The HSCA firearms panel had the same problem with the bullets that the FBI did. After attempting to match up the individual characteristics on bullets they test-fired from the revolver with those on the four slugs, the HSCA experts were unable to positively conclude that the evidence bullets were fired from Oswald’s revolver.68 In addition to the barrel of Oswald’s revolver being too large for the bullets, one of the experts on the HSCA’s firearms panel, Monty Lutz, testified at the London trial that the barrel itself “had been enlarged through corrosion and multiple shooting,”69 exacerbating an already existing problem. However, both the FBI and the HSCA firearms experts were able to determine that the four slugs or bullets had the same rifling characteristics imprinted on them as the barrel of Oswald’s revolver—five lands and grooves with a right twist.70 Additionally, Cunningham testified that the widths of the lands and grooves on the evidence bullets were the same as those on the test bullets. However, rifling (or class or general) characteristics, as opposed to individual characteristics (marks and striations), are never enough for a positive match in that a great number of revolvers would also have five lands and grooves with a right twist, and with the same widths on the lands and grooves. But because of the matching rifling characteristics, Cunningham concluded that the four bullets or slugs “could have been” fired from Oswald’s revolver.71
The inability to positively connect the four bullets in the Tippit murder case with Oswald’s revolver has naturally given hope and comfort to conspiracy theorists through the years.72 But this completely ignores the fact that there are other ways (as we saw with the Carcano rifle) to prove that a particular firearm was the murder weapon. In this case, in addition to the four bullets recovered from Tippit’s body, four cartridge cases were found near the Tippit murder scene near Tenth and Patton, two by Domingo Benavides, who actually saw Oswald throw the shells in the direction of some nearby bushes,73 and one each by Mrs. Barbara Jeannette Davis and her sister-in-law, Mrs. Virginia Davis, both of whom lived with their husbands in an apartment house located on the southeast corner of Tenth and Patton, and both of whom saw Oswald emptying his gun as he ran across the yard of their apartment house. Benavides and the two Davis girls turned the four shells they found over to the police.74
FBI firearms expert Cortlandt Cunningham compared the markings on the four cartridge cases with those that had been test-fired from Oswald’s revolver and found identical breech face and firing pin marks on the head of the cases, concluding that the four shells found at the Tippit murder scene had been fired in the revolver in Oswald’s possession at the time of his arrest to the exclusion of all other weapons.75 Two other FBI firearms experts, Robert Frazier and Charles Killion, independently conducted the same test and came to the same conclusion.76
In 1978, the five experts on the firearms panel of the HSCA conducted their own comparison tests of the shells with test-fire shells and reached the same conclusion as the FBI in 1963—the four shells found at the Tippit murder scene had been fired in Oswald’s revolver.77
Oswald at the Sniper’s Nest and “Evidence” of His Innocence
In 1964, the Warren Commission evaluated the physical evidence found near the southeasternmost sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository Building and the testimony of eyewitnesses to Oswald’s actions both before and after the assassination and concluded that Oswald, who had ready access to the sixth floor and whose rifle, the murder weapon, was found there, was the person present at the window at the time of the assassination, and hence, that it was Oswald, and not some unknown individual, who murdered President Kennedy.1 Critics have since laboriously argued that the physical evidence establishing Oswald’s presence at the window is, at best, “circumstantial,” and that the eyewitness testimony the Commission relied on was subject to a second interpretation, one that either raised serious questions about Oswald’s involvement or completely exonerated him from complicity. Let’s examine the evidence.
As we recall, on the day of the assassination Oswald arrived for work at the Depository a few minutes before 8:00 a.m., having been driven there by one of his coworkers, Wesley Frazier, following an overnight stay at the Irving home of Mrs. Ruth Paine. According to Frazier, Oswald was carrying a long package which he told Frazier contained curtain rods.2 Curiously, and very suspiciously, Oswald didn’t accompany Frazier as they walked the distance between the employee parking area and the Depository Building, which he usually did.3 Instead, Oswald kept an increasing distance between them. By the time he reached the back door of the loading dock, Oswald was fifty feet or so ahead of Frazier.4 And by the time Frazier entered the same door a moment later, Oswald had already disappeared into the confines of the warehouse.5
No one knows what Oswald initially did with the package once he entered the Depository. Only one person, forty-year-old Depository employee Jack Dougherty, claimed to have seen Oswald come in the back door that morning. Dougherty told authorities, “I recall vaguely having seen Lee Oswald when he came to work at about 8 a.m.,” and “didn’t see anything in his hands at the time.” However, he said, ‘I just caught him out of the corner of my eye.”6 The Warren Commission later wrote that Dougherty “does not remember that Oswald had anything in his hands as he entered the door.”7 Conspiracy author Sylvia Meagher chastised the Commission for its “subtle and disingenuous transformation of what Dougherty really said,” suggesting that the Commission’s choice of words was yet another example of how testimony that was helpful to Oswald (suggesting, of course, that Oswald didn’t bring a package to work at all that morning) was altered to cast a negative light on Oswald.8 However, it is quite clear from other documents in the Commission’s possession that Dougherty’s veracity as a witness is questionable at best and no doubt is why it didn’t put much stock in his testimony. During a statement given to the FBI on November 23, 1963, Dougherty’s father told agents that “his son received a medical discharge from the U.S. Army” and indicated his son “had considerable difficulty in coordinating his mental facilities with his speech.”9 A few weeks later, Depository superintendent Roy S. Truly told the Secret Service that “although Dougherty is a very good employee and a hard worker, he is mentally retarded and has difficulty in remembering facts, such as dates, times, places, and has been especially confused since the assassination.” The Secret Service noted that Dougherty was “not questioned further” about the events of November 22.10 Obviously, Dougherty is not the kind of witness one can rely on to substantiate whether Oswald carried a package into the building that morning or not.
Very few people had personal contact with Oswald throughout the morning hours, although several saw him. Their recollections are necessarily hazy since, not knowing he would be accused of murdering the president later that day, none of them would have had any reason to pay any more attention to him than normal. But Roy Truly, the man who hired Oswald, is almost certain that when he arrived at work that morning around 8:00 a.m., he saw Oswald on the first floor and greeted him, as was his usual habit.11 Danny G. Arce, an order filler, also saw Oswald on the first floor, near the book racks, at about that same time,12 as did Bonnie Ray Williams, a general warehouse worker, who remembered Oswald walking in the area with a clipboard in his hands.13 A half hour later, Charles D. Givens, another order filler, saw Oswald on the first floor near the order bins when Givens came down to use the restroom.14 James “Junior” Jarman, an order checker, corralled Oswald on the first floor between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. and told the Warren Commission he had Oswald correct an order that was improperly filled. Then, sometime between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m., Jarman saw Oswald standing between two rows of order bins on the first floor looking out one of the windows overlooking Elm Street. Jarman walked over and Oswald asked him why all the people were gathering at the corner of Elm and Houston. Jarman replied that the president was supposed to come by sometime that morning, and Oswald asked which way he would be coming. Jarman told him that the parade would probably come down Main Street, turn on Houston, and then
go down Elm Street. Oswald said, “Oh, I see,” and walked off.15 Billy N. Lovelady, one of six employees helping to lay new flooring on the sixth floor, saw Oswald at about 10:00 a.m. when Oswald approached him on the sixth floor “and asked where a certain book was stored.” Lovelady told him the book was out of stock. This was the last Lovelady saw of him.16 Harold Norman, an order filler, saw Oswald at about 10:00 to 10:15 a.m. on the first floor near the order bins on the south side of the building.17 Roy E. Lewis, another order filler at the Depository, saw Oswald at about 10:30 a.m. (exact floor not mentioned) as he went about filling orders.18
A half hour later, around 11:00 a.m., Oswald was seen on the sixth floor. Danny Arce, part of the floor-laying crew there, reported that Oswald had a piece of paper in his hand, and although Arce said nothing to him, other members of the floor-laying crew teased Oswald about getting a haircut, which Oswald laughed off.19 Bonnie Ray Williams, who was also part of the floor-laying crew, thought he remembered seeing Oswald on the sixth floor “messing around” with some of the book cartons stacked near the east elevator on the north side of the floor, although he couldn’t be sure it was Oswald or what time he might have been there. According to Williams, Oswald “always just messed around, kicking cartons around.”20 Williams told the FBI that he saw Oswald at “about 11:40 a.m.” and at “that time Oswald was on the sixth floor on the east side of the building,” but that Williams “didn’t pay particular attention to what he was doing.”21 Sometime after 11:30 a.m., Jarman said he saw Oswald taking one of the elevators (he didn’t say from what floor) “up,” and he assumed he was going after some books.22
William H. Shelley, Oswald’s immediate supervisor, told the Secret Service that at “about 11:50 a.m.” he saw Oswald on the first floor and Oswald appeared to be going about his normal duties.23 Eddie Piper, a janitor at the Depository, said he saw Oswald around noon on the first floor.24
Piper and Shelley may very well have seen Oswald sometime before noon on the first floor, but chances are they (particularly Piper) saw Oswald a little earlier than they thought. I say that because four other Book Depository Building employees recall seeing Oswald on the fifth floor about ten to fifteen minutes before noon. Charles Givens testified that around 11:45 a.m.,* when he and several fellow workers left the sixth floor on two elevators to go down to have lunch, as they were descending they saw Oswald on the fifth floor and Givens hollered out, “Boy, are you going downstairs? It’s near lunchtime.”
“No sir,” Oswald said, adding, “When you get downstairs, close the gate to the elevator,” which was necessary for Oswald to have gotten the elevator back to him on the sixth floor.
Givens said, “Okay,” but neglected to do so.25 Danny Arce said that while he was on an elevator descending for the noon lunch (he assumed it was around five minutes before noon because that was the normal time they broke for lunch), he also saw Oswald on the fifth floor, and he recalls someone on the elevator asking Oswald if he wanted to go down with them, and Oswald saying, “You all close the door on the elevator. I will be down.”26 Billy Lovelady said that “a little before 12” he came down with other employees from the sixth floor to have lunch, and “on the way down” they saw Oswald (though Lovelady wasn’t asked where, presumably on the fifth floor) and “I heard [Oswald] holler to one of the boys to stop, he wanted the elevator,” but “they said, ‘No, we’re going down to lunch.’”27 Bonnie Ray Williams said that around five minutes before noon, he was on an elevator descending from the sixth floor to have lunch when he heard Oswald holler out from either the fifth or sixth floor, “Close the gate on the elevator and send the elevator back up.”28 But the elevator was not sent up.29†
From all of this, it is inferentially clear that only Oswald was on the upper floors of the Book Depository Building close to noon, and the weight of the evidence was that he was on the fifth floor, not the sixth floor, where the shooting took place a half hour or so later. The fact that Oswald appeared to be by himself, and had all the time in the world to get to the sixth floor in time to shoot Kennedy, is not enough for the conspiracy theorists. No one, they say, placed him on the sixth floor after he was last seen on the fifth floor. No one, that is, except Charles Givens, whose testimony they reject on this point.
Givens testified before the Warren Commission that after he descended to the ground floor for lunch, “I discovered I left my cigarettes in my jacket pocket upstairs, and I took the elevator back upstairs to get my jacket with my cigarettes in it. When I got back upstairs, he [Oswald] was on the sixth floor in that vicinity coming from that way.”
Question: “Coming from what way?”
“Toward the window up front where the shots were fired from.” Givens says this was “about 5 minutes to 12.”30 He said Oswald had a clipboard with orders in his hand, and when he, Givens, asked Oswald if he was going to come downstairs, Oswald replied, “No, not now.”31
The problem, however, is that on the afternoon of the assassination (which is long before his testimony to the Commission on April 8, 1964) Givens supposedly told FBI agents Will Griffen and Bardwell Odum that at around 11:50 a.m. he saw Oswald reading a newspaper in the domino room, the lunchroom on the first floor, and there’s no mention in the report of Givens claiming to have seen Oswald on the sixth floor.32 How does one resolve this contradiction? For years, conspiracy theorists have maintained that obviously Givens’s first statement to the FBI was the truthful one, and for whatever reason, he fabricated his Warren Commission testimony and never saw Oswald on the sixth floor at any time that morning.33 But why would Givens make up such a story? What would be in it for him? The conspiracy theorists don’t expressly say. The reality is that it would appear to make no sense that Givens would make up his Warren Commission testimony.
Moreover, if Givens were to make up such a story, or someone put him up to it (presumably for the purpose of implicating Oswald in the assassination), why in the world would he tell the Warren Commission he saw Oswald on the sixth floor around 11:55 a.m.? That’s thirty-five minutes before the assassination, hardly strong evidence that Oswald was still there at 12:30 p.m. If, for whatever reason, Givens was trying to nail Oswald, why wouldn’t he say he saw Oswald on the sixth floor much closer to the time of the shooting, like 12:25 p.m.? Or 12:20, 12:15, or even 12:10?
Since Givens’s invention of the story makes little sense, what is much more likely is that the FBI report is in error. The report is very brief (only four short paragraphs), and it is not a signed statement or affidavit by Givens. Summary reports of what someone allegedly told a report’s author, whether it be an FBI agent or someone else, so very, very frequently contain misinformation. I’ve given interviews to many reporters in my day, some of them even tape-recorded, yet when the interview sees the light of day, very often dates and incidents are garbled, sometimes beyond recognition. Here, Givens may have mentioned details like 11:50 a.m., first floor, Oswald, newspaper, et cetera, to the FBI, and the agent who prepared the report from his notes* the following day, November 23, when the report was dictated, put the separate facts together incorrectly. (Indeed, we can virtually be certain that he did not tell the FBI that he saw Oswald around 11:50 a.m. in the domino room on the first floor, or if he did, he was incorrect. His testimony to the Warren Commission that he saw Oswald on the fifth floor around that very time is supported by three other witnesses—Arce, Lovelady, and Williams.)
Conspiracy theorists could justifiably criticize the above rationalization if I had nothing more to go on here. But I do. If the conspiracy theorists are going to argue that Givens’s “first” statement to the FBI was the honest one and his subsequent story, therefore, must have been a fabrication, this rationale can be used against them. Givens’s statement to the FBI on the afternoon of the assassination was not, it turns out, his first statement on the matter. Lieutenant Jack Revill, who was in charge of the criminal intelligence section of the Dallas Police Department, said that during the search of the Book Depository Building right after the
shooting, he “talked to a Negro by the name of Givens, and we handled this person in the past for marijuana violations and I recognized him, and in talking to him I asked him if he had been on the sixth floor, and…as I recall, and Detective [V. J.] Brian was present at this same time, he said yes, that he had observed Mr. Lee over by this window. I asked him who Mr. Lee was, [and] he said, ‘It is a white boy.’…So I turned this Givens individual over to one of our Negro detectives and told him to take him to Captain Fritz for interrogation.”34 We can assume that Revill and Givens were talking about the sniper’s nest window at the southeasternmost corner of the sixth floor. (Note again that this took place right after the shooting and hence was before the FBI’s formal interview of Givens later in the afternoon.) And to repeat Givens’s testimony on this point, he said that when he went back up to the sixth floor to get his jacket and cigarettes, he saw Oswald “on the sixth floor in that vicinity coming from that way.”
Reclaiming History Page 151
