The Warren Omission: witnesses who were never called

[Gil Jesus]

A video montage of witnesses who were never called to testify before the Warren Commission. Why not ?

( I had to age restrict it because it shows the President's head blown apart )

 

 

[Bill Brown]

 

The Commission called Lee Bowers, Sam Holland, Frank Reilly,  Arnold Rowland, Sylvia Odio and many others who's testimony contradicted what ended up being the Commission's conclusion.

 

[Benjamin Cole]

4 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

 

The Commission called Lee Bowers, Sam Holland, Frank Reilly,  Arnold Rowland, Sylvia Odio and many others who's testimony contradicted what ended up being the Commission's conclusion.

 

The four Dallas Police officers (including two detectives) who handled the Walker bullet on April 10, 1963, were never called to testify. 

The FBI interviewed only the most junior of the quartet, a patrolman who left the DPD after less than a year of service. 

All four DPD'ers wrote and signed same-day official reports that the Walker bullet was "steel jacketed," a relatively rare type of bullet. There were 30.06 military surplus steel-jacketed bullets on the market back then, manufactured due to WWII copper shortages. 

Lt. Day told the WC his name "DAY" and a "+" were on the true Walker bullet. There are no such markings today on CE573. 

CE573, the Walker bullet in evidence today, is perhaps the most obviously copper-jacketed bullet in all police annals. 

Not only is CE573 copper-jacketed, but the jacketing has been torn asunder, to reveal that is solid copper jacketing on a lead core. 

 

[Gil Jesus]

4 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

The four Dallas Police officers (including two detectives) who handled the Walker bullet on April 10, 1963, were never called to testify. 

 

They never even called ANYONE from REA Express, who supposedly shipped the handgun used to kill Tippit.

They never called anyone from REA or the Post Office to establish that it was Oswald who picked up the weapons.

They never called the person who found the jacket under the car, hell, they never even identified him.

But the Commission called Secretary of State Dean Rusk and diplomat Llewellyn Thompson, neither of whom had any knowledge regarding the shooting at General Walker or the killings of Kennedy, Tippit or Oswald. And it asked more questions ( 104 ) of them than it asked autopsy doctor Boswell ( 14 ). 

The Commission called Mahlon Tobias, Oswald's landlord in Dallas and asked him more questions about how the Oswald’s lived ( 229 ), than it did of the chief autopsy pathologist, Dr. Humes ( 215 ).

The Commission called the emcee at Ruby’s strip joint, William D. Crowe, Jr. and asked him more questions ( 342 ), than it did of the JFK autopsy doctors TOTAL . ( 304 ) 

The Commission called Mrs. Anne Boudreaux, who knew a woman who babysat Lee Harvey Oswald when he was 2 1/2 years old, and asked her more questions ( 70 ) about how the babysitter felt about the toddler Oswald than it asked Warren Caster ( 32 ) , the man who brought two rifles into the School Book Depository building just two days before the President's motorcade.

The Commission even accepted as an exhibit, the dental records of Fanny Rubenstein, Jack Ruby's mother. ( 22 H 395 )

As Jim Garrison once said, "Even if Jack Ruby had intended to BITE Oswald to death, that would have been irrelevent."

Don't let Mr. Brown or anybody else fool you, this so-called "investigation" was a joke.

Edited December 30, 2023 by Gil Jesus

[Benjamin Cole]

3 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

They never even called ANYONE from REA Express, who supposedly shipped the handgun used to kill Tippit.

They never called anyone from REA or the Post Office to establish that it was Oswald who picked up the weapons.

They never called the person who found the jacket under the car, hell, they never even identified him.

But the Commission called Secretary of State Dean Rusk and diplomat Llewellyn Thompson, neither of whom had any knowledge regarding the shooting at General Walker or the killings of Kennedy, Tippit or Oswald. And it asked more questions ( 104 ) of them than it asked autopsy doctor Boswell ( 14 ). 

The Commission called Mahlon Tobias, Oswald's landlord in Dallas and asked him more questions about how the Oswald’s lived ( 229 ), than it did of the chief autopsy pathologist, Dr. Humes ( 215 ).

The Commission called the emcee at Ruby’s strip joint, William D. Crowe, Jr. and asked him more questions ( 342 ), than it did of the JFK autopsy doctors TOTAL . ( 304 ) 

The Commission called Mrs. Anne Boudreaux, who knew a woman who babysat Lee Harvey Oswald when he was 2 1/2 years old, and asked her more questions ( 70 ) about how the babysitter felt about the toddler Oswald than it asked Warren Caster ( 32 ) , the man who brought two rifles into the School Book Depository building just two days before the President's motorcade.

The Commission even accepted as an exhibit, the dental records of Fanny Rubenstein, Jack Ruby's mother. ( 22 H 395 )

As Jim Garrison once said, "Even if Jack Ruby had intended to BITE Oswald to death, that would have been irrelevent."

Don't let Mr. Brown or anybody else fool you, this so-called "investigation" was a joke.

Not every official or congressional narrative is phony. Usually, heavily politicized, often expedient. 

And unless there is aggressive counsel "for the other side"---stay skeptical.  

Happy New Year Gil Jesus. 

[Gil Jesus]

2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

 

Happy New Year Gil Jesus. 

A Happy and a healthy New Year to you and your family as well. Be safe.

[Tom Gram]

I harp on this a lot, but one of the absolute worst witness omissions IMO is Paul Bentley. Totally inexcusable. Bentley was arguably THE most important law enforcement witness to the assassination aftermath in Oak Cliff, and the WC pretended like he didn’t even exist. 

[Paul Cummings]

Gill, great work. Perhaps a future thread could be Witnesses whose testimony was changed.

[Ron Bulman]

They Should have called all of the Secret Service agents riding in the follow up car.  They are trained to be observant of others and surroundings.  They were right behind him watching the crowd and buildings (ha!), and him.  Look what they got from Kellerman.  "It was a flurry of shots."

Seems like I've seen a list like this in a book I have but I can't remember which one.  Maybe it will come to me.

[Pat Speer]

Not to defend the Warren Commission, but the commission was created, essentially, to confirm the Oswald did it conclusion of the FBI and SS. It was the President's Commission, and that is what the President wanted. It was even how it was sold to him. It was pointed out to him that questions would remain among the left if he said it was Oswald (so he drafted Warren) and by the right if he said it was Oswald acting alone (so he drafted Russell). This took it out of his hands, you see. This fact is made clear, moreover, by the make-up of the Commission. As I recall, Warren and McCloy were the only two commissioners with any experience as investigators. 

In any event, the commission was not created to investigate the case from scratch. As a consequence, people who'd been interviewed by the FBI and SS in the days after 11-22 were not re-interviewed by the WC...UNLESS their story had been widely reported in the press, or they were just too famous to ignore. 

The initial chapters of my website serve as a timeline for the investigation, written largely from the perspective of someone privy to the FBI, SS, and WC reports and testimony. And one of the shocking things I learned from writing these chapters on my website was that the chapters in the Warren Report saying one man--Oswald--did it, were submitted and approved well before many of the most famous witnesses had given statements or testified. Included among these crucial witnesses only interviewed as an afterthought are Mrs. Kennedy, LBJ, Mrs. LBJ, Jack Ruby, Abraham Zapruder, James Tague, James Altgens, Phil Willis, and on and on. 

It was a sham. 

From Chapter 3:

Behind the Scenes with Howard Willens

Commission counsel Howard Willens kept a contemporaneous journal on the commission's investigation. In early 2014, he put his journal online. Let's pretend then that, in our imaginary investigation in 1964, we've befriended Willens and that he is showing us his journal.

Howard Willens shows us his journal entry for 3-9-64/3-10-64. (I have added some comments to put the events in context. But, of course.) His journal entry reads, in part:

2. On Tuesday, four eyewitnesses appeared before the Commission and completed their testimony at approximately 3 p.m. I had obtained a copy of the prior day’s testimony early in the morning and had planned to read it but was unable to begin this job until late in the evening.

6. After lunch and a brief discussion with Jack Miller I visited with the Deputy Attorney General for a while regarding the work of the Commission. I briefed him on the report of the Nosenko interview and the schedule of witnesses set forth in the memorandum of March 6. I discussed with him briefly the stalemate between the Treasury Department and the Commission regarding the area of security precautions. Mr. Katzenbach agreed that this was a needless problem which should be resolved without too great difficulty. He suggested that I might wish to discuss it sooner or later with Mr. McCloy.

7. Shortly after I returned to the Commission offices on Tuesday, Mr. Redlich came into my office in quite a hurry and asked me to join them in the Conference Room. Apparently the testimony for the day had been completed (eyewitnesses Rowland, Euins, Jackson and Worrell) and the Chief Justice was engaging Messrs. Redlich, Ball, Belin and Specter in conversation regarding the proposed schedule of testimony and several other matters. When I entered the room the Chief Justice was expressing his opinion that more witnesses with significant testimony should be called before the Commission as quickly as possible. This was partly because the court was currently in recess and he wanted to complete as much of the Commission’s business as possible during the next week and a half. He expressed his view that the medical witnesses were among the more important witnesses to be heard. He indicated that as a corollary to this that many of the witnesses that had already been called before the Commission did not have much testimony of substance.

Hmmm... Even beyond that newspaper accounts suggest Warren was only present for one hour of the March 9 testimony of the Secret Service agents, Warren's complaint that the witnesses recently called before the commission lacked substance doesn't pass the simplest of smell tests. The four Secret Service agents interviewed the day before indicated the last two shots were bang-bang, one behind the other. Kellerman said the last two came in in a "flurry...it was like a double bang--bang, bang." Greer said they came in "just simultaneously, one behind the other." Hill said he recalled hearing but two shots, but that the last one had "some type of an echo...almost a double sound." And Youngblood pretty much concurred: "There seemed to be a longer span of time between the first and the second shot than there was between the second and third shot." And these four problematic witnesses have now been followed up by a second four, ALL of whom add to the likelihood there was more than one shooter. Arnold Rowland, to begin with, surprised the heck out of the commission and said he saw two different men on the sixth floor before the shooting, and that the last shot was fired but two seconds after the second. Amos Euins said he'd heard four shots. Robert Jackson said "the second two shots seemed much closer together than the first shot, than they were to the first shot." And James Worrell said he'd heard four shots. It seems obvious, then, that Warren views witnesses who can help him sell the single-assassin conclusion as substantive and those harmful to this cause as lacking substance. If so, this makes his request the medical witnesses be brought forward as soon as possible a bit suspicious. It seems possible he is afraid the investigation is about to spin out of control, and hopes to bring the investigation--and the Washington media reporting on the investigation--back in line via the gory details of the President's death.

7. cont'd) He indicated that he wanted to get our lawyers on the road as quickly as possible to interview witnesses. In the course of stating his views on this, the Chief Justice stated that he had complete faith in all of the members of the staff and wanted them to be free to have unrecorded interviews with the witnesses. Although he did not elaborate on his views in this matter, the Chief Justice apparently had been briefed on the staff discussions on this subject by someone, possibly Mr. Rankin or Mr. Ball.

Hmmm... Willens has told us of these discussions, and that several of the commission's staff think it improper to prep the witnesses via unrecorded interviews. He shows us a 3-2-64 entry in his journal which reveals:

"Most of today was consumed by two staff meetings regarding the proposed schedule of testimony before the Commission and by depositions taken by the staff. The draft memorandum for the members of the Commission which I prepared was distributed to members of the staff and was discussed at the initial meeting beginning at 11:30 a.m. The discussion quickly centered on the problem whether staff members should be permitted to interview witnesses in advance of the witness giving a deposition or testifying before the Commission. This argument went on for two hours or so and for an additional two hours or so at a continuation of the meeting beginning at 4 o’clock. Mr. Shaffer was not there and therefore his eloquence could not be brought to bear on this topic. As a result of the meetings, a set of procedures is to be made up by a committee including Messrs. Liebeler, Belin and Redlich. Mr. Redlich and Mr. Eisenberg were the most forceful proponents of the proposition that staff members should not be permitted to interview witnesses without a court reporter present. Mr. Belin was strongly opposed and Mr. Liebeler urged a somewhat intermediate position."

Willens then shows us a 3-4-64 memo from Redlich to Rankin in which Redlich reveals "I feel that an unrecorded interview with a witness creates the inevitable danger that the witness will be conditioned to give certain testimony" and that, furthermore, "If we compound the lack of cross examination with the pre-conditioning of a witness, we will be presenting a record which, in my view, will be deceptively clean..."

Well, here, on 3-10, Warren has weighed in on the matter, and has told the staff, in so many words, to go ahead and prep some witnesses and get something on the record...pronto!

We can only presume then that he wants to put some miles between the commission and its latest round of witnesses.

Willens then shows us the rest of his entry for 3-10.

7. cont'd) In response to the Chief Justice’s views I indicated to him that we would make every effort to secure witnesses for next Friday and to change the schedule for the week of March 16 so as to meet his wishes. The various members of the staff then discussed their views as to the difficulty of the medical testimony and the time necessary to prepare for it. The Chief Justice indicated that he was primarily interested in hearing the testimony of the doctors from the Bethesda Naval Hospital who conducted the autopsy.

Hmmm... It seems clear from this that Warren feels confident the testimony of these doctors will bolster the case for a single-assassin. We wonder why he feels this way.

7. cont'd) I indicated that, if possible, we would try to have these doctors appear before the Commission during the week of March 16.

...

8. After the above meeting various members of the staff gathered in my office to make their suggestions regarding alterations in the schedule. Present were Messrs. Redlich, Eisenberg, Ball, Belin, Stern, Liebeler and Ely. As usual there was considerable debate among the members of the staff regarding the function of the Commission and the definition of what constitutes a thorough job. Apparently during the day’s testimony the Chief Justice had indicated his readiness to receive a clean record and not pursue in very much detail the various inconsistencies. Mr. Ball agreed with the approach suggested by the Chief Justice completely and Mr. Specter thought that we would have to amend our approach to correspond with that of the Chief Justice. Mr. Redlich and Mr. Eisenberg took a strong and articulate contrary view. The long and short of the meeting was that we decided to bring up Mr. and Mrs. Declan Ford on Friday and to explore the possibility of having the medical testimony on Monday and Tuesday.

Well, this confirms our suspicions. Warren wants the staff to present him with a "clean" case against Oswald, one with as few inconsistencies as possible, and he is giving them the green light to prep witnesses in unrecorded interviews in order to meet this end.

Edited December 31, 2023 by Pat Speer

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

Not to defend the Warren Commission, but the commission was created, essentially, to confirm the Oswald did it conclusion of the FBI and SS. It was the President's Commission, and that is what the President wanted. It was even how it was sold to him. It was pointed out to him that questions would remain among the left if he said it was Oswald (so he drafted Warren) and by the right if he said it was Oswald acting alone (so he drafted Russell). This took it out of his hands, you see. This fact is made clear, moreover, by the make-up of the Commission. As I recall, Warren and McCloy were the only two commissioners with any experience as investigators. 

In any event, the commission was not created to investigate the case from scratch. As a consequence, people who'd been interviewed by the FBI and SS in the days after 11-22 were not re-interviewed by the WC...UNLESS their story had been widely reported in the press, or they were just too famous to ignore. 

The initial chapters of my website serve as a timeline for the investigation, written largely from the perspective of someone privy to the FBI, SS, and WC reports and testimony. And one of the shocking things I learned from writing these chapters on my website was that the chapters in the Warren Report saying one man--Oswald--did it, were submitted and approved well before many of the most famous witnesses had given statements or testified. Included among these crucial witnesses only interviewed as an afterthought are Mrs. Kennedy, LBJ, Mrs. LBJ, Jack Ruby, Abraham Zapruder, James Tague, James Altgens, Phil Willis, and on and on. 

It was a sham. 

From Chapter 3:

Behind the Scenes with Howard Willens

Commission counsel Howard Willens kept a contemporaneous journal on the commission's investigation. In early 2014, he put his journal online. Let's pretend then that, in our imaginary investigation in 1964, we've befriended Willens and that he is showing us his journal.

Howard Willens shows us his journal entry for 3-9-64/3-10-64. (I have added some comments to put the events in context. But, of course.) His journal entry reads, in part:

2. On Tuesday, four eyewitnesses appeared before the Commission and completed their testimony at approximately 3 p.m. I had obtained a copy of the prior day’s testimony early in the morning and had planned to read it but was unable to begin this job until late in the evening.

6. After lunch and a brief discussion with Jack Miller I visited with the Deputy Attorney General for a while regarding the work of the Commission. I briefed him on the report of the Nosenko interview and the schedule of witnesses set forth in the memorandum of March 6. I discussed with him briefly the stalemate between the Treasury Department and the Commission regarding the area of security precautions. Mr. Katzenbach agreed that this was a needless problem which should be resolved without too great difficulty. He suggested that I might wish to discuss it sooner or later with Mr. McCloy.

7. Shortly after I returned to the Commission offices on Tuesday, Mr. Redlich came into my office in quite a hurry and asked me to join them in the Conference Room. Apparently the testimony for the day had been completed (eyewitnesses Rowland, Euins, Jackson and Worrell) and the Chief Justice was engaging Messrs. Redlich, Ball, Belin and Specter in conversation regarding the proposed schedule of testimony and several other matters. When I entered the room the Chief Justice was expressing his opinion that more witnesses with significant testimony should be called before the Commission as quickly as possible. This was partly because the court was currently in recess and he wanted to complete as much of the Commission’s business as possible during the next week and a half. He expressed his view that the medical witnesses were among the more important witnesses to be heard. He indicated that as a corollary to this that many of the witnesses that had already been called before the Commission did not have much testimony of substance.

Hmmm... Even beyond that newspaper accounts suggest Warren was only present for one hour of the March 9 testimony of the Secret Service agents, Warren's complaint that the witnesses recently called before the commission lacked substance doesn't pass the simplest of smell tests. The four Secret Service agents interviewed the day before indicated the last two shots were bang-bang, one behind the other. Kellerman said the last two came in in a "flurry...it was like a double bang--bang, bang." Greer said they came in "just simultaneously, one behind the other." Hill said he recalled hearing but two shots, but that the last one had "some type of an echo...almost a double sound." And Youngblood pretty much concurred: "There seemed to be a longer span of time between the first and the second shot than there was between the second and third shot." And these four problematic witnesses have now been followed up by a second four, ALL of whom add to the likelihood there was more than one shooter. Arnold Rowland, to begin with, surprised the heck out of the commission and said he saw two different men on the sixth floor before the shooting, and that the last shot was fired but two seconds after the second. Amos Euins said he'd heard four shots. Robert Jackson said "the second two shots seemed much closer together than the first shot, than they were to the first shot." And James Worrell said he'd heard four shots. It seems obvious, then, that Warren views witnesses who can help him sell the single-assassin conclusion as substantive and those harmful to this cause as lacking substance. If so, this makes his request the medical witnesses be brought forward as soon as possible a bit suspicious. It seems possible he is afraid the investigation is about to spin out of control, and hopes to bring the investigation--and the Washington media reporting on the investigation--back in line via the gory details of the President's death.

7. cont'd) He indicated that he wanted to get our lawyers on the road as quickly as possible to interview witnesses. In the course of stating his views on this, the Chief Justice stated that he had complete faith in all of the members of the staff and wanted them to be free to have unrecorded interviews with the witnesses. Although he did not elaborate on his views in this matter, the Chief Justice apparently had been briefed on the staff discussions on this subject by someone, possibly Mr. Rankin or Mr. Ball.

Hmmm... Willens has told us of these discussions, and that several of the commission's staff think it improper to prep the witnesses via unrecorded interviews. He shows us a 3-2-64 entry in his journal which reveals:

"Most of today was consumed by two staff meetings regarding the proposed schedule of testimony before the Commission and by depositions taken by the staff. The draft memorandum for the members of the Commission which I prepared was distributed to members of the staff and was discussed at the initial meeting beginning at 11:30 a.m. The discussion quickly centered on the problem whether staff members should be permitted to interview witnesses in advance of the witness giving a deposition or testifying before the Commission. This argument went on for two hours or so and for an additional two hours or so at a continuation of the meeting beginning at 4 o’clock. Mr. Shaffer was not there and therefore his eloquence could not be brought to bear on this topic. As a result of the meetings, a set of procedures is to be made up by a committee including Messrs. Liebeler, Belin and Redlich. Mr. Redlich and Mr. Eisenberg were the most forceful proponents of the proposition that staff members should not be permitted to interview witnesses without a court reporter present. Mr. Belin was strongly opposed and Mr. Liebeler urged a somewhat intermediate position."

Willens then shows us a 3-4-64 memo from Redlich to Rankin in which Redlich reveals "I feel that an unrecorded interview with a witness creates the inevitable danger that the witness will be conditioned to give certain testimony" and that, furthermore, "If we compound the lack of cross examination with the pre-conditioning of a witness, we will be presenting a record which, in my view, will be deceptively clean..."

Well, here, on 3-10, Warren has weighed in on the matter, and has told the staff, in so many words, to go ahead and prep some witnesses and get something on the record...pronto!

We can only presume then that he wants to put some miles between the commission and its latest round of witnesses.

Willens then shows us the rest of his entry for 3-10.

7. cont'd) In response to the Chief Justice’s views I indicated to him that we would make every effort to secure witnesses for next Friday and to change the schedule for the week of March 16 so as to meet his wishes. The various members of the staff then discussed their views as to the difficulty of the medical testimony and the time necessary to prepare for it. The Chief Justice indicated that he was primarily interested in hearing the testimony of the doctors from the Bethesda Naval Hospital who conducted the autopsy.

Hmmm... It seems clear from this that Warren feels confident the testimony of these doctors will bolster the case for a single-assassin. We wonder why he feels this way.

7. cont'd) I indicated that, if possible, we would try to have these doctors appear before the Commission during the week of March 16.

...

8. After the above meeting various members of the staff gathered in my office to make their suggestions regarding alterations in the schedule. Present were Messrs. Redlich, Eisenberg, Ball, Belin, Stern, Liebeler and Ely. As usual there was considerable debate among the members of the staff regarding the function of the Commission and the definition of what constitutes a thorough job. Apparently during the day’s testimony the Chief Justice had indicated his readiness to receive a clean record and not pursue in very much detail the various inconsistencies. Mr. Ball agreed with the approach suggested by the Chief Justice completely and Mr. Specter thought that we would have to amend our approach to correspond with that of the Chief Justice. Mr. Redlich and Mr. Eisenberg took a strong and articulate contrary view. The long and short of the meeting was that we decided to bring up Mr. and Mrs. Declan Ford on Friday and to explore the possibility of having the medical testimony on Monday and Tuesday.

Well, this confirms our suspicions. Warren wants the staff to present him with a "clean" case against Oswald, one with as few inconsistencies as possible, and he is giving them the green light to prep witnesses in unrecorded interviews in order to meet this end.

Excellent.

Be wary on official investigations, congressional, executive or special, in which there is not stout and aggressive counsel "for the other side."

If there is no adversarial process, then you are likely getting a show trial, a kangaroo court. A politicized, or expedient result. 

 

 

[Gil Jesus]

9 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

They Should have called all of the Secret Service agents riding in the follow up car.  They are trained to be observant of others and surroundings.  They were right behind him watching the crowd and buildings (ha!), and him.  Look what they got from Kellerman.  "It was a flurry of shots."

Seems like I've seen a list like this in a book I have but I can't remember which one.  Maybe it will come to me.

Good Point, Ron. Five of the seven agents in the follow-up car were never called. The only agents from the follow-up car called to testify were Hill and Roberts. Ready, McIntyre, Kinney, Hickey and Landis were never called. Only the motorcycle officers ( Hargis and Martin ) who were on Jackie's side of the limo were called. The officers on the President's side ( Chaney and Jackson ) were not. This 1975 FBI memo indicates that twelve years after the assassination, they realized that none of the motorcycle officers behind the limo were interviewed in 1963.

Strange behavior IMO for an "investigation" indeed.

Edited December 31, 2023 by Gil Jesus

[Pat Speer]

FWIW, I once created a slide demonstrating the basic point of this thread. It's in chapter 3 at patspeer.com... Here it is...

 

 

Edited June 17 by Pat Speer

[Benjamin Cole]

19 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

I harp on this a lot, but one of the absolute worst witness omissions IMO is Paul Bentley. Totally inexcusable. Bentley was arguably THE most important law enforcement witness to the assassination aftermath in Oak Cliff, and the WC pretended like he didn’t even exist. 

Hi Tom-

I just read Bentley's Dec. 3 report to Chief Curry. In general, it seems to conform with the official narrative.

Is there the "rest of the story"?