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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. And during this polygraph examination he talks about a connecting point between the New Orleans and the Dallas parts of the conspiracy involving such people as Sergio Aracha Smith. Okay, although that tape was made during the House Select Committee inquiry the investigator Lawrence Delsa (sic?) actually paid to have the polygraph examiner do it, so you may be able to simplify it since it was not paid by government funds. Okay, that might be a point in getting it declassified as fast as possible. And in fact you might want to go back to the polygraph guy himself, he might have a copy of it.
Allright, there is another tape...
(End of tape 2 side A)
Mr. DiEugenio-...to stop me from talking. At this time Hall went to this guy and presented him an audiotape and he said keep this in case anything happens to me and then release it to the press in case something does. Well nothing happened to Loran Hall and this man still has the audiotape which he says he has never listened to. Okay, so I strongly suggest that you subpoena that and get that in the National Archives.
And I hope someday that the Board actually does get into the National Security Agency because I think, I would like to see all of the files on Walter Sheridan, who was supposed to have been a Counterintelligence chief at the NSA, and who was a chief obstructionist at the time of the Garrison investigation.
The Board has the HSCA transcript of the Shaw trial, but according to what I have looked at there is still witness testimony that you don't have and that is because these were recordings of stenographic notes, the stenographic notes are not part of the record, or else the Board has not had them transcribed yet. If you don't have the stenographic notes then I think you should you send Mr. Montague down to Miss Helen Dietrich's son, down in New Orleans, who probably still has the stenographic notes, and those should become a part of the record.
Okay, I don't have to tell the Board that Guy Banister is an important figure in all of this intrigue. And there are two leads outstanding pertaining to Guy Banister's files. Okay, one is a man named Allen Campbell, who is a former employee of Guy Banister, who is still alive and who recently moved from New Orleans to California. His brother Dan Campbell told me that Allen actually has some of the original files removed from Banister's offices at 544 Camp Street.
And also Ed Haslam also relates in his book that he was actually shown these files by Ed Butler down in New Orleans when Butler and Alton Ochsner jr. were part of the Contra resupply effort going through New Orleans in the 1980's. So I would strongly suggest that you subpoena both of those people to see if they still have any of these files. Dan Campbell told me Allen still has them and Allen Campbell confirmed this to me in an interview I did with him in 1994.
Okay, in a recent memo found in the Garrison files it is revealed that William Walters, a former employee of the FBI, told Garrison in 1973 that the FBI through Wackenhut (sic?), the Metropolitan Crime Commission and Aaron Kohn had wiretapped his office ---
DR. HALL- What was the year again? I'm sorry.
MR. DiEugenio- of the interview with-?
DR. HALL- Yes.
MR. DiEugenio- 1973, okay? And these taps led to the technical services branch of the FBI headquarters in New Orleans. These tapes were transcribed and then sent to Washington. Walters knew this because he had worked there and his wife had actually done the transcribing. Both he and his wife should be subpoenaed to see if they have any physical evidence left of that wiretapping operation, which was probably illegal.
Okay, and this relates to the fleeced Justice Department file on Garrison, which again according to my sources in Washington is about 90% withheld at this time. And it is awaiting a third agency review. And that agency is probably the CIA, since many of the RIF's on these classified files show that the FBI liaison person with the Justice Department was James Hunt, who appears to be James Angleton's operations officer. And this is significant because the Justice Department, to put it mildly, offered no help to Garrison at any time, actually monitored and impeded his investigation. And James Angleton seems to be the man at the CIA who, at this time, appears to be running Lee Harvey Oswald. Okay, that file is very important in my opinion and that should be pretty high on the priority list at this time.
Okay, now the equivalent of that file at the CIA would also be important but the location of this one is kind of more complex. There is a long 1967 CIA memo referring to Garrison's discovery of the Cuban exile training camp at Bellchase (sic?); this camp looks like it was held in trust to the CIA through Schulumberger Tool Company and this was used to prepare Cuban exiles at the time of the Bay of Pigs invasion. This very detailed memo on this camp could only have come from someone who had intimate knowledge of it at an operational level. And this was written by David Phillips. The routing of this memo goes to six places within the CIA, this includes a special counterintelligence file on Jim Garrison, it goes to James Angleton, and it also goes to the infamous office of security, headed at that time by Paul Gainer (sic?) the other man in the CIA who had extensive files on Lee Harvey Oswald and who, according to Jim Hougan, kept a separate file on homosexuals in employ of the CIA. I think that routing sheet and the memo should be studied to see if it can take you to anywhere else within the CIA so you can start looking at these files and see what the CIA had on Garrison and that becomes important because in the interview that I did with Robert Tannenbaum he said that he actually saw a memo out of Richard Helm's office that concerned the monitoring and the harassment of Garrison's witnesses at the time of the Clay Shaw trial.
Okay, besides the names involved and their associations with Oswald and the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee coverup activity there is one other reason why I think those last two files really should be looked at and pursued vigorously, and that is because of some notes in records I came across quite accidentally that were written by a former employee of the CIA who had some knowledge of these activities firsthand. And I would like to read an altered and edited version of those notes and the reasons why I edited and altered it will become clear.
[Reading:] "I disagree with you on the House Committee report. It is a continuing coverup of the original Warren Commission coverup. The parts seeking to neutralize the political motivations for the crime are of course ludicrous and contemptuous of the public. Unlike you, I know the report is a coverup because in the late 1970's I decided to write up a synopsis of both my role in and knowledge of the conspiracy and the coverup. I was directly involved in the latter. I prepared this summary when I was debating whether or not to testify before the House Select Committee.
"The synopsis turned out to be quite a document. In it I detail the internal subterfuge involved in the Isle of Pines and Guiron Bay parts of the Bay of Pigs operation. This was aided in part by Guy Banister. That debacle in turn set the stage for the conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy. I went on to list 5 major parts of this elaborate CIA early disinformation plan to ensure the safety of the conspirators.
"Number One, the coverup of Oswald's agent provocateur status.
"Number two, the squirreling away of the Castro assassination plots.
"Number three, the stage handling of the Mexico City charade with the help of KGB double agent Valery Kostikov. This helped enlist the rest of the government into a coverup or risk World War III mode.
"Number four, Howard Osborne in the Office of Security successful disguising of Clay Shaw's true agency status from J. Lee Rankin, Jim Garrison and the House Select Committee.
"Number five, the Office of Security's efforts to confuse the public through secret sponsoring of books like "Appointment in Dallas" written by CIA asset Hugh McDonald. The effort to both create and destroy Garrison's hopeless investigation was headed by Osborne along with Helms and Dulles.
"The point of this was to capture, blunt and finally wreck the efforts of the critics to reopen a timely reinvestigation. In that sense, a discreditation of Garrison completed the initial coverup.
"In the affidavit I name many of those I worked with operationally in that phase. This included CIA press stringers both here and abroad and the FBI agents involved in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice.
"That particular phase of the coverup continues with the phony charges against Garrison by DOJ's Gallinghouse (sic?). These also originated in the Office of Security. That is one that I, myself, refused to work on. Although begun by Osborne, Office of Security continued to coverup through Gambino. This was needed since Bill Colby sacked Osborne during his struggle with James Angleton over Yuri Nosenko and other matters. At this stage OS shifted to another level, what with the Bass (sic?) tapes, the Church committee, and the Schweiker report. This led to the untimely death of William Harvey since in a last ditch effort Angleton had hinted at leaving the plot between Harvey, Osborne, Helms and Dulles. This would have pierced the elaborate and obfuscatory internal defenses at the CIA, whose lynch pin is the Nosenko controversy.
"I also listed what I knew about the actual conspiracy; since it was planned simultaneously with the coverup, [they] are essentially one and the same. I listed the probable main assassin behind the fence, a CIA-mafia, contract assassin and former agent of Des[mond] Fitzgerald. I listed the weapons used, directionally silenced rifles designed by Mitch WerBell and the ammunition which was frangible projectile pellets. Needless to say what happened to that Committee I decided not to testify." [Reading ends.]
I haven't been able to check out a lot of this. A lot of this does seem true. And it could only have been written by someone within the CIA. The details were just not available at that time. But that is another reason why I think that those particular files will be useful. And if you can't get anything out of them, I would subpoena the survivors of James Angleton and Paul Gann.
Okay, one last word, if I can editorialize like some of these other people have before me, even though I was told I was only supposed to get fifteen minutes. This Review Board is really, in my view, the last ditch hope for ever getting to the truth about the Kennedy assassination and even though a lot of people say that it doesn't matter I think that if you examine the record it does matter. And the reason it matters is very clear in Kevin Phillips book "Arrogant Capitol". In that book he displays a chart of the increasing cynicism about government and that chart begins a nosedive in 1964. And Kevin Phillips is no liberal or John F. Kennedy lover but he is simply an honest man. And he said that that nosedive is precipitated by the issuance of the Warren Report. And I tend to agree with that.
After the film "JFK" brought this horrible state of affairs to public consciousness, you five people were then appointed to begin speaking frankly and knowledgeably about what had happened to these files and where they can be located today. Very few people, including myself, think that you will be able to finish this task. And if that occurs I believe the attempt to reconstitute this Committee must be made. And if you don't try and at least half heartedly, or whatever to do so, then I think you are going to lose the moral high ground in this struggle, which I think today that you still have. If you don't take that seriously then I think that basically this will be another failed investigation. And I understand that it is not really an official investigation but it is an investigation into the total amount of files that are left and some of the validity of the evidence. And since you have the right to depose people on the validity of that evidence there are some people that should be cross examined on this point and this should be out there for the record for the American public to see. And if you decide not to attempt to reconstitute, then I think the really honest final report has to be written in which you actually detail where you tried, where you failed, who you got cooperation from, and who you didn't from. All right? That is the kind of report that Bob Tannenbaum, who is one of the very few heroes in this whole travesty, would have written if he had been forced out at the end of the House Committee instead of at the beginning. That way the research community and others will keep after this long after you are gone. They will be able to make an honest judgment about your work, okay? But I would prefer that you attempt at least to reconstitute, this country has lost $500 billion dollars through the S&L crises through lack of oversight, a $180 billion dollars on a war in Vietnam, okay, which would have never happened if proper oversight would have been installed in the first place, okay, billions more on the secret arming of Iraq, okay, from a lack of oversight. And if we can lose that kind of money, approaching what, a trillion dollars, then we can sure spend the peanuts to reconstitute this committee to finally get some truth, okay, about what happened in 1963. Okay, thank you.
(Applause)
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM- Questions from the Board, if there are any?
DR. HALL- I have a very brief question, very direct question with a simple answer. As I have understood your testimony, you indicate that you have sources that have knowledge about documents in the existing governmental system. Would you be willing to share the names of those sources with us?
Mr. DiEugenio- Do you mean those nameless sources I talked about in Washington? Yeah, Peter Vea (sic?) who goes to the Archives all the time, and Bill Davy.
DR. HALL- Thank you.
Mr. DiEugenio- Okay.
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM- Thank you very much, we appreciate your testimony here today.
Our next witness is Mr. David Lifton. Mr. Lifton is the author of "Best Evidence: Disguise and Deception in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy". The book is a focus of the medical evidence in the case. And he is currently working on a book about Lee Harvey Oswald. Welcome, Mr. Lifton.
MR. LIFTON- Chairman Tunheim, members of the Review Board, I want to thank you for asking me to testify here today. From everything I have observed the Review Board is doing excellent work in getting classified documents released to the extent allowed by law. In addition, although I know you are not charted by Congress to reinvestigate, I suspect that when you close shop the record will show that you have taken the most significant steps possible to clarify the record 33 years after the event.
Although transcripts have not been released, the fact that you have deposed the three autopsy doctors, and the autopsy photographer, constitutes a significant milestone and indicates your seriousness of purpose in attempting to answer unanswered questions while there is still an opportunity to do so, because in the final analysis what you believe about the assassination of President Kennedy is really a function of what you believe about the integrity of the autopsy and the body of the President at the time of that autopsy.
On a personal level let me provide an example, in another area, of what this law has meant to me and would mean to any future researcher or historian who wants to discuss the planning of the Dallas trip and particularly how the motorcade route was selected.
Jerry Bruno, who worked closely with JFK, was the political advance man for the trip. The Warren Commission never interviewed him. Not only did they not interview him, they didn't appear to know who he was. I have seen one memo in the Archives in which one Warren Commission attorney said he heard there was a Bruno connected with the planning of the trip, maybe they should look into that. Well, they never did.
Bruno's role was first discussed in the William Manchester book, "Death of a President". In 1971 Bruno published his own book, "Advanceman" with Jeff Greenfield, who we regularly see on ABC Evening News. A book in which he spelled out in detail the argument between himself and Governor Connally and other Texas political players over the Dallas luncheon site, which in turn determined the motorcade route.
In 1976 the House Select Committee on Assassinations was created. I went to Washington, D.C., spoke with Belford Lawson, the staff attorney in charge of that area. He too had never heard of Bruno and was unaware of the fact that Bruno had written a book. I told him who Bruno was and why he must be called. The document Belford Lawson wrote summarizing my meeting with him is now available. In 1978 Bruno was deposed by the HSCA, though when the HSCA report was released in 1979 the transcript of his testimony was not included in the published documents. In fact, it had been placed under seal for 50 years, which meant it would be available in 2028. 28 years past the millennium.
Maybe by that time we will know if there is life on Mars.
Now in 1994, as a result of the JFK Act, that transcript is available and it is immensely important.
I would like you to understand what this law has meant to me in terms of my own time scale. I was 31 years old when I read Bruno's book, 36 years old when I met with HSCA and said call Bruno, you must call Bruno, 38 years old when he was deposed in a closed door session, 40 years old when the HSCA report was released, and I found to my chagrin that the Bruno testimony was locked up for 50 years. And then two years ago, when I was 54, and because of this law, I was finally able to read Bruno's sworn testimony for which I believe I was somewhat responsible. Future generations will not have to go through that process pursuing an assassination record for the better part of a lifetime and I commend the Congress for passing this law and the Review Board for doing its level best for implementing it.
My main reason for appearing here today is to discuss my imminent transfer to the ARRB of my earliest and most significant interviews of Parkland and Bethesda medical witnesses, an important part of the database for my book "Best Evidence". I am not here to propound or defend any theories but rather to lay the groundwork for making available for future generations of researchers substantial portions of the data on which I rely. When I interviewed these doctors and other witnesses starting in '66, I asked questions no one had thought to ask before. For example, what was the length of the tracheotomy incision made in Dallas. The value of these accounts are that these are the earliest answers on record to these new and significant questions.
Jumping ahead to 1982, when I had obtained the autopsy photographs made available via an intermediary by a retired Secret Service agent, James Fox, I brought these photographs to Dallas, and was the first person to show several of the Dallas medical staff the pictures, basically asking is this what you saw?
The [Warren] Commission never did that, nor did the House Select Committee 13 years later in their investigation.
None of the Dallas doctors were ever shown autopsy photographs by any official investigative body.
My 1982 and '83 interviews in which I did exactly that are on the list of what I am donating in addition to the imminent transfer of my audiotape interviews which I have already agreed to Mr. Samoluk, I am also willing to provide transcripts of my 1989 and '90 filmed interviews with several of these same doctors, if desired.
Turning now to the report of the two [FBI] agents who attended the autopsy, James Sibert and Francis O'Neill. I interviewed Sibert in early November 1966, questioning him about the statement in his FBI report in which he quotes the head pathologist at Bethesda autopsy, Commander Humes, as saying that it was "apparent that when the President's body was put on the table there had been 'surgery of the head area, namely, in the top of the skull' ". Sibert said the statement was true. I tape recorded the conversation. I am donating a reference copy of that tape to the ARRB for transfer to the JFK Records Collection.
And for those concerned with the taping of telephone conversations, this was 30 years ago when the laws were quite different and in any event all statutes have run. And I might add that I only tape record the FBI in cases of National Security.
(Laughter)
I interviewed Commander Humes, the lead autopsy pathologist on November 2, 1966 and November 3, 1966, just days after he had been shown the Kennedy autopsy photographs for the first time. I also questioned him about the surgery statement in the Sibert and O'Neill report. Substantial portions of those conversations are printed in my book. I am donating high quality reference copies, computer enhanced I might add, to the ARRB for transfer to the JFK Records Collection.
In 1967 I interviewed Godfrey McHugh, Kennedy's Air Force aide, who attended the autopsy. In attempting to develop a chain of possession on the President's body, something the Warren Commission never did, I interviewed the members of the Military Casket Team, who transported the Dallas coffin from Andrew Air Force Base to Bethesda Naval Hospital. These include General Phillip Wheele(sic?), the Comandandt, or the Commander of the Military District of Washington, as well as all of the members of the team which met Air Force One upon its arrival from Dallas. The same squad, as it turned out, who escorted the body to gravesite on Monday, November 25th.
The members of the casket team include:
None of these men were interviewed by the Commission. Moreover I am also contributing my copy of Coastguardsman George Barnum's written report made in December '63, an account of which has many valuable details, and one that was written because a relative of his, who had a connection, a distant connection with the Lincoln assassination from a previous generation or two, told young George write everything down, it may be important someday; well it is.
Finally, I have brought with me today a very special copy of the Zapruder film of President Kennedy's assassination, and this relates somewhat to what attorney Belin was referring to earlier. As everyone knows, the original was an 8 millimeter positive. Copies of that film were immediately made for the FBI and the Secret Service and within days Zapruder sold the original to TIME-LIFE. Although it was reported at the time that he had obtained $25,000 dollars for his film, in fact the contract, which I have provided the ARRB, shows he was paid $150,000. And that would be about a half a million dollars today. I disagree with Belin who said it would be a million. I had a banker compute this but that's one of the many things we probably would disagree on, is the rate of inflation since 1963. The payments were made in a series of six $25,000 dollar payments that occurred shortly after the first of each year through 1968. Despite the substantial price paid for the film, for all rights, it was not exploited by TIME-LIFE as a motion picture film, i.e., it was never shown on TV or sold in any documentary form as a moving picture, no newsreels, no TV specials, nothing. Yet, one of the most controversial aspects of the film, never addressed by the Warren Commission, was the violent backward motion of the head depicted on the frames following the fatal head shot. What this means has been debated back and forth over the years. Passions run high on both sides. For reasons I never understood the Warren Commission failed to address the issue, in other words, if we are to believe the record, the Warren Commission apparently didn't notice the very thing which has fueled the assassination debate for three decades. And, of course, the public didn't even know it was an issue because TIME-LIFE chose not to show it as a motion picture film after paying a $150,000 for those exclusive rights.
I might add that Professor Liebeler appeared this morning and put the B.K. Jones report, the fellow from U.C.L.A., on the table here, and is contributing it to you. Thank you very much, Professor Liebeler, we already have that in the Archives. That was contributed 15 or 20 years ago with the Rockefeller Commission, when that was already submitted to try to explain the backward snap of the head. But anyway it is being resubmitted; I suppose there is no real danger in recycling that sort of thing.
The film is important for another reason. Because Zapruder was filming through a telephoto lens, some of the frames show the wounds and so the film constitutes an unusual photographic record of the President's wounds in Dallas.
In order to do any work with the Zapruder film, whether about the wounds or about the motions shown, the velocity of the car etc., the clearest possible copy is required. In commercial production applications a device known as an optical printer is normally used to copy motion picture film frame by frame, particularly if blowups are to be made, but optical printers are not designed to accept home movies which are in 8 millimeter format.
In 1967 LIFE sent the film to Manhattan Effects, later called DFX, a New York City film lab, where film technician Moses Weitzman designed a device permitting a high quality, fully commercial optical printer to accept an 8 millimeter home movie film. Then in one fell swoop he enlarged the Zapruder film from 8 millimeter to 35 millimeter format, the kind used in standard motion picture work. The result is stunning, as anyone knows who has seen the movie "JFK" or has purchased a laser disk copy of the film. One reason for the clarity was that Weitzman used a liquid gate, or a web gate as it is called, which permits a liquid of the same index of refraction as the emulsion of the film to come in contact with the frame when it is imaged. The result is that scratches are eliminated or greatly reduced in the copy. The very best of these 35 millimeter negatives and interpositives were given to the customer TIME-LIFE. And I would hope that the Review Board would attempt to locate these with all resources you have available to you. They are a priceless record of our history. But with regard to the 35 millimeter negatives, known as technician copies, which Weitzman kept in his lab, these he gave to another researcher, and they remain as they always have been completely unavailable to the research community.
But in 1990 (?) before that transfer took place I had the opportunity to work with one of these 35 millimeter negatives. The best of the lot I am told, [is] one which had been loaned to the producer of the TV show "NOVA" by Weitzman. First, I supervised making high quality timed liquid gate contact interpositives, then using funds provided by several researchers, and this project cost between 10 and 15 thousand dollars, I rented the services of an optical lab in New York. And for about a week I worked at the optical printer, taking the next step that would be necessary by any archivist in order to preserve the record and create a progenitor for all future 35 millimeter prints. Operating a printer myself, I also made high quality liquid gate interpositives from the 35 millimeter negative, then I made interpositive blowup sequences directly from that same 35 millimeter interneg, some are focusing on Kennedy, some on Connally, some on the two Secret Service agents in the front of the car.
I am holding here one of those 35 millimeter interpositives. It is a timed liquid gate contact interpositive. Which I am today donating to the ARRB for placement in the JFK Records Collection. From this archival item, this 35 millimeter interpositive, it should be possible to make many negative-positive pairs, that is this 35 millimeter interpositive can be the progenitor of many 35 millimeter internegatives and they in turn can be used to create 35 millimeter positives, whether they be slides or motion picture film. Although I defer to Moses Weitzman, you can call this item the Lifton interpositive made from the Weitzman internegative.
I cannot overemphasize the high quality of the original Weitzman internegative.
One researcher who has worked in this area tells me that although he has bought rights to the film from the Zapruder family, when it comes to actually using pictures for his book the negative from this interpositive produces positive images that are clearer than he can obtain from the corresponding source item at the National Archives. It does not surprise me that this is the case, because Weitzman is a fine technician, technical person, and the internegative he made, which was done in 1967, is certainly equal and probably better than anything made by LIFE or by the FBI or Secret Service back in '63 and '64, and maybe better than anything made today in 1996, depending upon what has happened to the original film over the intervening decades.
With regard to this item, I am donating this negative to the ARRB without any copyright claim whatsoever. This copy has one limitation, the left hand 20%, the images between the sprocket holes is not visible precisely because it was copied on a standard commercial optical printer, which brings me to my final point.
I would like to ask the Zapruder family, i.e., the LMH Company, to donate the original Zapruder film to the JFK Collection in the National Archives. As mentioned before they were paid $150,000 dollars from 1963 through 1968, plus the contract indicates additional monies from foreign and other sales. Then about 1975 LIFE sold the film back to Zapruder for $1. Then the process started again. The film remains in control of the Zapruder family. Tens of thousands of dollars have been flowing to the Zapruder family every time a significant Kennedy assassination anniversary rolls around, every time any producer or network or broadcast entity wants to do a film on this subject. To the Zapruder family I ask, when is enough enough? I have been in too many situations where people, serious researchers or producers could not use this film because they could not afford it. I myself could not use the Zapruder film in the "Best Evidence" research video, a serious video dealing with issues pertaining to the autopsy and distributed nationally by Rhino Video via MCA, because of the extraordinary $1 per cassette charge that Henry Zapruder, Abe's son, told me "sounded about right for a royalty". So we used a diagram instead. And so I say to the Zapruder family: Donate this film to the National Archives, not a copy, but the original. It is the Rosetta stone for this case and the issue now is authenticity. If the film has not been tampered with, then it is an accurate record of the wounds and a time clock of the assassination. However, and more importantly, if the film has been tampered with in some way, as many have alleged, and I might add I believe, then that matter must be investigated in the future. In short, it represents an assassination record that has to be clarified and that cannot be done properly by examining a copy. This is the week to do it, Mr. Zapruder. Inscribe yourself in the book of life forever. Donate your father's film to the JFK Collection at the National Archives. Remove all copyright constraints. It is the right thing to do.
I am now handing over a list of audio interviews I intend to be donating to the Archives plus this film. Again I want to thank the Review Board for the work they are doing. I think few people in the public realize the enormous number of documents involved or the complications involved in organizing such a huge database and clearing it for release. Thank you all.
(Applause)
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM- Thank you very much Mr. Lifton. Thank you so much for your donations, they are very significant. Any questions for Mr. Lifton? Very well, thank you very much.
The last witness for today is Mr. Steve Tilley from the National Archives. Before I ask Mr. Tilley to come forward, if we, we ran out of time earlier in the hearing when Eric Hamburg was, was up, and I was wondering if Mr. Hamburg you would be willing to come back up. There are several members who have a couple of brief questions for you before we turn to Mr. Tilley. Thank you again for your very helpful testimony this morning. Dr. Hall?
DR. HALL- Yes, Mr. Hamburg, thank you very much, I have two questions and I want to state them as succinctly as I can in the hope that you will respond with equal directness in view of the hour. First I am wondering, especially in light of the testimony that we have heard this morning with substantial disagreement that I think exists about what occurred in the assassination and the role and significance of the movie "JFK," whether you or Oliver Stone or Warner Brothers would be willing to share as part of the collection the material that will be donated to the National Archives those items that pertain to the conclusions you reached in the film itself.
MR. HAMBURG- Well, let me just set the record straight on one point. I cannot claim any credit for the film "JFK". I wish I could. I personally think it was a great film but I was in Washington at that time. I was working on Congressman Hamilton's staff. I was not a producer on "JFK", although I was on "NIXON", so I, you know, can't really, speak for the, you know, making of that film. I could certainly convey the request to Oliver, I'm not sure specifically, but, you know, but whatever materials would be relevant to you that he could provide or that we could provide I'm sure that we would be happy to do that.
I don't really want to rehash the whole debate over "JFK". I think that has been done ad infinitum, I mean, I think as we would say in Washington I'm going to put Mr. Belin down as undecided and just leave it at that.
(Laughter)
DR. HALL- Well,-
MR. HAMBURG - You know he has a right to his opinion as do I.
DR. HALL- My desire is not to rehash it either, and I think the Board's work isn't that as well, but the film does, I think, serve an important purpose in the public debate and it would be interesting to have that other materials figure in the reconstruction of this (something.............), the kind of sources, the kind of information that you used in the film and might be appropriate to our work.
MR. HAMBURG - Sure, absolutely, I mean I think that as far as the Garrison material Zack Sklar, who was the coauthor of the screenplay, had a lot of it because he had been the editor on Garrison's book, "On the Trail of the Assassins." That was how he came into the process and he co wrote the screenplay and he had a lot of the Garrison files which I believe he has donated to the AARC in Washington. He may still have some, and we may have some materials. There was a lot of research that went into that film. I will say this, there was a book published, you know, Dr. Nelson was talking about the value of annotated manuscripts, and an annotated version of the script was published which contains all the sources that were used, that were drawn upon. I think Oliver has made the point many times, there is nothing there really new in that film, it was all drawing on the work that had been done by other researchers and investigators.
DR. HALL- But there is, I think, a rather interesting set of issues relating to how one makes these kind of conclusions and how one translates them and then again with those of us who have seen the film "NIXON" there are somewhat similar assertions made in somewhat vaguer terms-
MR. HAMBURG- We did also publish an annotated version of the "NIXON" script. I did edit that book. It has been published. It is available. In fact I gave a copy of it to Mr. Samoluk. And again, you know, we did a lot of research with a lot of sources, not all of which agreed with each other. You know I would leave it to the historians to draw the final conclusions. We have had an exchange, as you know Dr. Nelson, she had published a piece criticizing Oliver, criticizing our film, and we responded, and ---
DR. NELSON- That's not exactly true.
MR. HAMBURG- Well, let me just say this, I, you know, I think there is considerable evidence for the proposition that Nixon knew about the plots against Castro, was involved in them. We drew on the work of Michael Beschloss, Arthur Schlessinger, Fawn Brodie and John Newman, among others, who are very reputable historians. Now there may be other historians who disagree, that's fine. I do think that though members of the Board should be a little bit careful in expressing an opinion on issues which are relevant to the matters under review by this Board. I think that can lead to an appearance that there is a lack of objectivity, which I think can be very damaging to the credibility of the Board, potentially. I think Mr. Tunheim knows, as a federal judge, that if you were sitting on a case and you published an article expressing an opinion on the merits of a case that was under review, you would probably be refused from that case, so I just think that, you know, just for the sake of objectivity it is important to be very careful.
DR. NELSON- Mr. Hamburg, my article, which was in the Chronicle of Higher Education, had been about access to the Nixon documents. I believe my point was that this was an example of what happens when you don't release the documents. So it was not a direct, it had nothing to do with the "JFK" film. It had to do with the "NIXON" film ---
Mr. HAMBURG- All right.
DR. NELSON- and actually had to do with what we are now doing, that is to say releasing documents.
MR. HAMBURG- Yeah, I would agree with your basic point that the NIXON ---
DR. NELSON- I wouldn't want to mislead the audience.
MR. HAMBURG- Yeah, well, (not quite going along with that) I, you know, we can, we wrote a letter responding. I think there were some opinions expressed in that piece, but you know I agree with that basic point. I would say on that point that Nixon, in his own memoirs, said that he was never able to get from the CIA all of the files that he had requested pertaining to Cuba and the Bay of Pigs and so on. This is in his own memoirs. And we cited that in our book, but I think it is important to seek those files because, you know, as we pointed out, it was his own chief of staff Halderman who expressed the opinion that "the Bay of Pigs thing" was Nixon's code word for the Kennedy assassination and there are references on the White House tapes which I believe are June 20th and 23rd, of '72, to that matter and so, you know, I think it would be worth trying to get from the CIA those files which Nixon himself as President was unable to obtain from the CIA.
DR. HALL- Again, in the interest of time I wonder if I might pose a second question to you both here and ... indicated that the Cuban government might be receptive to the Board meeting with it in terms of materials that they hold ranging across a spectrum of activities including perhaps.......
Can you tell me on what basis you base that conclusion?
MR. HAMBURG- Well, as I say I spent considerable time there. I was, as you know, I'm not an official government person, though I had worked on this legislation and had worked in the Congress, but I had personally met with Fidel Castro and a number of his top officials and advisors and I spent many, many hours and days with General Escalante, who was in charge of their investigation, and I think they are very eager to present this information but I think they are looking for a suitable ---
DR. HALL- The Cuban government hasn't said to you, "Jeez, why don't you contact the Review Board, we would be delighted to speak to them on this matter"?
MR. HAMBURG- No, they haven't said that specifically, but they did complain to me, for example, that the Warren Commission did not do enough to request information which they had within their purview, and I think also the House Select Committee didn't really go as far as they could have with this. But I am just expressing my opinion, I think Mr. Gunn of your staff has actually met General Escalante at the conference in Nassau. I wasn't able to get to that conference but, you know, I am just saying they have lots of files, what he has told me is that basically these files go back to the period of '60 to '63, and you know they are not computerized, or you know, they have to go back and dig these things out, but they have voluminous files. They have a lot of informants in the Cuban community in Miami, in New Orleans, and Dallas, and elsewhere, and they have a lot of files which basically are relevant to this matter. And I think if an official request were made they would certainly be receptive. Castro himself has made statements that he would make this material available if requested.
DR. HALL- Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM- Thank you Mr. Hamburg.
A Mr. Steve Tilley...
(End of Tape 2 side B)
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM-...very helpful information to the Board. Welcome Steve. Thank you.
MR. TILLEY- Thank you very much Mr. Chairman, always a pleasure to appear before the Board. The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 gives seven specific responsibilities to the National Archives, but for the purposes of today's discussion, I will touch on the three that are the most important for the researching public. First, within 45 days of the statute being signed, the Archives was required to prepare and make available standard identification forms for use by all government offices in describing assassination records. Furthermore, the Archives was required to ensure the creation of a database for [those] identification forms to serve as an electronic finding aide to the collection. Now this database has been available since the collection opened for research in August of 1993. It currently contains over 175,000 identification forms and as of last February is available for research via the Internet.
I have with me some blue bookmarks which we have published at the Archives and we have had them available out on the table and this gives the Internet address for the collection for those who want to research it via the Internet.
I want to emphasize that the database does not contain the actual text of documents. The database consists of the Record Identification Forms (RIF) created by each agency as the documents were reviewed. Secondly, the database has not been updated to reflect decisions made by the Review Board and other changes in the status of some documents. The National Archives is currently working on that issue and we hope to be able to start updating the database within a few months.
Our second responsibility was to establish the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection. On December the 28th, 1992, the National Archives established the collection by an announcement published in the Federal Register on December the 21st of that year. This announcement also solicited open assassination records from all federal agencies, all federal office for inclusion in the collection. As established on that date the collection consisted of open records already in the custody of the National Archives including the Warren Commission, the Secret Service, the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, a portion of the CIA's 201 personality file on Lee Harvey Oswald and donated records from several Presidential libraries.
A third responsibility which we shared with other government offices was to identify, review, and make available to the public all assassination records that could be disclosed under the provision of the law with but a 300 day review period. All records reviewed during this period were required to be entered into the database and have a record identification form attached. At the end of the review period the newly released records were made available including the remainder of Oswald's 201 file. The first portion of the CIA's "segregated collection" of related assassination records, the records of the House Select Committee on Assassinations and records of several DOJ components, although none from the FBI.
The first records of the FBI were transferred in December of 1993 beginning with the Headquarters and Field Office files on Jack Ruby. Since then the FBI has transferred records relating to Lee Harvey Oswald, Marina Oswald, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw, Sam Giancana, Marita Lorenz, Carlos Marcello, Santos Trafficante and many other individuals and subjects.
We are scheduled to receive approximately 40 additional boxes of FBI records on this Friday, of this week, and my understanding is that those records particularly apply to Johnny Roselli, and additional files at the FBI are also under review.
The CIA made additional transfers of records in September and December of 1994, providing the remaining portions of the "segregated collection". The records transferred in September related primarily to the CIA's work with Cuban exile groups in the early 1960's, while the latter transfer consisted of the notes taken by HSCA staff members during its review of CIA documents.
I must point out, however, that only a portion of the Oswald 201 file and the notes of the HSCA staff members can be searched in the database. The CIA has run into difficulty with their program for creating data disks and we are waiting for the transfer of the remainder of these data disks for their records.
The collection includes the assassination related records of the Church and Pike Committees. While we have 41 boxes of Church Committee records, a review of the Committee's published report and certain Committee documents indicates that there are additional assassination related records still in the custody of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. There have been contacts with the staff of the Committee to pursue this issue. The data disks for the records already are in our custody, having been recently transferred. And we plan to add them to the database shortly.
We have recently identified assassination records among the records of several Congressional committees already in our custody. The records of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee contain transcripts of executive session testimony and other documents relating to Ruth Paine, General Edwin Walker, and the Fair Play For Cuba Committee. The records of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee contain a variety of files on several individuals along with files from the Fair Play for Cuba committee. The records of the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, known as the McClellan Committee, may contain assassination records. The index of these records remains in the custody of the Senate Committee on government Operations, but a sampling of entries under Carlos Marcello and Santos Trafficante produce references that indicate the probability of assassination related documents among the records of the Committee.
Finally, the records of the Subcommittee on Government Information and Individual Rights of the House Committee on Government Operations, known as the Abzug Committee, contain documentation concerning access to the records of the Warren Commission and the Kennedy autopsy materials.
We are working with the staffs of the various committees to add those relevant records to the collection.
In the last year there have been some significant additions to the Collection. In 1995, the Secret Service turned over the shift reports of the agents protecting the President for November 1963. Earlier this year the Service released records from the files of Chief James Rowley, plus documents relating to the organization of the Service for the years 1961 and '62.
In October '95 the State Department released additional documents from the passport office.
In April of this year NARA received I cubic foot, approximately 2500 pages, of records of the Rockefeller Commission and the staff of the Ford White House from the Ford Library. These documents were released as the result of a review of the records of the Rockefeller Commission and the Ford White House staff by a CIA team which spent a week at the library. The remaining records of the Commission are still under review by the CIA and other agencies.
NARA has also acquired records donated by individuals under deeds of gift. The papers of Jim Garrison and Edward Wegman were donated to the Collection at the public hearing in New Orleans. In July of this year a motion picture film taken in Dallas on November the 22nd, 1963 was donated by Janet Veazey and Hellen Sturgis Anderson.
A great deal of material remains under review by various agencies. The FBI continues to review related documents and the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice is currently reviewing the previously withheld portions of that office's main file on the assassination.
We have yet to receive any records from the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
The Postal Service indicated last year they were almost ready to transfer a file on the investigation of the sale of Oswald's rifle through the mail, though we have not received that file at this time.
Various components of the Department of Defense continue to locate and review documents related to the assassination. For example, we recently located at NARA the files of the Secretary of the Army related to Operation Mongoose. While these records were legally transferred to NARA in 1995 when the Kennedy Act was signed into law, in 1992 these records were in the custody of the Department of the Army but were not located.
A team of CIA and other agency reviewers recently visited the Kennedy Library in Boston to review the National Security files related to Cuba and other related topics. We hope to receive the results of this review in the near future.
And if I might answer a couple of questions that were raised previously in this hearing, Mr. Chairman. First of all, all executive session transcripts of the Warren Commission are now released and available. And also, at this time, all documents created by the staff of the Warren Commission are available for research with no redactions. The remaining records of the Warren Commission that are closed were all created by other agencies and some of them are still going through that third agency review process.
And I am willing to answer any questions.
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM- Thank you, Mr. Tilley. Are there any questions?
DR. NELSON- How many documents would you now say are there to file through?
MR. TILLEY- It's hard to say.
DR. NELSON- A couple million?
MR. TILLEY- A couple million, a couple million, yeah. We probably have more than 175,000 records in the database as we continue to add things, but of course, the database only reflects the documents that were reviewed since the enactment of the statute. It doesn't reflect those documents that were open, which is a considerable amount of material. So we have, I think, a great number of documents available.
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM- Thank you very much, Steve. Thank you for your continued help.
It has been a very interesting and provocative hearing this morning with the testimony. I think the Review Board has certainly heard very good advice from quite a number of people. I do want to particularly thank James Rankin, Wesley Liebeler and David Lifton for their donations of records and physical material. That information will be very helpful to the American public.
We are going to hold the record open from this hearing for a period of time in case there is additional testimony that anyone wishes to submit. On what day will that? We will be open until October 11, so any additional testimony the Board would be very pleased to accept.
There being no further business to come before the Assassination Records Review Board today, is there a motion to adjourn?
DR. HALL- So moved.
DR. JOYCE- Seconded.
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM - All those in favor of adjourning, say aye.
ALL-AYE.
CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM - Opposed? Carried. This meeting of the public hearing of the Assassination Records Review Board is adjourned.
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