special issue number THE FORUM FOR CONTEMPORARYCONTEMPORARY HISTORY )5 • Opposing views on the question that keeps coming back: Should we reopen the investigation? Was the Warren Commission right? Are the "conspiracy" theories plausible? Is there any new evidence? Featuring: Bernard Fensterwald James J. Kilpatrick Sylvia Meagher David Belin Robert Sam Anson Skeptic Forum 811101111M. HANDBOOK How the assassination changed your life skepit FORUM FOR CONTEMPORARYtic rt5TCRY • PRESIDENT-PUBLISHER James L. Banktl, III EDITOR Henry B. Burnett, Jr. MANAGING EDITOR Chnsuisise Schlumberarr SENIOR EDITOR Sandra Stenzel CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Noah Parker Glenn Pone Ron Ridenour RESEARCH DIRECTOR Richard E Kipling EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Shannon McMillian CIRCULATION MANAGER Harry Short CIRCULATION ASSISTANT Betty Clarka CIRCULATION CONSULTANT S. O. Shapiro DISTRIBUTION MANAGER Morena R. Laney, Jr. ACCOUNTING Sylvia Schmidt FINANCIAL CONSULTANT Eugene F. Zenon DESIGN Scott F. Reid & Associates ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Bernard Bergin Roger 13001 The Composition House ."1 Curtis Circulation Company IC R. Donnelley & Sons Co. Foto.Artiats/Graphim Dept. Nancy Looker Judyl Mudfoos Mueller Color Plate Co Fred T. Newcomb Michael Raesch Linda Rolens Santa Barbara Photo Engraving Chnatopher Stagg Mary Stone Adrian Taylor Impel Tireou COVER ILLUSTRATION David Jurvia Skeptic is publiahed bimonthly, 57_50 per ymr, by Forum fur Contemporary History, Inc., 112 Anampa Street. Santis Barbara. California 9)101. Second class parsnip Cl paid al Sant, Barbara. Californin and additional mailing office. Postmaster, Please send form 3579 to SkepfIC, 9420-D Activity Road, San Diego. CA 92126. hone No.9 September October 1975. • 1971 Forum for Comoriporary History, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 0093-5050 For change or address or in.h,CrIpt■on information, write to: SKEPTIC, 9470-D Activity Road, San Diego. CA 9212b. 1714) 566-3020 WHO KILLED MI? ISSUE NO. 9 SKEPTICAL EYE Is a breakthrough imminent? The Question That Keeps Coming Back See page 8. Henry B. Burnett, Jr. 4 If Oswald wasn't alone, who helped him? The government knows, claims INTERVIEW WITH BERNARD FENSTERWALD attorney Bernard Fensterwald in an Ron Ridenour 8 interview with SKEPTIC, and what's more, the American people may soon ARTICLES learn the truth. The Warren Commission Was Right t3,1-1-. -2 Q Doctored evidence: David W. Belin 12 a new hypothesis. Q The Greatest Cover-up of All See page 25. Robert Sam Anson, from New Times 17 The Warren Commission never Discounting the Critics / W. David Slawson and resolved serious conflicts between the Richard M. Mosk, from Los Angeles Times 21 reports of doctors in Dallas and those Did Someone Alter the Medical Evidence? of the autopsy physicians at Bethesda. These conflicts suggest that someone Fred T. Newcomb and Perry Adams 25 altered the President's wounds. The Dissenters Ask Too Much James J. Kilpatrick 29 Should we reopen the inquiry? Finishing the Commission's Unfinished Business See page 34. Sylvia Meagher, from Esquire 31 What do legislators think? How about presidential candidates? What is SKEPTIC FORUM the consensus of those who served the Should the Investigation Be Reopened? Commission? How does the Kennedy family feel? What's the opinion of Richard E. Kipling 34 Arthur Schlesinger, Tom Hayden, Clare Boothe Luce, Melvin Belli, Sam SURVIVAL HANDBOOK Ervin, President Gerald Ford? How JFK's Murder Changed the Presidency... and Your Life / Sandra Stencel 37 Agenda for a new investigation. See page 31. DEPARTMENTS The next investigation could pick up Skeptic Backgrounder: Assassinations from where the Warren Commission left off — by interviewing a number of Nizam al-Mulk to Robert F. Kennedy 6 potentially important witnesses the Who's Who 7 Commission never heard, and by Reading Guide 43 following up several evidential leads Letters 65 that the Commission either ignored or overlooked. SKEPTIC is the journal of the Forum for Contemporary History. an independent, non-political, non-partisan Oswald did it. organization formed to provide opportunities for the free See page 12. expression of controversial and divergent points of view. Critics notwithstanding,the fact Each issue of SKEPTIC examines a topic of current remains that the evidence pointed to interest through articles and interviews which represent a Lee Harvey Oswald and no one else - broad spectrum of viewpoints. SKEPTIC exists to help and eyewitness testimony provided clarify the most important issues of our time... to help more than enough corroboration. readers understand the pros and cons. organize their Oswald was guilty beyond a reason- thinking and develop their own opinions. able doubt. Skeptic 3 • - ske7tical eye f-ENRY rBURNETT JR . Some say that we have always been hooked on conspiracies and conspiracy theories (we're still speculating about the Lincoln assassination). Some explain this tendency as a need to reassure ourselves THE by supplying rational explanations for what are random, irrational acts that mock our notions of an ordered world. Others maintain that the credibility of the Commission's findings has been worn away over the QUESTION years by critics — the "assassination buffs" who once were dismissed as cranks, crackpots and paranoids. Some no doubt deserved the labels, but it turns out that a good many of the critics are serious scholars who are responsible for much of THAT KEEPS what we know today about the contents of the Report and the Commission's methods and proce- dures. Now the Zapruder film of the assassination has COMING been shown on television and hawked on the lecture circuits. Public skepticism about the Commission's findings — for whatever reasons — has increased to the point where the Kennedy assassination has become a matter of public policy. At issue now: BACK whether the investigation should be reopened. Two resolutions to do so have been introduced in the House of Representatives. Reputable people have acknowledged doubts about the Commission's ho killed John F. Kennedy? Nearly conclusions and called for a new inquiry. Candi- eleven years ago, the Warren Com- dates for national office in 1976 probably will find it mission answered the question: Lee difficult to avoid taking a position on the issue. Harvey Oswald was the assassin, and Even some former staff members of the Warren Whe acted alone. Commission have recommended reopening the By and large, the news media accepted this verdict investigation, not out of heresy but to put to rest uncritically. Some Americans may have found it widespread doubts about the Commission's perfor- hard to believe that Oswald could have engineered mance. the assassination by himself, but most were inclined The Commission is not without defenders. not to challenge this conclusion. Who, after all, had President Ford, who was a Commission member, a better answer? reaffirmed recently that he stands behind the For that matter, who has a better answer today? Warren Report. Senator Edward Kennedy and his Although conspiracy theories abound, they remain family say they are satisfied with the official theories; no conclusive evidence has been brought findings. David Behr', assistant counsel for the forward and no link between Oswald and any Warren Commission and executive director of the alleged conspirator has been established. Rockefeller Commission, insists that the case Why, then, does the question of who shot JFK against Oswald was proved beyond a reasonable keep coming back — if indeed it ever went away? doubt. In a recent television interview, Commission Because most Americans don't believe the Warren member John McCloy commented that he had Commission's answer. "never seen a case more completely proven." Some attribute this to a change in the political The case against Oswald is persuasive, if not climate: after Watergate, Vietnam and the CIA airtight. And the problem that still confronts the revelations, Americans are prepared not only to critics is that there isn't a shred of evidence believe the worst about officialdom, but to reject connecting anyone else to the crime. Only surmise, out of hand officialdom's pronouncements. More- speculation, inference and hypothesis. The chal- over, we are in a mood to probe for the truth, lenge flung down years ago by Commission member consequences be damned. and former CIA director Allen Dulles —"If they've 4 Skeptic found another assassin, let them name names and produce evidence" — has not been met. To be against reopening the investigation does not, of course, require that one be a defender of the Warren Commission. Columnist James Kilpatrick, for example, admits that puzzling questions remain unanswered, but that given a choice between the conspiracy theories and the Warren Report, he'll stick with the latter. Some say that a new investigation isn't warranted unless new evidence is turned up. Some believe that a new investigation cannot be justified because the chance is too remote that it can find out any more than the Warren Commission found out. Some think that the best thing for the country is to let the matter rest. The critics contend that the Commission's function was more political than investigative, that its real purpose was to put an end to the rumors and speculation about conspiracies; that the Commis- sion assumed that Oswald was the lone assassin, ignored evidence and testimony to the contrary, and constructed an improbable explanation of how Kennedy was killed in order to support what was, in fact, a foregone conclusion. The Commission found that just three shots were fired, all from behind and above the President and all by Lee Harvey Oswald. Although the endless arguments about the number and origin of the shots may seem trivial and academic, they are right to the point. For if there had been more than three shots (or, of course, if any shots had come from a direction other than behind and above the presiden- tial limousine), there must have been another gunman because Oswald's single shot rifle could not have been fired more than three times in the seconds between the first and last hits on the President (the timing has been determined from the Zapruder film).