Online Interview with Jim Gochenaur

[Micah Mileto]

44 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

Well his Church Committee testimony is missing so who knows? Gochenaur’s stories are so weirdly specific - it seems like a stretch he’d make all that up just for kicks. The Church Committee investigators didn’t believe him in the pre-interviews and we’re actively looking for ways to question his credibility, but then they called him in to testify and his testimony subsequently vanished. Seems a bit suspicious. 

His Church Committee testimony is missing, but what isn't missing is the report on his first interview for the Church Committee, and the transcript of his interview by the HSCA. No mention of a gun coming out. I feel like he's a clown, but if he's a clown, he must have had some huge cojones to tell such lies to government people.

[Tom Gram]

1 hour ago, Micah Mileto said:

His Church Committee testimony is missing, but what isn't missing is the report on his first interview for the Church Committee, and the transcript of his interview by the HSCA. No mention of a gun coming out. I feel like he's a clown, but if he's a clown, he must have had some huge cojones to tell such lies to government people.

Right - who the hell risks imprisonment for perjury just to have an inside joke with themselves that no one else can ever know about? I’m hardly a psychic but he comes off as pretty credible to me. Perhaps he’s exaggerated a few details in later years but the core of his story just seems too elaborate and bizarre to not be true IMO. Considering the other stuff that went missing from the Church Committee my guess would be that they came to the same conclusion.

If Gochenaur held up under tough questioning under oath that’d be a hell of a lot more powerful than any pre-interview report. I think the testimony probably got stuck in the “too problematic” folder with the INS guys and was permanently buried in a government basement somewhere. 

[Pat Speer]

21 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

Right - who the hell risks imprisonment for perjury just to have an inside joke with themselves that no one else can ever know about? I’m hardly a psychic but he comes off as pretty credible to me. Perhaps he’s exaggerated a few details in later years but the core of his story just seems too elaborate and bizarre to not be true IMO. Considering the other stuff that went missing from the Church Committee my guess would be that they came to the same conclusion.

If Gochenaur held up under tough questioning under oath that’d be a hell of a lot more powerful than any pre-interview report. I think the testimony probably got stuck in the “too problematic” folder with the INS guys and was permanently buried in a government basement somewhere. 

Spurred on by Gary Murr, I did a lot of research into Moore some time ago, and was one of the first to focus on him. His testimony essentially backed up Gochenaur's account, as I remember. He said he knew Gochenaur and had talked about the case with Gochenauer, but that Gochenauer had evidently misunderstood some of what he'd said. 

I think it was a matter of perspective. Moore was told the bullet entered the back and exited the throat, and he knew he needed the Parkland doctors to stop saying the throat wound was an entrance. So he showed them the autopsy report--which they were grateful for. I think it was McClelland that then turned around and called the press and told them what was in the report. But the point is this. Moore never saw the body, and presumably did not know the back wound was on the back, lower than it would have been if it had exited the throat. As I recall, he wrote in his report that Perry showed him how a bullet hitting the base of the neck could exit the throat, or some such thing. But we have reason to believe they'd turned a "maybe" into a "must have been". 

These men were all grasping at straws, trying to make the pieces fit. So I don't particularly blame Moore for the movement of the back wound--it was gonna happen no matter what he did. 

But I do think there's an aspect to Moore that went unreported, and is probably lost to history. And that is that come January he became Warren's bodyguard and constant companion. While he admitted discussing the case with Warren, he was not asked the more pertinent question, IMO. He should have been asked if he'd made notes on their conversations, or filed reports that went up the chain of command, perhaps even to Johnson. 

Now, I'm writing this based on memory, through a blur of time and medications, but I think I've got it right--that that question regarding Moore--whether or not he reported his discussions with Warren--was never adequately answered or investigated.