The Warren Commission Was Right
Assassination sensationalists notwithstanding, Oswald was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt
David W. Belin
Skeptic, Special Issue, No. 9, Sept/Oct 1975, pages 12
ff.
© 1975 Los Angeles Times
The assassination critics have
successfully duped a large body of world opinion into questioning
the validity and veracity of the Warren Commission's findings, claims David W.
Belin. The evidence pointed to Lee Harvey Oswald and no one else, and eyewitness
testimony provided more than enough corroboration.
As an assistant counsel to the Warren Commission, Belin
contributed significantly to the part of the report which deals with
"determination of who was the assassin. He stands behind his work and word,
and has become not only one of the most vocal supporters of the Commission but
the critics' number one bête noire. Belin, who practices law in Des Moines,
served recently as executive director of the Rockefeller Commission. This
article has been excerpted from his book November 1963: You Are the Jury, which
was published on the tenth anniversary of the assassination and from which Belin
has donated all royalties to charity. The book is written in the format of a
jury trial in which Belin asks the reader to serve as a member of "the jury
of world opinion."
The Rosetta Stone to the solution of President
Kennedy's murder is the murder of Officer J. D. Tippit. To paraphrase Professor
Hugh Trevor-Roper, once the "hypothesis is admitted" that Oswald
killed Patrolman J. D. Tippit, there can be no doubt that the overall evidence
shows that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin of John F. Kennedy.
The murder of J. D. Tippit is virtually an
open-and-shut case because Oswald was apprehended with the murder weapon in
hand. Johnny Calvin Brewer testified that he saw Oswald duck into Brewer's
storefront area as police sirens approached and then saw him leave and sneak
into the Texas Theater. Brewer followed Oswald into the theater and had the
cashier call the police. As a policeman approached, Oswald pulled out a
revolver.
Carrying a concealed gun is a crime. The fact that Oswald had such a weapon
in his possession and drew it is in itself highly suspicious. Irrefutable
scientific evidence proved that this revolver to the exclusion of all other
weapons in the world was the weapon that discharged the cartridge cases that
witnesses saw the murderer of Officer Tippit toss away as he left the scene of
the murder.
Taxicab driver W. W. Scoggins testified that he saw the murder and hid by the
side of his cab as Oswald trotted by within 12 feet of Scoggins. Ted Calloway
testified that he gave chase to Oswald, and Sam Guinyard, along with Callaway
and Scoggins, identified Oswald as the gunman in a police lineup. Helen Markham,
who witnessed the murder from across the street, and Barbara Jeanette Davis and
Virginia Davis, who saw Oswald cut across their lawn and toss cartridge cases in
the bushes, also identified Oswald as the gunman.
The combination of Oswald's actions at Brewer's shoe store and in the theater
and the scientific ballistics testimony linking this gun with the murder of
Tippit would of itself be sufficient. When you add to all this the positive
identification by six independent eyewitnesses, there can be no doubt that
Oswald killed Officer Tippit.
With the knowledge that Oswald had the capacity to kill, and with the
additional knowledge that the pistol used in the Tippit murder was purchased by
mail order under the same alias and sent to the same post office box in Dallas
as the Kennedy assassination rifle, No. C-2766, the evidence in the murder of
John F. Kennedy is placed in clear perspective.
The starting point is the testimony of Howard Brennan, who saw the gunman
take aim and fire the last shot. Brennan's testimony is reinforced by the
newsmen in the motorcade, including Robert Jackson and Malcolm Couch, who saw
the rifle being withdrawn. It is also reinforced by Amos Euins, who saw the
rifle, and by the testimony of the three employees watching the motorcade on the
fifth floor, below the assassination window. Harold Norman heard the cartridge
cases hit the floor above him and also heard the bolt action of the rifle. His
testimony is reinforced by the testimony of Bonnie Ray Williams and James Jarman,
Jr.
As Brennan and Euins reported their observations to the police, the Texas
School Book Depository was searched. In the southeast corner of the sixth floor
immediately above Harold Norman, three cartridge cases were found. In the
northwest corner of the sixth floor near the stairway, a 6.5 mm.
Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, serial No. C-2766, was found stuffed between boxes. In
the presidential limousine, two bullet fragments of sufficient size to be
ballistically identifiable were found. In Parkland Memorial Hospital, a nearly
whole bullet rolled off a stretcher used to carry Governor Connally.
Scientific ballistic evidence proved that the cartridge cases found at the
southeast corner of the sixth floor of the Depository, the two ballistically
identifiable bullets fragments in the front seat of the presidential limousine,
and the bullet found at Parkland Memorial Hospital all came from that rifle,
C-2766, to the exclusion of all other weapons in the world.
Who was the owner of that weapon? Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald had purchased the
rifle through the mail from Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago. He used the alias
of A. J. Hidell, the same alias used to purchase the pistol. This same man,
Oswald, closely met the physical description of Howard Brennan as Brennan saw
the gunman fire the last shot. Oswald had ready access to the sixth floor of the
Depository, and he was the only employee who was inside the building at the time
who had access to the sixth floor and who left the building shortly after the
assassination.
Where did Oswald go? He boarded a bus. But instead of waiting for a bus to
pass in front of the Depository, he walked seven blocks east to board one. The
bus he boarded was not the one that went right by his rooming house. Rather, he
took the first available bus, which came no closer than seven blocks from the
house. And when that vehicle became stalled in traffic, he got out and hailed a
taxicab that took him near his rooming house in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas,
where he undoubtedly picked up his pistol and then left hastily toward an
unknown destination.
The absence of Oswald from the Depository was first noted by his fellow
employees. They called this to the attention of the police officers searching
the crime scene; the officers went to the police station, intending to send
other officers to Oswald's residence to pick him up for questioning. When the
officers got to the police station, they found him already there; he had been
apprehended in connection with the murder of Officer Tippit.
Oswald's rifle had been stored, wrapped in a blanket, in a garage of the Ruth
Paine residence in the Dallas suburb of Irving. Oswald's wife and children were
staying with Ruth Paine and ordinarily Oswald would visit them on weekends.
However, on Thursday night, Nov. 21, Oswald varied his regular pattern and rode
home with Buell Frazier. Oswald said he wanted to pick up some curtain rods for
the room in which he stayed during the week. The next day Oswald carried a long
package wrapped in brown paper into the Depository, a package that Frazier
thought contained curtain rods. However, the room where Oswald was staying
already contained both curtains and curtain rods.
At the assassination window at the southeast corner of the sixth floor of the
Depository a large homemade paper bag was found. The paper was of the same type
used to wrap books in the Depository. It was of sufficient size to carry the
disassembled rifle and it contained a fingerprint and palmprint of Lee Harvey
Oswald.
A number of days after the assassination, the clipboard that Oswald used to
fill orders of books was found with some unfilled book orders dated Nov. 22. The
clipboard was found in the northwest corner near the back stairway—only
a few feet from where the rifle, No. C-2766, had been discovered.
President Kennedy was struck twice—the first
shot striking him in the back of his neck and exiting from his throat and the
second striking him in the back of his head. The fibers on the back of President
Kennedy's coat were pointed inward and the fibers on the front of his shirt were
pointed outward. The autopsy physicians traced the path of the bullet through
the President's neck and the autopsy X-rays disclosed that there was no missile
inside the President's body. Wound ballistics tests showed that the bullet that
struck President Kennedy's neck had entered at a velocity of approximately 1,900
feet per second and exited at a velocity of nearly 1,800 feet per second. Where
did that bullet go?
It did not hit the presidential limousine,
because any missile of that velocity striking the limousine would have caused
substantial damage. The only damage to the limousine was relatively minor and
included damage to the inside of the front windshield, further evidence that the
shots had come from behind.
At the time the first shot struck President Kennedy, the presidential
limousine was approximately 180 feet from the southeast corner window of the
sixth floor of the Depository. The four-power scope on the rifle made the actual
distance appear to be only 45 feet—15 yards.
The autopsy showed that the second shot to hit
President Kennedy came from the rear and above. At the time the fatal shot
struck President Kennedy, the presidential limousine was 265.3 feet away from
the southeast corner window of the sixth floor of the Depository, or
approximately 88 yards. Through a four-power scope, this made him appear to be
only 22 yards away. The trajectory was almost a perfect line shot as the
limousine slowly headed down Elm Street toward the freeway at a speed of 11.2
miles per hour.
Sitting directly in front of President Kennedy
was Governor Connally. At the time the shots were fired Governor Connally was in
the same trajectory line as President Kennedy, with relation to the sixth floor
of the Depository. All of Governor Connally's physicians agreed that he was
struck by one shot fired from above and behind. Governor Connally's physicians,
as well as the wound ballistics experts at Edgewood Arsenal, agreed that
Governor Connally's wrist had not been struck by a pristine bullet. The
trajectory line of the shot, coupled with the medical testimony, the autopsy
testimony and the wound ballistics experiments, and the fact that Governor
Connally was sitting directly in front of President Kennedy led to the obvious
conclusion: The bullet that exited from the front of President Kennedy's neck at
a velocity of nearly 1,800 feet per second struck Governor Connally.
The bullet that hit Governor Connally was the nearly whole bullet found at
Parkland Memorial Hospital. The total amount of material from the bullet that
remained in Governor Connally was measured in micrograms—less
then one grain in total, according to the reports of physicians who operated on
Governor Connally's wrist and thigh.
Some witnesses at the scene of the assassination
thought they saw a puff of smoke near the grassy knoll. However, no one saw a
rifle, except in the upper floor of the Depository; and the only bullet or
fragments found came from that rifle, to the exclusion of all other weapons in
the world.
When the Dallas police cane to the Irving
residence and asked about the location of a rifle, Marina Oswald pointed out a
blanket roll in the garage. When the blanket was opened, the rifle was gone.
Also found were two photographs and a negative of a picture taken of Oswald
holding the rifle and having a pistol at his side. Scientific evidence showed
that the picture negative was taken from Oswald's camera, to the exclusion of
all other cameras in the world.
When Oswald was interrogated, he denied owning a
rifle; he denied having purchased the rifle from Klein's Sporting Goods; he
denied that the picture of him with the rifle and pistol was a true picture but
rather said it was a composite; he denied having carried a long package into the
Depository on the morning of Nov. 22; and he said that at the time of the
assassination he was having lunch with "Junior." The only employee
known as "Junior" was James Jarman, Jr., who was watching the
motorcade from the fifth floor.
Despite Oswald's denials that he shot Officer
Tippit and President Kennedy, when you put all of these facts together and
couple these facts with the evidence showing Oswald murdered J. D. Tippit, there
can be no reasonable doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald murdered John F.
Kennedy.
We found no evidence of any conspiracy involving any third party,
particularly Jack Ruby. We found that Ruby was truthful in his testimony and in
his polygraph examination when he said that he had shot Oswald to save
Jacqueline Kennedy the hardship of going to Dallas and testifying at a trial of
Oswald. We found innumerable instances of "happenstance," all of which
reinforced our conclusion that there was no conspiracy.
But what about the assassination sensationalists who say there was a rifleman
shooting a rifle that no one sees and that leaves no cartridge cases and leaves
no bullets? This is the heart of the claims of assassination sensationalists
typified by the film produced by Lane and deAntonio. I was contacted by these
producers in a letter dated July 7, 1966:
Dear Mr. Belin:
We are completing a film on the assassination of President Kennedy, its aftermath, and "The President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy." The film, which is composed of interviews with witnesses in Dallas as well as stock footage, attacks both the methods and conclusions of the Commission.
We offer to screen a pre-release version of the film for you, and also offer you the opportunity to rebut the film on camera—with the understanding that anything you say on camera will be used intact without any cuts, additions or deletions on our part.
Sincerely,
/s/ Mark Lane; /s/ Emile DeAntonio
Because all of us who served with the Warren
Commission were familiar with Lane's methods, I felt that none of the seven
Commissioners would answer the letter of Lane and deAntonio and that most if not
all other lawyers who served with the Commission would throw the letter in the
wastebasket. We knew that Lane's claims were a sham. And although I did not
agree with every decision made during our investigation, each of us felt that
when we completed our investigation we had determined the truth: Lee Harvey
Oswald was the assassin, and the sole assassin, of President John F. Kennedy,
and Oswald was the killer of Officer J. D. Tippit.
Of course, not everyone in the court of world opinion agreed with these
conclusions, and this was to be expected. In any democratic society it is
important that we have doubters who are skeptical about every official report,
Unfortunately, most doubters had not bothered to read the entire Report, and
even those who studied the Report did not have the intimate knowledge of the
evidence as did we lawyers.
The
prevalence of relative ignorance of facts was a fertile breeding ground for the
seeds of doubt cast by those critics who used sensationalism as their tool.
There were speeches and newspaper articles, followed by magazine articles,
followed by books. And at the top of the heap was the moving picture film that
could reach an audience in the tens of millions. Most of the court of world
opinion would not have to bother to read a book. They could get a spoon-fed
version of the assassination of President Kennedy. In turn, this would create
more doubts.
I was on vacation when the letter arrived at my law office. But on Aug. 15,
as soon as I returned, I wrote the first of ten letters in which I sought to
accept the offer. The first eight of these letters went unanswered, except for
one postcard received on Sept. 12, 1966, from Emile deAntonio in response to my
third letter. Mr. deAntonio wrote: "Please write to Mark Lane, 178 Spring
St., N.Y., N.Y. I have sent him your letters. He is in Dallas and will return in
2 wks." On one occasion when I learned Mr. Lane was scheduled to speak in
des Moines, I arranged to have a sheriff serve the letters on Lane.
Unfortunately, the speech was canceled.
Finally, after my ninth letter, Mark Lane replied on Dec. 19 and withdrew his
offer, using the following as a rationale: "Since not a single member of
the Commission has agreed to appear in the film and none of the senior counsel
have agreed either we have decided not to settle for bit players."
In the original letter to me, there were no strings attached. The offer to
rebut was unconditional. It was made to David Belin, and no one else. When I
replied and accepted the offer, Lane tried to hide, hoping that perhaps I would
go away. But I persistently pursued the offer. And whenever I wrote to Lane, I
enclosed in each letter Xerox copies of all my prior correspondence.
On Dec. 23, I replied to Mark Lane's withdrawal of the original unconditional
offer to rebut, starting my letter with the simple factual statement:
"Your bluff has been called…"
…True to form, you tried to hide from the person who could best demolish your fabricated case…
You did not say that you had not received any of the prior correspondence, all of which was enclosed in my final letter. You did not say that my request for thirty minutes for rebuttal to your two-hour film was too long. You did not say that my request of fifteen days time to prepare my rebuttal was unreasonable.
Rather, your rationale for reneging on your original offer was your assertion that the lawyer who took the testimony of Howard Brennan, Roy Truly, Officer M. L. Baker, Lieutenant Day, Domingo Benavides, William Scoggins, Johnny Calvin Brewer and William Waldman, the lawyer who was one of the two men concentrating in Area II, the lawyer who wrote the first draft of the final Warren Commission Report, the lawyer who was one of the two persons with more first-hand knowledge of the key witnesses to the assassination of President Kennedy than any other individuals in the world, was not of sufficient stature to make a rebuttal. To quote your language, "…we have decided not to settle for bit players."
Although you are certainly entitled to your opinion that I was just a bit player, I would respectfully submit that I am fully qualified as an expert on the facts surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy and the murder of Officer J. D. Tippit.
Mr. Lane, you have welched on your offer of rebuttal. The reason is obvious: You are afraid…afraid of the truth.
Once again I challenge you, Mark Lane, to thirty minutes on film—that is all I need to demolish your manufactured case.
Although I won the battle of the letters, I unfortunately lost the war—for
the film contains no rebuttal. Lane never replied to my final letter of Dec. 23,
and wherever in the world the film is shown there will be no rebuttal.
However, there is no doubt in my mind that in
the long run of history truth will prevail. It is for this reason that I have
asked you to serve as a member of the jury of world opinion.
I have also wanted you to learn not only the
heart of the evidence involved in these two murders but also the integrity with
which we conducted our investigation.
Many times, members of the legal staff of the
Warren Commission were referred to as "brilliant" lawyers. However,
brilliance is only secondary. The primary considerations in an investigation of
this kind are the same as in service of any governmental body: integrity and
sound judgment. The tragedy of Watergate is a direct outgrowth of government
servants ignoring these criteria and compounding this by placing as their
highest priority loyalty to a person instead of loyalty to our constitutional
republic.
There is a well-known axiom in the real estate
business that the three most important criteria for success in a real estate
venture are location, location and location. Similarly, the three most important
criteria for governmental service of any kind must be integrity and judgment,
integrity and judgment and integrity and judgment.
I disagreed with a number of the decisions of my
colleagues. I felt that some colleagues performed better than others. But there
never was any question in my mind that the seven Commissioners, as well as all
the lawyers working with the Commission, had absolute integrity in seeking the
truth. There also is no doubt in my mind that the assassination sensationalists,
in contrast, lack such integrity, as illustrated by the examples you have seen.
The last three sentences on the Lane-deAntonio film are ironic:
Having rushed to judgment, the Commission dissolved itself on Sept. 14, 1964, but that dissolution cannot bury the facts nor still the doubts. Our questions persist and we shall continue to go on asking them. And if today we cannot know the whole truth, at least we will know that truth which can be known and we shall continue to ask and ask and ask.
If you listen to the claims of people who attack fragments of the overall
picture, you should not be content to merely let them "…continue
to ask and ask and ask." Rather, you should demand that they produce some
answers of their own.
Where are any eyewitnesses who saw a rifle at
the time of the assassination, except in the Depository? Where is any physical
evidence of any other rifle being used—empty cartridge cases? Bullets that did
not come from the assassination weapon, serial No. C-2766?
How do they reconcile the fact that the fibers
of President Kennedy's clothing and the autopsy of President Kennedy indicate
that he was struck from behind? How do they reconcile the fact that all of the
wounds to Governor Connally were caused by a single bullet fired from the rear
and above and the fact that the wrist wound was not caused by a pristine bullet?
If a bullet struck President Kennedy in the front of the neck, since there was
no exit point for that bullet, where did it disappear? If the shots were not
fired from the southeast corner window of the sixth floor of the Depository, how
do you reconcile the fact that the bullet fragments in the front seat of the
presidential limousine, the nearly whole bullet found at Parkland Memorial
Hospital, the three cartridge cases found in the southeast corner window of the
sixth floor of the Depository, all came from Oswald's rifle, serial No. C-2766,
to the exclusion of all other weapons in the world? How do you reconcile the
damage to the inside of the windshield of the presidential limousine?
And
you can ask additional questions. Why was Oswald the only employee who had
regular access to the sixth floor of the Depository who was inside the building
at the time of the assassination and then left within a few minutes thereafter?
Why did Oswald walk seven blocks east to get a bus when he could have boarded
one in front of the Depository? Why did Oswald board the first bus that passed
on Marsalis Street, instead of waiting for the Beckley bus which would have
taken him to his rooming house? Why did Oswald leave the bus when it became
stalled in a traffic jam as it approached the Depository and take a taxicab?
Why did Oswald lie during his interrogation
about owning a rifle? Why did Oswald lie when he was shown a picture of himself
with a rifle and say that the picture was artificially manufactured to
incriminate him when it was determined scientifically that the negative of that
picture came from Oswald's camera, to the exclusion of all other cameras in the
world? Why did Oswald lie about having lunch with Junior Jarman at the time of
the assassination? Why did Oswald lie about the "curtain rods"? Why,
when Oswald ordered the rifle, did he use an alias, A. Hidell? Why did Oswald
lie about the place from which he purchased his revolver?
Why did Oswald duck into the lobby of Johnny
Calvin Brewer's shoe store as police sirens approached? Why did Oswald, as he
was approached by Patrolman McDonald in the Texas Theatre, strike Patrolman
McDonald with one hand and pull out his revolver with the other? Most important
of all, if Oswald was innocent of the assassination of President Kennedy, why
did he kill Officer Tippit?
When someone charges that Jack Ruby was involved
as a conspirator, you can ask additional questions, including such matters as
the polygraph examination of Jack Ruby, the happenstance of Jack Ruby going to
mail some money on that Sunday morning around 11:15 a.m., the happenstance of
postal inspector Holmes who, on the spur of the moment, went to Captain Fritz'
office and was responsible for the delay of Oswald's transfer, and all the other
matters which appear in Jack Ruby's testimony and which are summarized in the
Warren Commission Report.
Finally, I hope that as you heard the evidence
presented you will know that truth was my only goal and that our Warren
Commission Report was prepared "in recognition of the right of people
everywhere to full and truthful knowledge concerning" the events of the
assassination of President Kennedy. As we wrote in the beginning:
This Report endeavors to fulfill that right and to appraise this tragedy by the light of reason and the standard of fairness. It has been prepared with a deep awareness of the Commission's responsibility to present to the American people an objective report of the facts relating to the assassination.
In my book I have tried to combine three goals: (1) to bring the heart of the
testimony of the primary witnesses before the jury of world opinion so that a
true verdict can be reached concerning who killed President Kennedy and who
killed Officer Tippit; (2) to give an inside view of the Warren Commission and
to display the importance of independent citizen participation in governmental
agencies and commissions of all kinds; (3) to expose the techniques of the
assassination sensationalists—techniques of
misrepresentation, fraudulent omission, and smear that have become all too
common in public life and discussion of issues, both in this country and abroad.
We live in a great republic, a nation where it
is possible for an independent citizen to become a part of a special commission
investigating the assassination of a head of state, a country where a citizen
can freely write a book criticizing the chief judicial officer, the highest law
enforcement agency, and the head of state.
To maintain such freedom is not an easy task. It
requires an informed citizenry, and the information upon which the people rely
cannot merely be a mile wide and an inch deep. We must have depth of
understanding.
If there is one thing that stands out in the
minds of you jurors, I hope it is the need for objective, in-depth exploration
of all of the facts before deciding which or who is right or wrong. Mass-media
techniques, spoon-fed sensationalism, and demagoguery are all the enemies of a
free society.
These enemies cannot exist in an environment
where the constant quest for accurate information on issues and answers is at
least as important as the quest for personal luxury and entertainment. We must
be aware of the facts, for our ultimate judgments will be no better than the
accuracy of the information on which they are based.
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