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[Ray Mitcham]

 

"Garbled in translation"?

 

This was an interview by an FBI man the day after the assassination and I doubt very much whether this could be garbled. The early day statements by Givens are much more likely to be correct than something said six months later. 

As you say Lt Jack Reville, Special Services Bureau, Dallas police department stated that "Givens had been previously handled by the Special Service Bureau on a marijuana charge and he believes Givens would change his story for money. He stated it was his understanding, however, that when Givens was interviewed immediately after the assassination, he was not in the building at the time of the assassination."

 

And you still believe that he didn't change his story after several months?

 

 

Edited January 10, 2017 by Ray Mitcham

[James DiEugenio]

That is an important point Ray, about where Givens was.

Revill screwed this up.  If you wants the nuts and bolts, here it is:

 

http://22november1963.org.uk/meagher-the-curious-testimony-of-mr-givens

 

It only took them 4 and a half months to get Givens on the record with his utterly revised story.  And then Belin was all accommodating to the revision.

I expect people like Von Pein to swallow this baloney by applying some Bugliosi sauce to it.

But a practicing lawyer?

Edited January 10, 2017 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Here is another overview of this reversal of testimony from Jerry Policoff in his New York Times survey on them and the assassinations of the sixties:

 

 One of the important witnesses for the Warren Commission was Charles Givens, a porter employed at the Book Depository. In a deposition taken by Commission lawyer David W. Belin, Givens testified that he had left the 6th floor (where he worked) at about 11:30 a.m. on the morning of the assassination, but that he had forgotten his cigarettes, and when he returned to retrieve them at about noon he encountered Oswald lurking near the Southeast corner window -- the alleged sniper's nest. 
          Writing in the August 13, 1971 Texas Observer, Sylvia Meagher cast great doubt upon the veracity of Givens and the methods of the Warren Commission. Her article, "The Curious Testimony of Mr. Givens," revealed that material from the National Archives relating to Givens gave an entirely different account . 
          On the day of the assassination Givens told authorities that he had last seen Oswald at 11:50 a.m. reading a newspaper on the first floor of the Depository. Neither then nor in two subsequent affidavits sworn to prior to his Warren Commission testimony did he ever mention having returned to the 6th floor. 
          However, an FBI agent's report noted a statement by Lt. Jack Revill of the Dallas Police that Givens had previously had difficulty with the Dallas Police and probably "would change his testimony for money." Moreover, David Belin, the lawyer who took Givens testimony, was aware of Givens' earlier statements, for he had noted them in a memo six weeks before Givens testified. In that same memo he noted that three other Depository employees, like Givens, had also reported seeing Oswald on the first floor. 
          David Belin's reply in the same issue of The Texas Observer decried the "assassination sensationalists," assured the reader that he was an honorable man, and insisted that the Warren Commission had done a thorough and competent job.  The Texas Observer, commenting on the exchange, called Belin's answer "the slick irrelevant reply of a lawyer who doesn't have much of a defense to present." 
          Ms. Meagher sent copies of her article, Belin's reply and the accompanying editorial to several people at the Times including Harrison Salisbury, whose responsibilities include editing the Op-Ed page. Salisbury's position seemed ambiguous, for since his article in The Progressive in 1966 he had again implied acceptance of the official version of the assassination in his introduction to the Times/Bantam edition of the Report of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. 
          His position would not be ambiguous for long. On November 22, 1971 -- the 8th anniversary of the President's death -- a headline "The Warren Report Was Right" appeared emblazoned across the top of the Op-Ed page. The article decried the "assassination sensationalists" and its author was none other than David W. Belin. 
          Ms. Meagher sent a second copy of the Observer material to Salisbury, and it was returned with a polite form letter thanking her for her manuscript which the Times regretted it could not use. She replied that the form letter did not surprise her, but that she had not sent a manuscript, but rather documented material which demonstrated irrefutably deliberate misrepresentation of evidence by the Warren Commission, and which "clearly implicated David W. Belin in serious impropriety and misfeasance." 
          She noted that "You have not questioned, much less challenged, the documentary evidence I made available to you twice in two months. Instead you provided a forum for Belin to influence your readers, without even cautioning them that serious charges had been published elsewhere on his conduct as an assistant counsel for the Warren Commission." 
          Ms. Meagher concluded that the Times 1964 praise of the Warren Report "may have been merely gullible or unprofessional," but that in 1971 it was simply "propaganda on behalf of a discredited Government paper," wrapped in sanctimony and pretending "to seek truth or justice." 
          Salisbury's reply read in full: "Do forgive the form card which went back to you. That was a product of our bureaucracy, I'm afraid. I hadn't seen your letter, alas, having been out of the office for a few days."

[James DiEugenio]

More on this topic by Jerry Policoff, this is a reply to an article by Gary Aguilar art Consortium News:

Sorry HD, but Oswald was not the only person to leave the building, and Bugliosi even acknowledges in a footnote that at least one other, Charles Givens, also left and was unable to get back in so he went back home (this was an example of how the Warren Commission got some “minor” things wrong). Yet Bugliosi also sites, again with a footnote, the testimony of DPD Lt. Jack Reville as proof that Oswald was on the sixth floor. Reville testified that he interviewed Givens inside the Depository after the assassination that day and Givens told him about returning to the sixth floor to get his cigarettes shortly before the shots were fired and seeing Oswald lurking about suspiciously. Obviously Reville perjured himself because Givens had gone home (as Bugliosi clearly was aware), and thus could not have told Reville anything. Givens did tell the FBI that day (before changing his story later) that he had last seen Oswald in the second floor lunchroom. Bugliosi had an agenda and was rather sloppy. He was part of the cover-up.

[David Von Pein]

Allow me to repeat what should already be obvious to anyone who knows about the testimony of 3 other TSBD employees....

"If the goal of the FBI and Warren Commission was to shore up their "case" against Oswald, why wouldn't they have made Givens' lies even BETTER? They could have gotten Givens to say he saw Oswald moving boxes in the southeast corner of the sixth floor. Or they could have gotten Givens to say he actually saw Oswald with a long brown package too.

But instead, Givens' "cigarettes and jacket" story pretty much amounts to nothing more than the testimony given by Lovelady, Arce, and Williams -- i.e., Givens sees Oswald on an upper floor without a package, and without a gun. The biggest difference would be that Givens did place a definitive floor number on Oswald's whereabouts--the sixth floor (the Floor Of Death), whereas some of the other witnesses I mentioned were not quite sure whether Oswald was shouting down his request for an elevator from the FIFTH floor or the SIXTH Floor.

But if Givens' "going to get cigarettes" story was nothing but a fabrication invented by the authorities, it amounted to very little more than what other witnesses were also providing (or would very soon be providing to the Warren Commission)." -- DVP
 

[Guest]

The affidavit that Givens signed on November 22nd was precisely 8 typed lines.  It was one of several such affidavits typed up during the chaos of November 22nd.  Whoever in the DPD assembled this information for the typist was obviously not interested in a comprehensive version of events from Givens.

The report of FBI agents Griffen and Odum, dictated on November 23rd from their interview with Givens on November 22nd, is one typed page.  One of the themes that I recall running through Walt Brown's massive Chronology was the extent to which FBI reports were riddled with demonstrable errors, often leaving interviewees perplexed when later reading what they had supposedly said.

Do I think it is entirely possible that the affidavit and FBI report are essentially worthless as to what Givens actually said?  Absolutely I do.  Not that there is anything suspicious about them, merely that they reflect the sort of sloppiness one might expect in the chaos surrounding a Presidential assassination.

I was struck by this paragraph in Belin's rebuttal to Sylvia Meagher, because it is precisely the point that I would have made:

As an experienced trial lawyer, I know that whenever there are two or more witnesses to an event, you most likely find contradictions in the testimony between and among witnesses, and you often find contradictions within the testimony of a single witness. I also know that the best source of testimony is from the witness, himself, rather than from hearsay reports of that [a] party, such as police officers or FBI or secret service agents might write down. Included in our Ball-Belin Report #1 were comments on a number of contradictions within the hearsay statements of third parties, including inconsistencies in the testimony of Mr. Givens.

 

Belin also made the point that he tossed Givens several open-ended questions in the vein "Anything else you want to tell us?", which is not what you do with a witness who has been carefully coached to give the testimony you want him to give.

 

Are there inconsistencies in the documents, as Sylvia Meagher and others have noted?  Absolutely.  Are there inconsistencies in the testimony of Charles Givens?  No, because he testified only once, and at far greater length than any of the documents reporting what he supposedly said.  His testimony to me gives every indicia of a witness telling the truth as he knows it.

 

I also have to ask myself if Givens, a Black guy with an 11th grade education and a succession of menial jobs, is someone on whom the government would realistically have relied to testify falsely and hold up under scrutiny.  Wouldn't plenty of other people have been better candidates?  Givens lived until 1982 - did he ever show the slightest crack?

 

While recognizing that there are other possibilities, my conclusion would be that Givens' testimony should be relied upon and the other documents were simply incomplete (which they obviously were) or prepared in great haste and in error (which many FBI reports were).  The problem I see, as I always do, is that the rabid conspiracy theorists start with an axiomatic conclusion and then must force-fit the evidence into that conclusion.  Ergo, Givens was pressured to lie and did - there is no other possibility.  I can accept the possibility that he lied - but that does not appear to me to be the most likely conclusion.

Edited January 11, 2017 by Guest

[James DiEugenio]

LOL  ROTF

This is Bugliosian lawyerism all the way.

No mention of Revill.  No mention of Revill's BS about the inside the TSBD encounter when in fact Givens was not there.  No mention of the note by the FBI about Revill.  No mention of how many times Givens duplicated his original story.

How any lawyer can say there are no contradictions in the testimony of Givens is simply beyond the pale.  There are no contradictions in his testimony since Belin never confronted him with his earlier statements, even though he knew about them full well.

Givens story was  imperative to the WCR.  Because the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence placed Oswald on the lower floors, which is where they could not have him.

So, with the lying Revill's help, they get Givens to change his story.  And these guys have absolutely no problem with that!  Even though it is in contradiction to his first story. HIs second story.  And his third story.  Are we really to think that he would recall for the investigators Oswald sitting down reading a paper on the second floor, but he did not recall him later on the sixth floor?

By the way, according to Wesley Frazier, there is another problem with this cock and bull story.  There was no smoking allowed in the TSBD.  You know, all that paper.

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

24 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

LOL  ROTF

This is Bugliosian lawyerism all the way.

For the record, I don't believe I've read 250 words Bugliosi wrote about anything in my entire life.  I will concede 250 because it is impossible to read about the assassination without encountering Bugliosi being quoted somewhere.  However, it is interesting that two highly experienced lawyers (three, if we include Belin) arrived at the same perspective on Givens.

How any lawyer can say there are no contradictions in the testimony of Givens is simply beyond the pale.  There are no contradictions in his testimony since Belin never confronted him with his earlier statements, even though he knew about them full well.

Is that perhaps how a lawyer can say there are no contradictions in the testimony of Givens - because, duh, there are no contradictions in the testimony of Givens?

Givens story was  imperative to the WCR.  Because the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence placed Oswald on the lower floors, which is where they could not have him.

But, as DVP has pointed out, Givens didn't place LHO upstairs at anything like the right time.  So Givens' handlers certainly missed a golden opportunity there.

So, with the lying Revill's help, they get Givens to change his story.  And these guys have absolutely no problem with that!  Even though it is in contradiction to his first story. HIs second story.  And his third story.  Are we really to think that he would recall for the investigators Oswald sitting down reading a paper on the second floor, but he did not recall him later on the sixth floor?

But they leave in a report dated six weeks before Givens' WC testimony that Revill has said Givens would "change his story for money"???  Again, we have conspirators who are geniuses at Steps 1, 3, 7 and 8 but complete idiots at Steps 2, 4, 5 and 6.

By the way, according to Wesley Frazier, there is another problem with this cock and bull story.  There was no smoking allowed in the TSBD.  You know, all that paper.

Did Givens say he was smoking in the building?  I thought he said he went up to the sixth floor to get his jacket because his cigarettes were in the pocket.  Moreover, unless I am mistaken, the photo of the lunchroom pretty clearly shows two ash trays on the table.

Regrettably, perhaps, I am just not as emotionally invested in all this as the True Believers.  Could Givens have been pressured to lie?  Certainly.  That just isn't my best estimate of the situation at this time.

 

 

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

FYI, Bugliosian lawyering does not necessarily refer to Vince.

It simply means an advocacy that is Machiavellian in its intent.  That is, like the WC, the ends justify the means.

You then say that you are not invested is all this as True believers are.  But yet you defend/sidestep all of these rather illicit and unethical lapses in the record.

To count Belin, a real estate lawyer, as somehow being a plus for your side--when anyone who knows this case will tell you he ranked with Specter as being an errand boy--says all there is to know about  you.

 

Bye Lance.  Have fun with Belin and Vince.  You were made for each other.

 

 

 

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

Adding info, no more  back and forth, learned my lesson from DVP:

 

From Pat Speer's online book:

"But their shame was destined to be shared. On June 25, 1967, CBS News debuted part 1 of a 4 part investigation of the Warren Commission’s findings. As to whether or not Oswald was on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting CBS relied on the statements of one man: Charles Givens.  Eddie Barker of CBS introduced Givens as the “last man known to have seen Lee Harvey Oswald before the assassination.”  Givens then repeated his story of seeing Oswald standing in the middle of the sixth floor with orders in his hand, and of Oswald asking him to close the door on the elevator when he got to the bottom, so that Oswald could call it when needed. When Barker asked Givens “This would be about what time?” however, Givens’ gave a new response, indicating that someone, somewhere, had alerted Givens to Piper’s testimony. Givens told Barker “Well, about one or two minutes after twelve.” Not surprisingly, CBS failed to alert their viewers that Givens had thereby changed his story, yet AGAIN, and that Bonnie Ray Williams, cited elsewhere on their program, had testified he was on the sixth floor from about noon to 12:20 and had seen neither Givens nor Oswald."

(Although Edward Shields, Givens' lunch partner on 11-22-63, was interviewed by the FBI on 3-23-64, and signed a statement saying he'd left the building where he worked "about twelve o'clock noon" in order to watch the parade with Givens, he was more specific when talking to the HSCA on 10-23-77. Instead of lending credence to Givens' story--the story that only emerged after Shields had been interviewed--Shields told his interviewer that he'd met up with Givens on the street around 10 to 12. Just as damaging, on 9-25-77 James Jarman, told the HSCA that he believed he'd sent Oswald upstairs to correct a mistake around 11:25, or 11:30, and that Oswald had returned with the proper book shortly thereafter. These statements both erode Givens' credibility, and give Oswald a legitimate reason to be on the upper floors when last observed on the upper floors. From the sum of the evidence, then, the HSCA refused to accept Givens' story about seeing Oswald on the sixth floor at 5 to 12, and concluded instead that Oswald's whereabouts at 12:00--a half an hour before the shots were fired--were irrelevant as to his guilt.)

[James DiEugenio]

More from Pat:

"A 2-9-64 article in the Fort Worth Star Telegram gives us even greater reason to suspect Givens had deliberately changed his story. According to the article, written by Thayer Waldo, a Secret Service agent had boasted that a negro witness, who "had been arrested in the past by the Special Services office of the Dallas Police for gambling" had come forward, and had claimed to have seen Oswald actually fire the shots that killed Kennedy. According to Waldo, who claimed to have sat in on a conversation between this agent and another man, the agent said "Wait till that old black boy gets up in front of the Warren Commission and tells his story. That will settle everything. Yes, sir. He was right there on the same floor, looking out the next window; and, after the first shot, he looked and saw Oswald, and then he ran. I saw him in the Dallas Police station. He was still the scaredest n I ever seen. I heard him tell the officer, 'Man you don't know how fast fast is, because you didn't see me run that day.' He said he ran and hid behind the boxes because he was afraid that Oswald would shoot him." As Givens was the only school book depository employee with a notable police record, and was also one of the very few to have seen Oswald in the hour before the shooting, the "negro witness"described in the  article is most certainly Givens…..

 

Months later, after Waldo's story was dredged up by Mark Lane as an indication the Secret Service had been planting false stories in the press, the FBI re-investigated. On May 28, 1964, the FBI wrote a report after talking with agent Mike Howard. (25H844-845). While Howard admitted that he and his brother, Deputy Sheriff Pat Howard, had had a conversation with Waldo, he claimed they did not know he was a reporter, and that they'd never discussed a negro witness to the shooting. On this same day Waldo signed a sworn statement backing his published version of the story. (25H846-848). A few days later, the Bureau contacted Pat Howard, and he admitted that he and his brother had told Waldo about a negro employee with a criminal record who had fled the building after the shots, for fear he would be implicated. (25H849-850) This is clearly a reference to Givens. If the Howards were telling the truth, and they just mentioned Givens because they thought his flight was an "amusing incident," it seems an incredible coincidence that Givens would shortly thereafter change his story and help the Warren Commission put the rifle in Oswald's hand.

 

Yes, you read that right...I wrote shortly thereafter. You see there is evidence that, although Givens first officially told his tale on 4-08-64, that he actually changed his story within days of Howard's talking to Waldo. The February 21, 1964 cover story of Life Magazine, which treated Oswald's sole guilt as a given fact, revealed "A few minutes after noon, as the President and his wife were pulling away from the airport in the open presidential limousine, an employee in the school book building, Charles Givens, saw Oswald on the sixth floor and said 'Let's go down and watch the President go by.' 'Not now,' Oswald responded. 'Just send the elevator back up.'" Hmmm...a story sneaks out that a black man with a criminal record is gonna implicate Oswald; a report is written indicating that this man is Charles Givens, that he will change his story for money, and that he really doesn't know anything; a thoroughly-biased article then appears in a prominent magazine citing Givens as the source of previously undisclosed information, information that is extremely damaging to Oswald; this info, furthermore, is inconsistent with Givens' sworn testimony months later. From this one might gather Life paid Givens for his story, and that he lied to them, or that someone paid or pressured Givens to lie to them. One can not reasonably assert or assume his cloudy memory suddenly became clear." 

 

If this was a boxing match, the ref would have stepped in to stop it.

 

 

 

[David Von Pein]

Per Jimmy D., we've got all kinds of lying and deliberate deception involving Charles D. Givens. And for what? Just to have Oswald seen 35 minutes before the assassination on the sixth floor (but OUTSIDE of the Sniper's Nest) and without a rifle or any kind of package.....which is essentially exactly the same thing that THREE other Depository witnesses had said in their testimony and statements (Lovelady, Arce, and Williams).

All that deception and lying by Givens was a complete waste. Don't you agree, Jim?

Because even if we throw away every word Givens said, we've still got Billy Lovelady and Bonnie Ray Williams and Danny Arce. Were all three of those witnesses lying too, Jim?

Edited January 11, 2017 by David Von Pein

[Ray Mitcham]

 

 

Mr. BALL - Who was with you?

Mr. LOVELADY - Bill Shelley and Sarah Stanton, and right behind me.....

Mr. BALL - What was that last name?

Mr. LOVELADY - Stanton.

 

Note that Lovelady didn't get to say who was behind him. Great intervention by Ball.

 

Mr. ARCE. I went outside.

Mr. BALL. With whom?

Mr. ARCE. With Billy Lovelady and Mr. Shelley and I was out there with Junior.

Mr. BALL. Who is Junior?

Mr. ARCE. I don't know his real name; I just know him by Junior.

Mr. BALL. Was Bonnie Ray Williams ever out there with you?

Mr. ARCE. No, he stayed upstairs with Hank. Junior stayed up there but he was down a little while and I guess he went upstairs.

Mr. BALL. What about Givens?

Mr. ARCE. He was down there with Shields, I guess---I mean Melvin---no, Carl, that's who he was with.

Mr. BALL. What about Jack Dougherty?

Mr. ARCE. He was on all floors; I couldn't tell you where he was.

Mr. BALL. Was he outside?

Mr. ARCE. No, he was eating lunch; me and Jack Dougherty, same time.

Mr. BALL. Dougherty ate his lunch?

Mr. ARCE. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. Did he go outdoors after lunch? I don't know; I didn't see him. Who went outdoors with you? Bill Shelley and Billy Lovelady; Carl was out there and Charles. You stood there how long before the parade came along?

Mr. ARCE. I am not too sure; it was about 10 minutes, somewhere. around there. I am not too sure about that.

 

Note Ball didn't ask him "was Oswald ever out there with you?"

 

Williams

 

Mr. BALL. About what time of day do you think it was you saw Oswald, if you can remember? If you can't remember, don't guess.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I cannot remember. 

 

 

Mr. WILLIAMS. I believe this day we quit about maybe 5 or 10 minutes, because all of us were so anxious to see the President--we quit a little ahead of time, so that we could wash up and we wanted to be sure we would not miss anything.

Mr. BALL. Now, did you go downstairs?

Mr. WILLIAMS. We took two elevators down. I mean, speaking as a group, we took two down.

Mr. BALL. Was there some reason you took two down?

Mr. WILLIAMS. We always had a little kids game we played racing down with the elevators. And I think one fellow, Charles Givens, had the east elevator, and me, and I think two or three more fellows had the west elevator. And we was racing down.

Mr. BALL. Who was driving the west side elevator?

Mr. WILLIAMS. I don't remember exactly who was.

Mr. BALL. You were not?

Mr. WILLIAMS. I don't think I was. I don't remember.

Mr. BALL. Who was driving the east side elevator?

Mr. WILLIAMS. I think that was Charles Givens.

Mr. BALL. Now, did something happen on the way down--did somebody yell out?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes; on the way down I heard Oswald--and I am not sure whether he was on the fifth or the sixth floor. But on the way down Oswald hollered "Guys, how about an elevator?" I don't know whether those are his exact words. But he said something about the elevator. And Charles said, "Come on, boy," just like that. And he said, "Close the gate on the elevator and send the elevator back up." I don't know what happened after that.

Representative FORD.Had the elevator gone down below the floor from which he yelled?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes; I believe it was. I assume it was the fifth or the sixth. The reason I could not tell whether it was the sixth or the fifth is because I was on the opposite elevator, and if you are not thinking about it it is kind of hard to judge which floor, if you started moving.

Representative FORD.The elevator did not go back up to the floor from which he yelled?

Mr. WILLIAMS. No, sir.

Mr. DULLES. Did he ask the gate be closed on the elevator?

Mr. WILLIAMS. I think he asked Charles Givens--I think he said, "Close the gate on the elevator, or send one of the elevators back up." I think that is what he said.

Mr. McCLOY. That is in order that he would have an elevator to come down when he wanted to come down?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. On the 23d of November 1963, you talked to two FBI agents according to the record I have here, Bardwell Odum and Will Griffin, and they reported that you said that as they were going down, that you saw Lee on the fifth floor.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I told him the fifth or the sixth. I told him I wasn't sure about it.

Confirms that Oswald wanted to get downstairs to the domino room where he was seen by Givens around 11.50.

If he wanted to stay, he wouldn't have yelled for the elevator to be sent back up. IMO

Edited January 11, 2017 by Ray Mitcham

[David Von Pein]

Then why didn't Oswald just go downstairs with the boys at 11:45, Ray? He certainly had no intention of doing any more work up there on the sixth floor. The three unfilled orders on his clipboard prove that (see Warren Report, Page 143).

So why did he want to stay on the sixth floor for so long? What could he possibly be doing up there if he wasn't filling orders (which he wasn't)?

I know the answer, Ray. Why don't you?

Edited January 11, 2017 by David Von Pein

[Ray Mitcham]

22 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

Then why didn't Oswald just go downstairs with the boys at 11:45, Ray? He certainly had no intention of doing any more work up there on the sixth floor. The three unfilled orders on his clipboard prove that (see Warren Report, Page 143).

So why did he want to stay on the sixth floor for so long? What could he possibly be doing up there if he wasn't filling orders (which he wasn't)?

I know the answer, Ray. Why don't you?

Because he wasn't near the elevator when the lads went down. Don't forget they were racing the two elevators down. If he wanted to stay there, why would he ask the others to send the elevator back up.

"Mr. WILLIAMS. We always had a little kids game we played racing down with the elevators. And I think one fellow, Charles Givens, had the east elevator, and me, and I think two or three more fellows had the west elevator. And we was racing down. "

 

 

"I know the answer, Ray. Why don't you?"

No,David, you think you know the answer.

Edited January 11, 2017 by Ray Mitcham