped? I think not; what thinks ye?

Thank you, sir, you saved me a lot of typing! I appreciate that .... And now I can return MIDP since, having owned it, I am now a "real researcher!"

Thanks Duke!

I knew I could count on you to post the facts.

Seriously, Thomas

P.S. Did you complile this list yourself? (If so, all I can say is that you are a very dedicated researcher!) Thanks again.

Yeah, it's not complete and still a little "greek," but it's the best I could do over a burger and fries!

Well, either 59 witnesses are wrong, or one film is. I opt for the witnesses. People form impressions that are often wrong.

SO YOU PREFER TO DISBELIEVE 59 WITNESSES WITHOUT READING WHAT THEY SAID?

Incredible!

Jack

Gee, Jack, I post extensively using not only original WCH readings ($2500+ if you can find the volumes) but online materials as well, so are you suggesting that I need to tell people that if they want to know what so-and-so said, they have to go find the books somewhere?

Why are you pushing people to spend the money on the book rather than summarizing what they had to say, or at least naming each of the 59 witnesses so we can look it up ourselves? Do you have a financial interest in it or something?

Sadly, I was looking up some JFK book or other on Amazon and noticed it had been reviewed by Vince Palamara, so I clicked to see what he had to say. The opening words were "Good book but ULTIMATE SACRIFICE by Thom Hartmann and Lamar Waldron is the VERY BEST book on the JFK assassination bar none," or words very much to that effect.

Oh well, I thought, let's see what else he has to say about other books because it seems like he's got 50+ reviews here. And do you know what the opening words were?

So, not having bought "the VERY BEST" book by my friends Thom and Lamar, why should I buy something clearly second-rate by Palamara? (Tho' it is possible that he didn't review his own books with that opening line, eh?)

Spend the time and quote the stuff or get off the soap box. So say my handlers at Langley.

I was attempting to find on-line the Church Committee testimony of Richard Helms.

You do not find it if you simply "search" the web-site.

But it is there.

Under the Church Committee, sub "documents" I believe, there are a numbered list of boxes. You can click on the contents and there is then displayed a list of the documents in that box. Some make quite interesting reading. But they do not appear in the index.

As soon as time permits I shall complete a list of contents box by box and post it here. I will also send it to the Foundation to see if they can post it (better yet get the contents in the index).

You can also find Church Committee stuff (and much more) at the History Matters archive.

Rather than count the sound of gunfire,which can easily be redered almost noiseless by a silencer, and a flash suppressor, lets take a look at the number of objects reportedly struck in D/P. thanks to total truth sciences.

1, First shot hits the street behind the motorcade, sending up a shower of sparks.

2, Hits the curb near the railway overpass. (James tague)

3, Strikes a manhole cover, and lodges in the grass. Police stand guard over the site, and an unknown man removes the projectile hidden in his pocket. (This is reported in a newspaper the next day, but denied by Gov officials)....

... or obfuscated by echoes!

Here's an semi-educated (semi-literate?) guess based upon a curious question and an even more curious response: these are the three shots that came from the 6th floor southeast window. Lee Oswald was not the shooter ....

Duke, interesting. So the first three shots eminate from the sixth floor, lets further speculate that these were all decoy shots, never intended to strike Kennedy, but rather to confuse potential witnesses, and place the shooter in the TSBD, and so to the patsy. Do you believe that these shots came from the bolt action carcano, or some other rifle? Of the remaining six shots 4, to 5 hit JFK, and Connelly the other/others miss. Three further shots from behind? and three from the front? from silenced rifles. Of course some of these could have been fired during the three shots from the depository, further confusing bystanders/witnesses, and on side Secret Service personel.

I didn't say anything about the order of the shots, merely the origin. They may have come from the Carcano, but that's not a necessity. A potential shooter there need only to have been someone to be seen, to make noise and to leave evidence behind (which would be the case for using the Carcano); he needn't have been depended upon to hit anything at all, and could have had other roles besides shooting. Just a theory, of course ....

I think Oswald's leaving the TSBD after the shooting (with the excuse that he later gave during interrogation) "I didn't think there would be any more work that afternoon, so I left" looks either very lame or very self-incriminating,

FWIW, Thomas

Thomas, no offense intended, but I don't care how many million people agree with you, I am not one of them.

Best Wishes,

Ray

Ray,

I only know that if I had been working at the TSBD on 11/22/63 and the assassination of a U.S. President had just occured a couple hundred feet down the same street on which my place of work was situated and which the President's motorcade had just gone down after passing by my place of work, I would feel obligated to "hang around" my place of work (the TSBD) for "rollcall" purposes (and also because I would be just plain curious as to what the hell had just happened), unless, of course ... If I were innocent and simply left my place of work, I would just be drawing unwarranted and unnecessary attention to myself. Given his background and that of his wife, I don't think LHO would want to be "hassled" by the DPD or the FBI. Bottom line: I don't think he would have left work unless he had a damn good reason (like realizing that he'd been "set up," for example?).

FWIW, Thomas

P.S. Wow! Do millions of people really believe this? (I wouldn't have known that if you hadn't told me...)

P.P.S. Why didn't you quote the whole sentence I wrote instead of just the first half of it?

Unfortunately, what any of us think that we might do in such a circumstance, we clearly cannot know. Moreover, I've posted what people who were there, then, actually did in the "Robert MacNeil and the three calm men" thread. Two women went to the bank to transact some personal business immediately after the shooting. Another went to a restaurant a short while later. Still another had driven home for lunch and did not return (a third "missing person" during the roll-call whom nobody's mentioned before! Yes, he was a white man).

For a complete list of TSBD employees and what they said they did (and in some cases, why), see this link. It needs some prettying up, but the facts is there!

If I were innocent and didn't believe that I'd be working any more on any given day, I probably wouldn't even think about getting hassled simply because I knew I didn't do (whatever it was).

Jack,

My reply is in the "Zapruder: Four Questions" thread (http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...45&gopid=50163&.

I'll have to look it up if I have time, but I think there were 59 persons who testified that the limo came to a stop. Typical is Hugh Betzner, who said "I WALKED DOWN TOWARD WHERE THE LIMO HAD STOPPED".

...I just looked it up. It is a Vince Palamara article in MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, 119-128.

Were all 59 mistaken? I suggest that you read Palamara's list before continuing.

Jack

Jack,

Once again, it has to do with perspective: if you were where the limo appeared to move from side to side, then it did not stop, but DID slow down very slow. If you were to the rear and the limo appeared to be growing smaller as it receded away from you, and you saw the brake lights go on, it may have appeared to have stopped, even if it did not.

If the 59 people were all to the rear, then yes, they are all mistaken. Appearances can be deceiving, as you of all people should know!

Duke...by your answer you show you have no idea what the 59 witnesses SAID. This is very poor research ... to comment on witness statements you HAVE NOT READ. Do you have a copy of MIDP? If not, how can you comment on the Palamara article... and INCORRECTLY at that? Get the book.

Read the article. Then comment on each witness statement from the perspective of each witness. You will be surprised to find that all 59 were not at the REAR, but in many locations. For instance, Witness Johnson on the TRIPLE OVERPASS said "YOU COULD SEE IT SPEED UP, STOP, SPEED UP, AND THEN STOP..."

There are 58 others.

Eager to hear your 59 analyses.

Jack

Well, either 59 witnesses are wrong, or one film is. I opt for the witnesses. People form impressions that are often wrong.

I'll have to look it up if I have time, but I think there were 59 persons who testified that the limo came to a stop. Typical is Hugh Betzner, who said "I WALKED DOWN TOWARD WHERE THE LIMO HAD STOPPED".

...I just looked it up. It is a Vince Palamara article in MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, 119-128.

Were all 59 mistaken? I suggest that you read Palamara's list before continuing.

Jack

Jack,

Once again, it has to do with perspective: if you were where the limo appeared to move from side to side, then it did not stop, but DID slow down very slow. If you were to the rear and the limo appeared to be growing smaller as it receded away from you, and you saw the brake lights go on, it may have appeared to have stopped, even if it did not.

If the 59 people were all to the rear, then yes, they are all mistaken. Appearances can be deceiving, as you of all people should know!

Rather than count the sound of gunfire,which can easily be redered almost noiseless by a silencer, and a flash suppressor, lets take a look at the number of objects reportedly struck in D/P. thanks to total truth sciences.

1, First shot hits the street behind the motorcade, sending up a shower of sparks.

2, Hits the curb near the railway overpass. (James tague)

3, Strikes a manhole cover, and lodges in the grass. Police stand guard over the site, and an unknown man removes the projectile hidden in his pocket. (This is reported in a newspaper the next day, but denied by Gov officials)....

... or obfuscated by echoes!

Here's an semi-educated (semi-literate?) guess based upon a curious question and an even more curious response: these are the three shots that came from the 6th floor southeast window. Lee Oswald was not the shooter ....

Duke and Ray,

It is not the Executive or the Legislative branch that is responsible for the enforcment of the laws, that's the Judicial branch - the FBI et al., who were specifically requested to follow up on the HSCA conclusions, and failed to do so, on purpose. When the asst. director of the FBI testified during a hearing before the establishment of the ARRB, I buttonholed him in the hearing hall as he was leaving and asked him and he later wrote to me saying that the FBI still follows up on any new information regarding the JFK assassination.

Bill Kelly

Bill, that the Department of Justice, of which the FBI is a part, and while its name may have the same root as the "Judicial" Branch (and the top Judicials are called "Justice" So-and-so) the DOJ is nevertheless a part of the Executive Branch: the President, not the Courts, makes the appointments (with the advice and consent of the Senate).

I know it's been a while, but remember back to Civics classes in grade school:

• The Legislative Branch legislates or creates laws, it consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate;
  
• The Executive Branch executes or enforces laws, and consists of the President and his Cabinet (and subordinate departments, agencies, etc.);
  
• The Judicial Branch interprets laws, and is made up of the Supreme Court and lower federal courts.
  

This is so elementary that ... that ... that (gosh!!) I will prove, once again, that discretion is the greater part of valor!

You also noted that they were "requested." It is a far cry from "directed," and has every bit as much legal weight and authority behind it: none.

... I think Oswald's leaving the TSBD after the shooting (with the excuse that he later gave during interrogation) "I didn't think there would be any more work that afternoon, so I left" looks either very lame or very self-incriminating, unless it is viewed from the perspective that he felt his life was in serious danger and went to his boarding room to get his revolver and to change his clothes. I think he did these things out of self defense-- defense from both the DPD as well as the people who had "set him up" in the first place. I think that someone he trusted told him before the ("fake") assasination that if anything went wrong, they were to rendevous at the Texas Theater, and that that person could very well have been Jack Ruby. ....

If you review the March 1964 statements of the TSBD employees, you will see that more than a few (I'm going to compile a list of these) were either told by other employees that, if they went inside they would not be allowed back out, or that they would not be allowed in, or found the doors of the building locked (there were at least two people who made this statement).

That said, Oswald's "excuse" seems to be fairly valid. He is apparently not the only one to have left the TSBD early, but the only male to have done so other than Cason, who had driven home for lunch and did not return after hearing the news. (Incidentally, this makes him the third male besodes Oswald and Givens who was "not accounted for" during the "roll-call.")

Among the other employees that did not return into the building:

• one woman (Virgie Rackley) went to a restaurant(!) at 2:15 after hanging out in front of the TSBD until then (talk about "excessively calm," she actually ate!)
  
• five women (Dragoo, Holt, Johnson, Hicks and Palmer - the last of whom had taken the day off, but went to DP after hearing the news) found the doors locked, with one of them (Hicks) finding the doors locked a "few minutes" after the shooting as she tried to leave
  
• five in toto (Givens, Rackley, Holt, Johnson and Whatley) said that they were told by fellow employees that they could not leave if they went inside, and thus stayed outside.
  
• six (Barnum, Jacob, Kounas, Parker, Williams and Viles) stated that they either were "not allowed in" or were only allowed to enter as far as the lobby. Viles was also a white male, allowed only into the lobby; and
  
• two women (Reese and Dean) were allowed in, but only under police escort and then only to their offices.
  

So, after all this, the question remains: in and of itself, was it really all that strange that Lee Oswald left because he "didn't think there'd be any more work that day?"

As for the veracity of Victoria Adams, I have already made my decision that she is believable. I think you ought to take a stand and decide for yourself, either yea or nay.

The reference to the two white men is in Marion Baker's testimony volume 3, p. 263

Senator COOPER. Did you see anyone else while you were in the building, other than this man you have identified later as Oswald, and Mr. Truly?

Mr. Baker.On the first floor there were two men. As we came through the main doorway to the elevators, I remember as we tried to get on the elevators I remember two men, one was sitting on this side and another one between 20 or 30 feet away from us looking at us.

Mr. Dulles.Were they white men?

Mr. Baker. Yes, sir.

I look forward to reading the additional comments you said you wanted to make later.

As noted earlier, I don't think it's a question of Adams' veracity, but rather her accuracy. If you can explain to me how she could have been downstairs saying something to Shelley and Lovelady who didn't respond to her without encountering either Truly, Baker or Oswald on the stairs, I'll change my mind about how accurate she was in terms of when she got downstairs.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as if anything at all will change your mind once you've made a decision about something. I hope that you allow true believers in the WCR the same understanding.

As to Baker's testimony about the two white men (thank you for that, by the way), here is the complete exchange so that we can determine where these two white men were. Remember that TSBD's interior is 100'x100' ....

Senator COOPER. Did you see anyone else while you were in the building, other than this man you have identified later as Oswald, and Mr. Truly?

Mr. Baker. On the first floor there were two men. As we came through the main doorway to the elevators, I remember as we tried to get on the elevators I remember two men, one was sitting on this side and another one between 20 or 30 feet away from us looking at us.

Mr. Dulles. Were they white men?

Mr. Baker. Yes, sir.

Mr. Belin. Officer Baker, we have an exhibit here 362 showing the first floor of the School Book Depository Building, and the top part of the exhibit is south. It is a little bit upside down from the usual top being north. You will notice here the stairway in the front of the building.

Mr. Baker. Yes, sir.

Mr. Belin. And then there is a glass swinging door which I believe is shown there. Could you mark the point at which you believe you were when you called out for someone to tell you where the stairway or elevator was?

Mr. Baker. Is that the steps on the outside and this is the----

Mr. Belin. These are the steps on the outside, this is the door, the first door and this is kind of the main lobby here, below the words "Main Entrance."

Baker said "as we came through the main doorway to the elevators," but you'll notice on CE 362 that there is no "main doorway to the elevators," so did he mean "as we came through the main doorway to the building, on the way to the elevators," or what? In other words, is the "main doorway" he's referring to the "main entrance" Belin referred to, or one "to the elevators" that doesn't exist on the schematic?

Unfortunately, Mr Baker died a few years ago, so we can't ask him. We likewise can't determine where "this side" was that one man was sitting, or whether the other was 20-30 feet away from them at the elevators or at or near the "main doorway." Depending upon where "there" was depends where the two men were. He was not asked to mark on CE362 where the men were, and tho' asked to draw the route he'd taken to the elevators, he either failed to do so or the marked-up verion of 362 was not entered into evidence.

Only two white men didn't go outside at all: one definitely was on the 3rd floor (we have photographic proof of that) and the other said he was on the 5th floor (we have his sworn statements). Of the remaining 12 who went outside initially, only two did not return inside at all. Two of them were several blocks away at lunch. Two went in within seconds of Baker. Of the remaining eight, can you state when each of them went in and how many of them are potential candidates for these "two men?"

(I'd suggest that Frazier had also said that Shelley and Lovelady had gone across the roadway extension, but we "can't count" his word because he's a "co-conspirator.")

[Duke] Lane has delivered a defense of Shelley, Lovelady and Frazier that is certainly impassioned but it falls short in addressing the points I raised in my article. I will reiterate those points below. But first I want to say something about this forum, and other forums like it. Those who read and generate messages on this form are like jurors in a jury box. We are also prosecutors, defenders, and judges. We look at the evidence and then evaluate it. If after a fair and impartial assessment of the evidence, any of us deems someone to be guilty in the plot to kill President Kennedy, and I do not care how small a minority such people may be, we should not hesitate to say so. Personally, I have looked at the evidence in I believe a fair and impartial manner, and I say that Shelley, Lovelady and Frazier are guilty, and I do not hesitate to call them murderers in print or in public to their faces. Accusations of libel or slander have no effect on me, nor should they have on anyone else who wants to join me in condemning them. Of course, we do not have the power to mete out the punishment that they deserve, yet we can ostracize them, and at least that is something.

How do we determine whether someone is guilty or innocent? The method we use is to see if their stories hold up. If they are innocent, then what they say will be truthful with no inconsistencies. If someone has inconsistencies in their stories or if they say things that are certainly not true, then they are guilty. Truth and innocence go hand in hand, just as crime and falsehoods go hand in hand.

I think it's unfortunate that Mr Weston has chosen to invalidate whatever "research" he has done - and undermine his own credibility - by stating, in effect, that his conclusion, based upon the limited information he has evaluated, is "correct" simply because he says so. He has chosen to use a rather limited set of data - witness affidavits made on the day of the shooting during a period of "complete pandemonium" in the sheriff's office (60 or more affidavits were taken that afternoon amid other routine and assassination-related activities) - to arrive at his conclusion, and invites everyone to take part in a "public stoning" of people he has, alone, tried and convicted as prosecutor, defender, judge and jury, a regular one-man band.

I don't know what world he lives in, but in the one I inhabit, even the most truthful people are sometimes inconsistent. But to Weston, inconsistency is a clear sign of guilt, part of something which he calls a "fair and impartial" evaluation.

Weston may believe that "accustions of libel or slander have no effect" on him, but he should be forewarned that the "long arm of the law" is even longer on the Internet. The Shelley-Lovelady-Frazier issue aside, it is clear that he hasn't done his homework. See Bochan v. LaFontaine on this very same subject.

That said, let us now "look at the points that Lane has failed to address:"

According to Victoria Adams, she and Sandra Styles came down the stairs and got to the first floor about a minute or two after the shooting. At the bottom of the stairs she said they saw Shelley and Lovelady. Adams said “I believe the President’s been shot.” They made no response. The commotion outside apparently made no effect on them. Obviously if Shelley and Lovelady were innocent people taken by surprise by the events outside they would want to see what happened. Something else held those two men by the elevators. I believe they had a duty to perform. Their silent indifference to Adams statement is evidence that they were indeed the calm, indifferent men seen by Robert MacNeil.

There are several points in this, so let's begin with the simplest one: Adams said that Shelley and Lovelady said "nothing" when she talked about the shooting. Did she (or could she) testify that "they heard me when I asked?" She didn't even say they acknowledged her, and she didn't say she waited around for them to answer. Remember: everything - in Weston's words, anyway - was "complete panemonium," and it is therefore possible that Shelley and Lovelady did not hear her in the first place.

Styles and Adams were watching the parade with two other women, Elsie Dorman and Dorothy Ann Garner. They were all watching from the third set of windows from the east corner of the fourth floor, Adams specifically in the sixth individual window. Of the four, only Adams was deposed. None provided affidavits on the day of the shooting, but gave statements to the FBI in March 1964. From among these:

• Sandra Styles states that she and Adams left the office and went downstairs, but does not mention either Shelley and Lovelady, or that either of them had said anything to anyone on the way outside, or whether or not they replied.
  
• Elsie Dorman said only that she, Dorothy Ann Garner, Adams and Styles were present in the office on the 4th floor, and that all were employees of Scott, Foresman Company. She did not state that Virginia or Sandra left the room ... so, therefore, did they not?
  
• Dorothy Ann Garner likewise did not say that Adams and Styles left the room, ergo we have "corroboration" that (ahem!) "neither Adams nor Styles left the room."
  

Based on this limited sample, one could (somewhat) reasonably argue that Adams and Styles did not leave the 4th floor and that all the rest of what she and they related is a fabrication. Of course, it is clear that Dorman and Garner wrote only what pertained directly to themselves - where they were and who they were with - and did not record the actions of two of their compatriots. Indeed, Garner said that she "remained on the fourth floor of the building in the Scott, Foresman offices until approximately 2:30 ... at which time I and the remaining employees departed the building." She includes "the remaining employees," presumably including both Adams and Styles, in their departure from the building at the (early) end of the day. Should we find something "suspicious" in her not mentioning Adams and Styles' actions leaving the office after the shooting yet deeming to include them in the departure?

I didn't think so.

As to the supposed "fact" that "the commotion outside made no effect on them" and the "fair and impartial" evaluation that "if Shelley and Lovelady were innocent people taken by surprise by the events outside they would want to see what happened," allow me to relate the "strange" and "disturbing" story of Madie Belle Reese and Ruth Dean, whose actions after the shooting surely bear greater scrutiny by Weston's measure.

Who the heck are Madie Reese and Ruth Dean you might ask? Madie was the 60-year-old office manager for the MacMillen Company officing on the 3rd floor of the TSBD. She had worked with them for 19 years, while Ruth Dean was their 48-year-old receptionist. When the shooting took place, they were situated on "the second step from the bottom to the right or west side of the main entrance of the Depository building," Dean standing to Reese's left. They heard three shots, and Dean observed Kennedy "slump over in the automobile in which he was riding." If Reese saw anything, she did not say so.

After the shooting, during the "panemonium" and "commotion" during which anyone "taken by surprise" would want to "see what happened," the two women stood around for about five minutes and then - gasp! - "walked up to the National Bank of Commerce where I [Reese] completed some personal business!!" Clearly unimpressed or taken aback by watching someone get shot and killed almost right in front of them, these women calmly walked to the bank and took care of personal business when they should have remained milling around in the front of the building like innocent people should and did, or at least should have fled hysterically into the building (only one woman did, by the way ... the only one to have been "taken by surprise?").

If Shelley and Lovelady didn't react according to Weston's expectations, Reese and Dean did even less so, and were apparently every bit as calm and collected as the three "suspiciously calm" men inside. What should we make of this? I wonder what their roles were in the assassination? Could Reese possibly have been going to make the money transfer to Shelley, Lovelady and Frazier's accounts?

There are other similar reports of people going about their business, but none quite so "strange" as this one. We can only hope that someday, someone is able to "get to the bottom of it!"

In closing this portion, I should note that MacNeil did not describe anyone as "indifferent." This is a fabrication by Weston. MacNeil called them "exceedingly calm," but in reality, that was an impression after the fact for he said that he "didn't really notice" the "excessive calmness" at the time.

Marion Baker said he saw two white men by the elevators. If they were not the same two men that Adams saw they who were they?

He did? I've just been reviewing his testimony (3H242-70) and don't find any reference to anyone other than Truly on any floor below the 2nd floor. A reference would be helpful. I've mis-remembered things, too; could this be one of those?

Now Shelley said that, “Immediately following the shooting, Billy N. Lovelady and I accompanied some uniformed police officers to the railroad yards just west of the building and returned through the east side door of the building about ten minutes later.” ...

My typo: the statement reads "west side door of the building." (CE 1381 pages 84-85 at 22H673) I mistakenly typed "east side door."

... Did Shelley go back inside as Adams’ and Bakers’ statements would indicate or did he stay outside as Shelley’s own statement would indicate? Will Lane call Adams and Baker liars in order to defend Shelley and Lovelady? Or can he reconcile Adams and Bakers’ statements to theirs? If he tries to do so, then that requires time that would keep them inside the building on the first floor until the arrival of MacNeil.

I do not dispute that Shelley and Lovelady went outside. Oswald said to the police that he was with Shelley shortly before his departure from Dealey Plaza five to ten minutes after the shooting. Yet Shelley said he did not see Oswald after 11:50. How does Lane reconcile these statements? Some people think Oswald was innocent. Does Lane want to risk the label of libeler to say otherwise?

We have to remember a couple of things: first, that these statements were made four months after the events they describe, and it is therefore possible that some remembered events may not have been in the exact sequence in which they occurred. Second, that of all the people who made particular statements as to the times or timings of when things happened, Virginia Adams' was one that was not timed, purportedly because it would have ruined the Oswald walk/run timing to the second floor lunch room because, by her words, she should have encountered him - or at least heard him - on the stairway; she did not. Third, that it is difficult at best to reconcile a lot of people's statements with what other people did, or said they did. I'll get into this shortly, especially since two events Adams' statements can be clearly reconciled with others ... although the timing still remains questionable. Finally, whatever Oswald supposedly said must be taken with some skepticism because none of it is first-hand and he was given no opportunity to expand on any of it. Indeed, we cannot state with absolute certainty that he actually said any of it, even if we take everyone's word about what he said.

Adams said, in late March 1964, "Sandra Styles and I then ran out of the building by via the stairs [in the northwest corner, the only stairs that led all the way to the 4th floor] and went in the direction of the railroad where we had observed other people running" (22H632). This would seemingly indicate that she went out the west door and southwest toward the Grassy Knoll, since that is where she would have been able to "observe" from her office (sixth individual window from the southeast corner on the 4th floor), and the west door is the closest to it. That is all she said in her statement in this particular regard.

In her deposition on April 7, she said she was on her way out to the Houston Street dock, that is, the east side of the building. First, she went into the stockroom on the 4th floor; then she went to the stairs and began her run down. She encountered no one, and the elevators were not running. She did not see or hear Truly or Baker, or anyone calling for an elevator (which Truly did twice, according to both him and Baker). She estimated (6H388) that it was 15-30 seconds from the time she heard the shots to the time that she left the window, and "no longer than a minute at most" to get from the window to the bottom of the stairs at the first floor where she said she encountered Shelley and Lovelady.

Remember that she didn't see or hear anyone on the stairs, and that it is supposed to have taken Oswald about 1:14 to get from the 6th floor to the 2nd, and Truly and Baker about 1:18 to get to the 2nd floor landing and lunchroom door where they lingered long enough for Truly to identify Oswald before continuing up the stairs. Thus:

• 12:30:00 - shots are fired
  
• 12:30:06 - shots finished
  
• 12:30:36 - latest time Adams left the 4th floor window
  
• 12:31:21 - Oswald in lunch room
  
• 12:31:24 - Truly and Baker at lunch room
  
• 12:31:34 - (?) Truly and Baker continue upstairs (allowing 10 seconds for the Oswald encounter)
  
• 12:31:36 - Adams reaches 1st floor landing
  

Clearly, since she was on the same stairwell as Baker, Truly and Oswald were, and Baker and Truly had encountered Oswald only 12 seconds before Adams reached the first floor (one floor below where she should have encountered them as well) ... and remember, they did not go entirely into the room, so it is not as if she could have missed seeing them or, at the very least, hearing them on the stairwell. Truly, for his part, said that he didn't hear the elevators operating while going up the stairs "with all the commotion we were making running up the enclosed stairwell" (3H229).

How could Adams not been aware of anyone else on the stairwell ... unless she was not in the stairwell while any of the three of them were? This means she was in there either earlier or later than they were, and if it were earlier - before Truly and Baker started upstairs - then Shelley and Lovelady were still out front (it was less than a minute after the shooting). So she must have been in the stairwell sometime after either Truly and Baker had reached the 5th floor, ascended to the 7th floor and stopped the elevator (she was adamant that the elevators were not running while she was in the stairwell because she didn't either hear them or see the cables moving). Not having an exact timing of those later movements, we cannot know how long it was before Truly and Baker stopped the elevator and got off such that the stairwell would be quiet once again.

Am I fair in suggesting that it might have taken T&B 10 seconds to ascend each "floor" of stairs, that is, 30 seconds to reach the 5th floor, where they found the east elevator (only)? Should it be a little longer? Shorter? Then perhaps a little less time to go up two more floors (let's say seven seconds per floor; I have no idea how fast the elevator went. That would be a total of about 15 seconds. Thus it is no earlier than 12:32:15 (I'm splitting the time of T&B's encounter with Oswald to 12:31:00) that Adams entered the stairwell at the 4th floor.

We could, of course, argue that, in her flight, she didn't notice the noise of Truly and Baker above her which could skew the time by perhaps as much as 30 seconds, but we don't know that that is what happened. And remember: none of this timing includes whatever time she spent getting to the storeroom on the 4th floor. The point of this exercise, then, is to point out that we don't know exactly when Adams and Styles got to the 1st floor to encounter Shelley and Lovelady.

As for how some people noticed time, see Truly's testimony before the Commission (3H212 et seq.) as to what time it might have been when he noticed Oswald missing and had it reported to Capt Fritz on the 6th floor: it was anywhere from 12:40 to 1:15 or so. If Truly can be so mistaken on a crucial issue such as this by so wide a margin of time, how can we suggest that Adams - and Shelley and Lovelady, whose times for what they did also varied by half - was absolutely dead-on as to how long it took her to do what?

Does that make her a "xxxx?" You decide: I'd hate to de-construct her testimony and be libelous too!!

As to Oswald being out in front with Shelley (or in the train yards? Remember: we have no transcript of what he said, and only the several-months-old statement by someone who "didn't take notes" as to exactly what he said ... or not; maybe he only said "outside," which was interpreted as "in front?") and why he left, that will save to another time.

Finally, Frazier has manifested inconsistencies in his statements, yet I think it would suffice at this point to ask Lane if he thinks someone eating lunch all alone in the basement with no windows to view the outside reasonable behavior for someone innocent and totally surprised by the shooting yet had no curiosity to find out what happened.

To me suspicious behavior, story inconsistencies, and outright falsehoods indicate suspects guilty of a crime. Shelley, Lovelady and Frazier are guilty, and I will say that as often as I need to.

Actually, I don't find Frazier's behavior any more "odd" than Reese and Dean going to the bank amid such commotion. Surely, they, too, must be "guilty" of something, we only have to figure out what!

Is there anything else I've "failed to address?"

A bunch of Congressmen shouldn't be able to direct the Executive Branch to investigate anything on a similar basis, no matter how sensible it may seem to you and me. That is effectively what they did.

Can we take it that Duke Lane rejects the idea of representative government? If so, what would he like to take its place?

No, you should take it that Duke Lane accepts the idea of the separation of powers, holding that each of the three branches of governent are co-equal.

The Supreme Court can tell Congress that a law it passed is unconsitutional and therefore void; it cannot "direct" Congress to write and vote on a new law to replace it. Likewise, the Justice Department is part of the Executive Branch, and the Legislative Branch cannot "direct" the Executive to "investigate" anything. It cannot actually even tell the Executive Branch to obey or enforce the law the Legislature enacts ... but it can impeach when, for example, the Executive elects to disobey the laws that Congress has enacted and the Supreme Court has upheld.

A suggestion to investigate is not equivalent to the passage of a law.

It may be inconvenient and/or unpopular at times, and it may not be perfect, but it's worked for nearly 230 years. I'm in favor of keeping it.

As to representative government, if we don't like the fact that the Executive Branch has not acted on something suggested by the Legislature, we can always replace the Chief Executive.

Duke...thanks for a well-organized presentation of the inconsistencies in the various testimonies, especially the memories of time frames.

I agree that such inconsistencies don't necessarily indicate complicity, but neither do they imply innocence as you suggest. For instance, I do not find enough evidence to implicate Lovelady, but on the other hand, there is enough evidence to be suspicious of Frazier... not that he was "involved"...but that he certainly KNEW much more than he testified to.

Thanks, Jack! In all of the testimony I've read, I can only recall a couple of instances where the deponents have been allowed to carry on a monologue or lengthy discourse; Jack Ruby was one such exception.

The vast majority of deponents, however, were subject to direct question-and-answer interrogation. When the next question comes rolling around, you answer; you don't elaborate on a previous answer - or return to a previous question because you suddenly remembered something - unless you're asked to.

If Frazier knew or knows more than he testified to, it is because he wasn't asked.

After all, how many citations can we compile of people whose testimony was moving along "unprofitable" lines was suddenly "sidetracked" by counsel? "Well, Oswald was standing next to me when the President ---" "Now, what time do you normally come to work, and did you come to work that day at the same time, Mr Doe?" "Oh, I usually come in at 8:00, but that day --" "That's 8:00 and not 8:30 like everyone else? Why is that?" ... "Well, no further questions, thank you for coming."

I find interesting that you did not comment on the most glaring statement by Lovelady:

LOVELADY

... recalled that Shelley and Sarah Stanton were standing next to him. After the shooting, he ran "toward the spot where President Kennedy's car had stopped," and that he and Shelley stayed in that area for "approximately five minutes" before going into the TSBD via the west doors.

If Lovelady is being truthful and accurate, why do you have no comment on this statement WHICH ALL ALONE PROVES THE Z FILM A FABRICATION? The Z film does NOT show the limo stopping! This statement is far more valuable than his poor estimate of how much time passed.

Jack, you've done perspective studies before, and can no doubt calculate how far the Z-film shows the limo to have moved forward while the brake lights were on. You can probably tell us the dimensions of the rear of the limo as well, and the speeds that it was going before the lights came on and after.

Given those calculable things, tell us how much the rear of the limo would have decreased in perceived size (objects that move away from an observer appear smaller as they get farther away, larger as they get nearer) to an observer as far away as the end of the divider "island" between Elm Street and the extension that goes in front of TSBD ... which was, what, 100 feet away? 150?

I didn't find it to be a significant statement because Lovelady was behind the limo and could not discern the forward movement of the vehicle.

That brake lights came on for a couple of seconds on a slow-moving vehicle, I would posit that it is reasonable to perceive that it stopped because the "size" of the vehicle did not perceptibly change. You can see movement in the Z-film, however, solely because it is "side-to-side" motion from Zapruder's perspective.

If it had come to a complete stop and, a couple of seconds later rolled forward just five feet before stopping again, it would have been obvious to someone at the side, but not necessarily to someone a hundred feet directly behind it. Gerry Hemming did a good job of explaining why they came on and the car slowed in another thread here; do a keyword search on "left foot" to find it.

I think hanging your hat on Lovelady's statement is grasping at straws. I didn't consider it as indicative of anything except that Lovelady saw the brake lights come on.

EDIT: PS - I'll respond to timing issues later when I'm able to return to Weston's response.

... ramifications resulting in the whole Dealey Plaza imbroglio with its rotting foundation of transparently odious deception being exposed at last ....

Wow. Can you do that again?

Duke, find me this "seemingly sound rationale for why the SBT is at least possible" and I'll sell you some swampland in Florida.

Oceanfront in Arizona is much more appealing to me, but thanks, Pat! The key word is "seemingly." Some people who are much more intelligent than I am believe it. Which means what?

As far as re-opening Tippit, I think that would be a serious mistake. The evidence against Oswald in that case is a lot stronger than in the shooting of the President. The eyewitness testimony is much stronger. The ballistics evidence is stronger (he had the purported murder weapon on his person). And there is a motive (his escape).

We mustn't pull a Belin and see the Tippit slaying as "the Rosetta stone" of the assassination. Oswald may very well have killed Tippit AND been innocent of killing Kennedy.

Pat, if he didn't kill Kennedy, then what did he have a motive of "escaping" from? Escaping, perhaps, a crime he hadn't committed yet (killing a cop)? About that swampland ...!

My point re the Tippit case is simply that it's a much smaller can of worms than the JFK murder. Someone assisting Ruby to kill Oswald falls in the same category. I'm fairly confident that the mob and CIA and Castro and Hoover and Big Oil and the "Military-Industrial Complex" and LBJ really couldn't have cared less whether Tippit or Oswald lived or died. The list of those who might have wanted either of them dead - for whatever reason - is considerably smaller.

I am, however, simply voicing my own two cents' worth: I'm not running for DA and won't be trying either case anytime soon! Ruby insisted that he was a lone nut. Oswald insisted that he didn't know what anybody was talking about, him shooting anybody, which clearly made him a nut too. Tho' he lost an insanity plea, Ruby may have almost been certifiable, don't you think?

Excellent answers all around Duke, thank you for dispelling yet another set of 'urban myths'. I appreciate the thoughtful attention to each point.

I'm not sure I've actually done that, but merely pointed out what I think are reasonable explanations. I could be 180° off the mark.

It's quite remarkable how uninformed one is simply through the information that comes from media input. My comments were simply based on what I (someone who is not particularly interested in this issue) have been fed for years.

I'm not entirely sure of writing off certain elements of/connected with the DPD but that's another issue.

EDIT:: As what I wrote hinges entirely on the notion of a dark theatre, I've been puzzling about where I got that from.

MY first thought was that it may have been from the movie JFK.

I find it hard to believe that Oliver would get such a thing wrong. So I suspect that it is a 'view' gained from some sloppily put together documentary seen at some time in the past, and as it gels with other theatre associations it then becomes a 'fact'.

Something to guard against for sure. And more particularly, guard against saying something that's not true? NO, I don't think so.

To say/write something publicly AND to have that corrected by those more knowledgable in those particular issues is the thing of importance, it helps all who may be of a similar mistaken view point. To say something untrue (which happens a lot on this (and if this is the same as on other forums) forum) and to have it not corrected by those who may know better is highly questionable, not of the 'faulter' but of the person who might have known better. So once again , thanks Duke.

Further edit:: I missed the two previous posts:: Holmes said that Oswald had stated that he meant to shoot. Whatever the case may have been, I think the butt stamp on his temple and the notion of trnasferring gun residue (unintentionally) is worth considering for those who argue that there is evidence that Lee did fire a gun that day.

I take your point fully about how some things become "fact." One of the things that can't be taken as "fact" is what anybody said that Lee Oswald said while he was in custody, including Harry Holmes. Maybe he did, but maybe he didn't, but only Holmes knows (knew) for sure. Ditto Fritz and the guys in the car between the theater and the jail.

As to a "butt stamp" on his face, while I've never examined it closely enough to conjecture yea or nay, some thoughts to consider: one, that virtually everybody involved in his arrest said that nobody hit him; two, that no officer in the theater saw anyone who had a shotgun or rifle in the theater to hit him with; and three - and most importantly - that no gun is going to "transfer blowback" to anyone's face unless that weapon had been fired very recently and nobody's hand or cheek was covering the butt so that a significant enough amount of gasses and particles could land on it to be transferred to someone else.

Not to say any of the above is impossible, but at least insofar as the blowback is concerned it seems unlikely enough as not to be seriously considered, and certainly not as a deliberate act. Possible, tho'? Could be.

If it was a butt-stamp, well, all I can say is that Oswald wouldn't have been the first prisoner to fall down the stairs or be hurt during a sudden stop in traffic or even shot while escaping, in Dallas or anywhere else. He was, after all, a suspected cop-killer.

George, the answer to your question of above is simply Tradecraft.

As all good spys know, especially one that is thoroughly trained in what Alan Dulles called the "crafts" of intelligence, practicing tradecraft is something that's just done.

Those who attended the classes in psychological warfare at the home of Paul Linebarger, had to get to the residence via various means of transport (bus, cab, walk) and routes (through department stores and up and down elevators) in order to loose anyone tailing them.

When one must be sure and is suspicous that someone is following, especially on an important assignment, mission or in the course of an operation, it is a trained tradecraft to walk in one direction and then suddenly turn around and go in the other direction.

Now you might say that it was just absencemindedness that allowed him to ride in the cab passed his rooming house and walk five blocks back to it, but Oswald uses this standard tradecraft technique three times within less than an hour.

He leaves the TSBD and walks blocks away from the building, and then gets on a bus going back in the other direction, leaves the bus and takes a cab past his rooming house and walks back, and then while walking down 10th street, as Posner so distinctly points out - gets Tippits attention by suddednly reversing direction.

I don't think it was an accident, it was simply good, or possibly sloppy tradecraft.

I don't know about the shooting part. Speculation is easy.

BK

Hmmm ... now I know why you don't think the Tippit murder is any reason to call a grand jury: we already know who the culprit is!!

I don't know why someone "practicing tradecraft" would want to get a cop's attention simply to kill him (unless, of course, he wanted other cops swarming all over the place around him!), but even still you forgot the last couple:

1) Looking into the reflections of the glass in the shoestore's outdoor lobby; and

2) Changing seats in the theater ... tho' I'd actually put this more in the genre of getting a cop's attention just to kill him and get more cops on your back. Like the other patrons wouldn't notice him, even in a "dark" theater?

Of course, it could also be "tradecraft" to kill a cop to get their attention focused on someone else, I suppose. But that doesn't make sense ....

Whatever Waggoner Carr said or meant back in 1963-64 has changed today, and the "Court of Inquiry" as established at that time was struck down by Warren's Supreme Court and recodified. If you do a search on "court of inquiry"+texas on google, you'll find a lot of interesting history and such, as well as the Rules of Procedure for the current Courts of Inquiry.

I have not had time yet to to do the search, but I will certainly take Duke's word for it. The more I read Duke Lane's posts the more I feel like one of the villagers in Oliver Goldsmith's poem, as they gazed upon the village schoolmaster:

"And still they gazed and still the wonder grew

that one small head could carry all he knew."

Since the Court of Inquiry is a dead duck, then Bill Kelly's Grand Jury suggestion seems like the only way to go at state level.

Allow me to paraphrase one of the greatest pearls of wisdom I've gotten regarding this case, this from Jim Marrs: "do not trust my posts." Verify.

I didn't say a Court of Inquiry is a dead end, merely that its rules have changed since 1963 ... in fact, in 1966, when Carr was still in office. I haven't read all of the references - or even most of them, and barely even some of them! - so I'm not entirely familiar with why to choose that avenue over another except that the Court of Inquiry is a public proceeding, unlike a grand jury. That in itself seems a good enough reason why not to pursue this venue. Read the references, and maybe you'll find a lot more than I know, because I sure as heck don't claim to know them all!

(The biggest problem with the earlier Courts of Inquiry were that they were basically a cumpulsory "Kangaroo Court" that offered little if any protections to the people called before them or inquired about. They were convened by Justices of the Peace, and were as often a "political" rather than legal tool as not.)

I still nominate the murder of Lee Oswald as the strongest basis for reopening the case. A Select Committee of Congress, for God's sake, has found that someone in the DPD assisted Jack Ruby, and no official agency, state or federal, has done a thing about it. Until that is rectified the United States has no right to be considered among the nations governed by the rule of law.

To my mind it is unfortunate that virtually everyone, the so-called "Lone nutters" and "conspiracy theorists" alike, seems to hate Lee Oswald and presume him to be guilty of something. That may explain why the research community has not pressured government to investigate his murder, in spite of the Congressional finding. It seems to me that Lee Oswald got a very raw deal on day one, and is still getting a very raw deal today (I realize he is dead, but his widow, children and grandchildren are still very much alive).

If someone in the DPD assisted Ruby with knowledge of Ruby's intentions, then that person was Ruby's co-conspirator. If a murder conspiracy is successful, then each conspirator is as guilty of murder as the man who pulls the trigger. There is no Statute of Limitations on murder. No less a body than Congress has advised that someone in the DPD has been getting away with murder, and for all we know he may be still walking the streets. Is it not time something was done about that?

Pinkerton ... no relation to Alan!

Forgive my ignorance, but did HSCA say who aided Ruby? If not, did they at least describe the mechanics by which it was done so names could be put with the faces, so to speak? While they may have said "it sure seems that way," and recommended to the Justice Department to investigate it, there is nothing other than a "suggestion" that a crime (conspiracy) may have been committed, and certainly no evidence that they put forth in hard form (that I've ever even vaguely heard of).

If a citizen has to come up with a bit more than "questions" to get a DA to convene a grand jury, why do a bunch of politicians have such a lesser standard? I can't march into Dallas County and say "y'know, it sure looks like JFK was assassinated by a conspiracy, and 97% of the people think that, too, so you need to convene a grand jury to find out who they were." A bunch of Congressmen shouldn't be able to direct the Executive Branch to investigate anything on a similar basis, no matter how sensible it may seem to you and me. That is effectively what they did.

HSCA also said that Oswald was a shooter. So I'm supposed to believe that the cops were conspirators based on what they say? A "Select Committee of Congress, for God's sake" is no more than a bunch of politicians with hired guns doing their work for them, and preparing something for them to sign. I don't think God necessarily wants to be connected to that in any way!!

Don't take my remarks to suggest that I disagree that there was any kind of conspiracy in either murder, or that the Ruby-Oswald case isn't as strong or stronger a likelihood to re-open any investigation at any level, if it could even be done at all. That's not for a layman like me to decide: I don't work on my truck, either; I leave it to a trained professional. But that doesn't mean I can't tell when something's wrong with it and be able to tell my mechanic where to start looking to find the problem. He can pick his own wrenches, tho'.

On a seperate thread dealing with a Grand Jury Duke Lane wrote:

With 15 minutes, I guess I'd prefer to deal with something "digestible" than something completely satisfying in every regard. One would, as you say, dovetail into the next if the cases are related since, if someone else shot Tippit, it would certainly raise questions about everything else, wouldn't it.

It's worth a thought.

The problem here is identifying who really did kill Tippit. To my knowlege no one has ever nominated a plausible suspect. Lee Oswald certainly is not one, no matter what the New York Times says.

How about this: The way to reopen the case is to concentrate on the murder of Lee Oswald, a human being who was murdered on November 24th, 1963, while under the care, custody and control of the Dallas police dept. (Duke Lane's heroes!). ...

SShhhhhhhhhhhh! Everyone will know who I am now!

... I will just note here that, as a matter of law, Lee Oswald was (and is) innocent of any crime.

In 1979 The House Select Committee officially declared that the gunman Jack Ruby almost certainly had assistance from someone inside the Dallas police dept. The HSCA ran out of money after spending a miserable $2.8M (this is all the Representatives of the richest country in the world were willing to spend on the murder of their greatest leader ever. Some people spend much more than that to buy a vacation home).

The HSCA report called upon the Justice Department to do a serious investigation of DPD involvement in Lee Oswald's murder, but as far as I can determine the Justice Dept under Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton and Bush 2 have been comepletely derelict in this regard.

At the 2003 Wecht conference in Pittsburgh I tried to argue that the Feds have been so derelict that reopening the Texas Court of Inquiry is the way to go. Murder is basically a state crime, and Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr, when he bowed to the (highly illegal) pressure from Lyndon Johnson and Earl Warren, promised that he would reopen the Texas inquiry if questions were ever raised about Warren Report. (C.F. the Texas Supplemental Report, a cheap, shameful little document that lies buried in the DPD archives).

Well guess what: Questions have been raised about the Warren Report and I beelieve the Texas Attorney General, if there is any honor in the Office of AG, now has the obligation to reopen at least the murder of Lee Oswald as the HSCA recommended.

I raised this question at the Wecht conference before a panel of "distinguished" lawyers, since this really is a question of Constitutional Law. Apparently no one on the distinguished panel was able to spot the issue, only Cyril Wecht responded, and his response was a loud guffaw of laughter. He thought it was such a great joke.

The idea of reopening the Texas Court of Inquiry is one that I believe is worth pursuing.

Whatever Waggoner Carr said or meant back in 1963-64 has changed today, and the "Court of Inquiry" as established at that time was struck down by Warren's Supreme Court and recodified. If you do a search on "court of inquiry"+texas on google, you'll find a lot of interesting history and such, as well as the Rules of Procedure for the current Courts of Inquiry.

I think I read somewhere that Oswald did try to shoot a policeman (McDonald?) who was trying to arrest him in the theater, but the firing pin of his .38 revolver was defective so his gun didn't fire. Maybe I'm wrong.

FWIW, Thomas

The Warren Commission made that allegation, though he was never charged with that by the DPD while he was alive. There is no consensus on this issue yet within the research community, but I for one believe this charge, like all the other charges against Lee Oswald, is completely false.

Ray

I don't doubt for a moment that a "snap" of a gun was heard, and a firing pin hit the primer of a .38 shell. In fact, McDonald went back to DPD HQ and says he later identified and put his mark on that shell and the gun that he never actually saw. By the time the WC had gotten the shells, however, the "scar" on the primer had "healed" and was no longer discernable, nor were McD's initials.

This amounted to "attempted murder," and I'm surprised that more care wasn't given to preserve the evidence of this since it only made him look that much more guilty of everything. For the firing pin mark not to have been there raises doubts as to DPD's veracity in suggesting that he did try to shoot McD: it's not that he tried to but failed, it's that he apparently didn't even try!

Of course, it didn't matter because he didn't live to see trial, and they already had two murders to try him for, even posthumously (oops: impossible to "try" him after death, but certainly he was "convicted" while residing below ground level). "Attempted murder" was a throw-away, used instead to show propensity to violence.

What surprises me even more is that he or Nick McDonald walked out of that theater alive.