Who Really Killed Kennedy?: 50 Years Later: Stunning New Revelations About the JFK Assassination (15 page)

The Warren Commission, however, was satisfied: the alias A. Hidell
linked Oswald and the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle; ballistics linked CE399 to the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle; CE399 validated the single-bullet theory; hence, Lee Harvey Oswald had to be the lone gunman. Or, to put the chain of deduction more simply, if Oswald was A. Hidell, he had to be the lone gunman, as proved by the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle and CE399. To make the deduction work, all that was required were two assumptions that could not be proven: namely, (1) that CE399 was a bullet used in the assassination and (2) that the Mannlicher-Carcano was really the rifle that was found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, not the 7.65 Mauser the police and the Dallas district attorney initially claimed they found. Another problem was linking the key evidence with the crime: CE399 was not found in the body of JFK or Connally, and no bullet or bullet fragment pulled out of JFK or Connally could be traced back to the Mannlicher-Carcano with certainty. Evidently, the Warren Commission hoped the American public would just forget the Mannlicher-Carcano was a notoriously inaccurate weapon to fire and that the ammunition was World War II vintage.

A question that rarely if ever gets asked is this: Why would Lee Harvey Oswald, after shooting JFK, bother to take the time to hide the rifle with a scope among some boxes on the sixth floor near the stairs? Having just murdered the president of the United States, the first and only thought that should have been on Oswald’s mind was getting away undetected as fast as possible. Oswald did not bother to pick up the three shell casings that fell on the floor just under the sixth floor window in the so-called “sniper’s nest.” So why did Oswald take the time to hide the rifle? Why not simply drop the gun at the sixth floor window and run? Surely the shooter must have realized the police were going to search every square inch of the Texas School Book Depository Building. Why bother hiding the weapon among a bunch of boxes near the stairs?

If the shooter had been professional, no shell casings or rifle would ever have been found, unless, of course, the shell casings and rifle were planted, in order that they would be found.

Could the spent shell casings have been dropped precisely because the markings on them would trace back to the weapon? The Mannlicher-Carcano, as we have just seen, was easily traceable back to Lee Harvey Oswald via the mail-order receipt in the name of the alias Alex Hidell. Long
before the shooting ever began, the three spent shell casings could have been dropped at the sixth floor window and the rifle stashed among the boxes exactly where the assassination planners meant for them to be found.

Dropping the shell casings and the rifle would serve a dual purpose. Not only would it frame Oswald as the shooter, the three spent shell casings would lead investigators anxious to solve the crime to conclude no more than three shots had been fired, a conclusion that would help rule out multiple shooters organized in a conspiracy. What could possibly have been better for reasons of political expediency if the crime of assassinating JFK, a well-loved president at the height of his popularity, could be solved within minutes of the shooting? What could have been better for reasons of political expediency than if the lone assassin could be paraded before a national televised audience within two hours of the assassination? A Dallas Police Department incompetent enough to have allowed the assassination to have occurred in the first place could clearly attempt redemption by solving the crime this expeditiously. In the worst case scenario, even if the investigation found there were multiple shooters, the evidence left on the scene on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository would frame Oswald as being one of the shooters.

Lost in the rush-to-judgment was any explanation as to why the first law enforcement investigators on the scene identified the rifle as a 7.65 Mauser when they found it. How did experienced Dallas Police detectives mistake a beat-up, Italian-made, second-rate World War II rifle with a defective clip and a misaligned scope for a precision German-made rifle with a reputation for accuracy?

The truth is the Warren Commission simply dismissed any evidence that contradicted the pre-determined, politically acceptable solution to the crime, namely, that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone-gun assassin. As we have seen, the Warren Commission ignored the testimony of the many eyewitnesses who were convinced the shots had come from the grassy knoll. Similarly, the Warren Commission dismissed any eyewitness who saw more than one person on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building at the time of the shooting. Carolyn Walthers, for instance, was a spectator who watched the motorcade from Houston Street, some fifty to sixty feet south of the corner of Elm and Houston, from a vantage point in front of the Criminal Courts building. Walthers told
the FBI that she observed two men in an upper floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
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One man, with blond hair and wearing a white shirt, held a rifle that he pointed down toward Houston Street. She thought the rifle might be a machine gun. Next to him was an accomplice wearing a brown suit coat. Walthers was never called to testify before the Warren Commission. Instead, the Warren Commission cited the testimony of sixteen year-old African-American student Amos Lee Euins who said he saw a man with a rifle shooting out of the sixth floor window of the Book Depository window, even though Forrest V. Sorrels, the head of the Dallas Secret Service office, discounted evidence from Euins because Euins had not seen the supposed shooter well enough to tell if he were white or African-American.
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The Warren Commission seemingly relied upon Euins, even though the Final Report noted Euins’ testimony was considered merely probative rather than conclusive regarding the source of the shots, as well as inconclusive regarding the identity of the shooter.
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The Warren Commission was equally selective in which witness testimony was considered credible regarding the shots fired. Witnesses claiming the shots were fired from the grassy knoll were discounted in favor of witnesses that thought the shots came from the Texas School Book Depository. Witnesses disagreed regarding how many shots were fired, whether the first and second shots came in rapid sequence, or whether the rapid sequence involved the second and third shots. Some witnesses heard the shots, especially the first shot, as a firecracker, while others reported the shots boomed like a cannon. The Warren Commission did not probe whether more than one weapon may have accounted for the different ways witnesses heard the shots. The Warren Commission typically ignored testimony that did not conveniently fit the theory that Oswald was the lone shooter. Maybe the Warren Commission deemed publishing twenty-six volumes of hearings that included more than two thousand documents as sufficient weight of evidence to silence doubters. The problem from the beginning was that careful doubters took the time and trouble to read and study the twenty-six volumes. Combining this with their own independent research, skeptics were soon able to raise questions the Warren Commission could not easily answer.

But if the goal of the Warren Commission was to solve the crime, it took exactly the wrong approach. Rather than exclude evidence and
testimony contrary to its pre-determined conclusion, the Warren Commission should have avoided forming any hypothesis regarding who killed JFK and how, until after all available evidence had been collected and all available testimony had been taken. Instead, LBJ and the Justice Department pushed a political conclusion that demanded dissenters be dismissed as “conspiracy theory” nut cases. By violating the pursuit for truth, the Warren Commission has committed a more serious crime on the nation than was committed in the JFK assassination itself. For fifty years now the Commission has committed violence against our most sacred of freedoms, our First Amendment right to free speech and the ability to dissent respectfully.

Dallas Police Department motorcycle patrolman Marrion L. Baker testified to the Warren Commission on March 25, 1964, that he was trailing the JFK limo in the motorcade by about a block. He heard the first shot as he was proceeding down Houston, as JFK’s limo was heading down Elm toward the triple underpass. Baker said he recognized the first shot as a rifle shot because he had just returned from deer hunting, where he had heard rifle fire for about a week.

Mr. Belin
: All right. Did you see or hear or do anything else after you heard the first noise?

Mr. Baker
: Yes, sir. As I was looking up, all these pigeons began to fly up to the top of the buildings here and I saw those come up and start flying around.

Mr. Belin
: From what building, if you know, do you think those pigeons came from?

Mr. Baker
: I wasn’t sure, but I am pretty sure they came from the building right on the northwest corner [the Texas School Depository Building].

Mr. Belin
: Then what did you see or do?

Mr. Baker
: Well, I immediately revved that motorcycle up and was going up there to see if I could help anybody or see what was going on because I couldn’t see around this bend [at the corner of Elm and Houston].

Mr. Belin
: Well, between the time you revved up the motorcycle had you heard any more shots?

Mr. Baker
: Yes, sir; I heard—now before I revved up this motorcycle, I heard the, you know, the two extra shots, the three shots.

Mr. Belin
: Do you have any time estimate as to the spacing of any of these shots?

Mr. Baker
. It seemed to me like they just went bang, bang, bang; they were pretty well even.
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Baker estimated the distance to the corner of Elm and Houston from the point where he had heard the first shot was approximately 180 to 200 feet. He parked his motorcycle approximately 45 feet from the doorway of the Texas School Depository Building. He ran into the building, thinking the shots came from the roof. Once inside the lobby, he met Roy Truly, the building manager. Together, they ran to the northwest side of the building and started taking the stairs after they realized waiting for the elevator was going to take too long.

On the second floor, he got a glimpse of a man who later turned out to be Oswald.

Mr. Baker
: As I came out to the second floor there, Mr. Truly was ahead of me, and as I came out I was kind of scanning, you know, the rooms, and I caught a glimpse of this man walking away from this—I happened to see him through the window in this door. I don’t know how I came to see him, but I had a glimpse of him coming down here.

Mr. Belin
: Where was he coming from, do you know?

Mr. Baker
: No, sir. All I seen of him was a glimpse of him go away from me.

Mr. Belin
: What did you do then?

Mr. Baker
: I ran on over there—

Representative Boggs
: You mean where he was?

Mr. Baker
: Yes, sir. There is a door with a glass, it seemed to me like about a 2 by 2, something like that, and then there is another door which is 6 foot on over there, and there is a hallway over there and a hallway entering into a lunchroom, and when I got to where I could see him he was walking away from me about 20 feet away from me in the lunchroom.
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Baker yelled at the man, “Come here,” and the man turned and walked toward Baker, as instructed. Baker testified he had his revolver in his hand and the man he observed had nothing in his hands.

Representative Boggs
: Right. What did you say to him?

Mr. Baker
: I didn’t get anything out of him. Mr. Truly had come up my side here, and I turned to Mr. Truly and I says, “Do you know this man, does he work here?” And he said yes, and I turned immediately and went on out up the stairs.

Later that night, when Baker saw Oswald in custody in the homicide office of the Dallas Police Department, he recognized Oswald as the man he saw in the second floor lunchroom within minutes of the shots being fired.

Representative Boggs
: When you saw him, was he out of breath, did he appear to have been running or what?

Mr. Baker
: It didn’t appear that to me. He appeared normal you know.

Representative Boggs
: Was he calm and collected?

Mr. Baker
: Yes, sir. He never did say a word or nothing. In fact, he didn’t change his expression one bit.

Mr. Belin
: Did he flinch in any way when you put the gun up in his face?

Mr. Baker
: No, sir.

Mr. Dulles
: There is no testimony that he put the gun up in his face.

Mr. Baker
: I had my gun talking to him like this.

Mr. Dulles
: Yes.

Mr. Berlin
: How close was your gun to him if it wasn’t the face whatever part of the body it was?

Mr. Baker
: About as far from me to you.

Mr. Berlin
: That would be about how far?

Mr. Baker
: Approximately 3 feet.

Mr. Belin
: Did you notice, did he say anything or was there any expression after Mr. Truly said he worked here?

Mr. Baker
: At that time I never did look back toward him. After he says, “Yes he works here,” I turned immediately and run on up, I halfway turned then when I was talking to Mr. Truly.
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Truly’s testimony corroborated Baker’s testimony. Truly told the Warren Commission he and Baker encountered Oswald on the second floor, just inside the lunchroom. Baker had his gun drawn and pointed toward the middle portion of Oswald’s body. Once Truly vouched for Oswald as an employee, Baker resumed running up the stairs, determined to search the roof.