JFK L'assassinat les questions

FAQ

Pierre NAU — 2024-01-01T06:30:00Z

A quelle heure est intervenu l'assassinat du Président ?

L'assassinat s'est produit à 12h30. Le cortège avait cinq minutes de retard sur l'horaire prévu.

Existe t-il un enregistrement acoustique de l'attentat contre le Président ?

Malheureusement non. Aucun des films pris sur Dealey Plaza ce jour là ne contenait d'enregistrement acoustique.
Ils étaient tous muets et il ne fut pas possible de statuer, sans équivoque possible, sur le nombre de coups de feu tirés ce jour là sur le cortège présidentiel.

Qui sont les deux hommes à la fenêtre du 4ème étage (5th floor) ?

Les deux individus ne sont autres que :
– Bonnie Ray Williams,
– Harold Norman.
Collègues de travail d'Oswald, ils regardaient passer le cortège de cette fenêtre. Tous deux déclarèrent avoir entendu les douilles tomber sur le plancher en bois et le bruit de la manœuvre de la culasse destinée à réarmer la carabine.
Un autre camarade de travail les accompagnait. Il se trouvait à la fenêtre d'à côté, non visible sur cette photo. Il s'appelait, James Jarman Jr.
Pour autant, aucun d'eux n'a entendu ou vu Oswald dévaler les escaliers après son geste.
L'examen photographique poussé de la fenêtre au-dessus d'eux, n'a pas permis de mettre en évidence la présence d'un individu. Tom Dillard a appuyé trop tard sur son déclencheur. Le tireur avait pris la fuite.

Qui était Bill Nolan Lovelady ?

Billy Nolan Lovelady était un employé du dépôt de livres scolaires qui avait la particularité de présenter une ressemblance frappante avec Lee Harvey Oswald. C'était un véritable sosie.
Leur ressemblance était si frappante que certains ont cru pouvoir affirmer qu'Oswald se trouvait au sommet des marches de l'escalier de l'entrée du dépôt de livres, au moment des coups de feu.
Sur un cliché pris par le photographe Altgens de l'Associated Press, on peut voir un individu présentant une grande similitude avec l'assassin présumé. Dans ces conditions, la validation de ce cliché aurait permis d'innocenter complètement Oswald.
Après enquête, il apparut que l'individu présent sur le cliché d'Altgens n'était autre que Billy Nolan Lovelady, le sosie d'Oswald.
L'examen de la photo par des experts, corroboré par les déclarations de Lovelady et de ses collègues de travail, permit de statuer définitivement sur le cas. Lee Harvey Oswald ne se trouvait pas au sommet des marches menant à la porte d'entrée principale du dépôt de livres.
Le HSCA a minutieusement enquêté sur ce point en 1978 et le doute n'est plus permis. Malgré tout, certains prétendent encore aujourd'hui que la personne figurant sur la photo d'Altgens était Lee Harvey Oswald !
Billy Nolan Lovelady est mort en 1981.

Comment Oswald a t-il quitté le dépôt de livres ?

Immédiatement aprè la fusillade, Lee Harvey Oswald a emprunté les escaliers se trouvant à l'extrémité de la diagonale par rapport à la fenêtre du coin Sud Est d'où les coups de feu avaient été tirés.
Sans être entendu ou remarqué par ses collègues de travail qui se trouvaient aux étages inférieurs, il rejoignit la cantine du deuxième plancher (le premier étage pour nous Européens). A cet endroit il fut intercepté par le motocycliste Marrion Baker qui avait quitté le cortège au moment des coups de feu pour se diriger à grandes enjambées vers l'entrée du dépôt de livres scolaires. Rassuré par le super-intendant du dépôt de livres, Roy Truly, qui lui déclara qu'il s'agissait d'un de ses employés, Baker laissa Oswald libre de ses mouvements.
Une fois Baker et Truly partis, Oswald alla au distributeur de boissons et se servit un coca cola. Après quoi il poursuivit sa route pour gagner le rez-de-chaussée par les escaliers et sortit par la porte d'entrée principale.
En chemin, il rencontra Geraldine REID, à qui il grommela quelque chose d'incompréhensible en réponse à la remarque que cette dernière venait de lui faire, à propos des coups de feu qui venaient d'être tirés sur le cortège.
Oswald quitta le dépôt de livres scolaires à 12h33 par l'entrée principale, sans que quiconque ne le remarque.
Une fois sorti, il se remonta Elm street sur quelques blocs avant de prendre un bus au niveau de Lamar street. Mary Bledsoe, son ancienne logeuse qui se trouvait à l'intérieur le remarqua et déclara plus tard qu'il avait l'air d'un fou.
Il en redescendit presque aussitôt quand le bus fut coincé dans l'embouteillage. Une fois sorti et après que Cecyl McWatters, le conducteur du bus, lui ait délivré un ticket de correspondance, il gagna la Greyhound Station d'où il prit un taxi pour se rendre à son domicile au n°1026 de North Beckley.
Le chauffeur du taxi était William Whaley.

Oswald est-il le seul à avoir quitté son lieu de travail et ne pas y être revenu ce jour là ?

Officiellement, l'absence d'Oswald du Texas School Book Depository après l'attentat et le fait qu'il n'y revienne plus ce jour là l'auraient rendu suspect par rapport à ses autres collègues. De plus, on le présente souvent comme étant le seul à être rentré chez lui, après l'attentat.
Les faits contredisent cette affirmation de la version officielle.
En se limitant aux employés du TSBD et à leur Président :
– Carolyn Arnold a quitté le TSBD à 12h25 et n'est jamais revenue ce jour là.
– Jack Cason (TSBD) parti chez lui à 12h10. D'accord, c'était le président de la compagnie.
– Gloria Holt (TSBD) partie chez elle à 12h10. Elle n'est pas revenue car des collègues de travail lui avaient dit qu'il ne lui serait plus possible d'entrer dans le bâtiment.
– Charles Givens (TSBD). Truly était certes au courant de son absence et a couvert ses arrières en déclarant qu'il l'avait vu avant l'assassinat. Ce genre de logique aurait du également exonérer Oswald.
– Stella Jacob a quitté le TSBD à 12 h et n'y est jamais revenue, pour les mêmes raisons que celles invoquées par Gloria Holt en compagnie de laquelle elle se trouvait.
– Judy Johnson (TSBD) qui se trouvait avec Holt et Jacob essaya d'entrer dans le TSBD après les coups de feu, sans succès. L'accès était interdit. A 14 h elle rentra chez elle.
– Bonnie Richey (TSBD) a quitté le TSBD à 12h15 pour regarder la parade et n'est jamais revenue ce jour là.
– Sharon Nelson (TSBD) a quitté le bâtiment à 12h20 et elle n'est jamais revenue ce jour là. Pour la petite histoire, elle habitait au 409 East street à Oak Cliff, près du domicile de Helen Markham et donc à proximité du lieu du meurtre de Tippit.
Tous ces individus auraient du faire partie de la liste de Truly, quelque soit leur sexe. Soit on fait une vérification complète soit on s'en dispense.
A l'évidence et contrairement à l'idée répandue selon laquelle Oswald était non seulement le seul à être absent du bâtiment mais aussi le seul des employés de Truly à être rentré chez lui est fausse.
Aux employés de Truly, s'ajoutent également ceux qui travaillaient pour d'autres compagnies :
– Vida Whatley (Lyons and Carnahan Publishing). Partie faire des courses à 12h15, elle essaya sans succès d'entrer à l'intérieur du bâtiment vers 13 heures, puis s'en alla chez elle.
– Virginia Barnum (McGraw Hill). Elle quitta le TSBD à 12h45 et revint à 12h40. Comme on lui refusa l'entrée, elle s'en alla chez elle.
A cette liste et pour être complet, il faut ajouter Danny Arce (TSBD) et Bonnie Ray Williams qui étaient au City Hall dans les locaux de la police vers 13 heures.

Oswald était-il un tireur d'élite ?

Oswald n'était pas un tireur d'élite au sens où on l''entend habituellement. C'était un tireur honnête, sans plus. La distinction de "marksman"qu'il avait obtenu à une seule reprise, lors de son séjour chez les Marines, le plaçait comme un tireur au-dessus de la moyenne.
Ceci dit, nul besoin était d'être un tireur d'élite pour atteindre le Président de l'endroit où se trouvait Oswald. Le problème n'est pas là.
La difficulté d'attribuer l'ensemble des tirs à Oswald vient de l'espace temps réduit dont disposait l'assassin présumé.
Pour effectuer le tir de Dealey Plaza, Oswald devait faire feu à trois reprises en moins de 8 secondes. Entre chaque coup, il devait éjecter l'étui de la balle qu'il venait de tirer, puis réarmer sa carabine. Si l'on ajoute le temps mis pour viser aux 2 secondes en moyenne nécessaires pour manoeuvrer la culasse au moment du réarmement, le timing est plus que serré pour ne pas dire impossible.
Aucun des experts du FBI n'a réussi à approcher la performance d'Oswald, dans les conditions fixées par la Commission Warren. Le seul à l'avoir presque effectué l'a fait sur cible fixe, condition bien différente de celle de l'attentat.
Enfin, si Oswald avait été un tireur d'élite digne de ce nom, un seul coup de feu lui aurait suffi. La distance le séparant de la limousine au moment du premier coup de feu est si réduite, moins de 50 mètres, que le coup est quasiment inmanquable pour un tireur d'élite. De plus le bruit de l'arme au moment du tir est tel qu'il vaut mieux éviter de tirer à plusieurs reprises et risquer de se faire repérer.

Quelles étaient les caractéristiques et l'historique de l'arme du crime ?

L'arme retrouvée au sixième plancher du dépôt de livres scolaires du Texas était une carabine italienne "Mannlicher Caracano" de calibre 6,5 mm.
Le Mannlicher Carcano est une arme de guerre de forte puissance, capable de tuer un homme à plus de 200 mètres. La distance de tir la plus longue dans l'attentat de Dealey Plaza n'excédait pas 90 mètres. Atteindre la cible ne constituait pas une difficulté particulière.
Cette arme était de type semi-automatique. Il était nécessaire de la réarmer entre chaque tir en manœuvrant la culasse. C'est la raison pour laquelle ce type d'arme est également appelée arme à culasse mobile.
La manœuvre de la culasse se fait en 2 temps. Un premier temps au cours duquel l'étui de la balle tirée est éjecté et un deuxième au cours duquel la carabine est réarmée. L'opération prend environ 2 secondes.
Oswald avait acheté cette arme, sous le nom d'emprunt de Hidell pour la modique somme de 12 $ auprès de la firme Kleins de Chicago.
L'arme fut envoyée à la boite postale que louait Oswald à Dallas.

Quelle est la dernière personne à avoir vu Oswald dans le Texas School Book Depository ?

Officiellement les dernières personnes à avoir vu Oswald à l'intérieur du bâtiment sont :
Avant l'attentat : Mr Charles D. GIVENS
Après l'attentat : Mrs Geraldine REID

Dans quelles conditions Oswald fut embauché au TSBD ?

Ruth Paine qui hébergeait Marina à Irving apprit par une de ses voisines, Linnie Mae Randle, que l'on recherchait un magasinier au TSBD pour un travail saisonnier.
Le surcroît d'activité lié à la rentrée scolaire motivait ce recrutement temporaire. Linnie Mae Randle l'avait appris par son jeune frère de 19 ans, Bull Leisley Frazier.
Comme Oswald était alors au chomage, Ruth Paine pensa alors à lui et obtint un entretien d'embauche auprès du super intendant, un certain Roy Truly.
Apparemment, Oswald fit une bonne impression puisque Truly le recruta aussitôt. Peut-être son passé de Marine avait-il eu une influence positive chez Truly.
Oswald débuta son travail le 14 octobre 1963. Quelques semaines plus tard, le cortège passait au pied de l'immeuble où travaillait Oswald. Le hasard l'avait placé au bon moment au bon endroit.
Pourtant cette version est contesté par ceux qui voit en Ruth Paine une personne bien différente de celle de la bonne Quaker dévouée qu'elle donnait d'elle.

Où et quand Oswald apprit-il le russe ?

C'est chez les Marines qu'Oswald apprit le russe. Il débuta l'apprentissage de cette langue au moment de son affectation en Extrême Orient sur la base d'Atsugi, d'où décollait les avions espions U2 pour effectuer leurs missions de renseignements au dessus de l'URSS.
Nombreux sont ceux qui s'étonnent encore qu'Oswald ait pu apprendre le russe sur une base aussi secrète, à une époque où la tension avec l'URSS était à son comble et qui plus est, au sein du corps d'élite que sont les Marines.
D'autres ont avancé qu'Oswald avait appris le russe en vue d'une mission ultérieure en Union Soviétique. Dans ce cadre, son passage à l'est en 1959 ne devait rien au hasard ou à son envie soudaine de découvrir un système différent.
D'autres sont même allés jusqu'à avancer qu'il était un agent de la CIA, ce que l'agence a bien entendu démenti.
Une chose est certaine au moins. A son arrivée en URSS, Oswald était loin de maîtriser la langue de Tolstoï. Il possédait de simples rudiments et manquait singulièrement de pratique pour être en mesure de soutenir une conversation.
Toutefois, il n'est pas interdit de penser que ses qualifications d'opérateurs radar sur la base secrète d'Atsugi au Japon, pouvaient intéresser pour un temps les autorités soviétiques. Il n'est pas non plus impossible que la CIA ait piégé les russes en voulant ainsi les appâter pour permettre à Oswald de donner le change à leur insu.
Tout ceci reste une supposition que personne, jusqu'à présent, n'a réussi à démontrer.

Ruby était-il au Parkland Hospital après l'attentat ?

Bien qu'il s'en soit toujours défendu, la présence de Jack Ruby au Parkland Hospital après l'attentat est documentée.
Seth Kantor, journaliste présent sur place et qui connaissait bien Ruby a déclaré avoir vu, parlé et serré la main de ce dernier au Parkland Hospital, alors que le Président s'y trouvait encore.
Il n'y a pas de raison de douter des déclarations de Kantor. Ceci d'autant plus que Ruby était connu pour toujours se trouver, au bon moment, au cœur de l'événement. De plus Kantor connaissait Ruby ce qui réduit considérablement le risque de méprise.
La présence éventuelle de Ruby au Parkland Hospital n'a rien de suspecte en soi. Beaucoup de monde s'est précipité à cet endroit pour avoir des nouvelles du Président, par simple curiosité.
La polémique est venue de l'implication supposée de Ruby qui aurait disposé la fameuse CE399 ou balle dite “magique” sur un brancard, dans le but d'incriminer Oswald.
A l'appui de cette affirmation peu de concret si ce n'est des impressions qui ne suffisent pas pour en tirer une conclusion objective. Les raisons de la persistance de cette polémique s'explique par ce qui suit :
– la valse hésitation et les déclarations contradictoires relatives au brancard d'où la balle retrouvée par Darell Tomlinson serait tombée,
– Les déclarations de Tomlinson qui ne reconnut pas la CE 399 comme celle qu'il avait vue,
– Les déclarations de Ruby qui nia avoir été au Parkland Hospital là où Kantor dit l'avoir vu,
– L'état très peu altéré de la CE 399.Quoiqu'il en soit, Ruby se trouvait probablement là où Kantor dit l'avoir vu. Pour autant, l'accuser d'avoir disposé la CE 399 sur un brancard est pour le moins osé, dans l'état actuel des connaissances.

Comment Ruby s'est-il rendu dans le sous-sol du DPD pour tuer Oswald ?

Officiellement, Ruby est entré dans le sous-sol en empruntant la rampe d'accès donnant sur Main street. Toutefois, les choses ne sont pas aussi simples.
Personne n'a vu Ruby entrer. Ni Vaughn, le policier en charge de surveiller cette issue, ni Harry Tasker, le chauffeur de Taxi garé en face de l'entrée menant au sous-sol et qui avait les yeux rivés en permanence dans cette direction.
La raison était simple. Tasker guettait la sortie de son client qui lui avait demandé de l'attendre à cet endroit afin de le conduire le plus vite possible à la prison du Comté pour assister à l'arrivée d'Oswald.
Aucune des personnes présentes dans le sous-sol n'a déclaré avoir vu arriver Ruby descendant par la rampe d'accès.
Ce qui est certain c'est que Ruby se trouvait dans le sous-sol. Ce qui est également indiscutable, c'est qu'il a bien tué Oswald.
L'hypothèse est qu'il soit parvenu dans le sous-sol en entrant par la porte principale très fréquentée à ce moment là, ce qui lui garantissait de ne pas être remarqué. Une fois à l'intérieur il est descendu au sous-sol, nécessairement aidé d'un complice qui devait lui ouvrir la porte d'accès au sous-sol manœuvrable que de l'intérieur du sous-sol. Avec toutes les relations qu'avait Ruby au DPD, il n'avait aucun mal à trouver de l'aide.
Bien que restant à démontrer, cette hypothèse est la plus probable.

Que signifient les initiales J.D. du prénom de Tippit ?

Rien du tout !
Le prénom de J.D. donné à Tippit par ses parents correspond à celui d'un personnage de bande dessinée de l'époque.
Contrairement à ce que l'on voit écrit parfois, ces initiales J.D. ne signifient nullement Jefferson Davis.

Oswald est-il le meurtrier de J.D. Tippit ?

La réponse est oui, sans aucun doute. Les preuves matérielles d'origine balistique et les témoignages de personnes se trouvant à des emplacements différents le désignent. Tous n'ont pas pu se tromper.
De plus, les cartouches retrouvées dans sa poche au moment de son arrestation correspondent :
– aux douilles retrouvées par terre, après le meurtre, aux abords de la maison occupée par Barbara et Virginia Davies,
– aux balles retrouvées dans le corps de Tippit.
Le seul point d'ombre dans ce meurtre réside dans le trajet emprunté par Oswald, le moyen utilisé pour se rendre sur place et l'heure exacte du crime qui va de 13h07 à 13h16 (heure définie par la Commission Warren pour cette dernière).

Pourquoi Tippit a t-il intercepté Oswald ?

Plusieurs hypothèses s'affrontent :
– Oswald correspondait au vague signalement diffusé par la police et Tippit l'intercepta pour en avoir le coeur net et procéder ou non àson arrestation,
– L'attitude d'Oswald, sa démarche ou son accoutrement a intrigué Tippit. Oswald portait un blouson, alors que la température était élevée et sa démarche soutenue a peut-être interpellé Tippit,
– Un brusque changement de direction alors que la voiture de Tippit arrivait face à lui, venant de l'Ouest et se dirigeant vers l'Est de Tenth street. C'est l'explication donnée par Jack Tatum dans sa déposition en 1978. Dans ce cas, Tippit aurait eu l'attention attirée par Oswald et son étrange comportement.
Toutes ces hypothèses sont crédibles, sans que l'on puisse pour autant en privilégier une plutôt qu'une autre.

Que devient Ruth Paine ?

Ruth Paine a 91 ans aujourd'hui. Elle a quitté le Texas. Elle n'habite plus Irving mais St Petersburg, une bourgade non loin de Tampa en Floride.
Ruth Paine n'a jamais revu Marina. Les anciennes amies inséparables d'avant le 22 novembre 1963 ont pris des directions différentes. Ruth, séparée de Michael au moment des faits finira par divorcer. Elle ne s'est pas remariée et a poursuivi sa façon de vivre stricte et austère de Quaker.
Les évènements ont eu raison de leur amitié. Marina n'accepta pas la façon de Ruth de se mettre en avant au moment des faits, en particulier lors de l'arrivée de Marina au département de la police de Dallas, alors que Ruth l'accompagnait pour rendre visite à son mari incarcéré.
Même si elle ne s'en est jamais ouverte publiquement, Ruth a du trouver l'attitude de Marina bien ingrate et peu reconnaissante.
Souvent Ruth repense à son implication indirecte dans l'assassinat. Grâce à son intervention, elle avait permis à Lee Harvey Oswald de trouver un emploi au Texas School Book Depository d'où des coups de feu allaient être tirés le 22 novembre 1963, lors de la visite de John Fitzgerald Kennedy à Dallas.
Ruth Paine a toujours cru en l'unique culpabilité d'Oswald dans l'attentat du Président.

Marina Oswald a t-elle écrit ses mémoires ?

Marina Oswald Porter n'a pas écrit ses mémoires directement.
Elle s'est confiée à l'écrivaine Priscilla Johnson McMillan qui a écrit la biographie de Marina au travers de son ouvrage paru en 1977 : "Marina and Lee" (Harper & Row).
Ce livre n'a pas été traduit en Français.
La coïncidence a voulu que quelques années auparavant. (en 1959), McMillan avait eu l'opportunité d'interviewer un certain Lee Harvey Oswald au moment de la défection de ce dernier pour l'URSS.
McMillan et Oswald sejournaient alors à Moscou, dans le même hôtel et au même étage.

Marina Oswald a t-elle refait sa vie ?

Marina épousa en seconde noce, en 1965, un pilote de dragster, un certain Kenneth Porter. Personnage discret, il lui offrit son nom et sa protection.
Marina put alors élever ses filles June et Rachel dans un relatif anonymat.
Ils ont divorcé en 1970, pour finalement se retrouver quelques années plus tard.

Que sont devenus les enfants d'Oswald ?

Lee Harvey Oswald a eu deux filles :
– June, née en juin 1962
– Rachel, née en octobre 1963.
June est née en URSS au moment où Oswald vivait à Minsk. Rachel est née pour sa part quelques semaines avant l'attentat du 22 novembre. Elle naquit au Parkland Hospital, là où quelques semaines plus tard, son père, mortellement blessé par Jack Ruby allait cesser de vivre.
June et Rachel ont essayé de vivre tant bien que mal avec le lourd héritage que constituait celui d'être les filles de l'assassin présumé du Président John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Elles ont vécu sous des noms d'emprunt pour jouir d'un certain anonymat.
Très discrètes, elles ne se sont que très rarement exprimées sur le sujet. June l'a fait au travers d'une interview et Rachel s'est manifestée au moment du tournage du film JFK d'Oliver Stone.
Si June, à l'instar de son oncle Robert OSWALD est plutôt en faveur de la thèse officielle, sa soeur Rachel épouse plus volontiers les thèses de la conspiration.
Il faut reconnaitre enfin que Marina a pleinement réussi à préserver ses filles dans les années qui ont suivi l'attentat.

Pourquoi l'autopsie du Président n'a t-elle pas eu lieu à Dallas ?

L'autopsie du Président aurait du être réalisée à Dallas au Parkland Memorial Hospital où il décéda officiellement à 13 heures le 22 novembre 1963.
Le docteur Earl Rose devait pratiquer l'autopsie, sur place, conformément à la loi de l'état du Texas.
Pressés sans ménagement par le Secret Service qui avaient pour mission de ramener au plus vite le corps du Président à Washington, les médecins de Dallas furent obligés de céder.
Cette façon de procéder, en parfaite violation du droit texan, allait se révéler lourde de conséquences.
Les médecins qui allaient pratiquer l'autopsie à Bethesda le feraient sans connaissance préalable du corps du Président à son admission à l'hôpital de Dallas et avant que les praticiens de Parkland n'interviennent sur les blessures du Président, en particulier sur la blessure à la gorge, utilisée pour procéder à une trachéotomie.
Le docteur Humes assisté du docteur Finck pratiqua l'autopsie à l'hôpital naval de Bethesda dans la soirée du 22 novembre.

Jacqueline Kennedy a t-elle écrit ses mémoires ?

Jackie Kennedy n'a pas écrit ses mémoires. Certains prétendent que cette décision était la conséquence d'un accord pass avec la famille Kennedy, pour éviter que certaines informations gênantes ne tombent dans le domaine publique.
A cela, d'autres font valoir, à juste titre, que Jackie Kennedy s'est toujours appliquée à préserver la mémoire et la réputation de son mari pour ne pas altérer l'image et la place du défunt Président dans l'Histoire.
Toutefois, Jackie a laissé derrière elle deux enregistrements qui pourraient contenir des informations intéressantes pour les historiens. Les deux interviews données :
– l'une à William Manchester dans le cadre de l'écriture de son ouvrage Death of a President
– l'autre à Theodore H. White du Magazine Life,
sont malheureusement maintenues sous scellées et ne seront pas disponibles avant 2067.
Toutefois, Theodore H. White rapporte dans un livre paru en 1978, "In Search of History", que l'interview concernaient les évènements historiques et la mort de son mari. C'est maigre.<
Par ailleurs, selon William Johnson responsable des Archives de la John F. Kennedy Presidential Library de Boston, les enregistrements de William Manchester d'une durée de 313 minutes, comme ceux de Theodore H. White pourraient contenir des informations que les deux auteurs n'auraient pas utilisés pour la rédaction de leurs ouvrages respectifs.

Quelle était la marque et le type de la caméra utilisée par Abraham Zapruder au moment où il a pris le film de l'attentat de Dealey Plaza ?

Abraham Zapruder utilisait une caméra 8mm de la marque Bell et Howell.
Pour la petite histoire, sans l'insistance de sa secrétaire Marilyn Sitzman, Abraham ne serait pas aller chercher cette caméra dans le bureau de son magasin de confection de couture qui se trouvait dans Houston street, face au Texas School Book Depository, de l'autre côté de la rue.

Qui était l'homme qui apparaît sur la photo prise par la caméra de surveillance de l'ambassade d'URSS à Mexico ?

Contrairement à ce qu'a prétendu la CIA , en le présentant comme tel par "erreur" à la Commission Warren, l'homme sur la photo n'était pas Oswald.
Selon une source unique, donc impossible à vérifier, il s'agirait de : Youri Ivanovitch Moskalev, un officier du KGB soviétique.

Qui a enquêté sur le drame de Dallas ?

Chronologiquement, outre la police de Dallas et le bureau du Shérif qui ont géré les premiers moments, les organismes suivants ont pris une part active dans la recherche de la vérité
– Le FBI qui consignera le résultats de son travail dans un rapport préliminaire, puis dans un rapport complémentaire,
– La Commission du Président plus connue sous le nom de Commission Warren (du nom de son Président Earl Warren), mandaté par le Président Johnson pour faire toute la lumière sur l'assassinat dans l'"Executive Order n°11110" et qui remis un rapport au début du dernier trimestre de l'année 1964.
– Le HSCA (House Slected Committee on Assassinations) qui rouvrit le dossier et remis un rapport en 1978.
A ces organismes, il convient de rajouter l'enquête de Jim Garrison, District Attorney de la Nouvelle Orléans, qui prit l'initiative de déclencher sa propre enquête sur le sujet.
Enfin, en 1998, l'ARRB (Assassinations Review Board) recommanda dans son rapport la déclassification d'un nombre conséquent de document relatifs à l'assassinat, ce qui se produisit finalement.
Pour être complet, en 1975, dans le cadre de son enquête sur les agissements douteux de la CIA la "United States President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States", plus connue sous le nom de "Commission Rockfeller" s'intéressa plus particulièrement à la preuve photographique dans le but de vérifier la présence ou non d'agents de la CIA tels que Howard Hunt et de Frank Sturgis sur les lieux du drame.

Perry Raymond Russo - the last interview

Pierre NAU — 2022-10-10T13:01:45Z

This material is reproduced here by
permission
and thanks to Will Robinson

In the fall of 1992, Marilyn Colman and I traveled to New Orleans to visit our friend Suzanne White ,who recently relocated from the Monterey Peninsula to take the position of Program Directer for the
University of New Orleans public radio station. Prior to that, She held the same position at public radio station KAZU FM in Pacific Grove,vCalifornia.

Marilyn and I produced and co-hosted a weekly investigative news program entitled The Lighthouse Report on public radio station KAZU FM for 8 years. Perry Russo was only one of many we
interviewed concerning the JFK assassination.

We wish to express our appreciation to Ms. White for helping us to make to following interview possible.

Perry Raymond Russo may have been the most important witness in establishing the knowledge of a plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy, prior to November 22,1963.

Perry Raymond Russo wasb orn on May 14, 1941, to Francis Raymond Russo and Morie Kimbrell Russo. Perry spent most of his early years in the Gentilly section of New Orleans. He attended Our Lady of the Sea elementary school, maintaining about a C + average, and then went on to Colton Junior High School. In 1959 he was graduated from McDonogh High School. Noting that he was very active in school affairs, his brother recalled that Perry once outpolled a fellow student 400 to 70 votes for the class vice-presidency. First enrolling at Tulane university, Russo remained for two years and then, because his Catholic father wished it, he transferred to Loyola University and took his political science degree there in 1964. Perry's mother died in 1963. Francis Russo, his father, lived at 4607 Elysian Fields and was employed as a machinist at the Champion Rings Service. His brother Edwin, twenty-eight years old, took a master's degree at Tulane, and became an engineering instructor at
Louisiana State University while studying for his doctorate. Married, he had three children. Perry Russo worked for a financial division of the General Electric Company, but when he left his father's residence in 1966 to move to Baton Rouge he took a position as a salesman with the Equitable Life Assurance Society. Taylor Bernard, his superior, regarded Russo as one of the better newer sales persons, saying he was reliable and had done his job well. The Barry Goldwater campaign in 1964 drew Russo into his initial affiliation with the Republican party and he supported the Senator's Presidential efforts, although he has indicated that he might have been a little more at home with a more liberal candidate. (1)

It is unfortunate that, due the Mr. Russo's untimely death August 16th ,1995, the five-member Assassination Records Review Board established by the JFK Act, signed into law by President George Bush and sworn in on April 11, 1994, which came to New Orleans just one month and nineteen days earier to research and collect Jim Garrison files on the assassination investigation he conducted for the shaw trial and its aftermath, would be unable to call him as a witness based on the testimony he gave in the Shaw Trial.

Perry Russo testified about a "gathering" at David Ferrie's apartment. Russo stated that when he dropped in at Ferrie's place, "some where around the middle of September 1963," an informal gather ing – which he described as "some sort of party" – was just breaking up. Some of Ferrie's usual bevy of youngsters were there but soon left. Russo said a former girlfriend of his, Sandra Moffett, was also there for a while. After she departed, there remained, according to Russo, a scattering of anti-Castro Cubans – a group which occasionally came by to visit Ferrie. A few of them stayed on for a little while. Also there was a tall, distinguished-looking man who had what Russo described as "white hair."Ferrie introduced the man to Russo as "Clem Bertrand." Russo remembered having seen the tall, white-haired man once before, when President Kennedy was in New Orleans for the dedication of the Nashville Street Wharf. Russo had noticed the man because he was the only one not looking at Kennedy. The man had kept studying the crowd, and Russo had concluded that he was a Secret Service agent. At the gathering at the apartment, Russo recalled, Ferrie introduced him to a young man who was called "Leon Oswald." But Russo could not firmly identify this man as the same man he later saw on television as the suspect in the assassination, I,ee Harvey Oswald. After the others departed, only "Oswald," Bertrand, Ferrie, Russo, and several of the Cubans remained. (2)

As described in James DiEugenio's book, Destiny Betrayed(JFK,Cuba and the Garrison Case), "The group", reported Russo, discussed Cuban-American politics and everyone expressed their distaste for both Castro and Kennedy. Then, the assassination of Fidel Castro was raised,
but Bertrand noted that there would be a real problem getting at him inside Cuba.

Around this time the Cubans left, and only Ferrie, Oswald, Bertrand, and Russo remained. Ferrie continued the
conversation saying that if they could not get at Castro, they certainly had access to Kennedy. Russo said this was characteristic of Ferrie. Since he had known him, Ferrie had become more and more
embittered at the President. Russo had no liking for Kennedy either. He was a Republican and a Goldwater supporter. Joined by their stated hatred of JFK, the men now turned to the details of a plot to do away with him. Ferrie became intense. Pacing the floor, he expostulated on the way to do it : in a "triangulation of crossfire" – shooting at Kennedy from three directions. Ferrie insisted this would ensure that one of the shots would be fatal. As Ferrie became more excited and voluble, Bertrand remained calm, smoking, and added, coolly, that if it happened, they had to be away from the scene. Ferrie said he would be at Southeastern Louisiana campus in Hammond. Bertrand said he would be on a business trip to the West Coast. Russo realized that the discussion had now transcended the hypothetical. They were talking about where they would be when it occurred. Indeed, on his way back from Texas the weekend of the assassination, Ferrie did go see a friend at the university in Hammond. And on November 22, Shaw did have a speaking engagement in San Francisco. Ferrie kept on talking about a triangulated crossfire. But Russo was now tired and his memory weak. Ferrie drove him home that night.(3)

There has been quite a lot of controversy regarding the testimony and the character of Perry Russo. It is unfortunate that Perry Russo has never had the opportunity publicly respond to many of the so called critics other than through sound bite interviews etc. For this reason and because, as radio journalist, we feel one should be allowed to tell their story in their own words ; we wish to share what we believe may be the last complete interview given by Mr. Russo for the record. That is why it is entitled :

THE LAST TESTIMENT OF PERRY RAYMOND RUSSO
New Orleans :October 10, 1992

Marilyn Colman :

MC
Will Robinson :

WR
Perry Raymond Russo :

PR
MC :
I think one of the questions that has always been in my mind in
studying the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is... why New
Orleans ?"

PR :
Well, New Orleans in the early sixties was,
for two reasons, a hotbed of anti-Kennedy sentiment. The first and
least organized of the sentiment were the people that were the
segregationists of the fifties thirties and forties. These people hated
Kennedy with a passion. He had fought with Governor Wallace, he fought
with the other civil rights things he had visited in 1960. Martin
Luther King in one of the jail houses in Alabama and he represented a
drastic change to the social fabric of the South. New Orleans was
historically the leader of the South of opinions, of style, of
tradition and so on and most of the other cities attempted to emulate
it. So the concept of Kennedy as a "nigger lover" was very profound
here... was a very impressive feeling...we don't want to vote for the
"nigger lover" and so Kennedy was despised in that regard. However
there was an ambivalence here. In this particular city (it's a Catholic
city and he was the first Catholic president) and those that were
racists or segregationists hard core - that fought tooth and nail for
the continuation of the old system - Kennedy represented nothing but an
anathema to the system here. And at the same time I guess he was
appreciated for being a Catholic president. There was a group here and
it was probably the intelligencia of the Cuban exiles at this time
located here in New Orleans, as opposed to the vast majority of the
Cuban exiles who are congregated in southern Florida and in the very
tips of southern Florida. These were the masses of the Cuban who have
come out of Bastista in 1958,'59 and '60 and then settled in the United
States. These people were anxious to return. Each day that passed made
it more and more difficult and each child that they had made it more
and more difficult for these people to return. They did not want to
remain in the United States. They did not want to become US citizens.
They had no affinity or love for this country, except a respect and an
appreciation of what had gone on, with the help and assistance given to
those people who had been kicked out or had left Cuba because of the
Batista overthrow. So as time passed these people saw children growing
up learning to play American baseball, learning to go to American
teenage clubs, going to American schools learning English and, learning
Spanish somewhere in high school they could possibly get back to their
heritage. These people, the adults, became more and more disoriented
and became disillusioned with the United States' inability to do
something as regards Fidel Castro. The Bay of Pigs occurred and
everybody in the United States including the Cuban movement here knew
what had happened. We had in fact turned coward. And that cowardice had
fallen on Kennedy's shoulders for having waited until supposedly the
Cubans had reached the beachhead and then said, "well we don't want to
have a third world war". He can't offer the support, fulfill the
agreement he made of the support. The Cubans came back bitter and very
determined that they would mount a second invasion and they would do it
on their own. They had no use for the United States' promises made
through either the CIA or made through the Kennedys' statements. They
had no use for that. And so these Cubans began working hard. It was the
ethic in the Cuban community to work as hard as possible and as much as
possible with which to gather up money to buy guns and munitions and
store them. And these guns and munitions would later then be
transhipped to another location with which to made an invasion. That
concept of a second invasion was chosen somewhere in '62 I guess, or
early 63, to be Guatemala. And there was to be an invasion into the
western side of Cuba from Guatemala. The Cuban movement, or the Cubans
that I encountered here in New Orleans were hell-bent on making sure
that they would have that opportunity. These people were very
determined. They saw their children growing up and each day, as I said
before, passed. Each day made it harder. At that time that they would
have the opportunity to return to their home country because now they
would have the difficulty of not only going back to their homeland, but
of persuading their children who were becoming a few years older why it
is that they have to go back to Havana, to go back to Cuba, if in fact
they were successful in overthrowing Fidel If that were the case these
children, these kids, boys and girls would have nothing to do with it.
They don't know Havana. They just want to play at the local playground,
the local school and go to school and go out on dates and so on. These
people, the children were becoming Americanized. So the desperation was
beginning to set in. Now there were a series of events in the 60's and
late '62 that were read by the Cuban community differently than were
read by the rest of the United States. Particularly important was the
Cuban Missile Crisis that occurred in October of 1962. Here, we are
told by US news that there is a standoff between Kennedy and Kruschev,
and at the last minute before the blockade is breached by the Russian
transport ships carrying supposed missiles, that Kruschev blinked and
turned and walked away and said he would withdraw his missiles. Not so.
We knew, or maybe not ourselves, but the Cuban people knew and said it
very vocally that there had been a deal made. They had been betrayed.
They had been sold down the river. What did they mean by that ? Perhaps
best revealed by Robert Kennedy in a probably 1966 US News and World
Report interview. Robert Kennedy actually lists what happened because
he was the negotiator or the person that dealt between John Kennedy and
Kruschev in making this deal. Cubans would withdraw the missiles. And
six months after the missiles were withdrawn from Cuba (which were
non-functional, which were non-operational) we would then withdraw our
missiles from Turkey. That was the first secret part of the agreement.
Since Kennedy did not want that particular piece of information to be
blasted across the newspapers, it would make him look like a very
ineffectual president at best... that was kept secret. So in Turkey we
lived by that, we withdrew our missiles and that six months began
and...we have no missiles in Turkey. We have none. Then the second part
of the agreement : we would honor the Soviet alliance with Cuba insofar
as we would not allow another invasion to occur. Now every Cuban in New
Orleans, every Cuban I encountered, (Dave Ferry not being a Cuban)
formulated this view. That this was a betrayal, that this was a stab in
the back. This was a terrible thing that had been done.

WR :
I just want to interject one thing. OK, though you were saying that the
Cubans didn't necessarily want to deal with the CIA on the whole thing
or the intelligence community, why did they get mixed up with people
like Guy Bannister. Obviously with the SchlemBerger arms cache you have
people like Guy Bannister, people like Gordon Nobel you have...Dave
Ferry, and it was like they were still working together.

PR :
What you are saying is why didn't the Cubans want to get involved,
which the Cubans did not. They no longer.. they had lost a certain
amount of respect, in fact a great deal of respect, for the US pledge
to get rid of communism in the Northern Hemisphere. It was not that the
Cubans wanted to deal with the CIA - but the CIA wanted to deal with
the Cubans. Very important difference there, because the CIA would send
its people out and its contacts and its people had been in other
projects over the years and it would send these people out to make
contact and to help along with the movement to free Cuba. So here we
have a situation where there are CIA people.. now David Ferry, the Ace
and Alliance pilot who figured prominently in the summer of '63 with
Lee Oswald. Dave Ferry is supposedly in the Bay of Pigs dropping in
supplies. He's a pilot,from Eastern, dropping in supplies and ferreting
in men and so on and so forth. Supposedly that was his function. Now
it's not unreasonable for me to assume and to realize that contact was
made through him ..."help".. The CIA was an independent agency. It was
not any oversight congressional committee : "We don't approve of this
agreement we don't want you to do that". The CIA formulated
assassination plans at that time ; tried to destabilize governments. As
late as the Nixon era the CIA supposedly shot Allende in the palace
down in Chile.

MC :
I think that what you are saying proves out because Cuba has been left
alone these many thirty years.

PR :
Absolutely, absolutely ! And no one... and now there is another point to
this. It was the opinion of the Cubans here that they had been betrayed
by John Kennedy. Now being a guest in a foreign country, they couldn't
make that point. These were extremely patriotic people ! You are not
dealing with run of the mill lazy Americans who couldn't care less what
happened down the block, or worse yet, in a foreign country. You are
dealing with people that are out of their own country, that wanted it
back dearly. Very very volatile, very very emotional people They want
their country back yesterday. And they were betrayed by the United
States. And yet they still saw a possibility. They felt that there were
enough Cuban people inside of Cuba that once a beachhead was breached
and once they had been able to accomplish that and get inland, that
mere presence would force these everyday Cubans in the cities and so on
to jump up and throw Fidel and all the scum out of Cuba. That was their
theory. All they needed was just tolerance by the United States. The
CIA people, uncontrolled by anyone not even perhaps the President of
the United States, fomented that... "Yes ! let's get Castro ! Yes, lets
get Castro !. Do anything you can" ! It didn't make any difference to
them. So in fact the CIA began to funnel money in here through its
normal contacts. Its normal people who had been operatives for these
people in the past.

MC :
And that may have been Clay Shaw ?

PR :
...and that may have been Clay Shaw. Dave Ferry claimed to have been
working for them prior to this so I would assume that they would look
in their files and say, "Oh Ferry... David Woodrow Ferry...lets contact
him and see what he'll do". Ok so that occurred. It was in January of
'63 that Bobby Kennedy, in this interview, states that he went to the
President...maybe March of '63...and he said that the spirit of the
agreement with Kruschev is that we're not to allow an invasion from the
United States. However, you are facing an election in '64 and in March
of '63 he begins to think forward to the election. Bobby Kennedy was
the Attorney General.. Bobby Kennedy was also his most trusted advisor.
"You are facing an election coming up. Why allow something to happen
when we could just as easily interpret that agreement to mean that we
will not allow an invasion of Cuba from anywhere into Cuba. Cuba will
from hereafter forever just be a nuisance". And that is what they have
always been since this date. So, by executive order, John Kennedy
authorized the infiltration of the Cuban movement. By executive order
to the Attorney General who then gives it off to the FBI and so on. Now
the CIA is international. The FBI is supposed to be domestic. So the
FBI begins to infiltrate the Cuban movement at this time and begins
to...just to see what it is doing...what kind of strength it has. What
kind of plans it has and so it goes on with this. Now you go back to
the October of 1962 Crisis and the second agreement is that we will not
allow an invasion. That is further interpreted not from just the
mainland because if we in fact allow an invasion from Mexico or
Guatemala Honduras or El Salvador to the east into Western Cuba, what
have you done but done the same thing but called it by another name,
you are sponsoring an invasion. So that was not acceptable in the
finest interpretation of the agreement. The third thing of the
agreement, the most symbolic thing of the agreement and Bobby Kennedy
refers to is that we guaranteed that Fidel Castro's beard could grow as
long as his toes... all the way to his feet. We would never ever allow
any attempt on him or any destabilization or any assassination attempts
that may have not been because the CIA was trying to foment it all the
while. So you had uncontrolled arms that one hand didn't know what the
other hand was doing.

WR :
This brings up the very
important point about Oswald. There is the belief in the possibility
that Oswald might have been one of these moles working for the FBI
within the anti-Castro Cuban community there. I mean, I understand
that's something that comes to mind anyway, because it was alluded to,
I believe, in the movie itself and I've seen it in print.

PR :
My encounter with Oswald was at a meeting in '63 where I had gone just
happenstance to visit Dave Ferry on an evening. As Dave Ferry came down
the spiral staircase, it was a sort of spiral staircase...

WR :
You were an insurance salesman at that time.

PR :
No, at this time I'm a student. You see I'm in school. OK. He... this
is the late summer of '63. Dave Ferry has come over to my house with
Cubans on occasion...I'd been to his house. There had been Cubans and
various other people with him at various times which...(how much faith
you put into these people and their claims and their talk...is its
real ? I'm not sure)..so at this particular night, for lack of having
anything else to do on a hot summer New Orleans night I then go...

WR :
How old were you then

PR :
about 25...23

WR :
So you were a student.

PR :
Yeah, at Loyola.

MC :
And obviously, (after spending three days in the French Quarter), it
was even an exciting place to go wasn't it ?

PR :
The French Quarter...You look for excitement, something to do . There
was always something to do. It's a city that rarely sleeps. There's
always bars, there always music, there's always jazz and at this time
there was always Dave Ferry. He seemed to be up all the time, 24 hours
a day. He was very very insomniac so to speak.

MC :
And he was very welcoming to young men and to the excitement of the
Quarter.

PR :
Now Dave Ferry and I had prior contacts for a year and a half. Some bad
and some good. But anyway in this particular instance and visit,
unnannouced or I didn't tell him that...and then Dave Ferry comes down
and as we're walking up the staircase of his house he says, "oh yeah, I
have a roommate, Oswald." I thought nothing about it . I knew Dave
Ferry was bizarre. He went in for bizarre-natured relationships. It
wasn't a big deal whatsoever.

MC :
People were very integrated among that society that I've experienced in
the Quarter. Everyone accepts everyone, don't they ?

PR :
Right. Yeah, you have to. You have to accept them at face value. You
don't know whether or not that's a valid analysis of the person you're
dealing with. You have to wait over time. But you accept them at face
value. I walked up and upon entering the house, the room...I walked up
and Oswald is sitting down fooling with a rifle, cleaning it or doing
something with it. And I walked and turned and just out of a natural
way I have, I stuck out my hand to shake hands. He jumped up and lunged
at me and said "What in the fuck is he doing here ?" And I backed up and
I said, "Fuck you" and with some other expletive and then Dave Ferry
jumped in between and told Oswald "he's alright".

WR :
So exactly as it was portrayed in JFK is exactly the way it happened.

MC :
Very very jumpy, very hyper. Sort of disoriented, would you say ?

PR :
Oswald ?

MC :
Oswald.

PR :
No ! Absolutely not !

MC :
Very focused ?

PR :
Very focused. Yeah, on whatever. And he objected to my presence. So
then, you know, I didn't need him. Who was he ? I didn't care. And then
I went in and then there happened to be a few Cubans there. Some I had
seen before. Ferry, there were some people that came in and out. Shaw,
who I hadn't seen before and various other people coming in and out. It
seemed like there was always a milling of people about. Now, so the
very oldest time when I first was interviewed by the DA of New Orleans.
For lack of any other word I called it a party. It wasn't !

MC :
It was just people hanging out.

PR :
Hangin !

MC :
You know why we can understand that because I... in my...at the same
age you were...I was in the Haight Ashbury. And it was exactly the
same. There were houses in the area...which was the Haight
Ashbury...people went in these houses and out of these houses. Just
hung around. It wasn't really a party. Everyone knew everyone. When I
speak with people about knowing some interesting characters that we
know about, for instance Michael Reconisciutto which is an important
character, everyone knew people. You saw them but you didn't really
know them.

WR :
What you are saying is that you'd get
together. People got together. It was a hot night. People started
drinking, sitting around. Shooting the bull.

PR.
Ok, so
this particular night at this time there seemed to be...Dave Ferry
seems...you have to understand Dave Ferry. First of all, he was an
Eastern Airlines pilot who had been bumped from the Airline for
allegedly putting a jet on automatic and riding around and supposedly
having sex up in the air while the jet is on automatic. He made
phenomenal amounts of money compared to that time...you know that would
be huge amounts of money. He had no dependents except his mother and so
he lead the life he wanted to lead. He was an adventuresome type of
person. There wasn't anything that he wasn't ready to attempt to
conquer or challenge that he wouldn't take. But he was obsessed with
the Latin type for himself, sexually and otherwise. But the Latin type
was something he was very interested in. So that didn't seem out of the
way. I had seen him with so many different types, but you have to
understand that Dave Ferry was the center axis of a wheel and all the
spokes moved from Dave Ferry and none as you pointed out, none ever
touched the other. He had a relationship with me. He had a relationship
with Oswald. He had a relationship with Shaw. He had a relationship
with the Cubans. He had a relationship with the others and they did not
have interrelationships. You dealt with Dave Ferry to Dave Ferry and
outward from him. So therefore, Dave Ferry, who, on this particular
night was absolutely obsessed with Cuba. He was pacing back and forth
and ranting and raving on his coffee table, which sat in the middle of
the room. Always You could find one cup stuck on top of another cup
full of cigarette butts. You'd find beer cans here and there. He was a
bachelor. He had absolutely no sense of keeping things in order. And
everything in his home...there were little cages with mice and rats and
so on. And these are things that... he had doctorate degrees on the
wall from universities. Don't know if they were valid. In that day you
couldn't purchase those things. Nowadays you can order through the mail
and become a PHD overnight.

MC :
And he looked very bizarre.

PR :
OK, the bizarre nature of his look was...that was my first encounter.
We can go back to that in a little bit but this particular night...
pacing back and forth, pacing back and forth. He was very frustrated.
This is after the raids that the FBI made on August 3rd, 7th and 10th I
think of 1963 on his munitions dump. Not his, but on the Cuban
munitions dumps around.. Schlumberger,Houma and the other areas around
the lake where guns were being stored and he was just ... now it was
so, I guess, decided by several circles that not only would (they) not
allow an invasion from another country they were going to actively
frustrate it. So someone was reporting where these things were and
someone was giving them very good information. And then all of a
sudden, if you read the articles of the Times Picayune, local newspaper
of New Orleans, at that time you will see that all of the places that
were raided no arrests were made. Because, what are you doing arresting
people who are patriots storing munitions for no other reason than to
blow a communist head off in Cuba ? Why would you arrest somebody ? You
couldn't do that. So all you did was confiscate the weapons. This meant
to the Cubans again another sign of betrayal who enunciated it very
clearly to Dave Ferry, that this was betrayal - that they could not
redeem themselves. They could not bounce back from, because now they
would not be able to invade on their own. Money that they had...these
Cubans were absolutely the best hardest working people in the whole.
They would put Americans to shame with their long hours. They were
collecting... at that time you could buy anything you wanted at the
local military store. You could buy hand grenades, you could buy
rifles, you can buy bazookas. You can buy anything you had money for.
There were no laws against it. You could transship it out. Until April
or May when, after recommendation by Bobby Kennedy, Jack Kennedy
authorized the Commerce Department, the State Department to say you
must get a permit to transship anything over a size of a 12 gauge
shotgun out of this country. If you get those two you can ship it. But
if you don't you can't. You could still buy them. They were still
thinking of shipping them. They would figure a way out. They were very
very aggressive people about figuring out ways that they would do
without. So you can buy another weapon because that will return us to
the homeland...that will return us to Cuba.. So Ferry was upset. There
was a map. I distinctly remember a map of Cuba and I also distinctly
remember that there was an old phonograph machine with a 78, I guess,
record album on there of a speech by whoever...probably Fidel. It could
have been Raul, it could have been Che Guevera, I wouldn't have known.
Probably Fidel ranting and raving. I could pick up words here and a
little bit lingo and the Cubans here were just absolutely incensed by
everything said out loud on this record. And the Cubans were incensed
by this. Just upset about this. And then over the evening there was
Ferry parading around..."we cannot invade, we don't have any guns what
are we going to use..bows and arrows ? you know this is really the
shits". You know and he's back and forth back and forth, you know...
upset. And then by contribution from everybody around it was, you know,
sort of...we got to assassinate Castro. That's it ! That'll work !
Assassinate Castro. That'll work ! OK.."

MC :
What amazes me
about Ferry in this scene. Now as I said again it takes an
understanding of New Orleans to understand this. That fact is this is
very open. Ferry didn't try to hide his sentiments ?

PR :
OK
the fact that it was open - there was an anti-Kennedy sentiment that he
was no good. Therefore for whatever reason, because he had integrated
the schools and everyday you heard about a new court order and everyday
you heard about the legislature trying to circumvent that with
nullification. None of which worked and the Attorney General's office,
Bobby Kennedy - Kennedy was a name was very aggressive in pursuing the
black vote.

MC :
So Kennedy could have been assassinated in
New Orleans. The fact that he ended up being assassinated in Dallas -
it could have easily have happened here.

PR :
Oh yeah sure. It could have easily happened here.

MC :
Would you say that the South, in general, was very angry with John F.
Kennedy ?

PR :
The South in general...that is why in the '64 election we have Johnson
running against Goldwater and I am a rabid Goldwater man. They are only
five states that go for Goldwater. Every one of the five was in the
South. There was Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama and Georgia.
All five go for Goldwater...their electoral votes. The rest of the
states go for Johnson in a huge landslide in which ...the great
mandate. Down south it was not. He was an anathema too because he came
in worse than Kennedy concerning the racial situation down here. But
the Kennedy thing...Dave sort of began to formulate this plot to
assassinate Castro : And then what happens if you're unsuccessful ? What
happens if you have problems getting into Cuba.? Oh, he had all this
worked out. He in his mind had all this worked out. "Send in three
assassins. They must be willing to die." Well there's people, there are
people that are willing to die in the fuselage. "They must have visas
that is very important because they would have to look for (the) right
time in which to make the attack against Fidel. So they would have to
have freedom of movement around Cuba...and if there were a seven hour
speech in Havana then they could sit there and listen to that and
figure out maybe here, maybe next time...whenever."

MC :
So he could not do that by himself, he had to have the intelligence
agencies working with him.

PR :
OK it's my opinion that Oswald went to Mexico City for the sole purpose
of getting the visa. In order to do that he must look, in all public
appearances, to be very pro-Cuba. If you think back to the sixties and
early seventies H.Rap Brown, Eldridge Cleaver, Newton, Seal, all of
them end up in Havana on Havana Radio blasting the imperialist
colonialist enslaving United States. That we have a racist society that
exploits people and so therefore there will be revolution because
there's going to be revolution in the streets. So how do you create
this with Oswald ? Oswald is a good choice for a number of reasons. One
is he has a Russian wife. Two is he's an official defector who reenters
the United States very easily. So he is now associated with anti-Castro
Cubans but that is relatively secret. The Cuban secret police is not on
the streets of New Orleans you see. So he has to create some kind of
public image of being pro-Marxist. Pro Castro, pro Russian. So how does
he do that ? Well he comes to meetings with us and then the next day
he's out on the street, or the next week , or next couple of weeks,
he's out on the street distributing pamphlets for Fair Play for Cuba
Committee, Hands off Cuba Committee, New Orleans Chapters. Those
chapters didn't exist. But yet he's doing that. And...

WR :
Working out of the office of Guy Bannister.

PR :
Right, working out of the office of Guy Bannister and ...'

WR :
Did you know Guy Bannister ?

PR :
No I didn't. So he's doing that. He gets slugged on the street, pushing
match. He sticks out his chest. "Hit me." He gets arrested, brought
down to First District, no central booking here in the city at that
time, brought down to First District. A man with...

WR :
Did Joe Carlos Bringier the person who...

PR :
I know who he is but no, I didn't know him at the time. OK he goes down
and gets booked out on a ten dollar cash bond and what does he do the
next day ? He ends up on WWL Radio debating Ed Scanlon ...on the
relative merits of Marxism vs capitalism, whatever, and from seven to
ten, nine to ten, I'm not sure what it is the CIA paid for this
broadcast because its clear channel 50 thousand watts zoom straight
into Cuba ! So here is the Cuban police...this guy, well he's one of us,
he's a friend of ours . Yeah, they probably have a big file on him. So
this is decided then you know that Lee Oswald is to go to Mexico City
to get the visa. Which he goes. The CIA is there but they will not
reveal what it is that they found out about his entry into the Cuban
embassy . For some reason or another the Cuban embassy turns down his
application. Every other anti-US person who has gotten any notoriety
will end up ...

WR :
Well that brings up another gray area
because there is also speculation that Oswald himself never went to
Mexico. Because when they did produce a picture that was supposed to be
Oswald out in front of the Russian embassy I think it was, it wasn't
Oswald.

MC :
And you mentioned that you knew this gentleman that was the spitting
image of Oswald.

PR :
Right. There was a fellow that Dave Ferry had, who was a gun enthusiast
and supposedly a great shot.

WR :
that's Santana ?

PR :
Santana, Yeah,

WR :
Not William Seymore, but Santana.

PR :
Santana, yeah. And Santana - oh he would go Cuba. But he was wanted in
Cuba. He was wanted in Cuba for crimes against the state or whatever
thing, and his visa might have been found out. But at least under the
name of Oswald when, for most, ninety nine out of a hundred people he
would have fit. There would have never been any question. Boom ! Stamp
the visa you're in ! Go about your business. He spoke Spanish. He could
probably handle himself and he would have probably been very effective.

WR :
You're talking about Santana

PR :
Santana Yeah. Now I don't know if that was going to be the case, but
that was one of Dave Ferry's friends.

MC :
There were sightings of several people who called themselves Oswald.
There was a situation where there was a gentleman going to buy cars. We
don't think they were Oswald. Lots of other researchers don't believe
that it was Oswald.

WR :
So now that we don't get confused,
this meeting, or not this meeting, this "get together" at Dave Ferry's
house in which Oswald was present... now, was that the one where Clay
Shaw was present ?

PR :
Yeah, sure thing.

WR :
Now how did he come about into this. Because you said at one point that
before that, you had never known of the connection between all these
people.

PR :
OK there was no connection between one to the
other that was very obvious. None of the groups mixed well. I was
always asked who did Oswald associate with. He didn't associate with
anybody.

MC :
He was just a friend of Ferry's.

PR :
Yeah he was a friend of Ferry's who sat there...who I didn't get along
with and he sat there and he was observant. Well, that could be said of
a number of people. The only one that didn't fit was Shaw 'cause he was
dressed too well to belong with this group.

WR :
Did you know who he was at the time ? Or you had no idea. I had seen him
before. I thought he was secret service.

MC :
He looked like we'd say "the heat".

PR :
He looked like heat. Well, when I had seen him in 1962 with the Federal
...the National Avenue Wharf here in New Orleans, I was at Loyola
University and it was announced - of course it was in the paper...that
classes were going to be called at 1:30 or 1:00 to go over if you were
interested. Run over to National Wharf which is not far from Loyola
University. And you would have an opportunity to see a president...a
Catholic president who was coming to dedicate the National Federal
Wharf, which he did. So I went over and I got over there a little late.
And I got there just about the same time that the motorcade was pulling
on to the outside apron of the Wharf and it was exciting and all that
kind of stuff. And at last I would see a president. And see him with
all his entourage. So I went in the back of the cavernous auditorium or
cavernous wharf warehouse type of building..huge thing. Stretching
three or four straight long blocks. They may have had two thousand
chairs there for visitors and people to go and hear the President speak
and see all the regalia and all the excitement and all that. And there
may have been that many people there. Toward the back of the auditorium
as I walked in, the one person that caught my attention was Shaw. I
looked and he was the only person not looking at the stage. And so I
figured oh well he's secret service. Because that would be the job.
Whey wouldn't you look and hear what the president had to say and see
all the excitement. He wasn't. He was looking the other way. And so
that was all to that. There was the only other time I had seen him. So
anyway getting back to that particular night...Ferry, being challenged
by various people about whether or not it's possible that you could
shoot Castro, and a very small percentage of being able to get away
with it. And then assume that the people would rise u,p if that were
possible. No one at the police station, heavily armed everywhere. Well
that's not... you can't... that won't work... you know and various
people indicated problems with that particular thing. So someone said
the real bastard is Kennedy. If we can't get Castro get Kennedy. Blame
it on someone that likes Castro and the US will go to war. Just simply
we'll go to war in a rage and Castro will be eliminated and that will
be the end of that. And the Cubans can return to their homeland and
everybody will be happy and we'll have no communists in North America
or South America. Well, that was challenged too. You know various
people.. Shaw....Oswald had remarked too, I'm not sure...I'll have to
think about this as to what was possible about that. One challenge to
Ferry was you can't get close enough to the President in order to pull
this off with any degree of accuracy or any degree of hopeful
expectations of being successful. Ferry said, "what are you talking
about ?" He said when Eisenhower came to New Orleans in 1956 or '58 or
something on a visit, he came to New Orleans. He said, now either he's
saying he or he's saying he knows someone who did, went all the way up
to the limousine and touched it before he was stopped. You know, trying
to go up there and grab Ike's hand or something before he was stopped.
"And if he can do that", he said, "carefully planned, you can execute".
He said, "after all, I can fly him out the country. What I'll do is fly
him down to Mexico or down to Brazil." He said, "I can handle that." He
said well by going to Brazil (there) is no extradition. He said we
would probably have to sacrifice someone or two. And then it would be
successful. There would be an instant rage against Castro having pulled
this off. That's almost what happened. On the day of the assassination
Dave Ferry ran off to Houston in a rainstorm and parked at a roller
rink or an ice skating rink and stood there six of seven hours.
Wouldn't let anybody use the public telephone. Nothing ever happened.
He became obnoxious about preventing other people from using it and
then left. He had gone and something happened. Whether or not he was
going there for a pre-setup or meeting, who knows. No one knows. But it
was very strange behavior on his part. Guy Bannister, for whom he had
worked. Guy Bannister, on the day of the assassination or the next day,
went into his house closed the door, closed the shutters and never left
again. He did not operate his office. Within a week he did this. He did
not operate in his office. He closed down shop and several eight months
later (was) found dead at the bottom of the stairs. I know this because
I know people that knew him and they said that they had to go out and
bring food to him. He would call them and say well I need...

WR :
This is Guy Bannister you're talking about.

MC :
He became extremely paranoid. He thought he was going to get killed.

PR :
Yeah.

WR :
Well, this was after the incident which was on the day of the
assassination where he pistol whipped Jack Martin.

PR :
Jack Martin, Yeah.

WR :
Yeah because, that was an amazing thing in itself. That was in the
Warren Commission and how people could miss that...

PR :
Just forget it.

WR :
Well they wanted that.

MC :
Do you think that he was having a nervous breakdown or do you feel that
he was killed.

PR :
No hey it was a ...he believed himself to be a target. That's what I
would feel. And I believe that he did not die from falling down the
steps which would have been an accidental...

WR :
That the way we feel about a lot of these deaths surrounding this whole
thing.

PR :
Breaking of the neck.

WR :
It just happened all too fast.

PR :
But he completely withdrew from the world.

WR :
Ok so did ... what happened was David Ferry finally got around to
talking about getting Kennedy - shooting Kennedy.

PR :
Yeah, because he was challenged about Castro's successful...

PR :
And he was talking about...triangle or rifle fire.

PR :
yeah he said there would have to be a triangulation of crossfire and
then he went around and just paced back and forth. He was drinking
coffee, gulping coffee, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes and he has
this triangulation - he kept using his hands with the index finger and
the big finger and the thumb showing it would have to come from
triangulation. He said there has to be a diversionary shot. He says you
do not pull off an assassination without diverting. He says no matter
what you read in the books that the secret service is supposed to speed
up, he said it will not. It'll be so startled, he said, they will slow
down. That's what they did ! And that moment, once the diversionary shot
catches everybody's attention we all look to the right or to the left
to see a diversionary shot. At that time the dead ringer hits and you
are successful. You have to have planned escape routes beforehand. He
says you have to be willing to sacrifice somebody.

MC :
So he absolutely was not shot from the back.

PR :
Well, now I can't say. He was shot in this triangulation of crossfire.
He would have been shot in the crossfire. He could have been shot at
one of the three legs...

WR :
Well, in relation to the head shot is what you are saying.PR From the
back..

.MC :
The head shot

PR
The head shot comes from the front. So much evidence that would
point... so many witnesses... so much evidence that would point to
that... and for those apologists... even the medical people that come
up now... you are talking about a crazy bunch of crap. That does not
work ! I've dealt with guns. I know the direction of fire. There is no
way the body comes at you when you shoot at it.

WR :
I was in the service myself and I've shot firearms and it doesn't work
that way.

PR.
It goes in line of fire, the line of direction and it's gonna move that
way. And all of the apologists that will come up with these convoluted
theories just to make then fit. It doesn't work.

MC :
They're desperate.

PR :
They're desperate. OK, so picture 1963. In New Orleans I know, whenever
there is any kind of a crime scene right away the police rope off
everything. Do not touch, do not enter, do not cross. They gather up
all the available physical evidence and they bring it in to the police
stations and this is done (on) a grander scale by all the resources of
the Federal Government. Get it together. Once Oswald was dead it became
very easy to incriminate him. He had a Russian wife. She was not going
to challenge anything anybody said. She had only been in this country a
couple of years. She did not know that there were avenues to say oh no
you can't say my husband did it, oh no you can't do this, you can't
accuse him. No, there was no one to champion Lee Oswald. There was no
one. So therefore the Federal investigative agencies that dealt with
this had all of the evidence in front of them. Well we have problems.
The problem is as the Zapruder film shows is this bad jerk backwards.
How can we handle that ? Then Senator Spector, then investigator for the
Warren Commission then well...if in fact he was hit by the same
bullet... you don't know all this speculation that went on in the
background. And some of which then becomes plausible with the fact that
there are how many volumes ? 60 volumes of this stuff of evidence that
was...

WR :
It was 26, I think.

PR :
26 volumes
of evidence that was supposed to support this of which only three pages
can with even a convolution of logic can possibly deal with this
question.

WR :
See, we are all familiar with that. We want to stay on with what your
involvement with this was, because...

PR :
Sure. OK, Yeah.

MC :
So the Stone's, the way the movie had this scene with David Ferry was
absolutely what happened.

PR :
Yeah, Stone, in the JFK movie that he produced, it followed true to
form the Garrison case as to Garrison's presentation of evidence. The
Joe Pesci handling of Dave Ferry, that paranoia,that complete control
of everything...

WR :
Manic behavior.GPR That type of
personality Dave Ferry was. And it was handled very very true to the
history of that period in particular, the history of New Orleans. There
other questions... you know there are five things to what we are
talking about. I did not like the accents but that's my own personal
opinion of the movie.

WR :
So picking up from August or
early September of 1963 we have this meeting, or not meeting, this "get
together" at David Ferry's house, informal get together, and present
there was Lee Harvey Oswald, Clay Shaw known at that time as Clay
Burke, introduced to you as Clay Burtram and David Ferry.

PR :
Bertrand.

WR :
Ok Bertrand. So at that time you didn't think much of ....you didn't
really take seriously the raving and ranting of Dave Ferry was talking
about concerning the possible assassination of a president.

PR :
Well ok, I don't know whether to have taken Dave Ferry seriously at all
or whether or not I made no opinion about him. I probably made no
opinion about him. Because I had heard these sentiments throughout New
Orleans and the surrounding parishes or counties. It was an
anti...bitterness against Kennedy. "He should be dead, somebody should
shoot him. I'd put up a medal to someone that shot him." Those kinds of
remarks... you heard those every day. It was no different. Ferry was a
little bit different because he did say, this is the way you do it,
this is what we should do, this is plan A, this is plan B. And Ferry
had always in the past been able to back up what he said with different
actions and different things. However bizarre they may have been .
Whether Ferry was serious or not, don't know. But he was around the
same people that showed up in Dallas. Supposedly. There was Lee Oswald
in Dallas. He had been here...supposedly a roommate of Ferry's'. Marina
Oswald said that he never ever was away from her bed each night in New
Orleans. That's not true. And I'm sure that she would admit to it now
that he beat her. She's admitted to that and I'm sure he stormed out of
there and went someplace and when he went someplace he'd (Ferry) just
(said) this is my roommate. That is how he was introduced. That didn't
mean a big deal...he was unshaven. That was not a big deal to me
either. So when the assassination occurred I was leaving...at twelve
thirty on November 22, 1963 I left Political Science 315 for Father
Clancy at Loyola University...a raving liberal nut ! And I had to fight
the Jesuits and fight his philosophy and fight his politics and now we
had right about the angels and right below God, a President who was a
Catholic. And here was Father Clancy. So I left the class. Political
Science 315 convened at 12:30 or a quarter to one, whatever...So I left
and I left Loyola University and was headed home, as was my occasion,
and I turned on the radio. Local radio station WTIX and the WTIX
announcer about 12:45 was playing rock and roll music and he
.interrupts the music and says, "I don't know what this means I don't
know if this is true but," he says "we just got a wire over AP wire
saying that the President has been shot in Dallas. We'll get back to
you as soon as we can verify this information." So I switched to
another station which was a network station WDSU and began listening
and they began to corroborate that. And so I drove quickly, I was six
or eight blocks from Loyola Grove, back to the campus and drove in on
the campus over the grass and everything else. People began to move
around. Maybe they had heard something too, and to Father Clancy's 316
class, and I said, "Ha Ha Ha Your boy just got shot." And they said
who ?, and I said Kennedy . And the guy stood up and... "you John
Bircher no good son of a bitch" in front of Father Clancy. And so I
smiled and laughed and walked out of there. There was vengeance now by
whomever. And then by the time I got home it was announced that they
had made an arrest of an Oswald. And I said Oswald ? I looked at the TV.
I'm sitting down with someone and I said, when they showed his picture
the first time, he showed his picture the second time. They showed his
picture on TV I said, "I know that bird." And I began to become just
fascinating by the turn of events and all of the evidence and within
three hours you knew Oswald had done it. It was all over. He had done
it. They had gotten their man. They were sure he had done it and so on.
And everybody was testifying to that so that was it. I was now going to
return to school. And I spoke this bit of information to other people
and we talked about it, you know, and that was it. So I went about the
fall school semester and continued through school and about my life. So
that was what happened all the way up to that date.

MC :
It's an interesting ...you were going to a Jesuit college correct.

PR :
Jesuit university. They had Jesuit teachers there. It's a non sectarian
Catholic owned university. Loyola University of the South just like
Loyola University of Chicago and Loyola University of LA, right ?

MC :
There were a lot of Jesuit connections to many of these stories.

PR :
Well I wouldn't doubt that. The Jesuits were the intellectual arm of
the Catholic Church created back as a counterbalance to the reformation
when Martin Luther and the others came about with their arguments
against Catholic heresy, the Jesuits came out with their affirmation of
Catholic theology as being correct and having a continuous nature all
the way back to Peter. And so the Jesuits were the intelligent arm of
the Catholic Church and they still remain so. They are the teaching arm
of the Catholic Church for the most part.

WR :
Ok, before
we get on a completely different subject...so now we have Kennedy dead
and a reporting that Oswald is the suspect...did it. Now what did that
do to you ? What started clicking in your mind ...did something click in
your mind at all about the meetings with Ferry and all them ?

PR :
Well, nothing exceptional because he was just one of a number a
characters that had said essentially the same thing. I was more
fascinated by the films and by the interviews that they were doing over
in Dallas and other places that Oswald had been. When it was connected
up that he was from New Orleans that's the first time that I really
thought well, that's the same guy. I'd seen a picture of him and it
looked like him. But it was now the same guy and he was from New
Orleans. There couldn't have been two, you know with that look and with
that name.

WR :
So sure. you didn't see one of the people that they claimed were the
Oswald doubles or the lookalikes ?

PR :
Well, you see that has always been a question about that. Because
Oswald as I remembered it, and the encounter at Ferry's apartment, when
Ferry told me as we walked up the stairwell, he said, Oh I have a
roommate – Oswald, he gave me the first name. I thought he said Leon.
But it may not have been. Yeah, it may have been Lee. I...walked up the
steps and then that bad encounter with Oswald and then went about my
business. And we didn't have much interchange then.

MC :
So what was your first encounter with Jim Garrison ?

PR :
Well, in February of '67 I'm in Baton Rouge going to school and also
working up there for Equitable Life Insurance Co. and the newspapers in
Baton Rouge then had...an article comes out : "New Orleans District
Attorney reopens an inquiry into the Kennedy assassination." Well this
is interesting. And so there's a quick rehashing in the articles that
are up there : Kennedy assassination - that there was a New Orleans
connection to what happened in Dallas. So, and then all of a sudden
there is a reference to David Woodrow Ferry. And I'm sitting there
reading that on a Wednesday or a Thursday and I said, David Woodrow
Ferry...could it be the same one ? The next day his picture is in the
paper in Baton Rouge and its the one and only. So at this time I penned
out a letter, wrote a letter to the DA's Office, knowing that if I
didn't contact them they would contact me. I would have to have been
somewhere in the notebook somewhere on a telephone inscription or
something...or my name.... (they) would contact me. Why not contact
them first.

WR :
So at this time did you start thinking about that night with Oswald and
Ferry ?

PR :
Sure. And so I wrote a letter saying "I would be in on Saturday the
26th of February of '67. That I had known Dave Ferry and I had heard
him state that he was going to shoot the President and it wouldn't be
very long. So if you have someone at the DA office I will be there at
six pm Saturday evening. If no one is there I will assume that you are
not interested." So on Friday, because of a lack of funds...'cause I
was in college at the time and was absolutely broke...for lack of
funds...I started thinking that Kansas was playing LSU baseball
Saturday that somehow or another I just wasn't going to go to New
Orleans 'cause I couldn't afford it. It would cost two or three dollars
in gas and I didn't have a place to stay and so on. So a number of
changes came into being and so I decided not to go to Baton Rouge. And
then I called Baton Rouge Detective Bureau or Sheriff s Office and
asked them about the investigation. I was relatively naive in the sense
of knowing whether or not they would...I thought they would have at
least some interest in it. The Baton Rouge Detective Bureau person that
answered said that they didn't know anything about this DA Garrison's
inquiry. "But, I said, "was there any possibility that you could ask me
pertinent questions and take a stenography of it ?" And they said, "well
we wouldn't know what to ask." I said, "well when can I get someone to
do this." And they said, "well call the newspaper. They'll do it." So I
called Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, The State Times and talked to Jack
Kemp or someone there. Eventually talked to Jack Kemp and then an
interview was given. And then from there that same night, Friday night
at about ...well I went to the baseball game. I went somewhere and I
came home at 9:00 o'clock. I said my duty was done. I did not know it
was in the newspaper. So I come home and all of a sudden there people
everywhere around the house. WBRZ Channel Two News ; WAFB had notes in
the doorway : "please contact me" and so on. And so I'm startled by all
this and then someone from WBRC pulls up : "You Perry Russo ? We want to
talk to you." Maybe it was WAFB, I'm not sure. I think it was WAFB. And
so I said, "well, what is it about ?" "Well about the article in the
State Times, the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate." Well you know anyhow I
was just dragged away and kept a prisoner at Channel 2 Studios, maybe
it was. They wouldn't let me out (of) there after talking to me. They
didn't want the other station to get it. So they kept me until 5:00 so
that the other station wouldn't be able to get its news on its news.
You know, I guess well I didn't have any idea what they were, why they
were, we'll get you a sandwich you just stay here. The guy who gave you
a ride here isn't around. We can't give you a ride back. Well I had no
money for that, ok well, I'll eat a sandwich. And then I went
eventually ...I started thinking that maybe they were playing games,
which they were, and so then I eventually went home. When I got home...
I'm home an hour or half an hour and there's a knock at the front door.
At this time I don't want to see anybody... nobody. There's a knock at
the front door and a guy identifies himself. He says, "I'm Andrew
Shambrook. I'm from New Orleans District Attorney's Office and he shows
his identification. He said, "could I speak with you ? At first he asked
who I was. I said Perry Russo. I said, yeah you can come on in. And we
sit down in the front room. After some preliminary small talk. he said,
"I would like you to look at some photographs and tell me if anyone
there that you know or have seen or remember." So he goes through a
series of twenty or thirty photographs and did not take any notes. All
he did was mark the back of the photographs, put a little x or check or
something on the back of the photograph. And he showed quite a few of
the people that I knew - that I had met through Dave Ferry. Of course
Dave Ferry was one of them. He came to Oswald. I said, "Yeah I know
him. That Ferry's roommate but he's a little dirtier." I said, "Oswald
(is) just unshaven, two three days you know." And he said yeah, and
marked it and then Shaw and then Sergio Accacia.

WR :
He actually had a picture of of Shaw with him. That's interesting.

MC :
That is very interesting. So that means it was an early...in the movie
they talk about Shaw early on in the movie but no one could ...but they
didn't call him...wait a minute..

PR :
Bertrand, He asked
me his name. He said, "what was his name." And I said, "Bertrand, Clem
Bertrand. He said Clem Bertrand, It wasn't Floyd ? I said, "no, Clem." I
know it was Bertrand. I'm not sure of the first name, probably Clem."
And he said OK and he continued with the photographs of different
people and quite of few of them I had never seen or heard of you know
what I'm saying ? Some of the photographs weren't all that good, some
were. And then he said listen, I'm very interested. The District
Attorney, Jim Garrison will be very interested in talking to you. Will
you be available to come down to New Orleans ? And well this is my civic
duty I'm supposed to... and so I said yeah. And so he said, "I'm going
to leave. Please don't talk to anybody no more. Don't talk to anybody".
So I said OK. Well channel 2 showed...he left...and that was about it.
He did not take any notes. He did not write down anything and then he
left. I went to New Orleans and then I got a call...I think I had a
telephone at that time...but I was then contacted by WBRC and these two
guys come in ...to show you the scum of the news media they will do
anything. This guy had a microphone up his sleeve. And he said we just
want to talk to you about everything but...I said I can't call to you
all. He said well we'll talk to you about your baseball. I had a
baseball team in the past. And basketball. I said OK. So they come in
and of course they quickly changed the subject onto that. I said well I
can't really talk. This guy just left from New Orleans DA office and, I
said, he was rather excited about wanting to talk to Garrison and
Garrison wanting to talk to me. And then I noticed the microphone. I
said, " you-all hold on a minute." Now they are in the back. This is a
shotgun house, typical for New Orleans... straight from the back so you
can shoot a shotgun through it and if it goes straight through 'em well
it won't hit a thing. But the back door was locked, I knew that. So I
went and got a machete and I came back and I said, "now you got a
microphone in your hand. You want both arms chopped off or you want one
chopped off at a time because I'm gonna get it !" I said, "you're a no
good sonofabitch." And I started screaming at 'em. "Oh no, we don't
have one !" I said, "don't tell me that," I said, "there it is - a
microphone." And so we went round and round about that. I said, "I'm
gonna whack ya ! I'm gonna whack ya !" And so he said finally said, well
he says, look, and you know, I guess he thought I was a mental midget
or something. He took the tape (and) he said this is not on. He took
the tape and turned it over. He said, listen we'll play it. There was
nothing on the tape. I said is that right ? I said give me the whole
unit. I said I'm gonna get the whole unit. So anyway I got the unit, I
took the tape out, kept the tape and then they went about their way.
And they weren't able to make a verified statement. So then I was
recontacted with the DA's office and asked to come to New Orleans.
Which I did. And then I met Garrison for the first time. That's the
answer to that question. And Garrison (is) very impressive, very
sincere, he asked different questions about people that Chambray had
indicated that I knew. And so we went over that. And he said we would
like you to stay in New Orleans. I said well I can't do that. I said I
have to go away home. I got classes and I also work. He said we will
take care of the work and I would advise maybe you might best withdraw
from school. And so I said OK. After some talking and so on and I
stayed in New Orleans and was bandied from one investigator to another.
One question to another and they continued to ask questions and then
finally they said would I submit to sodium pentathol, I didn't know
what it was. I said yes. They said would I submit to hypnosis with a
certified hypnotist. I said yes. I said any type of and then I said
I'll get back... and so we eventually down the line did one or the
other and both. And then that was it. So that was about it. That answer
your question ?

MC :
Yes.

WR :
Sure does. So now
we've reached the point where Jim Garrison ...were you told that the
District Attorney in New Orleans, Jim Garrison that and has strung
together through that meeting, Lee Harvey Oswald, Clay Bertrand, also
known as Clay Shaw or vise versa and David Ferry.

PR :
Right, correct, plus the Cubans.

WR
And that's ...plus the Cubans and that's when your roller coaster ride
begins.

PR :
Right.

WR :
And along with that Garrison's. And why don't you relate some of that
to us.

PR :
Well, in this period of time Garrison then is overwhelmed by requests
for interviews. I mean it's all day long, you read it in the newspapers
here, I see it on television at night. One announcement after another.
He's embattled, pushed by all circumstances. There are various news
authorities who then come out with statements that this is a problem
with this and a problem with that. Which is fair. Then all of a sudden
Garrison asks me, he said, there is a reporter who had once done a
piece on his investigation of the judges here in New Orleans and he
felt that he wanted to find out how far this man would go in
interviewing me...and find out exactly what his agenda was. So James
Phelan is then introduced to me. And I meet with Phelan and we talk.
And for several hours of conversations, the conversations are recorded
by the DA's office with my knowledge, and James Phelan continues to
attack Garrison's case, saying no I couldn't have known Clay Shaw, I
couldn't have known Oswald. He said I knew Ferry probably, and that I
had made a mistake. He then writes a scorching attack in the Saturday
Evening Post and the controversy begins. He does not cross the line of
threatening me or intimidating me with threats of that sort nor does he
offer me anything to change testimony. In that sense he's perhaps a
neutral news reporter. Neutral is questionable then. He introduces me
or tells me of WDSU TV 's crusade to reveal the truth. So he tells me
about Walter Sheridan, FBI agent for twenty years. Very great
credentials and Rick Townley is introduced to me who is a local WDSU
affiliate newscaster and I'm told to meet with them because he wants to
pose some questions to me. Well he doesn't pose any questions. Walter
Sheridan comes to me and says listen we gonna take Garrison out of
this. He said we can't allow this to go on any further. He says now
you're going down with him. And he plays this hot cold
relationship...but I'll give you an out. He says, I want you to go over
to Biloxy Mississippi, we already have it arranged. You are to go and
do a hotel-motel room and he says in that room Clay Shaw is going to be
there. He says I don't care what you talk about when you go in there
but when you finish one hour later, half and hour later, he says you
come outside. He says we're gonna have the cameras rolling and you're
gonna state the following : One, that you do not know Clay Shaw and you
never did.. Two : that you never knew anybody named Oswald and three,
you never heard of anything about any shooting of the President back in
'63 before the President was shot. And he says you do that, he says, we
won't go after you. You might be able to save yourself." But he says
you gonna go with him, we're getting Garrison. He's done with . We'll
finish him off. I said well, Mr Sheridan, and Garrison was aware of
these conversation and was...

MC :
When they mean we're going to take care...did they mean body harm ?

PR :
No. They meant that they were going to so ridicule Garrison for having
a ridiculous state of appearances that no one would believe him. And
this would be a frontal attack. There would be innuendo, there would be
the various misinformation that are leaked out such as one that Drew
Pearson, or what the fellow that succeeded Drew Pearson, Jack Anderson
leaks out that Garrison has a sexual encounter at the NOAC, New Orleans
Athletic Club with a six or seven year old. And this is supposed to
defame Garrison's image that he is not the man on the white horse. Well
the truth of the matter was that Garrison was very sincere. Well Walter
Sheridan tells me and threatens me that he's gonna take Garrison out
and take me with him. So I'm in school and, perhaps at this time I'm
not, because I think I had withdrawn, but I have no resources to fight
any kind of this kind of an attack so therefore I should crumble. Well
Garrison is told of this, he's aware of it. He knows exactly what
the...how the conversations have gone and so I said, I posed the
question, the almighty question to Walter Sheridan, ex FBI, perhaps
still connected with the government, chief investigator for Frank
McGee's white paper, the editorial side of NBC. And I asked Walt
Sheridan, I said, "Mr. Sheridan, if I were ever to say that, you know
what would happen to me, I would be finished in New Orleans or a dead
man, one or the other." He said, Well, he says, where would you want to
live, if not New Orleans." And so having the fascination with Hollywood
and California and Los Angeles and mighty state of dreams and all that,
I said well, California. It's the only state I was ever interested in
visiting at that time. And he says pick out a city, I said Los Angeles.
And he said OK He said we'll give you a job for five years. You don't
have to go to work. You'll get a check. He said, but you gotta do this
first.

WR :
This fits right in with what they did with Pershing Gervais.

MC :
Absolutely, but you didn't feel physically threatened at all ?

PR :
Not physically threatened, no. No, I never did. Not physically
threatened that they were going to do anything physically to me. No,
they were going to ruin me.

MC :
They were going to ruin you and your reputation, your ...

PR :
Right. In August or October of '68 this is about a year down the line
around the same time, TIME magazine comes out with an article. Garrison
Case. And its an analysis of the Garrison case and it says the Garrison
case is based upon a lot of soft information but primarily upon the
testimony of one Perry Raymond Russo, Baton Rouge insurance salesman
and known drug addict. TIME magazine alibis and explains in court
depositions and court information that this was a typographical error.
That they really, in reality, meant Vernon Bundy. But one or the other
could be right if Garrison was basing his case upon Perry Russo. Then
they couldn't attach the drug addict because I did not even smoke
marijuana. I was Sicilian family brought up in this country. We did not
smoke marijuana. And yet they knew that Vernon Bundy was a convicted
heroin addict. So that was labeled. They settled out of court for
$15,000. They did not issue a retraction and that remains as an
unchallenged claim. All I had at that time was the $15,000 minus the
legal expenses involved. The whole point of which was the damage was
done. It was never to be retrieved after that. Every job application I
would put in there was always the feeling that this is an unstable
person. This is a person who may even be illegal. May be doing all
kinds of things that are illegal. The consequence of that was that
their attacks, coupled with whatever Walter Sheridan was engineering,
were very successful. They had attacked me and they could do it with
impunity and so therefore I was no longer a creditable witness. No one
in any of the other 49 states or perhaps even Louisiana would have
believed a known drug addict would know anything at all about the
Kennedy assassination and that he had hallucinated.

WR :
OK
another question. When you went to Walter Sheridan to, or Walter
Sheridan approached you and you went back, I think I heard on the
documentary, "The Garrison Tapes" that you were wired. That you had a
microphone on so he could record this.

PR :
Garrison recorded it.

WR :
Yeah, cause I know Garrison, when Walter Sheridan started the smear
campaign, Garrison tried to get him in the courtroom.

PR :
OK, immediately after the proposition was made that I go to Biloxi, sit
in a hotel room, motel room with Clay Shaw, 30 minutes or an hour later
come out and make my statement denying everything that I had stated in
court, I would then be whisked off where I wanted, which was LA,
immediately after that because there was an offer of something for
something. They wanted me to change testimony to fit their particular
agenda and in so changing the testimony to be protected I would be
given something. So they were offering me a bribe of a witness to make
sure that I would damage Garrison for them. Perhaps stab him into the
chest and that would be the lethal blow that would bring the Garrison
case down.

MC :
Did they represent who was giving them
number one, the right to do this ? Did they say they were doing it from
the Federal Government.

PR :
No, they never did. In 1991
Jim Phelan contacted me almost weekly when he first ...the first news
reports came out that Oliver Stone was going to do a movie and that
movie was going to be based upon Garrison's book "On The Trail Of The
Assassins". When that information was across the United States and
Oliver Stone was an established director with credentials and an
ability to gather money back in and produce for his movie then Phelan
called, which I hadn't heard from Phelan for ten years at this point,
1991. He call and said, Oh do you remember me ? and I said sure I
remember you. And he said well how's everything. and I said, he said, I
hear they're making a movie down there on Garrison. How are they going
to play it ? I said I don't know. I said that's Stone's information. He
said well are you going to be in it ? I said I don't think so. He said
are they going to have your character in it. I said yeah they are. And
I said but I can't tell you in what capacity and which way they are
going to play it. He said, well he said, this movie just can't come
about. He said we can't have that.

MC :
We ?

PR :
Yeah, we can't have that. And I said Jim, I said you're talking about
something twenty-five years before and I said you're talking about a
case that was in New Orleans and I said you're saying we can't have it ?
And over the period of the conversations – we must have talked about
ten or twelve times - over the period of the conversations he said that
what, why would you let them portray you in this movie. You have to
stop the movie. And I said Jim, (talkin to Phelan over the phone), I
said I can't stop the movie. I said Stone can do whatever he wants with
this movie. I said if he plays it accurately following the book I said
more power to him. Just because he's a creditable director and I said
what is the problem there ? He said because when this movie comes out,
he said, it will so affect the younger people that they will then
remember that there's something happened in New Orleans that several
people got together and they shot Kennedy. He said the effect of that
will be devastating. I said who cares what the effect is. I said it's
still academia and I said it still just movie makin. He said you have
to stop it. I said why do I have to stop it ? He said because it will
hurt the United States., And I said, It'll hurt the United States. I
said I'm part of the United States. He said it will hurt me. I'm a
friend of Shaw. I said I was a friend of Shaw. I said I don't care what
it looks like. I said I'm already destroyed. He said it'll hurt the
agencies of the United States and that was the revealing statement by
him. It will hurt the agencies.

WR :
This is James Phalen.

PR :
James Phalen, A free lance writer, particularly having written that
article way back in '67 for Saturday Night Post... it will hurt the
agencies. I said I couldn't care less about the agencies. I don't care
about intelligence gathering. I said this is strictly Stone's work. I
said if it's done true, I said then judge it on the merit. I said if
it's not, he'll fall. It'll fall by the wayside. And he said well you
got ...And then not being able to get me to agree, he said I'm going to
send you some papers. Would you give them to Stone ? And this of course,
James Phalen felt that his insight in these articles would then
persuade Stone, right in the middle of a production, to cancel because
James Phalen said so. Well, I went to Stone and told him I had papers
and he said file them, they gave him, because they did not consider
James Phalen a serious journalist. Which I told James Phalen and he
exploded. Serious journalist ! He says, tell Stone he's not a serious
director. And I said now that definitely is an understatement. Anyway
he told me, he said I'm coming down there. He said I'm going to stop
the movie. So when I told Stone this, and his people, Stone said I want
you to remain on the set. So I talked to Phalen once again and I misled
him intentionally. He said how long do they have.. this is in the
middle of July...he said how long do they have before the movie gets
...I said oh way into August. The movie was finished on the 27th or
28th of July here. And he said I'm coming down. He said I'm going to
make sure that this movie does not come out without at least the other
side being examined. And I said fine. I said you come down. So I don't
know if he ever did. But Stone asked me would you please point him out
and identify him. We have a contract with this city and no one can step
across that line that I do not want to step across that line. And if he
does we are going to invoke the contract and ask the police to arrest
him. And that was for that period of the filming that was done on the
streets and such.

MC :
So what you're saying ...Are you happy with the movie "JFK" ?

PR :
Yeah, it was done true to that period of time in New Orleans. Yes. And
it offers a possible explanation as to what went on in Dallas. With the
much available .. the many bits of evidence that's come to light since
the assassination and since the publication in August of '64 of the
Warren Report there is so much evidence that has come out since. Stone
played it much truer to the facts than the Warren Commission
speculated. So it comes to the New Orleans connection, Oswald was born
in New Orleans. Oswald lived in New Orleans. Oswald went to school in
New Orleans. When he defected, he was defecting for... after coming out
of the Marines...he went to the Soviet Union. When he returned,
reaffected to the United States he returned to New Orleans. I said he
stayed here and that is the period of time I knew him. A volatile
period of time in New Orleans history because there was so much easily
heard assassinations and hating of the President that he should be
dead, somebody should shoot the son of a bitch and...which is not that
uncommon to hear. And so Oswald was from that period. Ferry was from
that period and it would be altogether much more possible that instead
of Oswald being the malcontent that the Federal Government pictured him
as, for him to have been the shrewd observer for the FBI and making
money on the side. Just reporting on this Cuban group of which he was a
member and which he supposedly taught guerrilla warfare. He was in
spirit a member. He was everything that this group wanted. He was one
of them. And yet the Federal Government chose to emphasis the fact that
he was a malcontent that couldn't get along with anybody. Well he
couldn't get along with me but he got along with everybody else.

WR :
So now today you still remain friends in contact with Jim Garrison and
his chief investigator Louis Ivon.

PR :
Louis Ivon, yes and some of the other people that were involved..?

WR :
Are some of them still around like Andrew Chambrey ?

PR :
Andrew Chambrey is now magistrate court judge. Judge in magistrate
court for the Parish of New Orleans which is equivalent to a county in
other states. He sets bonds and releases prisoners that he deems are
responsible and reliable to come back. James Alcock was Garrison's
chief prosecutor and the man that handled most of the courtroom duties.
Alcock was a judge for a period of time then went into private
practice. He lives very close to New Orleans. Al Oser, another. Was a
judge, went into private practice. He also is around the New Orleans
area. Louis Ivon, Garrison's chief investigator for that period is
around. Now associated with the DA's office in New Orleans. And then
you have others, so many others that were around at that time ; that
were knowledgeable of either Shaw or Ferry or Oswald ; that several
people have come forth since and that have said yeah they were around.
And there were times that they encountered both of them. And I don't
think at this stage of the game, contrary to what the Federal
Government would have gained by denying...why not admit that Shaw may
have been an operative or someone because he had so many contacts with
the South American countries and South American presence. It would have
been normal. I would think they would have been remiss in their duties
if they had not.

MC :
Well they have been. It has been
said, it's been said by several. Helms for one - that Mr. Shaw was a
deep cover agent for the CIA.

WR :
'cuz there has been a
lot of operations in Italy since WWII. Quite a few of them as far as
moving money through the banks and also keeping the government in line
and anti-communist, as they look at it. They've had this "Gladius"
operation recently. I'm not going to belabor that. That appeared in the
news that even the president of Italy, I believe the prime minister,
president or something admitted that he came across...

MC :
And also he was taken out of office right after that...the point we're
making is that in looking back on this we can see that this is only a
small part of the operations that were around this. This was...you can
see that.

PR :
Yeah this was a small part of the continuing
problem of Cuba. The people that were not disciplined by the Federal
Government were doing things on their own. Felt very strongly about
taking over Cuba or booting out Castro or liberating Cuba. And this
particularly was evidenced all along the sixties whereas now we say
there's oversight committees of the CIA...there were none then.

WR :
When you look at how the assassination went down and how the cover up
had transpired and obviously there was a cover up, you have to say what
we had in this country was a coup d'etat.

MC :
Yes.

WR :
Well you don't have to agree but what do you think of that ? I mean it
appears that you know...

MC :
Do you think there was from that point, do you believe things changed.
And you do believe they changed for the better or worse

PR :
Probably things changed. You know, but a coup d'etat...it was...

WR :
Well, when you kill or effectively take out the head of state and you
put somebody else in place or somebody else gets elected and the
policies reverse or change...

MC :
They put someone else in his place before he was elected.

PR :
We had made agreements with...

MC :
Castro was sitting there and no one has managed to ...

PR :
Which means that ...

WR :
Possibly even, I mean even the anti-Castro.Cubans partners were used
too, to bring about the means to a bigger end, or however you say it
because of the fact that Vietnam came along and it looked as thought
Kennedy was going to reverse that, and they turned that around.

PR :
Of course I disagree on the Vietnam thing. There is an invisible
government in the United States that continues ...

WR :
Well, they're not so much invisible anymore...

PR :
Well it may not be invisible but that continues the onward thrust of
the US policies and that of course is the protection of the country and
the protection of certain trends and certain beliefs. Those do evolve
over a period of time.

MC :
Don't you think that protecting
the arms dealers and the people that make armaments to keep a world
safe so we can give a $146 million in arms to Somalia. They bought it
from us. There were $146 million worth of arms floating around Somalia
as we speak right here.

PR.
Well I'm all for that. That's
the only difference. I'm all for that. You know, I'm for selling the
whole world arms. You know. That's just my particular feeling on that..

WR :
So is there anything in conclusion you want to say about your
experience with this ?

PR :
That it will never happen again. You know that this particular naive
approach to what your civic duty is and what it isn't in society. All
of that is overshadowed by what is going to be the fact of the outcome.
It is almost a predestined thing that even in this election coming up
Clinton, Bush, Perot not much, either one or any of the three, can
possibly alter the direction the country is going into. So it was at
that period. Since the cold war was the number one issue of the United
States and its internal workings and its external workings. That was
the major issue and that invisible government makes sure that we are
not prone toward risk. And if it has to be the removal of a, as you-all
would say, of a leader of a country then it has to be. And it has done
that.

MC :
And many other countries. Yes.

PR :
Yeah, the one in Indonesia, I mean in South Vietnam. Yeah. And that's
all the name of the game.

MC :
I understand that there's been a lot of things in the press that are
untrue and misinformation about you that you feel very angry about that
you would like to set straight.

PR :
OK : over the years the
press, for whatever it's own reasons whether it was...it had it's own
agenda, whether it was government sponsored, whether it was government
leaked or whether these people who wrote these articles had various
ways to get at Garrison and of course one way is of course to attack me
and my credibility. Recently the 1968 article of Time Magazine listing
me as a drug addict when I never even smoked marijuana did it serious
damage to anybody believing that Perry Russo could possible speak
anything about something factual because he was a known drug addict.
1970 US New and World report says that Perry Russo is a very dapper
dresser. However, there's always a "however", However, he associates
with a strange crew of wierdos and over the years has so done so.
That's not libelous but you get into just a slanting of that particular
article. Who would trust a person that hangs around with a strange
assortment of wierdos. Then you have a Times Picayune which is a
notorious champion here in New Orleans of anything that is
anti-Garrison over the years. Time Picayune newspaper publishing
company which publishes two newspapers comes out with an article on the
twentieth anniversary of the Kennedy assassination saying that
convicted burglar, Perry Raymond Russo, which I'm not a convicted
burglar. They ...we go into court on that and they...we don't go into
court but we go into discussions and they settle out of court with a
retraction. Seventeen weeks later on the 55th page of something of the
Sunday newspaper whereas the first statement came with my photograph
and "convicted burglar statement right underneath it." So now over the
years I have thought to be by myself and not read any of the articles
or read any of the newspapers clippings when Oliver Stone contacted me
asking me to sign on and do technical work. I thought that was
satisfactory. I continue not to read the articles that were written
even at that time. However there was one that was written in the
January issue of Gentlemen's Quarterly and for this reason I have come
to talk to you people who have asked for an interview. It's an
opportunity to set the record straight. Nicholas Lehman wrote an
article in GQ analyzing the movie which hadn't yet at this time come
out. And so he wrote an article and in the article he savaged Garrison
and savaged me. The article states that Stone's basing his movie upon
Garrison who is basing his conspiracy theory upon testimony of Perry
Raymond Russo, Baton Rouge insurance salesman cum grifter. That would
seem like a very innocent remark except I looked up the definition and
it means a convicted swindler. I have never had any convictions for
anything except traffic. And yet this news outlet GQ thinks it can take
a cheap shot. I didn't ask for the publicity. I have never asked for
one interview ever, by anybody. I have not taken any money for
interviews and GQ takes this cheap shot. A person reading this article
in another area would read a grifter, isn't he a scam artist, isn't he
a con man, isn't he a swindler or a dishonest.. yes that's what grifter
means and GQ said it. Nicholas Lehman was deposed in this particular
case which is in Federal Court now. Was deposed.. The essence of his
deposition when asked why he would label Perry Russo a grifter was
...his answer was that he was hired...he did not want to label him as
he had been historically labeled as Baton Rouse insurance man. He
wanted to give a different twist, a different light upon that person.
And he was hired to savage the movie. And he said that's exactly what
he did in the article and he had no regrets about it whatsoever. He
savaged it and the best route to savage it was to savage Garrison and
to savage Garrison's witnesses.

WR :
Did he say who he was hired by ?

PR :
he didn't say.

End of Tape\Interview

OCTOBER 10,1992

NEW ORLEANS,LA.

1- THE KENNEDY CONSPIRACY by PARIS
FLAMMONDE, pub. by MEREDITH PRESS(1969),pp. 79,80

2- ON THE TRAIL OF THE ASSASSINS by
JIM GARRISON, pub. by SHERIDAN SQ. PRESS (1988),pg.152

3- DESTINY BETRAYED(JFK,CUBA,and the
GARRISON CASE) by JAMES DI EUGENIO, by SHERIDAN SQ., pg. 144

1996 copyright : LIGHTHOUSE ARCHIVES/LIGHTHOUSE REPORT

Questions to Tom alyea (the first newsman on the sixth floor)

Pierre NAU — 2022-10-10T12:50:37Z

Tom Alyea was a newsman at the time of the assassination in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. Very little time after the shots, he joined with the police officers who invested the Texas School Book Depository and together they inspected each floor of the building . With his 16 mm camera , he filmed all these particularly important moments.

Thus he took sevreral shots of the rifle discovered by the Sheriff's Deputy Boone on the 6th floor. Incredible but true, he never was interviewed by the Warren Commission. It seems that the official inquiry did not consider to be convenient to ask some questions to such an interesting witness who could be useful for it in its searching for the truth investigation. Both curious and regrettable ...

A part of his report can be read at this address :
http://www.jfk-online.com/alyea.html

After having contacted him and asked questions about this important moment in the Dallas drama, he provided me the following answers published here by permission. As it can be noticed, his remarks are interesting and debunk some facts and ideas often reported by people who were not on the spot.

Q - If I have well understood, the discovering of the weapon took place after you and the other people present at the time had made a first inspection on the sixth floor. After that, you reached the upper floor and returning to the sixth floor a few minutes later, Ltt Boone discovered the weapon. My question is : how was possible that a lone man discovered what several people were unable to do previously ? In addition I have often heard about Seymour Weitzmann as the man who found the weapon. Can you give me some precisions regarding this remark insofar as you do not mention in your report the presence of this Police officer ?

Boone was not a Lt. (Lieutenant). He was a Sheriff's deputy and was at the Sheriff's Office during our search that took us to the roof. Capt. Fritz then ordered us to continue our search back down again. At that time a Sheriff's Deputy who was in our search party went back to the Sheriff's Office to get some flashlights so we could see into the dark recesses inside the stacks of towering book cartons. Boone helped carry some of the flashlight back to the TSBD and met us as we were searching the 6th floor for the second time. We were looking for a sniper, not a rifle. With the aid of his flashlight, Boone said he found the rifle. It had previously been missed because it was under some overhanging boxes in the darkened enclosure.

I do not refer to Weitzman because I have strong doubts that he was there, although he made this claim in his testimony. When the officer called out to Capt. Fritz concerning his find, Capt. Fritz and I were only a few feet away, possibly about four meters. There was no officer near him. Other officers had fanned-out over the floor, still searching for the Sniper. There was no officer near the man who called to Capt. Fritz. Weitzman's testimony regarding the location and positioning of the rifle is so highly inaccurate that I am convinced that he was not at the scene or he has a very bad memory. He invented things that were not there and omitted things that were extremely important.

Dept. Constable Weitzman was not with the police or Sheriff's department. He was with a company called Robie Love. It is possible that this company had some connection with a Dallas County department. His testimony revealed that it would be nearly impossible for him to be at the rifle site when it was found, regardless of his testimony. But on the strength of this, his testimony was accepted by others who had never heard of him nor saw him on the floor. I took movie footage of the officers in our search group and officers surrounding both the window shooting location and the rifle site, and Weitzman does not appear in any of my shots. Also, In Weitzman's testimony, he said that he thought the rifle looked like a Mauser, but this was a guess on his part. I was at the scene recording the small portion of the rifle butt that was exposed beyond the overhanging boxes. I also included the torso of Capt. Fritz within the small enclosure. Only about four or five inches of the butt end of the rifle cold be seen. The scope and bolt were not visible. There is no way anybody could determine the make of the rifle.

Q - Was the weapon identified at first as a Mauser or not ? This fact is of importance because it had led to many speculations or assumptions for decades. If true, can you tell me how this weapon became an Italian Mannlicher Carcano shortly after ? Without to be involved in controversy, this brutal changing discredited at the time the people in charge of the inquiery.

No, the rifle was not first identified as a Mauser. I was only about two meters away and I heard no reference to a Mauser. Capt. Fritz testified that he heard no reference to the rifle being a Mauser. It was never touched. I, along with Capt. Fritz and other officers in our search team stayed at this location until the Crime Lab arrived and Lt. Day pulled the rifle from under the overhanging boxes. A few seconds after Lt. Day started dusting the rifle, he read the inscription on the rifle and announced that it was made in Italy. He did not refer to it as a Mannlicher Carcano. The name Mannlicher Carcano did not appear on the rifle. I think this was established later at police headquarters. The inscription Made in Italy and the caliber of the rifle was stamped on it. It is obvious that the relentless pursuit to establish the original rifle as a Mauser is one of the many false claims promoted by the conspiracy book authors.

Q - Was it possible for the lone Oswald to build the barricade in a very short time and without being noticed by the people gathered on Elm street ? If Brennan and others had noticed the gunman at the window it seems to me very unlikely those people did not see a man moving boxes indiscreetly ?

It must be remembered that there were three barricades. However, the one near the assassin's window, referred to as "the" barricade, and part of the "Sniper's Nest was already there. Oswald did not construct it. If it had been, he would have completed it to totally conceal his shooting position. It is apparent however, that he hurriedly constructed a second barricade to the North that would complete his concealment from possible unwanted eyes that might wander to mid floor or further east. I refer to this barricade as Barricade #2. This was probably done long before the president's motorcade arrived, and Oswald he could have not been seen from outside the building.

After the shots were fired, Oswald did not move any boxes. I do not see the reasoning in the Buffs promoting this. What would be the point in taking time to move boxes from the barricade and leave his shooting support boxes on the window ledge and the casings on the floor ?

Q - Did Oswald get enough time to hide his weapon so perfectly, if we considered that he was interviewed by Baker and Truly less than 1 minute after the last shot. According to you and with your perfect knowledge of the building, was that possible ?

Yes, Oswald had time to hide his rifle. The location was in front of the stairway that Oswald took to leave the floor. It was obviously pre constructed so he could slip the rifle under the overhanging boxes as he entered the down stairway, only about five feet away. It would have not taken him over two seconds. No boxes had to be moved. The rifle did not touch any of the three overhanging boxes, and there were no boxes touching the rifle. When Lt. Day retrieved it, he pulled it effortlessly from under the overhanging boxes. This was the first time any of us saw the scope, bolt and trigger housing.

One minute would be calling it a bit close, however, if I recall correctly, Officer Baker said he encountered Oswald 90 seconds after he entered the building. We are playing with time estimates from an officer who provided a rough calculation. He could be correct, but 90 seconds is well within the time it would take for Oswald to get from the sniper's window to the second floor. Oswald was accustomed to handling heavy boxes and the race downstairs would certainly not leave him breathless. It is my understanding that this trip was duplicated by the FBI and found to be possible. Do you recall if Officer Baker indexed the time from when he entered the building or when the president was shot ?

Q - Can you confirm me wether the Warren Commission questionned you or not ? I did not your name among the people listed on the Warren Commission Hearings ? If it did not ask you to report what you saw that is very regrettable and incomprehensible.

No, the Warren Commission did not question me or ask for my deposition. Yes, if they had questioned me, it would definitely have affected their report.

Conclusion 3

Pierre NAU — 2022-10-10T12:32:51Z

C. THE COMMITTEE BELIEVES, ON THE BASIS OF THE EVIDENCE AVAILABLE TO IT, THAT PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY WAS PROBABLY ASSASSINATED AS A RESULT OF A CONSPIRACY. THE COMMITTEE IS UNABLE TO IDENTIFY THE OTHER GUNMAN OR THE EXTENT OF THE CONSPIRACY

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once simply defined conspiracy as "a partnership in criminal purposes." That definition is adequate. Nevertheless, it may be helpful to set out a more recise definition. If two or more individuals agreed to take action to kill president Kennedy, and at least one of them took action in furtherance of the plan, and it resulted in president Kennedy's death, the President would have been assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.

The committee recognizes, of course, that while the work "conspiracy" technically denotes only a "partnership in criminal purposes," it also, in fact, connotes widely varying meanings to many people, and its use has vastly differing societal implications depending upon the sophistication, extent and ultimate purpose of the partnership. For example, a conspiracy to assassinate a President might be a complex plot orchestrated by foreign political powers ; it might be the scheme of a group of American citizens dissatisfied with particular governmental policies ; it also might be the plan of two largely isolated individuals with no readily discernible motive.

Conspiracies may easily range, therefore, from those with important implications for social or governmental institutions to those with no major societal significance. As the evidence concerning the probability that President Kennedy was assassinated as a result of a "conspiracy" is analyzed, these various connotations of the word "conspiracy" and distinctions between them ought to be constantly borne in mind. Here, as elsewhere, words must be used carefully, lest people be misled.(1 )

A conspiracy cannot be said to have existed in dealey Plaza unless evidence exists from which, in Justice Holmes' words, a "partnership in criminal purposes" may be inferred. The Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was not involved in a conspiracy to assassinate the President was, for example, largely based on its findings of the absence of evidence of significant association between Oswald and other possible conspirators and no physical evidence of conspiracy.

The Commission reasoned, quite rightly, that in the absence of association or physical evidence, there was no conspiracy. Even without physical evidence of conspiracy at the scene of the assassination, there would, of course, be a conspiracy if others assisted Oswald in his efforts. Accordingly, an examination of Oswald's associates is necessary. The Warren Commission recognized that a first premise in a finding of conspiracy may be a finding of association. Because the Commission did not find any significant Oswald associates, it was not compelled to face the difficult questions posed by such a finding. More than association is required to establish conspiracy. There must be at least knowing assistance or a manifestation of agreement to the criminal purpose by the associate.

It is important to realize, too, that the term "associate" may connote widely varying meanings to different people. A person's associate may be his next door neighbor and vacation companion, or it may be an individual he has met only once for the purpose of discussing a contract for a murder. The Warren Commission examined Oswald's past and concluded he was essentially a loner. It reasoned, therefore, that since Oswald had no significant associations with persons who could have been involved with him in the assassination, there could not have been a conspiracy.

With respect to Jack Ruby,

(2 ) the Warren Commission similarly found no significant associations, either between Ruby and Oswald or between Ruby and others who might have been conspirators with him. In particular, it found no connections between Ruby and organized crime, and it reasoned that absent such associations, there was no conspiracy to kill Oswald or the president.

The committee conducted a three-pronged investigation of conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination. On the basis of extensive scientific analysis and an analysis of the testimony of Dealey Plaza witnesses, the committee found there was a high probability that two gunmen fired at President Kennedy.

Second, the committee explored Oswald's and Ruby's contact for any evidence of significant associations. Unlike the Warren Commission, it found certain of these contacts to be of investigative significance. The Commission apparently had looked for evidence of conspiratorial association. Finding none on the face of the associations it investigated, it did not go further. The committee, however, conducted a wider ranging investigation. Notwithstanding the possibility of a benign reason for contact between Oswald or Ruby and one of their associates, the committee examined the very fact of the contact to see if it contained investigative significance. Unlike the Warren Commission, the committee took a close look at the associates to determine whether conspiratorial activity in the assassination could have been possible, given what the committee could learn about the associates, and whether the apparent nature of the contact should, therefore, be examined more closely. (3 )

Third, the committee examined groups-political organizations, national governments and so on—that might have had the motive, opportunity and means to assassinate the President. The committee, therefore, directly introduced the hypothesis of conspiracy and investigated it with reference to known facts to determine if it had any bearing on the assassination.

The committee examined a series of major groups or organizations that have been alleged to have been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate the President. If any of these groups or organizations, as a group, had been involved in the assassination, the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy would have been one of major significance.

As will be detailed in succeeding sections of this report, the committee did not find sufficient evidence that any of these groups or organizations were involved in a conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination. Accordingly, the committee concluded, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Soviet government, the Cuban government, anti-Castro Cuban groups, and the national syndicate of organized crime were not involved in the assassination. Further, the committee found that the Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency were not involved in the assassination.

Based on the evidence available to it, the committee could not preelude the possibility that individual members of anti-Castro Cuban groups or the national syndicate of organized crime were involved in the assassination. There was insufficient evidence, however, to support a finding that any individual members were involved. The ramifications of a conspiracy involving such individuals would be significant, although of perhaps less import than would be the case if a group itself, the national syndicate, for example had been involved.

The committee recognized that a finding that two gunmen fired simultaneously at the President did not, by itself, establish that there was a conspiracy to assassinate the President. It is theoretically possible that the gunmen were acting independently, each totally unaware of the other. It was the committee's opinion, however, that such a theoretical possibility is extremely remote. The more logical and probable inference to be drawn from two gunmen firing at the same person at the same time and in the same place is that they were acting in concert, that is, as a result of a conspiracy.

The committee found that, to be precise and loyal to the facts it established, it, was compelled to find that President Kennedy was probably killed as a result of a conspiracy. The committee's finding that President Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy was premised on four factors :

(1) Since the Warren Commission's and FBI's investigation into the possibility of a conspiracy was seriously flawed, their failure to develop evidence of a conspiracy could not be given independent weight.
(2) The Warren Commission was, in fact, incorrect in concluding that Oswald and Ruby had no significant associations, and therefore its finding of no conspiracy was not reliable.
(3) While it cannot be inferred from the significant associations of Oswald and Ruby that any of the major groups examined by the committee were involved in the assassination, a more limited conspiracy could not be ruled out.
(4) There was a high probability that a second gunman, in fact, fired at the President.

At the same time, the committee candidly stated, in expressing it finding of conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination, that it was "un able to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy.

The photographic and other scientific evidence available to the committee was insufficient to permit the committee to answer these questions. In addition, the committee's other investigative efforts did not develop evidence from which Oswald's conspirator or conspirators could be firmly identified. It is possible, of course, that the extent of the conspiracy was so limited that it involved only Oswald and the second gunman. The committee was not able to reach such a conclusion, for it would have been based on speculation, not evidence. spects of the inestigation did suggest that the conspiracy may have been relatively limited, but to state with precision exactly how small was not possible. Other aspects of the committee's investigation did suggest, however, that while the conspiracy may not have involved a major group, it may not have been limited to only two people. These aspects of the committee's investigation are discussed elsewhere.

If the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy was limited to Oswald and a second gunman, its main societal significance may be in the realization that agencies of the U.S. Government inadequately investigated the possibility of such a conspiracy. In terms of its implications for government and society, an assassination as a consequence of a conspiracy composed solely of Oswald and a small number of persons, possibly only one, and possibly a person akin to Oswald in temperament and ideology, would not have been fundamentally different from an assassination by Oswald alone.(4 )

1. THE COMMITTEE BELIEVES, ON THE BASIS OF THE EVIDENCE AVAILABLE TO IT, THAT THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT WAS NOT INVOLVED IN THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY

With the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald in the assassination of President Kennedy, speculation arose over the significance of Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union from October 1959 to June 1969, and his activities while living in that country. Specifically, these troubling questions were asked :

Had Oswald been enlisted by the KGB, the Soviet secret police ?.
Could the assassination have been the result of a KGB plot ?

(a) United States-Soviet relations

To put these concerns in context, it is necessary to look at SovietAmerican relations in the 1960's. United States-Soviet relations had, in fact, been turbulent during the Kennedy Presidency. There had been major confrontations : over Berlin, where the wall had come to symbolize the barrier between the two superpowers ; and over Cuba, where the emplacement of Soviet missiles had nearly started World War III.

A nuclear test-ban treaty m August 1963 seemed to signal detente, but in November, tension was building again, as the Soviets harassed, American troop movements to and from West Berlin. And Cuba was as much an issue as ever. In Miami, on November 18, President Kennedy vowed the United States would not countenance the establishment of another Cuba in the Western Hemisphere.

(b) The Warren Commission investigation

The Warren Commission considered the possibility of Soviet complicity in the assassination, but it concluded there was no evidence of it. In its report, the Commission noted that the same conclusion had been reached by Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, among others. Rusk testified before the Commission on June 10, 1964 :

I have seen no evidence that would indicate to me that the Soviet Union considered that it had any interest in the removal of President Kennedy * * * I can't see how it could be to the interest of the Soviet Union to make any such effort.

(c) The committee's investigation

The committee, in analyzing Oswald's relationship to Russian intelligence, considered :

Statements of both Oswald and his wife, Marina, about their life in the Soviet Union ;
Documents provided by the Soviet Government to the Warren Commission concerning Oswald's residence in the Soviet Union ;
Statements by Soviet experts in the employ, current or past, of the Central Intelligence Agency ; Files on other defectors to the Soviet Union ;
and Statements by defectors from the Soviet Union to the United States.

(1) Oswald in the U.S.S.R.

— The committee reviewed the documents Oswald wrote about his life in the Soviet Union, including his diary and letters to his mother, Marguerite, and brother, Robert. They paralleled, to a great extent, the information in documents provided to the Warren Commission by the Soviet Government after the assassination. These documents were provided to the Commission in response to its request that the Soviet Government give the Commission any "available information concerning the activities of Lee Harvey Oswald during his residence from 1959 to 1962 in the Soviet Union, in particular, copies of any official records concerning him."

Two sets of documents, totaling approximately 140 pages, were turned over to the Commission by the Soviets in November 1963 and in May 1964. They were routine, official papers. None of them appeared to have come from KGB files, and there were no records of interviews of Oswald by the KGB, nor were there any surveillance reports. Unfortunately, the authenticity of the documents could not be established. The signatures of Soviet officials, for example, were illegible.

Nevertheless, the Soviet documents and Oswald's own statements give this account of Oswald's stay in the Soviet Union :

He lived there from October 1959 to June 1962.
He attempted suicide on learning he would not be permitted to remain in the U.S.S.R.
He worked in a radio plant in Minsk.
He met and married Marina.
He was originally issued a residence visa for stateless persons and later issued a residence visa for foreigners.
He obtained exit visas for himself and his family before departing the Soviet Union.

Neither the documents nor Oswald's own statements indicate that he was debriefed or put under surveillance by the KGB.

The committee interviewed U.S. officials who specialize in Soviet intelligence, asking them what treatment they would have expected Oswald to have received during his defection. For the most part, they suspected that Oswald would have routinely been debriefed by the KGB and that many persons who came in contact with Oswald in the U.S.S.R. would have been connected with the KGB.

(2) Treatment of defectors by the Soviet Government.

— The committee examined the CIA and FBI files on others who had defected in the same period as Oswald and who had eventually returned to the United States. The purpose was to determine the frequency of KGB contact and whether the treatment of Oswald appeared to be significantly different from the norm. The defectors studied by the committee were selected because their backgrounds and other characteristics were similar to Oswald's, on the theory that their treatment by the KGB could be expected to parallel that of Oswald, if he was not a special case, a. recruited assassin, for example.

The examination of the defector files was inconclusive, principally because the case of nearly every defector. was unique. In addition, the files available on the experiences of the defectors were often not adequate to extract meaningful data for the purpose of this investigation, since, they were compiled for other reasons. As to contacts with the KGB, the experiences of American defectors appeared to have varied greatly. Some reported daily contact with Soviet intelligence agents, while others did not mention ever having been contacted or debriefed.

(3) Yuri Nosenko.

— Of all the areas investigated by the committee with respect to possible Soviet involvement in the assassination, none seemed as potentially rewarding as an examination of statements made by KGB officers who had defected to the United States. In determining how the KGB treats American defectors, an ex-KGB officer would certainly be of great interest. In this regard, the committee had access to three such men, one of whom, Yuri Nosenko, claimed to possess far more than general information about American defectors.

In January 1964, (5 ) Nosenko, identifying himself as a KGB officer, sought asylum in the United States. He claimed to have worked in the KGB Second Chief Directorate whose functions, in many respects, are similar to those of the FBI.According to Nosenko, while working in 1959 in a KGB department dealing with American tourists, he learned of a young American who sought to defect to the Soviet Union. The American was Lee Harvey Oswald.

Nosenko stated he had worked extensively on the Oswald case, and he provided the FBI and CIA with data pertaining to Oswald's request to defect and remain in the Soviet Union, the initial rejection of that request by the KGB, Oswald's suicide attempt and a subsequent decision to permit him to remain in Russia. Although the KGB, according to Nosenko, was well aware of Oswald, it made no attempt to debrief or interview him. Never was any consideration given by the KGB to enlist Oswald into the Soviet intelligence service.

The committee was most interested in Nosenko's claim that in 1963, after Oswald was arrested in the assassination, he had an opportunity to see the KGB file on the suspected assassin. As a result, Nosenko said, he was able to state categorically that Oswald was not a Soviet agent and that no officer of the KGB had ever interviewed or debriefed him.

Nosenko's testimony, however, did not settle the question of Soviet complicity in the assassination. From the time of his defection, some U.S. intelligence officers suspected Nosenko was on a disinformation mission to mislead the American Government. Since other CIA officials believed Nosenko was a bona fide defector, a serious disagreement at the top level of the Agency resulted.

The Warren Commission found itself in the middle of the Nosenko controversy—and in a quandary of its own, since the issue of Nosenko's reliability bore significantly on the assassination investigation. If he was telling the truth, the Commission could possibly write off Soviet involvement in a conspiracy. (6 ) If, on the other hand, Nosenko was lying, the Commission would be faced with a dilemma. While a deceitful Nosenko would not necessarily point to Soviet complicity, it would leave the issue in limbo. The Warren Commission chose not to call Nosenko as a witness or to mention him in its report, apparently because it could not resolve the issue of his reliability.

The committee, on the other hand, reviewed all available statements and files pertaining to Nosenko. It questioned Nosenko in detail about Oswald. finding significant inconsistencies in statements he had given the FBI, CIA and the committee. For example, Nosenko told the committee that the KGB had Oswald under extensive surveillance, including mail interception, wiretap and physical observation. Yet, in 1964, he told the CIA and FBI there had been no such surveillance of Oswald. Similarly, in 1964, Nosenko indicated there had been no psychiatric examination of Oswald subsequent to his suicide attempt, while in 1978 he detailed for the committee the reports he had read about psychiatric examinations of Oswald.

The committee also found that the CIA had literally put Nosenko in solitary confinement from 1964 to 1968. Strangely, while he was interrogated during this period, he was questioned very little about Oswald. The Agency did not seem to realize Nosenko's importance to an investigation of the assassination. While Richard Helms, then the CIA's Deputy Director for Plans, did tell Chief Justice Warren about Nosenko, the Agency's interest in him seemed to be largely limited to its own intelligence-gathering problem:did the KGB send Nosenko to the United States to deceive the CIA on many matters, only one of them perhaps related to the assassination ?

In the end, the committee, too, was unable to resolve the Nosenko matter. The fashion in which Nosenko was treated by the Agency—his interrogation and confinement—virtually ruined him as a valid source of information on the assassination. Nevertheless, the committee was certain Nosenko lied about Oswald—whether it was to the FBI and CIA in 1964, or to the committee in 1978, or perhaps to both. The reasons he would lie about Oswald range from the possibility that he merely wanted to exaggerate his own importance to the disinformation hypothesis with its sinister implications.

Lacking sufficient evidence to distinguish among alternatives,

(7 ) the committee decided to limit its conclusion to a characterization of Nosenko as an unreliable source of information about the assassination, or, more specifically, as to whether Oswald was ever contacted, or placed under surveillance, by the KGB.

(4)Opinions other defectors.

— In addition to interviewing Nosenko, the committee questioned two other former KGB officers who had defected to the United States. While neither could base an opinion on any personal experience with that part of the KGB in which Nosenko said he had served, both said that Oswald would have been of interest to the Soviet intelligence agency, that he would have been debriefed and that he may have been kept under surveillance.

(5) Marina Oswald.

— The committee not only considered a possible connection between Oswald and the KGB, it also looked into charges that his widow, Marina, was an agent of the KGB, or that she at least influenced her husband's actions in the assassination on orders from

Soviet officials. The committee examined Government files on Marina, it questioned experts on Soviet affairs and former KGB officers, and it took testimony from Marina herself. The committee could find no evidence to substantiate the allegations about Marina Oswald Porter.

Mrs. Porter testified before the committee that Oswald had never been contacted directly by the KGB, though she assumed that he and she alike had been under KGB surveillance when they lived in the Soviet Union.

(6) Response of the Soviet Government.

— Finally, the committee attempted to obtain from the Soviet Government any information on Oswald that it had not provided to the Warren Commission. In response to a committee request relayed by the State Department, the Soviet Government informed the committee that all the information it had on Oswald had been forwarded to the Warren Commission.

The committee concluded, however, that it is highly probable that the Soviet Government possessed information on Oswald that it has not provided to the U.S. Government. It would be the extensive information that most likely was gathered by. a KGB surveillance of Oswald and Marina while they were living m Russia. It is also quite likely that the Soviet Government withheld files on a KGB interview with Oswald.

(d) Summary of the evidence.

Its suspicions notwithstanding, the committee was led to believe, on the basis of the available evidence, that the Soviet Government was not involved in the assassination. In the last, analysis, the Committee agreed with the testimony of former Secretary of State Dean Rusk. To wit, there is no evidence that the Soviet Government had any interest in removing President Kennedy, nor is there any evidence that it planned to take advantage of the President's death before it happened or attempted to capitalize on it after it occurred. In fact, the reaction of the Soviet Government as well as the Soviet people seemed to be one of genuine shock and sincere grief. The committee believed, therefore, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Soviet Government was not involved in the assassination.

1 - It might be suggested that because of the widely varying meanings attached to the word "conspiracy," it ought to be avoided. Such a suggestion, however, raises another objection—the search for euphemistic variations can lead to a lack of candor. There is virtue in seeing something for what it is, even if the plain truth causes discomfort.

2 - The Warren Commission devoted its Appendix XVI to a biography of Jack Ruby in which his family background, psychological makeup, education and business activities were considered. While the evidence was sometimes contradictory, the Commission found that Ruby grew up in Chicago, the son of Jewish immigrants ; that he lived in a home disrupted by domestic strife ; (6) that he was troubled psychologically as a youth and not educated beyond high school ; and that descriptions of his temperament ranged from "mild mannered" to "violent." (7) In 1963, Ruby was 52 and unmarried. He ran a Dallas nightclub but was not particularly successful in business. His acquaintances included a number of Dallas police officers who frequented his nightclub, as well as other types of people who comprised his clientele.

3 - The committee found associations of both Ruby and Oswald that were unknown to the Warren Commission.

4 - If the conspiracy was, in fact, limited Oswald, the second gunman, and perhaps one or two others the committee believes it was possible they shared Oswald's left-wing political disposition. A consistent pattern in Oswald's life (see section A 5) was a propensity for actions with political overtones. It is quite likely that an assassination conspiracy limited to Oswald and a few associates was in keeping with that pattern. Further, it is possible that associates of Oswald in the Kennedy assassination had been involved with him in earlier activities. Two possibilities : the attempt on the life of Gen. Edwin A. Walker in April 1963. With respect to the Walker incident, there was substantial evidence that Oswald did the shooting (section A5), although at the time of the shooting it was not sufficient to implicate Oswald or anyone else. It was not until after the Kennedy assassination that Oswald became a suspect in the Walker attack, based on the testimony of his widow Marina. Marina's characterization of Oswald is more consistent with his having shot at Walker alone than his having assistance, although at the time of the shooting there was testimony that tended to indicate more than one person was involved. Further it is not necessary to believe all of what Marina said about the incident or to believe that Oswald told her all there was to know since either of them might have been concealing the involvement of others. According to a general offense report of the Dallas police, Walker reported at approximately 9:10 p.m. on April 10, 1963, that a bullet had been fired through a first floor window of his home at 4011 Turtle Creek Boulevard, Dallas. Detectives subsequently found that a bullet had first shattered a window, then gone through a wall and had landed on a stack of papers in an adjoining room. In their report the detectives described the bullet as steel-jacketed, of unknown caliber. Police located a 14-year-old boy in Walker's neighborhood who said that after hearing the shot, he climbed a fence and looked into an alley to the rear of Walker's home. The the boy said he then saw some men speeding down the alley in a light green or light blue Ford, either a 1959 or 1960 model. He said he also saw another car, a 1958 Chevrolet, black with white down the side, in a church parking lot adjacent to Walker's house. The car door was open, and a man was bending over the back seat, as though he was placing something on the floor of the car. On the night of the incident, police interviewed Robert Surrey, an aide to Walker. Surrey said that on Saturday, April 6, at about 9 p.m., he had seen two men sitting in a dark purple or brown 1963 Ford at the rear of Walker's house. Surrey also said the two men got out of the car and walked around the house. Surrey said he was suspicious and followed the car, noting that it carried no license plate. If it could be shown that Oswald had associates in the attempt on General Walker, they would be likely candidates as the grassy knoll gunman. The committee recognized, however, that this is speculation, since the existence, much less identity, of an Oswald associate in the Walker shooting was hardly established. Further, the committee failed in its effort to develop productive leads in the Walker shooting. With respect to the Cuba literature incident, Oswald was photographed with two associates distributing pro-Castro pamphlets in August 1963. As a result of a fight with anti-Castro Cubans, Oswald was arrested, but his associates were not. Of the two associates, only one was identified in the Warren Commission investigation (Warren Report. p. 292). Although the second associate was clearly portrayed in photographs (see Pizzo Exhibits 453-A and 453-B. Warren Commission Report, Vol. XXI, P 139), the Commission was unable to indentify him as was the case with the committee.

5 - Nosenko had first contacted the U.S. Government in June 1962.

6 - The Commission as well as the committee recognized that Nosenko could have been candid and that the connection between Oswald and the KGB could have been compartmentalized, that is, known only to a select few people, not including Nosenko.

7 - Beyond those reasons for falsification that can be attributed to Nosenko himself, there has been speculation that the Soviet Government, while not involved in the assassination, sent Nosenko an a mission to allay American fears. Hence, while his story about no connection between Oswald and the KGB might be false, his claim of no Soviet involvement in the assassination would be truthful.

Conclusion 2

Pierre NAU — 2022-10-10T12:23:26Z

B. SCIENTIFIC ACOUSTICAL EVIDENCE ESTABLISHES A HIGH PROBABILITY THAT TWO GUNMAN FIRED AT PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY; OTHER SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE DOES NOT PRECLUDE THE POSSIBILITY OF TWO GUNMEN FIRING AT THE PRESIDENT; SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE NEGATES SOME SPECIFIC CONSPIRACY ALLEGATIONS

The committee tried to take optimum advantage of scientific analysis in exploring issues concerning the assassination. In many cases, it was believed that scientific information would be the most reliable information available, since some witnesses had died and the passage of time had caused the memories of remaining witnesses to fail and caused other problems affecting the trustworthiness of their testimony.
As noted in the preceding section of this report, the committee turned to science as a major source of evidence for its conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots from the Texas School Book Depository, two of which hit President Kennedy. The evidence that was most relied upon was developed by committee panels specializing in the fields of forensic pathology, ballistics, neutron activation, analysis, handwriting identification, photography and acoustics. Of these, acoustics—a science that involves analysis of the nature and origin of sound impulses—indicated that the shots from the book depository were not the only ones fired at President Kennedy.(1 )

(a) Warren Commission analysis of a tape:

The Warren Commission had also employed scientific analysis in its investigation and had recognized that acoustics might be used to resolve some questions about the shots fired at the President. It had obtained a tape recording, an alleged on-the-scene account of the assassination made by Sam Pate, a Dallas radio newsman, but an FBI examination of the tape "failed to indicate the presence of any sounds which could be interpreted as gunshots." The FBI also informed the Commission that the newsman had stated that most of the tape was not recorded in Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination, but was recorded in a studio several days later after he had been dismissed by his station, KBOX.
The Commission independently submitted the tape for analysis to Dr. Lawrence Kersta of Bell Telephone Acoustics & Speech Research Laboratory. As reported in a letter from Kersta to the Commission on July 17, 1964, spectograms (visual representations of tonal qualities in the sounds) were made of a key 8-second portion of the tape. The spectograms indicated there were six nonvoiced noises-one nonvoiced "spike" (a scientific term for a graphic display of a noise) followed by three other nonvoiced spikes of different acoustical characteristics occurring .86 seconds, 1.035 seconds and 1.385 seconds after the first. These, in turn, were followed by two events apparently caused by sound and believed to have been related to the previous ones.
Dr. Kersta did not indicate in his letter that he had found shots, and the results of his tests were not mentioned in the Warren Report.
The committee was unable to locate the Kersta spectographs in the National Archives until late 1978 (they had been mistled), but it did obtain the tape recording made on November 22, 1963, by KBOX reporter Sam Pate. On May 11, 1978, the committee submitted the tape to an acoustical consultant for analysis, with these results:
While a portion of the tape was recorded on November 22, 1963, in the vicinity of Dealey Plaza, it was thought not to be contemporaneous with the assassination. Other portions of the tape, moreover, seemed to have been recorded, at least in large part, in a studio, since appropriate background noise was not present. And even if the tape had been made during the firing of the shots and had recorded them, Kersta's spectographic analysis would not have found them.
The committee's consultant advised that spectographic analysis is appropriate only for detecting tonal, or harmonic, sound. To identify a gunshot, the analysis must be able to portray a waveform on an oscilloscope or similar such device.

(b) Dallas Police Department recordings:

To resolve questions concerning the number, timing, and origin of the shots fired in Dealey Plaza, the committee asked its acoustical consultant to examine recordings not analyzed acoustically by the Warren Commission, specifically, Dallas Police Department dispatch transmissions for November 22, 1963.
These transmissions, received over the police radio network from officers in the field, were recorded at Dallas police headquarters. Two recording systems were in use at the time—a Dictabelt for channel 1, and a Gray Audograph disc recording for channel 2.2 (2 )
The committee held 2 days of public hearings on September 11, 1978 and December 29, 1978—in which it attempted to present the essential evidence from the acoustical analysis. Because of time limitations, it was not possible to present all of the evidence in the hearings.

(1) Analysis by Bolt Beranek and Newman.

—In order to identify the nature and origin of sound impulses in a recording, acoustical analysis may include, among other means of examination, a delineation and study of the shape of its electrical waveforms and a precise measurement and study of the timing of impulses on the recording. In May 1978, the committee contracted with Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc. (BBN) of Cambridge, Mass. to perform this sort of analysis. The study was supervised by Dr. James E. Barger, the firm's chief scientist.
Bolt Beranek and Newman specializes in acoustical analysis and performs such work as locating submarines by analyzing underwater sound impulses. It pioneered the technique of using sound recordings to determine the timing and direction of gunfire in an analysis of a tape that was recorded during the shootings at Kent State University in 1970. In a criminal case brought against members of the National Guard by the Department of Justice, the analysis of the tape by BBN, combined with photographs taken at the time of the shootings, were used by the prosecution in its presentation to a grand jury to help establish which guardsmen were the first to fire shots. The firm was also selected by Judge John J. Sirica to serve on a panel of technical experts that examined the Watergate tapes in 1973.
The Dallas police dispatch materials given to BBN to analyze in May 1978 were as follows:

• The original Dictabelt recordings made on November 22, 1963, of transmissions over channel 1;

• A tape recording of channel 1 Dictabelts;

• A tape recording of transmissions over channel 2.3 (7)

These materials were obtained by a committee investigator in March 1978, from Paul McCaghren, who in 1963 was a Dallas police lieutenant who had submitted investigative reports and materials on the assassination to Chief Curry. (8) In 1969, a newly appointed chief of police had ordered that a locked cabinet outside his office be opened. It contained reports and materials concerning the assassination that had been submitted to Curry; among the items were the Dictabelt recordings and tapes of the November 22, 1963, dispatch transmissions. McCaghren, who in 1969 was director of the Intelligence Division, had then taken custody of the materials and retained them until he gave them to the committee's investigator in 1978. (9) There was no evidence that any of the materials had been tampered with while in the police department's or McCaghren's possession.
To the human ear, the tapes and Dictabelts contain no discernible sounds of gunfire. The dispatcher's voice notations of the time of day indicate that channel 2 apparently was not in use during the period when the shots were fired. Channel 1 transmissions, however, were inadvertently being recorded from a motorcycle or other police vehicle whose radio transmission switch was stuck in the "on" position. (10)
BBN was asked to examine the channel 1 Dictabelts and the tape that was made of them to see if it could determine:

• (1) if they were, in fact, recorded transmissions from a motorcycle with a microphone stuck in the "on" position in Dealey Plaza;

• (2) if the sounds of shots had been, in fact, recorded;

• (3) the number of shots;

• (4) the time interval between the shots;

• (5) the location of the weapon or weapons used to fire the shots;

• and (6) the type of weapon or weapons used.

(3 ) BBN converted the sounds on the tape into digitized waveforms and produced a visual representation of the waveforms.(11) By employing sophisticated electronic filters, BBN filtered out "repetitive noise," such as repeated firings of the pistons of the motorcycle engine. (12) It then examined the tape for "sequences of impulses" that might be significant. (A "sequence of impulses" might be caused by a loud noise—such as gunfire—followed by the echoes from that loud noise.) Six sequences of impulses that could have been caused by a noise such as gunfire were initially identified as having been transmitted over channel 1. (13) Thus, they warranted further analysis.
These six sequences of impulses, or impulse patterns, were subjected to preliminary screening tests to determine if any could be conclusively determined not to have been caused by gunfire during the assassination. The screening tests were designed to answer the following questions:

• Do the impulse patterns, in fact, occur during the period of the assassination?

• Are the impulse patterns unique to the period of the assassination?

• Does the span of time of the impulse patterns approximate the duration of the assassination as indicated by a preliminary analysis of the Zapruder film? (Are there at least 5.6 seconds between the first and last impulse?

• (4 ) Does the shape of the impulse patterns resemble the shape of impulse patterns produced when the sound of gunfire is recorded through a radio transmission system comparable to the one used the Dallas police dispatch network?

• Are the amplitudes of the impulse patterns similar to those produced when the sound of gunfire is recorded through a transmission system comparable to the one used for the Dallas police dispatch network?

All six impulse patterns passed the preliminary screening tests.
BBN next recommended that the committee conduct an acoustical reconstruction of the assassination in Dealey Plaza to determine if any of the six impulse patterns on the dispatch tape were caused by shots and, if so, if the shots were fired from the Texas School Book Depository or the grassy knoll. (16) The reconstruction would entail firing from two locations in Dealey Plaza—the depository and the knoll-at particular target locations and recording the sounds through numerous microphones. The purpose was to determine if the sequences of impluses recorded during the reconstruction would match any of those on the dispatch tape. If so, it would be possible to determine if the impulse patterns on the dispatch tape were caused by shots fired during the assassination from shooter locations in the depository and on the knoll.
The theoretical rationale for the reconstruction was as follows:
The sequence of impulses from a gunshot is caused by the noise of the shot, followed by several echoes. Each combination of shooter location, target location and microphone location produces a sequence of uniquely spaced impulses. At a given microphone location, there would be a unique sequence of impulses depending on the location of the noise source (gunfire) and the target, and the urban environment of the surrounding area (echo-producing structures in and surrounding Dealey Plaza). The time of arrival of the echoes would be the significant aspect of the sequence of impulses that would be used to compare the 1963 dispatch tape with the sounds recorded during the 1978 reconstruction.
The echo patterns in a complex environment such as Dealey Plaza are unique, so by conducting the reconstruction, the committee could obtain unique "acoustical fingerprints" of various combinations of shooter, target and microphone locations. The fingerprint's identifying characteristic would be the unique time-spacing between the echoes. If any of the acoustical fingerprints produced in the 1978 reconstruction matched those on the 1963 Dallas police dispatch tape, it would be a strong indication that the sounds on the 1963 Dallas police dispatch tape were caused by gunfire recorded by a police microphone in Dealey Plaza.
At the time of the reconstruction in August 1978, the committee was extremely conscious of the significance of Barger's preliminary work, realizing, as it did, that his analysis indicated that there possibly were too many shots, spaced too closely together, (5 ) for Lee Harvey Oswald to have fired all of them, and that one of the shots came from" the grassy knoll, not the Texas School Book Depository.
The committee's awareness that it might have evidence that Oswald was not a lone assassin affected the manner in which it conducted the subsequent phase of the investigation. For example, it was deemed judicious to seek an independent review of Barger's analysis before proceeding with the acoustical reconstruction. So, in July 1978, the committee. contacted the Acoustical Society of America to solicit recommendations for persons qualified to review the BBN analysis and the proposed Dallas reconstruction. The society recommended a number of individuals, and the committee selected Prof. Mark Weiss of Queens College of the City University of New York and his research associate, Ernest Aschkenasy. Professor Weiss had worked on numerous acoustical projects. He had served, for example, on the panel of technical experts appointed by Judge John J. Sirica to examine the White House tape recordings in conjunction with the Watergate grand jury investigation. Aschkenasy had specialized in developing computer programs for analyzing large. volumes of acoustical data.
Weiss and Aschkenasy reviewed Barger's analysis and conclusions and concurred with them. In addition, they agreed that the acoustical reconstruction was necessary, and they approved Barger's plan for conducting it.
The committee authorized an acoustical reconstruction, to be conducted on August 20, 1978. Four target locations were selected, based on:
The estimated positions of the Presidential limousine according to a correlation of the channel 1 transmissions with the Zapruder film, indicating that the first shot was fired between Zapruder frames 160 and 170 and that the second shot was fired between Zapruder frames 190 and 200; (6 )
The position of the President at the time of the fatal head shot (Zapruder frame 312); and
Evidence that a curb in Dealey Plaza may have been struck by a bullet during the assassination.
Two shooter locations were selected for the reconstruction :
The sixth floor southeast corner window of the Texas School Book Depository, since substantial physical evidence and witness testimony indicated shots were fired from this location; and
The area behind a picket fence atop the grassy knoll, since there was considerable witness testimony suggesting shots were fired from there. (7 )
A Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was fired from the depository, since it was the type of weapon found on the sixth floor on November 22, 1963. Both a Mannlicher-Carcano (chosen mainly because it fires a medium velocity supersonic bullet) and a pistol, which fires a subsonic bullet, were fired from the grassy knoll, since there was no evidence in August 1978 as to what type of weapon, if any, may have been fired from there on November 22, 1963.(8 ) Microphones to record the test shots were placed every 18 feet in 36 different locations along the motorcade route where a motorcycle could have been transmitting during the assassination.
A recording was made of the sounds received at each microphone location during each test shot, making a total of 432 recordings of impulse sequences (36 microphone locations times 12 shots), or "acoustical fingerprints," for various target-shooter-microphone combinations. Each recorded acoustical fingerprint was then compared with each of the six impulse patterns on the channel 1 dispatch tape to see if and how well the significant points in each impulse pattern matched up. The process required a total of 2,592 comparisons (432 recordings of impulse sequences times six impulse patterns), an extensive effort that was not completed until 4 days before Barger was to testify at a committee public hearing on September 11, 1978.
The time of the arrival of the impulses, or echoes, in each sequence of impulses was the characteristic being compared, not the shape, amplitude or any other characteristic of the impulses or sequence. If a point (representing time of arrival of an echo) in a sequence of the 1963 dispatch tape could be correlated within plus or minus 6/1,000 of a second to a point in a sequence of the reconstruction, it was considered a match.
A plus or minus 6/1,000 of a second "window" was chosen, because the exact location of the motorcycle was not known. Since the microphones were placed 18 feet apart in the 1978 reconstruction, no microphone was expected to be in the exact location of the motorcycle microphone during the assassination in 1963. Since the location was not apt to be exactly the same, and the time of arrival of the echo is unique at each spot, the +-6/1,000 of a second "window" would allow for the contingency that the motorcycle was near, but not exactly at, one of the microphone locations selected for the reconstruction.
Those sequences of impulses that had a sufficiently high number of points that matched (a "score" or correlation coefficient of .6 or higher) were considered significant. The "score" or correlation coefficient was set at this level to insure finding all sequences that might represent a true indication that the 1963 dispatch tape contained gunfire. Setting it at this level, however, also allowed a sequence of impulses on the dispatch tape that might have been caused by random noise or other factors to be considered a match and therefore significant. Such a match, since it did not in fact represent a true indication of gunfire on the 1963 dispatch tape, would be considered an "invalid match."
Of the 2,592 comparisons between the six sequences of impulses on the 1963 police dispatch tape and the sequences obtained during the acoustical reconstruction in August 1978, 15 had a sufficient number of matching. points (a correlation coefficient of .6 or higher) to be considered significant. The first and sixth sequence of impulses on the dispatch tape had no matches with a correlation coefficient over .5. The second sequence of impulses on the dispatch tape had four significant matches, the third sequence had five, the fourth sequence had three, and the fifth sequence had three. Accordingly, impulses one and six on the dispatch tape did not pass the most rigorous acoustical test and were deemed not to have been caused by gunfire from the Texas School Book Depository or grassy knoll. Additional analysis of the remaining four impulse sequences was still necessary before any of them could be considered as probably representing gunfire from the Texas School Book Depository or the grassy knoll.
The locations of the microphones that recorded the matches in the 1978 reconstruction were plotted on a graph that depicted time and distance. It was observed that the location of the microphones at which matches were recorded tended to cluster around a line on the graph that was, in fact, consistent with the approximate speed of the motorcade (11 mph), as estimated from the Zapruder film. For example, of the 36 microphones placed along the motorcade route, the one that recorded the sequence of impulses that matched the third impulse on the 1963 dispatch tape was farther along the route than the one that recorded the impulses that matched the second impulse on the dispatch tape. The location of the microphones was such, it was further observed, that a motorcycle traveling at approximately 11 miles per hour would cover the distance between two microphones in the elapsed time between impulses on the dispatch tape. This relationship between the location of the microphones and the time between impulses was consistent for the four impulses on the dispatch tape, a very strong indication, the committee found, that the impulses on the 1963 dispatch tape were picked up by a transmitter on a motorcycle or other vehicle as it proceeded along the motorcade route. Applying a statistical formula, Barger estimated that since the microphones clustered around a line representing the speed of the motorcade, there was a 99 percent probability that the Dallas police dispatch tape did, in fact, contain impulses transmitted by a microphone in the motorcade in Dealey Plaza during the assassination.
Some of the matches found between the 1978 reconstruction and the dispatch tape were, however, thought to be clearly "invalid," that is, they did not represent a true indication of gunfire from the Texas School Book Depository or the grassy knoll. In one case, for example, there was a match for a shot in the reconstruction that had been aimed at a target located in a different direction from where the Presidential limousine was located at the moment, the limousine's location having been established by a correlation of the dispatch tape and the Zapruder film. Only an unlikely misfire could explain why an assassin would fire in the opposite direction. By applying similar principles of logic, six matches were ruled out. This left three matches for impulse pattern one, three for impulse pattern two, one for impulse pattern three and two for impulse pattern four. The remaining matches for impulse patterns one, two and four on the dispatch tape were for rifle firings from the Texas School Book Depository in the 1978 reconstruction, while the match for impulse pattern three was for a rifle firing from the grassy knoll.
These matches did not, however, prove conclusively that the impulses on the 1963 dispatch tape did, in fact, represent gunfire from the depository or grassy knoll. There still was a chance that random or other noise could have produced the pattern on the dispatch tape that matched the pattern obtained in the reconstruction, therefore being invalid as well. Based on statistical probabilities, including the observation that the locations of the microphones that picked up the matching impulse patterns tended to cluster along a line on the graph that approximated .the speed of the motorcycle, Barger estimated there was 50 percent chance that anyone of the matches was invalid. Consequently, Barger testified before the committee in September 1978 that the probability of there having been a shot from the grassy knoll was only 50 percent.(411) He based this estimate on there being only one match for impulse three, combined with his conclusion that there was a 50-50 chance that any one match, including the one for impulse pattern three, had been caused .by random noise. and was invalid. (412) (Barger was also saying, however, that if the match for impulse oattern three was valid, it meant that a shot was fired at President Kennedy from the grassy knoll.) (9 )

(2) Weiss-Aschkenasy analysis.

—In mid-September 1978, the committee asked Weiss and Aschkenasy (10 ), the acoustical analysts who had reviewed Barger's work, if they could go beyond what Barger had done to determine with greater certainty if there had been a shot from the grassy knoll. Weiss and Aschkenasy conceived an analytical extension of Barger's work that might enable them to refine the probability estimate. They studied Dealey Plaza to determine which structures were most got to have caused the echoes received by the microphone in the 1978 acoustical reconstruction that had recorded the match to the shot from the grassy knoll. They verified and refined their identifications of echo-generating structures by examining the results of the reconstruction. And like BBN, since they were analyzing the arrival time of echoes, they made allowances for the temperature differential, because air temperature affects the speed of sound. Barget then reviewed and verified the identification of echo-generating sources by Weiss and Aschkenasy.
Once they had identified the echo-generating sources for 9. shot from the vicinity of the grassy knoll and a microphone located near the point indicated by Barger's tests, it was possible for Weiss and Aschto predict precisely what impulse sequences (sound fingerprints) would have been created by various specific shooter and microPhone locations in 1963. (The major structures in Dealey Plaza in 1978 were located as they had been in 1963.) Weiss and Aschkenasy determined the time of sound travel for a series of sound triangles whose three points were shooter location, microphone location and echo-generating structure location. While the location of the structures would remain constant, the different combinations of shooter and microphone locations would each produce a unique sound travel pattern, or sound fingerprint. Using this procedure, Weiss and Aschkenasy could compare acoustical fingerprints for numerous precise points m the grassy knoll area with the segment identified by Barger on the dispatch tape as possibly reflecting a shot fired from the knoll.
Because Weiss and Aschkenasy could analytically construct what the impulse sequences would be at numerous specific shooter and microphone locations, they decided to look for a match to the 1963 police dispatch tape that correlated to within ñ1/1.000 of a second, as opposed to +-6/1.000) of a second, as Barger had done.By looking for a match with such precision, they considerably reduced the possibility that any match they found could have been caused by random or other noise, thus substantially reducing the percentage probability of an invalid match.
Weiss and Aschkenasy initially pinpointed a combination of shootermicrophone locations for which the early impulses in pattern three matched those on the dispatch tape quite well, although later impulses in the pattern did not. Similarly, they found other microphone locations for which later impulses matched those on the dispatch tape, while the earlier ones did not. They then realized that, a microphone mounted on a motorcycle or other vehicle would not have remained stationary during the period it was receiving the echoes. They computed that the entire impulse pattern or sequence of echoes they were analyzing on the dispatch tape occurred over approximately threetenths of a second, during which time the motorcycle or other vehicle would have, at 11 miles per hour, traveled about five feet. By taking into account the movement of the vehicle. Weiss and Aschkenasy were able to find a sequence of impulses representing a shot from the grassy knoll in the reconstruction that matched both the early and late impulses on the dispatch tape.
Approximately 10 feet from the point on the grassy knoll that was picked as the shooter location in the 1978 reconstruction and four feet from a microphone location which, Barger found, recorded a shot that. matched the dispatch tape within +-6/1,000 of a second, Weiss and Aschkenasy found a combination of shooter and microphone locations they needed to solve the problem. It represented the initial position of a microphone that would have received a series of impulses matching those on the dispatch tape to within +-1/1.000 of a second. The microphone would have been mounted on a vehicle that was moving along the motorcade route at 11 miles per hour.
Weiss and Aschkenasy also considered the distortion that a windshield might cause to the sound impulses received by a motorcycle microphone. They reasoned that the noise from the initial muzzle blast of a shot would be somewhat muted on the tape if it traveled through the windshield to the microphone. Test firings conducted under the auspices of the New York City Police Department confirmed this hypothesis. Further, an examination of the dispatch tape reflected similar distortions on shots one, two, and three, when the indicated positions of the motorcycle would have placed the windshield between the shooter and the microphone.(11 ) On shot four, Weiss and Aschkenasy found no such distortion. The analysts' ability to predict the effect of the windshield on the impulses found on the dispatch tape, and having their predictions confirmed by the tape, indicated further that the microphone was mounted on a motorcycle in Dealey Plaza and that it had transmitted the sounds of the shots fired during the assassination.
Since Weiss and Aschkenasy were able to obtain a match to within +-1/1,000 of a second, the probability that such a match could occur by random chance was slight. Specifically, they mathematically computed that, with a certainty factor of 95 percent or better, there was a shot fired at the Presidential limousine from the grassy knoll.
Barget independently reviewed the analysis performed by Weiss and Aschkenasy and concluded that their analytical procedures were correct. Barger and the staff at BBN also confirmed that there was a 95 percent chance that at the time of the assassination a noise as loud as a rifle shot was produced st the grassy knoll. When questioned about what could cause such a noise if it were not a shot, Barger noted it had to be something capable of causing a very loud noise—greater than a single firecracker. Further, given the echo patterns obtained, the noise had to have originated at the very spot behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll that had been identified, indicating that it could not have been a backfire from a motorcycle in the motorcade.
In addition, Barger emphasized, the first part of the sequence of impulses identified as a shot from the grassy knoll was marked by an N-wave, a characteristic impulse caused by a supersonic bullet. The N-wave, also referred to as a supersonic shock wave, travels faster than the noise of the muzzle blast of a gun and therefore arrives at a listening device such as a microphone ahead of the noise of a muzzle blast. The presence of the N-wave was, therefore, a significant additional indication that the third impulse on the police dispatch tape represented gunfire, and, in particular, a supersonic bullet. The weapon may well have been a rifle, since most pistols except for some. such as a .44 magnum—fire subsonic bullets.
The N-wave was further substantiation for a finding that the third impulse represented a shot fired in the direction of the President. Had the gun been discharged when aimed straight up or down, or away from the motorcade, no N-wave would have appeared. Of the impulse patterns on the dispatch tape that indicated shots from the book depository, those that would be expected to contain an N-wave, given the location of the vehicle's microphone, did so, further corroborating the conclusion that these impulses did represent supersonic bullets.
When questioned about the probability of the entire third impulse pattern representing a supersonic bullet being fired at the President from the grassy knoll, Barger estimated there was a 20 percent chance that the N-wave, as opposed to the sequence of impulses following it, was actually caused by random noise. Accordingly, the mathematical probability of the entire sequence of impulses actually representing a supersonic bullet was 76 percent, the product of a 95 percent chance that the impulse pattern represented noise as loud as a rifle shot from the grassy knoll times an 80 percent chance that the N-wave was caused by a supersonic bullet.
The committee found no evidence or indication of any other cause of noise as loud as a rifle shot coming from the grassy knoll at the time the impulse sequence was recorded on the dispatch tape, and therefore concluded that the cause was probably a gunshot fired at the motorcade.

(3) Search for a motorcycle.

---As the work of Weiss and Aschkenasy produced strong indications of a shot from the grassy knoll, the committee began a search of documentary and photographic evidence to determine if a motorcycle or other vehicle had been in the locations indicated by the acoustical tests.
Earlier in its investigation, the committee had interviewed many Dallas police officers who had ridden in the presidential motorcade, although the purpose of the interviews was not to determine the location of a motorcycle that might have had its radio transmitting switch stuck in the "on" position. Among the officers who were interviewed, one who subsequently testified in a public hearing was H.B. McLain. In his interview on September 26, 1977, McLain said that he had been riding to the left rear of Vice President Johnson's car and that just as he was completing his turn from Main onto Houston Street, he heard what he believed to have been two shots. Sergeant Jimmy Wayne Courson was also interviewed on September 26. 1977. He stated that his assignment in the motorcade was in front of the press bus, approximately six or seven cars to the rear of the presidential limousine, and that as he turned onto Houston Street, he heard three shots about a second apart. Neither officer was asked specifically whether his radio was on channel one or two, or whether his microphone switch might have been stuck in the transmit position.
The committee obtained Dallas Police Department assignment records confirming that McLain and Courson had both been assigned to the left side of the motorcade, and it discovered photographic evidence that Courson was riding to the rear of McLain, and. as Courson recalled,he was in the vicinity of the press bus. The available films revealed that throughout the motorcade the spacing of the motorcycles varied, but that McLain was generally several car lengths ahead of Courson and therefore much closer to the presidential and Vice Presidential limousines. No photographs of the precise locations of the two officers at the moment of the assassination were, at that time, found. Photographs taken shortly before the assassination, however, did indicate that McLain was on Houston Street heading toward Elm as the presidential limousine was turning onto Elm in front of the Texas School Book Depository. (12 ) At the time of the assassination, therefore, he would have been in the approximate position of the transmitting microphone, as indicated by the acoustical analysis.
The committee reviewed transcripts of the Dallas police dispatch tapes for both channel one and channel two. It did not find any voice Transmissions from McLain on either channel on November 22, 1963. (As noted, it was determined that the shots fired during the assassination were recorded over channel one. If it could have been established that McLain was transmitting over channel two, then the gunfire transmissions could not have come from his motorcycle radio.)
McLain was asked by the committee to come to Washington to testify. He was shown all of the photographic evidence that the committee had assembled, as well as the Dallas police records of the mororcade assignments. McLain testified before the committee on December 29, 1978, that he was assigned to ride on the left side of the motorcade; that since he would slow down at corners, often stopping momentarily, and then speed up during straight stretches, his exact, position in the motorcade varied; and that he was the first motorcycle to the rear of the Vice presidential limousine.
He further stated that he was the officer in the photographs taken of the motorcade on Main and Houston Streets, and that at the time of the assassination he would have been in the approximate position of the open microphone near the corner of Houston and Elm, indicated by the acoustical analysis. He did not recall using his radio during the motorcade nor what channel it was tuned to on that day. He stated it unusally was tuned to channel one. The button on his transmitter receiver, he acknowledged, often got stuck in the "on" position when he was unaware of it, but he did not know if it was stuck during the motorcade.
McLain testified before the committee that he recalled hearing only one shot and that he thereafter heard Chief Curry say to go to the hospital. McLain testified it was possible that he heard the broadcast of Chief Curry (which would have been on channel two) over the speaker of his own radio, or over the speaker of the radio of another motorcycle.
Following the hearing, the committee secured a copy of the daily assignment sheet for motorcycles from the Dallas Police Department and found that McClain had been assigned motorcycle number 352 and call sign 155 on November 22, 1963.preliminary photographic enhancement of the films taken on Houston and Main Streets indicated that the number on the rear of the motorcycle previously identified as having been ridden by McLain was, in fact, 352. (13 )
The committee recognized that its acoustical analysis first established and then relied on the fact that a Dictabelt had recorded transmissions from a radio with a stuck microphone switch located in Dealey Plaza. The committee realized that the authenticity of the tape and the location of the stuck microphone were both of great importance to the acoustical analysis. Consequently, it sought to verify that the tape in fact contained a broadcast from an open motorcycle microphone in Dealey Plaza during the assassination.
The findings of the acoustics experts may be challenged by raising a variety of questions, questions prompted, for example, by the sound of sirens on the tape, by statements by Officer McLain subsequent to his hearing testimony in which he denied that it was his radio that was transmitting, "by what appears to be the sound of a carillon bell on the tape, and by the apparent absence of crowd noise. The committee carefully considered these questions as they bore on the authenticity of the tape and the location of the stuck microphone.
Approximately 2 minutes after the impulse sequences that, according to the acoustical analysis, represent gunfire, the dispatch tape contains the sold of sirens for approximately 40 seconds. The sirens appear to rise and then recede in intensity, suggesting that the position of the microphone might have been moving closer to and then farther away from the sirens, or that the sirens were approaching the microphone and then moving away from it.
If the sirens were approaching the microphone and then moving away from it, it could be suggested that the motorcycle with the stuck transmitter was stationary on the Stemmons Freeway and not in Dealey Plaza. The sirens would appear to increase and then decrease as some vehicles in the motorcade, with their sirens turned on, drove along the freeway on the way to Parkland Hospital, approaching and then passing by the motorcycle with the stuck microphone. According to a transcript of channel two transmissions, approximately 3 1/2 minutes after the assassination Dallas Police Department dispatcher Gerald D. Henslee stated that an unknown motorcycle on Stemmons Freeway appeared to have its microphone switch stuck open on channel one.The committee interviewed Henslee on August 12, 5978. He told the committee he had assumed the motorcycle was on the freeway from the noise of the sirens. Other Dallas police officers have also speculated that the motorcycle may have been standing near the Trade Mart.
Officer McLain's acknowledged actions subsequent to the assassination might explain the sound of sirens on the tape. McLain was in fact probably on Stemmons Freeway at the time Henslee noted that an unknown motorcycle appeared to have its microphone switch stuck open. McLain himself testified that following the assassination, he sped up to catch the front cars of the motorcade that had entered Stemmons Freeway en route to Parkland Hospital. In any event, it is certain he left the plaza shortly after the assassination. The cars in the motorcade had their sirens on, and this could account for the sound of the sirens increasing as McLain drew closer to them, whether he left Dealey Plaza immediately or shortly after the assassination. (14 ) A variety of other actions might also account for the sound appearing to recede. Officer McLain might have fallen back after catching the cars, he might have passed by the cars, or he might have arrived at the hospital shortly after catching up, at a time when the sirens were being turned down as the cars approached the hospital.
Subsequent to his hearing testimony, McLain stated that he believed he turned on his siren as soon as he heard Curry's order to proceed to Parkland Hospital. He said that everyone near him had their sirens on immediately. Should his memory be reliable, the broadcast of the shots during the assassination would not have been over his radio, because the sound of sirens on the tape does not come until approximately 2 minutes later. The committee believed that McLain was in error on the point of his use of his siren. Since those riding in the motorcade near Chief Curry had their sirens on, there may have been no particular need for McLain to turn his on, too. The acoustical analysis pinpointing the location of the microphone, the confirmation of the location of the motorcycle by photographs, his own testimony as to his location, and his slowing his motorcycle as it rounded the corner of Houston and Elm (as had been previously indicated by the acoustical analysis),and the likelihood that McLain did not leave the plaza immediately, but legged behind momentarily after the assassination, led the committee to conclude it was Officer McLain whose radio microphone switch was stuck open.
Further, the committee noted. it would have been highly improbable for a motorcycle on Stemmons Freeway to have received the echo patterns for the four impulses that appear on the dispatch tape. As noted in more detail below, to contend that the microphone was elsewhere carries with it the burden of explaining all that appears on the tape. To be sure, those who argue the microphone was in Dealey Plaza must explain the sounds that argue it was not. Similarly, those who contend it was not in Dealey Plaza must explain the sounds that indicate it was. As Aschkenasy testified, the echo patterns on the tape would only have been received by a microphone located in a physical environment with the same acoustical characteristics as Dealey Plaza. It is extremely unlikely that the echo patterns on the tape, if received from elsewhere, would so closely parallel the echo patterns characteristic of Dealey Plaza.
The tape contains the faint sound of a carillon-like bell about 7 seconds after the last impulse believed to have been a shot, but no such bell was known to have been in the vicinity of Dealey Plaza. Accordingly, the possibility that the motorcycle with the stuck radio transmitter might not have been in Dealey Plaza was considered. The committee found that the radio system used by the Dallas Police Department permitted more than one transmitter to operate at the same time, and this frequently occurred.The motorcycle whose radio transmitted the sound of a bell was apparently not positioned in Dealey Plaza, but this did not mean that the transmissions of Runshots were also from a radio not in Dealey Plaza. The logical explanation was that the dispatch tape contains the transmissions of two or more radios.
The absence of identifiable crowd noise on the tape also might raise questions as to whether the motorcycle with the stuck transmitter was in Dealey Plaza. The lack of recognizable crowd noise, however, may be explained by the transmission characteristics of the microphone.
Dallas police motorcycle. radios were equipped with a directional microphone and were designed to transmit only very loud sounds. A human voice would transmit only if it originated very close to the front of the mike. The chief objective of this characteristic was to allow a police officer, when speaking directly into the microphone, to be heard over the sound of his motorcycle engine. Background noise, such as that of a crowd, would not exceed the noise level from the much closer motorcycle engine, and it would not be identifiable on a tape of the radio transmission. The sound of a rifle shot is so pronounced, however, that it would be picked up even if it originated considerably farther away from the microphone than other less intense noise sources, such crowd.

(c) Other evidence with respect to the shots

To address further the question of whether the dispatch tape contained sounds from a microphone in Dealey Plaza with a stuck transmitting switch, the committee reviewed independent evidence. It reasoned that if the timing, number and location of the shooters. as shown On the tape, were corroborated or independently substantiated in whole or in part by other scientific or physical evidence—that is, the Zapruder film, findings of the forensic pathology and firearms panels, the neutron activation analysis and the trajectory analysis—the validity of the acoustical analysis and the authenticity of the tape could be established. Conversely, any fundamental inconsistency in the evidence would undermine the analysis and the authenticity of the tape.
The tape and acoustical analysis indicated that, in addition to the shot from the knoll, there were three shots fired at President Kennedy from the Texas School Book Depository. This aspect of the analysis was corroborated or independently substantiated by three cartridge cases found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository on November 22, 1963, cartridge cases that had been fired in Oswald's rifle, along with other evidence related to the number of shots fired from Oswald's rifle. This corroboration was considered significant by the committee, since it tended to prove that the tape did indeed record the sounds of shots during the assassination.
Further corroboration or substantiation was sought by correlating the Zapruder film to the acoustical tape. The Zapruder film contains visual evidence that two shots struck the occupants of the Presidential limousine. The committee attempted to correlate the observable reactions of President Kennedy and Governor Connally in the film to the time spacing of the four impulses found in the recording of the channel one transmission. The correlation between the film and the recording however, could only be approximate because it was based on the estimated real-time characteristics of the recording (calculated from the frequent time annotations made by the dispatcher) and the average running time of the film (between 18.0 and 18.5, or an average of 18.3 frames per second). (15 )
The committee correlated the film to the tape in two ways. The first assumed the fourth shot was the fatal head shot to the President and occurred at frame 312. Its results are as follows:

Channel Time
Bullet reached
limousine at Zapruder frame No.
Accoustical determination of
source of impulse
Impulse pattern I
12:30:47.0
157-161
TSBD
Impulse pattern II
12:30:48.6
188-191
TSBD
Impulse pattern III
12:30:54.6
295-296
Grassy knoll
Impulse pattern IV
12:30:55.3
312
TSBD

The committee believed that the fourth impulse pattern probably represented that fatal head shot to the President that hit at Zapruder frame 312. Nevertheless, the possibility of frame 312 representing the shot fired from the grassy knoll, with the fourth shot consequently occurring at frame 398, was also considered. The problem with this possibility is that it appeared to be inconsistent with other scientific evidence that established that all the shots that struck the President and he Governor came from the Texas School Book Depository.
The forensic pathology panel concluded that there was no evidence that the President or Governor was hit by a bullet fired from the grassy knoll and that only two bullets, each fired from behind, struck them. Further, neutron activation analysis indicated that the bullet fragments removed from Governor Connally's wrist during surgery, those removed from the President's brain during the autopsy, and those found in the limousine were all very likely fragments from Mannlicher-Carcano bullets. It was also found that there was evidence of only two bullets among all the specimens tested—the fragments removed from Governor Connally's wrist during surgery were very likely from the almost whole bullet found on the stretcher at Parkland Hospital, and the fragments removed from the President's brain during the autopsy very likely matched bullet fragments found in the limousine. The neutron activation analysis findings, when combined with the finding of the committee that the almost whole bullet found on the stretcher at Parkland Hospital as well as the larger fragment found in the limousine were fired from Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, established that only two bullets struck the President and the Governor, and each was fired from the rifle found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository and owned by Oswald.
The committee considered whether proper synchronization of the tape to the film should assume that. the shot from the grassy knoll hit the President at Zapruder from 312. It did so because Dr. Michael Baden, chairman of the committee's forensic pathology panel, acknowledged there was a possibility, although highly remote, that the head wound depicted in Zapruder frame 312 could have been caused by a shot from the grassy knoll, and that medical evidence of it had been destroyed by a shot from the rear a fraction of a second later. (16 ) The significance of this, the committee reasoned, was the realization that it could mean that the President's fatal head wound was caused by the shooter from the grassy knoll, not Oswald.
Since the medical, ballistics and neutron activation analysis evidence, taken together, established that the President was struck by two bullets fired from Oswald's rifle found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, the committee sought to determine if such shots could have struck the President, given the known position of his body, even the grassy knoll shot struck him st Zapruder frame 312. The results correlating the acoustical tape to the film, assuming the shot from the knoll was at Zapruder frame 312, are as follows :

Zapruder frame
Accoustical determination of
origin
Impulse pattern I
173-177
TSBD
Impulse pattern II
205-298
TSBD
Impulse pattern III
312
Grassy knoll
Impulse pattern IV
328-329
TSBD

It was determined by medical, ballistics and neutron activation evidence that the President was struck in the head by a bullet fired from a rifle found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. For that bullet to have destroyed the medical evidence of the President being hit at Zapruder frame 312, it would have had to have struck at Zapruder frame 328-329. But a preliminary trajectory analysis, based on the President's location and body position at frame 328329 failed to track to a shooter in the sixth floor southeast corner window of the depository within a minimum margin of error radius, thus indicating it was highly unlikely the President was struck in the head at Zapruder frame 328 by a shot fired from the sixth floor southeast corner window of the depository. Further, there is no Visual evidence in the Zapruder film of the President being struck in the head at Zapruder frames 173-177 or 205-208, the frames at which shots one and two would have been fired if the shot from the knoll was a hit to the head at frame 312. Accordingly, if the shot from the grassy knoll occurred at frame 312, no shot fired from the Texas School Book Depository would have struck the President in the head at any time. Such a finding is contrary to the weight of the scientific evidence. The committee concluded, therefore, that the shot fired from the grassy knoll was not the shot visually represented at Zapruder frame 312: that the shot from the grassy knoll missed President Kennedy;(17 ) and that the most accurate synchronization of the tape and the film would be one based on a correlation of impulse pattern four on the tape with the fatal head shot to the President at frame 319 of the Zapruder film. When the tape and film are so synchronized, the sequence on the film corroborated or substantiated the timing of the shots indicated on the 1963 tape.
According to the more logical synchronization, the first shot would have occurred at approximately Zapruder frame 160. This would also be consistent with the testimony of Governor Connally, who stated that he heard the first shot and began to turn in response to it. His reactions, as shown in Zapruder frames 162-167, reflect the start of a rapid head movement from left to right.
The photographic evidence panel's observations were also relevant to the acoustics data that indicated that the second shot hit the limousine's occupants at about Zapruder frames 188-191. The panel noted that at approximately Zapruder frame 200 the President's movements suddenly freeze, as his right hand seemed to stop abruptly in the midst of a waving motion Then during frames 200-202, his head moves rapidly from right to left. The sudden interruption of the presidents hand-waving motion, coupled with his rapid head movements, was considered by the photographic panel as evidence of President Kennedy's reaction to some "severe external stimulus."
Finally, the panel observed that Governor Connally's actions during frames 222-226, as he is seen emerging from behind the sign that obstructed Zapruder's view, indicated he was also reacting to some "severe external stimulus." (18 ) Based upon this observation and upon the positions of President Kennedy and Governor Connally within the limousine, the panel concluded that the relative alinement of the two men was consistent with the theory that they had been struck by the same bullet.
The forensic pathology panel, with one member in dissent, stated that the medical evidence was consistent with the hypothesis that a single bullet caused the wounds to the Governor and the President.
The committee conducted a trajectory. analysis for the shot that it ultimately concluded struck both the Governor and the President. It was based on the location of the limousine and the body positions of President Kennedy and Governor Connally at Zapruder frame 190 and the bullet's course as it could be determined from their wounds. (19 ) When President Kennedy's entry and exit wounds were used as reference points for the trajectory line, it intersected the Texas School Book Depository within a 13 foot radius of a point approximately 14 feet west of the building's southeast corner and approximately 2 feet below the sixth floor window-sills. When President Kennedy's exit wound and Governor Connally's entrance wound were used as the reference points for the trajectory line, it intersected the Texas School Book Depository within a 7-foot radius of a point approximately 2 feet west of the southeast corner and 9 feet above the sixth floor window sills.
The committee's examination of the synchronization of the tape to the Zapruder film, therefore, demonstrated that the timing of the impulses on the tape matched the timing of events seen in the film. Further, the other scientific evidence available to the committee was consistent with the reactions viewed in the film and the timing of the shots indicated by the acoustical analysis. The synchronization of the 1963 dispatch tape with the film, based on a fatal hit to the President's head at frame 312 having been fired from the Texas School Book Depository, along with related evidence, corroborated or independently substantiated that the tape is one of transmissions from a microphone that recorded the assassination in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963.
Despite the existence of adequate corroboration or substantiation of the tape's authenticity., the committee realized that other questions were posed by the timing sequence of the impulses on the tape. The acoustical analysis had indicated both the first and second impulse patterns were shots from the vicinity of Texas School Book Depository, but that there were only 1.66 seconds between the onset of each of these impulse patterns. The committee recognized that 1.66 seconds is too brief a period for both shots to have been fired from Oswald's rifle, given the results of tests performed for the Warren Commission that found that the average minimum firing time between shots was 2.3 seconds.
The tests for the Warren Commission, however, were based on an assumption that Oswald used the telescopic sight on the rifle. The committee's panel of firearms experts, on the other hand, testified that given the distance and angle from the sixth floor window to the location of the President's limousine, it would have been easier to use the open iron sights. During the acoustical reconstruction performed for the committee in August, the Dallas Police Department marksmen in fact used iron sights and had no difficulty hitting the targets.
The committee test fired a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle using the open iron sights. It found that it was possible for two shots to be fired within 1.66 seconds.One gunman, therefore, could have fired the shots that caused both impulse pattern 1 and impulse pattern 2 on the dispatch tape. The strongest evidence that one gunman did, in fact, fire the shots that caused both impulse patterns was that all three cartridge cases found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository came from Oswald's rifle. In addition, the fragments from the two bullets that were found were identified as having been fired from Oswald's rifle. Accordingly, the 1.66 seconds between the onset of the first and second impulse patterns on the tape are not too brief a period of time for both of these patterns to represent gunfire, and for Oswald to have been the person responsible for firing both shots.
To explore further whether the tape contained sounds transmitted from a microphone in Dealey Plaza, the committee reviewed evidence produced by its photographic evidence panel. The panel conducted a "jiggle analysis" of the Zapruder film on the theory that Zapruder's panning errors, which would be apparent as a blur in the film, might have been caused by his reaction to the sound of gunfire. An original jiggle analysis, performed without knowledge of the results of the acoustical analysis, showed strong indications of shots occurring at about frame 190 and at about frame 310. The photographic evidence panel also noted some correlation between the acoustics results and a panning error reaction to the apparent sound of gunfire at about frame 160. Little evidence of another shot was found in the jiggle analysis, (20 ) but the expert who performed it testified that since the third and fourth shots occurred within less than a second of each other, it might be difficult to differentiate between them.
In summary, the various scientific projects indicated that there was a high probability that two gunmen were firing at the President. Scientifically, the existence of the second gunman was established only by the acoustical study, but its basic validity was corroborated or independently substantiated by the various other scientific projects.
The committee had its photographic evidence panel examine evidence that might-also reveal that there was in fact more than one gunman shooting at the President. Each item of relevant photographic evidence available to the committee was evaluated to determine whether image enhancement techniques (digital image processing, photooptical/chemical enhancement, and autoradiographic enhancement) might show additional gunmen. As the use of nonoriginal photographic materials frequently introduces image distortion that precludes accurate photointerpretation, only original photographic terials were subjected to image enhancement techniques. Similarly, since opaque film, such as photographic print paper, does not have the dynamic range (of brightness) of properly processed transparent film, it was not as suitable for enhancement.
There was considerable witness testimony, as well as a large body of critical literature, that had indicated the grassy knoll as a source of gunshots. Accordingly, this area received particular emphasis in the photographic interpretation analysis. The panel directed its attention to that portion of the knoll that extended from the retaining wall situated by the pergola to the stockade fence to the west of the wall. This analysis included enhancement of photographs taken by Mary Moorman, Philip Willis and Orville Nix, as well as Zapruder.
Mary Moorman, a bystander, had taken a Polaroid photograph of the grassy knoll at approximately the time of Zapruder frame 313. As far as the committee knew, it was the one photograph taken at the moment of the fatal head shot that showed the area that the acoustical anal sis indicated was the location of the second gunman. Viewing the photograph with the naked eye, one could detect images that might be construed as something significant behind the stockade fence. These images may, however, only represent parts of a tree, or they may be photographic artifacts. Due to the poor quality of the photograph and its deterioration over the years, it was not possible to determine the nature of the images with the naked eye. The photograph, because of this poor quality and because it was taken on opaque film that is less suitable for photographic enhancement, was considered by the photographic evidence panel to be of limited usefulness. Prior to the acoustical analysis, it was the subject of only limited clarification efforts, none of which involved computer technology. Enhancement attempts in the region of the retaining wall produced no significant increase in detail and no evidence of any human form. Because the stockade fence region of the photograph was of even poorer quality than the retaining wall area, no enhancement attempts were recommended. Subsequent to the acoustical analysis, the author of the section of the photograph evidence panel's report that addressed the question of whether there were other gunmen in Dealey Plaza indicated that the likelihood of successfully enhancing this print was extremely remote.
The significance of the Moorman film may, therefore, be largely negative. It was not possible to draw anything positive from the film 15 years after it was taken. Nevertheless, if the film did not contain images that might be construed to be a figure behind the fence, it would be a troubling lack of corroboration for the acoustical analysis. At the same time, the committee noted, the Department of Justice might consider further enhancement, if it is deemed to be feasible.
Zapruder frame 413, showing a bush situated between Zapruder and the presidential limousine, was also analyzed by the photographic evidence panel. Image enhancement techniques successfully established the presence of a human head visible among the leaves of the bush in Zapruder's field of view. photogrammetric analysis determined that this so called gunman in the bush was actually located on the other side of the bush from Zapruder. It is probably one of the men who can be seen in other photographs standing in the middle of the sidewalk that runs from the top of the grassy knoll down to Elm Street. Consequently, he was not, as had been alleged, in a position to have been a hidden gunman. Further, the linear feature associated with this person, alleged by Warren Commission critics to be a rifle, is actually in front of the leaves on the same side of the bush as Zapruder. Analytical photogrammetry and image enhancement with special color analysis attributed this linear feature to natural surroundings. The narrow portion of the linear feature (the alleged rifle barrel) was established to be one of a number of twigs in the bush. All of them were characterized by the same general direction and spacing, consistent with the natural growth patterns of the bush. The thicker part of the linear feature (the alleged rifle "stock") was a hole in the bushes through which a portion of the Presidential limousine was visible.
Willis photograph No. 5 was the third knoll photograph enhanced and evaluated by the panel. The relevant area of analysis was the retaining wall situated approximately 41 feet to the east of the point of the stockade fence that, according to the acoustics analysis, was the source of gunfire. A fleshtone comparison performed by analyzing measurements of color values on an object located behind the west end of the retaining wall confirmed that the image perceived was actually a human being. The panel did perceive "a very distinct straightline feature" near the region of this person's hands, but it was unable to deblur the image sufficiently to reach any conclusion as to whether the feature was, in fact, a weapon.
+Photographic enhancement of selected portions of a film taken by Orville Nix was also performed by the panel. One object in the vicinity of the retaining wall near the pergola was carefully studied, but the panel could not identify it as a human being and decided that the image was more likely the result of light and shadow patterns.
The Nix frames analyzed included those that purportedly depict a gunman in a "classic" firing stance. This individual" is located by the southwest corner of the pergola beyond the retaining wall, approximatly 41 feet north of the point of the the stockade fence that, according to the acoustics study, was the source of the gunfire. The panel was able to conclude that this image was not, in fact, a human being. Its conclusion was based on both a shadow analysis and its inability to attribute flesh, ones or motion to the alleged gunman.
None of the photographs of the grassy knoll that were analyzed by the photographic evidence panel revealed any evidence of a puff of smoke or flash of light, as reported by several people in the crowd.
The committee's analysis of available photographic evidence, therefore, did not confirm or preclude the presence of a gunman firing at the President from behind the stockade fence on the grassy knoll. In addition to photographs of the knoll area, the committee enhanced photographic materials of the Texas School Book Depository taken by Robert Hughes, Tom Dillard, and James Powell. These were examined for an evidence with respect to the source of the shots fired from the depository, as well as any evidence of conspiratorial activity before or after the assassination. (The committee was not aware of the existence of any photographs of the sixth floor southeast corner window of the depository at the actual moment of the assassination.) The Hughes film, taken moments before the first shot was fired at the President, was enhanced for the purpose of determining whether any motion could be discerned in the sixth floor southeast corner window where Oswald was alleged to have been positioned. Although motion in this window was alleged, the panel concluded that it was only apparent rather than real. This conclusion was based upon the rapidity of the perceived motion, its lack of consistent direction, and the fact that the object disappears from view during a two-frame (approximately one-ninth of a second) sequence. Accordingly, the motion was attributed to photographic artifact. An appearance of motion in an adjacent set of windows was also attributed to a photographic artifact.
The question of motion of both sets of windows is similarly raised by the film taken by Charles L. Bronson several minutes before the assassination. Because this film was not made available to the committee until December 2 1978, it was not reviewed by the full panel. In a preliminary examination of the film by several members of the panel, it was observed that the characteristics of the Bronson film were similar to those of the Hughes film that were examined by the entire panel. The apparent motion in the window seemed to be random and therefore not likely to be caused by human motion. Because of the high quality of the Bronson film, the panel members recommended it be subjected to computer analysis. The committee recommended, in turn, that the Bronson film be subjected to anal is by the Department of Justice.
Enhancement efforts with respect to the Dillard and Powell photographs, taken shortly after the assassination, successfully generated considerable detail within the depository window. Based upon its review of these materials, the panel was able to conclude that at the time these photographs were taken, no human forms were present in the sixth floor southeast corner window of the depository.
No photographs of the sixth floor southeast corner window of the Texas School Book Depository were taken at the time of the assassination, photographic evidence did not confirm or preclude a firing by an assassin from the window. Photographs of the sixth floor window taken shortly before and after the assassination did not reveal evidence of human forms. Allegations that these photographs contain evidence of there having been more than one gunman on the sixth floor were not supported by the enhancement efforts. In summary, the photographic evidence with respect to the grassy knoll and the Texas School Book Depository did not confirm or preclude that a gunman fired at the president from either location.
None of the scientific evidence available to the committee photography, forensic pathology, ballistics, neutron activation analysis-was inconsistent with the acoustical evidence that established a high probability that two gunmen fired at the President.

(d) Witness testimony on the shots.

—The committee, in conjunction with its scientific projects, had a consultant retained by Bolt Beranek and Newman analyze the testimony of witnesses in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, to advise the committee what weight, if any, it should give such testimony, and to relate the testimony to the acoustics evidence the committee had obtained.
The statements of 178 persons who were in Dealey Plaza, all of whom were available to the Warren Commission, were analyzed: 49 (27.5 percent) believed the shots had come from the Texas School Book Depository; 21 (11.8 percent) believed the shots had come from the grassy knoll; 30 (16.9 percent.) believed the shots had originated elsewhere; and 78 (43.8 percent) were unable to tell which direction the shots were fired from. Only four individuals believed shots had originated from more than one location.
Some comment on these statistics is called for. The committee noted that a significant number of witnesses reported that shots originated from the grassy knoll. The small number of those who thought shots originated from both the book depository and grassy knoll might be explained by the fact that the third and fourth shots were only seventenths of a second apart. Such a brief interval might have made it difficult for witnesses to differentiate between the two shots, or to distinguish their direction. While recognizing the substantial number of people who reported shots originating from the knoll, the committee also believed the process of collecting witness testimony was such that it would be unwise to place substantial reliance upon it. The witnesses were interviewed over a substantial period of time, some of them several days, even weeks, after the assassination. By that time, numerous accounts of the number and direction of the shots had been published. The committee believed that the witnesses' memories and testimony on the number, direction, and timing of the shots may have been substantially influenced by the intervening publicity concerning the events of November 22, 1963. Consequently standing alone, the statistics are an unreliable foundation upon which to rely with great confidence for any specific finding. It was of obvious importance, however, that some witness testimony would corroborate the acoustical finding of a shot from the grassy knoll. If no testimony indicated shots from the knoll, there would have been a troubling lack of corroboration for the acoustical analysis.
The Warren Commission had available to it the same testimony concerning shots from the knoll, but it believed it should not be credited because of "the difficulty of accurate perception." The Commission stated, "***the physical and other evidence" only compelled the conclusion that at least two shots were fired. The Commission noted, however, that the three cartridge cases that were found, when taken together with the witness testimony, amounted to a preponderance of evidence that three shots were fired. Nevertheless, the Commission held, "* * * there is no credible evidence to indicate shots were fired from other than the Texas School Book Depository." It therefore discounted the testimony of shots from the grassy knoll.
While recognizing that the Commission was correct in acknowledging the difficulty of accurate witness perception, the committee obtained independent acoustical evidence to support it. Consequently, it was in a position where it had to regard the witness testimony m a different light. The committee assembled for the purpose of illustration the substance of the testimony of some of the witnesses who believed the shots may have come from somewhere in addition to the depository. A Dallas police officer, Bobby W. Hargis, was riding a motorcycle to the left and slightly to the rear of the limousine. Hargis described the direction of the shots in a deposition given to the Warren Commission on April 8, 1964:
Well, at the time it sounded like the shots were right next to me. There wasn't any way in the world I could tell where they were coming from, but at the time 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 * * * I had a feeling that it might have been from the Texas School Book Depository, and these two places was (sic) the primary place that, could have been shot from.
Hargis stated that after the shooting he saw a man fall to the ground at the base of the incline and cover his child. He also saw other people running. Hargis himself stopped his motorcycle and ran up the incline.
The man Officer Hargis saw lying on the ground was probably William Eugene Newman. Newman and his wife and child were observing the motorcade from the curb near the west end of the concrete standard on Elm Street. Newman gave this description of their actions after hearing the shots to the sheriff's department on November 22, 1963:
Then we fell down on the grass as it seemed that we were in direct path of fire . . . I thought the shots had come from the garden directly behind me, that was on an elevation from where I was as I was right on the curb. I do not recall looking toward the Texas School Book Depository. I looked back in the vicinity of the garden.
Abraham Zapruder, since deceased, was standing on a concrete abutment on the grassy knoll, just beyond the Stemmons Freeway sign, aiming his 8 millimeter camera at the motorcade. He testified in deposition given to the Commission on July 22, 1964, that he thought a shot may have come from behind him, but then acknowledged in response to questions from Commission counsel that it could have come from anywhere. He did, however, differentiate among the effects the shots had on him. One shot, he noted, caused reverberations all around him and was much more pronounced than the others. Such a difference, the committee noted, would be consistent with the differing effects Zapruder might notice from a shot from the knoll, as opposed to the Texas School Book Depository.
A Secret Service agent, Paul E. Landis, Jr., wrote a statement on the shooting, dated November 30, 1963. Landis was in the follow-up car, behind the Presidential limousine, on the outside running board on the right. He indicated that the first shot "sounded like the report of high-powered rifle from behind me, over my right shoulder." According to his statement, the shot he identified as number two might have come from a different direction. He said:
I still was not certain from which direction the second shot came, but my reaction at this time was that the shot came from somewhere, towards the front, right-hand side of the road.
Another witness, S.M. Holland, since deceased, also noted signs of a shot coming from a group of trees on the knoll. Holland was standing on top of the railroad overpass above Elm Street. Testifying deposition cared he heard four shots. After the first, he said, he saw Governor Connally turn around. Then there was another report. The first two sounded as if they came from "the upper part of the street." The third was not as loud as the others. Holland said:
There was a shot, a report. I don't know whether it was a shot. I can't say that. And 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. It wasn't as loud as the previous reports or shots.
When counsel for the Warren Commission asked Holland if he had any doubts about the four shots, he said:
I have no doubt about it. I have no doubt about seeing that puff of smoke come out from those trees either.
These witnesses are illustrative of those present in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, who believed a shot came from the grassy knoll.

(1) Analysis of the reliability of witness testimony.

—The committee also conducted, as part of the acoustical reenactment in Dealey Plaza in August 1978, a test of the capacity of witnesses to locate the direction of shots, hoping the experiment might give the committee an independent basis with which to evaluate what weight, if any, to assign to witness testimony. Two expert witnesses were asked to locate the direction of shots during the test, and Dr. David Green, the BBN consultant, supervised the test and prepared a report on the reactions of the expert witnesses. Green concluded in the report, "* * * it is difficult to draw any firm conclusions relative to the reports of witnesses in the plaza as to the possible locus of any assassin." Nevertheless, he stated that "it is hard to believe a rifle was fired from the knoll" during the assassination, since such a shot would be easy to "localize." Green cited as support for his conclusion the fact that only four of the 178 Dealey Plaza witnesses pointed to maor than one location as the origin of the shots.
In its evaluation of Green's conclusions, the committee considered the different circumstances affecting the expert: witnesses in the test and the actual witnesses to the assassination. The expert witnesses in August 1978 were expecting the shooting and knew in advance that guns would be fired only from the Texas School Book Depository and the grassy knoll and they had been fold their assignment was to determine the direction of the shots. Further, there was no test in which shots were fired within seven-tenths of a second of each other, so no reliable conclusion could be reached with respect to the possibility that such a brief interval would cause confusion. Dr. Green's report also reflects that even though the two trained observers correctly identified the origin of 90 percent of the shots, their own notes indicated something short of certainty. Their comments were phrased with equivocation: "Knoll? "Over my head. Not really on knoll or even behind me;" "Knoll/underpass;" and "Knoll? Not really confident." Their comments, in short, frequently reflected ambiguity as to the origin of the shots, indicating that the gunfire from the grassy knoll often did not solred very different from shots fired from the book depository.
An analysis by the committee of the statements of witnesses in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, moreover, showed that about 44 percent were not able to form an opinion about-the origin of the shots, attesting to the ambiguity showed in the August 1978 experiment. Seventy percent of the witnesses in 1963 who had an opinion as to origin said it was either the book depository or the grassy knoll. (21 ) Those witnesses who thought the shots originated from the grassy knoll represented 30 percent of those who chose between the knoll and the book depository and 21 percent of those who made a decision as to origin. Since most of the shots fired on November 22, 1963 (three out of four, the committee determined) came from the book depository, the fact that so many witnesses thought they heard shots from the knoll lent additional weight to a conclusion that a shot came from there.
The committee, therefore, concluded that the testimony of witnesses in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963 supported the finding of the acoustical analysis that there was a high probability that a shot was fired at the President from the grassy knoll. There were also witness reports of suspicious activity in the vicinity of the knoll.

(e) Certain conspiracy allegations

While the committee recognized, as discussed in section C, that a finding that two gunmen fired at the President did not in itself establish that President Kennedy was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy, it did establish, in the context of common experience, the probability that a conspiracy did exist that day. Consequently, the committee sought to employ scientific analysis to examine some conspiracy theories about the assassination. The scientific analysis that could be applied to these conspiracy allegations refuted each one of them.
The committee had its photographic evidence panel investigate allegations concerning certain specific individuals who had been linked to the assassination and were allegedly present in Dealey Plaza. For ensic anthropologists were asked to compare photographs of these known subjects with those of unidentified persons photographed in Dealey Plaza on the day of the assassination. The anthropological studies involved comparisons of morphological traits (wrinkles, scars, and shape of ears, nose, et cetera) and facial dimensions and statural measurements to the extent that these could be derived from the photographs examined and other related documents available to the committee.
The first photograph examined contained an individual appearing in a press photograph of motorcade spectators on Houston Street. Some critics had contended the individual appeared to be Joseph A. Milteer, a militant conservative who had been secretly recorded on tape by a police informant 2 weeks prior to the assassination as he described a plan to assassinate the President. (22 ) The anthropologists concluded, however, that based on available photographs and records of Milteer's height, the individual in the photograph could not have been Milteer.
Press photographs of three "tramps" apprehended by the Dallas police near Dealey Plaza shortly after the assassination were analyzed and compared with photographs of a number of persons, including E. Howard Hunt, 23 Frank Sturgis, Thomas Vallee, Daniel Carswell, and Fred Lee Chrisman, each of whom had been alleged by critics to be linked to the assassination. Of all the subjects compared, only Fred Lee Chrisman, a conservative active in New Orleans at the time of the assassination, was found to have facial measurements consistent with any of the tramps. Anthropologists could not make a positive identification of Chrisman, however. The committee could not establish any link between Chrisman and the assassination. In addition, the committee independently determined that Chrisman was not in Dealey Plaza on the day of the assassination.
The committee sought, by employing scientific analysis, to explore other allegations of conspiratorial activity-Establishing the authenticity of the autopsy photographs and X-rays was of fundamental importance, not only because these evidentiary materials were a primary basis for the committee's findings concerning the nature and causes of the president's head wounds, but because allegations that they had been altered raised implications of a wide-based conspiracy operating at high levels of the U.S. Government. As it has been noted, the committee found that the X-rays and photographs had not been altered.
Another conspiratorial theory that implied there was an extensive and sophisticated conspiracy rested on the allegation that the photographs of Oswald in his backyard holding a rifle were composites. Similar conspiratorial implications were raised by the allegation that the rifle currently in the National Archives was a different rifle than that seen in the backyard photographs of Oswald with rifle, as well as other photographs of the rifle taken on November 22 and November 23, 1963. As discussed in section A 3, scientific analysis performed by the committee refuted each of these allegations.
The final conspiratorial theory the committee investigated by scientific analysis was the so-claled "two Oswald theory." This was an assertion by some critics that the Lee Harvey Oswald who returned from Russia in 1962 was a different person than the Lee Harvey Oswald who defected to Russia in 1959. Forensic anthropologists analyzed and compared the number of photos of Oswald taken different times during his life for any indication that they were not photographs of one and the same individual. Based on an analysis of facial dimensions, they found all the photographs consistent with those of a single individual.
In addition the photographic evidence panel conducted height and proportion studies of various Oswald photographs, utilizing test photographs of subjects against a height chart. The panel noted that significant variations can arise from this type of measurement due to differences in orientation and distance of the subject from the camera. The panel explained," * * * unless the subject photographed is standing directly with his back against the height chart. et correct distance from the properly positioned camera equipped with an appropriate lens, it is unreasonable to assume that the resulting picture is ever a precisely accurate indicator of both his height. and head size." The panel noted that because of the impediments to accuracy, the use of height charts in pictures is no longer a common practice in law enforcement or industrial security work.
The committee also engaged the services of three handwriting experts to explore the "two Oswald theory." These experts viewed documents purported to have been written by Lee Harvey Oswald. They examined documents from the years 1956 to 1963 to determine if the handwriting of the man who joined the Marines in 1956 was the same as that of the man who had applied fore passport in 1959, tried to revoke his American citizenship in 1959, returned to the United States in 1962, journeyed to Mexico in late September 1963, and ordered the rifle which was found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository on November 22 1963. A careful examination of these documents demonstrated that the man who signed those items was the same man throughout the entire 7-year peried. Accordingly, on the basis of the committee's scientific analysis, there was no evidence to support the allegation that Lee Harvey Oswald who returned from Russia in 1962 was a different person than the Lee Harvey Oswald who defected to Russia in 1959.

(f) Summary of the evidence

Where it was available, the committee extensively employed scientific analysis to assist it in the resolution of numerous issues. The committee considered all the other evidence available to evaluate the scientific analysis. In conclusion, the committee found that the scientific accoustical evidence established a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John f. Kennedy. Other scientific evidence did not preclude the possibility of two gunmen firing at the President, but it did negate some specific conspiracy allegations.
--------------------------
1 - Transcripts of the Dallas dispatch transmissions had been provided to the Warren Commission by the FBI and the Dallas Police Department. They were used to resolve issues not related to the number, timing or origin of the shots fired in Dealey Plaza. It did not appear that an acoustical analysis of these tapes or Dictabelts was performed for the Commission by the FBI or any other agency or private organization.
2 - Channel 1 transmissions were a continuous record of Dallas police activity; channel 2 transmissions were voice activated, and therefore an intermittent record of communications, for the most part those of Dallas Police Chief Jesse E. Curry and the headquarters dispatcher.
3 - Prior to the BBN analysis of the original Dictabelt and tapes, the firm was given a tape that had been supplied to the committee by a Warren Commission critic in the belief that it was an original. BBN determined that this tape was a second generation copy of the original. Because it was an imperfect copy, it was not used in the BBN work.
4 - The 5.6-second standard was based on a preliminary examination of the Zapruder film that showed evidence of Kennedy and Connally reacting to their wounds. The difference between approximate impact moments was calculated using the 18.3 frame per second rate of the Zapruder camera. This 5.6-second standard was derived before the photographic evidence panel had reported the results of its observations of the Zapruder film.
5 - For example, the time between two of the impulse patterns that might represent gunfire was less than a second too brief an interval to have permitted Oswald to fire two shots.
6 - The committee ultimately determined that the shots were fired a few Zapruder frames earlier than it believed to be the case in August 1978.
7 - The committee noted the absence of physical evidence of shots from the grassy knoll.
8 - As is discussed infra, there are important differences between the impulse patterns caused by a subsonic bullet, as opposed to a supersonic bullet.
9 - With repect to the other shots. Barger estimated there was an 88 percent chance that impulse pattern one represented a shot from the book depository (based on three matches), 88 percent again for impulse pattern two (three matches and a 75 percent chance that impulse pattern font represented a shot from the depository (two matches). (43) At the time of his testimony in September 1978, Barger estimated that the probability of all four impulses actually representing gunshots was only 29 percent. (44)
10 - Weiss and Aschkenasy examined only the impulse sequence that Barger indicated had come from the grassy knoll. Due to time constraints, they did not analyze the three impulse sequences indicating shots fired from the Texas School Book Depository.
11 - The motorcycle was traveling 120 feet behind the Presidential limousine when the shots were fired. This put shots one and two from the book depository, as well as shot three from the grassy knoll, in front of the motorcycle windshield.
12 - Subsequent to the committee's final vote on its findings. additional photographic evidence of the actions of Officer McLain was received by the committee by Robert Groden, a consultant to the committee.(74) It supported the committee's conclusion with respect to McLain's testimony, but since it was not received until after the vote, it was not relied upon in this report.
13 - During his public testimony, McLain also identified photographs of motorcycles on Elm Street (JFK Exhibit 675), and at Parkland Hospital (JFK Exhibits 674, 676, 677, and 678) as possibly portraying his motorcycle. One of the pictures at Parkland Hospital (JFK Exhibit 674) apparently indicates that the microphone button was turned to channel one. With respect to the photograph on Elm Street, McLain stated that the other motorcycle in the picture appeared to be ridden by Sergeant Courson. At that time, counsel cautioned that the photographs were being introduced for a limited purpose, since they had not been analyzed by any photographic experts; it was unclear if the cycle in each photograph was that of McLain; and the channel selector, even if it was on channel one, could have been switched after the shots were fired. Preliminary photographic analysis of those pictures conducted by one expert in the time available after the hearing cast doubt upon the accuracy of at least McLain's identification of Courson in Exhibit F-674 may have been on channel two instead of one. Because the committee was unable to conduct comprehensive and thorough analyses of those photographs, it did not rely on Exhibits F-674, F-675, F-676, F-677 or F-678 in forming any conclusions.
14 - McLain's microphone was so constructed that it would pick up only the siren of the motorcycle on which it was mounted or one of a motorcycle or other vehicle that was no more than 300 feet away.
15 - The 18.3 frame per second rate of the Zapruder film was an average of the 18.0 to 18.5 frame per second rate determined in 1964 by the FBI under laboratory conditions in which the camera was set and run in the manner that Zapruder said he had operated it at the time of the assasssination. (100) Given the 18.0 to 18.5 frame per second average running speed of the film, a differential of four frames is a differential of less than a quarter of a second. For this reason, an absolute correlation between events in the recording and the observable reactions on the film was not expected. If there were no reasonable correlation between the tape and film, however, substantial questions concerning the authenticity of the tape could be raised. (A more detailed explanation of the calculation of Zapruder frames based on the running speeds of the camera is set forth in vol. V of the HSCA-JFK hearings, at pp. 722-724.)
16 - In addition, the blur analysis conducted by the photographic evidence panel appeared to be more consistent with the Grassy Knoll shot striking the President. The analysis reflected no significant panning errors by Zapruder after frame 296. Such errors would have been expected in the third (grassy knoll) shot occured 0.7 second before the fatal head shot. Assumong the fatal head shot was the Grassy Knoll shot, Zapruder made significant panning errors after both the third and the fourth shots. (See Blur Analysis, Appendix to the HSCA-JFK hearings, vol. VI, par. 81ff.)
17 - The committee noted there was no physical evidence of where a shot from the grassy knoll might have hit. Since a shot from the Texas School Book Depository hit the President in the head less than one second after the shot from the knoll, there would have been little apparent reason for a gunman on the knoll to fire a second shot.
18 - The panel reached no conclusion concerning Governor Connally's reactions, If any, from Zapruder frame 207 to frame 221, since during this .82-second interval he was behind the sign that obstructed Zapruder's field of view. Connally could conceivably have started his reaction at frames 200-206, but too little of his body is visible during these frames to permit such a finding.
19 - Because the committee concluded that the shot from the grassy knoll did not hit the President at Zapruder frame 312, it did not undertake a trajectory analysis for the second shot from the depository, one that would have occurred in the area of Zapruder frames 205-208 if the shot from the grassy knoll had hit the President at Zapruder frame 312.
20 - Indication of a shot from the grassy knoll might have been expected in the jiggle analysis at about frame 295.
21 - The interviews of witnesses to the assassination may have reflected a tendency to make a "forced choice" between the two locations caused by the actions of police and other spectators in Dealey Plaza indicating the knoll and the depository were the two shooter locations, an attitude that was substantiated by press reports of shooter locations that, in some instances, preceded interviews with witnesses.
22 - The committee's analysis of the response by the Secret Service to the threat posed by Milteer's alleged plan is described in section D1 of this report. 23 During the course of the committee's investigation, a rumor was circulating that the committee had uncovered a memorandum in CIA files indicating Hunt was in Dallas on November 22, 1963. The rumor was not founded on fact. In addition, Hunt gave the committee a sworn deposition (179) in which he denied the allegation, and the committee found no evidence that contradicted Hunt's deposition.

The Commission of the President (aka the Warren Commission)

Pierre NAU — 2022-10-10T11:52:27Z


Chief Justice Warren

With Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States of America, as Chairman, this Commision was appointed Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States to inquire into the John Fitzgerald Kennedy assassination. The FBI and the Secret service assisted it in this inquiry.

The Commission was composed of :

Members	Position
James Earl Warren	President
Richard B. Russel	member
John Sherman Cooper	member
Hale Boggs	member
Gerald R. Ford	member
Allen W. Dulles	member
John J. McCloy	member

The commission was assisted in its work by advisers. Here is the list :

Members	Position
J. Lee Rankin	General advisor
Francis W. H. Adams	advisor
John A. Ball	advisor
David W. Belin	advisor
William T. Coleman	advisor
Melvin A. Eisenberg	advisor
Burt W. Griffin	advisor
Leon D. Hubert	advisor
Albert E. Jenner	advisor
Weisley G. Liebeler	advisor
Norman Redlich	advisor
William D. Slawson	advisor
Arlen Specter	advisor
Samuel A. Stern	advisor
Howard P Willens	advisor

In addition, a staff of 11 members strengthened the Warren commission.

By the end of 1964, The Commission made public its conclusions :

The Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald :

1) Owned and possessed the rifle used to kill President Kennedy and wound Governor Connally,

2) Brought this rifle into the Depository Building on the morning of the assassination,

3) Was present, at the time of the assassination, at the window from which the shots were fired,

4) Killed Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit in an apparent attempt to escape,

5) Resisted arrest by drawing a fully loaded pistol and attempting to shoot another police officer,

6) Lied to the police after his arrest concerning important substantive matters,

7) Attempted, in April 1963, to kill Maj. General Edwin A. Walker, and

8) Possessed the capability with a rifle which would have enabled him to commit the assassination.

On the basis of these findings the Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin of President Kennedy.

Many critics still remain regarding the final report provided by the Warren commission. Admittedly, the work carried out by its members is incomplete and too limited to check the assumption of a lone gunman acting : Lee Harvey Oswald.

Shortly after its publishing, many critics pointed out the contradictions of the report. Among them, Leo Sauvage, the French correspondent for "Le Figaro" in the United States already was questioning the conclusions of the President Commission :

• "The Warren Commsision's Case Against Oswald" (Leo Sauvage, The New Leader, 22 November 1965)

• "Oswald's Case Against the Warren Commission" (Leo Sauvage, The New Leader, 20 December 1965)

• "The Case Against Mr. X" (Leo Sauvage, The New Leader, 3 January 1966)

However, it would be unfair to reject the entire responsibility of the lack of the investigation on the lone Commission. Its members were submitted to important constraints and they had not enough time to investigate and check all reports and files provided by the FBI and the Secret Service. In addition, most of the members of this Commission had their own professional work and they were not completely available to inquire into the assassination. Therefore, the members of the Commission relied almost exclusively upon the conclusions of the FBI and the Secret Service. The strength of this Commission was not fitted to be able to inquire into some informations and facts not clearly investigated by them.

Despite the fact that some points still remained unclarified at the moment Earl Warren gave his report to the President Johnson by the end of 1964, the Commission could not be held for the lone responsible. The federal authority and particularly those who were in charge to support the Commission in its work had their part of responsibility. The atmosphere of the time and the absolute need to name the assassin can explain the rush of the American authorities. The traumatism in the opinion was such important that the knowledge of a lone gunman having acted without help of anyone was reassuring.

The conclusion according to which Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone meant that President Kennedy had not been assassinated as a result of a plot and consequently the American people should be releived. That is the reason why the work of the Commission could only be incomplete and questionable since it mainly investigated the assumption of the lone gunman acting. Nevertheless, one should read the report and the Coimmission hearings before any critics.

- The report can be read on line at :
http://jfkassassination.net/russ/jfkinfo/wcrtoc.htm

- Regarding the hearings, a wide range of testimonies are also available at :
http://jfkassassination.net/russ/wit.htm

That is the best way to get a personal opinion on it and to assess the work of the Warren commission.

Conclusion 1

Pierre NAU — 2022-10-10T11:39:25Z

A. LEE HARVEY OSWALD FIRED THREE SHOTS AT PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ; THE SECOND AND THIRD SHOTS HE FIRED STRUCK THE PRESIDENT ; THE THIRD SHOT HE FIRED KILLED THE PRESIDENT

1. PRESIDENT KENNEDY WAS STRUCK BY TWO RIFLE SHOTS FIRED FROM BEHIND HIM

The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy (Warren Commission) concluded that President Kennedy was struck by two bullets that were fired from above and behind him. According to the Commission, one bullet hit the President near the base of the back of the neck, slightly to the right of the spine, and exited from the front of the neck. The other entered the right rear of the President's head and exited from the right side of the head, causing a large wound.

The Commission based its findings primarily upon the testimony of the doctors who had treated the President at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas and the doctors who performed the autopsy on the President at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

In forming this conclusion, neither the members of the Warren Commission, nor its staff, nor the doctors who had performed the autopsy, took advantage of the X-rays and photographs of the President that were taken during the course of the autopsy. The reason for the failure of the Warren Commission to examine these primary materials is that there was a commitment to make public all evidence examined by the Commission. The Commission was concerned that publication of the autopsy X-rays and photographs would be an invasion of the privacy of the Kennedy family. The Commission's decision to rely solely on the testimony of the doctors precluded the possibility that the Commission might make use of a review of the autopsy evidence by independent medical experts to determine if they concurred with the findings of the doctors at Parkland and Bethesda.

A determination of the number and location of the President's wounds was critical to resolving the question of whether there was more than one assassin. The secrecy that surrounded the autopsy proceedings, therefore, has led to considerable skepticism toward the Commission's findings. Concern has been expressed that authorities were less than candid, since the Navy doctor in charge of the autopsy conducted at Bethesda Naval Hospital destroyed his notes, and the Warren Commission decided to forego an opportunity to view the X-rays and photographs or to permit anyone else to inspect them.

The skepticism has been reinforced by a film taken of the Presidential motorcade at the moment of the assassination by an amateur movie photographer, Abraham Zapruder. In the Zapruder film, the President's head is apparently thrown backward as the front right side of the skull appears to explode, suggesting to critics of the Warren Commission's findings that the President was struck by a bullet that entered the front of the head. Such a bullet, it has been argued, was fired by a gunman positioned on the grassy knoll, a park-like area to the right and to the front of where the moving limousine was located at the instant of the fatal shot.

Since the Warren Commission completed its investigation, two other Government panels have subjected the X-rays and photographs taken during the autopsy on President Kennedy to examination by independent medical experts. A team of forensic pathologists appointed by Attorney general Ramsey Clark in 1968, and a panel retained by the Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States (Rockefeller Commission) in 1975, reached the same basic conclusion : the President was struck by two bullets from behind. But neither panel published the X-rays and photographs, nor did either explain the basis of its conclusions in a public hearing. Consequently, neither panel was able to relieve significantly doubts that have persisted over the years about the nature and location of the President's wounds.

(a) Reliance on scientific analysis

The committee believed from the beginning of its investigation that the most reliable evidence upon which it could base determinations as to what happened in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, was an analysis of hard scientific data. Accordingly, the committee contracted with leaking independent experts in the fields of forensic pathology, ballistics, photography, acoustics, neutron activation analysis and other disciplines. The reports submitted by these experts were fully considered by the committee in formulating its findings.

(1) The medical evidence.

The committee's forensic pathology panel was composed of nine members, eight of whom were chief medical examiners in major local jurisdictions in the United States. As a group, they had been responsible for more than 100,000 autopsies, an accumulation of experience the committee deemed invaluable in the evaluation of the medical evidence—including the autopsy X-rays and photographs—to determine the cause of death of the President and the nature and location of his wounds. The panel was also asked to recommend guidelines in the event of a future assassination of a President or other high Federal official.

The committee also employed experts to authenticate the autopsy materials. Neither the Clark Panel nor the Rockefeller Commission undertook to determine if the X-rays and photographs were, in fact, authentic. The committee, in light of the numerous issues that had arisen over the years with respect to autopsy X-rays and photographs, believed authentication to be a crucial step in the investigation.

The authentication of the autopsy X-rays and photographs was accomplished by the committee with the assistance of its photographic evidence panel as well as forensic dentists, forensic anthropologists and radiologists working for the committee. Two questions were put to these experts :

• Could the photographs and X-rays stored in the National Archives be positively identified as being of President Kennedy ?

• Was there any evidence that any of these photographs or X-rays had been altered in any manner ?

To determine if the photographs of the autopsy subject were in fact of the President, forensic anthropologists compared the autopsy photographs with ante-mortem pictures of the President. This comparison was done on the basis of both metric and morphological features. The metric analysis relied upon a series of facial measurements taken from the photographs, while the morphological analysis was focused on consistency of physical features, particularly those that could be considered distinctive (shape of the nose, patterns of facial lines, et cetera). Once unique characteristics were identified, posterior and anterior autopsy photographs were compared to verify that they, in fact, depicted the same person.

The anthropologists studied the autopsy X-rays in conjunction with premortem X-rays of the President. A sufficient number of unique anatomic characteristics were present in X-rays taken before and after the President's death to conclude that the autopsy X-rays were of President Kennedy. This conclusion was consistent with the findings of a forensic dentist employed by the committee. Since many of the X-rays taken during the course of the autopsy included the President's teeth, it was possible to determine, using the President's dental records, that the X-rays were of the President.

Once the forensic dentist and anthropologists had determined that the autopsy photographs and X-rays were of the President, photographic scientists and radiologists examined the original autopsy photographs, negatives, transparencies, and X-rays for signs of alteration. They concluded there was no evidence of the photographic or radiographic materials having been altered. Consequently, the committee determined that the autopsy X-rays and photographs were a valid basis for the conclusions of the committee's forensic pathology panel. While the examination of the autopsy X-rays and photographs was the principal basis of its analysis, the forensic pathology panel also had access to all relevant witness testimony. In addition, all tests and evidence analyses requested by the panel were performed. It was only after considering all of this evidence that the panel reached its conclusions. The forensic pathology panel concluded that President Kennedy was struck by two, and only two, bullets, each of which entered from the rear. (1 ) The panel further concluded that the President was struck by one bullet that entered in the upper right of the back and exited from the front of the throat, and one bullet that entered in the right rear of the head near the cowlick area and exited from the right side of the head, toward the front. This second bullet caused a massive wound to the President's head upon exit. There is no medical evidence that the President was struck by a bullet entering the front of the head, and the possibility that a bullet could have struck the President and yet left no evidence is extremely remote. Because this conclusion appears to be inconsistent with the backward motion of the President's head in the Zapruder film, the committee consulted a wound ballistics expert to determine what relationship, if any, exists between the direction from which a bullet strikes the head and subsequent head movement. The expert concluded that nerve damage from a bullet entering the President's head could have caused his back muscles to tighten which, in turn, could have caused his head to move toward the rear. He demonstrated the phenomenon in a filmed experiment which involved the shooting of goats. Thus, tile committee determined that the rearward movement of the President's head would not be fundamentally inconsistent with a bullet striking from the rear. The forensic pathology panel determined that Governor Connally was struck by a bullet from the rear, one that entered just below the right armpit and exited below the right nipple of the chest. It then shattered the radius bone of the Governor's right wrist and caused a superficial wound to the left thigh. Based on its examination of the nature and alinement of the Governor's wounds, the panel concluded that they were all caused by a single bullet that came from the rear. It concluded further that, having caused the Governor's wounds, the bullet was dislodged from his left thigh. The panel determined that the nature of the wounds of President Kennedy and Governor Connally was consistent with the possibility that one bullet entered the upper right back of President Kennedy and, after emerging from the front of the neck, caused all of the Governor's wounds. A factor that influenced the panel significantly was the ovoid shape of the wound in the Governor's back, indicating that the bullet had begun to tumble or yaw before entering.An ovoid wound is characteristic of one caused by a bullet that has passed through or glanced off an intervening object. Based on the evidence available to it, the panel concluded that a single bullet passing through both President Kennedy and Governor Connally would support a fundamental conclusion that the President was struck by two, and only two, bullets, each fired from behind. Thus, the forensic pathology panel's conclusions were consistent with the so-called single bullet theory advanced by the Warren Commission.

(b) Reaction times and alinement.

The hypothesis that both the President and the Governor were struck by a single bullet had originally been based on the Warren Commission's examination of the Zapruder film and test firings of the assassination rifle. The time between the observable reactions of the President and of the Governor was too short to have allowed, according to the Commission's test firings, two shots to have been fired from the same rifle. FBI marksmen who test fired the rifle for the Commission employed the telescopic sight on the rifle, and the minimum firing time between shots was approximately 2.25 to 2.3 seconds. The time between the observable reactions of the President and the Governor, according to the Commission, was less than two seconds. (2 ) The Commission determined that its hypothesis that the same bullet struck both the President and the Governor was supported by visual observations of the relative alinement of the two men in the limousine, by a trajectory analysis and by wound ballistics tests. The Commis-sion said, however, that a determination of which shot hit the Governor was "not necessary to any essential findings."

(3) Neutron activation analysis.

—In addition to the conclusions reached by the committee's forensic pathology panel, the single bullet theory was substantiated by the findings of a neutron activation analysis performed for the committee.The bullet alleged to have caused the injuries to the Governor and the President was found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital. Numerous critics have alleged that this bullet, labeled "pristine" because it appeared to have been only slightly damaged, could not have caused the injuries to both the Governor (particularly his shattered wrist) and the President. Some have even suggested the possibility that the bullet wounded neither Connally nor Kennedy, that it was planted on the stretcher. Neutron activation analysis, however, established that it was highly likely that the injuries to the Governor's wrist were caused by the bullet found on the stretcher in Parkland Hospital. Further, the committee's wound ballistics expert concluded that the bullet found on the stretcher—Warren Commission exhibit 399 (CE 399)—is of a type that could have caused the wounds to President Kennedy and Governor Connally without showing any more deformity than it does. In determining whether the deformity of CE 399 was consistent with its having passed through both the President and Governor, the committee considered the fact that it is a relatively long, stable, fully jacketed bullet, typical of ammunition often used by the military. Such ammunition tends to pass through body tissue more easily than soft nose hunting bullets. Committee consultants with knowledge in forensic pathology and wound ballistics concluded that it would not have been unusual for such a fully jacketed bullet to have passed through the President and the Governor and to have been only minimally deformed. The neutron activation analysis further supported the single bullet theory by indicating that there was evidence of only two bullets among the fragments recovered from the limousine and its occupants. The consultant who conducted the analysis concluded that it was "highly likely" that CE 399 and the fragments removed from Governor Connally's wrist were from one bullet ; that one of the two fragments recovered from the floor of the limousine and the fragment removed from the President's brain during the autopsy were from a second bullet. (3 ) Neutron activation analysis showed no evidence of a third bullet among those fragments large enough to be tested.

(4) Photographic evidence.

—The committee also considered photographic evidence in its analysis of the shots. The Zapruder film, the only continuous chronological visual record of the assassination, is the best available photographic evidence of the number and timing of the shots that struck the occupants of the Presidential limousine. The committee's panel of photographic experts examined specially enhanced and stabilized versions of the Zapruder film for two purposes :

• (1) to try to draw conclusions about the timing of the shots from visual reactions of the victims ; and

• (2) to determine whether the alignment of the President and the Governor was consistent with the single bullet theory.

The panel also examined still photographs. Several conclusions with respect to the validity of the single-bullet theory were reached.The panel concluded there is clear photographic evidence that two shots, spaced approximately 6 seconds apart, struck the occupants of the limousine. By Zapruder frame 207 when President Kennedy is seen going behind a sign that obstructed Zapruder's view, he appears to be reacting to a severe external stimulus. This reaction is first indicated in the vicinity of frame 200 of the Zapruder film. The President's right hand freezes in the midst of a waving motion, followed by a rapid leftward movement of his head. There is, therefore, photographic evidence of a shot striking the President by this time. Governor Connally shows no indication of distress before he disappears behind the sign at Zapruder frame 207, but as he emerges from behind the sign after frame 222, he seems to be reacting to some severe external stimulus.By frame 226, when all of the limousine occupants have reappeared in Zapruder's field of view, the panel found indictions in observable physical attitude and changes of facial expression to indicate that both the President and the Governor were reacting to their wounds. The President's reactions are obvious—he leans forward and clutches his throat. The, Governor displays a pronounced rigid posture and change in facial expression. (4 )To study the relative alinement of the President and Governor Connally within the limousine, the photographic panel paid particular attention to the Zapruder frames just, before the President and the Governor were obstructed, by the sign, employing a stereoscopic (depth) analysis of frames 187 and 193 and still photographs taken at about the same time from the south side of Elm Street. The panel found that the alinement of the President and the Governor during this period was consistent with the single bullet hypothesis.The photographic evidence panel determined, further, that the explosive effect of the second shot to strike, President Kennedy, the fatal head shot is depicted in Zapruder frame 313. By frame 313, the President's head is seen exploding, leading the panel to conclude that the actual moment of impact was approximately frame 312.

(5) Acoustical evidence and blur analysis.

—The committee performed two other scientific tests that addressed the question of the direction and timing of the bullets that struck the President. First, it contracted with acoustical consultants for an analysis of a tape recording of a radio transmission made at the time of the assassination. The experts decided there were four shots on the recording. The first, second and fourth came from the Texas School Book Depository behind the President, the third came from the grassy knoll to the right front of the President. Taking the shot to the President's head at frame 312 as the last of the four shots, and thus as a possible base point, (5 ) it was possible to correlate the other sounds identified as probable gunfire with the Zapruder film. Since the acoustical consultants concluded that the two earliest shots came from the depository, the shots (or at least their shock waves) would have reached the limousine at between frames 157 and 161 and frames 188 and 191. When coupled with the photographic evidence showing a reaction by President Kennedy beginning in the vicinity of frame 200, it appeared that he was first struck by a bullet at approximately frame 190.(6 ) Second, the photographic evidence panel also studied the blurs on the Zapruder film that were caused by Zapruder's panning errors, that is, the effect of a lack of smooth motion as Zapruder moved from left to right with his camera. This was done in an effort to determine whether the blurs resulted from Zapruder's possible reaction to the sound of gunshots. This analysis indicated that blurs occurring at frames 189-197 and 312-334 may reasonably be attributed to Zapruder's startle reactions to gunshots. The time interval of the shots associated with these blurs was determined to be approximately 6 to 7 seconds. The possibility that other blurs on the film might be Attributable to Zapruder's reactions to gunshots could not be confirmed or dismissed without additional data. Taken together with other evidence, the photographic and acoustical evidence led the committee to conclude that President Kennedy and Governor Connally were struck by one bullet at approximately Zapruder frame 190, and that the President was struck by another bullet at frame 312. Thus, from the results of the analyses by its experts in the fields of forensic pathology, photography, acoustics, wound ballistics and neutron activation analysis, the committee concluded that President Kennedy was struck by two shots fired from behind.

------------
1 - - In many of its conclusions, the forensic pathology panel voted 8 to 1. with the dissenting vote being consistently that of Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., coroner of Allegheny County, Pa. In all references to conclusions of the panel, unless it is specifically stated that it was unanimous, it should be assumed that Dr. Wecht dissented.

2 - - In its report, the committee's photographic evidence panel suggested that Governor Connally reacted to his wounds approximately one second after President Kennedy. This interval might have been even less, but a sign obstructing Zapruder's field of view made it impossible to study the Governor immediately after the President first appeared to be reacting to having been shot.

3 - - The other large fragment recovered from the floor of the limousine had no lead in it, and therefore was not subjected to neutron activation analysis.

4 - - There is no scientific method for determining the elapsed time between when a shot hits and when a person visibly reacts. Different people have different reaction times ; moreover, a person's reaction time often depends on where he has been hit.

5 - - The committee considered using frame 328 as a possible base point. In this analysis, the head shot occurring at frame 312 would, according to the acoustics results, have originated from the grassy knoll. This alternative, however, was rejected.

6 - - A more detailed description of the reasoning leading to this conclusion is set forth in section I B. infra.

------------

2. THE SHOTS THAT STRUCK PRESIDENT KENNEDY FROM BEHIND WERE FIRED FROM THE SIXTH FLOOR WINDOW OF THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF THE TEXAS SCHOOL BOOK DEPOSITORY BUILDING

The Warren Commission concluded that the shots that killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally "* * * were fired from the sixth floor window at the southeast corner of the Texas School Book Depository." It based its conclusion on eyewitness testimony, physical evidence found on the sixth floor of the depository, medical evidence and the absence of "* * * credible evidence that the shots were fired from * * * any other location.

(a) Scientific analysis

In investigating this aspect of the case, the committee relied heavily on the scientific analysis of physical evidence, and again the conclusions of the forensic pathology panel were relevant. The panel concluded that the two bullets that struck the President came from behind and that the fatal head shot was moving in a downward direction when it struck the President. (7 )Thus, forensic pathology provided reli-able evidence as to the origin of the shots : The gunman who fired the shot that hit President Kennedy and Governor Connally at approximately frame 190 of the Zapruder film fired from behind, and the gunman who fired the shot that hit the President in the head at frame 312 was positioned above and to the rear of the presidential limousine.

(1) Trajectory analysis.

—Another project pertaining to the origin of the shots involved the trajectory of the bullets that hit the President. Although the Warren Commission also studied trajectory, its analysis consisted of proving that a bullet fired from the southeast corner of the sixth floor of the book depository could have hit the President and then hit the Governor and that another bullet fired from that location could have caused the wound to the President's head. Basically, purpose of the Commission's trajectory analysis was to prove that it was possible for the prime suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, to have hit both the President and the Governor from the sixth floor of the depository. The committee approached the problem without making prior assumptions as to the origin of the shots. It was an interdisciplinary effort, drawing from the expertise of forensic pathologists, acoustical and photographic analysts and an engineer from the staff of the tional Aeronautics and Space Administration, who plotted the trajectories. The trajectory analysis was based on three types of data. From the acoustical analysis of the radio transmission, the timing of the shots was obtained. From the photographic analysis of the Zapruder film and the acoustical analysis, it was possible to know with relative precision when each of the shots struck—at approximately Zapruder frame 190 for the shot that struck the President in the back of the neck, and at Zapruder frame 3112, for the fatal shot to the President's head. Through an analysis of those frames and still photographs taken at approximately the same time from the south side of Elm Street, it was possible to determine the location of the limousine in the plaza, the sitting positions of President Kennedy and Governor Connally and their alinement to one another. By then coordinating this data with the forensic pathology panel's analysis of the exit and entry wounds sustained by President Kennedy, it was possible to plot the path of the bullets out to their source. Separate direction and slope trajectories were developed for two bullets-the one that caused the President's back and neck wounds, and the one that caused his fatal head wound. A third trajectory analysis was conducted to test the hypothesis that the first bullet also caused the wounds to Governor Connally, using for this analysis the exit wounds to the President's neck and the entry wound to the Governor's back. All three trajectories intercepted the southeast face of the Texas School Book Depository building. While the trajectories could not be plotted with sufficient precision to determine the exact point from which the shots were fired, they each were calculated with a margin of error reflecting the precision of the underlying data. The margins of error were indicated as circles within which the shots originated. The southeast corner window of the depository was inside each of the circles.

(2) photographic evidence.

—The photographic evidence panel examined evidence possibly relevant to the question of the origin of the shots, as follows : The panel examined a motion picture of the southeast corner window of the depository taken a short time prior to the shots. While there is an impression of motion in the film, the panel could not attribute it to the movement of a person or an object and instead attributed the motion to photographic artifacts. The panel's findings were the same with respect to apparent motion in adjacent windows shown in the film.The panel studied two photographs taken within minutes of the assassination. While no human face or form could be detected in the sixth floor southeast window, the panel was able to conclude that a stack of boxes in the window had been rearranged during the interval of the taking of the two photographs. There is evidence, a motion picture film made by Charles L. Bronson, that some independent researchers believe shows a figure or figures in the sixth floor depository window several minutes before the shooting. The film came to the attention of the committee toward the end of its investigation. Some members of the committee's photographic evidence panel did conduct a preliminary review (without enhancement) of the film. While motion was detected in the window, it was considered more likely to be a random photographic artifact than human movement. Nevertheless, the limited review was not sufficient to determine definitively if the film contained evidence of motion made by human figures.Because of its high quality, it was recommended that the Bronson film be analyzed further.

(b) Witness testimony

While the committee relied primarily on scientific analysis of physical evidence as to the origin of the shots, it also considered the testimony of witnesses. The procedure used to analyze their statements was as follows : First, all available prior statements were read by the committee and studied for consistency. The objective was to identify inconsistencies either between the words of one witness and another or between the various words of a witness whose story had changed. The statements were obtained from the files of the Dallas Police Department, dallas Sheriff's Office, the FBI, Secret Service and Warren Commission. Second, an attempt was made to locate the witnesses and to show them the statements they made in the course of the original investigation. Each witness was asked to read his statements and to indicate whether they were complete and accurate. If statements were inaccurate, or if a witness was aware of information that was not include, he was asked to make corrections or provide additional information. In addition, where relevant questions had not been asked, the committee asked them. There are inherent limitations in such a process. Any information provided by a witness in 1978—15 years after the assassination—must be viewed in light of the passage of time that causes memories to fade and honest accounts to become distorted. Certainly, it cannot be considered with the same reliability as information provided in 1963-64.

To the extent that they are based on witness testimony, the conclusions of the committee were vitally affected by the quality of the original investigation. The inconsistencies in the statements—the questions not asked, the witnesses not interviewed—all created problems that defied resolution 15 years after the events in Dallas. Nevertheless, the committee considered all of the witness statements and determined to what extent they corroborated or independently substantiated, or contradicted, the conclusions indicated by the scientific evidence. An example of such witness testimony is that relating to the discovery of the rifle and shell casings in the Texas School Book Depository. (Because detailed versions of witness testimony taken in the original investigation are a matter of public record, only brief resumes are included here. ) Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney testified to the Warren Commission that at approximately 1 p.m. on November 22, 1963, he discovered three spent rifle shells on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. He stated that he was in the southeast corner of the building when he noticed boxes stacked high in the vicinity of the window. He then squeezed in between a space in the boxes and saw three spent rifle shells in the vicinity of the window. Mooney also told of seeing boxes stacked up as though they were a prop or rest for a weapon. Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone told the Warren Commission that he arrived on the sixth floor of the depository subsequent to the discovery of the three spent rifle shells. He said he went to the east end of the floor and began working his way across to the west end, looking in, under and around boxes and pallets. At the wall near a row of windows, he noticed a small space between some of the boxes. When he squeezed through the opening, he saw a rifle between two rows of boxes. The time was 1:22 p.m.

(c) Firearms evidence

The rifle Boone found, a. 6.5 millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano, was analyzed by the FBI in 1963-64 and by the committee's firearms panel in 1978, as was the other firearms evidence that was recovered. It was determined in both investigations that the bullet found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital had been fired from the rifle found in the depository, as were two fragments recovered from the Presidential limousine. Further, the three cartridge cases found on the sixth floor of the depository were determined to have been fired in the Mannlicher-Carcano. (8 ) Through neutron activation analysis, the committee found that the firearms evidence could be even more directly linked to the wounds suffered by the President and Governor Connally. It is highly likely that the bullet found on the stretcher was the one that passed through Governor Connally's wrist, leaving tiny particles behind, and the fragments retrieved from the limousine came from the same bullet as the fragments taken from President Kennedy's brain. Over the years, skepticism has arisen as to whether the rifle found in the depository by Boone is the same rifle that was delivered to the Warren Commission and is presently stored in the National Archives. The suspicion has been based to some extent on allegations that police officers who first discovered the rifle identified it as a 7.5 millimeter German Mauser. The controversy was intensified by the allegation that various photographs of the rifle, taken at different times, portray inconsistencies with respect to the proportions of the various component parts. To resolve the controversy, the committee assembled a wide range of photographs of the rifle : a police photograph taken where it was found in the depository ; a motion picture film taken by a television station showing the rifle when it was found by the police ; a series of photographs of a police officer carrying the rifle from the depository ; photographs taken as the rifle was carried through the halls of Dallas Police Department ; and photographs taken later by the FBI and Dallas Police Department. The examination by committee photographic consultants determined that all photographs were of the same rifle. Both a study of proportions and a comparison of identifying marks indicated that only one rifle was involved.

(d) Summary of the evidence

In the final analysis, the committee based its finding that the shots that struck President Kennedy were fired from the Texas School Book Depository on the quantity and quality of the evidence, to wit : The findings of forensic pathologists that the shots that hit the President came from behind ; The results of the trajectory analysis that traced the bullets to the vicinity of sixth floor window of the depository ; The conclusion of acoustics experts that the shots came from the vicinity of the sixth floor window of the depository ; The positive identification by firearms experts that the rifle. found on the sixth floor of the depository was the one that fired the bullet found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital and fragments retrieved from the Presidential limousine ; The results of neutron activation analysis indicating that it was highly likely that the bullet found on the stretcher at Parkland Hospital was the one that ,passed through Governor Connally's wrist, and that the fragments found in the limousine were from the bullet that struck the President in the head ; The conclusion of photographic experts that the rifle found in the depository was the same one that was repeatedly photographed in November 1963 and that is presently stored at the National Archives. The committee also weighed the firsthand testimony of witnesses but with caution, because of the problem of the passage of time. Besides the statements of law officers on the scene immediately after the assassination, it considered the accounts of bystanders in Dealey Plaza, bearing in mind that these were recollections of fleeting moments when emotions were running high. The committee noted, however, that a number of the Dealey Plaza witnesses said they saw either a rifle or a man with a rifle in the vicinity of the sixth floor southeast corner window of the book depository.

-------------------

7 - - The panel used both the location' of the wounds and Zapruder frame 312 to determine the "downward" slope of the fatal head shot. It did not attempt to determine the slope of the bullet that struck the President's back because the moment of impact was not thought to be visible in the film. This decision by the forensic pathology panel was made well before the photographic panel reached its conclusion regarding the President's and Governor Connally's reactions as shown in the Zapruder film.

8 - - The committee firearms panel determined that the evidence stored in the National Archives ballistically matched the bullets fired by the FBI in 1964 tests from the Mannlicher-Carcano found by Boone. Since the rifle had been test fired numerous times since 1963, its barrel had been altered by wear, and bullets the panel fired from the rifle did not match either the FBI test cartridges or those found on the sixth floor of depository or that found on the stretcher.

------------------

3. LEE HARVEY OSWALD OWNED THE RIFLE THAT WAS USED TO FIRE THE SHOTS FROM THE SIXTH FLOOR WINDOW OF TIlE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF THE TEXAS SCHOOL BOOK DEPOSITORY BUILDING

The Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald owned the rifle found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Since the Commission further concluded that Oswald was the assassin of the President, his background is relevant.

(a) Biography of Lee Harvey Oswald

Oswald was born in New Orleans, La., on October 18, 1939, two months after the death of his father. His mother remarried, and, from 1945 until 1952, the family lived in a number of cities in Texas and Louisiana. This marriage ended in divorce when Oswald was nine. In 1952, Oswald and his mother moved to New York City. His school record was marked by chronic truancy, and a psychiatric examination suggested that he was emotionally disturbed. Oswald and his mother returned to New Orleans in 1954. After finishing the ninth grade, the 16-year-old Oswald dropped out of school. The following year, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps. Asserting the iII-health and distressing financial situation of his mother, Oswald obtained a release from the Marines in 1959. Following his discharge, he spent 3 days with his mother in Fort Worth, Tex., and then went to New Orleans. From there, he traveled to the Soviet Union where he tried to become a Soviet citizen. In April 1961, Oswald married a 19-year-old Russian woman, Marina Nikolaevna Prusakova, whom he had met while working in Minsk. Having become disillusioned with Soviet life, he returned to the United States with his wife and baby daughter the following year. The Oswalds arrived in Fort Worth, Tex. on June 14, 1962, and soon became acquainted with a number of people in the Dallas-Fort Worth Russian-speaking community. Oswald moved to Dallas in October 1962 where he found a job with a graphic arts company. Marina followed in November, but their marriage was plagued by intermittent feuding. In March 1963, according to the Warren Commission, Oswald purchased a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle and telescopic sight from a Chicago mail order house. He also ordered a .38 caliber Smith and Wesson pistol from a Los Angeles firm. According to Marina Oswald, he probably used the rifle in an attempt in April to kill Edwin A. Walker, a retired Army general who had been relieved from his post in West Germany for distributing rightwing literature to his troops. Walker was not harmed. In April 1963, Oswald went to New Orleans. Meanwhile, Marina and the baby moved to the home of a friend, Ruth Paine, in Irving, Tex., in late April. In May, she joined Oswald in New Orleans. On July 19, Oswald was dismissed from his job for inefficiency. In May and June, Oswald had expressed an interest in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. In August, he distributed pro-Castro leaflets and also made two radio broadcasts on behalf of the Castro regime. Marina Oswald and her baby returned to Texas to stay with Ruth Paine in Irving on September 22. Oswald went to Mexico City in the latter part of September. He visited the Russian Embassy and Consulate and the Cuban Consulate there, but he failed to get permission to travel to either country. He returned to Dallas on October 3, 1963. He visited Marina in Irving on several occasions but continued to try to find a place to live in Dallas. On October 14, Oswald moved into a roominghouse on North Beckley Avenue in Dallas. He began work at the Texas School Book Depository 2 days later. On October 20, Marina gave birth to their second daughter. She returned to the Paine home in Irving where Oswald visited on November 1, and from November 8 until November 11. Oswald next visited Marina and his children in Irving on the evening of November 21. He returned to Dallas the following morning. Shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963, Dallas Patrolman J.D. Tippit was shot and killed. At approximately 2 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in the Texas Theatre. He was subsequently charged in the murder of Tippit and named as a suspect in the Kennedy assassination. On November 24, 1963, while he was being escorted through the basement of Dallas police headquarters in preparation for being transferred to the Dallas County Sheriff's office, Oswald was fatally wounded by a single shot fired from a pistol by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub operator. As noted, the Warren Commission had traced the chain of possession of the alleged assassination rifle and determined that the name on the money order and purchase form used to buy the rifle was "A. Hidell" which it determined to be an alias used by Oswald. It also determined that the rifle was sent to a Dallas post office box rented on October 9, 1962 by Oswald. Through handwriting analysis, the Commission determined that Oswald had filled out and signed the documents relative to the purchase and receipt of the rifle. More over, the Commission received testimony that Oswald owned a rifle and that it was not in its usual storage place at the residence of Michael and Ruth Paine in Irving, Tex., when police searched the residence on the afternoon of November 22, 1963. Photographs of Oswald holding a rifle were also recovered from among his personal possessions, and the Commission concluded that the rifle in the photograph was the one found on the sixth floor of the book depository. A palm print taken from the barrel of the rifle was identified as a latent palmprint of Oswald.) Finally, the Commission treated as significant evidence a brown paper sack on which was identified a latent palmprint of Oswald. It contained fibers that were determined to be identical to certain fibers of a blanket in which Oswald had allegedly wrapped the rifle. The committee concluded that the rifle found on the sixth floor of the book depository was the murder weapon. This determination, coupled with Warren Commission evidence of Oswald's ownership of the rifle, if accepted, proved conclusively that Oswald was the owner of the murder weapon.

Nevertheless, doubt has been cast on the evidence that Oswald owned the rifle in question. Critics of the Warren Commission have asserted that the chain of possession is meaningless, because more than one Mannlicher-Carcano was issued with the serial number C2766. They have also argued that the photograph of Oswald holding the rifle is a fake and that his palmprint was planted on the barrel.

(b) The committee's approach

The committee decided that one way to determine whether Oswald did, in fact, own the murder weapon was to test the reliability of the evidence used by the Warren Commission to establish ownership and to subject the available evidence to further scientific analysis. The committee posed these questions : Could the handwriting on the money order used to purchase the rifle and the application for the post office box be established with confidence as that of Lee Harvey Oswald ? (9 )Are the photographs of Oswald holding the rifle authentic, and is that rifle the one that was found in the book depository after the assassination ?

(1) Handwriting analysis

—With respect to the first issue, the com mittee's questioned documents panel, composed of three experts with approximately 90 years of combined experience in the field of ques tioned document examination, was provided with approximately 50 documents allegedly containing Oswald's handwriting. The panel was asked to determine whether all of the documents were written by the same person. Among the documents provided to the panel was the money order sent to Klein's Sporting Goods Co. of Chicago to pay for a Mannlicher-Carcano, serial number C2766, the application for the post office box to which the rifle was subsequently mailed, and two fingerprint cards signed by Oswald. One of the cards was signed at the time of his enlistment in the Marine Corps on October 24, 1956 ; the other, dated August 9, 1963, was signed `by Oswald at the time he was arrested in New Orleans for disturbing the peace. (Although Oswald was fingerprinted when he was arrested in Dallas on Novem ber 22, 1963, he refused to sign the card.) (10 )The questioned documents panel determined that the money order and the post office box application were filled out and signed by the same person and that the handwriting on them was identical to the handwriting on the two fingerprint cards signed by Oswald. On the basis of this analysis. the committee determined that Oswald bought the weapon in question from Klein's Sporting Goods Co.

(2) The backyard photographs.

—The photographs of Oswald hold ing the rifle, with a pistol strapped to his waist and also holding copies of "The Militant" and "The Worker," were taken by his wife in the backyard of Oswald's home on Neeley Street in Dallas in March or April 1963, according to the testimony of Oswald's widow, Marina, given to the Warren Commission and the committee. (11 )There has been considerable controversy about the photographs. While in the custody of the Dallas police from November 22 to November 24, 1963, Oswald claimed that he did not own a rifle and that the photographs were composites, with his head superimposed over someone else's body. The Warren Commission, however, concluded that the photographs were authentic. Critics of the Commission have ques tioned their authenticity for reasons generally based on alleged shadow inconsistencies, an indication of a grafting inbetween the mouth and chin, inconsistent body proportions and a disparate square-shaped chin.To determine if evidence of fakery was present in these photographs, the photographic evidence panel first sought to determine if they could be established as having been taken with Oswald's Imperial Reflex camera. This was done by studying the photographs (and the single available original negative) for unique identifying characteristics that would have been imparted by that camera. Once this was successfully done, the objects imaged in the photographs, as well as their shadows, were analyzed photogrammetrically. Finally, the materials were visually scrutinized, using magnification, stereoscopic analysis and digital image processing. In its analyses, the photographic evidence panel worked with the original negative and first-generation prints of the photographs. Only such materials contain the necessary and reliable photographic information. Incontrast, some of the critics who claimed the photographs were faked relied on poor quality copies for their analyses. Copies tend to lose detail and include defects that impair accurate representation of the photographic image. After subjecting these original photographic materials and the camera alleged to have taken the pictures to sophisticated analytical techniques, the photographic evidence panel concluded that it could find no evidence of fakery. Of equal significance, a detailed scientific photographic analysis was conducted by the panel to determine whether the rifle held by Oswald in the backyard photographs was, in fact, the rifle stored at the National Archives. The panel found a unique identifying mark present on the weapon in the Archives that correlated with a mark visible on the rifle in the Oswald backyard photographs, as well as on the alleged assassination rifle as it appeared in photographs taken after the assassination in 1963. Because this mark was considered to be a unique random pattern (ie., caused by wear and tear through use), it was considered sufficient to warrant the making of a positive identification.

In addition, the relative lengths of component parts of the alleged assassination rifle at the National Archives were compared to component parts of the rifle that appeared in various 1963 photographs, including the backyard photographs. They were found to be entirely consistent, component part for component part, with each other. (12 )Upon completion of its analysis, the photographic evidence panel concluded that the rifle depicted in the backyard photographs is the one that was found in the book depository after the assassination and that was stored at the National Archives. In addition to the photographic analysis, the committee was able to employ handwriting analysis to aid in the determination of whether the photograph was anthentic. During the course of the committee's investigation, George de Mohrenschildt, who had been a friend of Oswald, committed suicide. The committee, pursuant to a subpena, obtained de Mohrenschildt's personal papers, which included another copy of the Oswald backyard photograph. This copy, unlike any of those previously recovered, had an inscription on the back : "To my dear friend George, from Lee." It was dated April 1963 and signed "Lee Harvey Oswald." In an unpublished manuscript, de Mohrenschildt referred to this copy of the photograph and stated that after his return from Haiti, where he had been at the time of the assassination, he discovered the photograph among personal possessions that he had previously stored in a warehouse. The committee examined the photograph to determine its authenticity and examined the handwriting to determine if Oswald had actually written the inscription and signed it. If Oswald did sign the photograph, his claim that he did not own the rifle and that the photograph was a fake could be discounted. The photographic panel found no evidence of fakery in the backyard photographs, including the one found in de Mohrenschildt's effects. The handwriting on the back of the de Mohrenschildt copy was determined by the questioned documents panel to be identical to all the other documents signed by Oswald, including the fingerprint cards. Thus, after submitting the backyard photographs to the photographic and handwriting panels, the committee concluded that there was no evidence of fakery in the photographs and that the rifle in the photographs was identical to the rifle found on the sixth floor of the depository on November 22, 1963. Having resolved these issues, the committee concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald owned the rifle from which the shots that killed President Kennedy were fired.

----------------------

9 - - The committee also attempted to have its handwriting experts analyze other documents, such as the order for the rifle and the envelope in which it was mailed. The originals had, however, been destroyed, and microfilm copies that existed were not suitable for conclusive tests.

10 - - The fingerprints on all three cards were examined by the committee's fingerprint expert and determined to be those of the same person.

11 - - Marina Oswald, because of her testimony, played a central but troubling role in the investigation of the Warren Commission. A great deal of what the Commission sought to show about Oswald rested on her testimony, yet she have incomplete and inconsistent statements at various times to the Secret Service, FBI and the Commission. Marina's role in the committee's investigation was less central, since the committee's examination of what happened in Dallas rested primarily on the results of scientific analysis. The committee found no evidence that would indicate that Marina had foreknowledge of the assassination or that she helped her husband in any way in his efforts to assassinate the President. In its investigation of conspiracy, the committee's undertaking was not furthered by Marina's testimony, since she professed to know little of Oswald's associates in New Orleans or Dallas.

12 - - Previous studies analyzing the relative lengths of the component parts of rifles shown in various post-assassination photographs that questioned the identification of the rifle failed to consider the effect of perspective on the way that an object is imaged in a photograph.

-------------------------

4. LEE HARVEY OSWALD, SHORTLY BEFORE THE ASSASSINATION, HAD ACCESS TO AND WAS PRESENT ON THE SIXTH FLOOR OF THE TEXAS SCHOOL BOOK DEPOSITORY BUILDING

The Warren Commission found that Lee Harvey Oswald worked principally on the first and sixth floors of the Texas School Book Depository, gathering books listed on orders and delivering them to the shipping room on the first floor. He had, therefore, ready access to the sixth floor and to the southeast corner window from which the shots were fired. The Commission reached this conclusion by interviewing Oswald's supervisors and fellow employees.

(a) Testimony of school book depository employees

In its investigation, the committee also considered the statements and testimony of employees of the Texas School Book Depository who worked with and supervised Oswald. Roy Truly, superintendent of the depository, had stated to the Warren Commission that Oswald "had occasion to go to the sixth floor quite a number of times every day, each day, after books."Truly and others testified that Oswald normally had access to the sixth floor of the depository, and a number of them said that they saw and heard Oswald in the vicinity of the sixth floor throughout the morning of November 22, 1963.

(b) Physical evidence of Oswald's presence

In determining whether Oswald was actually present on the sixth floor of the depository, the committee paid primary attention to scientific analysis of physical evidence. Materials were examined for fingerprints, including a long, rectangular paper sack that was discovered near the southeast corner window and cartons that were found stacked adjacent to the window. The paper sack, which was suitable for containing a rifle, showed a latent palmprint and fingerprint of Oswald ; one of the cartons showed both a palmprint and fingerprint identified as belonging to Oswald, and the other showed just his palmprint. The determination that Oswald's prints were on the sack and cartons was originally made in the investigation that immediately followed the assassination. It was confirmed by a fingerprint expert retained by the committee. The committee was aware that Oswald's access to the sixth floor during the normal course of his duties would have provided the opportunity to handle these items at any time before the assassination. Nevertheless, the committee believed that the way the boxes were stacked at the window and the proximity of the paper sack to the window from which the shots were fired must be considered as evidence indicating that he handled the boxes in the process of preparing the so-called sniper's nest and that he had used the paper sack to carry the rifle into the depository.

(c) Oswald's whereabouts

As for Oswald's presence on the sixth floor shortly before the assassination, the committee considered the testimony of Oswald's fellow employees at the depository. Although a number of them placed him on the fifth or sixth floor just before noon, a half hour before the assassination, one recalled he was on the first floor at that same time. The committee decided not to try to reconcile the testimony of these witnesses. Whether Oswald was on the first, fifth or sixth floor at noon, he could have still been on the sixth floor at 12:30. There was no witness who said he saw Oswald anywhere at the time of the assassination, and there was no witness who claimed to have been on the sixth floor and therefore in a position to have seen Oswald, had he been there.

(1) Lovelady or Oswald ?

—It has been alleged that a photograph taken of the president's limousine at the time of the first shot shows Oswald standing in the doorway of the depository.Obviously, if Oswald was the man in the doorway, he could not have been on the sixth floor shooting at the President. The Warren Commission determined that the man in the doorway was not Oswald, it was Billy Lovelady, another depository employee. Critics have challenged that conclusion, charging that Commission members did not personally question Lovelady to determine if he was in fact the man in the photograph. In addition, they argue that no photograph of Lovelady was published in any of the volumes issued by the Warren Commission . The committee asked its photographic evidence panel to determine whether the man in the doorway was Oswald, Lovelady or someone else. Forensic anthropologists working with the panel compared the photograph with pictures of Oswald and Lovelady, and a photo-analyst studied the pattern of the shirt worn by the man in the doorway and compared it to the shirts worn by the two men that day. Based on an assessment of the facial features, the anthropologists determined that the man in the doorway bore a much stronger resemblance to Lovelady than to Oswald. In addition, the photographic analysis of the shirt in the photograph established that it corresponded more closely with the shirt worn that day by Lovelady based on these analyses, the committee concluded that it was highly improbable that the man in the doorway was Oswald and highly probable that he was Lovelady. The committee's belief that the man in the doorway was Lovelady was also supported by an interview with Lovelady in which he affirmed to committee investigators that he was the man in the photograph.

(2) Witness testimony.

—The committee also considered witness testimony as to Oswald's whereabouts immediately following the assassination. Three witnesses were particularly significant. Depository Superintendent Roy Truly and Dallas Police Officer M.L. Baker both entered the depository right after the shots were fired. They encountered Oswald on the second floor, and in testimony to the Warren Commission, they gave the time as 2 to 3 minutes after the shots. A witness who personally knew Oswald, Mrs. Robert A. Reid, also a depository employee, testified to the Warren Commission that she also saw him on the second floor approximately 2 minutes after the assassination. The testimony of these three witnesses was mutually corroboratingSince all were outside the depository when the shots were fired. their statements that it took them about 2 minutes to get to the second floor were reasonable. It appeared equally reasonable that in those same 2 minutes Oswald could have walked from the sixth floor window to the rear stairway and down four flights of stairs to the second floor. The conclusion with respect to this evidence alone was not that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin, but merely that the testimony of these witnesses appeared credible and was probative on the question of Oswald's whereabouts at the time of the assassination.

5. LEE HARVEY OSWALD'S OTHER ACTIONS TEND TO SUPPORT THE CONCLUSION THAT HE ASSASSINATED PRESIDENT KENNEDY

The Warren Commission Concluded that shortly after the assassination, Oswald boarded a bus, but when the bus got caught in a traffic jam, he disembarked and took a taxicab to his roominghouse.The Commission also found that Oswald changed clothes at the roominghouse and walked about nine-tenths of a mile away from it before he encountered Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit. After being stopped by Tippit, the Commission concluded, Oswald drew a revolver and shot Tippit four times, killing him. He then ran from the scene. He was apprehended at approximately 1:50 p.m. in a nearby movie house, the Texas Theatre. The committee found that while most of the depository employees were outside of the building at the time of the assassination and returned inside afterwards, Oswald did the reverse ; he was inside before the assassination, and afterward he went outside. That Oswald left the building within minutes of the assassination was significant. Every other depository employee either had an alibi for the time of the assassination or returned to the building immediately thereafter. Oswald alone neither remained nor had an alibi.

(a) The Tippit murder

The committee investigated the murder of Officer Tippit primarily for its implications concerning the assassination of the President. The committee relied primarily on scientific evidence. The committee's firearms panel determined positively that all four cartridge cases found at the scene of the Tippit murder were fired from the pistol that was found in Lee Harvey Oswald's possession when he was apprehended in the Texas Theatre 35 minutes after the murder.(13 ) In addition, the committee's investigators interviewed witnesses present at the scene of the Tippit murder. Based on Oswald's possession of the murder weapon a short time after the murder and the eyewitness identifications of Oswald as the gunman, the committee concluded that Oswald shot and killed Officer Tippit. The committee further concluded that this crime, committed while fleeing the scene of the assassination, was consistent with a finding that Oswald assassinated the President. The Warren Commission had investigated the possibility that Oswald and Tippit were associated prior to the assassination. but it failed to find a connection. Similarly, the committee's investigation uncovered no direct evidence of such a relationship, nor did it attribute any activity or association to Officer Tippit that could be deemed suspicious. The committee, however, did find and interview one witness who had not been interviewed by the Warren Commission or FBI in 1963-64. His name is Jack Ray Tatum, and he reported witnessing the final moments of the shooting of Officer Tippit. Oswald, according to Tatum, after initially shooting Tippit from his position on the sidewalk, walked around the patrol car to where Tippit lay in the street and stood over him while he shot him at point blank range in the head. This action, which is often encountered in gangland murders and is commonly discribed as a coup do grace, is more indicative of an execution than an act of defense intended to allow escape or prevent apporhension. Absent further evidence—which the committee did not develop—the meaning of this evidence must remain uncertain. (14 )

(b) Oswald : A capacity for violence ?

The committee also considered the question of whether Oswald's words or actions indicated that he possessed a "capacity for violence." The presence of such a trait would not, in and of itself, prove much. Nevertheless, the absence of any words or actions by Oswald that indicated a capactity for violence would be inconsistent with the conclusion that Oswald assassinated the President and would be of some significance. In this regard, the committee noted that Oswald had on more than one occasion exhibited such behavior. The most blatant example is the shooting of Officer Tippit. The man who shot Tippit shot him four times at close range and in areas that were certain to cause death. There can be no doubt that the man who murdered Officer Tippit intended to kill him, and as discussed above, the committee concluded that Oswald was that man. Another example of such behavior occurred in the Texas Theatre at the time of Oswald's arrest. All of the police officers present—and Oswald himself—stated that Oswald physically attempted to resist arrest. The incident is particulary significant, if, as some of the officers testified, Oswald attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to fire his revolver during the course of the struggle. Another incident considered by the committee in evaluating Oswald's capacity for violence was the attempted murder of Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker on April 10, 1963. The Warren Commission concluded that Oswald shot at Walker and that this demonstrated "his propensity to act dramatically and, in this instance violently, in furtherance of his beliefs."Many critics of the commission, however, dispute the conclusion that Oswald was the shooter in the Walder case. The committee turned to scientific analysis to cast light on the issue. As discussed earlier, the evidence is conclusive that Oswald owned a Mannlicher-Carano rifle. The committee's firearms panel examined the bullet fragment that was removed from the wall in the home of General Walker and found that it had characteristics similar to bullets fired from Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. In addition, neutron activation analysis of this fragment confirmed that it was probably a Mannlicher-bullet. In addition, the committee considered the testimony of Marina Oswald, who stated, among other things, that Lee Harvey Oswald told her that he had shot at Walder. Further, the committee's handwriting experts determined that a handwritten note that, according to Marina Oswald's testimony, was written to her by Oswald prior to the Walker shooting, was written by Oswald, This undated note, although it did not mention General Walker, clearly indicated that Oswald was about to attempt an act during the course of which he might be killed or taken into custody. (15 )The committee concluded that the evidence strongly suggested that Oswald attempted to murder General Walker and that he possessed a capacity for violence. Such evidence is supportive of the committee's conclusion that Oswald assassinated President Kennedy.

(c) The motive

Finding a possible motive for Oswald's having assassinated President Kennedy was one of the most difficult issues that the Warren Commission addressed. The Commission stated that "many factors were undoubtedly involved in Oswald's motivation for the assassination, and the Commission does not believe that it can ascribe to him any one motive or group of motives." The Commission noted Oswald's overriding hostility to his environment, his seeking a role in history as a great man, his commitment to Marxism, and his capacity to act decisively without regard to the consequences when such action would further his aims of the moment. The committee agreed that each of the factors listed by the Warren Commission accurately characterized various aspects of Oswald's political beliefs, that those beliefs were a dominant factor in his life and that in the absence of other more compelling evidence, it concluded that they offered a reasonable explanation of his motive to kill the President. It is the committee's judgment that in the last 5 years of his life, Oswald was preoccupied with political ideology. The first clear manifestation of this preoccupation was his defection to the Soviet Union in the fall of 1959 at the age of 20. This action, in and of itself, was an indication of the depth of his political commitment. The words that accompanied the act went even further. Oswald stated to officials at the American Embassy in Moscow that he wanted to renounce his citizenship and that he intended to give the Russians any information concerning the Marine Corps and radar operations that he possessed. In letters written to his brother Robert, Oswald made it clear that in the event of war he would not hesitate ot fight on the side of the Russians against his family or former country. The paramount importance of his political commitment was indicated in one letter in which he informed his family that he did not desire to have any further communications with them as he was starting a new life in Russia. It was also reflected in his attempt to commit suicide when he was informed he would not be allowed to remain in the Soviet Union. In considering which were the dominant forces in Oswald's life, the committee, therefore, relied on Oswald's willingness to renounce his citizenshipgive up his own life, if , to betray military secrets, to take arms against his own family, and to necessary1962, although his , for his political beliefs. Upon Oswald's return to the United States from the Soviet Union in fervor for that country might have diminishedcauses. Oswald made , his words and actions still revolved around ideological no attempt to hide or tone down his deepassociated, even when -seated feelings. He expounded them to those with whom he they could be expected to be opposedas "The Worker" and . He subscribed to Marxist and Communist publications such "Worker's Party. His The Militant," and he openly corresponded with the American Communist Party and the Socialist devotion to his political beliefs was cogently symbolized by the photographcommittee's photographic , authenticated by the and handwriting panelsand his rifle, with a , in which he is defiantly holding copies of "The Worker" and "The militant" handgun strapped to his waistexample of Oswald's . His involvement in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee was another affinity for political actiongovernment of Fidel . This organization was highly critical of U.S. policy toward the Cuban Castro Oswald not only professed to be a member of the organizationbecome a highly , but he characteristically chose to visible spokesmanOrleans and twice . He corresponded with the national office, distributed hand-bills on the streets of New appeared on a local radio program representing himself as a spokesman for the organizationcommittee fully recognized . The that during the course of Oswaldcertain anti-Castro 's activities in New Orleans he apparently became involved with elementsdepth of his , although such activities on Oswald's part have never been fully explained. Considering the political commitmentanti-Castro Cuban , it would not have been uncharacteristic for Oswald to have attempted to infiltrate organizationsexample of the . But the significant point is that regardless of his purpose for joining, it is another dominance of political activity in Oswaldtraveled to 's life. A short time before the assassination of the President, Oswald Mexico City , where he went to the Cuban Consulate and indicated an intense desire to travel to Cuba and Russia. Once again, it appears that Oswald was ready to leave his family and his country to fulfill a political goal. Precisely why Oswald wanted to go to Cuba or Russia is not known, but it was certainly of significance that he chose those particular countries, both of which are Marxist. Finally, in considering the extent to which Oswald acted on behalf of his political beliefs, the Walker shooting also was relevant. As discussed above, the committee concluded that Oswald attempted to murder Major General Walker in April 1963. In the city of Dallas, no one figure so epitomized anticommunism as General Walker. Considering the various activities to which Oswald devoted his time, his efforts and his very existence, General Walker could be readily seen as "an ultimate enemy." It is known that Oswald was willing to risk death for his beliefs, so it is certainly not unreasonable to find that he might attempt to kill Walker, a man who was intensely opposed to his ideology. In analyzing Oswald's possible political motive, the committee considered the fact that as one's position in the political spectrum moves far enough to the left or right, what may otherwise be recognized as strikingly dissimilar viewpoints on the spectrum may be viewed as ideologically related. President Kennedy and General Walker hardly shared a common political ideology. As seen in terms of American political thinking, Walker was a staunch conservative while the President was a liberal. It can be argued, however, that from a Marxist's perspective, they could be regarded as occupying similar positions. Where Walker was stridently anti-Communist, Kennedy was the leader of the free world in its fight against communist. Walker was a militarist. Kennedy had ordered the invasion of Cuba and had moved to within a hairsbreadth of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis. Consequently, it may be argued that Oswald could have seen Walker and Kennedy in the same ideological light. The depth and direction of Oswald's ideological commitment is, therefore, clear. Politics was the dominant force in his the right down to the last days when, upon being arrested for the assassination, he requested to be represented by a lawyer prominent for representing Communists. Although no one specific ideological goal that Oswald might have hoped to achieve by the assassination of President Kennedy can be shown with confidence, it appeared to the committee that his dominant motivation, consistent with his known activities and beliefs, must have been a desire to take political action. It seems reasonable to conclude that the best single explanation for the assassination was his conception of political action, rooted in his twisted ideological view of himself and the world around him.

-------------------

13 - - Since Oswald's revolver had been partially modified to shoot different ammunition than the type it was manufactured to shoot, It was not possible for the panel to determine whether the bullets that killed Tippit were fired from it. The panel did determine that the characteristics of the bullets were consistent with their having been fired from Oswald's revolver.

14 - - The committee did verify from the Tippit autopsy report that there was one wound in the body that slanted upward from front to back. Though previously unexplained, it would be consistent with the observations of Jack Ray Tatum.

15 - - With respect to the Walker shooting, reports of the Dallas Police Department, made at the time of the shooting and referred to in the Warren Report, reflected that there was one witness who stated he saw more than one person leaving the scene after the shooting. Another witness, according to police reports, stated he saw two men, two nights before the shooting, driving in the vicinity of the Walker house in a suspicious manner. These statements were never substantiated, and the case remains unsolved. Nevertheless, if they are true, a possible implication is that Oswald had associates who would engage in a conspiracy to commit murder. The committee conducted a limited investigation to see if leads could be developed that might assist in identifying these possible associates. No leads were developed, and this line of inquiry was abandoned.

Le centre ville de Dallas

Pierre NAU — 2022-10-05T07:49:52Z

Le Rosehill Cemetery de Fort-Worth

Pierre NAU — 2022-10-05T07:33:01Z

Ouvrages dédiés à la preuve photographique

Pierre NAU — 2022-10-05T07:11:35Z

Ces livres regroupent les clichés et images du drame. Certains auteurs se limitent à les commenter, d'autres vont plus loin dans l'analyse de la preuve.

Pictures of the Pain : photography and the assassination of President Kennedy
Richard Trask (1994 - Yeoman Press 1994)

Un must, un indispensable, un livre à garder à portée de la main... Ce livre recense de façon exhaustive l'ensemble des photos liées à l'assassinat et leur histoire. Beaucoup de photos présentes dans ce livre sont quasiment introuvables. Une bible ! Et que l'on défende une hypothèse ou une autre, ce livre sera très utile.

The Killing of a President
Robert J. Groden (1994 - Viking Studio Books)

Une véritable mine d'or photographique.
Hormis l'ouvrage de Richard Trask, je doute qu'il y ait quelque chose de plus complet sur tous les clichés qui ont été pris sur le sujet. La reconstitution numérique de la blessure à la tête est étonnante et peu éditée.
A se procurer absolument.

The Photographic Whitewash
Harold Weisberg (2007 - The Mary Ferrell Foundation)

Dans ce troisième volet, Weisberg dénonce le manque de bonne volonté mis pour retrouver certaines preuves photographiques et l'utilisation biaisée d'autres preuves faites par les enquêtes officielles dans le but de faire prévaloir la thèse du tireur unique.
Dans la série des "Whitewash", ce tome n'est pas le meilleur.

My Story as the Youngest Photographer at the Kennedy Assassination
Tina Towner Pender (2012 - CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)

Un très beau livre où Tina Towner Pender nous raconte comment elle est devenue la plus jeune "camerawoman" de l'assassinat du Président Kennedy.
Elle nous conte avec retenue et sensibilité l'histoire du film et son histoire personnelle. Elle nous dit comment son père occupée à prendre des photos la chargea de prendre en charge la caméra, avec pour mission d'achever complètement la bobine présente.
Malheureusement, Tina cessa de filmer juste avant les coups de feu, pour filmer à nouveau, une fois la fusillade achevée. Dommage !
A lire.

The Zapruder film
David R Wrone (2003 - University Press of Kansas)

Dans cette véritable radioscopie du film, David Wrone nous retrace toute la chaîne de possession du film et fait le tri entre le factuel et ce qui appartient à la légende. Que l'on partage son avis ou pas, force est de constater que l'auteur s'est particulièrement investi pour nous offrir un ouvrage de qualité.