THE "DEAR MR. HUNT" NOTE In 1975, conspiracy author Penn Jones received, from an anonymous source in Mexico City, a poor-quality photocopy of what purports to be a note written by Lee Harvey Oswald to a "Mr. Hunt." Taken at face value, the note might tie Oswald to either Texas oilman H.L. Hunt, or to E. Howard Hunt. But should it be taken at face value? The House Select Committee on Assassinations had three handwriting experts examine the note to determine its authenticity. The following is from Volume 4 of the HSCA HEARINGS. -------------------------------------------------------- Mr. KLEIN. At this time I would again ask that you be seated. I would direct your attention to the document marked JFK F-506, dated November 8, 1963. Mr. McNALLY. I have it. Mr. KLEIN. Do you recognize that document? Mr. McNALLY, I do. Mr. KLEIN. For the record could you read that document, please? Mr. McNALLY. In the upper right-hand corner is the date November---N-o-v 8, 1963: "Dear Mr. Hunt: I would like information concerning"--c-o-n-c-e-r-d-i-n-g--"concerning my position. I am asking only for information. I am suggesting that we discuss the matter fully before any steps are taken by me or anyone else. Thank you. Lee Harvey Oswald". Mr. KLEIN. Mr. Chairman, I should state for the record that a copy--not the original but a copy--of the document was sent in 1975 to an author of a book on the Kennedy assassination. It was sent anonymously and he allowed the panel to see the copy that he had of that document. I would ask that the blowup marked JFK F-506A be received as a committee exhibit and shown to the witness. Chairman STOKES. Without objection, it has been received as a committee exhibit and entered into the record at this point. [JFK exhibit F-506A is an enlargement of JFK exhibit F-506 which was previously entered.] Mr. KLEIN. Is that a fair and accurate representation of the document you have before you? Mr. McNALLY. It is. Mr. KLEIN. Once again I would ask that you walk over to the easel, please. Using the blowup, will you explain why the panel could not reach a conclusion with respect to that document? Mr. MCNALLY. The reason we could not reach any conclusion regarding this particular document is, number 1, this of course is a photo reproduction. It is a peculiar type of photo reproduction in the fact that we have a photo reproduction, yet at the same time it some the characteristics of being photo reproduced from a microfilm enlargement which was originally out of focus. So that on this particular document here--and I made the original slide this enlargement was made--the photo reproduction was quite fuzzy. This is an extremely good reproduction of that particular fuzzy original photo reproduction. In this particular case it is so fuzzy that an accurate examination could not be made of it. The feature about this document--as it relates to the other documents as written containing the name Lee Harvey Oswald and all the other writing that we have here--is that this document itself, although the writing pattern or the overall letter designs are consistent with those as written on the other documents, this is much more precisely and much more carefully written. There is no great deviation from the writing of Oswald insofar as to individual letter design forms are concerned. However, it is the method of writing that is so precise and so careful, it is a little bit out of the ordinary from most of the writing that I have seen. Strangely enough, getting down to the signature of this particular document, a part of the signature agrees with the signature of Oswald or the other writings we have signed "Lee Harvey Oswald," and part of it does not agree with his. Insofar as the original or the beginning writing "Lee", that corresponds to "Lee" as written by Lee Harvey Oswald throughout the bulk of the signatures we have seen. In the writing of the middle name Harvey, to begin with, the "H" comes way over here to the left-hand side and is sort pointed. It comes to a type of triangle which is flattened at the and that particular type of "H" we do not find in any of the signatures of Lee Harvey Oswald. Another peculiar feature here also is the fact that though not all of the signatures Of Mr, Oswald are signed "Lee Harvey Oswald," there are seven or eight where we do have the name "Lee Harvey Oswald" signed in full and in none of them do we have a misspelling, In this particular signature "H-a" and we have a little slurring off here and a "v" and a "y". So that part of this signature is missing, and that does not occur in any of the other Oswald signatures. Again in the writing of the latter part of "Oswald," very unusual in all of the Oswald signatures that we have seen. In this particular instance the "d" is smaller and much more precise than the preceding "1." This is another characteristic which does not occur consistently in the other Oswald signatures. So a suspicion is aroused by the fact that this is an extremely precise type of writing even though it does agree basically with the overall writing characteristics of the previous Oswald writings. And a suspicious circumstance in the fact that that middle name "Lee Harvey" differs significantly in the "H," in the misspelling of the word, and a slight aberration in the lower part of the "y" and in the latter part of the signature "Oswald." And for these reasons we were unable to come to any firm conclusion regarding this particular document. It is suspicion, although we are not able to accurately determine that it is specifically a forgery and at the same time not able to accurately determine whether or not it corresponds to all of the other writings that we have identified. Mr. KLEIN. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I have no further questions. Chairman STOKES. Thank you, counsel. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Sawyer, for such time as he may consume. Mr. SAWYER. Well, I assume with the exception of the document that is now being displayed, the Hunt letter, the committee, or the panel, was unanimous on all of these other decisions. Mr. McNALLY. They were. Mr. SAWYER. Were there some of the panel who felt that that Hunt letter was written by the same person as the others were? Mr. KLEIN. No; we were pretty much in agreement on that; not sure of it, suspicious of that particular document. It stood out, quite frankly, like a sore thumb. Mr. SAWYER. There was unanimity in the suspicion, I assume? Mr. McNALLY. There was. Mr. SAWYER. I think that is all I have. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Preyer. Mr. PREYER. No questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. The gentleman from the District of Columbia, Mr. Fauntroy. Mr. FAUNTROY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. McNally, I simply have two questions. The first is: In the handwriting analysis which you have done on the first three documents you have pointed up, to what extent might handwriting machines reproduce signatures that would defy detection? Mr. McNALLY. I do not think they defy detection. What you get with a handwriting machine is actually an imitation- Mr. FAUNTROY. Certainly. Mr. MCNALLY [continuing]. Where you get--it has to have a model to follow, so that actually what would occur is that you get a slavish imitation of, say, an original signature. But with all of these writings we have a normal variation, there is no slavish imitation. As a matter of fact, you don't even get a situation among these particular signatures, where if you wrote like 5 or 10 signatures in a row you get a very, very close similarity. In these particular cases here we have a very good sample of an inconsistent pattern of handwriting which is actually very consistent. It all tends to follow a certain theme of writing. There is no--none of these signatures, which are actually very much like the other signature in the fact that they fit together--there is no deviation whatsoever. There is always that slight variation there, which is strongly indicative of normality and authenticity. Mr. FAUNTROY. So that you conclusion is that it could not have been done using machines, otherwise you would have detected the precise copying of the signatures as on all three documents? Mr. McNALLY. Right. It has in there a carelessness about it which you do not see in any machine-made signature. Mr. FAUNTROY. All right, thank you. The second question has to do with the Hunt letter there. Assuming that that is a forgery, how would you put together such a forgery? Is it possible for a person to so analyze the writing of another person as to reproduce it in reasonable facsimile? Mr. McNALLY. Oh, yes. As a matter of fact, we had a famous case some years ago where there was pages and pages of writing reproduced in the so-called Irving-Hughes situation back in the seventies. It was very difficult at that time to determine whether it was good or bad. Mr. FAUNTROY. What is the peculiar capability required to do that? Are there persons who are particularly skilled at forgery in that kind of detail, that kind of length? Mr. MCNALLY. Yes, there are. As a matter of fact, they exist all over. You have them in the criminal field where, let's say with a quick study you could turn out something like this, particularly since Oswald's general writing pattern is simple and tends to be rather legible, and to turn out something like that would be not particularly difficult. The strange feature is that if you turn out something like that, then to get down into one of the more important aspects of the signature and turn up with a misspelling. Mr. FAUNTROY. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentlemen has expired. The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. McKinney. Mr. McKINNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be very brief. I just wanted to emphasize the points you made on the signature. Looking at the various different exhibits that we have that show the signature Lee Harvey Oswald, most of them from the Marine Corps, loyalty oaths, so on and so forth. Harvey is always spelled correctly. Right? Mr. McNALLY. It is. Mr. McKINNEY. And in full. And in fact in looking at them as a novice in this, there isn't even really a runoff from one letter to the other. Each letter is quite distinct. Mr. McNALLY. Generally there is, yes, sir. Mr. MCKINNEY. Isn't it also true that in almost every signature that we have, when Oswald is written the "d" is at least, say, a fourth higher than the 'T' at the very end, at the crown of the "d," or whatever you call it? Mr. McNALLY. Yes; it tends to rise disproportionately above the "l". Mr. MCKINNEY. Whereas it does not appear---- Mr. MCNALLY. It is quite smaller. Mr. MCKINNEY. That is all I have. Chairman STOKES. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Fithian. Mr. FITHIAN. Thank you. I have but one question. On balance, this Hunt letter, do you find more similarities or dissimilarities overall in comparison to the other writings or letters, words that all seem to agree in the other documents? Mr. McNALLY. The peculiar feature about this is in the situation--which arouses suspicion--is that it is better than most of the others. It really is, like almost a classic example, particularly the body of the letter, the writing on the other Oswald letters, except written much better and much more precisely. In effect, what I am trying to say is that what you have here is a great deal of care was taken in the writing of this particular document, whereas most of the writings that I find in all of the other previous writings, they are quite carelessly and sloppily written. There are no significant dissimilarities in the body of this particular letter, the context, until you come down to the signature. Mr. FITHIAN. And are you saying, then, you are unable to render a decision on this? Mr. McNALLY. That is right. In this particular case the original would necessarily have to be checked. It could very well be a situation where this thing has been patched together from original writing of Oswald. It can be done using a photo reproduction process. Mr. FITHIAN. Is it your opinion that it is a fake? Mr. McNALLY. No; I am not certain on this particular document. ------------------------------------------------------- In his report (HSCA-VIII) McNally provides more details about the note. ------------------------------------------------------- (41) VIII. The signature, "Lee Harvey Oswald," on the Hunt note (item 4-7) does not correspond to the Oswald signatures described under section I [signatures judged to be Oswald's]. To begin with, the bulk of the documents which are signed with the full name, "Lee Harvey Oswald," are more formal in tone. For example, the full name appears on all but one of the Marine Corps documents. The full name appears infrequently elsewhere-usually only the first name, middle initial, and last name are used. Further, in the Hunt note, the middle name "Harvey" is misspelled-the "e" appears to be missing; the "H" of "Harvey" differs from that found in the section I signatures; the "ar" of "Harvey" is ellided to a point that does not occur in any section I signatures; the "0" of "Oswald" is retraced part of the way along the left side, not true of the section I Oswald signatures; and the ending "d" of Oswald is smaller than the preceding "l", whereas most of the ending "d"s of the section I signatures are taller than the "l" (only in signatures that appear to be "squeezed-in" is the end "d" shorter than the preceding "1"). (42) While the script writing on the Hunt note is similar in pictorial quality to the writings under section II [writings judged to be Oswald's], the format of the note differs from that of the notes and letters of section II. The writing line is so exact as almost to give the impression it has been made on a ruled line. Usually Oswald writes in an arrhythmic manner--for example, with an irregular and crooked writing line. This writing creates the jumbled effect apparent in the section II documents. (43) From the examinations of item 4-7, it was determined that the signature does not correspond with any of the Oswald signatures of section I. Similarly, the writing does not correspond to that in the section II Oswald documents. (44) I would like to note, however, that the quality of the original photoreproductions of the Hunt note was poor. Under the best of circumstances, reproductions lack clarity and detail. Here, as can be seen from the copies, the original photoreproduction was out of focus, giving the document a fuzzy appearance. Accurate analysis was difficult. The note is highly suspicious. The original would have to be checked in order to make a more definite analysis and reach a definitive conclusion.