What Did Happen in Dallas? Alex Campbell CDC THE NEW lune 25, 1966, 35 cents REPUBLIC Lovestone • The AFL-CIO .1-fas Its Own CIA Dan Kurzman Which GOP? -- gerald 1-V, Johnson Poor Politics —Andrew Kopkind Bill Mo-yers James T3eakin Grocery Studies —James Ridgeway Kennedys at Home — .714artin T. Nolan BOOKS AND THE ARTS a quorum or something." Commission What Did ilappen in Dallas? hearings began at 9 a.m. so Chief Jus- by Alex Campbell tice Warren could officially open them before leaving for the Court at to a.m. The Commission averaged only seven Americans who go abroad are startled killed . and Governor Connally was hearings a month; only one was open that many foreigners remain deeply wounded." to the public. The to months' investiga- skeptical of the official version of the Weisberg and Epstein have independ- tion really boiled down to to weeks. assassination of President John F. Ken- ently ransacked the z6 volumes of testi- The staff lawyers were especially mad nedy. The Americans can't understand mony and exhibits and the two FBI re- about the Commission's genteel han- it; didn't the Warren Commission's ports on which the Warren Report is dling of Marina Oswald. Norman Red- Report close the case? As a matter of based; additionally, Epstein interviewed lich complained that Mrs. Oswald "lied fact, no; the Report was careful to say members of the Commission and its to the Secret Service, the FBI and this that "because of the difficulty of prov- staff, in pursuit of his master's thesis Commission repeatedly on matters ing negatives to a certainty the pos- on government at Cornell University. which are of vital concern to the people He evoked some staggering admissions. of this country and the world," but the Whitewash The Commission seems to have done its Chief Justice declared himself "a judge by Harold Weisberg job in an atmosphere of internal mud- of human beings" and had faith in her. (Weisberg; $4.95) dle and wrangling. The assistant coun- The staff lawyers derisively 'called her sel were deeply unhappy about the Re- the seven Commissioners' Snow White. Inquest port and tried hard to have it written A tenth of the hearings was devoted to by Edward Jay Epstein differently. They felt they knew far her testimony, but Epstein concludes (Viking; $3) more about the case than the seven the discrepancies in it "were never sat- Commissioners did. Epstein says "the isfactorily resolved." sibility of others being involved with entire task of ascertaining the basic The single most astounding thing that either Oswald or Ruby cannot be estab- facts of the assassination fell upon one both Epstein and Weisberg fasten on lished categorically." lawyer — Arlen Specter." Wesley J. after brooding over the z6 volumes of That greatly understates the areas of Liebeler told Epstein most of the Com- testimony has nothing to do with Ma- fuzz. In an article in The New Republic missioners were absent most of the rina, however. The Commission never on December 21, 1963, called "Seeds of time, that they would stop by the hear- saw the photographs and X-rays of Doubt," Jack Minnis and Staughton ings "a few minutes," ask a question Kennedy's body which were made at Lynd wondered how a shot fired from which "blew the lawyer's entire line of the autopsy as a matter of routine in a behind could have wounded Kennedy questioning," then rush out "to make case of violent death. These were in the front of his neck, how three shots could fire what seemed to be at least four bullets, and how a bolt-action rifle, subsequently ascertained to have The Amoeba a defective telescopic sight, could fire off three accurate shots in five-and-a- Mindless, meaning no harm, half seconds. Substantially the same it ingested me. questions still lacked satisfactory an- It moved on silent pseudopods swers when the Warren Report ap- to where I was born, inert, and I peared September 28, 1964, and still do. was inside. There were over zoo eye-witnesses of Digestive acids burned my skin. the assassination, including trained ob- Enzymes nuzzled knees and eyes. servers — FBI, Secret Service and police; My ego like a conjugated verb movie- and still-cameras recorded the retained its root, a narrow fear event; the Warren Commission in- of being qualified. vestigated for to months. Yet Harold Weisberg isn't far wrong when he Alas, suffixes swarmed. writes: "There is no single thing that is I lost my mother's arms, my teeth, proved beyond reasonable doubt about my laugh, my protruding faith; the marksman, the rifle, the ammuni- Reduced to the 0 of a final sigh, tion, the shooting or the number of in time I died. shots, except that the President was JOHN UPDIKE THE NEW REPUBLIC handed over to the Secret Service. In- "To say that they were hit by separate stead of seeing them, the Commission Does the bullets is synonymous with saying that had to make do with an "artist's con- there were two assassins." rfmeiricao ception." Even this odd procedure Epstein and Weisberg are concerned Tete.teued mightn't have raised questions, since with such unresolved mysteries as the the Commission had a written autopsy number of shots fired at Kennedy and eastorittee report and listened to the man who Connally, where the shots came from, speak for you? signed it, Commander James J. Humes, Oswald's abilities as a marksman, the Navy pathologist. But the autopsy Oswald's connections, if any, with the report and the "artist's conception" FBI and CIA. Both are concerned also maintain that a downward-travelling with the Commission's arbitrary way bullet that entered the back of the with witnesses — it seemed to pay most President's neck came out the front of attention to the ones it wanted to be- his throat, lower than the entry wound, lieve, and when it suited its book it was and this is flatly contradicted by a chart attentive to witnesses whose testimony of the body prepared by Humes himself it otherwise brushed aside. Mrs. Eric during the autopsy; by the FBI's report Walther and Arnold Rowland claimed on the President's wounds; by the they saw a second assassin and were actual bullet-holes in Kennedy's jacket passed over; much more weight was If You Are a War Veteran and shirt; by Secret Service man Clint given the eye-witness testimony of ... and loin civil rights marches, Hill who attended the autopsy; and by Howard L. Brennan, the only person ... support the United Nations. Secret Service man Glen A. Bennett, claiming to identify Oswald as Ken- ... want the fullest realization of the Great Society ... who saw a bullet hit the President's nedy's assassin, though Brennan's testi- back (not neck) and to whose account mony contained one major error of fact AVC DOES SPEAK FOR YOU! the Warren Report claimed it gave and he admitted to the Commission "substantial weight." All of this con- that he had lied to the police. If you want an effective force on the American scene . trary evidence plainly indicates a back Weisberg notes that the killing of to watchdog the military-industrial wound six inches below Kennedy's Patrolman J. D. Tippit also raised ques- complex Pres. Eisenhower warned neckline and made by a bullet that tions about the number of shots fired. about. couldn't possibly have exited from the The Warren Report didn't include an ... to keep tabs on military justice. ... to denounce use of the draft to front of the President's throat unless autopsy report on Tippit but said his silence dissent, it was travelling up and not down. body contained four bullets; however, to counteract right-wing influences of the exhibits include a Dallas police case old-line veterans and military groups ... THEN Weisberg points out that the Report report that Tippit was shot three times, showed absolutely no curiosity about "one time each in the hand, chest and Support Your Organization those glaring contradictions. Epstein stomach." The Warren Report said that The Liberal Veterans' Voice notes the Commission queried the FBI "five shots may have been fired even about some parts of its report, but though only four bullets were recov- e asked no questions about the FBI's ver- ered" from Tippit's body. The Report "Citizens First. Veterans Second" sion of the autopsy findings. had to account somehow for a discrep- Clip and mail. The FBI said medical examination of ancy between those bullets and the the President's body showed that the cartridge cases witnesses said they saw bullet that hit him in the back pene- the killer discarding. American Veterans Committee trated "less than a finger length." The 1830 Jefferson Place. N.W. FBI implied this was the bullet found The was still investigating the Washington. D. C. 20036 FBI I want to amplify AVC's voice. on a stretcher in the Dallas hospital. assassination when the Warren Report D Please enroll me as a member of But the Commission had another use went to press. On September 16, 1964, AVC. $10 dues enclosed. for this bullet. It said it cane out the the finally tracked down, in Cali- want to AVC's FBI work. front of Kennedy's throat and then in- fornia, a witness who was able to tell (Make checks payable to American flicted all Connally's wounds. Accord- them about a man who closely re- Veterans Committee. Dues and con. ing to the Report "there is very per- tributions are tax-deductible.) sembled Oswald, called himself "Leon suasive evidence from the experts" Oswald," was in Dallas about the time that this is what happened.