Mark Lane Rush to Judgment
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wren ITN PIMITIMPrra COMIrMinn .,1,5SINATION Of PliiiIDLST LASSUO EDWARD ]AY EPSTEIN sernne Tag PlICSIOrrr3 COMMISric 11111WSt Ili .1,15WIATIMI Or MUMMY t11115500 THE WA ' COMMISSION AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF TRUTH if rnT Ve.MIDENT3 SOMIHMON -ostttos OF PRIFIOVAI KL•FIMIC ISTYLIJLICTION IST Richard H. Rorer.: . lirfnar Tar pat_mrrr$ k ASSASSINATION OF HIESIDANT IIINNRAP "The present critics of the out POSsIDCPITS COXIII5SI1011 Warren Report must be ../.6" Pal, Mr, 5S11:7 careful that they do not, in opening the popular mind Mark Lane to doubt, open it also to Rush to fear and hysteria." Judgment No Conspiracy, But— A critique of the Warren Commission's Two Assassins, Perhaps? inquiry into the Murders of By EMMY ram.= President John F Kennedy Officer J. D.Tippit and IT to uncomfortable to Ilse with uo- ecamlnatIon of some kr), witness., the conVentlorial explanation of the Lee Harvey Oswald ceainty. but it seems Lime to less than skeptical of oome of the emaschuttion, the general !Maude, I Introduction by acknowledge that we—tad per official evidence With which It WS remember. we to wonder how the Hugh Trevor-Roper hap, even future generations--may setophrd. lcoo 1.1x00 careful to consider Roma Professor of Modern history never know the truth, certainly not In detail every foselble explanation In the lfroversity of Oxford, it moo the whole truth, about the assassina- of the ssssAtaisstIon other than Lee not Surer. to onuses, had got himself tion of President Kennedy. Harvey Crwald'a sole guilt. Even so. mined up with this one. Vulneranitity of Teta" is a It Is worth adding, the apparent Since then In Britain, the issue has chapter heading used by Edward lay slovenliness may be to the written been dead. I can recall no important Cricket. one of the current critic' of report rather than m the actual In- article In arty tarnish publication the report of the Warren Commission. vestigations of the comminslon. It which he raised the sob/eat since the He might have added another: "The still aroma to me possible that the flurry after the publication of the IVOR° InaccessiblUty of Truth." I do not report doe not do justice th its own Warren, Report. I sat with a British suggest that because the truth may Mann-ma. journalist the other day, and we maid -the report on the be inaceeasibter inquiry should stop: Nevertheless. doubt has been not remember any conversation either Merely that, Lf further Inquiry does aroused, and there are signs that In of on had had in Britain during the warren Report not get us very far, we should not the next taw months this doubt may past 111 months in which me circurn. be ow-prised, and should not feel been= so obseamon in at least some stances of the evaaselantion had tempted to construct our own elabo- quartos—perhaps eventually in the drawn more than a passing reference. rate explanations papule, Wind, which he so for been Borne AmorIcans—mostly Listener The report of the Warren Commis. rethrtaust. Neither in Europe one In tuals—gsve the impression that they Mon hr. now under severe and, In sale America, in fact, have I hitherto no sooner lam! at London Airport oases, persuasive attack. It Is hard found much popular httarest In the than they ore assaulted by questlorn to disagree with the general judg- possibility that the Warm Commis. son theories about the 1•••••ioatIon. ment of its °titles that It did a hur- aeon reached the wrong conclusions. They may move 1n circles I do not ried and slovenly Job. It seems to know, but there me perhaps hvo hove been Less than thorough in the IT 4. true that some of due earliest other explanations. questlonIng-A of Oresild's guilt, or his To nee Mind of Intellectual. a roya- sole glint. emne from Europe. But l-ensue oasakalnation. noels as that NEHILY Palette o ex &stub pokiest they made very little impression on of President Kennedy, provides an by Harold Weisberg riten•esste, .ire is erre • teinstover most people. When Hugh Trevor irrealstiblo temptotton to Pier 'pet- nudist of Wssiiitsion, D. C , Roper delivered his main attack on vote eye." T (Cournmerf on Pegg $41 Books critical of the Warren Report have become • suleinclostry of the publishing business. Above, three currant rumples. NOV. 22. 1953.—Acconding to this movie sequence, running from the first shot to Mrs. Kennedy's climb onto the rear deck of the car, no more Sian 1.8 SLCOrlfit elapsed between the time the President was first hit (top left) and Governor Connally was wounded [top right). But tech showed Oswakis rifle could not fire twice in less than 2.3 second. The conclusion: the theory of a "single huller and one assassin. 53 `... It seems to me possible that the report does not do justice to its own inquiries ...I PUBLIC IsfURDI2L—Affhila millions watched on Isla-vision, unbelieving, Dal- lot nightclub owner Jack Ruby (back to cameral shot Lee Harrey Oswald as he was escorted through a corridor of police headquarter. To some critic of the Warren Report, the second slaying was pert of one conspiracy. 'Continued from Page 52) ore already finding n coonecUon be- in the drewnstanees of the essassless- Warren The second theory, almost have ant, often enough, at MO table tween the assessinatIon nod Charles tion only in one area: the South II 13 prevalent and advanced with con- at Oxford or Cambridge, and won- Whitman's murder, from the tloiver- must admit, however, that I have not siderable Ingenuity, was that Oswald dered at the capaelty Of dons far silty of TIMM tower In aiutin. yet been In the West) AS I southe had been the tool of an FILL eon- mlagmlog that the world Donald...— I can speak with less certainty of my way through the South. I become sell-Ley to discredit the eght wing. the world of men and Affairs-4e opinion to other leuropean ommtries, accustomed to conspiracy theories of the FB.L being, too. a Communist one of Weenie-Bay related event., for but my lmpressinn la that mach the every lon1, most of them constructed organthaUon. which there must be a visible expla- same Is tree there as In lentaln, ex- out of fantasy. Again and again the Net only did 1 get used to thew nation and It not, then a dellberetely cept that conspiracy theorme of the sa.a.inetIon of President Kennedy thrones In the South. I even got used concealed one. aississaLrualon where they are held, teas woven into the fantasy. although to the fact that they could coexist amt in a manner which would be very Americans abroad are alio likely are held more Intensely, especially in In a single mind. Nowhere else to agreeable to the current critics of the to encounter professional antl-Arner, Piles This. I 'would suggest, is the United States, either last year Warm.? Report. mane cod not recognise then, There hardly surprising in ontmtries 'show or this year, until the recent contro- La, in Europe. a dose 11ak between politics ere perpetually excited by The most prevalent popular theory versy began, have I found any hint anti-Ainericanhon and conspiratorial conspiracy theories, and often with which I encountered in the South was of either widespread or deep interest theories of the aasansinauen. which considerable avuticaticia since con- the oncost, one: that Oswald was In the eircum.stances of the rissasaina- emerged .t the time to the expected spiracy to part of the stuff of their part of a left-wing conspiracy whose Lion, I may have been at fault In pronouncement% of Bertrand Russell. pohuca- involvement had been deliberately not raising the question But the An the London correeponchmt of The concealed by Communiets In the Ad- important fact surely, is that Amer- Washington neat pointed out the IN America, both last year and this minlittaatIon and by the arch-Com- Ithaa have never spontancouely other day. anti-Americans M Britain yew-, I here found a popular Interest munist himself, Chief Justice Earl raised tt with me. 54 Tall HIM Yalta 111100 0001101 PUBLIC Drcomur —With the prime suspect deed, President Johnson appointed the Wanes Commission: From left, Representatives GieseId Ford and Kirk Boggs, Senator Richard Russell, Chief Justice Earl Warren, Senator John Sherman Cooper, John JAcCloy, Allen Dulles and Lee Rankin, cournaL Ties, [Maya critics would ay. a me make IL mar, that they should Hen.. neck and emerged at his criticism that the commission did a a fault to the American people; that not continue to search for the truth tame before striking Governor Co. slipshod Job: they are merely closing their eyes or peas for a further Inquiry ern natty 11) Although the COMM11.4i0e3 to uncomfortable teeth or panache. arguing only that from their various It is rosy, as mat of the critics arguments end its use of evidence Ras_ But, like all true Tories, I have vlewpaints. Interested or disinter- have done, to show that this "single may not seem an adequate support a considerable faith to popular wis- ested, they should avoid eaboreting bullet" theory, on the evidence ap- for Its [011[111510115, there may yet be dom, and I do not behave that, If thrones of conspiracy whirls art plied by the commission. Itself. le the right urea, This is an Important there vein the smell of a genuine tweed on erldene quite as selective. weak. But the fact remains that point, bemusee there may be a tend- conspiracy Lu the Land, the ordinary and argument quite as tendentioul, the alternative exparustions offered ency to eller the fauns in the com- people of America would be meting a they clam the Warren Report by the critics (each as the Presence mission's report to override a corn- with such a lack of fear and hysteria.