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CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM- Next we would like to hear from Wesley Liebeler. Mr. Liebeler is a former assistant counselor to the Warren Commission and currently a professor of law at UCLA. Welcome Mr. Liebeler.
MR.LIEBELER- Thank you Judge.
When Thomas Samoluk called me and asked me to come out here and testify my first question was what in heaven's name about? But, in talking with him I told him that I had in my own possession two documents that might be of interest. One is a report of a study that was done by a member of the faculty of the UCLA physics department back in 1965 or 1966 by the name of Brian Jones. And a, what happened was David Lifton raised some questions about the head jerk and shoulder buckle in the President's body just after he was struck by the final bullet in the Zapruder film, frame 312 or 313. And a, questions were raised about the apparent backward movement of the President's body after Zapruder film 313, even though Mr. Lifton was apparently aware of the fact that, though he didn't tell me this, the frame apparently, the President's body apparently moved forward right at frame 312, between frame 312 and 313. But, whatever, I had just started teaching at UCLA and I talked to some people at LIFE magazine and made arrangements for them to make a set of the Zapruder slides available in their office in Beverly Hills. And I called the chairman of the physics department at UCLA and told him who I was and asked him if there would be anyone over there in the physics department who would be interested in looking at these frames in the offices of LIFE magazine and writing a report on this particular question of what happened, of what kind of motion was exhibited by the President's body right around frames 312, 313 and thereafter on the Zapruder film. And this young fellow Brian Jones walked into my office some days later. I had never heard back from them until Jones walked into my office. And I must say he was very dubious about me since I as you already heard from two witnesses this morning, was associated with the notorious institution called the Warren Commission, but Jones went over and went through these frames with a fine tooth comb and eventually wrote a report and I have three copies here that I would like to make available for the Commission. His conclusion was that the movement of the President's body speaks for itself, I don't want to get into it, it was not inconsistent with a shot, the movement was not inconsistent with a shot from the rear.
Mr. Stone's movie did produce some things, there is no question about that. And my wife told me I had to go to it and I said I absolutely refuse. I said I am not going to pay 5 cents to go see that piece of crap. But she said you have to go, you owe it to yourself. And she moved me to posterity and she said I'll pay so she took me to the movie. It is the only time she has taken me to the movies the entire time we have known each other. So she paid and I went to the movie. And I was quite frankly interested in a lot of it because a lot of it was set in New Orleans and many of the people that were portrayed, fictitiously for the most part, in Stone's movie were people whose names I was familiar with because I was the staff lawyer who was basically responsible for deciding which of the people in New Orleans who were associated with Oswald, or who might have been associated with Oswald, which of them to take, to depose, to ask questions of ourselves. And that decision was based on going to the FBI and Secret Service reports to see what those agencies had already developed. And so, David Ferrie, and many of these people associated with him, I read the reports on them and decided that it wasn't useful to take their deposition because the information developed by the agencies was quite adequate to the event. We did take Carlos Bringuier's testimony, I think I took it, and Silvia Odio's testimony as well in Dallas.
Um, look what I did was after I saw the movie I went down to the stacks in the library at the law school of UCLA and dug out the work of the House Committee, I guess I should be ashamed to say I never looked at it before. It had been laying down there covered with dust and I dug it up and I started to look at it and and I was pleased to say my friend, later became my friend, Bob Blakey is not here to hear this compliment, I think that some of the work was extraordinarily good, particularly their treatment of the Single Bullet Theory, their analysis of the alignment and the trajectory problems that they studied and came up with a completely different approach than the Warren Commission did. The Commission worked from the window down, the House as you know started down in the car and worked back up, of course the results were essentially the same. The work of the House Committee confirmed the work of the Warren Commission.
And the medical work, I was pleased to become a friend also with Mike Baden and he and I fell in love with each other almost instantly. And I offered him a deal, I said Mike I'll do your will you do my autopsy and I reported that to my wife and she said you better tell Dr. Baden that I'm not going to have you autopsied, so I told Mike to make damn sure that I was autopsied under those circumstances. But I haven't done his will and so far he hasn't done my autopsy. But in any event, I sat down and started going through the House materials and I decided for about the third time I was going to write a book about this and I did do a lot of stuff and then of course, as usual, lost interest in it and had basically forgotten about it until I was talking to Tom Samoluk earlier this summer. And I told him about this material that I had, which was at this point was just on computer disk here in my office at UCLA, and he said that he thought that the committee ought to have it so I came out a few days early and dug it out and ran it off and did a little bit of work on it, and I have and this is the typescript that I have, and I have three copies of that which I put a copyright stamp on it. I am not giving it to you but it is for you to use as you see fit.
Now the first six chapters of that I talk about the shots that hit the President, Governor Connally's wounds, the source of the shots, who fired the shots, the Single Bullet Theory, and the question of trajectory alignment and the Single Bullet Theory, on which issues the House Committee and the Warren Commission were almost 100% in agreement on. There are some discrepancies as to the autopsy and the next chapter is entitled the evaluation of the autopsy, which wasn't as we all know the best in the world, and also I think make reference to the fact of what I regard as the failure or the remissness if you will of the Warren commission in not using the autopsy photographs and X-rays and making sure that the drawings that these doctors used were right. As it turned out that they weren't. But that's, while it's unfortunate, it's water over the dam. I also have a chapter on the President's backward movement at the time of the headshot and then two chapters on acoustical evidence and an evaluation of the acoustical evidence and that is what I want to focus primarily on in terms of, if you haven't done this that I think it would be a good thing for you to do.
The House Committee on the basis of acoustical evidence that appeared on a tape recording or a Dictabelt or whatever it was took a recording of Channel One of the Dallas Police Department and these were studied by both Bolt Beranek and Newman in Cambridge, and then again by Weiss and Aschkenasy for the House Committee, later by a committee set up by the Justice Department, which found that this was all nonsense which I believe it was. But the last chapter of the material here is an evaluation of the acoustical evidence. It is really strange if you just, the fellow Bulls is now the Sheriff in Dallas. I'm sure you have talked to him if you had a hearing in Dallas. I hope at least that Bulls testified before you or that you got Bulls material. If you haven't got Bulls material by all means get them.
He wrote a piece on this, and went through the tape and listened to it and put together a time line which is in the materials that I am giving to you. With respect to the movements of this motorcyclist that had the open microphone, on which, from which, through which this recording was made, for about five and a half minutes this microphone was stuck open while this motorcycle was doing something, part of the time it was moving, part of the time it was sitting. But, of course, it is extremely important to know exactly what that motorcycle was doing during this period of time. For about two minutes, right in the middle of this, for the first two minutes, 132 seconds there is the sound of a motorcycle engine noise running. It is a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, so I have listened to the tape perhaps you have to, you can't miss it, okay, here is this old Harley chugging along at a rather constant speed for 132 seconds, during which time the motorcycle is supposed to be accompanying the motorcade right down Main Street in Dallas where the crowds are pressing in on the motorcycle, er, on the motorcade to the point where the President's car has to stop. The motorcycle doesn't stop, it chugs right along. People are screaming and waving and yelling at the President and the motorcade, his microphone is wide open, there isn't a single iota of sound, crowd noise, on that tape, not one --- just two minutes, 132 seconds of chug, chug, chug, chug. chug while the motorcade is coming down Main Street of Dallas with all of these people shouting and screaming, the motorcade is stopping, the Secret Service people are jumping off the back car, running up to protect the President, it is barely moving but the motorcycle is going right along, happily, for 132 second without slowing down. That creates a rather serious problem, of course, it suggests that the motorcycle wasn't in the motorcade at all, which is quite clear. Then the motorcycle slows down and the theory was that it slowed down to make the turn onto Houston street and then Bolt Beranek and the House Committee, which I think is a failure, an extraordinary failure, they tell us that the motorcycle didn't, that the noise didn't increase, that the engine noise didn't increase for 13 seconds! 13 Seconds is relevant because by the time that 13 second period had stopped, ended after the first 132 seconds, the so called shots had been fired, the impulses, or whatever waveforms on this tape were on the tape at that time. So all the house Committee tells us is that, is that the motorcycle noise didn't increase for 13 seconds. Well, there is still another 2 minutes of tape worth open and it is a very interesting question as to what in heaven's name WAS ON THE TAPE?!
And ah, Bulls goes through this in great detail, there is a bell sound, the motorcycle engine at very slow idle, it revs up a little bit and starts to move, then it slows down again, maybe another motorcycle comes up, it slows to idle, somebody is whistling in the background, this is during the time that the motorcade is racing off to Parkland Hospital with the sirens screaming including the siren of McLain's motorcycle which is supposed to the one from which this tape was recorded.
Then most interestingly, about 121 seconds after the motorcycle engine noise slows down all of a sudden we hear sirens. What we hear is the sound of sirens approaching, very faint, and then they grow loud, and then they become very loud, and then they fade away again, and this (laughing) was supposedly recorded on a microphone that was on a motorcycle that was in the motorcade. obviously, it was not in the motorcade. It was never in Dealey Plaza.
I think that this acoustic evidence, acoustical evidence, and the conclusions of the House Committee as to the possible fourth shot from the grassy knoll and a possible conspiracy have been thoroughly discredited. But it doesn't seem to make much difference what the facts are and I think in that sense you do have a hopeless task because no matter what the facts are people like the fellow who spoke here before and Mr. Lifton, and people like that will still not be satisfied as to what the actual facts appear to be. So I would think that, I would get whatever Bulls had, I would think I would try to get whatever materials that Bolt Beranek and Newman has on this. And then of course, I, I appear to have left it in my briefcase, but the ballistics acoustics committee, that was that studied this at the request of the Justice Department I think may also have some material. I'm pretty sure they do.
And I would think it would be useful to get all of this stuff together so that if somebody wanted to analyze this stuff later on they can do it. I think that is basically the purpose of your group, is to get this stuff together so that it is there for history, because I am sure we will never be through with this, unfortunately.
And there is nothing you can do that the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee couldn't do. You are not any more super human than the rest of us. But get this material on the acoustic evidence that is my primary recommendation. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM- Members of the Board have any questions for Mr. Liebeler?
DR. ANNA NELSON- I think you raise an interesting point and that is that it is our task to find out the documents ---
MR. LIEBELER- Yes ---
DR. ANNA NELSON- --- and the facts in them and bring them to the American people who will have to deal with them.
MR. LIEBELER- That's right.
DR. ANNA NELSON- Thank you very much.
MR. LIEBELER- Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM- Next we are going to hear from Mr. James Rankin. Mr. Rankin is the son of the former General Counsel to the Warren Commission the late J. Lee Rankin. He will testify about his father's personal papers related to his work on the Warren Commission. Welcome Mr. Rankin.
MR. RANKIN- Good Morning, Chairman Tunheim and members of the Assassination Records Review Board. I am pleased and proud to be here today.
As you said my father was the General Counsel of the Warren Commission, some of you may know he was also a Solicitor General in the Eisenhower administration, and he was the Attorney General in charge of the office of legal council which gave advice to President Eisenhower. Later he was corporation counsel for the city of New York under Mayor John Lindsay so he had quite a public legal career. I have some prepared remarks but I would first like to inject a personal note, my father never discussed his work with his family, none of us knew that he had 17 cartons of records relating to the Warren Commission until about 6 months ago. He had a total of 80 boxes of just professional correspondence and papers, 17 of which are Warren Commission things. As the family has looked at these, and my brother is the only one who has looked at these carefully besides Mr. Gunn we realized he had a rather central role in the commissions investigation and report. So as I said my brother and Mr. Gunn are the only ones who have reviewed this and my comments are based upon what I have learned from them.
My brother had prepared a summary of the contents of these forms which I am going to leave with the Board.
During his tenure on the Warren Commission my father acted as a principal intermediary between the members of the Commission and the very talented Commission staff some of which are here today. In this capacity he was in a unique position of witnessing both the deliberations of the Commission and the research work, analysis and drafting performed by the staff.
I will describe briefly some of the Warren Commission materials that Father retained. First, and I brought them with me today, I am going to hand them over to Mr. Marwell at the end of my remarks, are looseleaf notebooks kept by my father's secretary, Julia Ige (sic?) which are daily logs of every telephone call and every conference that my father had when he worked on the Warren Commission. They also report, frequently, the time each staff member reported for work and left, often leaving after 9 o'clock at night.
Secondly, there are many original memoranda prepared by my father, (correcting himself) for my father by staff members of the Warren Commission. although it is my understanding that most if not all of these memos are available as copies at the National Archives my father's collection includes many signed originals. Some of the originals are by people who have become eminent in the world of politics and law. For example there are signed originals by Senator Arlen Specter, Professor Norman Reidlich, Professor John Hart Ely, Mr. David Belin, who is here today, Professor Wesley Liebeler, and others.
Third, the papers contain numerous drafts of the various chapters of the Warren Report. Many of these drafts contain original handwritten comments by Gerald Ford, Allen Dulles, John McCloy, Senator Richard Russell and, of course, my father. These drafts provide an intriguing, invaluable look at the development, analysis, and understanding of the Commission members over time. It is my understanding that although some of the drafts previously have been available in the Archives, my father's papers contain many more drafts and also include the original handwritten annotations. Following, there are many miscellaneous papers that range from press clippings, to original information about the Commission and its budget, information on the publication of the final report, who was to get original copies, so forth.
One item from my father's Warren Commission materials which I am retaining is a leather bound copy of the report which has been inscribed by several of the Warren Commission members. The inscriptions are quite revealing in terms of the role my father played in the Commission's work. Since they are short I would like to read them and I am including a copy of these inscriptions in the donated materials.
These are the inscriptions, "For, J. Lee Rankin in grateful appreciation of his dedicated service and leadership in the preparation of this report." signed Earl Warren. "For J. Lee Rankin, a great American, who made this report possible from his friend Hale Boggs." "To Lee Rankin in deep appreciation of the painstaking, objective and wise handling of this historic investigation that was in the best tradition of a lawyer like analysis and presentation of the facts, John J. McCloy." "To the Honorable Lee Rankin, Your searching inquiry, thorough preparation, exhaustive examination but all accompanied by objectivity and fairness made our work thorough fair and I believe of correct finding, with admiration, sincerely John Sherman Cooper." "For Lee Rankin, in appreciation for the superb work and tremendous leadership which was invaluable to all of us without your dedicated unselfish service this job could not have been done. I am most grateful for the opportunity to know you well, Gerald Ford." And finally, "To J. Lee Rankin, as our General Counsel you had the tough job of pulling together a great mass of evidence and persuading seven stubborn men, this you did with calm and just plain hard work. I've enjoyed every minute of my work with you and proud of the report of which you are the main partisan. All the best wishes, Allen Dulles."
My family and I would like to contribute part of my father's papers that are linked to his Warren Commission service to the American people to be included at the National Archives. I would also like to mention that the remainder of his papers have been donated to the University of Nebraska Law School, where my father graduated with his law degree.
Thank you. I would like to turn these materials over to Mr. Marwell.
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM- Thank you very much Mr. Rankin. The materials will certainly enrich the record that the Review Board has been compiling. We thank you very, very much on behalf of the Review Board. I wonder if any members have any questions for Mr. Rankin while he is up here?
DR. ANNA NELSON- I don't have a question but I think this is a marvelous thing to enrich history and those of us who deal with documents love annotated documents. They are very very rich. We are very, very grateful to you, thank you.
(Applause)
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM- Next we are going to ask Mr. David Belin to come forward please.
(End of Tape One Side B)
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM- ...truth about the assassination of President Kennedy. Mr. Belin also served as executive director of the Rockefeller Commission in 1975 which investigated CIA involvement in assassination of foreign leaders. Mr. Belin, welcome.
MR. BELIN- Thank you Judge. I have a formal 9 page type written statement with a couple of exhibits attached which I am going to leave with you when I am finished. It has some delineations because I was out of the office yesterday and did not have time to get the final changes made.
I want to summarize, highlight, a portion of what my formal statement includes.
A vocal group of assassination revisionists are poised like scavengers to attack the Assassination Records Review Board. They will play to the grandstand when the Board has completed its work, crying out, "If you would have released everything we would have finally found the truth about the assassination." Leading this group will be individuals associated with "JFK," the greatest electronic coverup fraud ever perpetrated on America's movie screens. Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America had denounced "JFK", and these are his words, "a hoax", "a smear" and "a pure fiction, that rivals the NAZI propaganda films of Leni Riefenstahl. In Valenti's word's and I am quoting, "In scene after scene Mr. Stone plasters together the half true and the totally false, and from that he manufactures the plausible, in much the same way young German boys and girls in 1941 were mesmerized by Leni Riefenstahl's 'Triumph of the Will,' in which Adolf Hitler was depicted as a new born god."
Both "JFK" and "Triumph of the Will" are equally a propaganda masterpiece and equally a hoax. Unfortunately, the standards of "JFK" are also incorporated in another widely seen electronic misrepresentation of the truth, the 5 hour Arts & Entertainment cable network series, "The Men Who Killed Kennedy", which also coverups the truth about the assassination.
The challenge to this Assassination Records Review Board faces is how to best discharge its duties in the face of a torrential downpour of disinformation that has dominated the media world and will continue after the work of this Board is completed. It is in this context that I have come to Los Angeles to share my perspectives with the Board and so that there is no misunderstanding of the dangers that you face you have just heard Mr. Hamburg, co-producer of the film "NIXON" with Mr. Stone say, "that if you don't release everything, remember, there is going to be a legacy of doubt, distrust, unanswered question", in which he maligned the Warren Commission as well as the House Select Committee on Assassinations. And that's the challenge that you face.
Now in addressing the challenge you face I am going to have two alternative recommendations but in order to get these in perspective I want to first start with a frame of reference to understand how I approach this issue. First, is you know I served as counsel to the Warren Commission in 1964. I was one of two lawyers concentrating on what we call "Area Two," the determination of who killed President Kennedy, which was expanded to include who killed Officer Tippit. We interviewed the witnesses at the time, shortly after the event, when their recollections were the freshest and therefore the best. And undertaking our investigation we followed but one standard, a standard that was established by Chief Justice Earl Warren at our very first meeting, "Truth is our only goal". It was the standard that Lee Rankin followed. It was the standard that Professor Liebeler followed. It was the standard that all of us followed.
In 1975 President Ford appointed me as Executive Director of the Commission on CIA activities within the United States. It became known as the Warren Commission, as the Rockefeller Commission, because Vice President Rockefeller served as its chairman. By the way, another member of the Commission was Ronald Reagan. And my investigation, I was the first outside person to uncover the fact that the CIA had been engaged in assassination plots directed against foreign leaders, information that had been wrongly withheld from the Warren Commission! So what did I do? Well, in the fall of 1975 after I returned to my law practice in Des Moines I filed Freedom of Information Act Requests from the unique perspective of having had access to all of the CIA files concerning the assassination of President Kennedy, having had access to all of the Warren Commission files, and so I filed these requests asking that all of the documents be released, from the CIA files concerning the assassination to the remaining 2 or 3% of the Warren Commission files that haven't been released.
Now having interviewed the key witnesses I already knew what the facts were. I can say it with absolutely certainty, Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman who killed President Kennedy, wounded Governor Connally and killed Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit on November 22, 1963. Neither the CIA nor any other governmental agency was in any way directly or indirectly involved, nor were any so called "rogue elements" directly or indirectly involved. The evidence beyond a reasonable doubt is that Oswald was the lone gunman, Jack Ruby was in no way conspiratorially involved, as a matter of fact unbeknownst to most people he offered to take a lie detector test which confirmed that everything he told the Warren Commission was true.
In effort to help the public understand the truth about the assassination I have written two books, royalties of both books have been donated to charity, as well as all of my speaking engagements, or anything having to do with the assassination. Now with this background as to what my perspective is I want to contrast this with what I call the "assassination revisionists" and their coverup of the truth because it is important that although you are not here to determine whether the Warren Commission was right or wrong, I think it is important for you to understand the nature of what takes place because it is going to better help you discharge your responsibilities as you seek to complete the record of your work.
Let me use two examples from "JFK", one of which involves the Tippit murder, which I call the Rosetta stone to understanding the truth about the assassination. Officer Tippit, J.D. Tippit was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald 45 minutes after the assassination. The Tippit murder is such an open and shut case that one wonders how the American public could be so readily deceived by "assassination revisionists". William Scoggins, the cab driver, who was parked in his cab, whose testimony I took in the Spring of 1964 in Dallas told how he heard shots, he looked up saw the policeman fall, saw the gunman come as close to him as 10 or 12 feet, muttering either "poor damn cop" or "poor dumb cop". Scoggins identified Oswald as the gunman. So did five other witnesses, Barbara Davis, Virginia Davis, Sam Guinyard, Ted Calloway, Helen Markham. Not only do you have 6 eyewitnesses who identified Oswald as the gunman but you found cartridge cases at the scene of the Tippit murder, which Barbara Davis, Virginia Davis and a witness by the name of Domingo Benavides turned over to the police. Those cartridge cases came from Oswald's revolver that he pulled out in the Texas theater as police approached. the bullets in Tippit's body according to the FBI ballistics experts were too mutilated to be ballistically identifiable. An independent expert, a Mr. Dicole, (sic?) said one of them could be identified as coming from Oswald's revolver.
Now in the face of these facts showing Oswald's guilt "JFK" and a host of revisionist books portrays the Tippit murder as having been committed by two people, neither one of whom was Oswald. Common sense would say to anyone that the Dallas Police Department would have moved heaven and earth to try and find whoever killed one of their police officers, if it wasn't Lee Harvey Oswald. By the way common sense would also say that if Oswald was not the lone gunman who killed President Kennedy, nearly killed Texas Governor John Connally, Jacqueline Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Governor Connally would have left no stone unturned to find out who the gunman was. Now that is one example of the Tippit film.
The other thing I am going to talk about is, perhaps, the most flagrant lie of "JFK" because it occurs at the very end of the film, after the movie action is over. In essence the lie is in two parts. And it is a permanent indictment of Hollywood in general and Warner Brothers and Oliver Stone in particular. Here is what viewers see on movie screens and on videotapes on a film that has been distributed to classrooms across the country with the "JFK study guide", financed in part by Warner Brothers.
Here is what it says in print after the movie is over, "A Congressional investigation from 1976 to 1979 found a probable conspiracy in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and recommended the Justice Department investigate further." Now here is what they say, "As of 1991 the Justice Department has done nothing."
What the movie did in a single paragraph was to state two lies, one by omission and one by commission, and then put this in a cosmetic framework because the movie at the end is dedicated to the young in whose spirit the search for the truth marches on.
First, the lie of omission. The movie veers of just seeing Oswald depicted as an innocent patsy and Earl Warren depicted as a coverup participant. Now the findings of that 1976 to 1979 investigation as everyone knows who is aware of the findings were that Oswald fired all of the shots that struck President Kennedy and Governor Connally, that the Single Bullet Theory of the Warren Commission was correct, that Oswald was the lone gunman who killed officer Tippit. All of this is directly contrary to "JFK" 's and Jim Garrison's theory which was just enunciated here by Mr. Hamburg of triangulation. The fact that Oliver Stone and Warner Brothers mentions a Congressional investigation without mentioning the conclusion that Oswald was the one who killed President Kennedy and officer Tippit is one major lie by omission.
Related to this major lie of omission is another key omitted fact, a last minute switch by a majority of the Congressional Committee believing in probable conspiracy that was based on purported acoustical evidence, which in 1982 was scientifically disproved by the Committee on Ballistic Acoustics. Professor Liebeler has just talked about that. It was not the whole Committee that feel victim to this. It was a Committee majority, there were dissenting reports filed as you know.
But as bad as these lies of omission were the big lie of commission is even worse, and that is what you people face as you consider what you are going to do toward the end of your review. The allegation that as of 1991 the Justice Department has done nothing is not some actor making a statement as part of a movie plot. It was Warner Brothers and Mr. Stone telling the American public, indeed the entire world, that there was a recommendation for the Justice Department to investigate further and that as of 1991 the Justice Department has done nothing. How could Hollywood, how could Warner Brothers, how could Oliver Stone dare to make such a false statement when the truth was so readily ascertainable.
Here are the facts, a majority of the House Select Committee on Assassinations on the basis of acoustical evidence concluded that there was a fourth shot fired from the grassy knoll that missed everything. 125 feet, fired downhill, not only missed the limousine, the occupants of the limousine, it missed the limousine. But because a minority disagreed there was a recommendation that the Justice Department investigate further. What happened next was that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is part of the Department of Justice, undertook further investigation and prepared a report on November 19, 1980 concluding the acoustical evidence findings were not valid. However, there was substantial question whether or not that FBI investigation was scientifically sound. Therefore, the Justice Department requested in the fall of 1980 that the National Research Council establish the Committee on Ballistic Acoustics. It was comprised of outstanding scientists from across the country, was chaired by Dr. Norman Ramsey a Nobel Laureate Professor of Physics from Harvard. As of May 17, 1982 the Committee on Ballistic Acoustics published a 96 page report, the introduction on page 3 completely disproves the lies of the "JFK" script, that said as of 1991 the Justice Department had done nothing, because here is what it said, "The Committee on Ballistic Acoustics was established by the National Research Council in the fall of 1980 in response to a request from the Department of Justice for a review of the methodology employed in the evaluations of the recorded acoustic data and of the conclusions about the existence of a shot from the grassy knoll.
Now in my written statement I include highlights from the conclusions of that Committee. They found out, number one, there was no scientific basis for the purported acoustical evidence conclusions. Number two they found there was independent evidence that showed that the so called electronic impulses took place a minute after the assassination, and number three they reported as Professor Liebeler has said that the Dictabelt was evidently not in the motorcade, or not on the motorcycle, not reported from a stuck microphone on a motorcycle in the motorcade because it didn't pick up the sounds of sirens as the motorcade sped from the assassination scene to Parkland. There was no sound of revving up a motorcycle evidence, engines. There was the sound of chimes but none of those, there were no chimes in Dealey Plaza. Officer McLain by the way who was the driver of the motorcycle that the House Committee experts said had the stuck microphone said, "My microphone wasn't stuck."
Now we have heard a lot about the dangers of Hollywood and violence but as bad as all of Hollywood's violence is the deliberate dissemination of lies that attack our governmental institutions is even worse. Trust is the mortar that holds the structure of our government together. And when a Hollywood film dedicated to the young in whose spirit the search for the truth marches on lies to the young as well as everyone else that the assassination of a President was a coup d'etat undertaken by agencies of the United States government, and covered up by the Chief Justice of the United States, it is a terrible attack on citizen trust. When the truth is submerged the survival of a free society and civilization is threatened and from a long range standpoint nothing could be worse than this electronic downpour of lies.
Now with the foregoing as a frame of reference, I make these two alternative recommendations to this Board. First alternative, this is one that I prefer, I would urge that the Assassination Records Review Board release every single document in CIA files concerning the assassination of President Kennedy and also all the remaining Warren Commission files about two percent of those files that have not previously been released. Having had access to all of this information I know that it will not in any way diminish the validity of the determination by the Warren Commission and the determination of the House Select Committee on Assassinations that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman who killed President Kennedy, wounded Governor Connally and killed Officer Tippit on November 22, 1963 and it would not in any way diminish the findings of the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations that all of the shots that struck President Kennedy and Governor Connally were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald from the Southeast corner sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository building.
Although I am well aware of the arguments that the CIA and the National Archives may make concerning personal privacy and protection of sources and methods, I believe that the CIA is precluded from raising these kinds of issues because it does not have what in law is called clean hands. The reason is that the CIA improperly withheld from the Warren Commission evidence of CIA assassination plots against Fidel Castro, evidence that was very important for the Warren Commission to have in light of its investigation into the possibilities of foreign conspiracy and [something] conspiracy, the public in the long run will be far better served to have this information released not just because it will reconfirm the findings of the Warren Commission but because it will also destroy whatever remaining arguments there are by assassination revisionists like the "JFK" crowd who falsely assert that the withholding of these files is part of a continuing coverup when in fact it is they who are the ones who coverup the truth about the assassination.
That, alternative number one, basically confirms to what I did personally in 1975 when I called on the National Archives and the CIA to release everything.
Now if you choose not to do this, and I know thus far you have not released everything but you always have the opportunity to change your minds before your charter is over, if you choose not to do this then as the second best alternative I would suggest the following. I believe this Assassination Records Review Board should affirmatively state in its final report the following, A.) there is no document that has not been released that in any way whatsoever diminishes the determination of both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations that all of the shots that struck President Kennedy and John Connally on November 22, 1963 were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald from the Southeast corner sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository building. B.) there is no document that has not been released that in any way whatsoever diminishes the determination of both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Officer J.D. Tippit. C.) there is no document that has not been released that in any way whatsoever diminishes the determination of the findings of the Committee on Ballistic Acoustics which concluded that there is no scientific validity to the erroneous acoustical evidence which persuaded a majority of the House Select Committee on Assassinations to conclude that there was a fourth shot fired from the grassy knoll by an unseen gunman who missed not only hitting the occupants of the presidential limousine but the limousine itself. D.) there is no document that has not been released that in any way whatsoever shows that Jack Ruby, who volunteered to take a lie detector test, a test which confirmed that everything he told the Warren Commission was true, was in any way conspiratorially involved in the assassination. E.) if the Board is unwilling to make the foregoing statements which having had access to all of these documents I know to be true, then the Board at the very least should release to the public any document which the Board feels precludes it from making the foregoing affirmative statements. Otherwise assassination revisionists will falsely accuse the Board of a coverup just as they have falsely accuse Earl Warren, and I wrote these words before I heard what Mr. Hamburg said, because that was a threat that he has made to you, anyone who has had access to the Warren Commission files and the CIA assassination files, as I have had, knows that these are the facts. But, moreover, I not only have knowledge of the files but I also have the knowledge of having interviewed the key witnesses to the assassination of President Kennedy and the murder of Officer Tippit in 1964 shortly after the events occurred when the memories of these witnesses were the freshest and best. I am attaching to my formal statement and incorporating my reference copies of March 17, 1992 and June 25, 1993 OP/ED pieces that I wrote for The New York Times. The fees for these like the royalties from my books about the Kennedy assassination as I have previously said have been turned over to charity. I have no financial interest in the outcome of what this Assassination Records Review Board does. However, what I do have is a deep concern about the electronic dissemination of lies about the assassination in movies like "JFK" and cable television programs like the 5 hour, A & E entertainment series, "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" and it is for this reason that I have flown to California to make this presentation before this Assassination Review Board and because I care for the truth, and I care for my country.
In closing, I want you to know that for me as I speak today the ultimate issue is not who killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally and killed Officer Tippit, I already know the answer to that. It was Lee Harvey Oswald. For me the ultimate issue is whether there will be any change in the present course and direction of the electronic media as profit seeking corporations and individuals give priority to misrepresentation and deceit over truth, going so far as to infiltrate our school system with a virus of lies. The present course of the electronic media posses a clear and present danger for the future of Democracy in America.
If I leave any legacy on this earth, beyond my five wonderful children, it will not be that destroyers will ever remember the name of David Belin but what I have done for more than 25 years since standing up for the truth, and defending Earl Warren, might in some small way be a tiny beacon of light that will point the way to people of vision and idealism who recognize that truth is a foundation of civilization. They will understand how important it is for Americans to understand the truth about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. they will understand how important it is to expose the misrepresentations of assassination revisionists and the electronic downpour of deceit in movies like "JFK" and television programs like "The Men Who Killed Kennedy". They will help resurrect the reputation of Earl Warren, who has been the victim of libel and slander, of which perhaps the worst was the false testimony of Oliver Stone before a Congressional Committee in April, 1962 (I think he means 1992) that Earl Warren was partially senile. And above all they will help restore trust and confidence in government, the mortar which binds a free society.
Thank you very much. I will be happy to answer ANY question you want. There isn't any question that anyone can ask about who was the government who killed President Kennedy and Officer Tippit that I can't answer if you give me a chance and of course 30 second television bites doesn't do that but I am at your will.
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM- Questions? Members?
DR. JOYCE- Mr. Belin, your work both with the Warren Commission and the Rockefeller Commission focused on a great many records, I'm wondering if either in your own case or that, those of your colleagues if you are aware of any records still in private hands as an outcome of that work that we might be interested in?
MR. BELIN- These documents, that I think are the most important documents in private hands, and I will tell you a story about it, it's the original copy of the Zapruder film, it's the best copy, it's the easiest one to see as Professor Liebeler said that from 312 to 313 there is movement of the President's head forward, by the way it was not just his head that moved backward after frame 313 that was his head and his body and experts from both the Rockefeller Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations showed that it was a massive neurological reaction, neurological damage, which caused this extremity, this body to move backwards. In 1975 [when] TIME magazine was deciding what to do with this original film, I wrote the chief executive officer, or one of the officers of TIME, and I said you know this is a national treasure, and I said if you are going to sell it I have a private foundation that would like to get a copy of it, pay for it, and turn it over to the National Archives because that is where it belongs. Instead what they did was they either sold it for an anomalous amount or gave it back to the Zapruder family.
I really think the Zapruder family has a moral obligation to turn that Zapruder film and whatever original copies or slides were made from that, we had from the Warren Commission a set of the slides, over to the National Archives and I would really urge this Assassination Records Review Board to ask the Zapruder family to do that. Mr. Zapruder got a lot of money for that film. Newspaper reports purported to say that he turned over $25,000 dollars to officer Tippit's widow, implying that that was all he got from LIFE. I think he got about $150,000 dollars, but you know today, that's worth like a million dollars. But I think that's the one thing that can be turned over.
The only other thing, and I think you have seen everything or are getting access to see everything in the CIA files, and I just don't let, I would urge that you not let them stonewall you with this protection of sources and methods. The CIA really has unclean hands. And they will learn something by not being able to protect this, they will learn that the next time there is any kind of a Presidential commission which says that agencies should cooperate and do everything possible, they will do it. They will say remember what happened when we didn't do it with the Warren Commission, we eventually because of the Assassination Records Review Board had to disclose everything, so that would be my advice to you people.
But you are the final judges.
DR. NELSON- Well, as you know Mr. Belin, we make great efforts to do what you are asking us. We are opening up a great many documents but not (something) and we are not very protective as far as the agency is concerned.
I have some things I want to ask you though, it has been suggested that it wasn't so much that the Warren Commission was a subject of disbelief but that after the Warren Commission documents were withheld. And it was the withholding of documents for almost 30 years that actually stimulated the suspicions surrounding the Warren Commission. Do you think that was possible? Do you think, we will not, hopefully, have to face that but has that ever entered into your thinking about this?
MR. BELIN- Well, Dr. Nelson, I have been very candid in saying that the Warren Commission made a major mistake in one particular area of documents, and by the way this is probably in response to Dr. Joyce, the Warren Commission at the request of the Kennedy family through Robert Kennedy determined not to release the Kennedy autopsy photographs and X-rays. And Professor Liebeler is absolutely right, we should have had access to the original autopsy photographs and X-rays. The rationale was that whatever exhibits we had would be turned over to the public. Earl Warren was basically persuaded by Robert Kennedy not to have these released. I think the Kennedy family felt as a matter of privacy, perhaps they did not want [a] magazine to publish as the last pictures of President Kennedy these horrible photographs and X-rays. I never saw them myself until the Rockefeller investigation, when we had a panel of experts, because charges were made that the CIA was involved in the assassination and that shots came from the front, so we had an independent panel of experts to review this. Now I believe that you are absolutely correct that one of the reasons that there was disbelief in the Warren Commission findings was that these autopsy photographs and X-rays were not released. And as soon as you have anything not released people say, well, what else haven't you released? The fact is that 19 out of 20 doctors on 4 different medical panels, including the House Select Committee, the Rockefeller Commission, the Ramsey Clark Panel and the original autopsy panel, said that all of the shots came from the rear. But more importantly than that, you have the bullets, the nearly whole bullet found on Governor Connally's stretcher, and the ballistically identifiable portions of the bullet that struck President Kennedy's head, those were shown to have come from Oswald's rifle found in the school book depository building. The cartridge cases [that were] found in the window where Howard Brennan saw the gunman fire came from that rifle.
Now what can you do about the people that say, well, what about the rest of the exhibits? The problem you face is that you have some issues involving sources and methods and privacy. And the other part of the problem is what I tried to illustrate in giving the two key examples and there are hundreds of others of lies. When people basically, when every document involved in the Tippit murder has been released, and this is something that you ought to consider in your final report, every document involved in the Tippit murder has been released, you have six eyewitnesses identifying Oswald as the gunman, you got the ballistic evidence, and yet these people say that Oswald didn't kill Tippit.
What can you do about that?
What can you do when the end of a film, "JFK", after all the plot is over they say something in words in black and white that says the Justice Department has done nothing, when the Justice Department, basically, specifically, asked the National Research Council to do something which they did when they formed the Committee on Ballistic Acoustics.
And therefore I am going to say that it is up to you to consider including in your report examples of this and that is why I say is the alternative if you don't want to release everything, I think you five good people who have no connection with the Warren Commission, no connection with the House Select Committee on Assassinations, no connection with the Rockefeller Commission, can honestly say that, well, if we have chosen not to release anything or redact anything it is not because it in any way suggests that Oswald was not the lone gunman who killed Kennedy and wounded Connally, that does not suggest that Oswald was not the gunman who killed Tippit, that does not suggest that the Committee on Ballistic Acoustics was inaccurate, that does not suggest that Jack Ruby did not tell the truth when he testified before the Warren Commission, it is because we really think that this is a particular source and method, or that this is a particular matter of privacy that we should not disclose. And that is why I am here today.
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM- Thank you very much Mr. Belin for your testimony here today.
MR. BELIN- Thank you. I have copies of my written statement which I will give to each one of you, and I will give typewritten copies which will take care of the final draft, which will take care of the interdelineations.
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM- Thank you very much. The next witnesses today is Mr. James DiEugenio. He is the author of a book entitled "Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba and the Garrison Case," which is an analysis of the New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison's inquiry into the assassination itself. Welcome Mr. DiEugenio.
MR. DiEugenio- Yeah, thank you.
I am momentarily stunned after Mr. Belin's presentation. I will try not to divert from my remarks although it will be kind of difficult.
Well, I would like to welcome the Review Board. Thank you for coming to beautiful downtown LA.
I appreciate the opportunity to offer anything I have to say about here and I will get right to some of the main points, I think, concerning the Board and what they should be seeking to declassify. According to some of the sources I have in Washington some of the executive session transcripts of the Warren Commission have yet to be declassified, okay? That was a couple of months ago. I don't know what the situation is now. But those are very important because I think a lot of them, the ones that were declassified since 1993, show that the Warren Commission had a problem. I don't know what Mr. Liebeler or Mr. Belin have to say about this but the Warren Commission definitely had a problem with the Single Bullet Theory, and I think if you look at the transcript, Mr. Rankin actually says it in those exact words. So if there are still executive session hearings that are not declassified yet I think that they would have those kinds of interesting tidbits in them which I think go right to the heart of the problem.
Okay, and also I think the executive sessions of the House Select Committee should also be next on the agenda. And because they interviewed some very interesting people like Richard Helms, and James Angleton, and Robert Maheu, okay, that the public needs to look at.
Also, all the communications between Robert Blakey and his chief aide Gary Cornwall need to be declassified. These would be like I imagine the working papers going towards a final draft of the HSCA report. And if they aren't there then Mr. Cornwall and Mr. Blakey should be subpoenaed because they would most likely have them. I find it very hard to believe that they would just be destroyed. And any other documents, especially Mr. Cornwall took with them. I don't think that Mr. Blakey took anything with him because of the last days of the Committee he was actually calling the CIA and asking them to come over and give him documents. So Mr. Cornwall probably did take some stuff, I don't think that Mr. Blakey did.
Okay, as time goes on, the figure of Clay Shaw becomes more and more fascinating, and even the official record on Clay Shaw is complete. In 1967 the CIA answered a query by Ramsey Clark, in this communication they stated that they have, that Mr. Shaw had filed 30 reports with the CIA as a DCS agent, domestic contacts. According to my sources, at the Archives there is 9 of those reports. Okay, what happened to the others? Okay, and if there is not a written record is there any notation of any kind of oral communications?
Also, since "JFK" came out the story about Clay Shaw being solely a domestic contacts agent has completely collapsed, okay? And we have Shaw working in some Top Secret project like ZR/CLIFF, and also something called QK/ENCHANT, and Victor Marchetti has since said that, in his opinion, if Shaw had a high covert security clearance, as it appears he did, that he was not working in DCS, he was probably working in DOD, domestic operations under Tracey Barnes.
And to figure that puzzle out the documentation on QK/ENCHANT needs to be thoroughly declassified and analyzed. And what makes this even more curious is, it is kind of ironic, we have the documentation on E. Howard Hunt's QK/ENCHANT clearance, that was declassified and according to those documents that clearance went all the way up to the Director of Central Intelligence. All right, so I don't understand why we don't have Shaw's documentation on his clearance. And after we have the documentation someone has to get more documents explaining what the purpose of this program was, and I wouldn't ask the CIA.
All right, staying with Clay Shaw, Shaw was also on the board of a mysterious trade organization called PERMINDEX, and CIA has a file on this in DDP, which is interesting in and of itself because directorate of plans is an operational kind of an organization, all right, so I would like to get that declassified.
The present State Department cables on PERMINDEX are incomplete in two senses in that the State Department documents we have are redacted and then they stop at 1959, although PERMINDEX continued at least until 1965 in Rome and Johannesburg. And I find it hard to believe they would only have documents when it was in Switzerland so I would like to see that extended.
All right, also, Army Intelligence who seems to be very, kind of reluctant about cooperating with the Review Board, is supposed to have a file on PERMINDEX which would make sense since Shaw was, looks like he was, an Army Intelligence officer during World War II. So I would ask for both from Army Intelligence, that is the file on PERMINDEX and Shaw's military intelligence file. Only the military file was declassified to my knowledge.
Okay, about Lee Harvey Oswald, I strongly urge the Board to interview John Armstrong about some of his new ... discoveries about who and what or whatever Lee Harvey Oswald was, because he is becoming a more and more complex kind of a figure. The FBI seemingly knew about this and the Bureau attempted to cover up Oswald's espionage role with what looks like a forgery of the films, the photographs of the evidence discovered at the Paine household and taken over to the Dallas jail. And John has actual, pretty undeniable evidence that this was the case. And, of course, this concerns the mysterious Minox camera.
Okay, all of the tax records on Lee Harvey Oswald, the ones that he filed, and the W-2's, okay, that were supposed to have been filed by his employers have to be collected in one place and analyzed. Armstrong has evidence that the W-2 that was submitted is a false one. It was made up in 1964, which of course is impossible [if it's genuine].
And the overwhelming evidence that Oswald was an FBI informant is (sic) [has] I think gotten to a critical mass. So I would suggest that the Review Board depose James Hosty and Warren De Brueys and I would use John Newman's book as a guide to question James Hosty. And I have some interesting letters that Mr. De Brueys wrote to the FBI when he was being called on to testify by the House Select Committee which I think the Board should see if you don't have them already. He seems to be kind of nervous about a certain set of files that pertain to Lee Harvey Oswald. And De Brueys is important, and I think he is still alive because I interviewed him in 1994, because he was the FBI's contact with the Cuban exiles in New Orleans which from other witnesses that you heard is a pretty important connection. He was chosen by Hoover to do the FBI's first examination of the Kennedy assassination and also it was De Brueys who told me that after talking to Marina it was him who figured out that Oswald shot [at] General Walker and his logic was that since Oswald shot Kennedy in the head and the shot at Walker was aimed at his head they must have been the work of the same man.
Every single file on Ruth and Michael Paine has to be located and declassified in its total entirety. There is a reason why Ruth Paine was asked more questions than anybody else by the Warren Commission and there is a reason why there is no record of her being interviewed by the House Select Committee. There is evidence that Michael Paine bought a car for Oswald which he tried to hide the payments on. There is this Minox camera controversy. The Paines have told different stories about this Minox camera over time and they don't coincide with each other. And recently declassified FBI documents says there was an Oswald sighting in 1963 in Antioch (sic?), Ohio. That is where Ruth Paine attended college. Curiously, the guy who steps forward and says that wasn't Oswald, it was me, is a guy Carl Hyde. This man is Ruth Paine's brother.
Then there is this mysterious surfacing of the third backyard photograph supposedly at a meeting between DeMohrenschildt and the Paines in 1965. And most analysts agree that it is this particular photograph that shows strong evidence that the first two were forgeries.
Once every file is declassified on Ruth and Michael Paine they should be called in for depositions to try and explain these curious events and the differing remarks they have made through time on this case.
In the declassified version of the Lopez Report, there is a reference in that report to a supposedly complimentary report that was supposed to be contained within it or right next to it. And when I interviewed Eddie Lopez on this point he thumbed through the report for a few second and said, "It's not here anymore." In fact there is even a footnote in the note section of that report that is blanked out, it's not blacked out, it's blanked out, okay? And Eddie said to me, words to the effect, well if I had been them I would have taken it out also. Okay, the title of that report is "Was Oswald an agent of the CIA?"
Okay, Robert Blakey should be asked about this particular point since he stayed on after most of the workers left and took part in rewriting the report and some of the volumes. Okay, now Robert Blakey is another guy, I think, who merits doing a deposition with if for nothing else his behavior about the Regis Blahut affair which I am sure most of you are aware of, where a CIA liaison was caught with his fingerprints on the autopsy photographs.
And I would also like to try to get to the bottom of how Mr. Blakey got this job in the first place. If it turns out to be true that Chris Dodd played a role in this I think that that is significant.
The Bay of Pigs first appeared to be a bizarre blunder, then one author has termed it a perfect failure. And as time goes on there are pieces of evidence that have emerged from the record to indicate that there were elements of subterfuge to help ensure that it was a failure. And there are indications that some of these people that were involved in this deliberate botching of the Bay of Pigs also resurfaced at the time of the Kennedy assassination. So I think it is important that the Board get the Top Secret internal report on the Bay of Pigs. And I know someone who knows the author of that report and he is struggling right now with the CIA to get it declassified. And I would urge you to try to subpoena it from him rather than struggling with the CIA over getting it.
Okay, relating to that there is a tape by a suspect who surfaced during the Garrison investigation and this guy resurfaced during the House Select Committee. Two of this guy's interviews have been declassified. The audiotape itself has not yet been declassified, according to my sources. Okay, now this tape is important because it is supposed to have been recorded during a polygraph examination.
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