Subject: Files Confession Part 7 Date: 3 Dec 1998 04:36:40 GMT From: pittelli@aol.com (Pittelli) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk 17. In 1987, a Dallas man (John Rademacher) and his son dug up a .222 caliber shell casing in Dealey Plaza near the wooden stockade fence. The casing had dents in it. A lab examination by Dr. Paul G. Stimson, a noted forensic odontologist at the University of Texas in Houston, issued a written medicolegal opinion that marks or dents in the casing were made by human teeth. 18. The HSCA's photographic panel found strong evidence in the Zapruder film that Kennedy was struck between frames 186 and 190. The panel concluded that "President Kennedy first showed a reaction to some severe external stimulus by Z207 as he is seen going behind a street sign that obstructed Zapruder's view" (6 HSCA 16). The panel believed the shot was fired a few frames before Z190, i.e., during the foliage break (cf. 12:119-120). When the panel did a blur analysis of the film, it detected a significant blur episode during frames 189-197, indicating that the shot that caused the jiggle was fired a few frames before frame 189. Numerous private researchers have studied the film and have likewise determined that this shot was fired a fraction of a second before frame 190. The most reasonable conclusion, therefore, is that this shot was fired from one of the buildings adjacent to the TSBD, quite possibly from the Dal-Tex Building. 19. Dallas businessman Malcolm Sommers is on record in both the Dallas Sheriff's Department Report and The Warren Commission Report as stating that he saw a burgundy or maroon Chevrolet with three men in it drive out of the Dal-Tex parking lot and down the street away from the Plaza. 20. A check of Oswald's whereabouts in early and mid-1963 by Robert G. Vernon showed that Oswald was indeed in New Orleans during the period Files says he and Oswald met there. 21. Gerald Posner dismisses the testimony of the witnesses in Clinton and Jackson, Louisiana, who said they saw Oswald and Ferrie together in the summer of 1963 (6:141-148). These highly credible witnesses included a state representative, a deputy sheriff, and a town registrar of voters. Posner's reasons for rejecting their testimony are strained and unconvincing. He even suggests that the witnesses never actually saw Oswald. Jim Garrison and his staff found the Clinton and Jackson witnesses to be credible (19:122-126). Years later, the House Select Committee interviewed these witnesses in executive session and concluded they were honest, sincere, and believable (12:193-194). 22. Former Senator Richard Schweiker has declared, I personally believe that he [Oswald] had a special relationship with one of the intelligence agencies, which one I'm not certain. But all the fingerprints I found during my eighteen months on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence point to Oswald as being a product of, and interacting with, the intelligence community. (14:266) In addition, three former U.S. intelligence agents maintain that Oswald was working for at least one U.S. intelligence agency. After he was arrested on the day of the assassination, Oswald tried to call a man named "Hurt" in Raleigh, North Carolina, at two different numbers listed for that name. Oswald had no known contacts or friends in North Carolina. Former CIA officer Victor Marchetti points out that Oswald's call was made to a number in the same general area as a base where, according to Marchetti, Naval Intelligence once planned infiltration missions into the Soviet Union (14:146). One of the two Hurts in Raleigh at that time was a John D. Hurt, who had worked in military intelligence during World War II. Oswald was unable to contact Mr. Hurt because two Secret Service agents instructed the switchboard operator at the Dallas police station to unplug the connection before the call could go through (14:146). Marchetti believes Oswald worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and that it was the ONI which sent him to Russia as a phony defector. Former HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi reports that he found strong evidence of an Oswald-CIA connection. Says Fonzi, There is . . . a preponderance of evidence that indicates Lee Harvey Oswald had an association with a U.S. Government agency, perhaps more than one, but undoubtedly with the Central Intelligence Agency. (61:408) Fonzi discusses this subject at length in his book The Last Investigation (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1993). 23. JFK and the CIA were in a virtual state of war from the moment of the Bay of Pigs disaster until the day he died. JFK did not trust the CIA and he reportedly intended to dismantle it after the 1964 election. In Vietnam, the CIA refused to carry out instructions from the ranking American official in the country (4:ix). The CIA ignored President Kennedy's directive that it not initiate operations requiring greater firepower than a handgun (43:99-100). It also ignored JFK's orders to stop working with the Mafia. When Kennedy heard the news that South Vietnam's dictator Ngo Diem had been murdered by a CIA-backed coup, against his express wishes, he was outraged. Kennedy was no fan of Diem's, but he did not want to see him murdered. General Maxwell Taylor wrote that upon learning of Diem's death JFK "leaped to his feet and rushed from the room with a look of shock and dismay on his face" (70:334). George Smathers reported that Kennedy blamed the CIA for Diem's murder. According to Smathers, Kennedy said he had to "do something about" the CIA and that the Agency should be stripped of its exorbitant power (70:334-335). One of the more troubling cases of CIA disobedience to presidential authority was its behavior in relation to Cuba. In September 1963, long after President Kennedy had ordered a halt to the covert campaign against Castro, senior CIA staffers, including the deputy director, Richard Helms, and Desmond Fitzgerald, the head of the Agency's Cuba unit, approved plans to kill Castro, without seeking presidential authorization. They also continued other covert operations against Cuba in violation of the President's instructions. Needless to say, these CIA officers did not inform the President of their activities; nor did they inform Congress or the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy. They didn't even tell then-CIA director John McCone, probably because he was appointed by President Kennedy following the Bay of Pigs disaster. In short, as Anthony Summers has observed, "in September and October 1963--a crucial moment politically--CIA officers were acting in a way that gravely endangered White House policy" (14:322). Livingstone rejects a CIA role in the assassination, reasoning that the Agency couldn't have been involved since Kennedy replaced Allen Dulles with a man of his own choosing, John McCone. But this argument ignores the fact that the Agency has a history of working around directors it doesn't like. As for McCone, he exercised very little control over the CIA and was kept in the dark about a number of its activities. For instance, Fonzi notes that "Richard Helms, who was McCone's Deputy Director and head of the dirty tricks department, admitted he never told McCone about any of the Agency's plans to kill Castro, or about the CIA's working relationship with the Mafia" (61:334; cf. 61:361). A key figure linking the Agency to the assassination was CIA man David Atlee Phillips, who was seen with Oswald a few months before the shooting (14:504-519; 61:128-171, 391-400, 408-409. Among many other things, Phillips was the propaganda chief for the Bay of Pigs operation and later rose to become the chief of the CIA's Western Hemisphere Division. In 1954 Phillips worked with E. Howard Hunt and others to overthrow the Arbenz government in Guatemala. Based on his extensive investigation of Phillips for the Church Committee and then for the Select Committee, Gaeton Fonzi believes that "David Atlee Phillips played a key role in the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy" (61:409). Phillips was in charge of the CIA's Cuban operations in Mexico City at the time of the assassination, so he was strategically positioned to frame Oswald, and it is very probable that he was involved in the phony Oswald visits to the Cuban embassy. Select Committee investigator Dan Hardway found that most of the individuals in Mexico City and Miami who were spreading post-assassination propaganda linking Oswald to Cuban or Soviet intelligence were "David Phillips's assets" (61:292). Another former CIA agent who has come under suspicion is E. Howard Hunt. Hunt, a former high-ranking covert operator and a propaganda specialist, was a key figure in the Bay of Pigs invasion. As mentioned, Hunt and David Atlee Phillips helped to overthrow the Arbenz government in Guatemala. According to former (and now deceased) CIA operative Frank Sturgis, who knew Hunt well, Hunt was involved in CIA assassination operations. Hunt has made no secret of his intense dislike for John Kennedy. To this day, Hunt blames JFK for the failure at the Bay of Pigs. When Watergate whistleblower John Dean opened Hunt's private safe, he found bogus telegrams that falsely linked JFK with the assassination of South Vietnam's corrupt dictator Ngo Dinh Diem (16:79). Where was E. Howard Hunt on November 22, 1963? Hunt has given conflicting accounts of where he was at the time of the shooting. In his 1985 libel trial in Miami, Florida, the jury concluded Hunt was not being truthful about his whereabouts on the day of the assassination. 24. Another former CIA agent who has come under suspicion is E. Howard Hunt. Hunt, a former high-ranking covert operator and a propaganda specialist, was a key figure in the Bay of Pigs invasion. As mentioned, Hunt and David Atlee Phillips helped to overthrow the Arbenz government in Guatemala. According to former (and now deceased) CIA operative Frank Sturgis, who knew Hunt well, Hunt was involved in CIA assassination operations. Hunt has made no secret of his intense dislike for John Kennedy. To this day, Hunt blames JFK for the failure at the Bay of Pigs. When Watergate whistleblower John Dean opened Hunt's private safe, he found bogus telegrams that falsely linked JFK with the assassination of South Vietnam's corrupt dictator Ngo Dinh Diem (16:79). 25. The day before the assassination, Eugene Hale Brading, a Mafia man with a long arrest record, visited Hunt's office building in Dallas. Brading was arrested in Dealey Plaza on the day of the shooting when he was found to have taken an elevator to the ground floor of the Dal-Tex Building shortly after the shots were fired. Brading was released, however, because he gave the police an alias. While in Dallas, Brading stayed at the Cabana Hotel. On January 30, 1995, Files informed Vernon that Brading's "mission" was to get Nicoletti and Rosselli into the Dal-Tex Building. 26. On January 30, 1995, Files informed Vernon that David Atlee Phillips was the person who had Oswald meet Files in Dallas. 27. Mr. Files has supplied Robert G. Vernon with a color photograph of the man who killed J.D. Tippit and a positive identification is under investigation as of this writing. Mr. Files will not name the alleged killer of Officer Tippit. 28. The Murder of Officer Tippit (Research by Michael T. Griffith) Posner says that eyewitnesses, ballistics, and physical evidence prove that Oswald murdered Officer J. D. Tippit a little over forty minutes after he allegedly shot JFK (6:273-280). Posner ignores significant evidence of Oswald's innocence and merely repeats the WC's untenable version of the killing. The case against Oswald in Tippit's murder is so weak that I see no need to analyze all of Posner's assertions. For more information on the tenuous nature of the evidence against Oswald in the Tippit affair, I would invite the reader to compare Posner's treatment of the issue with that of such writers as Marrs, Lane, Summers, and Hurt (5:350-353; 4:190-208; 14:84-97; 71:139-169). However, I would like to examine some of the evidence that Posner ignores: * The witness with the best view of the shooting, Domingo Benavides, at first said he could not identify Tippit's killer. Then, after his brother had been murdered, Benavides told the WC that a photo of Oswald "bore a resemblance" to the assailant. It was three years after the shooting until Benavides made a somewhat firm identification of Oswald. * Two witnesses to the Tippit slaying described a killer who did not resemble Oswald. * Two other witnesses said Oswald entered the Texas Theater just a few minutes after 1:00 P.M., and that he remained in the theater until he was arrested there about an hour later. But Tippit was killed at no later than 1:10. * Officer J. M. Poe marked two of the empty shells found at the crime scene with his initials, a standard chain-of- evidence procedure, but none of the shells produced by the FBI and the WC as evidence of Oswald's guilt had Poe's markings on them. * Helen Markham, Posner's star witness against Oswald in the Tippit shooting, gave such wildly conflicting and confused testimony that one WC staffer called her an "utter screwball." Mrs. Markham gave different descriptions of the assailant. Although by all accounts (including Posner's) Tippit died instantly, Mrs. Markham said she conversed with him after he was shot, for an astounding twenty minutes. Some of the witnesses denied Mrs. Markham was even at the scene of the crime. A Frantic 43 Minutes A telling point for Oswald's innocence is the fact that he did not have enough time to go from the TSBD to the scene of the Tippit slaying. The WC said he left the Depository at 12:33 P.M. and killed Tippit 43 minutes later, at 1:15. But even a casual review of Oswald's alleged movements shows he could not have done what the Commission said he did. Posner disagrees, saying, Could Oswald have physically been at the Tippit scene by 1:15, the time of the shooting? A reconstruction of the time that elapsed since he left the Depository shows it is more than possible. (6:274 n) But Posner's TSBD-to-Oak-Cliff scenario relies heavily on the WC's untenable version of Oswald's post-assassination movements. For example, Posner accepts the WC's claim that Tippit was shot at 1:15 P.M. However, eyewitness statements and Dallas police radio transcripts indicate the shooting occurred no later than 1:12. Posner departs from the Commission version by saying that Oswald left his rooming house just before 1:00. Posner does this in order to get Oswald to the Tippit scene by 1:15. Yet, according to Oswald's landlady, he did not leave the house until 1:03 or 1:04 (14:92). The plain fact of the matter is that any reconstruction which places Oswald at the Tippit scene by 1:12, or even by 1:15, is contrary to the evidence. Oswald simply could not have made it there in time to commit the crime. Helen Markham said Tippit was shot at around 1:06. Other witnesses agreed that the shooting occurred just a few minutes after 1:00. T. F. Bowley, who radioed the police dispatcher from Tippit's car, reported that his watch said 1:10 when he drove up to the crime scene. Bowley contacted the police dispatcher at right around 1:16, according to the police radio transcripts. This was after Domingo Benavides waited in his truck for "a few minutes" (out of fear the killer would return), got out of his truck, attempted to help Tippit, climbed into the squad car, and then fumbled with the radio trying to figure out how it worked. It was at this point that Bowley appeared inside the car, took the radio from Benavides, and contacted the dispatcher. In all probability, Tippit was shot between 1:08 and 1:10, and absolutely no later than 1:12. But Oswald did not leave his boarding house until around 1:03 or 1:04, and his landlady reported that he lingered in the immediate vicinity of the house for a little bit. Oswald did not drive, and an inquiry of residents in the area failed to produce anyone who had seen a man running at the time in question. Even assuming a good walking speed of four miles an hour, it would have taken Oswald no less than twelve minutes to reach the Tippit crime scene. Therefore, Oswald could not have been present to shoot Tippit at 1:15, much less three to seven minutes earlier. A research team from the All American Television Company did a reconstruction of Oswald's movements from the TSBD to the Tippit scene for the 1992 documentary The JFK Conspiracy, which was hosted by world-famous actor James Earl Jones. The team confirmed that Oswald could not have arrived to the scene of the crime even by 1:15. I quote from James Earl Jones' narration: At 12:33 the Warren Commission said Oswald left the Depository and walked seven blocks to catch a bus. . . . Meanwhile, after traveling a couple of blocks, the bus was caught in an immense traffic jam. They said he got off the bus. At 12:48, they said Oswald climbed into a taxi. They gave him six minutes to reach his next stop [his neighborhood in Oak Cliff]. It took us over eight [minutes], without traffic. The Commission said Oswald entered his boarding house at one o'clock. At 1:03, his landlady said he [Oswald] left the house and went to the northbound bus stop. Yet, in order to kill Officer Tippit, he had to travel south. So, the Commission said he must have changed his mind. The witnesses all said Tippit was killed no later than 1:10 [nearly all of them said this], and that was after the policeman and his killer had a conversation [according to the WC's star witness, Helen Markham]. Seven minutes [for Oswald to get from his house to the murder scene]. Oswald simply didn't have enough time. In every case, the Commission failed the time test, and we had no congested traffic to deal with. 29. A witness named Julia Ann Mercer said she saw a man who looked like Jack Ruby driving a truck next to the grassy knoll prior to the assassination. Sources: Marrs, Crossfire, pp. 18-19, 324-325; Smith, JFK: The Second Plot 76-81; Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins, pp. 16-17, 251-253. Jack Ruby was a Mafia man and an important Dallas mobster. Sources: Davis, Mafia Kingfish, pp. 156-160, 180-184, 282-297; Scheim, The Mafia Killed President Kennedy, pp. 112-305. 30. In the 1990 View, Inc. documentary JFK: The Day the Nation Cried, a dismounted motorcycle patrolman can be seen, moments after the shots were fired, looking toward the knoll and giving every appearance of trying to spot an armed adversary. He seems to have his pistol drawn, and he is crouched down and weaving back and forth as if to present a difficult target. During this time he is intensely scanning the area of the knoll. 31. Zapruder is on record as saying he heard a shot come from behind him, over his right shoulder. 32. In Josiah Thompson's book "SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS" - there is a blow-up of the Moorman photograph which clearly shows what appears to be a gray fedora (hat) sticking up above the top of the wooden stockade fence in the exact area where Mr. Files said he was standing. Files has confessed that he put on the gray fedora after he reversed his jacket from a plaid lining to gray to walk away. Lee Bowers, the railroad worker, testified that he saw a man behind the stockade fence wearing a plaid "jacket." (Warren Commission Report) 33. In a letter to Certified Legal Investigator Joe West in 1992, Mr. Files stated that he kept the Fireball after the assassination of JFK. Files further stated that while he was incarcerated in the early 1980's, that his cousin had taken the Fireball from his aunt's home where he had it stored and the cousin was arrested and the weapon confiscated by the police. Investigator West contacted the police department where Files said the weapon was located. West was informed that there was no record of the weapon. After West's death in 1993, producer Vernon contacted the Illinois police and they acknowledged that the weapon was indeed there at one time and an old report (typed and handwritten) was finally located. The weapon was not in the police department locker and has disappeared. Vernon offered a $10,000 reward for the weapon in 1994, however no one has come forth with the weapon or with any information about the weapon. 34. THE JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1995 BLUE, TEXAS, BALLISTICS TESTS RELATING TO THE MOVEMENTS OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY'S HEAD IN FRAMES CIRCA 312-323 OF THE ABRAHAM ZAPRUDER FILM The Blue, Texas, tests were conducted on a series of weekends in January and February 1995 by John Stockwell, Art Stockwell, and Jodi Peterson on private property near Blue, Texas. For ten years, John Stockwell was a hunter in the Belgian Congo in Africa. Then he was trained and served for seven years as a Marine Corps infantry officer and "recon" officer. For thirteen years he was a CIA intelligence officer and paramilitary specialist with field experience in the "low intensity" conflicts in the Congo, Vietnam, and Angola. Since 1978, Stockwell has been a writer, lecturer, and critic of the U.S. national security complex. Since 1981, he has studied and researched the John F. Kennedy assassination. He was a paid consultant (eventually a dissenting consultant) in Oliver Stone's JFK film project. Art Stockwell is an expert shooter who can hit 8-inch targets with a pistol at ranges greater than 40 yards. Jodi Peterson is also a shooter. PURPOSE To re-examine the Alvarez and Lattimer findings regarding the direction in which a target is propelled following impact by a high-velocity bullet. (Alvarez and Lattimer found that the "jet effect" of an exiting bullet propels the target towards the rifle. They concluded that this was scientific proof that no shot fired into President Kennedy's head from the direction of the grassy knoll or the railroad overpass could explain the violent backward movement of Kennedy's head and shoulders that is clearly revealed in frames #313-323 of the Zapruder film, but that the shot into the back and top of Kennedy's head that blew away the right top side of his head could explain that backward movement.) CONCLUSIONS A clear pattern emerged in the Blue, Texas, tests. When a solid target roughly the size and density of a human head was struck dead center by a solid round, a hollow point or a special exploding round, the "jet effect" did seem to work, propelling the target in the direction of the rifle that fired the shot (hereafter "the rifle"). However, when the solid target was struck in the upper quadrant (where the autopsy X-rays and photographs definitively place the shot to Kennedy's head from behind) the target was propelled away from the rifle. When a target that was not solid (for example, a melon in which the seed core had substantially dried) was struck dead center, there was no "jet-effect" and the target was propelled neither forward nor backward and instead remained balanced on the stand. However, when such melons were struck in the top quadrant, they rolled in the direction away from the rifle. These findings, in the case of the Kennedy assassination, seem to confirm the Alvarez/Lattimer principle, but clearly demonstrate a contradictory phenomenon that seems to make it possible that, a) the shot that struck the back of President Kennedy's head from behind initially could in fact have made his head start forward and b) a shot from the grassy knoll (i.e., from the right front) could have provided the energy that drove his head and shoulders backward and to his left. BACKGROUND In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded in its report that, in his assassination in Dealey Plaza, President John Kennedy had been struck by one bullet high in his back and one in the back of his head. Although there were grumblings of doubt, there was no substantial challenge of these findings until researchers, beginning with Professor Josiah Thompson, viewed the Zapruder film of the assassination. In the Zapruder film, it is clear that Kennedy is struck in the back of the head after frame 312, with the bullet exiting dramatically in the region above the right temple in frame 313. With the impact of this bullet, his head starts forward. However, a split second later his head and upper body lurch violently backwards and to his left. To both expert shooters and laymen alike, the movement backwards could only be explained by a second shot striking him from the right front (i.e., the area of the grassy knoll). More than any one piece of evidence, this backward movement of Kennedy's head between frames #313-323, with the seemingly overpowering logic of the visible, "common sense" explanation, fueled a broad movement of skepticism of the Warren Commission Report and the "lone shooter" hypothesis, literally to the point of compelling the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation of the assassination in 1976-1978. However, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, Dr. Luis Alvarez, demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally that, according to the Law of Conservation of Momentum and the Law of Conservation of Energy, the material exiting after the bullet in such a head wound will work like a small rocket engine, driving the target backwards and towards the rifle! To prove his theory, Alvarez (caused to be) fired rifle rounds into seven melons that had been reinforced with filament tape. Six of the melons recoiled towards the rifle. Alvarez was criticized for the procedures and setup he used in his tests (for example, he used a rifle with a muzzle velocity of about 3200 feet per second and he used soft-nosed bullets in testing a hypothesis relating to Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano which had a muzzle velocity of 2200 feet per second and fired a steel-jacketed bullet). Thereafter, Dr. John K. Lattimer, a urologist with no forensic experience or training in head wounds, set up an experiment using human skulls that were packed with solid melon and white paint and then taped and sewn tightly together. He used an Oswald-type rifle and steel jacketed rounds. In each of his twelve experimental test-firings, the skull fell towards the rifle. The Alvarez and Lattimer tests seemed to deal a serious blow to the hypothesis of a shooter on the grassy knoll. Clearly, a shot coming from the right front would be expected to cause the president's head to lurch towards the grassy knoll, rather than violently back into the seat of the limousine. At the same time, they seemed to offer a plausible explanation of how a shot from behind could in fact, contrary to "common knowledge" perceptions, account for the backward movement of Kennedy's head and shoulders. It is also noted that, in early 1964, Dr. Alfred Olivier of the U.S. Army's Edgemont Arsenal in Maryland had fired rounds into twelve empty human skulls. The skulls were propelled neither forward nor backward from the stand on which they were sitting. THE BLUE, TEXAS, BALLISTICS TESTS In the Blue, Texas, ballistics tests, 14 targets similar in weight and density to those used by Drs. Alvarez and Lattimer were balanced on a saw horse in such a way that it would be clear whether they jumped frontwards or backwards when struck by rifle bullets. Rifles with comparable ballistics characteristics to Oswald's 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano and James E. Files's Remington Fireball were used. These were an Enfield .303 with a muzzle velocity of 2400 feet per second and an AR-15 .223 with a muzzle velocity of 3200 fps. (The AR-15 round is virtually identical to the Remington Fireball .222-.223. The Enfield .303 fires a 16% larger round about 10% faster than the Mannlicher-Carcano.) With the AR-15, hollow point and special rounds were used to duplicate James E. Files's exploding rounds.