Oswald Innocent? A Lawyer’s Brief
National
Guardian
the progressive newsweekly
This is a special
eight-page, tabloid-size pamphlet published by the NATIONAL GUARDIAN newsweekly
as a public service. It is based largely on a five-page brief on the Oswald
case, published in the Dec. 19, 1963, issue of the GUARDIAN, written by attorney
Mark Lane.
Few issues of the GUARDIAN in recent years—and the
GUARDIAN has been involved in many stirring crusades in its 15 years—have
created as much comment as the Dec. 19 issue with the Lane brief. An extra press
run distributed to newsstands and offered to readers both old and new was
quickly sold out. The demand was so heavy that this pamphlet was produced to
meet it.
The doubts and confusion in the aftermath of the
assassination of President Kennedy have brought to mind the situation that was
created by the Sacco-Vanzetti case and the case of Ethel and Julius
Rosenberg—and the continuing case of Morton Sobell. Nor will the doubts be set
at rest until genuine efforts are made to get to the bottom of the events that
took place the tragic weekend of Nov. 22, 1963.
New readers will be interested in the reaction to the
publication of the Lane brief.
The press reaction was interesting. Except for the Times,
no New York newspaper printed a line on the Lane brief. The United Press
International got proof sheets in advance and announced it “wouldn’t touch
it.” The Associated Press was offered the proofs, but said it was not
interested; after the Times story
appeared, AP became interested.
Abroad the reaction was quite different. In Rome the Lane
brief was scheduled to be printed in full in Paese
Sera, the largest in the evening field, and in Liberation
in Paris. Oggi, an Italian magazine
with a circulation of one million, sought permission to reprint. The Japanese
press and news agencies also were on top of the story. Several Mexican papers
picked it up, too.
Was
this rifle the Kennedy assassination weapon?
The Dallas police had a story that raises many doubts
THIS EXPERIENCE with the Lane brief leads to the conclusion
that there is widespread doubt and incredulity in the public mind both at home
and abroad over the handling of the assassination of President Kennedy by the
police and investigating agencies. Unlike most of the U.S. press, the GUARDIAN
shares this feeling and will continue to gather and to present every pertinent
piece of information it can. It deplores the fact that not one leading newspaper
in the country is alarmed enough by the implication of the double assassination
to apply its full resources to a crusading effort to get to the bottom of the
case—even if it means a muck-raking job on the FBI, the CIA, the Secret
Service and any agency of government—local, state or federal—that needs
looking into.
Among the honorable exceptions in the field of journalism,
in addition to the Times (which has
been following the developments in the Oswald case in its news columns) are the New
Republic, which in its issue of Dec. 21 carried a most disturbing article on
the assassination called “Seeds of Doubt,” by Jack Minnis and Staughton
Lynd; and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
which had given its Washington correspondent, Richard Dudman, a free hand in his
coverage of the assassination aftermath.
At this writing, the atmosphere in Washington remains
troubled and tense. A reporter who has been particularly zealous in tracking
down leads in the Oswald case and asking questions has been called
“unpatriotic” for his efforts. In Dallas, Mrs. Marina Oswald, widow of the
slain suspect, at this writing was being held incommunicado by the Secret
Service and the FBI. All attempts by newspapermen to obtain interviews with her
have been thwarted, despite the fact that she is perhaps the only person who can
shed light on the nagging questions that will not be downed in the case. A
“business representative” was chosen, on the advice of the Secret Service,
to act as her spokesman.
The Warren Commission has a formidable task, but one which,
if pursued with integrity, could help elevate justice in the United States to a
more honorable estate. It goes without saying that the extreme Right in America
will attempt by every means to make the job harder for its favorite target,
Chief Justice Warren. But there are many elements within the Establishment
itself which have a big stake in relegating the assassinations even now to dead
history. In this category are the federal agencies previously named and the
politics-as-usual crowd both in the Congress and the White House which do not
want to disturb the profit-and-plunder pattern of our way of life with any
revelations that might disclose the underlying ugliness of the pattern.
THE GUARDIAN’S publication of the Lane brief in the
Oswald case—a brief which has been submitted to the Warren Commission—is
just the kind of public service for which this newsweekly was founded. On page 8
of this pamphlet persons not familiar with the history of the GUARDIAN can learn
more about this publication and can avail themselves of the opportunity to
subscribe to it.
The GUARDIAN is published weekly 52 times a year in a 12-page issue. It
covers national and foreign news with its own staff—trained journalists of
complete integrity. It seeks not to be just another newsweekly, but to serve as
an antidote to the regular commercial press by presenting news and
interpretations which can be found in few other journals in the U.S.
A full year’s subscription is $7 (special student rate is $3.50 a
year). A trial 10-week sub is $1. There are coupons on page 8.
—THE EDITORS
***********************
(Box between title and byline)
In
an analysis of the civil liberties aspects of the assassination of Lee Harvey
Oswald, the American Civil Liberties Union said the “public interest” would
be served if the commission named by President Johnson were to make “a
thorough examination of the treatment accorded Oswald, including his right to
counsel, the nature of the interrogation, his physical security while under
arrest, and the effect of pretrial publicity on Oswald’s right to a fair
trial.”
In
the public interest the GUARDIAN has devoted one-half of the issue of Dec. 19 to
a lawyer’s brief in the Oswald case which has been sent by the author to
Justice Earl Warren as head of the fact-finding commission inquiring into the
circumstances of the assassination of President Kennedy. The author is Mark
Lane, a well known New York defense attorney, who has represented almost all the
civil rights demonstrators arrested in New York. He has also served as defense
counsel in a number of murder cases involving young persons.
In
1959, he helped organize the Reform Democrats in New York, an insurgent movement
within the Democratic Party, was the first candidate of the movement to be
nominated to the New York State Legislature and was elected in 1960.
In
his letter to Justice Warren accompanying the brief, Lane urged that defense
counsel be named for Oswald so that all aspects of the case might be vigorously
pursued, particularly since Oswald was denied a trial during his lifetime. It is
an ironic note, as the ACLU statement said, that “if Oswald had lived to stand
trial and were convicted, the courts would very likely have reversed the
conviction because of the prejudicial pretrial publicity.”
The
GUARDIAN’S publication of Lane’s brief presumes only one thing: a man’s
innocence, under U.S. law, unless or until proved guilty. It is the right of any
accused, whether his name is Oswald, Ruby, or Byron de la Beckwith, the man
charged with the murder of Medgar Evers in Mississippi. A presumption of
innocence is the rock upon which American jurisprudence rests. Surely it ought
to apply in the “crime of the century” as in the meanest back-alley felony.
We
ask all our readers to study this document, show it to as many persons as you
can (extra copies are available on request) and send us your comment. Any
information or analysis based on fact that can assist the Warren Commission is
in the public interest—an interest which demands that everything possible be
done to establish the facts in this case.
—THE GUARDIAN
********************
By Mark Lane
IN ALL LIKELIHOOD there does not exist a single American
community where reside 12 men or women, good and true, who presume that Lee
Harvey Oswald did not assassinate President Kennedy. No more savage comment can
be made in reference to the breakdown of the Anglo-Saxon system of
jurisprudence. At the very foundation of our judicial operation lies a
cornerstone which shelters the innocent and guilty alike against group hysteria,
manufactured evidence, overzealous law enforcement officials, in short, against
those factors which militate for an automated, prejudged, neatly packaged
verdict of guilty. It is the sacred right of every citizen accused of committing
a crime to the presumption of innocence.
This presumption, it has been written, is a cloak donned by
the accused when the initial charge is made, and worn by him continuously. It is
worn throughout the entire case presented against him, and not taken from the
defendant until after he has had an opportunity to cross-examine hostile
witnesses, present his own witnesses and to testify himself.
Oswald did not testify. Indeed, there will be no case, no
trial, and Oswald, murdered while in police custody, still has no lawyer. Under
such circumstances the development of a possible defense is difficult, almost
impossible. Under such circumstances, the development of such a defense is
obligatory.
There will be an investigation. No investigation, however
soundly motivated, can serve as an adequate substitute for trial. Law
enforcement officials investigate every criminal case before it is presented to
a jury. The investigation in almost all such cases results in the firm
conviction by the investigator that the accused is guilty. A jury often finds
the defendant innocent, notwithstanding.
That which intervenes between the zealous investigator and
the jury is due process of law, developed at great cost in human life and
liberty over the years. It is the right to have irrelevant testimony barred. It
is the right to have facts, not hopes or thoughts or wishes or prejudicial
opinions, presented. It is the right to test by cross-examination the veracity
of every witness and the value of his testimony. It is, perhaps above all, the
right to counsel of one’s own choice, so that all the other rights may be
protected. In this defense, Oswald has forfeited all rights along with his life.
The reader, inundated at the outset with 48 solid television, radio and
newspaper hours devoted to proving the guilt of the accused and much additional
“evidence” since then, cannot now examine this case without bringing to it
certain preconceived ideas. We ask, instead, only for a temporary suspension of
certainty.
An examination of the evidence against Oswald—for a trial that can’t be held
The case against Oswald
LONG BEFORE OSWALD was shot to death in the basement of the Dallas
courthouse, the Dallas officials had concluded that Oswald was “without any
doubt the killer.” On Saturday, the press was informed that “absolute
confirmation as to Oswald’s guilt” had just arrived but that the
“startling evidence” could not then be released to the press.
Immediately after Oswald was slain, the Dallas district
attorney, Henry Wade, announced that the “Oswald case was closed.” Despite
the deep belief that prevailed throughout the U.S. as to Oswald’s guilt,
doubts raised throughout Europe escalated with Oswald’s murder into almost
absolute rejection of the prosecution case.
The Justice Department then announced that the case was not
closed. Wade called a press conference to “reopen” the case. In a radio and
television statement, publicized throughout the world, Wade presented “the
evidence, piece by piece, for you.”
Wade is not new to the ways of law enforcement and
prosecution. He has held the post of district attorney in Dallas 13 years. He
has a staff of 80, and an annual budget of almost $500,000. For more than four
years he was an FBI agent before becoming district attorney.
He boasts of obtaining the death sentence in 23 of the 24
capital cases he has prosecuted. It can be assumed that the Oswald case was by
far the most important matter that he ever handled, and that his appearance on
Sunday to present the evidence was the high point of his career. This was an
appearance for which he had abundantly prepared himself.
Lee
Harvey oswald and the dallas police
He was questioned, without counsel, for 48 hours
In that light, we now examine the “airtight case,” the “absolute confirmation of Oswald’s guilt.” Wade presented 15 assertions, some mere conclusions, some with a source not revealed, some documented.
Here are the 15 assertions:
1—A
number of witnesses saw Oswald at the window of the sixth floor of the Texas
School Book Depository.
2—Oswald’s palm print appeared on the rifle.
3—Oswald’s palm print appeared on a cardboard box found
at the window.
4—Paraffin tests on both hands showed that Oswald had
fired a gun recently.
5—The rifle, an Italian carbine, had been purchased by
Oswald, through the mail, under an assumed name.
6—Oswald had in his possession an identification card with
the name Hidell.
7—Oswald was seen in the building by a police officer just
after the President had been shot.
8—Oswald’s wife said that his rifle was missing Friday
morning.
9—Oswald had a package under his arm Friday.
10—Oswald, while taking a bus from the scene, laughed
loudly as he told a woman passenger that the President had been shot.
11—A taxi driver, Darryl Click, took Oswald home, where he
changed his clothes.
12—Oswald shot and killed a police officer.
13—A witness saw Oswald enter the Texas theater.
14—Oswald drew a pistol and attempted to kill the
arresting officer.
15—A map was found in Oswald’s possession showing the
scene of the assassination and the bullet’s proposed trajectory.
Perused lightly, the list seems impressive. But in capital cases evidence is not perused lightly. It is subject to probing cross-examination, study and analysis. The most effective tool available to any defendant, cross-examination, is not available in this case. We rely instead upon press reports of statements made, not by witnesses for the defense, not by the defendant, but by the district attorney, police officers or FBI agents. With this oppressive restriction in mind, we move on to an analysis of the evidence.
Point One
A number of witnesses saw Oswald at the window of the
sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
SINCE IT IS ALLEGED that Oswald fired through that window,
that assertion is important. Wade was unequivocal, stating, “First, there was
a number of witnesses that saw the person with the gun on the sixth floor of the
bookstore building, in the window—detailing the window—where he was looking
out.” Subsequently, it developed that the “number of witnesses” was in
reality one witness, who was quoted as follows: “I can’t identify him, but
if I see a man who looks like him, I’ll point him out.” (Newsweek—Dec.
9) Such “identification” is at best speculative and would not be permitted
in that form at trial.
Point Two
Oswald’s
palm print appeared on the rifle.
A PALM PRINT, unlike a fingerprint, is not always uniquely
identifiable. Nevertheless, palm prints possibly belonging to the suspect and
present on a murder weapon must be considered important evidence. If the rifle
did belong to Oswald, the presence of palm prints there might be normal and need
not lead to the inevitable conclusion that Oswald fired the fatal shots.
However, speculation in this area is not now required to rebut Wade’s second
point. The FBI now states that “no palm prints were found on the rifle.”
This conclusion, first carried in the Fort Worth press, was
later leaked to reporters by the FBI in off-the-record briefing sessions. The
FBI at that time took the position that “we don’t have to worry about prints
in this case.” The FBI indicated anger with Wade for stating that a palm print
was present when in fact it was not.
Point Three
Oswald’s palm print appeared on a cardboard box found at the window.
WADE STATED, “On this box that the defendant was sitting
on, his palm print was found and was identified as his.” Inasmuch as a palm
print is not always uniquely identifiable, depending on the number of
characteristics that are readable, the palm print very likely was not definitely
“identified as his.”
It had been alleged earlier that the defendant ate greasy,
fried chicken at the window. The presence of a palm print indicates that he wore
no gloves and took no precautions to prevent a trail of fingerprints and palm
prints. Nevertheless, no prints of the defendant were found on the floors,
walls, window ledge, window frame or window. Only a movable cardboard carton,
subsequently present at the police station while the defendant was also there,
is now alleged to have his print.
An over-zealous investigatory staff might arrange to secure
such a print after the fact. Certainly, the handling of this case by the Dallas
authorities was marked by over-zealous desire to convict the defendant. A
district attorney who states falsely that a palm print is present on the murder
weapon might make a similar statement in reference to a cardboard carton.
Point Four
Paraffin
tests on both hands showed that Oswald had fired a gun recently.
PARAFFIN IS APPLIED to that portion of the human body which
might come in close contact with the gas (released by a weapon’s firing)
containing solid particles of burned nitrates in suspension. To determine
whether a pistol (i.e., a gun) has been fired, tests are made of both hands. To
determine whether a rifle has been fired, tests are made of both hands and the
area on both sides of the face near the cheekbone, the cheek remaining in
immediate contact with a rifle when the trigger is pulled.
Dallas
district attorney henry wade
He presents the 'evidence'—to the press
In the service, as any veteran, including Wade, well knows, a rifle is always referred to as a rifle. It is never, under fear of company punishment, called a gun (pistol). At Wade’s press conference, this dialogue took place:
Reporter: What about the paraffin tests?
Wade: Yes, I’ve got paraffin tests that showed he had recently fired a
gun—it was on both hands.
Reporter: On both hands?
Wade: Both hands.
Reporter: Recently fired a rifle?
Reporter: A gun.
Wade: A gun.
Wade’s answers, while truthful, were a study in understatement. The district attorney neglected to state the additional facts that tests had been conducted on Oswald’s face and that the tests revealed that there were no traces of gunpowder on Oswald’s face (Washington Star, Nov. 24). One fact emerges here with clarity. The paraffin test did not prove Oswald had fired a rifle recently. The test tended to prove Oswald had not fired a rifle recently. This fact alone raises that reasonable doubt that a jury might utilize in finding the defendant not guilty.
Point Five
The
rifle, an Italian carbine, had been purchased by Oswald through the mail and
under an assumed name.
WADE SAID, “It (the rifle), as I think you know, has been
identified as having been purchased last March by Oswald, from a mail-order
house, through an assumed name named Hidell, mailed to a post office box here in
Dallas.” Wade said this was the weapon that killed the President.
Wade had made a very different statement in reference to
the murder weapon just a short while before.
Just after the arrest of Oswald, Dallas law enforcement
officials announced that they had found the murder weapon. Wade and his
associates studied the rifle. It was shown to the television audience repeatedly
as some enforcement official carried it high in the air, with his bare hands on
the rifle. After hours of examination Wade said without hesitation that “the
murder weapon was a German Mauser.”
The next day it was reported that FBI files showed that
Oswald purchased an Italian carbine through the mail. It was sent to a
post-office box maintained by Oswald in his own name and also A. Hidell.
(Clearly no serious effort to escape detection as the purchaser of the rifle was
made by Oswald, if he did purchase it.)
Armed with the knowledge that Oswald could be connected
with an Italian carbine (it then not being known that the Italian rifle in
question might not be able to fire three times in five seconds), Wade made a new
announcement. The murder weapon was not a German Mauser, it was an Italian
carbine. This prosecution reversal established a high point in vulnerability for
the trial—the trial that was never to take place.
Point Six
Oswald had in his possession an identification card
with the name Hidell.
WADE SAID, “On his (Oswald’s) person was a pocketbook.
In his pocketbook was an identification card with the same name (Hidell) as the
post-office box on it.”
Almost immediately after Oswald was arrested the police
asserted that he was guilty of assassination, was a Communist, was the head of
the New Orleans Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and had used an alias, “Lee,”
the name under which he had rented his $8-a-week room. The following day, after
the FBI had revealed that Oswald had purchased a rifle under the assumed name
Hidell, the Dallas DA announced for the first time that Oswald had carried an
identification card under the assumed name Hidell on his person when he was
arrested the previous day.
One wonders why the police and the DA, in announcing
Oswald’s political background, failed to mention another alias readily
available to them. Clearly, the suspect was immediately searched when arrested.
Clearly, an identification card made out to another person fitting Oswald’s
description exactly was proof of another assumed name. Why did the Dallas
authorities publicly “discover” the ID card for Hidell after the FBI said
that Oswald purchased a rifle under the name Hidell?
Point Seven
Oswald
was seen in the building by a police officer just after the President had been
shot.
WADE SAID, “A police officer, immediately after the
assassination, ran in the building and saw this man in a corner and tried to
arrest him; but the manager of the building said he was an employe and it was
all right. Every other employe was located but this defendant of the company. A
description and name of him went out to police to look for him.” (At this
point it might be in order to state that all of the Wade quotations are
reproduced unedited, and in their entirety. The text of the Wade remarks
appeared in the New York Times, Nov. 26.)
Unexplained by Wade is why the officer was going to arrest
Oswald, who was sipping a soft drink in the lunchroom along with others. If the
officer had reason to single out Oswald for arrest for the assassination at that
time, it seems unlikely that the mere statement that Oswald was an employe might
result in immunity from arrest.
Wade does explain, however, how the almost immediate
description of Oswald was radioed to the police and to the citizens of Dallas.
The explanation: “Every other employe was located but this defendant of the
company.” The New York Times (Nov. 23) reported: “About 90 persons
were employed in the Texas School Book Depository and most of them were out
watching the President’s motorcade when the shots were fired.” Police Chief
Curry, who was riding in a car just 40 feet ahead of the limousine carrying the
President, said he could tell from the sound of the three shots that they had
come from the book company’s building. Moments after the shots were fired,
Curry said, he radioed instructions that the building be surrounded and searched
(New York Times, Nov. 24). The deployment of 500 officers from his 1,100-man
force made fast action possible in the manhunt, he said.
The scene painted for us by Wade and Curry finds officers
immediately rushing to the building to seal it off and search it. This is the
building from which the fatal shots allegedly were fired.
In these circumstances, is it likely that Oswald was
permitted to leave the premises after the police had arrived? Is it
likely that Oswald, after killing the President, and deciding to leave the
premises, decided first to stop off for a soda, and had then—only after the
building was surrounded, sealed off, and the search begun—made an effort to
leave? Is it likely that each of the almost 90 employes, most of whom were
outside of the building, engulfed in the panic and confusion attendant upon the
assassination, could easily and quickly return to his place of employment
through the police line, while still on his lunch hour, so that “every other
employe was located but this defendant…” and the description of the one
missing employe radioed at once?
a
sample headline—this one in the n.y. herald tribune nov. 24
The question mark hardly erases the sensationalism of treatment
Point Eight
Oswald’s
wife said that the rifle was missing Friday morning.
WADE SAID, “The wife had said he had the gun the night
before, and it was missing that morning after he left.” All indications are
from statements made to other law officials and from FBI private briefings that
Mrs. Oswald had never been quoted as saying anything remotely similar to
Wade’s assertion.
Mrs. Oswald was alleged to have said, at the very most,
that she saw something in a blanket that could have been a rifle. However, it
soon became plain that the Secret Service “leak” was itself absolutely
inaccurate. Later we discovered that Mrs. Oswald stated that she never knew that
her husband owned a rifle nor did she know he owned a pistol (New York Times,
Dec. 8).
Perhaps Wade and the Secret Service felt confident that,
just as Oswald never got the opportunity to tell his side of the story, Mrs.
Oswald might also have difficulty in being heard. Immediately after the
assassination Marina Oswald, Oswald’s wife, was incarcerated by the Secret
Service. “The widow and relatives of Lee Harvey Oswald are being sequestered
here (Dallas) by the Secret Service. A spokesman for the Secret Service said the
family was being kept in a secret place for its own protection…A Secret
Service spokesman said he did not know when they would be released.” (New York
Times, Nov. 27.)
Inasmuch as there will be no trial, Marina Oswald clearly
is not being held as a material witness. Since the federal government has no
jurisdiction in any event, there seems to be no legal basis for her
incarceration. Lee Oswald’s mother, jeopardized by the existing hysteria as
much as his widow, after being released from Secret Service “protective
custody,” requested that a guard be stationed at the door of her home. The
Secret Service rejected that request, stating that she was not in danger. One
wonders then why Marina Oswald, widely and inaccurately quoted by the Secret
Service and FBI, has remained in custody and practically incommunicado as well.
The same issue of the New York Times that correctly stated Marina
Oswald’s view of the rifle said, “Mrs. Oswald has been moved from the motel
where she was taken with Mrs. Marguerite Oswald, her brother-in-law and his
wife, after her husband was killed. She is now excluded from Oswald’s
relatives as well as from the public.” Several days after the “protective
custody” began a reporter sought an interview with Marina Oswald. She
indicated a desire to meet the reporter. The FBI then intervened and prevented
the interview.
It would seem that the Secret Service move was dictated by
a desire to prevent any truthful leaks from Mrs. Oswald’s family or
friends or through the press in reference to her views. At about the same time
more Secret Service and FBI “leaks” regarding Marina Oswald’s recollection
of her late husband’s “attempt to shoot Gen. Walker with the same
assassination rifle” flooded the front pages of every daily in America. Marina
Oswald’s assertion that she never even knew that her husband owned a rifle,
buried in the 14th paragraph of a story appearing on page 63 of the
New York Times, is a total repudiation of that fabrication.
It may be said that when Marina
Oswald is released from “protective custody” she will be able to discuss the
truth of the statements attributed to her by the FBI, the Secret Service and
Wade. The Secret Service has “suggested to her [Marina Oswald] that it might
be safer and easier for her to return to the Soviet Union than to try to live in
the United States (Times, Dec. 8).” Perhaps the Secret Service intended
to indicate that it would be safer and easier for the Secret Service, the FBI
and Wade and the case against Oswald if Mrs. Oswald quietly left the country.
Meanwhile, back to Wade’s
“clinched case.” Even if Mrs. Oswald did state that her husband owned a
rifle and that it was missing Friday morning, such “evidence” would not be
admissible under the laws of Texas. The Dallas law enforcement officials,
nevertheless, released that “evidence” to the public and, therefore, to all
potential jurors in Dallas, while Oswald was alive and facing the possibility of
trial. Such conduct did violence both to the spirit and letter of law and ethics
and to the rights of the defendant.
In view of Marina Oswald’s lack
of knowledge regarding the rifle, and in view of the statement made by Mrs.
Paine, at whose home the rifle was alleged to have been stored, one questions
whether Oswald ever actually possessed the rifle. “Mrs. Paine, a Quaker, said
she had no idea what was in the blanket. She said that because of her personal
beliefs she would not allow a weapon of any sort into her home.” (New York World
Telegram and Sun, Nov. 25).
a
swift verdict of guilty—n.y. times headline nov. 25
The Times later 'regretted' its failure to qualify the word assassin
Point Nine
Oswald
had a package under his arm Friday.
THE PROSECUTOR said, “This day he
went home one day earlier on Thursday night, and came back to—with this
fellow—and when he came back he had a package under his arm that he said was
window curtains, I believe, or window shades.”
If Oswald were alive, we would
proceed to ask him whether he carried a package to work Friday morning, and if
so, what was in the package and what happened to the contents. If Mrs. Oswald
were not locked up in a secret location we might ask her about the package. Wade
has not indicated what evidence regarding the package led him to the conclusion
that he offered (that it contained the murder weapon).
Point Ten
Oswald,
while taking a bus from the scene, laughed loudly as he told a woman passenger
that the President had been shot.
WADE SAID, “The next we hear of
him is on a bus where he got on at Lamar Street, told the bus driver the
President had been shot, the President. [He] told the lady—all this was
verified by her statements—told the lady on the bus that the President had
been shot. He said, ‘How did he know?’ He said a man back there told him.
The defendant said, ‘Yes, he’s been shot’ and laughed very loud.”
Wade, in telling his story, made no
attempt to explain how Oswald escaped from the building sealed off by scores of
Dallas police. We leave that mystery to enter a new one. Why did Oswald, fleeing
the scene of a murder, joke publicly about the murder? Why did he “laugh very
loud”? Such behavior is hardly consistent with 48 hours of consistent denial
of guilt when in custody of the Dallas authorities. The laughter on the bus
story seemed so unlikely that the FBI, in off-the-record briefing sessions for
the press, conceded that it was untrue. In considering that the bus laughter
story is false, we consider also the statement by Wade in the telling of that
story, “…all this was verified by statements.”
Point Eleven
A
taxi driver Darryl Click, took Oswald home, where he changed his clothes.
WADE SAID, “He then—the bus, he
asked the bus driver to stop, got off at a stop, caught a taxicab driver, Darryl
Click—I don’t have his exact place—and went to his home in Oak Cliff,
changed his clothes hurriedly, and left.”
On Nov. 27, it was conceded that
“Darryl Click” did not drive a taxicab in which Oswald was a passenger. When
“Darryl Click” disappeared from the case, “William Whaley” appeared as
the man who drove Oswald, not home, but at least in that general direction.
Oswald, it is alleged, fired the
shots that killed Kennedy from the sixth floor of the building. Oswald, it is
alleged, then walked down four flights of stairs, purchased a soft drink and was
sipping it while a police officer approached him on the second floor.
Oswald, it is alleged, left the
building, slipping though the police cordon and proceeded through the panicked
street crowds until he found a bus. Oswald, it is alleged, the boarded the bus,
paid his fare, got a transfer (that he never used) and spoke to the driver about
the assassination.
The driver referred a woman to
Oswald, it is alleged, and Oswald spoke with her about the shooting. Oswald, it
is alleged, eventually left the bus after riding about six blocks and was
walking “from Commerce Street” when the taxicab driver, now named “William
Whaley” saw him. Oswald, it is alleged, hailed the taxi, and entered it.
“William Whaley’s” log shows that Oswald entered the taxi, after having
completed this entire trip, at exactly 12:30 p.m. The shots that killed Kennedy
were fired at 12:31 p.m.
Point Twelve
Oswald
shot and killed a police officer.
WADE SAID, “He walked up to the car. Officer Tippit
stepped out of the car and started around it. He shot him three times and killed
him.”
This allegation isn’t directly related to the murder of
the President but it raised interesting points.
The Dallas authorities first said Tippit was shot in a
movie theater. Later, it was reported that he was shot on one street and, still
later, on another street. The first charge against Oswald was not for the murder
of the President but for the murder of Tippit. That charge was made while the
investigation of the Kennedy shooting was still going on., Wade announced that
the Tippit case was absolutely set and that all the evidence proved Oswald shot
the officer.
In view of the certainty of the prosecutor as to a case
that had been entirely locked up two days before, the following dialogue (at the
press conference) is rather curious.
Reporter: Was
this (where Oswald shot Tippit) in front of the boarding house?
Wade: No, it’s not in front of the boarding house.
Reporter: Where was it?
Wade: I don't have
it exact.
Point Thirteen
A
witness saw Oswald enter the Texas Theater.
WADE SAID, “Someone saw him go in
the Texas Theater.”
There has been little conflict
about that assertion. The first statement by Dallas authorities indicated that
the theater cashier was so suspicious when she saw Oswald change from seat to
seat nervously that the telephoned the police.
It soon became obvious that a
cashier at a post outside of the theater might have difficulty watching the
customers once they entered. So the authorities then indicated that an usher saw
Oswald changing seats. The last version has a person outside the theater
noticing Oswald’s suspicious action, following him into the theater, sealing
off the doors with the assistance of the usher, and then notifying the police
through a telephone call made by the cashier.
Some questions peripheral to the
arrest in the theater persist. What did Oswald do before entering the theater to
attract attention? In what manner were his action “suspicious”? We have been
told by the newly emerging firearm-psychologist experts that although Oswald was
not particularly talented with a rifle, his “psychotic condition” may have
given him “nerveless coordination” so that he might fire accurately.
Evidently that “nerveless
coordination” was not present outside the theater, although it could have
appeared to Oswald that he had committed the perfect crime, had escaped the
police at the Texas Book Depository and was now far removed from the scene.
Frantic actions by Oswald, so obvious as to attract the attention of a passerby,
in these circumstances, also seem inconsistent with Oswald’s reported demeanor
moments after the President had been shot. At this time a policeman charged up
the stairs of the book depository, pointed a gun at him and sought to arrest him
for shooting the President.
Oswald’s employer described
Oswald’s condition at that time as “cool as a cucumber—although he seemed
a little bothered by the gun.” (Washington Post, Dec. 1).
Point Fourteen
Oswald
drew a pistol and attempted to kill the arresting officer. The firing pin stuck
and marked the bullet but it did not explode.
WADE SAID, “He [Oswald] struck at the officer, put the
gun against his head and snapped it, but did not—the bullet did not—go off.
We have the snapped bullet there. Officers apprehended him at that time…It
misfired being on the—the shell didn’t explode. We have where it hit it, but
it didn’t explode.”
Wade was attempting to indicate that when Oswald was
arrested in the theater he tried to shoot the arresting officer and did in fact
pull the trigger of the pistol There can be no question that the trigger was
pulled since Wade assured us, in his fashion, that the firing pin struck the
bullet and marked the bullet. He further assured us his office has the
“snapped bullet” in its possession. The arresting officer, however,
policeman MacDonald, told the story differently: “I got my hand on the butt of
his gun,” said MacDonald. “I could feel Oswald’s hand on the trigger. I
jerked my hand and was able to slow down the trigger movement. He didn’t have
enough force to fire it.” (Washington Post, Dec. 1.)
Confronted with a resume of that report, Wade quickly
adjusted to it:
Reporter: There was one officer who said that he pulled the trigger, but he managed to put his thumb in the part before the firing pin. It didn’t strike the—the bullet didn't explode. Is that…?
Wade: I don’t know whether it’s that or not. I know he didn’t snap the gun is all I know about it. (New York Times, Nov. 26.)
We leave this incident bearing in mind one remarkable fact. Physical evidence, introduced by Wade—a bullet marked by a firing pin in an attempt to kill a police officer—now was repudiated by the officer who was an eyewitness and by Wade himself.
the
dallas cops certainly made the news
This appeared in the N.Y. News, Nov. 24
Point Fifteen
A
map was found in Oswald’s possession showing the scene of the assassination
and the bullet’s trajectory.
THE DAY AFTER Wade’s historic
press conference, and three days after the Oswald arrest, a new discovery was
made.
“Today Mr. Wade announced that
authorities had also found a marked map, showing the course of the President’s
motorcade, in Oswald’s rented room. ‘It was a map tracing the location of
the parade route,’ the district attorney said, ‘and this place [the Texas
School Book Depository, a warehouse from which the fatal shots were fired] was
marked with a straight line.’ Mr. Wade said Oswald had marked the map at two
other places, ‘apparently places which he considered a possibility for an
assassination.’” (New York Times, Nov. 25.)
A document written by the defendant showing his intention to commit a
crime is important evidence. It seems incredible, were such a map in the hands
of the Dallas authorities on the previous day when Wade presented the evidence,
“piece by piece,” that he would have neglected to mention it.
Oswald was arrested three days prior to the map announcement. On the day
of his arrest police removed all of his belongings from his room, telling the
landlady that Oswald “would not return.” One wonders where the map came from
three days later. The same newspapers that hailed the discovery of the map Nov.
25, without a single question as to its legitimacy, origin. or previous
whereabouts, totally ignored or buried the last comment regarding this important
document. “Dallas officials yesterday denied that such a map exists.”
(Washington Post, Nov. 27.)
Flaws in the ‘airtight’ case
The people vs. Oswald
WHEN A CRIMINAL CASE is brought in
federal court against an individual, it is entitled, “The People of the United
States against” the named defendant. No federal charge was lodged against
Oswald; however, in the most significant sense the case became the entire
country and its institutions against one man. Very likely no prospective
defendant in the history of civilization has been tried and condemned as through
the utilization of the media as was Oswald.
The American Civil Liberties Union
commented on Dec. 6:
“It is our opinion that Lee
Harvey Oswald, had he lived, would have been deprived of all opportunity to
receive a fair trail by the conduct of the police and prosecuting officials in
Dallas, under pressure from the public and the news media.
“From the moment of his arrest
until his murder two days later, Oswald was tried and convicted many times over
in the newspapers, on the radio, and over television by the public statements of
the Dallas law enforcement officials. Time and again high-ranking police and
prosecution officials state[d] their complete satisfaction that Oswald was the
assassin. As their investigation uncovered one piece of evidence after another,
the results were broadcast to the public.
“…Oswald’s trial would…have
been nothing but a hollow formality.”
In a section headed “Police
Responsibility for Oswald’s Killing” the ACLU stated that the concessions to
the media “resulted in Oswald being deprived not only of his day in court, but
of his life as well.”
On Dec. 4 the chancellor-elect of
the Philadelphia Bar Association stated that Lee Oswald had been “lynched”
and that this was an “indictment” of the legal profession for its failure to
protect Oswald (New York Times, Dec. 5). These two comments, made after
the death of Oswald and buried by the news media under the avalanche of news
attacks against Oswald (including the FBI leaks of other crimes alleged to have
been committed by him), constitute to date almost the only indication of sanity
in the country.
After Oswald’s death, the FBI
acted to prevent certain information from reaching the public. “Most private
citizens who had cooperated with newsmen reporting the crime have refused to
give further help after being interviewed by agents of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.” (New York Times, Dec. 6). The FBI acted, not to protect
the rights of a defendant, but, after he was murdered, to protect the
inconsistent evidence from further scrutiny. Mrs. Oswald, still in Secret
Service custody, hidden in an unknown location, was quoted on the front pages of
papers throughout the country Dec. 6 and 7 as implicating Oswald in another
crime. Such a quotation could have come only from a Secret Service or FBI leak.
No one else had access to her. And so the insanity accelerates until the few
remaining vestiges of doubt as to Oswald’s guilt are obliterated from the
American scene.
However, let it not be said that
the lawyers are not aroused by an attorney’s giving statements to the public
in relation to a pending case. “A Dallas Bar Association grievance committee
met three hours last night on charges that Tom Howard, attorney for Jack Ruby,
had violated legal ethics by discussing Ruby’s case with the press…No
charges had been placed against District Attorney Henry Wade.” (New York Post,
Dec. 6).
When an entire society moves in for
the kill, logic is a weapon of doubtful value. Were logic to prevail, a number
of questions might be raised for rational deliberation. For example, one might
inquire why the FBI, having questioned Oswald just a week before the
assassination and having discovered that he worked in a building directly on the
President’s line of march, and knowing that Oswald had purchased a rifle, did
not watch him on the day of assassination. Certainly, a small portion of the
millions of dollars bestowed upon the FBI each year and utilized for following
persons of unorthodox political views and tapping their telephones might have
been available under these circumstances, as part of what the FBI and Secret
Service referred to as the “greatest security provisions ever taken to protect
an American President.”
oswald's
family at the police station
Mother, Marguerite, with wife, Marina, and baby
The question of motive
WHETHER THE DALLAS POLICE through
complicity or complacency permitted the murder of the defendant by a police
department friend after two warnings through the FBI that such an attempt
would be made should be a matter for press discussion. Whether or not the FBI
showed Mrs. Oswald, the defendant’s mother, a picture of Ruby before
Ruby murdered Oswald would ordinarily demand media debate.
There are two matters not even
commented upon by the press to date—Oswald’s motive and Oswald’s plan for
escape. Oswald seemed to respect President Kennedy. If Oswald were a leftist,
pro-Soviet and pro-Cuban, did he not know that during the last year, with the
assistance of President Kennedy, a better relationship was in the process of
developing between the U.S. and the Soviet Union? Even the relations between the
U.S. and Cuba, while still extremely unfriendly, have progressed past the stage
of military intervention. Fidel Castro himself stated, just before the
President’s death, “He (Kennedy) has the possibility of becoming the
greatest President of the United States…He has come to understand many things
over the last few months—I’m convinced that anyone else would be worse.”
(New York Times, Dec. 11).
The press made much of the fact
that Oswald had been seen with a copy of the Worker, a Communist
publication, and that he had received at least two letters from the Communist
Party. A New York newspaper referred to him editorially as a “Communist
murderer.” Did Oswald not know that the U.S. Communist party supported Kennedy
when he ran for the presidency in 1960 and that within the last six months Gus
Hall urged the Communist Party, which he leads, to endorse and support Kennedy
again?
Why should Oswald wish to
assassinate the President; and after firing at the President, how did he plan to
escape? Did he wish to flee from the building? If so, why did he remain in the
lunchroom sipping a soda? Was he in a hurry? If so, why did he take a ride on a
bus? It was a very warm day in Dallas. Mrs. Kennedy, sweltering in the open
moving car, later said that she was looking forward to the cool relief of riding
through the underpass just ahead. Why then, did Oswald, seeking to escape the
police, go home to pick up his jacket? If he was planning to leave the city, why
did he then go to a movie just as the city-wide search was gaining intensity?
These are genuine areas for
speculation by the press now that the defendant is dead. These are, nevertheless
almost the only areas left unexamined by the media.
Perhaps some day, when America is
ready for the sunlight of reason to penetrate the rational mind, now frozen to a
false and unfair conclusion, this article and others far more comprehensive may
be read.
Conviction by press vs. presumption of innocence
An affirmative case
UNDER OUR SYSTEM of justice a defendant need not prove he
is innocent. It is the obligation of the prosecutor to attempt to prove the
defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Should the prosecutor fail to
sustain that burden, the defendant must be declared not guilty.
In the case of Oswald, hysteria and intolerance have so
swept our country that the protections guaranteed by our Constitution and by our
traditions have failed to operate. Since irrationality is the implacable foe of
justice and due process, we are compelled to depart from ordinary legal
procedure. At this point we shall submit an affirmative case. We shall attempt
to present facts that tend to prove that Oswald did not shoot President Kennedy.
A denial by a defendant that he committed a crime when
supported by testimony as to his good character is sufficient in and of itself
to cause a reasonable doubt which, even in the face of evidence to the contrary,
may result in acquittal.
Oswald denied he shot anyone. He stated that the charges
against him were “ridiculous.” He persisted in his denial despite the fact
that he was questioned for 48 hours without the benefit of counsel.
Denial of counsel, when coupled with extensive questioning,
is improper and contrary to long-established principles of law. This principle
was developed out of revulsion against the ancient trial by ordeal or trial by
fire which forced a person accused to a crime to cooperate in the prosecution of
his own case. Great constitutional protections, including the Fifth Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution, were developed. It was found that not only would guilty
persons confess when sufficient pressure was placed against them, but innocent
persons also were likely to succumb.
Great pressure was placed against Oswald. He stood all
alone condemned as the slayer of a popular leader. “Oswald was pummeled by the
arresting officers until his face was puffed and battered. ‘Kill the President
will you?’ one officer shouted in a choked voice.” (Washington Post,
Dec. 1.)
In addition “Oswald received a black eye and a cut on his
forehead.” (New York Times, Nov. 24.)
When a reporter asked Oswald in a televised interview how
he received the bruises and cuts on his face, he answered calmly, “A policeman
hit me.”
For 48 hours, Oswald was denied the elementary right to
counsel of his choice. The Dallas police falsely told the attorneys for the ACLU
that Oswald “did not want counsel.” Despite physical abuse and absolute
isolation, Oswald continued to state that he was innocent. Each previous
assassin of an American president immediately and boastfully declared that the
act was his.
Character witnesses
The press has been glutted with attacks upon Oswald since
his death, with each informant issuing self-serving declarations as to his own
ability to detect incipient mental problems or character weaknesses, when Oswald
was much younger.
A former probation officer in New York City permitted an
interview which violated principles of a privileged and protected relationship
between himself and a young boy. A justice of the Family Court released records
to the FBI, and the information was carried in the press.
Nevertheless, those who knew Oswald a little better had
some rather kind things to say about him. At a trial, their testimony could have
been decisive. The associate pastor of First Unitarian Church, Dallas, Rev. Byrd
Helligas, described Lee Oswald as “erudite.” “He had a good vocabulary. No
dangling participles or split infinitives. In the dictionary definition of the
word ‘intellectual’ he was an intellectual.” Helligas added that he sensed
“no frustration through erudition. He was calm.” (Washington Post,
Dec. 1).
Samuel Ballen, described in the press as a “Republican
petroleum economist in Dallas,” said he found Lee Oswald to be “an
independent, thinking, inquiring young man…He was a rather frail person
physically. At least to me, he was the kind of person I could like. I kind of
took a liking to him, I wanted to help him a little bit…He had a kind of
Ghandi, far-off look about him.” (Washington Post, Dec. 1.)
Roy Truly, the director of the depository where Oswald was
employed, said of Oswald, “He seemed just a normal, quiet young fellow.”
Mrs. Paine, with whom his wife and children lived and where
he stayed on weekends, said, “Marina (Lee Oswald’s wife) felt very favorably
toward the President and his family. Most of what she learned of American news
was provided by Lee, who translated from newspapers and news magazines. Marina
said he never transferred any negative feelings toward President Kennedy.”
(Washington Post, Nov. 28.)
Mrs. Paine also stated that, “As far as I know Oswald had
never been critical of Kennedy. He had been critical of General [Edwin] Walker,
but I never heard him say anything against the President. In fact, it was my
impression that he respected him” (New York World Telegram and Sun,
Nov. 25.)
In 1959, Oswald was interviewed by Priscilla Johnson, an
American correspondent while in Moscow. She reported, “I found him rather
likeable. He was quiet and didn’t have a vehement manner. He was so very
young. He was someone you would try to help.”
Mrs. Luella Merrett, principal of West Ridglea elementary
school which Oswald attended, said, “If he had problems, we did not recognize
them…He was interested in things.”
Were the case to be tried, persons ordinarily selected as
character witnesses would include his employer, a minister, his landlady, a
respected businessman, a correspondent who knew him abroad, the Quaker family
with whom his wife resided and his school teachers. Judging by the initial
response, one could conclude that character testimony for Lee Oswald would be
compelling.
Time, place and Oswald
IN ADDITION to consistent denial of guilt by the defendant
and statements of character witnesses that seem to indicate a person different
from the disturbed, hostile character usually associated with the particular
crime, a defendant may offer testimony indicating that he was somewhere other
than at the scene of the crime when it was committed. We, of course, can’t get
such information from this defendant.
However, a valid defense could result in showing that even
if the defendant were at the scene he could not have committed the crime. Such a
defense is available. If Oswald was on the sixth floor of the book depository
armed with the alleged murder weapon, a 6.5mm Italian carbine, he could not have
fired three shots that struck President Kennedy and Governor Connally.
The official homicide report filed by the Dallas Police
Department attested to by two police officers, states under the section “Place
of Occurrence”: “Elm Street (approximately 150 feet west of Houston).” The
report also states under the section “Pronounced dead by Physician,” the
name “Dr. Kemp Clark, 1 p.m., Parkland Hospital.”
A motion picture taken of the President just before, during
and after the shooting, and demonstrated on television showed that the President
was looking directly ahead when the first shot, which entered his throat, was
fired. A series of still pictures taken from the motion picture and published in
Life magazine on Nov. 29 show exactly the same situation. The Life
pictures also reveal that the car carrying the President was well past the turn
from Houston St. and a considerable distance past the depository building. The Life
estimate in an accompanying caption states that the car with the President was
75 yards past the sixth-floor window when the first shot was fired.
The New York Times (Nov. 27) reported: “Dr. Kemp
Clark, who pronounced Mr. Kennedy dead, said one [bullet] struck him at about
the necktie knot. ‘It ranged downward in his chest and did not exit’, the
surgeon said. The second he called a ‘tangential wound’, caused by a bullet
that struck the ‘right back of his head’.”
The New York Herald Tribune (Nov. 27) said: “On
the basis of accumulated data, investigators have concluded that the first shot,
fired as the Presidential car was approaching, struck the President in the neck
just above the knot of his necktie, then ranged downward into his body.”
Surgeons who attended the President at the Parkland
Memorial Hospital described the throat wound as “an entrance wound.” (St.
Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec. 1), “They said it was in the center of the
front, just below the Adam’s apple, at about the necktie knot.” (Ibid.) Dr.
Malcolm Perry began to cut an air passage in the President’s throat in a
effort to restore an air passage and start his breathing. The incision was made
through the bullet wound, since it was in the normal place for the operation.
“Dr. Perry described the bullet hole as an entrance wound.” (Ibid.) Dr.
Robert N. McClelland, one of three surgeons who participated in the operation,
said “It certainly did look like an entrance wound.” (Ibid.) Dr. McClelland
said he saw bullet wounds every day, “sometimes several a day. This did appear
to be an entrance wound.” (Ibid.)
On Nov. 27, the Secret Service re-enacted the assassination
of the President. “The purpose was ‘to test whether it could be done the way
we believe it was done’ an official source said.” (New York Times,
Nov. 28.) The consensus was “that the shooting began after the President’s
car had made the turn from Houston Street into Elm Street.” (New York Times,
Nov. 28.)
If the throat wound resulted from a shot fired from the
book depository the President would have had to turn around with his throat
facing almost directly to the rear. Dr. McClelland stated that the doctors
postulated that “he [the President] would have had to be looking almost
completely to the rear.” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec. 1.) The
Washington correspondent for the Post-Dispatch stated that, “The motion
pictures, however, showed the President looking forward.” (Dec. 1.) “Mrs.
John Connally, the wife of the Texas Governor, has said that she had just told
Mr. Kennedy, ‘You can’t say Dallas isn’t friendly to you today.’
Presumably he was about to reply when he was hit.” (Ibid.) Mrs. Connally was
seated in front of the President.
Relying, therefore, upon the Homicide Report filed with the
Dallas Police by two officers who were eye-witnesses, the motion pictures taken
of the shooting, still shots taken from the motion pictures, the statement of
Gov. Connally, the consensus of those who re-enacted the scene under supervision
of the Secret Service, and the report of the attending physicians, we may
conclude that the shot was fired while the back of the President was to the
sixth-floor window and many yards removed from the window and that the bullet
entered the front of the President’s throat.
If Oswald was at the sixth-floor window, as alleged, when
the President was shot it would have been physically impossible for him to have
fired the first shot that struck the President. In the words or Richard Dudman,
the correspondent for the Post-Dispatch (Dec. 1), “The question that
suggests itself is: How could the President have been shot in the front from the
back?”
The gun and the experts
THE QUESTION now arises as to whether any one man, even a
skilled expert, could have fired the three shots within a period of five
seconds. An Olympic rifle champion, Hubert Hammerer, said he doubted it could be
done with the weapon allegedly used. The Dallas sheriff, Bill Decker, said he
believed three shots “could be fired in less than 20 seconds.” (Washington Post,
Nov. 27.) The FBI and the witnesses agree the elapsed period was five seconds,
possibly five and one-half seconds.
Life magazine (Dec. 6) hired a skilled marksman, the
director of the National Rifle Association, to fire a similar rifle. The best he
could do was “three hits in 6.2 seconds.” The New York Times, Nov. 23
reported: “As marines go, Lee Harvey Oswald was not highly regarded as a
rifleman.”
Debate will continue whether the rifle in question was
capable, in the hands of an expert, of the performance the prosecution insists
it gave. All agree, however, that such a remarkable display of shooting would be
beyond the ability of any person less qualified. To maintain the ability to fire
a rifle accurately, one must practice continually. Oswald’s wife and the Paine
family, all of who lived in the house where the rifle was allegedly stored, did
not even know Oswald owned a rifle. This would seem to indicate an extremely
limited usage of the rifle at the very most. Oswald did not have the requisite
skill to fire three accurate shots within 5½ seconds at a moving target.
a
presumption of guilt in the public press
The way the N.Y. Post expressed it Nov. 24
Other uncertainties
IF OSWALD WAS WHERE the FBI and the Dallas District
Attorney said he was when the shots were fired and if the President was
assassinated by one person as charged—Lee Harvey Oswald is demonstrably not
guilty. Oswald was in the wrong place and did not have sufficient time to shoot
President Kennedy as charged.
The facts as presented to date by the FBI and the Dallas
district attorney (soon to be rewritten no doubt) have overcome the presumption
of guilt manufactured when the case was initiated.
Dudman wrote in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Dec.
1): “Another unexplained circumstance is a small hole in the windshield of the
presidential limousine. This correspondent and one other man saw the hole, which
resembled a bullet hole, as the automobile stood at the hospital emergency
entrance while the President was being treated inside the building.
“The Secret Service kept possession of the automobile and
flew it back to Washington. A spokesman for the agency rejected a request to
inspect the vehicle here [Washington]. He declined to discuss any hole there
might be in the windshield.”
Undoubtedly the Secret Service has placed the auto in
protective custody, “in a secret place for its own protection.”
Dudman continued to present startling information.
“Uncertainty surrounds the number of shots fired.” (Ibid.) Although most
witnesses heard three shots fired within a period of five seconds it seems that
five bullets have been discovered.
“The first bullet is said by the doctors to have entered
the throat, coursed downward and remained in the President’s body. The second
was extracted from Gov. Connally’s thigh. It had lodged there after entering
the right side of his back, passing through his body and through his wrist. A
third, which may be the one that struck the back of Mr. Kennedy’s head, was
recovered from the stretcher on which he was carried into the hospital. A fourth
was found in fragments in the car. Still another bullet was found by Dallas
police officers after the shooting. It was in the grass opposite the point where
the President was hit. They did not know whether it had anything to do with the
shooting of the President and the Governor.” (Ibid.)
One point does emerge with absolute clarity. The theory
held by the Dallas police and supported repeatedly by the FBI that “there is
an airtight case against Oswald as the sole killer” is based upon an
investigation so poor as to be incredible or an investigation devoted to a
particular conclusion at the outset.
The investigation
The FBI, having completed its investigation, has submitted
what amounts to its findings and conclusions as well. The verdict, deftly and
covertly divulged to the press, and then blared forth throughout the world, is
impressively simple: “Oswald is the assassin. He acted alone.” This
remarkable law enforcement and investigatory agency, unable to solve a single
one of the more than 40 Birmingham bombings, is now able to function as
investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury. No other American agency has presumed
to occupy so many position of trust at one time.
The essential problem is that no investigating agency can
fairly evaluate the fruits of its own work. Were the FBI certain of its
conclusions it seems likely it would not be so reluctant to permit witnesses to
talk with the press. It might not feel the need continually to leak information
favorable to its verdict to the press. Most disquieting of all, however, is that
the FBI, once wedded to a conclusion conceived before investigation, might be
motivated to discover evidence which supports that conclusion. Within a few
hours after Oswald was arrested the Dallas police, with the FBI at its side,
announced the very same verdict now reinforced by the latest FBI discoveries.
Under such circumstances, we fear that evidence tending to prove Oswald innocent
might be discarded and evidence proving him guilty might be developed out of
proportion or even created.
The Justice Department has already privately expressed
“disappointment” with the FBI report, fearing that it “has left too many
questions unanswered.”
The stakes are big
The FBI investment in a Warren Commission finding identical
with its own cannot be emphasized too boldly. Should the Warren Commission reach
and publish a conclusion substantially different from the one submitted so
publicly by the FBI, public confidence in the FBI would be so shaken as, in all
likelihood, to render the FBI as it is now constituted almost absolutely
useless. One can assume that the FBI wishes to avoid that result.
It may be argued on many different levels of governmental
life that a finding by the commission that an American lynched in a Dallas
courthouse might be innocent would result in the further destruction of the
American image abroad.
It will be extremely difficult for any commission, in these
circumstances, to bear the responsibility imposed upon it. For the sake of our
country let us hope that Justice Earl Warren, a fair and great American, may
successfully guide his commission through the sea of hatred and malice
surrounding this case in its search for the truth.
An era of understanding
There are those who have said much
good may come from this assassination, that a new era of understanding and unity
may result. I doubt this. From hate comes hate. From murder—as we have already
seen—murder. And from hysteria—rejection of the great Anglo-Saxon tradition
of justice. But if it is possible to leave behind us the America of violence and
malice, our national renaissance must begin with a respect for law and disdain
for the hysteria that has thus far made fair consideration of this case
impossible.
Our national conscience must reject
the massive media conviction of Oswald—presumed to be innocent—and
begin to examine and to analyze the evidence. We must recognize that the same
reckless disregard for human life and decency that resulted in the death of our
President resulted also in the death of Oswald while in police custody. And,
before that, it resulted in the destruction of every right belonging to an
American accused of a crime. The press, the radio and the television stations
share that guilt.
The law enforcement officials,
however, beginning with District Attorney Wade, who falsely stated evidence to
the entire world repeatedly and who gave leadership to the development of a
carnival atmosphere, must bear history’s harshest judgment.
You are the jury. You are the only
jury that Lee Harvey Oswald will ever have.
A terrible crime has been
committed. A young, vital and energetic leader of perhaps the world’s most
powerful nation has been killed by the cowardly act of a hidden assassin. The
murderer or murderers were motivated by diseased minds or by such depths of
malice as to approach that state. We will perhaps never know their motives. We
must, however, know and approve of our own conduct and our own motives.
We begin with a return to an old
American tradition—the presumption of innocence. We begin with you.
Let those who would deny a fair
consideration of the evidence to Oswald because of a rage inspired, they say, by
their devotion to the late President, ponder this thought: If Oswald is
innocent—and that is a possibility that cannot now be denied—then the
assassin of President Kennedy remains at large.
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