Reclaiming History

by Vincent Bugliosi

  Abbreviations Used for Citations

  Because of space constraints in this book, all of the source notes (citations) for the material in the main text are in the CD-ROM attached to the book.

  AFIP, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology

  ARRB, Assassination Records Review Board

  ARRB MD, Assassination Records Review Board, Medical Deposition

  ASAIC, assistant special agent-in-charge (Secret Service)

  CD, Warren Commission document

  CE, Warren Commission exhibit

  DA, district attorney

  DMA, Dallas Municipal Archives (formerly the Dallas Municipal Archives and Records Center)

  DOJ, Department of Justice

  DOJCD, Department of Justice, Criminal Division

  DPD, Dallas Police Department

  FOIA, Freedom of Information Act

  H, Warren Commission hearings and exhibits (volumes 1–15 are testimony; volumes 16–26 are exhibits)

  HPSCI, House Permanent Subcommittee on Intelligence

  HSCA, House Select Committee on Assassinations (12 volumes)

  JCS, Joint Chiefs of Staff

  KISS-SCOW, Kissinger-Scowcroft

  LBJ, Lyndon Baines Johnson

  NARA, National Archives and Records Administration

  NAS-CBA, National Academy of Science’s Committee on Ballistic Acoustics

  NSA, National Security Agency

  ONI, Office of Naval Intelligence

  SA, special agent

  SAC, special agent-in-charge (FBI)

  SAIC, special agent-in-charge (Secret Service)

  SSCIA, Senate Select Committee on the CIA

  WC, Warren Commission

  WCT, Warren Commission testimony

  WR, Warren Report

  Z, Zapruder film

  Note: For further information about the format of the citations in this book, as well as a discussion about Warren Commission documents (CDs) and exhibits (CEs), the breakdown of the Warren Commission volumes, and the National Archives’ assignment of their numbers to documents in the Archives, see endnote.

  Acknowledgments

  There are very few people who manage to complete a long and difficult journey without having a lot of help along the way, and I am no exception. But the list of names of those who have helped me in some way, if only to answer one question among the thousands I have asked since I first started work on this book in 1986, is unmanageably long for an acknowledgments section. So to those of you whom I do not mention in this section, and you know who you are, I say thank you so very much.

  I can tell those who have not seriously studied the assassination of President John F. Kennedy that it is a bottomless pit. With every project that we take on in our lives, we intuitively know, without even giving it a thought, that if we work long and hard enough we will reach the bottom of the pile. But I found, as others also have, that there is no bottom to the pile in the Kennedy case. It is endless, and I say this not as a casual turn of phrase. At the very moment I am writing these words on my yellow pad, I’m aware that there are at least a hundred people in the United States alone who are dedicating their lives to this case, examining every word and paragraph in every document they can find (the millions of pages on the case at the National Archives alone would take a lifetime to read) to come up with some inconsistency, discrepancy, or hint of a conspiracy in the assassination. And when there are a hundred or more intelligent minds working almost full-time on something (and, in the Kennedy case, thousands of others working part-time), they can create a lot of mischief. For many years during the writing of this book, I’ve been responding to their findings. But alas, most things, good and bad, come to an end in life, and at least for me, this book will be the end of my immersion in the Kennedy case, as I must go on to other endeavors. For me to continue to address the mostly imaginary issues of this case would be to sacrifice the rest of my life inasmuch as the allegations are, and will continue to be, without end.

  The following people have helped me the most in this terribly long journey I am now bringing to an end. I must start with my erudite editor—by my lights, the best in the business—Starling Lawrence. Star’s limitless patience and unconditional support, always saying yes, never no, to whatever I needed, coupled with the sagacious advice and guidance he gave me through the many years, elevates him to a very special position on my list. No one has a better ear, if you will, for the right or wrong word in a sentence. And the times were very numerous when Star immediately caught that word, or told me I was going over the top on some point. And when someone as highly critical as I am (I’d find fault with a beautiful morning sunrise) accepts the advice of someone over 90 percent of the time, that person has to be special. And Star is. I’ve been so blessed to have him as my editor on this monumental odyssey of mine.

  And I want to thank Mary Babcock, a hardworking and meticulous copy editor who helped me so very much in rounding my manuscript into its final form.

  And then there is Rosemary Newton, who has been like my secretary for this book. Though Rosemary works freelance, typing this book has been her main job, occupying most of her working day for many years. (And in the last several years the times have been many when I have also asked Rosemary to search for something on the Internet for me.) I wrote and dictated at my home and then made literally hundreds of trips to Rosemary’s home in the hills, picking up drafts of sections she had typed and dropping off new work for her. Rosemary has had a very tough job working with me on this book, yet she was always competent and extraordinarily reliable. In a way, she worked more closely with me than anyone else and became the person on whom I relied the most.

  In addition to transcribing, from my audio dictation, the contents of 72 sixty-minute and 8 ninety-minute tapes, during which she had to listen to my less-than-dulcet voice and my speaking a mile a minute, Rosemary had to decipher and type at least a thousand (maybe many more) inserts of mine handwritten in pencil on yellow legal paper. Though resulting from much dictation, the book you have read is, much more than dictation, a book of inserts. By that I mean the first drafts of sections I wrote (e.g., Zapruder film, wounds to the president, CIA, Oliver Stone, etc.), which I then dictated, were not overly long. But they all increased far beyond their original size in the many subsequent drafts with the addition of yellow-page inserts (as well as inserts on the top, sides, bottom, and between the lines of the pages). If you could read some of these inserts you would have great compassion for Rosemary. While still within an insert on the handwritten yellow or typewritten white page, she would be very apt to get directions like this: “Now to Insert 36 [arbitrary number] on the seventh yellow page following page 67.” Fine. But when she gets there she sees I’ve inserted a five-page handwritten endnote which has three footnote inserts in it, any one of which could itself contain an endnote or direct her to one or more other places. And then back to where she left off on the original insert perhaps an hour earlier. Often the pages and flow of the point I was trying to make got so garbled with inserts, deletions, arrows, et cetera, that it was impossible for me, the architect of the madness, to follow. Yet Rosemary never complained and more than once figured out my own labyrinth for me. As if the above were not enough, a great number of times I would write so small on a page (to squeeze in what I wanted in the only space available) that without a magnifying glass only the world’s most myopic person could read what I had written. I don’t have to tell Rosemary how very grateful I am to her. She deserves some type of medal.

  This book, as you know, is itself broken down into two books, Book One being on what happened, the non-conspiracy part, and Book Two, on what did not happen, the conspiracy allegation part of this sweeping story. For Book One, I was fortunate to have two people who made noteworthy writing contributions. Even though he worked with me for a relatively short part of my long journey, no one helped me as much as Dale Myers, the Emmy Award–winning computer animation specialist and superb student of the assassination from Detroit,
Michigan. Dale helped me in the writing of several sections of Book One, most notably on acoustics, “Four Days in November” (particularly in the Oswald interrogations), and all matters dealing with still photography. I am deeply grateful to Dale for lending his time, energy, and considerable expertise to this literary project.

  The other person who played a writing role, though a smaller one, was Fred Haines, a soft-spoken and extremely well-read intellectual. Fred’s fine hand has survived in several places of the “Lee Harvey Oswald” and “Four Days in November” sections. And it was Fred’s suggestion, a great one, I feel, and one for which I am indebted to him, to have the latter section, and to a lesser extent the Oswald biography (as opposed to every other part of the book), written in a narrative style normally reserved for fiction, giving this part of this nonfiction book a literary quality it would not have had without it. Very few nonfiction books can be written in such a narrative style without resorting to invention, but the unprecedented richness of the historical record on every single incident in this case has permitted it. Thus, as opposed to “Rimma accompanied Oswald to the train station, where he departed for Minsk,” this: “Always faithful Rimma saw him off at the station. He was depressed and wanted her to accompany him on the overnight train trip, but by now he understands that such things were not as simple in the Soviet Union as they might have been in the states. It was snowing as they said their good-byes. Both of them were crying.”

  I also want to thank Patrick Martin for all the work he put into the graphics in the photo section of the book to help make them what they are, and Douglas Martin, Fred Kuentz, and Michael McDermott for the similar contributions they made with their respective graphics.

  Other individuals who stand out among the many who have helped me along the way include Dr. Michael Baden, the great pathologist who headed up the forensic pathology panel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. With his many duties (he’s still a pathologist, he lectures, serves as a consultant on important criminal cases, even appears as a regular on a television reality series) he still always got back to me when I called, and took the time to answer my many questions dealing with the medical aspects of the assassination. Though I did not rely on him quite as much, whenever I did call on Dr. Baden’s friend and counterpart in this case, Dr. Cyril Wecht, the famed pathologist and coroner (up to January of 2006) of Allegheny County in Pittsburgh, he unfailingly found time in his very busy day, or in the evenings or on weekends, to answer my questions.

  And then there were two people in Dallas, both of whom I could invariably count on to make me laugh in response to their dry, homespun Texas humor, but more importantly, to help me get to the bottom of several problem areas in the case I was exploring. I’m speaking of Bill Alexander, the former top prosecutor in the Dallas DA’s office who was the lead prosecutor in the trial of Jack Ruby for killing Lee Harvey Oswald, and was scheduled to prosecute and put Oswald away if Ruby hadn’t gotten to him first, and former Dallas County sheriff James C. Bowles, who probably was a member of Dallas law enforcement (fifty-three years) longer than anyone else in Dallas history. Alexander, in his mid-eighties, is still practicing law, and Bowles just retired in 2005. Though both were always busy—especially Bowles when he was still sheriff—they always found time in their day to answer my many questions. Together, the two of them were part of Dallas law enforcement for a great number of years and know it as well or better than any two other people alive. They graciously shared their accumulated knowledge and wisdom with me, and even helped me to the extent of putting me in contact with former members of Dallas law enforcement I had been unable to locate.

  The main source for this book on the assassination is, of course, as it must be, the twenty-seven volumes of the Warren Commission, the granddaddy of all literature on the assassination. Not too far behind are the thirteen volumes of the HSCA. The next great source, among so many others, is the collection of countless documents on the assassination stored at the National Archives, the temple to America’s past, in College Park, Maryland. There simply is no way that this book ended up being the book I think it is without the wonderful cooperation I received from Steven D. Tilley, up until April of 2004 (he has since been elevated) the chief person in charge of these documents (the JFK Assassination Records Collection) at the archives, and his staff, particularly his able assistant James R. Mathis. Tilley and his staff, more than once, went above and beyond the call of duty to locate obscure but important documents for me. My requests for specific documents, several of which alone contained over a hundred pages each (e.g., the testimony of a witness before the HSCA), were continuous. I kept wondering whether I’d soon be getting a letter from Steve or one of his assistants saying, “Vince, please. Enough is enough,” but I never did. What I always got, never accompanied by a complaint, was a very large envelope in the mail containing everything I had requested that they could find. I of course am very grateful to Steve and his staff for all the tremendous assistance they gave me.

  Although I am proud to say that I have done 99.9 percent of my own research for everything I wrote in this book (which is typical for me, not feeling comfortable relying on others to do research for me), I want to give very special thanks to four individuals, three of whom are avid students of the assassination, who have helped me in so many diverse ways. Having no official connection to the case like a Bill Alexander, Dr. Michael Baden, or Steven Tilley, just their friendship and their desire to help me, they were always there for me, without hesitation, whenever I needed them—whether it was to take a photo of an angle at Dealey Plaza I needed, secure someone’s phone number for me, loan me one of their many books on the assassination, in some cases get a document for me they had ready access to, or whatever. They are Jack Duffy of Fort Worth (who has been with me on this book the longest), David Phinney of Los Angeles, Jim Agnew of Chicago, and Bill Drenas of Lowell, Massachusetts. I’ll never forget the help these four gave me and will always be especially grateful to them.

  And then there is Gary Mack, the curator of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas since 1994 and a student of the assassination since 1975. Gary carries in his head an enormous wealth of knowledge about the case—much of it not the type one would find in the Warren Report or the report of the HSCA—which he is generous to share with whoever asks. If I called Gary once in the past years, I called him thirty times, always for his input on some arcane issue, and nearly always he was able to help me, for which I am, of course, very appreciative and indebted. I also want to thank Gary’s research colleague, fellow Texan David Perry, a former insurance investigator from Grapevine, Texas, who was also very helpful to me on the many occasions I called him for assistance. Dave has made a specialty out of debunking (sometimes in league with Mack) people like Ricky White and Madeleine Brown who come out of the woodwork with their phony assassination-related tales. The story I like to tell about David is the time I found a reference to a nut in a conspiracy book, one I had never heard of before and about whom there was no reference in any other book on the assassination that I was aware of. I called Dave to find out what he knew about the kook and his allegation, but a small part of me was hoping that Dave, too, had never heard of him, enabling me to say to him, “I finally found a nut you’ve never heard of.” But before I could even get the second syllable of the man’s name out of my mouth, Dave started bombarding me with a blizzard of information on him. He knew all about this guy and his allegation and had already debunked the man’s story.

  Thanks are also in order to John H. Slate, the very diligent chief of the Dallas Municipal Archives who was invariably helpful to me whenever I needed his assistance, and the many members of the reference staff at the Dallas Public Library. I must not forget the staff of the Pasadena Public Library, where I spent literally hundreds of hours on their machines looking at microfilm and to a lesser extent microfiche. Since up to last year, when they got new machines, the machines were in terrible condition from overuse, and I’m not proficie
nt with mechanical things, I would frequently need their help to fix or adjust a malfunctioning unit, and not once were the staff members anything but helpful and pleasant. And then there were the virtually hundreds of books the library staff got for me that were not at their library but at one of their branches, and the considerable number they got for me through their interlibrary loan service—most out of print and several very obscure—from libraries not only throughout California, but in other states, like one published in 1798, a copy of which they located for me at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

  I also want to express my appreciation, ironically, to three people who, unlike those already mentioned, had no conscious intent to help me but nevertheless did. I’m referring to the publishers of the three main conspiracy community publications, which I subscribed to and carefully read through the years. They are Jerry Rose’s monthly Decade series, Jim DiEugenio’s bimonthly Probe, and Walt Brown’s JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly. (The Decade series, ending in the fourth decade after the assassination, and Probe are no longer in existence.) Although I usually didn’t agree with the conclusions set forth in the articles in these publications, I found all three to be scholarly and informative, and here and there I picked up valuable points from Rose, DiEugenio, and Brown (as well as from the many private assassination researchers who contributed to their publications) that I hadn’t come across in my own research and that had been overlooked by the Warren Commission and HSCA. Also, I learned from these publications the principal areas of interest in the mainstream conspiracy community, which I knew I would have to address in my book if it was going to be the book I wanted it to be.