Kennedy replied on November 19, 1975: “My family has been aware of various theories concerning the death of President Kennedy…I am sure that it is understood that the continual speculation [about the case] is painful for members of my family. We have always accepted the findings of the Warren Commission Report…Our feeling is that, if there is sufficient evidence to re-examine the circumstances concerning the death of President Kennedy…this judgment would have to be made by the legal authorities responsible for such further examination.” (FBI Record 124-10163-10464, pp.5–6)
† When the interviewer pressed Hill as to what kind of dog it was, she said she didn’t know but it was “white and fuzzy” (6 H 214, WCT Jean Lollis Hill). Since there was no dog in the president’s car, Hill took a lot of ribbing for this, and in later years conspiracy theorists tried to restore her credibility on this point by claiming that photographs taken at Love Field show that Mrs. Kennedy had been given a white, stuffed toy representing the famous Sheri Lewis TV puppet Lamb Chop. The claim, however, was based on poor-quality images posted on the Internet. High-quality images show that what critics thought was a Lamb Chop toy was, in fact, a bouquet of white flowers (asters) that someone in the greeting party at Love Field (it is not known who) had given the First Lady in addition to a larger bouquet of red roses given to her by the mayor’s wife. (Trask, That Day in Dallas, pp.27, 29) In Richard Trask’s 1994 invaluable book, Pictures of the Pain, he said film footage showed that Mrs. Kennedy “was apparently presented with a small stuffed animal…She may have kept the stuffed toy among the roses with which she was also presented” (Trask, Pictures of the Pain, p.260 footnote 17). However, no photo of the interior of the car ever showed the toy, and such a toy never surfaced. Four years later, in his 1998 book, That Day in Dallas, Trask corrected himself and noted that the “stuffed toy” among the red roses was really a “gift bouquet of white asters” (Trask, That Day in Dallas, p.29).
*Spence was even more so, telling the jury in his summation that “Mr. Bugliosi can laugh him out of the courtroom,” but actually “old Tom Tilson” was a believable witness, a really genuine, salt-of-the-earth type of person who “would be one of my best friends…if I lived in Dallas…We’d go out…He’s the kind of people I would congregate with” (Transcript of On Trial, July 25, 1986, pp.1016–1017).
*Indeed, Dealey Plaza witness Amos Lee Euins, though not seeing anyone emerge from the back of the building, said that shortly after the shooting he heard someone tell a police officer “he seen a man run out the back” (2 H 205–206).
*However, on November 27, 1963, when the FBI showed Miss Mercer photos of Ruby and Oswald, she could not identify either as the two men she saw, saying only that the driver had a round face like Ruby, and the one with the alleged gun case was the same general build, size, and age as Oswald (12 HSCA 17).
*If you’ve been there, as I have, Mack’s man would only be about twenty feet to the left rear of the main alleged grassy knoll assassin, both men behind the fence and each necessarily aware of the other’s presence, since nothing but the ground would be between them. Hence, if there was a grassy knoll assassin where most conspiracy theorists and the HSCA say he was, and Mack’s man was where Mack says he was, the grassy knoll assassin and Mack’s man (who Mack believes may be the grassy knoll assassin) had to be co-conspirators. (I say “may be” because although the conspiracy community seems to have the impression that Mack believes the man was the grassy knoll assassin, in a 2006 letter to me Mack expressly wrote, “I’ve never said that Badge Man was the knoll assassin, but I have said he’s a possibility, that’s all” (Letter from Gary Mack to author dated August 10, 2006, p.1).
*Curiously, over four months after Golz published his article, U.S. Senator Ralph Yarborough called Golz and told him, “Immediately on the firing of the first shot I saw the man you interviewed throw himself on the ground. He was down within a second of the time the shot was fired and I thought to myself, there’s a combat veteran who knows how to act when weapons start firing” (Earl Golz, “Panel Leaves Question of Imposters,” Dallas Morning News, December 31, 1978, p.2A). Conspiracy theorists say this confirms Arnold’s presence on the knoll. But it almost certainly does not. At the time of the first shot, the presidential limousine, we know, had just turned from Houston on to Elm. Yarborough’s car, two cars behind Kennedy’s, would have been right at the intersection of Houston and Elm, and from that position the pergola wall would have completely blocked Yarborough’s view of the place where Arnold claims he was. So Yarborough did not see Arnold for two reasons. One, photographs and film show that Arnold was not there, and two, even if he were, Yarborough couldn’t have seen him. It is difficult to know whom Yarborough saw, since several people dropped to the ground immediately. He may have been referring to Bill Newman, who testified for me in London. Newman was at the bottom of the knoll on the north side (picket fence side) of Elm and would have been visible to Yarborough at the time of the first shot. However, Newman didn’t drop to the ground until after the third shot. Also, if Yarborough were referring to Newman, it’s hard to believe he wouldn’t have mentioned Newman’s wife and their two young children, all of whom dropped to the ground together.
*If not, since the Back Up man, per Mack, was not in a police uniform, then who was the person kicking Arnold? Another co-conspirator of the Badge Man who was dressed in a police uniform? This is all terribly silly.
*In Craig’s Warren Commission testimony he said the station wagon he saw was a “Nash Rambler” and “it looked white to me” (6 H 267). But actually, Ruth Paine owned a green Chevrolet station wagon (2 H 506, WCT Ruth Hyde Paine; CE 2125, 24 H 697). This, apparently, created a problem for Craig. Seven years later, in his 1971 unpublished book manuscript, “When They Kill a President,” he wrote that the Rambler station wagon was “light green” in color (p.12).
† Deputy Sheriff Lewis, now deceased, submitted a report to his office on the afternoon of the assassination concerning his activities and observations that day and made no mention of seeing what Craig allegedly saw (Decker Exhibit No. 5323, 19 H 513).
*Craig not only volunteered to testify for Garrison but also privately started investigating the case for him. An example of his work: knowing that one of Garrison’s zany theories was that a vast homosexual ring conspired to kill Kennedy, Craig wrote a December 7, 1967, memo to Garrison stating that Marina Oswald’s personal physician in Dallas was associated at a hospital there with four doctors (whom Craig identifies by name), all of whom, Craig says, “are reported homosexuals.”
*Per Ken Holmes, president of Southwestern Historical Inc., which runs tours of all the Kennedy assassination sites, the official words on the plaque next to the underpass are “Union Terminal Underpass,” but he said most people in Dallas refer to it as the “Triple Underpass” (Telephone interview of Ken Holmes by author on March 11, 2004). However, assassination literature is filled with references to the site as the “triple overpass,” including, for instance, by the two Dallas officers who were assigned to positions above the underpass on November 22, 1963 (6 H 249, WCT J. W. Foster; 6 H 254, WCT J. C. White). For purposes of this book I use the term “Triple Underpass” to refer to the convergence of the three roads of Commerce, Main, and Elm, and “railroad overpass” to the railroad tracks (and walkway) on top of the three converging roads.
† Clemon Earl Johnson, a machinist for the Union Terminal Company who was on the overpass with Holland, also said he saw “white smoke,” but it was “near the pavillion” (which some people, including Sixth Floor Museum curator Gary Mack, feel is not part of the “grassy knoll”). Further, Johnson felt the smoke came not from a shot but “from a motorcycle abandoned near the spot by a Dallas policeman.” (CE 1422, 22 H 836) Another Union Terminal Company employee (described as a “hostler helper”) atop the railroad overpass on Elm who saw smoke was Nolan H. Potter, but Potter told the FBI that the smoke he saw was “in front of the Texas School Book Depository Building rising from the trees” (FBI Record 124-10026-10153,
FBI interview of Nolan H. Potter on March 17, 1964).
‡ However, in a clearer copy sent to me by Steven Tilley of the National Archives, who reproduced the negative for me with special equipment, Holland’s markings on the photograph can be made out, although just barely, and not clear enough for reproduction in this book.
*Holland told the Warren Commission that “immediately after the shots were fired,” he ran behind the picket fence to see if he “could see anyone…behind the fence,” but he saw no one. He said by the time he got there “there were twelve or fifteen policemen and plainclothesmen” there, and “we looked for empty shells around there for quite awhile.” Though they found no shells, he did see several cars parked behind the picket fence, including “a station wagon backed up toward the fence” and in “one little spot” around there in an area of three by two feet, it looked to him “like somebody had been standing there for a long time.” Remarkably, and as alluded to earlier, he said there were about “a hundred foot tracks in that little spot.” (6 H 245–247) I should think this would be impossible enough, but in a taped interview with author Josiah Thompson on November 30, 1966, Holland said there were “four or five hundred footprints” in the area behind the station wagon (Thompson, Six Seconds in Dallas, p.122). Apparently, the conspirators who had Kennedy killed didn’t bring in just one assassin to shoot Kennedy from behind the picket fence, but imported the Russian army. If Holland’s testimony about footprints was strange, the testimony of Seymour Weitzman, the Dallas deputy constable who misidentified the Carcano, was close. He said that “in the railroad yards” used as a parking lot behind the picket fence, “we noticed numerous kinds [of] footprints that did not make sense because they were going in different directions” (7 H 107). Say what? It’s a parking lot for cars yet all footprints are supposed to be going in the same direction?
*At least out at Love Field, the Department of Commerce records reflect that the wind was going in an easterly direction. But more than one witness in Dealey Plaza felt it was going in a northerly direction.
† One wonders how to reconcile these undoubtedly accurate on-site testimonials from Dealey Plaza witnesses as to the stiffness of the wind at the time of the assassination, with Weather Bureau records from the U.S. Department of Commerce, which show that the velocity of the wind at 12:30 p.m. on November 22, 1963, at nearby Love Field in Dallas, where the measurements were taken, was 13 knots, translating (a knot equals about 1.15 statute miles per hour) to around 15 miles per hour, a good but not a strong wind (U.S. Department of Commerce, Weather Bureau, Local Climatological Data, Dallas, Texas, Love Field, November 22, 1963, p.3; see also HSCA Record 180-10104-10458, November 1, 1978). When I posed this question to William Brown, a research meteorologist at the Department of Commerce Weather Bureau in Asheville, North Carolina, he said, “I’ve been to Dealey Plaza, and as you know there are many tall buildings in the area. When wind, like water, is funneled through a smaller channel—here, between buildings—the wind will always speed up, sometimes considerably. You’re forcing the same volume of air through a smaller area. It’s simple physics. In a water example, a wide river may not flow rapidly, but when funneled through a narrow canyon its velocity picks up immediately” (Telephone interview of William Brown by author on January 9, 2003). In other words, prairie winds, which are famous, are not strong because of the prairie, but because they are simply strong. A strong wind in the prairies surrounding Oklahoma City, for instance, will be even stronger in the city, not less strong.
*The fact that Bowers had a very busy day controlling trains on thirteen separate tracks that passed in front of the tower causes one assassination researcher to wonder whether Bowers was even at the window as he says he was. Jim Moore, author of Conspiracy of One, lives in Dallas and over the years has spent much time examining Dealey Plaza and the surrounding area. He makes this telling observation in his book: “[Bowers’s] work position required him to throw signal switches located on a panel in the center of the room. Sitting at the panel, Bowers could not have seen the area at the apex of the wooden fence where [Mark] Lane and [Sylvia] Meagher [conspiracy authors], among others, place their mythical assassin. Bowers, in order to view the area in question from a window somewhat removed from his control panel, would have had to leave his switches and walk over to the window. By all accounts, Bowers was a good employee, not a shirker of duty. It is inconceivable to me that he walked away from his control panel at a particularly busy time to stare at the back of a picket fence. Indeed, Bowers testified that he ‘threw red-on-red’—a signal that effectively blocked all trains—just after the fatal shot. He had to be sitting at his control panel to take this action.” (Moore, Conspiracy of One, p.32)
*The HSCA, in an allusion to Bowers as well as Holland, said that “none of the photographs of the grassy knoll that were analyzed by the photographic evidence panel revealed any evidence of a puff of smoke or flash of light” (HSCA Report, p.86).
† I say “almost” because it’s not uncommon for a person, when first asked about something, to be unable to recall it or some of the details, but when given help in the form of linkage by the questioner, the person finally does recall it. For example, “Do you recall telling Joe that _____?” “No.” “Don’t you remember he said to you that _____ and then you started laughing and said to him _____?” “Oh yes, I do remember telling him that now.” In the legal context, this is called “refreshing the memory,” and is usually achieved by documents the person is shown on the witness stand.
*Rivele said he was told that the two assassins to the president’s rear were firing regular bullets, but Sarti, from the grassy knoll, fired (naturally) a frangible bullet. Four bullets were fired. The first bullet was fired from the rear and struck the president in the back, and the second bullet, also fired from the rear, hit Connally. (As we know, the Warren Commission was originally perplexed by whether or not the shot that hit Kennedy went on to hit Connally, but finally concluded that it did—the single-bullet theory. David and Nicoli, however, debunked the single-bullet theory out of hand. How they would know this [i.e., how would even the alleged assassin who fired the bullet that entered Kennedy’s back know it did not go on to strike Connally?] Rivele does not tell the TV audience.) The third bullet, Rivele said, was the fatal head shot that was fired from the grassy knoll, and the fourth bullet, fired from Kennedy’s rear, missed.
*So we know this is a phony story to begin with, but did David even tell it to the Hollywood scriptwriter, Rivele? Someone who should know says he doesn’t believe he did. Jim Lesar, the scholarly head of the Assassination Archives and Research Center in Washington, D.C., was the lawyer Rivele got to try to prevent David’s extradition back to France. In a last-ditch effort, he almost succeeded. Lesar actually accompanied Rivele on three separate trips to France for Rivele’s interviews of David at La Santé prison, and says that although David and Rivele conversed in French, and Lesar’s French is very limited, it’s his impression that Rivele “inferred” the identity of the three gunmen from what David said, “putting two and two together.”
Even though David had previously said that two of the three killers Rivele names in the movie were innocent, David has supposedly written a letter in which he names all three presidential assassins. It is not known who they are (and therefore whether the two he previously exonerated are among the three) since David’s Parisian lawyer, Henri Juramy, has the letter, and as recently as the fall of 2003, Rivele told Lesar that he hadn’t been able to get Juramy to furnish him with a copy of it. (Telephone interviews of Jim Lesar by author on February 3, 2004, and February 18, 2006; FBI Record 124-10001-10390, March 7, 1988, pp.1–3) Like Rivele, I can’t wait to see who the chosen three are.
Because of David’s earlier exoneration of two of the three killers Rivele named, a French publisher whom Rivele had a contract with to publish his story, withdrew, and Rivele has never found an American publisher for his book. I can’t imagine why. Years later, Rivele got the book published in Spa
nish by Ediciones B, a small Madrid publishing house. In great despair over the total disintegration of his case over in Europe, Rivele returned to the United States only to find that his wife was divorcing him, in whole or in part because of his madcap adventure, which had brought him to the brink of bankruptcy, and Rivele contemplated suicide. But he made a comeback, co-writing the script for Oliver Stone’s movie Nixon, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. (Telephone interview of Jim Lesar by author on February 3, 2004)
*However, as to Sarti they found that on the day of the shooting, “he was undergoing serious medical treatment in France.” Whether that was inside or outside of Fort Ha prison in Bordeaux was not stated in the London Sunday Times report on the investigation. (London Sunday Times, November 24, 1991) The Manchester Guardian Weekly reported that on the day of the assassination, Sarti “was apparently on sick leave from his job as a dockwasher, following the loss of an eye” (Manchester Guardian Weekly, November 6, 1988, Le Monde sect., p.13).
† Though Central Television’s franchise was ultimately not revoked for presenting untruthful broadcasts, producer-director Nigel Turner did not fare so well. Turner “was censured by members of the British Parliament.” And the British regulatory agency, the Independent Broadcasting Authority, directed Central Television to present another broadcast devoted solely to exposing Turner’s misleading show and the lack of ethics he used in producing it. Called a “studio crucifixion” of Turner, the program, which was taped in Washington, D.C., was aired only in Britain on November 16, 1988, and was the first time that the British regulatory agency had ever compelled such an action. (Manchester Guardian, December 7, 1988; http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/holland3.htm)
Reclaiming History Page 293
