CHAPTER 7 PU R S U I T O F RE C O R D S A N D IN F O R M AT I O N F R O M NO N- FE D E R A L SO U R C E S I firmly believe that the Board has an obligation to seek out assassination records from all sources; public and private. The goal of Congress in passing S. 3006 was to ensure broadest possible disclosure of the records relating to the assassination. The fact that a document exists only in private hands should not deter the Board in any way from seeking to compel its transmission to the National Archives.—Judge Tunheim at the Review Board nomination hearings. Through fair and impartial application of the criteria developed by the Review Board and keeping in mind always the express purposes of the enabling legis- lation, I believe that the Review Board should be as aggressive as it needs to be to achieve disclosure of relevant records. That also applies to records held by private citizens...—William Joyce at the Review Board nomination hearings. A. PURSUIT OF RECORDS AND PAPERS FROM A P news reports of President Kennedy’s PRIVATE CITIZENS AND ORGANIZATIONS assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald’s arrest, Jack Ruby’s shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, The Review Board actively encouraged pri- and President Kennedy’s funeral. Barnes, a vate citizens and organizations who pos- San Francisco-based A P reporter in 1963, sessed assassination records to donate them obtained permission from his editor to keep to the JFK Collection to make the collection the wire copy, which would otherwise have as historically rich as possible. Fortunately, been thrown away. private citizens were willing to donate mate- rials, often in the form of a deed of gift, to the collection. The Review Board also received 3. Dr. George Burkley countless essays, interview transcripts and books, usually not accompanied by a deed of The Review Board contacted the children of gift. These, too, will become part of the JFK deceased Vice Admiral George G. Burkley, Collection. Below is an overview of materials former military White House physician to donated by private citizens. P residents Kennedy and Johnson, to find out if their father had deposited his papers at 1. Gary Aguilar: Interviews with any institution, or if they possessed any Drs. Humes and Boswell assassination re c o rds. The staff came up e m p t y - h a n d e d . Dr. Gary Aguilar of San Francisco provided the Review Board with an audiotape of his According to House Select Committee on 1994 telephone interviews with Dr. James J. Assassinations re c o rds, Burkley’s personal Humes and Dr. “J” Thornton Boswell, the attorney apparently told the HSCA that his two Navy prosectors at President Kennedy’s client believed there was a conspiracy to kill autopsy. President Kennedy. Mr. Illig, Burkley’s attor- 2. Richard Barnes: AP Wire Copy ney, however, is now deceased. The Review Board staff asked Burkley’s daughter, the Richard Barnes, a former Associated Press executor of his estate, to sign a waiver allow- reporter, donated to the JFK Collection AP ing the Review Board access to papers at wire copy for November 22 through Novem- Illig’s law firm, but she declined to sign and ber 26, 1963. The material chronicles the first return the waiver. 131 4. Edward Scannell Butler: Materials Fortas donated his papers to Yale University, from the Information Council of the but the Review Board secured copies of the Americas a s s a s s i n a t i o n - related material for the JFK Collection. NARA will open Fortas’ assassi- Chapter 6 of this report discusses the Review nation-related papers in January 2001, which B o a rd’s attempts to locate government is the same date that Yale will open the records on Edward Scannell Butler and his remainder of his papers. organization, the Information Council of the Americas. INCA is a New Orleans-based 8. Captain J.W. “Will” Fritz clearinghouse for anti-communist informa- tion, and particularly for anti-Castro Cuban Dallas Police Department Captain J.W. “Will” information. Fritz served as Lee Harvey Oswald’s primary interrogator when Oswald was in police cus- Although Butler allowed Review Board staff tody from the afternoon of November 22 to view INCA files, he said he could not pro- until the morning of November 24, 1963. vide copies of them to the JFK Collection Fritz was the chief of the Dallas Police until he catalogued the material. He also Department’s Homicide and Robbery declined the Board’s offer to send its staff B u reau. In November 1997, the Review members to New Orleans to determine what B o a rd acquired and released handwritten INCA records would be of value to the JFK notes that Fritz apparently made following Collection. his interviews with Oswald. 5. Mrs. Marion Ebersole: Records of Dr. 9. Jim Garrison John J. Ebersole The late Jim Garrison was the New Orleans The Review Board staff contacted the widow District Attorney who investigated and pros- of Dr. John J. Ebersole, the Navy radiologist ecuted Clay Shaw for conspiracy to assassi- who was on duty the night of President nate President Kennedy and swho was por- Kennedy’s autopsy at Bethesda National trayed in Oliver Stone’s film, JFK. Naval Medical Center. Although he was not yet board-certified, he served as the consult- Garrison’s family donated 15,000 pages of his ing radiologist during the procedure. Eber- assassination papers, which include records sole said she did not have any of her hus- from his investigation and prosecution of band’s personal papers or any assassination Shaw, as well as other files on individuals or records. subjects that Garrison believed to be con- nected to the assassination. 6. President Gerald Ford: Desk Diaries 10. James P. Hosty Jr. Pr esident Gerald Ford donated to the JFK Col- lection selected entries from his desk diaries In November 1996, the Review Board inter- (calendars) from 1963 and 1964 during the viewed James P. Hosty, Jr., the FBI agent period that he served as a member of the War - responsible for handling the Lee Harvey ren Commission. The Review Board staff Oswald and Marina Oswald cases when they reviewed the calendars for relevance and lived in Dallas. Hosty was present during the selected excerpts for donation to the JFK Col- initial Dallas police interrogation of Oswald lection with the cooperation of President Ford. and took contemporaneous handwritten notes. Although the notes were believed to 7. Justice Abe Fortas have been destroyed, Hosty donated the notes, and other materials relating to the Former Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, assassination and the FBI’s investigation, to who was an adviser to President Johnson, the JFK Collection. kept papers that include drafts of President Johnson’s and Lady Bird Johnson’s written 11. Wesley Liebeler statements to the Warren Commission and documents rebutting passages from William Wesley Liebeler, former Assistant Counsel to Manchester’s book, The Death of a President. the Warren Commission, testified before the 132 Review Board at its Los Angeles public hear- 14. Richard Case Nagell ing in September 1996. At the time of his tes- t i m o n y, Liebeler provided to the Review In his book The Man Who Knew Too Much, Board copies of six chapters from his unfin- author Dick Russell wrote about Richard ished book on the assassination. In addition, Case Nagell, a former Army Counterintelli- Liebeler provided the Review Board with a gence Officer who told Russell he: (1) had report on the Zapruder film written by conducted surveillance on Lee Harvey UCLAPhysics professor Brian Jones. Liebeler Oswald for both the CIA and the KGB; (2) had had apparently requested that Jones examine been rec r uited by a KGB agent (masquerad- the Zapruder film and prepare the report. ing as a CIA operative) to persuade Oswald no t to participate in a plot against Pres i d e n t 12. David Lifton: Medical Evidence Kennedy; (3) had been instructed by the KGB to kill Oswald if he could not dissuade him David Lifton, author of Best Evidence: Dis- fr om participating in the plot; (4) was in pos- guise and Deception in the Assassination of John session of a Polaroid photograph that had F. Kennedy, testified before the Review Board been taken of himself with Lee Harvey at its public hearing in Los Angeles in Sep- Oswald in New Orleans; (5) had audio tape tember 1996. During his testimony, Lifton rec o r dings of Oswald and others discussing a announced that he would donate to the JFK forthcoming assassination attempt on Pres i - Collection his 35mm “interpositive” of the dent Kennedy; and (6) Zapruder film. Interpositives are valuable had sent a letter, via reg - . the intent of the conspirators, because they are made directly fro m is t e r ed mail, to FBI Direc - according to Nagell, was to pin internegatives, which in turn are made from tor J. Edgar Hoover in the blame [for the assassination the original film. They there f o re pro v i d e September 1963, warning of the President] on Castro’s denser colors and better resolution than pro- of a conspiracy to kill Cuba and spark an invasion of jection prints. Pr esident Kennedy in late the island. he has indicated to September 1963 in Was h - me in the past that, if he was Lifton also donated compact disk copies of ington, D.C.