12/20/93 Zon 12:29 a510 848 6533 B & C WINTON

OR ASE CLOSED? SWALD FRAMED?

A Revie

Harvey

of Gerald Posner,

swald and the Ass

Case Closed: Lee

ssination of JFK

46

by Peter Dale Sc tt, Ph.D.

11012 , 12/20/93 12:30 12510 848 6533 B & C WINTON

Peter Dale Scott. English Dept_ University of California. Berkeley, CA 94720

(510) 8484812: FAX 642-8738

CASE CLOSED? OR OSWALD FRAMED

Assassinarle of ,IFK (New A review of Gerald ? suer, Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and t

This is a spe book about a special case: the two. indeed, are

From the outset, the y assassinetion has attracted — along with

ubsessives. charla and a clairvoyant — two special kinds of student:

From the outset there ve been reasons (persuasive moons) of state tc

OUTS= there have boort glaring problems with the evidence which have

there has been no ge of people (not just lawyers) meeting the

people (including so l e lawyers) following the lure of truth.

York: Random Hous1 1993). Pp. xv, 608. 525.00

of a sungl phenomenon. =Inks, ide paranoid the lawyers i the scholars. close the cas and from the kept it open_"vet the years uesive needs • f state, nor of

Report. it is • t officials of the Warren Commission's

lied about 0 's visit to gave false s meats (even Soviet Emb ties in Mexico oks about e assassination

ome more clear about the case since the Watse

have lied, sometimes repeatedly, to mainta

nal Committees have established that FBI agent

before the assassination. and that CIA officials ut CIA surveillance of Oswald at the Cuban

have created a touchstone against which new

can be tested_ Are traasmined uncritically, in law yerly fashion. as evidence? Or

by scholarly invests: •u7 As we shall see. Posner's performance is a !nixed one

FBI falsehoods, but 1t the CIA ones). On balance, unfortunately, it is lewyerly p

Case Closed rolaiy seem to uninformed readers to be the most asive of di

books that have urged) readers to accept the lone-assassin finding of Warren Teepo

who know the case `i is also evidence of on-going cover-up_ For P scum often es discredite e been dis' pr

erses testi

Commission mane they

pandit B: Ho 17 (Oswald

Wake GeV its Koko

If anything has many government conclusions_ Con the Dallas FBI o within the Agency) City) These official

evaluation official witnesses who have revives a wild elle its opposite.

These are seri controversy about w such books did not than once acknowle major publicity in

There are roan titular points (such knew another alleg moles new also that on a topic o

But in Case C been strengthened don the good faith

charges. There are in fact books on both sides of the Kenn

eireihr accusations could be made, and no y one migh P .

merit a serious reburraL But Case Closed is a book, in w

es help from "confidential intelligence sources. 2 It has sine

media, from U.S. News and World Report to the Today show

places where one can agree with Posner's reburtil of par icul

the Garrison investigarion, and its as-yet unproven allega

6nspect, David Ferric). Concerning the physical and medical ev

by others which appear to be worthy of serious • oasicleration_

this range and complexity no one's book will be awless.

red some of the weakest sections of the W et methodologies and even falsehoods, so

entire project

ts that are now known to be false, or chop

y disowned earlier helpful stories that ha

n which the Warren Commission rejected, and

Gang_ Scum-any Commicus, FBI Ov Dallas): House, Select Sufi Study (clued bcucd

Power, pp. 1 I L.. S14,

~el)Itmee Commieuz. Perforinsurc of likeeiligence Agencies,

gee H•nrtngs, October 21 sod December 11, 1975; Pewter, 2 as Amassinscioes, L Henry Oswald. the Mk an

so Lop= &Ten, demsasthen 1993). 123. 164, 1113.6e, etc.

they exposed deals with the menance_

succession of But to those

nuts without but compliant en. He even

ony to suggest

assassination conclude that Posner more

been granted d 20/20.

critics on pu-n that Oswald deuce, he pro-ne must grant

ument have Ball into ques-

Aida-FBI in

Wed matey).

November 16. 1993

, 12/20/93 12:30 • '510 848 6533 B & C WINTON 0 1 3

P.D. S - 2 -

ra the now-hoary question of whether Oswald's pro

tector in D

had a IA relationship. Posner reverts to the Warre

n Commission me

the question: "CIA officials have provided sworn te

stu7ny that there

inteui4ence relationship:3 That Will not work i

n 199 . In 1978 the

As scions revealed that. when leaving Dalla

s in Y 1963 for with de M .11111. _,

to W gton and wok part in a Pentagon-CIA

mee

Haitian banker named Cleatard Joseph Charles. A fo

rme CIA contract

rd was to ov

one o5 de Mobrenschilcit's purposes in movin

g to

overthrow Haitian dictator Francois "Papa Doc" Duv

4

il ir , ere is no excuse for Posner's repeating, ... . -' y and wi

h

claim that at the time of the assassination, "Osw

ald $ CIA file

Oswatd_s This false claim is an important one, si

nce .. CIA has us

don f Oswald which it sent to other agencies on O

e 10- 1963,

bon, 1 ut as Anthony Summers pointed out thirtee

n ems ago,

0 contained four newspaper clippings of his

def ion to the So

■ . thesetcontained photograp

hs of him.6 One could argue tbat the

oversiighe although this is unlikely, since it is part

of a larger pear=

illg the photos? One cannot

offer such an innocent defense for

ho His discussion of the photo issue is a running ar

gument with S

non e repeatedly disputes Summers' alleptions.a

In short. this book is not 'a model of histotical rese

arch," as

• ed. It is a lawyer's brief.

1

eLing the Verdict on lack Ruby and Organised C

Me

• George de MoiffeaschildL

od of letting the CIA answer

as no de Mohreaschildt-U.S_

House Select Committee on

de Mohrensclaildt traveled

childi's business ally, a

agent has since suggested that

see a CIA-approved plot to

ut footnotes, another old CIA

not contain any photos" of

it to justify the false &scrip-

ix weeks before the assassins-

II CIA pre-assassination file on

t Union in 1959, and two of

error arose from an innocent

of CIA misrepresentations con-

, osner's repetition of the f

alse-

ers': and indeed in this sec-

a historian Stephen Ambrose

One would have thought that one issue now res Wed

beyond

as the House Select Committee on Assassinatio s con

cluded,

dons" with organized crime leaders both nationall

y and in Dallas

in the House Committee Report were supplem ted b

y a staff

this important point is conceded, it is hard not to agr

ee that

of uby as a loner, based on misleading reports a

nd pression of

uestinn is that Jack Ruby indeed

"significant number of associa-

AR 149). Eight pages on this

lame of over a thousand pages.

e Warren Commission's portrait

evidence by the FBI, was a false

New York: Carroll and Graf,

limper and Raw, 1951), 210

1.011 Angeles: University of

'LW; NeliGYSICO, who cane to

Thee. are issues here that will ge spends most of his lane

persuasive_ But 41,14 NO1, Cr,

I

,86.

12 AR 55-57: Stanmera, 248: Dick Rama The Ma's W

Xotw Too hlwch

318-19; Warren &male and William Turner, Tkc Fish

Rod (Now Y

arena} Parr Dale Seen, Dow Politic aid ohr Death f1Fr B

erkeley

Calffornis Press, 1993), 7L Them is also the problem

of the alleged KGB dame

hs4;,oripin 1964 with the claito that the KGB had ha

d arching to do with Oswald

palpably never be resolved, but Naar% in order to clos

e the case, makes light of

co hag .has bo Galls '4.14seoko's bona fides" (p. 41),

and his arguments are q

kolot.... ere a bona fide defector. it does not follow that all

Ibat ho says "bow Osw t4 is sue_ On the contrary. the

El Coreuxtiuste reported -signibeaat ineonaisteneles"

in ststerbattus Notenko had given the FBI. the CIA. and

the

Ctisursia= (AR 102). Pastier makes the valid rebored po

int (p. 41) that a 1967 !twice, found "massive error

s in

chit translations of ihe interviews conducted before and

during NlI s'utko'r ro - But he doca not reveal to

hi readers that this finding related to CIA interviews

only, ler g unexplained • reported major discrepanc

ies

"team Nosenko's susternerws to the Committer and to the Thus t

here is r Little justification for Poser's

mg allied so heavily as Near-aka as a principal source. I

I

Posner. 186n. emphasis in original. This false claim was

orliginally made

al so CIA General Counsel LIMM:230C Lionnoa. See Amhae

i Summers. Co

190), 381.

• Summers. 381: Warm Commission Document 692: C

IA t 390-252.

7 Lopez Report. 13741. The 1-opcx Report called =Malawi a

s offered by employe= on the matter of

the

Oswald oleaceitpcioa 'laud to accept" (139) and "%optima-

Is (1AO).

Peeper, 191 (footnotes 99 and 103). 193 (fooduate 103).

m cite PAS" ‘o noun.= immediately triere and

the account of the photos in Oweald'a

November 16. 1993

the Agency by as anonymous

dry. (New Yorks McGraw-kWh

21 014

- 3 -

12/20/93 12:31

P.D. Scott

one.

12510 848 8533 B & C WINTON

blew, Posner has produced a witness who reviv the Warren R level loser." — adding that only "conspiracy waists" woul b." The witness is Tony Zoppi, whom Posner 'bes as a

for the Dallas Morning News.'9 He does not mention to the Hay

retracted it_ casino emplo Leo in Las V

s portrait "believe that Miff "prom-s Zoppi had casinos, an

to this ee of Meyer

, the Rivi-

not connected to 'close" a new rebuttal

dubious. One ens that his allas Deputy Oswald with

is former ad crime

delinquent in

by may have ). It learned

g these doors Department

time the ser-ob boss Joe

To avoid this of Ruby as "a Mai. 1 Ruby was part of the item entertainment been the source of a innocent explanation for Jack Ruby's 1959 visi explanation so swiftly demolished by the Committee that Zoppi hints episode we now knor that Zoppi as well as Ruby, was close to a Lansky's called Lewis McWillie, and was himself working for a mob era, by the time the a inmittee interviewed him in 1978_10

Why would Pos to the mob? The case. Posner opposes documentation, but b is Jack Ruby's bra business and pen° District Attorney Bill murdering the FBI Agent William links in the first plat investigating the Ru

Crucial to clo had "assistance" from that doors to another reassigned elsewhere withheld relevant ins grant responsible for Civello) had been giv

Posner ignores neves clear whether counter the admission Warren Commission, though no wirelesses that he did not.12 say-so, as testified to

Here again Pos witnesses, and totally

choose a discredited casino employee to claim es, surely, that he is a lawyer out. lice the Warr

thousand pages of House Committee docum extended oral interviews with just four wimesse Earl, investigated by the House Committee owes increased after Oswald's murder (AR 15

der who in November 1963 allegedly " t as pan of an international Communist consp emer, from the Chicago FBI Office that covere (The House Committee concluded that the FBI

orld connections:" AR 243.)

g the case is rebuttal of the House Committee's alias policemen in entering the Dallas Police B

itirvray had apparently been left unlocked. and shanty before the murder. It learned also that

n from the Warren Commission." pardcu

II thereassignments, Patrick Dean an acquain

and failed, a polygraph test (AR 158).

at Ruby was Co mmissi n, not

each of th use of alleg

Another is d to charg

."11 The f up Ruby's

"was seriousl

finding that R ement (AR 1

men a Dallas Po ly that at the

of Dallas

that "It was

no reason to d. Like the ramp, even y two) said

Ruby's own ean.13

questionable Police.

a disturbing indications of conspiracy- He • • _,. (p. 393

door near the public elevators was properly lo but oe y Sergeant Dean, the officer in charge, that the or was not e concludes that Ruby entered by a different • we. a vehi

Ruby enter that way and eight witnesses (Po ex mentions nly evidence for the ramp route is the Warren Commission'

(but not at the time) by four Dallas policemen one of them

fr downplays an important Committee finding, by ing again t

g the evidence of official cover-up. in this e by the D

Posner, 335, 261. ° Scum 398-99: 5 Ali

the Riviera is cooirrued "fora: Donald L Floc. 19

I/ Gilliam hiancheater. 270. By the time Posner 466-671. But Pointe is tau

Passer, 395: G. Books, 321-22.

'3 Perron. 395-96. Dean's =downy which he ewe. ?Matt also claims (3 Mae said be heard Ruby

1979)." le than 1964 Sorrels smOficd imam. (13 WH 65).

70ae: 9 Ali 144-59. The stake of Meyer Luisky Mae Dahrz- and the Chicago oh in rem of Penner-S other Ruby eottureises. William Roemer, War of the Godfather (New

.1

1:2.. L67. Death of a President (New York: Harper and Rev. 19673. 26: Scan. Deep *tidies.

teriowcel him, Aleammier had 'Metros a fervid mei-comp' rialist (Puller, 61-61 scathing about whom= Who have changed their pewit:Mhz (e.g. 139. in-

' Blakey and Richard N. Billings. The Plot ro .E11 the Pr era (New Yerkz Timm.

says 'three Dallas policeman. instead of four- Is ho min of the prob an net *Aft with his readers? Accept:Mg Jack Ruby's vsraisps m if it were au

that the House Commie= 'ignored the tam than Secret Slurries agent Forrest

li

the Dallas police)— that be had come down the ramp Oaths Monu.ig Noes. the Committee for lamming a 'farce that emerged, after their report was pu

that he did not recall lowering Re* comment on how he gpt taro the beam

November 16, 1993

12/20/93 12:32

PD Scott

Repeating

B & C WINTON

. 4 -

es Which Even the Warren Commission Rejected

U1 015 '510 848 6533

anon before the fatal ble witnesses placed

before and shortly 1Summary Report of rest 11:30 and 12:00; f whom more below) reports another such .oued Oswald on the

[LC

LbiL

het 3

bird

33-3 of og

mos etch am g

(Pm. Cal 1 3774

This lay the book_ Wit as did the W rebut the fin has repeated

vital concern.

'erly habit of preferring convenient but diseredite respect m Oswald's prior use of weapons (moth ten Commission, the testimony of Marina 0 g of Warren Commission Counsel Norman

II • bed to the Seater Service, the 'FBI, and this

wimesses is highly disp

In so do. ch in Febru

mmission on

espread throughout ble area) he accepts,

g he does nothing to 1964, that Marina

matters which are of

•

arrest Corn ission for relying on rifle of Lee 0serald.'"1° But Pot-,

mmission, kn wing the story's his-

Given los unrebuited memo, it is hard to excuse the Mama's testimony that the Mannlicher-Cancan "was the 'fat net resuscitates a story from Marina which even the Warren

tory, discounted as having "na probative value."I3

Marina laid, "Then he got dressed and put on a good suit asked hi6 where he was going, and why he was getting dt coming leave entered wail s push o Min= agreed

We can number of su

took a pistol. I crud, 'Nixon is Lee should not

and when he the nearby

St his efforts to do far several med, Oswald

the darns

e time engendered a

I saw that h cssed. He ens

She did not know who Nixon was, but was termined that house with the pistoL Sbe asked him to join her in the bathro e jumped out and slammed the door shut_ B11.4 g her feet a struggled as hard as she could to keep the d r closed as "I remember that I held him," she said. "We actually smug d then he quieted down At first he was s, but as he

snip to his underwear, and stayed home reading remainder

my repeat here a few of the problems with this s , which at orting statements to the FBI that were later has recanted:

Accor g to one version of this latest story from Marina, swald had —

Nixon" -Dallas; and she "had locked Lee Harvey d in the ba day—to en( hint from doing so"....Faced with the fact that the °swat all oth locked from the inside, Marina then told the —that in A cibly h the bathroom door shut by holding on to the b and bracing the Ftnally she would tell the Warren Commission... that sh strong husband "struggled for several minutes' inside the bathroom... irreduct e difficulties in this Nixon story, the Warren CoMmission dis it was o1 "no probative value."17

Note here that Posner has glassed over the inconsistea in two in attempting to went them as one. In fact if Marina was oust holding on not have simultaneously been inside struggling with her husban

ended to shoot oorn the entire bathroom, like 1963 she for-

!her feet against and her much ced with other, et1y concluded

p

ompatible stones by the knob, she could v(

do

Twisting Tesdenotry to Imply (or Even State) Its Opposite

But Pos er's worst abuse of testimony occurs with respect 4o Oswald's shots. Posner~iuberirs the Warren Commission's problem that a dumber of Oswald on

first or second floor of the School Book Depository, both sh

1 after the fa shots were fired from the sixth Boor at 12:30 pm. The FBI December 196 suggested that Oswald had been observed on the fifth floor be but the Warres Commission added that he had been seen (by Charles Givens, on the sixth floor. Posner, like earlier advocates of the lone assassin theory, alleged sightirs as fact: "At 11:40 one of the workers. Bonnie Ray Willismt

1,'" WR. 12E. ci 'ng 1 Wit 119. 14, 199.

Closed, 320. o4ties, 271, 2119; cf. discuszlon as 289-91: 22 T813 594. 786; 9 Wfi 359-90.

November 16, 1993

•

is WarrCIN

" Nm?, Gail " Soon, Deep

[el 016 12/20/93 12:33 1,510 848 8533 B & C WINTON

east side of that floor, the windows overlooking Dealey Plaza?"' The problem on this convenient story is that Williams. as if to satisfy his exig t examiners.

had apparently than: his story not once but twice. An earlier FBI interview an Nov ber 23 had reported Williams as s4ying that he had seen Oswald on the fifth floor about 11:30 am: and that Wil- liams bad returned to sixth door about noon and teen no one.19 One day rerlipr, one, a few hours after the assassination.. Williams had signed and sworn to a Dallas Polka affidavit. s g categori- cally that 7 didn't see sward any more, that I remember, after I saw him at 8 am."2°

P.D. Scott - 5 -

The Warren Co sion was quite aware of this problem. It conflicting earlier stn ems to the FBI (though not to the Dallas declined to use his led story about the sixth floor. And yet relied h (in another story he t : iii failed to report earlier) of hearing the shots Are while watching the mti arcade with two co-workers on the fifth floor. Co cited vivid testimony*ofIl Williams 00 this point: "It sounded like it even shook the building' the side we were on. Cement fell on my head_"

Williams's eart ' I lamnesia about what he heard is compensated fat he from his two alleged 9 mpanions, "Junior' Jarman and Harold Norman_ so precise that one's iCiOnS are raised, especially since none of tl important earwimess counts to the Dallas police= We even find Stephen White, in on iof the many earlier books which, like Posner American public that Warren Commission was right

by elaborate Indeed the co to three had hese suspicio

had tried to

W lice); and vlly on W" from one do

mission Co as right in th

orro boration oboration is ported their

voiced by persuade the

about his discreetly ' account

above hire sel Belin eh-building....it

if the three m n who tab the mow de go

believed di y were em. It may ell be

mmission is iulated r to which th linves-ve made co t crete a

Any student of e Report. must become uneasy at the testimony stationed theras s at a filth floor window in the Depository to w by. Their stories velar' admirably: The each heard three shots; fired above them: one of them heard three shells hit the floor above so, but uneasiness is engendered when one learns that the Warren their memories b a reenactment that duplicated in detail the acco

• The Warren COI .1 on needed an eyewitness to Oswald on the sixth floor, in der to rebut

recollection that tllad earlier been vague and indistinct23 tigators themselverl were by then committed, and in so doing may

II I

three eyewimess stork that Oswald had spent this period on the first or second floor of the building. Posner has no better fit ai for one of these three downstairs witnesses (Eddie Piper than to say that "Piper... is cles.r1 mistaken as five wimeases had placed Oswald one an upper floo left behind by the elevators by dna iinse."24 The big problem here is that the wimes score of Ave for upstairs) versus three (for do ' ) had originally been one, or later two (fo upstairs) v us four (far downstairs). The prob tic nature of this evidence had been noted in an early Warren Commission

6131 (FBI Mut-view or March 19, (966): 3 WH 165. d. 3 WTI 169.

met, 242. Cf. 3 WA 179: I beard three shots. But as. first hold the Far 1 only

beemac I *as so excited. and I couldn't remember too well. But later on as my memory cvet a little buster Mao on the 22d. I rezocalbermi three shots.' when testifying to dm Warren Commission. recanted details of CA earlier use 1961 cf. 17 WU 208).

a Now Beiitroe the Warred Report? (id. 'fork Macmillan. 96s). 57-58.

bled to become two Oswald 34 Pune:. -227- For ill/IL 1;:,ii:...i. di:votary problems of the alleged Oswald-by-clse-elevaser wesenter (lac

Ater encounters), see Gordon Killer. The Third D ode (September I 33-35. Miller does not toconitin that Bonnie Ray Williams (3 All 16S) attributed to the first cocoons.= m of words between Givens mei bewald whic'n Givens (6 AH 351) attributed to the seeped miter (when Wi] was not present). Posner. undaunted reports inch devaird-oar-ountir maraca, aloes with Givens version

am elsesuor-ancotmecr. citing wirhout page rafterenee) so 'affidavit of lack E- Doug

car-hangs of words. re if the were incontestable facts. Posner also ewes lack Dougherty a witness to an November 3.2.

Tomer. 540, foams= 12). 'then Posner Olnial page references, one's suspicion' ire rigid mused. The a (241 wH 206) says nothing MI elevator encounter at all. Thee is also era ale-valor ils Use tiolumoisy 377-78). whore Dougherty a 'LE was about 1 i o'clock —. that was Else last time I..., -

la Posner, '225; cf. 12

" WCD 5.330, SITIpildie 2 2.5 WH 229,

2 1 3 175: quoted in P, two — they rook ate down dsieti began to clic down. I

Likc Williams, N he bad mode under oath (3

Stephen While, Should

card

coy-

cant

doo-3).

, Se inns

the 1:45 963' avit Wu

November 16, 1993

B & C WINTON la1017 ''510 848 8533 12120/93 12:34

- 6 - PD. Sco

Th the Depo these alt Givens," a downs FBI that at his Warren made the Oswald on

Me Police LL I cial Servi money." May 13, 19 the grounds

Final the testimo one wishes cussing, the pletely igno has contra

Th are three possible responses to the confusion Oswald's don_ There is the judicious or common sense Commi to conclude that the "inconsistencies in the s resolution 5 [now 30] years after the events in Dallas."26

lit the scholarly response: to gather more eviden e, whether as ory, or about the alterations in the witnesses' stories, or about ofts. Sylvia Meagher in 1971 looked more closely at "The C

internal their sea whom Po

er also reprinted an intervening statement on Fekuary 13, 1 Revill (a narcotics detective), 'Mat Givens tia0 previously Bureau on a marijuana charge and he believes that Givens wo site denounced as 'patently false" Reval's testimony to the ), that Givens had told him on November 22 he had seen 0

that Givens had never said this until April 1964,28', there is the lawyerly approach: to tell less, eat more, to sup that is preferred, and to invent non-existent problems with th discredit. This is the approach of Posner in CaseClosed_ Inst rohlems with the sixth floor witnesses who recanted their own these problems, and creates the false impression that it is a ke d herself.

o of February 25, 1964.23 All five who had de d for ups to do so. None had done so more suspicious) than the one

chooses (without any hint of this problem) as main source d conflict in !witness testimony about

espouse (whi• It was that of the House tements_.cr ed problems that defied

w what happened inside the forces which led to

our Testimony of Mr. changed at least four times in five months. and ended up w th his switch from being to an upstairs witness. According to an FBI memo of Novembe j22, Givens had told the 1:50 am he had seen Oswald reading a paper in the "domino r. m" on the first floor. In Commission testimony of April 8, 1964. Givens told counsel din that he had never tier statement, and claimed (for the first time ill the official ecord) that he had seen e sixth floor just before noon.'-?

• • •

s by March had changed WIlEleSS, Charles Givens,

to the FBI by Dallas handled by the Spe-

Id change his story for amen Commission (on

Id on the sixth floor, on

ess the difficulties with testimony of witnesses

of admitting, and dis-stimany, Posner com-first floor wimess who

Posner borated Osar mission acco

is especially concerned to impeach the testimotay of Cam Arnold,l which corro- d's own account of having lunch on the first floor, in oppositi n to the Warren Corn-s of Oswald waiting on the sixth floor. In Posner s words:

s reprinted in Peter Vintage, 1976),

26 AR 50. n 6 WI3 345- ' WCD 5.330

to FBI). 5

told the seco

Caroly Arnold, a secretary to the Depository's vice-pre 1978 that at 12:15 she entered the second-floor lunch one of {he booths. "He was alone as usual and appeared Her int iew with Summers was the first time she ever p ing 0 ald in the lunch room_ But Arnold had given two after th !assassination_ In one, she said she "could not be fleeting pse of Oswald in the first-floor hallway, and did not see him at all. Arnold told Summers the FBI signed

motor

an Syi.ia Meagher. 'MK Curious 7.1in:tow of Mr. Given,- Twos 011terVt1, lila. . Soon, Paul L. Hach. and rtuaaat me Assoctinations: Dallas aAil7.

WR 143: cf. WCD 5.329 (FBI interview of 11/22163): an culatoarizo4 in Mee 245-47. 1-131 mono, of 11/22/63): 6 WH WR 143 (Gives scs lawny): WCD 73 (Rovill' to Comoomoion): Meagher. to Soon. Hock. end S 245-45.

dent, told An m and saw be having I blicly told th

cleat FBI s sure" but mig the second s quoted her, statement as correct. Four other women worke with Arnold with her that day. They support her original s cements and years later. Virgie Rachley and Berry Dragoo accompanied d floor at 12:15. They did not see Oswald in the lunch room.

lony Summers in swald sitting in

" Arnold said_ !story about see-

tements shortly t have caught a cement said she

though she had watched the

et the story she when she left

yawn 13, 1971; end (New York:

6-97 (Ro.i0

Si) let sax floe Do. SEW note 352, eat.

3o told re• di tiros fi Wren ,

2 -•

man): o al 6

id Po

November 16, 1993

alb

William S before noon. B him on the s floor, but he is left behind by

(These five wimess them, Charles Give

But the appen givation:

e "did not see once to a nar-with a request oy Truly, who assassination,

he said that s his was in ors in accordance row question ed of all Book Depository witnesses by the FBI,

from the Warne; according to P and by five of

1) Arnold neve! told the FBI she did not see [Oswald] at alL" Lee Harvey 02a.ld at the rime President Kennedy was shot."31

Commission Similar if not identical answers were given by net saw Oswald two minutes (some say 90 seconds) after th suer's alleged upper floor wimesses.32

12/20/93 12:34 0510 848 8533 B & C WINTON

PD. Scott - 7 -

demolition of Arnold. Posner dismisses the Ids= two wits i ses in a foot- After this note:

2) It is highly had signed her of November 2 misquoted). ani (which she had

ng to say that "Arnold told Summers the ternent as correct:" Here Posner conflates MO

about seeing Oswald on the first floor (where (lone of March 28 about not seeing Oswald at gned as correct).

I misquoted Ilferent FBI

sole later claime &e time of th

ex, though she smellier, one to have been assassination

and Eddie Piper also thought they saw Oswald On the first fib Shelley later admitted he saw him at 11:45 A_M., before o Boor. Piper thought he saw Oswald at noon Elting orders

clearly mistaken as five witnesses had placed 0 ald on an up elevators at that time.19

had come up with the elevator story long after e assas Sad originally placed Oswald on the first floor). problem with Arnold's testimony is an artefact o Posner's ow lawyerly ima-

shortly -

s noticed the first

floor.

and one of

[a 018

3) Thus there is no evidence that Arnold ever contradicted herself. One thighs witnesses who 6.nied making statements attributed to them by FBL But grounds for doing so in this ease. As he is quite aware, three of his upper (Givens, W' s, and Norman, whose final stories he reports as gospel) ha oath making ier statements attributed to them by the FBI and/Or Secret S different memo after fourteen years is hardly comparable to the the dramatic reported stories om Givens after a few weeks, or even hours. I call Posner's Emetic lawyexly, because he is trying both to make some v

sixth floor witnesses clearer than they were, and to make a first floor witness s lematie than she reall was. But at times his abuse of evidence goes b4ond legal pro same page, for examp , lie tries to rebut Oswald's own statement that be took his 1 floor domino room b a seemingly persuasive barrage of conflicting teScimony: "D Dougherty, and Char Givens [all three of them upper floor witnesses who had stories] also ate in th t-floor room up to 12:15 and said there was o sign of him noted citation for this statement from Givens is to the Warren Commis!' n Hearings. 352. But on that page we find the exact opposite testimony: "Mr. B : On Novem eat inside the building Mr. GIVENS: No Sir.' After this discovery, o e can raise q

411 y suspect ostler has no oor witnesses I denied under

112.

33 Arnold's

differences in

problematic more prob-cry. On the

h in the first-Aree, lack

hanged their "34 The foot-ohinie Six. p.

22 did you estions about

if Pruner, 2:27; emphasis " Posner dam oar suppl

told the Coonniesion. The diffccone. of 6.c =m.

dice. a forswore for his =cement that Shelley saw Oswald 'at 11

SUously, is that he saw Oswald on the Eras floor at "about tea ttivial in piesticr- is cletmssurag to Posecr's lapis for II

the aisvaLar on the fifth floor. In other words, Shelley's res ly dubious eicnilot ;Mary.

law of Mareb 16, 1964, emphasis added. WR 634 (Ace), 643 (D..g„.,„„).. WH 649 (Givens), 22 wH &SS (Ja

gunk of Howard Roffman, rants ad Guilty atusherforth, NJ: Fsirlaiski Dickinson UM. " 6 WH 354 (Givens); 3 168. 111-72, 173. 180 {Williams); 3 WH 194 (Norman is Posner, 227.

time for !he first clICOLLIUM off as compatible with the

3' 22 WIi ass: FBI iwc

November 16, 1993

45 A—NC Whar bailey to rwebte.:(6

32111. SO le the Co snooy cannot be MCC

). 22 WU 6 (Nor-Noss. 1975), IS

this one Eve here I have focused witnesses w o create problems for

floor. ed and the sitory witness tes- closed, who lutist introduce a false

argue that Posner is niter all a

(like Toni Wi complaint e hailed it as

media tout so

) have hailed this en more is with the a model of historical h misrepresentations

12510 848 6533 B & C WINTON a019 12/20/93 12:35

PD. Scott

- 8 -

the other alleged wimesses as well's

Not ev page of Posner's book is as full of distortions •1 g of evidence; there are indeed other credi e that Oswald in fact spent this time on the first

e no trouble admitting Mai the evidence is confu to. It is Posner, in his desire to Sod the case titer is not to be found. Theta will be those

Should expect no better of him.

on the worst those who b

But I nmony prob simplicity that lawyer. and w

But my Complaint is about the national media pundits who boat as "thorlughly documented" and -always conclusive." M prominent aca irg who (like Professor Stephen Ambrose) haw research." The e will certainly never be dosed as long as the as the proper er to the critics.

Givens' test y is conliatent with ilia original affidavit to the Dallas Pofico on November'. 'noon he took bin I

LL break and het the building. A why samba ataicaacrit ("AR Wrath aaao at.

down on the street" lira bean signed and ream to by Danny Ana (241 WH 199). Ames difFerona a Worm that he atm lunch is the "domino room' (6 Wit 363). ill do ocanto 91,212, oaly Jack Dough a winless the Warren Report very uothusotodobly calla (WR 1531 mica to War ma Co on Counsel Sall that the shots were hood 'before I are lunch' (6 4773 3'

that at twelve o note I wow ataaesna to the

This !cants who sarcifiad

9).

November 16. 1993

12/20/93 12:36 Tr510 846 6533 B & C WINTON 2020