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April 28, 1975/ 75 cents

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Top of theWeek Newsweek

The Last Battle P•oe 16

History dealt America one of its ironies last week. At the moment that the U.S. began celebrating the Bicentennial of its fight for independence, two nations it struggled to help were in the process of losing theirs. As Gerald Ford stood with a group dressed up in Minuteman uniforms in Concord. Ma, South Vietnamese soldiers stood in the rubble of Yuan Luc and prepared for their country's last battle. Newsweek corre- spondent Nicholas C. Proffitt and photographer 1Nik Wheeler were the first Western journalists to rover the fighting in Xuan 1.41c—it deathtrap that could become the Dienbienplio of 1975_ ev, sweek cover photo by Hiroji Kubota—Nlagnu tat.

Operation Baby Lift

In recent weeks. hundreds of South Vietnamese orphans have been brought to the U.S for adoption by Americans. Some have called it a sop for national guilt feelings, some see it as an stet of humanity. Columnists Shona Alexander (page 88) Proffitt at Xuan Lac: No longer a city, now a killing ground and Meg Greenfield (page 31) take two different points of view.

Inquest on JFK Page 36

Once again, an odd-lot as- -ortment of conspiracy theo- rists is picking through the evidence in the John F. Ken- nedy assassination file—the film frames, the bullet- a lid bullet fragments. lily witness accounts—end spin- ning it all into ever more elaborate theories about who NORTHROP killed JFK. and why. Are they on to something—or does the Bribes Galore? Page 70 's judg- ment that a loner named Lee The illegal corporate cam- Harvey Oswald was the sob Connors with Sonventre: Superstardom and 5250,000 paign contributions of Water- assay sin still stand the test of gate may be peanuts com- more than a decade's time".' Bad Boy of Tennis Paget 52 pared with the bribes that some companies st-c king bus- A boastful, bumptious brat named Jimmy Connors, 22, will iness abroad dole out to for- meet Australia's 30-year-old John Newcombe at Caesars Palace eigners. Three Federal agen- in Las Vegas this week in a .5250.1)00 contest that could confirm cies are inquiring into what Connors's rule as the newest superstar of te nnis. With reports one official called -corrup- from Associate Editor Peter Bonventre, Sports editor Pete tion on a staggering scale." The JFK file: A murder bullet Axthelm profiles the contenders and previews the match.

Contents April 28, 1975

THE WAR IN INDOCHINA . „ 16 SPORTS 52 "Sneaky People," by Thomas Berger Shots heard round the world Jimmy Connors: bad boy of tennis "A City on a Hill" by George V. Higgins The last battle "Japan: the Fragile Superpower," by Frank NEWS MEDIA 61 Escape from Xuan Loo Gibney The Timesman in Phnom Penh Blood bath? THEATER 85 Operation Talon Vise SCIENCE ...... , ...... . 64 Ingrid Bergman on Broadway White flags over Phnom Penh The cooling world Bette Midler is back Portrait Of the vectors BUSINESS AND FINANCE 67 NATIONAL AFFAIRS ...... ... 32 OTHER DEPARTMENTS Winds of recovery Letters 4 Ford and the Bicentennial Profits: that sinking feeling Freeing Connally On Scene 10 Bribes: new Investigations Periscope 15 A White House press dust-up Superfong cigarettes JFK: the oonsperacy theory again Newsmakers 50 Autos: Townsend's travail Transition 63 INTERNATIONAL ...... • - 39 AirWries: the frill is back A shoot-out in Lebanon THE COLUMNISTS Israel's new let fighter UFEiSTYLE 86 My Turn: Peer de Silva 13 More on Chiles torture chamber; Lost parents Meg Greenfield 31 Sikkim absorbed Community crops Clem Margarita 75 Shane Alexander 88 MEDICINE ...... 51 THE ARTS Meditation therapy i BOOKS ..... ...... a1975 by Newsweek. Inc., 444 Madison Ave- Umbrella for the heart "Sharclik". about a mythic bear nue, New York, N.Y. 10022. At rights reserved.

OS 3

Letters

The Vietnam Debacle

It is obvious that the South Vietnamese are suffering because the believed in the American will to fight against oppression. am alarmed and embarrassed at my gov- ernment's apathy toward the South Viet- namese people. For our Bicentennial, I think we should fly the Stars and Stripes at half-staff the entire CLYDE WAILNER

• Those eighteen holes the President played while living high off the hug in plush Palm Springs (NATiotstAt. AFFAIRS, April 14) were obviously not on the links but in his head. Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Ford putted while Da Nang col- lapsed. What kind of leadership is this? MARY-GENE MARR Lagima Beach, Calif.

▪ We should rid ourselves of guilt about -betrayal.** We did our best; we poured in help equal to the combined budgets of Kodak shapes up the malty nations, and we made the supreme s.wrifice Ufa heavy toll in lives. movie projector. J. ZAEustA

• In covering the tragic Vietnam story, you failed to make it absolutely clear that the You'll wonder where the reels have gone when refugees are fleeing war, nut the Commu- nists. They are "voting with their feet-- you first look at the Kodak Moviedeck projector. butvnting to escape bombing, shelling and the unknown that -a massive transition in They're there, of course. But Kodak's found a way government control brings. to keep them inside. out of T. E. Flu.Tos the way. Brook N.Y. That's what helps make • %%len President Ford signed the has. bill. he said the budget had reached its limit— the Moviedeck projector wit one enure red cent would he spent to aid the American people. But he expects so handsome. So conve- the American people to shell out a billion nient, too. Because you don't more dollars for a cornipt dictator on the other side of the world. have to put it away between DAvE KESSELFUNt; shows. Dover, Del. The three top models • Re the agony of South Vietnam, may 'sug- gest that" honorableile mention-be given the at,1 VeteCtiGn of the Moviedeck projector aggressor, North Vietnam, without whom have a special pull-out viewing screen. So you can this holocaust would not he possible? INES K.. HORTON preview your movies without ever having to set up Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. a big screen or dim the room lights. Leary's Progress Kodak Moviedeck projectors—all handsome, these times of so much depressing all self-threading. all easy to use. all for 8 mm or news, I was disappointed that your March 1(1 issue printed a heavier than necessary super 8 movies —start at less than $110. Some haVe report about my current transitions. automatic rewind and multiple projection speeds. I was not paroled, but released from California custody. The Federal sentence Model 455 shown is less than $200. See your I am serving was not for smuggling but for photo dealer. Pr,ccit are stJetect in change tvoncneeniKe 141%-wswaxa.,5ptil 2E, 1975. Volume I.XXXV. No. 17, NEWSWirek it publtitted weekly. 519.50 a yejS, by NitWSWItEk, Primed in U.S.A. 5;email.C.Ltsi pedalo- p.ud ae New Ysok. N.Y. and at adrift:wed The Kodak Moviedeck =aging offseel.. CC Regiatrado coral) articular de aegrioda dase en 1.1. projector AdnoutstraaVIP Central tie Current air ette.t l'Apstat coo fecha 17 de mow de 1944, 1deako. 11.1- POSTNIAS'I ENS: Scud foam .1579 to NrAt.awa:10a. The NLIA hWF.Y.Ii. Nuildine Livinttion, N.1. 07(I39. My Turn

Peer de Silva

God Bless the CIA

An a -title appeared in this space a few rolled and guided by the Soviet Union has ilCuit misrepre- JM. t, CrkS ago entitled -Abolish du- and its executive intelligence arm, the sented as a -sport.- e: IA!- it began by describing: in son- KGB. There were murders. killitApingS While I regret not eonsiderable detail the Vh•t Cm mg bomb- amill hundreds of other at Is of violence line minute of my ing of the American Eselyass1/4 I it Saigon and terror, perpetrated la- the Soviet servit-t- with the its nail I was the CLA chit•I of stilt im nm Union and its allies of EitNtl'rti Europe. CIA, at home or that time. I have a diner( ot perspective Nations were dominated.ilscratened and ..sbroach I must say I Oil a hat happened that morning and on overthrown, and whole peoples were never considered it the wav Americans should lie thinking thrust into a form of political society' that to be a sport. There a ere moments of ■knl t the CIA these days. they detested and that they fled when- great hilarity, local: periods of tedium and The American Embassy WAN ever opportmitity presented itself. hard, slogging work. amid oecasim thi-1111,1-(1 0111 March 30. 1%5, he a Viet Those .,oho now say that the told war moment] ofaeute terror. Coat; terrorist si marl who packed mild never really happened have apparently The foreign operations of the CIA sedan with about 350 pounds of forgotten or but t• clam'-en to forget how must exist to carp.' out certain tasks in the plastic explosive and then rolled the ear the present Polish Ctinuntmist state was American notion's i n terests that the dip- up under my window in the embassy. established, or how the delyuestration of lomatic st-n t-,ionot do a nd that our They set off a tin e-peneil detonator, Eduard lie rigs in Prague iii 1-P-114 sig- military estald ed 'went cannot do short of began a fire fight with local police oil die naled the disappearance ola democratic ...var. To think ,,tlierwise is to ignore the sidewalk and were blown up with them Czechoslovakia and the sitroiltalieotYti real world as it exists and will exist for a 1/4s-lien the ear detoilated just a few sec- birth of the Communist state we knots !ming time to et any, and to Ina the safety onds 'Liter. today. The act of suppression serfs repeat- and freedom of the American nation in One of my secretaries was killed in- ed by the Soviets in 1066. The Russians real jeol iartly. stantly. two of my officers were penna- were saying: Once we get you, we will Let nobody be in doubt about this: su nently and tiitaliv blinded. and many keep you. as lone as the United Status exists as a others on my staff were injured to one free nation, the Soviet Union perceives it MARVELOUS BRAVERY degree or another, myself included. as a threat to its existence as - a system. WAS fed away from the embassy, Idem-d- I los wary experienced a similar trauma 1)etente is possible up to a point, hitt ing like a stuck pig because that's the in 19-17. but after it de-Communized prudence and earehihress naist be ever- way all head wounds bleed, Besides the itself with marvelous bravery and purity present considerations as we seek to had American casualties, more than a score of in 1_956, the country was overrun hr the a way in which we can all inhabit this innocent South Vietnamese passers-by Soviets yet again. planet peacefully-without major war. were killed by the blast and many During all of these years in Europe UNFORGIVING HISTORY wounded. there were no armies at war in the field but there were friendly intelligence ser- During this continuing uproar about GRIM PROPOSAL vices, along with the CIA, who were the CIA one can only imagine the won- This incident apparently served to canght up in this not-so-silent combat. dement with which the Soviet. Politburo - provide the author of the other article I should point out here that my and KGB leadership must observe these with the notion that I had lied to him. Hs:- Washington-based CIA colleagues hare antics on the American political scene. reported that the Viet Cong terrorists had always performed 'magnificently and the They are being offered precisely the goal finally opened his eyes anti thus led him great value of their work has always been they would dearly love to nelliet e: the to the grim proposal that the real way to underrated. There were also those of us abolition of the CIA. To Inc it is tragic- celebrate America's Bieeetteunial is by who were privileged to work in some- that there are apparent]\ serious and abolishing the. CIA entirely. what closer .contact with dangerous and influential Americium t ea es now Iwino. I find this proposal singularly frivolous distinctly unfriendly opponents. raised in fat ur of;utrh aLulitiun. f I i7,tory and doo might dangerous. Whether one In today s.world there is alarge area of has a wily of making its participants pay., likes the minim or not, the faet remains policy that is primarily the domain of our and sometimes pay heavily, for their that there are many tigers roaming; loose State Department Foreign Service, errors. Further, history fy and large does in the world today; they are nitfriendly to much inaligiled but always reliable and not offer seetnal chances. If we should the United States and eagerly await the dedicated. Similarly, there is our mili- misread or misunderstand history so opportunity to leap upon us if the risk is tary establishment in all of its branches. badly as actually to abolish the CIA, an nut too great. strong, tough, devoted, but not so well- unforgiving history will exact its penalty In certain quarters it has hum mine' styl- equipped as the jungle-world of 1975 from all of cis. and frOlti MIX Chi ish to.say.that the cold war never really requires. These tom arms, our diplomatic roasted but was made up by cold war service and our military establishment, Peer de Silt a is a retired CIA officer warriors to justify their own predilec- are. however, ilI equipped to deal with who ha-s cif ti.) CIA chief/42.''1'bn+ in tions for adventure and thrills. the covert foreign a MI of the Soviet various countries of and Asia. The fact is that European countries 1-:Ilion. the KGB, and its allies in coun- Ile was CL-1 chief of station in. Saigon during the late 11110s, the '50s and the tries tinder its influence or under attack. from Dire in/WV 1 Vi.0(,3 until April Mai. '60s were threattaset I and eravely eedan- This is where the CIA comes in: It:hen lie wits crarriaied dust' tut iertii Ho's gered by hostile forces mainly kink- Our motivation for serving in the CIA reeeived during a terror-Ls., Inouhing,

New,w,•-ek, April iii, P)75 13 night. It casts doubt on everything that THE WHITE HOUSE: TRIALS: went hat-fore it." Williams earned his fat It -.1st $250,000) in his summation Palace Intrigue A Reputation Retrieved alotie, shouting and st;i2c-whis- pering, The jury was taking too long. All the about -wisdom *slit Gerald Ford. says one of his aides, courtroom boil agreed that the larihery truth." Finally. he a pailaigi ted to the "hates wore than anything to have his case again.' Big jolm Comally was jurors: "I've never learn. ti I talk about senior staff fighting with each other." remarkably tlai 'by and the defense had h uman liberty tar human ri putati, in con- Bait backstairs infighting plagues all pal- been superb. a snap at (t inted was almost cisrlt )1-complacently.- aces. and last week a small classic of the a foregone t let the jurors In rebuttal, associate- pia psecutor Frank genre ens Ord from the West Wing into were beading into their sixth hour of NI. Tuerkheimer urged die fairy to re,. it the public prints. deliberation. and the former 'Treasury "the evidence carefeliv. logic:11h, and It lax-gar in the dounlieating for Ford's Secretary alit I Trt;t, paced the dispassionately." The tan. es took Teerk- recent State ulthe It\ aprItl speech. when a corridor outside the ).‘ ashington court- heimer at his wont. conscientiously pair- faction gencralb. Lissi led to he headed room in grOW WIZ appreht•IIS Connal- ing over reams ciftestimout . Despite the by chief of stall L)tinald Rnirasf eld began ly"s wife, Nt•II ie. confided that her stom- acquittal, the jury stopped well short of floating rumors to the press that Secre- ach was rumbling: Commily himself .enthusiasm. "Our t tub, t meant ma that tary of State Henry Kissinger was a chatted about e .rgy slain:ages and Sovi- we had fa aind necessaril. t I iat _halm Cote waning star—that the speech would de- et politics—and neat mealy rattled a ri,t- rally was innocent," said jury foreman clare Ford's independence from Kis- fidolcoins. I le w as re.« I i uga Bible when Dennis O'Toole, "boat rather rant cr,nilty singer. The rumors crested when CBS the jurors filed back into the courtroom. reporter Bob St:hid-Ter told Iris viewers their eyes averted anti their bees blank. that Kissinger might lose his second hat But after all the suspense, the verdict as chairman of_ the National Security was almost anticlimactic: a resounding Council. "not guilty" on both counts. The campaign proved more 1.viSii than Connally'S acquittal represented the reality; Ford's speech VMS an echo- first major defeat for the Watergate spe- perfect replay of Kissinger's line, and cial prosecutors—and raised the ques- Ford himself reportedly chewed out tioziw by he had been indicted in the first several aides and ordered the leaking place. The el large, that fur only $10,001) a stopped. Short], after that, press secre- millionaire had peddled his infinerice tary Ron Nesstai fired his assistant. Louis with Richard Nixon to get milk subsidies Thompso r s Jr.. the man who had been raised, was unlikely on its bee, the overseeing the White House press bu- accuser, dairy lawyer lake Jacobsen, was re Then Nessen wrote a memo to a tonlessed perjurer and bagman who- Kissinger. reportedly telling hi m that the had bartered his testimony feu the dis- leak problem had been solved. missal of unrelated and more serious Tracks: It might well have ended there, charges. The proseentiirs thought that with Kissinger triumphant and Nelsen there was enough in j acobsen's testimo- adequately hninbled. But Thompsian, a ny. backed up by circumstantial evi- trine:plaided !int.:tit, was angry enough to dent e, to justify a trial. But friends of protest that he was toil ''a fall guy"—lie Cot mils' suggested that leaks about the told The Des Nloincs Tribune that -it's t hall put pressure on the prosecutors wideh known arntmg the \\hitt. I louse to indict him or be accused of press corps that Run Nessen was the whitewashing him—and that, when the source'. of Schieffees story. Nt;ssell grand jury's term was about to expire, the reacted to that by first denying that prosecutors decided to press charges in Tito, r pson had been fired at all and then hopes of finding evidence later. sags rig he had been asked to leave when Silk: Connally brought to the witness his u:orgurtizing job was done. But si- stand last week all the ruddy good balks nuilemeously Nessen's aides were say- and sil ken charm that helped make him a ing that Thompson had indeed leaked national figure. ills character witnesses the Kissinger story, and countless others included such famous Texans as Lady as well. "There were scenes of reporters Bird Johnson and black Rep. Barbara sitting in his office for an hour at a time Jordan. glittering alumni of the Kennedy and then nioning to their telephones," and Johnson \cars and even Billy Gra- The Connally,: 'Amen,' said a juror said one \ essim partisan. Nessen him- ham, whose description of his work- self' furiously denied writing a memo to "preaehi ng the gospel of Jesus Christ-'— based on the case presented to us.- Kissinger or leaking anything, terming elicited au "amen" front one juror. Iu However lukewarm. the verdict et the allegations "fiction." But Thturip- their wake came less spectacular wit- cerated the remaining charges that Con- son's version was widely believed: nesses who flatly contradicted Jacob- nally had conspired and committed per- wsw vet: learned that \essen had sen's account of meetings at which he jury to cm er up the bribery; the judge t hi •Itici l at a recent stain, -utin.1 that he and Connally had allegedly conspired. accordingly dropped them, and Gann:al- hadn't dip:, good job of coat ( - ring iris But Connally's most powerful aa cap in ly was tree lat resume lei, life: ranching. traCkS Olt tfitt• ufthr Kissinger ,, may have been his lawyer, Edward Ben- lawyerine and just possiblt running fur that- cveukvoti, hint rc- nett Williams. The indientwra had ac- President. Ile has little currency in his treattal the- tic eat sniping cused Connally of accepting tw at ,..$5.1)(H1 :adopted GI ft' and has yet to Incastirt• tilt. in the West Wing.- had stopped, -finis and payments: under cross-examination. Ja- taint of his indictment. but MI Henry have made up,- said a Nessen col)seti admitted that he had obtained a the (Amok aist• steps, lie swilit h•r i man. But the publicity had frayed other third payment of $5,000 from his client, CiODOy like a candidate. Ilis acquittal powerful nen W weer leaked Associated Milk Prodneers, luau., atal "has math- tile more (ha .ply committed to those stories... said a senior official. -was guessed haplessly that he -nuist have- presery ilia the systetiC he said. "I hope either malicious or dumb or la ada--and given that to Connally. too. The third as hang as I live, 1 never lose the desire to it new leak was makinct the rounds: that payntent. said W ilhams, was the thir- participate in public all Nessen himself might soon be replaced teenth stroke g !/1":411dratill.rt•I‘n-k 41 the —SANDRA SALMANS with STEPHAN LESHER mwashingron In his newest. deputy. William Greener. New-steels. April 28. 1975 3 5 FRAME 313

The fns .tens of the mortal wound: Kennedy. still clutching at hi- throat wound. hit w I th esplosise force from behind . . Dallas: New Questions and Answers

hey are a breed apart—an odd-lot the cause told hooked 250 campus Lev- doubters have always chosen to believe T assortment of skeptics and ideo- hires (at $780 each) in a single year. A him. Now they have been joined by a logues. rationalists and fantasts who have Warren commission staff alumnus, who sometime CIA computer anal yst, George never I tcl ieved that Lee Itarvey Oswald still believes that Oswald acted alone, O'Toole. who played a tape of Oswald's alone Lifted John F. Kennedy and have has urged a review of the case—and now denial to a Psychological Stress Evalua- invested up to a (10;11;11 years of their lives Texas's U.S. Rep. Henry Gonzalez has tor—a device that supposedly measures in trying to disprove it. They flowered formally proposed that Congress under- and charts tension in a person's voice— first in the middle '60s, then fell into take the rehearing. and found_ none of the bunched-up. discouraged retreat with the collapse of The Warren verdict is indeed threaded hedge-shaped clusters of squiggles that former New Orleans D.A. J im Garrison's through with unanswered questions arid commonly accompany lying. In Petit- jerry-built attempt to prove their case in unresolved anomalies. What its detrac- house and in a newly published book, .court. But the true disbelievers are back tors oiler in its place is one or another -The Assassination Tapes," O'Toole now, more numerous and insistent than alternative hypothesis far tidier than the rendered his unambiguous judgment: ever, with their three-Oswald and four- commission's one-man, one-gun analy -Quite clearly, was assassin scenarios and their dizzying ex- Nis. But their sort of tidiness has its own telling the truth." egeses of every scrap of paper and every ices. Supposition is elevated into fact; The Flaws: The PSE, while gradually frame of film on the JFK shelves in the accident becomes criminal design; evi- gaining acceptance, remains controver- National Archives. And this time, in a dence is accepted on faith if it fits a sial among experts in lie-detection; nei- nation still traumatized by the crimes and conspiracy theory and rejected as manu- ther the FBI nor the CIA uses it, and Dr. lies of Watergate, they have found their factured if it dries not. The doubters, Joseph Kubis, a Fordham psychologist w idestaudience yet fo r the i demand that ITII)reover, have never harmonized their who tested it extensively for the Army. the inquest he reopened. own doubts about whether or not Oswald came away doubting its validity. There Their doubts, reasonable or not, have was involved at all, or how many assas- remains, moreover, the powerful circum- inspired. at least two dozen nonfiction sins tired how many shots, or who might stantial ease that Oswald was involved, books, four novels. three feature films, have put them up to it—the CIA, or the alone or not.• The only known murder Several national conferences and a re- Mafia, or the Communists, or Texas oil, weapon, a 1940 Mannlicher-Carcano ri- cent freshet of articles in journals rang- ,,r MUM' other party or parties unknown. fle. was traced to him ant! bore his ing from Penthouse to Rolling Stone. .\ Still, amid the melange of fact and paimprint; the only recovered cartridges bootleg copy of the famed Zaprialur guess, reason and imagination, there are and bullet fragments were traced to the home movie attic assassination—blood, provocative questions: rifle; the revok er that killed Dallas brain fragments and all—has played DID OSWALD DO IT? police patrolman I.D. Tippit was in twice, this spring on network TV and Oswald's possession when he was arrest- numberless times to smaller audiences The Voice Test: "1 didn't shoot anybody, ed in a movie theater 80 minutes after the around the nation. .t Lr.r, alp of old New no sir.- Oswald told an interviewer at assassination. Even some conspiracy Leftists in Cambridge. N lass_ embraced Dallas police headquarters, and many theorists concede the case, and David

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mire Chart: 1)icf the ahhener of rtres6 signs ann.! the -.pi i,n4e, prove hi- ilitIM• rne.' 1 4' iittirdvring,1 3 fr Nt-wsweek AFFAIRS 41 it shows—or so they believe—a figure _ • aiming what could be a rifle over the top FRAME 321 of what could be a station wag' on the grassy knoll ahead of the Pfl,sident's motorcade. And Groden. in the best -Blowup- tradition. thinks he has f ; two and possibly three more a.SSASSins in ...„ the : one, rifle still in hand, • „, dimly visible through sonic tow•-hanging 1111 tree branches along the motoreacle route. the other—perhaps with backup n un- behind a fence on the grassy knoll. The Flaws: The Nix -ass:assin,- if he exists, could as easily be sighting camera as a gun; if it is a rifle, he appears to have the wrong arm propped on the car 1'h•~i~+ C1144 M.H. 0.1Parlt r. roof. Croden's gunmen- are tutai rt,;(11uatzrey . . . but did a second bit from up front drive him violently backward? even to be identified positively a s man beings, let alone assassins, Bolin, a Warren staff alumnus nowv di-k to buttress its case. Jones found that accordingly regarded as dubious foundeven reeling the Rockefeller commission in- Connall'N reaction was too exaggerated among solo,- diehard conspiratorialiEsNtsT.? (tufty into the CIA, says flatly: "I have no to lie explanted. by the impact of the doubt that Oswald killed Kennedy... bullet; he suggests that Connally was WAS OSWALD A GOVERNMENT AG reacting physiologically to his wounds. The FBI-CIA Connection: Thu. conspiracy . WAS THERE A CONSPIRACY? The Fatal Wound: With gut-wrenching literature is shot through with specula- The Superbullet: The Warren commis- clarity, Cmden's blowups of the Za- Lion that Oswald was art operative sion's one-man theory rested heavily on pruder film show JFK's head snapping least an informer for one or both.; the hypothesis that Oswald's first shot forward under the impact of a bullet that cies, which were then heavily inviinvolvedtgen- struck JFK in the tipper hack, exited front blew away one side of his skull; then, a in trying to penetrate domestic radical his throat, tore through then Texas Gov, split-second later, his hand and body groups. The CIA links are largely st lpps 's torso and right wrist, lurch even more violently up, back and sitious, based on some striking odi and burrowed Mt; h It•tt thigh. To have leftward into Jackie's arms. The in Oswald's record (the ease with „hit li conceded that, the twit men were• hit by doubters' theory: that Kennedy was hit he got a Marine Corps discharge, then separate shots would have been to ac- by separate shots, one from the rear and defected to Russia, therm came hem( knowledge a second gun; Oswald almost one from the front, a single movie frame government loan) and some thready' con- certainly could not have fired his clumsy (or one-eighteenth of a second) apart. nocuous with various people and places bolt-action rifle: that quickly. Yet the The Flaws: The film itself shows an thought to be in the CIA's ambit. The single bullet said to have caused all this explosion of blood, brain and bone frig- FBI story had rather more body: OsOswald damage came away miraculously un- moots spraying upward and f~ww•ard. in fact was carrying the name arid p scathed. And ongoing studies of the suggesting a hit from the rear• A second number of Dallas agent James Z.-apt-oder hint—most recently by Hebert bullet striking Kennedy from up front his pocket notebook, and there Groden, 29, a New York optics expert might have been expected to produce a rumors—now often quoted as Eta—that currently touring witl► a pirated print comparable burst backward, but none is he was on the bureau payroll as in seem to the doubters to show Kennedy visible. Physicist Jones's studies, more- ant number S-179 at $:20() a mouth. and Connally reacting to their wounds a over, concluded that a double hit would The Flaws: The CIA connection re- half-second to one and a half seconds have required "giant" second bullet mains speculative, pending birth( apart. The conclusion: they must have with ten times the momentum of the first quiry by the lit-xlefeller commission and been hit by separate guns. to drive JFK back and leftward so force- the two Congressional committees The Flaws: The nearly pristine condi- fully. His hypothesis:is: the movement was quiring into the agency's operations:5Tifri; lion of what critics call Superbullet is a neuromuscular reaction to the ihunage FBI's Hosty insisted he had cOntacted indeed hard to explain; the commission's to Kennedy's brain. Oswald only as a matter of routine stir- defenders are mostly reduced to arguing The Mystery Men: The conspiratorialists veillance of a returned dekctor. And the that it could have survived intact be- have long been fascinated by a frame in a embellishments about his informansta- cause it did. But the doubters are stuck second.amateur film shot by ; his and his payroll number apparently with the perplexing question of what did become• of the bullet I %%%% I 1 that hit Kennedy if it didn't Sat strike Connally as well. And the film is at best ambiguous on the timing of their wotinds. To some viewers, Connally scents to go stiff almost simultaneously with 4, Kennedy's first visible reaction, aod his right hand flies upward clutching his Stetson—reflexes that might support a single- 4 bullet theory. Connally's major ,•/ reaction to his wounds does come a kill second or so later. .41/4 when he begins sagging right- ward, spins and then slumps Motu play: Some cumin rar theorists heavily to his left. The commis- prorel,t= to recognize Watergate in nspira- stein called this a delayed reac- ours Sturgis and Hunt (above) among the time and subsequent studies le' three tramps in police cii•t;.il} near the UCLA physicist B:K. lopes ti scene of the Kennedy a-,a -,i nation :kiwi! 28, 1975 3 NATIONAL AFFAIRS

Blowup: Was the shatiott 3 form under the tree leaves the head of an a-.-a -sin holding a rifle?

..11151101. All MAUI" revrIvIrd originated in a h' a... 11;0010.1 in De- ',pinion, he was or was not an employee happened to be carrying the passport.- cember 1963 I t el Texas new SIllen and of any intelligence agency of the United The Flaws: Snell records are often care- a Dallas assistant D.A. who suspected States7 if the ensuing inquiry did not go lessly made; the one that says Oswald the bureau of tapping their phones. As much beyond Hoover's flat denial, it did was 5 feet 8, for instance, is 4ccompaiiied oa. of the reporters. Alonzo bodkins, substantially undercut the tale that Os- by a photottraph of Oswald standing recounted it, the three set-out to prove wald drew down $200 a month. The against a wall grid on which his height is their suspicion by stagnig a conference commission published an exhaustive 5 feet 9, In any case, if there was no Lee call, referring to Oswald as an informant 100-page anatomy of Oswald's finances Harvey Oswald. who is the woman who and debating what his number was— over his last seventeen months. during for 35 years has been claiming to be Lee s- 179 or 172. Stine enough, said Hudkins. which he earned $3,655 and pinched Harvey Oswald's mother? an agent materialized within a half hour, even penny of it; it uncovered no evi- The Plumber Connection: A number of dropped a few off-the-point questions, dence that any hidden benefactor was couspiratorialists. notably comedian then asked casually: "Say, have you don) i ng his income under the table. , have promoted the theory heard anything about a secret payroll The No-Oswald Theory: For years. var- that Watergate conspirators E. Howard number Oswald may have hack?' El cat- ious conspiracy theorists have posited Hunt and may have been kins played dumb, and heard nothing the possibility that there may have been present—and in fact briefly detained—at more of the tale until a New York news- two or even three Oswalds, one the real the assassination scene. Their "evi- paper printed Hoover', ch-oial—be fore article, the other (or others) assigned by dence- is a press photo of the Dallas the charge had ever reached print. unknown conspirators to prepare weeks police with three unidentified "tramps- The 'Dirty Rumor': The commission's and months ahead for his frame-up by in tow; the shortest of the three looks to critics maintain that, whatever the mer- planting incriminating clues about him. some doubters like Hunt, the tallest like its, it did not pursue the agency connec- In the new wave, Peter Dale Scott, a Sturgis. The implication: the plumbers- tions hard enough, and instead took the Berkeley medievalist and assassination to-be were somehow as i;eted with the FBI and CIA denials at face value. Their buff, has added an ingenious new wrin- events that bloody noonday in Dallas. exhibit A is a lately surfaced transcript of kle: that there may have been no real The Flaws: The look-alikes, on close a closed-door commission meeting in Oswald at all. One principal seurce of inspection, don't. The "Hunt- figure January 1964, at which staff director J. this speculation is that Oswald's seems older in 1963, when he would have Lee Rankin began unhappily: "We do height-5 feet 9 at his death—fluctuates been 45, than he does now at 56, and the have a dirty rumor [about Oswald as in various physical-examination records "Sturgis" Doppelginger is craggier and informant 5-179) ... and it must he over four years between 5 feet 8 and 5 fairer than his real-life incarnation. wiped out it Ise her as it is possible to do so feet 11. Says Scott: "I'm really intrigued 1w this commission.- What follows is a that the only reality of Lee Harvey What the doubters have confirmed, long, unflattering debate in which the Oswald is some documents, a passport after a dozen years' labor, is that the commission wobbles indecisively be- which was used by different people. Warren inquiry was a flawed and at criti- tween offending Hoover by mounting its Who was Lee Harvey Oswald'? Whoever cal moments a timid one. What they have own investigation, or uut I!. accepting yet to proVide is a satisfying alternative to his wurd—even on the ad% ice of former the official theory—a hypothesis that GIA director Allen Dulles that Hoover dues not require' whole squads of assas- would probably lie if it were so. They sins vanishing into thin air and whole settled on a "marriage" of the two ap- platoons of lawmen conspiring success- proaches, but critics charge they did fully over a ale; code and more to po itect precinus little int hail udent inquiry. them. The conspiracy theorists rnie., as The Flaws: The "rumor- was an insub- they claim. have raiscel enough reason- sLodial rue to start with, as the commis- able doubt to warrant reopening the case. sion staff may have sensed from the first: in a committee of Congress or sonar other one of the Texas lawmen who reported it open and independent forum_ But it to them, in any event, was the assistant would he perilously wishful thinkilig to D.A. who had helped make it up. Most expect such an inquiry to lan all doubts to accounts of the meeting, moreover, un- rest—to make order ofthe chaos of Dallas. kindly omit a second sentence from Nov. 22, 1963, or to promulgate sonic Rankist's opening remarks. in which he final, symmetrical "truth- about due admonishes the .conneissiou that the death of John F. Krum cly. 1.1.1 e..-unintry- will expect it -to try to find out -PETER GOLDMAN 11Vit, JOHN J LINDSAY rn WaSrlinglon the facts .. • [so it can fairly say, 'Iii our Superbulleo Both JFh. and Connally? and bureau repOra 38 Nt-v.sverek. April 28, 1973