What a Difference a Day (or Two) Makes!
By Jim Marrs
November 20, 2003
Wouldn't any criminal be delighted if he could have complete, secret and unsupervised control over all the evidence in his case for two full days? Wouldn't the verdict in this criminal trial be a swift not guilty? if he had the opportunity to "doctor" the evidence? This is exactly the situation which occurred in the murder of President John F. Kennedy beginning the very night of the assassination.
Although the proof of the disappearance and reappearance of the JFK evidence has been lying right in front of researchers since the fateful weekend, no one seems to have perceived the significance of the matter. However, at least one person with access to official federal government documents apparently recognized this significance and took steps to conceal it from the American public. This issue began the evening of November 22, 1963, when Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry began receiving calls from Washington. As he related to Warren Commission member Allen Dulles (WC Vol. IV, p. 195). We kept getting calls from the FBI. They wanted this (assassination) evidence up in Washington, in the (FBI) laboratory, and there was some discussion??
Curry made it clear that "we felt this was a murder that had been committed in the county, city and county (sic) of Dallas, and that we had prior, I mean we had jurisdiction over this. The FBI actually had no jurisdiction over it, the Secret Service actually had no jurisdiction over it. (Homicide Capt. Will) Fritz told me, "Well, I need the evidence here, I need to get some people to try to identify the gun, to try to identify this pistol and these things, and if it is in Washington, how can I do it?" But someone in Washington was most persistent. "We got several calls insisting we send this (evidence), and nobody would tell me exactly who it was that was insisting, "just say I got a call from Washington, and they wanted this evidence up there," insinuated it was someone in high authority that was requesting this, and we finally agreed as a matter of trying to cooperate with them, actually." Consistent rumors in Dallas have long been that the calls were made by Cliff Carter, then President Lyndon B. Johnson's assistant. On the basis of this pressure from Washington and against their better judgment, the Dallas police reluctantly released all of the assassination evidence to the FBI.
"We finally, the night, about midnight of Friday night, we agreed to let the FBI have all (emphasis added) the evidence and they said they would bring it to their laboratory and they would have an agent stand by and when they were finished with it to return it to us," stated Curry. However, much of the evidence was never returned to Dallas. Curry told the Warren Commission on April 22, 1964, "Subsequently they photographed these things in Washington and sent us copies, some 400, I think 400 copies of different items. So far as I know, we have never received any of that evidence back. It is still in Washington, I guess. Perhaps the Commission has it."
"Yes; the Commission is still working with it," responded Commission General Counsel J. Lee Rankin. What the Dallas authorities did receive was "very poor reproduction of some of these items on microfilm," according to Fritz.
One of the items returned to the police was the Oswald rifle which, according to former FBI agent Richard Harrison, was taken to Miller Funeral Home on Monday, November 25, for the purpose of placing Oswald's dead hand on the weapon for "comparison purposes." Funeral Director Paul Groody confirmed that FBI agents "fingerprinted" Oswald's corpse and that he had to rush to get the black ink off the body's hand before burial.
(Jim Marrs, Crossfire, Carroll & Graf, 1989, p. 444.)
There is no doubt that the FBI received the assassination evidence late on the night of the crime. A document signed by J. Edgar Hoover himself stating that "No latent (finger) prints of value were developed on Oswald's revolver, the cartridge cases, the unfired cartridge, the clip in the rifle or the inner parts of the rifle," was dated November 23, 1963. Yet the journey of this vital evidence apparently was unofficial and was never made clear to the public. The first official word on the transfer of assassination evidence came on Tuesday, November 26, when both Dallas newspapers carried stories announcing that the evidence was to be turned over to federal authorities.
"The Dallas Police Department Tuesday prepared to turn over all evidence in the assassination case against Lee Harvey Oswald to the Federal Bureau of Investigation," stated the Dallas Times Herald. "FBI agents Tuesday took control of all evidence gathered by Dallas police against accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on an agreement between Police Chief Jesse E. Curry and District Attorney Henry Wade," announced The Dallas Morning News. The News went on to explain, "Curry went before reporters at noon Tuesday to make the announcement. The disclosure came after Curry held several morning conferences with top aides. The transfer of evidence from city police to federal control was completed four hours later." So now the FBI was officially on the case and officially in charge of the evidence. But what could have happened during the two days while the evidence was unofficially in their hands. Fabrication, substitution, elimination, alteration -- - anything could have been done to the evidence, with no effective "chain" of responsibility.
Unlike 1963, today the FBI has come under suspicion of poor management of evidence at best and downright falsification of evidence at worst. Under Hoover's iron control, it was to have been an easy matter for certain ranking Bureau officials to do with the evidence whatever they pleased. And evidence exists for just such speculation. For example, FBI document Dallas 89-43 dated November 29, 1963, and first publicly released in 1968, stated brown wrapping paper in the Texas School Book Depository "was examined by the FBI Laboratory and found to have the same observable characteristics as the brown paper bag shaped like a gun case which was found near the scene of the shooting on the sixth floor." This was incriminating evidence against Oswald, as he worked in the building and had access to the wrapping paper. However, in 1980, another document labeled Dallas 89- 43 and dated November 29, 1963, was found in the National Archives which was identical to the 1968 version except it stated the wrapping paper "was examined by the FBI Laboratory and found not to be identical with the paper gun case found at the scene of the shooting."
Other such discrepancies have been brought forward, including the intimidation of witnesses by federal authorities, which prove to any objective researcher that severe questions remain concerning the validity of the government's evidence in the assassination. The fact that federal authorities had all the assassination evidence under covert control for two days could go far in explaining the contradictions and questionable conclusions of the official investigation.
Apparently at least one person understood the gravity of this issue as there was an attempt to obscure it in the Warren Commission materials. In 1992, the "confidential" deposition of FBI fingerprint expert James C. Cadigan was made public by the National Archives. In his April 30, 1964, testimony to Warren Commission attorney Melvin A. Eisenberg, the following exchange took place during routine questioning regarding fingerprint matters:
Mr. Eisenberg. Do you know why (Exhibit) 820 was not reprocessed or desilvered?
Mr. Cadigan. I could only speculate.
Mr. Eisenberg. Yes?
Mr. Cadigan. It may be that there was a very large volume of evidence being examined at the time. Time was of the essence, and this material, I believe, was returned to the Dallas Police within two or three days, and it was merely in my opinion a question of time. We have (sic) a very large volume of evidence. There was insufficient time to desilver it. And I think in many instances where latent fingerprints are developed they do not desilver it.
Mr. Eisenberg. Can you explain why the signature, "Lee H. Oswald" or "L.H. Oswald" is apparent while the signature "A.J. Hidell" is not?
Mr. Cadigan. Different inks.
During this otherwise unremarkable questioning, Cadigan had inadvertently let the cat out of the bag. He had declared to one and all that the FBI had a "large volume" of assassination evidence some of which was then returned to the Dallas police. Later in his deposition, Cadigan made it absolutely clear when this evidence was being handled:
Mr. Cadigan. Initially the first big batch of evidence was brought into the laboratory on November 23rd of 1963 and this consisted of many, many items.
Mr. Eisenberg. `63?
Mr. Cadigan. November 23, 1963. It was a very large quantity of evidence that was brought in. There were several agent examiners available to evaluate this material. There were supervisory officials, there were representatives from our Internal Security Division, all of whom had an interest in this matter, and it was decided they wanted certain items treated for latent fingerprints. (WC Vol. VII, p. 435.)
So a virtual posse of FBI agents and officials swarmed over the assassination evidence all day Saturday and Sunday. Obviously this unpublicized and unmonitored access to all the evidence might caused a suspicious mind to question the validity of the evidence later used to establish
Oswald's guilt. It is doubly suspicious that in Cadigan's original deposition some unknown person scratched out his statement about being rushed to return the evidence to Dallas and scribbled "delete" in the margin. This same person marked out Cadigan's statement that "I could only speculate" and wrote in "No, this is a latent fingerprint matter." Sure enough, in the version published by the Warren Commission, we read:
Mr. Eisenberg. Do you know why Exhibit 820 was not reprocessed or desilvered?
Mr. Cadigan. No, this is a latent fingerprint matter.
Mr. Eisenberg. Can you explain why the signature, "Lee H. Oswald" or rather "L.H. Oswald" is apparent, while the signature "A.J. Hidell" is not?
Mr. Cadigan. Different inks. (WC Vol. VII, p. 434.)
Why did someone commit a crime by illegally altering an official government deposition and why did the Warren Commission print an altered version of Cadigan's statement? Were they unaware of the alteration? Or did someone recognize the significance of the assassination evidence being in the hands of the FBI with no publicity or accountability for two days? Perhaps a study of the stenographic notes and tapes might reveal other alterations to the testimony of Cadigan and others. But don't count on it. According to a notice on the cover sheet of Cadigan's deposition, "Stenotype Tape, Master Sheets, Carbon and Waste turned over to the Commission for destruction."
While the assassination evidence is often ambiguous and contradictory and will certainly be in controversy for years to come, the handling of the evidence clearly points to manipulation and obfuscation at the highest levels of federal authority, a clear view of who was responsible for at least the demonstrable cover-up, if not the assassination itself.
Federal Judges Grill CIA Lawyers on JFK Secrets
Carolyn Rose Goyda
St. Louis, Missouri, USA
[email protected]
Jefferson Morley: 'Denied in Full': Federal Judges Grill CIA Lawyers on JFK Secrets - Politics on The Huffington Post
Jefferson Morley
'Denied in Full': Federal Judges Grill CIA Lawyers on JFK Secrets
Posted October 22, 2007
Lawyers for the Central Intelligence Agency faced pointed questions in a federal court hearing Monday morning about the agency's efforts to block disclosure of long-secret records about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Three appellate judges probed for explanations of the agency's rationale for withholding records concerning a deceased undercover CIA officer named George Joannides whose role in the events of 1963 remains unexplained.
For the past three and a half years, CIA has blocked the release of the Joannides files, denying my Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and spurning scholarly appeals for full disclosure. At stake is the viability of the 1992 JFK Assassination Records Act, which mandates the immediate review, and release of all government records related to Kennedy's murder in Dallas on November 22, 1963. One of the strongest open government measures ever enacted, the future of the JFK Act is now in question as the CIA seeks judicial permission to defy its provisions.
The three-judge panel, chaired by Judge Karen Henderson, heard oral arguments in the federal courthouse here about whether the FOIA requires release of the records, most of which are more than 40 years old. These records were never shared with any JFK assassination investigation.
"Do you know where the records are located?" Henderson asked CIA lawyer John Truong in reference to a series of monthly reports that the Joannides was supposed to file in 1963. Truong said he did not know. Judge David Tatel questioned Truong's contention that Joannides was not the subject of congressional investigation in the late 1970s. "Aren't these key records?" asked Judge Judith Rogers.
Joannides served as the chief of psychological warfare operations in the Agency's Miami station at the time of Kennedy's assassination. Using the alias "Howard," he was the case officer for a Cuban exile group whose members had repeated contact with accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in August 1963 -- rendering any records of Joannides' secret operations at that time potentially relevant to the JFK assassination story.
The JFK Records Act of 1992 was supposed to spur full disclosure on the much-debated subject. Approved unanimously by Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush, the law sought to quell public doubt and confusion raised by Oliver Stone's JFK.
"All Government records concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy should carry a presumption of immediate disclosure," the Act declared, "and all records should be eventually disclosed to enable the public to become fully informed about the history surrounding the assassination. "
To insure compliance, Congress created an independent civilian review panel, the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) to determine what documents would be made public and to oversee the public release those records. The five-member board -- not federal agencies -- were given final say over what should be declassified. Between 1994 and 1998, the ARRB, chaired by federal judge John Tunheim, oversaw the release of four million pages of once-secret JFK records.
These new JFK files not only illuminate the events that led to the gunshots that took Kennedy's life; they also provide an unprecedented glimpse of U.S. covert operations against Cuba, CIA propaganda and surveillance techniques, U.S. law enforcement action against organized crime figures, and efforts to assassinate Fidel Castro. The JFK Records Act, according to the watchdog group OMB Watch, "is the best example in existence of a successful targeted declassification effort."
The CIA, however, now appears to be evading a signed memorandum of understanding that it gave to the ARRB about the release of JFK records. On September 30, 1998 the Agency committed itself to releasing any newly discovered JFK records under the criteria established by the board. Today the Agency is ignoring the ARRB criteria and blocking the disclosure of records that meet the legal definition of "assassination related" records.
The National Archives and Records Administration has responsibility for maintaining the JFK Records Collection but limited ability to compel the Agency to turn over sensitive documents. Even though the JFK Act states that all assassination records must be made public by 2017, a top CIA official noted in a court filing that the Agency has the right to keep as many as 1,100 still-secret JFK records out of public view beyond that date.
In my admittedly subjective view, the JFK Records Act is being slowly repealed by CIA fiat. In defiance of the law and common sense, the Agency continues to spend taxpayers' money for the suppression of history around JFK's assassination. In the post-9/11 era, you would think U.S. intelligence budget could be better spent.
The ARRB established George Joannides' relevance to the JFK historical record in 1998 when it discovered and declassified five fitness reports from his personnel file. Those records revealed for the first time that Joannides had served as the chief of Psychological Warfare branch in the CIA's Miami station in 1963. He arrived in Miami in 1962 under U.S. Army cover, according to recently declassified records.
At the time of Kennedy's assassination his duties included handling the CIA's contacts with a militant Cuban exile group called the Cuban Student Directorate, known by its Spanish acronym, DRE. In CIA cables, the group was known by the codename AMSPELL.
JFK scholars consider documents relating to the DRE to be relevant to the history of events in Dallas. A series of encounters between DRE members and Lee Harvey Oswald in August 1963 have long provoked investigative interest and debate.
Oswald approached the DRE's delegation in New Orleans and offered to train guerrillas to fight the Castro government. He was rebuffed. When DRE members saw Oswald handing out pro-Castro leaflets a few days later an altercation ensued that ended with the arrest of all the participants. A week after that, the DRE's spokesman in New Orleans debated the Cuba issue with Oswald on a radio program. After these encounters, the DRE issued a press release calling for a congressional investigation of the pro-Castro activities of the then-obscure Oswald.
The CIA was passing money to the DRE leaders at the time, according to an agency memo dated April 1963, found in the JFK Library in Boston. The document shows that the Agency gave the Miami-based group $250,000 a year -- the equivalent of about $1.5 million annually in 2007 dollars.
The secret CIA files on Joannides may shed new light on what, if anything, Joannides and other CIA officers in anti-Castro operations knew about Oswald's activities and contacts before Kennedy was killed.
In a July 2003 FOIA request, I asked for all records on Joannides' contacts with and responsibilities for the DRE in 1962-64, as well as records on his stint as liaison to the congressional investigation in 1978. In the course of the lawsuit, the CIA admitted the existence of 33 still-secret documents in Joannides' administrative file. The CIA refuses to release them in any form, claiming that the release of even a single word would harm national security or violate someone's privacy. Those records have been "denied in full."
The CIA denies any obligation to release JFK-related documents in the Joannides files. "The JFK Assassination Records Act has no applicability" to a FOIA request, according to a brief filed by the agency this summer.
The agency also asserts that its operational files are exempt from being searched under the terms of the 1984 CIA Information Act -- even though the JFK Records Act supersedes that law and contains no exemption for the searching of operational files.
"The JFK statute is quite clear," stated Anna Nelson, a former ARRB member and a professor at American University. "Every agency had to search every file system for records relating to the JFK assassination.
Nothing in the statute excludes operational files. Furthermore, the board guidelines are clear that files like the Joannides file are a part of the assassination record. So the CIA is legally bound to search those files and to report on what they found, even if the documents aren't released."
In affidavits filed in support of the lawsuit, Nelson and John Tunheim, federal judge and former ARRB chair, called on the CIA to release the withheld documents. Former ARRB general counsel Jeremy Gunn stated that the Joannides' material meets the ARRB's definition of "assassination- related."
Last year, federal judge Richard Leon upheld the CIA's decision to withhold the records. In a September 2006 decision, Leon declared there was "not one scintilla of evidence" that the information in Joannides' files is related to Kennedy's assassination. Attorney Truong urged the appellate court to uphold Leon's decision, saying the agency's record search was "reasonable and responsive."
In March 2007, twenty-two authors published an open letter in the New York Review of Books, calling on National Archivist Allen Weinstein to take possession of the Joannides files from the CIA, review them for genuinely sensitive and private information, and release them to the public. Echoing similar open letters in 2003 and 2005, the JFK writers declared that Joannides' role in the assassination story required full disclosure of his files.
The signatories included novelists Norman Mailer and Don DeLillo, filmmaker Stone, anti-conspiratorial authors Vincent Bugliosi and Gerald Posner and pro-conspiracy journalists Anthony Summers and David Talbot -- an unusual display of consensus in such a hotly contested subject.
In response, Weinstein said that the Archives staff has met with the CIA and discussed concerns related to the Joannides files that remain at the agency. "We expect to receive a response from the CIA in the near future," he wrote in August. Two months later, the request is still pending. When it comes to obeying the law on JFK records, the CIA is still considering its options.
A decision in Morley v. CIA is expected before the end of the year.
Read More: 1992 JFK Assassination Records Act, cia, foia, John F.
Kennedy, Kennedy assassination, Breaking Politics News
Three of the comments posted at Hufff..
one includes a remarkable Johnny Carson item
the other provides name and info on Oswald single shooter theory from gun expert -crg
freespeach
The assassination of JFK highlights.
It happened live on TV, the nation was shocked and horrified in unison.
It was a plot involving numerous participants.
There were mistakes made, and mass media was used to confuse and distract people to blind them to the truth.
Mass media was a tool used by the murderers to sell the official story to the people of America. It worked.
The "independent Commission" set up to investigate was a disgrace, filled with dishonest men, who were loyal to the murderers.
Is there any component of the Kennedy murders that are not also present in today's 911 crimes?
Check out this (long) audio of Johnny Carson and the patriot Jim Garrison (not Kevin Costner...the real Jim Garrison) and ask yourselves if it does not remind you of Bill Maher a few days ago.
http://www.prouty. org/audio2. html
The two segments (30 minutes and 16 minutes) are perfect examples of how trusted "cool" celebrities can be used by the state to manipulate public opinion to make them believe that 2+2=5.
"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media."
-William Colby
Faheyman
Huelet "Joe" Benner was the pistol coach at West Point many decades ago. Prior to that, he was the top pistol and rifle shot in the world, winning Olympic Gold Medals, first-place medals at the Pan American games, and other marksmanship awards too numerous to mention.
The Warren Commission investigators took him to Oswald's "nest" in the Texas School Book Depository and set him up in the "kill shot," with the same model rifle Oswald supposedly used to "single-handedly" kill JFK.
The investigators asked Benner whether--given Oswald's marksmanship skills, the weapon supposedly used and the difficult trigonometry involved in shooting a target moving away, downhill and at a not-too-slow rate of speed--whether Oswald could possibly have pulled it off. Benner's reply was something like, "There are three people in the world who could have done this. I am one of them, and Oswald was NOT!" joe Benner has been dead for many years; but if you doubt this account, his son is my friend and can attest to this.
If you want to pursue this or would like more information, you can contact me at [email protected] I hope that I will live to see the truth come about about one of the greatest frauds ever perpetuated on the American people in our nation's history (I'm 54 years old), but I doubt that will happen while I'm still on this side of the grass.
Yours in the quest for truth,
Tom Fahey
johnjmccarthy
Amazing!
In my brief dealing with the ARRB via Jeremy Gunn, I provided Mr. Gunn with documents, including affidavits and personal correspondence with principals involved in the JFK autopsy who testified before the Warren Commission on the Magic Bullet Theory which the Commission embraced to assure Lee Harvey Oswald would be ruled as the lone assassin of JFK and eliminate the real possibility of a conspiracy (two or more) to kill my president.
In particular, I provided Jerremy Gunn with factual documentation proving that Pierre Finck, the pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Kennedy, and an Army Lieutenant Colonel, had secreted exculpatory evidence in violation of the Supreme Court decision Brady v Maryland, where the SC ruled that all exculpatory evidence must be turned over to the defendant without exception. Finck had denied knowledge of this information later located in Fincks files in Fincks office. What does this do to the reputation for truth and veracity for Finck's testimony before the Warren Commission?
And this information was personally provided to Jeremy Gunn BEFORE Finck was called to testify before the ARRB re his findings in the JFK autopsy at Bethesda, Md and his testimony before the Warren Commission. Not one question was put to Finck related to this material and his felonious action in this matter.
Which begs the question; What has this omission done to the credibility of the ARRB? What did the ARRB gain by NOT requiring Finck to answer related questions and his motivation for secreting these documents?
http://johnmccarthy 90066.tripod. com/id1.html
http://johnmccarthy 90066.tripod. com/id17.html
http://johnmccarthy 90066.tripod. com/id258.html
Five years after the ARRB ceased to exist, significant information became available when the State Department unilaterally declassified once Top Secret Documents, much to the chagrin of the CIA. Now we know why; treason in wartime.
http://johnmccarthy 90066.tripod.com/id120.html
Editor's note: Caution is advised in believing everything in these links. This is why I don't often provide links, because they can lead readers astray either because the author is ignorant or because he/she has an agenda to maintain ignorance in the reader. Thank you.
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