04-05-2009, 06:28 PM
Paul Rigby Wrote:A full list of the audience's details is available upon request from MI5 and, of course, Langley:
The British ‘who killed Kennedy?’ Committee, December 1964 (Pamphlet, 32pp)
The Warren Commission Report and the Assassination [part 2 of 2: Lane's responses to questions from the audience]
By Mark Lane
This is a transcript taken from a tape recording made of Mark Lane’s extemporaneous lecture.
And so to the home of lost causes…
Quote:Oxford Opinion, (3), June 1965, p.5
Editorial
It is a sad indictment of the University’s powers of criticism that two of its Senior Members’ controversial analysis of the Warren Report was inaccurate or based on false premises. The Regius Professor of Modern History, who attacked it, committed one major blunder; the Warden of All Souls, who defended it, made the double discrimination of quoting evidence at variance with other sources.
The real point about the Warren Report is that it bends over backwards to present the world with a simple case of a lone, insane assassin, and discards, often without comment, all the evidence to the contrary. There are good grounds for supposing that not only would Oswald have been denied a fair hearing, but that action was taken to ensure that he would never be brought to trial. The total of discrepancies is so large that it seems impossible that the Commission could not be aware of them.
Apart from the rather irrelevant debate between Sparrow and Trevor-Roper, the British Press had studiously ignored all adverse criticism of the Warren Report. At first, because they were afraid of the implications; now, because it has lost its immediacy. But the contradictory evidence has still not been brought to the attention of the public, and the implications remain: that the authorities are not prepared to see the whole truth brought out into the open. By allowing the affair to drift into obscurity, we are playing into the hands of those who would prefer their part to be quickly forgotten.
And after the hors d’oeuvre…
Quote:Oxford Opinion, (3), June 1965, pp.10-13
Warren Report: Fraud or Failure?
By Roger Macdonald
MARK LANE
It is impossible to disbelieve the Warren Report if the Summary is the reader’s only source of information. Without the volumes of evidence as a background, any observations such as Sparrow’s are naturally invalid. Lane’s case rests solely on his use of the evidence put forward by the Warren Commission.
Mark Lane became interested in the Kennedy affair when he wrote an article criticising police methods and contradictions arising from differing reports in the first few days after the assassination. His manuscript on the Warren Report reached an English publisher last week, and will be published in the autumn.
Recently he married a young Dane, whom he met after one of his lectures. His wife is devoted and it is obvious that their whole life is centred around this cause. Lane hopes to regain prestige when someone finally pays attention to his criticisms, but he is disappointed that people are so gullible in their belief in authority. He believes that all his lectures have been a success and he is resentful that no newspaper has given him fair coverage. Particularly he was surprised that the “Guardian” should be so adamant in its refusal of publicity. He is not bitter yet, but he has become such an outcast in his own country that he soon will be.
JOHN SPARROW
When Mark Lane finished his lecture at Oxford, he was asked if John Sparrow was present. The latter reluctantly stood up: “Is there anything, one thing, in the whole of my speech with which you can find fault, Professor Sparrow?”
Sparrow mumbled that he wasn’t a professor and nervously put forward some suggestions. Lane advanced many well-documented arguments. Sparrow’s only defence was: “As you know, Mr. Lane, I haven’t read the 26 volumes.”
Recently we asked Warden Sparrow if he had changed his opinions: “No,” he said, “if anything my belief has strengthened since my debate with Mark Lane. I have nothing further to add to my original discussion with Trevor-Roper. I don’t possess copies of the 26 volumes – have you ever tried to get hold of them?
“No, I don’t attach any importance to the fact that they are so difficult to get at, and that there’s no index. I’ve looked at them sometimes at Rhodes House, but they’re half photographs. No, what importance would there be? The American government certainly went to a great deal of trouble to distribute the Summary and that wasn’t expensive.”
HUGH TREVOR-ROPER
Professor Trevor-Roper would not reveal the nature of his discussion with Mark Lane when he came to Oxford earlier this year. “Lane is careless and inclined to exaggerate. But under his direction the American Citizen’s Committee has persisted in performing much meritorious work. Lane’s trouble is that his mind is already made up, but, apart from this and certain other reservations, I have nothing but admiration for the man and his work.
“Any group that might uncover fresh information has my approval, but even though I am on the ‘Who Killed Kennedy’ Committee I don’t know what it does: I just lend my name to it.I don’t think that the British press has tried to suppress any facts. Possibly there is some inhibition, but …if Lane met with any difficulties that’s probably because the Press is bored with him. I don’t think there’s any government policy on the subject.
“My opinions haven’t changed, but I don’t anticipate any future developments. Unfortunately the trail is going cold.”
In December 1964, the ‘Who Killed Kennedy’ Committee began a full scale offensive against the Warren Report. Mark Lane, the U.S. Attorney, visited England on a lecture tour and delivered a painstaking criticism of the Report at University College, London, on 10th December. Three days later, probably by prior arrangement, Hugh Trevor-Roper, then in the United States, made a formidable attack in the Sunday Times on the Commission’s interpretation of evidence. But the offensive failed within a matter of weeks because the Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford failed to check his sources, and he was caught out on one major error by John Sparrow, Warden of All Souls. Sparrow was permitted to quote from the abbreviated version of the Report as though it were the Book of Genesis. Mark Lane’s lectures were too complicated to be assimilated by his audiences, and they were studiously ignored by the British Press.
The day after the Report was published (Sept.28th), the Times published a leader. “There is no mistaking the stamp of honesty,” it said, “in the Warren Commission’s report on President Kennedy’s murder. It is thorough, painstaking, voluminous, frank, and above all else scrupulously careful in its analysis and conclusions.”
The Times does not care to explain how its U.S. correspondent, let alone its leader writer, managed to digest 26 volumes of testimony in less than 24 hours. The number of people who have read the full report remains exceptionally small. It contains no index; its price, $75, is prohibitive; Blackwells suggest that it could take a whole year to obtain a set from America. The Bodleian Library at Oxford still has not received a set, despite its millions of books. In contrast to Warden Sparrow’s attempted refutation of Trevor-Roper from the misleading summary, Mark Lane has analysed the full report from cover to cover. He adequately demonstrates that the Warren Commission’s findings are, at best, the case for the Prosecution; and that there is another case for the Defence.
THE SHOTS WHICH KILLED PRESIDENT KENNEDY AND WOUNDED GOVERNOR CONNALLY WERE FIRED FROM THE SIXTH FLOOR WINDOW AT THE SOUTH-EAST CORNER OF THE TEXAS SCHOOL BOOK DEPOSITORY.
Some of the witnesses, who were not called, thought differently. The Dallas Morning News published the impressions of four reporters on the day following the murder:
“We heard the shots. It was a horrible, ear-shattering roar coming from right behind us and a little to our right: right behind the bushes, right behind the fence.”
A railroad yardman:
“Just after the shots were fired at the President, I thought I saw someone throw something into those bushes.”
Conclusions of the Commission:
“There is no credible evidence whatsoever to support the theory that the shots came from this area.”
THE SHOTS WHICH KILLED PRESIDENT KENNEDY AND WOUNDED GOVERNOR CONNALLY WERE FIRED BY LEE HARVEY OSWALD.
The 6.5 mm. Italian rifle from which the shots were fired was owned and in the possession of Oswald
The inscription on the rifle is so clear that only an idiot could have signed an affidavit, as P.C. Seymour Weitzmann did on November 23rd, that the gun was a German Mauser, 7.65mm. But Weitzmann is a graduate engineer, who owned a sporting goods shop for several years and who was familiar with rifles of all kinds.
Oswald carried this rifle into the Depository Building on the morning of November 22nd 1963.
Although Warden Sparrow succeeded in proving that Professor Trevor-Roper was mistaken in his claim that the police destroyed the original paper bag in which Oswald is said to have carried his rifle, the fact remains that the witnesses who saw Oswald with a bag at the Depository insisted it was too short to have contained the weapon. Of the 3-foot package in front of the Commission, Wesley Frazier said:
“I am sure he did not carry that, it was a much smaller bag, much thinner and shorter.”
Conclusions of the Commission:
“Frazier could easily have been mistaken when he stated that Oswald held the bottom of the bag tucked in his hand with the upper end tucked into his armpit.”
A rifleman of Lee Harvey Oswald’s capabilities could have fired the shots from the rifle and in the assassination within the elapsed time of the shooting.
THE WEIGHT OF EVIDENCE INDICATES THAT THERE WERE THREE SHOTS FIRED.
Oswald’s two firing scores in the Marine Corps were 212 and 191, the second only one mark above the minimum qualifying score. Mark Lane points out that “the Commission…secured three of the best shots in all of America to test the weapon…and they had them fire at three stationary targets.”
With 6 seconds accepted at the time elapsing between the first and last shot, these experts could manage only three. Therefore, as James Tague testified that one bullet hit the kerb by the new triple underpass and shot concrete up into his face, one of the other bullets must have hit Connally and Kennedy.
Governor Connally said: “I heard the bullet strike the President. I heard the shot, and I turned to the left; and then I was struck.”
To have struck Connally the bullet would have to pass through Kennedy’s body evading all bone structure. This was possible only with the entrance position finally fixed on the President’s body. The hole in his jacket and coat was 3½ inches below.
Conclusions of the Commission:
“Although it is not necessary to any essential findings of the Commission to determine just which shot hit Governor Connally…”
OSWALD KILLED DALLAS POLICE PATROLMAN J. D. TIPPIT APPROXIMATELY 45 MINUTES AFTER THE ASSASSINATION.
Domingo Benedes: “I was so upset I did not see anything. I could not identify anyone.”
Helen Louise Markham (in the presence of Dallas Reporter Hugh Aynesworth): “Yes, I saw the man who killed Tippit, I saw him very clearly, he was short, he was stocky, he was on the heavy side, and he had brown bushy hair.” (Oswald: medium height, thin, receding hair.)
(On the Identity Parade): “I have never seen none of them…Number two was the one I picked…I was not sure, but then I had cold chills all over me.”
(To Mark Lane, on tape): “he was short, somewhat stocky, and with bushy hair.”
Commission:
“We conclude, addressing ourselves solely to the probative value of Mrs. Markham’s contemporaneous description of the gunman and her positive identification of Oswald at the police lineups…that her testimony is reliable.”
Mr. Ball, Councillor for the Commission (sole questioner of Mrs. Markham): “Mrs. Markham is an utter screwball; there is no question about that.”
This conflicting evidence alone is surely sufficient to show that there is reasonable doubt that Oswald committed two murders. But, as Lane says, there are signs that other evidence which did not fit the ‘facts’ was suppressed. The Dallas Police Force made the incredible claim that their 12-hour interrogation of Oswald had been conducted without notes of nay kind; by an equally incredible coincidence their transmitter broke down for an eight minute period around the assassination, and there is no transcript of that either. James J. Hume, the Naval Doctor, burned his notes on the autopsy: there can be no other explanation than that he was ordered to do so. The F.B.I. took away the X-ray plates of the autopsy before they could be developed, and they did not appear in the Report. One of the doctors who changed his testimony told a Newsweek reporter: “There is much about this case that I know that I am not permitted to discuss.”
On several occasions the Commission actually shut up witnesses who attempted to give conflicting evidence. For example, when Officer Weitzmann testified talking to the railroad yardman who saw someone throw something into the bushes, Mr. Ball said: “I think that is all. That is enough testimony.” The Commission never called the railroad yardman, nor did they make any effort to find him.
The Commission described the Dallas police line-ups as “scrupulous fairness.” A Dallas taxi-driver, William Whaley, thought otherwise.
“I could have picked out Oswald with my eyes closed…There he was on one side of the stage wearing a ‘T’ shirt, handcuffed with both hands together. On the other side there were five young teenagers, 14, 15, 16 years old, handcuffed together. There was Oswald, he was saying out loud, we all heard it, he said ‘You call this a fair line-up, this is not a fair line-up.”
Earl Warren did not want the job of investigating Kennedy’s assassination. He went to see Johnson several times, and when he finally accepted, he left the White House in great distress. Mark Lane describes him as “the man with the greatest integrity of all the members of the Commission. I question the integrity of a number of members of the Commission and their competence in general…It was made up of political appointees…Of the seven members, only …one besides the Chief Justice, have any background in terms of the courts at all…We were told by the New York Times: ‘This represents a vast cross section of the American people.’ The two democrats happen to be racist Southern Dixiecrats… Hale Boggs of Louisiana and Richard Russell of Georgia. The two republicans were Cooper of Kentucky and Congressman Ford, who is Goldwater’s sparkplug, who has been selling his articles, which contain false materials from beginning to end, widely throughout the United States. In addition to that, we have Mr. McCloy, the former High Commissioner for Germany, and the former Director of the C.I.A., Allen Dulles, who was fired from that position by John Fitzgerald Kennedy. So you have a seven-man Commission, made up of five Republicans and two Southern Democrats, and in addition to that, every bit of evidence presented by the Commission originated with the Dallas Police.”
If Oswald was innocent, or, more plausibly, not the only guilty person, the probable alternative to a lone assassin is a major conspiracy. A leading professional citizen in Dallas, who asked Mark Lane not to reveal his name, saw Jack Ruby, the nightclub owner, Police Officer Tippit, and Bernard Weissmann (who placed a full-page advertisement in the Dallas Morning News on November 22nd: “Welcome to Dallas, Mr. President, why have you scrapped the Monroe Doctrine in favour of the Spirit of Moscow?”) meet at the Carousel Club on November 14th. Oswald was not at the meeting, but a curious chain emerged later when Tippit’s wife accused Marina Oswald of sleeping with her husband. Ruby went all over Dallas on November 23rd, saying: “J.D. Tippit, the officer who was killed, was my friend…We were very close.” Ruby pops up everywhere. Mrs. Hill, a Dallas Public School teacher, testified: “I saw a man standing there (near the tracks by the grassy knoll) just after the shots were fired…That man is Jack Ruby. I saw Jack Ruby at the scene and he ran back behind the wall.”