Crossfire

by Jim Marrs

  Finally, in June 1964, Marina identified the camera as the one she used to take the photographs. Marina, who originally claimed to have taken only one picture, revised this statement in her testimony to the commission in February 1964. She said, “I had even forgotten that I had taken two photographs. I thought there was only one. I thought there were two identical pictures, but they turned out to be two different poses.”

  She, of course, never mentioned the other two photographs. But then this incident was not the only time Marina’s testimony reflected inconsistencies and rehearsal.

  An objective viewing of the three available backyard photographs reveals internal problems aplenty. Although all three pictures were reportedly taken with a handheld camera, the background of all three is identical when brought to the same size. That is, though cropped differently in the three photos, the elements of the background—shadows, leaves, branches, stairs, etc.—are exactly identical. This sameness of background could possibly be produced with a stationary camera on a heavy tripod but is impossible with a handheld camera.

  The V-shaped shadow under Oswald’s nose remains the same in all three pictures, although his head is tilted in different directions.

  And the photos all show a discernible line marking a break in the print’s emulsion across Oswald’s face just above a flat, broad chin. In Dallas police photos, it is clear that Oswald had a sharply pointed, cleft chin.

  And when all three photos are brought to the same size and placed on top of each other as transparencies, nothing matches except the face of Lee Harvey Oswald

  Oswald’s assessment that the photos are superimposed fakes has been confirmed by two foreign authorities. In 1977, Major John Pickard, commander of the photographic department at the Canadian Defense Department, made these statements after studying the backyard pictures:

  The pictures have the earmarks of being faked. The shadows fall in conflicting directions. The shadow of Oswald’s nose falls in one direction and that of his body in another. The photos were shot from a slightly different angle, a different distance, with the gun in a different hand. So, if one photo is laid on top of another, nothing could match exactly. Yet, impossibly, while one body is bigger, in the other the heads match perfectly, bearing out Oswald’s charge that his head was pasted on an incriminating photograph.

  Author and British Broadcasting Corporation investigative reporter Anthony Summers had the photos studied by retired detective superintendent Malcolm Thompson, a past president of the Institute of Incorporated Photographers in England. Thompson said he detected retouching in the photos around the area of Oswald’s head and on the butt of the rifle. He also noted inconsistencies in the location of shadows and the different chin on Oswald. Thompson stated, “One can only conclude that Oswald’s head has been stuck on to a chin which is not Oswald’s chin. . . . My opinion is that those photographs are faked. . . . I consider the pictures to be the result of a montage.”

  However, neither Pickard nor Thompson studied the original photos. The Photographic Evidence Panel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which did study the originals, concluded in 1978 that it could find no evidence of fakery in the backyard photos.

  This conclusion rested primarily on studies that showed markings on the edges of the negative of one of the original photographs were identical to markings on other photographs made by the Imperial Reflex camera. This ballistics-type evidence convinced the panel that the photos must be genuine.

  However, Texas graphics expert Jack White pointed out that if a knowledgeable person wanted to fake the backyard pictures, it would have been a simple matter to produce a high-quality montage photograph using one backyard scene, a figure with rifle and papers, and a head shot of Oswald, which then could be photocopied using the Imperial Reflex camera. This procedure would produce a faked backyard photo that could be proven to have come from the camera traced to Oswald. Another method to achieve the same results, according to White, would be to make an exposure through the Imperial Reflex camera that would include the markings on the edge but nothing else. Then, when the composite photo is combined with this, the markings become part of the negative.

  Asked to study the sameness of the different photos’ backgrounds, the House committee’s experts said they measured the distances between certain objects in the pictures—such as wooden fence posts—and determined some differences in distance, indicating that the photos were indeed separate shots.

  White, who died in 2012, argued that these differences were simply the result of “keystoning” or tilting the easel on which the photograph was exposed in an enlarger. He said he, too, had been concerned with what appeared to be differences in the photos but discovered that by simply tilting the photographic print in an enlarger’s easel, the backgrounds of the supposedly separate pictures overlapped and matched perfectly.

  Furthermore, in recent years White discovered other problems with the backyard photos. In one picture, the tips of Oswald’s fingers appear to be missing as does one end of the rifle’s telescopic sight. White claimed this was due to sloppy airbrushing on the part of whoever faked the picture. In one photo, the figure can be seen to be wearing a large ring on his right hand, yet the ring is missing in the other photos.

  Sameness of backgrounds and Oswald’s face, conflicting shadows and distances, loss of portions of the photos—again, a vital piece of evidence remains in “controversy” despite the studied opinions of experts and inconsistencies that can be viewed by any layperson.

  Yet the federal government continues to vouch for the authenticity of the incriminating photos. The reason for this steadfast support may have been voiced by House committee chief counsel Robert Blakey, who stated, “If [the backyard photographs] are invalid, how they were produced poses far-reaching questions in the area of conspiracy, for they evince a degree of technical sophistication that would almost necessarily raise the possibility that [someone] conspired not only to kill the President, but to make Oswald a patsy.”

  Reenactment Problems

  In light of the controversies surrounding the physical evidence attempting to link Lee Harvey Oswald to the assassination, the Warren Commission tried to strengthen the case against the ex-Marine through the use of reenactments.

  However, at least two of the participants have questioned the results of these reenactments.

  Chester Breneman, a surveyor who participated in two separate reenactments of the Kennedy assassination, said the studies proved that more than one man was involved in the shooting. Breneman, who went on to become county surveyor of Eastland County, Texas, told this author in 1978 that distance and time figures the Warren Commission published were “at odds” with figures obtained in the reenactment staged for the FBI and Secret Service in 1964.

  Height and distance figures altered by the federal government mean that all subsequent computer analyses based on such figures are erroneous and baseless.

  Breneman’s story was confirmed by Dallas County surveyor Robert West, who also participated in both reenactments. Both men were in West’s office on the Monday following the assassination when a man entered. Breneman recalled:

  [He] said he was a special investigator for Life magazine. He asked if we would make an investigation down there [in Dealey Plaza] and see if any other bullets were fired and from which direction they came. They were aware at that time that something was haywire. . . . So, we went down there and roped the area off. I stood on the parapet where [Abraham] Zapruder stood and took those pictures. They had still pictures of all the frames of Zapruder’s film. [Author’s emphasis—Reportedly Life did not take possession of the Zapruder film until that same day and evidence indicates the film was actually processed and manipulated by the CIA in New York state.]

  Breneman and West took measurements of the plaza and distances from the Texas School Book Depository and matched everything against the Zapruder stills.

  Later that day, Breneman accompanied Life’s investigators to the thirteenth floor
of Dallas’s Adolphus Hotel, where they were headquartered. He said at that time everybody involved agreed that no one man could have done all the shooting.

  Breneman said the magazine investigators also had obtained a Carcano rifle and attempted to work the bolt in the time frame attributed to Oswald. Breneman, a former Marine medal winner for marksmanship, said he, too, worked the rifle’s bolt for hours. He said, “We came to the conclusion that it couldn’t be done in the time limit they were trying to get me down to.”

  He also recounted a strange incident that occurred during his time with the magazine people. “This [one] man told me, ‘My life isn’t worth a plug nickel on this investigation.’ Then he pulled his shirt back and showed me this bulletproof vest. I thought that was a little odd.”

  Breneman again was visiting his friend West on May 31, 1964, when the FBI and Secret Service reenacted the assassination for the Warren Commission. Both surveyors participated in the tests. Breneman recalled:

  We again measured distances and elevations by matching the frames of the Zapruder film. We examined a bullet mark on the curb on the south side of [Elm] street. This part of the curb was replaced shortly after the assassination. Also, right after the assassination, they were mentioning a [highway] sign which had a stress mark from a bullet on it. It’s my understanding that this particular sign was quickly taken down and no one has been able to locate it.

  During the May reenactment, Breneman said the FBI used a big Cadillac as a substitute for Kennedy’s Lincoln Continental. “It was in no way like Kennedy’s limousine,” said Breneman.

  West added, “That was one thing that was always funny to me. They brought this big old Cadillac down to use in the tests, but it was thirteen inches higher than Kennedy’s car.” Breneman agreed, “They were all crunched up in there, shoulder to shoulder. In that condition it could have been possible for one man to shoot two of them.”

  West said his study showed that one of the alleged shots from the Depository followed a path straight through a leafy tree. “If he shot through a hole in that tree, it was absolutely fantastic,” commented West. Breneman concluded, “I wish to state that both investigations led us to believe beyond any doubt that there were two assassins. Life magazine’s special investigators believed this to be true. The Secret Service would not say. But at the time, that seemed to be the reason we were there and we felt the Secret Service felt that way too.”

  After the Warren Commission published the figures from the government reenactment, Breneman and West were shocked to find that the figures did not match those they made at the time. Both Breneman and West retained copies of the Dealey Plaza reenactment figures.

  Breneman said:

  They [the figures] were at odds with our figures. After checking a few figures, I said, “That’s enough for me,” and I stopped reading. . . . For instance, on our map, we marked the spot corresponding to Zapruder film frame 171. The Warren Commission changed this to 166 before they used it in the report. The Warren Report shows a 210 where we show a 208. . . . It would seem to me that . . . these figures were changed just enough that the Warren Commission could come up with the idea that another shot came from the same direction as the first. But all I have been concerned with is, did another shot come from another direction? I know danged well it did.

  Neither Breneman nor West—the actual surveyors used for the government’s reenactment studies—was asked to testify to the Warren Commission. Further, the Commission declined to publish the map Breneman and West drew, claiming it was inaccurate.

  This map indicates a bullet hit on the south curb of Elm Street. Breneman said, “We were told not to study those bullet marks by the FBI.”

  Again, any meaningful search for the truth of the assassination was ended by altered figures and orders not to note extraneous bullet marks—all from federal authorities.

  The Warren Commission

  The federal government, led by president Lyndon Johnson, began to assert itself immediately following Kennedy’s death. Against normal procedure of that time, all evidence was removed from Dallas that night and sent to FBI headquarters in Washington.

  The day after the assassination, despite tremendous confusion in Dallas and elsewhere, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover forwarded to Johnson a preliminary report supporting the idea of Lee Harvey Oswald’s sole guilt. At this time, only selected FBI officials had seen all the evidence and the plausible suspicion of fabrication and substitution grew.

  Following the death of the accused assassin on November 24, calls increased for an investigation independent from that of the Dallas police, who in many circles were being held responsible for Oswald’s death.

  That same day, Hoover talked with Johnson aide Walter Jenkins, stating, “The thing I am concerned about, and so is [deputy attorney general Nicholas D.] Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin. Mr. Katzenbach thinks that the President might appoint a Presidential Commission of three outstanding citizens to make a determination.”

  On November 25, President Johnson ordered his friend Hoover to prepare a detailed report on the circumstances surrounding Kennedy’s death. The news media were already reporting leaks from the bureau, including, “Rumors that will be spiked by the [FBI] report . . . is one that there was a conspiracy involved, and another one that shots fired at Kennedy came from different guns.”

  That same day, Katzenbach wrote a memo to Johnson aide Bill Moyers and outlined his thoughts on an assassination investigation:

  It is important that all of the facts surrounding President Kennedy’s assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in the United States and abroad. That all the facts have been told and that a statement to this effect be made now.

  1. The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; that the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial.

  2. Speculation about Oswald’s motivation ought to be cut off, and we should have some basis for rebutting the thought that this was a communist conspiracy or (as the Iron Curtain press is saying) a right-wing conspiracy to blame it on the communists. Unfortunately the facts on Oswald seem about too pat—too obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife, etc.). The Dallas Police have put out statements on the communist conspiracy theory, and it was they who were in charge when he was shot and thus silenced.

  3. The matter has been handled thus far with neither dignity nor conviction; facts are mixed with rumor and speculation. We can scarcely let the world see us totally in the image of the Dallas Police when our President is murdered.

  I think this objective may be satisfied and made public as soon as possible with the completion of a thorough FBI report on Oswald and the assassination. This may run into the difficulty of pointing to inconsistency between this report and statements by Dallas Police officials; but the reputation of the Bureau is such that it may do the whole job.

  The only other step would be the appointment of a Presidential Commission of unimpeachable personnel to review and examine the evidence and announce its conclusions. This has both advantages and disadvantages. I think it can await publication of the FBI report and public reaction to it here and abroad.

  Also on November 25, Texas attorney general Waggoner Carr announced he planned to conduct a court of inquiry concerning the deaths of both Kennedy and Oswald. Carr named two prominent Texas attorneys—Leon Jaworski (who went on to become the special Watergate prosecutor) and Dean Storey—as special counsel for the probe.

  The next day, Senator Everett Dirksen announced that a Senate investigation of the assassination would be conducted by a special committee headed by senator James O. Eastland, chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee. One Republican senator told newsmen, “Too many people are disturbed about the strange circumstances of the whole tragic affair.” Not to be outdone by the Senate, the House of Representatives announced an attempt to create yet another investigati
ve committee the next day.

  The grief-stricken attorney general, Robert Kennedy, was never consulted about any of these attempts. But the next-ranking officials of the Justice Department—Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach and solicitor general Archibald Cox (also of Watergate fame)—met with Johnson’s close friend attorney Abe Fortas, who had blocked the 1948 election investigation of Johnson by obtaining a court order from Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black.

  These men, aided by Yale law professor Eugene Rostow, secretary of state Dean Rusk, and columnist Joseph Alsop—all members of the elitist Council on Foreign Relations—convinced President Johnson that the public could misinterpret his plan for a Texas investigation as an attempt to cover up the crimes in Johnson’s home state. They argued a national commission headed by men of supposedly unimpeachable integrity was needed.

  In explaining the formation of what came to be known as the Warren Commission, the Dallas Morning News commented, “Creation of the Presidential commission appeared certain to head off several congressional inquiries into the slaying of President Kennedy in Dallas a week ago.”

  The newspaper was absolutely correct. With the creation of the Warren Commission, not only had Johnson blocked any congressional investigations but, by the next week, Texas attorney general Carr had announced postponement of his state board of inquiry.

  Despite massive media coverage of Oswald’s arrest, his slaying, and the amount of evidence offered to the public by both Dallas and federal authorities, a Gallup poll taken the first week of December 1963 showed a majority of respondents—52 percent—continued to believe that Oswald had not acted alone.

  Rumors were widespread in Texas that Johnson in some way had a hand in the assassination. A man of distinction and credibility was needed to stop such rumors. That man was chief justice Earl Warren.