Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (116 page)

It is apparent to some researchers that the assassination was the result of
a well-executed military-style ambush utilizing multiple gunmen firing
from hidden positions-perhaps using fragmenting or "sabot" bullets and
even silencers.

To attempt to pinpoint each gunman's location and calculate the number
and effect of each shot is an exercise in futility since actions were taken
immediately to eliminate evidence and confuse investigators.

A spent slug found on the south side of Elm Street was apparently taken
by a man identified later as an FBI agent. A highway sign, thought to have
been struck by a bullet, later disappeared. Films and photographs that
might have pictured the assassins were confiscated by federal authorities
and much of this material was never returned to the rightful owners.

The presidential limousine-a vital piece of evidence-was taken from
Dallas and destroyed as evidence on orders from President Johnson before
investigators could inspect the car's interior and windshield.

On the other hand, it is astounding how fast a wealth of evidence
incriminating Lee Harvey Oswald became public. Most researchers now
consider much of this evidence highly questionable.

The Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found on the sixth floor of the Texas
School Book Depositor could only be linked to Oswald by a poor-quality
palm print that lacked a court-admissible chain of evidence and was most
probably obtained while Oswald's body was being prepared for burial.

Authorities claimed to have found three spent rifle cartridges on the
Depository's sixth floor, although a copy of the original Dallas police
evidence sheet states only two were found.

A Dallas police captain later claimed he kept one of the cartridges for a
time. While this explains why only two cartridges were listed on the
evidence sheet, it also indicates a break in the chain of evidence, meaning
the third cartridge would not have been admissible in a trial.

The fact that Oswald's palm prints were found on boxes on the Depository's sixth floor is meaningless since he had worked there earlier that day.

In fact, much of the material evidence becomes meaningless once the
idea that it could have been planted to incriminate Oswald is considered.

The idea that Oswald was framed for the crime-recall his cry "I'm just a
patsy!" to newsmen in the Dallas Police Station-is supported by several
things.

Recall that the CIA was reporting internally that Oswald entered the
Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City in early October, but photographs of the man seem to prove he was an impostor. This would mean someone was posing as Oswald to link him to the Communists two months
prior to the assassination-and the CIA was aware of it.

Also recall that instances of Oswald being seen in two places at once,
target practice in South Dallas and test driving a car at high speed on a
Dallas freeway at a time Oswald was still trying to learn to drive.

In light of these incidents, it is apparent that someone was laying a trail
of incriminating evidence right to Oswald.

The famous backyard photographs of Oswald with his weapons have
been labeled clever forgeries by virtually everyone who has studied them,
except those connected with the federal government. With the discovery of
a suppressed third backyard photo in the mid-1970s, the fakery became
undeniable.

If these photos are composite fakes-as claimed by Oswald himself-it
is evidence that someone with sophisticated photographic capabilities was
working to incriminate Oswald prior to the assassination.

Recall that Dallas police claimed to have found only two backyard
photos in the Paine garage the day after the assassination, while two Dallas
photo processors, Robert and Pat Hester, claim they saw the backyard
pictures in the hands of the FBI the night of Kennedy's death.

Since there would have been efforts to eliminate any evidence of
foreknowledge of the assassination, it is not surprising that the proof of the
framing of Oswald is meager and largely circumstantial.

What is obvious and demonstrable is the coverup perpetrated after the
assassination.

Herein lies the real key to understanding the truth of Kennedy's death.

While anyone could have engineered the assassination-Castro agents,
KGB assassins, mob hitmen, anti-Castro Cuban exiles, dissident CIA or
FBI agents, even the infamous "lone nut"-who had the power to subvert
and misdirect any meaningful investigation after the assassination had
occurred?

Consider that in the wake of the assassination there has been:

-A continuing and consistent pattern of suppression of evidence, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses on the part of
federal authorities, especially the FBI and the Warren Commission.

-A continued unwillingness on the part of the Justice Department-of
which the FBI is a part-to pursue and prosecute assassination leads,
even after being urged to do so by Congress.

-Revelations concerning the presence of Secret Service agents encountered in Dealey Plaza at the time of the shooting, when no agents were
present according to official records.

-The questionable activities of the CIA in providing false evidence to
the Warren Commission while suppressing other vital evidence, such as
the existence of assassination plots involving the Agency and organizedcrime members.

-The disconcerting pattern of communications blackouts occurring at
the time of the assassination which involved the Dallas police radio
channel dedicated to presidential security, the missing code book in the
airplane carrying Kennedy's cabinet, and the virtual shutdown of the
Washington, D.C., telephone system at a time when most Americans
were only just becoming aware that something had happened in Dallas.

-The revelation that Kennedy's autopsy was performed by inexperienced Navy doctors who were ordered by higher authorities present not
to follow established autopsy procedures such as examining the President's clothing and probing his wounds. It was this flawed autopsy that
has been most responsible for the continuing controversy over the
medical evidence.

-An effort on the part of federal authorities to lock assassination
evidence away from the public. President Johnson ordered evidence
locked up until the year 2039, while the House Select Committee on
Assassinations sealed up its evidence for fifty years.

These sins of coverup and suppression of evidence can be laid squarely
at the feet of officials of the federal government.

No agents of the Dallas police, organized crime, Fidel Castro, or Nikita
Khrushchev could have accomplished these documented efforts to hide the
truth of the assassination.

The argument has been offered that government agencies-notably the
FBI and CIA-suppressed and altered some evidence in an understandable
effort to keep themselves from looking incompetent during the public
outcry following the assassination. For example, the Secret Service lied
about its agents drinking the night before Kennedy died and the FBI lied in
denying it had any knowledge of Oswald's whereabouts just prior to the
assassination.

But other examples of official misconduct are harder to explain away.
For instance, the destruction of the Oswald note to the FBI is blatant
destruction of evidence. An average citizen found guilty of this offense in a
criminal case is subject to both jail and fine.

Other documented instances of destruction of evidence involve the
cleaning of the presidential limousine and Governor Connally's clothing,
and the destruction of Dr. Humes's original Kennedy autopsy notes.

Evidence altered while in the hands of federal authorities include the
General Walker home photograph, the location of Kennedy's back wound,
the nature of Kennedy's throat wound, the Dallas police evidence sheet,
the location of book boxes in the "sniper's nest" and the testimony of
several key witnesses, such as Phil Willis, Jean Hill, Roger Craig, Julia
Ann Mercer, and the reenactment surveyors.

Instances of suppressed evidence include Kennedy's autopsy X-rays and
brain, missing bullets, the actual results of spectrographic and neutron
activation tests, Oswald's photographic and optical equipment (including the Minox camera), Oswald's paraffin test, the third Oswald backyard
photograph, the incidents involving Sylvia Odio and Yuri Nosenko and a
variety of crucial assassination witnesses, including Bill and Gayle Newman,
Charles Brehm, James Simmons, J. C. Price, Beverly Oliver, Ed Hoffman, Dallas policeman James Chaney, and many others.

The intimidation of witnesses runs the full gamut from simple pressure
to alter portions of their testimony to strange and unnatural deaths.

Witnesses Charles Givens, James Tague, Phil Willis, and former senator
Ralph Yarborough were pressured to alter their statements, while othersincluding Ed Hoffman, A. J. Millican, Sandy Speaker, Acquilla Clemons,
and Richard Carr-were threatened into silence.

People with pertinent assassination information turned up dead under
strange circumstances. Lee Bowers and taxi driver William Whaley were
killed in odd crashes. Reporter Bill Hunter and Ruby acquaintance Betty
McDonald died in separate police station incidents.

Witness Jean Hill said harassment by federal authorities-including
surveillance and telephone taps-continued well into the 1970s.

All of these examples of official misconduct go far beyond any innocent
attempt to prevent tarnish to an agency's reputation. Many of these incidents were obvious attempts to misdirect an impartial investigation and to
incriminate Oswald.

Even before Oswald was killed, the FBI-aided by Dallas authoritieswas leaking information that he was the sole assassin. This came at a time
when most members of the Dallas police felt Kennedy's death involved a
conspiracy of some magnitude.

The government had strong allies in perpetrating a coverup in the
Kennedy assassination-a news media that seemed incapable of looking
past official pronouncements.

From the moment the Kennedy assassination occurred, coverage of
the tragedy involved government manipulation of a news media, which
appeared only too willing to be manipulated.

The established media allowed themselves to be set up by official
leaks and pronouncements about the assassination to the point where later
official findings had to be accepted, and defended.

In the days following the assassination, Dallas area newspapers were
filled with factual, if contradictory, information-Dallas district attorney
Henry Wade voiced suspicion of a plot, various people told of seeing Oswald
and Ruby together prior to Kennedy's death, and information concerning
more than three shots fired from more than one location was published.

Outside Texas however, wire-service reporting was limited to the official version of one lone assassin firing three shots.

Information on Oswald's procommunist background was leaked by the
FBI and transmitted nationwide. Immediately media speculation was turned
from whether or not Oswald acted alone to speculation on his motives.

Despite the insertion of the word alleged before the word assassin, the
entire thrust of news coverage was aimed at Oswald's guilt.

The New York Times proclaimed:

EVIDENCE AGAINST OSWALD DESCRIBED AS CONCLUSIVE

While the New York Post simply headlined:

ASSASSIN NAMED

Even the Dallas-Fort Worth papers were not immune to this rush to
judgment.

The day after the assassination, the Dallas Morning News told readers:

PRO-COMMUNIST CHARGED WITH ACT

And the nearby Fort Worth Star-Telegram carried a front-page headline
reading:

PARAFFIN TESTS OF OSWALD SHOW HE HAD FIRED GUN

This story quotes Dallas police chief Curry as saying: ". . . he could not
at this time state whether paraffin tests on Oswald's face also were
positive. "

Dallas police documents show that the test was negative on Oswald's
face. This evidence of innocence was suppressed by both the Dallas police
and the federal authorities.

After Oswald's death, with no one except his mother to contradict them,
the media began going further in their presumption of his guilt.

A New York Times headline stated:

PRESIDENT'S ASSASSIN SHOT ...

Life magazine profiled:

ASSASSIN: THE MAN HELD-AND KILLED-FOR MURDER.

A Time magazine article combining Oswald's obituary and biography
was entitled:

THE MAN WHO KILLED KENNEDY

The presumption of Oswald's guilt was cemented in the minds of the
American public by the February 21, 1964, edition of Life, which carried
one of the infamous backyard photos on its cover with the caption: "Lee
Oswald with the weapons he used to kill President Kennedy and Officer
Tippit."

This issue was in the hands of the public nearly eight months before the
Warren Commission emerged from behind closed doors and proclaimed
Oswald the assassin.

Later, Life devoted much of its October 2, 1964 issue to coverage of
the just-released Warren Report. Rather than assigning a staff member to
evaluate the report, Life editors chose Representative Gerald Ford, himself
a Commission member, to review his own work.

In that same issue, a still frame from the Zapruder film depicting
Kennedy's rearward fall at that moment of the head shot was substituted with an earlier frame that gave no indication of the direction his head
moved. Interestingly, the caption read: "The assassin's shot struck the
right rear portion of the President's skull, causing a massive wound and
snapping his head to one side."

This caption, which only vaguely contradicted the official version, was
nevertheless changed twice until it read: "The direction from which shots
came was established by this picture taken at the instant a bullet struck the
rear of the President's head and, passing through, caused the front part of
his skull to explode forward.