Bernice Moore

Last November in Dallas I spoke at length with Bill Newman. I specifically asked him where the shots originated. His answer: "I was directly in the line of fire. The shots came FROM BEHIND ME, from behind the wooden fence." The first time I ever spoke to him in the late 80s HE SAID EXACTLY THE SAME THING. I do not know where you heard him say anything different. Jack <{POST_SNAPBACK}> ****************************************** Note: The following article was originally published in 1965. It contained the following blurb on the author: "Harold Feldman is a freelance writer and translator. He has published extensively in psychoanalytical journals, especially on the psychology of assassins. He, together with attorney Vincent Salandria, spent some time in Dallas, conducting their own investigation of the Kennedy assassination. His 'Oswald and the FBI' appeared in The Nation." The original article also had this dedication: "To Shirley Martin of Hominy, Oklahoma, who was paid homage by the attorneys of the Warren Commission in being called in scorn, 'a self-appointed investigator.'" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fifty-one Witnesses: The Grassy Knoll by Harold Feldman -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "There is no evidence of a second man, of other shots, of other guns." Congressman Gerald R. Ford (Life magazine, October 2, 1964) The human ear does not provide the best evidence in a murder case. But its perceptions are evidence not to be despised or dismissed, especially when the case is the murder of a President and more than half of all recorded witnesses agree. What follows is the result of a survey of the 121 witnesses to the assassination of President Kennedy whose statements are registered in the twenty-six volumes appended to the Warren Report.[1] On the question of where the shots that killed the President came from, 38 could give no clear opinion and 32 thought they came from the Texas School Book Depository Building (TSBDB). Fifty-one held the shots sounded as if the came from west of the Depository, the area of the grassy knoll on Elm Street, the area directly on the right of the President's car when the bullets struck. Tague and the Echoes We begin by conceding what the President's Commission says it found, namely, that a man on the sixth floor of the TSBDB fired a rifle at the Presidential limousine that Friday noon. The fact that a third man, besides President Kennedy and Governor Connally, was a casualty of those crucial seconds forces us to ask, however, whether there was not one or more other riflemen firing at the motorcade from a different direction. For James Thomas Tague stopped on Commerce Street near the Triple Underpass and was standing about 270 feet to the left of the President's car when he felt a sharp sting on his cheek. A deputy sheriff nearby, seeing blood on Tague's cheek, searched the immediate area and found a fresh bullet mark on the south curb of Main Street a few feet away. Tague was hit during the very seconds that he witnessed the murder of the President. It is difficult to conceive of a sharpshooter aiming at the President from the TSBDB on Elm Street and striking so far afield of his target. It is highly possible, though, that the bullet which hit Tague was fired from the area that Tague himself thought was the source of fire: the grassy knoll on the north side of Elm Street. A marksman stationed there need not have taken faulty aim to miss the President and hit Tague. James Tague was not called to Washington for questioning by the Commission. Instead, eight months after the assassination, his deposition was taken in Dallas by Wesley J. Liebeler, assistant counsel of the Commission. The interrogation about the source of the shot is worth quoting from at some length. Mr. Liebeler. ... Did you have any idea where these shots came from, when you heard them ringing out? Mr. Tague. Yes; I thought they were coming from my left. Mr. Liebeler. Immediately to your left or toward the back? Of course now we have other evidence that would indicate that the shots did come from the Texas School Book Depository but see if we can disregard that and determine just what you heard when the shots were fired in the first place. Mr. Tague. To recall everything is almost impossible. Just an impression is all I recall, is the fact that my first impression that up by the, whatever you call the monument or whatever it was ... Mr. Liebeler. Your impression of where the shots came from was much the result of the activity near No. 7? Mr. Tague. Not when I heard the shots. Mr. Liebeler. You thought that they had come from the area between Nos. 7 and 6? Mr. Tague. I believe they came from up in here. Mr. Liebeler. Back in area "C"? Mr. Tague. Right. Mr. Liebeler. Behind the concrete monument here between Nos. 5 and 7 toward the general area of "C"? Mr. Tague. Yes. (VII 556-7) Area "C" and No. 7 with its concrete monument, is the grassy knoll. indicated as such on the Commission's map. Attorneys whom we asked to review the interrogation of Tague all agreed that the Commission's counsel asked leading questions, tried to steer Tague's answers, and even became argumentative. All in all, the motions of a badgering, suggestive prosecutor rather than an impartial inquirer. Mr. Liebeler. Do you think that it is consistent with what you heard and saw that day that the shots could have come from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository? Mr. Tague. Yes. Mr. Liebeler. There was in fact a considerable echo in that area? Mr. Tague. There was no echo from where I stood. I was asked this question before and there was no echo. (VII, 557) Tague stuck to his guns. Admitting for all he knew that the shots could have come from the TSBDB, he insisted on his clear memory that they came from the vicinity of the concrete monument. The reference to echoes is significant. To help reduce this great preponderance of witnesses who favored a murder source other than the one it wished to prove, the Commission frequently tried to bring witnesses to admit that it was not the sound of shots they heard but their echoes. An echo of course is a reflected sound that reaches a hearer a very short time after the originating sound. But if echoes influenced the witnesses at the assassination scene, it is clear that those who thought the shots came from the TSBDB would be more likely to be misled than those who thought the sounds came from the grassy knoll. The Depository was the last tall building of the Dallas business district as the motorcade moved west. The surfaces of buildings like this produce stronger echoes than would a low, convex slope covered by a rug-like grassy surface. On the basis of auditory testimony alone from 51 witnesses (and we grant that such testimony in a case like this can never be, by itself, convincing or conclusive) we must agree that the grassy knoll which approaches the famous Triple Underpass on the northwest side of Elm Street would be the most likely source of most of the bullets fired at the motorcade that day. Mr. Vincent J. Salandria has recently outlined the ballistic and medical probabilities of such a trajectory.[2] However, we stress that the two sources of bullets are not mutually exclusive. The chief weakness of the Warren Report was its absolute refusal to consider seriously any other source of shots besides the TSBDB, even though such a source is indicated by the largest number of direct witnesses. Let us review these witnesses. "The Best View" When the assassin opened fire, the Presidential limousine had just passed the steps which lead to the concrete monument on the grassy knoll. Assuming a single rifleman firing from the TSBDB, let us ask again the question which Allen Dulles asked during a meeting of the Commission. Which participants in the motorcade had "the best view of the assassination"? Dulles suggested this answer: It must have been the third or fourth or fifth car in the motorcade that was right opposite the window at the time the assassin put the rifle well out of the window and shot ... Whatever it was, the car that was right opposite the window and going in this direction at the time must have been the fourth or fifth car --- the car which had the best view of the assassination. (IV, 332) Yes, at the time the shots rang out, the third, fourth, and fifth cars of the motorcade had just turned or were turning left from Houston Street into Elm Street, at a speed of five to ten miles an hour, with the block-long TSBDB looming on their right. They were riding the center lane of a three-lane, one-way street. Nothing obstructed their view of its upper stories. Twelve of the twenty persons in these three cars were Secret Service agents, and the Warren Report tells us that "Secret Service agents riding in the motorcade were trained to scan buildings as part of their general observation of the crowd of spectators." Moreover, the Report marks the TSBDB as one of "the most obvious points of possible ambush along the route in Dallas." (W, 448) Now the most striking aspect of the individual reports made by the Secret Service drivers and passengers of these three cars is certainly this: that having a better view of the TSBDB at the time of the assassination than anyone else in the motorcade, not one, writing memoranda within hours or days of the event or testifying about it months afterward, not one pointed to the TSBDB as the source of the shots as they heard them. Some of them say the shots came from the "right rear" with no suggestion of an elevation. In most cases, there is no more definite indication than that. William Greer, driving the President's car, for instance, thought the noise came from the right rear but felt they were the backfiring of motorcycles. Glen Bennett only says that, after hearing the shots, "we peered toward the rear and particularly the right side of the area" (XVIII, 760). John Ready noted: At about 12:30 p.m. I heard what sounded like firecrackers going off from my post on the right front running board ... It appeared that the shots came from my right-rear side. (XVIII, 750) The driver of car #4, Texas Highway Patrolman Hurchel Jacks, was the only person in that car who had any opinion at all on the source of the shots, and he could say no more than that they sounded as if they came from the right and rear of the car. In car #5, Jerry Kivett says he looked "in the direction of the noise, which was to my right rear," but adds that although he reached for his gun, he did not draw it "for I could not tell where the shots were coming from." (XVIII, 778) Warren Taylor is the only other Secret Service agent in these three cars who describes the sound as "coming from my right rear" and he too is no more specific. When we drew up a chart enumerating the witnesses and their perceptions we included anyone riding in these three cars who gave "right rear" as the source of the shots among those who thought the shots came from the vicinity of the TSBDB. Our final figures, therefore, give possible critics of our findings all benefit of the doubt. Reviewing the same three cars, we see that George Hickey, Jr., offers no opinion on the question but observes that "the President was slumped to the left" after being hit, and later "it seemed as if the right side of his head was hit" (XVIII, 765). This suggests a source almost directly to the right; but is too inconclusive. Clinton Hill is just as vague. Noting that "I heard noise from my right rear," he goes on to contrast this first shot with the second which "was right, but I cannot say for sure that it rear" (II, 138, 144). Hill's remark reminds us of Salandria's view that the bullets probably came from both the knoll and the Depository. Samuel Kinney, like Hickey, sees a shot strike Kennedy on the right side of the head, sees him fall to the left, but gives no opinion about where the shots came from (XVIII 731) . William McIntyre says "None of us [in car #3] could determine the origin of the shots" (XVIII, 747). Emory Roberts saw what looked like "a small explosion on the right side of the President's head." His conclusion: "I could not determine from what direction the shots came, but felt they had come from the right side" (XVIII, 734, 739) . Riding the right front seat of the Vice-Presidential car, Rufus Youngblood had no opinion on the source of the shots (XVIII, 767-8). The driver of car #5, Texas Highway Patrolman Joe Rich, likewise had no opinion (XVIII, 800). Of the Secret Service personnel in the three cars with "the best view," only two make any specific notes about the source of the shots, and what they say adds up to the grassy knoll. Paul E. Landis, Jr., riding the rear right running board of car #3, wrote: My immediate thought was that the President could not possibly be alive after being hit like he was. I still am not certain from which direction the second shot came, but my reaction at the time was the shot came from somewhere towards the front right-hand side of the road. I did not notice anyone on the overpass, and I scanned the area to the right of and below the overpass where the terrain sloped toward the road on which we were traveling. (XVIII, 755) Thomas L Johns, in the right rear seat of car #5, only says that: On the right-hand side of the motorcade from the street, a grassy area sloped upward to a small 2 or 3-foot concrete wall with sidewalk area. When the shots sounded, I was looking to the right and saw a man standing and then being thrown or hit to the ground, and this together with the shots made the situation appear dangerous to me. (XVIII, 774) The other passengers of the cars, which Allen Dulles thought provided the best view of an assassin firing from the TSBDB, offer little more enlightenment. Lyndon Johnson wrote that it was impossible for him to tell the direction of the explosions (V 562). Alone of all those in the three cars, Lady Bird Johnson suggests the Depository. Telling her story into a tape-recorder, she said, "It seemed to me to come from the right, above my shoulder, from a building" (V 565). Senator Yarborough's statement that all the shots "came from my right rear" (VII 440) made in July 1964 should be coupled with his comments, reported in the Texas Observer, that he smelled gunpowder as the car drove away through the underpass. As for the aide to Kennedy and Johnson in the strategic cars, Ken O'Donnell pointed to the right rear but admitted that "my reaction in part is reconstruction" (VII 448), and Clifton Carter made no judgment on the question. Riding next to O'Donnell in car #5, David Powers remembered that: My first impression was that the shots came from the right and overhead but I also had a fleeting impression that the noise appeared to come from the front in the area of the triple underpass. (VII 473) The most comfortable defender of the Warren Report will not fail to perceive the strange meaning of this roll call. Riding at a crawl alongside of the TSBDB, the last tall building on the motorcade route --- and most of the passengers aware of a duty to scan tall building on the way --- not one (with the possible exception of Mrs. Johnson) thought that the Depository was the assassin's firing nest or saw anything suspicious in that area. Not one mentioned the Depository as a possible or probable source of the shot. Three passengers indicated that the shots sounded as if they came from the vicinity of the grassy knoll. Perhaps, for this point and also for future reference, we should recall the elementary principal of sound location. As a general rule one can locate a sound upward or downward, front or rear, only when the hearing is supported by other knowledge and experience. Right and left locations, on the other hand, are discriminated more reliably by the cars because sound in those directions will normally be stronger in one ear while the other ear is in an auditory shadow cast by the head. It follows that the remarks of the drivers and passengers in the three strategic witness cars are, in general, inconclusive but more valid in their indication of shot sources to the right than in their perception of a source to the rear. The Man in the Window As Kennedy's car rode toward the Triple Underpass, someone was standing at the extreme southeast window of the sixth floor of the TSBDB. He had a rifle in hand. When was seen some minutes before the assassination, his gaze was not directed at the approaching motorcade but rigidly fixed down Elm Street toward the Triple Underpass. So much we can reconstruct from the testimony of nine witnesses (none of them officers of the law). We are at once faced with many questions. For instance, why would a man, who intends to shoot a rifle westward toward the underpass, choose the window on Elm Street farthest from his target? Why didn't he take his place at the extreme southwest window where his view would not be blocked a crucial part of the way by an oak tree that was in full leaf that November? The onlookers at the heavy traffic corner of Elm and Houston, which he overlooked, were still numerous enough to be called a crowd while the bystanders west of the building were few and scattered. If he had chosen the western position he would have been more than a hundred feet closer to the stairway by which he is said to have escaped. At our present state of knowledge we can only ask and wonder about such questions. All that we can sat with any degree of certainty is that a man with a rifle was seen in the southeast window facing Elm Street. Mrs. Earle Cabell, wife of the then Mayor of Dallas, saw "something" in the window. Malcolm 0. Couch, Dallas news-cameraman, didn't see anyone there but saw about a foot of the rifle as it was being withdrawn into the window. Robert Hill Jackson, staff photographer for The Dallas Times-Herald, also saw the rifle, about half of it, as someone drew it back into the building after the last shot exploded. He too could not see the person who held it. (We will return presently to these three witnesses.) Two schoolboys and a steamfitter saw and heard the Depository rifle in action. James Worrell, Jr., age 20, playing hooky from school that day, stood in front of the TSBDB and after the first shot looked up He then saw the rifle fire twice. He did not report what he saw to the police until the next day (II, 200). Fifteen-year-old Amos Lee Euins happened to look up at the sixth floor window across the street from where he was standing and saw someone there fire a rifle. Amos ducked behind the little fountain at the peristyle nearby and peered upward in time to see a man fire again. "I could see his hand," he told the Warren Commission, "and I could see his other hand on the trigger and one hand was on the barrel thing." (V, 204) The police and FBI wrote an affidavit for him which he signed. It said that he saw a white man up there but Amos absolutely denied to the Commission that he ever could have described the man on the sixth floor in any way. Star witness of the Commission was undoubtedly Howard Leslie Brennan who was working at the time fabricating pipe in the yards just behind the Depository. After lunch he went to Elm and Houston and perched himself on the retaining wall of the pool at the Dealey Plaza entrance, wearing the hard helmet that identifies him in photographs of the scene. He says he saw "this one man" come and leave the sixth floor window a couple of times before the shooting. After the second shot Brennan looked up again, "and this man that I saw previous was aiming for his last shot." The gunman then drew back "and maybe paused for another second as though to sure himself that he hit his mark, then he disappeared" (III, 143-4). Brennan went on to describe the rifleman in remarkable detail for a view at such a distance. Two others saw the man in the window but did not see him fire. Ronald Fischer stood with a friend at the southwest corner of Elm and Houston and, minutes before the motorcade came by, pointed to the figure at the window. It surprised Fischer that a man looking out of a sixth floor window there should not be looking in the direction of the motorcade but towards the underpass. (VI, 193) On the east side of Houston near Elm, waiting for the President to pass, were Arnold Rowland and his wife. They were talking about how the Secret Service protects the President of the United States when Arnold happened to see the man in the sixth floor window of the TSBDB. "He was standing and holding a rifle ... the thought came to us that it is a security agent," Arnold told the Commission in Washington. Mrs. Rowland looked up but could not see the man nor the rifle. There are two remarkable elements in Arnold Rowland's testimony. At the same time he saw another man in the southwest window of the sixth floor, a post we have already suggested would have been a wiser sniping position. And ... on hearing the shots that killed Kennedy and wounded Connally, Rowland thought they came from the grassy knoll! After the second explosion, "Well," he told the Commission almost apologetically, "I began looking, I didn't look at the building mainly, and a practically any of the police offices that were there then will tell you the echo effect was such that it sounded like it came from the railroad yards. That is where I looked, that is where all the policemen, everyone, converged on the railroads." Arlen Specter, assistant counsel for the Commission, asked Rowland, "Why did you not look back at the Texas School Book Depository Building in view of the fact that you had seen a man with a rifle up there earlier in the day?" And the young man replied, "I don't remember. It was mostly due to the confusion, and then the fact that it sounded like it came from this area 'C' and that all the officers, enforcement officers were converging on that area and I just didn't pay any attention to it at that time." (II, 169-81) Ronald Fischer, questioned in Dallas in April 1964 by David W. Belin, had a similar problem. His friend Robert Edwards thought the shots "seemed to come from that building there" (XIX, 473), but Fischer testified that "they appeared to be coming from just west of the School Book Depository Building" (VI, 193-6). The words "railroad yards," used again and again in the testimony, require explanation. There are railroad terminals and yards running behind the TSBDB that extend along the north side of the grassy knoll and connect to the railroad overpass that crosses Elm, Main, and Commerce Streets. Mrs. Rowland, in her deposition, makes clear which railroad yard area was the center of witness attention that day. She and her husband ran, she says, to "the colonnade over on the north side of Elm Street" (VI, 184). Mrs. Cabell, in motorcade car #7, thought the shots came from the TSBDB but "was acutely aware of the odor of gunpowder" (VII 486-7), which is not likely to have been perceptible from a source high up and inside a building. She noticed the odor after all the shots were fired and therefore possibly when car #7 was turning down hill into Elm Street, approaching the knoll where Senator Yarborough, too, began to smell gunpowder. Congressman Roberts and Mr. Donald Baker, too, noted the smell of gunpowder at about the same location. TV- newsman Couch did not associate the sound of the shot with the building where he had seen the rifle. He remembered seeing blood on the walkway that leads to the southwest corner of the TSBDB and people "pointing back around those shrubs around that west corner" (VI, 157-60) . Couch's fellow-passenger in car #8 Jackson, was asked: Mr. Specter. Mr. Jackson, at the time you heard the first shot, did you have any reaction or impression from the sound itself as to the source of the shot point of origin? Mr. Jackson. No sir, I didn't. It did sound like it came from ahead of us or from that general vicinity but I could not tell whether it was high up or on the ground. Mr. Specter. When you say that general vicinity, what vicinity did you mean? Mr. Jackson. We were sure it came from ahead of us which would be in a northerly direction, northwesterly direction. It did sound as though it came from somewhere around the head of the motorcade. (II, 162) The policeman at the TSBDB comer whom Howard Brennan accosted right after the shot, showed no sign that he suspected anything inside the building. Brennan told him that the 30 to 50 policemen and deputies swarming over the grassy knoll and into the railroad yards "were searching in the wrong direction for the man that did the shooting" (III, 145). An uneasy fact: Brennan is said to have told a policeman what he saw at the 6th floor window of the TSBDB within three minutes of the assassination. A search-call for the assassin is supposed to have been issued on the basis of Brennan's description. But no control and concerted search of the Depository in general was begun for almost a half-hour, and even then the sixth floor got no special attention in the search orders. The First Cars Let us continue our review of the motorcade. The Commission tells us that "passengers in the first few cars of the motorcade had the impression that the shots came from the rear and from the right, the general direction of the Texas School Book Depository (W, 61). This is not true. Car #2 was the death car. About 100 feet ahead of it was the lead car of the motorcade. Not one of the drivers or passengers of these two cars indicated in any way that the TSBDB was the source of the shots. Mrs. Kennedy offered no opinion at all on the shots and indeed the noise sounded to her like motorcycles backfiring on the left (V, 180). Governor Connally guessed that the shots came from back over his right shoulder at an elevation and declined to be more specific. At the first shot, he said, he turned right and saw "nothing of any significance except just people on the grass slope" (IV 12-S). His wife Nellie added, "Well, I had no thought of whether they were high or low or where. They just came from the right; sounded like they were to my right" (IV, 149). VIP's and Secret Service agents gave their testimony months after the event, when every force of suggestion from officials and newspapers pointed to the TSBDB as the post of an unaided sniper. That they insisted on their original recollection under these conditions is a tribute to these men and women. William Greer, the Special Agent driving the President's limousine, could give no opinion on the direction of the shots. Beside him rode Roy H. Kellerman, an agent with more than 20 years experience in the Secret Service. He told the Commission that he had no reaction about the height of the explosions. But he did turn immediately to his right after he heard one shot. Mr. Specter. What was the reason for your reacting to your right? Mr. Kellerman. That was the direction that I heard this noise, pop. (II, 74) In the lead car rode two Secret Service men, Winston G. Lawson of the White House Detail, responsible for planning many details of the motorcade, and Forrest V. Sorrels, in charge of the Dallas office. Lawson looked back at the President's car continually in order to regulate the speed of the procession. When he heard the shots (car #1 was almost at the Triple Underpass when he heard them) he was positive that they came from the rear of his car, and when he saw an agent standing up with an automatic weapon in his hand in car #3, Lawson's first thought was that the shots came from that gun. (IV, 352-3) Sorrels remembered scanning the Depository as his car turned the corner, but he saw "no activity, no one moving around that I saw at all." As soon as he heard the shots, he "turned around to look up on this terrace part there, because the sound sounded like it came from the back and up in that direction." He had to repeat this for the Commission's assistant counsel, Samuel A. Stern. And, as I said, the noise from the shots sounded like they may have come back up or the terrace there ... But the reports seemed to be so loud that it sounded like to me --- in other words, that my first thought, somebody up on the terrace, and that is the reason I looked there. Mr. Stern then drew him out of the area of evidence into the area of conforming opinion in order to evoke the right words from his witness: Mr. Stern. Do you have any reason to believe that the shots could not have come from the Book Depository Building? Mr. Sorrels. No, sir. Mr. Stern. Would shots from the Book Depository Building have been consistent with your hearing of the shots? Mr. Sorrels. Yes, they would have. (VII, 345-7) There were two other major participants in the day's events who rode in the lead car: the chief of police of Dallas and the sheriff of Dallas County. Police Chief Jesse Curry was driving the lead car. In his deposition, taken 4/15/1964, he said: I heard a sharp report. We were near the railroad yards at this time, and I didn't now --- I didn't know exactly where this report came from, whether it was above us or where, but this followed by two more reports (XII, 28). The week after this deposition, he was in Washington testifying at great length before the Commission --- but not a word more does he add and not a question is he asked about the way he heard the shots. What we do learn is that, before he ordered motorcycle officer Chaney to lead the car to Parkland Hospital: "I said over the radio, I said: 'Get someone up in the railroad yard and check.'" (IV, 161) Bill Decker, also riding the lead car, had been sheriff of Dallas County since 1949. The first time any member of the Commission's staff interviewed him was on 4/16/1964, in Dallas. At that time he was not asked a thing about the assassination itself, even though he himself introduced the subject. In an undated memo, presumably written within day after Kennedy's death, Decker had no opinion on the direction of the shots or their origin. "When I heard the shots," he does remark, "I noted motorcycle officers coming off their cycles and running up the embankment on Dealey Plaza" (XIX, 458). Since Dealey Plaza proper has no embankment he can only have been referring to the grassy knoll on his right. The Decker-Curry Radio Mystery Here we come to a collateral puzzle. For Sheriff Decker writes in his undated memorandum: We moved out immediately at which time I took the microphone and requested the DPD Dispatcher 521 to advise my Station 5-Radioroom to notify all officers in my department to immediately get over to the area where shooting occurred and saturate the area of the park, railroad and all buildings ... The words "and all buildings" are either deceiving or decisive. For we have never found any record that any building beside the TSBDB was searched after the assassination, and the radio calls registered in the official log at the time show calls to order men up to the railroad yards but none ordering men to the TSBDB or any other building. Who then ordered the TSBDB to be searched? And when? All the newspapers carried the story of how a motorcycle policeman, Marrion L. Baker, parked his vehicle on Houston Street near Elm, charged into the TSBDB just 15 seconds after the last shot, and drew his gun on Lee Oswald on the second floor before proceeding to the roof with TSBDB superintendent Roy Truly. But the stories did not say (1) that Mr. Baker made his determination that shots were coming from the Depository while he was riding at the end of the motorcade, that is, before entering Houston Street from Main Street, that is, from distance greater than any other witness; and (2) that after checking the roof with Mr. Truly, they descended to the ground floor by elevator and, passing the fourth floor, saw Inspector J. Herbert Sawyer of the Dallas Police (III, 261). Now, mind you, neither Baker nor Sawyer had spoken with Brennan, Euins, Worrell or any other eyewitness before entering the TSBDB. Baker was there because that is where he thought the shot were coming from, and Sawyer was there because, he says, a message came over his radio ordering him there. Inspector Sawyer was in his car parked on Ervay and Main Streets during the assassination. Too far away to hear the shots, he naturally saw nothing of the area's reaction to them. This is what he told assistant Counsel D. W. Belin on 4/8/1964 in Dallas: Mr. Sawyer. ... I heard Sheriff Decker come on the radio and tell the dispatcher to put all of his men over to, and I thought he said Texas School Book Depository but at least that was the overall gist of the conversation. That is what I gathered. He may not have said Texas School Book Depository but the Texas School Book Depository was mentioned in the broadcasts that were made at the time. Mr. Belin. Was this on Channel 1 or Channel 2, if you remember? Mr. Sawyer. Channel 2, I am sure. Mr. Belin. Did Sheriff Decker have any particular call number at all, or not, in your police number system? Mr. Sawyer. No, I was wondering why he come on our radio but then I think that he was with Chief Curry and probably using that radio. Mr. Belin. All right, in any event, a call was made from Chief Curry's car? Mr. Sawyer. Well this I don't know either. I don't know what car it was made from, but I think it was Sheriff Decker talking. I could recognize his voice, yes. Mr. Belin. What did you do then? Mr. Sawyer. Then I went on down to the Texas Book Depository. (VI, 316-7) Summed up, this means that the inspector hurried down to the TSBDB on an order issued by an unidentified source at an uncertain location, an order which was not directed to him nor made by his superior officer but by a voice which he only supposed to be the sheriff coming over the wrong radio channel; an order, finally, which evidently did not mention the TSBDB. A mystery certainly, but one not scrutinized too closely by the Commission. The only orders issued on the radio by Curry ant Decker at the time were calls to get men over to the Triple Underpass and the railroad yards (I, 319). At least that is what the log shows. We must assume then that neither Curry nor Decker were responsible for Sawyer's presence on the fourth floor of the TSBDB as Baker and Truly were descending in the elevator. In fact, Curry was asked by Allen Dulles whether he had ever told the newspapers that he had been the one who sent out the radio order to surround the Depository. Mr. Curry. I didn't do that, sir. That was one of my inspectors, I believe, that gave that order. I was riding in the Presidential parade and approximately a hundred feet, I guess, ahead of the President's car, and when we heard this first report I couldn't tell exactly where it was coming from ... I thought at first that perhaps this was a railroad torpedo, it was a sharp crack." (IV, 160-1) What Curry implies here is that some other inspector made an unauthorized radio order that was never logged, or that Sawyer acted on his own responsibility and covered his action by referring to an alleged radio order. The situation proves even trickier. Because, if The New York Times of 11/24/1963 is to be believed, it is Curry who is not telling the truth. Reporting a November 23 press conference with the Chief of Police the Times had this to say: Moments after the fatal shot was fired at President Kennedy at 12:30 PM yesterday, Chief Curry said he radioed in instructions that the Texas School Book Depository Building be surrounded and searched ... Chief Curry said he could tell from the sound of the three shots that they had come from the book company's building. We must note that the records of the Chief's press conference do not show such a statement. Furthermore, this is a report about a man who, in his deposition and testimony, had denied that he had any opinion about the direction of the shots except for a general suspicion about the railroad yards to his right. If the Times report is true, then (1) Curry lied to the Commission, and (2) the official log of radio dispatches has been expurgated, or censored. In this connection Forrest Sorrels, riding in the lead car with Decker ant Curry, has a significant recollection: ... the chief [Curry] took his microphone and told them to alert the hospital and said 'Surround the building'. He didn't say what building. He just said, 'Surround the building'. And by that time we had gotten almost in under the underpass, and the President's car had come up and was almost abreast of us. (VII, 345) Deputies and Police An impressive feature of the Kennedy murder case is the large number of witnesses who are on familiar terms with firearms. Very few of the eyewitnesses could have had their testimony impeached on the ground that they could not properly evaluate the sounds they heard. And the great majority of the eyewitnesses say that the assassin of President Kennedy seemed to be firing from the grassy knoll. The Warren Report faces this difficulty in its typical manner, a style which led Murray Kempton, a friendly critic, to observe that it presented no more than "the case for the prosecution." The Report says: When the shots were fired, many people near the Depository believed that the shots came from the railroad bridge over the Triple Underpass or from the area to the west of the Depository. In the hectic moments after the assassination many spectators ran in the general direction of the Triple Underpass or the railroad yards northwest of the building. Some were running toward the place from which the sound of the rifle fire appeared to come, others were fleeing the scene of the shooting. (W, 71) It require a patient culling of the 26 volumes appended to the Report to learn that here and elsewhere the Report is a not unskillful deception. We would not learn from the Report itself, for example, that the "many people" were in fact most people, the overwhelming majority. We are drawn to a picture of bystanders rushing westward of the TSBDB, "some" to find the assassin, "others" to escape him. But we are not told that practically none of the witnesses belonged to the second category, and that the "some" who looked for the assassin in the vicinity of the grassy knoll included almost every deputy sheriff on duty in the area that day and most of the policemen. The list of witnesses for the grassy knoll as a sniper's post is decreased because the Warren Report and its appendices contain no evidence from many persons who are mentioned and quoted in the reports of other witnesses and in newspaper accounts. We have found ten deputies of the sheriff's office who were on assignment at the assassination scene who were not called on for evidence. Most of them would, probably, have felt and reacted like the twenty recorded deputies. Of these twenty, only one decided the shots came from the TSBDB, three gave no opinion, and sixteen thought this assassin had fired from the area of the grassy knoll. The only deputy sheriff who pointed to the TSBDB did not say where he thought the shots came from. John Wiseman merely told us in his memo of 11/23/63 that he talked to Marilyn Sitzman and an unnamed man who thought the shots came from the Depository (XIX, 535-6). Eugene Boone's testimony is doubly interesting. He not only ran towards the knoll and then the freight yards as soon as he heard the shots; he is also the deputy who found a rifle on the sixth floor of the TSBDB almost an hour later, and identified it as a 7.65 Mauser. (XIX, 507; VII, 105-9). This rifle, which soon became a 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano, was also identified by deputy constable Seymour Weitzman as a Mauser. Weitzman, like most of the other deputies, was standing at the corner of Main and Houston when he heard the shots. He ran toward the President's car and climbed over a wall in "the monument section," looking for the assassin (VII, 106). Roger Craig, too, on hearing the first shot, ran until he reached "the terrace on Elm Street" and then the railroad yards (XIX, 524.). Harold Elkins was more explicit: I immediately ran to the area from which it sounded like the shots had been fired. This is an area between the railroad and the Texas School Book Depository which is east of the railroad. (XIX, 540) "Lummie" Lewis, A. D. McCurley, Luke Mooney, and W. W. Mabra all heard the shots the same way and ran to search the grassy knoll and the freight yard. (XIX, 526, 514, 541, 528) "Why did you go over to the railroad yard?" the Commission's assistant counsel, Joseph Ball, asked Mooney. "Well," said Mr. Mooney a bit hesitantly, "that was --- from the echo of the shots, we thought they came from that direction." Then he added a note to the Decker-Curry mystery. After "a few seconds" of search, Mooney said, "we had orders to cover the Texas Depository Building" --- and the orders "were referred to us by the sheriff Mr. Bill Decker." (III, 283) The shots sent Deputy Sheriff J. L. Oxford running toward the underpass (XIX, 530). L. C. Smith's reaction to the shots was to climb the fence behind the knoll and search the parking lot (XIX, 516). Deputy I. C. Todd ran to the railroad tracks, as did Ralph Walters and radio officer Jack Watson (XIX, 543, 505-6, 522). Harry Weatherford tells much the same story: "I thought to myself that this was a rifle and I started towards the corner when I heard the third report ... By this time I was running toward the railroad yards where the sound seemed to come from." (XIX, 502) Deputy Sheriff Eddy Raymond Walthers (known as "Buddy") took an active part in many phases of the investigation and gave evidence in Dallas and Washington. The story of his initial reactions to Kennedy's murder as told in July 1964 is much the same as his memorandum written on November 22. He heard three shots, ran across Dealey Plaza until he reached the parking are behind the now-familiar "concrete structure on the knoll (VII, 544-6). It was later, while looking for bullet traces, that he came across James Tague, the man with the bloody cheek, whose slight wound was to give the Commission as much trouble as any other inflicted that day. Among the policemen near the scene, we find wider variety of opinion and reaction, perhaps because they were distributed all along the route of the motorcade and not concentrated near one corner as were the deputy sheriffs. Four policemen indicated the Depository as the source, four could make no definite opinion, four indicated the gray knoll area. The evidence of Patrolman Baker has already been noted. The officer to whom Brennan spoke, Welcome Eugene Barnett, was stopping traffic for the motorcade at Elm and Houston. He thought the second shot sounded high and looked up at the TSBDB across the street. When the third shot exploded, "I decided it had to be on top of that building. To me it is the only place the sound could be coming from." He also remarked that he was the only officer around who seemed to react to the shots as he did (VII, 541-2). It is noteworthy that neither Baker, Sawyer nor Barnett took any decisive action to seal off the building. J. W. Foster, assigned to the Triple Overpass, thought the shots "came from back in toward the corner of Elm and Houston Street." He ran to the Depository where he bumped into Inspector Sawyer (VI, 251-2). Earle Brown, on duty at the Stemmons Freeway overpass, also believed the shots came from the TSBDB, but he was struck by the smell of gunpowder near the overpass (VI, 233-4). Three motorcycle policemen in the motorcade provided excellent directional evidence. B. J. Martin, riding at the left rear side of the death car, heard shots but "couldn't tell just where they were coming from." When he arrived at Parkland Hospital, however, he noticed blood and flesh particles on his motorcycle windshield, the left side of his helmet, and the left shoulder of his uniform (VI, 291). Besides Martin and just alongside of Mrs. Kennedy rode Bobby Hargiss. "At the time," he testified, "there was something in my head that said that they probably could have been coming from the railroad overpass, because I thought since I had got splattered with blood --- I was just a little back and left of --- a little back and left of Mrs. Kennedy but I didn't know." His second choice was the TSBDB (VI, 294-5). Clyde Haygood was described in the world press that Friday and Saturday because, after the shots were fired, he tried to jump the north curb of Elm Street with his motorcycle and, failing, parked it on the street and ran to the knoll looking for any sign of the assassin (VI, 297-9). Joe Marshall Smith had his back to the Depository on Elm Street when the shots rang out. "I didn't know where the shots came from," he said, but ran "to an area immediately behind the concrete structure" and checked the bushes and all the cars in the parking lot behind the knoll. (VII, 533-6) Another Patrolman Smith, Edgar Leon Smith, Jr., stood on the east curb of Houston Street about 150 feet from the TSBDB. He guessed the first two shots were firecrackers but, after the third shot, he drew his pistol and ran down Elm Street. Mr. Liebeler. You thought the shot came from this little concrete structure up behind No. 7? Mr. Smith. Yes, sir. But experience leads us to expect that the Commission's counsel will not be content with such direct reply. Mr. Liebeler. Is what you heard that day consistent with the proposition that the shots came from the School Book Depository Building? Mr. Smith. They could have come from there and they could not --- I just don't know. (VII, 568-9) As for the grassy knoll, Patrolman Smith humbly insisted, "It just looked like a good place for them to come from and I guess that's the reason I ran down there." Smith shows how close to unanimous that impression was among law enforcement officers on the spot. The job of examining people and things around and behind the knoll became difficult, he says, because there were so many police and deputies milling around there. Depository Personnel Jack Faulkner, sheriff's deputy, noted in a memo of 11/22/1963 that he helped search the TSBDB and that "when we got down to the third floor, we talked to office workers who told us they were looking out of the third floor window when the shots were fired from the street near the concrete arcade." (CIX 511) We may never know who these office girls were. There is no other record of what they heard and saw, and the Commission found no time for following such leads. A police report of the same day mentions interviews of TSBDB employees Shearion Simmons, Jeanie Holt and Stella Jacobs, but doesn't tell what they said. (XIX, 526) Perhaps they are the ones who indicated the grassy knoll to Deputy Faulkner. As it is, we cannot include them in our reckoning of witnesses. Another eyewitness whom we must exclude from our poll calculation for the same reason is perhaps one of the most important. He is Ochus V. Campbell, vice-president of the TSBDB. We know that he was watching when President Kennedy was killed. We know he ran toward the grassy knoll afterward. The Dallas Times-Herald of 11/22/1963 quotes him as saying he raced back into the building and saw Oswald in a small storage area on the ground floor. But he prepared no affidavit, gave no deposition, and was never interrogated by the Commission as far as the record shows. Mrs. Robert Reid was standing beside him and Superintendent Roy Truly as the motorcade passed right by them and the shots rang out. "And I turned to Mr. Campbell," she testified in Washington, "and I said, 'Oh, my goodness, I am afraid those came from our building.' But Mr. Campbell, he said, "Oh, Mrs. Reid, no, it came from the grassy area down this way.'" (III, 273-4) Confining our list of witnesses to those whose evidence was published by the Commission itself, we find a total of 19 TSBDB employees, of whom we classify five as having no opinion on the direction of shots, six feeling they came from the building, and eight in favor of the grassy knoll as the firing site. Of signal importance are Bonnie Ray Williams, Harold Norman, and James Jarman Jr. Bonnie Ray says it seemed at first like everyone was going to watch the motorcade from the sixth floor. He heard Billy Lovelady and Danny Arce say they would watch from there, so that is where he went to eat his lunch. His were the famous chicken bones that appeared in every newspaper in the United States as evidence that the assassin had lain in wait for his prey for hours. Nobody came up to join Williams, though, so he went down to the fifth floor and squatted at the southeast windows between Harold Norman and James Jarmen, Jr., to watch. Down below, from car #8, Tom Dillard of The Dallas Morning News took their pictures. Jarman had no opinion about the source of the shots. He did notice some debris that had presumably fallen on Bonnie Ray's head from the ceiling above (III, 204). Williams is clear: the rifle report "shook the building --- the side we were on. Cement fell on my head" (III, 175). Norman too thought the shots came from above them. "I could also hear something sounded like the shell hulls hitting the floor and the ejecting of the rifle, it sounded as though it was two to me" (III, 191). But his two friends did not hear that. None of them said anything about going to the sixth floor to look or about notifying anyone. Instead they all ran down to the west side of the fifth floor and looked out from there. Why? "Since everyone was running, you know, to the west side of the building, towards the railroad tracks, we assumed maybe somebody was down there," Williams said. (III, 175) Jack E. Dougherty also says he was on the fifth floor when he heard the shots and "it sounded like it came from overhead somewhere" (VI, 379). In other important respects, however, his testimony is very confusing. He says, for instance, that he ate lunch and went back to work on the sixth floor at about 12:40 p.m. and then went down to the fifth floor "to get some stock" when he heard the shots. On the second floor, Geneva Hine was taking care of the phone for the girls who had gone out to see the President. When she heard the shots, she felt the building vibrate so much, she was sure "they came from inside the building" (VI, 395). On the other hand, Victoria Adams, watching from a fourth floor window with three friends, reported that the shots "sounded like a firecracker or a cannon at a football game, it seemed as if it came from right below rather than from the left above." She also noted that a tree blocked her view of the President for a while, the same tree which we are convinced must have blocked the assassin's view of his target for some crucial seconds. (VI, 388-90) Eddie Piper, the janitor, stood at a first floor window as the President passed and, the day after, swore that "the shots seemed to me like they came from up inside the building" (XIX, 499). Three months later he told the Commission's counsel that he could not tell where they had come from (VI, 385). The mail wrapper, Troy West, was also on the first floor, but he did not hear any shots (VI, 361). The only other witness who was in the building at the time was Doris Burns, who followed the motorcade from several places on the third floor. She heard only one shot, while she was facing east, and "it sounded to me as if it came toward my back" (VI, 399). We have classified this statement as too vague. Let us repeat, we believe that a rifleman was posted on the TSBDB sixth floor and that he fired at least one shot, perhaps more. But who can fail to be impressed with the indication from every group of witnesses that some shots were fired from the vicinity of the grassy knoll? This is not the impression of panicky onlookers but of trained policemen, deputy sheriffs, Secret Service agents, and most of the bystanders. Most of Lee Oswald's fellow-workers of the TSBDB who saw the motorcade thought the shots came from the knoll. "I thought they came from the railroad tracks to the west of the Texas School Book Depository," said Danny Arce (VI, 365). Near Arce in front of the building stood Wesley Frazier, who testified with a touch of shame: Well, to be frank with you, I thought it come from down there, you know, where that underpass is. There is a series, quite a few number, of them railroad tracks running together and from where I was standing it sounded like it was coming from down the railroad tracks there. (II, 234) Billy Lovelady, whose resemblance to Lee Oswald gave rise to some not altogether solved problem of photo identification, was sure the shots sounded "right there around that concrete little deal on the knoll" (VI, 338). His foreman, Bill Shelley, also standing on the Depository steps, agreed. The sound "came from the west," he said repeatedly (VI, 329). Joe R. Molina (who lost his job as credit manager at the TSBDB, apparently because he was falsely suspected of Communist connections, and was even pilloried in the press as a possible accomplice of the assassin), too, was on the front steps when the tragedy occurred and he too heard the bullets as coming from the west (VI, 371). The Depository Superintendent, Roy Truly, also heard the explosions "from west of the building" (III, 221). His bookkeeper, Virgie Rachley (now Mrs. Donald Baker), was given quite a grilling eight months later because her opinion on the source of the shots had not changed. After several tries to elicit the proper answer from this spunky young woman who swore she heard the shots coming from somewhere near the Triple Underpass, Assistant Counsel Liebeler tried a new tack: Mr. Liebeler. Now, you have subsequently heard, I'm sure, and from reading in the newspapers and one thing and another, that it appears that the shots actually came from the Texas School Book Depository Building; is that right? Mrs. Baker. Yes. Mr. Liebeler. Does that seem possible to you in view of what you heard at the time? Mrs. Baker. Well, I guess it might have been the wind, but to me it didn't. Mr. Liebeler. The sounds you heard at the time did not appear to come from the Texas School Book Depository Building? Mrs. Baker. No, sir. (VII, 509-11). Some Other Bystanders The witnesses who remain to be considered were random bystanders. Of these, four thought the shots came from the TSBDB, seven were unable to form an opinion, and 13 thought they came from the grassy knoll area. Phillip Willis screamed when he heard the shots, hoping a policeman would hear him and order the Depository surrounded, but the officers he saw were running towards the knoll, "evidently thinking it came from that direction" (VII, 496-7). James Crawford looked up after the third report and saw a movement in the "only window that was open" on the sixth floor. "If those were shots," he told his neighbor, "they came from that window." (VI, 173) Charles Hester too turned at once towards the TSBDB after the shots, and it was he who got office Wiseman to go there. Another witness speaking for the TSBDB as the source was an experienced elk hunter, James E. Romack, and he testified to the assassin's prowess: Mr. Belin. You heard those rifle shots, and you think you could shoot your rifle accurately as fast as you heard those shots. Mr. Romack. I don't, wouldn't think that I would be that good a shot; no, sir. (VI, 280). Unmentioned and unquestioned by the Commission was Charles Brehm who declared that the shots seemed to come from in front of or beside the President (Dallas Times-Herald, 11/22/63). Brehm noted that the President did not slump forward as he would have if the shots had come from the rear. Unmentioned and unquestioned by the Commission were four newspaper women, Mary Woodward, Maggie Brown, Aurelia Lorenzo and Ann Donaldson, who were on the grassy knoll watching the motorcade and heard "a horrible, ear-shattering noise coming from behind us and a little to the right" (Dallas Morning News, 11/23/63). Perhaps there were many others in this category. Because the Commission took no official notice of them, we have not included such persons in our accounting. Another witness, Garland G. Slack, was questioned by the Commission at length but not about what he saw as he watched the President's car ride by. His testimony, published in Vol. X, 378 ff., is exclusively concerned with his alleged encounters with Lee Oswald at the Sports Drome riflerange a short time before. Slack's brief affidavit does not say where he thought the assassin was firing from. Abraham Zapruder took motion pictures of the assassination. He was standing on a concrete abutment on the grassy knoll when the shots exploded. "I also thought it came from back of me," he told the Commission (VII, 572). Another man looking on from the grassy knoll, William Newman, fell on the grass when he heard the shots, "as it seemed that we were in the direct path of fire ... I thought the shots had come from the garden directly behind me (XIX, 490). He swore to an affidavit but was never questioned by the Commission or its counsel. Austin Miller was watching from the Triple Underpass when he heard shots. HE immediately looked "toward the --- there is a little plaza sitting on the hill. I looked over there to see if anything was there, who threw the firecracker or whatever it was ..." (VI, 225). In his affidavit of 11/22/1963, he also swore that "I saw something which I thought was smoke or steam coming from a group of trees north of Elm off the Railroad tracks" (XIX, 485). Smoke on the grassy knoll was also reported by S.M. Holland, a signal supervisor for the Union Terminal Railroad, who thought the shots came from the same place: A puff of smoke came out about 6 or 8 feet above the ground right out from under those trees. And at just about this location from where I was standing you could see that puff of smoke, like someone had thrown a firecracker, or something out, and that is just about the way it sounded ... I definitely saw the puff of smoke and heard the report from under those trees. (VI, 243-4) And as if to pinpoint his description, he added, "The puff of smoke I saw definitely came from behind the arcade to the trees." Right after the assassination, a schoolteacher, Jean Hill, saw a man running from just west of the TSBDB toward the railroad tracks. "I just thought at the time --- that's the man who did it ... at that time I didn't realize that the shots were coming from the building. I frankly thought they were coming from the knoll" (VI, 211-2). Space forbids our quoting from all the witnesses, but three more should suffice to fix in our minds the basic problems raised by our survey. The 70-year-old electrician for Union Terminal, Frank Reilly, saw the assassination from the overpass between Main and Elm Streets: Mr. Ball. Where did they seem to come from; what direction? Mr. Reilly. It seemed to me like they come out of the tree. Mr. Ball. What trees? Mr. Reilly. On the north side of Elm Street at the corner up there ... Well, it's at that park where all the shrubs is up there --- it's to the north of Elm Street --- up the slope. (VI, 230) In other words, the grassy knoll. A.J. Millican was on the knoll as the shots flew, and he heard eight shots that came in three flurries. This corresponds remarkably with the almost universal agreement of newspaper reports of November 22 that the shots seemed to come from an automatic weapon. Millican also supports our views in another important respect. He heard the shots as coming from two different directions, from the TSBDB and

Last November in Dallas I spoke at length with Bill Newman. I specifically asked him where the shots originated. His answer: "I was directly in the line of fire. The shots came FROM BEHIND ME, from behind the wooden fence." The first time I ever spoke to him in the late 80s HE SAID EXACTLY THE SAME THING. I do not know where you heard him say anything different. Jack <{POST_SNAPBACK}> ****************************************** Note: The following article was originally published in 1965. It contained the following blurb on the author: "Harold Feldman is a freelance writer and translator. He has published extensively in psychoanalytical journals, especially on the psychology of assassins. He, together with attorney Vincent Salandria, spent some time in Dallas, conducting their own investigation of the Kennedy assassination. His 'Oswald and the FBI' appeared in The Nation." The original article also had this dedication: "To Shirley Martin of Hominy, Oklahoma, who was paid homage by the attorneys of the Warren Commission in being called in scorn, 'a self-appointed investigator.'" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fifty-one Witnesses: The Grassy Knoll by Harold Feldman -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "There is no evidence of a second man, of other shots, of other guns." Congressman Gerald R. Ford (Life magazine, October 2, 1964) The human ear does not provide the best evidence in a murder case. But its perceptions are evidence not to be despised or dismissed, especially when the case is the murder of a President and more than half of all recorded witnesses agree. What follows is the result of a survey of the 121 witnesses to the assassination of President Kennedy whose statements are registered in the twenty-six volumes appended to the Warren Report.[1] On the question of where the shots that killed the President came from, 38 could give no clear opinion and 32 thought they came from the Texas School Book Depository Building (TSBDB). Fifty-one held the shots sounded as if the came from west of the Depository, the area of the grassy knoll on Elm Street, the area directly on the right of the President's car when the bullets struck. Tague and the Echoes We begin by conceding what the President's Commission says it found, namely, that a man on the sixth floor of the TSBDB fired a rifle at the Presidential limousine that Friday noon. The fact that a third man, besides President Kennedy and Governor Connally, was a casualty of those crucial seconds forces us to ask, however, whether there was not one or more other riflemen firing at the motorcade from a different direction. For James Thomas Tague stopped on Commerce Street near the Triple Underpass and was standing about 270 feet to the left of the President's car when he felt a sharp sting on his cheek. A deputy sheriff nearby, seeing blood on Tague's cheek, searched the immediate area and found a fresh bullet mark on the south curb of Main Street a few feet away. Tague was hit during the very seconds that he witnessed the murder of the President. It is difficult to conceive of a sharpshooter aiming at the President from the TSBDB on Elm Street and striking so far afield of his target. It is highly possible, though, that the bullet which hit Tague was fired from the area that Tague himself thought was the source of fire: the grassy knoll on the north side of Elm Street. A marksman stationed there need not have taken faulty aim to miss the President and hit Tague. James Tague was not called to Washington for questioning by the Commission. Instead, eight months after the assassination, his deposition was taken in Dallas by Wesley J. Liebeler, assistant counsel of the Commission. The interrogation about the source of the shot is worth quoting from at some length. Mr. Liebeler. ... Did you have any idea where these shots came from, when you heard them ringing out? Mr. Tague. Yes; I thought they were coming from my left. Mr. Liebeler. Immediately to your left or toward the back? Of course now we have other evidence that would indicate that the shots did come from the Texas School Book Depository but see if we can disregard that and determine just what you heard when the shots were fired in the first place. Mr. Tague. To recall everything is almost impossible. Just an impression is all I recall, is the fact that my first impression that up by the, whatever you call the monument or whatever it was ... Mr. Liebeler. Your impression of where the shots came from was much the result of the activity near No. 7? Mr. Tague. Not when I heard the shots. Mr. Liebeler. You thought that they had come from the area between Nos. 7 and 6? Mr. Tague. I believe they came from up in here. Mr. Liebeler. Back in area "C"? Mr. Tague. Right. Mr. Liebeler. Behind the concrete monument here between Nos. 5 and 7 toward the general area of "C"? Mr. Tague. Yes. (VII 556-7) Area "C" and No. 7 with its concrete monument, is the grassy knoll. indicated as such on the Commission's map. Attorneys whom we asked to review the interrogation of Tague all agreed that the Commission's counsel asked leading questions, tried to steer Tague's answers, and even became argumentative. All in all, the motions of a badgering, suggestive prosecutor rather than an impartial inquirer. Mr. Liebeler. Do you think that it is consistent with what you heard and saw that day that the shots could have come from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository? Mr. Tague. Yes. Mr. Liebeler. There was in fact a considerable echo in that area? Mr. Tague. There was no echo from where I stood. I was asked this question before and there was no echo. (VII, 557) Tague stuck to his guns. Admitting for all he knew that the shots could have come from the TSBDB, he insisted on his clear memory that they came from the vicinity of the concrete monument. The reference to echoes is significant. To help reduce this great preponderance of witnesses who favored a murder source other than the one it wished to prove, the Commission frequently tried to bring witnesses to admit that it was not the sound of shots they heard but their echoes. An echo of course is a reflected sound that reaches a hearer a very short time after the originating sound. But if echoes influenced the witnesses at the assassination scene, it is clear that those who thought the shots came from the TSBDB would be more likely to be misled than those who thought the sounds came from the grassy knoll. The Depository was the last tall building of the Dallas business district as the motorcade moved west. The surfaces of buildings like this produce stronger echoes than would a low, convex slope covered by a rug-like grassy surface. On the basis of auditory testimony alone from 51 witnesses (and we grant that such testimony in a case like this can never be, by itself, convincing or conclusive) we must agree that the grassy knoll which approaches the famous Triple Underpass on the northwest side of Elm Street would be the most likely source of most of the bullets fired at the motorcade that day. Mr. Vincent J. Salandria has recently outlined the ballistic and medical probabilities of such a trajectory.[2] However, we stress that the two sources of bullets are not mutually exclusive. The chief weakness of the Warren Report was its absolute refusal to consider seriously any other source of shots besides the TSBDB, even though such a source is indicated by the largest number of direct witnesses. Let us review these witnesses. "The Best View" When the assassin opened fire, the Presidential limousine had just passed the steps which lead to the concrete monument on the grassy knoll. Assuming a single rifleman firing from the TSBDB, let us ask again the question which Allen Dulles asked during a meeting of the Commission. Which participants in the motorcade had "the best view of the assassination"? Dulles suggested this answer: It must have been the third or fourth or fifth car in the motorcade that was right opposite the window at the time the assassin put the rifle well out of the window and shot ... Whatever it was, the car that was right opposite the window and going in this direction at the time must have been the fourth or fifth car --- the car which had the best view of the assassination. (IV, 332) Yes, at the time the shots rang out, the third, fourth, and fifth cars of the motorcade had just turned or were turning left from Houston Street into Elm Street, at a speed of five to ten miles an hour, with the block-long TSBDB looming on their right. They were riding the center lane of a three-lane, one-way street. Nothing obstructed their view of its upper stories. Twelve of the twenty persons in these three cars were Secret Service agents, and the Warren Report tells us that "Secret Service agents riding in the motorcade were trained to scan buildings as part of their general observation of the crowd of spectators." Moreover, the Report marks the TSBDB as one of "the most obvious points of possible ambush along the route in Dallas." (W, 448) Now the most striking aspect of the individual reports made by the Secret Service drivers and passengers of these three cars is certainly this: that having a better view of the TSBDB at the time of the assassination than anyone else in the motorcade, not one, writing memoranda within hours or days of the event or testifying about it months afterward, not one pointed to the TSBDB as the source of the shots as they heard them. Some of them say the shots came from the "right rear" with no suggestion of an elevation. In most cases, there is no more definite indication than that. William Greer, driving the President's car, for instance, thought the noise came from the right rear but felt they were the backfiring of motorcycles. Glen Bennett only says that, after hearing the shots, "we peered toward the rear and particularly the right side of the area" (XVIII, 760). John Ready noted: At about 12:30 p.m. I heard what sounded like firecrackers going off from my post on the right front running board ... It appeared that the shots came from my right-rear side. (XVIII, 750) The driver of car #4, Texas Highway Patrolman Hurchel Jacks, was the only person in that car who had any opinion at all on the source of the shots, and he could say no more than that they sounded as if they came from the right and rear of the car. In car #5, Jerry Kivett says he looked "in the direction of the noise, which was to my right rear," but adds that although he reached for his gun, he did not draw it "for I could not tell where the shots were coming from." (XVIII, 778) Warren Taylor is the only other Secret Service agent in these three cars who describes the sound as "coming from my right rear" and he too is no more specific. When we drew up a chart enumerating the witnesses and their perceptions we included anyone riding in these three cars who gave "right rear" as the source of the shots among those who thought the shots came from the vicinity of the TSBDB. Our final figures, therefore, give possible critics of our findings all benefit of the doubt. Reviewing the same three cars, we see that George Hickey, Jr., offers no opinion on the question but observes that "the President was slumped to the left" after being hit, and later "it seemed as if the right side of his head was hit" (XVIII, 765). This suggests a source almost directly to the right; but is too inconclusive. Clinton Hill is just as vague. Noting that "I heard noise from my right rear," he goes on to contrast this first shot with the second which "was right, but I cannot say for sure that it rear" (II, 138, 144). Hill's remark reminds us of Salandria's view that the bullets probably came from both the knoll and the Depository. Samuel Kinney, like Hickey, sees a shot strike Kennedy on the right side of the head, sees him fall to the left, but gives no opinion about where the shots came from (XVIII 731) . William McIntyre says "None of us [in car #3] could determine the origin of the shots" (XVIII, 747). Emory Roberts saw what looked like "a small explosion on the right side of the President's head." His conclusion: "I could not determine from what direction the shots came, but felt they had come from the right side" (XVIII, 734, 739) . Riding the right front seat of the Vice-Presidential car, Rufus Youngblood had no opinion on the source of the shots (XVIII, 767-8). The driver of car #5, Texas Highway Patrolman Joe Rich, likewise had no opinion (XVIII, 800). Of the Secret Service personnel in the three cars with "the best view," only two make any specific notes about the source of the shots, and what they say adds up to the grassy knoll. Paul E. Landis, Jr., riding the rear right running board of car #3, wrote: My immediate thought was that the President could not possibly be alive after being hit like he was. I still am not certain from which direction the second shot came, but my reaction at the time was the shot came from somewhere towards the front right-hand side of the road. I did not notice anyone on the overpass, and I scanned the area to the right of and below the overpass where the terrain sloped toward the road on which we were traveling. (XVIII, 755) Thomas L Johns, in the right rear seat of car #5, only says that: On the right-hand side of the motorcade from the street, a grassy area sloped upward to a small 2 or 3-foot concrete wall with sidewalk area. When the shots sounded, I was looking to the right and saw a man standing and then being thrown or hit to the ground, and this together with the shots made the situation appear dangerous to me. (XVIII, 774) The other passengers of the cars, which Allen Dulles thought provided the best view of an assassin firing from the TSBDB, offer little more enlightenment. Lyndon Johnson wrote that it was impossible for him to tell the direction of the explosions (V 562). Alone of all those in the three cars, Lady Bird Johnson suggests the Depository. Telling her story into a tape-recorder, she said, "It seemed to me to come from the right, above my shoulder, from a building" (V 565). Senator Yarborough's statement that all the shots "came from my right rear" (VII 440) made in July 1964 should be coupled with his comments, reported in the Texas Observer, that he smelled gunpowder as the car drove away through the underpass. As for the aide to Kennedy and Johnson in the strategic cars, Ken O'Donnell pointed to the right rear but admitted that "my reaction in part is reconstruction" (VII 448), and Clifton Carter made no judgment on the question. Riding next to O'Donnell in car #5, David Powers remembered that: My first impression was that the shots came from the right and overhead but I also had a fleeting impression that the noise appeared to come from the front in the area of the triple underpass. (VII 473) The most comfortable defender of the Warren Report will not fail to perceive the strange meaning of this roll call. Riding at a crawl alongside of the TSBDB, the last tall building on the motorcade route --- and most of the passengers aware of a duty to scan tall building on the way --- not one (with the possible exception of Mrs. Johnson) thought that the Depository was the assassin's firing nest or saw anything suspicious in that area. Not one mentioned the Depository as a possible or probable source of the shot. Three passengers indicated that the shots sounded as if they came from the vicinity of the grassy knoll. Perhaps, for this point and also for future reference, we should recall the elementary principal of sound location. As a general rule one can locate a sound upward or downward, front or rear, only when the hearing is supported by other knowledge and experience. Right and left locations, on the other hand, are discriminated more reliably by the cars because sound in those directions will normally be stronger in one ear while the other ear is in an auditory shadow cast by the head. It follows that the remarks of the drivers and passengers in the three strategic witness cars are, in general, inconclusive but more valid in their indication of shot sources to the right than in their perception of a source to the rear. The Man in the Window As Kennedy's car rode toward the Triple Underpass, someone was standing at the extreme southeast window of the sixth floor of the TSBDB. He had a rifle in hand. When was seen some minutes before the assassination, his gaze was not directed at the approaching motorcade but rigidly fixed down Elm Street toward the Triple Underpass. So much we can reconstruct from the testimony of nine witnesses (none of them officers of the law). We are at once faced with many questions. For instance, why would a man, who intends to shoot a rifle westward toward the underpass, choose the window on Elm Street farthest from his target? Why didn't he take his place at the extreme southwest window where his view would not be blocked a crucial part of the way by an oak tree that was in full leaf that November? The onlookers at the heavy traffic corner of Elm and Houston, which he overlooked, were still numerous enough to be called a crowd while the bystanders west of the building were few and scattered. If he had chosen the western position he would have been more than a hundred feet closer to the stairway by which he is said to have escaped. At our present state of knowledge we can only ask and wonder about such questions. All that we can sat with any degree of certainty is that a man with a rifle was seen in the southeast window facing Elm Street. Mrs. Earle Cabell, wife of the then Mayor of Dallas, saw "something" in the window. Malcolm 0. Couch, Dallas news-cameraman, didn't see anyone there but saw about a foot of the rifle as it was being withdrawn into the window. Robert Hill Jackson, staff photographer for The Dallas Times-Herald, also saw the rifle, about half of it, as someone drew it back into the building after the last shot exploded. He too could not see the person who held it. (We will return presently to these three witnesses.) Two schoolboys and a steamfitter saw and heard the Depository rifle in action. James Worrell, Jr., age 20, playing hooky from school that day, stood in front of the TSBDB and after the first shot looked up He then saw the rifle fire twice. He did not report what he saw to the police until the next day (II, 200). Fifteen-year-old Amos Lee Euins happened to look up at the sixth floor window across the street from where he was standing and saw someone there fire a rifle. Amos ducked behind the little fountain at the peristyle nearby and peered upward in time to see a man fire again. "I could see his hand," he told the Warren Commission, "and I could see his other hand on the trigger and one hand was on the barrel thing." (V, 204) The police and FBI wrote an affidavit for him which he signed. It said that he saw a white man up there but Amos absolutely denied to the Commission that he ever could have described the man on the sixth floor in any way. Star witness of the Commission was undoubtedly Howard Leslie Brennan who was working at the time fabricating pipe in the yards just behind the Depository. After lunch he went to Elm and Houston and perched himself on the retaining wall of the pool at the Dealey Plaza entrance, wearing the hard helmet that identifies him in photographs of the scene. He says he saw "this one man" come and leave the sixth floor window a couple of times before the shooting. After the second shot Brennan looked up again, "and this man that I saw previous was aiming for his last shot." The gunman then drew back "and maybe paused for another second as though to sure himself that he hit his mark, then he disappeared" (III, 143-4). Brennan went on to describe the rifleman in remarkable detail for a view at such a distance. Two others saw the man in the window but did not see him fire. Ronald Fischer stood with a friend at the southwest corner of Elm and Houston and, minutes before the motorcade came by, pointed to the figure at the window. It surprised Fischer that a man looking out of a sixth floor window there should not be looking in the direction of the motorcade but towards the underpass. (VI, 193) On the east side of Houston near Elm, waiting for the President to pass, were Arnold Rowland and his wife. They were talking about how the Secret Service protects the President of the United States when Arnold happened to see the man in the sixth floor window of the TSBDB. "He was standing and holding a rifle ... the thought came to us that it is a security agent," Arnold told the Commission in Washington. Mrs. Rowland looked up but could not see the man nor the rifle. There are two remarkable elements in Arnold Rowland's testimony. At the same time he saw another man in the southwest window of the sixth floor, a post we have already suggested would have been a wiser sniping position. And ... on hearing the shots that killed Kennedy and wounded Connally, Rowland thought they came from the grassy knoll! After the second explosion, "Well," he told the Commission almost apologetically, "I began looking, I didn't look at the building mainly, and a practically any of the police offices that were there then will tell you the echo effect was such that it sounded like it came from the railroad yards. That is where I looked, that is where all the policemen, everyone, converged on the railroads." Arlen Specter, assistant counsel for the Commission, asked Rowland, "Why did you not look back at the Texas School Book Depository Building in view of the fact that you had seen a man with a rifle up there earlier in the day?" And the young man replied, "I don't remember. It was mostly due to the confusion, and then the fact that it sounded like it came from this area 'C' and that all the officers, enforcement officers were converging on that area and I just didn't pay any attention to it at that time." (II, 169-81) Ronald Fischer, questioned in Dallas in April 1964 by David W. Belin, had a similar problem. His friend Robert Edwards thought the shots "seemed to come from that building there" (XIX, 473), but Fischer testified that "they appeared to be coming from just west of the School Book Depository Building" (VI, 193-6). The words "railroad yards," used again and again in the testimony, require explanation. There are railroad terminals and yards running behind the TSBDB that extend along the north side of the grassy knoll and connect to the railroad overpass that crosses Elm, Main, and Commerce Streets. Mrs. Rowland, in her deposition, makes clear which railroad yard area was the center of witness attention that day. She and her husband ran, she says, to "the colonnade over on the north side of Elm Street" (VI, 184). Mrs. Cabell, in motorcade car #7, thought the shots came from the TSBDB but "was acutely aware of the odor of gunpowder" (VII 486-7), which is not likely to have been perceptible from a source high up and inside a building. She noticed the odor after all the shots were fired and therefore possibly when car #7 was turning down hill into Elm Street, approaching the knoll where Senator Yarborough, too, began to smell gunpowder. Congressman Roberts and Mr. Donald Baker, too, noted the smell of gunpowder at about the same location. TV- newsman Couch did not associate the sound of the shot with the building where he had seen the rifle. He remembered seeing blood on the walkway that leads to the southwest corner of the TSBDB and people "pointing back around those shrubs around that west corner" (VI, 157-60) . Couch's fellow-passenger in car #8 Jackson, was asked: Mr. Specter. Mr. Jackson, at the time you heard the first shot, did you have any reaction or impression from the sound itself as to the source of the shot point of origin? Mr. Jackson. No sir, I didn't. It did sound like it came from ahead of us or from that general vicinity but I could not tell whether it was high up or on the ground. Mr. Specter. When you say that general vicinity, what vicinity did you mean? Mr. Jackson. We were sure it came from ahead of us which would be in a northerly direction, northwesterly direction. It did sound as though it came from somewhere around the head of the motorcade. (II, 162) The policeman at the TSBDB comer whom Howard Brennan accosted right after the shot, showed no sign that he suspected anything inside the building. Brennan told him that the 30 to 50 policemen and deputies swarming over the grassy knoll and into the railroad yards "were searching in the wrong direction for the man that did the shooting" (III, 145). An uneasy fact: Brennan is said to have told a policeman what he saw at the 6th floor window of the TSBDB within three minutes of the assassination. A search-call for the assassin is supposed to have been issued on the basis of Brennan's description. But no control and concerted search of the Depository in general was begun for almost a half-hour, and even then the sixth floor got no special attention in the search orders. The First Cars Let us continue our review of the motorcade. The Commission tells us that "passengers in the first few cars of the motorcade had the impression that the shots came from the rear and from the right, the general direction of the Texas School Book Depository (W, 61). This is not true. Car #2 was the death car. About 100 feet ahead of it was the lead car of the motorcade. Not one of the drivers or passengers of these two cars indicated in any way that the TSBDB was the source of the shots. Mrs. Kennedy offered no opinion at all on the shots and indeed the noise sounded to her like motorcycles backfiring on the left (V, 180). Governor Connally guessed that the shots came from back over his right shoulder at an elevation and declined to be more specific. At the first shot, he said, he turned right and saw "nothing of any significance except just people on the grass slope" (IV 12-S). His wife Nellie added, "Well, I had no thought of whether they were high or low or where. They just came from the right; sounded like they were to my right" (IV, 149). VIP's and Secret Service agents gave their testimony months after the event, when every force of suggestion from officials and newspapers pointed to the TSBDB as the post of an unaided sniper. That they insisted on their original recollection under these conditions is a tribute to these men and women. William Greer, the Special Agent driving the President's limousine, could give no opinion on the direction of the shots. Beside him rode Roy H. Kellerman, an agent with more than 20 years experience in the Secret Service. He told the Commission that he had no reaction about the height of the explosions. But he did turn immediately to his right after he heard one shot. Mr. Specter. What was the reason for your reacting to your right? Mr. Kellerman. That was the direction that I heard this noise, pop. (II, 74) In the lead car rode two Secret Service men, Winston G. Lawson of the White House Detail, responsible for planning many details of the motorcade, and Forrest V. Sorrels, in charge of the Dallas office. Lawson looked back at the President's car continually in order to regulate the speed of the procession. When he heard the shots (car #1 was almost at the Triple Underpass when he heard them) he was positive that they came from the rear of his car, and when he saw an agent standing up with an automatic weapon in his hand in car #3, Lawson's first thought was that the shots came from that gun. (IV, 352-3) Sorrels remembered scanning the Depository as his car turned the corner, but he saw "no activity, no one moving around that I saw at all." As soon as he heard the shots, he "turned around to look up on this terrace part there, because the sound sounded like it came from the back and up in that direction." He had to repeat this for the Commission's assistant counsel, Samuel A. Stern. And, as I said, the noise from the shots sounded like they may have come back up or the terrace there ... But the reports seemed to be so loud that it sounded like to me --- in other words, that my first thought, somebody up on the terrace, and that is the reason I looked there. Mr. Stern then drew him out of the area of evidence into the area of conforming opinion in order to evoke the right words from his witness: Mr. Stern. Do you have any reason to believe that the shots could not have come from the Book Depository Building? Mr. Sorrels. No, sir. Mr. Stern. Would shots from the Book Depository Building have been consistent with your hearing of the shots? Mr. Sorrels. Yes, they would have. (VII, 345-7) There were two other major participants in the day's events who rode in the lead car: the chief of police of Dallas and the sheriff of Dallas County. Police Chief Jesse Curry was driving the lead car. In his deposition, taken 4/15/1964, he said: I heard a sharp report. We were near the railroad yards at this time, and I didn't now --- I didn't know exactly where this report came from, whether it was above us or where, but this followed by two more reports (XII, 28). The week after this deposition, he was in Washington testifying at great length before the Commission --- but not a word more does he add and not a question is he asked about the way he heard the shots. What we do learn is that, before he ordered motorcycle officer Chaney to lead the car to Parkland Hospital: "I said over the radio, I said: 'Get someone up in the railroad yard and check.'" (IV, 161) Bill Decker, also riding the lead car, had been sheriff of Dallas County since 1949. The first time any member of the Commission's staff interviewed him was on 4/16/1964, in Dallas. At that time he was not asked a thing about the assassination itself, even though he himself introduced the subject. In an undated memo, presumably written within day after Kennedy's death, Decker had no opinion on the direction of the shots or their origin. "When I heard the shots," he does remark, "I noted motorcycle officers coming off their cycles and running up the embankment on Dealey Plaza" (XIX, 458). Since Dealey Plaza proper has no embankment he can only have been referring to the grassy knoll on his right. The Decker-Curry Radio Mystery Here we come to a collateral puzzle. For Sheriff Decker writes in his undated memorandum: We moved out immediately at which time I took the microphone and requested the DPD Dispatcher 521 to advise my Station 5-Radioroom to notify all officers in my department to immediately get over to the area where shooting occurred and saturate the area of the park, railroad and all buildings ... The words "and all buildings" are either deceiving or decisive. For we have never found any record that any building beside the TSBDB was searched after the assassination, and the radio calls registered in the official log at the time show calls to order men up to the railroad yards but none ordering men to the TSBDB or any other building. Who then ordered the TSBDB to be searched? And when? All the newspapers carried the story of how a motorcycle policeman, Marrion L. Baker, parked his vehicle on Houston Street near Elm, charged into the TSBDB just 15 seconds after the last shot, and drew his gun on Lee Oswald on the second floor before proceeding to the roof with TSBDB superintendent Roy Truly. But the stories did not say (1) that Mr. Baker made his determination that shots were coming from the Depository while he was riding at the end of the motorcade, that is, before entering Houston Street from Main Street, that is, from distance greater than any other witness; and (2) that after checking the roof with Mr. Truly, they descended to the ground floor by elevator and, passing the fourth floor, saw Inspector J. Herbert Sawyer of the Dallas Police (III, 261). Now, mind you, neither Baker nor Sawyer had spoken with Brennan, Euins, Worrell or any other eyewitness before entering the TSBDB. Baker was there because that is where he thought the shot were coming from, and Sawyer was there because, he says, a message came over his radio ordering him there. Inspector Sawyer was in his car parked on Ervay and Main Streets during the assassination. Too far away to hear the shots, he naturally saw nothing of the area's reaction to them. This is what he told assistant Counsel D. W. Belin on 4/8/1964 in Dallas: Mr. Sawyer. ... I heard Sheriff Decker come on the radio and tell the dispatcher to put all of his men over to, and I thought he said Texas School Book Depository but at least that was the overall gist of the conversation. That is what I gathered. He may not have said Texas School Book Depository but the Texas School Book Depository was mentioned in the broadcasts that were made at the time. Mr. Belin. Was this on Channel 1 or Channel 2, if you remember? Mr. Sawyer. Channel 2, I am sure. Mr. Belin. Did Sheriff Decker have any particular call number at all, or not, in your police number system? Mr. Sawyer. No, I was wondering why he come on our radio but then I think that he was with Chief Curry and probably using that radio. Mr. Belin. All right, in any event, a call was made from Chief Curry's car? Mr. Sawyer. Well this I don't know either. I don't know what car it was made from, but I think it was Sheriff Decker talking. I could recognize his voice, yes. Mr. Belin. What did you do then? Mr. Sawyer. Then I went on down to the Texas Book Depository. (VI, 316-7) Summed up, this means that the inspector hurried down to the TSBDB on an order issued by an unidentified source at an uncertain location, an order which was not directed to him nor made by his superior officer but by a voice which he only supposed to be the sheriff coming over the wrong radio channel; an order, finally, which evidently did not mention the TSBDB. A mystery certainly, but one not scrutinized too closely by the Commission. The only orders issued on the radio by Curry ant Decker at the time were calls to get men over to the Triple Underpass and the railroad yards (I, 319). At least that is what the log shows. We must assume then that neither Curry nor Decker were responsible for Sawyer's presence on the fourth floor of the TSBDB as Baker and Truly were descending in the elevator. In fact, Curry was asked by Allen Dulles whether he had ever told the newspapers that he had been the one who sent out the radio order to surround the Depository. Mr. Curry. I didn't do that, sir. That was one of my inspectors, I believe, that gave that order. I was riding in the Presidential parade and approximately a hundred feet, I guess, ahead of the President's car, and when we heard this first report I couldn't tell exactly where it was coming from ... I thought at first that perhaps this was a railroad torpedo, it was a sharp crack." (IV, 160-1) What Curry implies here is that some other inspector made an unauthorized radio order that was never logged, or that Sawyer acted on his own responsibility and covered his action by referring to an alleged radio order. The situation proves even trickier. Because, if The New York Times of 11/24/1963 is to be believed, it is Curry who is not telling the truth. Reporting a November 23 press conference with the Chief of Police the Times had this to say: Moments after the fatal shot was fired at President Kennedy at 12:30 PM yesterday, Chief Curry said he radioed in instructions that the Texas School Book Depository Building be surrounded and searched ... Chief Curry said he could tell from the sound of the three shots that they had come from the book company's building. We must note that the records of the Chief's press conference do not show such a statement. Furthermore, this is a report about a man who, in his deposition and testimony, had denied that he had any opinion about the direction of the shots except for a general suspicion about the railroad yards to his right. If the Times report is true, then (1) Curry lied to the Commission, and (2) the official log of radio dispatches has been expurgated, or censored. In this connection Forrest Sorrels, riding in the lead car with Decker ant Curry, has a significant recollection: ... the chief [Curry] took his microphone and told them to alert the hospital and said 'Surround the building'. He didn't say what building. He just said, 'Surround the building'. And by that time we had gotten almost in under the underpass, and the President's car had come up and was almost abreast of us. (VII, 345) Deputies and Police An impressive feature of the Kennedy murder case is the large number of witnesses who are on familiar terms with firearms. Very few of the eyewitnesses could have had their testimony impeached on the ground that they could not properly evaluate the sounds they heard. And the great majority of the eyewitnesses say that the assassin of President Kennedy seemed to be firing from the grassy knoll. The Warren Report faces this difficulty in its typical manner, a style which led Murray Kempton, a friendly critic, to observe that it presented no more than "the case for the prosecution." The Report says: When the shots were fired, many people near the Depository believed that the shots came from the railroad bridge over the Triple Underpass or from the area to the west of the Depository. In the hectic moments after the assassination many spectators ran in the general direction of the Triple Underpass or the railroad yards northwest of the building. Some were running toward the place from which the sound of the rifle fire appeared to come, others were fleeing the scene of the shooting. (W, 71) It require a patient culling of the 26 volumes appended to the Report to learn that here and elsewhere the Report is a not unskillful deception. We would not learn from the Report itself, for example, that the "many people" were in fact most people, the overwhelming majority. We are drawn to a picture of bystanders rushing westward of the TSBDB, "some" to find the assassin, "others" to escape him. But we are not told that practically none of the witnesses belonged to the second category, and that the "some" who looked for the assassin in the vicinity of the grassy knoll included almost every deputy sheriff on duty in the area that day and most of the policemen. The list of witnesses for the grassy knoll as a sniper's post is decreased because the Warren Report and its appendices contain no evidence from many persons who are mentioned and quoted in the reports of other witnesses and in newspaper accounts. We have found ten deputies of the sheriff's office who were on assignment at the assassination scene who were not called on for evidence. Most of them would, probably, have felt and reacted like the twenty recorded deputies. Of these twenty, only one decided the shots came from the TSBDB, three gave no opinion, and sixteen thought this assassin had fired from the area of the grassy knoll. The only deputy sheriff who pointed to the TSBDB did not say where he thought the shots came from. John Wiseman merely told us in his memo of 11/23/63 that he talked to Marilyn Sitzman and an unnamed man who thought the shots came from the Depository (XIX, 535-6). Eugene Boone's testimony is doubly interesting. He not only ran towards the knoll and then the freight yards as soon as he heard the shots; he is also the deputy who found a rifle on the sixth floor of the TSBDB almost an hour later, and identified it as a 7.65 Mauser. (XIX, 507; VII, 105-9). This rifle, which soon became a 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano, was also identified by deputy constable Seymour Weitzman as a Mauser. Weitzman, like most of the other deputies, was standing at the corner of Main and Houston when he heard the shots. He ran toward the President's car and climbed over a wall in "the monument section," looking for the assassin (VII, 106). Roger Craig, too, on hearing the first shot, ran until he reached "the terrace on Elm Street" and then the railroad yards (XIX, 524.). Harold Elkins was more explicit: I immediately ran to the area from which it sounded like the shots had been fired. This is an area between the railroad and the Texas School Book Depository which is east of the railroad. (XIX, 540) "Lummie" Lewis, A. D. McCurley, Luke Mooney, and W. W. Mabra all heard the shots the same way and ran to search the grassy knoll and the freight yard. (XIX, 526, 514, 541, 528) "Why did you go over to the railroad yard?" the Commission's assistant counsel, Joseph Ball, asked Mooney. "Well," said Mr. Mooney a bit hesitantly, "that was --- from the echo of the shots, we thought they came from that direction." Then he added a note to the Decker-Curry mystery. After "a few seconds" of search, Mooney said, "we had orders to cover the Texas Depository Building" --- and the orders "were referred to us by the sheriff Mr. Bill Decker." (III, 283) The shots sent Deputy Sheriff J. L. Oxford running toward the underpass (XIX, 530). L. C. Smith's reaction to the shots was to climb the fence behind the knoll and search the parking lot (XIX, 516). Deputy I. C. Todd ran to the railroad tracks, as did Ralph Walters and radio officer Jack Watson (XIX, 543, 505-6, 522). Harry Weatherford tells much the same story: "I thought to myself that this was a rifle and I started towards the corner when I heard the third report ... By this time I was running toward the railroad yards where the sound seemed to come from." (XIX, 502) Deputy Sheriff Eddy Raymond Walthers (known as "Buddy") took an active part in many phases of the investigation and gave evidence in Dallas and Washington. The story of his initial reactions to Kennedy's murder as told in July 1964 is much the same as his memorandum written on November 22. He heard three shots, ran across Dealey Plaza until he reached the parking are behind the now-familiar "concrete structure on the knoll (VII, 544-6). It was later, while looking for bullet traces, that he came across James Tague, the man with the bloody cheek, whose slight wound was to give the Commission as much trouble as any other inflicted that day. Among the policemen near the scene, we find wider variety of opinion and reaction, perhaps because they were distributed all along the route of the motorcade and not concentrated near one corner as were the deputy sheriffs. Four policemen indicated the Depository as the source, four could make no definite opinion, four indicated the gray knoll area. The evidence of Patrolman Baker has already been noted. The officer to whom Brennan spoke, Welcome Eugene Barnett, was stopping traffic for the motorcade at Elm and Houston. He thought the second shot sounded high and looked up at the TSBDB across the street. When the third shot exploded, "I decided it had to be on top of that building. To me it is the only place the sound could be coming from." He also remarked that he was the only officer around who seemed to react to the shots as he did (VII, 541-2). It is noteworthy that neither Baker, Sawyer nor Barnett took any decisive action to seal off the building. J. W. Foster, assigned to the Triple Overpass, thought the shots "came from back in toward the corner of Elm and Houston Street." He ran to the Depository where he bumped into Inspector Sawyer (VI, 251-2). Earle Brown, on duty at the Stemmons Freeway overpass, also believed the shots came from the TSBDB, but he was struck by the smell of gunpowder near the overpass (VI, 233-4). Three motorcycle policemen in the motorcade provided excellent directional evidence. B. J. Martin, riding at the left rear side of the death car, heard shots but "couldn't tell just where they were coming from." When he arrived at Parkland Hospital, however, he noticed blood and flesh particles on his motorcycle windshield, the left side of his helmet, and the left shoulder of his uniform (VI, 291). Besides Martin and just alongside of Mrs. Kennedy rode Bobby Hargiss. "At the time," he testified, "there was something in my head that said that they probably could have been coming from the railroad overpass, because I thought since I had got splattered with blood --- I was just a little back and left of --- a little back and left of Mrs. Kennedy but I didn't know." His second choice was the TSBDB (VI, 294-5). Clyde Haygood was described in the world press that Friday and Saturday because, after the shots were fired, he tried to jump the north curb of Elm Street with his motorcycle and, failing, parked it on the street and ran to the knoll looking for any sign of the assassin (VI, 297-9). Joe Marshall Smith had his back to the Depository on Elm Street when the shots rang out. "I didn't know where the shots came from," he said, but ran "to an area immediately behind the concrete structure" and checked the bushes and all the cars in the parking lot behind the knoll. (VII, 533-6) Another Patrolman Smith, Edgar Leon Smith, Jr., stood on the east curb of Houston Street about 150 feet from the TSBDB. He guessed the first two shots were firecrackers but, after the third shot, he drew his pistol and ran down Elm Street. Mr. Liebeler. You thought the shot came from this little concrete structure up behind No. 7? Mr. Smith. Yes, sir. But experience leads us to expect that the Commission's counsel will not be content with such direct reply. Mr. Liebeler. Is what you heard that day consistent with the proposition that the shots came from the School Book Depository Building? Mr. Smith. They could have come from there and they could not --- I just don't know. (VII, 568-9) As for the grassy knoll, Patrolman Smith humbly insisted, "It just looked like a good place for them to come from and I guess that's the reason I ran down there." Smith shows how close to unanimous that impression was among law enforcement officers on the spot. The job of examining people and things around and behind the knoll became difficult, he says, because there were so many police and deputies milling around there. Depository Personnel Jack Faulkner, sheriff's deputy, noted in a memo of 11/22/1963 that he helped search the TSBDB and that "when we got down to the third floor, we talked to office workers who told us they were looking out of the third floor window when the shots were fired from the street near the concrete arcade." (CIX 511) We may never know who these office girls were. There is no other record of what they heard and saw, and the Commission found no time for following such leads. A police report of the same day mentions interviews of TSBDB employees Shearion Simmons, Jeanie Holt and Stella Jacobs, but doesn't tell what they said. (XIX, 526) Perhaps they are the ones who indicated the grassy knoll to Deputy Faulkner. As it is, we cannot include them in our reckoning of witnesses. Another eyewitness whom we must exclude from our poll calculation for the same reason is perhaps one of the most important. He is Ochus V. Campbell, vice-president of the TSBDB. We know that he was watching when President Kennedy was killed. We know he ran toward the grassy knoll afterward. The Dallas Times-Herald of 11/22/1963 quotes him as saying he raced back into the building and saw Oswald in a small storage area on the ground floor. But he prepared no affidavit, gave no deposition, and was never interrogated by the Commission as far as the record shows. Mrs. Robert Reid was standing beside him and Superintendent Roy Truly as the motorcade passed right by them and the shots rang out. "And I turned to Mr. Campbell," she testified in Washington, "and I said, 'Oh, my goodness, I am afraid those came from our building.' But Mr. Campbell, he said, "Oh, Mrs. Reid, no, it came from the grassy area down this way.'" (III, 273-4) Confining our list of witnesses to those whose evidence was published by the Commission itself, we find a total of 19 TSBDB employees, of whom we classify five as having no opinion on the direction of shots, six feeling they came from the building, and eight in favor of the grassy knoll as the firing site. Of signal importance are Bonnie Ray Williams, Harold Norman, and James Jarman Jr. Bonnie Ray says it seemed at first like everyone was going to watch the motorcade from the sixth floor. He heard Billy Lovelady and Danny Arce say they would watch from there, so that is where he went to eat his lunch. His were the famous chicken bones that appeared in every newspaper in the United States as evidence that the assassin had lain in wait for his prey for hours. Nobody came up to join Williams, though, so he went down to the fifth floor and squatted at the southeast windows between Harold Norman and James Jarmen, Jr., to watch. Down below, from car #8, Tom Dillard of The Dallas Morning News took their pictures. Jarman had no opinion about the source of the shots. He did notice some debris that had presumably fallen on Bonnie Ray's head from the ceiling above (III, 204). Williams is clear: the rifle report "shook the building --- the side we were on. Cement fell on my head" (III, 175). Norman too thought the shots came from above them. "I could also hear something sounded like the shell hulls hitting the floor and the ejecting of the rifle, it sounded as though it was two to me" (III, 191). But his two friends did not hear that. None of them said anything about going to the sixth floor to look or about notifying anyone. Instead they all ran down to the west side of the fifth floor and looked out from there. Why? "Since everyone was running, you know, to the west side of the building, towards the railroad tracks, we assumed maybe somebody was down there," Williams said. (III, 175) Jack E. Dougherty also says he was on the fifth floor when he heard the shots and "it sounded like it came from overhead somewhere" (VI, 379). In other important respects, however, his testimony is very confusing. He says, for instance, that he ate lunch and went back to work on the sixth floor at about 12:40 p.m. and then went down to the fifth floor "to get some stock" when he heard the shots. On the second floor, Geneva Hine was taking care of the phone for the girls who had gone out to see the President. When she heard the shots, she felt the building vibrate so much, she was sure "they came from inside the building" (VI, 395). On the other hand, Victoria Adams, watching from a fourth floor window with three friends, reported that the shots "sounded like a firecracker or a cannon at a football game, it seemed as if it came from right below rather than from the left above." She also noted that a tree blocked her view of the President for a while, the same tree which we are convinced must have blocked the assassin's view of his target for some crucial seconds. (VI, 388-90) Eddie Piper, the janitor, stood at a first floor window as the President passed and, the day after, swore that "the shots seemed to me like they came from up inside the building" (XIX, 499). Three months later he told the Commission's counsel that he could not tell where they had come from (VI, 385). The mail wrapper, Troy West, was also on the first floor, but he did not hear any shots (VI, 361). The only other witness who was in the building at the time was Doris Burns, who followed the motorcade from several places on the third floor. She heard only one shot, while she was facing east, and "it sounded to me as if it came toward my back" (VI, 399). We have classified this statement as too vague. Let us repeat, we believe that a rifleman was posted on the TSBDB sixth floor and that he fired at least one shot, perhaps more. But who can fail to be impressed with the indication from every group of witnesses that some shots were fired from the vicinity of the grassy knoll? This is not the impression of panicky onlookers but of trained policemen, deputy sheriffs, Secret Service agents, and most of the bystanders. Most of Lee Oswald's fellow-workers of the TSBDB who saw the motorcade thought the shots came from the knoll. "I thought they came from the railroad tracks to the west of the Texas School Book Depository," said Danny Arce (VI, 365). Near Arce in front of the building stood Wesley Frazier, who testified with a touch of shame: Well, to be frank with you, I thought it come from down there, you know, where that underpass is. There is a series, quite a few number, of them railroad tracks running together and from where I was standing it sounded like it was coming from down the railroad tracks there. (II, 234) Billy Lovelady, whose resemblance to Lee Oswald gave rise to some not altogether solved problem of photo identification, was sure the shots sounded "right there around that concrete little deal on the knoll" (VI, 338). His foreman, Bill Shelley, also standing on the Depository steps, agreed. The sound "came from the west," he said repeatedly (VI, 329). Joe R. Molina (who lost his job as credit manager at the TSBDB, apparently because he was falsely suspected of Communist connections, and was even pilloried in the press as a possible accomplice of the assassin), too, was on the front steps when the tragedy occurred and he too heard the bullets as coming from the west (VI, 371). The Depository Superintendent, Roy Truly, also heard the explosions "from west of the building" (III, 221). His bookkeeper, Virgie Rachley (now Mrs. Donald Baker), was given quite a grilling eight months later because her opinion on the source of the shots had not changed. After several tries to elicit the proper answer from this spunky young woman who swore she heard the shots coming from somewhere near the Triple Underpass, Assistant Counsel Liebeler tried a new tack: Mr. Liebeler. Now, you have subsequently heard, I'm sure, and from reading in the newspapers and one thing and another, that it appears that the shots actually came from the Texas School Book Depository Building; is that right? Mrs. Baker. Yes. Mr. Liebeler. Does that seem possible to you in view of what you heard at the time? Mrs. Baker. Well, I guess it might have been the wind, but to me it didn't. Mr. Liebeler. The sounds you heard at the time did not appear to come from the Texas School Book Depository Building? Mrs. Baker. No, sir. (VII, 509-11). Some Other Bystanders The witnesses who remain to be considered were random bystanders. Of these, four thought the shots came from the TSBDB, seven were unable to form an opinion, and 13 thought they came from the grassy knoll area. Phillip Willis screamed when he heard the shots, hoping a policeman would hear him and order the Depository surrounded, but the officers he saw were running towards the knoll, "evidently thinking it came from that direction" (VII, 496-7). James Crawford looked up after the third report and saw a movement in the "only window that was open" on the sixth floor. "If those were shots," he told his neighbor, "they came from that window." (VI, 173) Charles Hester too turned at once towards the TSBDB after the shots, and it was he who got office Wiseman to go there. Another witness speaking for the TSBDB as the source was an experienced elk hunter, James E. Romack, and he testified to the assassin's prowess: Mr. Belin. You heard those rifle shots, and you think you could shoot your rifle accurately as fast as you heard those shots. Mr. Romack. I don't, wouldn't think that I would be that good a shot; no, sir. (VI, 280). Unmentioned and unquestioned by the Commission was Charles Brehm who declared that the shots seemed to come from in front of or beside the President (Dallas Times-Herald, 11/22/63). Brehm noted that the President did not slump forward as he would have if the shots had come from the rear. Unmentioned and unquestioned by the Commission were four newspaper women, Mary Woodward, Maggie Brown, Aurelia Lorenzo and Ann Donaldson, who were on the grassy knoll watching the motorcade and heard "a horrible, ear-shattering noise coming from behind us and a little to the right" (Dallas Morning News, 11/23/63). Perhaps there were many others in this category. Because the Commission took no official notice of them, we have not included such persons in our accounting. Another witness, Garland G. Slack, was questioned by the Commission at length but not about what he saw as he watched the President's car ride by. His testimony, published in Vol. X, 378 ff., is exclusively concerned with his alleged encounters with Lee Oswald at the Sports Drome riflerange a short time before. Slack's brief affidavit does not say where he thought the assassin was firing from. Abraham Zapruder took motion pictures of the assassination. He was standing on a concrete abutment on the grassy knoll when the shots exploded. "I also thought it came from back of me," he told the Commission (VII, 572). Another man looking on from the grassy knoll, William Newman, fell on the grass when he heard the shots, "as it seemed that we were in the direct path of fire ... I thought the shots had come from the garden directly behind me (XIX, 490). He swore to an affidavit but was never questioned by the Commission or its counsel. Austin Miller was watching from the Triple Underpass when he heard shots. HE immediately looked "toward the --- there is a little plaza sitting on the hill. I looked over there to see if anything was there, who threw the firecracker or whatever it was ..." (VI, 225). In his affidavit of 11/22/1963, he also swore that "I saw something which I thought was smoke or steam coming from a group of trees north of Elm off the Railroad tracks" (XIX, 485). Smoke on the grassy knoll was also reported by S.M. Holland, a signal supervisor for the Union Terminal Railroad, who thought the shots came from the same place: A puff of smoke came out about 6 or 8 feet above the ground right out from under those trees. And at just about this location from where I was standing you could see that puff of smoke, like someone had thrown a firecracker, or something out, and that is just about the way it sounded ... I definitely saw the puff of smoke and heard the report from under those trees. (VI, 243-4) And as if to pinpoint his description, he added, "The puff of smoke I saw definitely came from behind the arcade to the trees." Right after the assassination, a schoolteacher, Jean Hill, saw a man running from just west of the TSBDB toward the railroad tracks. "I just thought at the time --- that's the man who did it ... at that time I didn't realize that the shots were coming from the building. I frankly thought they were coming from the knoll" (VI, 211-2). Space forbids our quoting from all the witnesses, but three more should suffice to fix in our minds the basic problems raised by our survey. The 70-year-old electrician for Union Terminal, Frank Reilly, saw the assassination from the overpass between Main and Elm Streets: Mr. Ball. Where did they seem to come from; what direction? Mr. Reilly. It seemed to me like they come out of the tree. Mr. Ball. What trees? Mr. Reilly. On the north side of Elm Street at the corner up there ... Well, it's at that park where all the shrubs is up there --- it's to the north of Elm Street --- up the slope. (VI, 230) In other words, the grassy knoll. A.J. Millican was on the knoll as the shots flew, and he heard eight shots that came in three flurries. This corresponds remarkably with the almost universal agreement of newspaper reports of November 22 that the shots seemed to come from an automatic weapon. Millican also supports our views in another important respect. He heard the shots as coming from two different directions, from the TSBDB and

Hi Jack, Also I recall his left wrist is missing whited out, blurred out,or some such... whatever..... Thanks...B

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Hi Ron: You may be interested to see these two...Cecil Stoughton photos....taken in Tampa Florida, on Nov.18/63.. Tim: Please note motorcycles at the side of the Limo.......and SS riding on the back..... B

If your good.....B....

There is someone who talked with him, and knows the name is Santo.... B

****************** Whoa a minute Tim: Greg gave his opinion, he has that right...""The George Bush Center For Being A Jackass With A Nearly Illiterate Son Who Will One Day Be President And An Even Bigger Jackass" must have been too wordy."" You gave your opinion......""Takes one to know one, Greg. In my opinion these crude commnents merely reflect badly on your intelligence. Any kid can call names. Grow up!"" ""The problem with many of you is you just don't get it. Which is why your candidates routinely lost."" Now Tim you have used a lot of names in a derogatory way since you joined this Forum....so don't be the kettle that calls the pot, burnt arse, it really doesn't fit.......We all know Bush is a Republican.....and you seem to think they are above reproach.....that's fine, that's up to you.....but others are not, therefore apparently do not want to ,nor see him in the same light, and that is their right... Here have another cone and cool down again..... B..

Hi John: The next photo, film, that Hughes and Murray took at this time, Hughes had swung his attention to (they were both taking many in the same area ) the sewer drain cover, that had been hit, in the park on the South side....The time on the Clock above the TSBD said 12.38 pm.....I do not have access to the photos right now...Also I believe this Hughes is cropped.. By that time, Aynesworth..I believe, the reporter,....as well as DPD..and some Detectives were searching the TSBD...and there were still some employees inside..it could have been anyone peering from a window...?? .B ***Correction..it was WFAA TV reporter Tom Alyea, Kent Biffle DMNews and Pierce Allman WFAA Radio......

********* Hey Tim: It couldn't have been ......"Elvis had left the building"... B

******************* Hello Tim: You mention what sounds like a laxness also in Florida, but shots were not fired in that city...were they ?? the President was killed in Dallas, Texas, and many shots were fired.....and Greer was driving the limo, and he hit the brakes, and did not obey orders.....???? ""When we consider that Greer disobeyed a direct order from his superior, Roy Kellerman, to get out of line BEFORE the fatal shot struck the President's head, it is hard to give Agent Greer the benefit of the doubt."" http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/03/VP/0010-VP.html B.....

*************** Hi James: Yes this is from Hughes...But not within two minutes..... He ran from the TSBD area, and down through the plaza, and then up into the parking lot area, where the people were gathering....he was taking film...as he went... He then came back down into the park area, where he took this photo, as well as others....So perhaps within 10 minutes, or so... It could be something holding the window up..?? B..

*********************************** The Sturgis scenario was a simile.... But Duh !!!. ..you are the one who wrote....""Does not Ruby's involvement demonstrate Mafia involvement in the assassination? "" So what you said is that because Ruby shot and killed LHO, the Mafia was involved...???? and therefore anyone could then lead to, another scenario, the way that you have, and bring about that whomever the Mafia were involved with could have been associated with the assassination.....capice??...That is how you have involved the Mafia bosses, here, through Ruby, and through phone calls...Ruby made zillions of phone calls to many people, were they connected also...??...and then you also connect Castro as a third party....in your scenario.... sooooo ""So aren't you saying that a person is suspicious because he knew someone who knew someone else who was implicated in the involvement in some wrong doing by a third party...?"" That is basically McCarthyism....which is an accusation that you have thrown at others here..... Who disputed that Ruby was not involved, ??...He was guilty of shooting LHO....and ..there is evidence that connects him to the mob, but that is evidence...No logical analysis does not Compel that because he was involved his bosses were, that is your supposition...that does not hold water in a murder case....There are quite a few who have confessed to the assn, but that does not mean they did, it is the proof that is needed, not just presumptions.. If ? as you say that Castro and the Mob conspired to assassinate the President...then why choose a man like LHO..as the patsy? He makes no sense ....he is not a hit man..he may or may not have been at one time a sharpshooter in the Marines years before, but I have read where he only acquired that markmanship level once ,the rest of the time he was a "maggies drawers"...shot... Wouldn't your Mafia and or Castro,Cubans have provided someone with more experience, and also equipped him with a much better rifle....and why LHO, he had stated on TV he was a Marxist, that meant he was a communist to Americans...he was connected to the FPFC, now why on earth would Castro, go along with someone who was to be the patsy, who was already connected to Communism and Cuba..therefore making him appear guilty??.... so the US could attack and take the country over...?? for whom, the Mafia ??..they didn't....Vietnam was the bigger pie...LHO was made to appear as a Communist and a Castro sympathizer, who had been passing out leaflets in support of Castro..in New Orleans...and how did Castro and the Mafia get him the job at the TSBD..?.....that connection is from the Paines and they connect to DeMohrenschidlt , who also worked for the CIA, who also knew LBJ, who also was a friend of Harold Bryd who owned the TSBD..they all regularly met at the Petroleum Club..with others....and also in the 70's ...10 Mafia figures were killed who were associated with the Kennedy assassination investigation...why would Castro or the Mafia kill them if they had been involved in the job for them..???...I know they were going to talk... that IMO was a clean up job, and not by Castro or Mafia.........there also is that document from the NA, that the Cuban Army and Navy were put on alert the evening of Nov. 23/63...If Castro had killed JFK, with any help, they would have surely been put on alert before not after the assassination.. So duh yourself.... Here have a cone and cool down.. B

""My question for you, Al, re your scenario of a military sniper operation: how does the Mafia fit into your scenario? Does not Ruby's involvement demonstrate Mafia involvement in the assassination? "" But Tim, by involving Ruby in your be all scenario,( that if one group doesn't fit, or you get tired of that group in say a week or two, you can throw them out and put in whomever and it still works ??......I think I have that correct??) any group will fit..and can work...?? Anyway, by involving Mr.Ruby you involve all....don't you...?? Now take one man for instance.....Frank Sturgis ..he worked at the Tropicana Hotel in Havana...and therefore has a Cuban connection...His real name was Fiorini, and not just his contact with the Tropicana but also with Jack Ruby's friend, Lewis McWillie (who also worked there ) gives these men connections to Trafficante..and the Mob...But Sturgis worked for E.Howard Hunt..and therefore had CIA.. Government connections....Hunt was that senior CIA fella, that worked for President Nixon, as a Watergate burglar ..both he and Sturgis were arrested...... So in the end, we can say that we can link Sturgis to Trafficante ,Nixon, the CIA, Government..... and so to Jack Ruby...?? and you have already stated that" Jack Ruby's involvement demonstrates Mafia involvement in the assassination.".. So the conclusion is, no one is left out ??? So aren't you saying that a person is suspicious because he knew someone who knew someone else who was implicated in the involvement in some wrong doing by a third party...? No wonder your theory becomes so complex, and difficult ,to keep the facts and people in a proper perspective...and muddies the waters, so to speak....But then I forgot, we can throw out your group and install another, according to your scenario....??.. Thanks for this wonderful clear aspect of the assassination, I never realised it was so easily solved.....too easy, too clear, too muddied...... B

************************* To make things clear Tim....to you and the membership......as it seems your post above may have been addressed to me?? I did not impugn your motives... nor call you a rodent..not label anyone a murderer..I have been trying to supply some information from other researchers..so do not shoot the "messenger".. Please, do reread Sorenson's passages pertaining to Dillon..as I said, I did so just the other day, and wondered at the time, if you perhaps were meaning another book..?..as there was nothing that mentioned any great familiarity between them, other than his loaning RFK his home in Florida after the assassination...and as I had stated he worked well with him as he did the others ...If you feel you must contact Sorenson, then by all means do so...would be interesting....but also you should reread anything related to Dillon....in his book first..IMO.. I have not called anyone an assassin nor a murderer....I personally do not think anyone has, they have made inquiries as to the possibility that he could have in some way known about the plans for an assassination....and perhaps been involved in that way, and just went along........I believe...unless I missed that direct accusation.... I simply do not know, if his being in intelligence fighting nazi's would make him more likely to be an assassin, ??? and No, not everything and everyone is to be looked at in an accusatory or in a conspiratorial fashion...recall when I asked if the evidence was going to be forthcoming when an accusation against you was made re Sergetti ( sp)..??.. But Tim, you ask for it...you certainly do... as it does not matter what the others post, not in this nor in many other threads it seems...you are right there, going overboard, telling them how wrong they are, and how right you are and you simply do not respect other peoples opinions..you do not discuss, nor look at both sides, you have your theory in stone in that wee neat box labeled, Cuban and Castro..and possibly Russia, and that's it...there are many other sides to all of this ,as well you know...sometimes have a look at what is outside that box of yours...... A man you have much respect for asked you to start a thread of your own, and post your information pertaining to the cubans, we all know in that area you have great knowledge....you thought it a good idea, and said I believe, you would... You haven't...instead for some reason, long before Dillon's name came upon the scene, you simply dismissed any information I posted, from Shaw's book... and any discussion on any information related to it...and any other discussion that other members did try to achieve....you implied it was garbage information... did you really think that would stop me from posting more, and now you use the accusation that we, I,whomever are disinformationists...well that is an old ploy...that disinfos themselves use, as if you didn't know.....and it does not work... The members want to simply research no matter where it leads, and you do not have the right to impede their way ....but for some reason, you do believe you have that right..and do so incessantly.....but then again so does the government.........I try to look at both sides when a subject comes up for research, no matter where it leads...I do wish you could do the same...IMO.. P.S...So what ? if someone makes a spelling or grammatical error, this is not an English Language Forum....it is proper to be correct , but all do not have a spell check...and all do not have perhaps the education others have...so what?? Now to prove to you again ,about what I say,in trying to research both sides of the subject and not jumping to any conclusions..........I spent time today searching for more information on Douglas Dillon, wherever it leads....and this is what I have found.... B..... ******************************************* In "Robert Kennedy: His Life" by Evan Thomas...2000 Dillon is mentioned many times, and quoted..he speaks of the times off the rocky coast of Maine when the Kennedy family sailed off on cruises with friends..they did so with road maps and not proper charts...back in 62..p:183 He is also mentioned as being on the Executive Committee of the National Security Council ( ExCom) the name given the policy advisors to President Kennedy during the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis...p:210 Re the blockade: "Robert Kennedy did not rule out by any means an air strike. But after the excruciating night of waiting for the troops to arrive at old Miss.,he had low confidence in the military's capacity to do anything with precision.""He knew there was no such thing as a surgical strike.""said Douglas Dillon..and he wanted to buy time to look for other, less obvious escape routes.p: 216. On the Thurs. there had been a meeting and a consensus,the President thought had been forming around a blockade or a quarantine..approach, but by Fri. morning disagreements had broken out anew..."Minds and opinions began to change again, and not only on small points." "Meeting alone with the President on the Fri. morning, the Joint Chiefs virtually bullied the President into begin bombing." After they had left ,JFK groused to Kenny O'Donnell he mumbled a joke but was not amused.."Those brass hats have one great advantage in their favor, if we ...do what they want us to do, none of us will be alive later to tell them they're wrong." "* At about this time Kennedy (RFK) privately counted up the votes on a piece of scrap paper .Under "Blockade" he wrote ,"McNamara ,Gilpatrick,(Rusk,( with a plus sign) Thompson, Bohlen, Adlai, Nitze, (with a question mark and an arrow pointing to the * Strike* column), Lovett, Ed Martin,Ball, Alexis Johnson, Sorensen." Under "Strike" he wrote, "MacBundy,Taylor, Chiefs, Acheson, Dillon, John MCone," ( with a question mark and the notation. "switched"..p:217 On Fri morning Oct.20/62 " Hawks Acheson and Bundy had formidible allies. Dillon, McCone and General Taylor all emphatically chimed in for air strikes. The doves seemed to reel for a moment ,Geroge Ball said he was a "waverer" between air strikes and a bockade." The State dept. note taker then caught some of RFK's eloquence, as he spoke against the air strikes and for a blockade: "He thought it would be very ,very difficult indeed for the President if the decisions was for an air strike, with all the memory of Pearl Harbor and with all the implications this would have for us in whatever world there would be afterward...For 175 years we had not been that kind of country.A sneak attack was not in our traditions. Thousands of Cubans would be killed without warning, and a lot of Russians too. He favored action, to make known unmistakably the seriousness of the Unites States determination to get the missiles out of Cuba, but he thought the action should allow the Soviets some room for maneuver to pull back from their over-extended position in Cuba." Bundy was irritated at the speech and said" this is all very well ,but a blockade would not eliminate the bases, an air strike would."...But others were listening one was Treasury Secretary Dillon felt he was witnessing " a real turning point in history. The way Bob Kennedy spoke was totally convincing to me .I knew then that we should not undertake a strike without warning."..Most of the others came around..or were softened their insistance on an immediate strike.They would continue to argue and wrestle with the options, but RFK had carried the day." pp: 218-19 On "Black Saturday, Oct.27th/62 After his meeting with Dobrynin.RFK returned to the WH and to his strung-out comrades in the cabinet room.......late that night when the air force pilots were being handed their target folders..There was but one moment of personal solicitude. RFK asked Bob McNamara ..who had been working around the clock ,how he was.. "Well", said McNamara untruthfully .Watching the sun set, he had wondered if he would live out the week.."How about yourself."."All right." said RFK.....snip... The group began to discuss an invasion and removing ,once and for all, Fidel Castro.The talk turning blustery,"I would suggest that it would be an eye for an eye." said McNamara."That's the mission." said Douglas Dillon. RFK interjected "I'd take Cuba back. That would be nice." "Another voice chimed in ." I'd take Cuba away from Castro." And, finally, to punch drunk laughter, someone else cracked ; "Suppose we make Bobby mayor of Havana." At midnight the ExCon broke up to get some rest, await Moscow's answer-- or prepare for war..p: 229. Birmingham Alabama..May 2/62 King's Project C had been fizzling... "Out of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church flowed a thousand children some as young as 6 years old, to flood the department stores and lunch places downtown..Sheriff Eugene"Bull" Connor played his role.He turned high pressured fire hoses and dogs on the children..and arrested many...Within a day ,cameramen from every major network and a number of foreign correspondents had descended on Birmingham". The Kennedy's initial approach was the usual one: searching out a compromise. But RFK's attention...and the machinery of the federal government ....was now engaged...which was really what King had wanted all along. He ( RFK) was furious and felt that the children had been used and could be hurt. They had tried the back channels. Burke Marshall" knew some lawyers down there and the editor of the paper." he slipped into town to mediate. Cabinet members were enlisted to call Birmingham businessmen and plead for peace. At Treasury, Douglas Dillon phoned the head of U.S.Steel, which owned the biggest plant in town.When King was arrested a second time, the money for bail was raised by RFK by calling on Walter Reuther of the Auto Workers and other union allies, who dipped into their slush funds for ready crush....and by May 10th...the patient and assiduous Marshall had worked out a deal with the city fathers to gradually desegregate the lunch counters, rest rooms, theaters and the rest..The children were released from the overflowing jails..But the next day the violence continued with a bombing..pp: 242-3 I believe this was Fall 66: Regarding community action agencies , finding some monies ..."some white businessmen willing to put their money into the ghetto..". "In early September RFK met Andre' Meyer , the hard nosed chairman of Lazard Fr'eres investment bankers who was already a trustee of the Kennedy family investments, and a financial advisor to Jackie Kennedy......snip....With typical urgency, Kennedy rounded up three other prominent businessmen with Kennedy ties...investment banker Douglas Dillon,CBS chairman William S.Paley, and IBM chairman Thomas Watson..all in one day..His pitch was practical ,said a friend who was discreetly working behind the scenes to line up other busness leaders and their money.."It, wasn't moral obligation.It was :look at the chaos we're going to have if we don't do something." ...snip......"Congress voted $45 million for a vaguely worded national program of job training, and economic development in blighted areas. But Kennedy( RFK) needed immediate funds to pay for the overhead of the Bed-Sty Corporation, so he turned to the Ford Foundation..." they turned him down....."Kennedy went over their heads to implore the new head of the Ford Foundation, McGeorge Bundy. RFK had always been edgy around Bundy ,who lacked the requisite blind loyalty to the Kennedys. But Bundy was reassured that men such as Doug Dillon and Tom Watson were rallying behind Kennedy's idea..Bundy authorized a Ford Foundation grant totaling $750,000 to get the Bed-StyCorporation off the ground."pp:325-26 "Kennedy's experiments were just that, not conversion. He listened to Bob Dylan, but more often to Broadway show tunes. He named sons in 1965 and 1967 after pillars of the establishment--a hawkish chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff ,General Maxwell Taylor, ( Mathew Maxwell Taylor Kennedy), and two patrician statesmen, Douglas Dillon and Averell Harriman (Douglas Harriman Kennedy).....p.346 Bernice

********************************** It shows IMO, that Dillon loaned, RFK his home after the assassination of his brother,perhaps for some solitude ....?...That is what the documentation states, nothing more...as seen above ...

Tim, Sorry to disappoint you but I did say "maybe". At the moment I'm going through some of the material Bernice linked to her post (#124). There's a mile of stuff there including some from Weberman. Some of it I've read before but I recommend forum readers give it more than a passing glance. The Rockerfeller Commission is interesting and probably doesn't receive sufficient coverage on the Forum, IMO. I don't know if Dillon had foreknowledge of JFK's assassination but as I've stated ad nauseum, he can't be ruled out as a suspect, IMO. Thus I disagree with your iron clad conviction of his innocence. Among the many problems I have with your perspective on the assassination is your tendency to claim certain sources as justification of your position. One example is the LBJ tapes, which you claim as proof of LBJ's non involvement. John Simkin and Ron Ecker say they prove no such thing. You don't have the credibility to carry your arguments. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> ****************** Hi Mark: Well I found Sorenson, dusted it off, and reread the Dillon passages... there is nothing in such to claim any great love, nor friendship, it does not spell out either....however..It is a study of the years that JFK was in office, and what was accomplished....the work does not go into this type of personal area,in any real sense,.. nor of the perhaps likes and dislikes in any great depth, it is a History book.....IMO.... It does make mention that the McNamaras and Dillons were invited by the Kennedys to social gatherings more often than other members of the cabinet..we also must keep in mind, that some wives got on better with some than others, and in that case they were not invited to private gatherings...the same in all society it seems at times....and also that JFK did work closely with the Treasury, but also with the other members of the Cabinet as a one on one... Also as far as the the book, that I have read on the LBJ tapes, by Holland, ..I did come to the conclusion at that time, that it neither shows any guilt of the man nor his innocence .....though to me, many questions did arise within the said conversations....I also wonder if, and what was not released on the tapes...?? But in the LBJ tapes book, by Holland there are a few references to Dillon..one I did want to pass along as I found it interesting.... p: 216...."The only thing preventing more real and imagined slights between the two men ( RFK & LBJ) is the fact that over Thanksgiving Kennedy sequestered himself in Treasury Dillon's Hobe Sound, Florida ,compound, and has been literally in communicado since."..appears to be Wed. Dec.4th/63.. I also think that Tim is simply practicing the (his) floccinaucinihilipilification process. which can become rather tedious and boring very quickly,and a form of diversion from the information that anyone is trying to extend to the membership..IMO...

Mark: Wasn't Sorenson also CFR..?...I will have a look.... I will also check Sorenson's book and see what he had to say about Dillon......B

*********************************** Washington Telephones... At 1.41 p.m..( Washington time ) page boy, Richard Riedel told the Senator his brother the Pesident had been shot. "Ted Kennedy quickly departed from the Senate ,he broke his stride in the lobby at the teletype machines, he couldn't see anything as the crowds had gathered around them.. "He swerved toward Lyndon Johnson's office..and dialed the AG's office from there.. government code..187,extension 2001..Nothing happened..There was no dial tone, no sound at all." "He dialed again and received a busy signal." He reeled out into the street. a legislative asst. drove him the the half block to his suite. in the Old Senate Office Building..Claude Hooten was waiting ,a Harvard classmate. He had arrived for the Senator's anniversary party.. He led him to his suite.."The Telephone crisis was growing queerer and queerer." "Calls could come in --Martin Argonsky of NBC ,was inquiring whether the Senator planned a flight to Dallas--but when Ted retired to his private office and tried again to reach his brother ,either at Justice or through the White House ,all the lines were dead. After a pause one did briefly come to life.The White House switchboard ,however told him that the Attorney General was talking to Dallas, and since Ted Kennedy ,unlike Bob ,didn't have an executive extension ,there was no way of splicing him into the call." "Like Bill Pozen at Interior ,he was left with a useless black plastic receiver ,and the task of trying to assess the scope of the calamity." ( He ,Robert ,was talking to Clint Hill).. Ted,Claude then streaked down Pennsylvannia Ave in Milt Gwirtzmann's Mercedes. to Georgetown.."Twelve minutes after leaving the Hill the Mercedes skidded against the curb, outside 1607 Twenty-eighth Street." Milt then went for Joan at the beauty parlor.. "Ted waited for them...his face taut and drained." ""All the phones are gone"".he said.."He and Claude had been going through the house ,picking up extensions." They were unable to get dial tones."The Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company was deaf and dumb."" They began to wonder whether the failure of the system could be more than an accident ." "Ted decided to conduct a door to door search, asking permission of strangers to test instruments until they found one that worked. It seemed to be the only solution.He said to Claude" We'll split up .You try the doors on the right .I'll take the left.If you get something let me know." He had to reach Hickory Hill.pp..197-99 and Ted Kennedy and Claude kept on ringing door bells until in a new row of town houses they found one funtioning..Ted called Robert, and he told him quietly the President was dead. "The instant he hung up the housewife's line went dead."...p:254 "At 4.15pm. exactly fifteen minutes before the Gold Room adjournment ,the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company's Georgetown office, which served the Pentagon, had become the last exchange in the capital to resume normal operations. The phone emergency was then officially over. "..p:253 "The phone company was doing it's best...half the circuits in the entire Eastern half of the United States had been reserved for Washington traffic--but Dallas' eighteen long distance trunks were all overloaded... "Both the signal board in the east basement and the NAtional 8-1414 board on the fourth floor of the Executive Office Building were in a bind ." The Chesapeake Potomac dial tones grew progressively slower until they ceased altogether .For the first time in memory the Signalmen discovered that ""we could not dial out"". "As expert technicians they realized that the trouble lay in over burdened exchanges."p:254 "It was a few minutes after 1.pm Dallas, (2pm Wash.) that Dr.Burkley stepped into the passage way of Parkland Hospital and told Kellerman the President was dead.." At 1.05 Dallas (2.05pm Washington) Sergeant Philip Tarbell ,who was the key signalman at the White House switchboard ..(Kellerman had ordered Clint Hill to inform Jerry Behm that the President was dead.) (Hill suggested that the Attorney General be told at the same time, before he heard from the press......Kellerman nodded and Clint went ahead ( and called ) asking first for Behm. "Tarbell recollected " at 2.05p.m.(Wash) --1.05 (Dallas pm) in the hospital .Anyone, the eavesdropping operators chose to tell knew within the next few minutes." p" 244.. this they said caused and internal crisis..In the Sergeants words ."" The switchboard went completely wild ,with everyone attempting to call out ."". " The big wave broke within the next half hour." p: 244. But this was at 2.05 pm Washington time....but ..... At 1.41 p.m..(Washington time) page boy,Richard Riedel told the Senator his brother the Pesident had been shot. "Ted Kennedy quickly departed from the Senate ,he broke his stride in the lobby at the teletype machines, he couldn't see anything as the crowds had gathered around them.. "He swerved toward Lyndon Johnson's office..and dialed the AG's office from there.. government code..187,extension 2001..Nothing happened..There was no dial tone, no sound at all." "He dialed again and received a busy signal." at 1.41pm (Wash) .. The phones were already down...?????... the timing does not correlate ?????? From" "The Death of a President "..William Manchester .67 B:

Tim, You're a slippery little rodent. My post was in response to your claim in Post#50 that there were posts on this thread which were garbage. Aghast at the thought that this thread might go places other than Trafficante/Castro/Pro-Castro Cubans, Tim thinks "how do I get my material onto centre stage?". Answer: just say those posts are garbage--someone's bound to respond 'cause I've got more garbage than anyone there. True genius. Then claims that this often happens, which translates as "I use this strategy lots". Despite all that, this has turned into a very interesting thread, covering a good range of controversial issues. It's been fascinating to watch Robert clinically dispose of most of your assertions. Have you responded yet ? You see, I don't know as much as you on the Castro/Mob theory on the assassination. I doubt if I ever will as you've obviously devoted thousands of hours to it. Trouble is, those who do know what they're talking about on your theory don't appear to back you up. Robert Charles-Dunne and Mark Knight seem to know what they're talking about but still no backers. What conclusion do I draw? The funny thing is that if anything new comes out of this thread, it might be some research into the background of C. Douglas Dillon. I've never seen such a tantrum about the naming of a suspect and there's been many patriotic Americans named as suspects including 2 Presidents and the joint chiefs. Fascinating. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> *********************** Mark..... There may be some information pertaining...to C.Douglas Dillon..in these links that you will find interesting... Sorry I have not had the time to take it any further.... B.. Clarence Dillon and his son C. Douglas Dillon were directors of USIS, which was spotlighted when Clarence Dillon was hauled before the Senate Banking Committee's famous "Pecora" hearings in 1933. USIS was shown to be one of the great speculative pyramid schemes which had swindled stockholders of hundreds of millions of dollars. These investment policies had rotted the U.S. economy to the core, and led to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Note #b|"C. Douglas Dillon" was the boss of William H. Draper, Jr. in the Draper-Prescott Bush-Fritz Thyssen Nazi banking scheme of the 1930s and 40s. His father, Clarence Dillon, created the Vereinigte Stahlwerke (Thyssen's German Steel Trust) in 1926. C. Douglas Dillon made "Nicholas Brady" the chairman of the Dillon Read firm in 1971 and himself continued as chairman of the Executive Committee. C. Douglas Dillon would be a vital ally of his neighbor Prescott Bush during the Eisenhower administration. Among the other team members were Bush's Hitler-era lawyer John Foster Dulles, and Jupiter Islander C. Douglas Dillon. Dillon and his father were the pivots as the Harriman-Dulles combination readied Ike for the presidency. As a friend put it: "When the Dillons ... invited [Eisenhower] to dinner it was to introduce him to Wall Street bankers and lawyers." Note #b|"C. Douglas Dillon," neighbor of Bush on Jupiter Island, became undersecretary of state in 1958 after the death of John Foster Dulles. Dillon had been John Foster Dulles's ambassador to France (1953-57), coordinating the original U.S. covert backing for the French imperial effort in Vietnam, with catastrophic results for the world. Dillon was treasury secretary for both John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. / http://www.patrickcrusade.org/new_page_2.htm The Jupiter Island connection and father Prescott's Brown Brothers, Harriman/Skull and Bones networks are doubtless the key. Jupiter Island meant Averell Harriman, Robert Lovett, C. Douglas Dillon and other Anglophile financiers who had directed the US intelligence community long before there had been a CIA at all. And, in the back yard of the Jupiter Island Olympians, and under their direction, a powerful covert operations base was now being assembled, in which George Bush would have been present at the creation as a matter of birthright. Preparation for what was to become the Halloween massacre began in the Ford White House during the summer of 1975. The Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan preserves a memo from Donald Rumsfeld to Ford dated July 10, 1975, which deals with an array of possible choices for CIA Director. Rumsfeld had polled a number of White House and administration officials and asked them to express preferences among "outsiders to the CIA." [fn 2] Among the officials polled by Cheney was Henry Kissinger, who suggested C. Douglas Dillon, Howard Baker, Galvin, and Robert Roosa. Dick Cheney of the White House staff proposed Robert Bork, followed by Bush and Lee Iacocca. Nelson Rockefeller was also for C. Douglas Dillon, followed by Howard Baker, Conner, and James R. Schlesinger. Rumsfeld himself listed Bork, Dillon, Iacoca, Stanley Resor, and Walter Wriston, but not Bush. The only officials putting Bush on their "possible" lists other than Cheney were Jack O. Marsh, a White House counselor to Ford, and David Packard. When it came time for Rumsfeld to sum up the aggregate number of times each person was mentioned, minus one point for each time a person had been recommended against, the list was as follows: Robert Bork [rejected in 1987 for the Supreme Court] White McGee Foster [John S. Foster of PFIAB, formerly of the Department of Defense] Dillon Resor Roosa Hauge http://www.tarpley.net/bush8b.htm SEVENTEEN YEARS OF BILDERBERGERS INCLUDING THE 2000 INVITEES AND ... ... Dewey BB/CFR John Diebold BB/CFR C. Douglas Dillon BB/CFR Christopher J. ... Rockefeller BB/CFR Sharon Percy Rockefeller BB Inciarte Matias Rodriquez BB ... http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/bball.htm CLARENCE DILLON (1882-1979) Born in San Antonio, Texas, son of Samuel Dillon and Bertha Lapowitz. Harvard, 1905. Married Anne Douglass of Milwaukee. His son, C. Douglas Dillon (later Secretary of the Treasury, 1961-65) was born in Geneva, Switzerland in 1909 while they were abroad. Dillon met William A. Read, founder of the Wall Street bond broker William A. Read and Company, through introduction by Harvard classmate William A. Phillips in 1912 and Dillon joined Read's Chicago office in that year. He moved to New York in 1914. Read died in 1916, and Dillon bought a majority interest in the firm. During World War 1, Bernard Baruch, chairman of the War Industries Board, (known as the Czar of American industry) asked Dillon to be assistant chairman of the War Industries Board. In 1920, William A. Read & Company name was changed to Dillon, Read & Company. Dillon was director of American Foreign Securities Corporation, which he had set up in 1915 to finance the French Government's purchases of munitions in the United States. His righthand man at Dillon Read, James Forrestal, became Secretary of the Navy, later Secretary of Defense, and died under mysterious circumstances at a Federal hospital. In 1957, Fortune Magazine listed Dillon as one of the richest men in the United States, with a fortune then estimated to be from $150 to $200 million. http://www.cephas-library.com/nwo/federal_...iographies.html C. DOUGLAS DILLON http://www.ajweberman.com/nodules/nodule23.htm JFK Lancer: The Investigations http://www.jfklancer.com/Investigations.html Council on Foreign Relations http://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/m...s/conspire.html Information by Operation CHAOS http://www.cia-on-campus.org/surveil/chaos.html Gerald R.Ford Library U.S. PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON CIA ACTIVITIES WITHIN THE UNITED STATES: Files, [1947-1974] 1975 http://www.ford.utexas.edu/library/guides/...20-%20Files.htm Operation Mockingbird http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3054 Bilderberg Conference 2005 - 5-8th May, Rottach-Egern, Munich, Germany http://www.bilderberg.org/2005.htm The Modern History Project http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityIDList.php

Thankyou Mark Stapleton: You asked: Mark:""One question. If, as you argue, the Ultra Right/Texas oil failed to possess enough influence to carry out the assassination on their own, is it not possible they may have formed a co-operative "joint venture" with the MIC in order to achieve this? The reason I ask is that, to me, the fact that it was carried out in Dallas is too much of a coincidence for those groups (they may well be one and the same) to be uninvolved. The other thing for me is LBJ. As Ron points out, the timing of the hit was just too good to be true for him. His background also condemns him. The counter arguments forwarded by WC supporters are coincidence (Re Dallas) and coincidence (Re LBJ) to which I would reply "crap" (Re Dallas) and "crap" (Re LBJ)."" I had posted: ""Did Texas oil think they had a reasonable motive for wanting JFK removed from office ? Yes..to protect it's economics ,not to mention their general displeasure at Kennedy's liberal policies.. Did Texas Oil have the power...and resources to kill a President ?? Obviously it lacked nothing that money could buy...it's weath could have bought the finest hitmen in the business of assassination..and place one of Texas' own at the pinnacle of power...Could they have manipulated the cover-up, to some extent ..No doubt it carried a lot of weight on Captiol Hill and could have and more than likely did influence the Johnson WH to some extent..But, it would have taken much more than money to have bought the FBI ,the CIA,the military ,the Secret Service and certain hig goverment officials...it seems impossible..... Could they have been powerful enough to have commanded or persuaded some of the highest officials in the land..to perjure themselves,before the American public. The oil men lacked this kind of influence to pressure some leaders to lie and conceal the truth...some were too honest and stubborn perhaps, to be bought off... While some could have provided financial support of the assassination operations , the Texas Oil did lack the power to carry out both phases ...the assassination and the Cover-Up...."" Here are more What If's for you Mark .. I think that perhaps the Oil Barons, could have supplied all monies needed for all minions and anything needed to be used, to have the assassination completed...then watched as H.L.Hunt did from his seventh story office as the motorcade drove by.....this is where, the" follow the money thought" does come into all this.... they could have bought and paid for the best snipers the world had available...men whose profession was a target..and then simply disappeared into history...they were readily available...In that way money wise, I agree it is a possibility... But on another train of thought why would "they" need to use anyones money ?...if the MIC did murder their commander in chief....there was access to millions readily available, from a Pentagon source....business whatever .....( what was it they were paying around $700.00 for a screw driver at the time...??? in reality the extra $695...went into the slush fund??)..I don't think money would be a problem....in some ways...I don't think "oil" would have had to be involved in anyway...?? Mark:""The reason I ask is that, to me, the fact that it was carried out in Dallas is too much of a coincidence for those groups (they may well be one and the same) to be uninvolved. The other thing for me is LBJ. As Ron points out, the timing of the hit was just too good to be true for him. His background also condemns him"" Yes, I agree definitely the timing was too good, and wasn't it so convenient that Dallas was chosen, extreme Right Wing, and also wasn't it convenient that Chicago, and Florida, failed with the planned attempts in those cities...more coincidence...?? Is it all too convenient as Ron points out ( great thought Ron )...this is what bothers me and has for a long time.....all just too coincidental.... LBJ...is going to jail...if JFK is still in office, or in the least his career is over and reputation in smitherines...the oil depletion allowance in Texas is being drastically cut..., "King Oil" profits being reduced.....it occurrs in Dallas,Texas the foremost right wing city in the state, at the time,in the country......there is going to be detente with the Communists, Russia, and with Castro, no take over...no invasion that the anti Cubans were desperate for..( which there wasn't in any case ).....no return of the island to the Mafia and their cohorts.....and from what I have been able to read...no Vietnam....and the dismantling of the CIA...I am sure I have forgotten other reasons, but on the top of the list, another Kennedy administration being voted in, possibily the next November..for another 4 years...then possibly Robert??..things were looking pretty good....in a lot of ways.. All just too coincidental, isn't it.....and as we see also.....and the one man who was and would be responsible for all the above, just happened to be the one man murdered that day in Dallas....the President...ruddy amazing... Who have been blamed, and held responsible, by many:? 1..L.B.J..and Texas Oil Men 2..Castro: Communists.. 3..Russia: Communists.. 4..Anti Castro movement.. 5..Right Wing extremists.. 6..CIA.. 7..Military.. 9..Mafia.. 8.. a Patsy..LHO or a man by any other given name that would have served the purpose..a disturbed lone assassin. It is just so convenient that the assassination took place in Dallas, LBJ's home state, home of the extreme right wingers...and "King Oil"..and that there is information and documentation leading to such... It is also covenient that there appears to be information leading to the possibility of a Castro, Communist involvement..and possibly information leading to a Russian involvement... It is also very convenient that there also appears to be information leading to, and photos of look-a- likes, present in Dealey, of some anti-cubanites-some right wingers-and some military presence...It is so convenient it is amazing, at times to me...and makes me question the why?? as I seem to continually do ...it seems just too pat in some ways....?? Whose left ?? Whose not mentioned ? Industrial-Business ? Money Power people, Bankers?..What if they connected with the Intelligence and the Pentagon ????? IF ?? then we would have a MIC...possibley...who would have all the power they would ever need to create and carry out and cover-up such a slaughter...all these years...?? enough power to twist anyones arm....?? It all seems to be like so, invisible in some ways...like transparent ?? as if all was planned in such a way,as to confuse and contradict all else, each piece deliberatley, so that nothing would ever be solveable down through history....almost as if there was a grand schematic on a huge drafting table, all laid out, connecting all the dots to each other, so that one leads to the other continually and conveniently , to lead all researchers, historians continually in a circle.....and it works...???? What if, this what I call, Industrial-Business-Money-Power people, Bankers.?( for use of a better name) Used the intelligence world-who would then use their connections and power to the military (and thereby being able to use anyone and anything they possibley needed)( and thereby framing and connecting all to the assassination, in some way, to create complete deliberate confusion) and by committing such a deliberate invisible, transparent assassination... gaining full control over the politics ,government, it's people,and the most powerful country in the world..the United Sates...and in doing so framing all other groups, that any of the information, evidence, and documentation seems to lead to??? Leading to all the confusion we see each and every day in this grand scam of things..that they could have possibley perpetuated so brilliantly...????? I know a lot of what if's? I am just trying to think out of the box as they say ,here, as there are simply just too many convenient , coincidential , connections to all...and I have absolutely no answers, and nothing definite I can say positively....sorry... Thanks for the come back and thoughts and your kind remarks re the posts.... B..

Ron: I was coming back to give you what info I had on the telephones in Washington...But am so pleased to see Charles give his research in this area..for all our information.....Thanks.. Shanet..Mark...Ron and others that are interested...in this information pertaining to these groups that may have been involved in assassination...I am very interested in your input and conversations...of these other possible contributors to such.....sorry I cannot recall all your names...let's continue.... *************************** The murder of President Kennedy could have been the function of a top-level military-industrial-intelligence faction of the United States government. When President L.B.Johnson chose the members of the Warren Commission, some had long-standing allegiance to these factions... Chief Justice Earl Warren: Though revered by some.....Was a most important source and mover in organizing the first concentration camps in the U.S. after they entered WW 2 interpreting the Constitution as allowing the imprisonment of innocent American citizens whose ancestry happened to be Japanese...thereby being loyal to the military. On Dec.9/63 Nicholas Katzenbach sent a memorandum to Warren stating that copies of the FBI Report was being sent to him and the other members of the WC..on the assassination.. The FBI report stated :" one of the bullets had entered just below his shoulder to the right of the spinal column at an angle of 45 to 60 degrees downward, that there was no point of exit." ....as of Dec.9/63....Earl Warren and the government therefore could not have such a scenario as the "Magic Bullet"....the three-bullet lone assassin theory..as ( there was no point of exit).......if the government were innocent and Earl Warren was not in compliance...this alone proved evidence of conspiracy... The memo further mentioned "....that the latest gallop poll shows that over half the American people believe that Oswald acted on part of a conspiracy,in shooting President Kennedy ..I think therefore ,the Commission should consider releasing or allowing the Dept of Justice to release, a short press statement which would briefly make the following points." "" The FBI report through scientific examination of evidence ,testimony and intensive investigation ,established beyond a reasonable doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy on Nov. 22,1963..The FBI made exhaustive investigation into whether Oswald may have conspired with or been assisted by any organization ,group,or person foreign or domestic ,in carrying out this dastardly act..To date this aspect of the investigation has been negative."" Warren accepted what to some appear to be orders ,and did a great disservice to the country and to the Constitution but a great service to the MIC, he also showed contempt for the American public whom the majority had stated loud and clear that they believed there was a conspiracy.....the American people were to be misled, lied to, confused, and manipulated, and also pay the cost as taxpayers for the Warren Commission, that carried his name.....he continued with his charade..and pretended to be looking for the truth but in reality he had apparently accepted his orders and was in compliance...Why ?..whatever his reasons...he then proceeded to allow the fantasy to be created....By not informing the citizens of the United States ,of the lies held within this announcement was he was guilty of obstruction of justice ? Allen W.Dulles: Was Director of the CIA for 8 years 53/61..until President Kennedy fired him, after the BOPs fiasco.Under Dulles the CIA grew and developed it's enormous power .He had been a master spy in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). --the U.S. Intelligence agency during WW 2 and the forerunner of the CIA...He was credited with two outstanding feats: the penetration of the German Abwehr (Hitler's Intelligence Service) and the negotiating the surrender of German troops in Italy... Here was the consummate cold warrior..on Jan21/64, there was a secret executive meeting of the WC..Marina Oswald was going to give evidence that LHO was a Soviet Spy:...a snip.....of the meeting.... Russell stated" That will blow the lid if she testifies to that." Dulles stated he knew Isaac Don Levine who was with Life Magazine, who had the assigment and meeting with Marina..the article was never published , Dulles stated "I can get ahold of him and have a friendly talk." Now why would Dulles want to potect the Soviets, if LHO was an agent ? He and his brother Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, certainly had been willing to carry the U.S to the brink of nuclear war in post WW 2 times...so why now the reluctance.... to invole Russia ? In Gaeton Fonzi's book, you will see that he has traced the assassination to the CIA and President Kennedy had fired Allen Dulles....as the head of such..therefore could Dulles have had the knowledge that LHO was the patsy, and that the CIA had carried out the assassination ? He had an interest in protecting the agency, he had reason to hate Kennedy and his courage for opposing the intelligence and military on Cold War policy... in appointing Dulles to the WC, President Johnson had placed him in a position of obstructing justice, which he then carried out....there could not be an investigation that would lead to the CIA... (The information that has been researched on LHO, points to him being a U.S Intelligent Agent...the same government agencies who created the Marxist cover for him, were more than likely involved in the assassination.) John J.McCloy: Was the Assisstant Secretary of War from April 1941..to Nov.1945. President of the World Bank from 1947-49 and the US Military Governor and High Commissioner to Germany from 1949-51.. Gerald R.Ford: A staunch ally of the military establishment and the Pentagon.He had the reputation on the Hill as the CIA's best friend in Congress..He became President and chose the members of the Rockefeller Commission ,and accepted that commissions whitewashed report..he also withheld it's findings on the CIA's alleged assassination plots..He did everything in his power to block the release of the Church Committee findings about the CIA's assassination plots against foreign leaders and it was Ford who steadfastly defended the Agency and harshly criticized those in Congress and the media who called for vast reforms and tighter reins to control the CIA.....and it was Ford who moved President Kennedy's back wound up several inches, on the Bethesda Autopsy Report....it was Ford, who stole the LHO Diary that legally belonged to Marina Oswald, and sold the contents to Life Magazine.... and it was Ford who kept J.Edgar Hoover and the FBI informed of all that came to light within the Warren Commission during regular meetings with him... The Warren Commission is a volume of lies and deceit , and therefore we could be led to one of two possible conclusions: The WC was part of the conspiracy and was used to conceal the truth about the crime. or.......... Like the man who created it, the Commission had been placed under the control of the force that killed Kennedy.... The FBI: Hoover the Assassination and the Warren Commission.. If concealing facts and evidence in the assassination is a sign of guilt...the FBI is a prime suspect..They were the principal investigative arm of the WC...who had none of it's own, though they certainly had the power to have created one of their own..but they accepted Hoover's information readily, though at times questionably. The FBI: Witheld much pertinent information.. Submitted a barrage of irrelevant data...( such as a sampling of the dental charts of Jack Ruby's Mother..CE 1281....a study of the differences between Caucasian,Negroid and Mongoloid hair..CE 668-670...and two copies of Marina's dental charts....a 48 page summary..from when she was pregnant..CD 884 ) Altered, suppressed and destroyed evidence . Procrastinated in investigating and replying to Commission requests for specific information... Intimidated witnesses who disputed the lone assassin theory. Botched the New Orleans investigation... Did not thoroughly investigate Dealey Plaza..and area ,site of the killing.. The misconduct is too long to extensive to cover here. In the FBI Summary and Supplemental reports ,there contains statements,allegations of medical findings and other evidence which are irreconciliable with the Commission's own findings based on the same evidence .The Bureau was in the rediculous position of submitting reports which contradicted the conclusions of the Warren Report, while at the same time illogically conceding that those same findings were correct..??? ( for a detailed analysis see the "Whitewash Series"; and "Post Mortum" by Harold Weisberg.) One such....the suspicion that LHO was a FBI informant ..yet the FBI were more than ready to close the case..in a matter of days......based on the fact that he was the lone assassin..( seen in transcript of the Jan. 22/64 session .).during this emergency meeting that was called to discuss the rumour , the information being supplied by Texas A.G.Waggoner Carr, was that LHO was being paid $200 a month and had been recruited in Sep.62..and assigned # S-179 .The WC members were so stunned that Allan Dulles suggested that the minutes of the meeting be destroyed.. The Commission seemed convinced that the FBI was deliberately leaking information,to the press.....to build the lone assassin case quickly and decisively in the public mind. ( the FBI failed to inform the SS and DPD of Oswald's presence in Dallas..prior to Kennedy's visit.) In the Jan. 27/64 transcript session, the Commission members seemed terrified of Director Hoover ?? and suspicious...for two hours they discuss ways of inquiring about the informant rumor..Indeed they spent Four months..debating just how to approach Hoover for a disclaimer that would convince the public ..Intially they had decided that a disclaimer would not suffice, nor would it convince the public..after being informed that if LHO was an informer, Hoover would lie..Dulles also confides that during his tenure as CIA director, he would have lied under oath to anyone except the President ,if he thought it was in the interest of the nation or the Agency.. Finally Rankin approached Hoover ,he flatly denied the rumor and the matter, and as far as the WC was concerned it was dropped.. ( It was during this session that Rankin made his famous remark: "We do have a dirty rumor that is very bad for the Commission...and it must be wiped out insofar as it is possible to do so by this Commission."....re LHO being a paid informer.. The last two lines: Russell: (referring to the attitude taken by FBI's re it's reports.)..."You have our statement. What else do you want ?." McCloy:" Yes,""We know who killed cock robin." That is the point ,it isn't only who killed cock robin. No less than seven FBI agensts are known to have been associated with Oswald during the year and a half between his return from the Soviet Union and the assassination. The first contact ,a two hour interview on June 26/62 ( Report) shortly after his return. Two months later Aug.16/62...SA John Fain and Arnold Brown...in a stakeout in an car near Oswald's home..they approached him, as he walked down the street, Fain told the WC that was done so as not to embarrass him in his home..( 4 Hearings p.420)..He invited them in but they insisted the conversation be held in the car.. Apparently they wished to discuss something they did not want overheard. LHO promised to report "any contacts or attempted contacts by Soviets under suspicious circumstances or otherwise." What else did he promise them...and what was promised to him in return.? Aug.9/63 New Orleans during the leaflet FPGC distribution, he was arrested , and strangley he requested and promptly received an interview with an FBI agent John Quigley.......FBI agent James P.Hosty's name, address, telephone number, and auto license were in LHO's personal notebook...This information was omitted in a Dec.23/63 FBI report to the WC..Seven weeks later they corrected their mistake.? Hosty was assigned to investigate Oswald prior to the assassination. On the afternoon of Nov.22/63 he lamented to DPD Lt.Jack Revill "Jack, a communist killed President Kennedy....Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy....We had information that he was capable of this..."..WR V H 34,35)..Revill reported the statement in a written report on Nov.22/63...The statement was however kept in a locked drawer at the DPD station for five months..( Ft Worth Star Telegram: 02.09.75.) Not until Oct.1975 did Chief of Police Jesse Curry admit to suppressing Revill's statement at the request of the FBI. He revealed the existance of the statement and the cover-up in a registered letter to Earl Warren on May 28/64. In the letter Curry states that he instructed Revill to keep his statement confidential after the police chief was requested to do so by J.Gordon Shanklin , then Special Agent-in-Charge of the Dallas FBI office...Contrary to the evidence, Hosty later denied the statement to the WC..( Report 442.)and that there was no information to justify a warning to the SS .The WC disagreed ..( Report 443) Hoover was furious with Hosty and gave him a disciplinary transfer to Kansas..with a cut in pay..("Time"11.03.75).Hoover waited till Hosty had testified before ordering the transfer lest Commission members learn of it and make an inquiry. (1V H 20 )..After his arrest, upon seeing Hosty ,Oswald being interrogated by Cap.Will Fritz, became enraged "he beat on the desk and went into a kind of tantrum" He told Hosty,"I know you .You accosted my wife on two occasions"..asked what he meant...he said " Well he threatened her." "He practically told her she would have to go back to Russia." Agent Hosty also received the infamous note from Oswald, delivered to the FBI office..several weeks before the assassination...and it was destroyed..Hosty stated it read " If you have anything you want to learn about me, come talk to me directly.If you don't cease bothering my wife I will take appropriate action and report this to proper authorities"...the recepionist who took the note from Oswald quoted it as saying "Let this be a warning, I will blow up the FBI and the Dallas Police Department if you don't stop bothering my wife."..this information did not come out till 1975 and The House subcommittee ,at the time, immediately requested an investigation..and the testimoney it heard simply used passing the buck..tactics.. Hosty said that Shanklin ordered the destruction,of the note and his three page report made two hours after Oswald was killed by Ruby..on.24/63..Hosty said he tore it and flushed it down the toilet..Shanklin denied giving the order..said he didn't know there had been a note till 1975...But Agent Kenneth Howe testified that he personally showed the note to Shanklin..that weekend...Hosty said Howe was present...when Shanklin told him to destroy the note but Howe denied that....Hosty said he didn't tell the WC when he tesified because he had been ordered not to...by his superiors..not to volunteer any information." and they didn't ask me about it ."!! Now William C.Shanklin who headed the FBI in 75...told Time magazine 11.03.75.....that at least ten top officials at the FBI headquarters in Washington knew about the note..The New York Times 9.17.75...reported that top FBI officials ,"probably including former Director J. Edgar Hoover ."...ordered the destruction of the note" The Times attributed the report to a source it described as familiar with the meeting at which the decision to destroy the letter was made in order to avoid embarrassment to the Bureau....Did the note contain a warning of the pending assassination..?? This tiny bit of information points out the fact that the FBI was culpable in the assassination of John F.Kennedy....and there is much more available.... Hoover Was the FBI, being it's director for 39 years when he died May 1972, at the age of 77..any group contemplating the murder of the President required their assistance, and received it...by looking at the records...He was simply too powerful, and too valuable to be overlooked by the planners. Once the investigation was taken out of the legal authorities hands, where it should have remained, in Dallas, Texas...by the FBI...they headed any official investigation into the assassination..The co-operation of J.Edgar Hoover was imperative ,unless the force behind the murder was so awesome and so powerful that it was certain it could control him..? The primary souce of his power was explained in simple terms by William C.Sullivan a 30 year verteran of the FBI at the time... "He was very ,very powerful, unbelievably powerful..We don't ever want another man in that postion of power again.He was in there such a long time, and he gathered all the dirt that was present on people in high-ranking positions, all the irregularities ,not necessarily sex alone, but financial irregularities, or political chicanery. It doesn't have to be something of a sexual nature ,although that would be included..He was a genius at implying that he knew all this information, and sometimes he didn't know as much as he implied, but it didn't matter. Once it reached them that this implication had been made, damn it, they had a guilty conscience, and they may have done something that Hoover didn't know about, but they assumed he did know.They placed him in a position of power,and they were all afraid to get rid of him. I know Nixon was actually afraid of him.Knowledge is powerful, and he had knowledge of the most damaging kind, knowledge of people's misbehaviour."..Demaris "Argosy". He was mentioned by Nixon to Dean on Feb.28/73 during one of the taped meetings.. President R.M.Nixon: " (expletive deleted) Hoover was my crony .He was closer to me than Johnson, actulally though Johnson used him more. But as for Pat Gray,(expletive deleted) I never saw him." John Dean "While it might have been a lot of blue chips to the late Director, I think we would have been a lot better off during this whole Watergate thing if he had been alive.Because he knew how to handle ,that Bureau...knew how to keep them in bounds." Nixon: "Well, Hoover performed.He would have fought.That was the point .He would have defied a few people.He would have scared them to death.He has a file on everybody." No doubt a massive sigh of relief went through Washington when Hoover died. Following his death 35 filing drawers containing Hoover's personal files were moved from his office to his home and subsequently destroyed by Helen Gandy, his long time secretary...the destruction process took two months. ( Dallas Morning News..11.19.75...12.02.75..) To many he was Mr.America....his legend grew for years, perpetuated by the FBI's public relations office ,and continued to grow until he was something of a demigod. To speak of him in any derogatory terms was nothing short of blasphemy ,and anyone doing so could be suspected of being a communist...In 75 the legend began to crumble and Americans started to see what type of man Hoover really was.Testimony before a Senate sub-committee revealed the faults in Hoover's character and the shocking instances of lawless acts carried out at his direction..a few.. "The Truth About Hoover" Time 12.22.75 ) "Instead of insulating his bureau from politically sensitive Presidents. Hoover eagerly complied with improper requests from the men in the White House, for information on potential opponents If a President failed to ask.....the Director often volunteered.He tapped telephones of Government officials on request, perused files of politicians unasked,volunteered tidbits of gossip. He was a petty man of towering personal hates.There was much more than a tinge of racism in his vicious vendetta against Martin Luther King Jr. He had to be pushed into hiring black agents for the bureau.His informers, infilitrators and wiretappers delved into the activities of even the most innocuous and nonviolent civil rights groups ,trampling on the right of citizens to express grievances against Government.His spies within potentially dangerous extremist groups sometimes provoked more violence than they prevented. As an administrator, he was an erratic, unchallenged czar, banishing agents to Siberian posts on whimsy, terrorizing them with torrents of implausible rules, insisting on conformity of thought as well as dress." He also presented the information of John F.Kennedy's Addisons desease to LBJ before the Democratic Convention ,in choosing it's new candidate for President...LBJ did not use it publicly, but made sure that the news was out....amongst certain people. This was the type of man in charge of the FBI, when John F.Kennedy was President...and assassinated, and responsible for the gathering of the information on the murder.....and he also had had no use for the President...would he have had a reasonable motive, as he saw it to have him removed from office...?..Yes, his comtempt for the Kennedy's was well known in the nations capitol...It irked him to no end, that Robert, whom he particularly abhorred, and who was his superior as Attorney General...was born in 1924 ...and Hoover had come to the helm of the Bureau one year before.... Other than his dislike of the brothers, the only other possible motive that could be attributed to him would have been that the Kennedys wanted to remove him from his powerful position...it has been reported by associates of the President that after the 64 election,he planned to put the aging Hoover out to pasture..when he reached his 70th Birthday...on Jan.1/65.....( which LBJ did not)....But that plan seems to be somewhat unlikely when you consider the considerable files that Hoover had accumulated on them.....he is known to have had thick files on the Kennedy's personal lives ... **On two occasions Hoover sent details of JFK's sexual personal files on his relations with other women to Richard Nixon for use in the Presidential campaigns; they were submitted for use in the 1960 campaign against JFK, and in 1971 for possible use against Edward Kennedy had he sought the Democratic nomination.** Dallas Morning News 12.23.75.. Did Hoover possess the power and resources to kill the President ?? Yes... the resources and contacts at the Bureau's disposal were almost unlimited.. * Had Hoover been involved in planning the murder ,he would not have permitted the choice of patsy as being LHO...a man who Dallas and Texas officials would indicate immediately after the assassination was a paid FBI informer.This then raises a question: Did the assassination planners deliberately select a FBI informer as a Patsy in order to embarass and thereby neutralize Hoover and the FBI?? Could Hoover have manipulated a cover-up involving Federal agencies and authorities ? Quite possibley ,with his extensive knowledge of the sins of high government officials....Could Hoover have been powerful enough to persuade or command some of the highest officials to the government to perjure themselves before the American public? Only to a certain extent, for not, all the officials would have bowed before him.....he did have some "clean" enemies..who would never have yielded to the pressure of the demigod..Of all the individuals who have held the position of public trust ,Hoover was one of the most powerful, but the execution of the President and the en-suing cover-up required far more than the power and influence this one individual could muster from his files... While Hoover may have known JFK was to be murdered ,and did play a central role in the cover-up, there is nothing to suggest that the plot originated with the FBI Director.... If the Commission had decided to publish it's false report"in the public interest"...as the better part of descretion it could then be viewed as a delegation of the civilian leaders of the country accepting the terms laid down by the Military... Who would benefit from Earl Warren who was a very respected liberal and a loved man, who led the Supreme Court..and conducted the secret hearings of the Commission....why and what purpose would be served in having such a liberal and distinguished man sponsor the Warren Commission Report...??? Recall from the beginning it revealed itself to be a compiliation of lies and distortion of the truth..Congress was also represented on the WC.. and Congress remained quiet and raised no queries in face of the majority of it's citizens believing in a conspiracy..The Commission was all so transparant it appeared to distort the view of the american citizens in the years that followed ,to have them question and have little faith left if any in their Government proccess, their politicians, their law enforcement agencies, and they seemed to loose their confidence in law and order and anything pertaining to Government...How could a rich, famous, much loved ,popular President be murdered in a shower of bullets and then to have been buried in a barrage of lies from the same government that he had been elected to lead..????? Perhaps to stun the population into silence as they watched messmerized before their TVs...and into mourning to have them retreat into a feeling of utter helplessness while a new Government took hold and and executed their power over all, the Military-Industrial-Complex....an amalgamation of the armed forces, the CIA..FBI..Intelligence Community.....and the Industrial and Busininess complex.... The left blamed the right..the right blamed the left...the liberals were blamed because after all LHO was a member of the ACLU...and Warren was blamed along with the courts because he became involved in a transparent cover-up of the Assassination....Congress proved useless as it remained silent, when it should have been serving the people whom had spoken....LBJ was blamed ,after all it happened in Texas, and a lot of his good ole boys would have complied with his wishes.... All this while a new form of Government took hold, with no conscience whatsoever for the act of cold blooded murder.... ************************************************************** The Right Wing The Warren Commission spent a considerable amount of time trying to dispel speculation of a right wing plot...to kill JFK..It was a strong possibility as it occurred in Dallas, Texas...which was a leading center of political conservatism at the time...in the U.S..In 1963 Dallas was a hub of right -wing activity..led by the John Birch Society, the White Citizens Council, Big Dalas also had one of the highest murder rates in the US..It was the home of such right wing characters as H.L.Hunt, multimillonaire oilman,who expounded ultra conservative views in books, pamphlets, a syndicated radio show...Major General (Resigned) Edwin A.Walker...right wing fanatic..relieved of command in 62, by President Kennedy after he refused to cease his indoctrination of his troops with John Birch literature..Ambassador Adlai Stevenson of the U.N. had been cursed and spat upon,and struck by a placard reading "Who Elected You" by a woman Cora Fredrickson, outside the Baker Hotel.. Oct.24/63..in a protest rally staged by Walker's National Indignation Committee....The incident received nation wide attention and darkened Dallas' already tarnished reputation. Nov.22/63 ...in making matters worse, General Walker, flew the flag outside his home up-side down..a signal of national distress..after the President was murdered he put the flag right side up and refused to lower it at half-staff...a sign of respect.. The day of the assassination Hunt and Walker's....activities are interesting. At 12.23pm the oilman watched down on the motorcade from his office on the 7th Floor of the Mercantile Bank Building...afterward, he was escorted by agents of the FBI, and went directly to Dallas Love Field, and departed on Flight 44..The General ,meanwhile was in an airoplane between New Orleans and Shreveport: when news of the shooting came over the public address system ,Walker became very excited and nervous..He roamed up and down the aisle of the plane ,making sure fellow passengers and stewardesses took note of him ..Walker latter joined Hunt at one of the oil baron's secret hideaways across the Mexican boarder and the pair remained there for a month...under the protection of bodyguards and, reportedly ,the FBI..The Hunt-Walker party did not return to "Big D" till Christmas..Then there were the leaflets ,the notorious "Wanted For Treason"..that were circulating on the streets two days before the President's visit..the leaflets listed seven charges against him...two were.."He has given support and encouragement to the Communist-inspired racial riots."and "He has been lax in enforcing Communist Registration laws,"the leaflets were connected to Walker...Robert A Surrey had them printed and distributed..a business connection of his.. In the Nov.22/63 edition of the "Dallas Morning News" they carried the infamous full-page black-bordered advertisement highly critical of Kennedy..Among those financing the ad were Nelson Bunker Hunt, son of the oilman,and Bernard Weissman, who had served under General Walker in Germany. Sponsorship for the ad was attributed to the American Fact-Finding Committee, which Weissman later testified was" formed strictly for the purpose of having a name to put in the paper.The ad with it's large headline, "Welcome Mr.Kennedy to Dallas"..was followed by a list of critical questions..all to do in some way with pointing the finger at the President for his alleged Communist ties..this ad prompted President Kennedy to remark privately in the Fort Worth Texas Hotel that morning, "We're in nut country now." Men like Walker and Hunt were displeased to say it mildly with Kennedy's liberal view..and what they called "bleeding heart" actions, in particluar his support for the civil right movement..and his dealings with Russia and Castro..These men genuinely feared a Communist takeover..a fear so intense that sometimes it reached a state of paranoia..and they shed no tears when he was killed..most felt a sense of relief... Men like Joseph Milteer, who predicted in Florida his death and talked of the blueprint used in Dallas...(an informant making a tape of the conversation)....the rifle, the window, high building and all...he was also in Dallas on the 22nd..and at 10.30am..he telephoned his informant in Jacksonville, Florida..to say that JFK would be visiting Dallas that day, and would probably never be seen in Miami again.He had returned to Florida by the next day and was jubilant at the death of Kennedy, he was interviewed by the FBI on Nov. 27th.denied making any threats about the President, and released and yet two FBI informants had related this information to them...The WC was not aware of the Miami police tape and Milteer's name does not appear within the 26 volumes..The tape was not made public until Feb.2/67 in the Miami News story by reporter Bill Barry. Did the right wing elements have reasonable motive for assassinating the President.? Yes! in a perverted sense of patriotism.. arising from their fear of Cummunist-domination of the Western Hemisphere.... Did the right wing possess the power and resources to kill an American President.? Could the right wing have manipulated a cover-up involving Federal Agencies and authorities ? No..it is extremely unlikely.. Could they have been powerful enough to persuade or command some of the highest officials of the government to perjure themselves before the American public.? No..For instance would a staunch liberal like Earl Warren consent to cover-up evidence of a non gevernmental ,right wing plot....I do not think so, the power of the far right wing simply did not reach high enough into the structure of the governent...they did not have the power to control a man like Earl Warren... It also would be illogical for the Right to carry out the murder in a center of ultra-right activity like Dallas..thereby imputing blame on the Right...While right wing elements may have been incorporated into the operational stage of the assassination by the planners, responsibility for the murder of JFK lies somewhere other than with the Right Wing... ******************************************* The Texas Oilmen.. The late H.L.Hunt has often been mentioned as well as Sid Richardson and Clint Murchison as being perhaps providing the funding..for the assassination operation. As a rule oil men are staunch conservatives..and their reason for wanting JFK out of office would be similar to the previous reasons given for the right , with two additions...On Oct 16/62 a law known as the Kennedy Act removed the distinction between repatriated profits re-invested abroad and in the case of American Companies with overseas operations. Both were henceforth subject to American taxation .This measure was aimed at American Ind. as a whole ,but it particularly affected the oil companies...which had the largest and most diversified overseas activities...By the end of 62...oilmen wre estimating that their earnings on foreign invested capitol ,which in 55 had equalled 30%, would fall to 15%..as a result of this measure..One of the biggest breaks in taxes for the oilmen was in the depletion allowance a 27.1/2%...tax break....a special provision of the Federal income tax under which oil producers could treat up to 27 % of their income as exempt from income tax..supposedly to compensate for the depletion of oil reserves..( spelling it out, every time they took oil out of the ground, they were allowed to sell it, plus get a kick back from the Governement of 27% on it, because they took it out, and there was that much less underground??)...This gave the oil people a lower tax rate than any other industry .In Jan 63..President Kennedy proposed to Congress that this generous benefit be reduced..With 5 billion dollars in income annually from oil and gas in Texas alone, any reduction would be a sizable figure...Overall, it was estimated that U.S. oil interests would forfeit $280..million dollars a year..if the depletion allowance was deminished ..Of course the idea was not very attractive..so in the Lone Star State ,oilmen would have preferred to see a fellow Texan in the White House..and LBJ was an old and dear friend of "King Oil"... Did Texas oil think they had a reasonable motive for wanting JFK removed from office ? Yes..to protect it's economics ,not to mention their general displeasure at Kennedy's liberal policies.. Did Texas Oil have the power...and resources to kill a President ?? Obviously it lacked nothing that money could buy...it's wealth could have bought the finest hitmen in the business of assassination..and placed one of Texas' own at the pinnacle of power...Could they have manipulated the cover-up, to some extent ?..No doubt they carried a lot of weight on Captiol Hill and could have and more than likely did influence the Johnson WH to some extent..But, it would have taken much more than money to have bought the FBI ,the CIA, the Military ,the Secret Service and certain high goverment officials...it seems impossible..... Could they have been powerful enough to have commanded or persuaded some of the highest officials in the land..to perjure themselves,before the American public.? The oil men lacked this kind of influence to pressure some leaders to lie and conceal the truth...some were too honest and stubborn perhaps, to be bought off... While some could have provided financial support of the assassination operations , the Texas Oil did lack the power to carry out both phases ...the assassination and the Cover-Up.... ******************** If we ask who gained, with the murder of John Kennedy ,it appears the Pentagon-CIA coalition ended once and for all the threat of civilian control... It had regained it's power that it had lost temporarily during Kennedy's tenure as President..The assassination insured the continuation of the Cold War and brought about a complete reversal of Kennedy's planned US policy towards Southeast Asia.This policy change resulted in an undeclared war..which appears to have served no purpose other than the building up of 220 ?billion dollars in military equipment ..and in turn provided power for the military and wealth for its industrial counterpart.. Did the military-industrial complex have the power to kill it's own Commander-In-Chief..? Beyond the shadow of a doubt.. The Pentagon was and is the worlds biggest corporation..In 1960 it's assests totalled $60 billion..It owned more than 32 million acres of land in the US, and 2.5 million overseas..It's holdings were twice as large as General Motors, US Steel, A.T & T, Metropolitan Life and Standard Oil of New Jersey combined...Few states and few countries had a budget as large as the Pentagon...One third of the other countries in the World at that time had a smaller population...Couple this with it's industrial counterpart and it was and is utterly staggering.... Completing the make-up of this coalition was the Central Intelligence Agency.. the most effective Assassination machine the world has ever known...The CIA was and is a power in it's own. It's budget was counted in the millions in 1963 and the Agency was not required to account for any of it..It had tens of thousands of employees including " contact agents" "contract employees" who had infiltrated almost every aspect of American life....It was originally created only as an intelligence gathering arm of the President, but we know now that assassination is one of it's foremost specialties. We know it recruits, arms, and trains men to kill foreign leaders.....and it could have just as easily planned and executed the murder of a President...who was in the way... The assassination of J.F.K. bears every mark of a CIA operation... 1: Create a believable cover story..that would be accepted almost immediately by the mass media and public..Have it at the ready....and distribute it almost immediately.. 2: The sacrifice and manipulation of a "scapegoat" or "false sponsor" which detracts the attention from the real killers.( This accomplishes two things...the objective of concealing the motive...and the involvement of government elements.) 3: The precision ambush, utilizing a quadrangulated crossfire....(the perfect spot Dealey Plaza ).. More than anyone or anything known the Military-Industrial-Complex possessed the power and resources to kill a President.....and get away with it... How could they cover-up and manipulate Federal agencies and authorities? Who could prolong that cover-up..?..One cannot over-estimate the power and influence of the MIC complex on the White House, Congress and other factions of American government. It's importance was cited in a 1962 magazine article written by the authors of "Seven Days in May".... "Beyond this new political importance, the military now carries a Big stick...perhaps the biggest ..in the economic life of the nation. Great defense lobbies ,working in behalf of a single service or a certain weapons system, operate in Washington, seeking a bigger bite of that $50 (63) billion spending pie. Retired military officers flood the executive suites of defense industries: a House Armed Services sub-committee found that that more than 1,400 retired officers, including 261 generals and admirals, were employed by the hundred leading defense contractors. Each service has it's own alumni association which seeks to promote it's aims.There have been occasions when a service ,it's association and the defense contractors involved have all joined in a propganda-advertising campaign in behalf of a weapon that competes with a rival service's weapons for defense appropriations .Cases in point: the arguments over the Army's Nike-Zeus antimissile missile and the Air Force's B-70 bomber." "Much of this pressure finally focuses on individual congressmen and key committee positions or votes. A congressional district generates it's own politico-economic pressures too.In 1961. the Congressional Quaterly listed over 700 defense activities in their districts..And the list covered only Government installations ,leaving aside the long list of private industrial contractors"..Knebel & Bailey.."Military Control Can It Happen Here"..Look magazine 9.11.62.. The Military-Industrial-Complex..more than any one group, and more than anything known...could have exerted the extreme pressure on key individuals in the government to participate in the cover-up using the reason of "national security". By maintaining it's awsome power ,the coalition has insured the continuation of the cover-up by the Federal Authorities, to this day..... Who could have been powerful enough to persuade or command some of the highest officials of the government and to purjure themselves before the American public..??? Only the Military-Industrial complex with it's intelligence apparatus ..with it's ability to persuade certain government officials ,by the use of false documents, photographs or other evidence .......for instance that John F.Kennedy had Communist ties or tendencies : the officials could have been told that rather than expose that shocking, ominous information to the public,.. ( which we should recall the Right Wing and the Cuban Eiles were promoting )... it had been decided that murder was the only alternate ....or as they say...." for the good of the country"... of course..Only the MI complex had the power to command ,where necessary, under whatever explanation, and or threat, certain Federal officials to help perpetuate the cover-up...What one person could or would dare refuse that awesome cartel??? A sobering thought when one finds that the murder of a President could have been planned and executed by a force within the government , and which is more powerful than the goverment itself...so powerful that it can initiate and cover up facts concerning this murder ..Through whatever means it deems necessary .....financial influence , political pressure, or threat of physical harm, or the disclosure of past personal picadillos and secrets ....all is fair in their suppression of the truth... On Nov. 22/63...this cabal executed a man it considered a criminal...a weak treasonous and incompetent commander-in-chief...(in their eyes). On April 5/1968, Martin Luther King ..June 5/1968 RFK...and May 15/1972...GeorgeWallace.. brutal force was again used to silence potentially disruptive voices. Tiring of the "blow out their brains" technique ,the cabal returned to character assassination... This method perhaps claimed it's first victim on July 18/1969 ,at Chappaquiddick Island ...Edward Moore Kennedy...Aug.9/1974, used again to remove another Commander -In-Chief . Richard Nixon was driven from office : his improbity had been proven beyond any doubt and the cartel felt he no longer served their purpose.. Will Democracy ever recover from results of the decision made by these men in 1963 ? As in every great Empire of the past, they begin to crumble from within...A Power-mad money-hungry-cabal that kills it's President, stops at nothing...as they do believe they know what is best for the country ,and will never again allow the accidental election to the Presidency of a man such as John F.Kennedy..It is the deprivation of life to any who opposes them that permits the power-elite to maintain control over the Presidency .In this manner they guarantee their perpetuation of power.. America has accepted nearly 42 years of bloodshed by war and political assassinations ,as well as governmental and nongovernmental sanction of atrocities commited domestically and abroad..It is this type of apathy which has lent license to the cabal's brutal display of awesome force...and They are convinced they can do it again and again..... Thanks Gary Shaw...and others below...B.. Wise & Ross: "The Espionage Establishment..".. U.S.Government: "Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy". McGaffin & Knoll: "Scandal in the Pentagon". Garrison: "A Heritage of Stone ". Hepburn James: "Farewell America". Jones Penn: " Forgive My Grief #1V". Knebel & Bailey: magazine article " Seven Days In May".. L.Fletcher Prouty:"The Secret Team". Harold Wesiberg: "Post Mortum" Fonzi Gaeton: "The Last Investigation". Warren Report and Hearings .. "The White House Tapes": Bantam books . Huffaker,Mercer,Phenix,Wise." When The News Went Live". Joeston,Joachim: "Oswald :Assassin or Fall Guy." Manchester,William:"The Death of a President" Jones Penn:"Forgive My Grief" Vol.111 Bishop,Jim: "The Day Kennedy Was Shot" From Shaw Gary: "Cover-Up"...

Thanks Marcel: No one has ever given us a close up view of the cameras used that day in Dealey..along with all the details and information as you are,not to my knowledge......There has been some written information over the years but not with the complete data, and photos of said Cameras....This work that you have accomplished has been and is much appreciated, by most.... Please continue....and again thanks for all your efforts.... Hope the wee one is doing well and Momma... and you to of course...... B

Shanet :Thankyou for your thoughts.. ******************************* The question has been asked many times...Did the Military kill it's own Commander In Chief.?? Perhaps this isn't so far fetched. Between the years of 1962 and 1954 there were 16 successful and 12 unsuccess ful military coups around the globe... From WW2 to 1961 there were no less than 27 major military uprisings around the world, that swept away their civilian governments. Successful: Burma 3/2/62 ,Argentina,3/28/52, Peru 7/18/62,Togo 1/13/63, Iraq 2/8/63, Peru 3/3/63,Syria 3/8/63,Guatemala 3/30/63,Equador 7/11/63, Congo 8/12/63, Dominican Republic 9/25.63,Honduras 10/3/63, Vietnam 11/1/63, Brazil 4/1/64, Laos 4/19/64, Bolivia 11/3/64 Dwight D.Eisenhower was aware that (what he called ) the Military-Industrial Complex was actually running the nation..But not till he was leaving office did he dare voice his concern.." On the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought ,by the military-industrial complex." Then in 1960 there occurred the election of a peace seeking ,idealistic man,a former Navy lieutenant..and for the first time since WW2 the military was perhaps threatened by a President, who as such, intended to execute his role as he saw fit, and search for that peace.. In 1962 the thought of a possible military takeover in the U.S.,was dominant in the minds of many public officials, and it was a widely discussed topic. Much of this had been generated by the best selling novel "Seven Days in May" by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W.Bailey...which later became a popular movie, made at the request of President Kennedy, who wanted it filmed as a warning to the nation.. This book which depicted a U.S President fighting a secret military junta that seeks to seize control of the nation, presented an idea that was taken somewhat seriously in the nation's capitol..In the 15 years since the second world war the military had emerged as the dominant force in the government ,a number of officials ,civilian and former military ,had publicly voiced alarm..over their growing power and influence..In 1961 the Sec.of the Navy in a conversation with one of the authors of the book ruminated on the state of the nation, unknown to him ,his thoughts were amplified and placed in the mind of the fictional President in the popular novel."I'm worried ,up until 1945 an individual could have some feeling even in a world war that he had some control over his own existence. But when that atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima, something happened .People began to feel helpless....Now, with hydrogen bombs all over the world, the individual feels even more at a loss to help control his own destiny.You can sense the feeling everywhere."......."The Secretary went on to say that in a monolithic state,such as Russia, it doesn't matter much what the individual feels .But in a democracy ,where leaders govern only by the collective consent of millions of individuals, the attitude of the single citizen is crucial.If people no longer believe they can influence events ,he argued, democracy is in danger,and a dictator could take over. There is no magic in the American System. It can be preserved only by millions of citizens working day in and day out to nourish a system that was then 185 years old.But did Americans still work at it? Or, he wondered,were they beginning to give up." ..The man who headed the most powerful peacetime navy in history ,later resigned and returned to his home state and was elected Governor...and so it was that on Nov.22/63...former Navy Secretary John B.Connally became a victim in the six-second ambush that killed President John F.Kennedy.... As Ike had continued on, "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exisits and will persist..We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes." Just two months after taking office Ike's young successor issued a similar warning when he sent Congress his first message on the defense budget " Neither our strategy nor our psychology as a nation, and certainly not our ecomony...must become dependent upon the permanent maintenance of a large military establishment"..... "Our arms must be subject to ultimate civilian control and command at all times, in war as well as peace.".... Did it happen in America ? Did the military establishment covertly gain control of the government reins it had acquired in the latter stages of WW2.?.. It has always been difficult for a democracy to return to that democracy after a prolonged period of a form of dictatorship that always comes with war..It was difficult after WW1, and in some ways it barely made it back.but after WW2 it seems it may not have ..some believe that the military took control, or the reins, of the government during the latter stages of the second world war when President Franklin D.Roosevelt was, tired, very ill, and dying, and with the advent of the Atomic Bomb. Kennedy himself had considered the possibility of some sort of military coup..In his memoirs Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev tells of a key meeting which occurred during the Cuban Military crisis..with RFK and Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin..Khrushchev quoted RFK as saying..."The President is in a grave situation. We are under very severe stress..In fact we are under pressure from our military to use force against Cuba......That is why the President is appealing directly to Chairman Khrushchev for his help in liquidating the conflict. If the situation continues much longer,........The President is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power. The American army could get out of control." In "The Pleasure of His Company"..by JFK's confidant Red Fay he states " We were out on the Honey Fitz again the next day, and the President said he had read "Seven Days In May"..the previous night.He discussed the possibility of such a military takeover very calmly ......"" It's possible. It could happen in this country, but the conditions would have to be just right. If, for example ,the country had a young President, and he had a Bay of Pigs, there would be a certain uneasiness. Maybe the military would do a little criticizing behind his back, but this would be written off as the usual military dissatisfaction with civilian control. Then if there were another Bay of Pigs ,the reaction of the country would be, "Is he too young and inexperienced ?". The military would almost feel that it was their patriotic obligation to stand ready to preserve the integrity of the nation ,and only God knows just what segment of democracy they would be defending if they overthrew the elected establishment." Then as if steeling himself for the final challenge, he continued, "Then, if there were a third Bay of Pigs, it could happen.:...."Pausing long enough for all of us to assess the significance of his comment, he concluded with the old Navy phrase, " But it won't happen on my watch."......Did it?? President Kennedy more so than perhaps any President in the history of the U.S. was in conflict with the military and intelligence combined.At the time of the assassination the interests of the Pentagon and the CIA coincided....as Jim Garrison stated .."the CIA had become the clandestine arm of the military-industrial complex.." Later it seemed that a rift ?? of some sort could have developed, as the Military continued to concentrate it's efforts against Communism in Southeast Asia and the CIA began to broaden it's base of operations and expanded it's power within the United Sates, or was this their plan???? JFK had seen nearly two decades of increasing militarism and he saw the danger that exisited from that excessive power of America's warfare interests in the Pentagon as well as the illegal, covert operations of the CIA abroad and domestically..He sought to place civilian control over both, but in the years after WW2 these two sectors of the goverment had become so powerful that they answered to no one...not even the President. Briefly: The Bay of Pigs:Ill conceived, badly executed attempt in Apr.61..to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro..the idea being conceived by Nixon during Ike's administration, and three months after Kennedy had taken office. Conflict: Kennedy's failure to provide military support , air cover by US war planes,resulting in the aborted ingression.He incurred both the wrath and the hostility of the Pentagon and the CIA..later he initiated a house cleaning of the Agency and demanded the resignations of, Allen Dulles,( later a member of the WC.).Dep. Director General C.Cabell, (his brother was Mayor of Dallas at the time of the assassination)..Kennedy was quoted as stating he wished " to splinter the CIA into 1,000 pieces and scatter it to the winds."..He was determined to curb it's power and independence, and discussed plans to place it under the authority of the Attorney General....(who happened to be his brother Robert F.Kennedy.) The Cuban Missile Crisis: Aerial reconnaissance photographs showing Soviet long range missile bases under construction in Cuba....90 miles off shore..... a nuclear attack could be launched on much of the US..and the Western hemisphere..at the height of the crisis Soviet ships carrying additional weapons returned to Russian ports..and Khrushchev announced that they would be dismantled..and Armageddon was averted.. Conflict: For several years the Pentagon along with the CIA had put forth a considerable amount of time, money,and effort outlining and planning the attempted assassination of Castro,and the taking back of Cuba..and to make matters considerably worse after the BOPs disaster had ordered all assassination attempts on Castro concelled and plans for detente were initiated. The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: In Sept.61.The Soviets suddenly resumed nuclear tests, breaking an unofficial test ban that had lasted nearly three years..JFK urged the Russians and Great Britain in a agreement not to conduct tests in the atmosphere..When the Russians did not, Kennedy resumed underground tests....in March 62 after extensive studies of Soviet advances he reluctantly ordered new atmospheric tests ..He announced another conference, in Jun 63 aimed at producing a test ban treaty..on Aug.5/63..after lengthy negotiations the three signed a limited nuclear test ban treaty forbidding atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons...this treaty also forbid no further testing underwater........it was formally ratified on Sep.1/63...and it eased Cold War tensions.. Conflict: Authorities ,many from the military community appeared before the Senate Committee considering the Treaty in August, to vehemently oppose the President's words of support for the measure..Citing distrust of the Soviets ,the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared themselves opposed to the treaty "under almost any terms." Their advice was overruled by President Kennedy.. Efforts to End the Cold War: Situation and Conflict...In 1963 the Pentagon and the CIA wanted deep involvement in Vietnam and their thrust had become almost irreversible.Kennedy by that time had begun to resist this thrust and had changed his earlier decisions recommended to him by the Joint Chiefs of Staff , permitting the US to have limited involvement.He had become convinced by former military commanders , particularly retired General Douglas Mac Arthur,against allowing the US to become involved in a land war with her troops..in South East Asia.In June 63, Kennedy was in deep conflict with his military advisors...he ordered Sec. of Defense Robert MacNamarra and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Maxwell Taylor to announce from the White House steps ,that all American forces were going to be withdrawn from Vietnam by 1965....By the summer of 63, Kennedy had made his final decision , no involvement in Vietnam....and eventual withdrawl, totally of all US forces .... This was a fatal decision ...the American warfare machine in Asia had gained too much momentum to be reversed: men more powerful than Kennedy had already decided the policy with regard to Vietnam..... In what was perhaps his last formal executive order, President Kennedy announced his intentions...to withdraw 1,000......US military personnel from South Vietnam.."Within 72 hours of Kennedy's brutal death :new President Lyndon Baines Johnson completely reversed his predecessor's policy toward Southeast Asia...Following the eulogy for John F.Kennedy in the rotunda of the nations capitol, Johnson met with US ambassador to Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge and instructed him to return to Vietnam and inform the Saigon government that the United States was going to provide South Vietnam with strong military support .." The secret build up then began ,the rest is history.....58,000 Americans dead...... 300,000 Americans wounded......2 million civilians dead......billions of dollars wasted conducting an immoral, senseless, and undeclared war which was prolonged by the deception of Presidents, Johnson and Nixon by their military advisors..... Review: Recall the conditions that would have had to exist for a military coup d'etat in the Unites States.......as outlined by President Kennedy himself........ 1..the country would have to be lead by a young President ( Kennedy in fact was at that time the youngest man ever to hold that office.) 2..there would have to be a Bay of Pigs ( this occurred in April,1961.) 3..military criticism of the President would follow.(it did.) 4..if there was another Bay of Pigs ,the military would consider overthrowing the elected establishment .( the Cuban Missile Crisis may be considered "another Bay of PIgs."). 5..if there was a third Bay of Pigs it could happen..........(This could be represented by the signing of the Test Ban Treaty against the advice of the Joint Chiefs of staff.) Therefore the conditions outlined by President John F.Kennedy were approximated during his administration....his decisions on Vietnam......ended with his death. Information from: Fletcher Knebel & Charles Bailey .."Military Control Can It Happen Here," Look magazine 9/11/62. Arthur Schlesinger: "The Imperial Presidency" President Dwight David Eisenhower: "Farewell Address, 1/17/61 Khrushchev" "Khrushchev Remembers". Jim Garrison: "A Heritage of Stone." Wise & Ross " "The Invisible Government". Branch & Crile "The Kennedy Vendetta.: Harper's 8/75. Schlesinger: "A Thousand Days". Elie Abel : "The Missile Crisis".. Penn Jones: "Forgive My Grief".Vol.IV Schurmann,Scott & Zelnick:"The Politics of Escalation in Vietnam". Gery Shaw: "Cover Up".. B..

********************** Hi Ron: When Gearhart was separated from Johnson, it would not necessarily have been accidentally...It could have been deliberately arranged by the military personnal at the upper level of the plot..They may not have trusted Johnson with the steel 30lb.. suitcase that held the key to a retaliatory attack, perhaps it was imperative that for the first few hours following the transfer of power, that the planners have complete control of all aspects...foreign and domestic. It is hard to believe the United States was off guard in anyway, within the Pentagon where total control was concentrated, the high military officials were in command, they were aware, and prepared for any situation that might arise from foreign or a domestic source... In Bishop's book, it contains another revealing incident: "Officials at the Pentagon were calling the White House switchboard at the Dallas-Sheraton Hotel asking who was now in command. An Officer grabbed the phone and assured the Pentagon that Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara and the Joint Chief of Staff ' are now the President".".......Perhaps because the assassination was on a need to know basis ,the party that called was a low echelon officer who was unaware of what was happening..It was interesting that the communication officer who took the phone to announce the transfer of power was a member of the Presidential party and was fully aware of what was taking place..... Communications of all kinds seemed to have been deemed important by those who planned and carried out the assassination..Several strange incidents that involved communications in Dallas..Washington...and abroad occurred..that day... They of course have been attributed to coincidence , but what are the odds.? In Dallas the police radio was immobilized at 12.29 Channel One of the DP radio system was rendered inoperative when someone within the dept. keyed his radio microphone button for four minutes, making it impossible for any police communication from the kill zone during the critical moments...and immediately afterward.....Channel One was reserved that day for those officers in the security of the President..From 12.29 till 12.33 the only audible sound on the police audio tape is the rumbling of a motorcycle engine...In Dallas the press telephone within the motorcade was immobilized..At 12.34 the radiophone in the press car carrying the members of the wire services was rendered inoperative, also.....In fact a fight broke out between UPI's Merriman Smith and Jack Bell of the AP.Bell finally managed to grab it after Smith has issued the initial report that shots had been fired , but to Bell's dismay, the line inexplicably went dead.. In Washington there was a crucial breakdown of communications when the telephone system ,in the capital went out at approximately 12.33..pm..It was almost an hour before full telephone service resumed ..It was explained ,that it was due to overloaded phone lines, was the Pentagon affected by this shut down?? Abroad, a teletype machine aboard a military aircraft carrying the Cabinet members to Japan began chattering the first report that shots had been fired, there was a moment of panic ,fearing an international plot, and with codes and procedures for such and emergency,Sec. of State Dean Rusk and Press Sec. Pierre Salinger attempted to contact the White House for verification..The did reach the Situation Room but were prohibited from authenticating the data because the "official code book was missing"..from it's special place aboard the plane. After a futile search the Sec of State was forced to break procedures with coded communications ,Rusk was forced to break the code and communicate with the WH in plain English.. This was not happenstance that the President, the Vice President and six members of the Cabinet were away from the centre of power on Nov.22/63.It seems as though it was by design that Sec. of State Dean Rusk, Treasury Sec. Douglas Dillon, Interior Sec. Stewart Udall, and Labor Sec.W.W.Wirtz, as well as other administration officials like Press Sec. Salinger, were trapped on an airplane over the Pacific at such a critical time..These men perhaps thought they represented the true power of the nation but by all authority that day it belonged to the powerful military chieftans deep within the Pentagon.... As an additive.... In Hawaii on Nov. 21/63 , the day before......shortly after lunch Honolulu time , U.S.Ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge made a long distance call from the lobby of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel..Now this distinguished diplomat had acces to phones in privacy from his room or the military circuits at no cost....Yet he was seen, according to the Honolulu Star Bulletin, with a stack of quarters in his hand pitting coin after coin into a pay phone?? Mr.Lodge was in Honolulu for a nine hour summit conference on Nam with Sec. of Defence Robert McNamara ,Sec of State Dean Rusk, financial aid chief David E.Bell ,Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell D.Taylor, Admiral Harry D.Felt, and General Paul D.Harkins, then the Commander of U.S.Forces in Vietnam.. Lodge was the only person of the seven member policy-making body to stay at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.....the others stayed in the military quarters. This group of high level political and military policymakers had just decided to step-up military operations against communist insurgents in Nam. This desicion was in Direct Conflict with Presidentt Kennedy's announced intention of Oct.63..to withdraw 1000 U.S.military personnel from Sth.Vietnam, reducing U.S.troop strength there to approximately 14.500.. Three days later Lodge met with the new President and was instructed by LBJ to return to Vietnam and inform the Saigon government of the new U.S policy pf strong military support for South Vietnam.. But from Washington......on the afternoon of Nov. 22/63......somewhere high over the United States, the new President Lyndon Baines Johnson and the passengers aboard AF 1....received the news that the assassination had been performed by one individual and no conspriacy existed.....The news came not from the scene of the crime,Dallas.....but from Washington D.C....specifically, it came from either McGeorge Bundy or Commander Oliver Hallet in the Situation Room of the White House Communications Agency...........manned by military personnel and receiving much of it's information from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in the Pentagon..... and Last but not least there was in the air over the U.S a mobile military force able to be thrown into action anywhere in the U.S where needed.......if trouble developed..The largest peacetime airlift in history had taken place, Operation Big Lift....had moved an entire combat division from Texas to Germany for thirty days just one month previous.....On the day of President Kennedy was killed, the last third of the returning troops were in the air at the time of the shooting...estimated to be a brigade combat team armed with personal weapons, which could have been deployed anywhere into action, in the nation on a very short notice.....if perhaps needed..... But this was of course all coincidence, if not then it was an indication of the careful planning undertaken by the Military ......That day in Dallas..... From: The Day Kennedy Was Shot....Jim Bishop Dallas Radio Tapes..11/22/63 The Death of a President....William Manchester Forgive My Grief IV...Penn Jones The Making of the President...Theodore White Cover-Up.........Gary Shaw B

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