06-05-2009, 07:56 PM
Greet the new law, same as the old law...
Quote:The New Law Journal, 22 September 1966, p.1330
Books: The Case for Oswald
By R.S.A.
On May 14, 1964, Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, gave evidence before the Warren Commission upon the assassination of President Kennedy. He alleged that the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald, Mrs. Marguerite Oswald, was emotionally unstable and proved this to his own satisfaction by saying: “The first indication of her emotional instability was the retaining of a lawyer that anyone would not have retained if they were really serious in trying to get down to the facts.” This lawyer was Mark Lane, whose book, Rush to Judgment*, published in this country today, constitutes a most serious and responsible inquiry into the facts.
The critics of the Warren Report have emerged from being branded as nut-cases to a recognised serious status. The result must be disturbing. America was relieved and grateful to be told that there was no conspiracy, no second gun, and that the crime was solved. Three recent publications – those of Harold Weisberg, Edward Jay Epstein and the book under review – throw these conclusions wholly in doubt.
Rush to Judgment analyses in depth the findings of the Commission and in doing so will not only satisfy many that the great mystery of the assassination is unsolved, but will illuminate the defects in the manner of the Commission’s workings. Mr. Lane notes that the Commission took as the starting point of their investigations the conclusions which had been reached by the FBI, namely (a) that Oswald shot Kennedy and (b) that Oswald was not connected with any conspiracy of any kind, nature or description. At the request of Mrs. Marguerite Oswald he therefore asked to appear before the Commission to represent Oswald’s interests. Permission was refused. Instead Mr. Walter Craig, President of the American Bar Association, was invited to protect Oswald’s interests. He attended two of the 51 sessions of the Commission; in only one of these did he intervene, and then not on behalf of Oswald. The increasing doubt which surrounds the findings of the Commission is – irrespective of whether those findings are right – a direct result of their failure to have regard to the fundamental maxim audi alteram partem.
Consequently, Mr. Lane formed a citizens’ committee of inquiry to investigate the assassination. Newspaper clues and independent reports were followed up as leads to new material. Witnesses were seen who had not been called before the Commission or, if called, not required to testify fully. Naturally such amateur detective work leading to untested, unsworn evidence must be treated critically. Nevertheless, its incorporation in this book reinforces the unease which is created by re-examination of the evidence on which the Commission based its own findings.
The most fundamental question raised by Mr. Lane is whether the Commission was justified in finding that the bullets came from one rifle. Evidence that many onlookers first thought shots came from a knoll some distance from the book depository from which Oswald is said to have fired is strong but impressionist. The evidence upon the gun is scientifically formidable. Abraham Zapruder took a motion picture on a film which the Commission agreed ran at 18.3 frames per second. The President could not have been shot from the sixth-floor window before frame 210. The alleged weapon needed a minimum of 2.3 seconds and therefore 42.09 frames of film between each shot – Governor Connally, riding with the President, was not in a position to be shot later than frame 240.
Upon these figures – which err if at all on the side of caution – Governor Connally and the President could not have been shot from the sixth-floor window by the alleged single murder weapon. The Commission therefore searched for an alternative explanation and found that the same bullet struck both the President and the Governor. This finding was achieved only by unsatisfactory conclusions, often inconsistent with the medical evidence, as to the nature of the wounds received.. Further, it overrides the Governor’s evidence on which bullet caused the injury to his chest: “Well, in my judgment, it just couldn’t have been the first one because I heard the sound of the shot. In the first place, I don’t know anything about the velocity of this particular bullet, but any rifle has a velocity which exceeds the speed of sound and when I heard the sound of that first shot that bullet had already reached that far, and after I heard that shot, I had the time to turn to my right, and start to turn to my left before I felt anything.”
Mrs. Connally’s evidence corroborates that of the Governor. The only theory upon which the finding that all bullets came from the alleged weapon at the sixth-floor window can be based is therefore wholly in doubt.
One condensed example can illustrate the numerous legitimate and disturbing arguments ranging over the whole field of the murders of President Kennedy, Officer Tippit and Oswald, presented by Mr. Lane. Too often the feeling arises that findings were against the weight of the evidence. Of course, Mr. Lane is approaching the case as advocate for Oswald and may unconsciously, as he alleges the Commission did, select such evidence as supports his case. No one who has not had access to the evidence can judge the merits of the rival arguments. This cogent, factual, detailed book is of great importance because it presents the case for the defence. It is well-presented, indexed and referenced, with a forceful introduction by Professor Trevor-Roper, himself an early critic of the Warren Report. Above all, for lawyers, it leaves the feeling that if the Commission had not rushed to judgment, but had heard Mr. Lane on behalf of Oswald, its verdict would have been either different or strengthened.
* RUSH TO JUDGMENT. By Mark Lane. Bodley Head: pp.472 + vi; 42s.