PethsvO, 'A

O prim

' at douM

may th

rob th

e leis if onew

ere to ask

the d

oub

ters of proof, ask of the eskers: W

hat have you found, w

hat news can n

d their

you bring us?

■••■■■•■•

■■■••■

■=

001.1

K

SPRIN

GFIE

LD

, M

ASS.,

JUN

E 25, 1967

Lin

gering S

ha ow

: Warren

Report

(Editor's N

ote: Th

e defend-

ant is a book. S

o is the pros-

ecutor.

On trio/ is th

e War-

rani Com

mission

Report, in

-d

icted b

y men

wh

ose o

wn

b

oo

ks fin

d it g

uilty. G

uilty

of h

aste

. Gu

ilty o

f bia

s. G

uilty o

f a co

vey:up

. Bu

t noitlusr critic nor etism

ission is th

e jury. T

he tO

lis is. it, ultim

ately, will fin

d' wh

ere it th

inks tru

th lies. B

ut before

con

siderin

g its verd

ict,. the

public m

ust ask for th

e facts. A

U th

e facts. H

as it h

eard

th

em? A

U o

f them

?)

Th

is is the first in

a series of articles en the W

arren Re-

port an

d Its C

ritics. Su

c-ceed

ing in

stallmen

ts will b

e p

ub

lished

this w

eek in

Th

e Springfield talon.

Hy B

ER

NA

RD

OA

VZ

ER

and SID

MO

OD

Y

AP

New

sfestures Writers

PRO

LO

GU

E

Th

e one slain

has n

ot died

. D

oubt will not let him

.

Many Q

uestions

Pou

bt Id

a: "H

ow d

id -

Rd?: B

y Whose hand?" ntsU

bt h

os heard

an an

swer—

"L

ee Ivey O

swald

did

it"—

from

doctors, lawyers, governm

ent; from

police, friends, foe.

at doubt does not believe. N

et quite,'

...Doubt know

s the statute of th

e seven som

ber m

en of th

e W

arren

Co

mm

ission

, the

breadth of their, investigation, the depth of their report. B

ilt d

oub

t is not ap

peased

. Not

Baia N

et A

ssarod

Doubt hoe heard of the rifle,

the sh

ells, the en

gages)* the

handwriting,,the blunted bullets,

the people Who said they saw

. B

ut d

oub

t is not assu

red. N

ot quite.

Why is this so?

notnitsisi doubt was denied the

certainly of a trial. Becattee not

all is known. B

ecause not all is an

swered

and

may n

ever be.

An

d b

ecause th

ere have b

een

other seekers than the comm

is-sion. T

hey have seen

wh

at the

comm

ission did not see: Differ-

ent shots from different places;

plots where the com

mission saw

none; design w

here the com

mis-

sion saw chance; doubt w

here the com

mission saw

fact.

Seetvengers or skeptics

Are these seekers scavengers,

as TexaS G

ov. John B. C

onnally h

as call$ them

? Or are th

ey im

passisked skeptics, refusing to take 41111 is m

ost likely" for en' an

swer? A

re they creators of

doubt? Or are they creatu

res of it? It is not alw

ays clear.

Bu

t it the W

arren rep

ort is now

doubted by many, it is be-

cattse of the b

ooks w

ritten b

y these few

seekers. If their num-

ber is smbli, their im

pact is not. T

he, very existence of a printed pagoshas an aura of authenticity 00%

4 a

nd

bey

on

d w

hat it

states. As the critics' books are

increasingly read, they are in-creasin

gly, believed

. It is far easier to read one book from

a shelf by a

dritle than a

wit* M

elt,W

&,s by a corn-

Et to dou

bt h

ikes raft

The A

to lies M

ow.

*gift le Ram

s

On

e 00tdd

*OW

life wiw

le argassent is aaeabro--gisoulish.

6ini K

enttedY # gene; T

alk W

on't bring him hom

e. But this

was a P

resident. The people he

led have a right—nay, an obli-

gation—

to kn

ow w

hat stru

ck

him dow

n, and why. It w

as not just a death in the hearts of the n

ation. It w

as mu

rder at th

e heart of the national structure. A

ssassination unsolved is assas-sination at large, possibly free to strike again, certainly free to poison and corrode by suspicion, M

istrust, fear.

So it is not mere curiosity, not

just to add a footnote to history, to ask w

ho killed Kennedy. T

o p

reserve the A

bsolu

tely vital trust of the people in their lead-ers and institutions, the question m

ust b

e answ

ered. A

nd

stay answ

ered.

*m

od

Mill R

ed

Th

e qu

est Inisth

e is

still atited: 'Wffirtillikr

John

Wilk

es Booth

is not th

e an

swer to all seek

ers. Nor is

Lee H

arvey Osw

ald. L

incoln

, h

owever, is for th

e archivist.

The w

ound from D

allas is still red. It is tender to questions of w

ho, or why. It m

ay ever be.,

Or, perhaps, the w

ound may

have been salved all along. Per-

haps the fiat investigation need be the last.

I—T

HE

CR

ITIC

S

THE C

OM

MISSIO

N

Th

e critics of th

e en1

Com

mission R

eport have made

grave charges. They have m

ade) uncertainty. T

hey have made)

money.

Have they m

ade a case?

Dead W

rong

Have th

ey proved

that th

e m

ost extensive m

urd

er inves-

tigation in the nation's history, directed by som

e of its foremost

citizens, w

as w

ron

g, d

ead

w

rong? W

as the com

mission

guilty of haste, of bias, of a cov-erup and L

ee Harvey O

swald

innocent of murder? D

o events su

ch as th

ose recently in

New

its

Od

or, is cat* *ellen h

os not

been liane?

Polls suggest increasing num

-bers of people think so.

Book after carefully' footnoted

book say so. The W

arren Report

was once on the best-seller lists.

Now

Mark

Lan

e's "R

ash to

Judgment" is.

ritics

Who Spoke T

ruth?

Which has spoken truth? T

he critics say th

ey have.

An

d th

e comm

ission h

as stood m

ute.

Mark L

ane has said: "As long

as we rely for inform

ation upon m

en blinded by the' fear of what

they might see, the precedent of

the Warrett4letnkninsioti R

eport w

ill continue to imperil the life

Chief Justice Earl Warren poses with members of the Warren Conunission. Front left: Rep. Gera 11.1d6114 Eiris ,Boio Boggs, D-La... Sen. Richard Russell, D.Ga.; Warren. Sen. John Sherpa

er, ft-Ky.; John j, 111( , New York hanker; AN* Dulles, forage, ; sod I. Los RIO* of New , chief touts&

LEO SAUVAGE

MARK LANE EDWARD EPSTEIll MIN are three of rite eriti es of the Warren Report.

man jumps onto the bumper of the presidential' limousine ,Xsonedy was shot by an assassin in Dallas in No-

This is the bullet that was found at Parkland Hospital, Some critics said it came from Gov. Connally's stretch-er. The commission says it came from K en n edy's stretcher.

The bullet was ainiest un-damaged. Tests showed it came from Oswald's rifle and no other.

A few fragments found in Connally added to the weight of bullet 3119 approximate the • weight of such a bullet. Park-land doctors have been quot-ed out ef 'Context by some critics to sty the fragments le Connally are too big to have come from *eget WO.

negge. Epstein makes intich 'el the differenee.

Inquiry by the weitere, how- ever, has established that the , FBI wrote itit original report before getting that of the doctors, which • reached the agency Dec. 23, 1963. The FBI nonetheless stuck to its original version in a sUpedemental re-port Jan. 13, 1964. The agency felt duty bound not to alter a report by its agents--its , Cus-tomary, policy—even thougb oth-er reports might contain other facts.

It was..the commission's task to Choose between the FBI agents-r-laymn who reported what they had overheard the autopsy ' doctors say—and the doctors themseives who were ineickef the one authorized ex-

end WU repert.

Should Be Appraised

Shouldn't a critical appraisal Of the otaltrniasiett have made such an triqUiryfif Epstein did, it la notrethrded.

Music lapses of the eriges do riot prniaot-ert filigittene that Ca-veldt -BiteitlerStilltit 4e *1 lanes, and many others to he cited later, have some bearing on the objectivity the critics claim for themselves and deny the commission?

Did • the critics, not the coin-mission, "cite evidence out of context, ignore and reshape evi-dence?"

They did.

Not 'Judges

They have sat in judgment of the Warren Commission and found it wanting. But they are not judges. They have been twbeeentrtio„ making a ease. Where Mt has _served, they have used it Where it has not, they have not.

If they have read all the evi-dence, they have not quoted it ,

all. They have taken evidence to form theories, to launch specu-lation. But they have not taken all the evidence.

Tey have said -perhaps" and "it .seems" and "it is like-ly.” Big they must say more They Myst say here is the evi-

denee. as yet, such evir' 'dance li** Ant hem'

Same Evidence

The irony of the Warren re-port is that it is based on the same evidence as the, books that attack it. The commission pro-vided in the 26 volumes of testi-mony and exhibits and addition-al matter in the National Ar-chives the results of its hives- tigatice. And this is the heart of the critics' case. Their witness-

weri the comeniition's. Their

evidence was the eoasmluales's. But, again, not all di

A doctor said Kennedy was shot from the trent A man saw a puff of smoke from some trees ahead of the motorcade: The man, and others who saw smoke, were commission witnesses. , The doctor, and others wire theught K • needy!' threat woad was oats `of onitionea

wean eras Idinthiter, And they anew ler the Or*:

But not always . in the critics' books does one read of the peri-pie who saw .a rifle in the win.. dow of the Texas School Book Depository. Not always doeS ohe

read the doctors' testhnorty that their first interpretation of Ken-nedy's wounds was not their - final one. -

Found Commission Wrong

The comMission presented ill the evidence it could find. The critics did not. As a group they have found the commission wrong on almost anything but the fact of assassination itself:

(One critic, George C. Thosi-son, doesn't even agree, on tba,i. He claims five persona Were Wed,: that of ,tinsin. was JohnKesitkedY-vale Thialasse says is allve nC

% ad

This is the approrhnate view the assassin of President Kennedy nmight 'save seen as it• trained his weapon on the President in Noventfier, 19(83. This scene was reconstructed and the 'picture was made with a long lens duplicating the scene art it

appeared in the tokstetigk sight, of the rifle. •

Spike does net poem t. ft* note onegibrois of the :critic-Al nOolot, altnotigb this WOO OM* with several of them preparing this report. (The notes made on Mark Lane's book alone run to 50,000 words).

The intention, rather, is in focus on several key, issues in contention and compere what the commission volumes said with what the critics said they , said. Such comparison is often illuminating. Such a comparison may not convince the two-thirds of those questioned in a recent poll wh6 said they doubted the commission's conclusions.

The Facts

But, at the least, it may serve' to have asked of the critics what they have asked of the commis-sion—the facts. All of them.

Surely, one can fault the com-mission. Why didn't it call this witness, investigate more deep ly in that area? When there was doubt, too often the com-mission spoke, needlessly, in more positive language than the facts allowed. Maybe it should have behaved more as a court than a commission.

Maybe it would have been better for Oswald to have

represented posthumously by earl: `e the did have swipe an iihe cal , clock in turning in, lb effort While some investilathin Wes ,sttli under way.. ddarbe lifatfhe.

Not Infallible

Without question, the commis-sion was net infallible. But it has too long been `tropetaiget of critics who have. not received the same scrutiny they gave tile. Warren repOrt. This does to no one. .

But recently, books Ural begun to appear attacking' critics, one by Charles Roberts of Newsweek magaiine SOLO-other by Richard Warren LOW: a magazine writer, and .LeW-rence Schiller, a photo.jo11 $ld-ist.

And while the commission, albeit disbanded, has not spoken as an organization in its", de-

. tense, many of Its staff lawyers are now willing to ,do so. The writers' 'Interviewed 11 at the commission's 15 senior sels.

Contradicting Eyewitnesses

They spoke of the contra-diatirog eyewitnesses 'those' thought the shots came front,

- Taxes School Book Deposita* and those who didn't, those Who didn't agree on what Tippitt's .slayer Wits wearing or Wit* ha looked like.

•r ye had a lot ,of trial mow* ence," said one of the keY hers of the commission at " know witnesses don't you have testimony , that has uniformity, you have to look out for perjury.'

The staff lawyers talked of some of the puzzling to

- that may never be resolved' gunsmith who said he gun for some one nulled -OS-weld, the men ,,who- saw Seine one who looked like Otivrald et a tiring range, the persons who saw Oswald ,driving or (the commission •decided he sips drive), the WON= in kl as who said Oswald had, beeti *cell to her as an antirClak troite who thought Kennedy

should be, -shot, the tvito

thought they saw IP Jack Rubes night club,,,

Beneficiaries Fraud

"We were ben of fraud," said one Of the *viol. attorneys Without .fizeidialliug

!any specific exartiples,:s. g*.The thirst then *oohed east warty people Who wanted to valved in this great appreciate this can happen,. but Z thought People would h too much regard for the nose of what we were trying to AC",

They talked of why the, wad mission had not defended

"If we were to answer the Lanes and the Sauvages, who would believe us? We had all kinds of suggestions. One was that (Chief Juittide Earl) Warren, himself, come out in defense of • the report.

JUNE 25, 1967 THE SPRINGFIVLD 'SUNDAY REPUBLICAN,

*award Brennan, is photographed where he.stood when he said he saw a man firing from the sixth floor of the Tea& Selma Book Depositor, (A) ylltindew marked B where he tam one ot several Negroes who were walla* the motorcade. One of them testified ,he heard shells hitting the lease over his head. Brennan's testimony is a key factor in the critics' books as he

Mr. et tem$104,1100* lither WitioN. This Photo***

as Walt 1* Cothitti rt.•

"'I deo :Vat Wag. r • werein the , worrWit take this. You'd be fools if you .ditt But the press

- has an 'Obligation to examine • each book as it comes out and

present It to the public as a • searching for 'truth. And l• think • this might go on for 50 or 100

Years. As long as people can make a quarter or a hallAndllien dollars,. we're going 16 thine these books.

"The mass media devote time to the Lanes and the Epeteins becaUse it sells. Coming up with the establishment Alta/point . doesn't have much mileage." •

One staff .member talked at this charge that the eon' entered the investigation With a preconceived belief of Oeiveld'il guilt. "Nonsense. We lodged for the incredible as well as the cretelde. A lot of us were young laWytets. What greater feather could it be in our caps to wove the OW was wrong?"

Most Unequal

A opior wanner diseueSed the whet* of having. used 'an ad-wafter astern in"the ineeelige ten, with eproseculion agahiat and a defense for Oswald. "ft avail have been most Unequal; the giteernment one side. The repit Would have sound-ed blot a brief for the prose-etlthd.

"The staff was instructed to pressed in each instance on the

ty that Oswald was, net . If they didn't Want to

prieeeit on that basic thk snii= mission didn't want then* to continue."

One lawyer, Wesley J. Liebe:1- er, talked of Oswald as a, marksman. "I took the position that you, well, you couldn't tell. The evidetice that Oswald Was able; to shoot he President was that he did. He was 'lucky. Os, weld had something in his iiights that he knew he wart- ew-er going to have again. I sirs, petthe .was up forit."

"Grassy' Knoll" Lieheller talked of the "play

knoll" where Lane and others think shots crane from, in part because people • ran hr .that dip reetion -after the gunfire.,

"Would people do. 'this?? Would you if you knew or thought

someone was ifreer It *gentle; epee retie** I' might run after the Motorcade. I might run far cov-er. tut I'm sure most people would run to get out of the way."

Joe Ball, another stiff mem-ber, talked of the rifle found on the sixth boor o the depository betkilint *Mich pollee first iden• tifii4 as a Mauer. Later it was determined to he a Mannlicher-Carcano, an Italian weapon. Critics have implied this switch suggests the .weapon was plant-ed.

Never Handled Rifle •

"Evidence shows that Sey-mour Weitzman (who found the rifle) never handled it and saw it , from fiNe 'feet IrWey. Weitz-'Man and teptiti, W*1* Eugene Beote ts th. it aeem$ b di* oli •

.ft'ellerir. It, 1■101101"- ler* • tdtt dedehttAirict.the •Mairtelielees to the hbit.aetion, But Lanklev-er darea to go so fir lus 'minty theitiWeiterhat .or'Elcient in any way suggest this is net, the With wee' found on the `1 floor and which has been !mind beyond all doubt to have fired thc bullets,"

• (This As ..not qiiite accurate. Lane, • on Page; 1*.i of the .hard- weer "Roekto Jedg merit" .wriies': " Weitzman; was • -.shown. Memllicher,Carcano .: which.... was unable to identify as • the weapon Weitzman had„foond."

. Can't Be Positive

Boone said no such 'thing. He was shown the rifle and testd-fled: "It looks like the same rifle. Viceve no way of being

had why Wasn't he BrithUlle he saki• he noel han-dled the rifle.

Ball Mikado! Epstein. "He said I said Norman Red-

lich (one of the staff) used 'a turgid law review style.' I wrote Epstein's' publisher and said I never used the word 'turgid' in my life:I hid to go the dictiona-ry and look it up.

'sus stederitak that 'the law- worited ass. con-

the report volumes them:

sehEM live an tali* thing. hat " t

eff It sive' r thi The remaining 11. 'Mach

lahlentably have no central in are as ,tidily pecked as a

&Me ,bag. There .is• np order. A search for a

P statement

hours One: of t-

; titatement or Vitt

coterie AV ,walliiiikenis Sylvia Meagher,' has

•á•m index on-her osict. ittg is fallible;

Certain Fascination

Yet the volumes, particularly the tigietimony, have a *rain flachintion. The yange et Attr-act*. is Tolstoyan. There la the Pre lent of the United Sestet, retazy of state. AO. a

te. There is 'a d Unden-born oil man who

Oswald and Jacqueline Keniedy and whose mute*" frailties with a Latin beauty are *NV comic. And there is a la-borer -who , told the august man-ia*. cif the commission in blunt arms of the locker room what ink *Ought when he heard a rile

above his head in the iftory

The • critics are equally di-*roe. There is::Harold

Ma? Ylatat Puultrifilen Was once National

ate King and claims his "Geese Peace" campaign got the' e Corps its first good pub-

break. Weisberg, who the report as an evangel-

ist knows his Bible, 'has lished two books, 'Min

allfilint44 *. fine. nlY Menai initealfingaM; - thshalliPAS414649447 to '11: 7 Wee allowed to come my home in Long Beach, once e Month, and I did. stets ttiptet me 39 times ind. I detet (elk to that Man for Mier halt an lour and that was He* Yolk hotel lobby."

Nine.* tint 1b "plait, quoted by Epstein that, writer* htterviewed. with miiidatenients. Se them tante letters of protest !Is

12iVettnitor for Whom he white game " pest" as ' a

tolleter's thesis. The p replied to one that "expert has, shown that all ton- oftenwhen a person is shown hle • oWn weillk on paper he is OW that he did not mike remarks.'

tence showed tills in Epeteinit case, anyway,

Anger, Pant -Prides

ziebehor talked, of finlift:,* whhieate. 0°4' •

OetValil's palm print found en tkei Me had little probative* ue, said Lane, "especia local and federal ,police who issued Maeda. statements. ..'were alata OeWMA and the weapon:" The iMplication seems obvious.

ell," said Liebeler "tie' 'wonder- that hi

ance of the NUM .1>epartMent,Geft.ist their Souls, were they so' devil= ishly clever that they *old have taken, Oswald's print slid pion*, it on the ' lid* it off again, of could have handed the *le to Oswald to get the print? Of course, that/would involve- the juilinnent of Oswald, and do you think AV one could have, gotten OillwaltOtutich that rifle with a Ma* pale? Of course not."

'gifted" Prints

also suggests it le "du-d*" that a Dallas police offi- cer ' a print on the rifle and " " it off the weapon and; that an FBI expert' was Unable to find any trace of the print on the gun Several days later. The reader inight4f, find it curious that Lane Ates not mention • that 1Fffi : cf thadts

print showed minute gaps. They exactly matched nicks and pit-ting in the metal of the

m. which the print, was

tier itfaff . e's book.

attempn to discr rentmlasion, 011 hundr Manta and te suggest asap eneemotai level of inconitneenel

;‘411shonettlYa s,, . to milli e argument ridiculous.

Someone set out to design a commission of the incompetence Lane, attributes, ts5 it, I doubt very seriously, that it Could 'eve have heen done. Had he lbc upon some weaknesses of commission or the report, might have had en area of a went.'

. There Were Weaknesees

And the staff agrees *else tege weaknesses. Some were omission: the cominissiat Certainly could have

ity witnesses who had statements to law

dials weaknesses w comm n: the report

Hy have been more ut `the autopsy e., were inevitable:. neck

Will ever be able to say almolute certainty which 'haft produced 1110 fragMents chat were found in Kennedy's oar just what struck a bYti the cheek.* why *welt Or even, perhaps, if he Unaided.

• But to r the report, all it,, is to S. date the de

Inveskation, Perhaps Cearrilisebn. *hind* have, ivio investigatory staff, less of the huge expense. ant that is to suggest that the rat and the Secret Service and OW Or investigative agencies Which it relied were - sonseitaw not to be trusted.

Weren't Trintworthy

Some critics suggest that •tissy were not trustworthy: either subconsciously they sought to defend their professionalism by Charitably treating ev and witnesses or far worse they were involved in plot. the latter were the einte,•It would mean, because of • flee intricacy and range of the in-vestigation, a conipiracy Silk most universal dimensiens, yet, there is no such eviderieei

two stand-in.

Pointed (Meadow

Sauvage, a French journaliet, argues with Gallic logic, no in- dex and merobarellilt the "perhaps" an d "it . notenis" school. He raises same Pointed queitons in 'areas where uncer-tain* is and may Wedeln forev-er.

Pipitiein alias much., of the dottor autopsy die- crePancy, ft it answerable. He makes a criticism of many of the commission's methods. This is arguable. Both was. But he raises his questions from faits M 'tile mrismiasion volumes. Soiriehmel net ,all the faits. And soMetimes-nottfeets at all.

Limo aaneellaltdeln-init . .He hea made . a. movie

On' bin ,,b:Sit shit .104,11 numerous leaturek Imre: itad abroad: At the very end of book; he files a disclaimer ex-plaining why he accepted -ma-terial contrary to the GoMMIS' stores coital/fiats and , rejected material that supports it. Se, on almost his last page, Lane iden-tifies himself: ire is a Preseoll-tor ', using the defendant Om-mistion's oin Witnessee 'end testintony. But not all of it.

Pomidva .Coniributkte ' • "I n ieven't found anythlng of

theirs that even makes a posi-tive contribution," said one of the serder commission counsels of the critics.

One can assume the embeds-elan staff would-stand by work. Its statements thotdd " be considered with that in Mind.' One,. however, should. approach She critics , with ',similar dispas-sion. Read theta. But Mad what they criticize as well. If it is ironic that the report is their foundation, it is also convenient. One can read and compare.

"Political Truth"

Epstein presumably read. He found the commission Mkt ut-tered "political truth.' It sought to, dispel rumor and keep Amer-ica clean, not to determine fact.

But neither Edward. Jay Ep-stein nor Lori Warren is the jury. The public is. And, there is more to the case 'for the govern-ment than the public may have heard.

The public may know of the single bullet theory. It is, a chain of circurnstnice; linked by as-sumptions. It 'is a chain, that Teach to Lee Harvey Oswald as the assassin. But it is vulnera-ble, Ati ail chi*. If tow its links • break it toes not

ember

11", is planning

one a lealc-itlilte