The 640 MEG Shareware Studio 2/The 640 Meg Shareware Studio CD-ROM Volume II (Data Express)(1993).ISO/info/kenbook3.zip/KENBOOK3

Text File | 1992-07-20 | 40KB | 707 lines

[1] "Presumed Guilty, How & Why the W.C. Framed Lee Harvey Oswald" [3/11]

                              *  *  *  *  *  *  *




      2


      Presumed Guilty:  The Official Disposition




      The discussion in chapter 1 did not disprove the Commission's
      conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President Kennedy.
      It merely showed that, based on the evidence presented in the
      Report, Oswald's guilt was presumed, not established.  The
      Commission argued a case that is logical only on the premise that
      Oswald alone was guilty.
         The official assurance is, as is to be expected, the opposite.
      In the Foreword to its Report, the Commission assures us that it
      "has functioned neither as a court presiding over an adversary
      proceeding nor as a prosecutor determined to prove a case, but as a
      fact finding agency committed to the ascertainment of the truth"
      (Rxiv).  This is to say that neither innocence nor guilt was
      presumed from the outset of the inquiry, in effect stating that the
      Commission conducted a "chips-fall-where-they-may" investigation.
         At no time after a final bullet snuffed out the life of the
      young President did {any} agency conduct an investigation not based
      on the premise of Oswald's guilt.  Despite the many noble
      assurances of impartiality, the fact remains that from the time
      when he was in police custody, Oswald was officially thought to be
      Kennedy's sole assassin.  In violation of his every right and as a
      guarantee that virtually no citizen would think otherwise, the
      official belief of Oswald's guilt was shamefully offered to a
      public grieved by the violent death of its leader, and anxious to
      find and prosecute the perpetrator of the crime.


      {The Police Presumption}

         Two days after the assassination, the "New York Times" ran a
      banner headline that read, in part, "Police Say Prisoner is the
      Assassin," with a smaller--but likewise front-page--heading,
      "Evidence Against Oswald Described as Conclusive."  The article
      quoted Captain Will Fritz of the Dallas Police Homicide Bureau as
      having said, "We're convinced beyond any doubt that he killed the
      President. . . .  I think the case is cinched."[1]
         Other newspapers echoed the "Times" that day.  The "Philadelphia
      Inquirer" reported:  "Police on Saturday said they have an airtight
      case against pro-Castro Marxist Lee Harvey Oswald as the assassin
      of President Kennedy."[2]  On the front page of the "St. Louis
      Post-Dispatch" was the headline "Dallas Police Insist Evidence
      Proves Oswald Killed Kennedy."

            Dallas police said today that Lee Harvey Oswald . . .
         assassinated President John F. Kennedy and they have the
         evidence to prove it. . . .  "The man killed President
         Kennedy.  We are convinced without any doubt that he did the
         killing.  There were no accomplices," [Captain] Fritz
         asserted.
            Police Chief Jesse E. Curry outlined this web of evidence
         that, he said, showed Oswald was the sniper.[3]

         The following day, November 25, was the occasion for yet another
      banner headline in the "Times."  In one fell swoop, there was no
      longer any doubt;  it was no longer just the Dallas police who were
      prematurely convinced of Oswald's guilt.  "President's Assassin
      Shot to Death in Jail Corridor by a Dallas Citizen," the headline
      proclaimed.  There was no room for such qualifiers as "alleged" or
      "accused."  Yet, in this very issue, the "Times" included a strong
      editorial that criticized the police pronouncement of guilt:

            The Dallas authorities, abetted and encouraged by the
         newspaper, TV and radio press, trampled on every principle
         of justice in their handling of Lee Harvey Oswald. . . .
         The heinousness of the crime Oswald was alleged to have
         committed made it doubly important that there be no cloud
         over the establishment of his guilt.
            Yet--before any indictment had been returned or any
         evidence presented and in the face of continued denials by
         the prisoner--the chief of police and the district attorney
         pronounced Oswald guilty.[4]

      It is unfortunate that this proper condemnation applies equally to
      the source that issued it.
         Transcripts of various police interviews and press conferences
      over the weekend of the assassination (which confirm the above
      newspaper accounts) demonstrate that, in addition to forming a bias
      against Oswald through the press, the police made extensive use of
      the electronic media to spread their improper and premature
      conclusion.
         On Friday night, November 22, NBC-TV broadcast a press interview
      with District Attorney Henry Wade, whose comments included these:
      "I figure we have sufficient evidence to convict him [Oswald] . . .
      there's no one else but him" (24H751).  The next day, Chief Curry,
      though he cautioned that the evidence was not yet "positive," said
      that he was convinced.  In an interview carried by NBC, Curry
      asserted, "Personally, I think we have the right man" (24H754).  In
      another interview broadcast by local station WFAA-TV, Curry was
      asked, "Is there any doubt in your mind, Chief, that Oswald is the
      man who killed the President?"  His response was:  "I think this is
      the man who killed the President" (24H764).  In another interview
      that Saturday, Captain Fritz made the absolute statement:

            There is only one thing that I can tell you without going
         into the evidence before first talking to the District
         Attorney.  I can tell you that this case is cinched--that
         this man killed the President.  There's no question in my
         mind about it. . . .  I don't want to get into the evidence.
         I just want to tell you that we are convinced beyond any
         doubt that he did the killing. (24H787)

         By November 24, Curry's remarks became much stronger.  Local
      station KRLD-TV aired this remark:  "This is the man, we are sure,
      that murdered the patrolman and murdered--assassinated the
      President" (24H772).  Fritz stuck to his earlier conviction that
      Oswald was the assassin (24H788).  Now D.A. Henry Wade joined in
      pronouncing the verdict before trial or indictment:

            WADE:  I would say that without any doubt he's the
         killer--the law says beyond a reasonable doubt and to a
         moral certainty which I--there's no question that he was the
         killer of President Kennedy.
            Q.  That case is closed in your mind?
            WADE:  As far as Oswald is concerned yes. (24H823)



      {The FBI Presumption}

         That same day the FBI announced, contrary to the police
      assertion, that the case was still open and that its investigation,
      begun the day of the shooting, would continue.[5]  This continued
      investigation climaxed after a duration just short of three weeks.
      In a series of contrived news "leaks," the Bureau added to the
      propaganda campaign started by the Dallas Police.
         The decision of the FBI and the Commission was to keep the first
      FBI Summary Report on the assassination secret.[6]  However, even
      prior to the completion of this report, the newspapers carried
      frequent "leaked" stories telling in advance what the report would
      contain.  The Commission met in executive session on December 5,
      1963, and questioned Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach
      about these leaks.  Katzenbach spoke bluntly.  FBI Director Hoover,
      he related, denied that the leaks originated within the FBI, but "I
      say with candor to this committee, I can't think of anybody else it
      could have come from, because I don't know of anybody else that
      knew that information."[7]
         On December 9, Katzenbach transmitted the completed FBI Report
      to the Commission.  In his covering letter of that date, he again
      expressed the Justice Department's desire to keep the Report
      secret, although he felt that "the Commission should consider
      releasing--or allowing the Department of Justice to release--a
      short press statement which would briefly make the following
      points."  Katzenbach wanted the Commission to assure the public
      that the FBI had turned up no evidence of conspiracy and that "the
      FBI report through scientific examination of evidence, testimony
      and intensive investigation, establishes beyond a reasonable doubt
      that Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy."[8]
         Although the Commission released no such statement, the
      conclusions of which the Justice Department felt the public should
      be informed were widely disseminated by the press, through leaks
      which, according to Katzenbach, must have originated with the FBI.
      On December 1, the "Washington Post" in a major article told its
      readers that "all the police agencies with a hand in the
      investigation . . . insist that [the case against Oswald] is an
      unshakable one."[9]  "Time" magazine, in the week before the FBI
      report was forwarded to the Commission, said of the report, "it
      will indicate that Oswald, acting in his own lunatic loneliness,
      was indeed the President's assassin."[10]  "Newsweek" reported that
      "the report holds to the central conclusion that Federal and local
      probers had long since reached:  that Oswald was the assassin."[11]
      The "New York Times" was privy to the most specific leak concerning
      the FBI report.  On December 10 it ran a front-page story headed
      "Oswald Assassin Beyond a Doubt, FBI Concludes."  This article, by
      Joseph Loftus, began as follows:

            A Federal Bureau of Investigation report went to a
         special Presidential commission today and named Lee H.
         Oswald as the assassin of President Kennedy.
            The Report is known to emphasize that Oswald was beyond
         doubt the assassin and that he acted alone. . . .
            The Department of Justice, declining all comment on the
         content of the report, announced only that on instruction of
         President Johnson the report was sent directly to the
         special Commission.[12]

         All of these news stories, especially that which appeared in the
      "Times," accurately reflect those findings of the FBI report which
      Katzenbach felt should be made public.  The FBI has long claimed
      that it does not draw conclusions in its reports.  The FBI report
      on the assassination disproves this one of many FBI myths.  This
      report {does} draw conclusions, as the press reported.  In the
      preface to this once-secret report (released in 1965), the FBI
      stated:

            Part I briefly relates the assassination of the President
         and the identification of Oswald as his slayer.
            Part II sets forth the evidence conclusively showing that
         Oswald did assassinate the President.  (CD 1)

         The Commission, in secret executive sessions, expressed its
      exasperation at the leak of the FBI report.  On December 16,
      Chairman Warren stated:

            CHAIRMAN:  Well, gentlemen, to be very frank about it, I
         have read that report two or three times and I have not seen
         anything in there yet that has not been in the press.
            SEN. RUSSELL:  I couldn't agree with that more.  I have
         read it through once very carefully, and I went through it
         again at places I had marked, and practically everything in
         there has come out in the press at one time or another, a
         bit here and a bit there.[13]

         It should be noted here that even a casual reading of this FBI
      report and its sequel, the "Supplemental Report" dated January 13,
      1964, discloses that neither establishes Oswald's guilt, nor even
      adequately accounts for all the known facts of the assassination.
      In neither report is there mention of or accounting for the
      President's anterior neck wound which, by the night of November 22,
      was public knowledge around the world.  The Supplemental Report, in
      attempting to associate Oswald with the crime, asserts that a
      full-jacketed bullet traveling at approximately 2,000 feet per
      second stopped short after penetrating "less than a finger length"
      of the President's back.  One need not be an expert to discern that
      this is an impossible event, and indeed later tests confirmed that
      seventy-two inches of flesh were insufficient to stop such a bullet
      (5H78).  The Commission members themselves, in private, grumbled
      about the unsatisfactory nature of the FBI report, as the following
      passage from the December 16 Executive Session reveals:

            MR. MC CLOY:  . . . The grammar is bad and you can see
         they did not polish it all up.  It does leave you some
         loopholes in this thing but I think you have to realize they
         put this thing together very fast.
            REP. BOGGS:  There's nothing in there about Governor
         Connally.
            CHAIRMAN:  No.
            SEN. COOPER:  And whether or not they found any bullets
         in him.
            MR. MC CLOY:  This bullet business leaves me confused.
            CHAIRMAN:  It's totally inconclusive.[14]

         Thus, by January 1964, the American public had been assured by
      both the Dallas Police and the FBI that Oswald was the assassin
      beyond all doubt.  For those who had not taken the time to probe
      the evidence, who were not aware of its inadequacies and
      limitations, such a conclusion was easy to accept.


      {The Commission Presumption}

         Today there can be no doubt that, despite their assurances of
      impartiality, the Commission and its staff consciously planned and
      executed their work under the presumption that Oswald was guilty.
      The once-secret working papers of the Commission explicitly reveal
      the prejudice of the entire investigation.
         General Counsel Rankin did not organize a staff of lawyers under
      him until early in January 1964.  Until that time, the Commission
      had done essentially no work, and had merely received investigative
      reports from other agencies.  Now, Rankin and Warren drew up the
      plans for the organization of the work that the staff was to
      undertake for the Commission.  In a "Progress Report" dated January
      11, from the Chairman to the other members, Warren referred to a
      "tentative outline prepared by Mr. Rankin which I think will assist
      in organizing the evaluation of the investigative materials
      received by the Commission."[15][see Appendix A  -- ratitor]  Two
      subject headings in this outline are of concern here:  "(2) Lee
      Harvey Oswald as the Assassin of President Kennedy;  (3) Lee Harvey
      Oswald:  Background and Possible Motives."[16]  Thus, it is
      painfully apparent that the Commission did, from the very
      beginning, plan its work with a distinct bias.  It would evaluate
      the evidence from the perspective of "Oswald as the assassin," and
      it would search for his "possible motives."
         Attached to Warren's "Progress Report" was a copy of the
      "Tentative Outline of the Work of the President's Commission."
      This outline reveals in detail the extent to which the conclusion
      of Oswald's guilt was pre-determined.  Section II, "Lee Harvey
      Oswald as the Assassin of President Kennedy," begins by outlining
      Oswald's movements on the day of the assassination.  Under the
      heading "Murder of Tippit," there is the subheading "Evidence
      demonstrating Oswald's guilt."[17]  Even the FBI had refrained from
      drawing a conclusion as to whether or not Oswald had murdered
      Officer Tippit.  Yet, at this very early point in its
      investigation, the Commission was convinced it could muster
      "evidence demonstrating Oswald's guilt."
         Another heading under Section II of the outline is "Evidence
      Identifying Oswald as the Assassin of President Kennedy," again a
      presumptive designation made by a commission that had not yet
      analyzed a single bit to evidence.  The listings of evidence under
      this heading are sketchy and hardly conclusive, and further reveal
      the biases of the Commission.  Some of the evidence that was to
      "identify Oswald as the assassin" was "prior similar acts:  a)
      General Walker attack, b) General Eisenhower threat."[18]  Thus we
      learn that Oswald was also presumed guilty in the attempted
      shooting of the right-wing General Walker in April 1963.
         Under the additional heading "Evidence Implicating Others in
      Assassination or Suggesting Accomplices," the Commission was to
      consider only the possibility that others worked with {Oswald} in
      planning or executing the assassination.  The outline further
      reveals that it had been concluded in advance that Oswald had no
      accomplices, for the last category under this heading suggests that
      the evidence be evaluated for the "refutation of allegations."[19]
         The Commission was preoccupied with the question of motive.
      According to the initial outline of its work, it had decided to
      investigate Oswald's motives for killing the President {before} it
      determined whether Oswald had in fact been involved in the
      assassination {in any capacity.}  At the executive session of
      January 21, 1964, an illuminating discussion took place between
      Chairman Warren, General Counsel Rankin, and member Dulles.  Dulles
      wanted to be sure that every possible action was taken to determine
      Oswald's motive:

            Mr. Dulles: I suggested to Mr. Rankin, Mr. Chairman, that
         I thought it would be very useful for us, if the rest of you
         agree, that as items come in that deal with motive, and I
         have seen, I suppose, 20 or 30 of them already in these
         various reports, those be pulled together by one of these
         men, maybe Mr. Rankin himself so that we could see that
         which would be so important to us.
            Chairman Warren:  In other words, to see what we are
         running down on the question of motive.
            Mr. Dulles:  Just on the question of motive I found a
         dozen or more statements of the various people as to why
         they thought he [Oswald] did it.
            Warren:  Yes.
            Mr. Dulles:  Or what his character was, what his aim, and
         so forth that go into motive and I think it would be very
         useful to pull that together, under one of these headings,
         not under a separate heading necessarily.
            Warren:  Well, I think that that would probably come
         under Mr. [Albert] Jenner, wouldn't that, Lee [Rankin],
         isn't he the one who is bringing together all the facts
         concerning the life of Oswald?
            Mr. Rankin:  Yes, yes.  We can get that done.  We will
         see that that is taken care of.
            Warren:  Yes.[20]

         The staff, working under the direction of Rankin, was likewise
      predisposed to the conclusion that Oswald was guilty.  Staff lawyer
      W. David Slawson wrote a memorandum dated January 27 concerning the
      "timing of rifle shots."  He suggested that:

            In figuring the timing of the rifle shots, we should take
         into account the distance travelled by the Presidential car
         between the first and third shots.  This tends to shorten
         the time slightly during which {Oswald} would have had to
         pull the trigger three times on his rifle.[21] (emphasis
         added)

      At this early point in the investigation, long before any of the
      relevant testimony had been adduced, Slawson was positive that
      Oswald "pulled the trigger three times on his rifle."
         Another staff lawyer, Arlen Specter, expressed the bias of the
      investigation in a memorandum, dated January 30, in which he
      offered suggestions for the questioning of Oswald's widow, Marina.
      Specter felt that certain questions "might provide some insight on
      whether Oswald learned of the motorcade route from newspapers."  He
      added that "perhaps [Oswald] was inspired, in part by President
      Kennedy's anti-Castro speech which was reported on November 19 on
      the front page of the Dallas Times Herald."[22]  The implication
      here is obvious that the President's speech "inspired" Oswald to
      commit the assassination.  Again, it must be emphasized that until
      Oswald's guilt was a proven fact, which it was {not} at the time
      these memoranda were composed, it was mere folly to investigate the
      factors that supposedly "inspired" Oswald.  Such fraudulent
      investigative efforts demonstrate that Oswald's guilt was taken for
      granted.
         Rankin had assigned teams of two staff lawyers each to evaluate
      the evidence according to the five divisions of his "Tentative
      Outline."  Working in Area II, "Lee Harvey Oswald as the Assassin
      of President Kennedy," were Joseph Ball as the senior lawyer and
      David Belin as the junior.[23]  On January 30, Belin wrote a very
      revealing memorandum to Rankin, concerning "Oswald's knowledge that
      Connally would be in the Presidential car and his intended
      target."[24]  This memorandum leaves no doubt that Belin was quite
      sure of Oswald's guilt {before} he began his assigned
      investigation.  He was concerned that Oswald might not have known
      that Governor Connally was to ride in the presidential limousine
      because this "bears on the motive of the assassination and also on
      the degree of marksmanship required, which in turn affects the
      determination that Oswald was the assassin and that it was not too
      difficult to hit the intended target two out of three times in this
      particular situation."  The alternatives, as stated by Belin, were
      as follows:

            In determining the accuracy of Oswald, we have three
         major possibilities:  Oswald was shooting at Connally and
         missed two of the three shots, two misses striking Kennedy;
         Oswald was shooting at both Kennedy and Connally and all
         three shots struck their intended targets;  Oswald was
         shooting only at Kennedy and the second bullet missed its
         intended target and hit Connally instead.[25]

      Belin could not have been more explicit:  Three shots were fired
      and Oswald, whatever his motive, fired them all.  Of course, at
      that point Belin could not possibly have {proved} that Oswald was
      the assassin.  He merely presumed it and worked on that basis.
         It is important to keep this January 30 Belin memorandum in mind
      when we consider the 233-page "BALL - BELIN REPORT #1" dated
      February 25, 1964, and submitted by the authors as a summation of
      all the evidence they had evaluated up to that point.  The
      "tentative" conclusion reached in this report is that "Lee Harvey
      Oswald is the assassin of President John F.  Kennedy."[26]
      However, Ball and Belin were careful to include here a new
      interpretation of their assigned area of work.  They wrote:

            We should also point out that the tentative memorandum of
         January 23 substantially differs from the original outline
         of our work in this area which had as its subject, "Lee
         Harvey Oswald as the Assassin of President Kennedy," and
         which examined the evidence from that standpoint.  At no
         time have we assumed that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin
         of President Kennedy.  Rather, our entire study has been
         based on an independent examination of all the evidence in
         an effort to determine who was the assassin of President
         Kennedy.[27]

         Although this new formulation was no doubt the proper one, the
      Warren Report makes it abundantly clear that Ball and Belin failed
      to follow the course outlined in their "Report #1."  As we have
      seen, the only context in which the evidence is presented in the
      Report is "Lee Harvey Oswald as the Assassin of President Kennedy,"
      even though that blatant description is not used (as it was in the
      secret working papers).  Furthermore, that Belin a month before
      could write so confidently that Oswald was the assassin completely
      refutes this belatedly professed intention to examine the evidence
      without preconceptions.  It would appear that in including this
      passage in "Report #1," Ball and Belin were more interested in
      leaving a record that they could later cite in their own defense
      than in conducting an honest, unbiased investigation.  Indeed,
      Belin has quoted this passage publicly to illustrate the
      impartiality of his work, while neglecting to mention his
      memorandum of January 30.[28]
         The Warren Report was not completed until late in September
      1964, with hearings and investigations extending into the period
      during which the Report was set in type.  Yet outlines for the
      final Report were drawn up as early as mid-{March}.  These outlines
      demonstrate that Oswald's guilt was a definite conclusion at the
      time that sworn testimony was first being taken by the Commission.
      The first outline was submitted to Rankin at his request by staff
      lawyer Alfred Goldberg on approximately March 14, according to
      notations on the outline.[29]  Under Goldberg's plan, Chapter Four
      of the Commission's report would be entitled "Lee Harvey Oswald as
      the Assassin."  Goldberg elaborated:

            This section should state the facts which lead to the
         conclusion that Oswald pulled the trigger and should
         indicate the elements in the case which have either not been
         proven or are based on doubtful testimony.  Each of the
         facts listed below should be reviewed in that light.[30]

         The "facts" enumberated [sic] by Goldberg are precarious.
      Indeed, as of March 14, 1964, no testimony had been adduced on
      almost all of the "facts" that Goldberg outlined as contributing to
      the "conclusion that Oswald pulled the trigger."  Goldberg felt
      that this chapter of the Report should identify Oswald's rifle "as
      the murder weapon."  Under this category he listed "Ballistics" and
      "Capability of Rifle."  Yet the first ballistics testimony was not
      heard by the Commission until March 31 (3H390ff.).  Another of
      Goldberg's categories is "Evidence of Oswald Carrying Weapon to
      Texas School Book Depository."  Here he does not specify which
      evidence he had in mind.  However, the expert testimony that
      {might} have supported the thesis that Oswald carried his rifle to
      work on the morning of the assassination was not adduced until
      April 2 and 3 (4H1ff.).  This pattern runs through several other
      factors that Goldberg felt established Oswald's guilt {before} they
      were scrutinized by the Commission or the staff.  To illustrate:
      "Testimony of eyewitnesses and employees on fifth floor"--this
      testimony was not taken until March 24, at which time the witnesses
      contradicted several of their previous statements to the federal
      authorities (3H161ff.);  "Medical testimony"--the autopsy surgeons
      testified on March 16 (2H347ff.), and medical/ballistics testimony
      concerning tests with Oswald's rifle was not taken until mid-May
      (5H74ff.);  "Eyewitness Identification of Oswald Shooting Rifle"--
      only one witness claimed to make such an identification, and he
      gave testimony on March 24 (3H140ff.) that was subsequently
      rejected by the Commission (R145-46).
         On March 26, staff lawyer Norman Redlich submitted another
      outline of the final Report to Rankin;  in almost all respects,
      Redlich's outline is identical with Goldberg's.  Chapter Four is
      entitled "Lee H. Oswald as the Assassin," with the notation that
      "this section should state the facts which lead to the conclusion
      that Oswald pulled the trigger. . . ."[31]  In general, Redlich is
      vaguer than Goldberg in his listing of those "facts" which should
      be presented to support the conclusion of Oswald's guilt.  However,
      he does specify what he considers to be "evidence of Oswald
      carrying weapon to building."  One factor, he wrote, is the "fake
      curtain rod story."  Yet, when Redlich submitted this outline, no
      investigation had been conducted into the veracity of the "curtain
      rod story."  The first information relevant to this is contained in
      an FBI report dated March 28 (24H460-61), and it was not until the
      last day in {August} that further inquiry was made (CE2640).
         The pattern is consistent.  The Commission outlined its work and
      concluded that Oswald was guilty before it did any investigation or
      took any testimony.  The Report was outlined, including a chapter
      concluding that Oswald was guilty, before the bulk of the
      Commission's work was completed.  Most notably, these conclusions
      were drafted {before} the staff arranged a series of tests that
      were to demonstrate whether the official theories about how the
      shooting occurred were physically possible.  A series of ballistics
      tests using Oswald's rifle, and an on-site reconstruction of the
      crime in Dealey Plaza were conducted in May;  the Report was
      outlined in March.  On April 27, Redlich wrote Rankin a memorandum
      "to explain the reasons why certain members of the staff feel that
      it is important" to reconstruct the events in Dealey Plaza as
      depicted in motion pictures of the assassination.  Redlich stated
      that the Report would "presumably" set forth a version of the
      assassination shots concluding "that the bullets were fired by one
      person located in the sixth floor southeast corner window of the
      TSBD building."  He then pointed out:

            As our investigation now stands, however, we have not
         shown that these events could possibly have occurred in the
         manner suggested above.  All we have is a reasonable
         hypothesis which appears to be supported by the medical
         testimony but which has not been checked out against the
         physical facts at the scene of the assassination.[32]

         Thus, Redlich admitted that the Commission did not know if the
      conclusions already outlined were even physically possible.  But
      his suggestion of on-site tests should not be taken to indicate his
      desire to establish the untainted truth, for he explicitly denied
      such a purpose in his memorandum.  Instead, he wrote:

            Our intention is not to establish the point with complete
         accuracy, but merely to substantiate the hypothesis which
         underlies the conclusions that Oswald was the sole
         assassin.[33]

      This is as unambiguous a statement as can be imagined.  The
      reconstruction was not to determine whether it was physically
      possible for Oswald to have committed the murder as described by
      the Commission;  it was "merely to substantitate" [sic] the
      preconceived conclusion "that Oswald was the sole assassin."
         On April 30, three days after Redlich composed the above-quoted
      memorandum, the Commission met in another secret executive session.
      Here Rankin added to the abundant proof that the Commission had
      already concluded that Oswald was guilty.  The following exchange
      was provoked when Dulles expressed his well-voiced preoccupation
      with biographical data relating to Oswald:

            Mr. Dulles:  Detailed biography of Lee Harvey Oswald--I
         think that ought to be somewhere.
            Mr. Rankin:  We thought it would be too voluminous to be
         in the body of the report.  We thought it would be helpful
         as supplementary material at the end.
            Mr. Dulles:  Well, I don't feel too strongly about where
         it should be.  This would be--I think some of the biography
         of Lee Harvey Oswald, though, ought to be in the main
         report.
            Mr. Rankin:  {Some of it will be necessary to tell the
         story and to show why it is reasonable to assume that he did
         what the Commission concludes that he did do}.[34] (emphasis
         added)

         As late as the middle of May, long after the Commission and the
      staff had decided, in advance of analyzing the evidence, that
      Oswald was guilty, Commission member McCloy expressed his feeling
      that the conclusion as to Oswald's guilt was not being pursued with
      enough vigor by the staff.  McCloy was not interested in a fair and
      objective report.  This story was related by David Belin in his
      memorandum of May 15, which described his trip to Dallas with
      certain Commission members, McCloy included.  One night in Dallas,
      Belin persuaded McCloy to read "Ball-Belin Report # 1," which by
      then was almost three months old.  Belin recounts McCloy's
      reactions:

            He seemed to misunderstand the basic purpose of the
         report, for he suggested that we did not point up enough
         arguments to show why Oswald was the assassin. . . .
         Commissioner McCloy did state that in the final report he
         thought that we should be rather complete in developing
         reasons and affirmative statements why Oswald was the
         assassin--he did not believe that it should just merely be a
         factual restatement of what we had found.[35]

         As quoted at the opening of this chapter, the Warren Report
      asserted that the Commission functioned not "as a prosecutor
      determined to prove a case, but as a fact finding agency committed
      to the ascertainment of the truth."  This statement is clearly a
      misrepresentation of the Commission's real position, as expressed
      in private by McCloy when he told Belin that he wanted a report
      that argued a prosecution case, and not simply "a factual
      restatement."
         The Dallas Police and the FBI both announced their "conclusion"
      before it could have been adequately substantiated by facts and, in
      so doing, almost irrevocably prejudiced the American public against
      Oswald and thwarted an honest and unbiased investigation.  The
      Commission operated under a facade of impartiality.  Yet it
      examined the evidence--and subsequently presented it--on the
      premise that Oswald was guilty, a premise openly stated in secret
      staff memoranda and reinforced when the members met in secret
      sessions.  Now, as the curtain of secrecy that once sheltered the
      working papers of the investigation is lifted, the ugly and
      improper presumption of guilt becomes obvious.  Wesley Liebeler
      expressed the prejudice of the entire "investigation" when he
      argued to Rankin in a once-secret memorandum that " . . . the best
      evidence that Oswald could fire as fast as he did and hit the
      target is the fact that he did so."[36]



__________

 [1] "New York Times," November 24, 1963, p. 1.

 [2] "Philadelphia Inquirer," November 24, 1963.

 [3] "St. Louis Post-Dispatch," November 24, 1963.

 [4] "New York Times," November 25, 1963, p. 18.

 [5] "St. Louis Post-Dispatch," November 24, 1963, p. 2.

 [6] Transcript of the December 5, 1963, Executive Session of the Warren
     Commission, pp. 10-11.

 [7] Ibid., p. 8.

 [8] Letter from Nicholas Katzenbach to Chief Justice Warren, dated
     December 9, 1963.  This letter is available from the National
     Archives.

 [9] "Washington Post," December 1, 1963.

[10] "Time," December 13, 1963, p. 26.

[11] "Newsweek," December 16, 1963, p. 26.

[12] "New York Times," December 10, 1963, p. 1.

[13] Transcript of the December 16, 1963, Executive Session of the
     Warren Commission, p. 11.

[14] Ibid., p. 12.

[15] "Progress Report" by Chairman Warren, p. 4, attached to "Memorandum
     for Members of the Commission" from Mr. Rankin, dated January 11,
     1964.

[16] The "Tentative Outline of the Work of the President's Commission"
     was attached to the memorandum mentioned in note 15.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Transcript of the January 21, 1964, Executive Session of the Warren
     Commission, pp. 10-11.

[21] Memorandum from W. David Slawson to Mr. Ball and Mr. Belin, dated
     January 27, 1964, "SUBJECT:  Time of Rifle Shots," located in the
     "Slawson Chrono. File."

[22] Memorandum from Arlen Specter to Mr. Rankin, dated January 30, 1964,
     concerning the questioning of Marina Oswald, p. 3.

[23] "Memorandum to the Staff," from Mr. Rankin, dated January 13, 1964,
     p. 3.

[24] "Memorandum" from David W. Belin to J. Lee Rankin, dated January 30,
     1964.  This document was discovered in the National Archives by
     Harold Weisberg and was first presented in "Post Mortem I," pp.
     61-62.

[25] Ibid.

[26] "Ball-Belin Report #1," dated February 25, 1964, p. 233.

[27] Ibid., pp. 1-2.

[28] See "Truth Was My Only Goal," by David Belin in "The Texas
     Observer," August 13, 1971, p. 14.

[29] "Memorandum" from Alfred Goldberg to J. Lee Rankin, dated "approx
     3/14," 1964.

[30] "Proposed Outline of Report," attached to the memorandum referred
     to in note 29.  This outline was discovered in the National
     Archives by Harold Weisberg and is presented in "Post Mortem I,"
     p. 123.

[31] "Proposed Outline of Report (Submitted by Mr. Redlich)," attached
     to "Memorandum" from Norman Redlich to J. Lee Rankin, dated March
     26, 1964.  This document was discovered in the National Archives by
     Harold Weisberg and is presented in "Post Mortem I," p. 132.

[32] "Memorandum" from Norman Redlich to J. Lee Rankin, dated April 27,
     1964.  This document was discovered in the National Archives by
     Harold Weisberg and is presented in "Post Mortem I," pp. 132-34.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Transcript of the April 30, 1964, Executive Session of the Warren
     Commission, p. 5891.

[35] Memorandum from Mr. Belin to Mr. Rankin, dated May 15, 1964, p. 5.

[36] Liebeler 9/6/64 Memorandum, p. 25.