Mark Lane

It is true that there are many who believe that the “decreasing trust in the government all started with the Kennedy assassination.” I have had that distrust laid at my feet many times by many people, as I was the first to question J. Edgar Hoover’s assertion, made within hours, almost minutes, of the assassination, with no time for any investigation, that Oswald shot the President and did it alone. Somehow, without my knowledge, I became the father of the credibility gap. While I no longer look into the details of the assassination -- I leave that to the rest of you -- I am aware of how the questioning of the government is used as a two edged sword against those of us who continue to seek the truth about all aspects of the government. Transparency is something to fight for, but is almost always, especially in this era of increasing oligarchic tendencies, elusive.

The annual Mark Lane Award is presented to the person or organization that initiated an effort to seek the truth about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The recipient of the award is determined by Mark Lane. Mark Lane, an attorney with more than 60 years of experience, was an associate of John Kennedy and helped to organize his campaign for president during 1960. Senator Kennedy endorsed Mr. Lane in his successful campaign to be elected to the New York State Legislature. The Annual Mark Lane Award for Seeking the Truth About the Assassination of President Kennedy The Mark Lane Award for 2012 for seeking the truth about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has been won by Cyril Wecht and the Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law. Cyril Wecht has for more then four decades utilized his experience as a forensic pathologist and his skill as an attorney to establish and discuss the facts surrounding the assassination. During 2012 Dr. Wecht organized a conference to be held at Duquesne University on October 17 to October 19, 2013, to examine the facts about the murder of President Kennedy on the 50th anniversary of the assassination. He has assembled historians of the assassination, lawyers and forensic experts to share their findings at the public meetings.

Good and thought provoking question, Mr. Wengler. I also admire your first name. Most of the cases I was involved in over the last 60 years were not in any way related to the murder of JFK. The one which gave me the happiest moment of my professional life was the successful effort to free James Joseph Richardson, an African American framed and convicted for the murder of his 7 children. I did not represent him at trial, but learned about the case 20 years later. I started a campaign to free him and enlisted numerous members of the African American leadership to join in, led by Dick Gregory. I demanded that the governor of Florida, then a Republican, appoint a special counsel to investigate. With the media campaign, led by Newsweek Magazine, creating a public issue, the governor appointed a states attorney named Janet Reno. Of course, she was later to become Attorney General of the United States. The investigation demonstrated the innocence of James Richardson and was presented before a court in Arcadia, Florida, in the presence of the two prosecutors responsible for the conviction. I was there as well and I presented our case. James and I walked out of the jail together, making that moment the most memorable one in my professional career. Mark, thank you for asking. I go into some detail about that case in Citizen Lane.

Thank you for the question. Easy to blame Lyndon Johnson, especially now that he is dead. However, a decent respect for the evidence reveals nothing to me that even begins to prove that Lyndon Johnson plotted the murder of JFK. Last Word presents the relevant facts about the culprits. I stopped reading speculative books not based on evidence that advance theories about the assassination of President Kennedy since they are, in my view, useless at best and tend to provide cover for those who killed President Kennedy.

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I'm very much looking forward to reading your new book. Hopefully it covers your time as James Earl Ray's attorney? If I might ask you a couple more questions, did you follow the King v. Jowers civil trial and, if so, what was your opinion on the jury's verdict? My autobiography, Citizen Lane, that you refer to in your post will be published on June 1, 2012. I am very pleased to report that the first commercial review was excellent. Yes, I do discuss in some length my role as James Earl Ray's attorney in a chapter entitled "Memphis, USA." The King v. Jowers civil case is a matter that I have not previously commented upon scine no one has asked me about it in the past. Are you ready? It was not a real trial since the lawyer arranging the media event had compensated Jowers for participating in the circus which actually did take place in the courtroom. In other words, both sides offered the same position and I have reason to doubt that the position they offered was sound. The jury, having seen no evidence to the contrary, had no choice. In my view, the court system should not be utilized in that fashion.

Curious. It has been six weeks since Mr. Lane began this thread. Many folks have responded to his initial comments. Some with questions; others with praise or criticism. Mr. Lane has not responded even though he said he would. Perhaps he is busy. Hopefully he has not been sidetracked by the infinite number of posts on the topic of JVB! And now there is Mr. Posner to help ..... What a long and winding road Mr. Lane has traveled since he told the WC in public session that the photograph on the cover of the Feb 21, 1964 issue of LIFE magazine had been doctored. http://www.life.com/image/53375209 Does Mr. Lane have an opinion on Farid's analysis of this photo? Peter Fokes, Toronto I told the Warren Commission as I previously told the few representatives of the media who were interested, that the picture on the cover of Life Magazine was likely doctored since the shadow from Oswald's nose went directly downward indicating that the sun was directly over his head when the picture was taken, but the shadow from his body went to the rear indicating that the sun was in front of him when that picture was taken. Either Oswald had been photographed on a planet with a dual solar system or his head had been superimposed on a body. That photograph constituted the entire case against Oswald. The rifle he allegedly used to kill the president, the pistol he used to shoot the police officer and a radical newspaper demonstrating his motivation. It was a fraud and it demonstrated from the outset the government's efforts to cover up the facts. However interesting that may be, the fact is that evidence has now been presenting demonstrating that the CIA killed President Kennedy as I describe in detail in my latest book, Last Word: My Indictment of the CIA in the Murder of JFK.

The doctors who performed the autopsy at Bethesda were all military officers and under military discipline. Humes burned his historic and invaluable autopsy notes. The only logical conclusion is that the notes were truthful but that the statement he later made was not. They were under military discipline and military justice is to justice what military music is to music.

We are talking about ancient history here. Of course, I do not recall verbatim discussions that I had more than four decades ago. I believe that Perry Russo and I never spoke except in the office of Jim Garrison, the New Orleans District Attorney, who was present when the discussion took place. There was no secret about what we had discovered regarding Clay Shaw's association with other characters. In fact, Jim Garrison spoke to the media at once stating that based upon that information and other information he was convinced that the CIA had killed the president. Jim, who was a dear friend, and later a state court judge in Louisiana, was never secretive about his findings, suspicions, and conclusions.

My apologies to all. The pressures of trying cases and completing my autobiography, Citizen Lane, have delayed my responses. Some of the questions are in fact answered in that book and others in Last Word. I chose some of the questions at random and respond to them now. Instead of thanking each of you by name who said kind words about my work, please allow me to thank each of you for your continued support and efforts to seek a more responsive and truthful government. 1. No, I did not mention George Herbert Walker Bush in Rush to Judgment. I did report in Plausible Denial (pp. 329-33) the facts about Bush, the former director of the CIA and later president, and his suspicious engagement which demonstrates that he had been involved in the CIA before the assassination of President Kennedy -- a statement that he falsely denied -- as well as his likely involvement during 1961 with the CIA’s planned Bay of Pigs invasion. I was asked why I have not spoken much about that subject. I published it in full in the New York Times bestselling book, Plausible Denial, and I discussed it during lectures on the Kennedy Assassination. Since I was not asked by network TV to discuss anything in Plausible Denial, I did what I could. 2. You ask about Marita Lorenz and wonder what led me to believe that she was credible, since she has been dismissed by many, including the HSCA. I did not invent or originally locate Marita Lorenz. She was employed by agencies of the US government including police agencies. How do I know that? I have seen the documents of the agencies addressed to her and discussing her. She was in fact a witness first selected by the government. I have found much corroboration for crucial statements she has made. While Blakey was general counsel for the HSCA, he spent a considerable amount of time covering up the evidence and the leads uncovered by his predecessor, especially if they led toward intelligence agencies. 3. E. Howard Hunts “deathbed confession” was not exactly a confession. I have interviewed his son, St. John, and I considered him to be credible. 4. Gerald Posner and I disagree about the assassination of JFK in just about every respect. When he asked me to represent him regarding another matter, he also said publicly that if Oswald had lived and I was his attorney, he felt certain that Oswald would have been acquitted. That statement was useful in explaining to many undecided Americans that Oswald could not have been convicted. I cannot discuss my attorney client relationship with Mr. Posner or any other client except to say that I felt he was being unfairly treated when he was piled on by the news media – the same guys who did the same thing to me without justification for many years. 5. Yes, I made copies of the Zapruder film which Jim Garrison gave to me for that purpose. I played some on television and left them at the station. I showed some on radio, asking the host to describe the scene to his audience and left copies there, and mailed copies to all the leaders of the news at that time in the United States, starting with Walter Cronkite. I would not call them “bootleg copies” since they were part of American history and though originally suppressed by the government, they always belonged to the American people. 6. I don’t know where Hunt and Sturgis were during the shooting, but I know they were in Dallas the day before the shooting helping to plan the operation. If they had any sense of self preservation, they got out of town before the shots were fired.

I have just received the first review of my autobiography, Citizen Lane. Citizen Lane will be published on June 1, 2012 by Chicago Review Press. The review is by Kirkus Review and will be available to subscribers to Kirkus Review on April 1, 2012. If you are not a subscriber, it will be available to the public two weeks before publication date of Citizen Lane, or about May 15, 2012. I am not permitted to publish the review at this point since Kirkus has property rights to its product, which I respect. However, I am permitted to say that the review was one of the best I have ever seen and Kirkus concluded that Citizen Lane was the story of my efforts on behalf of underdogs for six decades and "as one would expect from a person of this caliber, Lane's story focuses on the needs of those he served rather than the extraordinary part he played in so many lives." My thanks to Kirkus for its kind words. If you read Citizen Lane and have comments about it, I would be pleased to hear from you. Thank you all for your support in the efforts of so many to make our government more responsive to its people. Mark Lane March 30,2012

I have just received the first review of my autobiography, Citizen Lane. Citizen Lane will be published on June 1, 2012 by Chicago Review Press. The review is by Kirkus Review and will be available to subscribers to Kirkus Review on April 1, 2012. If you are not a subscriber, it will be available to the public two weeks before publication date of Citizen Lane, or about May 15, 2012. I am not permitted to publish the review at this point since Kirkus has property rights to its product, which I respect. However, I am permitted to say that the review was one of the best I have ever seen and Kirkus concluded that Citizen Lane was the story of my efforts on behalf of underdogs for six decades and "as one would expect from a person of this caliber, Lane's story focuses on the needs of those he served rather than the extraordinary part he played in so many lives." My thanks to Kirkus for its kind words. If you read Citizen Lane and have comments about it, I would be pleased to hear from you. Thank you all for your support in the efforts of so many to make our government more responsive to its people. Mark Lane March 30,2012

I have been a trial lawyer for more than half a century. I wroteRush to Judgment, my critique of the Warren Commission Report, in 1966and it became the number one best selling book for that year. Irepresented the American Indian Movement in the Wounded Knee trial,was arrested as a Freedom RIder in Mississippi in 1961 and wasinvolved in the anti-war movement during the Viet Nam era. I wrote thelegislation that formed the Select Committee on Assasinations for theHouse of Representatives and served on the New York State Legislature.I am still practicing law and completing my autobiography.