8. OSWALD'S MURDER: THE PRESS AND THE POLICE

Who was responsible for the murder of Oswald? Nobody directly. Everybody indirectly. Perhaps most of all, but still indirectly, the press (R242).

This is the inference of the Alice-in-Wonderland-like fifth chapter of the Report entitled, "Detention and Death of Oswald" (R196-240). With the logic of a reserved, even handed and scholarly Mad Hatter, what evolved is a superficially reasonable exposition of how the press was responsible for Oswald's death, with a few references to minor procedural errors on the part of the police.

That brief section of the Report (only slightly more than a page) devoted to "Oswald's Civil Rights" has already been discussed. While not revealed in the table of contents, the Report devoted more, although still understated, attention to this essential subject in its criticism of the press. In the first chapter, entitled "Summary and Conclusions," the Commission in effect wrote the press release for the newspapers. It was the most widely used part of the Report and it served also to condition the mind of the reader to accept illogical, unreasonable and unfounded passages to follow. Here the Report escapes the necessity of reaching any firm conclusions about the legal conduct of the police or the press as they related to Oswald's rights -- really the country's rights. The burden of the conclusion is that, having not been beaten after his arrest, Oswald was, in fact, allowed to enjoy his legal rights. Of the 44 pages of this fifth chapter, only four pages are devoted to the introduction, Oswald's treatment, the chronology of events, the interrogation sessions and his legal rights. The bulk of the chapter deals with the media personnel and their behavior, with mild comment on police public relations, the "abortive transfer" and the "Adequacy of Security Precautions."

In this positive statement of a negative lies the clue to the entire direction of the Report. These "precautions" were so completely inadequate that there was almost nothing the police could have done that they did not, short of arming and hiding the murderer, to facilitate that murder.

Nowhere in the chapter, either in the table of contents or the subject headings, does the word "police" appear. Yet the "Detention and Death of Oswald" was 100 percent a police matter. Had the Report said less than it does about the police, every nose in the country would have wrinkled. But reduced to fundamentals, the Report makes no explicit criticism of the police in connection with Oswald's murder and goes out of its way to justify fables and fabrications and to ignore false statements on the highest level. Nowhere is there a statement of the normal responsibilities of the police, how they work with and to protect prisoners, what police know from experience and training, how they operate. Nowhere is there a reasonable explanation of the great mystery of Chief Curry's not answering his phone or of his phone being out of order at just the moment threats against Oswald's life were to have been discussed with him. There was, in fact, no investigation of the police.

This is the only chapter in which "conclusions" were appropriate and which has none. Of the eight chapters in the body of the Report, only one other, "The Assassination," which narrates the events, has no section of "conclusions." The chapter on "The Assassin," in which the Report builds its prosecution-like case against Oswald alone, has not only "conclusions" at the end as one of the major sections, but five of the sections of this chapter have their own listed sections of "conclusions."

When confronted with the painfully obvious fact that Oswald could not have been murdered while in the custody of the police unless the police made the murder possible, the Report avoids even evaluating the question and finds it expedient to avoid making any conclusions. It does not even use the words "murder" or "kill." Oswald was only "transferred" or "shot." When Marina was shown the shirt he was wearing when he was killed and saw its condition and asked how it got that way, she was told that happened when her husband was "hurt." The most obvious manner in which Oswald's detention and death should have been considered by the Commission was in the context of possible police involvement in two conspiracies. There is no hint of such a possibility in the entire chapter from which just such clues demand consideration.

The Report focuses criticism and public attention upon the press instead by indulging one of its more persistent vices -- ignoring the obvious.

The press is the subject of three sections of the chapter and is discussed in others. No one questions the validity of the statement in the Report that 300 newsmen in the Police and Courts Building, especially when concentrated on the third floor, made for chaos. Even a smaller number, with police accustomed to newsmen and even in the presence of a lesser tragedy, would have meant confusion.

But how did all those newsmen get there? Were they there without invitation? Were they there in defiance of orders to the contrary? Did they do anything unexpected or unexpectable? They did not. The press behaved exactly as could have been predicted. They had a hot story and they wanted to know all they could about it. Did the police ever even discourage them? Again the opposite is the case. The police kept feeding the press what, for lack of a more appropriate word, might be called "information." It was generally wrong and served only two purposes: To spread poison about Oswald and to make the police look good. Almost every cop who talked about it made clear that Chief Curry wanted to "butter" the press.

If the press made for confusion that injured Oswald, and even if they can be blamed for contributing to his death, it is entirely outside their responsibility. They are completely without blame. They were there in violation of neither law nor ethic nor, for that matter, even in violation of longstanding Dallas police practice.

Never at any point considered by the Report is what anyone with any press experience, either on the side of gathering or disseminating news, knows and accepts as an article of faith. There are some things to which the press cannot be and is not invited on a wholesale basis. For these events, without any problem whatsoever, the press "pools." That is, a certain small number are selected to represent and inform the entire press. It works well and has for years. When President Johnson was ill and in the hospital, only a couple of newsmen were invited in to see him to confirm the official statements about the condition of his health and the opinions of his doctors. When the President travels by air, the entire press corps cannot and does not accompany him. The press has always "pooled" whenever it was necessary. There is no reason they could not have done so in Dallas and there is no reason to believe they would not have done so.

It is asking too much to believe that the Commission and the authors of the Report did not know about press pooling. And it is asking too much to believe they simply forgot to include it in the Report. Even the Dallas police know about press pooling, for the administrative assistant to the chief is his public relations man, and he is a journalism school graduate of enough stature to have been invited to address the American Society of Newspaper Editors. The press was merely a convenient whipping boy and served to divert attention from the police. If any criticism should be directed at the press, it relates to its treatment of the Commission and its Report. For months there were regular "leaks" of the contents of the FBI report, of Commission files and other data, and certain elements of the press were selected for special favors. That at least some of the press never gave any thought to what this could and did mean is hard to understand for the technique was obvious. It was pure flackery that from any other source would have been both suspected and understood. There was nothing accidental about these leaks. They served the purpose for which they were intended, to prepare the public mind for conclusions that might otherwise have been unacceptable. And they brainwashed the press, too, for in reading all these wrong and out-of-context but official documents which all tended to show that Oswald did what he was charged with and was just the kind of person who would, the editors and reporters were also pre-conditioned.

With the issuance of the Report, the press was remarkably uncritical; but for this it is difficult to fault either the papers or their employees. The time allowed was too brief for any critical analysis of 900 pages of what superficially seemed like a moderate, well reasoned statement of fact and the footnoting and documentation were extremely persuasive. The press was in the same position as the members of the Commission. It was submerged in a sea of words, most of which were neither essential nor related to the assassination. It had neither the time nor the means for making its own analysis and, except for the special treatment it had received in the leaking, had no reason to suspect the Report. Predictably, the press accepted the first chapter as had been expected, and the "Summary and Conclusions" became the basis of the stories.

A variation of the same theme was employed with the release of the 26 volumes of hearings and exhibits, where the unavoidable ghosts were buried. All the releases informed the world these would be in the hands of the press for five days prior to publication date. Of course, five days was not enough time to begin to wade through that tremendous, amorphous mass of unrelated, uncoordinated mixture of words, charts and pictures. But it succeeded in giving the world the impression the Commission had nothing to hide and was making all its files available to public scrutiny.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press had this material made available to it, with the stricture that it could be used in advance of the official release date only if the story "broke" in advance. At the same time, in some mysterious manner, Drew Pearson got some of the human interest contents Mrs. Lyndon Johnson's warm, emotional and very human reactions to the assassination of President Kennedy. Pearson's column appeared the morning of the first day the press was to have had access to these 26 volumes, whereupon the Associated Press hastily distributed what it could on such short notice. After that moment, these 26 volumes became a second-day story. They were no longer news. In the haste that followed, with everybody trying to catch up with Pearson and the AP, the human interest contents were found and printed. But the meat stayed on the bone. The important contents of the 26 volumes remained as unavailable to the general public as though they had been deliberately suppressed. The sale of the 26 volumes is mute evidence of the success of this ruse. They are probably the poorest sellers in the stock of the Government Printing Office. Another measure was taken to help guarantee this result: The books may not be bought separately. You cannot buy the testimony without buying the exhibits. You cannot purchase any single volume you might want.

Surprisingly enough, if any major voice in the press understood the trick that had been played on both press and public, his voice remained unheard.

Further to restrict the distribution of these volumes, the normal free distribution of government documents, such as to the appropriate committees of Congress, was denied. Even the Judiciary Committees of the Congress had to buy them, at $76.00 a set, if they wanted to examine them. And what chance was there that such busy committees could undertake the additional major task of analyzing millions and millions of words while still meeting their existing heavy commitments?

The press, then, can be examined only in connection with the police, for without the police there would have been no press presence. Two questions above all should be borne in mind: Who got what benefit and why, and what purpose was served? Were the police possibly involved in a conspiracy?

At great length and redundantly the Report describes what it terms "Activity of Newsmen" (R201ff.). It shows the confusion that prevailed on the third or police floor. But even then it could not avoid acknowledging the presence of other than newsmen. The presence of Jack Ruby made that inescapable. There never was any security. The bona fide press was never given any Dallas police identification. Assistant Chief of Police N. T. Fisher admitted that even the second day "anybody could come up with a plausible reason for going to one of the third floor bureaus and was able to get in" (R206). There is also testimony of people who were never even asked to identify themselves and had no trouble getting in.

In the page and a half devoted to "Oswald and the Press" (R206-8), the Report acknowledges that "at least fifteen times" Oswald was taken down 20 feet of corridor "within arm's length of the assembled newsmen" and others. But at no point does the Report ever raise the separate question, once the newsmen were given the run of the place, why was not Oswald interrogated elsewhere; for example, in the security of his cell? The Report also avoids the same question in sympathizing with Captain Will Fritz's complaint that his office was too small.

Nonetheless, the Report does acknowledge that the Dallas police had a practice of preventing the photographing of prisoners without the permission of both the police and the prisoner. About Oswald as a prisoner, the Report says only, "this practice was not followed." And it likewise acknowledges that the press "exercised more restraint and shouted fewer questions at" him when so requested by the police. With the irreparable damage already done Oswald's legal rights, who benefitted from his reduced output to the press?

And of what the Report euphemistically refers to as "Oswald's press conference," what does the Report acknowledge? "Curry had instructed the reporters that they were not to 'ask any questions and try to interview (Oswald) in any way.' " After "a few minutes, Chief Curry intervened and directed that Oswald be taken back to the jail . . . " The police were not about to let Oswald have a press conference and run the risk of puncturing their case. He had a chance to make only his complaint about having no lawyer and he was withdrawn. During these few minutes, according to the Report, "it was difficult to hear Oswald's answers above the uproar." The police wanted to show only that he had not been beaten, the ploy the Report also fell for. Oswald was even put on the wrong side of the protective screen in the room used so he could be photographed better. But on the other side he had a kind of security and there would have been no excuse for such A brief exposure. The Report does not consider any of this (R208).

In context of the press rather than the police, the Report then considers what it, with great delicacy, calls "The Abortive Transfer" (R208-16). Oswald was murdered while in police custody, but the Report does not use such direct language. It loses no time in trying to justify the police all over again, saying, "In Dallas, after a person is charged with a felony, the county sheriff ordinarily takes custody of the prisoner and assumes responsibility for his safe keeping." Deputies normally picked up such prisoners within a couple of hours. "In cases of unusual importance, the Dallas city police sometimes transport the prisoners to the county jail" (R208-9). But at no point does the Report in any way indicate a legal necessity for such a transfer. The use of the words, "cases of unusual importance," is propaganda, intended to condition the reader's mind to believe that, because this was a case of unusual importance, there was some necessity for the police on this occasion to make the transfer. There is no indication of a need either for the transfer or for the police to make it. Outside the Report, in the hearings, there is ample indication to the contrary.

Because of the murder of Oswald, why the transfer was attempted is a germane question. It was neither asked nor answered. Thereafter the questions of how, when and by whom ordered remain. These also were neither asked nor answered, but they were not completely ignored. They were touched upon only slightly and in a superficial way. Just about the only person who displayed no fear of what happened was Chief Curry. The FBI and the Dallas Sheriffs Department and some of the police were quite worried. Even at Parkland Hospital, preparations were made for the unwanted contingency. When the hospital heard Oswald was going to be moved Sunday, they actually made arrangements to receive him (21H170-1, 181-2, 215, 227).

The sheriff's department has nowhere been singled out for the credit it deserves. At the moment of the assassination, Sheriff Bill Decker took Chief Curry's radio and ordered the police dispatcher to direct all unassigned deputies to the scene. Without apparent exception, every deputy in the sheriff's office ran to the scene before receiving any instructions. Almost without exception, they recognized from the first sound they heard that it was not "firecrackers" or "backfiring" but rifle shots. Most ran immediately to the area to the west of the Depository Building. Deputy Mooney found the empty rifle shells on the sixth floor and Deputy Boone and Constable Weitzman at about the same time located the "abandoned" rifle. At all times, the sheriff's office feared what was being done about Oswald's transfer.

Deputy C. C. McCoy reported to Sheriff Decker on the events of the night of November 23-24 (19H537-9) in a way that indicated this worry had the sheriff up at 2 a.m., even though

Oswald was a police prisoner:

"When you called the office at 2 a.m. I had not received any threats on the life of Oswald but at that time you mentioned the fact that you thought that Oswald should be transferred from the City Jail while it was still dark and you wanted to know at what time it was daylight, and I told you it was daylight at approx. 6:30 a.m. or 6:45 a.m. and you asked me to call you at 6:00 a.m. and you would see about getting Oswald transferred while it was still dark. At approx.. 2:15 a.m. I received a call from a person that . . . stated he was a member of a group of 100 and that he wanted the sheriff's office to know that they had voted 100% to kill Oswald while he was . . . transferred . . . wanted this department to have the information so that none of the deputies would get hurt."

McCoy had someone with him to corroborate his statement.

"A short time later Mr. Newsome, from the FBI office called and wanted to know if we had received any calls on the life of Oswald and I passed on the above information and he asked me to call the Police Department and give them the same information."

After McCoy relayed this information to Captain Fritz's office, there was another call which declared "Oswald would never make the trip to the jail."

McCoy recalled a sheriff's plan for the inconspicuous transfer of Oswald while handcuffed to McCoy. McCoy had expressed a willingness to take on the chore and to have Oswald stay on the floor of the car where he would not have been seen. This was subject to police approval. The sheriff could not get in touch with Captain Fritz and told McCoy to keep the night shift on duty. Police Captain Frazier told McCoy by phone he could not "get an answer" from Chief Curry. Frazier was going to send a squad car to the Chief's home.

Decker went out of his way to shelter his police colleagues from criticism. He personally had taken such precautions as locking up the press at the scheduled transfer time. After hearing of the shooting, he went to the jail and released them so they could go to city hall "at great speed" (19H465). But he refused to give the FBI information which could have been used against the police. FBI Agent A. D. Neeley reported on November 27, 1963, that Decker stated he has no desire to discuss this matter further and does not desire to furnish any details of conversations he had with the Police Department, and declined to state whether he advised the Police Department that he had a preference as to the time of day the transfer of the prisoner should be made" (19H452).

Decker then also indicated he did not know of the planned Oswald transfer until the day after Oswald's arrest and then learned of it from a member of the press. But when he got this rather informal notification, he "ordered special officers to the area and began roping off the area to keep spectators away from the drive-in entrance to the County Jail" (19H464). Decker told FBI Agent Bookhout on November 28 that "to his knowledge there is no State law governing transferring of prisoners from the Dallas City Jail to the Dallas County Jail" (19H453). When Decker learned of the police plans the morning of the murder, he told Bookhout "the Dallas Sheriff's Office had no plans for participating in removal until Oswald was delivered to the County Jail" (19H453).

Captain Fritz knew about the threats to kill Oswald and testified about them (4H233). Captain Frazier phoned him, "And I said, well, I don't know. I said there had been no security setup." He told Frazier to call the Chief, and Frazier called back "in a few minutes and he told me he couldn't get the chief . . . " Fritz was opposed to a night time transfer because he did not think it any safer. Apparently murderers can see to sight a rifle at night where the police cannot. Gratuitously, Fritz added that, if he had been in charge of the transfer, "I don't know that we would have used this same method but we certainly would have used security of some kind." Fritz added that when he asked the chief about security Curry had told him, "The people are across the street, and the newsmen are all well back in the garage . . . It is all set." And having gone out of his way twice to acknowledge police receipt of threats against Oswald, in his own behalf, Fritz pointed out that he had transferred Jack Ruby safely.

Captain Frazier confirmed to the FBI in early December 1963 that he had received calls relaying the threats from the FBI and sheriff's office by about 3:45 a.m. the morning of Oswald's murder. Frazier phoned Fritz at 5:00 to 5:30 a.m. Fritz "told him that Chief Jesse Curry was handling the transfer of Oswald and suggested that he (Frazier) call Chief Curry" (19H770-2). Frazier also acknowledged the deputy's call at about 5:30 a.m. repeating the sheriff's desire to hear from the chief and that "Decker wanted Oswald transferred to the County Jail as soon as possible." On phoning Fritz a second time, Fritz again insisted Frazier phone Curry, "as he (Curry) was handling it." When Frazier tried to call about 6 a.m., for about 15 minutes the chief's line was busy and a check with the telephone company at that time elicited the report the line was out of order. The Report finds nothing of interest in this, one of the most remarkable of a never-ending series of coincidences, all in favor of or worked out by the Report in consonance with the Commission's theories. It was not until after this, with the arrival of Captain Cecil E. Talbert, that the squad car was sent to the chief's home.

In a statement to the FBI the day of Oswald's murder, Frazier also acknowledged receipt of the warnings at 3:30 a.m. and said he told the FBI he "would give this information to Chief of Police Jesse E. Curry immediately" (19H770-2) .

Chief Curry's testimony was inconsistent within itself and with the foregoing. He posed as a sort of elder statesman of the police business with a department so finely trained that everything was automatic and worked entirely by the chain of command. He testified three times and gave an additional affidavit (12H250-2; 4H150-202: 15H124-33, 641). He also gave interviews to the FBI on November 25 and December 11, 1963 (19H406-9), which he affirmed in his testimony. He tried to place responsibility for everything on Fritz.

"The plan . . . was left to the discretion of Captain Will Fritz.. " "Fritz told him he planned to remove Oswald some time during the following day . . ."

He left "when and how" up to Fritz.

But he also made clear these statements were untrue:

"When I went back to the homicide office and told Fritz of our plans for transferring the prisoner he was not particularly pleased with the idea of putting the prisoner in an armored car."

He did not specifically delegate security on the Oswald movement to anyone because he saw on his arrival Sunday morning it "was being taken care of by the captain on duty, Captain Talbert . . ."

Deputy Chief Fisher "had instructed Captain Cecil Talbert . . . to make certain that the proper security was set up in the basement . . ."

". . . had discussed security measures with his staff, that he had not given any specific assignments to any one individual inasmuch as the department went strictly by chain of command and he did not feel it was necessary to give specific assignments."

On why Oswald was transferred:

"Sheriff Decker had made no request," presumably Friday night.

At the moment of transfer, "Decker said, 'either way, I'll come after him or you can bring him to me,' and I thought since we had so much involved here we were the ones that were investigating the case and we had the officers set up downstairs to handle it, so I told Decker -- I said, 'Okay, we'll bring him to you.' "

Curry raised evasiveness to a new high in testimony that was characterized by police vagueness and convenient lack of recollection when asked about the threats: "Some one asked me if I had heard of the threats that had been made against him, and I had. They had called me at home about it, and I called Sheriff Decker, I think, from Fritz's office, and when Fritz said they were ready to transfer the man, and this something after 11 o'clock -- probably a little after 11, and Decker said 'Okay, bring him on,' and at that time I said, 'I thought you were coming after him.' "

If any of this evasiveness or the multiple contradictions or coincidences caused any concern to Assistant Counsel Leon D. Hubert, Jr., who was interrogating, it was not reflected in his questions.

Even in his statements about telling the press in advance of the time Oswald was to be moved, Curry was allowed to offer a pretense that would not do credit to an intelligent child. Saturday night he was asked this question and in his version he "at no time gave a specific time when Oswald would be removed . . ." He told them instead the time following which the movement would come:

". . . asked by the press when they should come back he told them 10:00 o'clock the next morning."

". . . they should be there by 10:00 a.m . . ."

". . . made the remark then, 'I believe if you are back here by 10 o'clock, you will be back in time . . ."

To top it all off, after he finally got to his office Sunday morning, Curry explained the security precautions to the press (R213).

These had not been made in advance and there had, in fact, been no plan. It was only on Sunday morning that the police improvised the scheme for moving Oswald in an armored truck. And the truck was so uncertain the driver was afraid to take it into the police garage for fear it could not get out! (R215)

The Report admits "Curry decided that Oswald would leave the building via the basement . . . Sunday morning, when members of the press had already begun to gather in the basement." Several policemen and Secret Service Agent Sorrels proposed to Fritz that Oswald go at an "unannounced time when no one was around but Fritz again responded that 'Curry wanted to go along with the press and not put anything over on them' " (R210). At this point the Report gives the lie to Curry's story about Fisher ordering the security measures that were improvised Sunday morning by stating "Captain Talbert, on his own initiative, undertook to secure the basement . . ."

At the very moment Oswald was to have been moved, the makeshift "plan" was subject to further improvisation. The armored truck would be used as a decoy, with Oswald in one of two unmarked police cars to follow it briefly and then go by a different route. Oswald was handcuffed to Detective J. R. Leavelle. Lieutenant Rio S. Pierce went to the basement to get another car and, going out the Main Street door, would lead the procession.

Pierce had no choice. The armored car blocked the Commerce Street entrance. There was hardly room for a man to squeeze by either side of it (R223). The truck was backed well into the entrance but not nearly as far in as the Report's diagrammatic representation (R211).

Talbert's instructions were for a thorough search of the basement parking area prior to the move, and Sergeant Patrick T. Dean and 14 men made a thorough search. They examined the rafters, the tops of the air-conditioning ducts, every closet and room opening off the garage, the interior and trunk compartments of parked autos, locked the doors of the two passenger elevators not in use, and the service elevator was sent to the first floor, with the operator instructed not to return it to the basement. All but police personnel were cleared from the area about 9 a.m. Guards were stationed at both garage entrances and at five doors leading into the garage. But "despite the thoroughness . . . there still existed one and perhaps two weak points . . ." (R212). And after the search the news people were allowed in. Any old credential would do, just so "they appeared authentic." A small number of newsmen "did not recall that their credentials were ever checked" (R212).

Even "all available detectives" were ordered to the basement. By the time Oswald arrived, there were from 70 to 75 police guarding 40 to 50 newsmen! Despite the accounts of chaos and confusion, a photograph made just before Oswald was taken into the passageway in which he was killed shows relatively few people in it and they were lined against the wall (R214).

When Pierce left, he had with him two detectives. When he got to the Main Street entrance, "Patrolman Roy E. Vaughn stepped from his position . . . to watch for traffic." With all those police in that immediate vicinity and with the fear an assault was going to be made on Oswald by a hundred men, Vaughn was alone at that entrance. It appears to have been the only point at which there was but a single guard.

And despite the telephoned assurances that everything was in readiness before Oswald was brought out, the car in which he was supposed to have been transported was in motion but was not yet in place. "I was surprised," Leavelle testified, ". . . but had it been in position where we were told it would be, . . . it would have been sitting directly upon the spot where Ruby was standing when he fired the shot" (R230). That one shot was fatal. Captain O. A. Jones testified "There is no reason why that . . . car can't get all the way back to the jail door" (R231). In short, Oswald even then need not have been exposed at all. Nor were there any police guarding the area in which Ruby was standing.

Even so, had the police made any effort to shelter him, Oswald would not have been a target. There was a man on each side of him and one at his rear, but no one in front. With any fear at all for his safety, normal practice would have been to have completely surrounded him. He was, instead, a sitting duck, and the point from which Ruby shot him was entirely unsecured. Although there were police around who knew Ruby, none reported seeing him until afterward, except Sergeant Dean, who said he was too far away to do anything, except holler, which he did not do.

Odd as is the Commission's disinterest in Dean's failure to shout an alarm, even odder is the Report's ignoring the accusation of perjury against him by Assistant Counsel Burt W. Griffin. Dean demanded and got a brief hearing by the Commission (5H254-8), which displayed little interest in the reported belief of one of its senior staff that a major witness was a perjurer. It never took testimony from Griffìn. Yet it credited Dean's deposition, essential to its conclusions. According to Dean, Griffin went "off the record" and directed the court reporter to leave. Implying Dean had sworn falsely in the Ruby trial because of fear for his job (5H256), Griffin charged, "Jack Ruby did not tell you that he had thought or planned to kill Oswald two nights prior" and "Your testimony was false . . ." (5H255-6). Thanks to Dean, the gamy character possible in off-the-record discussions is recorded, but not by the Report.

Aside from the enormous importance of whether a major witness was a perjurer is the significance of just this testimony about what Ruby said. Ruby did kill Oswald, but legal requirements had to be met at his trial. His lawyer, Melvin Belli, in his book, "Dallas Justice," declared it was just this testimony -- later called perjurious -- that satisfied this urgent legal need of the prosecution ("Dallas Justice," pp. 166-7).

Further enhancing the exotic nature of the Commission's lack of interest is the fact that it was Dean who assigned a single officer, R. E. Vaughn, to guard the door (5H257) through which the Report declares Ruby entered, unchallenged, to kill Oswald. Dean volunteered the information; it was not asked of him. And another of the unending coincidences, if coincidences they are, is that Dean appeared before the Commission with District Attorney Henry Wade and Texas State's Attorney General Waggoner Carr, who preceded and followed him on the stand, respectively.

No conclusions were drawn about the perfumed and expurgated version of the murder of Oswald which was never called a murder. No aspect of it was examined by, the Report in any manner suggesting the possibility of a conspiracy involving the police. The contradictions, lies, distortions and misrepresentations never gave the authors of the Report enough concern to cause them to raise an eyebrow. There were no questions raised about this incredible story. Not even the figurative shrug of a shoulder about the murder of the only man who, so far as the police knew, and the Report unequivocally states, might have shed any light on the assassination of the President. With 70 police to protect him, a single, well known police type was, without hindrance or detection, able to kill Oswald. The Commission knew that Oswald had, as practically his last living act, told Secret Service Inspector Kelley (R630) he would talk to the Secret Service when he had a lawyer. This lack of reaction or comment in the Report is even more incredible when examined with the information contained in the sections of this book dealing with the Tippit murder and Oswald's legal rights.

But the Report could not entirely ignore the possibility of a conspiracy. The authors were, however, able to come close. The next section of this chapter in the Report is entitled "Possible Assistance to Jack Ruby in Entering the Basement" (R216-31). There was no such assistance, according to the Report. It does concede "it is appropriate to consider whether there is evidence that Ruby received assistance from Dallas policemen or others in gaining access . . . An affirmative answer would require that the evidence be evaluated for possible connection with the assassination itself." The word is avoided, but the reference is to conspiracy. In the next sentence the Report declares that "the Commission has found no evidence . . . but . . . his means of entry is significant in evaluating the adequacy of the precautions taken to protect Oswald" (R219).

Earlier in the same paragraph the Report refers to Chapter 6, where it "has considered whether there is any evidence linking lack Ruby with a conspiracy to kill the President." In that chapter the Report found no such evidence. But nowhere did it consider the possibility of anyone on the police force being connected with any conspiracy.

Here again the Report is contrary to the only evidence taken. It decided Ruby walked in the Main Street entrance "because it has found no credible evidence to support any other entry route" (R222). That may very well have been the way in which Ruby did enter. The only witnesses were Officer Vaughn, whose denial that Ruby passed him is encompassed in two sentences, and a former policeman, N. J. Daniels, who was with Vaughn. On November 24, the Report says, "Vaughn telephoned Daniels to ask him if he had seen anybody walk past . . . and was told he had not; it was not until November 29 that Daniels came forward with the statement that he had seen a man enter" (R221). To the Report this five-day delay is worthy of neither notice nor comment. The man then described by Daniels "differed in important respects from Ruby's appearance on November 24," and he has testified that he doesn't think the man was Ruby.

Ruby's account, according to the Report, "merits consideration." He told three Dallas policemen approximately 30 minutes after his arrest "that he had walked to the top of the Main Street ramp (and) down the ramp at the time the police car driven by Lieutenant Pierce emerged into Main Street. This information did not come to light immediately because the policemen did not report it to their superiors until some days later" (R219).

By this time it should come as no surprise to the reader that if the authors of the Report thought there was anything unusual in three unnamed Dallas police officers not reporting such vital information to their superiors "until some days later," they in no way indicate it. The quoted sentence is all the Report says. But there is a footnote. It refers to a page in the testimony of Criminal Investigation Division Detective Bernard Clardy and to one page of Sergeant Dean's. On the pages referred to there is no reference as to why there was any delay in reporting this intelligence. There were no questions asked about this delay. The number of days represented by "some" is not indicated. While Detective Clardy was being questioned, reference was made to Exhibit 5063, an FBI report of its questioning of Clardy. Should the reader be one of the extremely rare Americans who own the 26 supplementary volumes, he will find no reference on the bindings to any exhibit with a number in the 5000's. Should he then look at the very last thing in Volume 26, entitled "Commission Exhibit Numbers Assigned to Previous Commission Documents," on the 147 pages of this document he will find no reference to Exhibit 5063. However, if he looks through other volumes, he will find this FBI report in Volume 19 on pages 336-8. But nowhere in that report is there any explanation of the delay. Clardy was not specifically asked who was with him when he asked Ruby how Ruby entered, but he named three other officers, not including Dean, in a context that indicated they were present (12H412; 19H332). Sergeant Dean at the point referred to was not asked who was with him at the time Ruby told him, and he likewise did not volunteer this information.

But elsewhere (12H432) Dean indicated he was present and that he asked this question, when Ruby had not yet been placed in a jail cell. He said that Officers Archer, Clardy and McMillon were present and possibly Secret Service Agent Forrest Sorrels. Dean's version was that he asked the question after Sorrels had interrogated Ruby when, after identifying himself, Ruby had told Sorrels, "Okay, I will answer all your questions." Sorrels, according to Dean, had not asked this question and might have left, or, as he also indicated, might not have, for, "if I am not mistaken, I rode down on the same elevator with Mr. Sorrels" (12H433).

There may have been reasons the Report decided not to mention the names of those present, not to state exactly what time elapsed before any of the police saw fit to report the important knowledge to their superiors, and not to say why it was not reported immediately, especially because Ruby was being interrogated.

But good reasons do not suggest themselves.

It can readily be seen that the Report had no difficulty finding that Ruby had no assistance from the police.

The Report then turns to the "Adequacy of Security Precautions" (R225-31). Here again it concerns itself largely with the press. It refers to their "unwieldy proportions." J. Edgar Hoover had sent a messenger the first day to convey his concern for Oswald's safety and there had been the reported threats after Friday midnight. But the Report states (R226), "The decision to allow newsmen to observe the transfer on Sunday followed naturally the policy established during these first two days of Oswald's detention." Entirely aside from the previous accounts by the Report, that no one made any decisions, that the "inundation" by the press was just allowed to happen, this without 'any basis in fact or logic amounts to a justification of the unjustifiable, for there never was any need for Oswald's life to have been jeopardized, especially after the threats against it, just to humor the press and curry its favor. In the same spirit, the Report introduces this section with the statement that "the Dallas police took special security measures to insure Oswald's safety" (R225). One ''can only wonder what could have happened if they had not!

Two pages later it describes the measures taken Sunday morning, including the issuance of teargas and the calling of the armored truck as "the most intensive security precautions . . . designed primarily to repel an attempt of a mob to seize the prisoner" (R227). With 70 cops inside the building looking at each other and the press and one at the most exposed outside entrance?

Finally the Report meets one of the issues head-on "the right of the public to know." But instead of blaming the police for the presence of the unrestricted press, the Report declares "the right of the public to know does not give the press license to interfere with the efficient operation of law-enforcement agencies" (R228). Without doubt, the idea is sound, but does it mean anything in the context in which it is used? Was the press running the Dallas police department? Without perhaps intending to deny itself so soon, the Report in the same paragraph acknowledges that the press had been kept off other floors of the building.

Of course, the Report does not leave the police entirely uncriticized. It does say the security measures it has previously described as "special" and "most intensive" were more or less haphazard. It also finds "coordination" inadequate (R230).

In the final two sections of the chapter, "News Coverage, and Police Policy" and "Responsibility of News Media," the flogging of the press continues (R231-42). After delineating a police press policy in which each policeman is practically his own public relations counselor, the Report describes the "ambulatory press conference" that "became a familiar sight," with the chief or other officials surrounded by the clamoring press and usually complying with its requests. No records or transcripts were kept of these impromptu statements and no written releases were used. "As, a result . . . the press was able to publicize virtually all the information . . . that had been gathered . . . a great deal of misinformation was disseminated to a worldwide audience" (R231-3).

Although Curry did not participate in the interrogations, he nevertheless "gave detailed information on the progress of the case." The chief managed to communicate more than one man's share of misinformation. The Report quotes one of his more accurate press conferences in which he said the ballistics report on the gun was "favorable," (false); the price of the rifle (false); that the case was "wrapped up"; and that new evidence since the press conference earlier that day "just makes a stronger case," but he declined to reveal it because "it might jeopardize our case" (R233-4).

Captain Fritz and others, from high officials to patrol men, were interviewed without displaying any reluctance. District Attorney Wade said the interviews were conducted even on street corners where "they were interviewing anybody." Wade should have been the last to complain, for although on one occasion he told the press "he would not reveal any evidence because it might prejudice the selection of a jury," he did speak to the press from the very beginning and continued even after Chief Curry refused to tell him any more of what the police believed (R234-5).

The result was that hearsay and unverified leads, many inaccurate, were disseminated. Among the most vicious of these was the misrepresentation of the city map Oswald used in job-hunting as his plan for assassination (R235).

Having devoted slightly more than a page to "Oswald's Civil Rights" and saying he had them, the Report here could no longer avoid the subject and a contrary view. "Concern about the unlimited disclosures," it admitted, "was being voiced by Saturday morning. According to 'District Attorney Wade, he received calls from lawyers in Dallas and elsewhere expressing concern about providing an attorney for Oswald and about the amount of information being given to the press by the police and the district attorney . . . J. Edgar Hoover became concerned because 'almost as soon as . . . (FBI Laboratory reports) would reach the Dallas Police Department, the chief, . . . (or others) would go on TV or radio . . .' On Sunday, after Oswald was shot (somehow, the words "killed" or "murdered" invariably escaped the authors of the Report in describing what happened to the prisoner), Hoover dispatched a personal message to Curry requesting him 'not to go on the air any more until this case . . . (is) resolved' " (R235-6).

District Attorney Wade on Sunday evening "held a meeting with 'all the brass' except Curry" and recounted stories he said were being spread about the public officials. He said "somebody ought to go out on television . . . and tell them everything." When the police refused to furnish him any more details, Wade "sat down and listed from memory items of evidence in the case . . . Wade nonetheless proceeded to hold a lengthy formal press conference . . . Unfortunately . . . he lacked a thorough grasp . . . made a number of errors . . ." The Report lists only a few (R236-7).

What it could not bring itself to say even in this subdued, overly moderate way in relation to whether Oswald was denied his legal rights and whether any ulterior motive might have been involved the Report does let slip, though buried in the section and not in any way revealed in the

table of contents or index:

"A fundamental objection to the news policy pursued by the Dallas police, however, is the extent to which it endangered Oswald's constitutional right to a trial by an impartial jury. Because of the nature of the crime, the widespread attention which it necessarily received, and the intense public feelings which it aroused, it would have been a most difficult task to " select an unprejudiced jury, either in Dallas or elsewhere. But the difficulty was markedly increased by the divulgence of the specific items of evidence with which the police linked Oswald to the two killings. The disclosure of evidence encouraged the public, from which a jury would ultimately be impaneled, to prejudge the very questions that would be raised at trial.

Moreover, rules of law might have prevented the prosecution from presenting portions of this evidence to the jury. For example, though expressly recognizing that Oswald's wife could not be compelled to testify against him, District Attorney Wade revealed to the Nation that Marina Oswald had affirmed her husband's ownership of a rifle like that found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Curry stated that Oswald had refused to take a lie detector test, although such a statement would have been inadmissible in a trial. The exclusion of such evidence, however, would have been meaningless if jurors were already familiar with the same facts from previous television or newspaper reports. Wade might have influenced prospective jurors by his mistaken statement that the paraffin test showed that Oswald had fired a gun. The tests merely showed that he had nitrate traces on his hands, which did not necessarily mean that he had fired either a rifle or a pistol.

The disclosure of evidence was seriously aggravated by the statements of numerous responsible officials that they were certain of Oswald's guilt. Captain Fritz said that the case against Oswald was 'cinched.' Curry reported on Saturday that 'we are sure of our case.' Curry announced that he considered Oswald sane, and Wade told the public that he would ask for the death penalty.

The American Bar Association declared in December 1963 that 'widespread publicizing of Oswald's alleged guilt, involving statements by officials and public disclosures of the details of 'evidence,' would have made it extremely difficult to impanel an unprejudiced jury and afford the accused a fair trial.' Local bar associations expressed similar feelings. The Commission agrees that Lee Harvey Oswald's opportunity for a trial by 12 jurors free of preconception as to his guilt or innocence would have been seriously jeopardized by the premature disclosure and weighing of the evidence against him."

Before finally abandoning its belated afterthought, the Report declares the public's "curiosity . . . should not have been satisfied at the expense of the accused's right to a trial by an impartial jury. The courtroom, not the newspaper or television screen, is the appropriate forum in our system for the trial of a man accused of a crime" (R240).

Had it so desired, the Report could have quoted other eminent and entirely impartial

authority, including the deans of some of the country's outstanding law schools, who made flat statements that Oswald could never have been tried because an impartial jury could not have been impaneled.

What About the Police?

While blaming the press for the sins of the police and mildly criticizing some of the publicity activities of the police, the Report manages to avoid mention of any serious shortcomings of an orthodox police character. Were they good policemen? Did they do a good job? Was their investigative work thorough and accurate? Did it, in fact, meet the minimum standards for ordinary police work, not for these particular crimes but even for ordinary murder cases?

Throughout this book, these questions are inherent in the treatment of several of the major aspects of the crimes and their handling in the Report. But the Report never addresses itself to the way the police performed as police, one of the strangest omissions in what was supposed to be the final, official explanation of what happened.

If the police felt they had something to hide from the Commission, they were not long in finding out they could get away with it. If they did not learn from the very first stages of the federal investigations that they would never really have to face up to the botched investigation of the assassination and the completely inexcusable murder of Oswald, they certainly learned as soon as they had their first contacts with the Commission.

There are three different and contradictory versions of the police radio logs, all represented as recording the communications relating to the crimes. Both police radio channels were recorded and, even allowing for well used equipment, there could not be any reasonable explanation for the Commission's being supplied with what amounts to deceptive, misleading and incomplete information. Nor can the failure of the Commission to do anything about it or the failure of the Report to comment on it be explained. The radio log, accurate and complete, was fundamental to any kind of an investigation. The failure of the Commission to have one to work with, its acceptance of the obviously doctored material it took, and the pretense of conducting even a sham investigation without it cannot be explained to anyone with investigative experience. There was no possibility of conducting any real investigation without this most basic record. It should have recorded who was where, when, what he did and saw and what he said. It is one piece of evidence not subject to faulty or conveniently lost recollection. Yet the Commission accepted two obviously doctored versions before making even a pretense of getting a complete one -- and that did not happen until the investigation was just about over. It could not conduct even a sham investigation with the so-called log it was given in March. There were not only omissions on it, there were misrepresentations of such an obvious nature that in themselves they should have raised the most serious questions about the police. For example, in the first version, the one with which the investigators were supposed to be working, Inspector Sawyer, the man in charge at the Book Depository, was listed as "unknown!" And he supplied this log! The failure of the Report to raise any kind of a question about this -- to avoid even acknowledgment of it -- is in itself a thorough self-condemnation.

In the March version, all the radio logs, including the Sheriff's and the State Police's, are Exhibit 705, appearing in Volume 17 on pages 361-494. The police section begins on page 390 and takes up 104 pages. It was "made available" by Inspector Sawyer. If the investigators did not detect the inaccuracies in this log, one thing they could not avoid was the lack of identification of almost any of the code numbers. Much of the value of this version in any investigation was in knowing who saw and reported what. Except for a few officials, none of the code numbers was identified with names in this version.

On April 8, 1964, one of the dispatchers, Gerald Dalton Henslee, appeared and testified (6H325-7). His was one of the briefest appearances. During his testimony Sawyer Exhibits A and B were introduced into evidence (21H388-400). In a dozen pages he prepared a version of what was incomplete in 104 pages, and it was accepted without question. His version was also prepared with no names, but at some point the names were added in longhand. It misidentified some and failed to identify others. None of the logs ever did identify call 492, a mysterious figure in the Oswald arrest.

Finally, under date of August 11, 1964, in response to a Commission request the FBI supplied the final version, Exhibit 1974 (17H361-495). There are 216 sheets to this document, yet it was incomplete by the Commission's design. In its request the Commission limited the periods to be covered to a total of but nine hours for the three-day period. And it was not received until the Commission was almost finished with its work.

A book could be written about the logs alone. What is one supposed to think of a police department that identifies a lesser official as its chief, whose dispatchers pretend not to know who the sheriff is, who cannot identify by name the members of the special agencies of the department active in the case, and which omits the most significant kind of information from a 104-page version of the logs that it includes in a 12-page version? As an example of the reflection of events at the time of the assassination, it quotes Captain Talbert as issuing instructions to cover an area two to three blocks from the Depository, and it quotes Inspector Sawyer as telling the dispatcher the "current witness can't remember" the clothing worn by the suspect at the time he was supposed to have seen the suspect. Neither is in the longer version.

Not that the Report is any better on the description. Brennan's description "most probably" led to the broadcast description in one version (R144), but in a second version, "the police broadcast a description of the suspected assassin based primarily on Brennan's observations" (R5). If it is either, it cannot be both. There should never have been any question in anyone's mind of the source of the eyewitness description, especially in a Report based on the conclusion that there was no conspiracy.

Why should the "Sawyer Exhibit" have the unchallenged false statement, "This is the last radio transmission between Officer Tippit and the dispatcher" added as a comment? It could not have been in the log or aired. It was appended to the last instructions to Tippit. But the dispatcher radioed Tippit again at 1 o'clock, slightly more than a quarter of an hour before Tippit was killed. Tippit did not answer that call.

Or why should Tippit's broadcast of his precise location at 12:45 p.m. be included in Exhibit 1974 ("I'm at Kiest and Bonnieview") and have been omitted in the earlier version, Exhibit 705? Or why did the dispatcher give only many wrong addresses to police cars going to the scene of the Tippit murder when the first information he got was correct?

Why did Exhibit 705 not identify call 550/2, another important figure in the Oswald arrest, when the "Sawyer Exhibit" identified the call as that of Captain Westbrook (who was 550), whereas Exhibit 1974 correctly identified it as Sergeant G. L. Hill?

Why was there not a single radio car in the basement at the time of Oswald's murder? The dispatcher radioed calls 95, 108 and 118, "the first squad to arrive -- stand by your radio so we will have radio contact with the basement" (Exhibit 1974).

Or why is there no explanation of the disposition of about a dozen suspects and cars and trucks, some with rifles, some arrested, at least one at the scene of the crime, in the building across Houston Street from the Depository? These are revealed in the logs.

Is it reflected by the following excerpt from Exhibit 705? "Dispatcher -- 101, investigate traffic congestion at Elm and Central . . . Do you have an officer at Houston and Elm?" "101 -- That's what's causing the traffic congestion up there."

Is befuddlement a way of life with the Dallas Police Department, or is there an even less pleasant explanation of all of this? Why is there nothing about the corrupted I logs in the Report, even in the form of questions? Why did not the Commission get even its barbered version of the police logs until the Report was ready to go to press, I when the inquiry was about over, with almost five months' lapse of time following receipt of the first version and almost nine months after the assassination?

Aside from the logs, there are other odd factors about the police such as the following:

There was no organized search of the Depository Building or the surrounding area, none recorded in nearby buildings. There is no record of anyone being directed to the reported source of the shots at any time. More than a half-hour elapsed before the empty shells were found, yet they were "found" at exactly the window pointed out. It was almost three-quarters of an hour before the rifle was "found," and it was found on that very floor.

Why did Captain Fritz have to handle the rifle at all where it was found? Why was the building never -- ever secured? Whatever happened to the police investigation of the source of the empty rifle shells? The ammunition was never traced to its purchaser.

Why at the moment of the assassination was the chief of homicide ordered to the hospital instead of to the scene of the crime? And why did he wait so long before sending anyone in search of Oswald when Oswald was reported missing?

Why was the mysterious unavailability of Chief Curry by phone ignored? Was his phone out of order? Why did it take so long to send a squad car to his home, and why was he so long in responding to the sheriff's message after the threats on Oswald's life?

With all the experts having identified the "found" rifle as a Mauser, why was Constable Seymour Weitzman's affidavit, also thus identifying it and signed the next day, avoided -- unmentioned? (CE2003, 24H228)

Who tampered with the telescopic sight of the rifle before it was delivered to the FBI Laboratory?

Whose idea was it to launch a phony "Red scare" and why?

Why were there no photographs taken of the bag in which the rifle was allegedly brought into the building where it was allegedly found? There were about 50 photographs of the suspected evidence taken and this bag was marked as evidence at that time. Photographs of that area do not show the bag. Why were there no fingerprints other than Oswald's on this bag when it was moved by Detective Studebaker, who left his fingerprints on boxes at that spot that he also testified to having moved?

Why is there a discrepancy in the accounts of the number of bullets taken from J. D. Tippit's body?

These are by no means all the questions that should have been asked and answered in the Report but are not. They are enough to show that nothing that can be called an investigation of the police was made. They should be enough to show the Report is in no position to make any conclusions about the police. There is no chapter, no section or subsection of any chapter of the Report that even suggests examination of the performance of the police. There are almost 300 such breakdowns in the table of contents. The word "police" appears but twice. Only its public relations activities were examined. But close scrutiny of the police performance would seem to have been indicated.

That the Report, signed without dissent by all members of the Commission, managed to avoid serious examination of the performance of the police is even more astounding when considered with the publicly expressed beliefs of some of the Commissioners.

Congressman Gerald Ford is the Republican leader in the House of Representatives. Congressman Hale Boggs is Democratic "Whip." Each is one of the most important and influential members of the Congress. In a New Orleans, Louisiana, television appearance, they spoke on behalf of pending legislation to make the assassination of the President a Federal crime. The Associated Press report of their statements that appeared in the Washington Post of June 7,

1965, concluded:

"Both men also expressed the view that if the FBI and the Secret Service had had jurisdiction in the investigation of the shooting of President Kennedy, then the killing of Harvey Lee Oswald (sic) would not have occurred. The two agencies, they said, would have provided more safeguards for Oswald, the accused assassin."

Why this conviction is not embodied in either the Report or a minority report only the members of the Commission can explain. They should.

Now Oswald, too, has been murdered. His killing was the third in a related series of homicides, none of which should have been possible. It was the crime that should have been closest to absolutely impossible. Among the many questions about the performance of the police, it was one the Report could not ignore completely.

It simply almost pretends it did not happen at all. We have already seen the manner in which the Report finds it possible to keep from saying that Oswald was killed by Ruby, that he was murdered in cold blood. In this the Report is faithful to the Commission's inquiry, where there was no real investigation into how the police allowed such an impossible thing to happen. Of the 17 appendices to the Report, 10 are devoted to what the Commission found related to the crimes. Of these, two are spent on Ruby. Appendix 16 is entitled "A Biography of Jack Ruby." Appendix 17 is on the "Polygraph Examination of Jack Ruby." Neither is worthy of serious note. The biographical material is carefully arranged to portray Ruby as an emotional, unsteady, violent man who came from a family with a history of insanity. Thus, the reader is supposed to believe that killing Oswald was normal for Ruby and that he would have done such a thing without inspiration or assistance. The lie-detector test borders on the ridiculous. It was demanded by Ruby, then already allegedly insane. It was opposed by Ruby's sister and counsel on these grounds and because they believed it would be "meaningless" (R808). The brief transcript, slightly more than three pages, clearly reveals the purpose for which the "test" was conducted by the Commission and included in the Report (R809-13). Ruby was restricted to "yes" and "no" answers. He denied being a Communist or that he shot Oswald because of "foreign," "underworld" or "trade union influence." He said he knew neither Oswald nor Tippit, that he just walked into the police garage at the only instant possible, and that he just wanted to save Mrs. Kennedy the ordeal of a trial.

The entire performance was a gruesome farce. Even then, however, the obvious and necessary questions were not asked. The Commission restricted itself to what was only self-serving. This did not prevent the Report from invoking the word of the madman in support of its theory, that Ruby, too, was a loner.

With the murder of Oswald, the restatement of the events in Dallas during those incredible 47 hours beginning at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, November 22, 1963, is essentially completed. This restatement has been presented in a manner intended to permit the reader to compare those sections of the Report with the information upon which they are based.

The important evaluation of how the Commission functioned remains to be made. How carefully did it select its witnesses? How precisely did it gather its scientific evidence? How fair, thorough and complete was it? Above all, how did it embody itself and its hearings in its Report, by which alone the Commission and its performance can be appraised, both now and by history?

It is to such questions as these that the following section of this book is devoted.